Being Sent

here's what's going on this week at a LCF well for me personally the summit is single-handedly the most impactful inspiring leadership event that I've ever experienced and every time I call I say it cannot get better because every time it's very good and you always surprise us because it's better than it intervened in almost everything we do because we all know that eventually in order to really transform our community our workplace leadership is really central to everything we do this time we have six people attending and I can talk to them about the principles that I learned here but we may come here and experience it for themselves when we experience it together as a group it's so powerful I knew about the summit for many years before I decided to come and I opted out because I thought I wasn't qualified I see myself as a mom just like every other mom and not a vision casting inspirer large numbers of people it relates to every level of existence in leadership to the spectacular opportunity for everyone in the community and Beyond well beyond but I think for us uniquely there's so few training in either ship that really integrate our faith and I think GIS is very unique in that the self-awareness that you get here is something you don't get often as a leader the message that's delivered here is certainly not exclusively for Christians it is for the world and I would say give it a try all it's not a big investment look at the quality of our speakers it's about whether you're willing to set aside the time to really look into the issue and hear what God has to say to you about your current leadership your calling and what much more you can do for the kingdom be sure to register at the contributor station after service or online at Al CFM ed forward slash GLS 19 the bridge is our monthly night of music and sharing with a focused message about recovery join us as Bruce Mart's leaves us in a time of worship a special guest band Tim moon and the stars will provide inspirational praise through music this event takes place on Saturday July 6 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the fellowship hall on July 8 through 12 Johnny and Friends is holding its annual family retreat for families affected by disability and Mission Springs - from Scotts Valley California learn more about this event including opportunities to serve as a short-term missionary go to Johnny and friends org forward slash Bay Area or contact Tabitha mills at tea mills at Johnny and Friends org if you're 18 to 30 ish and want to meet and grab lunch with other young adults come join us at the center pillar in the lobby after service on Sundays we'll head out together and enjoy a tasty local eatery if you're ready to proactively manage your health be sure to join us as we host lifeline screening providing ultrasound screenings to identify risk factors for cardiovascular diseases this event takes place on Thursday July 18th from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the fellowship hall you can get more information at lifeline screening calm and you can register with a special discounted rate at a LCF dotnet or it / signups sign up for any of these upcoming events go to a LC f net slash signups and check out the a lcff and remember abundant life exists to make a better you for a better world grab a seat let me pray for us Lord God the opportunity to worship with my my brothers and sisters down south here Lord God in Silicon Valley I am honored I am I'm so thankful for this opportunity look that would you I would pray special blessing on this place this morning Lord Jesus I also pray that the Holy Spirit be in here that it that it might settle amongst us Lord God that you might be inspected and ready for what you're about to do and I pray for hearts and minds to be open and receptive to what you have for us all here today Jesus name we pray amen amen so glad again to be with you all my name is Eddie I am a pastor at Bay City Church in San Francisco a new church planter yeah thank you thank you thank you a new church plant in San Francisco we have started 10 months ago so we are the paint is still drying well we don't have a building but if it was it would be drying and so I am glad to be here with you today and I wanted to take you through a little bit of a journey my journey specifically but then I'm gonna show you what I hope to do is I hope to show you a little bit of the way Holy Spirit has been weaving in and out of all of our stories this entire time specifically in our call to go go go so I'm going to tell you a little bit of my story but what I think is really interesting here is particularly in the Bay Area because this is where I'm from this is home for me is I think we've found we found this call this American call rather to to consume instead of taking on the gospel call to go and so there's this this cosmic mix-up that's taken place and church planning for me has shown me and connected me with the story of God's call to go in anyway in a way I've never been sent before it's completely unique and floran to me it is utterly bizarre cuz I've seen you know I've opened the Bible obviously you I would hope if I'm here that your pastor check to see if I read the Bible before but I have and as I've read through the scriptures I've seen God's amazing story from Genesis to Revelation it's inner woven nature that God has had a plan for the fall of man this entire time and he's used he's used the the creation the people his his created order to bring about the means of salvation this guy Jesus that we would all believe and I I've got to see this but