The Call to Make Disciples | Judges 2:1-15

What happens when a generation fails to pass down their faith, and how can intentional discipleship break that cycle today?

In this sermon on Judges 2, Pastor Brent explores the sobering reality of what occurs when God's people drift into partial obedience and neglect making disciples. Looking at the stark contrast between the tragic drift in the Book of Judges and the vibrant, multiplying community seen in Acts 2, this message challenges believers to actively invest in life-on-life mentorship. Discover how being discipled, discipling others, and boldly sharing the gospel protects future generations and brings true kingdom impact to your local community.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Danger of Partial Obedience: Examining how incomplete devotion in Judges led to compromised faith and spiritual distress.
• Generational Discipleship: The vital necessity of intentionally passing on God's truth to children and the next generation.
• Life-on-Life Mentorship: How practical, relational discipleship builds boldness and spiritual maturity.
• A Tale of Two Churches: Contrasting the breakdown in Judges with the generous, disciple-making community in Acts 2.
• Overcoming the Fear of Evangelism: Learning to naturally share the gospel and step out in obedience to fulfill the Great Commission.

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This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

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We all pray with me. Lord, we thank you that the words we're singing aren't just words on a screen, but they're truths about who you are. It's your world, Lord. I pray this morning as we come to your word, Lord, would you encourage us where we need encouraged? Would you challenge us where we need challenge? We're trusting your Holy Spirit is going to come and you're going to speak to us this morning, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Y'all may be seated. Good morning. My name's Brent. I'm the new pastor here. And uh a little bit about me, my wife, April, and I, we have four children. Um, ages, the oldest is nine, our youngest is five, and we have another one on the way. She's due toward the end of the month of May. So we're excited about that. We were missionaries in Taiwan for a little over seven years. We loved our time there. Um, it was a great time for us. And then we moved home to Pennsylvania to pastor a church there, and we were there for about seven or eight years as well. And then we've spent our last six months in Jacksonville, Florida, just kind of recouping, resting. I was working at Costco, and that was a really good time for us as well. So we're here now. We're happy to be here. We've enjoyed getting to know you all. Our kids are uh attending school and and and they seem to have adjusted pretty well. And we're just excited to get to become more and more of a part of your community. And I think April and I's heart really is we want to see God's name be made great here in Sugarland and to the ends of the earth. That that's our heartbeat, and that's what we want to see and we want to be part of. And so we want to be doing all we can to draw people closer to Jesus and sending you guys out to reach your friends and coworkers and neighbors. So that's what we're praying for. So I'm gonna be in the book of Judges this morning. If you want to go ahead and turn there, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and then Judges. As you're turning there, um, I'm gonna talk this morning about discipleship. Discipleship's a Christian word for mentorship or training. That's that's what I want you to be thinking of. And when I think back on my life and and the mentors that God's given me, He's given me many people that have poured into my life and been, they've been very faithful to point me to Jesus. And I think the guy who probably had the most profound impact was a guy, we called him Murph. Murph was this guy, I remember the first time I saw him, he had a comb over, and he had the kind of comb over that it was it was combed over his bald head. And I remember as a young 20-some-year-old man, I didn't think that was very cool. And I tell you that just to say, like, God can use anybody. It doesn't matter what what you look like or or the issues you may have, that guy eventually ends up having this profound impact on my life. So he was the leader of this school that I was a part of. It was a discipleship training school. I was on staff, and he just started getting to know me and pouring into me. Um, I remember I don't actually like camping, but he would invite us like almost like every couple weekends. He'd say, Hey, I'm going camping, guys. You want to come? And he'd say, I'm gonna go to Costco and we'll get those roast chickens at Costco, and I'll get some oranges and some bananas from the lunch line, and that'll be enough food, and we'll just go and we'll surf and we'll have a great time. So we'd surf, he taught me how to surf, and then when we get done surfing, this this was kind of the key time. This was when he was really intentional with us. We'd we'd start a campfire and we'd sit around the fire and we'd just start talking. And Murph was very intentional about steering that conversation where he wanted it to go. And he'd ask us, he'd say, You know, I have this situation happening in the school. What do you guys think I should do with it? And me as a 20, young, 20-year-old man, I just start blathering on. I had all this wisdom that I wanted to share with him, and I just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he would sit there patiently and he'd listen to me, and he wouldn't just listen to me, he'd listen