The True Sign Of Being A Disciple | Creative Church

John 1, 46, Phillips said to him, come and see. Everybody say come and see. Come and see. Bringing someone is deeper than inviting someone. You're taking responsibility for it. See church, every Sunday will be about you unless you bring someone. The Sunday or the service or the Thursday that you bring someone is no longer about you, it's about them. How do we get it off of us? We bring someone. We take responsibility for it. Praying for them, helping them feel seen. And people don't just need directions. They need companionship. They need relationship. Don't just send them a Google pen. I sent you the website. Come on, guys. This is taking responsibility. Everybody say, Lord, help me take responsibility. Yeah. Hey, where are you? Did you get here on-- what's happening? Do you need help? I'll come pick you up. Let me-- when you get here, I want you to sit with me. That's good. What do you drink? I got a coffee for you waiting when you get here.

These are practical things. I got you a journal and a pen. I've been praying for you all week. I actually highlighted verses in the Bible that I felt God gave me for you. That's so good. I'm a soul winner. Come on. Discipleship begins with presence. And remember this. Love walks together. Love walks together. A bringer doesn't just drop someone off at the door and disappear. They stand beside them. They carry the moment with them. Let me carry the moment of worship with you. Let me carry the moment of giving with you. Let me carry the moment of praying for the sick with you. Let me answer your questions. Let me carry the moment of communion with you. Let me carry the moment. What is happening? I'm here with you. I'm talking to you. I'm walking through this with you. And if you do that, when you take people places, they never been to a sporting event, never been to an amusement park. They never been to this place to eat,

and you're walking through. You take them to Fogo, and you're like, the red side means this, the green side. [LAUGHTER] Just keep it on green. Amen? Come on, some of y'all used to disciple people in how to drink. Girl, let me tell you, you got to get this, mix it with that in order. You invited them to the club, invited them, tell them what time to show up, what time drinks are half off, how to mix the drink. And now, you've forgotten. Don't look at nobody. And this is how we break down the walls that fear builds. When people feel safe, they become open. And Jesus always brought people close before he called them higher. He brought people to him. And bringing someone, remember this, is relational evangelism, relational evangelism. And even more importantly, our children learn commitment when they see us stay connected beyond the invitation. They see it. They learn that faith doesn't abandon people once they show up, that I'm walking with this person. It teaches loyalty. It teaches responsibility for souls. How many of you want to be responsible for souls?

God is calling us to be a church of bringers, not just invaders, bring them to worship, bring them to prayer, bring them to community. And the gospel spreads faster through relationship. OK, this one's a little unorthodox point, but write it down. Thursday night worship is a door. God is opening. So they continue daily with one accord in the temple. So they continue, continuing what? - Daily. - They're going to church every day. They continuing daily with one accord in the temple, the breaking of bread from house to house, praising God and having favor with all the people. Not everyone can come to church on Sunday. Hallelujah. Come on, y'all gotta be more vocal 'cause of the storm. You gotta, you gotta, you guys gotta act like you're 800 people in the room. You can't like, come on, y'all help me out on here. You gotta be a little, you gotta help out. You gotta actually participate on this ride. All right. So everyone can come to church on Sunday, but God's not limited to one day a week. Healing's not limited to one day a week. Forgiveness is not limited to one day a week. Communion's not limited to one day a week. Come on, just God only healed people on Sundays.

Just God only delivered people or saved people on a Sunday. No, so hey, we've got this opportunity to win someone for the Lord. Some of you need to actually make Thursday like a soul winning moment for you. See, many people are like, let me tell you how people think because we think about ourselves. Oh, the church is doing church on Thursday for people who can't come. I come on Sunday, so that's not for me. And they just block it out. Rather than seeing Thursdays as a soul winning opportunity to go, God bring people in my life now that can't come on Sunday, I'm gonna come with them on Thursday. I will sit in the room with them on Thursday. I will worship with them on Thursday 'cause Sunday I'm serving, Sunday I'm doing, you know, dah, dah, dah, dah. So Thursday I'm gonna be winning people for Jesus on Thursday. And I'm now a soul winner, I'm gonna bring people. See, because we think about ourselves. But I'm trying to get you to stop thinking just about you and think about someone else. And think, okay, God put me in a church and then God gave my church a vision for Thursdays. What does that mean for me? That's so good. Or is that like for someone else? Maybe God actually is gonna bring people in my life

