Embracing the Process | Pastor Jeremy Foster | Hope City

i'm honored to be here my name is jeremy if it's your very first time at hope city welcome we're glad you're here come on let's give them a great big game we're glad you're here this is my wife jennifer happy birthday hope city my gosh we're six years old i can't believe it oh my goodness i don't know about you guys but that song's unbelievable how many of you at least tried to hit the high notes with myra i tried and i quickly realized i can't go there but that's an incredible song and we are so proud of our worship team and i just want to say that we're proud of our staff and we're proud of our dream team y'all give it up for our dream team these guys make it happen every weekend for the last six years and it's just incredible to take a look back and to see how far we've come and and where we're going and what we're pressing to there's so much more to come and on behalf of my husband and myself i just want to tell you guys it has been it has been such an honor you guys have made all of our dreams come true it is such an honor that we get to stand up here week after week that we get to do this and i know that i don't know every one of you i wish i knew every single person in this building but that's just impossible but can i tell you that we hear we hear of the the goodness that has taken place in this church we hear your struggles we hear your testimonies and we are with you guys and we love you and we're so proud of you thank you thank you for being with us welcome home we love what you guys doing here and here's what i would ask you to do if you have a social media or you have a friend let them know send the song to them how many of you ever been in a tough moment and a worship song has changed the atmosphere in the environment so we pray that god uses this song for his will and for his glory i want you to turn around and look at somebody and say get ready turn to somebody on the other side and say get ready we're gonna have a great day let's give jesus one more ovation of worship [Applause] you can be seated i just wanna i wanna i wanna take just a moment just a moment and i wanna give honor i wanna give honor to all of our teams our dream team they've done such a phenomenal job this is a church that was not built by one person um i love that it's not built by one person we had a vision we shared the vision other people grabbed the hold of the vision and then they had a vision and it's a collection of visions that have come together and we're seeing god do some amazing things so can you give the dream team a great big hand they do a great job putting all of our campuses together if you don't know what the dream team is that's our team of volunteers that make all of this happen and i'm just grateful for them and then my parents are here pastor mark and paula foster i'm so honored and they're moving here y'all they're now members of hope city come on somebody [Applause] and then i have several pastors in my life that have been just great blessings pastor mark briggs mark and laquita briggs and shreveport louisiana that are just blessings to me and of course my pastor pastor chris hodges in uh in birmingham alabama and then uh several friends i i just i want you to know this like i had people reaching out to me yesterday and it's an honor for me to hear from people like pastor craig grishell and people like pastor steven furtick and have a friendship with them and that's amazing but it's not because of anything that i've done it's because of something that we've done together and i don't know how you were raised but whenever i was raised we didn't know churches by the name of the church that we did we knew him by the name of the pastor right and i love that nobody calls this jeremy foster's church because it ain't thank god this is hope city and this is god's church and he's doing something amazing and and i will tell you as and i'm jumping right in this is our sixth anniversary weekend and i gotta tell you your boy is fired up about what god has done and about what god is going to do turn to somebody say get ready because this is just the beginning i asked our team i said hey can you get me some stories for the weekend i said just give me just give me stuff that's come in like the last six months and so they got me some stories i was like okay that's a lot but it but in this stack there are people you know we count by by numbers but god still counts by ones we look at thousands and god says ones and every every number has a name and and reading the story of martin fan and his girlfriend who came here i've met them several different times talked to him several different times they came here broken came here messed up martin's was gracious uh gracious enough to share his story of being verbally and physically abused as a child all through his teenage years to the point where where cps came and removed him from the home for a while i mean it was bad he didn't trust anybody he just broken this brokenness not just not just in his life but but even religiously and when he came here he was he was nervous but when he stepped foot in these doors god began to change everything for him and his girlfriend and now they helped lead some of our teams and they're sitting right here i love you man i see the tears coming down bro i love you and i'm happy to tell everybody he dealt with anxiety and he dealt with depression and since he's walked in the doors of hope city he hasn't had one anxiety episode one depression episode god's delivered him from all medication i love you man i'm so proud of you and he's wearing a parking team t-shirt will you stand up all right just turn around look at everybody wave at him this is hope city right here this is what god has done and it's what he continues to do and this stack of papers represents people like eric and danielle weiss who came here eric was drafted in 2013 as a major league baseball player by the los angeles angels and and was on on this