>> DAVID NASSER: Good morning! How are you doing? Everybody doing well? Man, I don't know about you, but I've been
looking really forward to this particular opportunity for weeks and weeks now, just
for us to be able to sit under, really, a pastor who has had such an impact in the life
of your life and my life. Craig Groeschel is the pastor of the largest
church in the United States. Over 100,000 people every week call Life Church
their church. How many of you have the YouVersion Bible
app? Anybody here have the YouVersion Bible app? Every day, I use that particular Bible app. I use its devotionals inside of it, and it
makes an impact in my life. And that is also just birthed out of that
great church. He's the author of 15 books. We'll be promoting his last book, and it will
be available for you at the table here in just a little while. But in all the times that I've seen him just
open God's word and speak, and seen God use him in a tremendous way, I've never gotten
a chance to meet his family. And he didn't just come alone. They were in Albany last night where they
have a church location there, and in the last year alone, they've seen over a thousand people
come to Christ and baptized in that particular church location alone, phenomenal what God's
doing there. And they flew in after they got done with
services there. They flew in, and Pastor Craig actually brought
his wife Amy with him. Can we welcome Amy Groeschel in the house
as well? Honored to have you with us. Thank you for being here today. But without further ado, come on; put your
hands together for the one, the only, come on everybody, Pastor Craig. >> CRAIG GROESCHEL: Thank you, Pastor David. It's a great honor to be with you guys. I've been looking forward to this for quite
some time. It's a great honor, and I count it as a tremendous
privilege just to have half an hour with you all, because I believe in this room are represented
not just some of the greatest future spiritual leaders of our generation, but I really believe
that in this room right now, at this very moment, are some of the greatest spiritual
leaders. And I wanted to bring a word of encouragement
to you. I remember being back in college thinking
that real life would start later once I got through with all this stuff. And that's just not the case. Real life is happening now. This could be one of the most impactful times
of your life in ministry, and so I wanted to just bring a little bit of word of encouragement. I did want to, just again, let you see my
wife. I'd love if they could put her on the screen. But this is my best friend. She is the mom of my six kids. That's a lot of kids. People say, you must really love kids. I'm like, yeah, I like kids okay, but I really
love my wife. And everybody said amen and amen. Anyway, we are really, really excited to be
here. I was kind of praying and asking if I could
bring a word of encouragement to you, what would it be? And I want to just kind of tell you, I thought
about—I love passion. I thought about encouraging you to be passionate
in your faith. I love the word faith. I thought about encouraging you to be audacious
in your faith. I thought about evangelistic—encouraging
you to be evangelistic. I thought about focus, being spiritually focused. What could I encourage you to be? And the word that came to mind as I was praying,
believe it or not, was this. I want to encourage you to be an idiot, just
to be an idiot. And that may seem—I'm hoping no one's ever
encouraged you to be an idiot before, but after a little bit of time, I hope it will
make sense. And I would encourage you to just be a little
bit crazy and never let anyone ever talk you out of believing that God could do exceedingly
and abundantly more than all you could ask, think, or imagine according to His power that
is at work within you through His church, so that He would be glorified in generations
to come. So just to kind of drive this in, I want to
make sure you understand very, very clearly a phrase, what it means. If you're not from the South, you may not
know this, but if anyone ever says to you “bless your heart," do you know what they're
saying? What are they saying? They're saying you're an idiot. That's what they're saying. That's what they're saying. If you don't study for an exam on Friday,
and you come in, and you're wining your little butt off—
"I made, I didn't pass the grade. I didn't study! I didn't study!" What are they going to say? They're going to say, well, bless your heart! What they're saying is, you're an idiot! You should've studied. You didn't do it. You're an idiot. If I got too close to this edge and I fell
off and I broke something, you'd be like, well bless your heart. You shouldn't have gotten so close to the
edge. You're an idiot. And I'll tell you a little bit of my story. Some of you might feel called to do different
things. When I became a follower of Jesus, I felt
