Catch the Vision

be seated. At this time, we'll go ahead and dismiss our kids to little district. And for the rest of us, I want you to go ahead and grab your Bibles, open them up to Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1. Um, we're going to get to that here in a moment. And so, I'm going to kind of explain a little bit of what we're going to do this morning.

That's going to fill a little bit differently than than what we usually do when it comes to uh preaching and teaching. We're an expositional church. And if you don't know what that means, it just means that we aim when it comes to preaching to expose what God's word, what God has inspired to be taught to its original audience. And so we want to expose that original meeting. And the best practice in doing that is preaching verse by verse throughout the Bible. And so what we're going to be doing over the next four weeks is not necessarily exactly doing that.

Although we are going to be having big chunks of passages where we will be exposing the original meaning, which then shapes what we do as a church today. Uh but we're going to be diving into a vision series. And this is mainly to just encourage you on what our goals are as a church over the next five years. Um and so we want we want it to be five years because we want to have a good target. I'm going to explain more of that as we kind of look through this in the first half of this sermon. Um, but we're going to be talking about that over the next four weeks.

Then after that, starting in February, we're then going to dive into First Peter. And we're going to be in First Peter for as long as the Lord will have us be in First Peter. And don't get nervous. I know there has been times where we've walked through the book of Luke and it took us two and a half years. We've walked through the book of Acts and it took us two and a half years. And so five years of our nine years of existence as a church has been whatever God inspired Luke to write.

Um and so that's a good thing. All right? And so we we take our time. We're patient because we want to make sure that we get all out of what he has inspired and given to us. Now, as I say that again, we're going to diving into that in February and looking forward to that series that we're just calling bold. Um because I think we need to have a bold witness especially in our current moment in our current context that we are experiencing as a church.

But that also then dives into the vision of our church, why we exist. And when it comes to mission and vision, again, we're in a new year. We're introducing a new vision uh for the next five years, but it's still the same Jesus and it's still the same mission. Those things never change. Never change. All right?

And so I want to explain a little bit of the difference at least the way we define mission and vision because a lot of times different churches might define mission and vision differently. Often times someone will just say does the church have a mission or vision statement and a lot of times it's the same thing. And again for us they are different things because the way that we like to define mission is it is always unchanging. The mission of God is unchanging and therefore the mission of this church is unchanging. All right? And and it's as simple as just telling you the mission of the church is to make disciples of all nations.

If we're not doing that, we're not a church. All right? So our goal as a church is to make disciples of all nations. So where the mission of God is unchanging, the vision is ever changing. It's ever changing because anytime a new person enters into our church, the vision changes. Anytime someone moves to the community, the vision changes.

Anytime a different person takes a political office, the vision changes. Anytime like anything that's going on in our culture and context reshapes our goals or or essentially the methodology that that we uh impart in order to then execute the unchanging mission of God. And so our mission is our why. And that's why we as a church, we have the same mission that we've had for as long as you've been coming here. And that is is that we exist as a church to treasure Jesus and help others follow him. That's our language of saying make disciples of all nations.

Making a disciple is is helping someone learn to treasure Jesus to have all of Christ for all of their life. That's what we want them to be as a disciple. And then we want them to understand that that mission that they've then received because someone helped them follow Jesus, they then in turn help someone else follow Jesus. You go and make disciples of all nations. So that's unchanging is that we as a church exist to treasure Jesus and help others follow him in Indianapolis and around the world. Now we then need to look at how we're going to execute that sort of our what and where the everchanging context and for the next five years what we're going to call it is just vision 31 more.

Vision 31 more. All right. So 31 more is a 3in-1 statement that I think John's going to be able to put it up here in a minute. Um 31 more is a threein-one statement. Not like a trinitarian statement. Um, but it's a threein-one statement that is explaining three things at the same time.

And so vision 31 more is by 30, by 2030, so a five-year goal. We want to have 31 sent out from a one more culture. And I'm going to explain what all that is here in a moment. But that's how it reads. By 2030, we want to send out 31 people. Now, how do we explain what a scent one is?

