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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Community.
It's so good to be together.
Wanna say a we've a song.
There's a song.
Elder Living Creatures,
crowns Lamb.
There is the worship rising
to the King of
Maje declaration.
Right? Praise is
Right.
It The rocks cry out.
In worship, we won't hold back
Is right.
The
praise.
Holy
Spirit.
Spirit. When you move my heart, when you fill the
You, I you
Spirit, when you,
When you the you, I you
we're
the Spirit, the
the spirit.
The spirit
up the on it.
Come rest on us. Come rest on,
up on on
You.
You here, you. I'm here.
I know you Spirit,
when you're,
let's
Make this prayer
on us.
You,
You,
holy
Spirit,
all
Who You
I
Your Friend,
Loved.
So would you fall
the church?
Holy Spirit,
rest on us.
You Holy
Spirit come.
Hallelujah. The spirit of God is in this place,
and we're gonna continue worshiping together.
But before we do that, why don't you turn to two
or three people, why don't you welcome them
to Hope Community Church, those of you joining us online,
why don't you throw a welcome down in the chat
In Christ alone, my hope is found.
He is my light, my strength, my soul.
This cornerstone, this solid ground
through the fierce
and storm
of peace.
When fear, when shining
my
inglorious,
fear, power, Christ
Jesus commands my,
You know, this is the first gathering
that we have as a church.
And every first gathering that we have,
we get the opportunity to celebrate the opportunity
to remember the sacrifice of Jesus.
And as you came in, hopefully you got your communion.
And if you didn't want you, go ahead
and raise your hand so that one of our ushers can come
and bring the elements to you.
If you're joining us online,
we'd love to invite you right now.
Hey, run to your kitchen. Grab some bread, grab some juices
so that we can partake together.
The Bible says that on the night Jesus was betrayed,
he gathered his 12 disciples
and they had their final meal together
called the Last Supper.
And Jesus took bread and he took wine
and he shared it with them.
And when he took the bread,
he raised it up and he broke it.
And he said, this bread represents my body broken for you.
And I,
let's remember the body of Christ that was broken.
Let's take a knee
in the same manner.
Jesus took the cup filled with wine.
He said, this cup represents my blood of a new covenant.
This represents the, the blood of Jesus that was spilled
for you and for me.
Jesus said, as often as you do this, remember me,
let's take and drink.
Jesus. We remember your sacrifice.
We remember that our salvation
came at an incredible cost.
Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the sacrifice of Jesus.
We are grateful to be able to remember all
that you've done for us.
Hallelujah.
I find my strength. I find my hope.
I find my help in Christ alone.
When, when darkness falls,
I find my peace in Christ alone.
I find my strength.
I find my
I when
In
until he returns
or calls me home here,
the power of Christ.
I'll stand here in the power of Christ.
Let pray together. God, we, we thank you for this time.
Thank you that we get the opportunity to stand
in the power of Christ.
We commit this time to you.
We pray that you would speak to us by the power
of your Spirit, are the power of your word.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen.
Church, you may be seated.
Well, what a, an incredible time of worship already.
Sam Band. Thank you all so much for leading us, uh, just
to respond to the goodness of our God, to
who Jesus is, to what He's done for us.
Uh, if we haven't met before, my name is Jason,
uh, pastor here, help.
So grateful to get some time with you.
Uh, listen, one thing I we want to highlight this week
is teacher appreciation week.
And I'm telling you, if there is a job on the place, uh,
on the face o of planet Earth, that doesn't get, uh,
the the credit that it deserves, it's our teachers.
And so, uh, we talk here at hope about being a family.
The church is this. It's a family who loves God,
follows Jesus and shares hope.
And few people on this planet share hope, uh,
with our young people, as our
teachers do in our communities.
And so we just wanna honor our, our teachers.
I know we've got one who's sitting right over here.
Can we just celebrate them for a moment?
It takes so much to raise our young people.
And so we are grateful.
And if that's you, if you're a teacher
that's in here in this room right now, if you're joining
with us online, we would love for you
to let us know who you are.
All you gotta do is text, text the word Teach
to 7 2 9 8 9, uh,
and just let us know that you're out there.
We'd love to come alongside of you, find out
how we can support you, how we can pray for you.
We wanna do everything that we can do as your church family
to support the investment that you make in our community.
Or in just a moment, you are gonna hear a message from our
good brother, uh, pastor Aaron Nelson,
and he's gonna be opening God's word.
We're gonna be continuing in a series
that we're in right now called The Way.
But before we do that, we're gonna watch this story together
and then give Aaron a big welcome.
Afterwards.
I have been a teacher for about 20 years.