immediately called to serve God in the local church. I wasn't even sure why, but I was in love
with ministry. And so, my pastor, just attending the church,
he said bring a friend on Sunday. Bring as many people as you can. So, I went back to my fraternity. I said I want all of you guys to come. And I had been the president. I had a little bit of pull, and so I got 17
hungover guys to come to church, and they were sitting kind of in this back row at First
Methodist Church. Average age was 109 or so, and there was more
testosterone on these two rows, probably, since the 1940s. My pastor said stand up with your friend if
you brought a friend. And I stood up with 17 guys, and everybody
looked. They were like, oh, young people in the church! And they were pretty amazed by it, and he
was like super excited, so he said, if you brought someone, you stay standing, and everybody
else sit down. And so everybody else sat down, and I remained
standing. And he looked over at me. I had never met my pastor before. He walked up to a guy on the throne, because
in the Methodist church you have thrones up at the front of the church. Where he walked over to a guy and said find
that guy—pointed at me—and hire him. And that's how I got called into fulltime
vocational ministry. That's exactly how it happened. I was 22 years of age, turning 23, was brand
new on the job, and my pastor said I need you to do a funeral. I was scared to death. I said I'll do ministry, but I won't preach. I won't do a funeral. And he said I want you to do a funeral. All you need to do is read some Scripture,
sing a song, pray a prayer. Tell a nice story. It's not that hard. They're already dead; you can't mess it up
that much, you know, is kind of what he told me. And so, I was maybe 22 or 23 doing my first
graveside, and it was really awkward. I was nervous, scared to death. A little lady had died. We were outside, and I got down to the part
where we were to sing the song, and the family said we want to sing "Amazing Grace." Well, I can't sing at all, and so I didn't
know how to start the song. And so, I thought, well, if I start, everybody
will just join in. You know, just like “Ama-” and they'll
just join in. And nobody joined in at all. And I find myself at this funeral in the middle
of my first solo. It's horrible. I'm dying, and I know I didn't say a cuss
word, because I was singing a song, but I'm 97.8% sure I thought on in the middle of my
very first funeral, this horrible ungodly moment, you know. And so, I just closed my eyes to get through
it. God as my witness, evidently there was a fly,
a fly, flying around, and I'm on some note about “Ama—” with my mouth open, and
my first and only ever solo, and you can tell where this is going. The fly flew into my mouth, all the way back. You know that little dangly thing? There's a dangly thing back there. What do you call that, the dangly thing? It hits that dangly thing and drops. I'm in the middle of a solo. I've got a fly somewhere about here, dead
grandma right here, and all the sudden, I've got a spiritual dilemma. What do you do? Do you hock a loogie and spit a fly on the
ground, or do you take one for the team and swallow? What do you think I did? That's right. I swallowed. For the glory of Jesus, I took that thing. I'm dying. My eyes are—it's about the worst thing ever. I get down to the end. It's a horrible, you know disaster, and I
said, I did the funeral things. I said ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You know, I knew that's what you're supposed
to say at the end of the deal. I've got my hand on the casket trying to act
spiritual. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and then I think
to myself, I don't know what comes after this. What comes after that phrase? What are you supposed to say? I couldn't remember. And I thought, I'll say something funny. This is a sad day. I'll lighten it up. I'll say something funny. Everybody needs a little humor at a sad day. I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust, sure hope
this coffin doesn't rust. It wasn't that funny, so it was not even funny
then. I walked off. The funeral home guy put his arm around my
shoulder, and he said was that your first funeral ever? I said yes. And he said—what did he say? He said it. Well, bless your heart. You ain't nothing but an idiot. Bless your heart. Lean over to the person next to you and say
bless your heart. Just for fun, say bless your heart. Go to the other guy, person on the other side
and say, you're an idiot too. You're an idiot too. You're an idiot too. You're an idiot too. We're in a room full of idiots, and it's going
to be fun. Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4, verse 13 is, to me, a portion
of Scripture that jumps off the page when you understand the Greek language. If you don't know the backstory, the disciples
were crazy bold, preaching radical faith in Christ. Turn from your sins. You killed the author and perfecter of our