A sent one is someone who commits to going full-time to either plant a church or go full-time missions. So, this isn't including just like I went on a short-term mission trip for a weekend or I went on a short-term mission trip for a couple of weeks. No, we're talking about sent ones in the sense that they move away from our church and go full-time overseas or somewhere in our nation to plant a church to continue helping people treasure Jesus. All right. Now, if you're looking around the room, you're thinking, "How are we going to send out 31 people? That's how many people we have right now."

Well, we don't want to cease to exist as a church, which is why we need a one more culture. We need a one more culture. And I'll get to that here in a moment. But what I need you to understand first and foremost is that 31 more is not just some catchy phrase for you to memorize. It's not a catchy phrase for you to memorize. It's about you and me individually.

It's about us as families and it's about us as a church doing our part in executing what Christ has commanded so that so that you have a joyfilled life and so that you spread that joy to others around you so that the joy of the Lord captures our city and our world. That's what the whole goal is, is we want to see the glory of God spread and cover the world like the waters cover the sea. As Habach 21:14 says, the way we do that is by getting Jesus out to as many people through the preaching of the gospel. We want that to spread. And so because of that, we want more. We want more.

We want more people coming to know Jesus. We want his word being preached more and more and more. And so we don't want to be content with just the 30 or 40 people that we have. We want to then add more by proclaiming more to those around us. And we see this all throughout the scriptures. It's casting vision is not ethereal sort of pie in the sky type of guessing or some form of spiritual gambling.

That's not what casting vision is doing. It is prayerful. It is thoughtful. And it is a strategic stewardship of the resources and the people that God has entrusted to this local church in this context and that at this moment in history. So it's not me just in a back room saying what would be a catchy phrase to motivate our people. No, that's not what it is.

It's me saying we're averaging between 30 and 40 people. How do we get them to treasure Jesus more so that they then share Jesus with others more? So that we are then advancing the gospel more so that more people are coming to know Jesus and we're executing the mission that he is entrusted to us. Paul goes on to say regardless of everything in his life that he has, what fills his cup up, what gives him the most joy is seeing others come to know Jesus Christ. And so this year, you might have resolutions. You know, I need to lose that 15 pounds that I just gained over the last two weeks.

You might have resolutions of I just want to read more. You might have resolutions or of I want to go and travel and do X, Y, and Z more. I want to do these other things. And at the end of the day, I'm going to say, hey, those are all things that are okay. Those are all things that are great. Those are all things that are under the the banner of common grace.

But you can do all of those things and at the end of the year still feel like not much has changed from the year before. I I don't actually feel like I have more joy from those things. But abide in Christ more than you did last year. Hear from him in his word more than you did last year. Spend more time in prayer with him than you did last year. See that cup begin to fill up.

share the gospel with others more than you did last year. See people go from death to life because of the work of Jesus Christ. And when you get to the end of the year, you'll say, "Man, my joy is greater than it was last year." And that's what we're after here. When Jesus told the parable um of the miners in Luke 19, a minor is about three months wages. Um it says, "A master called 10 servants to himself and gave each of them one minor."

So he called 10 servants and he gave each of them the same thing. He gave each of them one minina and he said, "I'm going to go away for a while and I want you to take that min and I want you to entrust it." Essentially, he gave all of them the same mission. Invest it in order so that when I come back, I receive the one that I already gave you and then a gain on top of that. And when he returns, as you read the story in Luke 19, it says that one he gave one returned 10 more. And then another one he gave one returned five more.

He commended both of them. They both received the same mission. But what you can actually pull away from that implicitly is the fact that they installed or initiated different visions or strategies in how they were going to invest that miner. They didn't do the exact same thing, but they both still res returned a gain on what they invested, which is fantastic. If if if you take the gospel that God has provided for you and you are just a radical believer and I say that in a good way in the sense that every person you meet, every person you talk to, you see it as an opportunity for them to come to know Jesus and you are inviting or sharing the gospel with someone every single month or every single week or every single day. You might be able to introduce to Jesus 10, 15, 20, 30 people throughout the next year.

Or you might be a someone who you get out of the house once a month and take that as an opportunity to invest the gospel that's been entrusted to you and share it with someone. And you might see one person come to know Jesus at the end of the year. Both of those God's going to commend as faithfulness. What we don't want to see happen is by the end of the year be like the one servant in which he gave the minina and they took it and buried it and they said we don't want to do anything with it. We're Christian but we're actually not engaged in the mission and purposes of God. And so what we want to do with this series over these next four weeks is help you catch the vision, help you embody the vision, help you serve within the vision, and then help you multiply the vision.

