Calling of First Disciples - Heaven to Earth - Matthew S1E4

Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. How we doing, good, good? That's what I thought, you're not doing good. I'm gonna be honest, the nine o'clock, the new 922 service, bro, they were frozen. I don't know what it is, okay? It was not good. This thing is a two-way street, all right? I promise I'll do my part, I'll preach the word, I'll bring the energy, but I need you to sit up, I need you to get your Bibles out. We're gonna be in Matthew chapter four. I need everybody moving. If your neighbor doesn't get their Bible, shame them. Be looking at them, be like, what are you doing, man? We're at a Bible study, let's go. There you go, I need you to look to your neighbor, put your hand on their shoulder, and say, are you ready for this? See what you did, you didn't do it. You didn't do it, you're not ready. Look at your neighbor, say, are you ready for this? Now look at your other neighbor and say, I'm ready for this. All right, let's go. I know it's cold, we're not used to it. The plant's froze, but apparently you're salted too. So we gotta wake up, we're gonna study the word of God. We gotta be into this, all right? And so, there we go, there we go, thanks, Dad. Because we're talking about the calling

of the first disciples, this is a really big deal. We've been studying the book of Matthew, we split it up into seasons, so this first season, we're wrapping up today, we're talking about heaven to earth when the word of God becomes flesh and is born among us, and then Jesus kind of lives in utter obscurity for about 30 years, and then he shows up to get baptized, and you'll remember, God's pronouncement over his son before he ever does anything is, behold my son, in whom I am well pleased. So what's gonna launch Jesus into his ministry is not, he's not working for approval, he's working from the approval of God. And then immediately after that, that liar, that freaking liar, the devil comes in to try to tempt Jesus and says, if you really are the son of God. And so for 40 days, he's out in the desert, alone with the devil being tempted. So one of the things you need to pay attention to is before Jesus' ministry is ever public, it's personal, it's private, and there's preparation. Oh, I mean, everybody and their grandma wants to do a podcast and a social media influencer today. Before you ever think God's gonna give you a platform, first, personally, what are you doing with the Lord? Privately, what are you doing with the Lord? And have you been prepared? And nothing will prepare you like pain for ministry. Chapter four, verse 12, now.

So after all of that stuff I just said, now, when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. We'll talk about that more in a few weeks. Verse 13, and leaving Nazareth, Jesus went and he lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. This is a big deal, so he's not, if you go to, we're going to Israel again next year, you should come, we'll take you there. It's beautiful, it's like Napa. But he didn't live there because of the school systems. The reason that he lived there is so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. And then Matthew's gonna quote Isaiah, chapter nine. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan underlined this. Galilee of the Gentiles, this matters so much. The people dwelling in darkness have seen great light, and for those dwelling in the region in the shadows of death, on them a light has dawned. There's two things here that I want to point out to you. First and foremost is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the things prophesied about him in the Old Testament. That this whole book is about one thing and it ain't about you. It's all about Jesus. And some of you, if you're kind of,

you know, you've been on a cherry split, wait a minute, I thought Jesus showed up at Christmas like in Matthew one and Luke two. No, no, no, no, no. The whole book is about Jesus. The Old Testament is Jesus concealed. It all points to his coming. And then the New Testament is Jesus revealed. And so a few years ago, there's a very famous pastor in Atlanta, Georgia. And he said that if you're a believer in Jesus, then you should be unhitched from the Old Testament. It was a terrible choice of words. That's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. If you are not greatly hitched to the Old Testament, you have no idea what Matthew's talking about. Because what Matthew over and over and over and over is going to be saying is, Jesus didn't just show up on the scene like ta-da, here I am. That all the way back from Genesis chapter three, when God the Father says, and I will put a curse between you and your offspring and this enemy, this Satan, this trickster, and he's gonna show up on the scene and this enemy's gonna bruise his heel and he's gonna get his head crushed. The entire Old Testament points to the coming of the serpent crusher. And then John the baptizer's gonna be like,

heads up, here he is. Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world. And so what Matthew is doing is saying, no, no, no, we are completely hitched to the Old Testament and this Jesus, the reason that he lived where he lived, it's because this is where Isaiah said that he was gonna live. Now, here's what I need you to know. Conservatively speaking. Jesus fulfills at least 300 direct prophecies from the Old Testament. Now, there's about 500 prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah, but here's the thing. The reason that he hadn't fulfilled every single one is because he's not done. When he was on the cross, he said, it is finished. He didn't say he was finished. Right now, he's sitting at the right hand of God the Father interceding for you, by the way, and by God, we need it, and he's just waiting for his dad to tap him on the shoulder and say, go get my kids, boy, and then the heavens are gonna crack open, a trumpet's gonna blast, he's gonna show up on a horse wearing white robes, and you know who wears white to a fight? They know they're gonna win and it ain't gonna take long. He's got a sword out of his mouth, tattoos on his quads. He's coming home to fulfill every single prophecy, but 300 prophecies of the Old Testament