faith, but God raised Him from the dead. And the religious leaders would tell him to
shut up. Stop talking about Jesus. We'll beat you. And they would beat Him, and the disciples
would keep preaching. We'll whip you, and the disciples continued
preaching. We'll put you in prison, and the moment they
let them out, the disciples continued preaching. And the religious leaders were quite honestly
shocked. We cannot stop these guys, and verse 13 says,
"When they saw the courage, when they saw the courage of Peter and John
and realized that they were unschooled and ordinary men,
they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus." They realized, wait a minute, they weren't
educated. They weren't the brightest crayon in the box. They were ordinary guys. And they were astonished and took note that
they had been with Jesus. The word that's translated from the Greek
language into the English language as ordinary actually comes from the root word "idotes." Do you see where we're going with this? Bible translators are very polite. They are going to keep it kind of middle of
the road and politically correct, but a literal translation of idotes could be idiot, ignoramus,
or unlearned. They were blown away and they were astonished. They were taken aback, because these idiots
were radically passionate for their faith in Christ, and they took note that these men
had been with Jesus. I want to raise this question, and I pray
this will speak to someone. And I don't know who it is that has a dream
or a burden and a holy discontent in your soul, your spirit—something in the world
that you look at and say, no, not on my watch, not as long as I have breath as a follower
of Jesus. There's a problem that needs to be solved. What do leaders do? Leaders solve problems. We recognize an issue that needs to be addressed. We bring the full force of faith in everything
we have to it, and for those of you who have something in you that just doesn't settle
right, on behalf of God, you think this in unacceptable, I want to give you a statement
that I pray will stick with you, encourage you, inspire you to be, every now and then,
an idiot for Christ and to do something that others believe cannot be done. Who does God most often use? The answer is God uses courageous, risk-taking,
Jesus-sharing idiots? Who does our God most often use? Our God uses courageous, risk-taking, Jesus-sharing
idiots that people who are willing to leave everything, drop their nets, leave their life,
leave their comfort, leave their jobs and say, Jesus, if you call me to step out in
faith, I will follow you. Who does God most often use? He uses courageous, risk-taking, Jesus-sharing
idiots. And I want to break it down into those three
thoughts and talk about it. Perhaps it will inspire some faith in somebody
here. Let's talk about courageous idiots for a moment. Bethany Hamilton, legendary surfer who lost
a limb, says this: "Courage doesn't mean you don't get afraid. Courage means you don't let the fear stop
you." I love that. Courage doesn't mean you don't get afraid. Courage means you don't let the fear stop
you. Let's be honest. We're all afraid. We're all afraid. When you're born, we only have two natural
fears. We're afraid of falling and loud noises. Along the way, we have a spiritual enemy who
will plant again and again in our minds different fears. For me, some of you may remember this as a
kid, I remember it was just kind of a rule. If the closet door wasn't closed all the way,
there's a fear that there could be a monster on the inside that could get you. Anybody know what I'm talking about? If the door's cracked open, if you close it,
it supernaturally seals the powers and forces against the monster in the closet. It's kind of like leaving a limb hanging over
the bed. If you're on your bed and you leave your hand
over the edge of the bed, you know that if they're someone under the bed, they kind of
pull you under the bed. So, you have to keep everything in like that. And then if you have to go to the bathroom,
you've got to run. You've got to jump over their little hand
to get to the bathroom. Go wee wee. Come back in; go to bed. Maybe that didn't happen to you, but anyway
it did to me. As you grow older, your fears tend to mature,
and those of you who grow into spiritual leadership, you will be afraid of rejection. You may be afraid of confrontation. To me as a leader, the number one most common
fear I see is the fear of failure. There's someone here, you've got a vision
to do something significant, and on the inside you're terrified. What if I don't have what it takes? What if I can't get it done. What if I'm not good enough. I want to tell you that for many of you, on
the other side of your biggest fear might just be your biggest destiny. I'd like to say it this way: the pathway to
your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear. Somebody needs to hear this. The pathway to your greatest potential is
