But if you have your Bibles, please get them out. And you probably know where you’re going to turn to if you’ve been here, but if not open them up to Matthew chapter 28. Great job. Great job. Without much prompting. You guys still know the drills. And why, why do people chair cheer like that for the new people, those watching Mount Carmel for the first time or erodes family, lots of people watching online for the first time with us Mt. Carmel Church. It’s because we get excited about the Bible because we believe God wants to speak to us. Matthew chapter 28, are you there? I’m going to skip. And I’m just going to start in verse 18,
And Jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Then he gave them the mission. He said, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son of the Holy spirit. I’m just going to preach on verse 19 today.
He says, this is Jesus talking. He says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Here’s the theme for the day. I’m I’m picking up from the theme that we had last week. Initiation is greater or more powerful than prevention. This is a term, a phrase for discipleship that I think is very important. When I talk about making disciples, he said to them here, go therefore and make disciples of all nations or it’s one Greek word. It’s really a word that says you could translate it better Mt. Carmel Church. If you said go therefore and disciple, all nations, disciple, it’s just a bird. Go disciple them. So it’s not about making people into something as much as it is about what we go and do. And that we’re disciple or make disciples is to train, teach, or instruct people as a disciple. In other words, as you are a disciple, you train, teach and instruct people. So not like Chad would do it as you would do it.
Your personality train, teach and instruct people. Those other teachers at school, they need to hear from you about your witness, those other people at work, they need to hear from you. You’re going to connect with them. When you train, teach and instruct as a disciple, it will be a personal revelation and not something you’re trying to memorize that someone else said as a disciple yourself, train and teach in his truck from that don’t try and train and treat, teach, and instruct from something you don’t have. Don’t put that kind of stress on you. Well, I can’t say it like they can. Well that’s okay Mt. Carmel Church. Say it like you can’t well, I can’t do it like you cannot, so, okay. You don’t have to do it like you can’t because the Holy spirit is going to work with you to connect them. It’s about connecting them to Jesus.
Not about connecting them to you anyway. So take the pressure off yourself. So we’re going to talk about making disciples or discipling nations. How do we disciple nations? We talk about changing your workplace, changing your family, changing things too often. We think changing culture by focusing on what we need to prevent from happening instead of what we need to start happening and what I’ve seen in my life. And maybe you’ve seen it in your own life. When we talk about becoming like Jesus, most of the time, the church preaches on and teaches on the things you need to stop Mt. Carmel Church. If you will, just, if I can just stop drinking and cussing and sleeping around and doing drugs, and we have this laundry list of morality, things that if we can stop all these bad morality things, then we will be something that is called religion. Religion says that if you and I will stop doing certain things, then we will just automatically become something. We will not become something by what we stop.
We have to be born again. I’m only going to become the man that God wants to be to become because Jesus became something that he was not. Jesus became sin so that I might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So in, instead of trying to focus on what you need to stop, we need to focus on with what we need to start. So that’s what God’s talking about today. And I want to put this into practice in practical terms for us. So discipleship is not so much about what we prevent, but what we initiate, you cannot change a bad life pattern without starting a good life Mt. Carmel Church. These words will never change your life. I know I need to do better.
[inaudible]
That phrase will never change your life. Well, I know I need to do better than I know I needed to do better trailing off with whatever it is. I know what I mean. Be better about reading my Bible. I don’t need to be better about coming to church. I know I need to better be a better, but with my husband and telling my wife that she looks pretty, I know I need to be better about what is I know I need to be better. Will never change my life.
That’s good.
It’s mental assent. The only thing that’s going to change my life is what I start doing. What I initiate. And that’s what I’m talking about. Initiation is more powerful than prevention. It’s not about if I can stop thinking those thoughts, that I’ll be okay. No, that’s not what you need to focus on. You need to focus on some new thoughts that you need to start thinking Mt. Carmel Church,
Yeah,
This is what God’s going to give us discipling nations. So how do we do it? Let’s look at verse 19. He tells him, go make disciples of all nations or go disciple nations. And then we’re like, well, how do you do it? Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them, everybody say baptizing them, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, the Holy spirit go make disciples, baptizing them. So we thought religion gravitates towards structure, form comfort, and familiarity, religion gravitates towards things that are comfortable. It gravitates towards patterns that can be repeated. In other words, we like to feel comfortable knowing what’s up when it’s going to happen. That’s religion. If you’re like Mt. Carmel Church, I’m one of those people that likes to know what’s going to happen when it’s going to happen. Be careful. You can gravitate towards religion and think that you put God in a box that he performs for you. Like some dancing monkey.
