Equipped for the Mission of God

Sermon Summary:

In this powerful exploration of Acts 1, we’re reminded of our divine calling as God’s people. The resurrection of Jesus isn’t just a historical event—it’s the catalyst that changes everything. As witnesses to this miraculous truth, we’re commissioned to share the good news of God’s kingdom. But how do we, ordinary people, accomplish such an extraordinary task? The answer lies in the promise of the Holy Spirit. Just as the early disciples were empowered at Pentecost, we too are given ‘dunamis’—explosive, transformative power—to fulfill our mission. This message challenges us to look beyond our comfort zones, to see the world as our mission field, and to recognize that we’re part of a greater story that spans from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. As we reflect on this, let’s ask ourselves: How can we be more intentional in sharing our faith, and how can we rely more fully on the Holy Spirit’s power in our daily lives?

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Sermon Points:

CONTEXT: Luke opens the Book of Acts, a compendium to his Gospel, with a brief excursus on the 40 days between the resurrection of Jesus and His ascension. In this short section of Scripture we learn that God’s people are equipped for His mission.

PEOPLE: God has chosen to carry out His work through His people!

PROOF: Jesus Christ has conquered death through the miracle of the Resurrection!

PURPOSE: The Incarnation and Ministry of Jesus Christ marked the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. PERSON: God’s people today are called to give witness about the Person of Jesus!

PERSPECTIVE: The commissioning of God’s people is to share the message of Jesus with the whole world!

POWER: Pentecost marked the beginning of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit for the people of God, enabling us to fulfill His mission!

Key Takeaways:

• God uses ordinary people to carry out His mission
• The resurrection of Jesus changes everything and provides proof for our faith
• The purpose of the mission is to establish God’s kingdom on earth
• Christians are called to be witnesses of Jesus to the ends of the earth
• The Holy Spirit empowers believers to fulfill God’s mission
• The church must look beyond itself to reach the world with the Gospel
• There are still unreached people groups who need to hear about Jesus
• Believers need to be strategic and intentional in sharing their faith

Watch other Sermons Here

Scripture References:

• Acts 1:1-8

Stories:

• The analogy of frogs (ministers) and lizards (laypeople) in evangelism
• Alfred Nobel naming dynamite after the Greek word “dunamis” (power) from Acts 1:8
• The pastor’s experiences of people opening up to him on airplanes after learning he’s a minister

Transcript

Well, good morning, church. It’s good to see you here this morning. And we’re grateful that we have been able to worship the Lord today. I want to say again a word of thanks to our Korean students who led us in worship today. We are so grateful for them.

Aren’t they awesome? And we praise the Lord for them and we’re grateful. So you know that our theme for this year has been together. And throughout the entire year we have been on a journey exploring various facets of what that means to us as God’s people. And so each season of the year, we’ve studied a different facet of what it means to be together.

So we begin our mission journey today. And our theme for Missions Month is Together to the People. We have one more season left, that’s season of Advent, and we’ll talk about that when we get to it. So hopefully when you came in today, you’ve had a chance to get a copy of our new devotional guide. I hope you’ve gotten one of these in this devotional guide.

You’ll notice, as we’ve done all year, there’s a weekly Bible focus we call it Together in Word that we want you to read and spend some time reflecting on. And then we have some suggestions from our staff about how to implement what we’re learning. And we call that Together. Indeed. It’s available in our guide.

We’re going to be using the Book of Acts for November, and we have a narrative reading which is a much longer reading. If you’d like to do that, participate in that, then by the end of November, you’ll have read the entire Book of Acts. We also have in this particular edition, a little bit more information than we’ve had in the past devotional guides. That’s because it’s mission month and we want to make sure you have a chance to see what’s happening in the life of our church and how God has called us to mission and how the Lord is using us already in that regard. So I hope you’ll pay attention to that.

