I'm going to do a little bit of a Man, it's so good to see you here this weekend.

I want to start with a question.

How many of you...

have been to any of our other campuses?

Raise your hand if you've only been to this one all your life.

Okay.

Now, how many of you have been to, let's say, the Rancho campus?

Okay.

How many of you have been to the Westco campus?

Okay.

How many of you have been to the Upland campus?

Okay.

You're just a bunch of hoppers, aren't you?

That's...

Now, the reason I ask that question is because it's important that we know that we're part.

I mean, this is one of our campuses, but that we're part of something that's much larger.

In fact, back in the day before COVID, we would gather every Easter up at Felix Event Center at APU.

And the reason we did that was so that everyone could notice, you know what?

We've got four locations.

So we would have something anywhere between 13,000 to 15,000 people show up at Easter.

Did you know that?

And that let everybody see that the church is far wider, larger than you could ever imagine.

You're part of something bigger than one campus.

So having said that, a couple of warnings.

First, if you have a Bible, there's a passage we're going to get to, Psalm 71.

Psalm 71, verse 16, 17.

In the old days, when I was growing up, you would have what we call the State of the Union Address.

Now, I'm not talking about politics.

I'm talking about the church would give the State of the Union Address.

And what we would do, we would have a regular weekend service, and then after the service, the pastor would say, okay, everybody bring a pot.

Remember those days?

Bring a dish, right?

And then after the services, in the afternoon, we're going to give the State of the Union Address.

And out of maybe the small church might be 600, 700 people.

Out of the 700 people, 50 would show up.

Okay.

Because most people, hey, just, you know, just preach the word and sing some songs.

I don't really care the state of the union.

You know, I got other things to do on Sunday afternoon.

And then the larger churches tried, okay, let's try something similar.

Let's do it on a, maybe a Friday or Saturday night.

Maybe we can get people out, maybe offer coffee and dessert, get everybody there and kind of give the state of the union.

They'll come.

So large churches like this would get 50, 60 people out.

Okay.

Maybe a little bit more than that.

Well, yeah, the problem is that It's hard to know how you can inform a group of people who are all going the same direction trying to change the world.

It's hard.

When do you have the time and when can you get them all together to tell them what the Lord is doing in your church?

Because it's important that we all know what God is doing here.

Now, that's the first warning.

The second warning is this.

In the past when I've tried to summarize a series, so let's say we have four sermons in a series.

Now, stay with me.

We're going somewhere.

So let's say we have four sermons in a series, and oftentimes I would come out in the fourth sermon and I would try to remind you of what we've done so that we can actually make some decisions about what we've heard.

I remember Charles Swindoll back in the 70s said something that I heard as a young man that I've never forgotten.

He said, I would rather get one truth into my life than five truths, hearing five new truths, none of which made it into my life.

So, you know, if you're going to hear 30 truths, but nothing ever gets it into your life, it's better just to hear one and actually get that into your life for life change.

But I used to try to come up and I'd try to finish the sermon series by reiterating what I'd already said.

And I'd notice you and your eyes would gloss over.

And you think, oh, for crying out loud, we've heard this before.

Move on to the new information.

Okay.

And so those are the warnings because we are at a climactic point in the life of this church.

So much good is happening, but we're not yet over the threshold.

And as we are looking back.

Before we go forward now into our Easter series and into the series preceding these, look, I'm telling you, we're about to get into some fantastic Bible passages.

And what you're going to hear starting next week, all the way through basically to the end of the year, is some really heavy discipleship teaching.

Before we go there, I wanted to complete this series by reminding you that something very special is happening in this place.

Something that we feel so blessed to be part of it right now.

If you're on staff at such a time as this, if you're an elder at such a time as this, if you're part of this church at such a time as this, it feels like to us that everything that has happened in the past in this church has been working its way up to this moment in time.

And you've heard me mention the name Ron Keller, who basically...

I won't say he's the founder, but he's the guy that really got this whole thing going when they were meeting over in West Covina.

And he led 900 people basically to this facility where they took a great step of faith, believing that God was going to use this church for great spiritual endeavors.

And then somewhere along the line, you've heard me mention the name Chuck Boer, was hired as the youth pastor.

And back in the 80s and 90s, I remember hearing that name.

And he was kind of like the guy when it came to youth ministry.

Before we had DVD players and everything, he and his wife would take a video camera.

You remember those?

Like they weighed a ton.

And he would take it to the San Dimas football field, Bonita football, and he would film the cheerleaders and the players and the parents.

