Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Uh, my name is Sean part, the team here and excited to hear what God wants to say to us this morning, as we continue our series on the, on, on the AEST equipping, equipping the saints. We're looking at the fivefold graces, uh, found in Ephesians four. And we're gonna go there in a moment. So if you do have a Bible, if you're taking notes, go ahead and get it out. Um, we're, we're gonna be doing some teaching today, which I'm excited about excited to see what God wants to say as we explore, uh, the evangelist, uh, grace that is placed on people's lives. Um, every single week over the last few weeks, um, mark has been doing such a good job. Hasn't he, uh, in this series of just, uh, unpacking the, a pest and, and in, if you are Withers for the first time, we really encourage you go find, uh, the other sermons on, on YouTube.
Speaker 0 00:00:44 We don't feel that this is just a series. Um, this has been something that actually, uh, as a team, as an eldership has been bubbling underneath the service for many, many, many months. Uh, it's something that we have explored we've stood, and we believe not just here for rediscover church, but we believe the Lord is highlighting this to us, uh, across the church, across the nations, uh, to bring us back to, uh, really fully and clearly portraying the person of Jesus to a broken world. How many people know the world need to see Jesus right now? Right, right. They need to see Jesus. They desperately need to see Jesus. And we believe Jesus has given us a way of, of the world being able to see him clearly. And it's found through these five graces, the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the shepherds, and the teacher, the a pest.
Speaker 0 00:01:34 And, uh, we introduced this series. Mark has looked at the apostolic grace. He's looked at the prophetic grace. And today we look at the evangelistic grace, which I'm, I'm really excited about. There's a few things that I want to just reminders of. Uh, some things that mark has already said, really that I believe is really important. Uh, we're coming towards this kind of halfway mark of this, of this specific teaching series that is gonna continue throughout the month's, uh, ahead through a variety of different means. And, um, one of the things I just wanna labor for you is how actually in Ephesians four, Paul brings this teaching of the a P and he says, Christ has given the, these graces to the church. He's given these wonderful graces and every single one of us, part of the body of Christ, we will find ourselves somewhere within these graces.
Speaker 0 00:02:18 Well, before he speaks about graces or gifting or power or any of those things, Paul sets up Ephesians four with something that I believe is incredibly important for us to hear, but also for us to understand, as we, as a church body, collectively and individually explore how we have been graced by Jesus to operate in this world. And I wanna read the first six verses to you, and it's gonna come up on the screen here. If you haven't got a Bible, when we get to this second part here, every time you see something underlined, I want you to say the word with me, okay? It says these words as a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the call in that you have received every single one of us, us have received a calling from God, praise him, be completely humble and gentle.
Speaker 0 00:03:04 Be patient bearing with one another in love and make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. You ready? Yeah. There is one body and one spirit just as you were all called to one hope where you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one, God, and father of all who is overall and through all. And in all feels like Paul's trying to get us to see something here. Isn't it it's quite clear when we underline it and we say it together, but here's what I just wanna bring before you, before we look at the evangelistic gift, before we unpack how I believe some of you sat in this room are graced to be evangelists. Praise God. How I believe all of us find ourselves somewhere within the P the fivefold graces. Here's what I believe Paul is trying to get us to see before we explore those things.
Speaker 0 00:04:00 That our character is always more important yes. Than our gifting. Yeah. Yeah. Our character is always more important than our gifting. Can we get that scripture just back up, Jason, if that's okay. Be completely humble. That's good. Be gentle and patient bearing with one another in love. Keep unity through the bond of peace. And then there's this echo of oneness that Paul keeps bringing to the church and it feels like, it feels like Paul is trying to get us to see that with an Ephesians sport and within our call to explore our graces, as God has given us good gifts and good graces to operate in the church and operating the world, it feels like Paul is coming along. And he's saying to you, look, before you explore who you are before you explore what you are going to do. It's really important that you need to check on the inside, that you are ready and available to carry that, which God wants to grace your life with that.
