Mark’d For Purpose || MARK'D PT 3 || MATT OLTHOFF

hey family welcome to the father's house oc my name is gabby and we're so glad you decided to join us today here's what we need you to do grab your bibles your ipads your pens your notebook and get ready for a powerful message and don't be shy share this with some friends and family right now thank you and enjoy the message [Music] man i just i just believe that god is in this space in this moment don't you amen and what would it look like for us in this moment just to make room for him to move to let go of some of those things that maybe you came in here with burdens things you got to do after this things you got to do this week but what would it look like for us just let go and just make room for him to be here present and minister us in this moment amen so i just want to pray for us and then we'll jump in and we'll get started lord we we just thank you for what you're doing in this space and we invite you into this room today lord would you work in our hearts would you work in the online community would you remove those uh barriers and obstacles lord so that you can just move in the way that you want to move lord but we love you and we thank you for what you do in this space we pray this in jesus name amen amen amen go ahead and say uh just give somebody a high five as you sit down and grab a seat next to you so fun i'm excited uh to talk to you guys today i feel like that's put a word on my heart and um as before we do that get there and i'll get excited about it but uh guess what next weekend is our three your birthday as a church that's right that's right and so uh we're gonna have a dj we've got some food we've got all kinds of fun stuff but come nut back next week bring a friend we want to just party and celebrate what god has done in this space in the last three years and not only that what's amazing is uh bianca and i get to celebrate our anniversary next week 11 years love you babe and you know we get to celebrate this weekend and she's actually going off to a like like the top preachers in the world conference type thing like i don't know what it is it's amazing she's like she's like don't embarrass me don't but she's gonna she just loves you guys so much she wants to continue to bring an amazing word of god to you guys and so uh we're we're excited that she gets to be a part of that you know as i'm thinking about this message uh today the one i'm gonna give today uh you know sometimes the gym like we go to gym we want to get in shape and we look at the gym it looks really good from the outside doesn't it sometimes so the really good idea in the living room it's like i need to go to the gym and then we go to the gym like look at all these machines this is great and you work out and what happens is when you the next day you're like oh shoot like why why did i do that why did i go and anybody experience that that's kind of the message that's going to be today just giving you like a heads up get ready like we're going to dive in it's going to be it's kind of like a little bit of a workout today that we get to jump into mark three and if you're if you're just joining us we're in a series called marked there we go we're one person really excited so my wife she's the preacher in the house right and so what we're doing is we're going through the book of mark it's one of the gospels matthew mark luke and john and it's an eyewitness account of the life of jesus and so we're in mark three today and so uh those of you that we want to encourage you do homework we're gonna be in mark for the next 16 weeks and you can go ahead and you can dive into the bible and you can actually read what are we going to talk about next week mark four like it's really it's not that challenging right like four or five like we're gonna be mark four next week so you should read mark thank you thank you thank you okay so uh so i'm gonna jump in and here's what i'm gonna talk about with the book of mark mark the book of mark really has two main purposes you don't hear anything else mark has a passion for this and he gives two things two points that he communicates throughout the book of mark and the first one is this he wants to tell everybody that jesus is the messiah he wants to tell everybody that jesus messiah and so it culminates in mark 8 39 when jesus goes to peter he says who do you say that i am and peter says you are the messiah now he we'll talk about in a second why he's doing that but he's doing that because he wants to show everybody that jesus is the messiah jesus is who he says he is he is the chosen one he is here to save us he is here to redeem us he is the chosen one he is the anointed son of god that's who he's communicating that jesus is the messiah so now if that's true if that's true what he wants to do the second point is he wants to encourage us to become followers of jesus to become his disciples because if he's the messiah then we should respond out of him being the chosen one we want we should want to step into being a disciple and so that's the whole thing about the book of mark really he does a great job doing that and kind of breaking uh breaking down what it means for jesus to be the messiah and what it means for us to follow him now here's what i believe and you're going to see this today is that there's oftentimes a lot of crowds that gather on jesus okay like if you read the feeding the 5000 it was it was probably 5 000 men the only kind of the men so you probably have another 5 000 women plus kids you've got a big crowd and so we have the different crowds that jesus talks to and we have his disciples and what jesus is passionate about doing is he's passionate about moving