Identity, Destiny, and Mission

From the beautiful sunshine coast of Australia, this is the Awake Nations Ministries podcast, equipping the church for revival, reformation and kingdom impact. Learn more about us by visiting awakeaus.com well, today is what we call ID Sunday. And so ID stands for identity and destiny. So every person, individual on this planet has an identity and they have a destiny. Right.

You know, their identity is, you look at your fingerprints, your, your DNA. You're a unique individual. There's no one like you. That's right, no one like you. Even if you're a twin or a triple or whatever, there's no one like you.

You're still unique. And we also have a purpose, a destiny in God's kingdom. So we're going to be unpacking that. Firstly, from the perspective of what is the purpose, the identity and the destiny of the church collectively, as we know that we are individuals. The Bible talks about we're a member of the body of Christ and we're part of the church as well.

So we all have a specific function as well. But collectively, corporately, the body of Christ has a specific purpose. And you'll never get there if you don't know where you're going, will you? It's true, right? How many know?

Like, let's just get in the car. Where are we going? I don't know, let's just start driving. No, but the way many Christians live, it's. There's no clear defined pathway ahead.

There's no objective when there's no destination. And so your destiny is the destination. It's tied to that, where God is calling you, where he's taking us collectively. And then we backwards engineer it. But ultimately we have to recognize what is his calling and purpose for the church.

Now we do this. We've been going for about nine months now. And initially when we first came here and we had a smaller group of people, we ended up sharing a little bit about this before. And I made this statement about eight, nine months ago. I said this, I said that we actually don't have a vision as a church.

We do not have a vision as leaders. We do not have a vision as those who are called to lead in this space. We also don't have a mission. And yeah, everyone was looking at me like you are right now, eight or nine months ago. But can I tell you, let me define that.

We don't have our own vision, our own mission, but Jesus has a vision and a mission. And I don't understand why we do all these vision Sundays and vision this and vision that, and we Ultimately have to come up and concoct kind of a new vision has to be novel. Well, this year we're going to do this. And I understand the micro understand goals, but vision and mission are very different than goals. You can have goals, you can have objectives.

Things that you want to initiate and execute on could be planting churches, raising money for missions, expanding on a building, whatever it may be. But ultimately that's not our vision and mission. Because if we make that stuff in the forefront rather than what Jesus actually says, then then we're actually veering off track. And, you know, it just, you can be off at 1 or 2 degrees and the longer you go and the further you go, you'll be hundreds, if not thousands of miles off course. So we have to stay focused on the vision.

So what is the vision? Well, we're going to read one verse. It's Matthew 6, verse 10. Most of you guys probably quote says it's part of the Lord's Prayer, which really isn't his prayer in the sense that it wasn't like just him praying. And he said in this manner we should pray.

And how should we pray? Our Father that art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your what? Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's it.

That's the vision. The King's vision is very simple. He wants to see his will implemented on the earth as it is in heaven. Jesus said that's what we're to pray. There's other places in the Bible that reinforces, like Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 14 says that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

One translation. Say the earth will be filled with an awareness of, of the glory of the Lord as the waters fill or cover the sea. So the call of God, his vision ultimately is to redeem all of us and to redeem the earth, that it would become what he created it to be. I shared during our conference that the whole idea of the Garden of Eden is this. It was literally the overlap of heaven and earth.

It's the place where heaven invades earth. It's a place where heaven and earth intermingle. And that's God's will, that this space would become his place, that this earth would become more and more like heaven. Because we know his will being done on earth as it is in heaven is powerful. What does that mean in heaven?

It's going to be amazing. You won't have an attitude in heaven.

Your kids will Obey you. No, they'll be probably adults. No, I'm just kidding. But the reality is it's going to be very, very different. It's going to be perfect.

And we thank God for that. And there won't be sickness. There won't be disease, there won't be suffering, there won't be conflict. But everyone will worship the Lamb. What a beautiful thing to see that come.

And so the vision of God is that his kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. So what does that mean? It means, first of all, that we individually and collectively need to become that dwelling place for God's presence. We need to be a kingdom community that are formed and filled by the Spirit, revealing his glory, advancing his reign, and awakening and transforming peoples. It starts with us as individuals in our, our families, and then eventually as, as we gather as his body, cities and nations.

So what is the vision of the King is that lives are aligned with his will, communities are renewed by his love, and the earth is filled with the knowledge of his glory, just as heaven declares. So this is not our vision. We didn't invent it. It's his vision. Jesus told us to pray this.