have already been fulfilled in Christ. Now, there's this dude named Peter Stoner. He's a mathematician and an astronomy chair at Pasadena City College, and he's also the chair of science division in Westmont College. I just tell you that to know he's a credential nerd. That's who he is, all right? And he looked at the statistical probability of one human being randomly fulfilling just eight specific messianic prophecies. Micah 5.2, Malachi 3.1, Zechariah 9.9, Zechariah 13.6, Zechariah 11.12, Zechariah 11.13, Isaiah 53.7, and Psalm 22.16. And then he calculated the likelihood that one random person would just happen to fulfill all of these prophecies. And the number he came up with was one in 10 to the 17th power. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, but that's what it is, just to fulfill eight of the prophecies. Then he extrapolated that out and said, what would it look like for one person to fulfill 48 of the prophecies? Again, Jesus fulfills 300. And the number is one in 10 to the 157th power. Here's what it looks like, look at this. That's what that number is. That's a lot. And Jesus fulfills it, why? Because this is God's preordained plan

before everything was to be created, that Jesus the Christ would do exactly what God the Father had sent him to do. And in order to illustrate the chances of one human being fulfilling eight prophecies, that's one in 10 to the 17th power, so that we can kind of get our head around it, maybe you've heard this illustration before. This guy Stoner, I think it's funny his name's Stoner because this sounds like the most Stoner thing to study. One in 10 to the 17th power would be the equivalent if you took the state of Texas. I was there last week, God bless Texas, I love Texas. All right, I bet you do too with a good cowboy hat, good job. I think I follow you on social media, I do. Are you celebrating sobriety? Praise God, bro, praise God. I was hoping to meet you, praise God. You're like three weeks in or something, aren't you? Two weeks in, my dude right here, all right. I've been praying for you every time I see it. All right, so anyway, sorry while we just have a discussion while everybody's watching, but I don't care, nice hat. So anyway, if you took the entire state of Texas and took silver dollars and filled up all every, from Houston to San Antonio to Amarillo, I just know the towns that George Strait sings about, all right, and so two feet high in silver dollars and you painted one red and then you blindfold somebody

and say, spun around and let them walk around Texas, the whole state, and just randomly pick up one. Do you know what the chances of them picking up one red silver dollar is? One in 10 to the 17th power. So Jesus is no exodus. Jesus is no just moral teacher. Jesus is the son of God, the second person of the Trinity sent on a rescue mission by God to accomplish everything that God called him to accomplish. And of all the places to move to, he moves to Zebulun, the land of Naphtali. Why does that matter? It's not just a beautiful place to live, kind of looks like Napa up there. But here's the reason, it's the Galilee of the Gentiles. So where does Jesus's ministry start? It doesn't start in Jerusalem. It doesn't start at the temple. It doesn't start with the best of the best. And the reason this matters, don't you remember, we're gonna talk about this ad nauseum all the time. A part of what Matthew's doing, Matthew is a guy who was born on the inside, chose to be an outsider, and then what he's doing when he's writing the Gospel of Matthew is that Jesus is the greater Israel, that Jesus came to fulfill all of the things that the chosen people of God were supposed to fulfill. And the problem is, is that they got wrapped around

the axle of themselves, all the way back. To the very first promise of Genesis chapter 12 verse 2. God says to Abraham I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great So that you will be a blessing and all they heard is we don't be great And they didn't get to the so that part he keeps going. I will bless those who bless you and To him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed And they're like we're chosen to be chosen Because whoa, no, no, no You were blessed to be a blessing so that the whole world would know this blessing and that blessing is the person work of Jesus So the very first ministry Jesus starts is not in Jerusalem at the temple He goes out to the outer edges Why because from the beginning he himself was a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with him verse 17 from that time Jesus began to preach Here's a sermon Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand repent That means you got to change the way you think Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world But be transformed by the renewing of your mind and how do you renew your mind? You got to take off the old and put on the new Repent means to change direction because every single one of us are on a path that leads somewhere and the path that this world leads us to is death and Destruction because if we have an enemy, he's a thief He only wants to steal kill and destroy and yet we've got a good shepherd and we got he's going no turn around turn around If you follow me, it leads to abundant life every single time. We have to repent Why because the kingdom of heaven is at hand You see the promise when you think heaven is the place you go when you die in the sweet by and by The problem is is then we delay heaven and what Jesus calls us to do is embody heaven It's a kingdom It's not just a geographical location for your soul