people from the crowd to be his disciple he wants to move people from the crowd to be his disciple and that's what he talks about that's his that's his passion as you go through this and so here's what you need to know and here's why it's important to jesus is he wants to move people from the crowds because the crowds believed in jesus but they weren't necessarily disciples see you can believe in jesus but actually stepping into being a disciple and being a follower of jesus is different it even says in scripture even the demons believed in jesus right so we want to go we want to move from being in a crowd to actually stepping into being a disciple so we're going to be in mark 3. this is what we're going to talk about this idea of moving from the crowd to disciple so if you're with me turn to mark 3 7 through 10. they told me i was talking really fast i'm trying to slow down and take a breath here for you guys yeah bianca and i are having a contest who could talk faster so usually she wins most of the time you know she asked me this week for like a podcast you know like what's one thing that uh you have learned in marriage i said you are always right free marriage advice right there okay so uh so mark 3 verse 7 7-10 this is going to be kind of our main verse for today and so we're going to read this and you're going to see the two groups you're going to see the crowds and you're going to see the disciples as he goes through this so uh 7-10 and 13-19 the first one jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake and a large crowd from galilee followed when they heard about all that he was doing many people came to him from judea jerusalem idomia and the regions across the jordan around tyria and sydian because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him to keep the people from crowding him for he had healed many so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him so there we get a picture of what the crowds are we're going to talk about those in a second jump down to verse 13. jesus went up on a mountainside and he called to him those he wanted and they came to him he appointed 12 that they might be with him and then he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons these are the 12 he appointed simon who is also known as peter james son of zebedee and his brother john and they were known as the sons of thunder wouldn't you like a documentary i'd like to just find out why are they called the sons of thunder like wouldn't that be kind of fun like like wouldn't you want to hang out with them to find out what they did right they'd be you want them on your team right you've got andrew you've got philip you've got bartholomew you've got matthew thomas james another james uh this simon the zealot and judas of course who betrayed it and so we've got this disc we've got these two different groups we've got the crowds we've got the disciples and one of the things that we're going to talk about today is that the crowds believed in jesus but all believers are not disciples and so we want to move from being in the crowd to actually being a disciple and so we talk about the crowds here's what we know about the crowds in this passage is that they had heard about jesus they knew who jesus was and you know again think about it in the stand time they didn't have like you know social media they didn't have like you know direct mail they didn't have any of those things so like they were like sitting at the local coffee shop in jerusalem like hey have you heard about jesus like that's how they passed on like that's how they found out about what jesus was doing so they had heard about him and they came from up to 75 100 miles away just to see them so again they don't got cars they don't they don't have a transportation system they're either walking or they're riding something right you know so um and it's probably an animal not not a car right you know but so they're they're moving they're coming 100 miles to see them and so we know that the people that were gathering it was the common people as people like the farmers and fishermen it was the outcasts it was the account the tax collectors and and uh prostitutes and it was it was just really ordinary people and even in that group was people that were probably sick or had diseases and they had tried you know they had no hope they had tried medicine they had tried um you know going to other religions to figure out how to solve that all that kind of stuff and and yet they didn't work so they're going to jesus going jesus i hope jesus can do so i heard he can heal people right so they want the benefit of jesus and you can think about this crowd is gathering with him like this crowd is massive crowd and everywhere he goes he draws a crowd now i just want to pause for a second and just say you know what this is the the first weekend in september um i don't know about you but i love the following we also love the fall pumpkin spice lattes right we have some people in here for those this came out like in august i don't know what that is but but what's amazing about the fall is that football is starting okay you guys are much more enthusiastic about football than the first group right so football is starting and you could be you could be in england and talk about football because it's starting there too you know just different kind of football with your actual feet and we've we've got american football here at college football is happening and my son parker is entering into his senior year and he's playing uh football so we're paying a little bit more attention to colleges and different things but two weeks ago he had his first home game and austin all the kids showed up all the