And then he would have this youth meeting on a Friday night where all the kids would come in to see themselves on the screen.

Back in the day, you know, you can do that anytime now.

But back in the day, that was pretty cool stuff.

And then he was fantastic at delivering the gospel in a simple yet challenging way.

And the church continued to grow.

And there are still people in our church that came to Christ during that time.

And then the church decided when Chuck left to go and minister to a group of people that basically knew him well, they decided to go out and find a pastor.

And they went all the way to Savannah, Georgia, and they found this guy.

And they sent two or three elders down to have a, they took me to this really expensive restaurant called McDonald's.

And no, it was, I think it was actually, oh, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

Chili's, that's Chili's.

So we sat down and we talked.

And at first we thought, no, this is not it.

But then my wife suggested that I should come out to California.

Maybe this is where God is leading us next.

But as you look back at the history, what you find is God continues to call leaders who have a passion to reach those far from God.

Ron Keller did it by putting the hymnals away and singing these things called Scripture in Song.

And a lot of people were angry.

And in fact, some people left.

But Ron said, we have got to do whatever it takes to reach the next generation.

So they did this crazy thing.

They took a step of faith and they put the words on this screen.

And people started to sing with the screen.

But the young generation liked the music and they came in.

And before too long, there were more youth than adults as far as the way I understand it.

And the problem is I've got Richard and Elaine Lucas here.

So they're going to test everything I say because they've been around since dirt.

And they were part of, I love that little dig at Richard, but they were part of this.

So if you want clarity on any of this, you can talk to them.

Mike Berry's here as well.

He's been around a long time as well.

And so.

the church began to grow.

It began to prosper.

It began to reach those far from God.

It was the church, the prevailing church in this area.

And even though we all worded it differently, we all believed that people far from God could come near to God, whether we called it, we're going to love God, love people, love the world, or whether we said one hope, one life in Christ, whatever we said, we all had as part of our passion and calling.

to reach people.

We really believe the gospel could change your life.

And we really believe that if you presented it, if you contextualized it in a place that every generation, the next generation could understand that people would receive Christ and the world would change.

And now guess what he's done?

God just keeps doing great things because the next thing he started to do, he gave us this vision of four campuses.

Remember seven, eight years ago with a care center in the middle.

And you've heard me often discuss this because I wanted our campus pastors to have a place where when anybody came with any kind of need that we could meet it.

You know how frustrating it is when a pastor meets somebody and we don't know what to do with you.

We don't know where to get you clothing and food or shelter.

We don't know where to get you counseling for your addiction.

We don't know where to supply your needs.

But what if we had a care center in the middle of our four campuses?

So that when we met anybody who had a need, we could take them there.

We could show them.

We can help you.

And so we've got these four campuses.

And the first one that God provided basically was the Rancho campus.

I mean, this.

We have been through so many seasons of prayer asking God, why don't you know, God, we don't, we want to be wise stewards.

We don't want to go into debt for some $60 million building.

We don't want to do that.

We want to, we want to be responsible.

We want to be wise and we want to spread out wide.

We know it's cheaper and we can reach more people.

And we waited and we waited.

And then this place called Etiwana guards just kind of fell into our lap, or at least from our perspective.

I mean, most of the people in the Rancho area have been married there.

It was a place for marriage ceremonies.

And suddenly the guy who owns it wants to retire.

And we ended up getting it for probably two-thirds of what it really would cost.

So we knew right away it was a good investment because we could always turn around and sell it and make a few million dollars.

So we did.

When I say you people, that sounds terrible.

You people.

We people together decided, you know, God is leading us here.

And now we have this, I don't know if you've never been there, guys.

There is this beautiful facility that's actually larger in space than this one.

Not in the auditorium, but it's got potential.

It's got a huge lot that you could probably build a 1,200-seat auditorium on.

And beautiful children's facilities, a beautiful worship center.

And then Western Christian just recently.

In talks with them, we decided, you know, we really want to go after the youth, the next generation.

So God not only sends us and provides a way for us to partner with Western Christian to start another campus there, but he sends us this guy called Chris Ricks.

Chris Ricks was actually, and I know he doesn't like me to do this, but hey, if you got it, flaunt it, right?

So Chris Ricks was the quarterback for Florida State under Bobby Bowden.

He's got a great career and he moved out here to the West Coast because he was with Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

When we ask him to become the campus pastor, knowing that this is going to be a huge youth movement, God provides, he answers the call.

And then we've not even started talking about where, West Co.

And this guy named Matt Chavez. Now, I hope none of you will take offense at this.

