Discipleship Matters - Go For Me

In Go For Me, Tyler Lynde closes the Discipleship Matters journey by showing why a church prepared for crisis is a church shaped by discipleship. He revisits Jesus’ four-step path—come and see, follow me, be with me, go for me—and then stays with the final step that turns conviction into movement. Opening Mark 16:15-20 like a field manual, Tyler makes the call clear: we are commanded to go into all the world, and we are never sent alone.

Tyler clarifies the message we carry. The gospel isn’t our moral performance or church brand; it’s the finished work of Jesus: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). That good news is God’s power for salvation (Romans 1:16). The only right response is repent and believe (Mark 1:15), and baptism becomes the public witness that we belong to Jesus. He urges us to talk to people, not at them, to pray that God opens blind eyes, and to rest in the freeing truth that we don’t save anyone—God does.

From message to power, Tyler shows how the risen Jesus still “works with” His people. Ordinary believers can ask to pray, confront darkness with Christ’s authority, lay hands on the sick, and expect God to confirm His word. This isn’t a pastor-only lane or a call to spectacle; it’s the normal Christian life empowered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). The safest place to be is on mission with God—not because risk disappears, but because His presence accompanies obedience.

He also names four barriers that dim our light: the comfort of community that turns inward, fear amplified by constant panic, love of the shadows that splits Sunday faith from weekday life, and hatred of those in darkness that forgets our own rescue. The gospel answers each: remember the Father’s sending love (John 3:16), resist fear with discernment and prayer, repent of compromise, and practice enemy-love.

Finally, Tyler gives a simple on-ramp: small circles. Invite one, ask them to invite one, keep it to three. Read Mark one chapter a week, write a short prayer, note one insight and one application, swap questions, hop on a 20-minute weekly call, and gather monthly in person—then reproduce. Write your name on the lobby boards—discipling, being discipled, ready to start—and join the church family on February 8 to pray for fresh boldness. Going doesn’t require a passport, only obedience. If you’re ready to trade spectatorship for multiplication, press play and take your next step.

We are Trinity Community Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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Chapters

• 0:00 Discipleship Matters And Crisis Readiness
• 2:40 Four-Stage Path: Come, Follow, Be, Go
• 5:45 Mark 16 Read Aloud And Framing
• 8:10 Commanded To Go And Preach
• 12:30 What The Gospel Is And Isn’t
• 17:05 Repent And Believe: True Response
• 21:10 Baptism And Visible Witness
• 23:50 Power Of The Spirit And Signs
• 27:00 Never Going Alone With Jesus
• 29:00 Let Your Light Shine In Darkness
• 31:00 Barriers: Comfort, Fear, Compromise, Hate
• 36:00 For God So Loved: Our Motive
• 37:45 Small Circles: How To Start
• 42:00 Wall Signups And Next Steps
• 46:00 Commissioning And Prayer Of Boldness

Transcript

Tyler Lynde: 0:03

So we are finishing up a sermon series called Discipleship Matters. Discipleship Matters. Have you enjoyed this? I know that it's been very good and helpful for me. As we went away as an elder team this last uh fall, we asked the Lord what we should focus on for 2026. And we felt like the Lord spoke the word crisis to us. Now, crisis, obviously on its just on the base level, sounds pretty scary. Sounds like something that we want to be uh extremely cautious about. But how many of you know crisis isn't something to be feared? Crisis is just something that does happen. If you live long enough in this life, you're going to face crisis of some point, some some type. And so as we asked the Lord for wisdom on how to address readiness when it comes to crisis that we might face, we felt like the Lord spoke to us that discipleship was one of the big keys to this, all right? And we kind of walked away with this slogan, which is sharpened Christians are best equipped for crisis. Sharpened Christians are best equipped for crisis. It's easy to go through this life, sort of dull and uh and not really affected by anything that's going on and not inspired or uh, you know, passionate about anything. But I'm here to tell you that God desires for us as Christians to not live that way. He desires for us to be on the cutting edge. He desires for us to be sharpened so that whatever might come our way, that we are prepared for it. Amen? And so as we look at this idea of discipleship, we thought about Jesus, who is the greatest discipler of all time, right? And how he took a few ordinary men and walked with them and talked with them and prepared them to continue his work that he began so many years ago. And how many of you realize that we are here today as a direct result of those followers of Jesus being obedient to the call of God when it comes to discipleship? And so we're so grateful that Jesus was so wise and that the Trinity working together instituted this plan that we have the privilege now of carrying forward to the next generations. Um, it's not going to happen just by osmosis, it's not going to happen just because children are born into Christian homes. These are things that must be taught and must be caught as well. And so we have the privilege of helping with both of those things. So we've been looking at a journey of four steps that Jesus took with his disciples. And the first one, remember, was come and see. Come and see was all about invitation. Jesus was saying to the masses, come and see, check this