That's what the four weeks are going to look like. So that by the end of 2030, we will have sent out 31 people. Now, how did I come to that goal of 31 cent? Because once again, I I'm not just pulling a number out of thin air here. This is this was done prayerfully. It was done thoughtfully and it was done strategically as a means to steward and invest what God has entrusted to us.

And there are several reasons that I came to this number and I want to explain those to you in this moment because I deeply deeply care about each one of us being engaged engaged in the mission that God has entrusted to us. Every single one of us. So I came to this number with every single one of us in mind. But I had to employ what church scholars refer to as pneumatology. And you're like, I have no idea what that is. Sounds medical.

But pneumatlogy is just the study of the Holy Spirit. It's the study of the activity of the Holy Spirit. It's the study of what God is doing when the church and the people of God are engaging in the mission and the means by which the Holy Spirit acts. So when we are preaching the gospel, what does God do in regards to that? And so as I kind of dove into that, what I did was I actually um contacted pastors across our networks within churches of all sizes. So I reached out to churches that had 30 people, 300 people, 3,000 people, and even a church that runs 30,000 people on the weekends.

And what I found was for every 10 people regularly attending, they baptized one person that year. So on any given Sunday, whatever their average of attendance was, you take a 10 to1 ratio, that's how many people they baptized for that year. And and I'm not joking, from the 30 to the 300 to the 3,000 to the 30,000, it all panned out that exact same way. Now, this is an observation. This is not a rule. This is just an observation.

This is not me putting the Holy Spirit in a box and saying, "Well, he only saves a 10:1 ratio." I mean, even looking at our church averaging 30 to 40 people. We baptized four people this year. So, it hits that 10:1 ratio. I reached out to the fastest growing church in North Carolina right now, which is Mercy Hill Church. I reached out to them and I asked them, I said, "What are y'all averaging right now?"

Now, they said we're averaging 5,000 on the weekends. Now, again, this was a church that was 30 people 8 years ago. So, they're averaging 5,000 people on the weekends. I said, "What what was y'all's baptisms for 2025?" And they said, "We baptized 511 people, which means they're running 5,000 and they're the fastest growing church in North Carolina right now." And their ratio is the same as ours regardless of church size.

This is just a numatlogy. This is as we are preaching and proclaiming the gospel. This is what we're seeing God do in saving people. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to take that ratio and just say this is an observation. God can do whatever he wants to do. We could send out a 100 people by 2030 if God wants to do that.

We might send out five people by 2030 if that's what God wants to do. But we want to have a goal based on the activity that we are studying and observing with the spirit of God. And so what I wanted to do with that and taking that 10 to1 ratio is saying what I care about is our people reaching one person this year. And so what I'm going to be explain or or referencing on a monthly basis, maybe even a weekly basis, is just this phrase, bring one, reach one. Bring one, reach one. And so as you're going to the bring one side is going to be on the invite side.

This is going to be the come and see. This is going to be when you're walking through and you're checking out at the grocery store and the cashier is helping you. You just say, "Hey, I don't know if you have a church that you've ever connected with or where you're at spiritually or anything, but uh we love our church at the district. We just love for you to come and check it out sometime." And you just hand them an invite card. We have hundreds of invite cards for you to be able to take those little business cards.

Just take them and pass them out. I passed out, I think, six or seven of them just this week heading up to this Sunday. It's so easy to be able to do because you don't even have to dive into a conversation with the person. You just say, "We love our church. We'd love for you to come and check it out sometime." So, bring one is on that side.

The reach one, and this is where we dive into that who's your one uh conversation. And the who's your one is not Indiana hooers, although you can adopt that. It's the who's your one. Who's your one person that's on your heart that you know in relationship? might be a co-orker, might be a neighbor, might be a family member, but it's someone that you regularly see who you know does not follow Jesus and you're saying, "My goal for this year is they're going to be following Jesus by the end of the year." And so, bring one, reach one, bring one.