I don't mean it offensive.

But my favorite cartoon growing up, and you can ask my friend Cleet over here, was Speedy Gonzales.

Speedy Gonzales.

Slowpoke Rodriguez.

Matt Chavez and Speedy Gonzales on steroids.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about him in a moment.

But...

I'm amazed that I get to work with people like this.

And then you got Michael over here.

And here's Michael Chisaka that five, six, seven, eight years ago was working a job in the secular world.

And then he started volunteering, I think, in children's ministry, leading worship.

And here's this guy in the background that we have no idea the potential.

And then suddenly when the time is right, God starts growing him.

Now he comes out.

He gets you fired up.

You're ready to go, right?

God has called him for such a time as this.

And I got to tell you, now God is just showing off.

He's doing something right now, and this is going to really make you angry.

He's doing something right now that I can't tell you.

You said, why'd you bring it up then?

Okay, I just, transparency, transparency.

I brought it up because number one, I've got a history of mentioning something far too soon.

And I know that and I'm working on it.

Because if it falls through, then I lose credibility with you.

I know that.

No, by the way, I'm so grateful that you've been, I took this job when I was 42 and you put up with me for how many years of preaching?

Okay, thank you that you didn't give up on me.

And we're in this together now.

And we're doing this together.

This is not a stepping stone for me.

This is my life and I'll be here till the day I die, hopefully later than sooner.

Unless, you know, if the Lord wills.

Okay, that's what I should say, if the Lord wills.

So now he's just showing up.

So I said that second so that you'll pray.

And I want you to pray.

God, I don't know what Jeff's talking about, but I can tell I've never seen him like this.

So you don't have to know, just pray.

And hopefully in a few weeks, I'm probably going to pay for doing that.

But it's just me.

So give me some grace.

Pray hard.

Now, as you look at these campuses.

these campuses for such a time of this is they're growing because let's go back to Matt Chavez for a moment.

Matt Chavez came in a meeting where we were interviewing prospective elders.

That's where I met Matt.

And I'm sitting there watching this guy and we're thinking about, is this another elder?

Is this an elder?

Somebody needs to be a leader in our church.

And I thought, man, this is not an elder.

This is a campus pastor.

So I challenged the guy who was successful in the business world.

I said, Matt, you're a campus pastor.

Well, man, we need you to be a campus pastor, not an elder.

And I didn't, I mean, he goes home, talks to his wife.

Next thing you know, he's the campus pastor out of Westco.

He leaves a very successful, high paying job that says, you know what?

God wants me to be the campus pastor.

He's Speedy Gonzalez.

And that campus man is growing like crazy.

I told you about Chris Ricks out in Upland.

And I told you about Michael and then Kelly Soilus.

What most people don't know about Kelly at Rancho is Rancho's had some struggling days.

We had to find our place and had to find our rhythm out there.

But Kelly was there.

And when the Church needed her.

When that campus needed her the most, she stepped up.

She has earned the right to be where she is because she's paid her debt and she's passionate about Rancho Campus.

She fights for it and she wants to see it succeed.

So God is saying this.

God is saying this to our church.

You have, first of all, to whom much is given, much is required, and he's given us much.

But also, since you have been faithful with little, I'm about to give you and entrust you with more.

Now, the next phase of this is why is revival happening?

You know the revival that's happening among our youth and adults and young adults.

It's just amazing.

And we're trying to ask, Michael and I, the campus pastors, we're meeting together on Thursdays for breakfast and we're getting to know each other.

We're asking serious questions about why is God doing what he's doing right here and right now?

Why has he impressed it upon our leadership to pursue a discipleship movement that begins with our children?

and streamlines all the way through our adults.

And when we ask that, it brings up three other questions.

Number one, what exactly is a disciple-making movement?

Let me define it for you.

And this is what God has told us.

This is the next phase.

We didn't hear it audibly, but as we get together and pray, the Spirit of God impresses these things upon us.

We don't want to just sit still.

We don't want to maintain.

We don't want to say, yeah, we got a big church.

Let's just have some fun.

No, that's not how we're wired.

We want to change the world, and we believe that we really can.

And so what is a disciple-making movement?

It is a rapid and exponential increase in disciples-making disciples.

We believe that it's time for us to move from fans to followers.

It's time for us to move past just respect for God into repentance so that our lives begin to line up.

with what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, to move from a people just looking for a loophole of how I get out of hell into heaven to people who are marching towards sanctification.

We want to be holy.

Second, we ask the question, why would God choose this place to launch this kind of movement?