who can't come to church on Sunday, that I'm to bring them with me on Thursday. And my whole responsibility is to just win someone and be with them and shepherd them so that they become what God's called them to be on Thursdays. Do you see how we have to shift our mindset? Yes. So bad. (calm piano music) And let us galvanize our church. We need to see Thursday nights too as a mission field, a mission field, not just meetings, but pray for them, talk to them, bring them intentionally. We have to change our mindset. I'm trying to get the church to move away from, that's the pastor's job, that's Jeremy's job, that's Pastor Andrew's job, that's Skyler's job, that's Andrew in a motor's job. They're doing Thursdays. No, no, no, we are doing Thursdays. We are doing Thursdays. We are using Thursday as an evangelism tool to win people who can't come on Sunday. How many of you had somebody you invited church before and said I have to work on Thursdays or I'm busy on Sunday? How many of you ever had that happen, right? Okay, well now you have this huge evangelism tool where you had shut up about it.

You had stopped evangelizing about it 'cause they couldn't come on Sundays. Now you got, I got an, you're coming with me. Not, oh, you should go to this church on Thursdays. Here's the Google map. How many of you go, how many of you hate it when you go to a store and you can't find what you're looking for and you ask somebody and they go, I think it's sound that way. It's like seriously and then you go to other stores and they go follow me and they walk you to where you're going. Anybody know what I'm talking about? It's like so rude. I was at the airport. God thank you for everybody who works at the airport. But I was at the airport and I was like, do you know what time it was? And the lady just pointed at she just goes like some clock and I'm like, oh, like she couldn't tell me, you know what I mean? It's like the most rude. It's like, where's Jesus? That way. It's like, come on, man, let's get excited about our faith. to church. You want to get excited about, like if you're just kind of like, nest to size from all of the reels you've watched on social media, and you're just kind of like, everything's just, ehhh, right, and you're just like, you, I know what you're talking about, how many people you can get into that, like social media is like eating junk food.

Like I know at first you're like, oh this tastes good, let's just keep giving it, let's just keep eating it all day, and then tomorrow, after about a day or two of that, you're going to be like, I need something green that God made. Anybody know what I'm talking about, you're like, let's just give you some Fritos and some kick cats, and a, I don't know, a slurpee, or whatever, after two days of that, you're going to be like, I need something that was grown by God. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Your body's just like, look, I'm going to shut down on you if you do that, and when you get to the age, your body starts talking to you, anybody, your body's like, if you eat that again after this time, I'm done with you, okay? So if you want to get excited and fired up about the work of God, the kingdom of God, God's house, I'm telling you, you got to bring somebody, you got to become a soul winner. It fires you up, it makes you mature. You don't make you mature, having kids. Having kids makes you grow up. Come on. I know some of you are like, I know some of that parent who's not, just understand what I'm saying, okay, like, okay, I'm just saying like, it makes you grow up. When you start, when you start having spiritual sons and daughters and people who are getting saved because you're inviting them, it makes you. Like, I got to be there because so-and-so is going to be there, they're going to be looking for me, you know, I got to, it makes you mature. They start asking you questions and you're like, I don't know. You're like, that, what book? That's in the Bible? They're like, yeah, right here, oh yeah. They start asking about the fruit of the spirit, because they're on fire. And they're like, I know you know a lot, you've been serving God 10 years, so can you talk to him? You're like, ah, Jeremy, I'm just saying it makes you, I don't know if you know, remember

