50 Years Of Hope - 11am

so so so okay if you could find a seat we want to get started here hey checkers let's take a moment and uh open our time and acknowledge our lord heavenly father thank you for our time together thank you lord for your grace to us each one your grace to our church we love you this morning lord we pray that our time together the fellowship the teaching the singing your praises would be pleasing to you we just thank you for coming together and bringing us all back home we love you this morning we pray your kingdom come and your will be done more fully in our lives lives of our families our church this community and to the ends of the earth again father we give you thanks amen amen well i want to welcome you all this morning and we certainly have some first-time guests and we have lots of people back for who've been gone for a long long time so welcome back it's great to all have you home and i just want to say simply this welcome home welcome home we've had a just a wonderful weekend so far and our friday night concert was just outstanding this place was packed out was rocking and rolling for jesus a wonderful picnic yesterday and a great time yesterday afternoon as people walked through the buildings and got to see the inner parts of the church and so forth the buildings and facilities and meet all of us we have a special guest this morning but before we do uh pastor dale do you want to come is billy here oh he left okay okay well i guess we don't have a special guest this morning but we do have a really special guest we have a really special guest and ralph moore's with us our founding pastor but before we hear from him i just have simply one question for you who's come to praise the lord this morning shall we stand together and sing his praises wow how great the chasm that lay between us how high the mountain i could not climb in desperation i turned to hell and spoke your name into the night then through the darkness your loving comes tore through the shadows of the end is written jesus christ i am death you have broken every check this salvation in your name jesus will rise great hallelujah you have broken every day best salvation in your name jesus christ then came the morning that sealed the bronze your buried body began to breathe out of the silence the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on everybody has no place jesus jesus christ set me free hallelujah jesus christ amen jesus is our living hope are we thankful this morning church for god's faithfulness over the last 50 years and i can't think of a better hymn or song that could express it better than greatest thy faithfulness great is thy faithfulness morning by morning new mercies i great is thy faith lord unto me let's sing the first verse oh thou changer start thy compassions they fail not as thou has been now forever raise your voices oh is how many were here friday night were you blessed well this song we're going to play for you today is another one of the hope chapel original new one rejoice knock your heads whose kingdom forever i will put my trust in you the one who came to say the only one let your praise begin i will not put my trust in the world for my hope is placed in the one true god amen who's making all things forever the only one who will never change there's no other way no other names god of peace let your praise begin now i shall we exalt the lord this morning church is about him amen i want to hear the voices we for all you have done oh god we we exalt you lord we exalt you you are holy my god you are awesome in your power how many believers you have risen you have conquered all the demons all the principalities all the powers all the strongholds one take you back a little few years you are holy you again mighty you are holy um are my team you are hungry raise your voice is forever do how many love hector he's a godly man here we go hallelujah is anybody got breath in his body to praise god this morning hope chapel let us celebrate what he has done that god has been faithful we can do better than that come on praise his name praise his name forever glory to god glory to god 50 years is a big deal it is a very big deal and it's one step closer to when we will be in eternity celebrating can you imagine that day i think of the last verse of amazing grace when we've been there 10 000 years right shining as the sun we've no less days to sing god's praise than when we first begun amen amen it's so great to see so many faces it's been so awesome this weekend just seeing people uh from way back just here this morning let's greet each other with a warm welcome please meet someone that you don't know um there are people here that have been here longer than you so greet them welcome them this morning good morning and welcome my name is mike nazarian and i have the privilege of serving as one of our teaching pastors here at hope chapel whether you are a first time viewer or a regular viewer of our live stream i want to personally welcome you this morning hope chapel is a bible teaching church located in hermosa beach california our ministry philosophy is to win souls to jesus equip believers in the word of god and send them out to make disciples throughout the south bay and beyond if you would like to know more about us please visit our website at hopechapel.org also be sure to follow us on facebook and instagram for the latest news and updates you can call our church office with any questions needs or prayer requests tuesday through friday from 9am to 5pm our phone number is 310-374-4673 you can also send us an email at info hopechapel.org any prayer requests to prayer at hope chapel dot org we have in person worship services every saturday at 5 00 pm and on sunday mornings at 9 00 a.m and 11 a.m we'll continue to live stream our sunday morning services at 9 11 but i want to personally invite you should you feel comfortable to come back and join us in person on sunday mornings after today's message we're going to take communion together you may use any crackers bread and juice you have available at home this is a good time to prepare your community elements if you haven't already before we share in communion together we traditionally bring our tithes and offerings if you're viewing our service you can still give in a number of ways online at hopechapel.org forward slash give you can text give to 310-388-3448 or you can utilize our alexio community app you can even give by mail to 2306 pacific coast highway hermosa beach california 90254 on behalf of our entire team here at hope we want to thank you for your continued faithfulness and generosity please stay tuned to your screens we'll be back in just a moment with a message from god's word please oh is i had such a blast well welcome home church great to me i don't know about you but this has been an exciting weekend for me just catching up seeing people i haven't seen and someone for 40 years yeah it's just a just a wonderful wonderful time of fellowship and getting together and i'm sure you guys have been experiencing this also and i don't know how many of you were here friday night but i'm telling you it was one rocking time yeah allen led us right to the throne of god and of course yesterday with our picnic it was just wonderful just i just so enjoyed going around seeing everybody catching up with people and i guess i said hadn't seen so many people for so long and it you know it's just a delight to me if you've been part of our fellowship for years and you've moved away or whatever and you're back here this weekend i just want to say welcome home this will always be home and of course as always you know we we realize that the church is a refuge for imperfection isn't it we're all sinners saved by grace and we've come together to acknowledge him and to praise him and to thank him for his mercy and his grace to us and certainly this weekend is a high point for us 50 years 50 years so if you're visiting with us for the first time i'm just thrilled that you're here with us and sharing in this special weekend with us and i do encourage you come back if you can come back seven times in a row you might find a home here and we certainly will grow and you always encourage people if you come seven times in a row man we got you and you got