And there's only one answer, real answer, and that is grace.

You don't do anything to earn something like this.

God just says, I'm going to use this place.

You don't know why?

You're just grateful.

And then somebody will say, well, what makes you think God would use you, your church for a discipleship movement in our land?

And my question to you would be, why not?

If it's by grace and you can't earn it, why not?

The same thing happened as I described a few months ago with baptism services, with our one life philosophy.

And we know that discipleship is the key to restoring what we lost in this country.

in this community.

It's time for Christ's followers to really be Christ's followers.

Remember what we said?

If you're following Christ, you're what?

You're following Christ.

You're going where he goes.

You live as he lived.

And then third, the question is, what is a disciple of Jesus Christ?

What is that?

And we talked in our sermon series, it's one who walks in the dust of the rabbi and perpetuates his teachings and actions.

A fan is not a follower.

A follower is a follower.

A true disciple moves past admiration into transformation of every area of your life.

So if you're listening to this message right now, you're on a train that's moving.

And that train is moving toward Christ's likeness.

Enough playing the game, enough playing around, enough making church ops in a way.

If I feel like it, I'll go.

If I don't, I won't.

If I feel like studying the Bible, I will.

If I don't, I won't.

We're making a commitment that no matter what we feel like, we're going to do the right thing.

We're refusing to keep following culture.

Let our kids be impacted by a culture that's moving farther and farther away from God every single day.

And we've decided we're going to stand on the truth no matter if we're in trouble for it, no matter if we're ostracized for it, no matter if Pastor Jeff gets arrested for it.

We'll come visit him in prison.

Maybe.

We said we're going to stand on the truth.

And we're going to deliver the gospel in a kind, considerate way.

But we're going to call a spade a spade.

We're going to say what the gospel is.

We're going to follow Jesus'sexual ethic.

We're going to follow what he says about our identity.

We're going to follow what he says about sin and guilt and salvation.

And yes, heaven and hell.

No matter what, we're going to follow Jesus.

We're going to pursue him.

Right?

And rather than spend all of our time on Facebook, we're going to have our face in the book.

Rather than taking selfies, which are called selfies because we can't spell narcissism, right?

We're going to be less concerned with our image and more concerned with the image that is on us.

Christ's image.

And we're going to live our life for an audience of one.

So that when you come to a crossroads and you've got to choose between Jesus'way and the world's way, we're going to choose Jesus.

Second, a disciple is one who picks up his cross and follows Jesus.

You deny yourself.

Now, listen, if you're still at the stage of your life where you think denying yourself means this, oh man, life is so tough.

I got to get up this morning and live another day.

And I have all these...

Evil desires that I have, you know, I got to die to them.

That's not what picking up your cross means, folks.

I mean, my advice to you, if you're still going to be every day, I got to deny myself this and I got to, you know, cocaine, drug addiction, pornography.

If that's where you still are, oh, I got to deny myself my desires today.

Grow up, man.

You got to grow up.

You should be long past that already.

Because when Jesus comes into your life, he not only changes what you do, but what you want to do.

Those passions should have changed a long time ago.

Dying to yourself and living for Christ means that you assume that Christ can take your life in the direction now that he wants to.

You're giving your life over to him and you're saying, you know what?

I give you all my rights and all my plans.

They belong to you, Jesus.

And I give you permission to shape and mold me and the events of my life.

However you want to do it, I give you permission.

Even if it might hurt and I'm not saying it won't hurt.

I'm giving you that permission.

God.

You have the ability and the authority to determine the course of my life.

That's what, that's what discipleship means.

And advanced discipleship means this.

When you really start following him, advanced discipleship means this.

Not my will, but yours be done.

This is what I really, really, really want, but not my will, yours be done.

Now to do that, and this is where we get into this passage.

Just stay with me.

To do that means.

We're all going to need a mentor.

Someone who can advise you concerning the possibilities of what God is doing in your life.

Listen, you do not want to miss the weekend of February 10th and 11th. On that weekend, I have decided, I have asked my father-in-law, Charlie Delaney, to preach.

Here's why.

You know, when I read books on apologetics or on theology, and I would find somebody that I really appreciated reading their works, I would always turn to the back because I want to know who taught them.

And that's where you find it.

Because, you know, if I'm impressed with somebody, I want to know, well, who taught them?

Well, if you want to know who's kind of shaped and molded me into the person I am, you have to hear from my father-in-law.

He's 84 years old.

It probably took me, I don't know, six months to convince him to do it.

Because he kept saying, no, no, no, I got nothing to...