Currently I'm in Clayton at Riverwood Elementary School.
I teach reading and social studies.
A few years ago, my school started trying
to look at our behavior data, how we can maybe fix some
of the issues that we have.
And so one of those things was recruiting strong role models
from the local high school.
At that time, I was not involved in the program,
and so I approached my principal
and asked if I could maybe lead it
and give it more structure
and kind of step in with a greater purpose.
So with Rise, we're taking high school students from the
local high school and they're coming
to the elementary school during the school day
and mentoring our elementary school students.
The high schoolers are encouraged to sit down to get
to know their student, to talk
to them about the character trait of the month,
and then just to spend time with them.
Some of the students just need to get energy out
and that's gonna help them to be more successful.
They spend about 30 to 40 minutes together,
and then the mentor returns them to class
and says, I'll see you next week.
Life changes happening in the high school students as well
as elementary school students.
And at the core of it, I think it's something that
God has his hand upon and God's doing a great work.
I would say if you're going through your daily life
and you see a way that you can serve others, go for it.
Talk to people about it. Let people know what you're doing.
Invite people to come alongside of you and support you.
You didn't see that by chance. God put that in your heart.
And I say pursue it completely.
I really like the Rise program
because it gives students a chance to give someone to talk,
to rely on, and they can tell me like, what's going on.
And we can sit there and talk about it
and kind of give them advice as to what's happening.
I like the Rise mentorship
because it gives you time away from stuff
that you're wearing on and it sweats it out a little
and go back to class like nothing ever happens.
It's beneficial to me as well
because it gives me something to better myself for
and be better to be somebody else's mentor.
And it allows me to pour myself into something positive
and help somebody else.
I love it because it helps me say stuff to my mentor.
Like, I can't say to my teacher
and I can express my feelings
with stuff I don't feel comfortable
expressing with other people.
I think it's great because you can create a connection
with a little kid.
So I think we've come a lot like a long way. I do
Coming here each week.
It's very relaxing. It's fun.
I just get to catch up with her
and just talk about our week. What about you?
I like when she comes
because like I just get to talk about things
that I don't like when I don't like talk
to about, to other people.
And I just like talking about things that nobody else knows.
Well, hey, hope. Yeah. What's up man?
So glad to be with y'all. Uh, here, man.
Um, if you, uh,
if we haven't had the chance to meet yet, my name is Aaron.
I'm one of the Bible teachers around here, um, at Hope.
And man, I'm super excited, uh, for today.
Um, if you haven't been with us for the past little bit, uh,
I just wanna kind of catch all of us up to speed,
whether you've been around or maybe you just started
coming around Easter Sunday.
But for about the past month,
we have all been on one collective journey together.
Uh, about a month ago, we were in a series
that's called The Way, and we were talking all about, uh,
Jesus as he makes his way to the cross, uh, he is crucified.
And then on Easter, obviously we all came together,
we celebrated the resurrection together.
And now we are simply asking the question, well, now
what, what happens next?
Uh, see, at the core of Christianity is the central claim.
Everything that rises and falls, rises and falls on this.
The truth that Jesus, uh, he walked out of the grave,
he was resurrected.
And so if Jesus actually walked out of the grave,
if the tomb is actually empty now what,
what are the implications that all
of this has on our everyday life?
So, um, really quick, if you are new,
if you just started coming, like I said, maybe since Easter
or, or more recently than that,
uh, you're off the hook for this.
But how many of you were around, uh,
about three weeks ago when I taught the message
on Jesus and Baras?
How many of you were here for that? Okay, does anybody
remember the verse that I challenged us
to memorize three weeks ago?
See that you didn't knew there'd be a pop quiz, right?
Nobody, nobody. Okay, just double checking.
Somebody at one of our other campuses is like jumping
up and down saying, I know it.
I got it. Probably like
a high schooler or something like that.
'cause they're really studious with stuff like that.
But the passage
that we discussed was second Corinthians five 17 through 21.
Now I know at this moment everybody's staring at me saying,
Aaron, you got it memorized, right?
Uh, I'm almost there. I'm getting close.
If you don't trust me, you could ask my wife.
I talked to her on the car over here.
She heard me go over it.
But for the sake of, uh, all,
all being on the same page here today,
I'm just gonna go ahead and read this passage for you.
Okay, second Corinthians five 17 through 21.
It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation.
The old has passed, behold the new has come.
And all of this is from God who through Christ reconciled us
to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation
that is Christ in Christ.
God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ,
God making his appeal through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God for our sake.
He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
When I referenced that verse a couple of weeks ago,
I talked about how I believe this might be one
of the most concise
and articulate presentations of the gospel,
uh, in the New Testament.