It's a kingdom and the kingdom of heaven is wherever Jesus rules and reigns here And what we have been what Jesus teaches us to do is to pray on Earth as it is in heaven In a few weeks, we're gonna talk about prayer and at no point does Jesus say when you pray make sure you thank me for the day And make sure you pray for traveling mercies and make sure you ask that the food will nourish our body You know how dumb that is? You ever stand outside the shower, but Lord let this water make me wet We pray some dumb stuff man And what we're begging God is God you have a kingdom ethic There's a way things work and your kingdom and I want you to use me Not to just wait till I get to heaven one day so I don't have to go to hell I want you to use me to take heaven and make this earth look more like that So what does that look like that means you pokes back darkness and you shine light that means you offer hope where there is hopelessness That means you offer good news where there is despair. That means you offer life where there is death That means in a world full of junk we offer Jesus and it's at hand. We got to grab on to this thing, man It is within reach. This is what he's saying. And that was his teaching ministry And so in the next verse Jesus is gonna start his work And we know what his work is because he's already told us his name Jesus means Savior to save So he's come to save to redeem to ransom the world So what is the first thing that he does? He builds a team The first thing that he does is Jesus. He don't need anything and he's like, I don't think I'm gonna do this alone I think I'm gonna call some brothers to do this with me Which by the way So if you think you can do this alone, who the heck do you think you are? If Jesus the Christ is like now, I think I'm a I think I'm a former a posse here All right, and you think I got this guess what scooter you ain't got this So here's what he does verse 18 while walking by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers

I want you to hear me. He sees you Like he sees you And for some of you that should be great comfort. He sees you He knows where you've been. He hears your prayers. He loves you He knows what it's like for somebody to try to hurt his son. He sees you and Bro, he sees you. I mean if you think I'm seeing your Instagram praying for you Every time I see you celebrate another day of sobriety the God of the universe celebrates you the fact that you would be here man, right? I'm telling you he sees you And he's like, I got you man. I got you. He's cheering you on right? And for some of you that ought to be freaking terrifying he sees you Yeah You think you just get credit for showing up here, but like he didn't see what you was doing last night? Oh, he sees you. But here's what's incredible. When God sees you, he is not limited to see you where you are right now. He sees the future you that he had in store for you when he created you and called you, and if you'll submit and surrender your life to him. I mean, he sees Peter, and he's just a fisherman. One day, he's gonna lead the church in Jerusalem, and God can see exactly who he's going to be one day, and that's who he sees sitting in the boat. And the Bible says, and he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me. Very famous words.

Here's the reality. We all follow something. The question is, what are you following? The more important question is, what are you becoming? And some people will be like, well, I don't follow nothing. All right, you follow you, and that is dangerous. We all follow self or society. Have you seen society lately? Wouldn't follow it. Or Satan. And some of you are like, well, what do you mean Satan? I don't follow Satan. I'm not like sacrificing chickens in my kitchen. Man, what you talking about? Yeah, here's the thing. He's the prince of this air, and he's baiting us down a road with lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and pride of life, and he's trying to take us down a path that leads to destruction. And so the options are, man, you can follow yourself or society or Satan, or you can follow the Savior. Jesus says, follow me. You know what he doesn't say? He doesn't say, follow your heart. That's the worst advice you could ever get in your life. If somebody tells you to follow your heart, don't listen to that human being ever again. Why? Because the Bible says that the heart

is the most deceitful thing in you. Or some people are like, well, I'm gonna follow my dreams. Please don't. Here's the problem. When you follow your dreams and you follow your heart and you follow your feelings, please quit believing all your feelings. Anybody ever get betrayed by a feeling? Here's the problem. You're at the center. And if you follow you your whole life, at the end of your life, you just got you. And I've got terrible news for you. Nobody's done you more dirty than you. You know who my worst enemy is? Me. Nobody's lied to me like me. You know how many promises I've made to me that I've let me down on? I can't believe me. Me ain't good, man. No, no, no, no, no, no. My flesh, my thoughts, I mean, all the things, it ain't good. You get real self-protective, that inner lawyer comes up. You ever negotiate with yourself? You do good, don't you? But it ain't good, is it? Right. That's why I have been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live. Somebody sent me this Reddit thing, whatever that is. The joke's that I hate Joby Martin and I loved it. I put a heart on it. Me too. That guy's the worst. He's a pain in my butt. I cannot wait until he's fully and finally crucified and all the flesh is gone of me so that I can be the glorified version that God had in store for me when I put my faith in Christ. Don't follow your heart, man. Follow Jesus. Jesus says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And this is crazy. I mean, and they do it. Nobody even asked. They just out there fishing and Jesus went, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Nobody's like, where? Part of what I think Matthew's doing here is he wants us to see the invitation of the disciples to follow Jesus was very similar to God's invitation to Abraham. So Abram is living in the Ur of Chaldeas, that's what it's called. God places his favor on him, comes to him and he says, leave your mom and dad. He was 80 years old living with his mom and dad