So if we stay focused on his vision, that's the outcome. How many would like to see that happen in your workplace? Yeah, how many would like to see that? Like, we wouldn't have all these wars that are happening right now. It'd be very different.

And unfortunately, part of what we're called to do is to pray this. But we're also called to advance the kingdom through declaring the kingdom. Luke chapter 8, verse 1. We're called to imbibe the culture and the values of the kingdom. We're called to carry the kingdom into different spaces.

And as we do, we bring transformation as the light of the glory of God's kingdom literally dispels darkness. Right. Because we're not called to be thermometers, we're thermostats in the kingdom. So we bring transformation wherever we go. That's our prerogative and our responsibility that we can do this.

We have been given authority, power to be able to bring change and transformation. So it's awesome. So to see the earth become the dwelling place of God, more and more people just enveloped and brought into the kingdom and transformed and changed into Christ likeness. That's the vision. But the mission is how we caught, how we accomplish the vision.

So how do we actually execute on the vision? So the mission is very simply, the King's mission is disciple. Now what do I mean by that? Well, let's go to Matthew 28 for a moment. And we're going to read three verses.

Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. This is what we often refer to as the Great Commission. And by the way, it's a commission. So it means it's a commission. It's a cooperative thing.

It's a collaborative thing that we are partnering with the Lord. You understand what I'm saying? It's a co mission. It's not God's mission per se. Like he does everything and we sit back and just receive the benefits.

Know a lot of things that aren't happening on the earth right now is because we're not partnering with God's purposes. And that's why you can pray Matthew 6:10, all you want, your kingdom come, your will be done. You will be done. God. And God's saying, how about you be obedient?

How about you start doing my will? So this is where we actually execute and we, we implement what God's called us to do. So let's read this. And this is the new living translation. It's.

It says, Jesus came and told his disciples, I've been given all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all my commands I have given you. And be sure of this, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Wow. So these are the, the words of Jesus just before he ascends.

And it's a very clear directive. And we've talked about this before, and, and we've taught about this online. We've taught about this here on, on a Sunday as well. But the Great Commission can be broken down literally to one word. It's a Greek word, mathetes, which if literally translated into English, is disciple.

And it's in the imperative, which means this, that it's a commandment. And so it's an imperative, it's a verb, it's a commandment. So when Jesus said, go into all the world, preach the gospel. Right. So what did he mean by preach the gospel?

Well, preaching the gospel, the gospel, the kingdom is very important. But it's not just proclaiming a message and saying, hey, put up your hand now, come and follow me. That this whole idea of putting up our hands and responding and then just saying, yep, now I'm a Christian, I put up my hand. Right? Yeah.

So how many of you have seen people who've put up their hands and they've not continued on the journey. Most crusades, less than 10%. It's like less than 5% of the people stay with Jesus. So crusade evangelism can be helpful. And many people's lives have been transformed.

But I can tell you this, that there are many people who've not continued with the Lord. And that's why when we look at, for example, in John chapter 8, where it actually says in verse 30, that Jesus had been preaching. Very strong message, by the way, when you read that chapter. And then it says, and while he was saying these things, many of the Jews believed on him. Believed.

Now then it says that Jesus looks at them. I believe it's John 8:30. And he says, hey, to those who believed. He says, if you continue in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So those two believed.

He said, all right, you need to move from belief, from confession of faith, profession of faith, to discipleship. Now we'll see that the journey actually culminates in being a disciple maker. That's the way Jesus did it. And every one of us is called to be a disciple. We start with believing, we start with repentance.

But a disciple is someone who follows, is someone who's being shaped and formed and literally becoming more and more like his rabbi, his teacher. And Luke 6:40 says that the student is not above his, his teacher, but everyone who's perfectly trained will be like his teacher. And so that's. That's what discipleship is about. So when you read this passage, it looks like there's four verbs in the English.

You know, where he says, go, make disciples, Baptize and teach them to obey. But in the original language, there's only one verb, and it's the word mathetes, which means disciple. So what is that? That's the commandment. That's what we're called to do.

Go, baptize and teach them to obey. Not just teach them doctrine, but teach them to obey are actually participles in Greek. So that a participle supports the mission. What does it mean? It means this disciple, which is like this.

It's kind of like this. Jesus was saying to his disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and disciple all nations. Disciple, Exclamation mark, a commandment. All nations, pentatehne and all ethnic groups.