out, see what the kingdom of God is all about as he healed the sick and raised the dead and cast out demons and uh caused fish and loaves to be multiplied to feed the masses. Come and see, come and experience, come and learn about this Jesus. And how many of you know there's a next step to that, and that is follow me? And that's a deeper uh invitation. It is an invitation to imitation. Come and see and follow me, learn from me, see what I do, hear what I say, and then you begin to do the same. Follow me. And then the third one was be with me. And be with me is all about transformation. It's about relationship. God doesn't just want us to have a static relationship with him, where he's up in heaven and we're here down on earth. He wants to have a continual developing relationship with us. And so he invites us to abide with him, to be with him, to experience things that he experiences, to learn of him, to know him, and for him to know us. And then fourthly, and this is the one we're going to focus on today, go for me is about multiplication, is about multiplication. We know that there are millions of people on the face of this earth, and probably even billions, who are followers of Jesus Christ. And we thank God for that. That is an example of this discipleship movement being multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. And again, it is our time and our day and our destiny to walk in this newness of life so that we can be an example to other people and call them to follow Jesus. So last week, Kelly did a great job of helping us to understand that making disciples is literally the one thing that Jesus requires of us. It is the primary focus for us as believers in Jesus. We are called to make disciples. He reminded us through the be with me call of Jesus that true transformation comes in our lives as we walk in right relationship with God. And we know again that Jesus made a way for us to be in right relationship with God by the way that he lived his life by his death and resurrection, right? And so today we're going to consider the fourth part of a natural discipleship progress progression or process as we look at Jesus' imperative to go for him. His desire was for the few disciples that he had poured his life into to pour their lives into others who would in turn pour their lives into others as well. So the title of today's message is Go for Me. Go for me. We've been referring to a passage from the book of Matthew, chapter 28, called The Great Commission, and we've learned a lot from that. It's a theological treatise. It's an amazing passage, but we're going to look at its sister passage today, found in Mark chapter 16, verses 15 through 20. And this reads a little bit more like a playbook than a concept. So we're going to learn from this passage as well. So let's read Mark chapter 16, verses 15 through 20. And he said to them, this is Jesus speaking, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. But whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God, and they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. Let us pray together. Father, we thank you for your wonderful word. And Lord, we thank you that you have called us. And if you've called us, then you've equipped us. And so we ask, Lord, that you would help us to catch your heart for going for you. We pray that we would not be content to sit back and watch other people go for you, but it would be of our hearts and our mindset and our deliberation, Father, that it would be a part of us that we would go and make disciples. And Lord, we thank you for helping these words to come alive to us, helping us to learn from them. And Father, changing anything that you desire to change in Jesus' name. Amen. Imagine with me this group of people who's grown now to a little bit over 120, and they're all standing with Jesus, and Jesus is giving them sort of his farewell address, and he's getting ready to ascend into heaven. Remember, these same people had observed him doing all of the things that I talked to you about before. They had heard the words of life that he had spoken. They had seen his way of living and learned from that, that he was not just all talk, but what the way that he lived, his heart, passion, everything that flowed out of him was a representation of his heavenly father, right? Can you picture that? Can you put yourself in that kind of scenario? I wish that I could just for a few days experience what they experienced. And I know that we're going to have eternity to experience the presence of Jesus and to know him like he wants to be known fully, right? But here on this earth, we have this privilege and opportunity to continue to know him, to get to know him, to operate in this realm. And so here's these disciples. We know that that was John the Beloved, right? We know those poignant words that Jesus spoke from the cross as he looked at his mother Mary and said, Mary, this is your son, and to John, John, this is your mother. In other words, John, I'm asking you to help take care of my mom from now on. Imagine that. And so then you can, the devastation of having lost him, and he's buried, and he's in this tomb for three days, and then all of a sudden, he's raised from the dead. He appears to Mary Magdalene first, and then you know, Peter and John run to the tomb, and they he's he's not there, and an angel has to give them the news that they've already heard from Mary. And there's just all this excitement around the fact that Jesus, who had told them all along that this was the plan, actually fulfilled what he said that he was going to do. And they walked and they talked with him in a newness of life, right? You can imagine it was like everything started to make sense. Everything started to come together. In