I said, yeah, you do.

Just the fact you're 84 and you've lived a life committed to Christ all these years, you need to be heard.

This will probably be the last message he preaches.

Just because of his frailty, how old he is, I want you to hear him.

Because even though I fight him all the time, because sons-in-laws and fathers-in-laws, they're supposed to do that.

That's why God made us like mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws.

It's just the way it is.

Even though I fight with him, every time he speaks, I listen because he's run the race.

He's lived life well.

He's remained faithful to one woman.

He's remained a great father to his daughters and a great father-in-law to his son-in-law.

I don't know where my life would be without mentors in my life.

And I'm going to get that in your life just in a moment.

There have been many times in my life where I thought my world was falling apart when we had to leave Zimbabwe.

And we thought God had called us there when we had to leave New Zealand.

We were no longer allowed to stay.

And it's always my father-in-law who always comes up and says, Have you stopped for a moment to think about this reality that God is moving you on to something much bigger and much better?

And that something much bigger and better is you.

And three.

Jesus comes first in your life if you're a disciple.

That means he gets first of everything.

Jesus said, where your treasury is there will your heart be also.

That's why a church will often know or measure its health by its giving.

That is the last thing most people give up because it's what's most precious to them.

And you know you are a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ when that becomes something of priority.

Now...

This whole thing of discipleship, this movement that we're launching here at our church, it is a journey.

Remember I told you the story of the Kenyan king who was told by the Christian pastors and ministers, you only can have one wife, and he had, I think, 20 wives.

So in order to conform, he just killed the other 19.

It's a true story out of missions, long, long time ago.

Discipleship is a journey of discovery.

And in order to do that, here's how it happens.

And I want you to take note of this because this will tell you where we're going to go over the next three to five years.

First of all, discipleship requires a teacher from whom you learn and discover the foundational truths.

In Ephesians chapter 4, we're told, So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach the unity in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

So the Bible says the Holy Spirit gives gifts.

And one of the gifts that he gives is that of a teacher.

If you are part of us, that means I am your teacher.

You sit under my teaching, but not necessarily under my authority.

Because the elders of the church oversee that the teaching is consistent with Scripture.

So in our church, I am not at the top of the heap.

The elders are the spiritual oversight.

And I report to them.

They make sure that what is being taught is consistent with scripture, and that is a solemn responsibility.

But they in turn serve under the authority of God.

So the top in this church of the hierarchy is God.

The elders submit to God, and they have spiritual oversight over the church.

But the teaching gift is mine, which means that there is an awesome responsibility here for the church.

And that if you're part of the church, this is something that you want to participate in on a regular basis so that you get more of scripture into your life and your mind than you do of the world's conformity.

And I've noticed in such a time as this, God is raising up other preachers and teachers that you will sit under like a Michael, like Don Jackson, that God has sent us, who has a fantastic love and passion for the word of God and to break it down for you.

Second, discipleship requires a mentoring relationship.

We talked about this earlier.

You have to have a mentor who will pour biblical information and explanation into your head and life experiences into your heart.

I love 2 Peter 1 that describes the authority of Scripture.

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things.

For prophecy never had its origin in human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And you've heard me define what that means.

It's a beautiful Greek word that refers to a person who is driving a horse and carriage.

So when you think about the inspiration of Scripture, it's not like the disciples who wrote the Bible closed their eyes and the Holy Spirit took over like a Ouija board.

Okay, that's not how.

Inspiration means...

that they were allowed to drive the carriage.

And as long as they stayed on the road, they could use their research, investigation, even their personal writing styles.

As long as they stayed on the road to truth, they were fine.

But if they started to gear off, they were carried along.

They were guided back onto the road of truth.

So that when you read the scripture, you have the assurance that this is something that has been delivered to you by God through his Holy Spirit.

Now, a mentor does something very similar.

A mentor will take someone who's new in the faith or who doesn't have a lot of Bible knowledge and encourage you to read the scripture, but will carry you along and will help you understand what the original text meant and what the writer's meant to communicate to you.

Because if not, you'll come with all kinds of ideas of what you think the Bible means.

What you need is a teacher who has the gift to help you understand what the Bible is saying.

That's a mentor.

A good mentor also helps you interpret your life experiences.

If you have a mentor or a life coach, when you're going through a difficult time, they are so valuable because they can then interject the word into your life, and they can also, through life experiences, tell you, I can just tell you this happened to me at some point in my life, and this is what God was doing.

That can be so encouraging.

Now, let me go to that passage that I told you to turn to in Psalm 71.

