Disciples at Work | Week Five

What if the problem with “cultural Christianity” is not that people don’t care, but that many were never discipled into maturity?

In the final week of Disciples at Work, Pastor Nate Schaidt challenges us to rethink spiritual growth through Hebrews 5–6. Instead of shaming people for being stuck, this message asks what it looks like for the church to raise up spiritual mothers and fathers who help others follow Jesus where they live, work, and play.

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Hi everyone, thanks so much for tuning in to the Downtown Community Church podcast. My name is Delaney, and I have the honor and the privilege of serving here at DCC as the Director of Operations. Thank you so much for listening in on this sermon from Nate Shait to close out our Disciples at Work series. We have some exciting things going on in the life of our church that we'd love for you to know about. We just this Sunday, when this podcast was recorded, launched our summer community groups. So if you are in Talhasse, if you are a part of our church family or you are listening and looking to get involved in community, we would love to have you. Visit our website at downtowncommunitychurch.com. Head over to the Make Disciples tab and click on groups to view all of the groups that we have got meeting throughout the week this summer. We believe that inspiration happens in rows on Sunday mornings, but sustained life change happens when you are sitting in circles with your community group. We love to get you involved in those. And it is if you're listening to this podcast and that means it's officially June, which means that it is vacation Bible school month, we are so excited to offer this weeklong program for all of the kids at DCC and in Tallahassee to come and join us. So if you have got a child or you know a child that is rising kindergarten through rising sixth grade, we would love to have them June 14th through the 18th from 5.30 p.m. to 8 p.m., joining us for vacation Bible school as we go on a kingdom quest to discover all of the wonderful things about God's kingdom. We would love to have you and you can again visit our website at downtowncommunitychurch.com for more information. And if you call DCC home, if you want to support the ministry that we do here at DCC financially to help us to love God, make disciples, and be great neighbors, then you can do that online or you can do that through our Venmo at DCCTallahassee. This is something that we love getting to do together as an act of worship as a church family to give back to God what He has so generously given to us. So thank you for tuning in for these announcements. And now please enjoy the sermon from Pastor Nate Chait. Good morning, church. Please remain standing for today's reading. Hebrews 5.11 through 6.12. About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, and those who have their powers of discernment, trained by the constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown in his name in serving the saints as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. You baby seated kids, you've dismissed the kids' hallway. Good morning, good morning. Hello. Hey kids. Hey, baby girl. That's my kid, Adelie, always carrying someone. There she is. Good morning. I'm Nate Shade, one of the pastors here on staff. We are finishing up Disciples at Work. And this is kind of one of those sermons, gonna be a little interesting, I think. So I'm gonna ask you all to kind of be with me as we try to wrap this up. We're gonna go back and try to recap some, and then we're gonna have a little bit of a challenge here at the end. Obviously, Hebrews 5 and 6, they're the end of 5, the beginning of 6. If you want your Bibles open, you can have that uh ready for you. Um But Ben has been trying to help us walk through and examine what this looks like to be uh to be a disciple to at work, to have the same passion and desire as the missionary overseas, right, that is spending all their time seeking to save the lost and also to build up and equip the saints, but to be doing that while you have a 40-hour work week with full benefits here in America, right? And so that's what we've been diving into of what this kind of looks like. Um, Colossians 3.23, I believe uh the Bible gives us instruction on what that looks like and how we do these things. Um we see here, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. Uh 1 Corinthians 10.31 also says, so whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. And so today, as we go through uh what this looks like, this is how you are a disciple, this is why you are a disciple, and it's not just at work, it's through everything, through your entire life. Um, but what we're looking at today as we're going through the a little bit of the how, um, I want to ask you all to be brutally honest with yourselves. This is, again, this is gonna be one of those sermons, I'm sorry. Um, but I want you to be brutally honest with yourselves. I want you to be brutally honest before God and your own heart and just kind of asking yourself through some questions. And the reason why I want this to happen now is as I go through this sermon, I'm already very offensive. Um, for those anybody that knows me, uh, this will offend you if you do not put yourself in the right place in the sermon. I'm just gonna let you know. Yeah, good luck. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Um, but there's just this moment. Like, if you do not believe in God, if if you're not, if you walk in here, you're skeptical, you don't understand what this whole Jesus thing is, that's okay. Just know that as I'm reading, and as we go through the sermon. Understand that and accept where you are in that journey. If you are a believer who has accepted Jesus as Savior, anytime, let's say three years and less, you are what the scriptures would define as an infant, like a child, a toddler in Christ. It's not a bad thing, it's just a reality, right? You wouldn't look at a little baby that came out and be like, oh, I can't believe you're calling that an infant, right? No, it's just and and the infancy thing, it's not just this. I mean, you can we have kids in our youth group that are discipling people. I was an infant when I was a senior in high school, right? It just comes with when you find Christ to be Lord. If you are, if you've been walking with Jesus for some time now, right, but you've never made a disciple. That's where the scriptures are kind of talking about this one where maybe you should be a teacher by now, but you're not. And maybe milk is needed again instead of solid food. I just need you to own it. Walk into it, right? Just know that that's where you are. And if you're the person who is making disciples that has been light in dark places, that has made disciples where you live, work, and play, I just want you to be able to accept where you're at and understand what is being required of you in the sermon. And so uh with that, I want us to pray and allow God to just kind of speak to us as we get into this section of scripture. Lord, we do come before you. Um I ask God that my friends here will open their hearts. And I pray with that uh surrender, with that posture before you, that your Holy Spirit would fill this room. I pray, God, that you as the comforter, that you would be the one that speaks. Nobody cares to hear just Nate talking, but they do want to hear from you. So, God, allow your scriptures, allow the word of God, allow your sword of the spirit to be what pierces our hearts today. I pray that my friends in this room would recognize where they are in this journey with you, and that you call them, you love them, and you want them to be mature. You never leave anyone where you found them, and we are grateful for that. So, God, comfort us today and allow us to take the steps towards maturity that will honor your kingdom and will proclaim your message, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, it's a good way to start. Here we go. So uh so if you're here today and you are without work, uh maybe you're a student uh also that's on summer break, um, you still are called to make disciples. It is something that is called upon everybody, whether you live, work, or play, wherever you are, make disciples. Jesus gave us that command, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them what I have commanded you, and I will be with you to the end of the age. And in Acts 1.8, we see the Holy Spirit show up. Uh or Acts 2, we see the Holy Spirit show up, but in Acts 1.8, Jesus is telling the people that the Holy Spirit will come upon you and will give you power to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and to the ends of the earth. And so no matter what you do, as we saw in those first two scripture verses, do it to the glory of God. But right now we are discussing work and being a disciple at work. Ben mentioned that the first step of being a disciple at work is to be a disciple. Sounds kind of duh, but um there's a little bit of a trick to this. So here at DCC, we are slowly trying to move into this point of where we no longer use the word volunteer. There's a reason for that. Um Jesus, you learn to read the scriptures. You fast, you pray, you sabbath, you give generously, you visit the sick, you visit those in prison. There's a lot of things that Jesus just did and calls us to do as we walk with him. And those are disciples. And here at DCC, we are called to love God, make disciples, and be great neighbors. But we say nothing about volunteers. Now, if you're a volunteer, you could show up at Doat Campbell Stadium and help park cars. They might give you a cool t-shirt, and uh, but you don't have to read the Bible to do that. You don't have to pray. Fasting is not required. The things that a disciple of Jesus would have to do are not required for you to volunteer. You simply have to show up. But if you've met some of the men that you've seen out here and the women that we've had that have had those little jackets on that are out here helping you find a place to park when you pull up to the church, they're not just volunteers. They are serving, but they also read their scriptures. They also pray. And if you were to ask any of them on your way out or on your way in to pray for you, they would do that. You might not get that at Doak Campbell Stadium. And so the people that are here, that are serving, that are with our kids, that are making coffee, that are standing at the doors, these are disciples. They are followers of Jesus. And yes, generosity is a part of that, or sorry, serving is a part of that, but that's not all they do. And so we seek to make disciples. You will see in all these different things that disciples do, there are people in this world that will take some of those characteristics and just see them as good quality, smart things to do. Which is why disciples have to look different. Walking with Jesus has to look different. Because a person could have a generous heart. They give to St. Jude's, they give to goodwill, they have a generosity about them. Well, they're not disciples of Jesus. You have people that um they practice intermittent fasting, not a disciple of Jesus. You have various things that people will take, these small characteristics, these ways of living and the things that's that we saw Jesus do. But the individual tasks do not make you a disciple, it is