and God still used him, okay? So there's still hope for your 22 year old that's still at home, all right? Give him a break, he'll be all right. And so Abraham by faith just goes and he doesn't even know where he's going. Let me tell you what a big deal this is. I can't get the three human beings that share my last name and live in the house that I paid for, if I just today get home and be like, hey, everybody get in the truck. They're like, where are we going? How long are we gonna be gone? Is there an exit strategy? Does it contain chicken nuggets? Like, I have a lot of information. Abraham and the disciples by faith follow. They don't ask, where are we going or how long or is it gonna be hard? They don't ask any of these things. They just go, verse 20, and immediately they let their nets and they followed him. And going on from there, he saw Two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them, and their response, immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. So I'm repeating this, but Jesus, to start his ministry,

if he needed a squad, don't you think you might need a squad? Now, the crazy thing is the who Jesus assembled as his team. He's out in Galilee with blue-collar fishermen. He's not in Jerusalem picking among the finest. He's not in Tarsus at grad school, at law school, trying to get the top of the class, no, no, no, no, no. And in fact, if you knew anything about first century Hebrew school, you would know that these guys were the rejects, these guys were the leftovers. You see, there were three gradations of Hebrew school. The first one is called Bet Shaffar, and Bet Shaffar was for everybody, boys and girls. It was like kindergarten age, and they would go to the synagogue, they would go to the school, and they would learn the Bible. They would learn the first five books of the Bible called the Torah, and the way that it would work, they'd be like six, seven, eight years old, and they would show up, and on the very first day, these little kids, they would be given a tablet, not like to watch YouTube on, but like a chalk tablet, and the verse would be written on it. It was probably the Shema out of Deuteronomy chapter six. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then what the rabbi would do,

what the teacher would do, is they would take honey, and they would dribble honey all over this tablet, and honey was a really, really big deal, and honey was very expensive, and honey represented the blessing of God. Remember, the promised land is called the land flowing with milk and honey. This is a big deal. A lot of these kids had never even had honey before, and it's their first day of school, and they sit down, and they're nervous, and they receive their tablet with the word of God on it, drizzled in honey, and then the rabbi would say, now eat your fill. And imagine a bunch of little kindergarten kids just begin to lick the honey, and you ever try to eat honey? It gets everywhere. It's just sticky everywhere, and they're licking their elbow. You can't do that. And then they're licking their neighbor. They're just licking, and they're just thinking, I love school so much, right? And then when they enjoyed the honey, the rabbi would come along and say something like, just like your tongue craves the sweetness of honey, may your soul crave the very word of God. And then they would start memorizing the Bible. And so that was Bet Shaffar.

And then if you were the best of the best of the best, like if you excelled in memorizing the Torah, and you were like in the gifted class, anybody in the gifted class growing up? Anybody, you wanna admit that right now? Come on, anybody? Somebody's gotta be in the gifted class. Are we that dumb? Are we the dumbest church in the world? We didn't have enough kids in Dillon for a whole class. And so one day a week, the high school teacher, when I was in middle school, she would come in. She'd be like, would all the gifted students please come with me? Remember that? And all these nerds would get up, and they'd go walking out the door, and the rest of us would be like, hey, where are y'all going? Like, hey, we're gonna do hard things. What about us? They'd give us some crayons and a pencil, and what about us? They'd give us some crayons and a coloring book, or whatever, so. Well, if you were the best of the best of the best, if you were the gifted class, top of the class, then you got invited to go to Beth Midrash, and you would memorize the whole rest of the Bible, beginning to end, end to beginning.

