Talk

Where Do I Go from Here?

Dan Watson

January, 21, 2024

If we believe the Gospel is true, are we living a life that honors it and boldly proclaiming the Good News to a desperate world that needs it? Dan Watson focuses on what God wants to see in us and then leads us to eight takeaways following the question, “Where do I go from here?”

Paul was desperate to go to the city of Damascus in the book of Acts. Why?

1.) The Lord had asked.

2.) He needed to see.

Do we wake up desperate for God?

We were made for so much more. God has called us to go, and there is more that He wants us to see. He wants to use us, and He has chosen us to do a good work.

What does God want us to see?

1.) Our life has been completely transformed.

Some of us may only see a dent in our life from Christ, but we need to understand that we used to be dead in our transgressions, and we are now alive in Christ, radically transformed by His great love for us. Being "good" didn't save us—His gift of salvation did.

2.) Our life is not our own.

God is in the business of using people. He doesn't just save us, He calls us, not just the people working in ministry.

"The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as 'Christians' will become disciples—students, apprentices, practitioners—of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from Him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence."

3.) Our mission is to proclaim.

Proclaim - to announce something officially and publicly. To declare something you believe is of importance. The first thing Paul did after he was baptized was to proclaim the Good News. He tells people how His life has been transformed by God.

"We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something, when we act as if it were true." - Dallas Willard.

If the Good News truly transforms us, we will live it out to the fullest, telling others about it.

Where do we go from here?

1.) We get comfortable in the uncomfortable.

2.) We offer up the invitation.

3.) We walk with people.

4.) We demonstrate love to our world the way Scripture encourages.

5.) We lead by serving others.

6.) We believe what we say and we believe what we live.

7.) We never stop calling on heaven.

8.) We worship with everything—with all of our breath, heart, and soul.

“

"The safest place for a ship is on the shore, but that's not what it was designed for."

”

Albert Einstein

Discussion Questions

Do you wake up desperate for God? How far into your morning do you get before you think about or communicate with God?
Do you believe that you were chosen by God for a purpose? Why or why not?
Has your life been radically transformed by God? How?
Do you ever forget that salvation is a gift and not something we could ever work to earn?
Have you ever thought that God only uses the people he calls to vocational ministry? How has this message challenged you to rewire your thinking to understand that God can choose anyone in any profession to proclaim the Good News?
How do you fare with telling others about Jesus? Is this a difficult or easy for you?
What are some practical ways that you can share the Gospel with those around you?
How do you feel knowing that oftentimes, God calls us to discomfort?
Do you have people you're walking alongside currently?
How can you seek community in this season?

Scripture References

6“About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.

7I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me,

‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’

8“ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.

“ 

‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’

he replied. 9My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

9My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

10“ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.

“ 

‘Get up,’

the Lord said,

‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’

11My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

12“A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there.

13He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.

14“Then he said: ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.

15You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.

16And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’

1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,

2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

9not by works, so that no one can boast.

10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

1As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.

2For he says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—

5the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel

6that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

Dan Watson

Pastor of Passion City Church Trilith