The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Wow, absolutely incredible! Aren’t you glad to be in chapel today? Awesome! Why don’t you turn to your neighbor and say, “I’m so glad you got to see me today.” Why don’t you tell them that? Hey, what a joy and honor it is to be here. As already been said, my name is Shane. It’s such an honor to be on campus. It’s always an honor to be here. So thankful for the leadership of just friends like Dr. Dockery and Dr. Shirley and Dr. Ross and so many other just great friends here. And every semester I help co-teach a class with Dr. Ross. And really, I say co-teach. I’m really just in there so I can learn from him. What a legend! And so thankful for what God’s doing through this school and has for decades, and I believe will continue on for many decades to come. So excited to be here with you.
I’ve been asked today to talk about the urgency of reaching the next generation. The urgency of reaching the next generation for Christ. Earlier this summer, released a book with my friends at B&H Publishing called Reaching Generation Alpha, and today I want to talk about that, about the urgency to reach Generation Alpha. Now, when I talk about Generation Alpha, who are we talking about? It’s those that are born between the years of 2010 and 2024. So today, think of those between the ages of two and 16. It’s a massive mission field. It’s those that are in children’s ministry, middle school ministry, high school ministry. If you blink too long, they will be in college and young adult ministry. That’ll be the generation that is hitting this campus in the next couple of years. It’s a massive generation. Over 50 million Generation Alpha live in the United States, nearly 2 billion worldwide. And I want to say this: now is the time to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, as already been mentioned, I want to encourage you to come hang out with us at lunch and hear more about youth ministry and how you can be involved, but I want to open with this today that if you are in this room today, you are a benefactor of Next Gen Ministries, and you may go, “Well, no, Shane, you know I didn’t become a Christian until I was 30.” I want you to know if you’re in this room today, you are a benefactor of Next Gen Ministries because how the Lord has expanded His kingdom from almost day one is that one generation will declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation. In Psalm 145:4, King David wrote this: “One generation will declare your works to the next and will proclaim your mighty acts.” So I want you to think about that, friends. If you’re in this room today, that means you’re standing on the shoulders of faithful men and women from previous generations that were faithful to declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation. Then that generation rose up and declared the mighty acts of God to the generation after them, and then that generation rose up and declared the mighty acts of God to the generation after them, from generation to generation to generation.
And this is what’s fun, friends. We’re part of this ancient story of God. The kingdom of God was here before us. The kingdom of God will be here after us, friends. We don’t start anything. We don’t end anything. It’s just our turn in this ancient story of God. It’s just our turn to be faithful to declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation, so that they would raise up and declare the mighty acts of God to the generations coming after them. If you have your copy of God’s Word, and I hope that you do, would you turn to Acts chapter five, Acts chapter five, Acts chapter five is right after Acts chapter four. Does that help anybody?
And I want you to know, friends, I didn’t grow up in church. In fact, I didn’t become a Christian till I was 21. I got saved in college, so I remember vividly of what it was like to live without Jesus. It’s much better with Jesus, and so I want you to know I’m one of those preachers. I get excited, I get a little loud, especially when talking about Jesus, and especially when talking about reaching the next generation with the gospel. So I want you to know I’m one of those preachers. I welcome amens. All right, I welcome hallelujahs. I welcome praise the Lord’s. In fact, I’m gonna make a deal with you, friends. For every amen, praise the Lord, hallelujah, I hear, I’m gonna take 30 seconds off the sermon. How about that? All right, there you go. All right.
The urgency to reach the next generation. Look at verse 27. We’re gonna look at these verses from 27 to 42, and I want to point out four principles that still apply today that we see modeled in the life of the Spirit-empowered disciples of Jesus. Once you look at verse 27, it says, “After they brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin.” Now real quick in context, who is the “they?” The “they” is the Sanhedrin. It was the religious council made up of 71 very religious men. On this council were the high priest. On this council were the Pharisees. We know about the Pharisees. The Pharisees would keep the 613 laws of the Old Testament, very rigorously. Also on this council were the Sadducees. The Sadducees were religious leaders, but they didn’t believe in the resurrection. That’s why they were sad, you see. Bad dad joke, bad dad joke.
