Faith FULL | Part 3 | It's Personal

[Music] hey good morning north point glad you're here go and stand your feet we're gonna sing a little bit together come on [Music] [Music] i [Music] see [Music] okay [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i'm still in your hands [Music] and i'll see you two [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you may be seated that was great over in the west you may be seeing it as well and over in the west what about dj dave did you enjoy joy dj dave you over in the west we're spicing it up over there but over here in the east it's all good it's all good hey welcome back and if this is your first time back in the church building after being away for a while we're certainly glad that you're back as well and if you're joining us online for the first time or maybe you've been joining us online but you don't know anything about our church we have stuff for you whether you live in the atlanta area or if you live anywhere in the country so i'd love for you at some point today to just click where it says i'm new at the top of your web browser and find out what we have for you in the city what we have for you outside the city if you are in the building with me today we would also love we have something special for you over in the west or the east as you leave today if you'll go to the lobby um there's a room there a new new facility or a new environment we created called connections and it's specifically for people who are trying to get more information about our church and if you go to connections today and especially if you live in the atlanta area you're going to get a free gift and yes it is a bribe but you'll be glad we bribed you okay so check it out meet some of our staff get some questions answered about our church um the reason this is out here is we had a really really busy weekend um for our for north point community church and i want you to know about it because you were a part of it even if you didn't participate in it thursday night i was here with all the high school seniors from all of our atlanta area churches and it was absolutely amazing we had hundreds not high school students just high school seniors and i got to sit up here and do what i love to do and just teach what i think they need to know as they kind of launch into this new season of life it was so much fun if you have kids in middle school or elementary age school our inside out program is so fantastic and so anyway that was fun then uh yes friday and saturday friday and yesterday we had transit weekend anybody participate in transit weekend or your kids did yes were you here bill i dropped off and picked up you dropped off and picked up good did they were they did they enjoy it absolutely yeah so transit weekend this was so much fun this is amazing even with covet and schools in and out and some school systems still not back in completely we had over 2 800 middle schoolers for all of our atlanta churches doing this together uh we had this was where you're sitting sitting right now we had about 680 just middle schoolers from north point community church and about 300 of their leaders so it was it was absolutely incredible and the reason i bring all that up even though you may not have kids in these age groups you have done as a local church a fantastic job fantastic all of our atlanta area churches of keeping children middle school and high school students engaged in the life of the local church and i told you this before but i i brag on you all the time so many churches were in such a rush to hurry up and get all the adults back in the building their children's ministry middle school high school ministries they kind of just flagged a little bit now they're trying to play catch-up you prioritized the next generation and i just can't tell you how proud i am through your giving through your patience through you allowing us to do some of these incredible things before we even put adults back in the building and if you're a guest here today or you're looking for a home church or you're online watching wonder i just want you to know um if you were to ask us hey what's the faith of the next generation worth our answer to that question is it's worth everything so you're doing it and you're doing a fantastic job and i just i just wanted to thank you and brag a little bit now to keep the next generation engaged and involved um i need you to do something for your local church and i'm going to be very specific in a few minutes but because of what i want to ask you to consider doing um i decided to set that up by just jumping right in to the message today so today's going to be a little bit different going to jump right into the message uh we'll do some singing at the on the back end some fabulous songs we're all warmed up after the um nine o'clock service so i just want to jump right in one of the things one of the things that um consistently um kind of was sort of off-putting or unbalancing to jesus first century followers especially his disciples or his disciples in particular was his his um oversized assumption about their capability and their abilities that jesus this is so interesting jesus was consistently and again he had a short time frame so he had to kind of speed things up and so because of his short time frame he was consistently pushing the 12 apostles in particular into situations that they weren't ready for that they weren't prepared for and they were really in over their head and as you read it's a little bit funny at times they find themselves kind of flailing around trying to figure stuff out and in some cases just flat out failing just failing like jesus says go do this or he puts them in a situation and they just are like we just we can't do this and they fail and this happens over and over and over and um to some extent maybe they maybe they should have seen this coming i