when your kids brought you math and you're like, oh, yeah, they did that different when I was in school. Praise the Lord, okay. Let's all pray it now. Ladies and say, say Jesus, set me on fire for evangelism. Set my heart on fire again to be a soul winner for you. Give me someone, Lord, that needs to come to church on Thursday, that I may be able to tell them and bring them and walk with them in Jesus' name. Come on, give God a praise if you believe it, amen. All right, right this point down, prayer is number six, prayer is the engine of evangelism. Prayer is the engine of evangelism. Romans 10 and 1, Paul says, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for Israel that they may all be saved, that they may all be saved. Look at me, no one is one casually, souls are birthed through prayer. Look at me, you're in this room today because somebody prayed for you, whether you believe it or not, I'm telling you, you're here because somebody prayed for you. And when we call names out before the Lord, heaven listens. See prayer prepares the soil of someone's heart to receive the word. It softens the heart. And evangelism without prayer is just like, it's like effort, but prayer turns effort into fruit. How many of you want to be fruitful, not just effort, I want to be fruitful. families that pray for souls together. You want your family to stay tender in the Holy Spirit. Let your family start praying for souls. I'm just challenging you. Like when was the last time you sat down as a family and said, let's pray for these people that are lost. Let's call their name out in prayer. Let's pray for them.

I pray for every person who like would talk about me, try to hurt me, try to hurt Joanne or the church. I pray for people who have tried, my parents taught me this in ministry, growing up. 'Cause how many of you know that all them demons are still here? Every demon is still here, right? That same spirit works through people. My parents would bring us in and say, "Hey, let's pray for these people." You may have it on your job. You may have somebody's trying to hurt you. Somebody's trying to sabotage you. Somebody's trying to talk about you. Pray for them. That's not God, I'm not writing that down. Pray for them, come on church. Listen to me, do you know that I see every person who talks about me as a prodigal that may come home? That's right, that's right. And just remember when they talk about you, there are no private crucifixions. That's the case. All crucifixions are public. You have to keep your heart right, because that's a soul that may come to Jesus. Come on. They need to get saved. I would question whether or not they've ever been saved. Some people say, "Well, you should know the day and time."

You gotta remember, for me, I grew up in church. So I've been to like a million altar calls. Like my parents, like I would go to all of them. Every time I was an altar call, I was down there. So like since I know myself, I still now, like I've always responded to altar calls. Joanna and I got saved again out of Reinhardt Bonke. You remember that? When he was at the Target Center, he's like, "If you need to give your life to Jesus "with that big German accent, he's gone on to be with Lord." He's like, "Come to Jesus." Me and her went down to the altar. I'm like, "I'm going down and give my life to Jesus again." You know, like I love it. But so the reason I'm bringing that up is because people say, "Well, I don't know the exact day "or time." And if you don't know the exact day or time that you're not saved. Well, I don't know the exact day or time I was potty trained. But I know, I know I was potty trained because I'm still potty trained. How I know I'm saved is because I'm still saved. I'm still walking with the Lord. I still believe the scriptures are true. I'm still in God's house. I may not always be able to give you the day or time either, but I know I'm saved because I'm still saved. I'm still in love with Jesus.

(congregation murmurs) Praise the Lord. It's the weather. We've got to move from vague prayers to specific intercession. God just went everybody. No, what was that guy's name we met at the store the other day that we said come with us? - Billy, yeah. Lord, we pray for Billy right now. We pray for his family. God, that you're gonna bring him to you. Lord, that when we call him this week and invite him he's gonna say, yes, this is the week Lord. You start praying specifically for your friends, specifically for your lost loved ones. Come on church. Prayer for co-workers by name. Prayer for neighbors by name. Prayer for family members by name. God responds to intentional prayer. And before we invite, we've got to intercede. Lord, let their heart be open. Let their heart be soft. Let their heart be tender. Before we speak, we've got to listen. And prayer aligns us with Heaven's agenda. said something like, somehow we got on the subject of like 60 years from now, and he's like, "Dad, what do you think this about, something about were you in 60 years?" I said, "Man, I might be with Jesus in 60 years.