And I stand by that. But one of the things that I love
so much about this passage is it tells us both what it is
that God has done for us, but it also commands us
and teaches us and reveals to us how we are
to respond in light of what it is that God has done for us.
Here's just a little, uh, note
for you to put in your back pocket.
Maybe if you're new to the Bible
or maybe you've been reading the Bible for a while
and just never realize this.
But very rarely, if ever,
will the Bible give us a command without first telling us
what God has done for us.
And the reason why is
because the Bible isn't, uh, deeply concerned
with you just doing stuff because God said so.
That is not the Bible's goal.
Really what so many
of the biblical authors are calling us into is a life
of gratitude and a, a humble response to the goodness
and the greatness of God.
We're not just mustering up our strength and doing things
because we're supposed to.
We remember what God has done for us.
We remember that the tomb is empty
and there are implications for our life.
And this passage starts off with one that is vital.
When you put your faith in Jesus, you become a new creation.
This doesn't mean that there are just some slight things
that change about you.
This doesn't mean, uh,
that now you just try things a little bit harder.
You're actually a new being in the eyes of God.
Uh, in John chapter three, Jesus is having a conversation
with a religious leader.
His name is Nicodemus.
And in that conversation, this is the first time
that Jesus uses the phrase, you must be born again.
Now, maybe you've been around church for a while,
maybe you've heard that phrase used before.
But Nicodemus is hearing this for the very first time,
and he goes, I'm sorry, I'm supposed to do what?
Now, he hears this in very natural terms,
and he actually goes as far as to ask Jesus the question,
am I supposed to like go back into my mother's womb
and let me just go ahead and alleviate all the tension right
now, if that were the requirement to have a relationship
with God, all of our buildings will be empty right now.
Okay? Nobody is signing up for that.
But what Jesus wants Nicodemus to know is it's not about
what you do, it's not about the steps you take.
It's actually putting your faith in
what I am about to do for you.
Nicodemus, when you put your faith
and realize that I, uh, am dying on your behalf
and I'm raised again in new life, man,
you are invited into that process.
And the phrase that Jesus chooses
to use is you will be born again.
When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, we would go in
and have all these multiple checkups, right?
And what's the purpose of those checkups is to see
how the developmental process is going.
So we would go to the hospital
and uh, we would talk to one of the midwives
and they would check the heartbeat
and make sure there's nothing irregular about the heartbeat
that it's being formed properly.
And they would check her brain
and say, yeah, her brain is developing properly.
They would check all the vital organs
and say, yeah, these things are being built together
properly inside of my wife's body.
A miracle was happening. A person was being formed.
And in the same way, what Jesus is telling Nicodemus is
that when you put your faith in him on some spiritual level,
that same thing happens to us.
Our hearts are being renewed and transformed.
Our mind is being reset.
Uh, the very essence of who you are in relation
to the cosmos is changing.
Your natural tendencies are being transformed.
Your proclivities
and all the things, uh, uh, your desires,
they're being rewired and reworked.
There's a change, uh, of the central aim of your affections
that's being redirected from yourself
and towards God and others.
Your sin is wiped away
and those things no longer define you.
The old self, the old version
of you is not just hidden away.
The old version of you is dead, buried in the grave,
but just like Jesus walked out of the tomb,
when the resurrected body, so we are raised to new life
and we aren't just improved,
we are remade and we are redefined.
It's like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
This is probably the best like earthly example I can
think of, of this whole thing.
Like a, a caterpillar doesn't just squeeze itself really
hard until wings pop out.
A caterpillar doesn't just think maybe if I just try really
hard and focus really hard, then I'll be able to fly.
No, what happens? Something has to happen.
It has to disappear for a while,
and it comes back not as an improved caterpillar,
but as something new entirely.
Becoming a child of God means everything about
you is changing.
And as a new creation, there comes a new mission in life,
there comes a new purpose in life.
And this is kind of our jumping off point for
what we're gonna talk about in the rest
of our time together.
A new life being a new creation,
it means a new mission as well.
Listen, whenever you start something new,
you expect some changes, right?
Like when you move, you know, okay,
this new apartment complex or this new city
or the HOA that I'm moving into
that it's gonna have some new rules.
Some things are gonna have to change When you get a new car,
you gotta get used to certain stuff.
You gotta get, uh, used to how the AC works
and uh, what's my new turn radius
and all this sort of stuff, right?
Well, in the same way, when we decide to follow Jesus,
a new orientation must occur in our lives.
There has to be a point where we say, Hey, listen,
I'm under new management.
What's going to be different now?