fact, there's one passage that says that Jesus gathered together and he breathed into them the breath of life, and they became alive to God. They were born again as a part of the process of Jesus having died and being raised from the dead. What a powerful thing. What an exciting thing to think about and just to wonder about. Jesus shares in the context of all of that these final words. And final words are very important, aren't they? Um and so this is what Jesus is saying before he ascends to heaven. So let's look at this closely. Number one, we are commanded to go. We are commanded to go. It says, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. We are commanded to go, right? Now, uh we've talked about this and rightfully so over the last few weeks. We've highlighted the fact that the largest imperative in the Matthew 28 passage is that we are to make disciples. So the verb make is very essential and very important. But that doesn't divorce us from the fact that we also need to be prepared to go. And as we are going, we've talked about that. As we are going, make disciples. Jesus is referring to the disciples. Remember, when he first called them, was what? Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. What was Jesus' original intent? He didn't hide anything, he didn't like ease them into it, he didn't wait until they were viable Christians. He started out this journey with them with the understanding that they were going to need to go fishing, right? They were going to need to go fishing for men, for people. And this is what he's now calling them in this address to embrace. And just as he is calling them, we are also commanded to go. You and I are commanded to go. And we have Mark and Amy Medley right now that are in Poland and getting ready to go to India and Sri Lanka, and they are obey, they are obeying the order to go. They're doing that, they're on the front lines. Pastor Neil and I are going to be leaving on Thursday to go to Puerto Rico because it's just too cold here. Actually, we're going there to minister to a group of churches that are a part of Master Builders. And Neil has had a longtime connection with them. And I just feel so privileged to be invited along to go along to be a help to him and also to get to share with some of the churches there. So we'll be gone just for a few days over this weekend. So we we do covet your prayers concerning that. But how many of you know you don't have to go? Uh, and uh Max just got back from Ukraine, spent some time there, and uh his wife was asking him to get lower in the building because there were things happening in the skies that uh indicated to a wife that it would be best for him to be lower in the building. And that's completely natural and normal and human, and uh, and what my wife would be saying to me as well. So, but he went because he he has this call to go, to go. And I could go on and on and on. Uh Kayla's here, the Ellis's, we could just go on and on about all of the people within this body who heed the call to go. But how many of you know going doesn't require a stamp on your passport? How many of you know when you leave this building and head out the doors, you are going somewhere. So as you are going, guess what we get the privilege of doing? Make disciples. We are commanded to go and preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. That's the second part of this. We will not make disciples of Jesus Christ just by being nice to them. To people. Now, is it good to be nice to people? Absolutely. You know, some of the nicest people I've ever met are Mormons and Jehovah's Witness and others who are living a works kind of religion that says that you have to be good in order to achieve some kind of ranking in heaven, right? So being good itself is not enough. It's important, but it's not enough. Our goal always must be to speak the message of Jesus Christ. Our goal is not to preach ourselves, it's not to preach our church. Our goal is to preach the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul spoke boldly about this in Romans 1:16. You guys know this? For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The gospel itself is laced with power that God uses to cause dead souls to come alive. And we as believers in Jesus Christ have the privilege of sharing this gospel message with others. You see, God uses the message of the gospel to save us, to transform us, and keep us. He saves us, he transforms us, and he keeps us, and he uses the grace message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to do all of these things. Paul further defines the message of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. Read this with me. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. So you see the sort of progression of that? You were saved, you are being saved, and you will be saved by this message. If you hold fast to the word, I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture. Do we need to understand, first of all, that we are sinners? Do people need to understand that they are sinners? Or do they just need to hear that God loves you and has a great plan for your life? That is true, but we must start with the fact that we are sinners desperately in need of grace, right? So Jesus, this Paul is wrapping this up. He's sort of giving the first importance things. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture. The fact that Jesus came to this earth, lived a perfect life, died and took our sins upon himself on the cross, that he was buried in a borrowed tomb, and on the third day that he rose again, proving that he had defeated Satan, hell, and the grave. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. So the gospel is not based on my work, it's not based on my words alone, it's not based only on my lifestyle. The gospel is the good news of work that's already been done. How many of you know Jesus is not going to go back to the cross? You may think, you may look around this world and say, well, maybe we needed another. No, no, no, no, no. It was once and for all. Jesus was the final sacrifice. If you read the book of Hebrews, you can't help but be just overwhelmed with the idea that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice to bring about salvation to those who don't deserve it. The gospel is based on the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is the grace of God that gives us the ability to walk in newness of life. It's not my own ability, it's not my own desire, even. It is the grace of God. It is God's ability in me to do what I can't do in my own strength. How many of you tried to be good without God? And even if you could outwardly be good, how many of you know on the inside what happened? We were not good. We were not good. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So we are commanded as followers of Jesus to go and as we're going to what? Preach the gospel to the ones that we really like, to the ones that speak our language, to the ones that look like us, to the ones that we share party affiliation with. To what does it say? To all. To all. The gospel of Jesus Christ is intended to be preached to every tribe, every nation, every language, and every people for all time. You may be disappointed in heaven if those people out there bother you, because some of those people are going to be in heaven. Because Jesus came to save all who would turn from their ways and believe in him. This all includes those that we love and those who we wouldn't naturally be drawn to, and those that we would like to purposely avoid those people in our lives that annoy us, that bother us, that we would honestly say, I'm not really even sure that I care if they're a Christian or not. God cares. We don't get to choose who the Lord saves. That's his job, and we get to participate with him. How many of you know he's God all by himself? And his choices are right and pure and holy and good. And our job as followers of Jesus, remember, we're followers of Jesus, is to follow him and follow his leading and his guiding, his example, his way of doing things. The Lord saves and we get to participate with him. So what is the proper response? The proper response to the gospel of Jesus Christ is to repent and believe. God does his good work that only he can do. And our proper response, every person's proper response to Jesus is not just to go to church. It's not just to read the Bible, it's not just to pray, it's not any of those things, although those things will follow. The response, the proper response to a holy God is to repent and believe. In our passage, it said, Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. The only sin that will ultimately send somebody to hell is the sin of unbelief. Not believing in Jesus Christ is the sin that sends people to hell. It is the epitome, unbelief. Is the epitome of darkness. It is what the God of this world uses to blind minds. There are people that are in your lives right now that are infiltrated, that are overwhelmed by unbelief. God has called us as the Church of Jesus Christ to not shrink back, to not be like those people who don't believe, but we are called to be believers in Jesus Christ. And as we are believers, to preach the gospel to all, and their response based on the work of God working in their hearts and us helping them in the process is for them to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Our prayer needs to be: please, if you pray nothing else, pray this. God, would you open the eyes of the blind that they might see you as you truly are? Many times, as I've witnessed to people, I've gotten to a point where it's obvious that they were finished with the conversation. And I would, I would say, do you know what I mean? By the way, you learn some social cues. I mean, we as believers don't need to be, we don't need to walk away from conversations all the time with people feeling like that's why I'm not a Christian, right? So you make sure that we're we're being sensitive and thinking about the person that we're speaking to, and not just like we're not just talking at them, we're talking to them. So many times in evangelism, what I've seen people do wrong, including myself at times, is talking at people about something instead of talking to them about your best friend. We have no problem talking about our favorite movie, our favorite restaurant, our favorite book, our favorite whatever it is. But sometimes we even get religious when we start talking about Jesus, right? So let's make sure that we're we're we're we're being cautious in the way that we do that. But one of the things I will ask people is, would you mind if I prayed that God would reveal Himself to you in a very practical way? I've I 95% of people have said, sure, you pray that. And boy, that's when I go deep into the well of the spirit on the inside of me, and I by faith pray and ask God to show this person who he is. How many of you know God is up to that challenge? Like that's not a prayer that he is like, oh, don't pray that. I'm not ready to do that. No, he loves to hear that prayer. And when a person opens himself up enough to at least allow you to pray that prayer over them, God moves. God moves, right? Can I give you a little bit of relief this morning? It's not our job to save anyone. My job is not to save anyone. I can't save anyone. I can't save myself. Right? That is God's job. It is our job to share the truth of the gospel, which calls mankind to repent of their sins and put their faith, hope, and trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself made this very clear in Mark chapter 1. We're going to be reading this as part of our small circle groups. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, proclaiming the gospel. And what are the words he was using? The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Repent, turn away from. Repentance is really not a spiritual term at all. It's a natural term. It means you're going on the interstate and you realize you've gone one exit too far, or maybe a lot of exits too far. And what do you do? You get off the exit and you get on the other direction. You're going north, I'd say. You were going south and you turn and you start going north, right? That is repentance. It means recognizing my need to change. This isn't working. What I've tried up until this point is not working. I need help. I need a savior. And then we put our faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work. You see, the word conversion, theological word, is our willing response to the gospel in which we sincerely repent of our sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation. And I don't want to leave this morning without making a declaration here that some of us have grown up in church our whole lives, some of us have been around Christianity time and time again, but you may not yet have actually done this. You may not yet have been converted. You may not have responded to the truth of Jesus Christ by repenting of your sins and putting your faith in Jesus Christ. I encourage you, don't let today pass. We're not promised another day. Today is the day of salvation. Choose this day whom you will serve. Now he also mentions baptism in this passage, and I want to make it clear: baptism is the outward testimony of what God's doing on the inside of a person. It's showing outwardly that I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I have been transformed and I am being transformed by the grace of God. I'm being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And I want the whole world to know that I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Our prayer this year is not just for discipleship. Our prayer is to have tons of baptisms, because that means that people have become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ who want to take it public, right? We understand it's not a requirement in order to get into heaven, but it should be practiced by all believers. If you have another moment in this life where you're able to physically and you get saved, you should be baptized. Does that make sense? It should be a high priority in our lives. So if you haven't yet been baptized, I'll never forget. Just remember just a few weeks ago, Ryan stepping into the waters of baptism. And man, what a powerful thing. And he wasn't even feeling great. And yet God met him right there in the water. And we not only do that, but we lay hands on people and pray that the Holy Spirit will fill them up during the time of baptism. So if you haven't been baptized yet, I encourage you, first of all, make sure you're a believer in Jesus Christ. Second of all, let's get baptized. So the Holy Spirit empowers believers who go. It says, and these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons. Steve and Mary, I don't they don't want to just be known as those people, right? There's it's it's the they are continuing the healing ministry of Jesus, which does at times include setting people free, right? So don't think of them just as those people. But they do operate in that, and they're going to teach people how to operate in that particular gift. They will speak in new tongues. How many of you know one of the signs of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the ability to speak with other tongues? And not everybody has that particular gift, but Paul says you should want it, you should desire for it, you should covet it, you should ask for it sincerely. And God loves it to give it. They will speak in new tongues, they will pick up serpents with their hands. All right, ushers. Yeah, I know. James, James is James is an he has some snakes. So anyway, yeah. And he is one of our ushers, so he can literally do that. But anyway, obviously, this is talking about two things, in my opinion, and a lot of people agree. It's talking about uh the authority that we've been given by Jesus Christ over demonic entities and spirits that would try to influence and affect and destroy, damage, whatever the case is. But it's also talking about protection that God provides. The safest place for us to be is on mission with God. Did you hear me? The safest place for us to be is on mission with God where He's called us to be on mission with Him. Right? That's why I have full confidence that Mark and Amy, even though they're going to be going into some very difficult places over the next several weeks, and encourage you to continue to pray for them. They're on mission for God and they've been sent by God. And so they're literally the safest place on the planet for them right now, is obeying God in that way. So the Holy Spirit empowers people to pick up serpents. If they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. Again, we're not going to practice on that, but God can protect us, He can keep us safe. He's able to do that, right? And there are stories from early church history where the attempt was made to destroy believers by poisoning them, that God protected them. We know the story of the serpents, where Paul reached down to pick up the firewood, and the serpent attached itself to his hand, and the people waited for him to fall over dead and he didn't die. And then they tried to worship him, and he had to fix all of that. Um, and then it says, uh, it will not