I'll be 107," and they were all like, "What do you mean?" I'm like, "Yeah, Dad's not always going to be here if the Lord tares." I was just talking about that, and I said, "Who do we ask? If we've had questions or what do we do?" I said, "You ask each other." "You have each other." I said, "In fact, the best way for you to remember me and Mommy is to keep the relationship with each other." See, most siblings lose a relationship when the parents die. I said, "The best way for you to remember Mommy and Dad is to keep your relationships with each other because all of you have a different memory of me and a different history with me and your mother, that the only way you get the full picture of us is to keep the relationship with all of your siblings. If you lose your relationship with your brother, you'll lose a part of me. If you lose your relationship with your sister, you'll lose memories of me. They have memories that you don't have. This is the same in the body of Christ. The best way for us to keep our memory of Christ is my relationship with you. It's my relationship with my brother and my sister. That's why when people lose out with the church, they start to not... They lose their memory of Jesus. They lose their memory of the Lord. They lose the memory of forgiveness and mercy and grace and healing and love. We only get the full picture when we come together. That's why the Lord said, He gave us communion and He said as often as you do this, you remember. This is how we remember our Father. Tell me how He healed you. Tell me how He saved you. How He did it for you is different from how He did it for me and now I know His love and generosity in a different way because of your testimony and your story and your walk with

Jesus. This is how we become healers. The question that awakens the church, the questions, I guess two questions, two questions is that awake in the church? Number one is when was the last time you personally led someone to Jesus? I want you to answer that question in your heart. When was the last time you personally led someone to Jesus? What we don't ask, we don't prioritize, we've got to ask them, do they know the Lord? Heaven remembers every soul. The second question is who in this room or who in your church is here because you invited them? Our children will rise to the level of what we celebrate. If we celebrate salvation, they will aim for souls. Just think about it in your home. If you celebrated winning someone for Jesus, don't you think that would encourage your Maybe we as a church need to do a better job at celebrating someone coming to Jesus. I probably need to do a better job as a pastor of celebrating someone coming to Jesus so that all of the kids would aim more for souls. Lord forgive me. Let's all pray it now. Lord forgive me of celebrating so many things that I have forgotten to celebrate souls. Let me parent in such a way that my children would aim for souls in Jesus' name. Come on, give God praise if you believe it, amen. That's why I'm getting ready to pray but we're going to arm you now until Easter, maybe beyond. But I'm going to give everybody how many cards are in here, Amona? There's ten. So you've got this card, it's the same, I think, or close to it, but these are invites. It says come and see and in the back it's got our logo, it says smile, Jesus loves you. But it's just a simple invite with our website and I'm going to give you ten and I'm going

to pray for you. I'm going to end the service this way in a moment, but I'm going to pray and ask God to give you ten opportunities to be a soul winner, ten opportunities to be a soul winner, and to be bold about your faith, to be courageous about your faith. I'm going to start empowering our church to become soul winners. When you get to heaven you'll thank me, I promise you, you'll be thankful that you attended a church that encouraged you to be a soul winner and not someone who just came and sat. What is the purpose of creative church? I want to make it very clear to you. The purpose of creative church is to help you make a disciple, to help you make a disciple. I think sometimes we're not a good picture of Jesus. I think sometimes we can be, oh I don't know John, maybe, especially with this day and days, with social media and YouTube. I think sometimes we can be overexposed and underdeveloped. That's a bad picture. I think sometimes we can be a bad picture of Jesus or a picture that's overexposed and underdeveloped. I want to be a good picture of Jesus. Anybody else want to be a good picture of Jesus? I want my sons and daughters to make disciples. Listen to me. I'm going to say something that's kind of hard and then we're going to, I've got five minutes. Look at me. I'm going to say something that's kind of hard. How do you know if you're a disciple? Well, let me back up and ask a question before that. How many of you believe Jesus has called you to be as a disciple? How do you know if you're a disciple? You know if you're a disciple because you are making a disciple. If you're not making a disciple, you're not a disciple.