Speaker 0 00:04:54 Sometimes if we are not prepared to have the character, to, to be able to hold the call of God on our lives, it will always lead to disaster. Yeah. But if we have the character to be able to hold the calling, we start to portray fully and purely the person of Jesus to the whole world that actually together. And this is why this word one is here. Unity is so important when it comes to gifty. Yeah. Unity is so important when it comes to our graces, because our gift in and our grace, we're never meant to compete with one another. They were always meant to compliment one another and Paul's coming along and he is trying to get our eyes onto the fact that whatever your call is, whatever your gifting is, whatever your grace is, whether you're apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, a shepherd, or a teacher, the only, the only portray the person of Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:05:42 If we are 1, 1, 1, that's, that's the key here. That's the foundation for so long in the church history, we have highlighted certain graces and devalued others, and we haven't truly shown the person of Jesus. But if the church would rise up in all five of the graces, come together, working together, believing in one another, desiring one, another inviting and including one another. It is then when the church rises up to a broken world and starts to show the true and perfect image of who Jesus is, but we must be one. We must be one, the graces of God in our lives. They are here to push us past passivity as a Christian community and move us towards activity as the kingdom of God. And we believe together together in this church and with other churches, we can see the Southwestern beyond transformed by the glory of God, but we must be one. We need one another, Hey, we need one, another church. We need one another. We need to deal with division in the church. We need one another. We desperately need one another. Right now, when the world is divided, we need a United church. We need one another, turn to two people and say, I need you. I need you. I need you because you do.
Speaker 0 00:07:16 I need you. We're gonna go to Ephesians four chapter 11 and explore these graces that Paul goes on to speak about. Speaks about character, speaks about unity. And he's setting up here. Now that the way that Christ himself wants to give us his graces, uh, it says, so Christ himself, this is Jesus. Jesus now has given us these gifts. Jesus, at this point, uh, just after he had lived a perfect life, he had died a death. He had been buried. He'd resurrected. He descended. He's now mapping out his super plan for the church, for the church, to be able to fully show who Jesus is to a world. And he says, Christ himself, Jesus himself gave some to be prophets. Some to be evangelists, some, to be pastors or shepherds and some to be teachers to equip his people for the works of service that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity.
Speaker 0 00:08:12 There's that word again? It's coming through clear here, unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature to become mature, built up unified in knowledge of the son of God. And then it says here attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So here is Paul who himself wasn't apostle, you know, apostolic grace on people's lives mean that they have a real favor upon vision, right? Yeah. The apostolic grace in someone's lives means that they have vision. They can see beyond the, the one or two, three steps that most of us can and supernaturally God gives them this apostolic vision. And here apostle Paul, who is an apostle he's graced to be a apostolic. He is starting to show the church, the vision. Yeah. And the vision is simply this to attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Speaker 0 00:09:00 That's the vision that the church, without Christ being here in person, but by his spirit, we could attain to the full measure of Jesus Christ. In other words, the church in this time, in this moment of history, we can fully and clearly show who Jesus is together. Yeah. Yeah. That's the vision Paul's saying, look before anything else know that the vision is really clear. The vision is to attain the full measure, to show the full measure, to show who Jesus is. And he breaks it down. He start to tell us how he's gonna do it. He's gonna do it through apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Have you ever met an apostle before? Yes. Yes. Interesting people. Aren't they, the apostolic vision is like this beautiful, beautiful vision, but the apostolic vision, the, the apostolic grace is like quick time go like apostolic. People are kind of like do it.
Speaker 0 00:09:56 Now. People like if you come to them with a 12 step process, they'll get frustrated and it's like, just need one, one step process. We just need to go. We need to go. Now we need to do it. Do it. Now, break down the doors, break down the barriers. Let's move beyond small thinking, small vision. There's this, this grace, oh gosh, there's this grace for apostolic vision that they will just break through in any circumstance, in any situation. Apostles are amazing. They are here. They are welcome. And they should be part of the church, this apostolic anointing, boom B Shaza. Shaer go now. And then you get to the prophets. So have you ever thought about what it would be like to be in the mind of a prophet? Like, like, think about that just for a moment, it must be really tiring, right? Like prophets, you, you guys, you prophets in the room, you must be really, really tired.
Speaker 0 00:10:46 Like everything everywhere. God is constantly speaking. Like something somewhere. God is speaking to you and prophets have this beautiful grace of like the, the heavenly realm. Like they can, they can see things. They can see what God is saying through the smallest of things. They can Pierce and break through the darkest of times and be able to download that. Which heaven is saying over, over earth. There's this beautiful, beautiful anointing of the heavenly realm. And then you have the evangelists and evangelists have favor with the loss. Don't they like evangelists. Just, they get frustrated that we're always sat down in church. <laugh> like if evangelists was leading the church, they would just get rid of the chairs straight away. It's like no chairs in church. Just get up and go. Why are we in the four walls of the church? There's lost people out there.