hurt them, they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. Does this say pastors will lay hands on the sick and they will recover? Does it say prophets, evangelists, does it say apostles, does it say missionaries? It says believers, believers will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. One of the greatest open door opportunities with people is praying for them, that God would touch them and heal them. I know that many of you have experienced that. And so I encourage you, let's let's step out in faith. Even if it feels like the last 30 people we prayed for didn't get healed. How many of you know God hasn't changed? He's still a great healer, and he wants us to step out on faith, right? It would be depressing in a way if all we were left with was a message, the message of the gospel. But how many of you know we have so much more than that? Jesus came to display the kingdom of God in word and deed, and he trained his disciples to do the same thing. He made it clear that it was better for him to go to his father so he could what? Send the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit would not only dwell among them or with them, but he would dwell in them. The same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in us. And as we go, he goes with us. Acts 1:8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. What is one of the primary reasons that the Holy Spirit empowers us? He empowers us to be a witness for Jesus Christ. We have no way today in the time that we're allotted to talk about all of the benefits of the work of the Holy Spirit. But suffice it to say, we can't do it without him. Amen. And the next part is we never go alone. We never go alone. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God, and they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. So here we have Jesus ascending into heaven, the ascended Savior who's been given the name above every other name, continues his work on this earth through believers like you and like me. He partners with us in order to fulfill his mission. He continues to work with us, and he confirms the message of the gospel that we preach by performing miracles, signs, and wonders. And how many of you know the greatest miracle of all is what? I once was lost, and now I'm found. The miracle of salvation, of regeneration. I once was dead, and now I live again. You see, Jesus isn't just asking us to go for him, he's asking us to go with him. To go with him. Remember, it's his mission. It's his mission. And we get to walk with him in the fulfilling of this mission. So let's finish up by talking about as we're going, we shine the light. Matthew 5, as you know, we just did a series on the Sermon on the Mount. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Can we be real for the next few minutes? Can we get down to the very bottom line of all of this? You see, it's not an option for us to shine the light as believers in Jesus Christ. It's not optional. We don't get to choose to engage or not engage in this process. We are the light of the world. We are called to be a reflection of the light of Jesus in our hearts and shining brightly his reflection to the world around us. Now there's a lot of temptation to embrace resistance to this, to sit back and to think about when Jesus is going to return. And how many of you are thankful that he is going to return? And we should be waiting for and looking for his returning. But we're our job here on this earth, as long as we have a breath left in us, is not finished until he comes or we pass from this life to the next. Satan attempts to do everything he can to keep us from being obedient to the call to go. He will do anything he can to distract us. He loves darkness because he is darkness, and he wants everyone else to live in darkness forever and ever. This is true and this is real. So let's look at some potential barriers to going as we finish up. The first potential barrier to going is the comfort of community. How many of you have heard the saying, us for and no more? It's very easy for us to slip into a subtle brand of this where we're thinking about only ourselves and only those that are around us when we walk closely, exclusively with those who think like us, who believe like us? We can easily become apathetic concerning the state of the lost world around us. The longer that we are in Christ, the easier it seems for us to slip into this sort of temptation. The early church experienced this very thing. They were loving the church of Jerusalem that was a megachurch. And so what did God do? He allowed persecution to come into Jerusalem for what purpose? Just to mess with those people? No, to fulfill the purpose that He told them in Acts 1.8 when the Holy Spirit came upon them, that they would be spreading the gospel to the whole world. And so God used persecution, allowed persecution, to stir them up so that they would take this gospel out from Jerusalem and take it to all of the surrounding areas. Number two, fear of the darkness. And this is very real. I get it. This world continues to get darker. Can I beg with you to not give in to the fear that is in the media? You realize that the only way for them to get clicks or to continue to get people to watch is to ratchet up the fear factor, to turn it up on 10. Did you realize, and this is not a slam? Please don't take it as a slam. But did you realize that the apocalypse of winter storm fern began on Monday with the declaration of how horrible this was going to be? And listen, there are people in this country right now who are suffering greatly because of this. But how many of you know we still have to use our own discernment? We still have to be able to go outside and say, see, it's actually raining today and