church planning has allowed me to see that that churches are actually in there too but there's a footnote for my church planter here's why because when Jesus calls the disciples to to go out to Judea Samaria and the ends of the earth I've got to believe that God in all his foreknowledge knew that there'd be a place on the coast of North America that would need himself and that our churches are the call of the disciples generations down to be the church at the ends of the earth and I was standing out like I usually do at the ocean uh standing out Ocean Beach and looking and my wife she's from Seattle area and she's like hey what's out there you know because in Seattle it's there's the Puget Sound and so across there there's like other stuff and I was like ah Hawaii I mean there's there's I don't know Thailand New Zealand something's out there but it's nowhere close we're on the ends of the earth here that is amazing to think about so God in all his foreknowledge Jesus he's sitting there going hey I need you to go to Jamaa Judea Samaria and the ends of the earth and through the generational lineage of the believers the spiritual sons and daughters that man there would be a church here Abundant Life Christian Fellowship exists because of that call that is fantastic and then I come to this passage in John 20:21 now Jesus himself he had just rose from the dead no small feat for us humans but for him he knocked it out of the park he's there and he shows up and the very first thing he says to his disciples is greetings and then he says so now as the father just sent me I am now sending you and can you imagine the fear that of like wait a second I'm gonna go died on the cross I can't and do all that like what are you asking me to do and God clarifies his call that he would want us to go forth and make disciples of many nations including this one baptizing him in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit now what I get from this I've always read it and I've always kind of gone past it but Church plenty has allowed me to see that every single believer every single Christian has a standing order to obey Matthew 28 to go forth and make disciples of many nations to go we all have that order do you get that man that's a big time call making disciples is our standing order it is the literal mission of the God of God the God of the universe and listen I know you guys have been studying what it means to be light and light is light like it's in and of itself it exists as the light but light has to do something in order to fulfill its calling right it has to illuminate and so a light can't be light unless it illuminates and a Christian doesn't fulfill its purpose if it doesn't go you see our God is by nature ascender that's what he does best he sends people perfected in his son Jesus and so I hope they use my story and in order to show you guys what it means really to be sent and this launching point of Jesus's words to us to the disciples and to us should hopefully propel us into this go nature our sense miss I'll call it so as weeks for John 20:21 I hope we need to consider just what it means for us individually not collectively as a church but even individually what it means to be centerdale workplace sent into the grocery store sent to our families sent into our own particular spheres of influence ourselves so here here's the first thing I think you need to do if you want to embrace this sense nature ok I think the first thing you need to do is you need to use your own story yeah you got to use your story before you check out let me explain you mine ok because my story is interesting I grew up here in the Bay Area I told I said the bay area because I really mean the bay area ok my parents were never married my dad left my family when I was about 8 or 9 years old we bounced around all up and down the bay area of San Mateo and Vallejo and Pittsburgh and and Bayview in all of these places all over we bounced around all of these different places and we're on government housing and food stamps and the thing and that sort of thing and so we're all over this place I had never been into a church my entire life I've never been into a church especially when my dad left I had never even heard of the church the only thing I knew about church was this big old Bible my mom kept on on her shelf and every now and then I crack it open be like all right eight-year-old Eddie it's time to read this entire thing here we go this is where all the knowledge is that's what everyone says and so I'll crack in in the beginning was the word okay or in they've been getting was God and created the lights okay you know what tomorrow I'll pick it up verse two and we'll get going right like that that was my mindset when it came to church I never really really experienced it and it all come it all came to a head when we moved to Vallejo because my dad was gone we moved into a really impoverished community we'd get our house broken into pretty frequently and we were just kidding I was getting beat up at school I don't know anything any mixed people in here today man I was a white kid at the black school the black kid at the white school I don't understand that I'm you know I'm confusing that it can't just be the mixed kid what do you want to call me you know anyway that's a whole another sermon but nonetheless I experienced this this tough part of growing up in it it went in about 2000 2001 and my mom was diagnosed with cancer at that time and so at this time I had never been into a church but I do remember one time coming home and the door or front door was open and our house was just