Mike Harrelson - Come And See

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God. [00:00:03] Speaker B: You welcome you. [00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah, man, it's so good to be with everyone this morning. I missed last week. I happened to get that first cold of the year, and that was horrible. Then I ended up passing it on to the rest of my family, which was horrible as well. But I'm here today and I'm glad to be able to be here with you guys this morning. Yeah, yeah, we'll take it. The Lord does heal, for sure. And so, yeah, for those of you that I don't know, my name is Mike, one of the elders here, and I have the privilege of sharing God's word with you this morning. So, yeah, how about we start with prayer? That sounds good to me. Yeah. Father, thank you. Thank you for your faithful love to your children. Thank you for this time that's set apart to praise you, to bring you glory, to share your word, and I'm just grateful to be able to have the privilege of sharing your word this morning. I ask Holy Spirit, that you would just prepare our hearts for what it is that you would want us to hear. Lord, that I wouldn't be able to get in the way of any of what you want to do. And ultimately that Jesus that you be made much of. Yeah. Would you just. Yeah, just give us wisdom and revelation into who you are and your greatness. We thank you, Jesus. We pray this in your name. Amen. All right. It's good to see you guys. Yeah. So I'm going to start with sharing about the time I was introduced to Jesus. I was working at a coffee shop. This is probably 24 years ish ago. Somewhere in there. 23. 24 years ago. And I was working with a guy who's a Christian. During that shift, we were talking about life and faith, and ultimately I shared. So I had been on a journey for about nine months of exploring Buddhism and meditation. And after I shared that with him, he said to me, he goes, hey, do you know who Jesus is? And I was like, you know what? I don't really know who Jesus is. I'D grown up in a home that we didn't talk much about God. And that isn't a judgment on my family whatsoever. It's just fact. It's reality. I think some of us have grown up in homes like that. But what I did know about Jesus was, like, it was very minimal, and it didn't have much impact on my life whatsoever. So, you know, this is back when those shirts were sort of popular. Jesus is my homeboy. And so, halfway joking, halfway serious, I said, all I know is that Jesus is my homeboy. And so he sort of smirked at me, and he goes, hey, would you like to read the book of Matthew with me? And I was like, I guess I'm open. I don't know what that really means, but, yeah, I'm open to doing that. And so I was like. And I don't know where it is either. And so he's like, okay, you go about two thirds of the way through the Bible, and there's this part called the New Testament. It's the first book in that. That's where we'll start. I was like, all right, cool. So I went home and found a Bible that I had stolen in high school. And, yeah, guys, my senior year of high school, I. Oh, man. Senior year of high school, we had these elective English classes. And so I signed up for one called Western Theology. Guys, I had no clue what I was getting myself into, and so just the reality of, like, where I was at in my life. And so for the next four to five months, we went on this journey of meeting every week or two and reading through Matthew and then Acts, First Corinthians, and we started making our way through the Bible. And this was the first time that I had actually been invited to explore faith with someone and come to see for myself who Jesus was. This was my first positive experience with evangelism. And so when I say that word, evangelism, I'm sure for some of us get some nerves in our stomach. I mean, that's all right. I do, too, at times, but. And that's for a good reason sometimes. Like, it's been cringy how people have shared the Lord with us. Maybe we've had a bad experience with someone sharing Jesus with us, or we've had a bad experience sharing Jesus with someone. It's a reality. It happens. And for some of us, we might not feel qualified to do that. Like, I don't know enough, or, you know, or we feel like, you know, I don't really want to impress my beliefs on someone else, even though the rest of the world feels very fit to impress their beliefs on us, or we leave it up to the professionals. You know, there's, you know, guys gifted for that, like Billy Graham and Greg Laurie, or it's for those guys that, you know, that's what they do for a living. Or maybe we have that friend that's like, they can just get on a plane and they can share their faith with anyone, or just walk down the street and they're sharing their faith with anyone. But I'm not that person, is what you'd say. And here's the thing, the interesting part is Jesus doesn't relegate evangelism and disciple making to just to the professionals. He doesn't let us off the hook. It says in Matthew 28, 18:20, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 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 everything that I've commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. So today we're gonna talk about everyone's favorite subject, Evangelism. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got a couple cheers there. A couple people are excited. But here's the thing is what I want to show you is a part in scripture where one of the disciples did this. And I think it's a model for how we can do it as well when we partner with God and his people in that. So turn with me to John 1, verses 43 through 49. It'll be up on the screen as well. And to set the scene, we're right at the beginning of John. And John the Baptist has just testified to Jesus being the Lamb of God, referencing back to Isaiah 53. And he's got a couple of his disciples with him. And he sees Jesus and he's like, hey, that's the guy right there. And one of those disciples was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. And so he and this other guy, they go and they start following Jesus, and then they find Simon Peter. And then that's where we leave off right there. And it says in verse 43, the next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. He found Philip and told him, follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. So these guys were from the same town. And Philip found Nathanael and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law. And so did the prophets. Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Can anything good Come out of Nazareth. Nathanael asked him. Come and see. Philip answered. Then Jesus went. Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said to him, here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. How do you know me? Nathanael asked. Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Jesus answered. Rabbi, Nathanael replied, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. So my first point for us this morning, it's normal to explore faith and have object. See, Nathanael, like many Jews in his day, were waiting and watching and exploring the claims of the Messiah. How do I know this? Well, it was revealed in his objection. He said, can anything good come from Nazareth? See, the young Jews that were studying the Scriptures would know that the claim of the Messiah was that he wouldn't come from Nazareth, but he would come from Bethlehem. We see that in Micah 5. And so he's like, wait, there's something going on here. Something's not adding up. So he's making an assumption that's where he was born from. Something's not adding up. And also, Nazareth at the time wasn't really like a prestigious town like we're talking about. The other guys were from the Sea of Galilee and Nazareth off to the west a little bit down the way. It was maybe 1500-2000 people. Just wasn't a place that anyone think anything good would come out of, essentially, is what he's saying. And so Nathaniel wasn't rejecting Jesus, but I think he was in process there. And honestly, many of us have had our moments of questioning too. You know, it happens. It's happened for me. One of the things I left out of my story earlier was that I had a moment the year before, before I had started exploring Buddhism and all that kind of stuff. I'd actually been an atheist. I grew up just not really in a place where I was like, God isn't real. That's what I thought. And until one morning, I was going about 40 miles an hour, driving from one job to the next, looked down, looked up, ended up in the back of a car, no seatbelt on. And the first responders, when I got out of the car, well, I got out of the car, had a scratch in my forehead, and that's it. The first responders would look at me and they're like, you should be dead. I had a moment where I was like, this is a crisis of faith. My faith in atheism was disappearing because all of a sudden I should be dead and I'm not. And I'm like, wait, what does that mean? What's going on right now? And a question I had was, who's watching over me? Who's watching over me? Because I should be dead. I didn't have a seatbelt on. I went 40 miles an hour in the back of a car. Everyone that is the professionals in this are like, that guy should be gone. And I wasn't. And actually, I just had a scratch on my forehead. I didn't even have whiplash, guys. It was crazy. So if you had a moment like that where you have a crisis of faith where everything you believed, like, all of a sudden you're like, wait, hold on. There's a shift in what's going on right now. There's a shift in my world. I believe this. And now this doesn't really seem as true as I thought it did. And maybe something else might be true. Let me ask you, where'd you land in that? I mean, I think a lot of people in the room would call themselves followers of Jesus, call themselves Christians. So did you have one of those moments where it was like, oh, what I was believing wasn't this? And now there's this. This is like those moments of crisis, of faith. And so I began my journey of faith there. And Nathaniel was on a journey of faith, too. That's the thing. And so a journey exploring the questions of life, trying to make sense of the world that we live in. Like, who are we? Who are you? Why are we here? Who's God? Is he knowable? Does he see me? That's one of the big ones. Does God see me? Do I matter? I'm not gonna assume that everyone in this room with this many people is a follower of Jesus. I'm not gonna assume that everyone is. And so if you're here and you're exploring those claims, man, I'm so glad you're here. I'd say keep on coming, because we love to be able to, like, share his goodness and his grace with you. And our prayer is that you would come to experience that yourself. And those of us that are in the room, though, that are followers of Jesus, man, I'm pretty sure every single one of us have someone in our life that doesn't know him. Don't know him. So let me ask you, where are they on their journey of faith? Do you know? Are they an atheist? Maybe they're spiritual, just not Christian, right? Maybe they believe in some other gods or people that are intrigued by Jesus. Like, hey, this is an interesting dude. I don't know all about him, but I want to learn more about him. Or, you know, the one that I think has become pretty common these days is people that are deconstructing their faith. They started out as Christians, and now they're like, I don't know. And they're deconstructing their faith at end of the day, the moment. But here's the thing is all of us are on a journey, and this journey has many steps, and it's coming to understand where we are on that journey a lot of times and how we can help one another along in those journeys. So what I love, though, about this story is that Philip, he wasn't discouraged. He wasn't discouraged that his friend in that moment was like, what about the what good can come from Nazareth? No, he's just like, hey, you know what? This is part of the road to that process. And so, you know, thinking of journeys, I was thinking about, like, man, a journey doesn't start when we get to the destination. It starts long before that. Back in 2001, a couple of my friends and I, we decided that we wanted to go to Europe. I'd wanted to go to Europe for pretty much my whole life before that, as