Yeah.
Like when I do this, I want God to do that. If I don’t want him to do that, then I don’t want him to do that. That’s religion. And so when he says baptizing, the name of the father, the son, the Holy spirit, we thought that was just talking about water. Baptism. We thought that was what we’re supposed to say and water Baptist. Oh, okay. So when you baptize, this is what you say and the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit Mt. Carmel Church. And we just did water baptism. And then we did say that it’s without, okay. Check what a Baptist, because what we like to do is we get security out of events while God gets security out of relationship.
[inaudible]
We get security in our relationship with God. Sometimes by the events that we get to check off. This is proof. When you ask people say, so how’s your relationship with guts? Well, it’s good. I got saved when I was six. I got water baptized. When I was this age, are you filled with all this fear? Oh yes, I did that when I was. So we come up with this list of things I’m saying, check, what about ties? Check filled the Holy spirit check, check, check, check, check. Got it. We can get that list. All checked off in one day. Then what?
Yeah.
God’s not into events. He’s into relationships. Let me prove it to you. He said baptizing them, baptizing them. Here’s what that word baptizing means because when I was reading this and this is the part that jumped out at me, God says, what if, when I said baptizing, them was more than an event. What if it’s about more than what? Just getting someone in water. What if it was more than that? So he said, you show me what this word baptizing meant Mt. Carmel Church. And the Greek word, it’s a present active tense verb. Like what does that matter? Present active tense verb, an action in process or state of being. Here’s the part that’s important with no assessment of the actions completion.
Wow.
It’s an action and process in a state of being with no assessment of a completion point. In other words, it’s not about something you did. It’s about something you’re doing baptizing them. Notice what it doesn’t say in your scripture. Jesus, didn’t say, all right, go out and just make disciples of all nations and get them baptized. That’s what we thought. It’s red, but that’s not what it reds. It doesn’t really go out and get them baptized check. But it says baptizing them with no end result in mind or no, no, no end happy note. No act of completion happening. So now that I’m like, okay, God, so we’re, we’re not just supposed to be baptized. Just that. That’s great. We believe in water, baptism check. We’ve got that. But he says, don’t stop there. It’s about an ongoing thing. So here’s the part that jumped out, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, the Holy spirit.
Here’s what the word baptize means. Baptizo which means to make WellMed, make WellMed you to WellMed, like overwhelmed to make whelmed, to cover Holy. This is why we immerse completely under the water. That’s what baptizo means. You’re overwhelmed to flood, to immerse, to plunge, to engage deeply. So when he says baptizing them, he’s saying, I want you to make them WellMed. I want you to cover them. Holy. I want you to flood them. I want you to immerse them. I want you to plunge them. I want you to engage them deeply. In other words, not just sticking their toe in the water, but I want you to immerse them into something. I want you to plunge them into something. I want them to be whole hog into something we’re not supposed to be in this with just a little bit in the water. We’re supposed to be not just for a couple hours on Sundays Mt. Carmel Church.
When you’re in the full time military, you don’t just show up at the base for two hours on a weekend. You’re immersed into the military life. You’re immersed in that. You just barely come out for a little bit, but you’re immersed in that. I was talking to a friend of mine. Who’s who’s stationed right now overseas. And he said in certain, uh, he’s done several tours. And one of his tours, he said, we never left the base unless it was for combat. We never left the base. They’re immersive. And that’s what I’m talking about. We need to be immersed in a relationship with God, not just tip, sticking my toes in. It said, well, I’ll give a little bit of this area of my life. I’ll get okay, you can have this part. No, we got to go all in with everything that God has for us. But then, but this is the part that jumped out. He says, baptizing them in the name and the name of the father, son and Holy spirit in the name and the name, baptizing them in the name. I’m like, God, what are you saying? The words in the name in the Hebrew speak of N and with the character and nature
Of someone.