parents showed up it's the first time really that we had a crowd in a long time because last year he played with like you know like 10 people in the audience right so here's this huge crowd and man they're like they're dressed up they've got like face paint on and their mascots the dog the bulldogs and you hear people like barking you know like i mean the fans are going nuts right they're just they're excited to be a part of this you can smell these you know they probably taste really nasty hot dog but they smell really good so you have to have one you've got the nachos with that fake cheese and i don't even know if it's cheese but it still tastes good you know like it's like you got all this stuff happening in the crowd and we get to watch we get to watch them play this game here's the players out there and the coaches are out there coaching and we're in the audience and cheering and like you know even we even say stuff like this if our team wins we're like we won right we didn't do anything like we were in the stands in the audience right we didn't do it we're in the crowd we won we won and what's what's interesting is you talk about this barrel of the crowds is here's what here's what i say is that the crowd gets to go home at the end of the game the players and the coaches prepare for the next game and when jesus is talking to the crowds he's saying i don't want you just to be a spectator of what i'm going to do i actually want you to become a player in what i'm going to do i want to put you in the game i want you to be part of this i want you to be a disciple so we talked about this idea of moving from the crowd to becoming a disciple it's becoming a spec being going from a spectator to being a player in the game and that's what jesus was really passionate about and so in the book of mark this is what he walks through he wants to identify the crowds and he wants to give us characteristics of the crowds so look at mark 3 3 verse 10. he said in verse 10 for he had healed many so that those with diseases were pushing toward to touch him you can see the crowd was there because they wanted the benefit of jesus they wanted the experience of jesus but they didn't necessarily want to follow jesus they wanted to get what he had because he could actually give him a benefit he could heal them they didn't necessarily want to be with jesus you know it's interesting uh as a church uh three years we've every year bianca and i and some of the team we go away and we really pray about what's the verse and what's the word that god's gonna give us for this next season and this year this word was unshaken how many of you have needed that word this year right it feels like a year we've had to be unshaken right and that's really based on luke 6 verses 46 through 49 and jesus is doing the same thing he's doing the same thing to this group of people there's a there's a crowd there and he says this in verse 46. what good does it do for you to say i am your lord and master if you don't put into action what i teach you put into practice what i teach you and he goes on and he talks about these two different groups he talks about the disciples and he talks about the crowd and this is how he describes the disciples disciples are those who build in the right place and lay a secure foundation to a storm or withstand the storms of life how many of us have needed to have to withstand some storms of life in this last season right and so he goes they are unshaken and so he says i want you to put his words into practice put his teachings into practice and then he goes on and he says here's the crowd the crowd are those that hear but they don't obey it's like building a house with no foundation and so he asked this question he goes hey which of these builders are you going to be and he's and he's saying that to the crowd are you going to stay in the crowd and be a spectator or are you going to step into and become a player and be a disciple in what i'm doing and so he goes through this he goes all through the gospels he's always inviting us to move from the crowd to the disciples now the gospel of mark is written by mark obviously john mark and he was with peter so he kind of got that eyewitness account from peter but when mark is writing this i think it's really important to know like in the context which they're writing the gospel so mark is writing this to a group of christians that their world has been completely shaken like we totally should be able to relate to this book and it's why mark uses action-packed language it's why he uses words like immediately 40 times because their world is in crisis and in fact it was written two christians that were in rome and the time the book was written we know that christians that were in rome at this time they didn't have the freedoms that we have today they did not have the freedom to go to church they didn't have the freedom to go uh to a community group which are kicking off this weekend of course um they didn't have the freedom to do anything they were being persecuted for their faith and when you think about this idea like sometimes we don't always understand this idea being persecuted and uh in a former life i was a missions pastor so i got to travel all over uh the world and so at best i was in a country where i had to be careful what i said at best and really the only time i've really experienced persecution is when you're on the airplane in the right home and they're like the person next to you turns to like what are you doing you're like a pastor and you watch them put on their headphones just kind of turn away like this you know and they're like this they just ignore you like that's the only persecution really