doubt we would have either because at the very beginning when jesus began to choose who would become his famous you know 12 apostles and you're familiar with this story perhaps when he first called peter andrew james and john do you remember this he calls peter and drew james and john and he says he says gentlemen i want you to come follow me jesus said and i'm going to send you out to fish for people which is strange right or maybe you heard it growing up and i'm going to make you fishers of men now that's odd but what's particularly odd about this was they had just spent all night fishing for fish and had caught what nothing right they are fishermen who couldn't even catch fish and jesus says don't worry about it follow me and you're gonna catch people right and it's like we're having a hard time catching fish he's like don't worry about it we're gonna figure this out then later even though they were men of the sea you know they grew up around the sea there's a couple of occasions where jesus puts them in a boat without him one in particular and pushes them out into the sea and asks them to basically row across a few miles of the sea of galilee he's going to meet them on the other side and even these men who grew up around the sea they were not even able to row their boat to where jesus asked them to row their boat and then at the very end i mean this was so intimidating he gets them together and he smiles and he's you know cat's doing this big vision cast and he says very truly i tell you or you know king james is verily verily i tell you very truly i tell you you guys you guys are going to do the works that i have been doing you've been watching me do all this amazing stuff you guys are going to do the various kinds of things i've been doing and you're gonna do greater things than these and they're thinking no we're not we couldn't even row row row our boat for six miles across the southern end of the sea of galilee we're not gonna do greater things than you but jesus was constantly pushing them and part of it again he had a very short time frame to set them up for what he ultimately wanted them to do so he would create these artificial points of tension and these artificial environments to try to teach them a very very important lesson and it wasn't just a lesson for them it was a lesson for me i'll tell you a little bit about my lesson in a minute and it was a lesson for anyone who claims to be or wants to be a follower of jesus now the best example of this is one that we're all so familiar with because all the gospel writers tell this story with a little bit different kind of detail a little bit different emphasis but one afternoon again you if you grew up around church or in church you've heard the story jesus was teaching all day now the the bad part about jesus teaching all day is unfortunately the gospel writers don't tell us what he was teaching and when you read the teachings of jesus they're kind of short but imagine sitting like in an all-day seminar with jesus you know with 15-minute little breaks for coffee and bathroom breaks and get back together all day he's teaching and it's like if only somebody had recorded an all-day teaching session with jesus how amazing that would be but anyway they're out there all day there's thousands of people and they've gathered on this hillside and the sun starts to you know looks like it's going to start to start setting and uh there of course there's no restaurants and there's no you know there's there's no facilities and so the apostles that have come to jesus and of course the apostles are worn out they've been sitting out there in the sun too and they're hungry but they don't want to say hey jesus can we take a break we're hungry so they kind of blame it on the crowd they say jesus jesus we need to then we need to have a dinner break okay these people they've been out here all day they're hungry send the crowds away send the crowds away so they can go because they wanted to go too honestly send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food and jesus stares at the crowd turns and smiles at the disciples or his apostles and he says they do not need to go away you give them something to eat to which i'm sure they thought there he goes again and we'll come back to that in just a minute if you've been tracking along with us either online or in person we're in part three of a series entitled faithful fueling your faith in a world on empty um we've discovered and this is so important and even if you're not a christian you're not a jesus follower or maybe you used to be and you gave up because of something crazy that a christian said to you or a bad church experience this is so important that when you read the gospels jesus agenda for his first century followers and his 21st century followers is that we would not simply be people who believe things but we would be people with a very active all-in gritty daily relational you know in the thick of things faith that basically our faith would not simply be cerebral it wouldn't be just we believe things about god or believe things about jesus but we would have an active very activated faith which explains why jesus initial invitation and why his invitation to me and his invitation to you was two words follow me and then i want you to move and i want you to live and i want you to respond and i want you to react in a different direction and jesus never altered this invitation now eventually the church did eventually the church pulled back from follow me to simply believe in me and yes jesus invited people to believe in him but he never intended and he never invited them to stop there believing me was basically the threshold to follow me in fact he invited people to follow him and i love this and especially if you're considering christianity jesus invited people to follow him before he invited them to believe in