And I think that unfortunately for so many of us, uh,
the only thing that really changes in our lives when we put
our faith in Jesus is our Sunday morning plans.
I think sometimes we say yes to Jesus
and we kind of go through the obvious stuff of like, okay,
this means like now I'm supposed to join a small group
or to start serving somewhere,
but there's something that happens
in our lives when we put our faith in Jesus.
You see salvation, it's not just about an integration into
some Sunday morning book club.
It's about a reorientation of our lives,
ambition and our value system.
Uh, one Corinthians six, 19 through 20 puts it this way.
It says, you are not your own
for you were bought with a price.
And that's what we've been talking about
for the past month or so.
We talk about Jesus every weekend,
but we've really been focusing in on the cost of Jesus' life
and what that means for us.
You were bought with a price.
So in response to that glorify God in your body.
And how do we do that? It's by obedience.
A life of following Jesus is defined by submission
to the way and the will of God for our lives.
So alongside your confession that Jesus is Lord,
there's something in the way you view him that changes.
Jesus doesn't just, uh, uh,
he doesn't just remain in your life as some guy
who lived 2000 years ago.
Instead, to call Jesus Lord means there is a promotion in
your mind of the role
and responsibility that God has in your life.
And so for God to be, for Jesus to be Lord of your life,
it doesn't just mean, uh, a change in his title,
but also a change in his function.
It's believing that he is the master of your life
because of the price that he paid.
He is the ruler.
He is the ultimate authority where we find ultimate truth.
It's saying, Jesus take the wheel
and actually meaning it like I'm gonna step back
and I'm gonna let you decide where we go.
It's appreciating what he's done and where he's leading us.
And so what is it that our Lord asks us to do?
We'll, simply put, he wants us to experience his love
and tell other people about that love.
That's what Jesus invites us into.
And this twofold response, I I i love it
because it's, it's, it, it kind
of accomplishes multiple things that one time, one,
it becomes what we want to do.
Like when you get saved by Jesus,
when he transforms your life
and you realize this is the greatest thing
that's ever happened to you, it becomes your, your pleasure.
But it's also what we're commanded to do.
So not only is it your pleasure, but it's also your purpose.
And there's even a third little gift thrown in there.
It becomes an act of obedience as we continue to do it.
Uh, last week we celebrated, um, some baptisms.
We had like over 50 baptisms, y'all across all
of our campuses, which is just a beautiful thing.
But there was a girl and 11, yeah, we can celebrate that.
We should celebrate that. That's why we do this whole thing.
We should celebrate life change.
Uh, but there was a girl, um, who was uh,
she was an 11th grade girl.
Her name was Emma. She got baptized at the Apex campus
and she said something so profound she got in the water.
And we always ask people when they get baptized, Hey,
do you know, do you wanna share anything?
Do you wanna say something? And, uh, all due respect, Emma,
if you're watching this, uh, she said, yes,
but I'm not entirely sure she like planned
what she was gonna say, but the joy
of the Lord just came, came to the surface.
And I remember out of everything that she said,
there was one phrase that just stood out to me so much.
She said, man, Jesus is the greatest thing
that's ever happened to me.
And I want this for everybody.
Isn't that so simple, but so profound?
Especially to hear a child say that like, man,
Jesus has changed my life.
And simply put, I want that for everybody.
And that is the heart of the church
that has progressed the gospel to the point
that it has reached your ears and your heart.
Today, there was an original group of disciples, followers
of Jesus who saw Jesus die for them
and then come out of the grave
and say, man, what I've witnessed,
I want everyone else to know this as well.
We're talking about now what? Right?
Well, what happened after Jesus came out of the grave.
The good thing is we don't have to guess.
Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 through 20, tell us exactly,
starting in verse 16, it says,
now the 11 disciples went to Galilee.
And if you're like, wait a minute, weren't there 12?
Yeah, Judas story wasn't all that great.
Uh, but to the 11 disciples, they went to Galilee,
to the mountain on which Jesus had directed them.
And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted.
And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you to the end of the age.
And I just want you to think about the people
who were there in the crowd that day, this famous passage
of scripture, this famous text
that we know today is the great commission.
They're standing in the crowd
and they aren't just like hearing this.
They're locking eyes with Jesus who a few days ago was dead.
And he is saying, what I want you to do,
what I'm charging you to do, what I'm commanding you to do
is to go out and tell people about me.
And so I wanna ask you if, if the Risen Messiah
had made eye contact with you and said, I want you to go
and tell people about me, would you do it?
If Jesus who lived a perfect life that none
of us could ever live, went to death, came out of the grave,
called you by name
and said, all I want you to do as an act
of gratitude is tell other people about me, would you do it?
Because the truth is he did.