Speaker 0 00:11:34 Let's move. Let's go beyond the four walls of the church. No chairs, no cake, no teas, no coffees. Just the lost, just the lost. And there's this grace to the evangelists to, to, to have favor with the lost. And then you get to the shepherds and the shepherds are like, screw you evangelists. Bring the chairs in, bring the CHADS in. We want to sit down and eat cake and tea and just love one another <laugh> and just love one another all the time. It's just love. And people need to be more loving and let's just love one another and more coffee, more tea, more cake, and more shepherd in. And the shepherds are cheering here. Luck. And I thinking more community. It's all about community shepherds. Have this peculiar anointing of just knowing every detail of your life because they listen to everything. So how's your life. How's your wife. How's your birthday. How's your four year old Ruby's birthday party. On Friday night at 7:00 PM. Went bowling with 10 other kids. I remembered it from last two weeks, you spoke to me and there's this shepherding anointing. Call me at any time. If you need me four in the morning, just call me. I'll be there.
Speaker 0 00:12:40 The shepherding grace. And then you get, so the teachers, the teachers are all about the word. It's the word of God. You need to be in the word of God. The word of God is everything's the word of God. Do you think it's the father, son and holy spirit, but actually it's the father, son and holy scriptures. We need to be in the word of God. The word of God is everything. Your life is a mess. It's because you don't know the word. We need more seminars, more Bible classes, more Bible studies come to the, the word, the word of God. You know, when you're in an argument with a teacher because you're wrong, they're right. It's the word. It's the word of God.
Speaker 0 00:13:17 And suddenly what we have found over history is we have found that people have started to see the ways of Jesus through the grace of God that is on their lives. And we need more of that church. But unfortunately, what I've seen take place is because we have such a narrow lens of how we see things through our own graces, which is a gift from God. What has taken place through our history is it has led to all the apostles gathering with the apostles and all the prophets gathering with the prophets and the evangelists with the evangelists and the shepherds with the shepherds and the teachers with the teachers. Because there hasn't been just yet a culmination of all five graces in the same building friends. The plan, the plan from Paul, the plan from Christ was that we would all come together in our graces United as one to show the person of Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:14:15 We need one another. Yes, yes. The evangelists need the prophets and the prophets need the shepherds and the shepherds need the teachers and the teachers need the apostolic we need, we need one another and longer the days where the Lord is willing and desiring for the church to come out of the pockets of their own groups and join with one another hand in hand. And to say, even though I don't see how you see, I believe God has graced you just as graced grace to me. And today we get to the evangelist evangelism. When I say that word, some of you, it might fear a little bit like some of you are thinking, oh gosh, like, please, Sean. Don't tell me that we're all going out in the streets to tell people about Jesus today. Like, there's this fear and anxiety that comes in when we think of a, of evangelism.
Speaker 0 00:15:08 And then we kind of get excited with the way the church has been, because we think, well, as long as the evangelists stay over there and the evangelists do their thing, people will keep coming and I can just do my own thing. But the truth is we're all called to evangelism. Yeah. Yeah. And the evangelists are getting excited when I say that and the shepherds are starting to shrink back in the chair a little bit, but we are all every single one of us, if you follow Jesus Christ, we are called to evangelism evangelism. Isn't just a, an option for the few. It's not just a, an occasional act of going out into the streets and sharing the gospel. But actually every single one of us who follow Jesus, we, we are called to be obedient to sharing the, the message of hope to a broken world, for whatever means necessary.
Speaker 0 00:16:01 There is a call upon every single one of us who declare that I am a follower of Jesus, that I would be evangelistic in my heart. And in my nature evangelism for the Christian, isn't an occasional act of good deed, but it's a foundational call to which we all have upon our lives. And following Jesus means that we have this innate desire for the world to know the good news, which we have all encountered. And we all carry being evangelistic in, in our call as a United body means that we begin the process of following Jesus to become more like him and friends. It is clear throughout the new Testament that Jesus had a heart for the lost and for the broken. Yeah, it's clear throughout the new Testament and the old Testament that one of the major calls of Jesus's ministry in life would be that he came to seek and save the lost that he would go into the world for God.