trashed destroyed and and I'm looking through all of the trash in the debris looking for just any any semblance of something to keep because there's everything was just covered in food and just destroyed the the whole back the back room was covered in a Bisquick you know my mom had cancer and so people were really nice people would go to Costco and buy us like lots of different Costco food and and whoever decided to break in here decided to take all that Costco food and just throw it all over the place okay and so our house is just destroyed and my mom comes in after me because you know she's you know she's sick and so she comes in I've got one younger sister and she comes in and she looks around and she just wails this one time and I never heard that the three-letter word beginning with G before in this context but she said why God why would you do this to me and she cried out and lamented in that and I didn't welled up in me to well you know I feel like if there's this cosmic governor of the universe he should be able to help this situation right we weren't poor we're in a really horrible house and our house is trashed my mom is dying and where was God I didn't know God at the time but I knew I needed to try to do something about it I thought that it was up to me and so what I did was I started going to school and getting good grades and thinking man this is my way out I'm gonna I'm gonna fix the life and I'm gonna do something for my family and my mom passed away cancer that Easter actually just a few months later and so that only intensified my fire to go do something special for myself and to redeem the what had been done to my family yeah and so I played college football high school football and then college for I got a scholarship to University of I know that's how I got to Idaho okay yeah crazy crazy I got an academic scholarship as well and they kind of laid on top of one another and is abled me to kind of pay for everything at school and when I got to college I'll tell you what I was full of it because I mean look where I had come from you know my dad's gone I don't you know I don't have a lot of family and so I basically feel like I did this on my own I had some key figures helping out to be sure they were in the footnotes in my story but it was about me at the time and so I had strutted around campus I didn't drink I didn't smoke I didn't have girlfriends I was all focused on football in school because this is how I build my kingdom this is who I am right it's all about me I'm building myself up until this guy this this disheveled looking teammate of mine who looked like John the Baptist I could imagine him bushy beard bad toenails wearing sandals all the time even in the snow seriously true story and he's handing out Bibles getting on the team bus he's handing out Bibles and so I'm one of the last one I'm a freshman I'm traveling back to San Jose State to play play down here ironically and I feel bad for the guy no one's taken his Bibles so I'm like hey man let me help you out toss one of those my way what what do you want me to do with this thing and he says oh man you're gonna take one I was like absolutely like your fight why are you so excited and he said oh man the first thing you need to do is you need to read the book of John because all the other Gospels are gonna tell you what Jesus did but this one's gonna tell you who Jesus was and I was like man like this guy impacted me like you know in a crazy way and it wasn't just his smell like it was it was everything about him and so I took his Bible and as I started to go on a bus he's on oh hold on a second man and he he asked for the Bible back he said give me that thing it takes his paper but I was like he reaches in his bag it gives me a nice a leather Bible with his name on he says here you take this Bible now before you before you think that's not it was a King James Version okay so and I had never really opened the Bible except for like that Genesis 1:1 deal so so a couple days later I go back to my room and I'm like let me let me open this thing up and so I kick it open and I go to John and I read through it and I love it I mean I'm in I mean because he had challenged me on some things I said give me give me 72 hours I'll nail the Bible just give me just give me some time that's ridiculous 18-year old kid and and so I get through John like this is good and so what do I do if you never read my you just keep going because like what's next right the book of Acts happens to be a sequel there's a sequel in the book of the gospel and so I'm reading through the sequel and I'm like - this is crazy and then I'm like wait a sec they're all dying this is great okay and then I get through all of that and then it acts acts ends at all abruptly on the wait a second is that it and so what's next the book of Romans in the King James so I open that up and I open Romans 1 and I come across this part which says hey you've exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped created things rather than the Creator God and I went that's me for the first time ever I saw that the Bible wasn't a road map to me to live my best life now it was a diagnostic tool to show me where I needed the Great God of the Bible and I saw that I'm like I gotta use this and so that's where I meet Christ and then I fast-forward six months later ridiculously I decide I want to go plant churches was it ready not the time but nonetheless I show up to this place here 14 years later in the Bay Area with my wife here to plant this church and I come across these people these people are diverse they're mixed they are