And just because we weren't standing physically in the crowd
that day, and just
because this statement is separated from us
by some 2000 years, it doesn't take away the magnitude
and the weight of what it is that Jesus
commands all of us to do.
This is the same thing that Paul is talking about in the
passage we looked at earlier.
If we focus in on verses 18
and 19, this resurrection, this, this new life, the titles
of new creation that we have all
inherited, look at what he says.
He says, all of this is from God who through Christ
reconciled us to himself
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
If you have your Bible, if you have your physical Bible,
or if you're using a smartphone or whatever that word,
and I want you to highlight it, I want you to circle it,
that is in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
That, and that's in there is so important
because I think so many of us recognize
that Christ reconciled us to himself.
But along with doing that a package deal a two for one,
you can't separate one from the other.
What he does is he gives us the ministry of reconciliation,
meaning he has ordained you
and called you to start telling the world that you belong
to him the way some other translations put.
This says that we go out on God's behalf and yell and shout
and display to the world, come back home.
That is a responsibility that we receive alongside the grace
that we receive from God.
It's the reminder that we're not only saved from something,
we are saved for something
throughout this Easter season.
We've been celebrating how
Jesus' sacrifice makes us right with God.
But the reminder that I think all of us need is that
that's not just a you promise.
It's for the entire world.
And we, the ones who have experienced it, we are the ones
who are given the responsibility of carrying
that message out to the entire world.
Uh, back in 2021, uh,
Juneteenth was made a national holiday.
It was a federal holiday.
And uh, a lot of people think that Juneteenth,
it represents the day that slavery ended in America.
And that's like partially true, but not entirely.
Kind of depends on your perspective of it.
Uh, but the truth is, is
that slavery from a legal standpoint had already been
abolished two years prior
to when the first Juneteenth was celebrated.
On January 1st, 1863,
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
claiming that all people were to be set free.
But this was during the time of the Civil War
and the rebel state said, Hey,
you're not really our president,
so we're gonna continue to do this.
So those, uh, uh, the Civil War continues to go on.
And it wasn't until, uh, April 9th, 1865,
two years later that the Civil War finally ends.
And you would think April 9th would be the day
that all the slaves were set free.
You would think that'd be, but it's not April 10th, right?
It's Juneteenth. So what happened two months
after the end of the Civil War?
Well, in June 19th, 1865, general Gordon Granger, uh, one
of the union soldiers, he arrived to Galveston, Texas,
and he brought the word with him that the 250,000 men
and women who were still enslaved in Texas, Hey,
take the chains off, they're free.
And I just wonder what those 250,000 men
and women thought when he showed up with that news.
'cause on one hand, I think there was a joy, right?
Oh, thank God this is finally over.
But I think there was also a dread
of like, Hey, what took so long?
We should have been free for the past two years.
Why didn't anybody tell us sooner?
But I'm willing to bet that those 250,000 men
and women were grateful for General Granger.
I think they were thankful that he took the two
and a half month long journey to Galves
and Texas to tell them, Hey, you're free,
even though you don't know it yet.
For him to be able to come and say your freedom has been one
for you, even though it may not be actualized in your life
yet, there's nothing holding you back.
And what I admire about this man is
that he could have enjoyed his freedom, right?
Like he's a general in a war, he could have been like, man,
the battle's over my part's done.
I did what I was supposed to do.
Hey, can somebody else go down to Texas and let them know?
No. Okay, whatever. If they do, then great.
If they don't, then. But no,
he took it upon himself to go down.
Why? Because he wanted to know that his fight wasn't in vain
and he wanted to deliver to those men
and women that were made in the image of God
that you are free.
But can you imagine if he would've sat on that news?
Could you imagine how much longer these people would've
lived enslaved, not free,
had he not been the one to carry the message?
And, and let's just take this to a spiritual place.
How many people do we know that are enslaved
and dead to their sin
and they don't know that their freedom has already been won
for them because nobody's told them.
For us to be called ministers of reconciliation means
that God has chosen us to tell people
that their sins have been forgiven and so have ours.
We use our freedom
to let other people know that they are free.
But reconciliation is,
it's not just about their sins being forgiven,
it's about letting them know, Hey, God himself fixed
what you could never fix on your own.
And that's really good news for us.
But it's also really good news for your neighbors.
They just may not know it yet.
Uh, last week, um, I was in New Orleans visiting family
and we're walking through the French Quarter.
We just finished eating a fat meal. So we are moving slow.
We are taking our time. We have four adults,
three kids in a baby in a stroller.
So like we are casually
strolling through the French Quarter.
And when we look down the sidewalk, we see, uh,
there are these street preachers coming down towards us.
