How We Help Everyone Follow Jesus

Hey, so on Instagram, I answer questions every Friday, and I've been asked over a million questions to date, and just crossed that threshold. I've answered over 20,000, and people ask, what question are you most often asked? What's the question you're asked most often? And it's not, you know, Calvinism, or eschatology, or speaking in tongues. The question that I am asked the most, every single Friday, multiple times, is what's your favorite restaurant in Waco? And so, I don't know if it's because people, you know, come through, that's what I assume, or they're coming by, and they're visiting, and they wanna know. And so, I thought I'd just phone a friend. What's your favorite restaurant in Waco? Shorty's, I heard. Why Shorty's? Pizza. Pizza, yeah. It's so good. Shorty's made every service, so if you haven't been there. You said, I heard Moroso's. Who said Moroso's? Why Moroso's? Closed on Sunday, though, man. Literally, we tried to go there tonight, and I found out it's closed. What did you say?

El Con. You and Monica. You and Monica, she loves El Con. Why do you like El Con? Sour cream enchiladas. Sour cream chicken enchiladas? Sour cream chicken enchiladas at El Con. I think that around this time, there's a lot of people evaluating churches. Freshmen come in, and I think that we often evaluate churches like our favorite restaurant. Do we like what they're serving? Do we like the atmosphere? Do we like the vibe? Is it comfortable? Is the music too loud, or can we talk in there? Is it the style of food I like? Like if I like Tex-Mex, or seafood, or Chinese food, or Thai food, is it the style of food I like? Does it meet my preferences? And I think a lot of times, in 2026, honestly, you hear that, and there's probably a part of you like, well, how am I supposed to evaluate a church? Which the scripture has a lot to say, which kind of shows us how far we've come in this deal. That we start thinking, okay, do I like the church? Is it convenient to me? Is it fun? Do I like the preaching? Do I like the pastor?

Do I like the worship? These would not have been questions thousands of years ago. Nobody's asking that question of Peter, or John. Those weren't the questions they had. So what's happened, that here we are today, that we evaluate churches like a Yelp review. Is this the one that I want? And so what I wanna tell you, if you're a guest with us today, that we evaluate ourselves against our own mission statement that we exist to help everyone follow Jesus by engaging the lost, equipping the saints, and empowering members for service. So we're going to start this semester by talking about who we are, and specifically how we help everyone follow Jesus. Because that is our mission statement. But would you consider with me for just a moment, a little thought exercise for you. What if Satan wrote our mission statement? What if there was a meeting in the demonic realm, and he circled up all the demons, they saw our mission statement, they said, hey, let's rewrite that to what it should be. And they came up with something like, we help everyone forget Jesus by evading the lost, entertaining the saints, and ensuring that members are served. And there's probably some of you that are like, yeah, sign me up for that.

Not the forget Jesus part, but I'm so tired of you asking me to share the gospel with my coworkers or my neighbors. And if somebody walks up to me wanting to borrow or wanting to have $1 or $2, like don't make me engage them with Jesus, because I'm uncomfortable with that, and I'm trying to break eye contact to go to the other side of the road to evade them. And yeah, I want to be entertaining. I want to go to eat a meal after church and talk about how funny it was, how good it was. Wasn't that so, that's so great, the story. that song, you know, and it's just like, yeah. Entertain me. And then you think, what's in it for me? Because, you know, I'm a single mom, divorced twice, with one kid. And so when are you guys gonna start the single mom, twice divorced, with one kid ministry? You need to meet me exactly where I want a ministry made perfectly just for me. And this is how a lot of people think about church today. No wonder the enemy's winning in areas and territories. That he is being victorious, and that one of the greatest evils today is consumeristic Christianity. This idea of what's in it for me? But what about me?