us so it's good to have you with us this morning i'm uh thrilled to have back our founding pastor ralph moore and many of you know him and some of you maybe don't know him and never seen him and don't have a clue maybe never heard his voice but uh it's a delight to have him back and so without any further ado please welcome my pastor my friend my mentor ralph moore okay i always get it confused there's somebody who's really important who's not here today and hopefully she's home watching and that's julie nazarian and i don't know that we ever can conceivably give enough of what we need to give in terms of just understanding and accolade to to julie for what has happened here through zach and what what you don't know is this isn't the first church he pastored when he was in seminary out in i don't know new hall or somewhere he planted a church in his house and uh julia was right there and just incredible people and so proud of them so proud of michael all that but i uh same thing goes for this woman right here this little filipino chick and um so i thought i would let the boss have a few words here it's my wife ruby okay i have to stand far away from him i laughed this morning katrina or karina okay can't hear so well but anyway she came and gave me this purple a and i'm wearing you could tell bright orange and i was going oh wow this is for my flip side and she what was my filipino side and to let you know i did not know my biological filipino father but in turn uh because my redneck grandmother excuse me i mean there's probably political terms that i shouldn't use but anyway she put the key wash on her marrying you know a filipino so she turned around and married a mexican so i still go you know i'm colorful and olay but the thing is she she was deaf so i didn't grow up filipino i didn't grow up too much mexican even though i have cousins over in lawndale still uh but i grew up in the deaf culture so that was a whole another world all right now i'm cutting uh but i have come to say that as your ancestor and i said before i don't understand if ancestor means that you're a dead person who came before or i can claim being your ancestor or part of your heritage but i'm your great great great great spiritual grandmother and i'm looking over here at my my aloha family from maui uh and many of these people that though they have white hair we did know them before they were even married and grandparents and so and there's many others but this morning the aggenians had their little granddaughter out here uh just dancing away and i thought you know what it's not the 50 years that went before it's the 50 years ahead and this is where i want to speak to you ralph and i were just youngsters 25 26 years old when we came to manhattan beach boulevard right around the corner from randy and sue bolt and it all begins when you're a child our junior high high school college and many of you are and the lord is speaking to you but it doesn't stop there because sometimes you ignored the call early on and the lord is speaking to the 30s the 40s the 50s the 60s the 70s the 80s and i don't know if there's anybody 90 but i know leona carrington is 85. and when the lord says go and ralph's going to expound on that he means go to your neighbor but next door and across but i want to and i'm taking the liberty as your matronly grandmother uh to pray a blessing over you that you will listen because you will join the ranks of these beautiful people over here and all across this room so i just want to pray for you holy spirit i pray i pray holy spirit let your movement come let your movement come open ears open hearts lord that when they hear you say talk to the waitress she's really bumped out today she's not getting enough tips lord god to the neighbor next door who's been in isolation and maybe they have to get evicted because uh that whole thing is coming down now though they have to pay the rent and they didn't save and lord god for all the other people the people in in uh the personal services of uh salons and so forth lord that everyone is hurting lord this is our hurting world lord send us send me send each one of us to be the church in their lives to bring jesus because they're not coming into church they're not going to come into closed facilities lord lord lord holy spirit you speak we'll listen and we will do what you ask us to do i pray these things in the name of jesus christ amen good morning it's really good to be here i just uh look around the faces new friends i've made and old friends old friends really really really good well as we get into this i i want to i want to give a little commercial because there's some of you young guys because i've already talked to a couple in the hallway that what i'm about to say is going to light a little spark inside of you and so i have this website just myname.net ralphmore.net and the main thing i think i do that's of value is every week i put a podcast up and i try to i try once in a while i got a friend who's a author or you know big name guy who wants to promote a book so i will let them on my podcast but really what i'm after are the little guys that are doing it in the hard places because that's who's listening and that's who we need to spark the life in for the future and so the podcast says you do that and i do a little blog i make a little two-minute youtube and whatever so and if you want to get an updated version let go of the ring you can find out on that because there's another edition that came out and it's the it's it the history of our church and all that so just know that that's on there but this is not to me about hope chapel hermosa beach this is if you look at the sermon notes i put out is hope chapel churches 50 years and counting and actually the person who does the graphics for the church thought i made a mistake when i wrote that but i didn't i don't want to talk about us or this place i want to talk about hope chapel churches because there's a lot of them and um we never knew how many we never have cared too much about people using the name we never cared too much about other than that you have it in your heart to make disciples who make disciples and plant churches that plant churches that's that's all counts so a number of years ago some people i got involved i worked with this group called exponential.org and i got involved with them and they wanted to know how many churches there were there had been a problem they they wrote this assessment online and the idea is to shame churches that are trying to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger but never multiplying and so they made this five level assessment so level one is you're shrinking level two is you're stable and you can make the budget and you're happy and you're probably just complacent level three is we just want to get big and the pastor wants to get famous level 4 is we're cloning ourself and it's kind of a church program to make every but every church's high control has to be like we are level 5. is where you're doing what you guys do that we send people out and then they send people out and they send people out and and zach doesn't know who the heck they are like zach probably doesn't even know who mike bagdy is but zach for sure knows who craig englert is and because craig went to maui before i moved to hawaii from here this young really handsome two handsome almost uh navy fighter pilot meets his gorgeous japanese girl and they hook up and they go into the swamps of nicaragua when the sandinista revolution was down there in and and they end up running schools across the border in honduras because that's safe and they have to like fly in a private airplane and then land and then walk through muck for hours to get there and they start all these schools up and down the rio cocoa down there that thing has expanded i don't know the story i i just know the rumor that hope chapel kihei maui has been planting churches in brazil and other places in south america i know that when i was a pastor in hermosa beach there was a guy named rick fullener who was in jail is another guy named mike howard who every time the doors were open pray for rick pray for rick i don't know where rick is pray for rick i found him he's in prison pray that i get in to see him i got in and saw him he