You can also get a copy of it online at fbca.org/wordanddeed so with that said, let’s look at today’s message and Biblical text. I’ve entitled the message Today God’s People Equipped for the Mission of God. And we are going to learn more about what it means to be equipped as God’s people. As we look at this text from Acts 1, we’re going to launch, as Brad said earlier, a commissioning of the Equipped People of God. Tonight we’re going to gather for worship at 5:00.

You see, these tables are prepared for communion, symbolically. We’re not go going do that today, this morning. We’re gonna do that tonight at 5:00. And you’ll see a display that’s here to my right, to your left. And that display involves ping pong balls that you’re gonna learn about tonight.

Okay, We’ve got white and pink and green, these three different types of ping pong balls. You know how we have three of them just so y all can watch me juggle? Is that what it is? Whoa. Okay, good.

It’s all good. I could keep going. But really, tonight, here’s what we’re going to ask you to do. We want you to pray and ask the Lord to just put someone on your heart that you know in your circle, your sphere, that needs to know the Lord needs to be a part of his family. And we’re gonna ask you to prepare yourself to engage them somehow, first of all, just by praying for them.

And so what we’ll do is that’s what this white ping pong ball is gonna represent in our display. It’s the people that we’re go goingna be praying for. And then these others will explain that to you tonight. Okay? So I hope you’ll be back for that, because we’ve been equipped by God to do this, and we discover that on the very first page of the Book of Acts.

So if you have your copy of the New Testament, I want you to look at it with me and we’ll just look at the introduction to the Book of Acts. Luke is the author of the Book of Acts. He has already written a gospel. So let’s look at chapter one one of Acts, where Luke writes this. In my former book, the Gospel of Luke, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven.

After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen after his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days. He spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you’ve heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him and asked him, lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it’s not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you’ll be my witnesses. Jerusalem in all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Now, I want us to learn a few lessons from this text, but let’s just set the context. First, what is happening in Acts 1? Well, Luke opens the Book of Acts. It’s a compendium to his gospel with this brief excursus, if you will, on the 40 days between the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension. And so in this short section of Scripture, we learn that God’s people are equipped for mission.

So Luke has written the gospel already, told us about the life of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus. He’s recorded the resurrection of Jesus. And now here in the Book of Acts, just in this brief opening, he talks about some experiences that the apostles had with Jesus during that 40 days prior to the ascension. And it’s a pivotal moment in history. Obviously, Jesus has been resurrected from the dead, which was incredible.

And then he’s going to ascend to the Father, which is also going to be memorable for these people who saw it. But during this intervening time, he shares some powerful teachings with them that are recorded for us in this little section. So here’s what I want us to learn from it. Today we’re going to focus on this entire month on the people of God and what God has called us to. So if you think about this story, it’s about God in Christ, but it involves people.

And God has chosen to carry out his work through his people. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about that or not. I’ve thought about it. God could have done this so differently. True.

He doesn’t have to use people, right? He can do whatever he wants to do. For example, he created the universe without us. He didn’t even ask our opinion. Isn’t that fascinating?

Don’t you think you could have contributed to the conversation a little bit to help him think through some of these places and maybe how they ought to look and feel? And I mean, at least he could have asked our opinion, right? Isn’t that funny how we think of ourselves? So sometimes God just chooses to do things regardless of us. Doesn’t use us, doesn’t consult us.

But when it comes to carrying out his mission, for the most part, he’s chosen to use people, even though sometimes he does miraculous things. And so when you’re reading the Bible. Isn’t it fascinating how many people are named in the Bible? Just real people. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon.

What a great name for a little grandson, don’t y’all think? Hannah, Josiah. Great names for children. I’m just throwing these out there for y’all. Ezra, Nehemiah.

We’ve just read about them, right? John the Baptist. In this very text, Luke says, John baptized with water. He’s talking about John the Baptist. Do y’all know on Wednesdays, we’ve been studying Exodus in the pastor’s Bible study.

You know, the name Exodus comes from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew. In the Hebrew Bible. The second book of the Bible is not named Exodus. Most of the Hebrew books, the titles of the books come from the first sentence. So in Hebrew, you know what the Book of Exodus is called?