him because the follow part was the gritty part the follow part was the active part and the follow part is what he knew would ultimately build and confirm their belief in him but believe just believe is easy it's so much easier than follow right it's safer it's less demanding it doesn't it doesn't require any change at all you just make a decision in your head but jesus didn't invite people to simply believe true things he invited people to live a life that reflected this ultimate and awesome and big and bold confidence in god our heavenly father he invited us to live a life that reflects our confidence and our trust in god his father because as we said throughout the series trust is the is the currency of a relationship and so jesus invited his first century followers and he invites you and he invites me to follow him to live a life that reflects confidence in or faith in god as it turns out as you read the old and new testament that god is most honored god is most honored by living not just in our heads or in our hearts by living active here and now faith and when our active daily faith i'm choosing to forgive i'm choosing to follow up i'm choosing to step in i'm choosing to be compassionate i'm choosing to be generous i'm choosing to respond like jesus our when when our active faith intersects with god's faithfulness on the back end our faith grows but believing without doing believing without doing results in a frail failing flailing fragile faith so people i mean jesus didn't invite people to simply believe things he invited people and he invites us to follow him he invites us to ask this question and um a couple weeks ago somebody took the screenshot from the message and posted it and said this is the question they want to wake up to every day and i was so encouraged because this is the question we should wake up to every day we should wake up to the question if you're a jesus follower what would i do what would i do what would i how would i live how would i respond how would i react how would i respond to her how would i respond how would i respond to them what would i do how would i live what would i attempt what would i initiate what would i avoid what would i do if i was absolutely confident that god was actually with me so in this series we're asking and hopefully answering the question um over the course of a lifetime not just as adults but over the course of a lifetime what facilitates or what fuels the development of active enduring faith and you've met people like this in fact many of you are people like this people who just are confident in god and they should it seems like they would react this way but they react that way and you ask them why and it's like well i'm a christian i'm a jesus follower they just they just live a different kind of life and based on what jesus taught and based on our conversation with really hundreds and hundreds of people through the years we've discovered there are at least five things or five essential ingredients to a growing enduring active faith that there are five things that god uses consistently to blow up and to grow up our faith so last week we looked at the first of the five we call it practical teaching and we call it practical teaching because whenever somebody tells their faith story i mean if you were to tell your faith story if you've been a jesus follower for a while whenever people tell their faith story they always include and then i started going to this church and for the first time in my life or then i began attending a bible study for the first time in my life or then i was involved in a campus ministry and when i was a university student and for the first time in my life somebody gave me practical application somebody gave me handles i'd always sort of believed in god but i never understood how belief in god or belief in jesus was supposed to interface or actually show up in my day-to-day living so my faith got bigger when for the first time somebody told me what to do and how to live out my faith they taught me what to do with what i believe they gave me handles and applications because and the reason this grows our faith is when our active faith not what we're just you know thinking about in our heads when our active faith intersects with god's faithfulness on the back end our faith grows that is when we step out and do what we think god wants us to do with no guarantee of how things are going to turn out and then after we step out and obey god whatever that is and then we experience god's faithfulness on the back end do you know what happens to your faith it grows it's like a muscle if you don't exercise it you have the muscle but if you don't exercise it it doesn't get bigger and our exercised active faith grows our faith but if you're never in an environment where somebody teaches you and shows you how to live out your faith it's going to be difficult to exercise that muscle so when we experience god's faithfulness on the back end of a decision to trust god we actually experience god in fact some of you there in fact i'm going to tell you a couple in a minute and i'm trying not to get emotional but they're they're for many of us who follow jesus for a long time there are moments there are segments there are seasons there are stories in our lives that when we think back and when we tell those stories it's always emotional for us because we just ne we felt that internal nudge we knew we needed to we needed to apologize we needed to write that letter we needed to volunteer we needed to be more generous we needed to whatever and we didn't know how it was going to turn out we didn't have the time we didn't have the money you know we didn't have the emotional bandwidth but we did it anyway and then on the back end god just did something we couldn't anticipate and we never forget those moments and our confidence in god gets bigger so practical