wouldn't listen to me pray that he'll listen to me and then rick shows up in church to beat the pastor up that was his deal he told us that that night you know sitting right here in this chair right now i accepted jesus christ in my heart and that guy mike's been bugging me about jesus and i came here to punch out the pastor so he shut up can i just take something jesus and then most of you know mike fay what happened was the old guy will hindley who looked like a pastor and i didn't put a bear hug around him before he could hit him and a couple months later this guy mike fay that we've been praying for shows up at a hope chapel love feast and and and rick puts the bear hug on mike and two days later mike's at my house accepting jesus this is this is what we're all about so this group called exponential had been they so they got this five level deal and and it really works i've got this test online and i saw a guy who's pastoring he's passing a church in a town about six thousand there's eleven thousand people in his church he's a hot dog he's furious because he took the test the night before and he only scored level three that's because they don't plant churches but he's used to being the top of everything right and didn't work and so these guys got this thing going so now they're really looking for who really ever did this who we're talking about we believe it it's the new testament but whoever did it and so they went looking for 10 churches that were a single congregation became a movement of churches and they only found us and they only found us because the southern baptist denomination had gone looking for the same thing a few years before and they only found us and so they come to me and they go so how many churches are out there and i've been going around telling everybody i think there's about 1400 churches in the world that came from 12 people meeting here in 1971. and so now they're asking me for real numbers and i don't know because we're we started as hippies right and and and and i mean one time because we're in the denomination you gotta count how many people are in church and send in a report and whoever was the report counter person didn't show up and so i'm in the back counting heads and somebody caught me one of the long hairs what are you doing we're not in the numbers we're into jesus so but that was our ethos we didn't care so i went around i just went my my phone and i emailed everybody all the pastors i knew what when did you start what what's did you change the name of the church what churches did you start can i have their email address and i found um 2217 churches and by the time i that's not the story by the time i went to the event a few weeks later there i'd found five more churches and then the people who never answered my email i published the lists that i made they start writing me how come you didn't put my churches in that list well because you didn't answer your stupid email and so now then we knew there's like 2 400 churches and so this has been like since 2016. so i get a email last week from bill gross and here's the story is bill came up as a worship leader in this church and then zach believed in bill and sent him out as a pastor to torrance and then from there he went to north carolina and from there they started sending people into africa plus all over the south i don't know how many churches in the south but i knew of 175 churches in africa most of them like in madagascar really hard place tour terrible place terrible to live and i get an email from bill and and he's you know knowing he's not going to get a chance to talk to me here because there'll be so many people and all that faulty role and and he tells me about the 400 churches in africa plus and then about all the churches in latin america and so now we know that there are at least 2 600 churches around the world that came from 12 people meeting at 1456 manhattan beach boulevard in september 1971. is that cool so i'm here to talk to you not about hope chapel hermosa beach or whatever we did in hawaii i'm here to talk to you about hope chapel churches and the also the topic is hope chapel church's 50 years and counting see i heard mike nazarian on this video last night talking about where we're going to be in 50 years from now we don't know if we'll be on this corner or not we don't know if there'll be persecution and we'll be like the underground church in china what we do know is we're going to be faithful and we're going to be faithful to this book and we're going to make disciples who make disciples and we're going to plant churches that plant you we do know that and so this is about hope chapel churches a lot of them a lot more than 2 600 we just don't have any idea oh by the way that guy rick fallen whiter he got so turned on to jesus and he was a wild man anyway he's a tough guy had been and uh he he'd stand up in church this one i was you i was 26 years old or whatever skinny then and he'd stand up and go i want you guys to listen this this guy's going to get up here and tell you about jesus christ and you better pay attention to what and then he said that he did week after week well he he had turned this other guy named robert barrager onto drugs as a like a 16 year old kid and so when he found jesus his mission in life is robert so now we've been hearing mike go pray for rick pray for rick now it's pray for robert pray for robert pray for robert well robert came to our church and he and my brother-in-law tim and rick and mike tower i think all live together for a while you know apartment and and then i remember helping mike figure out where he should go to college point loma nazarene and that that was the whole deal so years later i'm in dallas at some big church planter event and i flew all night and i was late for the event because it started the day before and they wouldn't let me register in the hotel i had to go to the event and they'd give me my key to my room and i go and get in there and you guys know who um oh what's his name john maxwell the author i i sort of know john maxwell he's not my friend he's my acquaintance but he's in the room and this lady goes john come over here ralph's here and all you guys come here ralph's here and it's like royalty so i go over there and she goes ralph here's robert and i go well hi glad to meet you she goes no this is robert barrager and i go well she goes this is your disciple robert marriager and i go i'm sorry i don't no i don't recognize you the guy started a church in lima peru there's 10 000 people going there and at that time in probably 1990 something there's 350 churches that had been born out of that church so i go to my room and shower and shave and i come back down and he's still there and we go to sit in the session and i go so how do you end up in in hope chapel because i don't remember anything he goes oh a guy named rick fullerwater brought me i go you're robert he goes yeah i know i'm robert so here's the deal i used to hang out with mike coward and mike howard hung out with rick and rick hung out with robert and rick today ends a little furniture business in tennessee and robert today is changing the whole world that's part of your heritage and you know what that's not me that's not even rick that's the holy spirit taking some little thing that some little seed of what because that's not point loma nazarene where he went to school that's him watching what little bit we were doing in those days of making disciples and planting churches and he ran the holy spirit that's hope chapel churches and so here's what i'm here to tell you basically in a nutshell is you better keep doing it that's just it you better keep doing it but let's get in the scripture a little bit and and i got four verses of scripture that i want to take you through and i'll try to go pretty quick here but i have been known to talk for almost as long as zach in first corinthians chapter 3 verses 6 to 8 you don't know what i mean when i said that as long as zach the first time he officially preached after he aft you know the pr he's preached before a lot right but the pressure's on now you're the guy and it's like 19 months before i'm going to leave but you're the guy friday night and three times in the morning sunday hour and 45 minutes it's like after the