I am very thankful this morning to have the opportunity to preach and to share a little bit more about what Steve introduced last week. But I can tell you, while I always feel a weight of responsibility anytime I step into the pulpit, because it's a weighty thing to speak for the Lord, I can't recall a time where I felt the task in front of me was more difficult than it is today. When Pastor Steve shared the exciting news about the church extension, It was a thrill of many years that has come into being where we are going to become a sending church. Rather than growing here and trying to become a bigger church, we're going to grow by extending our ministry and expository preaching throughout our community. While I'm talking about our first extension, our goal is not just to do one, but to do multiple extensions. The goal isn't, of course, to preach more sermons. It's to make more disciples, both bringing people to the Lord and also growing them in their faith. And I'm very excited about this, but when Pastor Steve made it clear last week that I was going to speak, he put two hurdles in front of what I'm doing today. First, he told you I would be leading the first church extension and I'm humbled and thankful to be able to do that. And he told you I would be addressing more specifics, which I will. But what's challenging is I know without a doubt that I could speak for hours and I can't answer all your questions. Some things we just don't know yet. We're stepping out by faith. We don't know the answer to every question. But also I realize for some of you, you have different questions than perhaps what I'm gonna answer. So I know up front that it's possible that you'll be sitting there going, I hope he addresses this and I don't do it. And I don't want you to be disappointed. Now I'm gonna share with you before I'm done, there'll be a time to ask questions at another date and another time, but I don't want you to be distracted so that you miss what's going on because you didn't hear that one thing you were hoping I would cover, I can't cover everything. But that's not even the biggest issue. Second, and perhaps most intimidating, is Pastor Steve spelled out for you last week what expository preaching is. He went in great detail telling you what a faithful minister of the word will do when he stands up and preaches. And in my sinful pride, I couldn't help but think, what if I blow it? He just told you what I'm supposed to do, and yet I may not do it. It's already a challenging thing. When Pastor Steve's here, it feels like the principal's in the room. He's a very gracious man, but it's still he's there. And now he's told you all what to expect. And if I don't do it, the principal's here, plus you can all grade me and it's all bad. So I'm going to not deal with any of that. I'm going to bypass all of my heart doubts. And I'm going to try and put those things out of my mind and talk about what's in front of us. This morning I'm going to share what I hope will be some valuable information, but I hope it's valuable information in context of Scripture. It's going to tell you a little bit more of what we're going to be doing, of what these new works will look like, what we're trying to accomplish, and I'm going to do it through the mechanism of talking about the Great Commission. Pastor Steve read the text, but if you could open up in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28, the anchor for what I talk about is going to be in Jesus' final instructions in the Gospel of Matthew to his disciples. So as you're turning there, I wanna give you a little bit more background because while for some of you, this was brand new news, in fact, for most of you, it was brand new news, I wanna assure you that what Steve did last week, what Pastor Steve preached on was not a spur of the moment thing. This has been many years in the making. Now, whether you know it or not, your elder board at Lakeside, and there are currently 15 elders, we meet every month. In fact, for much of the year, we meet twice a month. And we talk about all the work and the business of shepherding and running the church and doing all those things. But once a year, we get together in what we refer to as our elders retreat. And we, as a group of men, step aside, and we take two to three days to just meet and do big picture planning for the future of Lakeside. Sometimes we go away somewhere together. Sometimes we just meet here at the church. But we normally begin by having a meal together where we just fellowship. We're all busy and we don't get to see each other as much as you might think. So we spent some time together and then we spent time over a day or two of praying and talking about the future. And several times over the years, many times in fact, we've met and we've talked about how can we have a greater impact in the community. We know for all of our faults we have an incredible teaching ministry. We have been gifted by God with many, many men for a small church who can preach the word, and we want to share that with the community. We want more people to be exposed to the truths of the gospel. We want more people to be exposed to the words of life properly. And in the time before COVID, so we're going back a ways, we actually did spend time looking into what would it take if we got bigger here at this location. It's not hard for you to figure out that we have a very small piece of property. And part of our property is covered in water. but we have a finite amount of space. And we looked and we had some Christian experts who were involved, an architect and a contractor, and just did some big picture looking of could we expand at Lakeside here if we wanted to? And the challenges were daunting. Yeah, it's possible to build a new building for many millions of dollars, but if we built a bigger building, we still have the same issue as before. We don't have enough land for parking. We don't have enough room. As we