long as I can remember. I grew up in art books. Grew up just looking at history, World War II, like, all these different things. And I was like, I was just intrigued by the place, the culture, the food, all that kind of stuff. The adventure of it all. Getting on a train. We don't use trains in America. You know, like getting on a train and going all over the place and getting off these stops. The whole thing was just like, oh, mind blowing to me. And so we were like, hey, we're going to go on this trip. And, you know, I was a poor college kid at the time and had no money to go on a trip to Europe. So I had to make some decisions. I had some roadblocks in my way to get to this place. I wanted to go. I had to make decisions. Okay, I'm going to do this, and I'm not going to do this. And then this crazy thing called 911 happened. And we're like, wait a minute, should we go to Europe right now? Like, this world is sort of crazy. This is like the biggest terrorist attack that we've ever seen in the United States on foreign soil for us. Should we be going over there? And so we're grappling through these roadblocks and all these things that were going on in life. And ultimately we decided, hey, we're gonna sacrifice the money and the time and all that kind of stuff to go. Because this place looks awesome and we wanna go there. And here's the thing, is, I never would have made it to that point if I wasn't taken by the place that I wanted to go. But this journey started long before the sacrifices that took place to get there. So what do we see Philip do? Cause apparently he feels like this Jesus is worth Nathaniel's attention. What does he say? He says, come and see. See, he doesn't argue with him. He just invites him to see Jesus. Just invites him. That's it. So my second point for you guys, really simple here. Introduce them to Jesus. That's it. I know it seems so simple, but at the same time, it seems like it works, man. I don't know. So I got a silly analogy for you guys, so just bear with me. Imagine that we are sitting together and I start telling you about my beautiful bride, Marla, and how kind she is, how wise she is, how she loves people so well, how much joy she brings to our home. Many of you that know her know that is true. And I go on and on, sharing stories about her and describing what she's like, but the whole time, she's sitting right next to me. Here's the strange part. I never introduce you to her. I keep on telling you about her, but I never allow you to say hello or never give her a chance to have her own voice in the conversation to see who she really is. And at some point you're like, this is downright odd, because descriptions only go so far. And eventually you want to meet her for yourself, right? That's the heart of Philip's invitation. Come and see. Meet him for yourself. But here's a challenge. So often I've been guilty of telling people all about Jesus. And then we get into this conversation and the objections come rolling in, and then I get sucked up into the objections, and I want to prove this and do that and get into all the arguments, and before I know it, I lose the person, and they never get to see Jesus for themselves. And that's the danger. See, why I love this story so much, guys, is because this story actually reflects my experience with relational evangelism that actually came to the place where I came to faith. See, my friend, he didn't argue me into this whole thing. He just invited me to read Matthew, to come face to face with Jesus. That's it. He saw that I was searching for meaning and to know about who God is, and he just asked me a question. Do you know who Jesus is? That's it. The thing is, I had all kinds of questions, like, imagine being an atheist and then a Buddhist, and then all of a sudden, this Jesus guy's on the scene. My mind was blowing up. I was like, world religions all over the. But during that whole thing is. What sort of caught me was that he had a curious. He was curious about what I believed and wanted to know more. There wasn't any judgment. He actually seemed like he genuinely cared about what I was thinking about and what I wanted to know. And he wasn't telling me that I was wrong and that he was right. He just gave me an invitation and he trusted Jesus to show up and meet me. See, here's the thing, guys. People don't need perfect explanations. They need an introduction. They need an introduction. He could have gone on and on about all the things that he believed, and I've just been uninterested eventually. But instead, he gave me an introduction to meet the person that could change everything. That's the thing. And what did I see? I met Jesus. Like, I met. Look, I got into Matthew, and my wife has heard me say this so many times, but when I went through Matthew, I saw Jesus for myself, and I was just like, who is this guy? What have I been missing the whole time? Like, I was intrigued by him. Like, the way he taught, the way he loved, the way that he. Like, he met people where they were at. Like, it was unreal. Like, oh, man. The way that he was, like, appalled with the religious authority at the time and the hypocrisy that they had, the injustice that was going on. He was like, I'm like, wait a minute. I see injustice. I see hypocrisy within Christians. Jesus doesn't like that. Oh, okay. There's something else going on here. Who is this Jesus? And I just like, man. And here's the other thing, is he saw people. He saw that they were hurting. He saw that they were sick, they were lame. He met them where they were at. When he showed up, and someone had died, Someone had died. He wept with them. He knew what he was gonna do, but he still. He felt the pain of the people and what they were going through, the human experience. He was familiar with what was going on with them, and that meant that he was familiar with me, too, and what was going on with me. And here's the important thing is, my friend, he gave me chance. He said, hey, do you want to follow Jesus along the way? He brought this up multiple times and over the course of 4ish months, I was like, not yet. I'm not ready. I still had questions. I wasn't ready for it. But it wasn't like he got discouraged in that moment. He actually said, do you want to keep on reading? You want to meet next week? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Let's do this. This is awesome. Because here's the thing is I was being loved by him. It was a safe place for me to process and to learn. And also, I was compelled by Jesus. Like, there's no one like him. I'd never met anyone like him, ever. And I was like, what do I do with this? I was confronted the reality of who he was and what that meant for my life going forward. And so, yeah, I. There's all these roadblocks that would come up, and he would. The interesting part is I'd ask him a question, and at times he'd be like, I don't really have an answer for that. Or his answer was just sort of like, eh, whatever. But it didn't stop things because, like, I was talking about with Europe, I was like, I was compelled. I wanted to go to that place. And Jesus was the thing that was. I really wanted to meet Him. And so these other roadblocks, they'd come along, but what kept me going was Him. And I think that's the beauty of this, is come and meet Jesus. They're not gonna go past those. No one's gonna go past the roadblocks unless they actually are compelled by him until they see the destination that they're going. At that point, when you take those things out of the way, all of a sudden it's like, oh, I can walk freely to this thing. And sometimes these roadblocks, they don't seem as big of a deal once you're, like, compelled by him at that point. That's the reality. In Luke 4:22, it says they were all speaking well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that came from. From his mouth. Yet they said, isn't this Joseph's son? People had questions about who he was, but they still. They were amazed by his gracious words. There's something that kept them interested in him in that place. The other thing is, I know during that time that my buddy, and then also some of his friends were praying for me. I know that they're praying for me. And I think that's something that we, as Christians, we can introduce, but also be praying because we can entrust those people that mean so much to us to Jesus, he's trustworthy. We know that the Holy Spirit's gonna pursue them as well. John 16, 7, 11 says, Nevertheless, I'm telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away. Because if I don't go away, the counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment. About sin, because they do not believe in me. About righteousness, because I'm going to the Father and you will no longer see me. And about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. We can trust that the Holy Spirit is going to convict people of their sin of unbelief. I think that happened started happening to me when I was in that car wreck. Long before, over a year before I actually met Jesus, there was a conviction of my unbelief that was happening. And slowly I was going through this process of coming to more and more belief in who he is as well. Like as I was in front of the Word, I started to see who he was and what that meant, the implications of it, that he was righteous and I wasn't. I started to see my sin more clearly in that place and how I needed a Savior. The Holy Spirit is faithful and will always point us as believers, but also others to Jesus, pointing them to Jesus always. And so while I was in front of Jesus and those people that we invite to be in front of Jesus to meet him, we know that he's gonna be faithful to show up in those places. Maybe not right away, not the way we always want, but he is faithful. Cause see, guys, there's no one like Him. There's none like Jesus. This whole morning as we're worshiping, I'm just like, oh, my gosh, there's no one like you, Lord. There is none like you. I just love the fact that he dined with sinners and tax collectors like he dined with me. He came for those that needed a doctor. And how much I needed a doctor, a spiritual doctor, in that moment of my life. And how we can trust him to do that with those loved ones in our lives as well. In short, I'll say that we can entrust them into the hands of the One who changes hearts and saves sinners. And that's exactly what Philip did. You know, he invited Nathaniel to follow Jesus. Okay, So we're going to move on to verse 47 through 49. It says, then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, here truly is an Israelite in Whom there is no deceit. How do you know me? Nathanael asked. Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Jesus answered. Rabbi Nathanael replied, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Imagine being Nathaniel for a second. You just, like, roll up to this guy that someone claimed to be the Messiah, and all of a sudden he's like, wait, wait, you know me. You saw me. Like, just think of how shocked you would be. I tried to, like, visualize this for a second, like, you know me. Like, I'd be shocked. But the reality is Jesus shows up like no ordinary person can. I think some of us have probably experienced that in here. I know I did. Others have seen wonders, and that was the place in which you came to faith. So sometimes it's through his Word, there's wonders that provoke you into those places. But Jesus shows up in all kinds of different places, like no ordinary person can. My third point for you this morning is Jesus sees us. And the thing I love about this is that he didn't just see where Nathanael was, he saw who Nathanael was. And isn't that what we all long for? Even though it's a little scary to be seen, to be known? Does God see me? Okay, well, that makes a big difference when he sees you, when you're known by him. Luke 5:21 22 says, Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, who is this man who speaks blasphemies, who can forgive sin but God alone? But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied to them, why are you thinking this in your hearts? See, Jesus sees beneath the surface. For Nathaniel, he saw his motives, he saw his genuineness in his investigation of who the Messiah was or who this claim of the Messiah was. What happened under the fig tree, no one knows. There's all