From Community to Commissioning (Mark 6:7-13)

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All right, so we are in Mark six. We’re gonna be verses seven through 13 today. Last year, I heard an interview with Pastor Joby Martin. He’s a pastor down in Florida, and he was talking about a time that he was coaching a high school football team, and he said all the guys in the gym, in the weight room were doing bicep curls and trying to do more than the guy kind of next to them. And then, for some reason, they put mirrors in weight rooms. And so what do you think these guys were doing, flexing in the mirror, seeing how they looked as they’re lifting, taking selfies or photos of each other? Because that’s what you do. And you know what happens in sports is what we see on the field is often the result of what’s happening in the weight room, what’s happening in the practice facility. So here he is trying to get this team ready for a season, and he’s seeing them do these ridiculous exercises that have nothing to do with getting better at football. It’s just about looking better. And so he gets so angry, he finally yells in the weight room this statement, everyone wants to be strong. No one wants to be sore. Think about that. Everyone wants to be strong. No one wants to be sore. We want the results without the hard work going into it. We want the outcome. And when he said that, one of my first thoughts was that that is how we are with mission in the church. We get really excited about baptisms. We get really excited about hearing about people who come to faith in Jesus. Do we understand all the work that went into that to get to that point like we want to gather and praise Jesus like we have been this morning, it was awesome to hear you guys singing like a choir behind me. I love sitting up here, because that for that reason, to be able to praise God together as a community, and then our plan is to come back next week, and what we’d love to see, and I know this is the desire of most of you here, the desire is that somebody else is in that pew who wasn’t there last week, who now knows Jesus, and they can praise God with us. But what’s happening in the middle? What’s happening between this Sunday and that Sunday, to actually see that happen? And so what we’ve been talking about in this series of own the mission is the middle, like our hearts desire, as Christians, to grow, and then our hearts desire to see other people know Jesus and grow. And so what’s in the middle is owning the mission, to see this in our life and to see it in the lives of others. So everything in the middle is the mission that we’re focused on, that we’ve been called to. It’s us saying, I will own the mission. Ultimately, it’s the work of the Spirit, but it’s the work of the Spirit through our faithful obedience to God’s call on our lives. So are you willing to go through the exhaustion and the soreness in order to get there, in order to see those gains? And so we’re going to finish up our series, and what we’re looking at today is kind of moving from community to commissioning, and I need to set up a little bit of context here in Mark six, since we’re kind of jumping we’re kind of jumping in here, since in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been starting to get a bigger following. He’s been performing some miracles. He’s been doing some teaching, so people are starting to understand who he is. And right before our passage today, Jesus is in his hometown. But what we see here is he’s not really the hometown hero that we’re thinking he might be. He goes in and he teaches, and he’s amazing the people there by his teaching, but they start to question him. They start to ask these things, like we he went to school with our kids, like we saw him grow up. We know his family. He did work at my house with his dad, and these questions start to turn almost it says they took offense at Him, and their questions are more kind of a jealousy, an accusation of really like, who is he? Who does he think he is? Does he think he’s better than us? Why does he think he’s so special? And Jesus leaves there, and it says he was amazed at their lack of faith. It’s then that we find out Jesus is going to go and he’s going to go on this speaking tour, but it isn’t going to be Jesus with his 12 Disciples standing behind him. Jesus is going to go, but he’s also sending out His disciples on their own speaking tour, and that’s we’re going to pick up our passage. So as we read, there are some important reminders for us about that middle, about what does it look like to own the mission. So you’re gonna see today that we are on the team, that you have your instructions, and you know what to do. So let’s look at Mark six. I’m gonna read seven through 13. I’m gonna actually start six, the second half of verse six. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village, calling the 12 to him. He began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions. Take nothing for the journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra. Shirt whenever you enter. How stay there until you leave that town, and if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. So first, you are on the team. That’s what we see in verse seven. We’ve already talked about this in this series, in fact, but back in Mark chapter three, Jesus calls people to Himself, this large group of people to Himself on a mountainside. And from these people, it says in verse 14, he appointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have authority to drive out demons. So this is what he does. He calls them to himself, and he says, You’re gonna have, you’re gonna preach and you’re gonna have authority to drive out demons. And these are the 12 Disciples that we’ve come to know, to love in our lives, and kind of look back on as kind of representative of kind of how we follow Jesus, too. And here in Mark six, Jesus