Speaker 0 00:16:54 So loved the world that he gave his one and only son. It is clear throughout the whole Bible that if we are to become more like Jesus, we must become more mindful of the lost. Now for some of us, this doesn't sound like good news. And going out into the streets and preaching, Jesus fills us with fear and anxiety. And, and I get it often. We feel like those, those evangelistic traits are for a certain personality type. It must be for the extroverts. The extroverts are the ones that are called to be evangelists. It's not exactly true. And I'm here as well as someone who is naturally an introvert, someone who likes my own space and time, someone who isn't naturally someone who who's orientated to going out and sharing Jesus with every single person that I come across. Someone who isn't naturally inclined to go out into these streets after this Sunday service, and just have a picket saying, turn to Jesus. I'm not naturally that guy, but if you join me in this, then here is my prayer. My prayer is this Jesus. If this is your heart, then I want it to,
Speaker 1 00:18:08 Yes.
Speaker 0 00:18:12 If this is the heart of Jesus to seek and save the lost, then I want it to, because I'm desperate to be aligned with the heart of Jesus. Amen. I'm desperate to be aligned with the heart of Jesus and whatever fear is, hold me back. What anxiety is stopping me from stepping into that core. Jesus. If this is your heart, then break my heart for what breaks yours. So how does the evangelist function while the evangelist effectively by definition is someone who is graced to share the good news. The evangelist is, is graced to share the good news. And, and here, here's what I would say on, on evangelism. We're all called to it. But as we're all called to evangelism, not all of us are evangelists. There's a difference. We're all called to partake in the mission of God. We're all called to be part of evangelism, but not all of us are evangelists.
Speaker 0 00:19:12 Uh, some of you will know evangelists, right? You will, you will see them and speak to them. And, and evangelists are clear in nature because they have a heart and a special anointing and grace on their life to be able to see conversion and salvation, take place, take place around them, uh, evangelists, uh, the greatest way to kind of spot the gift of at the evangelists or the grace evangelists is this God given grace to connect the message of the gospel with those who don't believe it. And that's in any circumstance, it's not just on the streets going out and, and preaching as good as that is. And we should, we should encourage people to do that. Um, but, but in every aspect and facet of our life, to be able to speak to people who don't know Jesus, and somehow to be able to relate the good news with those people, if you have that gifting naturally, it's likely that the grace of the evangelist is probably on your agenda.
Speaker 0 00:19:59 If there's this natural or supernatural way of being able to connect the message of Jesus, the message of gospel with those who are far from it, there's this grace on your life to be able to speak into people's lives with the hope of Jesus, then there's likely to have this grace of, of the evangelists. The evangelists have a specific burden for those whom are lost. And there's a burden for all those who don't know Jesus. And if you find yourself in your prayer life or in your everyday situation with this burden and this hurting for those who don't know Jesus, for those who are far away from Christ, it's likely a game that you are graced to be part of the evangelist calling listen to these words from two Corinthians, 5 20, 1 of the, one of the great verses to kind of exemplify what an evangelist looks like.
Speaker 0 00:20:52 It says we are there for Christ's ambassadors. You know, you're an ambassador of Christ this morning. Just one person, you're an ambassador of Christ. You are a representative on Christ's behalf, wherever you go. And it says, as though God, we're making his appeal through you to the world, you are an ambassador of Christ. We implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. All of us should carry that verse in our hearts because as ambassadors of Christ and as followers of Jesus, as, as someone that wants to be more like him and follow him in all of our ways, there is this appeal that Paul wants, again, gives to the church and gives to all people that actually Christ wants to use every part of your life to draw people back to the arms of the father in every part of your speech, in every part of your conduct, in every part of your social media or your algorithms, or how you are online, how you are in person, how you are behind the scenes, Christ wants to make an appeal through you to a broken world because we, we, every single one of us have the missing piece to this broken world.