And one of them is handing out these like Bible pamphlets.
And the other one is carrying a sign that says something
to the effect of, you're gonna burn in hell.
Uh, so we're walking towards them and behind us.
Now, mind you, we're strolling,
but move it a little bit faster than us is another, uh,
a a couple of women.
It's a lesbian couple that's walking
kind of right next to us.
And so they're the, the street preachers are trying
to pass out these, these bible tracks or whatever.
And uh, one of them goes, oh, no, thank you.
We don't want it. And that's when I just kind of,
I don't remember what happened, but
something else got my attention.
Well, a little bit further down the road, my mom walked over
to me, she's like, Hey, did you see that?
And I was like, see what? And she says, uh, those women,
they turned down the pamphlet.
But then once they got a little bit further, one
of them looked to the other and said,
your Jesus doesn't love us anyway.
And my mom said something, uh,
that has been bugging me like a rock in my shoe ever since.
She said, man, if only they knew.
And the reason why this has been bugging me is
because we knew we knew the truth.
We knew that there were these two women walking down the
street who believed the lie that they weren't loved by God.
We knew the truth and we didn't say anything about it.
Now, let's fast forward a little bit
or rewind a little bit further back.
A couple years ago, I think this is like 2021,
if I remember correctly, uh, Morgan
and I were in New Orleans again.
And if you've ever been, there's that spot of the city
where there's Jackson Square right in front of you.
That's like the postcard that everybody gets.
And then behind you is, um, uh, the Mississippi River.
And so we're walking down on that little stripper road
and we see there's a family, there's a mom, uh, and a dad.
And the dad is pushing a stroller.
Now they're clearly tourist because they're walking
and kind of oohing and eyeing and looking at everything,
and they don't realize they're about
to walk over a streetcar, um, track.
And so I see them from a distance and I go, Hey,
and they still just ooh and eye not paying attention.
Hey, hey, like, I'm trying to get their attention, right?
They just woke up everybody I love,
but I'm trying to get their attention.
And I remember there was this sense of urgency
that came up in me because I said, you're about to.
And literally like I could see the streetcar coming.
There was a sense of urgency that came up inside of me
that said, these people are going
to die if I don't say something.
And I have been bugged all week thinking,
why didn't I have the same sense of urgency
for these two people who were enslaved
and didn't believe the lie?
Or who did believe the lie that Jesus didn't love them?
Why is it that when someone's physical life is at stake,
there's something naturally that rises up in me
that says I need to get involved, but when someone's
eternity is at stake, I, I come up
with all these different reasons about why I shouldn't
as ministers of reconciliation, we are the ones
to let people who think God doesn't love me know.
No, actually he signed a peace treaty in his son's
blood to redeem you.
That's how much he loves you.
And this all reminds me of Romans chapter 10 verses 14
through 15, where Paul writes, everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
But how will they call on him if, uh,
who they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him
of whom they've never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach
unless they are sent as it is written?
How beautiful are the feet of those
who preach the good news?
And it's from that same place
that Paul continues in second Corinthians five 20,
our main texture today.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
God is making his appeal through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ
to be reconciled to God.
I love that title of ambassador. It holds a lot of weight.
An ambassador is someone who represents the message mission
in heart of their king in a place that's not their home.
They are a representation of them in a foreign land.
Lemme tell you what happens, um,
when a king sends out an ambassador into
a foreign place, right?
Imagine you're the king of some nation
and you send out an ambassador.
Here's what that king will give them.
He gives them a message, he gives them his authority,
he gives them an assignment,
and he sends them out trusting that they will be a, a,
a healthy representation of who that king is.
And Jesus has done all of this for us.
He's given us the message of reconciliation.
He has given us his authority saying, go out and do this.
The truth of his word.
He gives us an assignment, go
and share this truth with other people.
He sends us out trusting
that we will be a faithful representation of, of who he is.
But we're all broken.
Now, I'm not gonna speak for everybody here,
but I will speak for myself for just a moment.
Uh, Aaron is dumb,
and so he messes a lot of this up.
My heart is so dark and so depraved,
and I tend to get so apathetic
and indifferent towards the mission of God
that I end up messing up every single layer of this
because I don't wanna offend other people or
because I'm tempted to water it down in some way.
I mess up the message because I get distracted or
because I fear rejection
and I often choose my own priorities.
I forget about the assignment
because I care so much about what other people think.
I don't even think about the authority
that God has given me.
And because my heart is sinful, I am not always
a faithful representation of my king.
But let me also give you some encouragement.
Uh, God knew I was stupid when he called me.
And can we all just kind of get back on the same
boat for just a second here?