is calling these 12 to himself again to fulfill what he already said was going to happen. He’s saying it’s time now for you to go and to do what I said I called you to do. So it’s time to take the training wheels off, get them started and see where they go and what they do. And he sends them out two by two. A couple different reasons for this. This was a typical practice for Jesus and for the Jews at that time, since it was required in the Old Testament to have two witnesses. So Jesus could have expanded the ministry even further by having 12 villages covered. But instead there’s six, because they’re going two by two. Because if you’re going to go in to a city, to a town, to a people who may or may not know you, and you’re going to proclaim this message, you don’t want to be there by yourself, because they probably wouldn’t even listen to you, but when there’s two, there’s a little bit more credibility to what you’re saying. And so he sends them out two by two. The second reason is that we are best on mission when we’re doing it with other people, when we’re not going at it alone. Christianity is not meant to be a lone ranger experience in all sorts of areas. This being one of them, it’s meant to be lived out with others. So imagine if Jesus sends Peter into a town. How quickly does Peter get kicked out of that town when he opens his big mouth? He does it a lot in the Gospels. And you think Peter, by himself, is a good evangelist. I think having that second person there is pretty important to Peter’s ministry. And what’s interesting is how Jesus assembled the 12 Disciples. How did he assemble these guys to go out two by two? There’s been all sorts of guesses on how exactly he did this. Lot of people think James and John went together because they’re brothers. Have you been around brothers Peter and Andrew? Same thing, but James and John, they’re a different set of brothers. These guys are the sons of thunder. At one point, they’re so mad at these people that they tell Jesus to rain down fire and just destroy them all. So I’m thinking these two guys together in a town, probably not a good idea. But I don’t know how Jesus actually paired them up, but I would assume he’s pairing them up based off of what he knows of their personality and how they’re going to work together. So he he sends them out two by two for these different reasons. We need community on mission. When Jesus gathered His disciples together, these 12, when he taught them and spoke to them and model for them. It was always meant to be taken from this smaller group to other people. That was the whole goal. So he sends them out to start this ministry with him, not being there with them. So again, think about how much more confident are you if I was to say, let’s go out on the street and find some people talk about Jesus. What’s your comfort level? If it’s you one on one or you with two on one, you probably want somebody else there with you. And that’s what Jesus knows, and that’s why he sends them out in this way. Now it doesn’t give us an excuse to not say something one on one, so don’t hear me say that. Well, I’m by myself. So there are times and places we need to be able to give an answer. There are times and places where we need to proclaim the gospel and we are by ourselves. We need to take advantage of those moments. But when we can, let’s have somebody who’s alongside us to pursue other people to be on mission together. There’s examples in this church, dozens of examples, of many of you who have mutual friends, who you’ve decided, hey, let’s get together. Let’s do something simple. Let’s just get to introduce each other, and let’s just talk. Let’s just act normal. Let’s and let’s see where the conversation goes. Some of you have served people that you know, and so there’s dozen examples of what this looks like, even amongst our congregation. And I know for myself when I had a friend of mine who joined the baseball that was the only believer on my baseball team in college, and my junior year, we had a guy who transferred in and he was a Christian, and it automatically just changed the way that I viewed my team, the way that we had conversations together, and the conversations that we had with our other teammates. So it just makes a difference when you’re in community, on mission. Plus, we’re going to say some things that sound pretty outrageous. Are we not like the disciples are now proclaiming this gospel about Jesus, and he hasn’t died yet, he hasn’t risen from the grave yet, but eventually they will proclaim that message, and that is a message that people cannot hear, do not want to hear, cannot comprehend. So how much better is it? But I could say, look, I believe this. And they’re like, well, that’s okay. You believe that, but I say, but they believe it, and they believe it. And this person is with me again. It changes the conversation, changes the credibility that we have. So it’s important to know that we’re sent out to you by two and then Jesus also gives them authority over impure spirits. This is important, but this is not Jesus’ primary ministries to do miracles and to drive out demons. This is something he did to confirm what he was saying about himself, and this is something he gave to the disciples in this moment to say, you have authority in this moment to do this, to cast out demons and to heal. Why? Because it confirmed their message. The people that they’re going to are hearing about this Jesus guy who is teaching these things, and then he’s doing these miracles. And so if they come in and they’re saying, Let me tell you about Jesus, He wants them to be able to confirm what who he is by the things that they’re doing. And so He gives them this authority in this moment. Now, whenever Jesus sends out disciples, whether it’s 12 here, he sends out 72 a little bit later in Mark, it’s an opportunity for his ministry to expand beyond what he could do alone, because