Speaker 0 00:22:01 Yeah. And something changes when we, when we see the grace of an evangelist, something changes when we partake in evangelism, when we get rid of the secularist idea that the world doesn't need to know our faith talk or our religion. And there's this pressure on so many of us to believe that actually, some of the people that we'd speak to our friends, our family members that don't need Jesus, perhaps all the faith talk and behalf, perhaps what they will perceive to be religious. They don't need to know it. Friends. They need to know. They need to know the good news of Jesus. A better way of seeing things is not that people are rejecting this faith. Talk a better way to see it is the narrative of scripture, which is this. Every single person that is born, that is walking into this earth is a lost child, desperately making their way home, back to the father.
Speaker 0 00:22:45 Every single person in this world is actually a lost child. And everything they do in life is actually a search for the missing piece in their life. And the missing piece is the father. The missing piece is Jesus. We have the answer. We have the answer to every brokenness and every evil and every disarray in this world. And it's not through a philosophy. It's not through a way of life. It's through the person of Jesus. Jesus is the answer. Yeah, he always was. And he always will be. He says, I am the way the truth and the life. That's who he is. And every single one of us in here, we have that answer. We have met that person. We know what it means to, to have encountered the missing piece of our lives. And now it's our job to take that to a broken world who desperately actually wants to know it. They just don't realize they want to know it.
Speaker 0 00:23:38 An evangelistic gifting. Isn't about relevance. It's not about being trendy or cool. It's not even about being a good preacher. An evangelistic gift in our grace is about being obedient. Yeah. You are the man who fully encountered my life. When I gave my life to Jesus, he was in his eighties. His name was Albert. And he came to me at the back of a church service. And he, he spoken to my life and he called out some things over me that I had no idea were there. He shared the gospel with me when I was in one of the lowest places of my life. And it was that moment as 16 years old, that my life was transformed by the person of Jesus, because of the faithfulness of someone who is gifted to be an evangelist evangelist. We need you. Yeah. I don't know if I would be here right now.
Speaker 0 00:24:35 If it was not for evangelists, we don't know if you would be sat here right now. If it was not for evangelists, we need more re bonks in this world. We need more Billy Grahams to rise up. And this old man who was in his eighties, he didn't have dunks like me. He didn't know what an iPhone was. And the truth of the matter is, is relevance. Doesn't transform people, but obedience to the gospel does obedience to the gospel. Does, let me show you what, um, Alan hush shares about, um, the gifting or the grace of an evangelist. Jason, if we could put that up, it's it's uh, from his book here that we've been looking at and, and we've been exploring, which is also part of the test that we're encouraging you all to do. And the evangelists are found in a variety of different way.
Speaker 0 00:25:27 Evangelists. Like I say, aren't just people that preach. They're not just people on street corners or on stages, as much as we have seen evangelists to be that. And they do need to be that, but actually evangelists within the church are found in a variety of different way. And perhaps you're counting yourself out to be an evangelist because what you have seen actually scares you, but God is calling you towards the grace of evangelist in a variety of different ways. Alan hush would recommend and would believe that evangelists are actually found to be great. Recruiters. Evangelists are called to be apologist. People who are excited about defending the faith, as it says in TIMI, always have an answer. When someone comes to you, there's an apologist, uh, uh, grace, there's these entrepreneurs, people who are breaking through people who have answers for difficult things. They are often graced to be evangelists, sales people.
Speaker 0 00:26:14 We can kind of see that right in the secular world. If you are involved in something of a sales person that you long to get something into someone's hand and make that transaction, it's probably because you're grace to be an evangelist. Evangelists normally are excellent communicators, but not just verbally through a variety of different ways. Some of the greatest evangelists are found on social media right now, how they're using their phones to be able to share the message of Jesus. They're not in front of thousands of people on a stage. They're not on street corners, but on their phones, they are incredible evangelists. They are media workers. How grateful are we for some of the media workers that we have, right? The people that declare the story of Jesus through media, through video, through photo, through a variety of different ways, they are excellent story tellers, excellent storytellers.
Speaker 0 00:27:00 They can portray the story of Jesus to a world that needs to hear it. They are marketers. They are leaders. They are journalists. Think about that for a moment. How many times have we come across journalists, people that write fluently and we have never understood that actually they may be grace to be evangelists in their nature. And in their work, evangelists are great writers and, and journalists. They are networkers. They are invitational in nature. They long to invite you to places like the church. And perhaps some of you you're consistently asking people, Hey, we'd love you to come to church. We'd love you to come to our life group. We'd love you to come to this event that I'm going to. And perhaps it's because you have the grace of evangelists. They are naturally deal makers, deal makers. We're all called to evangelism, but the grace of evangelist is someone that can often get it across the line.