Would love to see it on a monthly basis. You're bringing someone that's just coming to hear the gospel. Reach one. Whoever that person is, you're putting their name down on a piece of paper and you're saying they're going to get in those baptism waters by the end of the year. The hound of heaven, as CS Lewis used to call it. I'm going to beat their door down and make sure that they understand every component of the gospel so that they have an opportunity to have faith in Jesus and follow him.

All right. with that. If we were to all at least bring one person, that means from an attendance standpoint, we would double by the end of the year. We'd go from averaging 30 people to 60 people. And looking at that from just a a raw number of the average, we would probably say we'll baptize around six people by the end of the year. If we're averaging 60 people coming into it um by the end of the year, so that's a goal, baptizing six people by the end of the year.

And then what I did was I asked all the churches based on your baptisms, how many people did you send out to plant churches or go on full-time missionary? And the same thing was was across the board that for every 10 people that they baptized, they sent out one person. This is just across the board. This was just the numbers that came back. Okay, the observation. So for every 10 people regularly attending, one was baptized.

For every 10 baptized, one was sent out eventually. And so what we wanted to do with that was then just kind of take that and start putting some goals. So one person sent out by the end of 2026 if we see close to 10 people baptized. And then I just doubled it year-over-year because what I want for us to do is again bring one reach one. Just multiply everyone every year. And so if we go for six baptisms this year, 12 the next year, we'll just round it up to 25 the year after that, 50 the year after that, and 100 the year after that.

And then if you just do the 10 to1 ratio on people sending it being sent out, it'd be one by the end of this year, two by the end of 2027, four 2028, 8 2029, and 16 in 2030. If you add all those up, that's 31 people sent out. That's how I came to that number. So, it's not pie in the sky ethereal stuff. It's just you taking seriously what God has entrusted to you, the minina that he's given you, and saying, "This year, I'm going to invest that gospel into the lives of those that are around me." And so from a sphere of influence wherever I go I want to invite them to come and hear the gospel preached.

At the same time for those relationships that I'm investing in from a more rel like friendship size or colleague side I want to invest the gospel in those relationships and reach one of them as well. So that's where vision ultimately 31 comes from and and and the the how that we kind of get to that is from this one more culture. one more culture. And what I simply mean by that is we just want one more of everything. More Jesus, one more chapter read that we didn't read, one more minute in prayer before we say amen. We want more of him because he is our greatest treasure.

And so in order for that to accomplish, this is not going to be a one more from obligation, but a one more from desire and motivation. When I eat a chip, I desire more, right? Because it tastes so good. When I eat a chocolate chip cookie, I desire one more. And I always say it, especially Breeze, they're phenomenal. I think it's because she also adds the saltiness on top of it as well.

So, you're getting hit both with the salty and the sweet, but we desire more. Jesus is greater than any chip you're ever going to eat, any chocolate chip cookie you're ever going to take part of, any experience you ever have in this life. Jesus is greater than all of those things. And therefore, therefore, your greatest desire should be more of him. more of him, more abiding in him on a daily basis to the point where you just can't get enough. And so this is the floor, not the ceiling.

We want to be like the servants with the miners. Now, let's dive in to the word of God so that you can see where this actually comes from. so that we are anchored to the substance that we need instead of just the form of being a church with a mission and a vision. Because just because you're a church that exists with a mission statement, when you walk in, you can see it on that sign back there. When you walk in, most people can look at that sign and see this is a church that has a mission to treasure Jesus and help others follow him with a vision and values as well. and the values.

You can start to look at it and say, "Oh, this this is a church that values the word of God and worship and prayer. This is a church that values community and engaging in authentic authenticity with one another." And so, we have community groups that engage in that. This is a church that engages in serving one another with practical deeds of helpfulness or whatever it looks like. This is a church that cares about multiplying. And so you can just look at it and you can just kind of make an assumption of what the church is going to be like because of the form that it puts on a sort sort of its outside.

And so like if you were to take and usually I'm not an illustration guy, but I went and bought this and and I love um Cherry Coke. Now, how did I know this was Cherry Coke when I went and bought it at the store? It says it on the can, right? Good marketing. It tells you what it is. But if it's only in form what is on the can, just like what is on our banners or what's on the banner outside, that actually doesn't provide any of the substance that's on the inside.