Jesus, in His humanity, is restricted to one place at one time. And so he gathers this team, and the disciples are on the team. But we need to hear this. We are on the team too. We are on the team too. And so he has called us to, yes, gather together as community, but then to go out and we do it better when we’re doing it together. So what we have here in miniature is what Jesus would eventually do on a global scale, through his followers, through all generations, up to today. And it’s not going to end with us. It’s going to continue. So if you’re thinking about the team aspect, this is the kind of rah rah portion, like, let’s get excited, because we’re on the team. God has called us to this. But then we quickly find out what the instructions are, and we realize there’s going to be a lot of soreness involved. There’s going to be a lot of tough days. Things aren’t just going to happen overnight. So let’s look at that second point. There you have your instructions picking up in verse eight. These were his instructions. Take nothing for the journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. So there are three things that we learn here from Jesus’s instructions. First, the mission is urgent. The mission is urgent what Jesus tells the disciples, what he tells the Israelites in Exodus at the Passover as they’re gathering in their homes to eat the Passover meal, there’s blood over their doorposts, and the angel of death is coming. And this is what he says as you’re eating this meal in verse 11. This is how you are to eat it with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. So God is telling him there’s urgency here. Like, as soon as this is over, you’re going to need to leave, like, Pharaoh’s going to let you go. And so you need to be ready. You can’t just be like, Oh, well, let’s start packing our stuff. No, in this moment, at this meal you need to be ready. And Jesus is sending the disciples out now he’s not saying, Okay, this is part two. Now I’m really gonna take it seriously. I’m really gonna start training you guys. He says, No, this is the time like you guys are going out now. So this is the day the boss comes you and says, Hey, today you’re leading the meeting. This is the day as a student teacher that I experienced when the teacher gives you the grade book and says you have the class now, you’re like, Okay, here we go. Am I ready? Am I not ready? And Jesus saying, You guys are going, this is what you’re doing. It isn’t the time to say, Aren’t you gonna prepare me like Jesus is gonna look at him. What have I been doing? I’ve been teaching, I’ve been modeling, I’ve been talking to you. I’ve been explaining things to you. I’ve been showing you all this. The message is urgent. You need to go. So there’s an urgency to the mission. Second, the mission requires trust and dependence on God. How many of you are like packing people like packing gurus for a vacation, like be proud about it. Okay? So you like lists, right? To check off, to double check, make sure everybody has everything that they need. I am not like that. Okay, that is not me at all, which makes Jackie really happy, right? Because she is much more of that list, like, let’s make sure. Have everything that we need. So maybe that makes you squirm, like, I gotta see it all. I gotta, I gotta check it all. I don’t. There’s no way I trust my kids to pack their stuff. So I’m gonna go through that and make sure we have everything. And I’m just thinking, You know what? Like, we’re within minutes of a Walmart. Like, anywhere we go, we can go get what we need. Somebody forgot their toothbrush. Okay, we’ll get at the hotel. It’s 1999 but we can still get it Okay, so not that big of a deal, okay, but in this day and age when the disciples were being sent out by Jesus, not being prepared with the things you needed, like that was not how you wanted to leave. You wanted to have everything ready. You did not want to have to rely on others, but that’s what they’re going to have to do, like Jesus saying you need to go whatever you have go, and you need to rely on others. You need to rely on me to provide, or else they’re just going to go without because there isn’t a Walmart, and so they’re going to go without if they don’t have somebody do it for them. So Jesus is saying here, don’t take anything extra with you. He says, don’t book the nicest Airbnb when you get into town with a nice pool. That is not what you’re supposed to do. If somebody offers you a place, you go and you stay with them. You don’t look for something better. If somebody is hospitable, go take them up on their offer. This is how you’re going to survive. I’m going to provide for you. And so these are strangers, like they’re going to places they don’t know, these people, and they’re relying on God’s provision through them, through their hospitality, to welcome them in. And it’s provided by God. And we know they made it. They all come back so they were taken care of, God provided for them. But here’s the most important thing we need to see from this point, that it’s probably even tougher for us than it was for the disciples. Then it’s that we cannot wait to go on mission until things are comfortable. Okay? We cannot wait to go on mission until things are comfortable. I was at a lunch earlier this week with Lake Geneva ministries, and they had a bunch of different churches there, and one of the guys I sat at a table with, he was saying, for all of his youth retreats and stuff like, he he hates cabins, bunk beds, being with a lot of kids in a room. And so every time he’s like, retreats, like hotel, like, I need a bathroom, I need a nice bed and a pillow. And it’s like, okay, that’s that’s fine. Like, he’s a youth guy. He’s a little bit older, so the bed matters, because his back hurts, all that kind of stuff. So fine. That makes sense, until you start to take that into other areas, like missions trips. It’s