The names. Cause when you read Exodus 1, it says these are the names. And it refers to this group of people that were delivered who lived in Egypt, and God ultimately delivered them. In the book of Exodus, it’s interesting who’s named and who’s not. For example, do any of y’all remember Shifra and Pua, these two women?

Y all know who they were? They’re named in the book of Exodus. They were the midwives who wouldn’t obey Pharaoh, and they get named. Guess who doesn’t get named in Exodus? The Pharaoh.

Arguably the most powerful man on the planet. All we get is Pharaoh. We don’t get his name. You keep reading Exodus, you get Basaleel and Ooliab. Y’all remember them.

You know who they were.

It’s going to get easier as this series goes on, okay? It really is. But Basal Naholiab, those were the men who built the tabernacle. The Bible says in Exodus that Basalel was filled by the Spirit. A rare thing to be said in the Old Testament.

You know, if you keep reading, you get to the New Testament and you have all these people named. For example, Paul greets Andronicus and Junia, evidently husband and wife in Rome. And you know what he calls them? Apostles.

Junia, a woman called by Paul, an apostle. That s for some of my brothers. In some other places, that would kind of blow your mind a little bit. But he Also, in Romans 16, he talks about Triphena and Triphosa. Y’all remember them.

Paul says these women are hard laborers in the Lord. He even says to greet persses now. Not Ms. Persis in our town, y’all Know, but Persis, he says, a woman who is laboring hard for the Lord. Paul greets all these people, all these men and women, people that are named in the scripture.

Because here’s the thing, y’all, God has created us people. He has redeemed us. He has restored us, he has gifted us. He has anointed us. He has empowered us.

He has called us. Look at your neighbor and say, I think he’s talking about us. Yeah, just us. Just us regular people. Think about it.

People. And so we’ll list a few more people along the way as we go through this series, because I don’t want you to get to heaven and meet somebody whose name’in the Bible and you’t even heard of them, you know, people. God uses people like me and you, which is awesome. Now, here’s what Luke does in this brief introduction. He offers us some key teachings so that we can have confidence to engage in the mission that he’s called us to.

First of all, there’s proof. When you look at Acts 1, there’s proof Jesus Christ has conquered death through the miracle of the resurrection. That’s where this thing starts. Luke says, Jesus gave. Look at verse three.

He presented himself and gave many convincing proofs. To who? People. The apostles. Remember, he’s gonna work through people.

He’s chosen them. Here’s the proof after his suffering. Now, the New Testament, written in Greek, the Greek word there is our word for passion. After his passion, after his death on the cross, he then is raised from the dead. And he presented himself, he says, and he gave proofs for 40 days.

And so Jesus demonstrates that he’s alive. That means he leaves no doubt in the minds of these eyewitnesses. And so if you were to run into one of these guys and they were to say, we’ve seen Jesus. And they. And you say, yeah, I know.

I mean, to know you walked. No, we’ve seen him since he died. Oh, really? Yes, we have. In fact, we’ve touched him, we’ve eaten with him, We’ve listened to him.

He’s taught us. He. He’s spoken to us. He’s listened to us. I mean, these are convincing proofs.

There is absolutely no doubt in the minds of these people that Jesus Christ has been resurrected from the dead. Now, they don’t understand it yet, and they certainly don’t have the theology of it just yet, but they are eyewitnesses to the fact that Jesus Christ is alive. And here’s what I would tell you. We’ve talked about this before. The resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything.

Nothing can ever be the same. Now. It doesn’t fix everything yet, but it changes everything. It’s an incredible, incredible event. In fact, these guys and women, these men and women who are witnesses to this, it’s just going toa change everything.

And they’re going to start talking about this and people are gonna have a hard time believing it because they’re going toa say, yes, Jesus died. He was resurrected from the dead. As a matter of fact, you’re gonna be resurrected from the dead one day. What an incredible event, y’all. So there’s proof.