honestly that we've really felt but in this time in rome and not not unlike what's happening today in afghanistan where people are going door to door and they're hunting down christians they're killing them they're persecuting them for their faith and i don't know if you knew this i didn't really know much about the kind of like the persecuted church is that right now there's about 340 million people globally that are being persecuted for practicing their christian faith not just all faiths christian faith and it makes them the largest persecuted religious group in the world and yet we have the freedom to sit here and gather and be in community groups and do all kind of sing songs and do everyone yet there are people that are really wrestling with their faith their world is being turned upside down and so mark is writing to these christians in rome where they're where they're being persecuted they're being killed and it's probably estimated at that time roughly about six of the disciples uh james and andrew and matthew and simon the zealot and jude and eventually peter they were actually killed for their faith probably at the time that this book was written so you can see that the christians are going man what's happening you can see mark's passion for going i want to communicate jesus is the messiah he's worth it he is who he says he is and so that's why mark is so passionate about communicating that and saying hey because that's who he is i want you to step in i want you to follow him become a disciple and so he can you know again talking more about um what's happening at this point in time in terms of the christians is that uh at that time that the book was written emperor nero was in power over rome now if you know anything about history emperor nero was not a nice guy um he actually killed like his mom and like his wife and anybody else that got away and he saw christianity kind of just exploding like all kinds of people are coming to faith and he was threatened and he thought they were eventually going to take over rome so he needed a way to start to persecute the christians so you know what he did he started a fire in rome that lasted for seven to ten days and did probably more damage than the earthquake we just saw in haiti i mean it devastated rome just devastated it and so he said hey it's because these christians are gathering that this fire started even though he started it and it gave him permission to start to persecute the christians and so they're wrestling the world is their world has been turned upside down and mark is writing to him in this situation and he's saying he's saying to them then if jesus is the messiah your circumstances don't define jesus jesus defines your circumstances if you if he's really is who he says he is it doesn't matter what's happening around you doesn't matter your situation doesn't matter your circumstances don't let your circumstances define jesus let jesus define your circumstances and he's writing he's pleading with the christians in rome and man i just think this is a book that's so relevant for us today with all that's happening around us today is jesus who he says he is is he worth it and what he says in uh in john 15 as he's getting ready to go to the cross the next day he's talking to his disciples and this is what he says in john 15 16-17 he says you did not choose me i chose you i appointed you so that you might go out and bear fruit fruit that will last and so whatever you ask in my name the father will give you this is my command to love each other and i want you to know just right now there's pro there's somebody watching online there's somebody in this room or the video experience jesus has chosen you jesus has chosen doesn't matter what you've done doesn't matter your background doesn't matter your experience jesus has chosen you he has chosen you to move from the crowd to become a disciple and so we want to talk about this idea of what it looks like to become a disciple what is what does that mean disciples were different they weren't in the crowd they actually took a step out and they became something different so we would talk about what it means to be a disciple to move from being that spectator that fan i just want to watch what jesus is doing to actually being in the game participating with him changing the world so he gives us a couple things in mark 3 verses 13 through 15. this is going to be kind of our main text he says this jesus went up on the mountainside and he called to him those he wanted and they came to him and he pointed 12 that they might be with him and they might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons now uh if you've been doing your homework anybody been doing their homework okay okay look there's a little bit more than nine o'clock that was doing their homework if i'm honest right this is probably you guys are here for the first time but hey we just want to challenge you to do homework and here's what it is is we just want you to read that book you know again like i said mark four so uh but if you know if you're doing your homework uh in mark mark one he actually calls for the disciples uh peter and andrew who are brothers he calls them then james and john the the sons of thunder which are kind of curious to me but um we call them and then uh in mark two he calls levi or matthew and matthew was his tax collector guy and what matthew does is he's called these he throws this huge party and jesus joins them and just they're just kicking it hanging out and jesus is there and everybody gets all the pharisees get mad and so matthew becomes a disciple and so when he talk about becoming a disciple here's the first thing that we need to know in