And then, if you were the best of the best of the best, it wasn't just being able to memorize the Bible, but the rabbi might give you a verse, and you would have to give them the verse before it and the verse after it, or they might ask you a question in one verse, and you might have to answer it from another prophet in another verse. It was like biblical jujitsu. It's called a remez. This is the thing they would do. And then, if you excel, like if you were Ivy League material, like if you were top of the class, like Princeton, Harvard, Georgia, I mean, just like the elite, then, then and only then, they would tell you, congratulations, you have what it takes to become a Talmudin. Put your resume together, and go find a rabbi, and ask if you can follow the rabbi and the rabbi's gonna ask you a bunch of questions, and if you have what it takes, maybe they'll accept you. But if they didn't have what it takes, the rabbi would sit with them and say, listen, you love Yahweh, and you know his word, but you don't have what it takes to be a rabbi,

so go and learn the trade of your father. And so, where were these fishermen? They were in their hometown, working with their dad. And Jesus does not take applications. Jesus recruits. And Jesus walks along the sea, and he sees these two boys, and he sees these other two brothers, and he says to them, follow me, which means this, is that God can use anybody he wants. He used the ordinary to turn the world. Set down he used crooked sticks to draw straight lines He takes the B team the JV the cast out the leftover that got cut and didn't make it That's what he does why so that he can get all the glory and I'm just telling you that's my testimony That I'm a nobody willing to tell anybody about the somebody that wants to save everybody and when God looked all over and he went To Dillon, South Carolina, and he thought well if I can use that knucklehead then for sure Everybody will know it's the hand of God and ain't nothing special about me that God has that same kind of purpose and plan for Anybody that when he says follow me that you'll just do what he says and follow him. That's what he does and So when you would begin to follow the rabbi The phrase that they would use is this may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi That you didn't just learn what they learned, but you would become who they are That was it This is why by the way when we get to in a few weeks when we get to Jesus and Peter walking on water Remember Jesus is gonna be out on the water and Peter says this Peter says if you really if it really is you Lord then Call me to walk out on the water with you Why because you said follow you does that mean out on the water and Jesus like all right big boy hop on out It's not exactly what he says, but that's what he means That we become a follower of Jesus. We don't just learn the information. We're to be conformed to the image and likeness of him

And so he says Follow me and I will make you pictures of men That's what he says So here's something I need you to pay attention to the marching orders that Jesus gives to the very first disciples are Outward focused or not inward focused He doesn't say follow me. We're gonna have a sweet book club I'm gonna teach you all the things It's not what he says he doesn't say follow me and we're gonna sit in circles and share our feelings I know what he says. He doesn't say follow me. I'm gonna teach you some really good contemporary Christian music. It's not what he says He says I'm going to take the thing that you have learned how to do really well catch some stuff Work really hard all night sling a net and none of that is it waste I'm gonna leverage all that you were chasing for success and we're gonna shift gears into Significance now for the kingdom of God and we are going to go fishing for men. That's what we're gonna do So listen, you know this man the church we are a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus and Nothing will help you deepen your walk with Christ like helping other people discover theirs and if it ever turns inward Then we have lost The story of what Jesus has come to do that the moment you get rescued you become a part of the rescue team Here's something I've been thinking about got me all angsty. You ready? If you ask a whole bunch of people from Orlando to Jessup, just your average Jacksonville kind of person. Are you a Christian? They'll go yeah God was that me and they'll say this will I go to church? Are you a Christian? Yeah, I come and listen to you talk about it every week Occasionally, I even open the book on my own Listen to several podcasts and sometimes pray well neat Imagine this if you ask me are you an NFL football player and I go, of course I Go to every Jags game and if I can't make it live, I watch it online. I

Follow up all week and I listen to what everybody else says about it I've studied the draft board and I am certain on who we should draft next. I have the jerseys. All right, so I'm a fan Have you ever played in the game never been on the field? That means I'm not a football player Are you a Christian? Christians do what Christ called us to do and the whole thing He's gonna be aiming at the reason we're studying Matthew is because when we get to the last chapter Matthew 28 He's gonna say here's the playbook. Here's the marching orders therefore go and make disciples of all nations teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you in baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit So let me ask you are you in the game? Are you just watching from the sidelines? This last week I was in Texas Hunting for the glory God and I ran into this guy that I met about a year ago also at a hunting trip Um This guy donated some money to Project Savior Outdoors to go on a hunt that I was leading and we ended up going pig hunting at the Retreat Center and And I was kind of doing a little bit study He attend he attends 1122 a little bit and a great guy honestly great guy kind of the picture the American dream You know good-looking dude successful beautiful wife beautiful kids got a great job making money He does drive a cyber truck so that was you know, you're kind of like And so he signs up on this thing, this hog hunt with me and a couple of guys, and he comes from a great family, and I know his dad. And by the way, this kid's initials are Matt Terry, that's his name, all right, so. And so Mr. Terry, his dad calls me and says, my son's going on a trip with you, get him. You know how little encouragement I need to get him? I was planning on getting him, and honestly, that's just a dad that loves his kid. So we killed a bunch of pigs, it's like we're going to read about in a few weeks in the New Testament, and then we're sitting around eating dinner, and I just go, hey dude, so talk to me about your walk with Christ.