first one he couldn't wind it it was and the here's the problem it's all good how do how do you edit it out when it's all good and so we started calling long playing nazarian so if i go 10 minutes over um so first corinthians chapter 3 verses 6 say paul writes i planted apollos watered but god gave the increase so then neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters but god who gives increase and now he who plants and he who waters are one their buddies and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor on that day so i could read it this way i planted zach watered but god gave the increase and ralph and zach are nothing but god who gives the increase that's right that's right that's the way it is folks craig englert is nothing mike bagby is nothing tony spence who was our first person accepted jesus in his church who became the sunday school director and admissions coordinator for hope chapel kihei is nothing but god is something we just all got to come along for the ride and then it goes on and this next scripture that i want to bring to you and by the way listen to some of these names i planned it so they said ralph planted and chinzarug watered in in ulambatar mongolia our aryan bolt from ulambitar watered in korea and in inner mongolia in china or fumichito watered in western japan or soreka from sri lanka watered in london england and there's like 50 60 churches there today that's how it goes but it's all just god it's his deal and in first second timothy chapter 2 verse 3 verses you therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in christ jesus and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men and women who will be able to teach others also and you therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of jesus christ and so i could read it this way you my son zach although he's much older than me eight whole months you my son's act be strong in the grace says in christ jesus the things that you've heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men and he has done so and they've gone out in the world and they've committed them to other people and he didn't even have to know who the names of the other people are because we entrust them to the holy spirit and then it says an interesting thing and i didn't talk about this in the first service but when it says you must endure hardship as a good soldier of jesus you gotta know when you're pastoring a church that's as influential as this and has as much resources as this church has all of that stuff there is this temptation to fame in the church world in america they'll publish my books they'll you know i've written a bunch of books and they don't hardly sell at all i mean i i make money off of this every year i get a royalty check for about 300 bucks and i've written 10 books i don't write them for the money i write them for i i i i'm not even an author i i'm a propagandist i i'm i'm trying to propagandize you today with the word of god and and and i write these books for in in i i want to make sure that some young guy after i'm dead is in somebody's church office and goes what's that book and and reads it and something happens in his heart like happened in my heart off of some dead guy when i was like 19 years old that's why you do that but this man here has endured that temptation and he's endured it very well very very well but going on in matthew chapter 28. the often misquoted great commission and you need to go there because we're going to look at more of it most people quote the great commission from verse 18 to 20. but it actually it really starts in verse 16 but i'm starting in verse 17. context is everything amen verse 16 says who's who he's talking to it's the 11 the guys who ate food with him on the beach the guy who stuck his hand in the hole in his side those guys and it says when they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted when they met in early october of 2021 at 2420 pacific coast highway in hermosa beach they worshipped jesus but some doubted and i know you did my own personal walk with the lord i must for some reason are born cynic i just am and i i have to re-examine what i believe why do i believe it over and over i i'm i'm a kind of a not very emotional person today i'm funny usually i'm not i try i don't have to control that sometimes the funny goes off sometimes it's just it doesn't um but but the the scenic part is always there's always the doubts and here's what it really comes down to me really hard if genesis 1 in the beginning god created if john 1 and the word was with god the word goes with god and the word became you know and and by him all things were and romans 1 the heavens declare if those three chapters aren't real then the rest is blank you just might as well go talk to allah it's just bonk and so i've always doubted i've always believed and i've always doubted gospel makes perfect sense to me but if it's but if the context isn't there then nothing is there not always about it and so one of one of my sort of older brothers i've i'm the oldest in my family and i've always kind of looked up to guys a few years older than me one of my older brothers i got into mike fay the guy who came here he actually came attacking me because his girlfriend quit sleeping with him because she got saved and then two months later he came in and rick put the hug on him and then he got saved and he's he's a engineer twice over and done some incredible things in his life and and uh but he got into astronomy early on when i was discipling him as a young christian and so i started reading astronomy books and it's like the heavens declare the glory of god and in those days i'm we're talking like 1970 5 73 74 the astronomers didn't believe that the heavens declared the glory of god but if you read astronomy today if you read micro microbiology today they believe there's some brain out there that made all this happen or it couldn't have happened that's right they're not and that's not saying they're christians but they've come to the point where the founding fathers were their deists oh i needed that because i'm a doubter i'm a doubter and some of you are doubters but get this he gives the great commission to a bunch of people who include a bunch of stupid doubters and he trusts that the holy spirit will work in in wrecked up people like you that's to me that's joyous and it says he came and spoke to them saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth and this means the god of the universe is saying i'm in control here do what i say you know it's not like you know one of one of the problems with church as we've known do you know that church has been shrinking drastically pre-coveted that's right when i was five years old in 1950 95 of america self-identified as christians yeah but a lot of them were cultural christians yeah well in 2018 when only 58 identified as christians i would say a higher percentage are cultural christians and it comes down to things like this terminology unchurched we're trying to reach unchurched people what do you do with unchurched people you church them how do you church them well you put on great music good show make sure the service isn't longer than an hour and make sure that the sermon is is is uplifting and encouraging and and and tells them how to live my friend todd wilson says you know you know some of these huge churches in america you wouldn't have to be a believer in jesus to run the church you just have to be have charisma personal charisma not the kind that we're talking about in the bible and and be a good businessman and and what we've been doing is churching people not discipling and we've been building big institutions we haven't been multiplying churches when i first moved to san diego four years ago i went and visited this organization this institution and they call themselves a church 4 500 people there they much like us they met on friday nights and sunday mornings and whatever and i got so mad and i was mad at them mad at me i i i would park my car in the street because i'm one of those kind of people i'm not gonna be real committed here until i know you and i walk in and as soon as i hit the property boundary somebody is there to shake my hand one time they gave me an aloe vera plant that was cool um they