looked through it all, we decided and we thought that it probably wasn't feasible or wise to borrow millions of dollars to build a bigger building that still couldn't accomplish what we were trying to accomplish. It became clear that growing larger on this property, whether it was the right thing to do or not, was not advisable. And we decided that wasn't what we were going to do. And then in the elders retreat in 2022, so a few years ago, the issue was raised about possibly planting churches. This is something that's been talked about at Lakeside before, but in 2022, as we looked at the state of everything, the elders were in agreement that this is an idea worth pursuing. So as we came out of that elders retreat, we formed a committee of men that we called the Church Extension Committee to begin talking about what would this look like? What would it involve? What would be our strategy if we went down this road? And so for the next year, the five-member committee really considered all the kinds of things that would go into this. The committee consisted of Jason Bruns and Joel Purcell and Jack Jenkins and Oliver Smith and myself. We talked to other people who had planted churches. We did a lot of research of things. We looked at the demographic of Lakeside. Where are our people now? Where are they coming from? And through all of that, we decided that we thought this was something worth pursuing. And so at the Elders Retreat in 2023, we presented to the Elder Board our ideas, and some of them will be unfolded for you today. And as we committed and we presented, we recommended that we move forward with this. And it was unanimous. All of the elders agreed this is what we should pursue. So over the course of the next year, we began to debate and discuss and figure out who would be the team that would go. And that was eventually settled on. And then after the elders retreat this year, we decided that we were at the point to announce this to the congregation. And we did that last week through Pastor Steve. Now, I share that not to bore you with details, but to let you know this is many years in the making. This wasn't just a whim that popped up because we saw something. This has a lot of prayer and a lot of planning behind it, and we pray that it is the Lord's will. So today, it's the second phase of laying out the plan of what we're going to do, and it's this message, and again, I'm tying it to the Great Commission. Pastor Steve read the longer section, but follow along as I read again verses 18 through 20 of Matthew 28. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I've divided up what I'm saying today into a simple three-part outline just for teaching purposes. But I'm going to discuss with you today three driving principles behind our new church extension. Three driving principles behind our new church extension. And the first thing I want to share with you is our motivation. Our motivation. Now I believe in one sense Pastor Steve captured the essence of this last week. Expository preaching is what the church needs and yet it's very very lacking today. We believe with all our hearts this is what God's people need. They may think they need something else but they need the Word of God properly taught week after week so that the truths are deeply embedded in their heart and they're lived out in their lives. Pastor Steve clearly spelled it out, and he is 100% right. We are living in a day described by the Apostle Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, verses 3 and 4. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. Our new church extension, we pray, will provide an additional location for people to gather to hear sound doctrine from the Word of God. It's not going to be a place for ears to be tickled. Now, I want to elaborate on this, and I want to stay anchored to the text, which is our Great Commission, because Jesus really sums up all we're trying to accomplish. And obviously, these are the last verses of the Gospel of Matthew, and everything that Matthew has said are climaxed here. They build to hear. And these are the words of Jesus. In verse 18, Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Now Jesus is laying out the future of the entire church age. He's telling his disciples and all future disciples, this is the mission that I have for you. This is your task. This is your work. And he prefaces this by saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. Now we're going to spend plenty of time this morning talking about verses 19 and 20, talking about making disciples and going and baptizing and teaching. But realize that the power undergirding all of that is not human effort or wisdom or energy. The power motivating and undergirding everything that the local church does, including Lakeside, is Jesus and His authority. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. And he is making it clear that his authority is limitless. If we're carrying out his work, he will give us the ability and the power through his authority to do what he's called us to do. He has sovereignty and power over everything. And if Jesus calls us to a task, we have the hope of confidence in his promises that we can accomplish his will. Now, this seems intuitive to us. Jesus has authority. Jesus has power. We sing the songs. But think for a moment about the 11 who first heard this. Now, yes, it says they worshiped Him, but their life was not like our life. They were not, I'm sure, easily convinced of this. They had just witnessed Jesus be arrested and abused as a common criminal and killed. They had watched Him bleed and die. They had watched the Roman authorities and the Jewish religious leaders win, or so it seemed. And the fact that Jesus was risen from the dead, the fact that He was alive, all of this had to be shocking to them. That's why some doubted. And Jesus, in this context, is making it clear to them, I'm giving you a task to do, and it wasn't an easy