And he was like, I mean, you know, we try to get there when we can, and try to say a prayer with the kids every once in a while, and it was just, and here's the thing about this guy, very talented guy. He played fullback from Bowles back in the day when they were winning state championships every year, was an all-state fullback, and played at SMU, okay? And I'm like, listen man, you're just kind of on the periphery of what Christ is called. You're like those kids that would show up to just be a part of the team so you could wear the sweatshirt around school, but you ain't ever gotten on the field, man. You got to get off the sidelines, and you got to get in the game, you know better. Well, I didn't realize this, that conversation ruined his week. He just said it haunted, he couldn't sleep at night, he was just haunted by that. Get in the game, so he prayed, and he prayed, and he's like, what do I do? He starts kind of scrolling through our website, and sees the partner that we have with Project Savior Outdoors. It's led by Mike Dragich and a bunch of guys, because when Mike got home from Afghanistan fighting in the war, all of his brothers started killing themselves. And so he's like, I'm going to fight in the name of Jesus to bring light to a dark place. And so he starts Project Savior Outdoors, take a bunch of vets hunting, and just preach the gospel to them out in the woods. And so Matt begins to volunteer a little bit, and then a little bit more, and a little bit more, and in essence, he got in the game. Today, he sits on the board, and he gives one day a week to push back darkness through PSO, instead of just being on the sideline. He got in the game, and this last week, he was saying, thank you, thank you, thank you for kicking me in the butt to get me in the game, because this is the greatest year I've ever had. Follow me, is what he said. And immediately, they dropped their nets. You know what their nets represented? Comfort and safety and security, and the role that they were told that they had to play.

You see, I — I mean, I think probably the greatest idol in America is comfort. And boy, we have done a marvelous job of conforming the gospel of Jesus right around our American dream, so it fits neatly in our pocket, and we don't have to do anything about it. The only problem, when we do that, he ain't our king. He's not our Lord. He's our lobbyist, and we're trying to get him to do what we want. If you want to be comfortable, following Jesus might not be for you. He says, drop your nets, and they take the thing that brought them all their safety and all their security, and they immediately dropped it. Well, what's that for you? What's that for you? I mean, there's a bunch of you, and you were holding on to your finances, and what you don't realize is they got a hold of you, and you've never trusted them with your first and best. You should lay it down. Some of you have never been on a mission trip. You don't want to be uncomfortable for six days. How in the heck are you going to follow after Jesus with every day of your life? Or some of you got real comfortable in your disciple group, and you should probably start eight disciple groups. And you're like, well, we love each other. Sweet, love each other on another day. Start some more groups, or join that ministry, or how about this? We're opening a new campus in Orlando. Some of you can work from anywhere, and what you need to do, pray like crazy, and what you need to do is just move to Orlando and help us get this campus going because we need some leaders that already got 1122 in them in the Spirit of God to get this thing going. And we've opened new services. We kind of screwed it up at first.

We started at 730, but then it jacked all the parking up. That's on me, mostly on Britt, but you know, I'll take responsibility. So now we have 722 a.m., 922 a.m., 1122 a.m., 422 p.m. Now if you're one more, you should go to the service with your own one more, whichever that one is. Or if you're trying to raise some kids and in the admonition of the Lord, and their service is 922's best, okay, no problem. But we need some people to not worry first and foremost about our own comfort and preferences. We've got to do whatever it takes to tear off the roof to make room for one more. They followed him. They followed him. He said, follow me. Think about this. The question you've got to continuously ask yourself, whether you've been a Christian for a minute or you were or in Sunday school with Moses, either way. What's my next step of obedience? Because we learned in the 1010 Life, he's a good shepherd, he speaks to his sheep. And if you quit taking steps and you are not following, and we don't have standers of Jesus, we have followers of Jesus, what is your next step of obedience? And if you haven't taken a step in a while, then go to the website, do the discipleship journey, ask the questions, figure out what your next step is. If you're new to this, go to Discover Group. Discover Group is hosted by our campus pastors and it'll help you get in the game around here. If you would like to be an owner