I love this.

Here's what David says.

Since my youth, this is verse 17 and 18.

Since my youth, God, you have taught me.

And to this day, I declare your marvelous deeds.

Even when I'm old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.

David is saying, and let me just say to you old people.

All right.

The reason we're in the condition, I'm just going to make a confession here.

The reason we're in this condition that we are in our country is we've written the old people off.

Our churches wrote them off.

Our education systems have written them off.

But in the church, the older are supposed to be the wiser.

And Proverbs says, wisdom belongs to the aging.

If you think, well, I'm older and I don't have a place in this church.

You've got the highest place.

The calling on your life is now to mentor some of these young boys and girls, these young men and women, and to pour into them what the Spirit of the living God has taught you.

And until we do that, we will not go to that next level of sanctification and holiness in our lives.

We need mentors.

We need teachers.

Both of them combined together.

So discipleship, third, requires spiritual disciplines.

of prayer and worship and personal Bible study and introspection.

Now stay with me here.

Psalm 100 says, Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness.

Come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us.

We are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Now let me say something about the worship part.

A good mentor will encourage you to make worship part of your posture of life, and a good mentor will show you how.

See, it's one thing to tell you worship needs to be part of your life, but that just frustrates so many people because they don't know how.

They don't know how to practice the spiritual disciplines, and so it'll all start.

Back in the early days of Christianity, it was a major, major issue.

Even at the turn of this century, it was a major, major issue.

It's come and gone in the life of the church.

It's gone right now.

It needs to come back.

You don't need to only be told by your pastor to live in a posture of worship.

You need a mentor to show you and teach you how based on his life experience or hers.

And then...

A good mentor will also instruct you how to pray.

It's one thing for me to say, you need to pray.

You need instruction.

These are tried and true things that have been passed down through the ages.

In Romans 8, in the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

Now, if you read that as a Christian, some of you are going to think, what does that mean?

You need a mentor to come alongside you and tell you what it's like that the Spirit of God takes what is in your heart and mind, translates it, and gives it to the throne of God.

But you need to know what that means and what it's like.

Also, a good mentor will teach you how to get the most out of the Word of God.

If you just get a 45, okay, 50-minute sermon on the weekend, and that's the totality.

of the saturation of your mind with the word of God, it won't be enough.

You need a mentor who coaches you and teaches you to get the most out of the word of God.

All scripture, Paul tells Timothy, is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

These are tried and true.

Tried and true.

And fourth, Discipleship requires duplication.

Rory was right last week.

Changed lives change lives.

But too many lives remain unchanged or they stay their entire life on spiritual milk and never get the good stuff.

I love John's gospel.

First of all, there's an African proverb.

I'm not sure it's a Zimbabwe proverb.

Michael left, so I don't know.

But there's an African proverb that says, little by little makes a bundle.

Little by little makes a bundle.

And the more change that comes into your life, the more reservoir, the deeper the reservoir that you have.

to coach people, to mentor people, and change their lives.

You know, John's gospel, you got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And John's gospel is so excited about this aspect of faith that it jumps right on into it, the first chapter.

You know, Matthew and Luke, they're jumping into the genealogy.

They're jumping into the birth of Jesus.

John can't wait.

So he jumps around.

He doesn't even get out of chapter one.

And what happens is, we're told that Philip...

meets Jesus and he's so excited about it that in verse 45, Philip then found Nathanael and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nazareth, can anything good come from there?

Nathanael replied and he said, come and see, said Philip.

Then verse 49, after he meets Jesus, Nathanael declared, Rabbi, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

Jesus said, you believe because I told you, I saw you under the fig tree, which is something that happened earlier in the text.

you will see greater things than these.

True discipleship, after you've been changed, you start to change people around you.

Now I want to give you one illustration and then tell you where we're going to go.

You okay?

I know it's a little different this weekend, but if I don't get you now, you're not going to come back Sunday afternoon.

I can't do it then.

It's now or never.

And there's a lot of new people around.

I want you to know where we're going.

So I got some interesting news.

Now, you golfers are going to appreciate this.

Do we have any golfers in the room?

Any godly people?

Okay.

We got some.

All right.

Most of you aren't, I know.

And you're not going to get this, but you'll get the overall illustration.

So this past week, I got to meet with three businessmen who are really interested in helping us do what we want to do around the world.

I've been investing in these three businessmen for a long time.

So what you're seeing here is when I was there, I had a golf lesson from Hank Haney.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Now golfers, see, they know who that is.

The greatest coach of all time.