What actually makes it Cherry Coke is what's on the inside of it. And so when you open it up and then you figure out This is what we do not want to be. Right? Now, I'm not a magician. I know Jesus turned water into wine. I did not just turn Cherry Coke into water.

But, but if we're just a church that has a banner on the outside and has a vision, but we don't have the substance that actually fuels it, then it's all meaningless. Vision 31 more is meaningless if we don't engage in what I'm about to talk about. This is where the rubber meets the road. And so Acts chapter 1, starting in verse one, let's dive into this. In the first book, O Theophilles, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. Again, this is Luke writing the book of Acts.

He's also then referencing his first book that he wrote to Theophilles um which it basically is the summary of what he just said. It deals with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Again, that is a reference to Matthew 28, the ascension. This is where Jesus gives the final command to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you the substance of what they need in order to actually go and execute the mission. And so he gives them this command.

And then in verse three, it says, "He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God." Now, likely that's also a summary of his time with Paul when he was with Paul. And Paul is writing 1 Corinthians 15 and he's giving a summary of all that happened during his time. It's almost like a creed if you will when he reads 1 Corinthians 15. This is what it says. Now I would remind you brothers.

So I always love to just point out that the reason why Paul is writing to a church and telling them that he needs to remind them is because we are human and we are prone to forget things and we are prone to forget the most important things. And so this might have been a church that had forgotten the substance, which was the gospel that actually makes them a church, and instead was church in form, not in substance. And so he's reminding them of what fuels them, of what actually grows them, of what actually multiplies them and makes them a church. And so he says, I would remind you, brothers, of what? The gospel. the gospel I preached to you which you received and which you stand and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word that I preached to you unless you believed in vain.

And just as Luke was explaining there in Acts 1:3 where he says appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. That's what you see in 1 Corinthians 15 as well. They're connecting with one another. He says and he appeared to Cphus and then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. What I love about that is as he's writing this and as it's being read throughout the churches, if there was anyone skeptical about whether or not Jesus resurrected from the grave, he's basically explaining to them, go and ask the ones who saw him.

Like there's proof there. They witnessed it. And so again, this is not ethereal pie in the sky type stuff. We're not following a ghost that appeared 2,000 years ago. We're following someone who literally died and three days later literally rose. And it wasn't just a few people who got together and said, "Let's write this phenomenal story."

No, Jesus was like, "Let's appear to more than 500 people so that as people are being skeptical about this, they can go and ask them." 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, and I love this, if I I would love for this to be the mantra of every person in this room in competition with every other person in this room. I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. Again, that's why we're here. That's why we're here is to receive this gospel truth and let it embed itself within us so that we then turn from again not having a year that is focused on us but a year that is focused on Jesus and getting others to come to know him. So that when we preach they believe.

So that when we explain to them the gospel they believe. So that when we open up the word of God to them, they believe. Now look back at Acts 1:4. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, ' Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? There there's no dumb questions, but there are dumb people who ask questions.

That's fair to say. All right, this is just one of those moments where they're just like missing the mark. All right. They think Jesus has come to free them from Roman rule and to establish the kingdom of Israel and to reign as their righteous, glorious king. And he's like, "No, no, no, no. Actually, I'm leaving you and I'm always going to be with you, but I am actually physically leaving you.

And what is what I'm going to send is actually going to be greater for you." not to come and usher in a kingdom now, but to begin building the people of the kingdom so that when he comes back the second time, we will then rule and reign with him for eternity. But he tells them to go and wait for something that the father is promising to them. And this is where you can print the you can print cherry coke on the label and ship it out, but if you don't wait for the substance to come into it, it's ineffective. It's ineffective. This is the substance that comes.

You will receive power 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 end of the earth. This is given to every single one of us. You will receive power. Now a quick caveat here. Oftentimes we think power is something given to us more than understanding it as the Holy Spirit coming upon us. We need to understand the two different things there because becoming a Christian doesn't make you a superhero with some invisible force to wield.

Instead, it's receiving the superhero who executes his will and plans through you. We need to know the difference here because again, the substance matters. You're not just walking around proclaiming to be Cherry Coke and then hoping that people get to experience the goodness of it. You have to make sure that you actually possess the substance of it so that you are then giving someone else the substance as well. So let's go a little bit deeper with that because I do believe this power that we receive is what fuels our witness and effectively makes us successful in winning Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the end of the earth or to contextualize it, Indianapolis and everything else around it. His power which in the Greek term is dunamos.