of the mission, vision and values of 1122 and not just a consumer, then go to GrowthTrack, that's how you become a member. But everybody on this staff exists for the glory of God to help shepherd you to take your next step of obedience. That's what we do. You're not here for us, we are here for you because there's gonna be two voices screaming at you to take a step. And one is a thief and he only wants to steal, kill and destroy. And he wants you to conform to the pattern of this world in all the areas of your life. But the other is a good shepherd. And every single time you hear and heed the voice of the good shepherd, especially when it doesn't make sense to you, and you take steps of obedience to him, I'm telling you, that's the abundant life because you get him. So this is Jesus' call, he puts together this team and then he's going to start his ministry. And here's what he does, verse 23. And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease. Those are the three things that he did and notice the priority. You see, oftentimes we wanna come to Jesus

for the healing, for what we can get. And the priority was, Jesus says, I'm gonna teach you. I'm gonna teach you who God is, who I am, and how you can be reconciled to him. And then he's going to proclaim, that's more like preaching. And he's proclaiming the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom. A lot of us have a truncated view of the gospel. A lot of times when we hear the word gospel, we think the gospel of salvation, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus for our own salvation, which is true, but that is just a part of the gospel of the kingdom. Why? Because when Jesus saved you, the moment you get rescued, you become a part of the rescue team. When you claim Jesus as your Lord, now we work for him and his kingdom. So in the kingdom of God, what do you do? What do you do about injustice? You fight for every image bearer. What do you do about the poor? You serve them. What do you do about evil? You call it out and you fight against it. What do you do about the lost? You do whatever it takes to get the good news of the gospel to them.

And this is what Jesus preaches. And he prioritizes it. That he taught in the synagogues. He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. And so his fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics and he healed them in great crowds, followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. Now, here's the thing. One of the things you'll see, we learned this when we studied the gospel of John about four years ago, is that when Jesus does miracles, he's never just flexing his raw power. It's always pointing to his redemptive purpose. Like, think about it. Jesus is never like, you wanna see something cool? Watch this, and writes his name in the stars. Why'd you do that? I do what I want, I'm Jesus. That's not what he does. It's always, in fact, the gospel of John never calls a miracle a miracle. It calls it a sign because it points to something greater.

And here's what he's pointing to. In heaven, nobody's sick. In heaven, there's no oppression. In heaven, nobody has a seizure, nobody's paralyzed. I'm trying to give you a glimpse of what I am bringing to you and that's what he's doing. But I want you to notice what people did. He brought people to Jesus. And I've read the whole Bible many, many, many, many times and I can tell you this. I can't find the expiration date on the healing powers of Jesus. That means he's still healing. He's still calling people unto himself. He's still doing miracles. I hope you know this. If any church knows it, we better know it. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. And so if you need help, you come to Jesus. And if you need healing, you come to Jesus. And if you struggle with depression, you come to Jesus. And if you're lonely, you come to Jesus. And if your marriage is busted, you come to Jesus. it up, you come to Jesus. By the way, that's how that phrase started, man. I was talking to a couple and they said, our marriage is impossible. I was like, what? You're a Christian, right? Yeah.

You believe that Jesus was resurrected from the grave? Of course we do. Well, if God can breathe new life into his dead son, then surely he can breathe new life into your dead marriage. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. You come to Jesus. If you struggle with worry, you come to Jesus. If you've got a sick body, you come to Jesus. If you've got a sick heart because somebody broke it, you come to Jesus. He said, people were in pain and they were brought to it. Hopelessness and confusion, you come to Jesus. This is those who were oppressed by the demonic. Now, let me be clear. If you are a believer in Jesus, you cannot be possessed by the demonic because according to 1 Corinthians 6, you are a possession of Jesus. You are not your own. You are bought with a price. But there is oppression of darkness all around us. Any of you that have ever loved someone or talked to someone struggling with an addiction, how would you describe that? I mean, there's this thing in you and you realize, I don't wanna go down this road anymore. If I go down this road, it's gonna destroy me, it's gonna destroy everything good and godly in my life. And you have victory for a little while, but in that the darkest part of your soul,

you'll hear this little whisper, come on, come on. And it begins to bait you down a road that you don't even wanna go down before. What do you call that? You need to come to Jesus. Or you have these intrusive thoughts of suicide ideation. Where do you think that comes from? It is not from your heavenly father. Because his word over you is love. His approval in Christ is on you. It is the demons of hell. Listen, man, it's the same demons, just new days. And you come to Jesus. If you're ready to quit, you come to Jesus. Whispers of condemnation, you come to Jesus. If you continuously had that same besetting habitual sin, you don't even struggle with it anymore because you just give yourself over to it. You come to Jesus. It's a stronghold in your life. And Jesus is stronger than any stronghold. And he will kick the strong man out. And he himself will replace it. And notice, they didn't just come for themselves, they came for loved ones. They brought their loved ones. They brought their children. They brought the people that were sick. And so that's what we're gonna do. And we're gonna pray the blood of Jesus