path to greatness got got wrapped up in drugs and alcohol met danielle and she told him hey the prerequisite for it for you and me is hope city and you got to come to hope city and he came and thank god he came during the love sex and marriage series god radically changed his life they got married and now they serve together at our parking team here at our west houston location and i'm grateful for what god has done in their lives and by the way some of y'all who are single bring them to the love sex and marriage series you never know we've seen more people get unified anna bermudez came and her and her husband were separated she went through freedom he went through freedom and towards the end of freedom god reconciled their marriage they went through the freedom conference and now they're together serving at our church i love these stories [Applause] javier humana came to our katy campus and javier was an atheist when he came and at the end of the service he wasn't an atheist anymore and what i love about it is he was a high school student and here's how he heard about hope city he was dealing with suicidal thoughts going through all kinds of stuff just dealing with things that were overwhelming to him he went to his high school counselor she said listen i can give you a lot of things and i think that i can help you but there's something that can help you more and his high school counselor his guidance counselor invited him to morton ranch high school to arcadia campus and god saved him at our katy campus come on somebody and it's not just happening at our campuses i was reading this story of elisha payne and alicia payne was an online viewer and here's how she became an online viewer she was going through so much depression fear anxiety she finally decided i'm going to end it all she was a single mom she had run into every brick wall that she could run into she took her daughter she dropped her daughter off with her mom told her mom she just needed a night out but she had a plan and her plan was to take enough pills to end her life she got home she sat on the floor and she for whatever reason could not get the pill bottle open couldn't get it up just it would not open so she went and got a knife to try to open the pill bottle cut her hand grab a paper towel quickly begin to clean up the blood laid the paper towel down and when she laid the paper down there was a hope city mailer right there that said this piece of mail could change your life forever and she turned it over and read about a church called hope city began watching online went through growth track joined the dream team and she's alive and well and serving other people this is hope city this is who we are this is what we do we love god we love people and we are seeing the world change that's what this is about welcome home god's doing something that's bigger than all of us it's bigger than any one of us but i want to tell you it's our six year anniversary and i got to thinking i was like man six years six years six is a terrible number right like nobody says my favorite number is six or like okay antichrist six six six weird demons out you know i mean this is strange like nobody's like yeah six but the next number is seven six is the number of the flesh seven is the number of completion my friend steven ferdick preached a message a few years ago simply entitled don't stop on six somebody needs to hear that how many times do they march around the walls of jericho seven can you imagine if they'd have stopped on six god has something great i told you a few weeks ago my mentor dr john maxwell tells me don't quit before you compound some of you are so close to compounding and seeing something great happen in your life and you are at the point where you are ready to give up you are ready to quit you're ready to just say i just can't do it anymore and i'm here to tell you hold on hope is coming and god has something bigger in your future than you could see listen here's what i know and here's what we know if you can sit down and talk to us i can tell you i am dramatically different this year than i was in year one i was filled with faith but i didn't have near the faith then that i have now and i was filled with plans and dreams and hopes but i had no idea how hard it was gonna be i just didn't know if you ever started a business you know like before you start you're like it's gonna be also and you have no idea how hard it's gonna be how many y'all been married for like 20 years they're laughing they're like it gets harder just calm the a-man's down brother you be on the couch bro hey man sorry babies for somebody else it wasn't for you i love you but but if you stay with it i got to looking through my notes and and looking and that's one of the things that i do as i look through what i've taught before and at uh at our anniversary services and a look through our third year anniversary and in my notes in fact i have it in my notes and it said our stats for three-year anniversary weekend we've seen more than twelve 000 salvations in three years which is amazing that was powerful i never dreamed we would see that many people say yes to jesus in three years but since then we've seen more than 30 000 more people over 41 000 people have given their lives to jesus in six years and can i tell you can i tell you this here's what i want you to know if you just listen to the math the first three years it averaged out to about 4 000 a year the next three years it averaged out to more than 10 000 a year if you'll trust god and just keep going the miracles will compound don't stop in the middle of a miracle even though it's hard get ready because god's to do something great we're going to be reading out of joshua today and i'm going to start with joshua chapter 1 because this is kind of where the plan begins then joshua issued instructions joshua chapter 1. then joshua issued instructions to the leaders of israel to tell the people to get ready turn to your david say get ready get ready to