And as you do that, your discipleship means you go to them. It means you baptize them into the name of the Father, Son, And Holy Spirit, which is much more than just dunking them in water. It's immersing them into a place of union. And we've talked about that in our teachings on healing the soul, but it actually the expression. And by the way, water baptism, if you need to be baptized, if you're a new believer, guys, we want to do this as soon as possible.

And it doesn't have to be me. By the way, Jesus had his disciples do it. So I actually prefer it. Paul said, I only baptize only the household of the. Of Stephanus, but everyone else.

So the point I'm trying to make here is that you need to be baptized, but it's not just like, hey, a confession of my faith. I'm following Jesus. Yes, it is. It includes that. But there's so much more.

It actually is saying, I give my life to you, Lord. One with you. I want to be one with you. I'm becoming one with you. In the New Testament language, baptizing them into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into is in Greek.

It's a word of movement. It's a word of transition. So the idea is that you're becoming. You're being baptized into the name. Whoa.

It doesn't mean just tack on the words, I baptize you in the name. That's not what he's saying. It represents authority. It represents identity. And he's saying, I'm baptizing you into the very Godhead.

You're becoming one. We are one in Christ over 160 times in the New Testament, Paul in particular. But Jesus also spoke of this. He refers to this ontological reality called being in Christ. We start from a place, we're in Christ, and we from that place in him, what we live, we move, and we have our being.

So we live in him firstly, and then we move. And our being, our identity and our essence is actually defined through that. So the mission is very simply, baptize, no go, no teacher, no. That's not the mission. Those are participles.

The mission is disciple the nations. Do you know the only thing the church is called to do at this level of authority? And some of you guys, I'm going to mess up your theology a bit here, all right? But I'm going to. We're going to deconstruct some things here.

All right, you ready? The call is this. Every person is called to be a disciple. Every person who claims to be a Christian, they're called disciples. Before they were called Christians, is what is to be like Jesus.

A disciple. So what has happened in many churches? Are we discipling people?

I'll let you be the judge. In some places, yes, praise God. But in many places, the object is show up on Sunday, be there, serve, give your money, read your Bible. That's good. Yes, those things are part of being a disciple.

But that's not the mission. It's not the main thing. Stephen Covey said, let's keep the main thing the main thing, right? No, he said the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. That's true.

We are called to do that. And when we focus on discipleship, what does that mean? Well, I thought we're supposed to help the poor, heal the sick, preach the gospel, show mercy to others. Yet disciples do all those things. I don't care what expression it is, you can name it.

And my response is, yet disciples do all of those things.

All right, but just because you do one thing well doesn't mean you're a disciple. But disciples do all of the things that Jesus did. The works that I do show you do also. So there's a vast difference. So what does it mean to be a disciple?

You love like Jesus, you speak the truth like Jesus did. You heal the sick, you walk in the will of the Father, you serve other people. The list goes on and on and on and on. But when we're perfectly trained, we replicate. We literally repeat what Jesus did on earth.

And guess what happens, guys? The. The more we execute on discipleship, the more the earth becomes like heaven. Yeah, because you're not just going into a place and asking people to put up their hand, but you're actually saying, hang on a minute. Like Jesus, who didn't just say, hey, guys, stood on the hills of Judea and said, hey, guys, I'm the Messiah.

Believe in me. Put up your hand. And they went, woo. And he goes, all right, see you later. No, he said, come, follow me.

Follow me. And when you understand the culture and the practice in that time, you understand that that was a common practice. A rabbi obviously had disciples who lived with him, who followed him, who literally learned all they could about the disciple and became more and more like the rabbi. And became more and more like the rabbi. All right, so the mission is this.

Make disciples. How do we do that? Go. Actually, in the New Testament language, it actually says this as you are going. Make disciples as you're going.

So what does that mean? It's like, do I need to go to an unreached nation? Sure, you can do that. That's nice. That can be helpful.

But the idea is this. As you're going, as you're going to work, as you're going, you know about your daily affairs, make disciples. And how do you do it? As you're going. That's the first part.

You ready? Well, you baptize them literally into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then you teach them to obey. It's not enough just to put up a hand. It's not enough to say, we have X amount of people that show up every weekend. Jesus was never concerned with those metrics.

In fact, he did everything he could to repel people.

In other words, he challenged the depth of their conviction. Unless you eat my blood, drink my blood and eat my flesh, you have no part of me. Oh, that's seeker sensitive, isn't it? And guess what it says in John, chapter six, verse 66. Six, six, six.

No, he said, and many were offended when they walked away. Whenever there's. Whenever the Spirit moves, whenever God brings forth his word, it always sifts hearts, it always reveals things about us. But if you get scared to a church where you get a nice motivational talk, you never change, you never grow, you just be comfortable and you may go to a certain place, let me qualify that. But you'll never become the person Jesus wants you to be.