following and walking in the path of Christ that does this. And so, for here at DCC, we seek to make disciples. And so those are the kind of some of the characteristics, some of the following of Jesus that makes you hopefully answer yes when you ask, Are you a disciple? Step two was to, if you see a need, you meet a need. Sorry, I skipped all the things that Ben talked about in the first one. Identify the idols. I think we talked about if you've been with us for a while. If you haven't, I'll just go through this real quick. Identifying the idols at your work, the things that your work pretty much bows down to. Where are the problems that are at your work? And then where do I find favor? And so as you ask yourself, am I a disciple? Can you ask answer those three questions? Step two, meet and see a need, me to need. See a need, me to need. And there's this element of like, hopefully, throughout this last week, that you have been able to see different places at your work where there are needs that need to be met, and hopefully you've entered into those. Disciples look for opportunities to show how God has changed their lives. And so they don't wait to be asked to do something. They, out of this love for God, they see a need and they start to enter into that. So instead of waiting to be asked or being told to do something, when you do something out of the kindness and the love of your heart, you're showing the love of Christ and you can point towards Him. It means that you have love and not just a desire for projects. Step three, which we are getting into today, a disciple at work is to sow righteousness. In order to reap a harvest, you first have to sow seeds. So it went when you're at work, you have to sow what you will produce as a crop. And the question you have to ask is, what am I sowing? Galatians 5 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit, everybody know the song, go with it. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Yeah, there we go. All of our VBSers out here. Um, but here's an interesting thing. So, like I was about three weeks ago, I was going through Galatians, where you'll find those uh scriptures, and as I was praying about those things, I felt like God was telling me, Nate, you're 0 for 9. Wow, this is your pastor, ladies and gentlemen. This is your pastor. So I sat in that for a moment and just spending some time with God. What one is how did I get here? And two, what do I gotta do to fix this? Because this doesn't feel right. And he gave me these answers. He kind of let me know. Nate, as long as you're in charge and you're doing the things uh at your work, the tasks, I don't have to. So it was pretty much, Nate, if you surrender to me and allow me to do these things, then I can produce fruit. And it was wild as I began to once surrender, asking God to show me direction, show me the way that you want me, the way that you want me to act and move and do. Patience started showing up again. Joy returned. All these different fruits that he had. As I started being more patient with the people that I'm serving, as the joy started to return, all of a sudden I had a real, authentic love for them again. Which led to all the others showing up. The self-control, the faithfulness, like all those different things where times when I just wanted to lay in bed and not go to work started to go away. So this is because of the Spirit guiding us that we're able to sow the seeds of righteousness. There are parts of the scriptures that kind of mention some of this. Proverbs 11, 18 mentions this the wicked earns deceptive wages, but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward. Another verse is Hosea 10, 12. Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and reign righteousness upon you. Now you may ask what that looks like. What does it look like to sow righteousness in my workplace? And that is that is a great question that you are going to hate the Nate answer for. I promise you that one, right? Only you will truly know. Thanks, Nate. Love that. Only you will truly know. Here's the thing. I can give you some ideas, and we will. I will today. I'll give you some ideas, but you're the only one that knows the kids that you take care of or care for. Only you know the other students on your team or in your classroom. Only you know the different people that you, the co-workers, the the crew that you're in charge of, the parents at your house, or the boss that you answer to. You're the only one that knows. So that first step of identifying the idols, seeing the problems, and understanding where you have favor, you have to have those in line in order to be able to do this. I can give you ideas, but if I give you ideas and that has nothing to do with your workplace, you're just gonna look weird. Don't be offended. I'm just trying to just hear me out. Well, you've got to figure out what is good to happen at your work. Where can you sow seeds of righteousness? And we're gonna get into some of that. What I want to start off with asking each other, right? Just kind of going through your heart is are you spending time with Jesus and following him so closely that you're covered in his dust? The reason why I ask this is because the Apostle Paul mentions in Corinthians, be imitators of me as I follow Christ. Be imitators of me as I follow Christ. So if you see these places in your work, right, you know the situations, you know where there's problems, you know that you can enter into it, you have to be following Jesus first. Paul obviously was following Jesus, otherwise, he would have said, imitate Jesus. Because I'm not, right? I mean, that's one of those things. Like, I need you to be brutally honest with yourself. Are you following