task. Their environment was not friendly. The Romans were still a dominant, brutal, occupying force. If someone else promoted a king other than Caesar, they had trouble. They were subversive. And the Jews still hated the idea of Jesus. The Jews hated the Romans, but they hated Jesus and his followers even more. And we'll see that in the persecution of the earlier church as you read on into Acts. And to add to that, as Jesus was giving these commands and he's saying, I have all authority, there wasn't a big team standing behind the 11. Over the course of his earthly ministry, no doubt Jesus interacted with tens of thousands of people who were happy to interact with him. He healed them, he fed them. He fed the 5,000 plus women and children and the 4,000 plus women and children. Jesus affected tens of thousands of people And yet at this point in redemptive history, when he's talking to the 11 and he says, I have all authority and I'm giving you this task, his true followers were hardly anything. Acts 1 15 says this, at this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, a gathering of about 120 persons was there together. Wasn't tens of thousands anymore, wasn't even thousands, about 120. The point was this, as Jesus was telling them to go to the entire world and no less than transform the world by making disciples, the raw materials were not very much. Eleven ragtag disciples and about 120 people in the midst of a hostile world. So these aren't throwaway words that Jesus begins all of this by telling them, it's me that has authority. Yeah, I'm sending you to do this, but understand, I have authority in heaven and earth. Don't worry. I've got it covered. The work that is done is work done under the authority of Jesus Christ, including this new work of lakeside. Everything we do on a Sunday morning is under the authority of Jesus. Any ministry we have is under the authority of Jesus. And this new work is under the authority of Jesus. That's why Peter, who was one of those 11 who originally heard those words, would say, In his second letter, 2 Peter 1, verses 2 and 3, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. Understand that everything we do at Lakeside It doesn't occur because the 15 elders at Lakeside are particularly skilled and stupendous men. We're not Doesn't occur because the 500 plus of you that are here are the greatest servants of the Lord ever I Think the elders and all of us in the eyes of the world. Nobody even knows we're here to be honest with you. I 1 Corinthians 1.26 says, For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. That describes your elders. That describes our congregation. But that's okay. Because we do what we do under the authority of Jesus. We're driven by the advancement not of our agenda. We have no kingdom to build. But by carrying out the words of our King. What we do isn't just through human skill and ability, and we do have talented people here. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I wouldn't want to worship with anybody else in the world besides you. I love this church. I love you. But the reason we do what we do isn't just because of our human relations, it's because we exist under the authority of the King. And we're undertaking this new work because we believe we're carrying out His wishes as expressed through His Word. Jesus said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. In verse 19 He says, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Now this is the heart of what we try and do as believers. It's what every church is called to do. It's what every disciple of Jesus is called to do. And while in a moment I'll talk about the word go, and I'll talk about baptize, and I'll talk about teach, the reality is the command that's centered here is make disciples. make disciples of all the nations. Yes, we do it through going and baptizing and teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded, but the imperative is make disciples. That's what the church is to be about. You know, making disciples isn't a casual thing, but to his first hearers, they would understand what he's talking about because Jesus showed them what it was to make a disciple. He modeled it in his own life. He modeled it in his own ministry. So as he's talking to these 11, these were his close disciples. They had learned from the Master. Jesus knew how to call disciples. Matthew 4, 18 and 19. Now, as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Follow me. That's the key. That's the beginning. But with Jesus, discipleship was an intensive thing. It wasn't just follow me. He taught His disciples over and over. Matthew 5, verse 1-2, When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, Teaching was an integral part of what Jesus did But he didn't just teach he lived his life with them. He shared meals. He lived with his disciples Mark 2 15 and it happened that he was reclining at the table in his house and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and his disciples For there were many of them and they were following him. I In fact, as living life, somebody asked for Jesus' help, quite often His disciples went with them. Matthew 9, 19, Jesus got up and began to follow Him, and so did His disciples. And eventually, Jesus sent out His disciples on their own. He trained them enough, He taught them enough, and then He sent them out to accomplish His tasks. And in our nomenclature, they were flying solo. Matthew 10, Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Go down to chapter 10, verse 5, the beginning. These 12 Jesus sent out after instructing them. So the 11 who first heard from Jesus go and make disciples, they understood what making disciples was all about. It involved teaching the word of God. We'll see that in a moment. But it involved all of these things together. And Jesus was simply calling them and every future disciple to do the same thing He did. To pour into people, to invite them