Fully the fullness of the stature of Christ. So the idea is very simple, is that we're called to make disciples who live under the lordship of Jesus, are formed by the Word filled with the Spirit, who multiply his life by teaching others to obey all he commanded. So we disciple people into their identity in Christ so they can embody and extend the gospel of the kingdom in every area of life, both locally, globally. So follow Jesus fully, raise up others who extend his kingdom. Now there's attention to this.

Theologians call it the already not yet tension. So the already not yet is that the kingdom is here now, but it's not here. What does that mean? The fullness of the kingdom will not be realized until Jesus returns. It's.

That's what it says. Read 1 Corinthians 15. So while we're here and we're saying, yes, the kingdom, preach the kingdom, love the kingdom, keep in mind that the fullness won't be realized until Jesus returns. And that's what balances it. Right?

There's dominion theology, which is extreme, teaches that it's our job to take over the government, to take over and on. When we do all that, and we implement policies and legislation of righteousness and we affect change. Then Jesus will say, well done and I'll come back. Like we made it possible for him to return. I don't think so.

The Bible is clear that he will come. Yes, the Gospel needs to be preached as a testimony to all the nations. Matthew 24:14. But ultimately our call is to just do what he's called us to do and to begin to implement the kingdom. The kingdom is like leaven, little bit of yeast, spreads, fills, begins to bring change and transformation in our own lives and then so forth.

All right, so the next thing I want to just mention is what we call our kingdom priorities. The priorities really are values. So what are values? What are. And this is not an exhaustive list.

Like there's a lot of other things we could talk about. But what are these kingdom priorities? Well, we're, we're not chasing trends. We want to be anchored to the timeless truths of God's word. What things are non negotiable.

The immutable, ironclad values in God's kingdom. Like they never change, doesn't matter what happens. The culture we live in times. No, these things never change. They're always the same.

Okay, first one is this kingdom first, his kingdom first. We're kingdom first people. We seek first the reign and rule of God in every area of our lives in our ministry. Okay? It's about alignment, placing God's purposes above our personal preferences, cultural trends, or religious tradition.

Scripture, of course. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. By the way, when it says seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, don't think of it this way. Like God number one, God's number one, my family's number two, and maybe ministry's number three. That's not a Hebraic paradigm.

What it means seek first is. It literally means this. Seek primarily seek as the most important thing. Okay. And it could even be translated seek as the only thing.

And what does it mean? Seek the kingdom. So what is it like? It's more like a hub, if you think of a, you know, attire on a push bike or whatever. And there's a hub, right?

And there's spokes. So the hub is what holds everything in place. So the kingdom is what we're called from the kingdom. Boom. If you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, your family will be good, your ministry will be good, everything else will be aligned.

Right. Number two is hosting God's presence. Most importantly, we don't want to just be a people who are dry and academic. We want to Be people of his presence. Amen.

His presence. This is about abiding and cultivating space through worship, prayer and purity where God dwells. We attract his presence. We actually draw him. You know when the Bible says to delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart, do you know what it means?

So it actually isn't just saying like let God be. You know what really is the most appealing thing in your life? So the word that is used there in Hebrew literally means to allure, to entice. So when it says what delight, that means what? The idea is that God is alluring.

God is enticing. Yes, to you. But. But it also has the same way that we can be enticing to God. We can attract his presence and his favor.

Oh, God loves everybody. Jacob, I've loved and Esau, I've hated Jesus. Increased in wisdom and stature. In favor carries with God and man. Increased 2 Peter 3:18.

Grow in the grace that carries the favor of the Lord Jesus, the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we can grow in favor. We can grow in favor. Hello, do you want to grow in favor? Do you want to be the Father's favorite?

Come on now. Right? Yeah, we can grow in that. Lord, I want your heart. I want to please you.

Like Paul said of Timothy, there's no one like him like Timothy. He's next level. Timothy is different. There's the average disciples. But Timothy, what sets him apart is he doesn't seek his own.

That's what Paul said in Philippians 2. He's different. He's got a pure heart. He's not self focused, self centered. He actually has laid down his life to serve the gospel.

And so Paul identifies him as someone who walked in an extraordinary place of favor and respect and honor in the kingdom hosting presence revival carriers. We're called to carry the fire of revival into all nations, into all spheres. To be a spirit empowered people. We bring healing, renewal and awakening wherever we go. Proclaiming Jesus boldly.