teaching the second thing that grows up and blows up our faith is related to that and it's similar to that we'd refer to it as personal ministry personal ministry when anybody tells their faith story and they answer the question what did you know what was it along the way that grew up and blew up your faith people always talk about the first time they stepped out of their comfort zone to serve someone else or some someone else's in a way that they didn't feel prepared for they didn't feel adequate but they just they just knew they were supposed to do it they stepped out and they served somebody in jesus name because they just felt that internal nudge they essentially they tell the story of stepping into someone else's story or stepping into a group of people's story a neighbor maybe a non-profit a non-profit that was doing something significant in the world they had a burden for that and they thought i want to help but what can i do and then they they got involved and on the back end they feel like god used them to make a difference i'm stepping into a middle school or a high school group because i remember what i was like in middle school and if i'd had somebody do for me what i feel like god wants me to do for this group and but i'm intimidated and middle schoolers scare me and high schoolers scare me but you know what god you know if you can use me i'm in and on the back end you know relationships were formed relationships with parents i mean everybody who's followed jesus for any amount of time has felt that that nudge to step into the game and to embrace some sort of personal ministry some of you remember the first time um you were challenged to go on what we call a global x-trip for if you're from different kind of different churches a mission trip and you found yourself signing up for something then you had to update your passport and you had to get a shot and you know it's like and you're thinking to yourself what what am i doing am i crazy i mean i'm not a missionary you know and then on the back end because of who you met and because of what you did something happened on the inside of you and whenever anybody tells their story or when you tell your story here are some of the things that we hear right i was so nervous right i was i was in over my head you know they gave me this lesson and i sat down with these kids and i thought i don't even know the bible all that well myself i felt inadequate and unqualified but it's part of the story but i knew i knew i didn't know what was going to happen i didn't know how it was going to turn out i knew i didn't have enough time i knew i didn't have the resources i there was no guarantee but i just i don't know i just knew this was what god was nudging me to do and i wanted to back out and i wondered why why did i sign up for this and i thought everybody here smarter than me and everybody here knows the answers what if i say it wrong but when people tell their story when you tell your story when i tell my story what do we say we say but i just i went ahead anyway and the reason it's part of our story isn't because we're great the reason it's part of our story is because on the other side of that decision we experienced god's faithfulness and god's provision and we you know again the emotional part is that god used you and god used me in someone else's life pushing through pushing through our inadequacy pushing through our inadequacy in order to say yes to god for the benefit of other people it just grows our faith it grows enduring strong you know going to get through the next one as well faith when we push through our inadequacy i don't have time i'm scared i don't have the resources i'm too old i'm too young i'm not educated enough whatever it is but i feel like god's nudging me when we push through our inadequacy on the other side of that that's when we experience god's faithfulness and our faith gets bigger in fact some of you as i'm saying this you're thinking oh my goodness did somebody send them an email email because you've been wrestling with this you you you've been feeling a nudge to start something or do something maybe in the community maybe in the city maybe in a different city maybe a different part of the world maybe in your local church but you've been kind of feeling that nudge and you know you believe it might be from god but it's going to require something of you and you're resisting you know did you know we all resist that's not a lack of faith you know what it is it's a test of your faith it's a test of my faith god i don't know how it's going to work out i don't know that i'm adequate but if this is a view i'm gonna do what i know how to do i'm gonna trust you to do what only you can do because that nudge won't cease it won't desist and again you have no idea here's the other big thing about this right you have no idea what hangs in the balance of your decision if you say yes or no you have no idea what hangs in the balance in terms of what's going to happen but here is something i know for sure hangs in the balance the quality and the strength of your faith the quality and the strength of your faith because saying yes to god to step in to serve other people is one of the five things god always uses to grow our faith if you don't believe me just ask the disciples so let me get back to the story lord lord they're hungry we're hungry we don't tell them that lord send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food jesus looks at them and says they do not need to go away you give them something to eat now a little more context for this story because it's i think it's interesting um right before this incident here's what had happened herod antipas not herod the great who killed all the babies in bethlehem but his son herod antipas was the governor of the northern part of what we would call modern israel or galilee back then northern