him? Are you walking? So closely with Jesus that you're covered in his dust. Because for a lot of us, and I know this was true for me, there was no one to imitate. You were led, you were told about Jesus, that he was the Christ, you believed, and there was this excitement. And then you were told, now follow Christ. Here's a bracelet, WWJ D. That should fix it all. But it doesn't. We hit this point in time in the church where we just stopped creating these mothers and fathers of the faith that would lead the infants. So we created these infants in Christ and we had them grow up on their own with a ton of questions. Questions like, do I have to stop drinking or smoking or sleeping with my girlfriend? Or I like racing cars. Or I cuss a little bit. Do I have to fix that? So we had a bunch of questions, but very little answers. And unfortunately, most of us know this, just from real life. Infants that walk around without having people lead them, the world and the culture will guide them. And so here, we live in a time where I guess one of the biggest problems is we have failed to be able to tell people what actual sin is, and we've allowed culture to define it. So I want to give you a couple examples because when I became a Christian, I got a list of don'ts. For instance, don't smoke. Don't smoke. I got an image. Gage has got me. You got me. You got me. There he is. There he is. Anybody know who this is? This is J.R.R. Tolkien, the writer, Christian author of The Lord of the Rings. Pipe in hand. Don't smoke, it's a sin. Understand my confusion. I was told, don't drink. Jesus turned water into grape juice, evidently. Right? And for some reason the people were like, oh, you brought out the bad grape juice first, but most people, I mean, come on, man. So we have a picture. This is again Tolkien. And none other than C.S. Lewis, the Christian author of Mere Christianity. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Narnia series. Screw tape letters. Sitting in a tavern together, having a beer. Don't dance. Have you seen Footloose? Don't dance. And then I open up the scriptures and we see David dancing before the Lord. That might be a little generous to be honest with. There it is. So the culture, the culture will tell you here are some things that are not okay. And this is sin. Don't do them. Another one that I was told, you can't get tattoos. You're desecrating God's temple. Okay. Tattoos are bad. And then you read in Revelation, Jesus shows up with a thigh tattoo. I didn't write this. I'm just reading it. So you get this element where if we start allowing culture to define what sin is instead of the scriptures, we might create this Christianity that is culturally acceptable, but where sinners do not feel safe to enter. The alcoholic and the addict will find more community and more safety at an AA meeting than they will the church. The person that's tatted up. My sister came here, tattoos all over her body, and was worried about what she was wearing because it wasn't covering enough of it. The people should not walk into here more afraid to be judged by you than the God that will judge them and can redeem them. So we have to move away from this. We have to move away from this. Now, look, don't take this out of contact. Don't you dare show up at your family reunion, right, with a face tattoo and say, my pastor said it was alright. You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. Now, can some of these things be harmful? Absolutely. Absolutely they can, but not a single one of them makes you a sinner. You are a sinner. That's why you sin. Sin doesn't make you a sinner. You're a sinner, and that's why you sin. And that's why we need a savior. So, instead, we go to God's Word. We have the Ten Commandments. In Exodus, you see the Ten Commandments show up, and they give you a great list of what it looks like to love God and to love others. And it was this mirror, this idea, this is what God expects of us, and we can't live up to it. We won't. You look at it and you recognize I've already failed. And I need help. And that's why it points to the Redeemer. So when you get, if you ever go into Romans 7, you read that, if you're a newer believer in the faith or you're not a believer at all, I would suggest, look at Romans 7. It will talk about what this is the commandments, the law, and what it looks like to walk in that. To follow Christ, to realize that the law is good, but it lets us know that we are not. But it also lets us know that he is good. And because of his sacrifice on the cross for us, we are redeemed. So we ask who is here to guide us, and usually the answer is nobody. And so we guess our way through and we stumble and we fall like an infant trying to learn for the first time. Learning how to walk. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is unfortunate. The church has begun to make things about the individual instead of the collective body of believers. And because of this, we stopped making those spiritual mothers and fathers. But the church is slowly repenting, and we're working on that. Now, for those of you that would consider yourselves infants in this room, all right? There are things, amazing things in this word, in the scriptures, that God has pointed out for you. He wants you to know them, he wants you to learn them. And I don't want, here's the thing, do not feel ashamed to be an infant in Christ. You should feel accepted and loved. God has redeemed your heart and he wants you to move from where you are into maturity. There is no need for shame there. But there are things that you can learn. Hebrews 5 and 6. The scriptures that we got into this morning. There are basic principles that you can learn. The oracles of