Amen. That's what we're called to do. Proclaim him boldly. And we have the authority and the power to do that. All right, nextly, let's look at this transformative discipleship.

So making disciples is intentional, but the outcome is this, is that those that we're discipling, they're not just learning. Go through the Purple book, go through the Alpha course and then that's great. Like information is important, right? Revelation, knowledge, doctrine, theology, it's important. But if it doesn't transform you what does the Bible say in 1 Corinthians 8, verse 1?

Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. So we have to, we have to recognize we can know all these things. You can have doctorates or, or be able to, you know, unpack the word of God so, so diligently and skillfully and yet not have the character of Jesus Christ in your life. We have to be like Jesus. Jesus was full of wisdom, so no one like him.

Paul also, but they both obviously imbibed the character, the godliness. And Jesus obviously was perfect but supernatural life. So the supernatural is natural. Expecting miracles to be normal, power and faith, depending on the spirit for boldness, etc. There's some overlap here.

Kingdom, family, guys, we're called to be a family. It's about covenant family. And the church needs to become a family more and more again. So it means we're relational. We reach out, we love, we embrace, and we build relationships intentionally where everyone is honored, respected, valued and affirmed.

Next, joyful generosity, living open handedly, giving joyfully and sacrificially. So this is about stewardship, offering our time, our talents, our treasure for God's kingdom. And generosity ultimately reflects our Father's heart. It does. For God so loved the world that he what gave.

So when you, when you are full of the Father's love, you give, you're given every space in every way. So it's powerful and it multiplies impact beyond what we could imagine. All right, and then the next one is excellence. Excellence always. Why is it so important to have excellence?

So whatever you shoot at, you're not going to necessarily attain that. Right? But it's a goal. So if you're shooting down here and then you hit here, so raise the bar, raise the bar. This means we should be the best of the best in whatever we do, we should go the extra mile.

We should be known as the one with the best attitude in our jobs. We should be the person that serves all of these things, show who we are. And so we're called to give God our best because we're not doing it for man, right? Jesus said, we're doing it unto him, not for recognition, but as a sacred offering to the Lord. So excellence is an expression of worship.

It's an expression of worship. What kind of offerings were they required to give to God? Leftovers. The best of the best. The best of the best.

And that's what we're called to do, to give God the best, the first fruits. And then excellence is an expression of worship where every task Becomes an opportunity to honor him. It reflects a surrendered heart, a life that says, you are worthy of my very best, even in the unseen and the ordinary. Wow. Because who we are when no one sees us is who we really are.

You can. We can put on a facade. We can act like we're like the Pharisees, right? Outwardly ostentatious. But on the bottom line is he says, I know your heart, and it's not a negative thing, because you know what he's saying?

He says, I see you did in secret. I see how you honor that person. You love that person. I see what you do in the secret place. I see how you keep your heart pure when no one's watching.

And guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to reward you. Openly favor, anointing, blessing. Yeah. Because you keep your life in a place it's not about what people are just seeing you, but it's what's actually happening when no one is aware.

Only God. Only God. Amen. You're definitely not responding well enough to my preaching.

Come on, give him your best now. Come on, give him a shout. He's worthy. He is so worthy of our very best. Years ago, David Livingstone made a statement.

He said, you know, in light of what Jesus has done and his sacrifice, he said, how can I or any one of us say that when we give ourselves literally? David Livingstone, whose heart. He died there in Africa. He gave his life and he died and he suffered. He said, it is not a sacrifice.

It is. It is an honor and a privilege. So how can we, in light of what he did, for us, it's a sacrifice, you know? God, this one's really hurting me. Come on, guys.

Put on your big boy pants. Right? Come on. Really? Do you say that in Australia?

I'm not sure. Okay. All right. Another one we say is, suck it up, buttercup. That's more military, though, but okay.

So the idea is that we literally live in that place where we give him our best, guys. Give him the best. Oh, wow. There's so much we could say, right? But God is raising and healing of people.

This is about some of us. It's like. It's not easy. You don't know. Yeah, maybe not, but you don't know what I've been through.

Right. And the point is that all of us have a calling to become more like Jesus. More like Jesus. And Jesus never talked about himself and promoted himself or complained about himself? No, not at all.

He's amazing. So all of these things are awesome. When a Church imbibes these kingdom values and priorities. Again, this is not a complete list. There's many more things we could add to the list, but these are just some things for us to stay focused on.

And perhaps they'll be, you know, trimmed a little bit, but we're not sure. I don't want. I don't want to add any more. It's too much. But ultimately, it's a journey, right?