What are you gonna do for me? I've said it many times, and I'll never stop saying it, that church is not something we go to. It's something we are. And if you're just going to church, you're doing it all wrong. Like significantly wrong. Really wrong in an unbiblical way. If you're just going to church, like this thing, this should be way more like enlisting in the military than going to the movies on a date night. It should be, here I am, let's make war. Let's do work. And so I'm gonna be in Ephesians chapter four, if you wanna turn there. As we talk about how we help everyone follow Jesus, we are going to call you to engage the lost, to be equipped, and to be empowered for service. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus. These are letters, we call them epistles. Six chapters, and the first three chapters are really this is who Jesus is, this is what he's done for you. They're just theology, no imperative commands. Chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. This is who Jesus is and what he's done for you. Chapter four, five, and six is this is what it looks like to walk in the truth. So here in chapter four, it's a transition

as he begins to talk about the church being built up. And that's what we're gonna look at when we say, hey, this is who we are. We're gonna start with the scriptures. Paul wrote this about 60 AD, so the church has been around for about 30 years, and only 30 years. This assembly that Jesus put together. And in Ephesus, there's a lot of idolatry. And so the gospel's going to come into the city and permeate it and push out the idolatry. And this is how he writes this letter, what he says, verse 11. I'm gonna start in verse 11, go to 16, but I'm really gonna camp out in verses 15 and 16. So we'll set it up, I'll give you kind of context, but we'll camp in 15 and 16. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming.

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every aspect the mature body of him who is the head that is Christ. From him, Christ, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. The whole thrust of the letter of Ephesians is calling you to know Christ and to be like him. Here, the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, uses this illustration of the human body being built up, growing strong. There's hands, there's feet, there's eyes, there's nose, and we come together to make one body, and the eye doesn't wanna be a foot and the foot doesn't wanna be a nose, and the eye's not envious of the hand or the mouth, but they appreciate each other's giftings, and they... work together to be what Jesus said is one of the most unstoppable forces in the world. He said the gates of Hades won't overcome it. As he assembles his people, that's what we're doing, right? This is what we are about. And then it says this whole body thing, the church being the body, the head is Jesus. What does that mean? The mind, the thing that tells us what to do, where to go, how to act, how to talk, is Christ. So everything we do is tuned into Christ.

We're doing what Jesus asked us to do because we want to be like him because we're Christians. We're Christians. Little Jesuses is what that means. Hey, so you went to church? Like, yeah. So you went to a mosque? You went to a temple? Where did you, no, I went to a Christian church. Oh, what does Christian mean? It means, well, I want to be like Christ. Well, what was Christ like? What was he about? If you want to be like Christ, you're like, you're about what Christ was about. If only the Bible told us this is why Jesus came. Like, it should just be a verse, plain and simple. This is why Jesus came. So we would know, like Luke 19 that says, for the son of man, that's Jesus, came to seek and save the lost. So if we want to be like Jesus, we are about seeking and saving the lost because it's core to the heart of God. So it's core to the heart of his followers. So at Harris Creek, we engage the lost. We are about finding the lost. And so if the church is a restaurant, if we run with that metaphor, you're sitting at the table, you get up from the table,

you go out in the streets and you invite others in to eat with you at that table. You say, hey, come here. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Come sit with me, I've got an empty seat. I want you to come here and see my Jesus. Come to us, you're inviting people in. Verse 11 says, so Christ himself gave. Sounds like he's gonna give somebody something. And then he says, gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists. But he's talking about giving the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the teachers, the pastors to the church. Why did Jesus give evangelists to the church to huddle up with the evangelists? Say, hey, give me all the evangelists, y'all come up. No, no, he gave the evangelists to the church to make evangelists out of the church, right? To equip the church in evangelism. If you're new to church, evangelism is proselytizing, sharing our faith, sharing the gospel, telling people of the hope they have that Jesus Christ paid for their sins and that God raised them from the dead that they can become children of God by trusting in God's payment through his son. And so Jesus gives the church evangelists to equip us in the service of evangelism. And verse 15 says, speaking the truth in love.