verse 13 it says that jesus called them in that day here's here's what a disciple is a disciple is a student a rabbi was a teacher okay so to become a disciple was to become kind of a student but not a student like we think of a student because like you know when we go to school you think about we don't necessarily want to be with the teacher we want to we want the grade that the teacher is going to give us because we want it to actually benefit what we're going to do we actually don't want to be with the teacher in that day their system was i want to be with the teacher i wanna i wanna learn who this person is i wanna study them i wanna i wanna i wanna learn what they're saying i wanna understand what they're saying i wanna i wanna model them in every way and so when jesus comes along and actually chooses his disciples that wasn't how it went that wasn't what was happening and in that system what would happen is the the students they would go to i'm going to use like modern terms uh as a kids they would go to elementary school that was the hubris system they go to elementary school and they and they would study under rabbi and what would happen at that point in time when they finished elementary school is only the best students went on to high school and in fact a lot of times at that point in time what they would do is they would go learn a family trade and so when you see uh peter and andrew fishing and james and john fishing it means they flunked out of school somewhere along this equation and they're now picking up the family trade okay then they go into high school and the only the best heist the only best students at the end of high school the league of elite they have to apply to uh study under a rabbi and so when jesus is coming and he's saying hey i'm choosing my own disciples they don't have to apply to be with me he is breaking down barriers and saying listen i want you to move from being in the crowd to become my disciple it's not about what you did or what you earn it's about what i'm doing that's calling you to become a disciple and so what's what's you know what's interesting about the disciples as we kind of look at them is that uh oftentimes if you look on tv or like the movies where like there's movies about jesus you know and the disciples usually are kind of like these older guys with like a beard and they're kind of hairy right like a little bit bigger right like you see like you'll see the movies like that that's the disciples the disciples would have been anywhere between the ages of 13 and 25. they would have been kids following jesus to become a rabbi you had to be 30 years old and so jesus started his ministry was 30 so they all were under younger than jesus so they were they were young kids following jesus and what would happen is as if you as you apply to become studying a rabbi is a rabbi would accept you and you would move in with him that's why you see peter and andrew and james and john they're moving into they're following jesus they would go everywhere and anywhere he went and they would study everything he said they would memorize what they said because they didn't have like a place to take notes right they had to memorize it recite it and teach it and that's what they do they memorize hey what does it mean to who is this teacher who is this rabbi and so they were constantly with him and that was their calling their calling was to be like the teacher to be like jesus and what's interesting is i think sometimes as we talk about this idea of calling is we get calling and career mixed up we get calling and career mixed up we think that the career is oftentimes about us a calling is not about us it's about him in fact if you're thinking about a career it's usually about your purpose it's usually about what you're good at a calling is about jesus purpose and you know what's interesting when you think about finding your career you find your career by networking you find your calling as it says here in mark 3 by withdrawing you find your you know your career you want a job description in calling you want a god conviction in a career it says i need to be told what to do in a calling i do what jesus did and a career is about status and climbing the corporate ladder calling is about surrendering to his purpose not mine career is an earthly gain calling is an eternal game and so when he's inviting people to come from the crowd to the to become a disciple it's so much bigger than that it's so much bigger than what just he just wanted us to watch he wants us to join in what he's doing and that's why he was passionate about having believers become disciples and so i want to spend some time just talking about what it means to be a disciple like what does that look like and how do we do that and what does that unpack and here's the here's the crazy thing about what jesus did by calling his disciples is you think about that time is most of the time the disciples would have had to apply to be with the teacher by jesus choosing his disciples i think what he was doing is he broke down every barrier every excuse for people to move from a crowd to disciple i want to make it as easy as possible i'm going to choose the ordinary of the ordinary i'm going to choose the uneducated i'm going to choose those that dropped out of school i'm going to there's no barrier to us moving from crowd to disciple we just have to move from where we're at to where he is and so he wants to invite his disciples by the crowd to become disciples and so we'll look at this what does it mean to be a disciple we'll look at mark 3 13-15 it gives us three things of how we move from the crowd to becoming a disciple so mark 3 says this that's our main