that he would heal and he would break chains and he would restore marriages and he would offer forgiveness and he would shut the mouth of the liar so the condemnation would quit. And you would know that therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And the Bible says that healing comes through the blood of Jesus. By his stripes we are healed. Now he doesn't promise cures every single time, but he also says that we have not because we ask not. So we don't need to pray those little weak sauce prayers like just whatever you want. Nah, man, you can keep that junk. That you knock and you knock and you keep on knocking and you ask and you ask and you keep on asking and you seek and you seek and you keep on seeking because he's a good dad and he loves to give good gifts to his kids. And so a great gospel-centered way to pray is like the boy Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego prayed. Just in case you're new to Bible study, they were Israelites and they got captured by Babylon and they built this big old statue in Babylon and whoever would not bow down to the statue was gonna be thrown into the fiery furnace. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, we ain't bowing down to your thing.

And so they were like, we're about to throw you in the furnace. And so here was their prayer. God, we know that you can save and we are believing that you will. And even if you don't, we're not gonna bow down. That's how you pray to an almighty God who loves to give good gifts to his kids. God, I know that you can because if the tomb is empty, anything is possible. And I just gotta tell you, man, I believe it first and foremost because the word says it. I also believe it, I've just seen it with my eyes. The number of people around here who have been healed of cancer, who have been healed of debilitating depression, the number of marriages that have been restored, prodigals have come home, that they threw down their nets and followed after Jesus. I know that he can and we are gonna, by faith, believe that this time he will. And then regardless of the circumstances, we refuse to bow down to that idol of fear. And so we're gonna turn this thing into a prayer meeting. That's how Jesus's ministry started. He taught the word, it's what we do. He proclaimed the kingdom, it's what we do. And he began healing. Healing hearts and souls and minds and bodies. And that's what we're gonna do.

And here's the thing. Some of you are feeling beat up right now, some of you are like, well, that's probably true for all these good church folk, but not me. In Mark 3 13, the Bible says, and Jesus called all unto himself that he wanted. Do you know what that means? If you got that little stir, like you should probably come down and just pray, you should just come to Jesus. That is evidence, that is empirical evidence that God wants you. And anything telling you not to come, your ego, your insecurity, what will they think, whatever, that is not the voice of the Good Shepherd, that is not the voice of the Heavenly Father. And so we're gonna do what the beginning of Jesus's ministry did. If you're in pain, if you're struggling, or somebody that you love, because honestly, it's usually harder when your loved one is struggling, we are gonna come to Jesus and watch him break chains and watch him restore relationships and watch him clear minds and watch him heal bodies. We're gonna do all of those things because he is a promise keeping God. I'm gonna invite you to stand. If you wanna come pray, you don't even have to wait till we get to the end of this part,

you can just come on down right now. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything because Jesus, you first loved us. And God, we just wanna be about that kingdom business. God, we want our life to be rooted in the word. God, we wanna be about the kingdom. And God, we need healing, heart, soul, mind, and strength. Heart, soul, mind, and strength. God, we need for you to do for us what we can never do for ourselves, to break addictions, to give us strength, to dampen the voice of condemnation, to take away the depression and give us joy unspeakable. God, we need you to do these things. And more than anything else, God, we need you to pay for our sin because we can't pay for it on our own. So God, you said that you hear the prayers of your children and you were a good dad that loves to give good gifts. So God, as we pour our hearts out to you, Lord, would you pour your spirit out on us that we would know you and walk in that freedom. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So church, we're gonna respond, we're gonna sing, we're gonna sing, listen, worship is war. So we're gonna sing, we're gonna sing, worship is war. So if you're gonna pray from your seat, would you join us in singing over every single person

that needs Jesus right now? And would you sing like saved people? Would you sing like we got the spirit of God in us and we're proclaiming the truth of the word of God over some people who are at war right now for marriages and prodigals and all of these things. They're fighting for sobriety. We're gonna pray for these things. And we're gonna bring our tithes and our offerings. It's because we're gonna say, God, I treasure you before all things. And where my treasure is there, my heart will be also. And I want you to have my heart. And we're going to pray, no matter who you are or what you're struggling with, you come to Jesus. Let's respond.