to my friends around the fire too. I realize now, looking back on that time, Murph, he knew what he wanted to do in those situations, but he wanted to hear what we thought. And he wanted to get us thinking about, you know, in the future we're gonna face some of the same stuff, and how would we actually handle it? And that was him mentoring us. I remember when I was thinking about dating April. I called Murph up. I said, Hey, can I come over to your house tonight? He said, Yeah, come on over, let's talk about it. And he and his wife, we sat in the living room and they just they gave me wisdom. They said, This is how you do it, this is what you need to do, and just just such good wisdom flowed from them that night. And he just he welcomed me into his home. I remember a couple weeks later, um, I ended up, April and I ended up leading a team, and we went to, we were taking the team to China, and we were going to spend our first week in Hong Kong. And that first week, Murph is the leader of the school, he was there with us. And Murph came up with this great idea of ministry that we could do in Hong Kong. We had two people on our team that were really good at dancing. One was a good break dancer, and the other one was like professionally trained in ballet. And he said, Let's get these people to dance in downtown Hong Kong. We'll attract a crowd, and then one of you can get up and preach the gospel. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to street preach. That terrifies me. And so he asked for volunteers. He's like, Who we got these people to dance, who will volunteer to go and preach the gospel? And lucky for me, like five students volunteered. And so we go and we do this, and sure enough, they start dancing, and they were really good. So they had they had a crowd, and we had all these people, and somebody get up, they preach the gospel, and then we'd say, Who wants to respond? We'd pray for them, and then we'd do the same thing, it just over and over again. And so we did this, and we get to the like the fifth person that was gonna share the gospel, and Murph looks at me and he calls some of the staff together. He's like, Guys, we don't have, we still have a crowd. We need somebody else to get up and preach the gospel. Who will do it? And he's looking right at me. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't want to do that. I'm kind of like, no. But I see out of the corner of my eye, I see April, and she's starting to raise her hand. And at this point, I was interested in April. And so my male pride kicked in. I'm like, I'm not letting her do it. Like, I'm interested in her. I need to go. And so I my hand shut, I'll do it. And I was like, oh no, what did I just do? So, like five minutes later, I have to get up and preach. The good thing was I didn't have much time to think about it. I got up, I preached. It was not a great sermon. That was probably my first sermon in my life in a street in Hong Kong. But you know, like again, that was Murph discipling me. He's just gently kind of pushing me out, saying, You can do this, man. And and I did it. And you know what? After I got out and I did that thing that really scared me, my fear of man just went down in my life. And I had a like a new boldness that the Holy Spirit kind of granted me. And I could tell you story after story of ways that Murph was involved in my life. We were doing life-on-life discipleship. He knew what was going on in my life, he was very intentional, and the impact that he had in my life. That is what we want to talk about this morning. That's the kind of discipleship that we want to get into. So Neil said I could speak on anything I wanted. And usually people will go to the Gospels or Ephesians or Romans, something like that. But for me, the book of Judges is probably one of my favorite books in the Bible. And it's probably my favorite book in the Bible because Judges is like an example of what not to do. Like it's it's it's just a book of just a complete mess. And it's like if you don't make disciples, this is what will happen to your culture, right? So, quick, before we get to the text, let me just give you a little bit of background on what is going on here. The people of Israel have been slaves for 400 years, and then God sets them free from slavery. And God doesn't just say, okay, you're free from slavery, go for it. Like, if you've been a slave, like people were telling you when to get up, when to work, when to sleep, when to eat. Like people completely controlled your life, and you go from slavery to freedom and you don't know how to handle it. And so God takes the Israelites into the wilderness for 40 years, and God Himself disciples them and teaches them, this is how you need to act and who you are as a people. They have 40 years in the wilderness, and then the book of Joshua happens. And in that book, the people are actually very obedient to God. Like they he says, this is the promised land, and you need to go and you need to conquer it, and they go and they do a pretty good job of conquering the promised land. Amazing stories in the book of Joshua of how God's people were faithful to what he had asked them to do. Okay, so let's pick up the story in Judges. What you would expect is that they've just conquered the promised land, and you're like, well, things are just gonna keep getting better, right? Well, let's read and let's see what if that is what happens. Chapter two of Judges, verse one. Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bachem, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. You'll make no you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land, and you shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. What is this that you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you. As soon as the as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and they wept, and they called the name of that place Bachem, and they sacrificed there to the Lord. So God had asked them to conquer this land. He wanted them to literally wipe these people groups out completely, and they didn't do it. If you would read chapter one, what you would see, the repeated phrase in that chapter, it's repeated about eight times. It says they did not drive out completely. They did not drive out completely over and over and over again. And what you see, it's an example of their partial obedience. When we're just partially obedient and we're not fully obedient, the book of Judges is kind of what we're allowing into our lives. Okay? Now I know for some of you, I said that God wanted them to completely wipe out people groups, and you're like, whoa, wait a minute. What is going on in the Bible? How is that happening? Like, my God's a God of love, and these people don't deserve wiped out. They deserve God to love them. That's what should be happening. Well, let's talk about that a little bit. God is a God of love, that's totally true, but he's also a God, sometimes his love requires him to bring judgment. So if my son, he's five years old, and if he got on his bike and he started riding his bike in the middle of Route 90 out there, six-lane highway, and he's just riding his bike, do-do-do-do, riding his bike, having fun. If I just sat there as a parent and I was like, oh, he'll be fine, he's having a great time. I love him, let's just let him ride his bike. I would not be a good parent in that moment. And you guys know why, it's because it's a six-lane highway. If my son's riding his bike in the middle of a six-lane highway, he could die. That's not what I would do. If I saw him riding his bike, I would yell and I would say, Noah, get off that road right now, and I'd be running as I said it, and I would snatch him out of that road as quick as I could, because I wouldn't want my son to die. And that's kind of what's happening here. This is what God's doing. He's saying, you can't be around these people groups because if you're around them, they're gonna lead you astray. Another problem with that thought, if you say, you know, my God's a God of love, and these people don't deserve this, they deserve God's love. None of us deserve God's love. Like I know Neil well enough now that I've heard him many times say, he said it this morning, that what we deserve is to be burning in hell right now. He said that a lot of times, and that's because it's true. Like, because of our sin, the Bible says that the the wages of our sin is death. Like that that's what should be happening to us. And so it's God's grace that we're even sitting here right now, right? One more thing to kind of understand with this is these people groups that God told them to wipe out, they were really evil. Like to worship the gods of some of these people groups, one of the people groups to worship the gods, it required that you go and worship at the temple and have sex with a temple prostitute. That's evil. Another one of the gods of one of these people groups, if you wanted to worship that God, you had to sacrifice your child to the God. That was what would please the God is killing your children. Again, that that's that's evil. And God, for hundreds of years, is gracious to these people. He doesn't judge them, he shows them grace. And now, at some point, if you continue to rebel against God, God eventually comes and he says, Listen, it's time for judgment. If you're still not with me, imagine if your husband or your wife, your spouse came to you, and they said, You know, I think my boss is about to fire me at work. And so we need to do something to please the gods. And so I went down to the temple in Sugarland. I went to the God of business, that's the temple that I went to, and I took our son, our six-month-old son, and I sacrificed him to the God. Our son is dead, but the good news is I think I made the God happy, and I think I'm gonna be able to keep my job. If your spouse said that to you, what kind of emotions would be coming up in your heart? The first thing you should do is you should call the police because that that's not that's murder, right? But just can you imagine the emotion that you would feel? That's the kind of evil these people groups are doing. And this is why God's saying it's time for judgment to come for them. Okay? So as we continue in the text here, that's what's going on with these people groups. They haven't completely wiped them out. And and as soon as the angel, verse four, as soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and they wept. They're just broken over their sin. They know God's right, they know they haven't obeyed, and they're broken over their sin. Has this ever happened for you? Have you ever come to a point in your life where you just realize, man, I am I'm so far from God. And you and you're just broken over your sin. I was in uh Cambodia and I was walking down the street. I was a missionary there, and I was probably about two months in at this point. And I was I was teaching a Bible study to church, and I was also teaching uh a kid's I was a coach of a kids' basketball team. And so I was I went downtown, I had to pick something up, and I'm walking down the street, and something you see often in Cambodia, Cambodia has a huge problem with human trafficking. And I saw something I often saw in Cambodia. I saw a man who looked to be in his like 60s, 70s, and he's walking with this young Cambodian girl who's probably anywhere from 13 to 21 years old. And I see that, and this anger starts