He was Tiger Woods coach when Tiger was winning all the tournaments.

You say, well, how did you get a lesson from him?

Let's just say it was a very special gift.

And so I go over to his house in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I walk in there.

He's one of the most personable men I've ever met.

I had an hour lesson.

He gave me two.

It was humbling.

At one point in the lesson, Hank Taney looks at me, and he says, Jeff, I'm going to have to change your concept of how to swing the golf club.

Now, see, I've always thought I'm pretty good.

Six handicaps, not bad.

And I'm thinking, you know, he's just going to tweak a little bit here.

And he said, you have no idea how the club is supposed to travel.

He said, now, because you're a good enough athlete, you will rescue the face six out of ten times.

But the way you even start is all wrong.

And if you start wrong, you can't finish well.

So he said, I can't help you unless I put my hands on you.

Is that okay?

I said, what do you mean?

And as you saw in the video, he actually walked, and he would walk the club in every position, not just once.

Folks, that was what, I'll bet you he did that 100 times because he wanted to get the muscle memory going.

But when he said to me, I've got to change your concept, I thought that's a great illustration for where we're going as a church.

I've got to change your concept of what following Jesus really means.

Most of us think it's the gospel of moralism.

I'm going to be good.

I'm going to go to church a few Sundays out of the month.

I'm going to give my tithes and offerings from time to time.

Your concept is that I'll be good enough to get to go to heaven when I die.

I've got to change your concept.

Because if you start wrong, you're not going to finish well.

You have to get to the point where you recognize Christ owns you, everything about you.

He owns.

You've been bought with a price.

You are saved by grace through faith.

Hallelujah, right?

Woo.

Thank goodness.

But if you think he's going to let you alone until eternity, you are so sadly mistaken.

He is determined to conform you to the image of his son and he will fight you all the way.

He will fight you all the way.

The calling on our church.

is to get back to that New Testament Christianity where you and I are not just fans, we are followers of Jesus, which means stage one of where we're going.

Now stay with me, stage one.

We're going to grow our campuses with prayer, worship, teaching, and revival.

Not with gimmicks, not with programs.

We're going to go right to the word.

We're going to learn.

We're going to saturate our minds with truth.

Weekend worship is going to become a non-negotiable in our lives.

We're not going to wake up on Sunday, how do I feel?

Do I go or do I not go?

Do I go to Bedside Baptist or do I go to the church?

We're going to go and meet with God's people because we know we need God's people.

and that we're part of a larger community.

We're going to pray.

We're going to call on the name of Jesus, expecting God to move.

We're going to expect transformation in ourselves.

We're going to expect people far from God to come near to God.

We're going to assume that our lives are lived for an audience of one and no one else.

And we're always going to expect God to move.

And we're like an individual in the same way that an individual shouldn't be worried about losing their salvation, but should be concerned with their usability.

Will God use me?

Well, that's determined by your response to him.

The same way a church has to ask the question, are we usable by God?

And the answer is you're usable if you're marching toward conformity to the image of Christ and you're moving past fan into follower.

And repentance becomes something that we do.

And confession becomes something that we do.

And although none of us will ever achieve perfection, we're going to die trying.

We're going to try to get there.

Not to earn salvation or the favor of God, but to position or posture ourselves as a church to be used by God to do great things.

Stage two.

Stage two, we're about to launch a discipleship movement that possesses four facets.

Facet one, we are in the process of writing a discipleship plan that will cover all the way from youth to old age and everything in between.

The discipleship material that we have is a bit outdated.

It needs to be rewritten and reworked for today's person, today's culture, today's people.

Facet two, there's going to be an all-church series that will highlight the discipleship experience, outlining 15 faith essentials perpetuated by fully devoted followers of Jesus.

This series will happen.

We're not waiting till the fall to start the discipleship plan.

We're starting that now, but this series will take place most probably in September, October.

Facet three, we are looking for key disciple makers who will be appointed to disciple the entirety of our young adult population.

Now, why do we start here?

God is doing something special in our young adults.

These young adults want to do something with their lives.

They are begging, they are asking to be disciple.

I'm not going to wait until the fall.

We're going to start immediately.

trying to find and mentor those disciplers who have a passion to invest in the next generation and get them teamed up and start discipleship now.

Facet four, we will lean in heavily to our children's programming, making sure that a Christian worldview is established long before they ever attend high school.

We're going to make sure that your children and your junior hires, long before they get to high school, have such a strong, deep Christian worldview that if you do have, you're forced to send them to public school, they'll go in with eyes wide open and a solid foundation.