shake my hand and they go welcome to church x that's all i say to me and i walk on in and i get to the main campus which you know they got nice lawns and places to sit and nobody's sitting there by the way and somebody is there at the border of that thing and they shake my hand and they go welcome to church acts and then i go into the building which would be like going downstairs below by the elevator and they go welcome to church acts and then i get all the way up to like these back doors and they don't shake my hand they hand me a bullet and say welcome to church acts and i go inside and nobody's talked to me at all and then they have a turnaround and fellowship time like you guys do only it's turn around shake hands with somebody and sit down awful awful and then the pastor gets up and it's just sap it's milk toast but i'm i'm thinking you've been a pastor for way too long you're too stinking critical you're just judging this guy shut up and but besides that he's probably just trying to get some people saved today and next week will be the real deal okay then at the end this band gets up and you notice i didn't say worship band i just said a band because they just get up and perform there's a thousand people there on that friday night and nobody's singing at all and these guys are up there doing their thing you know just skinny jeans the whole and so i go back and by the third week i figured out they don't even talk to each other and they don't talk to each other on the way out in hawaii in our church we had everything was intense we had this courtyard we'd put all kind of food do anything to get these people to stay together so we could get them to fellowship they don't do anything they just go in they go out i had been both just before this happened right after i moved in in honolulu that blazed a lot of time i went and heard bob dylan and uh this is cool man but i'm here to tell you the only difference between the dillon concert and what i was going through this thing was there was no marijuana smoke in the air at this thing it's india and so i go there seven weeks and every week and my wife you know she gets up there and she's funny and clever and all that but she's a server she just wants to always please other people so she'll just put up with your garbage because she's so nice and then her husband is saying bad words things like that so she's there trying to just go with the program i'm just there going and then the seventh night i got liberated i mean liberated pastor gets up and tonight tonight we're not going to have a regular sermon we're going to have a family business do you see how he got hooked into this thing any and he's and but the family business is we're trying to remodel our courtyard where nobody sits and talks to each other and we've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and we've raised so much money we don't need you to give any more money stop giving money we got all the money we need everybody's applying and then he goes on the courtyard is so important because that's where people meet each other and i'm going yeah and then and then he says but i just want to tell you about our church and about me and you didn't need to tell me this because i already knew it's called pablum church he goes i only exist for people who haven't yet met jesus but know that they need him and if you don't believe me just everybody that's been in the church for less than five years raised your hand i swear every single hand in that room went up in other words if you've been here five years you can't take it anymore you've got to go find somebody that actually teaches the bible and so now i feel pretty good about myself for judging him well then because we're having confession night the band leader gets up and tells everybody because they they always do the songs at the end of the service any any and he just kind of breaks protocol and he tells everybody you know i i cut a record and i i made it in nashville and the record didn't sell and i'm just stuck being a worship leader and it's like well that's what i thought about you all along i didn't know about the record deal but you just told me and it's like i felt like the holy spirit said okay you can go now and i left oh ah that's right he didn't say go and make church goers he didn't say go and make christians he's going to make disciples there's a process there you go and make a friend with somebody who doesn't know the lord and you know it used to be you could go with the little four spiritual laws and bring to know jesus and then you disciple them but the way the world has changed in the politics have changed and everything's changed you've got to go make a friend and disciple them into jesus follow me as i follow christ and how that works best right now and i know because i have a pretty broad view of the world right now it works best if you go make a friend go drink coffee with them i don't care go drink beer with them go hang out until they complain about something and then go something like this well you know i'm a christian yeah i know yeah well i pray every night could i have your permission to pray about what you just said and if you really got it down you go you know what you just said if if if if there's a god and he could do anything you wanted him to do about your problem what would you want him to do could i pray about that because they can say they're agnostic they can claim to be an atheist but i tell you they will say yes you can pray for them and the second thing that they will do is they'll go so what are you going to do about it and just start looking up and and one thing leads to another and and and then follow me as i follow christ and you don't have to be 20 years old to do this my father in his seventies ran into a guy he used to work with when he had a j you know before he retired in a shopping mall follow me as i felt like i brought him to jesus doing exactly what i just said but it says he came and spoke to them said all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth go and therefore go therefore and make disciples of all the the nations baptizing them in the name of the father son of the holy spirit and teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you if you if you think about that that's that's kind of a circular reasoning because jesus said the most important commandment is love god with all your heart second most is love your neighbor as yourself and then there's this baby he says go and make disciples and then teach them to love god love their neighbor and go and make disciples teaching them to love god love their neighbor and go and make disciples it's your job but there's two words here that get mixed up in our english bibles and in our preaching and these these words are the words go you know bill clinton is famous for saying uh define it what what does is mean you didn't get the joke anyway he doesn't say go because that tells us oh god called somebody the missionary go he says as you go which tells us he's talking to everybody and he's saying where you go as you go so we're going to be tuesday morning at 10 30 where are you going to get your hair done this week are you going to surf manhattan pier are you going to serve formosa pier you know where where are you going to be playing golf do you do on the job during break as you go that's what he's saying and then then he says go and make disciples of all the ethnic and one of the problems in church right now is that we're homogeneous we all kind of look like us this church is not i see some some asian faces i see some i talked to some ladies to look for sure filipino in hawaii you can sort of tell who's who and and she's no she's korean and she's a pastor from iowa or something that's crazy i see african-americans in here but this isn't what it's talking about he's talking about something smaller than our dna for sure it's talking about that for sure it's talking about nation states but that's not what it's really talking about it's talking about the people who hang out in this one tattoo parlor and spend all their money there and it's become a church without god because they fellowship with each other at that place it's talking about people who drink at the same pub in england every night after work it's talking about