Can we all realize that none
of us are enough on our own without Jesus?
And so here's the beautiful thing about
what sets Jesus apart from every other king.
While a king gives you all of these things
and says, go out and do it on your own.
Jesus places his spirit inside of us
and says, I'm gonna go with you.
So you don't have to, uh, uh, carry all of the weight
of accomplishing all these things under your own strength.
No. Instead, you go out in the power
of the Holy Spirit knowing that he's equipped you
and he is the one who is using you as the tool
to reach the lost after Jesus gives his disciples the great
commission that, uh, command that we talked about earlier.
Uh, he does something else that's really important.
Acts chapter one, uh, verses three through eight.
We're gonna kind of jump through here a little bit.
Uh, he says this, it says that Jesus presented himself alive
to the disciples, uh,
after his suffering by many proofs appearing of them
during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
And while staying with them, he ordered from them,
do not depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said,
you heard from me, John baptized with water,
but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Not many days from now. Jump down to verse eight, it says,
but you'll receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you.
And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea
and Samaria until the ends of the earth.
And I really think this is Jesus's way of saying, Hey,
listen, I know you're really excited.
Like after Jesus says this, the Book of Acts tells us
that he ascended into the clouds
and they're all just kind of looking up there.
And I would imagine you're like, man, Brandon wasn't here.
I gotta go tell Brandon about this.
But it says, two angels stood before them
and said, no, not yet.
Go and wait. And
so they make their room their way into this space called the
Upper Room, and the Holy Spirit is poured
out on them freely.
This promise of God's spirit, his power, the same power
that raised Jesus from the dead is now inside
of these disciples.
And it's from that place that Peter walks out
and he preaches to a large group of people.
And the Bible tells us that over 3000
of them were saved that day.
Now, don't get it twisted. This wasn't
because Peter was awesome.
This wasn't because Peter taught a fire message.
It's not because Peter had every answer to every question,
to every objection that these people would raise.
Let's talk about all the reasons why this,
why this shouldn't have worked.
Okay? First of all, Peter, the one
who just denied Jesus three times, like just a few days ago,
the Jews that were in the audience that Peter was preaching
to, like the Bible tells us they didn't even
all speak the same language.
So the Holy Spirit was, was transcribing
and translating Peter's words so
that they would understand it.
The third thing, Peter only had the Holy Spirit
for like maybe 10 minutes, brand new.
And so let that be an encouragement to any of you
who just recently put your faith in Jesus.
Like you can go, you can be the ambassador
that God calls you to be.
This story, the reason why I love it
so much is it is a reminder that God saves.
And we don't, the Holy Spirit is the one
that does the work of transformation.
We don't. So while you feel all of the pressure on you
to get it right, and I gotta have the answer
to every question, to every objection, I really think
that the Holy Spirit is just looking for men
and women who will adopt the heart of Peter
and say, Hey, listen, I'm just gonna say
what happened and hope for the best.
And trust that the Holy Spirit is going to do all
of the heavy lifting in all of this.
It's a reminder that we are not alone.
The Holy Spirit goes with you wherever you go
as we get ready to close.
Um, one of the other reasons why I love
that Paul uses the language of an ambassador, uh, is
because an ambassador lives and works in an embassy.
And if you're not familiar with how foreign embassies work,
basically what happens is, let's say you go to Japan, right?
You go around, there's Japanese flag sushi,
everyone's speaking the local language.
But then you walk into the embassy and something changes.
You start seeing the American flag.
People speak English, American law applies here.
You're gonna see us government workers inside of that space.
If there's war going on around the embassy,
an American can go to the American Embassy
as a place of safe harbor.
And what I love about this is I actually think
that's the way we're supposed to operate as well.
Because as an ambassador, you are filled
with the Holy Spirit.
And because of that, everywhere
that we go can be an embassy for the kingdom of heaven.
So when people step into your house, guess what?
You were on foreign sale soil,
but now you, you're residing in the kingdom of heaven
when someone grabs a seat in your office
and says, Hey, can I just vent for a minute?
Yeah, you came to the right place
because I'm an ambassador for the Kingdom of Heaven.
When you meet someone in a coffee shop
or when you sit next to someone on an airplane,
those places become embassies for the Kingdom of heaven
because you are an ambassador there.
We can keep praying to say, God, go to this place, go to
that place as you should do.
But also remember, you are sent into those spaces
and where you go, you bring the Holy Spirit with you
in acts, they waited in a space for the Holy Spirit
to fall down upon them.
But now the Bible teaches us
that when we put our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit, uh,
resides within us.
That power resides within us,
and we take him everywhere we go.