Speaker 0 00:27:47 Someone who can convert and make that transactional moment of kind of revealing, whether has been watering and seeds planted and making that. Now you come from darkness into light, natural, natural deal makers, carriers of good news. We have good news, right? Yes. We have good news. Not bad news, not news that nobody like doesn't want to hit. We have good news. The good news of Jesus. That's the whole point of the gospel. The gospel is a word that literally means good, good news. We have good news. And evangelists are carriers carriers of good news. And they are branding desires. Designers. Often people that are involved with creative eyes can be people that are grace evangelists. And then they elicit responses. And what I mean by that is there's this grace on the evangelist life to be able to bring people to a response moment. William Lane, Craig, uh, a theologian says these words successful evangelism involves not only harvesting.
Speaker 0 00:28:41 That's the response moment. That's the deal making moment that cross the line moment successful evangelism involves not only harvesting, but sewing and watering too. We must never think that a nonbeliever remained unconvinced by our faith has failed for one encounter is not the end of the story. That's good. One encounter is not the end of the story, not the three things here that William Lee Lang Craig said, he said, harvesting, sewing, and watering. We can all sew and water. Yeah. In every era of our life, we can all sew and water through the smallest little plants, through the smallest little seeds, we can all make a difference. And I think at times, evangelists have become frustrated because the church, perhaps hasn't done enough, so and water in for them to be able to get the harvest church. Can I gently bring before us that even if you are not graced to be an evangelist, you are called to sew in water, wherever you go.
Speaker 0 00:29:37 Yes. And that can come through a variety of different ways. It doesn't mean going into the streets and, and preaching the gospel. Sometimes it's as simple as this. Hey, is there anything that I can pray for you this week? You know, prayer is one of the most greatest evangelistic tools we have in our armor to be able to say to people, I notice that you're going for a bad time and a difficult time right now. You might not appreciate me praying for you right now, which I'm happy to do, but in this week, I'd, I'd love to pray for you. Do you know what you're doing there? You're sewing a seed. Yeah. Every time. Yeah. You're sewing a seed. Yeah. Right? Every post on your social media, it goes off about something to do with faith. Yeah. You're sewing your seed every time. You're praying for that nonbeliever behind in the prayer room where nobody sees it, you're sewing a seed, every act of encouragement and care that you bring to those around you in your workplace.
Speaker 0 00:30:31 You're sewing a seed. And then when the seed is sewn, every single time you revisit that seed, you're just pouring water on it. Every single time you speak about, Hey, what happened back then? When I prayed for you's, how did that go? And that's just a little bit of water going on that seed every single time, every time you encourage more and more, it's just a little bit more of water. Then what happens? Those who are graced to evangelists, they come along and they find a tree that is already Budden. And in that moment they come alive. They come alive because it's time for harvest it's time for me to be able to bake that seed and water that has gone in by the church and be able to make that the, the deal make a moment, come to know Jesus. Now come to know Jesus. Now evangelist's greatest job is to discover the gift and grace in their life that will help salvation come to those around them. And if you are an evangelist, we desperately need you to recognize what God has gifted you with so that we can see how rated and heaven populated
Speaker 0 00:31:36 Outside of the organized faith community. Evangelists tend to be entrepreneurs and excellent communicators, motivators, marketers, and enthusiastic storytellers and evangelism at its core has an external focus in verbal declaration and kingdom demonstration of good news in words, indeed. And in sign. And this can happen through a variety of different ways. Band. If you could come up with this poem, I'm gonna tell you a story to conclude this, uh, session. This is a story. Um, it's not a story actually. It's, it's a dream I had. It's a dream that took place in my life when it was actually shortly after. When I refer referred to Albert, who, who led me to the Lord when I was 16 years old, um, I, I had a dream, a real dream when I was asleep at night. And in this dream, um, I, I believe personally it was a dream from God.