kinds of speculation on what it was. Teachers would take their students and they'd do their prayers and they'd read the Scriptures underneath the fig tree at time. But whatever it was that happened that Nathaniel was doing underneath that fig tree, and Jesus saw it, he's like, there was a connection that was made there to the point where his profession afterwards was, was, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. Now, that might not mean much to everyone in the room right now, but for a young Jew in the first century, that would mean a whole lot, because those were both titles speaking of the Messiah, the King of Israel, and so from the Davidic line, and so for him, it was like, he made, like, two professions back to back. You think about in these verses right here, there's the Lamb of God, and then you have these. There's kings, Messiah professions that are happening here. These guys, their minds are blowing. They're seeing Jesus and they're seeing the Messiah, the one that they've all been waiting for since they were little kids, the ones that people for hundreds of years had been waiting for. This is the guy that they're coming to see in that moment. And here's the thing is seen being seen by God. It wasn't just Him. He sees us too. It says in Hebrews 4:13, no creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed through the eyes of him whom we must give an account. Here's the thing, guys. He's far more aware what's happening in our lives than we realize. He's far more aware. I just think of Karen's story right this morning. Like, where you at? There you are, Karen. Like, she'd been suffering with her knees for all those years. God was not unaware. There's just maybe. I don't know why he waited until that moment, but his moment, his timing were right. In it, he saw her. Nothing was hidden. He knew the pain that she was in. But he met her in that pain. And ultimately, with a big, huge crack, she was healed within 24 hours. It sounded like one afternoon and then one morning, which is amazing. See, his pursuit of each of us is. It's beautiful. He wants to know each of us. And that isn't just those that know Jesus. It's those that don't know as well. It says in 2 Peter that he desires that none should perish, but all should come to repentance. He's renewing all things, guys. And that includes people. Not just the world around us. [00:32:45] Speaker B: It's people. [00:32:49] Speaker A: So for the person that is exploring Jesus this morning, I want to say to you that he's not afraid of your doubts or your questions. He actually invites them. They don't sway him in a way that would deter him from pursuing you. And I'd say keep on pursuing him. Honestly, keep on pursuing him. Cause he's worthwhile. He's totally worth it. And for those of us that are enjoying Jesus, he hears the prayers that we have for each of those people that are in our lives that don't know him, and he's trustworthy with them. It says in Matthew 6:6. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is in Secret. And your father, who is in secret, will reward you. He hears us. So keep praying, keep seeking, and keep knocking. I just get so much confidence from reading those things and the reality of this scripture because it gives me confidence for evangelism that he's going before me. He wants this thing. I'm just joining him in this process. That's it. I'm inviting someone. And then I'm saying, okay, here. Here's my friend Jesus, man. He's amazing. He's changed my life completely. And then I entrust these people to him and just trust, like, his process with them is the best it could ever be. My process is flawed every single time. I already told you guys that I'll screw it up. But for them, with him, there's no better place for them to be. I read a question, quote, quote question. Yeah. This week, and it was from the grandson of Billy Graham, his name's Will Graham, and he said, we're all called to be evangelists. Who gets excited about that one? Okay, a couple. I see. I know a couple evangelists in this room. The hands I expected to go up went up. That's cool. We're all called to be evangelists. Are you willing to spend the time in prayer and the Word, so when those opportunities arise, you are ready? I think a couple of you guys are like, yeah, let's go. Let's do this. And many of us in the room are like, I'm not sure I'm ready for that. And we talked about multiple reasons for that. But this is why I'm sharing this message with you this morning, is because I want you guys to be ready to be able to share that invitation. I want each person in this room to be ready to share that invitation, because there's no greater person in most of our lives that if you know Jesus in this room, I'm gonna say that there's probably no one that's had greater impact on your life than he has. Right. Why would we not want to introduce him to everyone else in our lives? That's the question. But there's many things that keep us from doing that. Right? And so, guys, this might be the greatest gift you give someone. The guy that introduced me to Jesus, he. Man, I'm gonna get emotional. I can't stand this. He introduced me to the two most important people in my life. He introduced me to Jesus, and he introduced me to my wife and that guy. Today, unfortunately, I'm the one praying for him to know Jesus. He deconstructed his faith, but he still Introduced me to the greatest person I've ever met, two of the greatest people I've ever met. And so you never know what you might be doing unintentionally at times. So make that invitation. Anyways. Okay, I'm gonna ask the band to come up right now. There's another reason why I wanted to share this message with you guys this morning. The other reason is that we are going to be launching In February of 2026, what is called Alpha Temecula. You're like, what is Alpha Temecula? Yeah, it's a place which those people in your life that you're like, I want them to know Jesus. It's a safe place where you can introduce them to know Jesus and to say, hey, go to this place. So, Alpha, it's a series of dinner conversations where it's safe to explore life and faith in God. And they'll get to meet new