Now this council, for the most part, the Pharisees and the Sadducees fought and argued all the time. Did you know religious leaders could fight and argue? Did you know that? And they would fight and argue all the time. But one thing they agreed upon is they hated Jesus, and they hated his disciples. So the “they” is the Sanhedrin, the “them” is the disciples. They bring them in before the Sanhedrin, and the high priest asked, “Didn’t we strictly order you not to teach in this name?” And friends, what’s this name? We want to make it very clear. What’s this name? It’s the name above every name. It’s the name Jesus Christ. “Didn’t we strictly charge you not to teach in this name? Yet, look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” And then verse 29, Peter famously replies. Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than people.”
I’m reading from the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible. Your translation may say we must obey God rather than men. I wanted you to write this down this morning as the first principle: we need to teach Generation Alpha to obey the kingdom. See, often when we’re talking about reaching the next generation, I think we just overthink it. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to go, okay, to reach young people. We need to be innovative. We need to be creative. We need to think outside the box, or heck, let’s crash the box and build a whole new box. And I think sometimes when it comes to reaching the next generation, we overthink it so much we forget the basics of what’s always been true. Just reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ and help them be a followers of King Jesus, to disciple them in the truth of God’s word.
I got good news for you, friends. The same gospel that has worked for 2000 years still works today. Just preach the gospel. Help them obey King Jesus. What we get to be a part of is discipling young people to understand this: that the moment they’re bought by the blood of King Jesus and they are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus doesn’t just become their Savior; He also becomes their Lord, their King. And the moment you say yes to Jesus for salvation, yes is the only answer you can ever give him again. See how this doesn’t work: “No, Lord.” See how that doesn’t work? “No, King.” That doesn’t work. Just obey the King and help the next generation obey the King. And I think so many times again we just overthink it, and many times our ministries just become ineffective because we’re more worried about being dictated by the world than being dictated by the word. We’re more concerned about being people pleasers than God pleasers. We’re more concerned about being politically correct than biblically correct. We’re more concerned about being cool than holy. We’re more concerned about being relevant than reverent. If you want to be relevant, stick to the Word of God because the Word of God is living and sharper and active. It’s always relevant. Just help a generation know and obey and worship the King of all the kings. He is Gen Alpha’s greatest need, is the King, and not only is He the King, He’s the King of all the Kings. All throughout history, there’s been earthly kings, but there’s been no one like King Jesus. There was King David, there was King Solomon, there was King Henry, there was King James, not LeBron, the other King James. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Sandlot before, there was the King of Clout, Babe Ruth, the King of Rock, Elvis, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, the King of Country, George Strait, the Burger King. It doesn’t matter. They will all bow before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.
There’s no one like Jesus. Help a generation understand to not give their worship away to anything or anyone less than the best, and the best has a name. His name is Jesus. Obey him. And here’s some good doctrine and theology we need to help young people understand: yes, we have an enemy, and their enemy is not the guy who stole their girlfriend in seventh grade. Their enemy is not their rival school. Their enemy is Satan, and he’s out to kill, steal, and destroy. But we get to help a generation to understand if they worship King Jesus, that Jesus and Satan are not equals playing chess against one another. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is God. Jesus is King, and even one day Satan will bow at the feet of King Jesus before Jesus throws him into hell for all eternity. How many of you are ready for that day? You ever read Revelation 20, 21, 22? I love what Billy Graham once said. He goes, “I’ve read the end of the Bible. It works out good for us that know Jesus.” We win. Just help a generation know and obey King Jesus. I want to encourage you, friends. It’s not just the youth pastors that are called to that. We’re all called to that. Remember Psalm 145:4, “May one generation declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation.” Friends, it’s our turn to be faithful, to declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation. Help them obey the King.