to follow Jesus, and then to show them what that looks like. Making disciples is the work of every disciple. Ultimately, that's our goal. We're not trying to make a name for Lakeside. We're not trying to make a name for ourselves. We're trying to tell more people about Jesus. We're trying to make more disciples. We want more people to hear the gospel, not a self-help message about how they can feel better about their lives and be better at their work. We want them to hear the hard truths of how a sinner they are can have peace with a holy God. And after they hear the gospel, we want to provide the God-ordained environment where they can hear week after week expository preaching and can have fellowship and can have accountability so they can learn to grow and mature in their faith. Our motivation at every extension we have, however many the Lord gives us, is the same as here, Colossians 128. We proclaim Him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. It's all about making disciples. It's not about making a name for ourselves or a name for this church even. It's about making Jesus known to even more people and helping those that know him to follow him. And that leads to the second driving principle behind our new church extension. You heard our motivation, but you're also gonna hear about our methodology. And I expect for many of you, that might be the question that you're most curious about. What is this gonna look like? I'm going to, again, still stick with scripture to talk some about methodology, but I'm also going to share with you how living this out will look, we hope, in the new extension. But I'll give you a hint. Looks a lot like what we do now. Jesus told us how to make disciples. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. Jesus emphasized three points. Again, make disciples is the issue. And he says you need to go. And he says you need to baptize and you need to teach. Going, baptizing, teaching. Now I'm gonna touch on each of these and I'll just cover baptizing first because that's the simplest and the shortest. We're not gonna do anything different with baptism than what we do here. It'll be exactly the same at every church extension. We'll approach baptism in the same way we do here at our main campus. We believe and teach that after someone is born again, they should be baptized by immersion in obedience to the Lord's command. It doesn't save anyone. It's not a way to be a super saint, but it is a step of obedience where you identify publicly with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and you give public testimony of your salvation in Christ. Our approach to baptism will be exactly the same. We might have to look a little bit for water, but it's not hard to find in Florida. So I'm not going to focus on baptizing. We will do that. But I want to focus on the going and the teaching. Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples. of all the nations. Again, we understand from knowing theology and knowing the New Testament that the gospel first came to the Jews. The 11 disciples were Jewish. The early church was Jewish. And it took some special revelation from God to the household of Cornelius for Peter to understand the gospel is going to the Gentiles. And Paul was, of course, the apostle of the Gentiles, but we shouldn't forget Paul was Jewish. Paul said in Romans 116, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is power to God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, just meaning the non-Jewish people, the Gentile nations. And the book of Acts is really just the history of the Great Commission being carried out. It's interesting because before Jesus ascended into heaven, there's an account in Acts chapter one where he gave some additional words to the disciples. First, he was telling them something in the future about the day of Pentecost. They were to wait till the Holy Spirit came for their power. But Jesus said this, he said to them, it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. The point is simply this, when Jesus laid out the Great Commission, when he gave his final words before his ascension, his plan was never to wait for people to come to us. His plan was for his people to go and interact with the fallen world. Now it is possible that occasionally someone may just wander in off the street and find our services on Sunday. It happens. But the normal way that evangelism occurs isn't for us to wait for somebody to wander in. It's by us in living our lives interacting out there with people who don't know Jesus and telling them about Jesus. It's safe to say when Jesus says go, He's really talking about evangelism. Telling people about who God is and how He views sin and what the wages of sin is, which is death, but also the good news of what Jesus did, dying in the place of sinners because of his love for sinners, and that they can be reconciled to God through the sacrificial death of Jesus. There's no other way. And there are many ways that we can live out the go part of the Great Commission. Certainly, some feel called to be missionaries, and they're literally going to the ends of the earth, and praise the Lord for those people. What a blessing it was to have the opportunity last week to talk to Nancy Morse, who has spent her life helping unreached peoples have the gospel in their own language. And we support missionaries around the world. The Howard's are in Papua New Guinea. SOS Ministries goes to various continents. But not everyone is called to go overseas. I heard Pastor Steve say many years ago in a sermon that obviously God hasn't called everybody at Lakeside to go, because if we all went, who would evangelize the people here? There'd be no one left to reach the lost in America. And I've heard sometimes people act as though America doesn't need to be reached. You're not paying attention. The need is great and it's growing as we live in an increasingly godless and hostile world. We