God. The scriptures. You read through Genesis, you'll see the creation. You'll see the fall. You'll learn what the consequences of the fall were. You get into Exodus, you start to see the law, the Ten Commandments. What does it look like to live and work for Him? You'll recognize your need for redemption. And as you get into the old, the New Testament, you'll start to see how Jesus walked this out and lived it so that we could as well. Repentance from dead works. This is the opportunity to look at the things that you do and start to ask: Is what I'm doing bringing the kingdom of God here on earth? And if the answer is no, repent. Simple. Faith towards God. This is stepping out, taking him at his word. The things that he says are true. And if they're true about me, that means I can walk in them. Instructions about washings. This is kind of interesting. It's kind of fun. This is the idea of either pouring water on your hands before a meal, as you say, a blessing, or it would be baptism. Either way, one, we don't really do too much anymore. We do it at our house over a Sabbath. But it's something that I think is it's not cultural here, but it would be helpful. Because who doesn't love a good baptism? If you've been here for baptism, let me tell you, brother. That's a thing. That's a thing. We have one uh like what a month ago. And uh beautiful watching these kids up here and the adults just sharing what God has done and relating themselves with Christ. So there's baptism, but there's also this idea that when you know we see we do the prayers, right? Hey, do you pray? I'll pray before every meal. Right? And so it's just God, you know, God is good, God is nice, let us thank Him for this rice and all those types of things. And and so we stand there, but there was this element in the in the in this type of scriptures where they would, before their meal, they're sitting there, and it's not washing to be clean, but it was this element of if God is really providing for my daily meal, right? If he is giving my daily bread and this is my food, he is also daily cleansing me. And they would pour water over their hands, and then they would sit and dine. And it was just this part of thanking him for cleansing them and providing for them. And it's something that we could do. Laying on of hands. This is where we would dedicate someone in leadership, or we would pray for those in need. It's something that we should be doing more here, and we will be doing more here. We're gonna do some of that today. Stay tuned to the end. No spoiler alerts yet. No spoiler alerts. Um, but also resurrection of the dead. Now, we do this really good at Easter. Resurrection of the dead. Ah! It's Easter time, right? So good. But here's the thing: for the new believer, it happened the moment you believed. You are a new creation in Christ. The old has gone and the new has come. And then eternal judgment. The eternal judgment has us excited about what's coming at the end, but it also should give us an urgency to tell those that don't know before the end comes. And so, these are things that for the new believer, great stuff to learn, great stuff to know. All these things should be in your minds and in your hearts if you're a new follower. You should learn how to apply these and create this firm foundation as you move towards maturity. Now, for those that you are no longer infants, or at least you shouldn't be, there are things that are needed from you. You should be able to see all those things that we had up, and you should be able to teach and discern those things and sow seeds of righteousness. The mature believer sows seeds of righteousness. Now, you may ask yourself, buckle up. I'm gonna sound so mean here. You might ask, what does it mean to be a mature believer? Am I a mature believer? Is there a time that I have to be following Jesus when I'm a mature believer? I would answer that question with a question. Do you need fed? Do you show up for an hour on Sunday to get fed? Because babies need fed. Sorry. Anyway. Someone that's mature knows how to find their own food. And so all the things that we just talked about earlier, like as you do these things, as you dive into the scriptures, as you pray, as you follow Jesus, you start moving towards this maturity. It's a beginning, it's a great stage to be in. But the spiritual mature use the time that they have with Jesus in order to guide them and how to make areas, how to get into areas of influence where they live, work, and play. They don't sit back and watch people struggle. They know that they are meant to equip others. Hebrews 5.14, we were in this scripture earlier. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. It's constant practice. It's constant practice. There is this wholeness about them. We're not looking for perfection. Please hear that. We are not looking for perfection. But we're reaching a place of responsibility and spiritual wholeness. It's not just intellectual knowledge, there is this spiritual perception of this maturity. It has you ready at all times for imminent action. When you see a toddler walking towards a fire, a hot stove, or an open outlet, do you just go, well, they're going to have to learn on their own? Of course not. Of course not. For the mature believer, you should not see someone walking into harm's way and just allow it to happen. Now, hear me out. I know a lot of people, I don't want to sound judgmental. I get that. I think we say that often because we have been told a bunch of lies on what discipleship looks like. This is what I mean. If you want, you can get into Matthew. Matthew 5 and 6, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking. Matthew 6 starts with this. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you that they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. We use these verses to do in secret all the things that Jesus commands us to do, to make disciples. Or we'll use this verse, these sections of scripture to not do anything because I don't want to do it with the wrong motives. What's interesting is before this came, we have chapter five, where Jesus is also speaking. Chapter five, verses fourteen through sixteen. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Now, is Jesus contradicting himself? Not at all. Look, he doesn't want you to be Mr. Beast out there making content on how much money you give away. Alright? That's not what he's looking for. But how do you make disciples if you never show anybody what you do? How do you give? How do you pray? How do you fast? How do you sabbath? How do you serve? The bigger question is, who sees you when you do those things? If the answer is nobody, then you don't make disciples. And that means you're not a disciple. Disciples make disciples that make disciples. There are many people that are out there stuck living as infants because they lack, because we have adults that lack the confidence to talk and speak into their lives. You need to sow seeds of righteousness. So here's what some of that looks like. Where you go to work, where you go to school, there are people that are new believers that are scared and alone. They shouldn't have to find you. You should find them. You need to be the one to get them, gather them, and encourage them. Start a Bible study at work. Meet with them at the beginning of the day and pray over the schedule. Pray before your practice, before the meeting, the task, or the job that you have. Another way, you don't have to put out a swear jar so that everybody, you know, if you say a bad word, you gotta put a quarter in the jar. You don't have to do that. But you could start a word of the day. Just pick any word, put it out there for people to start learning and watch them change the way that they speak and talk and interact around your workplace. As they do that, they might come to you for advice on things, which you can share with them the word of God. And soon the word of the day becomes also gets filled with the verse of the day. Some of you have issues at work with people going to lunch. Maybe the cost or the atmosphere is ruining some of their home lives. Speak into that from a place of concern and experience. Sow seeds of righteousness. Another one, and this is free. Be positive. Doesn't cost you a thing. Be positive. Positivity can go a long way when you allow yourself to let your light shine before men so that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. I feel like if most of us would stop long enough to see that person at work who says that they're a Christian, but the things that they do don't look like a Christian at all. If we were to see that person as being an infant believer that needs to be led, I think we would approach them with a little more love and care. But we have to be following Jesus. We have to be able to say, follow me as I follow Christ. So we walk as Jesus walked. We are his disciples, looking for the needs so that we can enter into them. And now we sow seeds of righteousness in our workplace. We have to distinguish good from evil through constant practice. In order to do this, we bring to God all the things that we've learned so far, and we exercise our powers of discernment. We've identified the idols at work, the needs, and where we can have favor. And now we've seen areas that are issues, and we've started to provide some light in those places. And now what I want to do is I want to say a prayer. I'd ask you to bow your heart, your head in this moment. Allow this prayer to be yours as we make disciples at work. Master, you have put me in this position to glorify your name and to advance your kingdom. I want to sow seeds of righteousness and see your fruit spring up in my place of work so that I can give you the glory and honor and praise. Holy Spirit, speak to me and guide me toward the places you wish me to sow. Also, show me what your righteousness looks like in this specific environment and comfort me as I take steps of faith for you. Amen. So um I'm up here. Uh we are gonna do um one thing uh before we end uh in song. Um, the summertime for us, as you know, our church uh is somewhat of ascending season uh for us. Um part of what we know is as we Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. That means some people are going therefore. And one of the people who has been an amazing blessing to our church, our staff over the last couple years, and the college campuses as a whole is my main man Danny. Danny, will you come up and come up here? So Danny's gonna say a few words. But Danny has an incredible opportunity to go and to spread his influence for Jesus across a lot of different places and spaces to go and make disciples. And so we're we're thrilled and excited about that. In a second, we're gonna pray as a church family for and with Danny. But first I want to give Danny an opportunity just to say a couple words. He was just had had a has a heart to say. Um just thank you and whatever you got. Thank you, Pastor. Um yeah, it might be a surprise to some people. Um and I do want to say that I didn't even know that this was gonna happen about two months ago. Um, and over the sequence of just a couple events, um the Lord opened up an opportunity for me to go to Nashville. And so that's where I'll be. And if you have any questions as to what that looks like or just that process, I'd love to answer that. But before I left, um, I told Pastor Ben that I wanted to talk to the church and talk to