So all of our insecurities, all
of our fears about why we're not
good enough, Hey, guess what?
You're not good enough.
You weren't, but now you're a new creation.
And from that place, man, there, there's only two things
that you need to, to share.
Your faith, the Holy Spirit check,
and the story of how Jesus changed your life,
those are the only two things you need.
So I wanna give you a, a practical handle on this.
This is what I call the ready, aim,
fire of sharing your faith.
Number one, you gotta get ready, gotta prepare yourself.
One Peter three 15 tells us how we should be prepared
to give a reason for the hope that we have,
meaning we should be well versed in scripture.
But it doesn't, like, again, if you have your story of
how Jesus changed you, that's enough.
We should be ready to share our story
and to share the truth of scripture.
But if you're like, Hey, I just, I don't feel like I
don't know enough, guess what?
God's like infinite.
So you're never gonna know enough about him.
Let's just get started. One of the things
that I think gets passed by in that verse all the time is
how it starts off with Peter saying,
Revere Christ in your hearts
and to be ready to give a response.
And I really think the beauty of that is like, man,
so many us are worried about having the right response,
that we forget reveering Christ,
and that knowledge puffs us up.
So when we don't know something, we feel like we're useless.
But man, when you revere Christ, when you recognize
how good he is and that he's placed your, his spirit inside
of you, and you're like, man, I just love spending time
with Jesus, I think that's when you become like, Emma,
this is the best thing that's ever happened
to me, and I want it for everybody.
So we get ready. The second is aim.
And by that I just mean pray for opportunities.
Colossians four, two through six says that we are to pray
that the Lord will bring others, uh, along our path
who we are supposed to share the good news with.
And we are supposed to live in a constant awareness of those
who need to know that they're loved
and that there's a, that there's a freedom
available for them.
And I just wanna ask you, when was the last time
that you genuinely prayed
and say, God, I hope today you bring someone in my
path who I get to tell about you.
The Bible actually commands us to do that.
And then here's the fire, here's the scary part.
Rely on the Holy Spirit
and that act that seems scary to you,
you'll actually be emboldened
and realize, man, there's actually the, the,
the guy didn't give me a spirit of fear, but of power
and of love and a sound mind.
And if I take that into this conversation with this person
who desperately ease God, guess what?
I just, I trust that he is going to the work.
Ultimate truth and gospel transformation.
It comes from the Holy Spirit.
So lemme just remind you, church,
if you have the Holy Spirit, which you receive when you put
your faith in him, you have everything you need.
Let's pray together. Father man, thank you
for this message
and thank you for this mission, the message
of reconciliation that you are calling us back into a right
healed healthy in a whole relationship with you.
And God, thank you for the mission
that you don't just give us that
and say, Hey, that's really good for you,
but God, you actually, you, you invite us
to join Jesus on the rescue mission.
How crazy is that?
Lord, I pray that we recognize the, the weight
and the beauty and the power of that,
the magnificence of that.
And Lord, I pray that you would send us
out just 'cause you did.
You did in Matthew, you sent us out to be ministers
of reconciliation.
God, help us to take that role seriously
and help us all to rely
and depend on your spirit that much more so
that we can see our city and our nation
and our world changed and transformed for you.
Because the lost or learning man, I have been reconciled
to God by the work of Jesus Christ.
Thank you for letting us join you in that mission.
Holy Spirit empower us. We ask all these things.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
What a great reminder, uh, of, of the hope that we have
and the hope that we're called to share,
uh, into the world around us.
And could you imagine if, if we as Hope Community Church
as a church family, uh, thousands
and thousands of us took seriously this call
to be ambassadors of this hope to the world around us?
Uh, clearly that is happening to some degree,
and I wanna celebrate this.
Uh, just last weekend, uh, we had,
I think the number was like 29 baptisms across all
of our campuses, which, which means this year across all
of our campuses alone, uh, we've got over 90 men and women
and students who have stepped into new
life and following Jesus.
Can we just celebrate that together?
I mean, May we never get
tired of celebrating, uh, men and women
and students stepping over into new life, uh,
following Jesus As you head outta here, uh, this evening,
uh, teachers don't forget, we've got a free gift for you.
And that's right. I'm looking over here at you, Mr. Sherwin.
Okay? We got something for you back here in the back.
And, uh, we would love for you again if you're online,
if you're a teacher here in this area, uh,
text the word Teach
7 2 9 8 9, we'd love to follow up with you.
And if you're looking to take your next step here at hope,
maybe it is baptism, maybe you're just trying to figure out
what it is, uh, you can head to our next steps area right
outside these auditorium doors,
and we would love to walk alongside of you.
We love you guys and we will see you next week.