We love this word power because in the Greek it is the word dunamos which is where we derive the word dynamite from and I've heard that a thousand times in my 25 years as being a Christian. This power that you receive is like dynamite and it is to an extent. I don't want to pull away from that analogy and illustration. That was an illustration I cannot bring on this stage. It would have been fun, but I had to put my pyro technics to the side. But it is way more than just this idea of you possessing some type of power that you can wield in order to go and take it into the world and execute it at any time like a superhero.

This power is neither explosive chaos nor is it something that you can control by lighting it up with a match. in regard the illustration of dynamite is so underwhelming for what it actually is. The Bible collectively presents dunamos not as a mystical force Christians learn to harness. For example, like trying to just muster the strength not to lust or thinking or feeling strong enough to stop cussing. Like that's not what this spiritual force, this power is actually talking about. Rather, dunamos is the personal active power of the living God accomplishing his sovereign will through you.

That's what it is. It's not like the force in Star Wars. It's not this impersonal energy that can be accessed, trained, and wielded by those with enough discipline. But biblical power never belongs to the believer as a tool to control. Instead, it's God's power. And it's not activated by technique or emotion or spiritual sensitivity.

Instead, it is exercised by God himself. By God himself. The Holy Spirit does not make Christian Jedi, but humble vessels through whom God chooses to act, ensuring that the glory belongs not to human mastery, but to divine mercy. That's what he's doing when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you receive power. Again, when David, we we um as a family over Christmas time, we went and watched the David movie in the theaters, which hey, go see it if you haven't seen it. I believe it was um wonderfully done.

Wonderfully done. But when David faced Goliath, he did not summon courage from within or tap into a spiritual force. That's not what he did in that moment. He trusted the living God and God's power accomplished God's purpose in that moment. That's what is actually happening. The spirit came upon David for a specific task.

And when the task was finished, the glory belonged entirely to the Lord. Which is why David says in 1 Sam 1st Samuel 17:46, "This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand." Notice he didn't say this day because the Lord is so good to me that I have trained masterfully in slinging stones. and therefore when I launch this stone, you're going to die. No, he says, "This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head that all the earth may know that there is a David in Israel." No, no, no, no.

That they may know that there is a God in Israel. That's the purpose of you receiving power is not so that people just know that you exist as a Christian in form, but rather that there is an indwelling God inside of you in substance. That's what we want people to know and to experience. At Pentecost, the same divine power was not given to one man for one battle, but poured out on the whole church for one mission. And so, Acts 18 does not promise power to win fights or build reputations, but power to bear witness to what Christ has already accomplished. That's what it exists for.

It's the power that's the same power. It's God's power. And so today, we we don't throw stones like David. And we do not wait for Pentecost again either. We walk in Holy Spirit dependence, in faithful obedience, training on how to throw stones, except we throw truth. Truth.

We walk in bold witness, trusting that when God chooses to act, his power will be effective because of the truth that we are proclaiming. Again, not anything that we can necessarily craft ourselves in our own skill set. Like, no one comes to Jesus just because you know how to eloquently speak. I mean, you look through the majority of the characters in the Bible, God's looking around and if he's picking a kickball team, he's looking for the one chosen last. I'll take that one on my team and I'm going to display my wis wisdom in his foolishness. I'm going to display my strength in his weakness.

And so that's what he's doing with us. This power is coming to weak vessels in order for the substance to then be displayed through us. In other words, dunamos is 100% effective only within and according to the will of God, not yours. Not yours. Aw pink puts it this way in the nature of God. He writes the power of God that dunamos is that ability and strength whereby he can bring to pass whatsoever he pleases whatsoever his infinite wisdom may direct and whatsoever the infinite purity of his will may resolve.

Which means we need to start asking the question not what are we good at but what is God good at? And we need to figure that out. We need to not ask what do we know. We need to ask what does God know? And we need to figure that out. We need to not ask what is our strategy.