Those who are led by the Spirit, not under the law. So it's not about, well, keeping the list. It's like Holy Spirit. And Holy Spirit corrects us. He checks us.

He speaks to us, and he goes, hey, I want you to do this. I don't want you to do that. All right, Lord, I'm submitted. Your will be done. All right, here's something that I'm really excited to share this morning.

It's really a discipleship pathway. And we're going to talk about the church in the New Testament, the seven Cs of a new Testament church. Now, here's the cool thing. These are seven pillars, okay? Seven pillars.

Now, why seven pillars? Because Proverbs 9, verse 1 says that wisdom builds its house on seven pillars, okay? The number seven is what? Completion, Right? It speaks of completion.

So we come up with seven pillars, and they all start with the letter C. That I believe when we embrace these and we implement them in our life on a journey, it will bring us individually and corporately. By the way, the word corporately, do you know what it means? Any Latin language derivatives here? Like corporeal? Right, corporeal.

So what does it mean? Body. What's a corpse? So corporate means body, but we've turned it into, like, the corporate world. Well, that's not the meaning in Latin.

It means body, a corpse. So Corpus Christi. There's a place in Texas called Corpus Christi. Guess what it means. Body of Christ.

It's very Catholic, right? Lots of people from Mexico that lived there and settled there. Used to be part of Mexico, in fact. So that is. It means the body of Christ.

So we're called to be corporate. Corporate. What's it mean? Body. We are the body of Christ.

So individually, we're members, but we are the body. And what do we see today in the Church? Especially in nations that celebrate and really don't understand the idea of being part of a body. It's just on my calling, my ministry, my anointing, my gift, my business, whatever it may be, rather than, no, you can be what? A body part and not part of the body.

And what was think about that. A body part, someone's arm.

Very graphic. I know, kids, close your ears. But what's that mean? You look at it, right? That's ridiculous.

Because that arm, on its own.

Yeah. Has to be connected. So we're called to be part of the body. And whatever we do ultimately doesn't just serve what we're called to do. There's a symbiotic responsibility to function together, and that's what God's called us to.

So we're moving from doctrine into discipleship. So we've already said this, that the goal is ultimately, we believe we start there, but then we become a disciple. And then from discipleship, we become a disciple maker. Okay, let's go to the next one, please. All right, this is where it starts.

This is where the seven Cs come in. Right, guys? This very different Sunday, all right? If you're here for the first time, yeah, we'll preach and get all fired up and everything, but this is important stuff. Okay, so where does it start?

First of all, Christ centered. The church has to be Christ centered. Has to be Christocentric, because why? Jesus is his church. It's his body.

It's. He's the Lord. We have to start with the church recognizing that it's his church. And we come under his lordship. We're submitted to him, his rule and his reign, whatever he wants.

So rather than just go, oh, wow, this is about just having a great church or ministry. We have a responsibility to say, what does Jesus expect of us? What has he called us to do? See, your default may not necessarily be what he wants done, because you can live in a place where you just do the same thing. And so you always default to that.

You default to theology. You default to particular gift mix or individual gift. But we have to go on a journey where we actually say, okay, Lord, what are you trying to do? Because how many people have actually not allowed Christ to be Lord in their life? And they've stepped into ministry, they've been platformed, and you know what happens?

All right, so he's the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that everything he might have, the preeminence or the supremacy, it's his church, guys. He says, close it down, we close it down. If he says, don't do this anymore, we don't do it. No questions asked.

Now, he's patient. We process. I'm not. I'm not saying anything. Please don't say.

There's like, I Hope he doesn't say that. But my point is. And I know that's. I'm using hyperbole here, but the point is, we're trying to say ultimately he calls the shots. He says, this is how I want the church to function, and this is what I want you to do.

So we move from knowing about him to actually knowing him. And it's achieved through spiritual disciplines, prayer, worship, word immersion, abiding. So the goal is this. A people whose every decision, value, and identity is anchored in Christ alone.

Wow. Let's camp there and unpack that for the next six weeks. Because so many people don't even have this one down pat yet. Yeah, it's foundational. Yeah.

All right, let's move to the next kingdom culture. We're talking about the values of the kingdom of God. So your kingdom come, your will be done. So moving from the world's value system to kingdom thinking. What?

Romans 12:2. The renewing of the mind. But also Matthew 6:10. It's achieved through teaching, mentoring, community, reordering, priorities. Priorities around generosity, honor, humility, spirit led living.