socioeconomically impoverished but they're also affluent there are multiple where people groups much like your church here today the Bay View the southeast part of San Francisco and even the north Peninsula to a large degree it's incredibly diverse and so we're drawing all I'm just coming across these different people and having coffees and and meeting and meeting for lunch with all these different sorts of people and I'm seeing this and you know I realize I share their story you see the people in our community that generationally impoverished that that's my story you see the people that lived on government assistance that that's my story the people that grew up without their fathers and that's my story but on the other side of things see the rest of my story is that after college i when my mom was dying on her deathbed I told I promised her something ridiculous I said hey I'm gonna go to the NFL one day wait for you I'm like I'm gonna go play in the NFL which every thirteen-year-old kid thinks who's going in the NFL sorry to burst your bubble okay if you're here not not everyone gets in but somehow I got drafted to play in the NFL so I get drafted to play in the NFL and I spend five years playing in the NFL and I had just as many surgeries as I played years it hurts to play in the NFL it's fun but it definitely is painful and so after that I go into the business world as well I work in sales in a tech company just cuz get my few and I start help start churches and all along the way I come across these people in our part of the Bay Area and I realized I'm actually kind of on both sides of this thing you see I've lived an affluent white-collar life i blurt I've lived a generationally impoverished blue-collar life not to say those things can't be inversed but that's the people I'm coming across you see God's using the store he's given me for his own glory in our part of the city it's amazing don't you remember what Paul says comfort those with the comfort you've received in Christ Jesus that's what I'm talking about here and so God's I'm getting to see God uniquely knit all of our stories together and he's using mine for his own glory bringing people to into the presence of who he is you see that you you have the same actual story though by the way that you two have been uniquely knitted by God for his own glory but the problem is well I'll just come out with you flat it's probably your phone it's probably your laptop because you go online and you look at social media you look at Instagram and Facebook and you start comparing the story God's given you with the lives of the people that he's given them you see what I'm saying and so all of a sudden you start comparing young man I don't know if I'm as rich or as smart or as class seeing that person's maybe so debonair and smooth look at these people could their gift things and you start longing for them but the problem with those sort of things is they produce they produce comparison right comparison produces sameness God didn't create his body for sameness he created it for uniqueness and so all of you have been uniquely knitted by God to do his work and only the way you can do it do you get what I'm saying there's only some hearts you're gonna be able to reach there's only some hands you can hold there's only some brains you can penetrate he didn't call Pastor Brian to do the work of you he didn't call me didn't call a YouTube evangelist to do the work he didn't call your cubicle mate he didn't call the person working next to you to be the means by which the people in your life meet him he usually wants you and so you need to uniquely embrace your story some of us think if I'm honest and I did to a large degree some of us think our stories are a burden on us like if my story didn't go the way it did you know what my life might be like you know if I didn't get hurt at this one game if I didn't if my dad would have stuck around what what would my life have been like you think of it as a burden the problem is when you get us when you get your story from God and he makes you gives you your story to be sure the sovereign creator of the universe gives you your story and then works out his plans through your story he does that when you get your story dropped into your lap you're given a weapon you are to wield your story as a weapon against war with warfare against injustice and evil and to push back darkness and to bring about the kingdom of God today your story is a weapon to be wielded against the enemy when you don't embrace the story God has given you you're like a laptop holding open a door yeah you're a doorstop for now but that's not what you were created to do you were created to use your story he wants this he doesn't want he one doesn't want same as he wants this uniqueness and again our passage John 20:21 as the father has sent me so now I am sending you not him her earth they you that's all of us are unique callings and giftings which will look differently to everybody he didn't send your neighbor he didn't send your pastor he wants to send you you got to use your story but once you understand that you got to use it it's time to acknowledge your calling you've got to acknowledge that you've actually been called okay and I'm gonna read you a passage that a second Timothy one this is Paul the impossible writing to a younger understudy Timothy and check out what he says to him therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our God nor of me his prisoner but sharing in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who saved us and called and called us to a holy calling near that he called us