the people who who who surf rose crayons but won't surf hermosa it's it's it's all those little identity groups and america's you know we worry about being politically divided we're splintered in so many ways because we're so mobile if you think about it we all move we're all far away from our families so everybody's in a little pseudo family an ethnic in the greek a people group and we and and usually there's about 12 people in that little circle that we all live in and what he's saying is take it to every single one of them on the planet and the third fourth scripture i want you to look at is actually two i want to talk about different score card it's acts chapter 2 verses 41 47 in ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 13. when i was a boy i was cockier than i am now and at age 19 i went to a bible college and there was this professor who had hit on one of the girls and he was married he was he was a pastor and we went and reported him to in to the administration and they did exactly nothing and so we um pretty frustrated with a guy and one day he stands up in class and he and he's pastoring also 40 people in a little tiny church in glendale and he says under no circumstances should you ever admit a huge deal of this should you ever ever ask anyone to leave a church well i'd seen my pastor kick somebody out because of some horrible sin in their life and i had read somewhere i think in corinthians where paul gives like eight reasons for kicking somebody out of the church and then in the next letter he says restore the guy and you're telling me this you're dumb i'm 19 i'm smart so i i grew up in the biggest church in the four square denomination which was in portland oregon at the time and i went to the mother church of the denomination which is angel's temple up in l.a which is ripping now but it was tiny it was 400 depressed people i in and i had seen pictures of 6 000 people in this three-tiered auditorium and i go they're expecting that and there's and then they forced me i'm in this bible college they forced me to work in the church for the first semester because they can't get any volunteers from their own church so it was crazy and i didn't like it and i'm 19 years old i'm smarter than you and i'm gonna go and figure out how to build a big church and i'm going to do it right and so i my deal was kid thing right i'm going to read the book of acts every day the whole thing takes about 20 minutes 25 minutes for seven every every day seven days a week for my whole second year of college and i probably made five days i really did do it you know five days i mean five days a week for the whole time i soaked in the book and then i got confused because my whole thing was acts 2. we're going to go out and build make a church but then as the book goes on it fragments it's like all over the place it's like there's no sense of this at all i don't get this it just and then i begin to realize the church in jerusalem was immature jesus said go they all stayed eventually they got into judea which means that some people are walking it tells us that they met in the temple courts and they met in houses for the apostles teaching fellowship breaking bread prayer they were praising god they were giving to each other generously and they weren't judging their neighbors for being gay or for being communist or being whatever people don't get judged into the kingdom they get loved into the kingdom and their and and and people love them and the lord was adding their their numbers daily but there's a problem because in its immaturity it's trying to get big and then as as it goes on uh god puts his foot in the middle of it i think in acts chapter eight you know acts chapter 1 verse 8 says to take the gospel to the ends of the earth i love being in hawaii it's it's an island group further from the mainland than any island group in the world is further from the mainland we were the ends of the earth he says take the gospel to the ends of they stayed in jerusalem and then acts chapter 8 verse 1 acts 1 8 couldn't have happened without acts 8 1. acts 8 1 saul of tarsus is breathing threatenings against the church and all this and all except the apostles fled and everywhere they went they went talking about jesus for instance in other words one of the little stories is that philip went down to samaria and by the way when he got there he got his doctrine wrong and peter and john had to come and correct him but that's what the church is all about is we got each other's back are you with me and so but watch this all except the apostles we just read this thing in matthew those 11 people or we're talking about jesus stands on the mountain ascends into heaven and the last thing he says is you guys go and go out there what do they do nine years later acts 8 verse 1. all except the courageously disobedient apostles fled jerusalem the apostles stayed and took the heat and they had courage and they paid a price but they also disobeying the lord because this is all about go not come church is not about come and join us church is about how can we go there and and engage them that's that's the word and so we see the the story goes on in in in in acts chapter um 11 you got these people who have gone all these places in the mediterranean they congregate in syria do you know that there's churches in syria muslim syria that go all the way back their scriptures are in aramaic which was the language that jesus spoke and and there's some scriptures that they say we got started by whatever barnabas and those guys were doing in antioch and so some people went to antioch and they preached the gospel but they only talked to jews because they were jews they were racist the dumbest idea man has ever invented is racism and then there were other people who spoke to gentiles as well and the guys in jerusalem freak out because gentiles and so they said barnabas was a jew who grew up in a gentile country they sent him and he sends back word it's cool go for it so they say that he goes to tarsus and finds the now fledgling believer saul who used to persecute the christians so cool this guy started the first missionary movement by beating upon the christians and then he gets to write a whole bunch of the new testament what a life but then a little bit later on they're out in this missionary journey and so they're kind of doing the churchy thing they're going around preaching and gathering a few people and making some disciples and then they get in trouble and somebody they think they killed paul saul at that time he still called they left him for dead they stoned him and they it doesn't say they stoned him and left him for dead thinking they heard him bad bye it means they actually thought they killed him so he looked dead and then the disciples gathered around the bible doesn't say they prayed but i think they must have prayed and so he comes back to life maybe resurrected i don't know but here's what they did they snuck back to the villages where they had been and in every village they appointed elders from among the disciples now what does that really look like well you go in the village and you've had these whatever you did preaching whatever and you got maybe 20 or 30 people who accepted the messiah it's not big it's little and they're disciples meat cutters shepherds carpenters who knows barter system they don't have much money all that so we go around and we appoint elders which means that the word elder means pastor so what did they do they turned those little loose groups into churches and you're the pastor and you never went to seminary and you've been the whole trip is they've been in five towns in two and a half years so you could average it out there's six months in a place so you you've known the lord for six months or less and now you're the guy see he thinks it's spooky that you know he got chosen so early compared to those guys i mean zach had been several years in the faith and he he knew stuff and it shows so anyhow these guys get pointed to be the pastors and then they go back and they don't have email they don't have zoom to write a letter was a thing that very few people did in the first century it was expensive and it would take five six months to get there and five six months to get back it says they turned them