It Is Time

It is time

By pastor Fernando Cabrera

Acts 1

1. To Make God’s agenda, your agenda ("Holy Spirit given orders" v.2b)

a. What is God’s agenda? What is the heartbeat of the Father? What moves the Father? What is God seeking after?

i. “to seek and save the Lost”

1. We cannot understand the upper room until we understand the why of the upper room

2. What preceded the upper room was a divine mandate “to go to the world and make disciples of all nations…”

a. God says “come” to unbelievers, but “go” to the church

ii. What is the vision of the church? Win souls and make disciples

1. difference between ministry and mission

b. Am I as committed to the salvation of men and woman as God is?

1. You must change your identity from a church attender to a disciple maker

2. Jesus saw himself as a disciple maker

a. God has call you to see yourself as a disciple making machine for God

b. Why didn’t Jesus just die for our sins when he came?

i. He WAS MAKING DISCIPLES (V.2)

1. People ask today, “what would Jesus do?” – make disciples

2. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you need to apologize for sharing Jesus

a. If anything, we need to apologize for not sharing any sooner

b. Stop apologizing and start evangelizing

ii. Church should be a place where people come with a problem, but are sent with a purpose

c. The church in America is full of people who profess, but do not practice. Why?

i. Because they are still seeking to fulfill their own agendas, instead of being vision driven.

1. that is why we need an encounter with the cross

a. before there was Pentecost there was the Passover

i. “only dead people experience resurrection. God will not pour out his resurrection until you have experience death. The reason there is a death is because a resurrection is coming”

b. The cross is the place of exchange

a. It is the place where I decrease and he increase

b. It is the place where old things pass away and all things become new

c. It is the place where I trade my sorrows for dancing

d. It is the place where I no longer live, but Christ lives in me

i. The reason why we often don’t experienced a down pouring of the Spirit is because we have not experience a true discipleship

1. If this generation won’t go, he’ll let this generation die off and raise another to reach this world

e. In a two year study done by George Barna, it was found that most born again Christians don’t see their lives goal to be a committed disciple of Jesus or to make disciples

i. Only one in every 10 Christians every led someone to the Lord. And far less have ever made a disciple

1. "... Christians spend seven times as much time on entertainment as they do on spiritual activities."

2. "Desiring to have a close, personal relationship with God ranks just sixth among the 21 life goals tested, trailing such desires as ’living a comfortable lifestyle.’"

a. Vance Havner once said, “You have not really learned a commandment until you have obeyed it.

ii. The only thing worth living in life for is the one passion that it is worth giving my whole life to

1. The only thing worth living in life for is the one passion that it is worth giving my whole life to

2. What is holding you back to give yourself wholly to the vision of Jesus?

b. There are two main reasons why people don’t give themselves fully to the vision of Jesus.

i. First, they wrongly believe that you can separate salvation from the Lordship of Jesus (Romans 10:9-10).

1. You cannot have the Savior with out his Lordship.

2. They are both intricate part of who the Messiah was to be. Some people today want a Savior that places no demands of discipleship upon their lives. The whole book of I John was written to debunk this wrong teaching.

ii. The second main excuse for not given oneself wholly to the vision is excuses. In Luke 14:18-24, Jesus gives a few examples of those make promises, but soon break them. We find in this story that the three people who were invited had already promise to come. It proves their insincerity. They had said “Yes”, when they meant “No”.

1. The first person represents those who use their jobs as an excuse.

a. Notice who he wanted to check out the property AFTER he purchased it.

b. In verse 18 Jesus says, “The first said unto him I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.” The man was saying “Please consider me excused” (v. 18).