Number two, teach a generation to preach the gospel boldly. Teach Gen Alpha to preach the gospel boldly. I love this response. So they said, “Hey, we told you you stopped talking about Jesus, yet you filled the land with the teaching of Jesus.” Peter goes, “Well, we must obey the king rather than obey you”. We must obey God rather than people, and then I love it because here’s the boldness of the disciples: is they say, “Hey, stop talking about Jesus,” and they go, “Well, we must obey Him more than we obey you. And by the way, here’s the gospel.” They start preaching the gospel to those religious leaders. Look at verse 30: “the God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging him on a tree,” we know that’s the cross. “God exalted this man to His right hand as ruler and Savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” Anybody in here happy about that? Anybody in here born a sinner in need of a Savior? Anybody in here born with something wrong with them? Let’s all get on the same page. I’ll raise my hand. When I was born, there was something wrong with me. Anybody want to admit that? You know what that was? Sin. How many of you are sitting next to someone? There was definitely something wrong with that person, right? Sin. We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. Teach a generation to preach the gospel boldly.
Now I want to say this as somebody who works with the North American Mission Board. I’m employed by the Southern Baptist Convention, and for the last several years we’ve really made evangelism a high priority. Yes and amen. Praise the Lord. And what we would do is we would use this term, “gospel conversations.” Have you heard that before? We go, “Hey, we need to have gospel conversations. We need to have gospel conversations,” and we’d really encourage one another with that. But we never sometimes really explain what the gospel was. And so what we did is we helped raise up Southern Baptists to go, all right, I need to have gospel conversations, and they would believe if someone sneezed and you said God bless you. You just had a gospel conversation.
I want to be very clear what I mean by the gospel. That God created us, sin separated us because of the rebellion of our great ancestors, Adam and Eve. If you get on Ancestry.com, we all end up at Adam and Eve. All right, rebelling against God, sin spread like a virus to every person born after Adam and Eve. We’re all born sinners in need of a Savior. We’re born spiritually dead. There’s nothing we can do to fix that, but we had a God that loved us so much that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who had always existed, took a mission trip from heaven to earth and became a man to die as a man for mankind, but never stopped being God. Fully God, fully man, lived the perfect sin-free life that you and I could not live. He caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the handicapped to get up and walk. He walked on water. He calmed the storm with his voice. He fed over 5000 people with two fish sandwiches. Subway has nothing on that, brother. Amen.
And then he did the greatest act of love ever. He took our place on the cross. Don’t ever get over that. No matter how much you’ve learned, no matter how long you’ve been following Jesus, we don’t mature past the gospel. We mature in the gospel. When they shoved the crown of thorns on his head, that should have been me. When they spit in his face, that should have been you. When they nailed him to the cross, that should have been all of us. But he loved us so much, he took our place as a perfect sacrifice of sin, as a perfect substitute in our place. He died there, and they took his lifeless body off the cross and put it in a borrowed grave. Now, Southwestern Seminary, this next part should make you shout so loudly that all of Fort Worth hears this. You know why they put the body of Jesus in a borrowed grave? Because he wasn’t going to need it long. Because three days later, our Jesus busted out of the grave, showing that God the Father had accepted God the Son’s sacrifice on behalf. Jesus made the way possible to be forgiven. Jesus made the way possible to have the Spirit of the Living God living inside of us. Jesus made the way possible to be reconciled with God. The tomb is empty, but the throne of God is full of the risen King of Kings and the Lord, Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. And because Jesus lives, hope lives. Because Jesus lives, peace lives, because Jesus lives, joy lives, because Jesus lives, love lives. Jesus lives, we have the greatest news that we get to declare to the next generation, and empower them to take that message to their peers.
Because here’s what I found is that often the most effective person at reaching a young person with the gospel is another young person that has a heart that beats with passion for Jesus, and that same heart is broken over the lostness of their own generation. And I want to say now is the time, friends. Now is the time. There’s urgency to preach the gospel to Gen Alpha, there’s urgency to disciple Gen Alpha to go preach the gospel to their peers, because we did a poll. I heard for many years about this statistic about the average age of people when they became followers of Jesus, and I would hear this survey all the time, but I can never track down the source of it. We kind of joked that was kind of like Sasquatch. People say it exists, but nobody can prove it. It was kind of like this poll, and so what we decided to do is to do it ourselves.