We need to ask what is his strategy? And we need to figure that out. And that's what ultimately is going to create our one more culture. Because in order for the district church to be effective with the Acts 18 and Matthew 28 mission and vision, you and I need to understand that we are the guitar and not the guitarist. You don't get to pick the song but the song is played through you. So because the power is God's the question then becomes how do we live as witnesses so that his power is effective through us.

How do we ensure that when we invest the minor or the talent that God has entrusted to us that God receives a gain? Well, Acts 18 again is the blueprint for this for this. You need to be spirit dependent, not self-dependent. You need to be spirit dependent, not self-dependent. The disciples worshiped. The way that they were spirit dependent was that they worshiped through prayer and the preaching of God's word.

That's what anchored them to the mission of God to make sure that they were always in it, in God's will, not anything else. If you even look at Acts 1, go a little bit further down to verses 12-15. Remember he said, "Go and wait." And so what were they doing while they were waiting? Verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.

And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying. Peter and John and James and Andrew and Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alfus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer. It's like the cherry coke devoting itself to being filled with actual Cherry Coke, waiting for that moment. Don't ship me out until I'm actually filled with the substance. Someone will actually lose their job if that happens.

We should lose our right to exist as a church if we go out without the power of God within us. And so they were devoted themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary and the mother of Jesus and his brothers. And in those days Peter stood up among the brothers. The company of persons was in all about 120. and he said, which means he got up and opened up the word of God and he began to preach to them. And from this culture that they created, a devotion to prayer and a devotion to opening the word of God and preaching.

And the reason why I can with confidence say that that is the two things the the pedals of the bike that's that that that propelled them forward is because when you get on the backside of Pentecost when 3,000 people are saved and you get to Acts 2:42 it says and they were devoted to what? Prayers and the word of God being preached. They were devoted to the to the apostles teaching. So if we as a church devote ourselves and and when I say this list of things I am not saying don't engage in these things but what I am saying are these things are going to be offshoots of the main thing but if we as a church only devote ourselves to podcasts and books that are not of the 66 basics and just conversations that spin in circles with other Christian brothers but don't actually propel us forward in executing the mission that God has given us. If we just spend our time engaging in those things rather than the actual substance, what you end up getting is Coke Zero.

You end up getting the zero sugar stuff. You end up getting the the the gray cans of it. You don't get the good stuff. And if you like those, it's okay. But that's what I'm saying. They're okay as coming alongside of.

But what I hope this year, and I know a lot of people have like goals when it comes to reading books, whatever your goal is, here's my goal for you. Here's my resolution for you. If you have a goal of reading 30 books this year, then make sure you also read 31 books of the Bible. It's a good goal. All right? Whatever your goal is, just make sure make sure that the word of God and prayer are the primary.

Everything else is secondary. If we are going to be effective as a church with the mission of God that he has entrusted to us, when he comes back and we are able to come to him and say, "Look what your servant has returned for you, there's a gain. It's only going to happen if we are a church committed to the word of God and prayer. So that because and and and at the end of the day, it doesn't mean that we're idolizing the Bible and it doesn't mean that we're idolizing the practice of prayer. What it means is that because we treasure Jesus, those are the means by which we abide with him. Those are the means by which he communicates to us and we communicate to him.

And so we want to be a church that in treasuring Jesus, we're not just saying we treasure Jesus in form, but we're treasuring him in substance. We're abiding with him on a regular basis. Which is why when you leave today, you'll see that we actually gave you we we printed these off this week, but a a a daily reading plan where it it averages out to be about one chapter a day for you to read through the whole New Testament this year. Now again, I'm not here based on obligation. So you might be saying, "Well, it's January 4th. We've already missed the first three days."

Well, if you would have saw the email last week, you would have already have it because I gave you a digital printout for you could have caught up right then or jumped into it. Maybe a couple of you did. But it's not for me about you checking off every box and crossing off every day that you read the Bible. For me, it's about you reading the Bible. Period. And so, if this year you read more than you did last year, fantastic.

If you walk through that reading plan and you're like, "Man, January, I I I hit 17 out of the 31 days." I guarantee last January you didn't read the Bible 17 days. One more. One more. That's what we're after. Again, this isn't this isn't legalism.