to a holy calling not because of your work but because of his own purposes and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began we've all been called by God it's all of us and not only having he hasn't given us a second-rate calling either he hasn't given us a calling that's not as good as Billy Graham's calling not as good as some famous rapper Christian rap or a famous politician he's given you a holy calling a holy calling but if we're honest with ourselves and I know we need to be bright but at least right now because we're in church many of us are unwilling to acknowledge the calling we know we have you see a lot of us know we're called and are not following it like listen I just talking to this guy the other week man listen I know I'm in San Francisco here I got a nice job and I know God is calling me to something bigger in my life I know there are people in my life that I need to minister to and reach but man I just I can't get myself to do it I would rather just take out long weekends and go skiing and kind of enjoy this place and then I'll kind of come back around to when I start having kids then I'll bring the kids to church and then kind of things will fall in line as if you need a hiatus from the call of God but that's what that's what's happened some of us are there but some of us I've made not need to acknowledge our calling and we know we have in other of us have probably even just forgotten we were called maybe you remembered it remember you were you had that fervor and angst when you first met Jesus if you're here and you're a Christian yet that fervor and angst I'm on fire I can't wait and slowly but surely the fire kind of fades right yeah you with me on that I remember the call I got to leave where I was to come back here you see I hadn't been living here for a long time and playing football and traveling around and I went to a conference somewhere not even close to the Bay Area and I met a guy who helps plant churches in San Francisco and lives here and and I said he came up to me and said hey I lived in Utah the time he says hey what is a guy who's not white living in Utah how did that happen right like he's just being honest and I said it's a long story I got a lot of I'm a knight at home and Utah you know I'm all over the place and and he asked me about something else and I said hey what do you do and he said oh I help plant churches in San Francisco and I was like oh weird cuz I want to plant a church in San Francisco and so I go back to my wife and we're having the conversation on the on the living room table and we're sitting down we get in bed and we're talking about it for weeks and weeks and weeks and then the call begins to build up begins the bullet because we were comfortable we we could buy a house there you know like like anywhere else but here or you can buy a house and so I I got a house I mean I got land like that's my you know and and so I was we had everything we had a community and friendships and family we were comfortably were in a ministry to be sure and then I look over it to my wife Sarah and I say you know what I feel like if we don't go to San Francisco we'd be telling God no because the call on our lives was so palpable that we would literally be like man we gotta reject what God is telling us to do we felt it the call was like going down through our arms we had to go we knew that there would be hard things in the Bay Area especially for me it's really nice it was really nice for me to be out of the Bay Area based on my childhood I didn't have to face the cold hard realities of my of my past but coming back here I knew I would though some of those would well up right like for the instance I I don't have Thanksgiving dinners with family here I don't have Christmas dinners the reality that I had no family would set in the reality that there were broken relationships here would set in and I knew that and it was very very difficult for me to come back in a step and I'm not saying your call and in to embrace it won't be hard in fact I'm probably saying it should be hard the call of God on anyone's life has never been to comfort certainly I don't find that anywhere in the Scripture but ultimately the call is always given to us just for the glory of God and to live out our sovereign nature by the power of the Holy Spirit that's the call but ever that may lead us and so I say okay now in the Bay Area it's really easy to get lost in what our call is because you know Bay Area people pretty smart folks right a lot of smart companies here right no one wants to give themselves a hand okay for fair enough we're smart group of people okay yeah there you go it's it you're the home of so much innovation here but as as Christians we get into this thing I like to call it embarrass spiritual intellectualism where we'll kind of kick back and we'll debate the nuances of the scriptures and well-well talk about what does it really mean to be called and what does that word mean and the Greek and who really knows what that could mean I need to read a few more theologians and scholars before I can really embrace this word call and ten years later we're still debating in we're lost in the spiritual intellectualism discussing the nuances of Christianity don't let spiritual intellectualism distract you from the real reality that you were called to go you are called to go and that means no matter the cost that means no matter the cost that means you pay costs to do it that means it's gonna cost you something maybe influence maybe financially maybe relationally maybe family it costs something to follow God if you have not