So now here’s, here’s what God’s saying. When I want you to go. And I want you to make disciples by immersing them in the name of the father, immersing them in the character and nature of the father. How do you make a disciple? You immerse them. You’ve plunged them. You fully engage them into the name of the son and to the name of the Holy spirit. What’s that look like? Practically. Let me just give you some examples. When I am overwhelmed with lack or need my life, I need to be immersed into the name. Jehovah Gyra. He is my provider. I need to engage myself fully with the name of him, wherever there’s a need. There’s a knife. Whenever I feel a fear and anxiety coming over me, I need to be immersed into the name of Jehovah Shalom my peace. Whenever I have sickness come against me Mt. Carmel Church.
I need to be immersed into the name of Jehovah, Rapha, the Lord who heals and they in the name of the sons. When sin comes against my life, I need to be immersed into the name of Jesus, my savior and my Redeemer. I need to be immersed in the name of the Holy spirit. That he’s my guide, my comforter, my helper. We need to be immersed in all three of those. Notice what it says here in second Corinthians chapter 13, verse 14 says the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy spirit be with you all. Here’s what I think is important. Sometimes we focus too often on the things we’re overwhelmed by instead of the person we’re supposed to even be immersed in. Let me say that again. We focus too many times on the things we’re overwhelmed by instead of the person we’re supposed to be immersed in. Notice what Jesus said about going to get him baptized, making disciples, go and baptize them, baptizing, immersing them. This is what Jimmy said in during worship, getting filled with the Holy spirit or being filled. It’s not something I do check. Are you filled with Holy spirit? Oh yeah. I did that in 1985. No. Are you filled now? Yeah Mt. Carmel Church.
Yes.
I’m not talking about questioning. Someone’s salvation. I’m like, well, am I going to heaven or not? I don’t have time to go into that debate. I’ve got some thoughts on that. I really do, but, but we can talk about that later, but here’s we talked about, well, I’ve got this. Am I filled with the spirit? It’s not something I check. It’s a person. Am I immersive? Am I immersed in the love of the father? Am I immersed in the person of Jesus? Do I just attend church? Or am I immersed in the person hit a personhood of who he is? Do I know his character in his, in his nature? When I feel afraid, like God’s mad at me, I need to be immersed in the character and nature of the unconditional love of God.
When I think that God’s doing things, punishing me and causing all these bad things to happen in my life to teach me a lesson, I need to be immersed in the character and nature of a good father. To many times, we’re overwhelmed by things around us, but we’re not immersed in. Here’s what I want to submit to you today. If you’re struggling in an area of your life, get immersed in the things of God. Get immersed, give yourself wholly to him. Here’s the problem. I see it over and over. And I see it. Let me talk about myself. My success and my failure in my life spiritually is directly tied to my relationship with the word of God. People continually try to fool themselves into thinking they can have a great relationship with God without a relationship with this.
Yes,
It can’t happen because we gravitate towards religion. So we think if I come and I sat in a church service check, I can go home. And that’s my good spiritual deed for the week. So now I’ve got my relationship with God check. No, it’s not check. We don’t check God off like a list. He’s a person. He wants you to engage with him. And this is him. It’s not, I know reading Leviticus is a little tough, but I’m just talking. There’s other parts of the Bible where you can get through it and read the person of God. And every time I read it, I don’t get all kinds of wonderful things. Sometimes I’m just reading. I’m like, I hope that was good Mt. Carmel Church.
[inaudible]
I mean, I know it’s good, but God, I really didn’t get a whole lot out of it, but you know what? Yesterday I ate some stuff for lunch. I’m not really sure what it did for me. It tasted good, but I don’t know what all kinds of health benefits it gave me, but I ate anyway, eat anyway. Well, if it’s not the best meal I’ve ever had, I don’t want to eat. Try that with real food.
Yeah.
Try that with your real food. You will stop eating a lot, but here’s what God’s saying to us. He said, listen, I want you to immerse into something. Stop trying to just stop the bad things and initiate the good things. He’s willing to raise up some disciples. So here’s what I felt like God was saying to me this morning. I came here early and I noticed this altar and I prayed and I said, God, can I have more? Can I, can I have more? Cause, cause I’m not satisfied with just preaching service to you. I’m not in this so that you’ll say, wow boy can preach. Boy, have you good? No, no, no. I’m not. I’m not in this for that. I’m in this for you and him to connect on a way that it changes your life. I’m in this because I want him to change my life Mt. Carmel Church.