You are a Christian. In that heart, I said it would be hard. I prepared you. If you're not, if I ask you right now, who are you discipling and you can't give me a name? You are a Christian but Jesus didn't say go into all the world and make Christians. He said go into all the world and make disciples. What did the disciples do? They made disciples. We are hung up in the church in America about becoming great Christians, about having as much information as we can, as much knowledge as we can, as much information as we can, as Yeah, we need to get Scripture in our heart. Come if you know, we teach that, right? Like we're big on it, right? All that's great. And that's, you're a great Christian. But Jesus wants you to become a disciple. So if you're not discipling someone, you're not a disciple because disciples beguat disciples. I am now, I am now, encouraging and imploring you to start living a life of discipleship, and discipleship takes discipline. So if you're gonna parent people, and you're gonna, where's all my parents? Raise your hand if you're a parent, okay. I teach that you need to discipline your kids. I never tell people how to discipline, but you need to discipline your kids. If you're gonna, if you're going to discipline your kids, it requires discipline.

Discipline requires discipline. If you don't have discipline, you're not gonna raise discipline kids. You're gonna threaten, you're gonna say, "I'm gonna, if I have to say it 30 more times, you're gonna count, right, one, right?" 'Cause you don't have the discipline to discipline. Discipline, discipline children, requires discipline parents. And if you don't have the discipline, you will never raise children who are disciplined. This happens with discipleship. If we don't actually, let me tell you another thing. Oh, God, hurry. I feel the Lord in here, but listen to me. Is this helping anybody? Okay. This is, this is meat. 'Cause I got people who drove into Blizzard to come here. So I'm not giving you, you know, French fries. Jesus said, Jesus, Jesus, write this verse down. Okay. John 17, 19. Jesus said, "I sanctify myself." Everybody say, "Sanctify." I sanctify myself for the sake of my disciples. When you start getting a disciple, you live a different life. Right. What Jesus is saying here is,

"Look, I can't do that." There's certain things that I just don't do. I'm not gonna do it because I have disciples. When you start developing disciples, you live a different life. Okay. I have little kids, right? And so the one word we don't say in our house is stupid. We don't say stupid. We say silly. Sometimes I wanna say stupid. But I sanctify my mouth for the sake of my disciples. 'Cause I don't want my five-year-old walking around saying stupid. Some people take curse words and they twist them a little bit where they're not curse words. But it means the same, and I don't want my kids saying that. So I don't say it. For the sake of my disciples. So when you start having someone in church that you're raising up, and now all of a sudden you wanna say things, do things, post things, go. And they go, "Oh, can we do that?" Is that cool? That's Christ's life to do that. No, no, no. Now a sudden you're turning to the parent that says, "Do what I say, not what I do." Come on, guys. What did Paul tell Timothy?

Follow me as I follow Christ. If somebody lived exactly like you, would they be more like Jesus? If somebody talk like you, if somebody else lived your life, if they imitated you, would they be more like Jesus? This is discipleship. See how hard it is? So what I'm saying is the moment you go, okay, I'm no longer just wanting to be a Christian. I wanna actually become a disciple. The proof that I am a disciple. What's the proof? What's the proof that you're a disciple? I'm a disciple. What's your proof? What is your proof? Why no verses? I attend a church. You watch... You volunteer and a kid's thing. You read a bunch of books about... You watch a bunch of YouTube videos about parenthood. That makes you a parent? No. You have a child. That is the proof. You're looking at me like... I want to argue that, but... This is a complicated stuff, right? Come on. What's the proof that you're a parent? You have a child, so you're like... Is that right? I'm going to chat GPT that. You have a child. The proof that you are a disciple is you have a disciple. This is your own disciple. And you're... You're discipling them to become more like Jesus. How come all your disciples keep falling out? How come all your disciples keep... How come you're like home? I'm telling you, the moment you start discipling someone, you have to sanctify yourself. You're going to go on your social media and go... Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, because I don't want my disciples to see that.