verse jesus went up on the mountainside and he called to those called him to those he wanted and they came to him he appointed the twelve that them might be with him and that they might send him out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons and if you're taking notes the first thing the difference in the disciple the first thing isabel does is they were with him the disciple is with jesus they were with him they chose to move from where they're at to move where he is they wanted to be with him and so you think about that idea of being a disciple studying on a rabbi they would have moved in they would have done everything and anything that he did they wanted to be about his purposes not their purposes and so they followed him everywhere he went and they memorized his teachings and they became his disciples they were with him all the time it was about his purposes not their purposes it's interesting the crowds wanted the benefit of jesus i want what jesus has to offer i don't necessarily want to be with jesus there's a difference in those two things because when you know who he is it changes who you are when you understand that he's the messiah it's going to change who you are and so he wants to go he doesn't just hear i don't want to just watch i actually want to be in the presence of jesus i want to be his disciple i want to be with him because it's going to change who you are it's going to drastically change who you are you think about like you know the disciples it says this in acts 4 13. peter and john were with some with some people and this is what they said when they saw peter and john he said when they saw the courage of peter and john and realized that they were unschooled see they didn't have any schooling they were ordinary men they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with jesus the only thing that was different about them is that they had been with jesus you can tell when somebody has been with jesus uh you know you can see what happens when they're which is because their life changes their life is transformed they're in the game they're they're doing things that you're not you're just watching you're actually becoming a disciple they're with jesus and at tf hoc one of the things we're excited about is we're passionate about helping our community us move from being in the crowd to being a disciple and everything that jesus did um he did in a group he had us 12 people his 12 disciples they sat around a table they did all kinds of stuff and in fact this sunday uh we're launching our community groups it's a way see there's like five people excited about campus you guys should all be excited about coming groups there you go there you go and yeah there we go there's carla yes so so community group you think about this is you get to be with other people that are excited about jesus and you get to study his active living word where not only just you read it but it actually reads you and changes your life you get to be together and you're with jesus i mean the amazing thing is that the disciples wrote the gospels so that we could actually have the living word of god that could actually transform and change us and so we want to be together in a group our community groups are launching that we get to be together and study to study the words of jesus we get to be with him and in fact there's all kinds of fun groups there's launching there's like ones that are about the sermon there's uh there's guys and girls groups there's there's one on prayer there's one on the character of god there's all kind there's like 40 groups happening this was one of my favorite i saw this title it said thriving in babylon i was like ooh that sounds really fun i want to be i want to join that one there's a that'd be great you know i want to understand what that is about but then there's you know there's one for entrepreneurs if you're not entrepreneur business how do you take the word of god the living word of god and actually apply it to your business so that you're out in the world you actually can what does it look like to be a model model that uh in fact uh myself i myself in uh i'm leading one and with uh the old sins brian elizabeth's right here if you are seriously dating or getting engaged we're actually leading a community group for that we want to take the word of god and actually apply it to relationships right because we want to have godly relationships and so uh you need to be in a group with other people the other way that we do that here at tfhs we have something called school leadership now we don't talk about it very much but this is kind of like if you've done the community group thing and you want to deep dive into like studying leadership and ministry in the old testament new testament and who jesus was it's a six month thing that we do you have to apply it starts in january and you get a deep dive into hey this is what it means to be a follower of jesus that's what it means to be a disciple and of course i always want to encourage you to read the word of god to do our homework as we're kind of going through it the first thing is we really want to be with him we want to be with jesus and that's the ways we do the second thing he talks about in this passage he says this mark 13 14-15 he appointed 12 that they might be with him and then he might send them out to preach now i think a lot of times we hear that we're like you know i got the jesus thing like i can be with jesus that's okay i can be in a group i can be with jesus but now you're asking me to preach like i'm out i'm out this is i'm gonna stay in the audience i'm gonna stay in the crowd i don't wanna i don't have to preach now some of you might be