So I prayed. I said, God, can I have more? And immediately the scripture came into my much. You being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children as a father, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy spirit to those who ask? So God just spoke to my heart said, you want more? I’ll give you more. I want to give you more than you want more. So if you ask of me, I will give it to you. So I prayed. I said, Lord, at this church, I asked for more, ask for more. I said, immerse us into the name of the father, immerse us in the El Shaddai immerse us in the ADOT knives, immerse us into Elohim, immerse us into hope, Jehovah, Shama. The Lord is there. Just immerse us into Jesus, faithful and true immerse us Lord into who you are. He immerses into the Holy spirit because here’s what I know you and I, we can’t make it in this world without Jesus. What’s coming in the earth. What’s already here and what’s coming to pass soon. We need to be prepared. God’s willing to make soldiers not attenders.
And I’m willing to
Lord. I will say whatever you tell me to say, If it means the difference in you growing in you and you being in a relationship with God, I will say whatever God tells me to say, not out of a mean spirits or condescending. I don’t know. No. I will say it out of love. I was set out wanting to bring you up, but I will not hold back truth to tickle your ears Mt. Carmel Church.
Sin will destroy your life.
It will destroy your life. He’ll destroy your family. You have to come into a relationship with Jesus and get immersed in him. Be if you want to be a manly man, then get on your knees and immerse yourself in Jesus.
My greatest strength.
It’s not what I could do in a weight room or what I could do physically. That’s not my greatest strength. My greatest strength is what I do in my prayer closet. When I go to God, I say, Lord, I can’t do it without you. So come and fill me with your strength today. Fill me with your peace today. Fill me with your wisdom today. I can’t be, I’m a horrible husband without shooting. I’m a horrible father without Show me how to do it. God show me. I’m a horrible pastor. I’m amazed at some of these people have stayed here for all these years. I’m like what, what kind of patients they must have for those of you that raised your head? When people that have listened to me for, for all these, somebody since 1997 here at this church, or
Since a long time ago, 14 preaching 34 years of my life. That’s not to draw attention to me.
It’s because I want to remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s because there’s a man that came and died on the cross and looked at my sick perverted life said, Chad, I’m going to pick you up out of that, miss. You don’t have much, but I’m going to make you into something. Begin to wash me with his blood. I begin to change me, change my thoughts, change the way I think change the way I operate change the way I response Mt. Carmel Church. They began to fill me with this Holy spirit. And once he put his spirit in me, Snell power was available for me not to be victorious every day, but to have victory available for me, wherever I needed it, zeros, what I’m asking God to do today. You get to the point yet. Thank you God said today. I want to immerse people.
He’s going to immerse some people. Some of you never been taught about the Holy spirit. You need to be immersed into the Holy spirit. Paul ran across some disciples in the book of acts and he said, Oh, what were you baptized into? They said, we were baptized into the John’s baptism. And Paul said, well, that’s good. But John had a baptism of repentance. That’s awesome. But have you received the Holy spirit since you believed? And they said, we didn’t even know there was a Holy spirit that he said. So we begin to present the gospel to them. They got baptized again in the name of Jesus. The Holy spirit came upon them and began to feel them. And I believe sometimes people are operating in just a baptism into the love of the father and being born again, baptized into the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, but they have no communion with the Holy spirit and we needed some of you have some daddy issues that you need to be immersed to the level of a father. Some of you deal with condemnation and criticism over yourself. You need to be immersed into the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ and let yourself go by grace. Are you saved? It’s not a works. It’s a simple, offensive gospel that we don’t deserve it.
Thanks so much for watching with us. We love our online family and we invite you to connect with us. We have a few different ways. You can do that on our website@theroads.church, as well as on social media, you can text to give by texting the amount space, roads to four or five, seven, seven, seven, and we’d love to pray for any needs you might have. So send us a message and let us know how we can partner with you in bringing the light and love of Jesus to your world Mt. Carmel Church.