also go through supporting local efforts to evangelize the lost. I think Lakeside Christian School is a great example. This year we have the opportunity to present the gospel to over 370 students. Many who are unbelievers but also to young believers to tell them what it means to live for Christ. We support good news clubs and we have a nursing home minister and we have people that go door to door. There are many ways to go. And the elders, in a sense, view this church extension as just another way of accomplishing this task. As we prayed and thought and planned over the last several years, we came to the unanimous decision that one of the ways we can go is by planting these extension campuses in areas where they need a good Bible teaching church. We believe God is leading to do that and we have confidence that this is in accord with the plans of God because this is what He spells out in His Word. For example, in familiar words for many of you in Romans 10, 13 to 15, verse 13, for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. We want to send out more preachers from Lakeside. to start more like-minded churches so that more people can hear the good news of Jesus Christ. It's an interesting time in America because there are church plants going up all over the place. And sadly, most of them aren't accomplishing what God wants them to do. They're going to attract some crowds. But if you looked into a lot of it, a lot of it is ear-tickling of how to feel better and how to do better. It's not about Jesus and His holiness and His glory. So one of the things we did as we looked around at areas is we looked at where do our people live. I mentioned that before. And we have a lot of attendees that come from the northern area, Palm Harbor and even farther north up into Pasco County. And it's no secret there's population growth up there. And so as we were looking to decide where do we plant a church, we also looked and we saw an absence of Bible teaching churches in those areas. I'm not gonna suggest there's not a good church anywhere, but they're few and far between. You got a growing area with more people. We already have a lot of people that are in that direction. And I think for cost and other reasons, it's getting so expensive here that more people are moving that area. And so we think for our first church plant, that's where we're going to go. up in the Tarpon Springs area or Holiday or somewhere in that general area. We feel like that's a good location strategically to go for this project of making disciples. Again, we don't have the actual location yet. We would ask you to pray for this. It's one of the biggest issues we have right now is finding the specific area. Where will the Lord have us set up shop? And we pray that we can find that soon, a place that we can afford to rent or by God's miracle to be able to buy. But that's where we'll center on new work, and that'll be one of our priorities. And if you look at this place, borrowing the biblical nomenclature, if this is our Jerusalem, we don't know yet if we're going to be in Judea or Samaria or somewhere close by, but we'll find the place. We do believe north is where we're going. But part of our goal in reaching a new area is not to require people to have to relocate. I live in Safety Harbor now. I'm not moving. I'm going to live in Safety Harbor as we start this new work. We want it to be accessible to people that are already a part of our ministry. So we plan to start this new work in the north. That's where we're going to go first with this new effort to make more disciples. And in doing so, we plan to follow the New Testament example and send multiple elders to do the work. It's interesting as you read the accounts of Jesus, he normally sent people out, not just one person alone, but quite often in a pair or more. So for example, in Mark six, the beginning of verse seven, and he summoned the 12 and began to send them out in pairs. Luke 10, one and two says something similar. Now after this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them in pairs ahead of him to every city and place where he himself was going to come. And he was saying to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers in his harvest. In Acts chapter 15, there's an account where the church thought it was important to send out more than two. They sent out four in Acts 15, 22. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brethren. So as the New Testament makes it clear, normally there were multiple people sent out to do a work, and we're going to follow that model. We currently have 15 elders at Lakeside. We have two other men in the internship process that are training to become elders. So trust me, we're not gonna run out of elders at Lakeside anytime soon. But for this first extension, I'm not going alone. I'll be joined in this new work by Robert Frayer, one of our long-time elders, and also by Mike Arbia, who will come alongside. We'll be the on-site elders for our new congregation ministering to the people. And while we'll be the elders worshiping at that location and having oversight, understand we're still gonna be a unified body. It's a unified work. So for the first extension, we're sending three elders out, but we'll still be a part of the same elder board. The elders here at Lakeside may not all be going, but they're gonna have responsibility. We'll all have responsibility for any work that carries the name Lakeside. We'll still be a part of the Elder Board here at Lakeside. It's a unified work. This isn't something where we're pulling apart. We're just using our strengths to reach more people to go. While technically, depending on your nomenclature, you could call this a church plant, we keep using the word extension because we're not doing a new work independent from our current work. It's still gonna be Lakeside. It's just gonna be in an additional location, an extension of what we already do. Now, while Robert