not snowing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing, right? So let's not give in to fear. This world has gone mad. There's a lot of things that give us pause. We realize that there's a ramping up also of persecution around the world. And sometimes it feels like it would be easier just to hunker down and wait it out. We're just going to wait the storm out. How many of you know only Jesus can speak into the storm and say, Peace be still, America? And Jesus wants to work through us to do that very thing. The real reality is that we don't have the luxury of this kind of mindset. Can you imagine? Think with me for just a moment, if the person that reached you with the gospel of Jesus Christ had grown afraid of the darkness so much that they didn't open up their mouths and tell you the truth. Where would you and I be today? The third thing is love of the darkness. Can we be real together? Sometimes the reason we don't want to go and shine the light is because in some way we want to live in the shadows. We have a Sunday morning Christianity where we put on our smiles and we carry our Bibles and we uh sing the songs and we have our Christian knees, but the rest of the week, those around us, including our families and friends and those that we work with, have no idea that anything is different about us. We engage in the same conversations, we use the same words, we have the same uh attitudes towards our bosses, we do everything the way that the world does it, and yet we want people to follow Jesus. Jesus spoke of this very thing in John chapter 3, 19, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. We have to be careful not to love the darkness ourselves, to be drawn to it, to try to hide our light under a bushel. We all know the old song hide it under a bushel. A little louder, hide it under a bushel. I'm gonna let it shine. We need to bring that back because that is the temptation. Let's just hide. Let's just pretend. Let's just be like a uh, what's the lizard that adapts, a chameleon. If this is our disposition, what do we need to do? We need to repent and believe. The same gospel message that saved us also changes us. And finally, and this is the most egregious of all, hatred of those in darkness. It's very easy for us to judge those in darkness because they aren't acting like those who are in the light. Think about that for just a minute. We judge them because they're not acting like Christians. Bulletin, they are not Christians. That always has bothered me. Why in the world do we expect unbelievers to act like believers? And why in the world do we uh do we weigh out whether they're worthy of our time or our effort or our engagement based on the way that they act? Their God is the God of this world. They are in, they are walking in darkness. Don't expect for them to act like you do. They aren't yet in the light. Who are those people? Those people that we that we talk about with such disdain? Why are our hearts so tainted toward those who literally are in maximum need of Jesus? You could put whatever people group that you have a disdain toward in that category and ask yourself the question if I feel these feelings of hatred towards them like I do, how much more do they need Jesus? You see, we hate others when we forget how much we've been forgiven. It's easy for us to hate Jewish people and to forget that we've been forgiven. It's easy for us to hate Russians or Ukrainians or Mexicans or Americans or Republicans or Democrats or Cubans or Venezuelans, whatever it is, it's easy. Hatred is the easiest thing in the world. And how many of you know we are? Not called to be like that. We're called to shine the light in the darkness. And those that we would hate the most, we should love the most in the sense that we realize they are desperately in need of a savior. Just like we were. So let us separate ourselves completely by the grace of God from these things that would attempt to keep us from going for Jesus and let us fully embrace the plan of God as spelled out for us in the most famous verse in all of the Bible. Can we read it together? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is the heart of the Father, and this should be our heart as well. Amen. Kelly mentioned last week. I'm just going to quickly run through it. And I'm also going to give you one other next step. Okay. So the small circle model is simple. You don't have to know anything except how to read. Can everybody here read? Okay, that's good. Or you can, if you can't read, you can listen. As long as you can listen and push a button on your phone to listen to the Bible. Number two, it takes very little time. So this these are the reasons why it's easy to engage in this. It gets people reading the scripture. The word of God does not return empty, it achieves the purpose. It gets us all thinking reproduction. If it hasn't been passed on, it's not real discipleship, right? And it can be used with anyone. It can be used with Christians, mature believers, and it can be people used with people who are not yet believers. That's the beauty of this. So how does a small circle work? Invite one person. Okay? So in the next two weeks, I'm going to ask each of us to be a part of a small circle, to begin to be a part of a small circle. Okay? What I mean by that, you can either be the inviter, so you can invite somebody else to join you in studying the book of Mark, or you can somebody else can invite you to be a part of that. Okay? So invite one, and then the person that you invite, or if you're if they invite you, invite one other person. So the end goal is to have three people in this group. Does that make sense? I hope I'm feel like I'm over-explaining it. Am I man explaining it? Anyway, invite your one to invite. Try