called to preach and teach amen we'll talk after that we'll you know after this but here's what's amazing about preaching is preaching is proclaiming the word of god proclaiming the word of god and actually paul gives us a way that he does it most often paul says this in first corinthians 9 this is what he says he says he becomes all things to all people in order to win them for christ in other words paul lives his life a certain way that his life proclaims the gospel look what he says in verse 21 i have adapted to the culture of every place i've gone so that i can more easily win people to christ i've done this so that i would become god's partner for the sake of the gospel how he lived his life actually moved people it was actually preaching the gospel it was showing jesus to them and i think sometimes we think it has to be about preaching or teaching our testimonies those things but how we choose to live matters today francis of assisi said it this way he said preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words preach the gospel at all times when necessary use words i think the greatest sermon you can ever do is by how you live your life i think the greatest preach you can ever do is by how you live your life and and i love some of the projects that we have here at tf hsc we have a project um that we call laundry of love and what is laundry of love is that we have our team our outreach team it's led by chris galbes as they actually they actually go out into the community and they go to laundromats usually in low-income places and uh they just say we want to bless you guys and they set up a little table there and they give them drinks and food and and then they offer to pay for their laundry and what's amazing is just doing something nice we're just going to bless them we're just going to do something nice and what's amazing is when they say that hey we want to pay for your laundry this is what they do like whoa whoa whoa what what's the catch uh what's the catch you know like what you're gonna write down my name like you gonna follow me home like what do you what do you want from me what i i don't want i don't want you to pay for my laundry like they're super resistant just by living different because it's not the world the way the world operates so just by loving them and say no no no we just love jesus we want to pay for your laundry and you can watch this barrier they've created just fall down just by living the way just living our life differently we're living counter-cultural to the world we're loving them and we're blessing them and it's amazing to hear the stories that are coming out of the the the laundry of love there's a story about a girl named ashley and she was um she was there and they invited her to come to church it was easter sunday and she actually she showed up at church and it was amazing to watch her come to church and there's another story about a guy named uh eric and he was in the laundromat and he just you know he's having a conversation because you know when when the world we kind of have this barrier up to the world but jesus breaks down this barrier you guys see how that happened jesus breaks this down and also they want to have a conversation about life and what's going on he's going you know what i've just lived my life so far from jesus and right there in the laundry mat he goes hey can i give my life to jesus right here and right now just by choosing to live differently just by being counter-cultural to the world and i think it's such an important thing as we think about not just not about preaching the gospel just in terms like putting together a sermon putting the message it's how we choose to live our lives in fact in the book of acts when you get to see the new church starting the new testament church starting it says that they were added to their number daily by the way that they live their lives it wasn't their preaching it wasn't their teaching it wasn't their worship it was they were different than the world that they lived in and here's what i believe is that god has placed each one of you each one myself he's placed us in strategic opportunities whether that be your workplace whether it's your family whether that's your neighborhood he has placed you there because you might be the only example that of jesus people get to see because he wants our lives to look different third thing is this what does it take to become a disciple disciples practiced authority verse 14 he appointed the twelve that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons pastor bianca talked a little bit about this in week one we talked about authority and then when you know who he is it changes everything about you and there is power in his name there's power over darkness in his name there is power over sickness in his name there's power over disease in his name you have power over your marriage in his name you have power over your family in his name you have power over your kids in his name and i think so many of us are are watching and we want to be playing and we have to practice that authority we have to step into you don't just become a player just by all sudden earning it you practice you step into what god has for you and you start to believe that god has given you authority not because of anything we've done because it's not about our ability it's about our availability and it's not what we're gonna do it's about what he's already done for us and so we have that authority we have that power and i think we're just sitting here going you know this is just the way life is this is the way life you know this life just happens to you and jesus go listen would you take charge would you actually believe