This isn't rules. This is just you saying this is just us giving you an opportunity to engage in. Now, Jesus does give us commands. He does tell us be in my word and be in prayer. Absolutely. Those are commands.

So, I'm not trying to put a rule on you as far as the the how much or the quantity of it. But the truth is is that in order for us to be effective, we got to be in it. We got to be in it. And we'll talk more about that over the next couple of weeks when we dive into embodying the vision as we unpack Acts 2:42. But from 30,000 ft up, what I want you to see today, do you understand it? Do you see why we want to make disciples who treasure Jesus and also then help others follow him?

Do you see why we put goals out that sound like lofty goals? Absolutely they do. And again, hey, praise God if he does any of it. It's his will. It's whatever he wants. I'm not saying the will of God is that 31 people will be sent out.

But what I am saying is that I know the will of God is to send out people. And so we want to do the best we can in stewarding the resources that God has entrusted to us both financially and with people and with the talents and gifts that you have in serving the body of Christ. We want to make sure that we're stewarding those well with goals so that we stay on track and don't divert and become something that God never intended us to become. And so church, every day, everything we've talked about, mission, vision, power, fruitfulness, it can only be sustained if it is rooted in the substance of the gospel, not just the form or activity. Acts 18 again reminds us that the power does not originate with us. We are not the source.

Which can we at least take a breath of sigh of relief and just say thank you? Like for those of you who like you for the introverts in this room, how many of you are introverted? Raise your hand. All right, half of you raised your hand because you're true introverts. But the idea of just engaging someone and talking about the gospel might be just a terrifying thing for you. And I get that.

I understand that. Paul, who you might look at as someone who's like, you know, a superhero of evangelism. Even Paul said that he would tremble when it comes to engaging people with the gospel. Paul would tremble. Moses, you look at someone like Moses, you're like, man, he crossed the Red Sea. Moses is like, me?

I can't even talk straight. You want me even David? Like so many of the characters in scripture, I would say heir on the side of what you naturally feel all the time. Why would God use me to do this? Why would God engage me in this? Again, we are witnesses.

Guitars in the hands of the guitarist through whom God chooses to play his song. The more you know about him, the more you experience about him, the greater those fears and anxieties will pull away. And all you'll care about is getting it to that next person. Even if I fumble and stumble through it, as long as I tell them something regarding the fact that Jesus lived a perfect life that you could not live and because you can't live a perfect life, you actually deserve death in regards to that. Jesus also came and died in your place so that you don't receive that death. You don't receive the punishment that you deserve.

This is the grace and mercy of God for you. And that if you believe in him, because he rose three days later, he'll also bring you from death to life. Right now in this moment, he'll give you forgiveness and he'll restore the relationship between you and God so that you don't ever have to have another day in separation from him, but now can begin your eternity with him forever. As long as you get something along those lines out gives them the opportunity to see what Jesus has accomplished for them. It doesn't have to be perfect. Doesn't have to be perfect because we serve a perfect Christ who is the substance that we are giving.

And we're reminded every single week when we come to the table of communion, we're reminded every single week that it's not on you. It's all on him. It's not on you. It's all on him. And so when we look at, hey, we want to see a thousand people over the next five years come and hear the gospel. We want to see 200 baptisms over the next five five years when you multiply it twice every year.

We want to see 31 people sent. You don't have to look at that and say, "Oh man, that's a lot. I'm already exhausted and it's just the first Sunday of the year." No, no. We get to look back and say, "All right, God. Let's go.

Let's see what you're going to do. Let's see what you're going to do as we rest in you through your word and prayer. Let's see you work through us. Let's see you work through us. And that's why I think Paul was able all the time to be able to to to not burn out is because at all times he's resting in the work of Jesus through him. Now, yes, at times going with the guitar analogy, the strings need to be changed out.

You need to have a little break. You need to have a little vacation. You need to have a little Sabbath. You need to have those things. Those things are good. Absolutely.

But the main importance is that the guitar continues to play. Man, let's let's continue to play and engage in the mission that he's called us to at this table. We do not bring our results. We do not bring our ratios. We do not bring our plans or our strategies or even our faithfulness. We just bring our need of the substance.

We bring our need of Jesus and we're thankful for what he accomplished in order for us to be able to come to him. Would you stand with me as we come to this time of communion? What I need?