over to the holy spirit whom they had put their trust so what am i saying to you well there's a bunch of you you're in this church jesus talked about people called persons of peace he says when you go to a village find somebody who'll pay attention to you and then hang out with them and disciple them let them reach their friends well here's what i know about the way we do church in america there are some of you from different ethnic now some of you we can tell that by the color of your skin okay and and but you your culture may be exactly the same as my culture only your skin looks different than mine because of where you grew up or you may look exactly like me but you grew up in a different culture i was in ireland not too long ago and i'm as irish as you can be i did that thing you know dna thing and i i have nothing to do with that culture but i met people living in that culture and it's like yeah we look alike and we might even be cousins but you're surely a different ethnic than me and now we're still talking dna but but what about you guys that do hang out in a tattoo shop what about the people who go to the desert on the weekend so they you know they're hardly ever in church because they go out and ride motorcycles or do whatever you're one of them who feels comfortable in this very middle class church you're the person of peace that needs to be deputized to go to them and you need to understand that that's right much more than the leadership of the church needs to understand you need to understand it and this brings me to the end of this thing it's ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 to 13. it says that he jesus gave some to be apostles if you're an innovator who you know i just talked to a guy named john who started you know blessed us when we first got in here we almost went bankrupt when we moved in here his man walks in the church first day first night and he owns a piece of property he's going to build a house on he donates the land to the church we were so we sold it it bailed us out or we wouldn't even be here wow and i haven't seen him for 110 years and i and i i have after i moved to hawaii i would think about him quite often and i pray god bless john he gave so much bless him he was a he was a captain of a oil tanker he's very young like 29 years old crazy thing i prayed and prayed for this guy just bless him financially for what he did for us i saw him this morning and and and basically i'm kind of going are you okay financially and he told me i mean he's okay financially because he's running this incredible business out of his garage that has to do with marine architecture and i mean crazy crazy well that guy's probably an apostle there's a friend of mine named alan haughey he started a movie studio he had a graphic arts business all these things that's an apostolic gift and it's shown in his spiritual life all the people he's touched but so this isn't just talking about churchy let's talk about the church yes and then it says that some are prophets i told this story before and i'll tell you again there's this guy right here bob allen he's walking with a cane he gained a few pounds since i last saw him but lady in the in the brown and orange blouse with the glasses on raise your hand hi just raise the heart yeah you just right there okay this is two weeks after john the baptist showed up on a sunday night john the baptist was over there and he stood up and informed us that he was the father of jesus by the immaculate conception i mean these were the days when being on pacific coast highway you got the fruitcakes so this guy sitting in the chair where she's sitting comes up here to me during the greeting time with his guitar slapped over his back like johnny cash and he's about probably six three six four informs me that god told him he's supposed to be the pastor of his church not me and he's taken over tonight so we go down i get up to do my whole thing and he stands up and the night before he had been at calvary chapel costa mesa they did these concerts and this guy bob allen who is a prophet anybody who knows bob will say he's abrasive he's brash he's yeah he's a prophet they are they're always correcting everybody going get it straight jack and so jack that's a private joke um the night before at calvary chapel that guy had done the same thing and bob was into judo and he sort of tied the guy up in a knot and walked him out the door and he happened to be sitting where the gentleman in the dark blue t-shirt is in front of the lady with the orange blouse same chair and when a guy starts to go off bob just stands up and goes hi remember me from last night i think we should go outside so so okay so what's a prophet well elijah certainly was one but there are a number of them in this room right now and some of you don't like them really well because they are abrasive it's just an earmark they're always wanting to talk about things being right and correct the problems in the world and correct the problems of your doctrine and everything else and god put them in the body for a reason and we need to own up to this isn't for some church office this is for who we are because god gifted us and then it says there are evangelists when we started this church he was a wonderful man he did wonderful wonderful things he gave huge exposure and continued exposure to the gospel but he was a burden to me his name was billy graham because when everybody read the word evangelist in the bible that's what they thought of but that's not what it's talking about there's a guy named barry felis who came up in this church who is is hanging out down in the piers all the time i don't know what he's still doing now but he would go and start painting something and then people gather around he starts telling about jesus people are getting saved we're we're in this little building over here and the the the susie parks who's now susie hall brings her friend tony um corbett to our church and this goofy guy that i grew up with in portland who dropped out of high school so he could go fishing three months before graduation had come to join with us and we went over to tony's house and introduced her to jesus and she just started bringing the church wouldn't have grown if it wasn't for tony a bunch of guys had been smoking dope and doing whatever they're doing in high school and then they had met jesus and then they tried to go to some traditional church and the church told them that you got to cut your hair and you got to you know wear shoes and dress right and you can come back well then they went back to where they used to hang out and smoke dope and do whatever they did and pretty soon they were back to doing that because they were back there doing a bible study but that didn't last and then tony finds jesus and she goes out and drags all them in and some of the early pastors or the guy mike howard and i told you about mike and rick and robert well that's because tony brought mike tony brought randy weir who pastored by vocational in ventura california for about 40 years and is not there training other guys to do the same uh she's an evangelist and there's a whole bunch of you guys that that's what you are but you're not recognized it's not an office it's a calling but you know what the bible says we're all to do the work of an evangelist and then it says there are some pastors and teachers and i think if i had to categorize zack zach i know i'd say he's part prophet but he's more pastor if you have to categorize me i'm more teacher and way less pastor way less pastor i mean take two aspirins and don't call me back um we decided we're not doing any pastoral counseling in in the offices at all if you call up and you want pastoral counseling well we don't do that but we do have this thing called mini church because there's pastors in many church and i don't mean the mini church leader i mean the people who are gifted to be the pastor a miniature leader is a kind of a structural thing i can remember the first day i stood up in in probably 1984 in hawaii and said i i just want you all to know that um and now i'm playing i'm not even preaching i just don't do this anyway i just want you all to know i make a really solemn promise to you that if you get sick or you're in an accident and you're in