often straight through your greatest fear. For me, I was scared to death to teach the
Bible. I became a Christian a little bit later in
life in college. I was leading a Bible study, but never ever
taught. Whenever my pastor brought me on into full-time
ministry, I said I'll do anything, but I will not teach the Bible. I was so insecure about not knowing it, not
being a good enough speaker, and so he said, fair enough. You don't have to speak until I call on you. And I said, don't ever call on me. Well, one Saturday, my pastor said you're
preaching the next morning. I said, what, are you dying? What's going on? He said no, I just decided you're going to
preach. I said when did you decide I'm preaching tomorrow? He said I decided about a month ago. I'm like, why did you wait until Saturday
night to tell me? He said, well, I figure you'd only not sleep
one night if I waited until Saturday night. If I told you a month ago, you wouldn't sleep
for a month. He was right. I didn't sleep at all. The next day, he prayed for me before I went
out. I vomited in a bucket. I threw up for the glory of God in a bucket
before I went out. My pastor was sitting up in the throne up
there, and they were cheering me on. I was at a charismatic Methodist church, if
you can imagine such things. I don't even know how that's possible, but
it was a charismatic Methodist church, and so when I was preaching, people would say
amen. I said, “God knew you before you were born.” They were like, “amen!” I said, “God knew you before, long before
you were born!” They said, “Amen!” I was making this up as I go. I had never done it before. And I said, “God knew you before you before
your mommy knew your daddy!” Amen! Then, I made a mistake. I said, "God knew you before you were an itch
in your daddy's pants!" That's kind of what they did; they kind of
did that. Nobody laughed. I looked back. My pastor had his head in his hands like this,
shaking his head. Afterwards, we walked back into his office,
and he said, “Well, the good news is, you can only get better. You can only get better.” And I'll tell you what; I was so incredibly
afraid to speak, so insecure, for— Amy will tell you. My face would blotch up. My—they thought I was going to have a heart
attack. I would always vomit in the garbage can before
I'd go out. Thankfully, today I've outgrown that. Now I just throw up in my mouth. And I swallow it, and I'm good to go. I'm good to go, okay? But on a more serious note, what I do now
at my church every week, and it's incredibly meaningful to me, is this. Before I speak, and I'm always nervous. I've done this now for 26 years, and I'm always
nervous. In fact, I would argue that you never grow
comfortable communicating the word of God. You always hold it like this, in awe. So, what I do every week now, is I take step
one step forward before I speak. It's a very significant, pronounced step,
and it's one step forward and go. And what I'm doing in my mind is I am stepping
out of my insecurities. I'm stepping out of Craig Groeschel who is
not good enough, smart enough, not capable enough. And what I'm doing, is I'm stepping into the
office of which I'm called. I'm stepping into the power and the authority
of God's word. I'm stepping into His anointing. I'm stepping into that which He called me
to do, and I'm taking confidence in Him and the life-changing power of His word and the
truth of His Gospel. Somebody here, you need to take one step forward. There's some fear that's holding you back. The pathway to your divine potential might
be taking one step forward, straight through your greatest fear. Who does God most often use? Not the timid who sits around talking about
it, not the person that whines about it—the courageous idiot who says somebody's got to
do something about this. It might as well be me. It's a young shepherd boy who looks at the
giant and says, everybody else thinks you're too big to kill? Hey, give me a stone. Maybe you're too big to miss. It's the person who says, who are you to come
against the armies of my living God? If Christ dwells within me, His Spirit lives
inside of me. I can do all things that He calls me to do. You step into it. You may not know all the answers. You may still be a little bit afraid. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Step into it. Who does God most often use? He uses those courageous, risk-taking Jesus-following
idiots. Take one step into it. Start that new ministry. Take one step into it. Tell your loved one about Christ. Take one step into it and lead the mission
trip into the part of the world that God has put on your heart. Take one step into it. Open a document and start writing the introduction
to the book that God is in your heart. Somebody here may be crazy enough to think
in your home nation of Congo that you can get 20,000 pairs of shoes taken into your
nation. If you're crazy enough to believe that it's
possible, take one step forward. Who does God love to use? Courageous people who don't know even what