friends in this small group that they'll be a part of. And the cool part is there's no judgment. There's no preaching. There's no pressure whatsoever. It's like a come and see, come and meet him, come to this small group thing and meet him. And what'll happen is these people could be from all different faith backgrounds, and we actually encourage that. We want to know what you think, we want to know what you believe. We want to know how maybe the content is impacting your heart. And we want you to meet people because there's no better place to explore these things than a small group to be with people that have questions, too, and to get to go on the journey together in it. So each night they'll be eating dinner. We'll watch a video that will be our content for the evening. We'll be invited into conversations, discussions about, like, that content and how you're responding to that content, and ultimately to be able to learn what other people are thinking about it. But the whole time, this content will be about the questions of life. Who are we? Why are we here? Who is Jesus? Who is the Father? Who is the Holy Spirit? It'll move along in a process and to introduce people to who Jesus is ultimately. And the beauty of it is, is, like, as people are processing that, the people that are hosting it, we're actually saying, hey, don't share what you believe. Just be there to help a conversation go on to discuss what is being shared in the video and then ultimately to be able to, like, help people along in that process. So that might seem sort of vague. So I have an image that I want to share with you guys here. This is from. I saw this about a couple months ago. It's from a pastor in la. His name's Gar Jones. And it was really helpful for me in understanding this process of what Alpha can do. And actually, when I look at it, it's like, this is my process too. I just never seen it in this way. I know you're like, bananas. You serious, Mike? But, you know, ripening takes place, and so I'm gonna. Over here, Nathaniel. I'd say Nathaniel was probably in this zone right here in our story today. He's probably more of a ripe banana at that point. He's like, I'm ready for the kingdom right now. I've been searching for this, for the Messiah for a long time. Me, on the other hand, I'm over here. That's where I started at. I was barely trusting a Christian at the time, but then through the way he loved me and listened to me, I was like, okay, I'll be more curious. And then I was open to change. Eventually, I was like, I want to know who this Jesus guy is. And then one day, you know, 20 something years ago, it happened. I came into the Kingdom of God, got baptized a week and a half later in the Pacific Ocean. Got to invite some friends. It was awesome. And some of those friends knew Jesus, sort of. They were like people that hadn't been walking with him. But in that, I got to be like, come along with me. Let's walk with him. So right off the bat, I was like, hey, come and hang out with him. This is awesome. And they get to walk with Jesus, too. So who is this for? Who's Alpha for? If you're a follower of Jesus, I'm gonna say it's not for you. It's not for you. Unless you, like, you wanted to, like, hang out and serve and help us out and all that kind of stuff. But it's not for you. This is for those that are curious who don't believe the Gospel, for those that maybe believe in another God, those that are deconstructing, for those that maybe have no concept whatsoever of who God is, that's the people that I would say, let's invite those people. Also, starting right off the bat, for the youth in the room, I'd love to have a youth alpha, but we're not gonna be able to start there. So we can be praying for that. So for right now, it's gonna be for adults for 18 and up. You know, God willing, in the future, we'll Be able to have a youth one. I think that'd be amazing to be able to do something like that. So for each person that is in here, I'm guessing there's someone that falls into one of those categories of where they are in this faith journey in your life. Right. And so I want to take the next couple minutes, I'm gonna take next couple minutes and I want you to pull out a piece of paper or your phone. We're gonna write down a couple names, we're gonna pray. I'm asking you to pray by yourself. What I'd like you to do is write down three people that are in your life that don't know him. Maybe they've walked away, maybe they are curious, but they're not walking with him. Maybe it's someone in your, someone that your kids go to school with and they're like, I, I know who Jesus is, but their life doesn't reflect that whatsoever. They're not walking with him, or it's someone that's your neighbor that they just don't know him at all. Just prayerfully ask the Lord, who are three people that I could be praying for right now? I'm gonna give you a minute. Three people that mean something to me and I'd like for them to know Jesus. All right, you guys got your three people? Yeah. See a couple heads nodding, maybe. Maybe. Okay. All right, so here's the next thing I'd like you to commit to praying for them daily. Praying that the Lord would woo their heart into the kingdom, that they would see Jesus more clearly, that they would desire to walk with him, like legitimately, guys, on a regular basis, praying for these people. As we get closer to February, ask the question and I'll remind you of this. Don't worry. Who, Lord, would you have me invite to Alpha? Who would you have me invite? Because here's the thing is it's going to be an invitation to come and meet him there, to come and see how great he is. I guarantee that for you guys. That's my promise to you, that if they come, they're gonna be confronted with who Jesus is and we can trust the Lord will do something with that. Now, they might not come. They might go through the whole Alpha and they're like, oh, I still got questions, I'm not ready. You know what? That's totally alright. Cause you know what it is? It's a faith journey. Let's just go through Alpha again. At that point, we can't control these things on when these things happen, but we can trust that he is faithful and