to well up in me. And in my heart, what what I wanted to do is I just wanted to go and punch him. I wanted to knock him out. That's what was going on in my heart. I'm so angry. I'm like, how do you why do you let this happen, God? What it's so messed up, right? And as I'm saying that, the Holy Spirit just kind of as clear as a bell in my head. He said, Brent, you're no different than him. I'm like, God, what are you talking about? I I do not do what that guy does, and you know I don't. What are you talking about? And again, clear as a bell, Brent, you're no different than him. And in that moment, the Holy Spirit just started to reveal my own heart to me. And what I started to realize was the lust that that guy was struggling with, I had the same thing in my heart too. And yeah, I might not have acted on it like him and done these socially unacceptable sins, but I had the same lust in my heart, and I'm just a few steps away from becoming him. I went home that night, and this heaviness was just still on me. And I just felt the weight of my sin. I think this was the first time in my life that I really felt how much my sin had grieved God. See, up until this point, I thought, you know, I thought the cross was a little bit much. I thought Jesus getting beaten 40 times. I thought that's a bit much. I thought, you know, for me to be saved, because I haven't sinned that much, I'm a pretty good kid. What God would need to do is maybe like a night in jail, that probably would have been enough to cover for me. You guys hear the pride in that? And that's what God was revealing to me in that moment, my pride. How much I thought that I'd done things to earn his favor, and I realized I couldn't do anything. That it was all grace that he had shown me. And my question for you is has that ever happened in your life? Because I think, you know, down here in Texas, we can kind of think, you know, I go to church, so I'm a Christian. And that's not actually true. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than sticking your head in the oven makes you a biscuit. Doesn't it work, right? Like you have to actually have repented. That means you're walking this way and you're rebelling against God and you realize, wait, this isn't working. I can't continue this. I need to go God's way. And you say, You you you repent, you say, This is wrong, God. I'm sorry, I need you. That's what needs to happen at some point in your life. Has that happened for you? It happens for these people in this text. 2, 6 to 10. When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten years, and they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath Harris in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation. Listen to this part, after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. They didn't know the Lord, and they didn't know what he'd done for Israel. So what was happening up in verse 5 earlier, that's like their parents and grandparents, and they're totally repenting, they're broken to the heart, and they're like, That I'm sorry, God, and they're repenting for their sin. But this new generation comes up, and they're like, Yeah, I don't know God, and I don't know what he's done. Do you get I don't completely get how this happened? Do you understand what God had done in the book of Joshua? Like that's where the story of Jericho is. They march around the city seven times and then they yell, and the walls just come down. Never heard that. Don't know that God did it. Or there's another story in there where the sun, they're in a battle and the sun stands still. God stops time for hours until they win the battle. They don't know. They've never heard that. There's another story in Joshua where the commander of the Lord's army shows up. Can you imagine the commander of the Lord's army? He's probably like 10 feet tall. He's probably got some huge old sword. And they ask him, they say, Whose side are you on? And he says, I'm not on anybody's side, I'm on God's side. The question is, whose side are you on? Right? And they just like, I mean, you imagine how scary that moment must have been. This huge dude, I mean, manifest real angel of the Lord's army is in your presence. They don't know that. How do they not know that? How did the people not pass this on to the next generation? You know, my parents, they're they're wonderful, godly people. But just probably two, three years ago, I said, you know, guys, I've never heard your story of how you came to know Jesus. And my parents took me to church. Like we were in church like three times, three, four times a week. But I'd never heard what God had done in their life. And they shared with me. And I don't think my parents did that on purpose. I think it just didn't occur to them that I need to share my story with my kids. I need to make sure I pass this on. You know, this seems bad, but it's actually even worse than you think that they didn't pass it on. Because if you turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter six, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, chapter six, it says this, starting in verse four. Chapter six, verse four. It says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord's one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. So we're good on that part. And and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. And here's the part. And so listen, Deuteronomy came before Joshua, before judges. They knew this. This had been communicated to them. They knew very clearly what they were to do. You shall teach them diligently to your children, you shall talk of them when you sit down in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Can you think of another bodily position