the congregation. Um because I've been here for a couple years now, and I know that when people leave, there's always this question of why did they leave, or what was the reason, or we never heard why. And so I want to tell you that it's not out of frustration. You can hear it from my mouth. It's not out of any issue, it's not anything negative. It's a positive thing the Lord is doing in my life, and I'm gonna miss this place a lot. I'm gonna miss this place very much. I came in as a I came in as a freshman, doe dyed and just looking for an opportunity in this place, embrace me like a family. These pastors are incredible. If you let them pass through you, they will. If you come to them, they will meet you where you're at. And that's a rare thing to find. I came to them with an opportunity, and it was very easy for them to say, no, we need you here. No, you can't leave. No, we don't think it's right. And they looked at me and they said, We're team Danny. We want you to do what's best for you and for the kingdom of God. And that's rare to find men like this. And so I encourage you as a church to protect them, to uplift them, to hold them accountable, but to meet them. They want to talk to you. Please meet them. Our staff is incredible. I love that guy works so hard and y'all don't understand. Grace, Nicole, Delaney, Gage, every person on staff loves you guys so much and give them the opportunity to love you guys. Help them. Like Pastor Nate said, meet a need, find a need, meet a need, be a disciple. Don't come here and let three years, four months, whatever the time you have left here, or ever, if you don't know how much time you have left here, don't let it just pass by. But I promise you, if you come in here with open hands, your hands will be filled with things that will glorify God, and it'll be easy. It won't be hard. This place doesn't make it hard to be a disciple of Jesus. I know that from my own life. And so I care about this church. I will be praying for this church. I ask that you guys be praying for me, but I want to encourage each and every one of you, please, please help this church move forward. I believe in the direction of this church. I do hear it from me. I believe where this church is going. I have not seen a church that loves, takes care, and meets the needs of the homeless and the college student and the parent as much as this church does. And if there's something that's missing out here, be the change. Because they will let you. And so I love you guys. I thank you for all your support. I thank you for every single one of you. If we haven't had the chance to meet, go to the first-time guest. But nonetheless, I thank you guys, and I love you guys very much. Thank you. So I'll be I'll be really brief with this. Um, on Wednesday, we went around as a staff and said one thing that we all appreciated kind of about Danny. And I actually just drove in. I was as I walked in the back, I was telling Josh Spargo, my back is killing me. Because for the last two days, I've slept on the pullout couch uh up somewhere in Georgia. As we have uh nine dads and about 12 kids uh age 7 to 11 um who are all learning what it means to look like and be a disciple of Jesus. And one of the most beautiful things has been uh not just watching Danny, but watching his family. There's a a verse. I'm trying, man. I'm trying. Here we are. Don't worry, it's not you, it's my kids. Um, which is kind of you too, in a way. Um, one of the most beautiful things, and I want to say this to your to your parents as well, is Psalm says that children born um to someone in their youth uh are like arrows uh in the hands of a warrior. Because they shoot farther beyond where you are. Um then they they have the potential for impact in a hundred different ways. And watching you and watching your family love Jesus, know Jesus, follow Jesus, your dad who planted a church, your family who has been involved in ministry their entire life, seeing you do this, and now where God is kind of shooting you next, man, it's a beautiful thing. So as we as we send you, I would love to have your parents come up here and pray as well. I was trying to end that sentence a little stronger than I did, but yeah, it trailed on me. Would you guys come up? Thank you. Can you guys welcome up Danny's okay? Alright, so here's what we're gonna do. Typically when we do this, we have everybody come forward, but I want to do this a little bit different. I want everybody to reach out their hand. And I'm gonna, if you if you can't, that's okay. Would you pray for Danny? If you can't, that's okay. I wouldn't be able to, just to be clear. Thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Heavenly Father, we just come before your throne of grace. We ask that your mantle, your mercy, your compassion, strength, and your will will be clear in Danny's life. And Father, you may strengthen him with the joy of the Lord. You anoint him to continue, Lord, to make disciples. Because all we have is not works, is souls to offer. And we ask you, Jesus, bless this church, bless the pastors, raise up leaders, raise up disciples, raise up servants. Father, let your river run through this place. Let your fire and your Holy Spirit burn in the hearts of these young men and women, family members. We want to see, Lord, once again, your fire burning in all of our hearts. And we ask you, Jesus, to bless it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today to this podcast. We cannot wait to have you next week as we start our summer in Rome series, as we start going through the book of Romans. We look forward to seeing you either here online through this podcast or in person at DCC on Sunday mornings at 10 15 a.m. Have a great day.