Speaker 0 00:32:41 It was a dream that God had given me because 13 years later, it still marks my life and changed the trajectory of who I want to be as a follower of Jesus. When it, when it took place, it's a dream that I believe God given me because the reality is is that I don't often dream. Like I probably remembered five dreams in my entire life. And this is one of those five. Some of you will be similar, similar to me. So I believe this is a dream from God. I was 16 years old. I'd just come to know, come to know Jesus. And, um, I, um, I was exploring faith to the, to the truest element of, of where I was at in my life. I, I was still a teenager. I, I had a whole load of horrible things going on in my life in terms of the way I was, God was really working on my character, but I, I had been invited to this person of Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:33:33 And I had said yes to the call of following him and in his exploration of kind of just following, following Jesus and trying to wrestle with God's call on my life at such a young age. There was one night I, I went to my bed and, and I just went to sleep. I didn't pray anything that night, but God did something in my dreams that night, that that is marked me. I can remember going to sleep. And as I got into this dream, I, I was actually, and this, as I was preparing this last night, I found this really peculiar. But in the dream I was at a football game. Some of you know, that I'm a massive stoke fan. And of course in the dream, I was at a stoke game and, um, stoke were playing against this team called Sunland. And funnily enough, yesterday stoke played Sunland.
Speaker 0 00:34:15 And in this dream, I was in this stadium and we were actually at the stadium of light and Sunland. It was an away game for stoke. And I've been there a few times to watch stoke play. And I was in stadium of like 50,000 people. It was packed. It's not now, but it is. It was then in my dream, it's packed thousands of people. And I was really high up right behind the goal. And I was with my dad, me and my dad used to go watch football all the time. And I loved every single moment who my dad used to go watch stoke. He was the reason why I fell in love with stoke really. And I was, I was at this stadium was watching this football game and the atmosphere was electric. There was this cheering and hustling and bustling in the game was probably, I dunno, it must have been around the 60 or 70th minute in this game.
Speaker 0 00:34:51 And I was cheering and clapping with these Stok fans. We were winning at the time and I can remember turning into my dad and me and my dad was stood there. We were singing these songs lost in the emotion of the vibrancy of this football game. Everything was good. Everything was well at this moment. And then in the middle of nowhere in this dream, I can still remember as clear as day in the middle of nowhere in the middle of this stadium, as everyone's cheering and supporting this team. There's just this loud horn that Becks out like this gigantic horn that,
Speaker 4 00:35:20 Um,
Speaker 0 00:35:23 And in this moment, when this horn came out, it was like the whole stadium stood still in a moment to the point where even in the dream, I can remember looking at the pitch and someone had just passed a ball to a player. And the horn had grabbed everyone's attention so much that the ball just went out of play because all the people on the pitch had just stopped and they were looking around thinking, what on earth is that sound? And there was this hush around this stadium and I'm stood there. I'm thinking, what on earth? What is that? What is that sound? And then a few seconds later after the noise just starts to settle on the, the silence in the stadium, this horn just Becks out again, this Mer, this gigantic horn. And, and at this point, people start to duck a little bit and they think there's something going wrong with the PA, like what is going on here?
Speaker 0 00:36:07 And I am, I am so confused as with the thousands of people in this stadium at this horn. And this point in the dream, I can remember, I turn to my dad. And as I turn to my dad, I looked eyes with him. And he was the only person in the whole stadium that had a smile on his face and tears in his eyes. And I can still remember it now, as I looked eyes with my dad and this smile, and I said, dad, what is going on? And here's the words that have never left me, Sean, he's coming back.
Speaker 0 00:36:36 He's here. Jesus is here. He's like right now, not, not in 10 years time when you're older right now, you as a teenager, 16 years old, he's here, he's returning, he's coming on the cloud with the trumpet sound. I know it's him. I can feel his presence he's here. And at this moment there was this fear in me of not really knowing Jesus, looking at the elation of my dad, who is filled with joy and passion and happiness, that at this moment, as Jesus returns, it marks the end of all pain and all suffering and all tension and all difficulty that those who had followed him were gonna be called up to him to embrace the kingdom of God as it once was. And I saw his eyes. And then in the moment in that moment, I can remember my phone was in my pocket.
Speaker 0 00:37:19 I had an iPhone at the time. And as I'm looking at my dad in his eyes, and he's got this joy and he's jumping up and down saying, he's back, Sean, he's back. The phone starts ringing in my pocket. It starts to vibrate. It's like everyone could hear my phone ringing. And I quickly went to my, to my phone. And I, and I looked to my phone and there on the call screen ringing me was my best friend, the friend who I had known for years and years and years, the friend who I grew up in school with, I did life with, we went to funerals together. We had parties together that friend and that friend did not know who Jesus was. And throughout my whole friendship with him, I'd never told him really about Jesus. He knew I went to church, but I never said to him, I never once said to him, you know, Jesus, the missing piece of your life, you need to know him.