very easy to tell someone, let’s go on a mission trip, if you like, well, we have really nice accommodations, and there’s some great food. Don’t worry, you won’t get sick. Like, all everybody’s like, Oh yeah, I’ll sacrifice to go on the mission trip. Like, there’s no sacrifice there. And let’s make it even more personal than that. More personal than that is, God, this has to happen in order for me to pursue that person. God, I need to see you do this before I even take a chance at risking rejection. You see, it gets very personal very quick, because we don’t want rejection. We don’t want to go through that. So what assurances do we have from God that we can take the first step and nothing bad is going to happen? Here are the assurances we get from Scripture. John 1520 if they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. He goes on to say, if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. We always like go to the persecution part second, Timothy 312, in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. But Matthew five tells us, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you? When people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you, because of me, Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. From the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you in John 1633, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace in this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world. Those are the assurances we have that trouble is coming. Persecution will come. We can’t be surprised by it. So the question isn’t, when is it going to be comfortable for me to risk it? The question should be, is Jesus worth the risk? Is someone else knowing Jesus worth the risk? You see what Jesus is saying here is, if you cannot go on a mission, unless everything is taken care of you and you’re comfortable, you won’t ever depend on me, which means you’ll never go. You’ll never go. We need to rely on. Him, and then we can be effective in our going. Why is the global church exploding? Like, Christianity around the world? Like, I know what we think. Here it’s dying. Like, it’s hard, it’s tough ground around the world, Christianity is exploding. People come to Jesus all the time. Could it be that people are coming to Jesus because they see people who are telling them about Jesus are truly risking their lives, that what they’re doing in that moment is saying this is worth it to this person, because they’re putting their life in danger right now by telling me this. So maybe there’s something to this, and we’re worried about having a nice place to go make sure it’s not too uncomfortable for us. But who will listen to our message if they do it, only when we feel it’s comfortable to share it with them. Do we expect people to die to self, take up their cross and follow us? If we won’t do the same, we have to ask ourselves this question. We do not tell God we will go on mission under our terms. He doesn’t leave that up to us. Third, we are not responsible for how others respond when we go people will reject us, not everyone, not all the time, but there will be rejection, and that’s how it feels, right? They reject us, but that’s not what they’re rejecting. That’s not true at all. We need to realize they’re not rejecting us. They are rejecting Jesus. They are rejecting the message that we are proclaiming to them. It’s not us. They’re rejecting Him. Now, rejecting once doesn’t mean they’re going to reject forever. So this isn’t that whole like, Well, I told them one time, and now I’m going to shake the dust off my feet as I leave. No, there is discernment that needs to happen. On when do we pursue people? When do we step back a little bit? But we keep praying, we keep pursuing their hearts, because we are representatives, ambassadors for Christ, which means it’s not our message anyway, it’s his. And so the rejection is of him. And so the shaking off the dust of our feet, it says, as a testimony, shows them that we are free, like we could walk away with a clear conscience that we have done what we were called to do. So in some ways, the shaking off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them is also comfort giving for us, it’s not your responsibility to make someone believe. Were you faithful? To go to them proclaim the gospel and they reject it, then you walk away. I have a clear conscience. I did what I was called to do so the comfort comes from knowing it isn’t up to us, but we need to make sure we’re actually proclaiming the gospel. Because here’s the thing going and just loving people or just serving them, and then saying, Well, you’re not kind of giving anything back to me. I’m going to leave our conscience should not be clear. We have not proclaimed the gospel to them. So it is not enough to just say, like, I love them. Well, I love them like Jesus. Did they hear the message? Because if they didn’t, then we can’t walk away, right? We are not clear in that moment. We need to proclaim it to them, and if that’s true, we can walk away saying, Lord, I’ve been faithful and proclaiming the good news, and they have rejected it. So it’s important for us too to understand that this is also not just comfort giving, but it can also be kind of grief inducing for us. So yes, we’re like, Hey, I’m clear I’ve done what I was called to do, but somebody has rejected Jesus, and that should do something to us. Should cause us to grieve when we shake off the dust from our feet. It’s not to be done with disdain. It’s not to be done with our noses up at them, as if we’re better than them. Instead, our hearts should break shaking the dust off our feet should be done with tears in our eyes, with compassion. When Jesus looked at the people and said, they’re like sheep without a shepherd, we grieve because we know what these people are missing out on. They’re missing out on their Savior, and rejection for Jesus has eternal