paid anything to be follower of Christ this is the sermon for you this is a sermon for you because ultimately Jesus says that it will cost us something that there is ultimate cost to discipleship and making more disciples it's important now some of you also will say you know I want to love I want to use my calling but I'm not ready oh this is my favorite because God uses everybody anytime right all the time so you might have been saved for three days but someone's been saved for three minutes and to them you're a spiritual giant and you're like yo dude have you looked at Genesis yet have you looked at look at this title I mean look at this I mean do you even know where it's out in your bottle I can tell you it's right here you you are a spiritual giant to them and if you've been say for three minutes or someone who's nowhere near being saved so the problem is when you want to you want to say you're not ready you're waiting for the future time to be ready to be used by God but God's ready to use you now and he wants to use you right now like there is no you do not need to read more theology before you're ready to share the gospel you do not need to God speaks out of donkey's he speaks out of broken sinners he speaks out of everyone he can certainly use you and he will but you got to be open to it now there's another thing you have to do if you want to embrace your sentence and this one may be hard for some people particularly if you're young if you're new to the area you got to love where you are you get a love where you are that means in the Greek you have to love where you are okay that means the Bay Area it's traffic and all of the good that comes with the bad you've got to embrace it if you want to be influential and embrace your setting this out look at Jeremiah 29 with me the quintessential passage here now let me ask you something the Israelites are sent into Babylonian captivity we're not captives here all right some of us might feel like that but we're not captives here these people are going into Babylonian captivity and this is what God tells them hey I don't exiled you out of the promised land I promise all your father's but hey you're gonna sit and be under the rule of some foreign king who worships foreign gods for a while that's okay I want you to do this Jeremiah 5 he says build houses and live in them he says plant gardens and eat of their produce take wise and have sons and daughters take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they make their sons and daughters multiply there and do not decrease I have a bunch of kids there but seek the welfare of the city seek the welfare of the city of the Bay Area where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare you will find your welfare so wait wait what in the Bay Area's welfare you will find yours don't you see the call is bigger than just our own personal faith and salvation that we are called sent into the world into a place like this to seek the welfare of the people in the region don't you think that we would all benefit if we did that yeah we would right this is what we're talking about be a neighbor be a citizen the story of the Bay Area many of you know sceles Church metropolitan region in the United States okay the least Church region San Francisco in particular sees four percent of its eight hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and seventeen people in a church on a Sunday morning that means there is more people in line at brunch than there are in the churches in the city and that is actually true look I wish it was not it's true there are as many churches there obviously and so we need more churches which is why we're planting churches that you may have heard there are more dogs than Christians in that area right there are more dogs and kids there are a hundred there are a hundred and sixteen thousand children in San Francisco it is the is those has the least amount of children out of any major city in the United States and there are a hundred and thirty thousand dogs in the city which makes hiking and walking on trails just so ridiculous what's with these apps and people have got like seven dogs on them and they're looking at my kid like oh oh yeah are you gonna bring your kid up this trail this is for dogs like are you kidding me so these people need to graph the imago Dei a little bit more you know what I'm saying I love dogs I'm not anti dog you get what I'm saying this is the city with all of its drawbacks a place at the region the Bay Area of tremendous beauty I mean it's gorgeous you can go anywhere from here into the snow the beach is gorgeous here people love it here which is why it keeps coming and even though it has this tremendous beauty and there's culture in the Bay Area there's just so much here it is a place with tremendous trials it has a lot of issues here as well San Francisco in particular you guys remember how it started the gold rush and I will tell you right now that there is a gold miners ethos in San Francisco that people cut into the Bay Area that too large they really come seeking resources seeking a better our lives and once we've grasped our fill we get out of here once I start having kids man it's time to go I don't know if I can raise kids here I just need to you know find that gold find that silicon okay I'm just looking for something and once I grasp it I go but the gold miners ethos is still over our city and despite all of its struggles though it's a place I love it's a place I call home you know I was thinking this it's very hard to to minister to people that you don't love it's very difficult to minister to