Stage three, we will start a valley-wide discipleship movement that is launched whereby people far from God are invited to discover who Jesus is and the difference he can make.

What I'm telling you, if we're going to have a fully devoted follower of Jesus in every home in this valley, we're going to have to work with other churches.

We get to work with other churches.

We're already doing that in some of our men's events and our women's events and some of our life coaching, but we gotta lean into this and get everybody on board.

This discipleship movement, there's no reason it can't start here, not because we're good and we deserve it, not because we're better than anybody, sure, by the grace of God.

It's stage four.

And this is where I believe we get to that point where God has been preparing this church for years and years.

Our church is going to become a sending agency to send our youth and young adults out into the world to deliver the good news of the gospel.

We're going to send them to post-Christian Europe.

We're going to send them to Asia.

We're going to send them to the South Pacific.

Rather than asking them to go outside of us and try to raise funds because they feel the call to be a missionary.

we're going to send them and train them and teach them in our own backyard first and then to the world.

Now, I've run out of time.

I had so much more to say.

I just want to end like this.

Those who've accomplished the greatest things in life have made the greatest sacrifices.

You don't accomplish something like this without one having a target on your back from the evil one.

You get this serious, you get this serious about changing the world, you're going to get it.

Watch your back.

That's another reason you need a mentor and accountability partner.

Every time we go to another phase of the vision, the temptations in my life start getting stronger.

You're no different.

Watch your back.

Second.

You'll be tempted to get on the sidelines and to say, you know what, this is a great vision.

I'm going to stand back and watch and see what happens.

Don't do that.

Get onto the playing field.

There was a man that came to Jesus in Luke chapter 9.

This is how I want to end.

And when I first read this, I thought, man, the guy, Jesus is kind of hard on this guy.

Because the Bible says in verse 57 of Luke 9, as they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go.

Man, that's pretty cool.

Jesus, I'm with you.

I'm on your team.

And Jesus replied, foxes have dens, birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head.

Instead of saying, hey, that's great, let's follow.

Jesus says, okay, your rock is going to be your pillow.

If you think by following me, your life is going to get easier, let me just tell you right now, it's not going to get easier, it's going to get harder.

He said to another man, follow me.

But he replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father.

If you've read your Bible any length of time, you know that this is kind of a colloquialism that means, let me go work with my father, get my inheritance, and then let me bury him, and then I'll come follow you.

Jesus says, no, it doesn't work like that.

Leave him now.

Now.

The things you're really looking for are not there.

They're with me.

Come and follow me.

Still another said in verse 61, I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.

That seems reasonable to me.

Let me go say goodbye to mom and dad.

But Jesus says, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the service in the kingdom of God.

Basically, Jesus is saying, look, if you go back and say goodbye to your mom and dad, you may not return.

You may start counting the cost.

I'm telling you the cost right now, make your mind up right now.

It's kind of like, was it Joshua?

It's for me and my house, we're serving the Lord.

I'm asking you as your pastor, as the preacher, as a father, come on.

And if you're gonna come on this journey with us, it's gonna be intense.

Then you're gonna have to do some things.

You're gonna first give up something you love for something you love even more.

Now, folks, young adults all around this world have given up on the secular way of thinking and are searching for something.

Right here in our community, I was in Tbilisi, Georgia a couple of years ago, and I was in a cafe, and this is post-Russia, so this is a post-Russian type of state.

And I noticed I went to a cafe, and they were playing Christian music, and I walked up to the owner who spoke English, and I said, I noticed you're playing Christian music.

He said, yeah, I'm a Christian.

He goes, but I don't know a lot.

I just, a missionary came through here, taught me a little bit, but I just don't know a lot.

And I've got young people coming in here, and I see them reading Bibles.

They're searching, but I don't know how to teach.

And I thought, my goodness.

Okay, folks, we start today.

You and I, we're going to send these young adults out, and we're going to return the gospel to the very people who brought it to us all around the world.

Let's go.

Father, thank you for your love for us.

And I pray right now as we enter into a very special time of our service that those far from God would come near.

Somehow eyes would have been opened that we're saved by grace through faith.

This not of ourselves, but the gift of God.

I pray.

the Holy Spirit would move in this place right now on every campus.

Something special would happen.

This would be that climactic point in the life of this church.

CCV now one and all.

We would step across the line now and never look back.

But doing everything we can to take the good news of the gospel to the world and everything we can in our own lives to move away from this fan.

to a fully devoted follower so that we're ready for the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray.

Everybody said.