and Mike and I will be the core elders leading this, our goal and the plan that was presented to the elder board was not just to send out a few elders to go knock on doors, but to take some families with us. Ideally, we would love to have 15 to 20 families or singles, of course, that would want to be a part of the work that would go with us in this initial work. form the core of the new congregation, our ultimate goal. And we would hope that this work would start sometime in 2025. The Lord will have to control the timing, all the details that have to be worked out. But we would hope the work would start very soon. And our goal would be on that first Sunday that we're having a full church service. That we're having a community of believers functioning as a family on day one. Which means we'll need musicians that go and children's ministry workers that go. and ushers and greeters, and we're gonna have home fellowship groups at the new extension just like we do here, we'll need home fellowship group leaders. All the types of servants that we need to do what we do here at Lakeside every week, we need some of those servants who are willing to go to support this new endeavor. You'll still be a member at Lakeside, you'll still be a part of the body of Christ at Lakeside, we'll just be worshiping at this new extension location. So again, we want to have with us people who buy into the vision of going to making more disciples. People who are wanting to reach others with the gospel. Preaching the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, not just from the pulpit, but also in our daily lives. But evangelism, of course, isn't the end. We go, we invite people to follow Jesus, but if they accept the invitation, if God works in their heart and they're regenerated and they come to faith, now we want to grow them. And that's what Pastor Steve was focused on. A big part of the work, in fact, the core of what we do will be expository preaching, just like what happens here. That's where growth occurs. Jesus himself said in verse 20, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. That's a lifetime work. From the time you're saved until the time you're standing in glory, you're learning and growing, but you can't do that apart from the Word of God. I could tell you stories. I could do all kinds of things. I could make you feel good, but if I'm not teaching the Word of God, it's not growth. It's not teaching you to observe all that Jesus commanded. And our commitment to expository preaching as the chief means of making disciples is at the core of what every extension will be. We're committed to that. I'm committed to that. We believe expository preaching is the primary method that God has given the church to impact lives. That's how we make disciples and teach them to observe all that Jesus commanded. They need to hear the word preached to be saved, but they also need to hear the word preached to grow. And this isn't the opinion of the elders at Lakeside. We didn't take a vote on this. It's what the Scriptures say. I won't read it again, but I read before Romans 10, 13 to 15. How will they hear without a preacher? And the preacher's got to preach the word of God, the good news. Pastor Steve emphasized last week, 2 Peter 4, 1 and 2, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. That will always be the core of our church service. So I would expect that while it won't be identical, a church service at the extension would look a lot like here because we're gonna have the same priorities. We're certainly gonna worship through music. We're gonna have children's ministry. We'll have adult Sunday school classes, but the centerpiece will be the preaching of God's word, teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded. Week in, week out, that will always be the priority just as it is here. Now again, this isn't to say the services will be identical. Joel Purcell has unique gifts as a worship leader, and he's not going anywhere. Steve would tackle him on the way out the door. I don't blame him. But the Lord will provide us a worship leader, and they'll have their own unique skills and styles, but the worship will still be theologically sound lyrics, drawing our attention to the Lord. The services will be the same content, just with different people with different giftedness. Our primary purpose each week will be to equip the saints for the work of service. And the primary means of equipping will always be God's primary means, which is expository preaching. Ephesians 4 11 and 13 and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. The priority of the pulpit ministry of expository preaching will always be the hallmark of any work of lakeside and it won't be any different in the extension. Now, I've shared a lot, but I'm gonna close with the final principle driving our new church extension. I've talked a little bit about our motivation and our methodology. Finally, I'm gonna talk about our means. How are we gonna accomplish this? What is the power behind it? Yes, we're taking a team of elders, and hopefully we'll have a team of committed church members who wanna be a part of this new work. It's exciting, and we're very thankful for the opportunity. We're doing it because we believe that there's a need for more disciples, to make more disciples, and this is a mechanism that we can carry out the Great Commission. And please understand it'll be hard work. In fact, what we do here is hard work. Most of you don't know all that goes on behind the scenes to make a Sunday morning happen. We don't have an autopilot. There are men and women who get here early and are laboring and doing all kinds of things to make it possible for us to experience Sundays like this. And we'll need all the same kind of work at any extension that the Lord allows us to plant. It's not just the elders that work hard. It's not just the pastors. It's everyone works hard to put this together. And yet, if