cannot be done. Take a step. Take a step. Take a step. Whatever it is, take a step. Take a step. For too many people, it is the start that
stops them. It's the start. Start. You don't have to have the faith to finish;
you just have to have the faith to start. One step forward. Who does God love to use? Courageous idiots. And the second thing that God loves to use? Risk taking idiots, risk taking idiots. Someone here, God's going to call you, stir
you to take a risk. What's interesting, is that many of us fear
failure. It's the fear of failure that leads us to
stop taking risks. But guess what? Whenever we stop taking risks, what do we
end up doing? We end up failing anyway. The fear of failure—we have to step into
our fears. Ultimately, if we can put in in spiritual
terms, if we're always afraid of failure then what are we doing? We're leading without faith, and without faith
it's impossible to please God. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. If we go back 21 years, a little over 21 years,
Amy and I were serving at the Methodist church that we talked about, and this was like the
dream scenario for us. We were under the greatest man of God that
we knew. We were in a position where we were super
comfortable. We loved the people. We were good at what we were doing, and it
was a time of great spiritual harvest. And suddenly, within, we had this massive
stirring, this uncontrollable, uncontainable desire to do church in a different way—not
just to do church for church people, but to do church in a way that we could present the
Gospel in a very powerful and relevant way that would engage hearts. And this was 21 years ago when there were
not churches kind of like what you see a lot of today. And so, we had to make a decision. Do we stay where it's comfortable, or do we
leave everything that's solid and go into having nothing. We're talking about nothing: no salary, no
guarantees, no people. And we prayed about it. We took a massive step of faith. We launched with 40 people in a two-car garage. We were meeting in a little two-car garage
that had been converted to a dance studio, so they had mirrors, which made it really
cool. So, it made 40 people look like 80, but it
didn't matter; there were only 40. And the only thing that we had, the only thing
we owned was an overhead projector, that was it. What's interesting is the vast majority of
you don't even know what an overhead projector is. You can Google it. It's an old machine that would just shoot
the words up on the— Anybody know what an overhead projector is? Okay, good. So, the funny thing is we had a guy named
Jerome. A guy named Jerome. He was our transparency flipper. This was back in the day when you'd write
the words of a song on a sheet, and then you shoot the words on the wall. Jerome was a drug dealer who had a finger
shot off in a drug deal that went bad before he became a Christian, so he only had four
fingers. So, we had a four-fingered transparency flipper,
which was really funny when people are trying to worship, because he would be moving the
songs, and they'd be looking up on the screen going "one, two, three, four—one, two, three,
four." And anyway, that's all we had. We had nothing else but faith and a dream. And in my mind, there were all these reasons
why this would never, ever, ever work, but I want to tell somebody here you have everything
you need to do everything that God wants you to do. You have everything right now to do everything
that God wants you to do. We thought we needed buildings and these things
for church. All we needed was the presence of the Holy
Spirit. We needed the power of God's word, and we
needed people to give God glory, and that's all we needed to have church. And there's someone here, at some point, you're
going to have to take a risk and step into it. At the other side of the risk, is where you'll
see the greatest blessings emerge. For us as a church, it was on the other side
of risks. Pastor David told you a little bit now about
our church meeting in different locations. Back in the year 2000, 2001, this was something
that was totally uncommon, and our church was honored to be one of the first, if not
the first, to do different types of services like this. The very first time that we tried video teaching
which was unheard of at that time, Amy had just given birth to our first child. Back in the day, anytime we looked at each
other, we got pregnant. It was like, oh we looked at each other, you're
pregnant again. And she had given birth to our son Sam, and
he was born between Sunday night church—Saturday night church and Sunday morning. And back then, we didn't have a full enough
staff to have a guest speaker come in, and so I was unable to teach on the morning, and
we said, why don't we just role the message on video and see what happens, because I couldn't—
I didn't want to leave Amy and our baby. And we rolled the message on video, and it