Now with that said, let’s look at the purpose of the mission, what is it that we’re about? And then we’ll look at how we do it. Here’s the purpose. The incarnation and the ministry of Jesus Christ Marked the establishment of the kingdom of God. That’s what’s happening here I want you to notice.

What does Luke say about Jesus? He says in verse three, he gave them many convincing proofs. He appeared to them over 40 days and he continued to teach them about the kingdom of God. Now if you go all the way to the end of the book of Acts, Acts 28, Paul is in Rome under house arrest. And Acts 28, verse 30 says, for two whole years, Paul stayed there in his own rented house.

And those of you that have been to Rome, you can go to that house. Many of us have been there. And he welcomed everyone who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God. So the purpose of all this is the kingdom of God being established on this earth.

Because here’s what happened when Jesus came. You see, Luke is a historian. You know, my PhD is in history, church history, and every historian, when you choose to engage in the field of study, you have to develop what we call a philosophy of history. It’s the lenses that you use so that when you’re interpreting history, you have something that guides you. I’m not just a historian, I’m a Christian historian.

So I have what’s called a providential view of history. I believe that God is involved in what’s taking place in history. I also have a Biblically shaped philosophy of history. And so when you study the Bible, the Bible talks of two ages. There’s the present evil age, and there’s the age to come.

When Jesus came, here’s what happened. The age to come has just intersected this present evil age, and Jesus has established the age to come. That’s the kingdom of God. And what’s happening is you still have the present evil age, but the age to come has already shown up. And here’s what the age ofumbn is doing.

It’s drawing the present evil age forward to a conclusion, to a culmination. And Jesus taught us that. And he spent his time teaching about the kingdom of God. Jesus would be walking along with his disciples, and he’d see a farmer doing something. He’d say, you see that farmer, what he’s doing right now?

You know what that reminds me of? Kingdom of God. Let me tell you what I mean by that. And he’ll say, we know the kingdom of God is like this. Or he’ll tell a story about a family, and he’ll say, let me tell you this story about this family.

In fact, it’s really about the kingdom of God. Over and over and over, he’s going to teach us about the rule and the reign of God. 2025, when we begin 2025, I’m going to begin the year with a series on happiness. And it’s going to be based on the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus teaching us how to live as kingdom people in this present evil age.

And so that’s what Jesus is teaching here. Jesus, when he first began his ministry, Mark’s gospel says this. In Mark 1, Jesus’very first sermon, he says, you are to recognize that the time has come. The kingdom of God is near. That’s what Jesus said.

So the kingdom, that’s really what this is all about, Helping people understand the kingdom of God. And one day, the Bible says that the knowledge of God is gonna cover the whole earth. So that’s the journey that we’re on now. What’s at the heart of our message? A person.

God’s people today are to give witness about the person of Jesus. I want you to look at verse 8. Jesus says, you will be my witnesses. Literally witnesses to me. Now, here’s what’s interesting about that, y’all.

You don’t want to read that sentence in Greek, because in the original Greek text, you know what the word for witness is? Martyr. You will be my martyrs. Now, that sounds a little hard. Well, in Jesus day, all I meant was witness.

But guess what? Over time, guess what it has come to mean. Martyr. As a matter of fact, these very people that hear this, many of them are going to be martyred because of their faithful witness. Know one of the things that I appreciate about when we take teams to Rome, I love to go to the Vatican, the heart of Vatican City, and go to St.

Peter’s Basilica. Not just because I love to go to St. Peter’s Basilica. I do. One of the reasons I like to go there is because you can go and stand over, as best we can tell, the tomb, the burial spot of Simon Peter, who gave everything he had to this.

Then I love to go outside the walls of Rome. And you go to St. Paul’s outside the walls. Beautiful church. I love the church.

But one of the reasons I love to go there is because you go stand over the tomb of the Apostle Paul, who gave everything he had to this right here. These people were witnesses, martyrs, if you will. And so these folks are giving testimony about Jesus. You get to the end again of the Book of Acts after Luke says, when you get to the end of the Book of Acts, that Paul was teaching about the kingdom of God. He also says, and he taught about the Lord Jesus Christ in Acts 11.