you would possibly be in? This is like every every position that your body can be in, you need to make sure you're sharing the gospel with your kids. And then it says, You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, they shall be frontless between your eyes, you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. It's like every way possible, you need to make sure you share the gospel with your children. You need to make disciples. I think this is written in the way it is, it's it's almost uh exaggerated, like what it's saying here. And I think what it's trying to communicate to you is you can't fake it as a Christian and think your kids are still gonna follow Jesus. You can't just assume that the gospel is getting into your kids. You need to make sure it gets into them. You can't just take them to church on Sunday and think I can do whatever I want during the week and they're gonna follow Jesus. It needs to be real. Your kids know if you're faking it. They know if you actually pray about huge decisions in your life. They know if you're actually reading your Bible regularly, if you're if you're praying about issues that come up, they know if that's happening. They they can see if you love Jesus or not. And the best way to pass on your faith is to love Jesus with all your heart, soul, and mind. So I have a question for you. Are you doing this? Are you passing on your faith, not just to your kids, but also to people around you? Are you are you actually, do you have some kind of plan in your life for how you're going to make disciples? Is this happening? Because what happens in this book is, and and you'll see this throughout history, this happens over and over again throughout history. The gospel's accepted by a generation, and they accept it gladly, and they're zealous for it, and then the next generation is kind of assumed that they'll get it. And they maybe don't have it quite as much, and then the next generation it gets confused. False teachers come in and they start to confuse things, and then the next generation it's lost. You know, in Judges, if you go to the end of the book, the very last verse in the book, 21 25, 21, 25, it says this. And this is in the book a couple times, but it ends with this. It says, In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. What a great summary of the book. What a great comment on what's happening in our culture right now as well. Everybody does what's right in our own eyes. We think that we get to create truth. We think it's something that we get to create. Oh, I don't like that page, just take it. It out and we'll follow the Jesus that we create. We don't get to create truth, guys. That's not how it works. Truth is something that's outside of us. Truth is just truth, and there's nothing that you can do about it. The question is, have you aligned your life with the truth, right? Like are you in alignment with it? When our lives get out of alignment with truth, the book of Judges happens in our life, right? Um so the question here is is there anyone in your life that you're making disciples of right now? I mean, this is Great Commission stuff, right? Like the Great Commission says, Go and make disciples and teach them to obey all that I've commanded you. That's that's been commanded for each and every one of us. And we think that's just for missionaries, but that's for everybody. That's for the whole church. Are you doing that? And a little secret for you like when I share stuff like this, when I'm talking to people about discipleship, most people, what comes up in their heart is like, I don't, what would I do? Like, I don't know how to disciple somebody. I don't know if God's taught me enough yet. Maybe I need to go to seminary before I get you don't need to do that. Here's what you need to disciple someone. You need to be a growing follower of Jesus, and you need to be about a week ahead of them in your walk. And if you have that, you have stuff you can teach them. Even if you don't know it, there is stuff you can teach them. And you know what? It's not just gonna be about you teaching them, you're gonna learn from them as well. Now, some of you, you don't feel that. You're not like, yeah, I don't know what I'd say. You're like, yeah, I need some people to disciple. I want to teach them, I need people sitting at my feet, and they all just need to learn from me. Maybe, but for you, maybe you need disciple. Maybe you need somebody to disciple you and get some of that pride out of your heart, right? Because you need both kinds of relationship in your life. You need a relationship where you're getting discipled, and you need a relationship where you're discipling someone else. That's a healthy believer. If you have those two relationships in your life, you're doing pretty good. Let's let's continue in the text. Let's see what happens with the people here. 2, 11 to 15. And the people of Israel, they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and they served Baals. Those were the false gods of their time. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples that were around them and bowed down to them. They provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Astaroth. And so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave, he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord is against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and the Lord had sworn to them, and they were in terrible distress. So when we choose as a people to not make disciples, this is what happens. Look, please notice that what happens to the Israelite people, it's not because of some great sin in their life. They partially had obeyed, and then they'd failed to pass on their faith. And the results of that are 11 to 15 in the whole rest of the book of Judges. That's kind of scary, isn't it? You know, I had a friend, we were in a discipleship group together, and he was he was older than me. And he kind of told me his life story one day. He said, You know, I used to work as a restaurant manager. And if you know anything about restaurant managers, they work crazy hours. And he said, That was me. I worked crazy hours. I was a good restaurant manager, but I didn't really know the Lord at the time. And he said, My kids were growing up and I was hardly ever home. And then about the time that my kids got into college, that's when the Lord stepped into my life and just radically transformed me. And I'm not who I used to be. The Lord He saved me. But my issue then became my kids. I, they, their formative years, I wasn't really part of their life. I was absent. I hadn't been training them in the ways of God because I wasn't following God. And he said, My kids now, my daughter, she's a lesbian. He said, My son is about as far from God as you can be, has no interest. He said, I try regularly to share my faith with them. I try to work it in any way I can. I'm trying to be faithful, I'm praying for them. And then he looked me in the eyes and with just tears in his eyes, he said, Brent, don't do what I did. Make sure you're at home, make sure you spend time with your kids, make sure you're teaching them the ways of Jesus. You don't want to have this battle that I've had. Yes, I know you can, you could be a perfect discipler, and your kids could still choose to not follow Jesus, but you need to do all that you can to make sure you've done everything you can that your kids choose to follow Jesus at the end of it in their life. That needs to happen. And so as I share that story with you, I know for many of you that that rings true. I actually think probably for all of us. Anybody that's a parent in here, we can relate to that. Because there's not a parent in here that hasn't failed. I've failed as a parent. Like I'm not, I'm far from being a perfect parent. But you know, I think our failings as parents are often our best times to share the gospel with our kids. Like when I, if I would lose my temper with my kids this week, I hope what I would do, and sometimes I do this and sometimes I don't, but I hope what I would do is I hope I would go to my kids and I'd say, you know what? It wasn't right that daddy lost his temper with you. I did not represent God too well to you. My God is a God who's slow to anger and he is abounding in steadfast love. And I was not that, I was quick to anger, and I did not show you much love, and I'm very sorry. Please forgive me. I'm gonna be praying that God comes and the Holy Spirit changes my heart, and I become more like Jesus, and I'm more abounding in love and more slow to anger. Because here's the thing you your other option is you can ignore that and not repent to your kids. And you know your kids, they they know that you did it, right? Like you ignoring it doesn't just make it go away. But you you doing that with them, it makes you real. It makes them see, you know what? Christianity isn't about being perfect. I can mess up. And I can mess up, and God still has grace for me, He'll forgive me. Do you see how that's preaching the gospel to them? That preaches, right? And you know, for those of you that hear that story and you're like, man, I've I've walked a similar path. Like I didn't come to Jesus till late and I've kind of missed it with my kids. What I would say to you is if the tomb is empty, and it is, anything's possible. If the tomb's empty, anything's possible. And your kids, as long as they still have breath in their lungs, there's still a chance that one day they're gonna choose to follow Jesus and you keep praying for them, you keep reaching out to them, you you tell your small group about them, and you get your small group praying for them. Like, let's like just keep going after them. The story is not over yet. So, you know, we read this passage in Judges, and I think so far it's been rather depressing, right? Like if you don't make disciples, life does not go well for you. So, what happens if we do make disciples? Let's go to Acts chapter 2, and this is where I'm gonna close. Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47. Acts 2, 42 to 47. So um, this is uh this is a passage where a little bit of background here, Jesus has already come, and Jesus, if you know a little bit about his life, he actually made disciples. Like Jesus had 12 disciples, right? Like he had 12 men that he spent his life pouring into. He was living life with them, he's pouring into them, he's teaching them his ways. And think about it, Jesus was a perfect man, he never sinned. So he was a perfect disciple, too. And you guys know that Jesus had one disciple who betrayed him, one disciple who went off the rails. And what that tells me is you could perfectly disciple your kids, you could perfectly disciple your friends, and that doesn't guarantee that they're gonna choose to follow Jesus. You guys see that. And some of you probably need to hear that this morning. Like there's there's grace for that. You do your best and you let the rest up to God. We trust that his grace eventually will reach people. But he discipled these 12 guys, and then at the beginning of the book of Acts, he says, All right, guys, I'm leaving. I'm gonna leave my Holy Spirit with you here with you, and you guys go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, and you need to share this good news with everybody. Make disciples, guys. So let's see how the church does in 242 to 47. This is my prayer for our church that we become a church like this. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers, and all came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and they had things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. So the apostles are getting up and teaching, people are listening to what they have to say. All comes upon the people. They start praying for people, people are getting healed and stuff. Amazing stuff's happening. They're regularly meeting, they're being super generous with each other. If they hear somebody has a need, they're giving them what they need to meet that need. And day by day, the Lord is adding to their number. Day by day. How many of us want to see that happen here in our region? We want to see the Lord reach our people. We want to see our coworkers, our friends, our family. We want to see them reach. We want to see them part of the kingdom, right? If we want to see that, we've got to be bold and we've got to go and we've got to make disciples. Like you actually have to share your faith with somebody. Um so I've I've seen people in my 20-some years of ministry now, the people that I've seen who just reach a ton of people, people that are all that that like, you know, there's people getting saved around them all the time. Do you know the key thing that these people do? The the one, I mean, write this down. This is important. The thing that these people do that helps them to reach so many people, they share the gospel. They share the gospel constantly. They have learned how to work Jesus into like any conversation. They've just become masters at it. And I used to think that these people were just like naturally gifted. And there might be some natural gifting, but what I've discovered more and more is it's just practice for most of them. You know, when I first started playing an instrument, when I first started playing basketball, I remember the first time I played basketball. I'm dribbling, I'm dribbling the ball off my foot, I can barely dribble, I'm trying to shoot, it's never hitting the rim. But for 30 years, I practiced. And I can shoot a ball pretty good now. I can dribble a ball pretty good now. It's the same with sharing your faith, guys. Like a lot of you, I think you, Neil shares stories all the time about sharing his faith. And a lot of you are like, I'll never be like Neil, I can't do that. Yeah, I think you actually could be like Neil. You just gotta practice. You've got to put the time in to actually see yourself get to that level. Neil's just been practicing for years and years, and now he's just a he can share the gospel easily. It's not hard for him. He can work it into conversations without it being awkward. One more thing on this. When you share the gospel, it it you can't, you can do it for this reason and God can still use it, but it shouldn't be the reason you do it. You shouldn't do it to get another notch on your belt and trying to earn God's favor because that doesn't work. It needs to just come out of your heart. Like in Jeremiah, there's this passage where Jeremiah's talking about the gospel and he's saying the gospel's, it's like it's like it's shut up in my bones, and it's like a fire that I couldn't keep in, even if I wanted to. Like he realizes what God's done for him, how far he used to be, and how good God's been to him and brought him near to God and made him righteous. And he's so grateful for what God's done that he cannot help but speak it out. And that's what needs to happen in your heart. The joy in your heart needs to overflow more and more, and you need to begin to share with those around you. So I remember I was uh I was a I was on staff at this missionary training school, discipleship school. It's the same one with Murph, actually. And uh I hadn't shared my faith, hardly any. I was kind of scared to do it, and I was tired of it. I was like, this has gotta, if I'm gonna be a follower of Jesus, I've got to learn to share my faith. And so I got in the car, I drove downtown, and I went to a really populated part of our town, and I said, God, I'm gonna do this. But could you be gracious to me? And would you make it really clear who it is I'm supposed to share my faith with? Just I I don't know, but somehow could you just make it clear to me, please, God? I know you don't have to, but I'm super nervous right now. Could you could you do that for me? I get out and I start walking. And I continue walking. And I kept walking. I'm passing hundreds of people, but I'm not seeing anybody really clear. You know, I needed a clear sign from the Lord. I keep walking. I kept walking. It's getting dark now. I mean, it's it's it's kind of like the streets are getting empty. And I'm kind of at the end of the road, and I'm like, okay, God, I'm gonna go around this next turn. And if I don't see anybody, I'm just gonna be grateful that you're gracious to me and you love me despite my weakness, and and we're gonna be good. So I go around this next bin, and as I round the bend, there's a guy back there and I make eye contact with him. As I make eye contact with him, the guy raises his arms in the air and he starts yelling, I'm right here, I'm right here. And I'm like, he can't be talking to me. I look back here and there's nobody behind me, because again, there's nobody on the streets anymore. And I'm like, You're talking to me? He's like, Yes, you, I'm right here. I'm like, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck, and I'm like, okay, God, I guess that's the guy. Let's let's go. And so I go over to him and I'm super nervous. It was awkward, and I shared my faith with him. And I ended up finding out he was a believer too, right? And it was very encouraging to him that I'm trying to obey Jesus. And the reason he waved