actually worked. As many people came to Christ as normal. A lot of people didn't even know we weren't
there, because they're looking at the screen anyway. And so, we started saying what if, what if,
what if we tried church in multiple locations? What if we tried this video teaching? And the first time we tried it, it failed
miserably. It didn't work. The first time we went out of state and tried
to launch a location it failed, and it didn't work. And what we learned was that so many Christians
tend to think that failure equals missing God. Failure equals missing God. The truth is failure is often the first step
toward finding God. Failing is often where you truly experience
the grace of God. So often, some of the younger adults that
I work with are so paralyzed with this fear of failure, because "I don't want to mess
anything up." And what I would say to you is failure can
be the first step towards succeeding. Think about who of the disciples, who messed
up more than anybody? Peter, again and again, Peter—what did Peter
do? Like, hey, you're messing with my Jesus. Take out my sword. I'm going to knock his head off. Peter didn't even have good enough aim to
hit the guy's head. He nicked a guy's ear, knocks his ear off. Guy's ear falls in the bushes, and Jesus is
like, "Peter, Peter, Peter. Where's the guy's ear? Can anybody find his ear? Find the ear. Give me his ear." Jesus power, He heals the ear. Don't do that. What does Peter do? "Jesus, I'm with you. I'm your guy. I'm never going to leave you. I'm never going to forsake you." And then what does Peter do? "Jesus who? Jesus who? Little girl says—. I don't know Jesus. Peter failed again, and again, and again. Then, who was chosen to be the guest speaker
on the day of Pentecost? Peter the failure, why? Because he had sinned and been forgiven so
many times, there was no one more qualified, and no one more passionate, no one more able
to say, "Repent of your sin and be baptized." Because through his failures, he had learned
the intimacy of the grace of Jesus Christ. On the other side of your failure may be your
greatest success. Pastor David talked about the YouVersion Bible
app, and if I can just brag on our team. It has nothing to do with me but on our team. The Bible app is now on over a quarter of
a billion devices around the world, given away by a local church for absolutely free
on over a quarter of a billion— You can clap anytime you want to. You're making me feel lonely up here. Imagine, the Bible on that many devices. The YouVersion Bible app, which may go down
as the greatest thing that ever comes out of our little church, was born out of a failure. We tried to create a website where people
would engage around the Bible in community. It was kind of like supposed to be a cross
between YouTube, and social media, and the Bible, and it failed miserably. And we were about to pull the plug on it weeks
before Apple made the announcement years ago, "We're going to come out with apps." Back then we were like, what's an app? I don't even know, because we didn't know
what apps were. And we said, well maybe we could build an
app and have the first app to market, and so we said does anybody know how to build
an app? And a 19-year-old kid, 19-year-old kid who
didn't say my future starts later, but my ministry starts today. A 19-year-old kid said I think I can build
an app, and he built the YouVersion Bible app. We launched it, and on the first weekend there
were 88,000 downloads, and we hired the 19-year-old the Monday after the Bible app launched. And what may become the most significant thing
that we ever do in our lifetime was born out of a failure. Somebody, you need to hear this: don't be
afraid to fail. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. The grace of God is so much bigger than your
failure, and you use so much more oftentimes in failures than you do in your success. Who does God love to use? God loves to use courageous, risk-taking,
Jesus-sharing idiots. And I want to say this to you, those of you
who you see yourself as a leader: if you're not failing every now and then, you're playing
it way too safe. If you're not failing every now and then,
you're playing it way too safe. Feel the fear, and step into it. Step into it. 21 years ago, we did not have faith for locations
across the United States. All we had the faith for was to plug the overhead
projector in, and set the four-fingered flipper free. Step into it, and say, God, I'll have the
faith to do what you called me to do, and I'll trust you with the results. Who does God love to use? God loves to use courageous, risk-taking,
Jesus-sharing idiots. Acts chapter 4, I love his heart for evangelism. Peter and John replied whenever the religious
leaders said stop sharing about Jesus, stop sharing about Jesus. He said, "Do you think God wants us to obey
you rather than him?" And I love this. He says, "We cannot stop talking about everything