a people you don't love now you can preach at them you could give them the actual cold isolated sterile truth about their situation but God's movement in action and his sentences is motivated by love and if should we be good Christians we should also seek to do that as well as we're transformed by God motivated through love now they catching all of this guys is that we love ourselves we don't like the Bay Area as much or we love it but man it's got its problems God said you're supposed to love your neighbors as yourself God really is that in there not worse yet he tells us to love our enemies holy that covers it like if I'm I'll either like them they're my neighbor if I don't they're my enemy that covers it that's that's everyone love is a command not an emotional call here in the text love your neighbors is a call to go do it there's one last thing you need to do one last thing you need if you want to embrace your sentence and that's to embrace your sentence embrace it once you know you're being sent you've got to embrace it for God's mission and I want to throw up Matthew 28 back up there in 19 and 20 Jesus tells his disciples right when he's about to leave them go forth go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the son in the Holy Spirit the word go sticks out to me go because I think most of us are willing to make disciples should they come to us all of us want to be a mentor always want to start a YouTube channel we all want to tell everybody everything but when it comes to actually walking it out and going forth it gets a little bit more difficult and so now we actually have to go out and this word sticks out to me I mean it's brutal I remember being a rookie playing in the NFL and I yeah it's hard to put I worked so hard to get there I started in flight football and moved to Pop Warner football and I trained hard and I went to high school football and I trained and I lifted the countless hours in the training rooms and getting healthy from injury and going in and strength hearing and trying to eat the right foods and all of these different things countless and energies and hours all leading up it's like my very first opportunity to play in the NFL my first training camp and so I get there and it's hot and it's difficult and I I was okay I was alright like my first couple practices up I wasn't who I was though you know I wasn't me and I remember a coach came up to me and he said hey Eddie hey do you like it here man just like that and I was like you know I don't I don't think so but what I realized in that was that in order for me to be able to utilize who God has made me to do in that moment I needed to take all of that training all that potential and turn it into this kinetic energy you see what I'm saying so many of us have spent a lot of time reading the Bible in Bible studies studying watching sermons and and opening the scriptures and reading the Psalms and doing all of these things you've got tremendous potential but God says go therefore and make disciples he wants you to turn your potential energy into kinetic injury energy and go out into the world and utilize the gift things not just for your own knowledge but for his own glory so that other people might come to meet him the same way you did you get what I'm saying that's what God is asking for if you're if you're in this boat man I'm not I know that you're in this book there's some people in here you're just like you're sitting there you're like man this is me consider this permission to go out and begin to use your energy your training whatever it is that you've accumulated for God's mission that means tomorrow at work you have permission to go to minister to people at your work you have permission to do so your permission to raise your children in a more godlike fashion you have that ability to do that now you can go into your campus or to school or wherever you're going your grocery store your gym your spheres of influence and you have permission to be on that mission you know I'm saying you have it you have this permission and we need it co-workers friends families whoever it is you have permission because there is somebody for most of us that's there and then God's saying hey this is the person and yeah of course God's patient so that may all people might come to know him he's patient in that but hey here's the tap right here tomorrow is the day this week is the day now I remember learning about how Jesus was sent how did you guys know any traits of how he came he came humbly yeah he came sacrificially that's important not to live a great life he came to live others now if I was Jesus I didn't like man I just got off the throne next to the Father and I'm coming down to this 33 years is a long time can we get the crucifixion over with like we just do this early cause I'm ready to get out of here but God still came as a neighbor lived as we are died the death that we should have died he did it so for us to remember how to be sent we need to remember that first Jesus was sent if you want to really embrace what it means to be this Christian wherever you know this word Christian comes from or as a pejorative term meant little Christ's it was to kind of identify there was this people so uniquely diverse so socioeconomically diverse so ethnically and culturally diverse they didn't know what to call them so they called him little Christ's a little Christ and so we're like alright that's a good name we embraced the name so should we want to live this out we should become imitators of who this guy Christ is then shouldn't worry and what we realize is that this guy Christ was