And we love this verse. If you've been in church long, you're like, speaking the truth in love, I gotta speak the truth in love. What I want you to know about that little phrase there, speaking the truth in love, is in the Greek, there's no verb. So it's not a bad translation. When you go from one language to another language, you have to make sense in this language. And speaking the truth in love is a good translation of what Paul is saying. But in the Greek, if you would translate it directly, it would be like truthing in love. And that's not really a word we use, but it's like living, breathing, swimming, existing in the truth while you love. Why do I say that? Why do I make that point? Because I think we think of engaging the lost, like, hey, how do I swoop in, share the gospel, and swoop out? And I gotta go four spiritual laws, or Romans road, or bridge illustration, or one to 10, how certain are you? How do we swoop in, get that, swoop out, right? Engaging the lost is really so being entrenched in the truth that you know and understand that life under the sun here on earth cannot be lived as it was intended,

separated from the truth of the gospel. So when you have a non-believing coworker or a non-believing family member, they absolutely cannot, it is impossible for them to experience life as God intended, separate from Jesus Christ, separate from knowledge of Jesus Christ, separate from trusting in Jesus Christ. They will simply live a good. Potentially wildly successful life of insignificance, complete irrelevance. Like that's at best. I'll say it like this. When my kids were younger, Finley, our middle, was about four years old. And I was losing the pet negotiations. I was outnumbered, they all wanted a pet, I didn't. It wasn't gonna go well for me. I had tried to like, just we would go to the pet store, like I would hope that would scratch that itch, like let's just go hold the puppies at the pet store, you know, and we'll leave them there, you know. And so on this particular day, Finley and I go to Petco, and I know that I'm gonna lose this. And so now I'm just trying to direct her towards the right pets, you know. And so I take her over to the fish. I'm like, these guys are amazing pets. She's like, you have no idea. And we're standing there in front of a wall of betta fish,

a lot of these little beautiful fish with flowy fins, red and blue and purple. And they're just in these little glass bowls, individual fish in bowls. And she's sitting there and she's just mad. And I think she's mad at me, because, you know, I'm trying to talk her into getting a fish. But she goes, it's not fair, daddy. And I said, what's not fair? And she said, it's not fair that they have to stay in that little bowl of water. That's not fair. She goes, daddy. She has this mischievous look on her face. I'm gonna help one escape. I'm gonna put it in my pocket. And I was like, first of all, that's stealing. And so I don't know if your mom taught you that or where are you getting that from, but we're not gonna do that. Second of all, Finley, that fish was made for the water. It cannot exist if it is not in right relationship with the water. For it to experience life as it's intended for that fish, it must be in the water for you and your friends and your family members and your coworkers and the carpool line and the Mahjong table for you to experience life as it was intended. You must be in right relationship with Jesus

without exception. There is no exception to that. And so as you're sharing the faith, you are literally going up to people. As you're engaging the lost, you're saying, I know how you can have purpose. I know how your life can have meaning. I know God and you can know him too. And this is what evangelism really is. And I've never seen anything like what's happening right now. And I'm sure it's happened before, but I've just never lived through it. And so this is where it's a little bit awkward for me where I walk this line of wanting to make you guys aware of what God is doing beyond these walls, all while I know I'm soberly aware that it's not about me, that God doesn't need me, that I am expendable to what he's doing outside these walls. And trying to share that with you in a way that's not, like I'm just wrestling with you out loud. So this is just the tension that I feel. But last month, last month, I saw with my own eyes to the best of my, for the skeptic in the room, to the best of my ability in my human form to discern, over 50,000 people give their life to Jesus. Right? Thank you. Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! You're clapping and cheers only tell me that you get it, the gravity of that, right? It's like, that's crazy. That's crazy. And it's just what God is, they're so desperate right now. One city after another city after another city of a dad standing in front of his three children, next to his wife, standing up by himself in the midst of a row of people sitting down, saying, I want to surrender my life to the truth that you just told me about because I came in this room not understanding, but I'm leaving with a clear understanding that Jesus gave his life for my sins and God raised him from the dead. I'm in on that. And he prays to receive Christ right there. Multiply that by thousands and thousands and thousands over and over every city. and it's just like, God, what are you doing? I don't want to miss out on that. And I don't want us to miss out on that because he's doing it everywhere. In fact, I want you to watch my friend Marshall's story. Two spring breaks ago, we were in Hawaii with the family and on one of the days, my kids and I go down to the tide pools, just looking around