Right. The goal of people who carry heaven's culture wherever they go.

Is this good?

All right, let's go to this third one. Covenant Community. Covenant community. Wow. Covenant community is believers live as spiritual family in authentic community, relationship, shared life.

Acts 2, 44. All the believers were together. They had everything in common. So how's this? The goal is you move from isolation and consumer Christianity to genuine belonging and accountability.

Oh, Yeah, come on now. But I like being alone. I like not having to be transparent and open and vulnerable. And I like to sleep in on Sunday morning, whatever it may be. Okay, so how's this achieved, guys?

When you open up your heart and say, it's about family. Right. It changes everything. It may not be comfortable. We spoke about this on Friday night.

Think of the 12 disciples. Wow. So different. A lot of iron, sharpening iron. A lot of, like, friction and.

Yeah. Different things. And like, I don't like Matthew. You know, just don't like him. He's too loud.

He's, you know, I don't like John. And we have all of these different kind of things, but families this, like. Yeah, everyone's different personalities, beliefs, culture. But ultimately we're called to be a family. And it's not.

The unity is not uniformity. Unity is diversity that works together in as one, just like the body does. Our fingers, our hands, our legs have different functions. Our brain has a different function. But together, unity creates a body.

It's achieved through small Groups, shared meals, intentional pastoral care, carrying burdens of one another, sharpening one another. So there's at least 40 plus times in the New Testament where it says one another, love one another, care for one another, carry one another's burdens, etc, etc, at least 40 times. So for that to happen, you have to be in community and you have to be intentional to care. Right? Okay, so that's, that's community.

Number four is consecration. Complete consecration is this. God's people are wholly set apart and devoted fully to him. Romans 12:1. Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

That is your true and proper worship. So moving from partial devotion, by the way, partial obedience is disobedience. We know that. With who do? How do we know that?

Think of Samuel. Lord, I did everything you said. Sorry, Saul. To Samuel, I did everything you said. Then Samuel's like, what is this bleeding of sheep?

What? What is this sheep over here? Oh no, no, no. Like I saved them for the Lord. I saved them from the Lord.

And Saul is defending the fact that he did not fully obey God and he lost the kingdom. He obeyed in 80%, 20%, no. So he lost the kingdom. Partial obedience is still disobedience. So we move from partial devotion, partial obedience to whole life consecration, where you become a sacrifice.

It's pleasing to him and it's achieved through spirit led conviction. Yes, let the Holy Spirit convict you. He loves you. Don't push it off. Don't reject it when he's speaking to you and he's trying to correct you.

Because you know what happens if you push back when the Holy Spirit's trying to correct you? The next time becomes harder for you to hear his voice.

Your heart becomes callous. One layer at a time. Be obedient. He corrects you. What's the Bible say?

Swift to listen, slow to speak. I'm slow to what? To become angry. Guess what he's talking about there? He says when the Lord speaks to you, he corrects you.

Can be through a person, but ultimately it's the ultimate authority. So you move from that. It's achieved through spirit led conviction, inner healing, intentional accountability, laying down what competes with God's lordship. So inner healing is this. Why would we want to become a people?

They get offended and then we shipwreck. If we get offended over things, we shipwreck and we disqualify ourselves.

Offense is a terrible thing.

We have to deal with that in our lives.

Okay, corporate contribution Again, the word corporate, meaning body. What is your contribution to the body of Christ? And this is about activation. So every believer brings their gifts and grace to strengthen the body of Christ. Wow.

So good. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself in love as each part does its work. So we move from passive attendance to active participation achieved through gift, discovery, serving opportunities, fivefold equipping, and all of this is really important. So we go on that journey and it starts as we serve one another. See, sometimes people want a platform, but they haven't learned to serve.

And when you study Jesus, his approach, he always said, you have to learn to follow before you can learn to lead. We had a Bible college in Perth when we lived there and pastored. And one of the things that we always did, which we're going to do this with scent college as well, in our second year, God willing, is discipleship first. Like we're doing nothing on leadership in year one. Okay, why?

Because if you can't follow, you can't lead. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. The Greek word means mimic me. And some translations say imitate me as I imitate Christ. But it literally means mimic me as I mimic Christ.

Wow, isn't that powerful? Hey guys, you can mimic me because I'm mimicking Christ. Now I know every, every copy is not as true to the original. So he wasn't like a perfect, you know, copy by any means. But the fact is we're called to be like Jesus.

We're following him. Right? Okay, next. Confirmed calling. Each person carries a God given assignment and purpose within the kingdom.