he'll do something with it. I just want you guys to imagine with me for a second, like, we got over a hundred people in here right now. There's over 100 people in here. Imagine if all of us are praying for three people, 300 people. Imagine if we invite 200 people, 100 show up. Now I'm getting. I don't know if that will happen, but just imagine this for a second. Even if a third of the people that we're praying for, they come to know Jesus, Are you kidding me? The heavens will be celebrating. Just think of that. Like we'll be celebrating. It'd be absolutely amazing. And that's the heart here, is there's people in this town. Look, we are all made in God's image. We're all made to be in communion with Him. Everyone, everyone in this world is made for that. That's what we're made for, to glorify him, to know him, to be known by Him. There's people in the city that don't know Him. There's people in your lives that don't know Him. They're made for it. They long for this. Even though they don't know that they long for this, they long for it. And so we may be giving them the greatest gift, the greatest invitation that they ever get in their whole life. And maybe it's not you, maybe it's someone else, but we're praying and we're trusting God that he's gonna do something in that. And so that's the whole vision here, is we wanna see his kingdom come. We wanna see people come into his kingdom here in Temecula. That lives would be changed, that families would be changed, that generations of families would be changed. My friend gave me an invitation. My family has changed for, hopefully prayerfully, for generations now. My kids, they know Jesus. If I would have just been living the life I was still living, more than likely they wouldn't know Jesus. Probably wouldn't be my kids either. But that's the thing. So I want you guys to imagine this for a second. What could happen with the faithful prayers of this church for those that don't know the Lord and an invitation to meet Jesus. Just an invitation. Not asking you to have all the answers. Just come and see Jesus. Okay? I'm gonna pray for us. Pray for us. Tom's gonna come up and share a couple things in just a second. But, yeah, would you guys pray with me? Lord, you say that the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest, into his harvest. I pray for each person here. For those that don't know you, Lord, that they would experience your love and your presence in their lives. They come to enjoy you, maybe even today. And for those of us that are enjoying you, Lord, and learning to follow you. In the same way that Paul prayed that wherever we open our mouths, words may be given to us so that we will fearlessly make known the mysteries of the gospel for which we are ambassadors. Praying that we may declare fearlessly, as we should, that, Lord, that we would make much of you. Because there's no one like you. Not one. You're beautiful, Jesus. There's no one like you. I thank you that. That with one invitation in my life, I was changed from that point on. I thank you that you do that every single day. There's lives that are changed every single day by you. So that I ask, Lord, that you would give courage, that you'd put a burden on the people of this church's heart. For the lost in our city, for the lives to come to know you, to come to desire to walk with you. Yeah, Lord, that there would be a burden that we couldn't help but share. The greatest news that's ever been shared with us, with others, not in a way that's cringy, but in a way that is inviting, that people are heard and seen and loved. Just an invitation, Lord. I thank you. Thank you, Jesus. I pray this in your name. Amen. All right, buddy. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Well done. Michael, I'm not going to be long, but I am going to talk to you for just a second before we open up the space for ministry. I want you to raise your hand, like, high, and don't raise your hand if this doesn't apply. And I don't want you to feel weird. I'm gonna do something kind of weird, so brace yourself. But listen to me, like, seriously, let's raise your hand if Jesus has changed your life. Beautiful. Okay, you can put your hand down. If you want to follow him, if you want to be like Jesus, which is the essence of Christianity. It is impossible to be like Jesus without consistently and regularly practicing evangelism, and not just by yourself. This church exists. The reason why God birthed this church is so that men and women, boys and girls, would grow in spiritual maturity. We'd become more faithful disciples, followers of Jesus. And we can't be like Jesus if we don't care about the things that Jesus cares about. Do you know what Jesus Cares about a lot. He cares about people. So much so that he would willingly lay his life down for you and for me. But not just for you and for me. If our church is gonna be healthy, it means that we're gonna be. We're gonna continue to grow as disciples of Jesus. If you want to be a disciple, if you want to be a follower of Jesus, evangelism's not an optional thing. It's not like. Like, Mike already described all this. I'm not gonna preach to you like he did, but it's not optional for us. He said something in his message that has been ringing in my ears all week. People don't need an expert explanation. They just need an invitation. The reason why our church is launching Alpha is it's a strategy. It's a strategy for people. And part of the strategy isn't just for them outside of these walls. It's for you. Because if you're going to be a healthy follower of Jesus, you must engage in the thing with which Jesus is engaging in, namely evangelism. Now, that can be intimidating. That can be hard. But the reason why we're launching this, we've been praying about this for years, guys. This is not just like a spur of the moment thing. This is years and years of prayer. We've tried all sorts of strategies to help our church grow in collaborative evangelism. Having you guys be able to have opportunities to collaborate together, to pursue people that you know and love, to see them come to an understanding and a relationship with Jesus. Not to, like, add numbers to our