cross the jordan river in three days we will go across and conquer and live in the land which god has given us oh that sounds good doesn't it in three days here's the plan everybody say here's the plan in three days we're gonna we're gonna cross the jordan we're gonna conquer and we're gonna live in the land which god has given us now that sounds awesome until you realize that the jordan was at flood stage and at flood stage it's about 108 180 feet wide and it's flowing at about 13 miles per hour and we're going to cross millions of people we're gonna cross the jordan that sounds easy that's the plan but that's not the process god always has a plan but it's your job to embrace the process let me preach this for just a minute because some of us just want the plan we're going to plant a church it's going to be powerful it's going to be amazing how many of you ever wanted to start a business i'm going to start a business whoa then you get a plan that's how it's going to work but then you actually have to work that plan it's a process some of us want to hear the plan from god but we don't want to walk through the process with god i just want it quick i want it now let me let me how many of y'all remember before we had gps anybody remember that i mean all that old you remember the maps like if you wanted to go somewhere you had to go to the gas station and you had to get them out and if you were crossing like three states you had to get three maps random mcnally maps remember you unfold them on the hood of the card you're like all right we're gonna go this and if you were really smart and you really planned you had highlighters you're like all right this is the way we're gonna go right here and then somebody was the navigator and you would fold them all up mess them all up and be like all right we gotta go okay we turn this way you slow down those were hard days nowadays we just we just put it in ways don't we some of y'all use apple maps i don't believe in it i use waze mostly because it tells me where the cops are come on somebody why zap tells you where the po-po is i'm sorry chad i love you man we just need to know where you're sitting bro we got a lot of police officers to go to our church and y'all use ways too i've talked to you because y'all don't know where your brothers and sisters are too popo speed too come on somebody all have sinned and fallen short amen i'm getting trouble preaching today they're going to be following me out of the parking lot but but but now see back in the day it was nothing whenever you were going somewhere with somebody you're like hey where are we gonna go well we're gonna go my favorite place to eat okay cool cool cool where are we going they say just follow me you remember that and you and you followed him nowadays why just follow me just tell me where we're gonna go i'm gonna put it in my maps and i gotta follow you cause i can do it myself and i can make better decisions on my own and i don't have to follow you god doesn't give you a digital gps he still uses maps and he still says follow me you know you know why do you know why we don't like for somebody to say follow me because traffic can get in the way because now i've got to stay focused on exactly where they're going now i've got to watch every move they make i got to watch if they're signaling to go okay we've got to get up have you ever had somebody follow you that don't follow well you ever been the lead car and they're following you you talk to them don't you you say things to them in your car that you would never say to their face you're like come on drive and then what do you have there i got to slow down because they don't just get over i wonder if god isn't doing that with some of us come on get closer to me follow me i'm taking you somewhere i can see something ahead get as close as you can to god and follow the process god's got a plan but he has a process process requires four things number one it requires patient trust patient trust he knows what he's doing even when you don't i want to know everything that he's doing why so i might take a different way that's why he doesn't tell you everything your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light under my path it's not a flood light it doesn't show me very far down the road it just shows me how to how to live today and then how to live tomorrow and daily i got to follow him give us this day our give us this day our not our weekly bread not our monthly bread some of y'all living on yearly bread come on some of y'all that religious bread is moldy hello let's let's follow him daily it takes patient trust so one of the things that we say at our house is is i trust him when i can't track him i just trust him when i can't trade i can't doubt him because i know too much about him he's been faithful before even if it doesn't look like he's going to be faithful now i'm going to trust him because he'll be faithful now because he's been too faithful to me for me to quit on him i trust him i had no idea that in 2018 we would lose our broadcast location how many of y'all were with us at memorial high school you remember memorial high school come on somebody that was with the good old days weren't they that was fun it was a smaller place a much smaller lobby smaller kids areas smaller parking come on somebody but we liked it i said things like we will always have a memorial campus god was like check that out and i remember in august of 2018 we had a meeting with spring branch isd this is how good god is you got it you got to trust him you got to trust him you got to have patient trust 2018 spring branch isd called us in and said hey we need to have a meeting i was like all right cool so i went to the meeting roland we were there we were sitting there and they said hey so we've had a great time having you guys at memorial high school um last weekend was your last weekend that's what we said what i literally looked at him and i said what are we going to do this weekend he said i don't know but you're not going to meet at memorial high school and i said we have 7 000 people coming to just that campus not including cypress and katie right now what are we gonna do and i begin to negotiate and i'm getting in the back of my head how many of y'all know you can have a conversation this way and the conversation this way let me help y'all when you're in an argument with your spouse be talking this way but also be talking this way and make sure that you're running it through here before it runs through here because some of you are talking this way pastor on fire today and i remember i was talking to the holy spirit and i was like holy spirit you're the only one who can fix this you're the only one who can help us out of this god i trust you right now and and i said i said this i said i know you are a little frustrated with the traffic on saturday nights what if we just moved our saturday night service uh to our cornerstone and we we just opened up a cornerstone campus and that's how cornerstone campus launched out of adversity of losing our broadcast campus and then they said okay we can do that and i said please just give us to the end of the year can you give us into 2019 and i was trying to negotiate they said no end of the year it ends at the end and some of y'all remember man we had to get we had to get ready we found thank god we found houston christian high school and they have been amazing to us and that's where we are right now that's our broadcast campus and those of you online all you see is all of this you see the screens you see the light and you see all this stuff you can't see that in the ceilings of this building are basketball goals because yesterday at about 1 30 this was nothing but a basketball gym and our team came in and they put the mats down and they put the chairs out and they put the risers in the back and they built the stage thank god for the dream team but i was frustrated honestly can i just be real frank with you i came to this campus still a little frustrated because i like memorial campus just liked it i met a lady the other day she was like hey pastor i was like how you doing everything good she's like oh it's so good i was like what campus you go to she said memorial campus i said you ain't been to church in a long time i didn't say that true i said god bless you look on the website for your new location okay but here's what i didn't know this was bigger it had more parking it had better kids space and god knew that 2020 was coming he gave us a whole year and three months to acclimate to this new location because spring branch isd has still not opened any of their schools for churches to meet in we would be in a bind thank god that in october of last year houston christian high school was like please come back come on back we ready come on back come on back thank god that he knows when i don't know and it might look a little hard but if i will have patient trust he sees what i can't see the second thing that you have to have is you have to have persistent faith yes we need to be tough but we need to be tough through the process and continue to be tough continue to have grit persistent faith not persistent questions some of us have persistent frustration and not persistent faith we question and challenge everything that god says here's what god said to joshua joshua chapter six verse one now the gates of jericho were securely barred because of the israelites the enemy is more scared of you than what you even know no one went out no one came in and then the lord said to joshua this is funny see i have delivered jericho into your hands along with its king and it's fighting men now wait now wait just a minute god i love that you're saying that but they still in there we're out here and they're still in there and there's a 50-foot high outer wall that's so thick that they can raise chariots side by side on the wall how are we like i love that you said you've delivered it into our hands but ain't nothing in my hands persistent faith trusting god when i can't see how he sees because he sees differently than you see that's why when god looks at you and says your marriage is healed and you go no no my marriage is chaos your kids are saved no no they crazy i'm gonna bless your finances i'm broke i'm gonna restore your faith i don't have any faith i'm gonna heal your body no no i got to go to the hospital what i'm trying to tell you is he sees things he sees things like you don't see things you remember when jesus rolled up into the house of jarius and his daughter had died she was 12 years old and she had died and she was dead she was dead and everybody said she's dead and she's like jesus you don't even need to be here she's dead the mourners are weeping and mourning because in those days the more money you had the more mourners you had because you paid people to cry over you that's how sad it was that's pretty bad if you got to pay people to come to your funeral like hey i'll cry louder you give me another hundred dollars they've got a bunch of people weeping and wailing and crying and moaning and jesus walks up and says this send the mourners home this girl is not dead she's asleep now okay mm-hmm we're on this side of the story and i appreciate the faith it's good to know when the miracle's already been done but if you were on that side of the story don't you think like you'd been like like hey i just went in there let's be kind to the family let's offer peace let's set up a meal train let's give them some door dash cards what can we we're going to be there for your family we're going to love you jesus like hush she's asleep you're the son you've been out in the sun you're the one that taught us to speak the truth in love i love you she did and jesus says excuse me leave me in death alone because jesus is god all by himself he don't need anybody else he rolled in there and he looks at her and he speaks to her and she gets up and then he looks at them and goes y'all feed her because she's hungry but she was dead yeah she was dead with humanity but she wasn't dead with divinity because death to you and death to him looks like something totally different so when you say my marriage is dead he's saying nah it ain't it ain't dead when you say my finances are dead my hopes and my dreams are dead my faith is dead my life is over god says no it's not i am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me shall not die at some point you got to trust him when you can't track him you got to believe that he knows what he's doing even when you don't the third thing you got to have is a posture of a purpose of purpose some of us have a posture of questioning the posture of your heart is key to the promise that god wants to give you in your life i want you i want you i want you to listen real quick i want you to listen and then i'll explain context context is very important in fact i want you to go back and i want you to read the entire chapter of joshua six and i kind of want you to marinate on it i want you to study it this week and there's so many things in here that i just can't bring out but this is one of the most powerful ones that gets overlooked joshua chapter six verse six so josh wherever i say so joshua that's important it's a little coordinating conjunction so so joshua son of nun called the priest and said to them take up the ark of the covenant of the lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it this is all important but you have to read verse 5 to make it click because here's what i want you to know god had just everybody say just finished he had just finished giving joshua some crazy instructions here was the instructions see i have delivered jericho into your hands here's what you're going to do you're going to take the priests you're going to have them with the ark of the covenant they're going to walk in front of the fighting man why because worship always goes first they're gonna walk in front of the fighting man and you're gonna march around the walls of jericho and you're gonna march around for six days you're gonna march around and on the seventh day you're gonna march around seven times and on the seventh time the priests are gonna blow the trumpet and the people are gonna shout unto god with the voice of triumph this is the dumbest battle plan anybody's ever heard of ever and verse says so joshua said all right priests come here's what we're going to do that's weird i probably wouldn't have done that i'd have been like hey god love it love it love it it's powerful so uh we gotta like you give us some tanks like some more planes you know some machine guns you know something lord like a little grenade here and there i mean we'd be i'll be happy with some firecrackers just give like you're telling us to march around the like i'm just gonna march around the walls god gave them the plan here's the plan you're gonna go you're gonna cross the jordan you're gonna conquer and you're gonna live that's the plan and then here's the process just keep marching i love the plan i don't like the process cause the process makes me look like an idiot you mean i just got a march yeah yeah we don't find any of those questions in fact joshua added something that god didn't tell him to add joshua said and as you march don't say a word because he knew that as god is trying to walk us into something we will talk ourselves out of it i could have titled this sermon shut up in march but i thought it'd be a little rude but some of us need it that strong hey just yeah just shut up and march you got to know some of more like that we're like questioning the plan of god and some of us we verbalize our questions so much that it gets in the way of our faith can i tell you something faith without obedience isn't faith it's just a good idea the obedience from verse 5 to verse 6 was immediate he heard the word of god so joshua commanded let's go turn to somebody say next to you say let's go stop questioning the word of god the will of god the plan of god and the process of god let's just go let's just can we just go how many y'all have a family you have a family you're trying to get all of them in the car let's go you ever said that let's just go how many are the first one in the car you're the first one in the car first one in the car let's go me two i'm the first one in the car let's go look at i see your face babe i see it just let me finish i'm preaching not you i'm the first one let's go wait wait don't y'all date and then everybody gets in the car and you realize you forgot something hey y'all stop pointing fingers they're pointing over here they're like that's you right there judging everybody else just if y'all would just go if you just go to counseling your marriage should be healed if you would just trust god your your finances would be strong if you would just tithe and if you would just give well why don't you quit worrying about everybody else and let's just worry about you let's just get ourselves ready and let's just walk through the process because if we will trust god god will show up god asks them to do something ridiculous and that is posture themselves for purpose what's he asking them to do he's asking them to march you know that the people of jericho are like hey hey hey idiots what are y'all doing this is not a good battle plan but you've got to know at some point they're getting nervous you've got to know on the sixth day the people that are wrapped up in jericho are like i don't know what's happening but i wish they would do something if you are being quiet and still walking in faith the enemy can't read your mind he can only read your actions so if you don't know what god's doing just stay quiet and keep walking because god's got a plan and you're giving the enemy nothing to work with so at hope city let's not give the enemy anything to work with let's just keep walking out the plan of god what is the plan of god i want to know god i want to give my life to jesus then i need you to grow i need you to get in i need you to get in a group so that you can find freedom and some of you god has been asking you to start a group you're watching online you're a katy campus you're part of one of our other campuses you're here at west houston and god's been saying hey start a group started do you realize that we have groups all over the world that have started even virtually and some of you need to actually be a group leader i don't know how to do that we have group leader training i don't think i'll be a good group leader try it and if you're not we will let you know you should be in a group not lead one but you've got to actually follow the process go through growth track what i do in there grow posture yourself for growth that's why we call it growth track because i want you to grow i want to be around people who are growing i want people i want to be around people who teach me things i want to be here i want to be here in a group of people that when i walk away i've learned something daniel and i were talking today we had a buddy who was he's going through some challenges he's like man i just don't know what to do and daniel said use what's around you we're in the same group and he was having some business challenges and daniel looked at him and said there's tons of business guys in our group go talk to them and he went until i heard this today he went and talked to one of the business guys and he was like man i'm just struggling i'm dealing with this challenge and i think it might end up being a legal challenge i don't know i don't know what to do i don't even know how how to work this out and and the guy that's in our group said this that's all good um this week why don't we meet and uh we'll send him a letter because he was like i have to have this conversation and it could turn bad he said no no we'll just send him a letter from my attorney from your attorney you mean i don't have to have an attorney could you have one i don't have to have an answer because the people that i've surrounded myself with are the answer that's the power of posturing yourself for growth and then get on the dream team because you will never truly find fulfillment until you are serving someone other than you it's the antithesis of what we learn in culture it's not all about me it's all about others that helps me posture myself for purpose i have to have to help you understand this some of us have this posture that says everything should be perfect and everything should be easy and god never promised easy how many all love the promises of god i do i claim them i believe them i quote them they're in the word of god but can i tell you there's two sides to every promise we don't often preach the other side of the promise here's the promise that we preached psalm 9 i love this the lord is a refuge for the oppressed a stronghold in times of trouble hey hey i can preach it he's a refuge huh for the oppressed a stronghold in times of trouble [Music] i wish somebody in the church would say amen that's how i grew up right there bishop bishop be looking in the bible say turn in your bibles to the book of song chapter number that means he couldn't find it he knew he was taking time here's what i love about this verse the lord is a refuge for the oppressed a stronghold in times of trouble i love that here's what it also means you're going to be oppressed and you're going to have trouble why do we act shocked when it happens god why did you do this we're going through trouble in a villa oppressed and he's like i you read it as much as he said i'll be there he also said you're gonna you're gonna go through oppression i love this verse we quote it all the time first peter 5 7 cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you also means you're going to have anxiety so why are you shocked when it shows up one of my favorite verses second corinthians 12 9 my grace is sufficient for you aren't you grateful that his grace is sufficient for you my power is made perfect in weakness what does that mean that means you're going to have an opportunity to need the grace of god but you keep thinking you're going to be perfect all by yourself that word perfect all throughout the new testament i've gotten a big theological argument with the guy before because he was like god said you should be perfect all throughout the new testament just strive for perfection absolutely i believe that we should strive for perfection and that word perfection in the greek means completion and we are made complete in him so what does that mean i get myself as close to him as i can so that when i don't hit the mark and i miss the mark he can pick me up because his grace is sufficient for me it's not a license to sin it's a license from sin come on somebody but you're going to need it god will never you never give you a life that makes him unnecessary just at some point have to learn to look past the pain and the only thing that helps you look past the pain is when i'm postured for purpose and people will think it's weird when you posture for purpose when you posture for growth when you say we're going to do this god's got this the haters come out of the woodwork we're going to move and we're going to go to this city we've had people move to be a part of hope city and you've got to know that people are like why are you doing that that's just a church god has called you somewhere god has placed you and positioned you on purpose you're here for a reason you're around the people that you're around for a reason you're on the road that you're on for a reason you're in the chat room that you're in for a reason we got people planted in the chat room right now when you type something they pray for you hello thank god for the digital dream team who's serving all over the world they ain't even ever been here and they're serving posture for purpose it'll look weird to other people because they can't see it they can't see it i remember one time we went to destin florida the holy land if you've been to galveston then you've been to dustin you're like okay white sandy beaches emerald water don't put your head under the water come on galveston i love you we were on our way and we stopped in mississippi in a little podunk town in mississippi and i was getting we were getting gas at the gas station and i was putting gas in the truck we had kids everywhere luggage hanging off at the top we rolled deep all these kids and this guy he's gassing up his truck he said hey how you doing that's how everybody in mississippi talks i'm playing it's true i'm from louisiana i know i was like i'm doing pretty good here i made fun of myself i don't care and he said where are y'all going i want to tell him that the h is silent in where but it was fine are y'all gone like while you say why and they say why like i don't it's fine i don't know what i'm doing right now where are y'all going i said we're going to destin florida he goes oh that's nice it's real nice it's real nice down there it's a long way from here it's real nice down there now can you imagine if he'd looked at me and said where no no i don't see it i don't see dustin you're going to the beach there ain't no beach here no no sir sir i'm not staying here i'm i'm going there and just because you're here and you can't see where i'm going it doesn't mean it's not there it just means i'm not there yet but i'm not gonna stay where i am i'm gonna posture myself to keep going can i i wanna show y'all y'all ready i want to show y'all the first picture of our church this is the first picture of our church right there that's it hello somebody that's a good picture that's the first picture of our church that's we are a portable church so all of our locations are portable locations that means we have to have trailers and everything that you see we have to put it in trailers and then we have to unload it and we have to set it all up and it takes hours upon hours and an amazing team that does that and then once everybody's gone and y'all are all at luby's then they all come in here and they break it all back out and they put it all back in the trailers so we knew that we were portable church so we had we had to order trailers and these are our trailers and when they came i just think it's funny that there's trailers on a trailer that was funny to me it made me laugh and the guy who delivered them he's like uh he's like hey here's your trailers you we just it's a random random parking lot we were like just drop him here and he's like you just drop him right here he's like yeah and we were fired up like he pulled up we were like ah it's just me and her that's all it was the trailer's game oh we didn't have anything to pull them with we're like ah you boys driving a beaut a 12 year old a 2012 buick regal i mean i was rolling hard in the brown bullet and and i remember they came and i said uh i said sir would you take a picture of us in front of the trailers he thought we were the he thought it was weird he's like you want a picture of y'all in front of the trailer she's like yes look at how big our smiles are set your starbucks down babe set it down right there set it down a little pastry bag back there she's like inside he thought we were idiots he took a bunch of pictures he was like i was like take some more because he started on this one i was like no no because he didn't know what we were taking a picture of he thought it was just trailers but i knew it was a mobile move of god all he saw was steel and rubber but i saw you and i saw your family and i saw your life and i had a vision for where we were going don't just stop on what you see keep going until you see what god sees because god always sees beyond what you see and let him call it like he sees it because i want to go where god has called us to go and where i am is not where i'm going keep pushing under somebody next to you say we can't stay here fourth thing that it takes i love this is passionate praise if you want to get through the process it's going to take passionate praise remember god told joshua here's god's plan put the priests in front with the ark of the covenant on their shoulders what does that mean let the presence of god lead how do i get the presence of god god inhabits lives in the praises of his people so if praise leads victory follows some of us are leading with the battle instead of prayer and if i learn to lead with prayer and lead with praise and begin to worship in the midst of a storm it gotta freak the enemy out whatever i'm worshiping do you realize the first sound and the only sound that the enemy heard was not the sound of battle at jericho the only the only sound they heard was six days of silence nothing and on the seventh day they heard the sound of victory before they heard the sound of battle they didn't even know the wall was going to fall out from under them they just heard the sound of victory the people shouted unto god with a voice of trial i don't know if you've ever been in a fight how many y'all ever been in a fight just raise your hand you've been in a fight before you ever been in a fight have you ever seen a fight you see two guys squaring off they're fixing to go like or like monkey karate whatever somebody gets something like just crazy you know you know whatever whatever i just have so many things that go through my head at times y'all remember y'all remember when mr miyagi told daniel's son the crane kick if do right no can defeat i tried it even if do right can defeat i just want you know i can see it coming if you if you do this i'm gonna knock you down all right i'm just gonna grab that foot and push you over okay is my add brain that's how it works but have you ever seen a fight where before it before the first punch is thrown somebody starts celebrating like yeah if you want any more come back bring your boys anybody else want something bro you ain't even done nothing come on stay down you guys standing up that's right stay down but i'll knock you down again ain't nothing between you and me but aaron opportunity you feeling froggy son john where are you has he did he punch anybody what does he have that we don't know he has because he's acting like he's already won and we haven't even fought yet the devil can't read your mind he can only read your actions and if i'm letting praise lead the way and i'm declaring victory before the battle's even been fought then he knows that i'm holding hands with someone who's greater than me and he that is in me is greater than he that is in the world and if god be for us who can be against us and the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall i fear the lord is the strength of my life of whom shall i be afraid when my enemies and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh they stumbled and they fail because god is the authority he is the undisputed heavyweight champion of all time and if he's on my side nobody can be against me so i give him praise i give him glory and let him bring the victory some of us got to let worship take the place of worry you got to remember who you are and you have to remember whose you are can i tell you this no matter where you're watching from right now i want you to watch i want you to listen some of you have been trying to fight this on your own it's never been about you you are not at the center of the gospel jesus is you're a sinner saved by grace it's never been about you i can't tell you this right now this church is not about me i don't know i've ever told you all this but we have a bus clause like what's the bus clause if i get hit by a bus that's kind of morbid we have a plan somebody else to step in and teach and preach while overseers put together a plan for a new pastor because the church was never about the pastor the thing that i fear in 21st century church is we make the pastor a celebrity and we don't make jesus the focal point of the gospel that's why i'm grateful that's why i'm grateful that we have a voice like pastor daniel groves that can get up here and preach the word of god without fear or favor but too often we make it about ourselves gladys alward was a powerful woman of god many years ago and she she was a missionary to china and when the japanese invaded yang chen she was running an orphanage with about a hundred girls in the orphanage and she i love her faith she said we're gonna get these girls out of here and god will be with us and they went to the mountains outside of yangchen to cross the mountains into free china which was a brutal brutal journey and about halfway through it it was bitterly cold they were not resourced well and she felt like i have led these little girls here to die she was heartbroken knowing she could not do it and a little 13 year old girl came up to her and said miss gladys what's going on and she she just poured out her heart she said there's no way that it's gonna happen i'm so sorry baby i brought you out here i thought god was gonna come through i thought he was with us i don't know what to do and this little girl started preaching to her have you ever been the one who gives encouragement and then somebody starts using that encouragement on you and you and you want to slap them like hey i just i stop you right there because i know i'm i'm the one who told you that story and i'm i'm good okay just let me cry let me whine let me have my pity party and leave me alone and this little girl started telling her the story of moses and when moses reached the red sea and god had promised to deliver and now they're in a tough position and they don't know what we're going to do and we know how we're going to get out of this and we're struggling and then the lord said hey the stretch out right he stretched out and the sea party and god delivered him and she looked at her she said thank you baby i appreciate that but i need you to understand i am not moses and the little girl looked at her and said of course you're not but jehovah is still god and if he delivered moses don't you think he'll deliver you and i want you to understand that you may not be married and you may not be martha and you may not be moses and you may not be paul but god is still jehovah and jehovah is still god and he can still do a miracle if you'll trust him so let's not stop on six let's keep going and watch god do what only god can do the woodlands are coming the silos are coming god's going to do more and he's going to use us to do it i want to thank you for your faith i want to thank you for the way you serve i want to thank you for giving thank you from the bottom of my heart we wouldn't have what we have if you didn't believe we've given more than seven million dollars to missions in six years that's amazing but beyond any of that is your decision to lay down your life for christ jesus said if any man would come after me that means i gotta want to let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me remember he don't use the gps he gives you the map it says get as close to me as you can go through the process and you'll get to the promise but it's going to take you saying it's not about me it's all about you i want to see yield ourselves to him right now would you would you hold your hands out like this like you're going to receive something will you pray this prayer with me jesus come pray it out loud like you mean it jesus you're the only one who can save me you died and rose again so that i can live free so in this moment right now i yield my life to you i repent of my sins i'm sorry for trying to do it on my own i give you my pain my past and my failure and i'm asking you for your grace and your mercy i receive your love in this moment and i'm asking you jesus to be the lord of my life in jesus name amen come on let's give him an ovation of worship right now

Channel: Hope City

Views: 30,619

Rating: 4.9240508 out of 5

Keywords: Jeremy Foster, Hope City, pastor jeremy, jermy foster, jeramy foster, hope city church

Id: AumVbhOBOmI

Length: 52min 20sec (3140 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021