to see what we can find. I see these two guys out off in the distance getting ready to go spear fishing. I wanted to go just kind of get closer to them to see what was going on. They saw me looking at them and approached us and we start talking and then very quickly in the conversation, one of the younger guys says, hey, do you mind if I ask you two questions? Didn't know where he was going with it, but said sure. And he leads right into one to 10, 10 being sure, one being unsure. How certain are you that you'll get into heaven? I start laughing, my daughters and son start laughing. We realized pretty quickly that we know where those questions come from. So we asked him, where did you hear about that? He tells us a story about a pastor, a guest pastor coming to his church in Tampa and ask him where that pastor's from. He says, Waco. I said, man, you're not gonna believe this, but I know the church you're talking about. I go to the church you're talking about and I live in Waco and it was just amazing that we're 3,000 miles away and these questions are being used on me to share the gospel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I wanna share something important with you. As someone reached out and they were like, hey, I heard you trained Bryce on your way of sharing the gospel and he's been doing it. And I heard Pastor Louie talk about the way Harris Creek shares the gospel. And it's like, that's not my way. I learned that from Rick Wisner decades ago who learned it from D. James Kennedy, evangelism explosion in the 60s. There's nothing new under the sun. So we honor, I assume, Reverend James Kennedy for coming up with those questions. And they're not the way, it's not the perfect way, it's not the best way, it's just a way. And you may have a better way. But if you have a way, teach others your way, right? Whatever your way is, if it's pointing to Christ, like share it, share Christ with others and then make disciples in your way of evangelism so that they go and know how to share the gospel because that's what's happening is it's covering the world right now. And we just want to invite you to engage the lost. The reason I show you that video is because if it's coming from this place and happening in Hawaii and in Florida, we certainly wanna make sure

we're leading the charge here on everything the scripture calls us to. And so he says, verse 15, instead speaking, I'm sorry, I'll start in 14. Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every aspect the mature body of him who is the head that is Christ. So it's a call to grow in maturity. What is Christian maturity? What is spiritual maturity? Is it somebody that knows the Bible, the 66 books and how it's put together and the major prophets and the minor prophets and they've got a beautiful teaching on eschatology and they've memorized scripture and that when this situation comes up, they can go, well, this chapter says this verse and have you know this verse and this verse or is it somebody who's like, I spent two hours every day in prayer, communing with God and talking or is this somebody that when they're sharing the faith, they go, oh, you're an atheist. They go here, they go, oh, okay, Darwin. They go here, they go, oh, Muslim here, Hindu here. They're just like, wherever you're at, they have a response for it. Is that spiritual maturity? Sure.

I mean, it's a symptom potentially of spiritual maturity but you can do all of that and be a tiny spiritual little baby. You can be an infant, right? You can have lots of head knowledge and not know God. You can have lots of head knowledge and equipping and training and strategy and not have Christ be the head of your actions. So it's a both and. It's hey, I want to grow strong while listening and being in step and abiding, remaining in Jesus Christ. So we grow in our faith. Number two, at Harris Creek, we equip the saints. We equip the saints. If it's the restaurant, if the church is a restaurant, we're not serving you junk food. We're serving you healthy, protein-filled food that's gonna make you strong but we're not just serving it to you. We're teaching you how. to prepare it and how to serve it, right? And so all of a sudden you're back in the kitchen learning how the food is cooked and you're serving it and I'm there serving it alongside you and so is Nate and Kathy and John and Hannah and others are serving the food with you and making the food with you because that's our restaurant. It's an invitation to get in the game. The goal is that you grow spiritually and that you're yielded to Christ the head.