to keep it to three people. This is the disciple-making component. And then commit to read through the Gospel of Mark one chapter a week. Hopefully, you can read that same chapter every day of the week. And then by the end of the week, um write a prayer response based on the chapter. Just write down, it doesn't have to be, you know, three paragraphs. It can just be a couple of uh bullet points. Identify one insight from the chapter that's most impacting. Document one practical way that you can apply the passage. And also for people who don't yet have an understanding of the scripture, you could say to them, write down any questions that you have. Okay, and we'll talk about it. And then at the end of the week, participate in just a 20-minute call, a Zoom call or a phone call, and read through the prayers, talk through the scriptures, share your insight, your application, and pray for each other. And then once a month, get together and over a meal, hopefully, or coffee. For some of you, coffee is a meal, right? So get together over and spend time together face to face. And then at the completion of that time or before it actually begin to think about my next group of three. Okay. Now, that's one thing I'm gonna ask. And then also I'm gonna put a picture up for you. And this is what our coffee lobby looks like now. Not cool. So it says discipleship matters. And then the first, uh, and these are all dry erase boards, right? So the first one says, I am discipling. Second, I am being discipled. Third, I would like to disciple. And fourth, I would like to be discipled. Now, some of you may already be in more than one category. I signed up and I am I'm in three categories. That does not make me a super Christian or you know, extraordinarily uh special. It just means that that's the reality of where I'm living right now. Okay. So if you uh what I'd like for everybody to do over the next two weeks, there are dry erase uh markers out there. I would like for you to just write your name in whichever categories, and again, there may be multiples, that you can apply yourself to. Okay. And what we're gonna do specifically on the one that says, I would like to be discipled, we as a team are going to attempt to connect people up if there's not already a connection point, right? So you may be new to the church, you don't know anybody, uh, but you would like to be a part of this small circle movement. Um, and so we want to help facilitate that, right? So I'm gonna ask you to even take time this uh while you're leaving the service today or next week and fill this out. On February the 8th, we're gonna all come together as a church and we're gonna pray for each other and ask the Lord to anoint this time of discipleship. It's a 16-week commitment. And our hope is that through this year that you'll at least go through two iterations of that. So two 16-week periods of time that you're walking with others and talking with them about the scriptures. Okay. It's pretty cool because also our daily reading is going to be in the book of art pretty soon. And so that's gonna sort of correlate with this start in February. Okay? Does that make sense? We don't want to over-organize it or over, it's not, we don't want it to be just a program that's church driven. We want this to be in each and every one of our hearts and for it to be a natural thing that happens. But we do also want to provide some accountability, first of all, right? You're gonna want your name on that wall. I sure hope that you want your name on the wall. And then, second of all, we also want to provide, if there are those who need to get plugged in with others, we want to provide that kind of opportunity. We want to help to do that. Okay? Does that make sense? All right. Would you stand to your feet? And I'm gonna pray and commission you and send you out as uh disciples of Jesus Christ who are going. And as you're going, you're gonna make disciples this week, even, right? Father, we thank you for the privilege of being in your house today. And those who have joined us online as well, Lord, we thank you that we have this great um commission. And Lord, you haven't asked us to do this as a form of punishment or like to make us feel uneasy or afraid. Father, we actually get to enjoy being a part of the process. Sort of like um doulas or midwives that get to help with the delivery of babies. We get to help you as you do the great work of causing people who walk in darkness to walk in the light. So, Lord, we ask that you would help us to be those people who go, to be those people who preach the gospel in clarity and from conviction. And Lord, that we would preach the gospel to all. We would not be uh uh bigots in any sense of the word, that we would not hold back from being willing to share the gospel with whomever it is that you put us in front of. Thank you for this privilege. And Lord, we ask that you give us in the book of Acts, the disciples asked for boldness and courage many times over when it came especially to declaring the name of Jesus. We ask that by the power of the Holy Spirit that you would fill us and give us the ability to share this message and our lives and to shine the light of Jesus to the world around us. And Lord, we thank you that we're gonna have tremendous testimonies and praise reports of what you're doing, that you are confirming your word by performing signs and wonders by your great power and because of who you are. We thank you for all of these things. And Lord, I pray that you would bless all of your people and that you would keep them that you cause your face to shine upon them and be gracious to them. I pray that you would lift up your countenance upon them and give them peace in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen.