Living the Great Commission

Falls Creek may only last one week, but the mission Jesus gave His followers lasts a lifetime. In this special Midweek Bible Study, Student Pastor Jason Peck shares stories from Falls Creek and unpacks the challenge of the Great Commission. Looking at passages throughout Acts and Matthew 28, Jason reminds us that salvation is not the finish line. Every believer is called to go, make disciples, rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, and live on mission every day. Whether you’re praying for the next generation or asking what’s next in your own walk with Christ, this message is a timely reminder that the mission of Jesus is still our mission today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey man, thank you, ladies, for leading us this morning. I find a few of you already asked me the question, so I might as well go ahead and tell the numbers. So on Sunday, if you were here for our freedom celebration in the Zerd auction, uh, the history, this was our fifth time doing this. We've raised anywhere from $6,000 to last year was $11,600, which was our highest we've ever raised. Uh this year is over $14,000 was raised. We also had, I believe, over $130 desserts given to be part of our live auction, also part of our silent auction. So for those in the room, if you brought something, if you came and were just here, if you bid, if you donated, uh, thank you so much for that because that goes right towards our trip this summer to New Orleans, but also future trips to like Honduras and around the world as well, too. So uh it was fun. Um if you were not here, you missed a fun time. This room was full. We had tables and chairs everywhere. Dwayne was trying to figure out the math to figure out the right place for everything to be. Uh, people were over there. It was, it was, it was a good day. So thank you all for being part of that. So the the backstory to me getting here today is about three or four years ago, uh Charlie asked me to fill in on a Wednesday morning for this Bible study. But he asked me to do this the Wednesday before False Creek. And I said, I need to pass, but I'll do it later. Well, I guess today's later. I told him no once, and I didn't get to ever do it again. So last night he asked me, he had to be gone this morning last minute. And so I said, I can't say no uh from three, four years ago. So I'm glad to be here today with you as well. Uh, he also offered me to continue on in Judges 9 or do whatever I wanted. I looked at Judges 9, and the Lord told me not to do Judges 9, but instead to do a false creek recap. So uh we got back on Saturday from camp, and sometimes we get to share what happened at camp, and not always. I'm gonna spend some time in a minute here doing that. But I said earlier that you are a youth group, just slightly older than I usually spend time with, but you're missing one thing as a game. Now, the games I do at camp are usually pretty involved. We've used duct tape and um and cotton balls, we've used pantyhose with tennis balls, we've used a bunch of cups, very active type games because gotta keep them awake, right? I won't do that to you this morning, I won't be that mean, but I do want to do a quick little game on the screen that has a theme to it. So if guys, the back if you would there, here is gonna be our directions this morning for us. So everything we're gonna look on the screen here, the phrase, the picture, the word ends with go. See if you can figure out what our our answers are here. So here's the first one. Here's directions slide. Each correct answer ends with G-O. Use a simple image to solve it as quickly as you can. So if you can figure it out, so I want you to like raise your hand and I'll see if you get it correct. So here is the first image we're gonna see. Well, that's that's gonna be in the example. What over here? That's a flamingo. Okay, that's the example. So here's the first one. Next one. Anyone know what that one is? Mango, very good. So there's the answer. Next one. Cargo. Okay, next one here. Amigo Amigo, very good, very good. I took it took me a minute to be like, is it what's on there? This one's the hardest one's hardest one for me to get crazy go? No, not crazy go. No, vertigo, yes, vertigo. That was my hardest one to grab. Next one over here, bingo. Next one is bongos. Then we have not cargo. Anyone know what this one is if you're a cruiser? Not cargo, it's embargo. That's the answer for that one as well. Then I believe this is not flagged. You can't just add go to the end of every word. Bible go, people go, it's it's Congo is the answer, right, for that flag there. And then here, I think, as we have a couple more. This is a dingo and tiebreaker. So if you got all those correct, which somebody over there did not because you just added go to every word you could think of. We're switching up a little bit here. And this one, this two-word finale here, both words end in the word or end in B-O. So something, here we go. What could that possibly be? Oh. It took me the longest on the tiebreaker one here. I was trying to read it, trying to decipher it. The two words end in B O, so something, something with B-O. I think I heard it over here, maybe. Mumbo jumbo! Give it up. Very good. You're very, very smart this morning. So there we go. I do that, I'll come back to it in a minute. Think about that word go. How important is that word to us as believers? So for us at camp last week and for all summer, the theme this year is the greatest. Uh, by the way, I won't be using any of the judges nine, so you can take that and leave it for next week. We will use your Bible today, uh, kind of a little Bible drill. I'll have lots of passages. They're gonna be on the screen here in a minute. My goal today is this: one, to let you know what happened at camp, to know what we talk about. Yes, we play games, we do a lot of fun stuff. We also spend time, though, in Bible study and in worship. Second one is to know how to pray for us because we had students go last week, they got saved. Students were called into missions and ministry. Um, a lot of them were called into being baptized as they've been a believer but never been baptized. But also through cross timbers, through BBS coming up here soon to pray for our next-gen ministry because your prayers are so impactful. Many of you give money, scholarship funds for us to go as well. The third goal is this, though, to hopefully still challenge you and myself at our age to understand we've been given a call by Jesus to go with the gospel. So whenever you hear the phrase the greatest, okay, that's our theme for camp. What comes to mind with that phrase the greatest whenever it relates to church world? To Jesus, to God. So the get the greatest savior, greatest God. What else comes to mind with the phrase the greatest? Great commission. Okay, anything else, the greatest? Creator? Okay, is there a verse that we see in scripture uh over in 1 Corinthians 13, 13 that the greatest of these is love? That came up a lot as well. The main point, though, for Kant this year was really talking about this. And I want you to think about this. After salvation, what is next? Like we understand salvation and then baptism is that first step of obedience. But what's next? So my story is I grew up in church, uh, very thankful, very blessed to have always been in church. Uh, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night, if we had a weekend event, if we had a mission trip, if we had a camp, I went to everything as a kid. But at seven is whenever I was saved. Well, I'm now 48, so that's 41 years of being a believer. What do I do at that 41? And I hopefully we'll keep going to Miss Wanda Waddle's uh age as well. Which yesterday John told us you've been alive for 40% of America's history. If John's correct, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, we can give her a clap there. But think about it in terms of my life as a believer. Saved at seven, still in church, been doing this honestly since I was 15. Uh so I got called into ministry at 15 at Falls Creek. I had a youth pastor who let me go ahead and be a volunteer. So I was a teacher on Sunday nights. I came back all during uh college days at OBU and I taught Sunday morning, became full-time in 2003 as a youth pastor, been doing this ever since. But a lot of times, whenever they get saved, either BBS, Cross Timbers, Falls Creek, what's next? To follow Jesus. And how do we know this? Growth, okay. How what how do we know what to do? The Bible, God's Word, but what else do we really look at as the um the picture of what is next for us?

unknown 8:56

People you're around.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

People you're around. Okay. So hopefully the church, yes, hopefully, and that's why it's so important not to have a separate church body, but a separate youth ministry, a separate kids' ministry, that we're all one family. But for a lot of you and for myself, you probably grew up in church all the time. Like I just said, Sunday morning, I was there every Sunday morning for Sunday school and worship. I came back for 5 p.m. uh discipleship class, we had an evening service. That's just on a Sunday. I came back on Wednesday nights every week. We had evening or we had weekend events, we had retreats, we had all kinds of things that we happened. But today, what do we know? Lifeway has told us that the average church-going person attends 1.6 times a month in church, which honestly breaks my heart. Um, to know that the church is not perfect, we are not perfect. Um, I've been a part of a lot of churches either growing up in this area, I grew up in this area, as a as a minister, I've been a part of a lot of churches, and to know how vital the church is, and to know that I grew up watching people just like you teach Sunday school, do vacation Bible school with me, uh take me on mission trips, ski trips, Falls Creek, all kinds of stuff. So honestly, yes, I had God's word that was I was looking at and seeing what you do next, but truthfully, I just followed the example of people older than me, mostly. Well, if students who get saved at Falls Creek aren't in church a bunch, what do we do? How do we help them to know what is next? One of the hardest parts about camp is we take them away for a week, we eliminate distractions, we spend time every day in multiple Bible studies, small group times in the word and worship, and then they come home. And this happens, I've been doing this my whole life. Um, and it's hard because when they're at camp, they are locked in, they understand how important God is, but to come back home to a family that A may not be believers, they may not be used to going to church. Um, the question is how do you continue on with them and help them understand what is next? So a lot of them really want to know what's next. Because if we're not careful, we point to salvation as the culmination. Just get them saved and baptized, right? Which that right there is hard enough. Uh, getting them to go go from salvation to baptism sometimes is a challenge. I have a whole list on my on my um computer that says so-and-so was saved at camp and never been baptized. I'll contact parents and they want to hold off till later, or they come back home and they're afraid of being in front of the whole church. Uh, we have a big screen, they don't want to be shown on the screen, whatever it could be. A lot of it is just fear of the unknown. But even there, if we go through salvation and I can get to baptize them at some points, but then what's next? So if they're a teenager and they're gonna spend decades following Jesus, what's next for them? Well, Jesus gives us very clear. So if you would find your Bibles, uh somebody said it earlier, the Great Commission. When you hear the greatest, the great commission truly is, I think for us, the thing we can really focus upon today. So the end of Matthew, 20, Matthew 28, there, we're gonna look here at the theme verses for all of camp. I said earlier that the game we played, it was all about the word go. Well, for us, we understand we're supposed to go with our life. We're supposed to go out with the gospel message. So Matthew 28, beginning in verse 16, here's what it says. It says the eleven disciples traveled to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Here's a verse, verse 19. Go, or as you're going, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. Remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. So this right here can honestly, I think, be what we can pass on to as students in student ministry, kids' ministry, vacation Bible school ministry, whatever it is, and say, okay, after salvation and baptism, that first step of obedience, this right here, this great commission is what you're going to devote the rest of your life to. But as I read this, and I've heard this set of verses my entire life, I've preached these set of verses a lot. And every time I looked at key words to go make disciples of all nations. Does that sound easy or hard to do? That sounds hard. And then it says to baptize, but also to teach them everything. How much did Jesus tell us and teach us in the scriptures here? Um, again, I've been a believer since I was seven. I've been looking at God's word for a long time, and there's still stuff that I don't know. So just be prepared because coming up in August, we're gonna be going through Genesis. And it's gonna really stretch us, I think, as a church. We spent yesterday in a staff meeting talking through uh one chapter, a portion of chapter about the fall. And us as staff talking through questions about, okay, not just looking at what we've been taught, pictures we had growing up, movies, if you will, but what did God's word say about the temptation of Eve? Where was Adam? All these things that really challenge us, and to have people in that room that have been believers for a long time, and to say, well, I thought God's word said this, but as I pause and look again, this is what God's word actually is saying, or we don't know. So here to me, when I tell a student, okay, now that you're a believer, you're gonna go out to the whole world, which that right there sounds impossible, right? It's hard enough to say, just go to more, go to more high school and be a witness for Jesus on that campus. That right there is overwhelming. But then, whenever it says to go to all nations to baptize and to teach and to make disciples, it's hard enough being a disciple of yourself, right? Or making yourself a disciple of Jesus, but then to go out to everybody else and say you must also be a disciple, that's tough. But here's what I want you to understand. If you looked at this at campus last week, um, the focus that I try to focus upon was based on this idea of a very impossible mission that Jesus has given us. But the good news is it isn't something that we can't think about accomplishing because he helps us with certain things we're gonna look here in a minute in the Bible. So I think an overwhelming mission is better than an underwhelming mission. Imagine this if Jesus just said, okay, I want you to go become a believer, get baptized, and tell one person in your lifetime about me, and you're done. Okay, I can tell my grandma, I can tell my neighbor, and I'm done. So for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, I'm done. What else is there to do? But if Jesus says instead, no, you're gonna spend the rest of your life, all that you're doing, to go to all nations, teaching them everything I told you, and to help them be a disciple, that's overwhelming. But also I think this way if I was told to go and tell one person about Jesus, you know what that means? I can do that myself. I can do this because I can tell one person. I may have a hard time about it. Um, it's not easy maybe talking about my faith. But if it's just about me telling that one person who needs Jesus? Who needs the Holy Spirit, I can do this. But whenever Jesus says to these 11 here, and again, it says that some of them doubted, they're wondering, is this Jesus really who we're following here? But whenever he says, do this, this overwhelming task, hopefully that brings them to humility and to say, I can't do this, I need some help. So picture this. We spent some time kind of in our cabin with the uh the image of the Mission Impossible movies. If y'all ever seen the Mission Impossible movies back from the 90s, early 2000s, um, I really enjoy like the James Bond movies, the Mission Impossible movies. Not all of them had seen the movie, they kind of understood though what it is. So, in order to prepare for camp, um, as any good youth pastor would do, I did some research. I watched Mission Impossible one and Mission Impossible Two. I hadn't watched it in a long time. So that was my research at nighttime. But as I watched these in the second movie, there's a quote by the um the person in charge of the main person, the main character, Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise. And this phrase stood out to me whenever they're talking about the mission, because again, the movies are all based on some global phenomenon, some crisis that's gonna happen, that's gonna close the world down, unless one man and his team do something impossible. They have to go steal government information, they have to go retrieve a virus and the antivirus. But in the movie, the second one, it says this this isn't mission difficult, this is mission impossible. And the movie itself has you as a viewer watching this say, can they do this? Because as they're talking about stuff, as they're scheming, looking at plans, it's like they're not gonna get this done. And I think if we're not careful, we look at the Great Commission this way as well. That, well, we've been given this and we've heard it. The other fear I have is sometimes we hear this so much, the Great Commission, the Great Commission. Even in our denomination, as Oklahoma Baptists at times, we hear this. We're about the Great Commission, which we are. That should be what we are living and breathing. But are you and I daily focused on the Great Commission? Or have we heard it over and over and over? We kind of become more immune to it and just kind of tune that out. Because sometimes we also, I know the the challenge at times is to move past certain things. Well, I've heard the gospel. What's beyond the gospel? Nothing. The gospel is it, the gospel is what we live in every single day. The Great Commission is it. This is what we live in every single day. We don't get past the gospel, past the Great Commission. We have to understand this is what we're called to do at all times. So the past week we had Shane Pruitz. Uh, he is part of the North American Mission Board, he was our camp pastor. And one of the ways he challenged the students at night is to understand you are either with God or you are against God. There is no middle ground. And can I challenge you as uh your generation to understand that right there might be one of the biggest challenges we have in our next-gen ministries because our world today wants them to believe they can dabble in all sides. I like Jesus enough whenever he's gonna be my ticket to heaven, but I like the world a lot as well because it's shiny and it has all these things that are just fun to be in. So I'm gonna live here in the middle ground to kind of have both worlds that I'm holding on to. And Shane told him, you can't be in the middle. You're either all in with God or you're all out. And that's hard to hear. You know, we grew up, as I grew up, hearing a lot about heaven and hell. And at some point, hell became a really hard topic because we don't want to hear that people are lost and dying in their sin and going to hell. But that's scripture, that's the Bible. They don't want to hear that either you are gonna be all for God and for Jesus, or you're gonna possibly be opposed to Him. So Shane challenges that when I think about when it comes to this Great Commission here, that for us to take this seriously, we are all about this. We are either fully focused on the Great Commission, again, all nations, baptizing them, teaching them everything, and helping them become a disciple. But what's the last part of that verse say? I am with you always to the very end of the age. This isn't just something Jesus said, go do this. Good luck. He says, I'm gonna be with you for this. If we're not careful, though, we hear this and don't understand this is a lifestyle change for us. So go back, if you will, for a minute to my illustration of the Mission Impossible movies. I love it because, again, uh, whenever they're given to the Characters in the movie, this mission. Here's a phrase: your mission, should you choose to accept it? So they present some challenge. They were going to say, This is the problem. This is going to be what's going to happen to the world. If you don't do this, we're going to all have chaos. So then you, your mission, but the phrase is, should you choose to accept it? Now the question I asked the youth was this do we, as believers, as followers of Jesus, get to choose to accept the Great Commission? We don't really, do we? Because once you say yes to Jesus, that he is now not just your savior, but your Lord. And if Jesus says here, I'm going to send you out to do this, he didn't say do this when you feel like it. Do this whenever it's convenience, when it's popular, when you get around to it. So that's where the movie thing illustration kind of falls short, because in the movie, the character could say, I don't want to do this mission. This is too much for me. But also in the movies, the great thing about it is whenever we've seen again, I know it's a movie, it just helps me understand this a little bit better. But did the characters in these movies, are they ever not part of the mission once they accept it? They're doing it the whole time. We don't see them for one day doing the mission and all of a sudden they're on vacation somewhere else taking a break. I'll get to that tomorrow. I'll save the world tomorrow. They are fully committed until the mission is over. That should be us. Not saying we can't take breaks, take vacation, but even as we're on a break, as we're on vacation, what do we do? The Great Commission is still part of what we're doing. Jesus said to them, You go do this in every day of our life. This is supposed to be what we're doing. So today the question for myself is Did I wake up today accepting this mission, realizing that's been given to me by Jesus? Now go and do this mission. Should I be overwhelmed by it? Yes, I should, but that should cause me to rely upon Jesus every second I'm doing this. So that was Monday. So fast forward now if you would turn over to Acts chapter one. Another verse we hear a lot. Acts chapter one, verse eight. So Monday night we talked about this image of the mission being given to us. Had we chosen to actually accept the mission, and if we do, that's going to dictate now, give us this journey for Jesus the rest of our life. I said earlier it's overwhelming and it feels like impossible. But what we what do we see here in Acts chapter 1, verse 8? It's not just doing we're doing this on our own, our own power, our own strength. Another very good verse we look at a lot of times. So this is after the resurrection happened here, before Jesus ascends back into the Father in heaven here. In verse number eight, it says this. The disciples are asking, what do we do next? He says this, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you. And again, you'll be my witnesses where in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. In this verse, two things. One, we receive power. We forget that at times. A lot of times in our world today, we feel defeated. Um, if you watch the news at all, if you watch social media talking about how things are happening, especially for our students, one of the things that I think we may be more prepared for in older generations, I was talking earlier about this, we've gone through harder times. You have gone through harder times than I have. You've gone through different wars. So, like whenever COVID happened, and these kids that were young, all of a sudden, hear on the news, hear the world shutting down, hear people are dying. Their minds and their experience in life hasn't prepared them for something this difficult to experience. And for a lot of them, they're still impacted by that. And they almost live defeated. I was telling uh Marty earlier that a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning, we got to do at the end of church time, myself and Charlie, meet the pastor. And I met a family who came up and talking about wanting to come to church here, talking about their kids, a daughter who's older, but also having a son who's about 25, 26 or so. And they said when COVID happened, he went to his room and never came out again, basically. He was fearful, he was hiding. So he needs church, he needs socialization time with people, but he has been so afraid since that happened when he was in high school age. Like, what's out there? We are meant to be together. Today you were here showing that. You show up every single Wednesday. I see you on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. You're here early, you'll stay later. Um, Raymond does a great job with the meals y'all do, the trips you take. We're meant to be together. So for this young man now who has spent years basically in his room doing online school, gaming to be with people, talking on uh online stuff, but not being around people. When mom and dad say, let's go to church around people, especially our church size, that scares him to death. But it's what he needs. So instead, he's living in fear and almost like he's powerless. So what we see on that Tuesday night of camp was Jesus gives us, I'm gonna give you power. I'm gonna go away, but I'm gonna do what? I'm gonna send the helper, somebody be with you, the Holy Spirit, who's gonna live inside of you, and you go back to the Great Commission, help you fulfill this as you go out to where Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. I told him, picture more. Okay, we are here, we're living here. Now, some are from Norman, Oklahoma City area, Midwest City, whatever it was, but where you start, that's where you begin the gospel commission in your home, in your school, on your teams, on your choirs, on your bands, that's your work, but then you go from there. Think about Oklahoma. We go across the state with all kinds of uh the good news about Jesus, then across America, and then to the ends of the earth. And again, that sounds so intimidating. But the truth is really, we're just called to do what? Go be a witness. I'll be with you. I'll send the Holy Spirit to be with you as well. I'm gonna give you this power that we have only from the Holy Spirit, and all you do is go be a witness. So, what is a witness? Someone tell me what is a witness? What is their job? Tell one others about Christ. Somebody over here had an answer. Think about a witness. What does a witness really do? Are they the ones are talking about or somebody else? Somebody else. So a couple summers ago, my family got to go down. We have our favorite snow cone stand in Moore, is off of uh Fourth Street there, uh, by a little taco taco truck um over there. So we were getting snow cones as a family, I think it was all four of us, and my daughter was gone for something else, and we're sitting there getting our snow cones, and my son was watching the cars going down 4th Street. I was looking at the snow cone stand and I heard a car wreck. I didn't see it happen. Micah did, and he was probably 12 or so. He kind of got to see two cars collide together. So we I look over there, I see the cars had a collision, go back to get my snow cone, we're eating my snow cone. Well, then the police show up and they want to know what did anybody what witness the accidents? Well, in that moment, my 12-year-old son froze. Like, I don't want to be a witness to that. I don't want to share what just happened. But at that moment, he didn't talk to me, he kind of hid and it was okay because he didn't see the whole thing happen. But if the police officers asked me, sir, are you a witness to that to that accident? I couldn't say yes. I only heard it, I didn't see it happen. Micah saw the two cars collide. I saw the aftermath of that. A witness is somebody who has seen it, firsthand experienced it, and then can tell somebody else about that as well. So whenever Acts chapter 1, verse 8 says, You're my witness, that means what? We have to first experience Jesus for ourselves, look into scripture, understand scripture, and then do what? Tell others what we have seen and heard and known for ourselves. But again, the point is it's not about us, it's about Jesus. And we're not doing this on our own power. Because in that moment, whenever Micah kind of froze, he really thought to himself, I'm gonna be in trouble because they're gonna come and talk to me. It's scary. I saw part of it. I'm not sure if I saw the whole thing. So I said, You're okay. Maybe somebody else was a better witness to seeing the car crash than you were, and they found somebody else to be a witness. But again, the police don't just show up and say, hey, who can tell me? Make up the story. Make up a story about the car crash. Just tell me some facts or some details, just make it up. They want to know the truth. Who was it? Whose fault was it? What do you know? And they'll take everybody's different story, piece it together to figure out the truth and go from there. So, us as a witness, we have to get our story straight. Do we know what the Bible's teaching? Have we spent time with Jesus to actually then tell somebody else in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth? This is who Jesus is. I know him personally. Not just I sat in church on Sunday morning and heard someone talk about him, but I've spent time with him. I'm a true witness because I personally know him, spent time with him, and can then go out with the world around us and make sure that they spend some time doing this. So here the example, again, is overwhelming. When Jesus tells us this, he didn't just say, go back to your hometown. The people you're around daily only tell about me. He says, No, go to the whole world. The whole world needs to hear about me, and your job is to go out and do this. And it sounds so very impossible for us to do this. But the question I have for us in this verse is when Jesus tells us to go do this, why would we do this? Again, relationship. Because sometimes in life, especially with younger generations, when they're given a job to do or a mission to do, at the person giving it to them, there's no relationship there. Well, why should I listen to you? Why should you be the boss of me? But here, whenever Jesus says to his followers who love him and know him, go and do this. I'm about to leave and leave you with this important mission to go and do. Their devotion to Jesus said, Yes, I will take this and I will do this for the rest of my life. I want to make sure and make Jesus happy in this moment. I want to make sure and do what he's told me to do. It's all about, again, relationship with Jesus, is why this is so vital for us. Goes back also to our attitude. Here, whenever Jesus is telling them what to do, they're wondering, what is next, Jesus? You've come back to tell us about who you are. You're about to leave us again. What do we do? And Jesus says, here, here's the mission. Go do this. Be my witness everywhere in the world because then you know who I am. I love too the fact that we got to spend some time on Sunday doing our freedom celebration, um, honoring uh our veterans, honoring those who have served currently or served in the past. Um, by thinking about that, when you are serving in the military and you are truly on mission, you're fully engaged in that in that mission. You've been given by somebody else. If you're overseas in a war, you don't have a time for just to say, I'm gonna pause today. I don't feel like fighting or defending or helping. You're fully committed. That's what Jesus is telling us here. Do this, go out with your life, and do it over and over until you see the mission fulfilled. That was just Tuesday for us there. I'll try to hurry to get us through the rest of this time together. If you would now turn over to Acts chapter, um Acts chapter on Wednesday night. We spent some time talking through Acts chapter two as well, as well. So in Acts chapter two, what we see next is another picture of what we're supposed to do with our lives. In Acts chapter 2, we see a man named Simon Peter, who before um the crucifixion, we see him hiding, we see him denying Jesus. But then whenever he's been given now in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, the Pentecost uh time happens is here as well. Peter has a huge transformation, and he now is gonna stand up and preach a sermon. And whenever he preaches to him, he tells them all about who Jesus is, but also the truth. You people crucified him. You're the ones who had the Messiah brought to you, told to you, you rejected him. So look if you would in Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 36. So Peter preaches a sermon, and it says, Therefore in verse 36, let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, again, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. So that's the focus. Jesus is the Messiah. When they hear this, it says in verse 37, they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what should we do? That phrase to me that stands out is pierced to the heart. So Peter tells them the truth about Jesus. You're the ones who crucified him. He is the Messiah. And they hear this, and they're, what do we do now? How do we respond to this? So picture in your life when you've ever had something told to you that really just um was shocking news. So back last year, my dad passed away after battling dementia. And it was the Monday after Thanksgiving that my sister called and left a voicemail to say my dad was not doing well. And he'd had a seizure and having a hard time breathing. He spent a week there in his facility before he passed away. And I still had that voicemail on my phone because I missed the call initially. It was early in the morning. I didn't hear the phone go off. And a couple of times I've listened to it again. But to hear my sister say, Jason, dad's not doing well, that pierced me to the heart. Because then the question was, well, what's next? I had to respond. I don't just go back to sleep. I don't come to church and work like normal. I respond differently. So here I picture whenever it says, they hear the truth about Jesus, and they say to Peter and the other disciples there, What do we do? So Peter says this in verse 38, Repent and be baptized, each of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and you're for your children and for all who are far off. As many as the Lord our God will call, with many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, Be saved from this corrupt generation. So those who accepted this message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them. I've always said, if I ever preach a sermon and 3,000 people get saved, I'm done preaching. Like that's gonna be my best sermon ever, right? I'm out. But again, what does Peter say? Repent of your sins and be baptized. There's some key phrases in there, each of you. This is an individual decision. This isn't something at Falls Creek where my youth can go and say, My grandma is a believer, my best friend is a believer, but each one of them must do what? Repent and be baptized. And then it says, those who accepted. So all these people heard the message, the same truth about Jesus, but those who accepted were 3,000. I'm not sure whether 4,000, 5,000 people that I don't know who was there, but 3,000 of them heard the message to call and do and do this. There's also a phrase in there I talked a little bit about in verse uh 40. It says this, be saved from this corrupt generation. We've always had a corrupt generation. You go back to Genesis, sin has corrupted us from the very beginning. Um, the illustration that I used for to kind of give them a visual was I brought out a really long rope and I kind of challenged them to picture going through a tug of war situation. And I had one of my boys stand on one side who was pretty strong, pretty big, and said, I want you to hold this rope for me and hold on to it well. Then I said, Over here, I pulled up somebody else and said, stand over here. And I had them go though and find some friends. So now you've got one boy and two friends over here and one boy over there. And I said, We're gonna we're gonna do some tug of war all of a sudden. What do you think's gonna happen? One boy's pretty strong, there's three over here. And I said, Hold on a minute here, but you two friends go find two more friends. And I kept doing that. And all of a sudden there was 20 guys over here and one over there. I said, How do you feel right now? He goes, pretty defeated. The picture is sometimes we are trying to do this Jesus thing all on our own. And we see this corrupt generation that's stacked up against us. And if we're gonna try to do tug of war, they're gonna win every single time. But then if you continue on in chapter 2, verse 42, what do you see the picture there? It's a generous and growing church. After the call of repent and be baptized, 3,000 people are added to the first church there. He says this that begins to devote themselves again to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to breaking of bread into prayer. Everybody was filled with awe and wonder. Many signs and wonders were done, being performed by the apostles. In verse 44, all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed to their proceeds all as anybody had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple. They broke bread from home from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And every day the Lord added to the number those who were being saved. This is why we had the picture of the church. Because that one guy by himself, if he went out and found friends, told them who Jesus was, added to his side, and eventually more we're over here, they stand a chance against that corrupt generation. This is why we need the church. And I challenge them to say, is this picture representing our student ministry? Are we generous? Are we inviting? Are we focused on discipleship, prayer, fellowship time together? Now the benefit they had was they met in their homes every single day. That's false creek. For a week, we are meeting together and worship, Bible study, small group times. That's why they get this kind of camp high of like, wow, I'm so I'm so in love with Jesus because you spend time with them for five days in a week and 24 hours a day. Then they come back home and all of a sudden they're back over here with the corrupt generation and not connected over here with those who are following Jesus. So I challenge them to say, we can't do this on our own. You must be part of our church. But go back to what I said earlier. The average person right now attends church 1.6 times a month. They are starving spiritually for fellowship and for Bible study and for worship times. That's hard for me. Um I get so much less time with my students than ever before. When I first began in 2003 full-time, I had him for multiple hours on a Sunday, had him for a few hours on a Wednesday. We had different events here and there. Now the good news is this though, it's not just about the program I can run, because we see in the home is where discipleship is really supposed to be happening. Moms and dads are coming around them and helping them know who Jesus is. But I wanted them to understand, understand and realize that whenever they are believers, it's not just about getting saved and baptized, they're also becoming part of the bride of Christ. They join in now, this church family, and they go back to school where they see this corrupt generation of high school students or middle school students, but when their friends are there also following Jesus, they like they can they can win the battle together. They feel supported. And the picture really is there in Acts chapter 2. Uh, we wrap it up this way. Over in Acts chapter 9, we see a picture of somebody else in the Bible who we understand as Saul, right? We see here that whenever the image of somebody who honestly was so opposed to Jesus, so opposed to God, that, like Shane said in our sermons, you're either with God or you're opposed to God. We know Saul was opposed to God. He hated this image of the way of Jesus being this new religion coming around. And he wanted everything he could do to stop it. And it says there in Acts chapter 9 that he was trying to find ways to kill or lock up the new believers. My question for us is why though, why did God choose Saul to be the one he converted and used? If I had come in this room a month ago and I said, Okay, um, we are short, one sponsor for False Creek. Does anybody feel like they could go to False Creek? And one of you said, I can go. I don't mind going. I've gone before, but I can go and do this. Or if somebody said, I'm not gonna go to camp, I did that years ago, I'm too old. Old, I need my bed, I'm going to shower. I'm not going to camp as a sponsor. As your youth pastor, a next-gen pastor, am I picking the first person that said, I can go and do this, or the person that said, no way. I'm picking the first person that says, I can go do this. It's not what God did. God said, the person who is so opposed to me, I'm picking Saul to convert and then do what? Be an instrument for the gospel. Look if you would, real fast here. Acts chapter 9. Look at verse 20. So after Paul's conversion, he goes through this