One of my favorite churches in the New Testament, the church at Antioch. And the Bible says the church at Antioch. These men came to Antioch and started telling everyone about the Lord Jesus. And God’s hand was upon them. So what is our testimony?

What are we telling other people as Christians? Are we telling them how to live? Are we condemning them for how they live? Are we looking down our noses because we’re so much holier than they are? Don’t you wish you were more like me?

Can I tell you how to be like me? I mean, would you just. Can I just show you a path where you look a lot more like me? Your life would be so much better off if you just watch me. Is that our testimony?

No. You know, we tell them about Jesus, our experience with Jesus, our relationship with Jesus, and that means that you and I have to somehow know him. One of my favorite passages for people like me in my Profession is in 2 Peter 1. And when I was teaching preaching at Truitt Seminary, I used this every semester to prospective ministers. And I would tell them, the Apostle Peter says, in 2 Peter 1, we were eyewitnesses of the majesty of Christ.

In other words, we saw Jesus ourselves for who he really was. And what I would tell these prospective ministers is this. If you want to do this right here for a living, you’ve got to be an eyewitness, because you can’t proclaim something you don’t know. So here’s what I’d say to me and you, all of us in this room, within the sound of my voice. If you’re a Christian, you’ve got to be an eyewitness yourself of Jesus I can’t be your eyewitness.

I wish I could. Don’t you wish you could be your kid eyewitness? Don’t you, don’t you wish you could do it for them, for your grandkids? But guess what? You can’t do it.

And. But don’t you want them to have their own journey anyway? Don’t we. We want them to know Jesus. Well, you and I have got to know him if we’re gonna share him with our world.

So I would just encourage us as we think about living into this calling from God, we’ve got to walk with the Lord ourselves. Now, let me share two other things with you, to me, are a little bit challenging from this text. I think we’re challenging then and I think they’re challenging now. The first one is perspective.

The commissioning of God’s people is to share the message of Jesus with the whole world. Man, that is so easy to say, isn’t it? Can you imagine what these guys thought? You’re going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, rest of Judea, Samaria, as a matter of fact, to the ends of the earth. You talk about stretching a group of people.

Can you imagine what that must have been like? Can you imagine being there? And Simon Peter says, you know, I’m a fisherman from Galilee. I’m in Jerusalem. This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.

And. And you’re telling me that I’m gonna be a part of sharing you, first of all with the Samaritans and then the whole world? You talking about us? How are we possibly gonna do that? How could that even be remotely possible?

I can imagine. Jesus said, well, you know, I was dead, now I’m alive. So let’s start there. Okay, that’s a pretty good start. And here’s what I love about this, y’all.

It happened. So I want toa invite you to read the Book of Acts with me this month. Humbly, because you know where you and I are in this particular story. When Jesus tells that group of Jewish men and women, you’re going to take the gospel, the ends of the earth. Guess where you and I were are.

We’re ends of the earth people. Plus, we’re gentiles.

We’re. We’re not on the inside.

We read the Book of Acts so provincially and we forget we’re outsiders reading this story. This gospel had to get all the way to the ends of the earth to get us. And it had to get outside of the Jewish ethnicity and theology in order to make Room for Gentiles. Can we just say thank you, Lord, that that happened? Can’t we?

Praise God? It happened, it did. But now, guess what? Now we’re in a very different situation’twenty24 on the cusp of 2025. And now we’re living in a world where the gospel still has to go to the ends of the earth.

Now, it sounded not even remotely possible in their world. It sounds doable in my world because my world is so much more connected. I can find out right now. All I got to do is get out my phone and I can tell you what’s going on in anywhere. Pretty much in the whole world.

We have the migration of peoples. We’ve met people who have migrated multiple places across the world. There’s so much more connectedness now in the world we’re in. It seems so much more possible, and yet it’s still difficult. You know, right now there are unreached peoples who live on planet Earth who have very little access to the gospel.