Speaker 0 00:38:02 He's got the answer. I never did anything of that. And he, he was ringing me and I quickly answered it. And I put my phone to me in and I said, Hey, Hey, is everything okay? And he said, yeah, Sean, it's me. And I said, yeah, what's what's up, man? He said, can you hear that sound? I said, yeah, I can hear the sound. I'm in a football stadium. Everyone can hear the sound right now. I, I can hear, I can hear the sound. Yeah. He look at me. You say, well, what is it? I said, it's Jesus. He's back. He's returning. He's he's here. He's come back right now. It's him and know it. And then he said, these words, well, what does that mean for me, Sean?
Speaker 5 00:38:43 What
Speaker 0 00:38:44 Does that mean for me? And in that moment, I woke up in my sleep. It was 3:00 AM in the morning, it was pitch black. I turned my light on, I got down into my knees and I started to cry out to God. Like I've never have done in my life at that point 16 years old. And I said, God, break my heart for what breaks yours. Because I don't wanna see lost people without the hope that you have. Now, I'm not here this morning to, to pick apart your eschatology. I'm not here to give teaching on what you believe eternity holds in terms of heaven and how or any of those different theological statements. But what I am here to say
Speaker 0 00:39:36 Is that in March chapter 16, verse 15, Jesus came to his disciples as he comes to us to say, and he says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. And then again, in, in Luke chapter 19, he sits down at a banquet in tables and he tells his parable and he looks at his disciples and he says, go into the highways, the byways, the cities, and the lanes, and tell all people that there is still place at my table for my house is not yet full. And then straight after it, he says this for the son of man, the son of man came to seek and save the lost, perhaps your grace to be an evangelist, perhaps not, but we're all called to be part of evangelism and mission. I end with this quote, Billy Graham, a great evangelist. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feat seeking out the lost and helpless in a broken world. Let's pray. Jesus. We thank you so much for the, the graces of God in our lives of the apostolic grace and the, the prophetic grace, the, the evangelistic grace, which we've briefly looked at today, the shepherd and grace and the teacher, grace. And, and I believe we believe that you've given these graces for them to thrive in the church so that the church starts to show the fullness of who you are.
Speaker 0 00:41:17 And Jesus, I wanna say that, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If, if I have been so fixated on just my grace, that I have devalued and blocked over graces out and far, I ask that you help us by the power of your spirit
Speaker 0 00:41:37 To be inclusive, to all the graces. I pray for every single person in this room that has an evangelistic grace in their life. And I pray Lord that they, they rise to the call. They rise to the call of God that is on their lives for whatever means necessary. I pray that there's an evangelistic anointing on who they are, that as they declare the person of Jesus to people, they will see Sam salvation that signs and wonders will follow the preach and the gospel, wherever they go, father bless their feet. Bless the feet of the evangelists. As they go into this world seeking to save the lost and the broken her father. May we see may we see salvation? Like we never have seen before in this church, in the coming weeks and months and years ahead, may we see fresh life, new life saying yes to the person of Jesus for the first time, may we be part of your mission, your holy spirit fueled mission that we will be the church that doesn't have a mission, but the mission has a church would go out into the world knowing that we can plant and we can water seeds and we can grow them and harvest them in our own time.
Speaker 0 00:42:41 Father break our heart for what breaks yours burden us with the, with the souls that are lost. Burden us with people who don't know you father, please police for my life and for our lives to church, please don't let us get to the end of our days. Don't let us get to the grave without having led someone to who you are. Don't let us meet you without having that to be a truthful component of our lives that we have shown you accurately unwell to this world and father for us all, as a church, I pray Lord that you, you grace us with the call to evangelism as we all are, let us give room for the evangelist, but let us take seriously what it means to be part of your mission helpers Lords. I know it's not easy for many of us. It's not, it's not something that's, that's natural. It's not something that comes easy, but that's why you gave us your holy spirit. You gave us your holy spirit to fillers with boldness and power and gifts and signs and wonders to be able to make a difference. So this day as we go
Speaker 0 00:43:54 Helper us.