consequences. And so if you’re here this morning, you’ve been rejecting like you’ve heard this message before, this is the time to repent, to say, No, I’m going to do something different than I’ve always done in rejecting it. I’m actually going to turn to it and I’m going to give my life to following Jesus, because this is who he is. He is the Savior of the world. He’s the savior of your life. So Jesus, though was rejected by many, we will expect that this will be part of our ministry too. And so Jesus prays in John 17, and I want to read it for us here that Erica read for us too. Jesus is praying to his father, and he’s praying for his disciples. And he says this, I’m coming to you now, but I say these things while I’m still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of this world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it, Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. So just like the disciples, we have been sent by Jesus into the world, knowing that if they hated him, they will hate us too because of the message. So we prepare for that rejection, for that opposition. And where is that rejection opposition coming from? It’s from the next section. You know what to do. Verses 12 and 13, you know what to do. Here’s what it says. They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. What do they preach repentance? What did John the Baptist preach? Mark one four, he came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. What did Jesus preach? Mark 114 after John was put in prison, Jesus went in Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come. He said the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news. So just to kind of pull in that last section, we were just in the message that John the Baptist preached of repentance led to him being killed. If you look down, it’s in the verses immediately after what I just read in Mark six. So Jesus sends His disciples on this mission, and the next section we get is John, the Baptist, is killed for the same thing. Jesus is killed after he proclaims a proclaims the good news. The truth is he’s the fulfillment of that good news, and he’s still killed. The disciples will all be persecuted. Most of them will be killed for proclaiming this same message after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. But we should be encouraged by that, not scared. We should be encouraged because the good news is worth all of it. It’s worth everything. John the Baptist saw it. Jesus saw it. The disciples saw it. We will see it too if we say it’s worth the risk to proclaim this good news. So they It all says. They drove out demons and healed the sick. They did everything. Jesus did everything that they saw him do. He gave them authority to do. They were representatives. There was no power in and of themselves to do this. It was in the name of Jesus, His authority given to them. This was the specific mission given to the 12. They’re doing what he did to confirm the message that they are proclaiming that he has given them to proclaim. And so if you are on the team, if you are in Christ, Jesus, you know what to do. Like we’re not spending a whole lot of time here. You have the message and the ministry of reconciliation. You know the Jesus that everybody else needs to hear about. So this is what Second Corinthians 520 tells us, we are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. That’s it. That’s the message we take. That’s the ministry we have, be reconciled to God, repent and believe the good news. This is what the disciples took out with them. This is what Jesus calls us to today. And when I say we move from community to commissioning, it doesn’t mean forever. It doesn’t mean we leave this community and we go on this mission and we never see each other again. We never gather together again. That’s not what happens. It just means that what we do here, right now, in this moment, on Sundays and throughout the week, should prepare us, equip us for the mission God has called us to. Maybe we do that in small groups. Maybe we partner with one other person on our own. Maybe it’s not a Christian who goes here, but a Christian in your workplace. Your workplace. He said, How can we do this together? Go on mission together? I know this is true because the disciples come back. Look at Mark 630 right after the episode of John the Baptist, Mark 630 says the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to Him all they had done and taught. They come back, they tell Jesus, this is what we did. This is what happened. Imagine the stories that they came back and told Jesus like they’ve seen him do it. But I got to believe they’re just in awe of him, giving them His authority, the fact that when they spoke in Jesus’ name, something happened. People repented. Demons were cast out, people were healed, so they come back, telling Jesus all that happened. They took their ministry seriously. Were they scared out of their minds? Probably. Were they all public speakers? Probably not. And so here they go, proclaiming this message, but they’re given the authority of Jesus, and we have the Spirit of God in us to proclaim this message. You have the assurances that we just talked about, and those assurances mean it’s going to be tough road. You’re going to be really sore, you’re going to be exhausted. Things are going to go badly for you, but it’s worth it when you see what happens in the life of people when they give their life to Jesus, it’s worth all of it. The community is the place where we come back for because you know what Jesus does next with His disciples. He says, Let’s go away and find a place to rest. Let’s go find a place to rest. Like you just did a lot of hard work in ministry. Let’s go rest and let’s be equipped before we go out on mission again. So here’s the big idea, kind of summing up the whole series, really, you are commissioned. So depend on Jesus and own