So through NAMB, a couple of years ago, we used my social media and we just asked this question: If you’re a follower of Jesus, at what age did you surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior, life, and began to follow Jesus? And we gave four options: 13 and under, 13 to 1818, to 30, those college and young adult years, or over 30. Over 2700 people. So 2700 people took this survey. That’s a pretty big polling study. Here’s what we found: is that 77 percent. Let me say that again: 77 percent of all Christians surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior before the age of 18. In fact, let’s do this in the room. I always love to visually see this. How many of you in this room you would say that, “Shane, I repented of my sin, placed my faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of my life before the age of 18.” How many of you became a follower Jesus before the ages? Leave your hand up. Look around the room. Look at that. All right. If you would leave your hand up, how many of you got saved in your college or young adult years? All right. All right. All right. Anybody got saved over the age of 30? All right. Anybody still not know Jesus? I see that hand. We’re giving an altar call right here. I see that hand. I say no. I’m just kidding.
Hey, what you saw in the room is exactly what we saw. Listen to this: 77% of all Christians surrendered to Jesus as Lord and Savior before the age of 18. If you add those college and young adult years, listen to this: 95% of all Christians surrender to Jesus before the age of 30. And often when we talk about evangelism, we kind of default to going, “Okay, we need to equip adults to share the gospel with other adults.” And yes, and amen. But if we only think in that way, that’s like fishing in 5% of the lake. Now, I believe God can save whom he wants, when he wants. Do you agree with that? Yeah. This Sunday, I preached at church three services. We saw people get saved in every service, and one of the services, a guy in his 70s got saved. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Yeah. So we keep proclaiming the gospel, but I want to make it very clear, friends. If you want to see your church grow, if you want to see those baptism waters stirring, unapologetically go after the next generation, because if we don’t reach a generation by the time they turn 18 or their college and young adult years, we lose a whole generation.
Now is the time, and ultimately, here’s what we believe about the gospel. This is why we proclaim it, and this is why we empower a generation to go proclaim it. Is ultimately you believe this: that no young person is too lost for Jesus to find, no young person is too dirty for Jesus to cleanse, no young person is too broken for Jesus to fix, no young person is too wounded for Jesus to heal, no young person is too far gone for Jesus to reach, no young person is too guilty for Jesus to forgive, and no young person is too sinful for Jesus to save. That’s what we believe.
Number two, real quick, teach Generation Alpha that the truth won’t be stopped. Teach Generation Alpha that the truth won’t be stopped. Look at verse 33. So they preach the gospel, and we realize sometimes the gospel ticks people off all around the year, all around the globe. Our church, the bride is being persecuted and killed simply because they worship the same Jesus you do and follow the same Jesus you and I do. Sometimes the gospel enrages people. Look at verse 33. “When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was respected by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered the men to be taken outside for a little while.” Now Gamaliel is a rabbi. He’s not a follower of Jesus. Doesn’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. He’s not born again, but we know Gamaliel. In fact, Gamaliel at this time has a disciple named Saul, who later will get saved, and we recognize him as Paul.
And Gamaliel stands up and look at verse 35. He said to them, “Men of Israel, be careful what you’re about to do to these men, because some time ago Theodus rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about 400 men rallied to him. He was killed, and all of his followers were dispersed, and he came to nothing.” Verse 37. “After this man, Judas the Gallian, rose up in the days of the census, attracted a following. He also perished, and all of his followers were scattered.” So I want you to see what he’s doing, friends. He’s going, “Hey guys, chill out. Everybody, just hold up, wait a minute, take a deep breath, and he’s like, hey guys, we’ve seen this before. Remember, there was a guy named Theodas. He claimed to be somebody, rose up, had some followers, had some disciples, if you will, and then Theodos died. His disciples scattered. It came to nothing. Then after him, Judas the Galilean rose up.” Now, not to be confused with Judas the Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, a different Judas. He goes, “He rose up, claimed to be somebody, had some followers, had some disciples, if you will. But then he died. His followers scattered. It came to nothing.” He goes, “Hey, we’ve seen this before.”