This is the price of discipleship. And so I'm challenging you today. Answer this question. What do you not do because you are a Christ follower? And modeling is the best form of teaching. How do you handle correction? If you can't receive correction, the Bible says you're an illegitimate son, according to Hebrews. Sons see correction as love. Fake sons see... They see correction as rejection. Come on. I can correct Nicholas today, and he may not like it. But I promise you as the Lord lived with before he goes to bed, I'm going to get a text saying, "Hey, I received what you said today. I love you." You know why? Because he's a son. And you don't know what you have until you challenge their heart. Let me say it different. You don't know what you have until you cross their will. Once you cross someone's will, now you know if you've got a son, a legitimate son, or an illegitimate son. Do they see it as love or do they see it as rejection? Come on. And when it comes to your kids, don't just parent them, disciple them. Disciples them. You're a disciple. You're a disciple. I'm going to challenge your attitude. I'm going to challenge your heart. I have challenged people in church. See, people won't pastor just... Pastor just loves me, encourages me. He's like, "Hey, your attitude is bad. I don't ever see you serve here. Ever. I see you two, three times a month. I don't ever see you do anything for the body of Christ. That's not okay. You need to get that right. Hey, you've been coming here for months. You're not trusting God in this area. You need to trust God. Who are you, disciple? No one. Oh, they rejected me. Or did they love you? You see, this is hard stuff. This is all against church growth. This kills church growth in terms of like crowd. If you're trying to build a crowd, you don't preach this stuff. You just preach like, "God, come bless everybody." You see what I'm saying? But this is discipleship. This is hard stuff. Because crowds are fickle. We saw that. Come on. COVID taught us that. Come on. Am I right about? Crowds are fickle. Crowds, they come and go. And there is a moment when Jesus dismisses the crowd.

And He's left with the disciples. And He said, "Will you leave too?" And they said, "Where shall we go?" "You alone have the words to eternal life." See, Jesus said, "My sheep know my voice." Real decision. Pastors, or anything in my life you see I need to do better. Yeah, you need to do this and this, this isn't okay, this is wrong. Okay, praise God, I'm gonna do better. Because you're wanting to be discipled, not just preach that. Come on church, you're not gonna get discipled from you too. None of those people are going to disciple you, because discipleship requires walking together. Come, let's walk together. Jesus called them to Him. Come, let's go. We do this together. We walk together. This is discipleship. This is the heart of God for the church. This is evangelism. This is not social media posts. Come into the crowd. Sing a great song. Great sermon. I'm encouraged. I leave. And that's the Christian life. This is not what Jesus died for. Now we can build a church like that. If we build a church like that, we will build it on addition. Addition. Meaning we do a big thing, plus 20, 20 people came, 20 people, 20 people, and we build on

addition and everybody just becomes a great Christian. But if we build it on discipleship, it's no longer addition, it's multiplication. Because you raise up 20, and you raise up 20, and you raise up 20, and you raise up 20, and you raise up 20, and you raise up 20, and you raise up 20, and you raise up 20. This is how the church grows. Not by pastor does a new sermon series with a catchy title, Facebook post. Come on, you got churches all over America doing it, and we all come in, we give you humor, great sermon, we can get the Hayes machine back out, and the lights, come on, or we challenge you. And we say, who's here because of you? Who in this room, when we, I think today, it's like, well, they're not here today because it's snowing, but who in here is because of you? Listen to me, God calls a man, calls a man, calls a woman, calls one person to win a family win a city for Jesus Christ, calls you, you're here for a reason. So I'm empowering you now with the least expensive tool, paper, and you don't even have to use this, you can use your words, and just say, hey, I want to, I want to invite you to come and come with me, come with me, check me, I want to meet you, I'm going to have a coffee for you, you know, I'll pick you up, or hey, I want to help you, I'm going to have a Bible for you, I'm going to have, you know, my church comes out this book called "No in Jesus," I'm going to have the tabernacle prayer for you. I want to make sure you know how to walk with Jesus for the next 40 days, kind of have permission to check in on you, pray with you, what do you need and prayer for, I'm going to raise up a disciple, come on somebody, you want to know joy, you want to know joy, to be in this worship service on a Sunday and looking around the room and seeing people with their hands raised and tears around their face and families together because God use you, it brings a joy to your life that nothing else will, and not only does it bring a joy in this life, it brings an eternal reward, come on, so let's be soul winners, so let's stand, did you get something out of this today, was that okay?