the mission. You are commissioned. We’re not waiting for it. All of us in Christ are commissioned. So depend on Jesus, trust in Him, and own the mission. How are we going to do that? Well, at our church, we have these three L’s, this discipleship pathway, and I think if you follow this discipleship pathway, you’d see that you will be equipped to own the mission, to go out and feel confident in your ability to tell people the good news. So a few different ways. One, we learn from Jesus. We learn from Jesus. Brandon mentioned the missional pathway that we’re working on, that we’ll talk about in the future. But this is a great way for everybody to be trained on how to actually pursue people, pursue their hearts, to pray for them, to listen to them, to be with them, and to proclaim the good news. So this is a great way to do that. And everybody here will have the opportunity to be a part of that missional pathway. If you want to to say, Lord, I want to take this seriously. What can I do to do that? We also have journey group, and we have a whole mission section in Journey group, which will be, again, kind of new coming up here. So if you’ve done journey group before, but it’s going to be an opportunity to really work through some of this over a year, so that you can again feel confident in your ability to go out and proclaim the gospel. So basically, learning from Jesus is just, how do I how can I be strong through those sore days? How can I be strong through those sore days in that middle we keep learning from Jesus. The second thing is we love like Jesus. First. John two six says, Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. And John 1335 says, By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. If you love one another, this is what it is like for the disciples. They cast out demons and they heal people. You know what our world loves to see right now? People love each other and love each other. Well, that does way more than anything else. They’ll see these people genuinely love each other, and they will know that we are His disciples by our love for one another. And this happens in community groups, right? Being a part of community groups, being a part of people’s lives, encouraging them in this, encouraging them to live on mission. Because most of the time when we come together, we need that encouragement. We need that equipping to happen. We need that prayer to happen. Because when we leave, we’re nervous, it’s uncomfortable. And so we need that group of people that we can come back to time and time again to be encouraged and supported as we will go out again. And then finally, we lead for Jesus. You can do this in the church where you called the lead. In the church, we’ve got some community groups again, like I said, maybe you’re looking to lead a group, maybe a focus group, or something where maybe like, hey, mission is a big passion of mine. And so, hey, we all meet in this town. So maybe your group is going to be focused on your neighborhood, your community, the people that you guys are around all the time, and that’s your focus. Maybe your community group wants to meet a certain people group and be a part of their life. There’s all sorts of ways that we can do this and lead for Jesus in this way. And then finally, go back to Brandon’s sermon last week. Go on mission and fill in this blank. I am sent to serve. Who did you fill that in last week? Do you know who it is? Has the spirit shown you what person or what group of people you need to serve? And then start to serve and be ready to proclaim the gospel to them. If you want to be strong, if we want to go from just gathering together to seeing people filling these pews, not other church people, if you’re here today, we love you too. But mainly, we want people who don’t know Jesus yet to move from light to darkness, from death to life. We want to see these pews with more of those people this week. So what’s happening in the middle is you’re sore, but if you’re sore, guess what that means? It’s doing something. If you’re sore, you’re working the things you need to work to get those gains. Your muscles are being shocked. They are growing. Your strength is increasing. And we want to see our spiritual muscles continue to do that. Yeah, you’re going to step out of bed and be like, What in the world did I do yesterday? I can’t move my leg. That’s okay. It’s doing something. You can’t put your shirt on because your shoulders are sore. That’s fine. It’s doing something. I had this conversation with this person at work, and it didn’t go anywhere. You don’t know what the Lord is doing you don’t it could be that moment, that next day, where you’re able to have that conversation, that person, and they finally say, Yes, I believe. And maybe again, you’re here this morning. It’s finally there it is. I get it. I want to give my life to Jesus. We have these commissions, and so what I want to do to close our time together is I’m going to pray, and I’m going to pray a prayer of commissioning, kind of pulling together these different commissions that Brandon mentioned a few weeks ago from the Gospels and from Acts. And so I just want you to know this is the commission that we’ve been given by Jesus from his word. So let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Jesus, Son of God, with all authority, has sent us as His witnesses to proclaim the good news of his life, death and resurrection to a world that will either reject or repent upon hearing this message, be faithful to the one who is always with you, and trust him with the results. Lord, we thank you for the commission you’ve given to us. Help us to own that mission, to take it seriously, to rely on you and Lord, we will trust that you are using us and your spirit to change the lives of those around us who need to hear the good news, respond to it and give their life to following you. We pray all of this in Jesus name, amen.