Now listen to what he says in verse 38. This is huge. He goes, “So in this present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or if this undertaking is of man—” what does your Bible say? “It will what fail.” Here’s what he’s saying. Hey, if this Jesus thing, this resurrection thing, this good news thing, if this is an invention of man, if we modernize the language a little bit, if this is an invention of man, or if this is just emotionalism, then just ignore it. It’ll go away. It will fail. Let’s even modernize the language a little more. If we were to say it like this, and go, “Hey, if this Jesus thing, this resurrection thing, if it’s just an invention of man, if it’s just emotionalism, it may go viral for a little bit. They may use some hashtags. They may get some tunics with Jesus’ face on it.” All right, see, I’m contextualizing there. They may have a Jesus fish on the back of their camel, but just ignore it. It’ll go away. It’ll fail. But listen to verse 39. Remember, Gamaliel, not a follower of Jesus, not born again, doesn’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, but listen what he says: “But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. So they took his advice.”
He’s saying this. Listen, if this Jesus thing, this resurrection thing, if this is real, if this is a movement of God, if this is empowered by God, if this is truth, you can’t stop it. So you either join the movement or you’re going to get ran over by the movement. See, currently there’s 8.4 billion people in the world today, yet only two kinds: those who have been saved by Jesus, those who are filled with the Spirit, and those who are on the way to heaven, or those who don’t know Jesus, and they’re on their way to hell, and it cannot be stopped. It cannot be stopped. If it is empowered by God, if it’s a movement of God, if it’s the truth of God. It cannot be stopped, and we need to help Genet Alpha understand that that truth cannot be stopped because they look at a world full of lies. They look at a world full of the fake. They look at a world that is filtered. Young people are growing up, and they are the most distrusting generation we’ve ever seen. Listen, I’ll just be honest. I never feel so old than when I try to show my kids a video, and they’re like, “Dad, that’s AI.” They just assume everything’s fake, and we get to help all understand there is truth, and there is absolute truth, and truth cannot be stopped.
Now, why is this important? Gamaliel said these words almost 2000 years ago. I want you to look to the person to your right, real quick. Just say hello, hello. Tell them hello. All right. Look to the person to your left. Say hello, hello. All right. Here’s the point I want to make, friends. Remember, generation to generation. 2000 years ago, he says, if it’s a movement of man, if it’s emotionalism, it’ll fail, it’ll go away. But if it’s empowered by God, it cannot be stopped. Here’s the point, friends: we’re still here, the church is still here, the bride is still here, the kingdom is still here. It cannot be stopped because Jesus, the resurrection. This is a movement of God. Truth. It’s a movement of God, and it’s empowered by God. It cannot be stopped. So here’s what it means, friends. We win. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret that we need to let the next generation in on. This whole thing is rigged. It’s all rigged. We win. That if you’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus and you have the Holy Spirit of God, you’re part of a movement of God that cannot be stopped.
Now that doesn’t make us arrogant, but it should make us confident in who our great God is and who we are because of our great God. See, I think so many times when we embarrass ourselves as the church, when we embarrass ourselves as the bride is, when we’re reacting out of fear instead of walking in the confidence and faith of who our great God is, you’re on the winning team. And here’s good news, friends, because I think a lot of times we look at everything going on around us, and we even hurt and we worry about the next generation. And I want you to know, friends, that if you’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus and you have the Holy Spirit of God, that you currently, right now, are as close to hell as y’all ever going to be, because heaven is your home. You win. So walk in that victory, walk in that confidence, and help Gen Alpha understand that as well.
That truth is true because a generation is being brought up to believe that there’s no absolute truth. There’s just my truth, and you even hear young people say that all the time, “I’m just living my truth. It’s my truth, and you have a truth, and you have a truth, and there are truth. There are truth. There are truth everywhere. True truth.” No, there’s the truth. His name is Jesus. Follow him. It cannot be stopped.
Number last, real quick. Teach Generation Alpha to understand their mission. Teach Generation Alpha to understand their mission, look. These disciples understood their mission. Look at verse 40. “After they called in the apostles, they had them flogged, beaten. They ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and release them.” Look at verse 41. “And then the apostles they went home and got on social media complaining about how hard it was to be a Christian.” Is that what your Bible says? They went home and got in the fetal position, sucking their thumb because this was hard. No. See, that’s one thing we need to understand and help a generation understand about being empowered by the Spirit of the Living God, knowing you’re on the winning team and truth can’t be stopped. Is we yes need to have a heart for people, and we need to have a heart for ministry, but we need to have a spine and backbone too. See, this is the tension we need to live in. That nowhere in the Bible does it give us an excuse to be a jerk for Jesus, but it also doesn’t give us an excuse to be a coward for Christ either.