sent into the world first you see that you are not sent before he was ever sent he came first for you he came to live as a light in the darkness and he didn't just be like he illuminated the world didn't he he opened up the world he opened up this floodgate of grace and love and passion and power that whoever would latch onto this guy Christ by the power the Holy Spirit would then become an imitator which means you now have a standing order because Jesus says hey remember what I did with you do with them as well that means you got to go oh that's a lot but did you know that your life was always part of this plan did you know that that was always part of it you know what I told you I found my footnote Bay City Church footnote in the story there of God's book you see there's this massive gap between Jesus leaving and him coming back because he's coming back and he's given this power to go out into the world Judea Samaria the Bay Area to the church in his church which the video is calling them would be to multiply to continue to share the good news of himself to everyone to everyone everyone and everyone and everyone and that's not just man our pastors up here bring them to church that's good also I need you to go leave this place the real ministry is gonna begin here Monday morning Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday say let's link back up here Sunday and let's worship the Lord God and let's get under some teaching absolutely and then hey let's compare notes what was it like for you out there with the Lord you see being in San Francisco and I'll close with this planning a church man it is hard work I mean you're you are relying on the Holy Spirit for everything truthfully that's how it should right but come on we all know that like sometimes I just need to go now hold on a second like are you sure you're leading me in that direction God and you kind of trying to take back over but I've had no choice at a church plant like like base city but to just go okay God like I don't know where the people are coming from I don't know where the money's gonna come from I don't know what fruit is gonna come out of that relationship or what what person I'm gonna influence and who's gonna become a lead I have no clue gotcha shows up time and time again many of us are robbed ourselves of the blessings of God because we're just afraid to do what he says we think we could make a better life for ourselves and that's just not true church planning has caused me to embrace my sentence it's caused me to do so and when I realize my sentence when I get out there the work is not all mine to be done oftentimes I'm just an instrument in the hands of the good godly Redeemer and when you go in your brace you're calling you find out that actually it's not really about you life's not about you it's about him and I get to see that on a weekly basis I get to a man comes up to me to pray at the end of a service couple weeks ago so living a lifestyle complete crazy he's not a believer and he's like hey can I pray for you I was like okay sure comes up to pray for me and he's like could we go in the closet can we go like in the closet and there's like this little these little curtains we could kind of go behind him like okay sure I was like hope he doesn't stab me but all right let's go and so we go back there and he says I haven't prayed in 15 years but I just got a pray can I pray for you and I said okay and he goes Lord God Lord Jesus I don't know if this church really even agrees with the lifestyle I'm living it doesn't seem like that at all but I know that you've told me I need to be here so whatever happens Lord God let me be drawn to this church and to hear the preaching of who you are regardless and then he ends it you didn't pray for me he prayed for himself much much better you see we get to see God draw this guy off the street and bring them into our bring them into our midst and to see God change him or instruments man or instruments when you embrace your sentence you are most in sync with God when you embrace your sentence you're most in sync with the created order of humanity and when you embrace your sentence you're most in sync with Jesus himself who was sent first not to be served but to serve so when you go be light remember you've got a little luminate as well let's pray father God thank you for the opportunity to open up your scriptures Lord God this call you gave us 2,000 years ago to the to the 11 disciples to a room of a few hundred others 120 whatever it was Lord God you gave them this call and by your own grace in your own glory Lord we're standing here right now hearing it again as if it was fresh news it's almost as if your book is timeless and timely it's almost as if it doesn't go away it's almost as if there's power behind it regardless so Lord God I do pray for my friends here but the hearts and minds were opened that hey whatever's from me Lord that they reject that what's from you that they might receive and absorb but they need to go forth and for those of us here that maybe don't know Jesus Lord God many of us here hear this call and we don't hear what it means to be sent we hear that Jesus was sent first why Lord God thank you that you were sent first to die the death and we should have died that we might get to link arms and wear the cloak of righteousness that you've given us in Jesus name [Music]

Channel: Abundant Life Christian Fellowship

Views: 469

Rating: 4.3846154 out of 5

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Id: b1kguvfZ1-c

Length: 46min 50sec (2810 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019