What's God called you to do with your life? What's your calling? It includes your gifts. It includes your assignment. What does he actually want you to do?

It's confirmed. Why is it confirmed? Because leadership confirms it. Acts 13. And God confirms it ultimately to you, right?

He confirms it. He shows you. He says, yep, this is what you're called to do. Regalatians. God confirmed it to Paul and then he says this leadership confirms it.

Acts 13, prophesy, you know, set apart Saul and Barnabas, the work that I've called them to the ministry. So there's a leadership confirmation. They're sent out by leadership. Even the body confirms it. Not saying every person because some people couldn't see Jesus if he was in front of them.

What did Pastor Derek say? I guess it was Kenneth Hagin that said years ago, if the Holy Spirit walked into a church with a red T shirt on that said Holy Spirit There are people that still wouldn't know who he is, wouldn't recognize him. Somebody like that. And it's true. It's true that some people don't recognize what God's doing.

They don't get it. So we don't look to man. But there are those that do that are switched on. They perceive, they understand, they discern. Right.

So there's a confirmed calling. You're moving from vague spiritual identity to confirmed kingdom purpose. It's achieved through prophetic activation, mentoring, intentional deployment. By the way, there's a testing. The Bible always says, test people before you release them.

Well, that's not nice. Lord, what do you want to say about that? You're the one who said it. That's not nice. Know those who labor among you, if that in First Timothy three, right before they serve.

Test them. Test them. Oh, yes, God tests us. He tests our hearts. Yeah.

He offends our minds to reach our hearts. He offends our broken, wounded souls to heal us.

I don't like it.

How many have ever trained fairly seriously for a sport? Was it easy or military? Right. It's not easy.

You got to do it. You give up your rights, right? You're no longer a civilian. And that's the way it works. It's hard, it's difficult, but ultimately it produces what needs to be produced.

All right, lastly, Christ's commission. So the church is sent to make disciples and advance the kingdom of God. This is a part of where we're talking about moving from just being disciples to disciple makers now, where we're all called to make disciples, right? So this is what it's all about. Go and make disciples.

It's achieved through evangelism, training, missional living, being sent into spheres of influence, from being discipled to making disciples. And then the last ultimate destination, the Great Commission is the assignment of the entire body of Christ. It's not just the leaders, the pastors, the whomever, missionaries, but it's moving people. Right. Ephesians 4, the five fold ministries equip the entire body of Christ, every person functioning in their calling, making disciples using their gifts, etc.

Move people from calendar through to mission. We build a reproducing people, extending the kingdom from the sunshine coast to the nations. All right, the next slide I want to just show you, this is called disciples, then move into disciple making. So here's some things that we're going to be implementing. And could we go to the next slide, please?

There we go. Thank you. So discipleship pathway. Let me talk to you about that for a moment. A discipleship pathway is what I already referred to as the seven Pillars.

Now we have produced a resource called seven Discipleship Pillars. Yep. Wisdom has built her house. She set up its seven pillars, Proverbs 9, verse 1, which literally takes us through all of the seas. And it's like an eight session course.

And we're going to be rolling this out and it's going to be something that, you know, we, we still need to develop the plan when and how to roll it out, but it's going to be something that we do and it's going to take you. It will fast track your spiritual growth and it will prepare you because it's not just like even though you do a session, there's a lot of things that you have to do out from that. So, for example, what's my calling? Oh, how do you discover what you're good at? If you're good at something, you try it and give it a go.

So part of that is you give it a go and then you go, ah, yeah, okay. And people identify grace in the church. The way to do this is you don't appoint someone as a leader. You look for grace, you look for grace on their life. Oh, wow, they have a grace, they're functioning, they're flowing in something.

You know, there's, there's giftedness in this area, there's fruit in this area, and then from there you help develop them. You see, formation, and formation often happens first, but I mean, more and more formation. And then ultimately people are released to serve. And that's a healthier way. That's the way Jesus did it.

So these are some of the things that we're going to be doing. It will actually help you to not only understand how Jesus made disciples, it would challenge you. There's questions for groups. We want to do it in groups. We don't want to just do it individually.

There's questions, but there's also things you can do to actually go deeper, etc. Okay, so we'll be rolling that out and you'll hear more about that soon. And then the next thing I want to mention is. Yeah, the summary, please. It says, God's calling us back to what really matters, knowing him deeply, living confidently as his sons and daughters, and showing up in the world with real kingdom impact.

It's about intimacy, identity, and influence, all for Jesus and his kingdom. Amen. All right, awesome.