the hospital i will not be there and everybody kind of they didn't laugh like you because then it was like what and i go because i am not your pastor and by the way this isn't even a church this is a convention the church meets during the week in houses all over this island and that guy's your pastor but if he's doing his job he won't be in the hospital either because it says here that apostles prophets pastors teachers evangelists those guys exist to equip the members the saints to do the work of the ministry so if that guy's doing his job he won't show up in the hospital but a bunch of those folks will they'll be with you and you know what one time i actually did go to the hospital because it was a really close friend of mine and i couldn't get in and i go because the door was stuck and so i went and got the nurse and the nurse comes and she just pulls the door open there's 16 people in that room with a guitar that's the church i'm not an evangelist you know we we would have at least 20 people a week 52 weeks a year pray to accept jesus in in that church but they weren't accepting jesus in that church they accepted jesus last tuesday or the monday night before that and they were just coming to church and i was sticking through this little thing to put a rubber stamp on it and go yeah you got it buddy but but but it was the people doing it and so i want to kind of bring this down to a close this is about all of us when it says hope chapel church has 50 years and counting we're talking about the next 50. and we're talking about churches which are bodies of people in hope chapel honolulu the last church i pastored i'd left the big one behind and we started in a movie theater and and we had over 2 billion worth of real estate bequeathed to us it's a lot of money because we had the whole kahala mall all the parking all the restaurants and the movie theater that we paid rent in and we had the park at kakao park kakaako park that overlooked the ocean where we held worship nights and then there was that place where hunakai street meets the ocean and that that was our baptist tree and then there was that little crummy space that didn't have any parking spaces we had to bootleg off a market and only got towed once um that that we rented for little mid-week training deals and then we had all these houses it easily totaled two thousand two billion dollars and the way we sent it to everybody is the city is our campus but here's what we never did have ever is a telephone and so i'd stand up in church and i would go you know we got the whole city we get to use it god blessed us and by the way what we don't have is a phone and but that's our tool for you to know whether or not you're a member because if you're a member of this church you know somebody who knows my phone number and if you don't then you're not a member you're a spectator and you're welcome to be a spectator just make sure you dump some money in the bucket on the way out the door you see the church is not an institution it's not a building and it's not about even the gospel it's about the lordship of jesus christ amen it's about the creator whose creation has turned their backs on him and about people coming to be reconciled to the god who loves him that's what this is all about and it's not about ralph or ruby or zach or julie it's about the holy spirit in you and the holy spirit is nagging these people already and they're waiting for you they just don't know it and they might even be mad at you if you start talking to them because they don't know it but this is what it's about and in the last 50 years our great prologue for what is coming down the road good stuff is ahead is this okay because i want to pray for y'all lord i i just get so blessed every time i get to come back here see all that's happened and bump into people and hear more and more stories about more and more going on around the world it's just so cool and and lord i i had a half hour ago 45 minutes ago i had a really nice talk with mike nazarian and i i got clued in a little bit on where the future of of of the the things that people are planning in this church and i think that's wonderful but i think you're more wonderful than that and i pray that as as the future unfolds that this church will be faithful to its calling faithful to its community faithful to its world faithful to its ethnic faithful to its savior and faithful to your word as they live it out together in jesus name amen amen is ralph uh reminded us it's about jesus isn't it we're here because of jesus thank you and what he's done in our lives and through our lives with one another so given that reality we are going to come to the lord's table together to remember him you should have a little cup these are new technology actually i read i was reading an ad for another one that's shaped like a little chalice i'm gonna check on the price these are probably less expensive lord we come to your table right now we're grateful grateful for your mercy and your grace to us for saving us bringing us into your family lord giving us the privilege of participating with you what you're doing in this world the night before he died he gathered his disciples and he took some bread and he gave thanks for it he broke it and he gave it to them he said this is my body given for you take an eat and after he'd eaten he took the cup described as the cup of the new covenant in his blood which would be poured out for the forgiveness of our sins jesus didn't just take a beating for us he gave his life he held back nothing to know a love like that takes your breath away he says when you do this remember me we need reminders we get busy we forget we gather together each week to remember him drink the cup amen amen it's our custom if you're new with us it's our custom to pronounce a blessing on each other in the name of jesus and also if you if it's appropriate for you to give your neighbor a holy hug and maybe even possibly a holy kiss before we stand together and sing these praises let's stand together one more time lord bless you and keep make his face shine upon and be gracious to you the lord turn his face towards you let's sing may his favor go before you may his favor go before and your family and your children and their children and let you make his prayers go before behind and besides all around here's where he is is ah the lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon and be gracious lord let the words that we've heard in the speaking of your spirit into our hearts and minds move us and continue that work of transformation in our lives that we can and will be makers of disciples for your glory lord renew us a vision stir us up empower us to what you want to do through us bless your church i pray in jesus name amen god bless you have a blessed week i love you bye please tell somebody about jesus thank you for tuning in today we truly hope that you were blessed by our time together we also want to thank you for your faithful continued giving here again are the various ways that you can continue to support the various ministries at hope chapel you may give online at hopechapel.org forward slash give text give to 310-388-3448 or utilize our alexio community app or by mail to 2306 pacific coast highway hermosa beach california 90254 stay connected with us throughout the week by visiting our hope at home webpage or by following us on facebook or instagram we want to hear from you please send your prayer requests and your praise reports to prayer hope chapel dot org if you need prayer or support outside of our office hours please call our elder helpline at 310-318-8105 your pastors and elders are continually praying for our church family now is a good time to connect with one of our small groups for additional encouragement and support throughout the week you may visit hope chapel dot org forward slash mini church or contact pastor jared blue at jarrod.bluehopechapel.org to find a group to join thank you again for joining us today we look forward to gathering again online next sunday we hope to see you then and may god bless your week so so so so so you

Channel: Hope Chapel Hermosa Beach

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Length: 129min 56sec (7796 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021