this was just a lot of hard work in the flesh, we would accomplish nothing for eternity. People are working hard today at football stadiums to get ready for a ball game. People are working hard at all kinds of things. Hard work is good. It's not bad. But hard work by itself won't make anything successful for the Kingdom of God. It's all about Jesus. And again, I remind you, He booked into the Great Commission with His power and His authority. Verse 18, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, And then he lays out all that we've been talking about, but he closes it, verse 20, with this, And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Jesus makes it clear this is the means. He's in essence saying, it's me. Certainly He calls us to the ministry. He didn't call us because we have all this giftedness and skill. It's His authority. and His presence and His power that makes anything we're doing possible. Nothing can stand against the plan of the Lord and nothing can succeed apart from Him. We have great confidence that by going out and doing this as an elder board, we're fulfilling the Lord's calling, but we understand it's His power that's going to make it successful. He's the means. He said in Matthew 16, 18, I also say to you that you're Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of Hades will not overpower it. It's Jesus who loves us pride and He's building His church. He's built this church and He'll build any extension that we have. And He promises His followers, His disciples, He promises us that as long as the church is continuing, and it is, He will be with us. And lo, it's emphatic, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. We have Jesus here with us now. Amen. And Pastor Steve read it, Psalm 127 verse 1, the first part, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. So we're relying on Him. We believe as an elder board that He's given us unity of heart to do this. And we're relying on His power, not our human skill to make it work. He's given us His precious and magnificent promises. He's given us His power. He's given us everything we need for life and godliness. Will we work hard? Yes, but it's all in Christ. Everything we do, we're counting on Him to do it for us. We often read Colossians 128, and I've already read it once, but I'm gonna read 128 and 129, because it sums up what I'm saying. This is the means by which we accomplish things. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power. which mightily works within me." God's power is working within every one of his children to accomplish his purposes. Again, we don't know everything. We walk by faith, not by sight. But I hope this morning has helped you answer some questions, that you understand a little bit of what's going on. If you have more questions, I'm gonna tell you that there'll probably be multiple opportunities, but the first opportunity for you to interact in a Q&A type format is on the first Sunday in October in my Sunday school class. I'm gonna spend some time talking. If you'd like to join us for that week, feel free to come. Meet back in the overflow room. That's the first Sunday in October in the Sunday school hour, but we also will record it. So if you can't be there, don't wanna pull somebody away from your Sunday school class, You can listen. If you have questions, you can direct them to me and I can answer them for you during that Q&A. But hopefully you understand where we're coming from. I couldn't help but think there's an aspect of this where I feel a little bit like what's stated in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8 about Abraham and no way am I on that level. But in terms of what he had to do by walking by faith, I think your elder board is doing this. By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. There's a little bit of that for us, but we do walk by faith, and we're confident that it's God that's calling us to go. So it's a step of faith, and I pray that you'll pray for us. Pray for this work. I ask that some of you consider going that maybe the Lord would put it upon you to use your skills and giftedness to make disciples at this new extension. But even if you stay here, pray for us. We're still all part of the body of Christ. And then one final thing before I close in prayer. Nothing about this new work or any future work we do like this is because of anything that we don't like about Lakeside. We love this church. I love this church. I'm grateful that my family is here And going to the extension, there's a part of me, it'll be hard to leave. But if you want to be a part of the new work because you don't like how things are done here and you think we can fix it there, I'm going to ask you not to come with us. Because a new address isn't going to solve your problem of discontentment. That's with the Lord. But if you feel the Lord working in your heart, reach out to me. Reach out to Robert Frayer. And I would encourage you pray for Robert and Jenny and Mike and Amanda and their kids and Debbie and I as we step out in faith following what we believe the Lord's will is to go and make more disciples. Please join me in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you will make up for my inability to articulate all that needs to be articulated about this exciting new work. Lord, this isn't about Me. It's not about Robert. It's not about Mike. It's not about our elders. It's not about Lakeside. It's about you and your kingdom. Lord, the collective wisdom of our elder board is that this is the right thing to do. This is a way for us at Lakeside to go and make more disciples. And yet, Lord, we understand if you're not in this, we labor in vain. So we pray your blessing upon this work. Pray your blessing upon Lakeside amongst all the members here. and that we will be about your business of making disciples of all the nations. We love you, Lord, and we ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.