time, it says, This immediately he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues that what? He is the Son of God. What a powerful story. And I use that to tell the students in the room there is nothing that you have done that God can't redeem. You are not too far away. But the story of Saul to say, I used to do this. I was the one opposed to who God was, who to who God is, but now I'm the one who's actually going out and proclaiming his message over and over and over again. That's us. All of us are dead in our sin. And God says, I choose you to now go be a witness for me everywhere I've called you to go. And what a story. I'm thankful for the one if you would have volunteered to go to camp. But imagine taking somebody who didn't want to be there. They come to camp for a week as a sponsor. They see students who are worshiping Jesus, getting saved, and they fall in love with students all of a sudden. How powerful would that be to come back and tell all of you, look, I went to camp. I didn't want to go. They made me go. It was hot. Didn't have my own bed, my own shower. I'm going next year because it was so good this year. What a witness. What a witness that would be to somebody else to say, go and do this together. That was on Thursday, and I'm going to end this way. So on Friday night, I was trying to find a way to wrap up the week together. I did it this way. I talked about over in Acts chapter 10 the story about Peter and Cornelius. This is a story that we see over and over and over again where it isn't just about a certain people that hear the gospel. And Peter, being a Jew, was challenged to go to what? The Gentiles, to say, even the your religion calls them unclean. Even says over in Acts chapter 10 that he's been forbidden, it says in verse 28 there of Acts chapter 10, it's forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean. Then later it says in verse 34, he began to say this. But in every nation, the person who fears him and does what is right is accepted by him. No favoritism. Or would you only think certain people are worthy of the gospel? Because thankfully, God doesn't look at us and only pick some of us by favoritism, that we're unclean or clean. And I ended this way. I gave them a chance to honestly choose the mission, if you will. So on Friday night, I gave them this envelope they wanted to. On the front of the envelope, it says this, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to then take this picture of the gospel out. On the inside of this little envelope, there was a gospel challenge coin. On the one side of the coin, it's a picture of the globe with our Matthew 28, 16 to 20 and the greatest theme on it as well. On the back side, it was a reminder of verse 28. I am with you always through the end of the age. And I challenge them to come pick this up and carry it with them as they go out with the gospel the rest of your life. But also I told them this some of you, though, before you pick this up, you have to let go of something else. Because for a lot of us, our mission is worldly. Our name, our fame, we have goals that are not godly goals. And for some of them, relationships, they have to let go of that first. They can't have both in their hands. So I told them, you may just sit here and pray first before you do this. Or it could be you go back home and pick up this coin later when you're willing to sacrifice and submit the goal, the mission you currently are holding on to, let it go, and then pick this up. So the question I have for us today, like a spy mission, if you will, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take this gospel, this great commission, this love of who Jesus is, the story of who Jesus is to all nations for the rest of your life, the rest of my life. There's no greater calling in life but then to be about the mission of Jesus. Can I pray for us this morning? And I'll let Raymond come up and finish up. God, today we thank you once again for False Creek. Thank you for what happened this past week. And God, we thank you for the way you have for over a hundred years used that campground to call students to salvation. You've called them to the Great Commission to go out as missionaries and ministers around the gospel around the world, the gospel. God, every year we see students that come in that are broken, that are sinful, that are lost in their life back home. They're almost trapped, if you will, in a very unhealthy environment. As we spend time together as a church family, as a False Creek cabin, as a family there at camp, we see you do great work. You reveal to them how much you love them, how much you're able to forgive them, but also to change them from then on. God, I pray that last week the students heard the gospel call last week, that they'd respond still today. I pray for those that were already believers come into camp. That God, you did use last week to challenge them, to keep going in their faith, to know this beyond just salvation and baptism, but they're called to live their life now on mission for you. They have your Holy Spirit living in them to give them power to do so. God, they need the church. They need your word to guiding us, but they need the church family, loving on them, praying for them, being the example of Jesus to them. So, Father, I pray that you would take what you did last week, all those gospel seeds that you sowed. Help it to be watered, help it to grow, help us to see your kingdom expand. God, I thank you so much for my church family here, for the way they take care of us. They love us, they support us. But God, today, may this reminder be for us as well that until our last breath, we are too called to go with the gospel. We go everywhere. We understand that nobody is too far gone from you. So thank you for loving us, for walking with us, for being patient with us. And may you also use first more um to bring you glory and honor, but to expand your kingdom. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.