Both of those are important. Wherever you're at right now, however much Bible you know, however intimate your prayer life is, however alive your evangelism is right now, wherever you're at, I don't know, wherever you're at, you just can't stay where you're at no matter your age, right? That you sit here as you came in this morning, we're equipping pastors, ministers of the gospel, people who will leave here for works of service, the scripture says, for ministry and so we're training you to do that and listen, there's something, there's equipping here every single night of the week, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night all kinds of equipping classes, nuanced for college, for recovery, for marriage, for men's, for women's, a lot of mornings. We're using this building in that way. What's our number one method of equipping? We take you and we put you in a living room with like six to eight other very difficult people and we say, figure it out. Like figure out how to love them as Christ and through the difficulty and the conflict and the conversations, some of your strange idiosyncrasies get buffed off because they are truthing in love with you because as they exist in the truth and seek to love

and you exist to live in the truth and seek to love, you're changing and being conformed to the image of Christ. At some point, we've turned discipleship into a stage and chairs facing forward, a classroom when every aspect of discipleship in the scriptures is life on life. Let's go. Let's walk down the road. Let's go to the city. Let's do ministry together. We are that. We're that. We're like an equipping hospital. You're residents. You know, we just brought on 10 residents. We just brought on four deacons and we're all being equipped. Let's say it like this. September, I have an infection in my spine. I go to the hospital. I'm in the hospital in Waco. I'm transferred to UT Southwestern because there's a doctor there who's an expert on my condition. And so I'm there at UT Southwestern for 14 days. And I have to, this trigger warning, graphic, so you may go earmuffs, okay? I have to get a neck catheter, all right? Didn't know what that was. Don't even like the word catheter.

You know, anywhere, you know, just I'm out on that. And so what this means is they're gonna make an incision in my neck. They're gonna take this thing that's thicker than a straw and they're gonna put it in a vein all the way down to my heart. And there's eight people in there because UT Southwestern is a teaching hospital. And I've identified one of those persons as the doctor and they're about eight feet away from me, which is confusing, to which I'm saying, wait, who's going to put this incision in my, who's doing it? And they say, oh, he is, our student. I'm like, oh man. We share about that, you know? Like you don't have a mannequin or like a doll somewhere that they could learn on. You know, I gotta be the test dummy here because how else do you learn how to do a neck catheter? But doing it. And you're like, I don't know what to do if someone's on the phone suicidal. I don't know what to do if someone's cutting themselves. I don't know how to talk to somebody who just had an abortion. I don't know. And he's like, yeah, come with us. Come with us. Let's have the conversations together.

I don't know how to minister to someone who just lost. I don't know how to care for someone who has a prodigal situation. Come on. Come on. You will. You will. Like you're going to see it and then you're learning and then all of a sudden now. You know how, because don't let the people on payroll have all the fun, you know? Like, let's get in the game and do the work of ministry. It's crazy that you can come into this place as an atheist, an atheist, not knowing God, and be equipped and grow up and lead in the very ministry that you served in. Would you watch AJ's story with me? My faith or belief journey really started when I was 14. My mom died suddenly, tragically. That's where a lot of my atheist beliefs started. There was some chatter in my family about that my mom's death was attributed to God, and that just spiraled into not believing God at all. That ended up going into my marriage. It eventually blew up with a marital crisis. I was desperate at that point. I didn't want a divorce. I didn't want to lose my wife. So we moved here, actually, from California in search of something, in search of trying to reconcile our marriage.

That's kind of where regeneration came in. When I started regeneration, I had no faith basis. I had no church home. I had no real beliefs other than I was maybe even an atheist at a time. And through regeneration, I completely got transformed. It just became a building block more and more and more, week after week, starting in groundwork, eventually going into step work, commencing, and then I came back, and currently now I'm leading, I'm co-leading a group at regeneration. Harris Creek's been pretty integral in trying to find community service efforts for myself and my wife, equipping myself, something I've never had really done in my past. I tell everyone, if you had known me in the past, the way I spoke, the way I acted, what I did, what I ate, what I drank, what I thought, you would have thought, no way. Not AJ, but all God to him be all the glory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A man comes in, is transformed by the gospel,

is equipped through a ministry, grows strong in the faith, and is an altogether very different human being, now leading in that ministry over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. We're teaching hospital. We're not just ministering to the sick, we're making doctors out of them. We're making them physicians, God is. God is making them physicians here through your work. Verse 16, from him, that's Christ. From Jesus, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love, listen, as each part does its work. So every individual part has a work to do which comes together, like it's like, you know, Ocean's 11, but it's like Ocean's 3000 and we're doing good, not robbing casinos. Sorry, that was only in the 4 p.m., that didn't show up this morning. At Harris Creek, we empower members for service, that's what I'm trying to say. At Harris Creek, we empower members for service. And so if it's a restaurant, they recruit you to cook and serve, and then you're recruiting others to cook and serve, who are recruiting others to cook and serve. Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service,

to equip the people for works of service. So to say it like this, Christ gives leaders to equip the saints and the saints do the work of the ministry resulting in the building up of Christ's body so that we are not doing ministry to people, but through people. We're teaching people to do ministry. This is why you join a church, not to be entertained, not to be amused with ancient writings, not to listen and be thrilled by an illustration or story and laugh, but to learn to do the work and to practice it, to take it out of here and practice in your place of business and carpool lanes and communities and on your street and in your neighborhoods that you are the church, that you're doing the church. Listen, let's talk about us, family meeting real quick. 50% of our members are serving, okay? So about half of our. members are not in the game. Now, when I talk about serving, I'm talking about serving here at the church or serving in one of our vetted ministry partners around the city who have, they keep the gospel center and they do a good work at caring for the poor, giving food, providing shelter, caring for women in their unexpected pregnancy, all kinds of areas of ministry that you can join us in and represent Christ there as you're representing Harris Creek there.

And that's incredibly beneficial to us. We would love to send you there and that can be your area of service or you can jump in with us here. Freshmen, if you're looking for a church, look for a place to serve. And if you're just looking for a place to consume, I would ask you not to come here with one exception, that is if you're exploring the faith. If you're like, hey, I'm not sure where I'm at with Jesus, for you, join, like sit, like all, every week, I hope you sit and listen and ask questions and stay afterwards, we'll stay as long as it takes to have that conversation with you. But we don't want this to be a place of consumers, consumeristic Christians, right? We want all of us to be the church, not simply attend the church and we'll train you. You have gifts, they were given to you by God, we will help you identify them and unleash them. I want you to watch the way that this has happened for Kendall. I originally was playing NCAA lacrosse in California and was only there for a year, ended up transferring to Baylor after my freshman year of college and came to Harris Creek that first Sunday. JP's message was talking about like those core values that we really hold true to and he was talking about how, if you just want this to be another seat, like a seat to be filled for Sunday entertainment,

then there's a lot of awesome churches, like other churches in Waco. And I knew in that moment that I wanted church not to just be Sunday entertainment, but somewhere that like I grew roots. I got plugged in with the parking team last August. I wanna say, I think I saw a video and there was this guy that started talking about, I served on the parking team and I think I heard it and I was like, man, how great are greeters and how great are the coffee makers and the people who do production and all of these things. But I was like, parking team, that sounds so cool. And I wanna hang out with all these really cool, awesome people. Parking is the first people who get to see someone. You don't know the background of someone that's coming in through this parking lot. You don't know the person coming in the doors. And so what a sweet opportunity it is to just like smile at someone because you don't know the last time that someone would smile at that. And so instead of looking out with the cars that people are driving or is there a kid in the back to make sure that they go to kid's lot, I always look at the driver and smile at them and wave at them and treat every person as if it's like just this great opportunity to not necessarily tell the gospel,

but to show the gospel. Like we love you and we want you to feel loved. And because at the end of the day, people just wanna feel loved by each scene and know. Because we're getting to welcome them in and then they're gonna come inside and hear a great message of the gospel. And so now that we're just showing the gospel and then we get to get told the gospel. Amen. I watched that Thursday and I'm like, I wanna join the parking team. Like she made that sound like the most fun area of service. I mean, Kenny Boyd is building an army out there. And I love that it's like the first impression that you pull in and those guys are just, they're good at what they do. It's not an easy job. And they're out there sweating and amazing at it. And I'm so grateful. And she's right. There's a lot of awesome churches in Waco. Highland, Antioch, First Woodway, Glory Bell. And I could go on and on. I'm gonna stop there. I could keep going. There's others. And they are led by amazing pastors. And one of the things that make them amazing is they're not making consumeristic Christians either.