his arms like that is I had a shirt on that said, Where are you at? I didn't realize that until the end of the conversation, okay? So God will use stuff that you're wearing to help you through awkward times in evangelism. But my point is that at the end of that, my fear of man, it went down another level. And and see, the enemy, he does all this stuff to get you so scared of doing what God's asking you to do. But when you choose to obey God, God's all about getting you free from the lies that the enemy has told you. And what I've discovered is what Jesus is calling me to do is so much better than what the enemy has tried to scare me from doing. So I want us to be a church that's this kind of church, that we make disciples that make disciples that make disciples that make disciples, and we have an impact on this community. I want the Holy Spirit to come and empower us to do that well. So here would be a way this week that you could apply this message. Last week I got to go to the ESL program that our church has. It's English is a second language, and I was amazed. There are people there. I got to talk to a guy from Afghanistan. There was another guy there from Iraq. There were, uh I went to the one class and there were two ladies from Vietnam. I got to talk to the volunteers of this ministry. I said, guys, like who usually comes to your ministry? They said, we have people, the majority are Muslim background from the Middle East. They're here at your church. Like if you wanted to go on a missions trip to these countries, COVID, you can't go anyhow. But even if COVID wasn't happening, some of these countries you can't get into and share the gospel. And they're coming to the church. If you want a chance to practice sharing your faith and to rub shoulders with people who are far from God, six o'clock Tuesday nights would be a great opportunity for you to do that. Um I'm gonna have a couple questions come up here on the board. My my main two things this morning, though, are you making disciples? Are you being discipled yourself? Right and really kind of when was the last time that you went and you shared some of this with somebody? So I'm gonna pray and I'll give you a little time to think over this. Lord Jesus. I thank you that you're you're the best discipler ever, Lord. And you're so loving and kind and good to us, Jesus. I thank you for your patience with me. And I pray, Lord, that you'd show that same kind of patience and love with others as we're you know, we're stumbling our way towards you, Lord. We're trying to obey and we mess up sometimes, and we just thank you for your grace. And Lord, I pray that what what what do you want to speak to your people this morning? Would you come and would you highlight that to their hearts, Lord, in this moment? Thank you, Jesus. Amen. I thank you that you're being faithful right now and that you're speaking to your people. And I pray whatever it is that you've spoken to us right now, that you would give us the courage to go out and do it this week. And Lord, we know as we obey you, that we will bear great fruit. And so I pray in our small acts of obedience this week that you would pour the Holy Spirit on them and we would see the fruit of our obedience, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Okay, so there's a lot happening here at our church, and so there's a short video here I want you to watch that'll tell you more about what's going over the next few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Thank you for joining us today. Here's a few things we want you to know. All men are invited to join us on March 20th for barbecue and axe throwing. Register online at grandparkway.org slash events. The women's weekend is happening April 23rd through 24th here on our campus. We want every woman in our church to come and learn who God is, who she is, and why that is reason to hope and celebrate. Registration is available online at grandparkway.org/slash events. Beginning today, you can also register in the lobby. The worship ministry at Grand Parkway is made up of teachers, computer programmers, welders, students, moms, dads, people from every walk of life. We are looking for camera operators, sound techs, musicians, and other people that have an eye for detail and excellence. If you're passionate about serving in your church and are ready to be involved, contact Clyde at Grandparkway.org. If you're new, we would love to know that you're here. Please find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Okay, in addition, there uh if you if you if you want prayer or you just want to connect more with our church and let us know what's going on, you want to hang out with somebody next week there, connect cards in the back. If you could fill one of them out and drop them in a box back there. Um, in addition, one of the ways that we respond to God's word being preached is we give. And so if you feel called to give this morning, there are boxes in the back for that as well. Would you guys please stand with me? I want to bless you as you head out this morning. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I pray that that what Jeremiah said in the book of Jeremiah would be true for our people. I pray that the gospel, the truth of your word would be in our bones, it'd be in our heart, and it'd be like a fire. And even if we want to keep it in, it would get to the point the joy in our heart would overflow to the point where we would not be able to keep it in, Lord. I pray it would come out all over Sugarland this week, Lord. I pray that we'd we'd be a people that are making disciples that make disciples this week, Lord. I bless your people in your name, Jesus. Amen. Thanks, guys. Have a good week.