But our missiologists who study all that have even further categorized it to where. Now there are what they call pioneer unreached peoples. These are the people that have less than 0.1% Christian presence in their entire culture. There are over 2 billion of them right now. 2 billion with the BE.

That means there are many people who will be born, grow up, get a job, get married, have children, have grandchildren and die and never hear one word about any of this and never meet one of us. So if you want to know more about that, we’ve got an information booklet we’ve made available to you today. S out. It’s in all of our welcome areas. It’s called the Great Progress of the Gospel.

It’s really good if you’re interested in learning more about these peoples. Because here’s the thing, y’all. The church in Jerusalem that Jesus is going to establish on Pentecost had to look beyond itself so that God could use it and ultimately take the gospel of the world. It was really hard. You and I have got to live that out, too.

It’s so easy to just focus on Jerusalem. Of course it is, because it’s where you are. But you have to at least accept this call from God that God’s got to use us and our resources to partner with others to ensure that the gospel blankets the world. And so it’s not an either or, it’s a both. And we’ve got to make sure we do what we have to do in our own backyard.

True. Who else is going to minister to this community if we don’t do it. I don’t mean just our church. I’m talking about the believers that are gathered together. Of course we do.

But we also have an obligation, responsibility, a calling from God, a commissioning from Jesus himself to the ends of the earth. We have to take it seriously. We’ve got to be strategic and thoughtful about how can we best do that. And what I would tell you is that’s one of the things that we’re evaluating right now. We know how we’ve done it.

We know what’s happened in the past. But our question is, is what are we supposed to do right now? How are we supposed to leave this right now? And so I invite you to pray with us and be a part of that journey as a church, because we’re trying to figure that out. Now, as challenging as that may feel to you.

Here’s the last note, and it’s good news. Can I give it to you? Power. This is the really good news from Acts 1. Pentecost Marked the beginning of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit for the people of God, enabling us to fulfill his mission.

Because we can’t do this on our own. We’re not smart enough, we’re not wise enough, we’re not godly enough. We’re not. We need help. And so guess what?

Jesus said, I’m going to give you power. I love the word in Greek. Do not miss is the Greek word that we translate with our angward power. Do you recognize that word? Do not miss?

You recognize the English word dynamite? You know who coined that word into English? You know, Alfred Nobel was a chemist and lived in another era. And at that time, the folks who were involved in the industrial revolution, building roads, trying to put tunnels through mountains, connect peoples, the only thing that had available to them was what was a compound known as nitroglycerin. And nitroglycerin is incredibly explosive.

And it worked. But guess what the problem was? It’ll blow you up, right? I mean, it was highly unstable. Alfred Nobel in his lab, created a new compound that maintained the explosiveness of nitroglycerin but allowed it to live in a more stable environment so it wouldn’t just blow up randomly.

He wanted to name it. He didn’t know what to call it. He was a Christian who could read Greek, and he was reading his Greek New Testament. One day he reads Acts 1:8. You shall receive.

Do not miss. And Nobel said, that’s my word. Dynamite. Explosive power. And Jesus says, that’s what I’m going to give you the same power that raised me from the dead.

I’m going to give to you so that you can live this out. Which means the insight, the wisdom, the provision, the technology, the ability, the gift inness, the anointing, the calling, the commissioning, all comes from the Holy Spirit given to us by our heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus, so that we are actually empowered to do this. That means that God can use us in ways we would never be able to be used on our own. Praise his name, right? And we need to ask him for it.

Lord, show us how to do this. Show us where you want us to be connected. Empower us with your will and your presence so we can do it. Now. Let me just bring it a little closer to home.

We’ll be done. You know, there’s a lot of images that are important to me. I’m kind of an image learner. One of my favorites is in the New Testament and it’s my relationship to y’all. And I love the image of the shepherd and the flock.