church or our brand or something silly like that. [00:53:17] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. [00:53:18] Speaker B: To increase the population of heaven. To increase the population of people who have had a saving understanding of who God is and like a relationship with Him. That's the goal here. And so for us to be able to practice this as a church, we need a strategy to do so together. That's what Alpha provides. And so what we're putting in front of you this morning is an opportunity to grow in your discipleship to Jesus. How are you gonna do that? Two things. Invitations and prayer. Super simple. You don't have to have all the answers, you don't have to have all the ways to respond to the people's criticisms of what you believe or what they've seen in Christianity that's been harmful or negative. It's just a shared burden for people in your life that you love who haven't tasted and seen the goodness and grace of God and been transformed by it. And then together, prayerfully, Going, God, please reveal yourself to my loved ones. Please reveal yourself to my neighbor, to my coworker, to my cousin, to my brother, whoever it is. Prayer in a simple invitation. There's a strategy that our church is going to be launching in February of a very, very, very safe and intentional place for people to explore. And we didn't come up with this. Many of you are familiar with Alpha Alpha's been millions of people. Millions of people across the globe have been introduced to Jesus in a way that has saved their sou through this strategy. It's highly contextualized. We can contextualize it for this place and these people at this time. Mike's captaining this. He's going to be building a team to build this out. But we want to put this in front of you and say, guys, if we're going to be consistently growing in our discipleship to Jesus, we can't outsource evangelism. You, as a follower of Jesus, you can't outsource this. And I know I'm going to say something that sounds intense and I'm going to get out of the way, but listen to me. If the church doesn't tell people about Jesus, people won't hear about Jesus. And if people don't hear about Jesus, do you know what that means? It means eternity separated from him. It means eternal damnation. It means death. The stakes are high, but the pressure's off. Because guess what? You and I don't save anybody, do we? We participate with the risen Savior and the work and the desire that he has for people. Will you stand with me? If you're able. God's doing something with us this year, guys. Mark my words, 2026 is gonna be an incredible year. The reason I'm convinced of that is because I can feel it in every fiber of my being. God's doing something with our church. And what he's doing is he's molding us more and more into his likeness. He's making like, literally, we're going to continue to become more like him. And the results of that, the ramifications of that, the ripple effects of that is an increase of his kingdom in the lives of the people around us, and us as well. It's a comprehensive saving. It's a comprehensive redeeming. It's a comprehensive salvation that plays itself out in real time. So here's what I want to do. If you're on the prayer team this morning, would you come forward? The band's gonna minister. We're going to create space in here. And here's what we're gonna do. If Jesus has saved you, man, you have so much reason to praise him with your lips, to sing his, to literally sing his praises. We're gonna give you an opportunity to do that. But if you're here and God's already begin to share his burden with you, for somebody in your life, maybe it's somebody in your household, man, I'm going to echo what Mike said. What if we just prayed for them? What if we prayed that God would reveal himself to them in ways that met the deepest longings in their soul, and then we just intentionally invited them? That's your recipe, friends. It's very simple invitation and prayer. Everybody can do that. Everybody can do that. If God shared his burden with you, with somebody, come forward, have Vinny or Lindsay or Scott or Heidi pray, join you in praying for them, that God would reveal himself to them. I'm gonna pray for us really quickly and then wait for about 10 minutes or so, 12 minutes. We're gonna fill the room with praises. We're gonna pray for people that God would reveal himself to them. And if you're here by chance. And you haven't had the revelation that there's nobody like Jesus, that he's the lover of your soul and he desires you and he has a plan for your life, you know what? I'm gonna pray for you right now, Father. I pray for every heart in this room. I pray that every single one of us, whether we've been following you for decades or whether we're just kind of open, exploring. Holy Spirit, I'm asking you right now, for every one of us, for a clearer revelation of Jesus. And I'm asking that for everybody in this room who genuinely wants to follow you and not just kind of, like, utilize you for the blessings that you can give us, but for people who want to follow you in response to you laying your life down and redeeming us. I pray for everyone and anyone open that you would share your burden with us. We don't just want to be your followers. We want to be your friends. We want to care about the things that you care about. People. We want to desire the things that you desire. We want your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so, Father, would you share your burden with us? And I pray and ask for opportunities as people are prayed over and people are invited to come and see. Just come and see Jesus. Let me just introduce you to Jesus. I pray for parties. I pray for celebrations together where. Where we can literally give ourselves over to deep joy and celebration in seeing wayward sons and daughters brought home to your kingdom. Share your burden with us, we pray. It's in your holy and beautiful name, Jesus, and all God's people said together. Amen. All right, for the next 10 or so minutes, you can come forward for prayer, you can fill this room with praises, and then we'll close here in just a bit. Okay, guys? Love you very much.