So listen to how they respond when they went out from the presence of the Sanhedrin, “They were rejoicing that they were counted worthy to be treated shamefully on behalf of the name. And every day in the temple and in various homes, they continued teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus is the Christ.” And we know Messiah means Anointed One. He is the promised one of the Old Testament. If you look at the 39 scrolls, Genesis through Malachi, all one big promise: a Savior is coming, a deliverer’s coming, a Messiah’s coming, God is coming, and they’re saying Jesus is the fulfillment of that. Jesus is that promised one. Jesus Christ, and I know you know this because you’re all scholars and theologians, but we need to help others understand this: that Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, that Christ is not Jesus’ last name. All right, it’s not Joseph and Mary Christ and their son Jesus. It’s a title.
So they went out preaching that he was the Anointed One, that He is the promised one. They went out preaching and they said, “Stop doing that.” And they went and told everybody. So let me close with this: What do you do with people like that? What do you do with people like that? Think about this whole story. Hey, stop talking about Jesus. Great, we’re going to go fill the land with the teaching of Jesus. Hey, stop that! Well, we must obey God rather than you. Oh, and by the way, here’s the gospel. Hey, we’re gonna beat you. Great, I get to rejoice in the sufferings of Christ. Hey, shut up. We’re gonna go tell every home that Jesus is the Messiah and the Christ. What are you doing with people like that? The answer is nothing. Empower them, mobilize them, set them free. Because what they’re gonna do is go declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation, because you know what people like this understood. You know what these understood is what my prayer is that we would understand and help Gen Alpha understand.
Watch this. You can’t kill somebody who’s already dead. What did Paul say? Galatians 2:20. I have been on the flip side of that same coin, you can’t kill somebody who’s going to live forever. All you do is help them get home. I mean, think about what Paul declared in Philippians one. We all know this verse. We hear it at funerals. “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” What do you do with someone who actually believes that? Hey, Paul, we’re going to give you today. Great, it’s about Jesus. Hey Paul, we’re going to kill you. Great, I get to go be with Jesus. Win, win. To understand their mission, to go, “You’re on the winning team. Go out in the gospel. Go out in the power of the Spirit and proclaim the name of Jesus and His mighty works to the next day.” That’s what it means to be the Church of the Most High God. You know, this is an old rant that I love. I don’t even know who the author is. It’s been around for decades. It’s not original to me, but it’s a great reminder that we would declare the mighty acts of God to the next generation, so that they would raise up and do the same thing.
That we just help and teach Gen Alpha to obey the King. That we would help and teach Gen Alpha to proclaim the gospel boldly and to believe it themselves. That would help Gen Alpha realize that truth cannot be stopped, and that we’d help Generation Alpha realize what their mission is: to know Jesus and make Jesus known. And to know this, they might be the next generation, but they’re the right-now church. We tell them all the time they’re the future of the church, and I know what we mean by that. But we must understand this: if they’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus, they have the Holy Spirit of God. They’re not the future of the church. They are the church right now. That they have a calling on their life now. They’re called to the Great Commission now, and we’re all called to do this: That if we’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus and we have the Holy Spirit of God, we are disciples of Jesus. And as disciples of Jesus, we won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. As disciples of Jesus, our past is redeemed, our present has purpose, and our future is secure. As disciples of Jesus, our face is set, our feet move fast. Our goal is heaven. Our road is narrow. Our way is rough. Our companions are few, but our God named Jesus is reliable, and our mission is clear: to declare His mighty acts to the next generation. As disciples of Jesus, we cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded, or delayed. We are the church, and friends, let’s end that way today.
If you know without a doubt that you’ve been bought with the blood of Jesus and you have the Holy Spirit of God and you are the church, would you just stand up right now? Just stand up, because we are the church. We are the bride of Christ, and again, that should not make us arrogant. It should make us humble and confident that we’re on the winning team. We’re part of a movement that cannot be stopped. So, as the church, it’s time through the power of the Spirit to stand up, wake up, pray up, preach up, lift up, and never give up, shut up, let up, or back up until our Jesus Christ calls us up. We’re all called to it.