You are the sheep and I’m your spiritual shepherd. I love that and it’s very important to me. But I was reading an article by these two guys, Bill Peel and Jerry White, and they’ve offered us another image and I want to give it to you politely this morning. Can I do that? They argue that we should use the image of frogs and lizards.

So I didn’t make this up, I’m just reporting. This is their argument. When it comes to evangelize in the world in missions, the ministers of the frogs, the people are the lizards. Here’s what they mean. They said frogs don’t forage for food.

Frogs just sit and food comes to them and they stick their tongue out and get it. They don’t go fishing, they don’t go hunting, they just sit. Their point is, that’s how ministers are. People just come to us. We don’t have to go hunting for them.

We don’t go have to looking for spiritual conversations. They just come to us. Does that make sense to y’all? I can be on an airplane and a perfect stranger will pour out their life to me once they find out who I am. Used to I wouldn’t tell people, but I finally gotten over that.

So sometimes what I do is I’ll say, lord, I’m about to go on this plane. Please don’t sit and lost people around me because I don’t have time to witness anybody today. I’m tired, I need to read. Just give a brother A break. Would you just put some Christians around me?

Because what will happen is will say, what do you do? And I’ve just decided now, I just say straight up, you know, I’m actually the pastor of a Baptist church. Y’all would not believe what can happen next. But y’all know what I mean, right? Oh, my goodness.

This is only God. I need to talk to a pastor. That happens to me over, and I don’t have to go hunt for it. It just happens. Y’all, though your lizards, because lizards have to go hunting for their food.

Lizards even change colors to match their environment to be more effective. I don’t mean that negatively. I mean, they adapt and figure out their setting, and then they’ll go hunting. It’s actually incredible. It’s an amazing gift.

I mean, think about it. If you’re on a plane and somebody says, what do you do? And you say, I’m an accountant. And they say, oh, man, could you help me? My wife has just left me, and I just praying that God would send me an accountant today to share some spiritual insight.

No. They might say something like, are you an expert on Texes? Or. I mean, I don’t know. They’re probably not going to pour their life out to you.

They do. Me, I don’t have to do anything. I just sit there. But y’all. Y’all have got to be better at this than me.

In other words, you got to find ways to figure out how to actually talk to people. You got to figure out what’s happening in their life and where is there an opening for you to give testimony about Jesus. Does that make sense? And so if I can say it respectfully, I’ve been. I’ve started praying for you all a little differently.

I’ve yet to call you lizards actually in a prayer, though. I’not. I promise you, I’ve not done that. I have not. Okay, but.

But you get the point. You. It’s much more challenging for you than it is for me because you’re having to figure out how to do it. Should I say something right now? I always have the excuse if I say something.

I go, what do you expect on a preacher? You know, I’m going to talk about this. And they’re like, oh, okay. But think about how y’all have to do it. So I’m praying for you.

So let’s just coven it together. We got the holidays coming up. Things spiritual are just on people’s minds. Can we just covenant that we’re going to try these next couple of months to lizard our way in and figure out, how might I. How might I say something about that right there?

How could I be used by God in that moment? And let’s do it together and let’s see what God does with it, okay? And hopefully you and I will be faithful to be witnesses unto Jesus. Maybe. So let’s pray together.

Father, today we’re grateful to you for what you’ve done, that we have a gospel that is so sturdy, that is worthy to be proclaimed, that this relationship with Jesus matters. Thank you. And we pray, Lord, right now, just that we’ll honor you and how we try to share it all. Lord, I thank you for our people. Thank for Christians all over this country that have followed you and are faithful to you and are serving you.

I just pray you’ll continue to use us this week as we face this election. Pray that your people, Christian people, will be honorable in how we behave and treat others and show the love of Jesus. And then, Lord, as we move on into the future, trying to somehow encourage a lost world to know you and experience you, I just ask you to give us wisdom and power to do it. Help us to learn from each other, to share stories with each other, to bless each other as we try to do it. And may you find us to be witnesses unto you in our own Jerusalem, our own Samari areas, and then somehow use us even to the ends of the earth.

We pray that in Jesus name am.