They're trying to equip the saints too. And we're joining arms and joining efforts here in this city to push back darkness, to empower members for service. So in summary, I'm gonna give you three questions that I'd love for you to process with your life group. In summary, as we talk about engaging the lost, who are you pursuing? As we talk about equipping the Saints, how are you growing? And as we talk about empowering members for service, where are you serving? So just three simple questions to drive discussion as you circle up with those imperfect people to pursue a perfect God, to be a part of his body. Last night I was talking to a friend and I was reminded of his story. He was raised in a devout Muslim home and so they didn't know God. He was in high school. His family was Muslim, went to a mosque. He had been out partying and another friend brought him home at midnight. They're sitting in front of his house and this friend said, hey I want you to come to church with me tomorrow. I'll pick you up like in eight hours. I want you to come to church. And he was just like, no dude, I can't. I'm a Muslim man. I can't go to church with you. And he just wouldn't let up. He just kept like, come to church with me, come to church with me. Finally he goes, I tell you what, I'll go in and ask my parents if I can. If they say I can, I will. Because he knows, you know, they're gonna say no. So he goes inside, brings his friend inside, this is my buddy David, and he says, mom, dad, I'm sorry to wake you up. I'm sorry to wake you up. Johnny wants me to go to a Christian church with him in the morning and I just wondered if that was okay and would you please say no loud enough so that he can hear you. And his dad goes, what church? And he thought that was, he's like what? Who cares? Dad, come on. Who cares what church? Like, just say no. Johnny hears him and yells the name of the church. And his dad goes, I know those people. You can go. And David's so confused. Well, what he doesn't know is

two weeks ago, okay, two weeks prior to this moment, somebody from that church was eating at his father's restaurant. His father ran a Persian restaurant, owned a Persian restaurant. And there's a man there named Aubrey and two servers quit that day. And so the service was horrendous. Well, Aubrey, instead of complaining, rolled up his sleeves and said, hey, I've got experience in the service industry. I'd love to help you. And he just started serving food, taking food. He was running food. He was taking food to tables. And afterwards, he engaged the owner and he told him, hey, thank you so much. Two employees quit on me today, left me high and dry. I really appreciate you saved the day. And he said, well, listen, I'll come back tomorrow and I'll bring a friend and we'll help you out. So he came back the next day and they just served people food and just helped this man out. And he cleared his week. He went back a third day. And after the third day, Aubrey invited David's dad to church. Well, because kindness is such an unstoppable force, this Muslim restaurant owner said, of course, I'll go to church with you. And David had no idea that two weeks earlier, his father went to that church. Okay, so David goes to that church the next morning, surrenders his life to Jesus. He's built up and equipped there. He becomes a pastor, a traveling evangelist, telling this story. And in fact, he built one of the largest college ministries in the world on the value of hospitality because he said it changed his life. Somebody being hospitable in the name of Jesus saved his whole eternity. That's the church. Aubrey's favorite restaurant was one with bad food and terrible service because there was a lost man there. And he went to it over and over and over, armed with the Holy Spirit and the gospel to get that man to church. And it saved his whole family. And so that's what it means to be the church. We hope everyone follow Jesus by engaging the lost, equipping the saints, and empowering members for service. May Satan's mission statement for us never be true about any one of us. Let me pray for us. Father, we love you. We're thankful for a conversation on the hillside. of Philippi where Jesus said he's gonna assemble his people and the gates of Hades won't overcome it and that that prophecy is fulfilled today even in this

room as we sit here on this evening your church gathers. Father tomorrow it's a new chapter for so many of my friends administrators and faculty members and professors and I pray you bless them pour out your grace and favor on their lives and their teaching and their instruction as a new freshman class comes into our city I pray they would feel welcomed into a healthy body of Christ where they are equipped and I pray for Baylor University that Jesus would remain number one in all things I pray for Dallas Baptist University that Jesus would remain number one in all things and I pray for TSTC and MCC and the other colleges in our area that you would have your people ministering engaging the lost and being equipped and being empowered we love you Lord it's in Jesus name amen