that you're a disciple of me because of what i've done that you could actually take authority over your life that you can actually take lord and all those things a chains can be broken that you can be set free it's why paul tells his disciple timothy hey god didn't give you a spirit of fear he gave you a spirit of power power he gave you a spirit of power you have authority as a disciple disciples were always with him they preached the gospel with how they lived and they practiced their authority because of who jesus was and here's what's amazing as you think about the disciples and what they did is that all 12 of them because judas he got replaced right it's all 12 of them were so overcome by who jesus was that they went to the ends of the earth to tell people that they had been with him they went to egypt they went to spain they went to persia they went to greece they went to all these places in fact we are sitting here today because they were going out because they were with jesus you know what they told the people as they encountered them he said listen we've been with jesus you can be with jesus you can be connected to him you can don't just watch what god is doing actually step into what god is doing you can be a disciple you can be a follower of him and so they went to the ends of the earth to do that and what i believe is we're kind of talk as we enter into year three at tf hoc is i believe i believe this i believe god is just getting started i believe he's just getting started and we want to celebrate all the things that he's done there's thousands of people that have come to know him there's lives that have been changed already but here's what i believe is i believe that's just the tip of the iceberg of what god wants to do through this church because it's you it's not it's not bianca and i it's you stepping into saying i don't want to i don't want to watch anymore i don't want to be a spectator i actually want to step into what god has for me i actually want to become a disciple god use me i want my life to be the reflection of the gospel i want to step into my authority and power because of what you've done and i believe that this place this area what's happening in line is going to be different because of your yes because you get to step into that and become a disciple and what i want to do right now is it starts with you saying yes to jesus and we do this every week is that part of part of stepping into being a disciple is saying yes i want to believe jesus is who he says he is that he is worth it that that what he that he is who he says he was and i don't know where you're at as you've come into this space i don't know if you're close to him i don't know if you're far away from him i don't know if you've ever said yes to jesus before maybe you were part of the church and now you're just kind of coming back into the church but i believe it starts with us saying yes to jesus we don't have a relationship with him because he died on the cross for you he chose you he chose death on the cross so that you could become a disciple and so what i want to do is i want to give anyone and everyone an opportunity to say yes to jesus and here's what i'm going to do i'm going to ask us just to kind of bow our heads and i'm going to count to three and if that's you if you feel like you've not had that relationship with them i just want to invite you to raise your hand if you've been disconnected from the church for a season and that's when you want to come back you're turning around repenting and coming back i want to invite you to raise your hand and by raising your hand one you're acknowledging that jesus is who he says he is that he is lord and savior overall and two you're admitting that we are a sinner that we have made mistakes that we've missed the mark and three we're inviting the holy spirit to come into our life to guide us and shape us so that we can step into what god has for us and so if that's you that's where you're at you want to say yes to jesus just raise your hand one two three amen amen amen amen online go ahead and put it in the chat box oh man hey those are the video experiences that's you we see you we see you right where you're at and here's what i want to do can we just pray together can we pray together and then we want to continue to worship and would you just do this would you repeat after me dear jesus thank you for dying on the cross for me thank you for forgiving my sins thank you for sending the holy spirit jesus i love you amen fam thank you so much for joining us but don't stop here if you enjoyed this message be sure to take a moment and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss a single video or live stream and if this ministry impacted you in any way and you'd like to partner with us to continue to reach the globe click on the link below and be sure to share this message with friends and family join us live every sunday at 9 00 a.m and 11 a.m pacific standard time we love you and remember you have a seat at the table [Music] you

Channel: The Father's House OC

Views: 1,452

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bianca Olthoff, Leadership, Chosen, Called, Matt Olthoff, The Father's House OC, TFHOC, The Father's House, Elevation Church, Transformation church, Seven Furtick, Mike Todd, Christine Caine, TD Jakes, Robert Madu, Social Dallas, Leading in Crisis, How to know my purpose, what is my calling, What is my purpose?, Marked, Book of mark, Marked for power, Let go of the past, You Have authority, Authority of God, Power of God, Mark 3, Crowd vs Calling, Calling vs Purpose

Id: sbEIKw4W1VM

Length: 37min 22sec (2242 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021