we have seen and heard." We can't stop talking about it. You can beat us; we can't stop. You can put us in prison; we can't stop. We've been so transformed by the grace of
Jesus. And this is why, because of where I came from,
I am so passionate to share about Jesus—salvation, salvation, salvation, because I grew up in
the church and didn't understand the Gospel. It wasn't until I went to college, got in
a lot of trouble. My fraternity—they were going to try to
throw us off campus. And as a non-Christian, I started a Bible
study. As a non-Christian I started a Bible study
as a public relation move, hoping to keep our fraternity alive. On Tuesday, the day our Bible study was starting,
I was walking to my economics class, and I realized I don't have a Bible. I'm going to lead a Bible study; I don't have
a Bible. And so, I'm not going to tell you I prayed,
because I honestly don't think I was that spiritual. I kind of just like thought in the direction
of God, kind of like— I don't have a Bible. I walked into class. Walked out of class after it was over. God as my witness, a gentleman from the Gideon
organization looked at me, and said, young man, would you like a free Bible? I took my spiritual destiny into my hands,
looked up to God, and said we're going to do this Bible study. Seven hung-over guys gathered for the Bible
study. I said, turn to the first book of your Bible,
because that sounded pastoral to me. They all turned to Genesis; I turned to Matthew. No wonder it was free; it's not all there. Matthew 1 is not a great place to start with
a bunch of drunk guys. And we were not Jesus followers. Our prayers were very, very, very ungodly. We didn't know how to pray. Our prayers honestly were God, like protect
us as we party tonight. We pray, God, that so and so's girlfriend
is not pregnant. God, just help, oh pray God, she's not pregnant. And that's all we knew how to pray. And I got to Ephesians chapter 2. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John—read all the way
to Ephesians chapter 2. And I read about the grace of Jesus that you
could be saved, not by your good works, but by the grace of God with faith in Christ. And at that moment, the lights came on. And I went out all by myself into a little
softball field. And broken and hurting from all the sin that
you can imagine, and I knelt down in the softball field, one person, and I cried out. I didn't even know how to say the right kind
of prayer, but I just cried out to God, and when I stood up, I was a new creation. The old was gone, and everything had become
new. And I had
been with Jesus. I'd been with Jesus. Who does God love to use? Courageous, risk-taking, Jesus-sharing idiots. When the religious leaders saw Peter and John,
they were astonished. They took note. These idiots had been with Jesus. And I just want to bring a word of encouragement
to someone here and to tell you it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about you. You're not too young. You're not too unprepared. Your best days of effectiveness do not have
to be years and years in the future. That right where you're planted, right now,
if you have a passion to make Jesus known, and you're willing to take radical, courageous
steps of faith—step through your fear into God's calling, God can use you to do things
that you'd never, ever thought possible. And I want to close out today with a simple
prayer that is a Franciscan blessing. And I pray that this prayer would inspire
you to have the courage, the faith to be bolder idiots for Jesus than you ever dreamed possible. Who does God love to use? He loves to use courageous, risk-taking, Jesus-sharing
idiots. Who are we? We are Jesus followers. We are courageous, faith-filled, risk-taking,
Jesus-sharing idiots. And here is the prayer for you: "May God bless
you with discomfort and easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that you
may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice,
oppression, and exploitation of people, so you may work for justice, freedom, and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those
who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand
to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with another foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so you can do what others claim
cannot be done." May God bless your heart, that you would be
an idiot for the glory of Jesus. Father, thank You for every student here courageous
enough to take a step of faith to believe God, because you dwell within them, because
Your Son is risen, because Your Holy Spirit is alive, that they can do whatever You call
them to do. Give someone here the courage to be risk-taking,
Jesus-sharing, faith-filled Jesus followers, that they could do more to make a difference
in this world than they ever imagined. We pray this in the name of Your risen Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And everybody said, Amen, Amen.