he was the governor and um he was not a fan of john the baptist because john the baptist was not a fan of herod antipas because aaron herod antipas had married his brother philip's wife herodias so herod married mary herodias after she divorced herod's brother now this was a big no-no it's kind of odd now but it was like against the law back then against jewish law so john the baptist who was not afraid to say whatever came to mind would talk in the streets about herod intipus and how he had married his brother's wife so herodias the wife of philip who divorced philip in order to marry harry antipas he she was not a fan of john the baptist either so she talked her husband into arresting john the baptist which was a big problem because people in that part of the world thought john the baptist was a prophet they were they knew he was a prophet um we think he might have been a relative of jesus we knew their mother we know that their mothers were really good friends so you got this situation and then finally um herod um herodias herod antipas's new wife after divorcing philip are you following this i know it's it should i know but we're accustomed to these things it happened back then as well anyway so herodias herodius talks her daughter her teenage daughter into going in before herod antipas her husband and his buddies and doing a very um she went in and danced before then we'll just leave it at that so the herod and his his buddies they are all they're so worked up after this very sensual dance herod's drunk and he says you know that was so amazing i'll get just name something what name your price that was so amazing i'll give you whatever you ask for thinking she's going to want some cash or a car and she leaves the room and all the guys are like where'd she go and she goes to see her mother and says okay what do you want and her wicked mother herodia says tell your stepfather my new husband that i want john the baptist's head on a meat platter see this is why you should read the bible okay you didn't even know this part was in there right i want john the baptist head on a meat platter so she goes back in they're all just corrals and they're all you know you know drunk and she said he's like okay you know what do you want and she says i want john the baptist's head on a meat platter now he's stuck because he said this in front of all his buddies sure enough he sends his executioner down to the dungeon they chopped john to babble his head off and they literally put her on a meat platter and give it to herodius because that's what she wanted now she's done with john the baptist well word of all this gets back to jesus i mean this is this is terrible right i mean there's so much grief imagine the disciples i mean john the baptist was the ladies and gentlemen i'm may i please present to you you know the the lamb of god that comes to me he was the forerunner of jesus and now he's dead and jesus did nothing to stop it now i know from time to time we're all disappointed with god um but we we just are and you just need to know this was not that's not new with us in in this generation i mean imagine the disciples they they'd seen jesus turn water into wine i mean that wasn't even important right that's fun but it wasn't important um they'd seen jesus heal strangers and he did nothing he didn't even lift a finger to help his own second or first cousin or friend or forerunner john the baptist this this just made no sense at all so you should be encouraged sometimes god's lack of response or not responding the way that we don't want that we want god to respond doesn't make any sense to us jesus responses in the first century often didn't make sense either back to the story so when jesus when jesus heard what had happened to herod to john the baptist he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place okay this is i just have to say it jesus finds out that john the baptist has been executed and he goes to the lake that's what he did he went in fact he went as far away from the region that he went to the farthest northern part of galilee he went to the lake to a solitary place he's upset um he's tired we find out he's been doing all this ministry he wanted to be alone reflect and recuperate and a boat was the only way to escape because when there are crowds and there are no cars the only way to get away from the crowd is you get in a boat this is one of the reasons jesus spent so much time around the sea of galilee it's like guys i'm tired let's get in the boat and go so hearing of this the story continues hearing of this that jesus jumped in a boat and headed across part of the sea the crowds followed him on foot so they just go around the edges there he is they're still still inside still in sight because they just they can't get enough of jesus and when jesus landed he saw the large crowd they had they were there waiting on him i love this and he was so upset he had compassion on them and he healed their sick and now the story and as evening approached the disciples came to him and said this is a remote place and it's already getting late send the crowds away i thought we came for a vacation anyway and send them this is or send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food send the crowds away so that they can buy themselves some food so the disciples asked jesus to do something and then jesus turns to the disciples and he asks them to do something no you give them you give them something to eat jesus invites them to be a part of the solution to the problem but what he asked them to do was impossible there's thousands of people right now john matthew martin luther john he also tells us the same story john said this is kind of cool john said that jesus said this to test them in other words he knew it was impossible he knew they were incapable he knew they did not have what it took to do what he was asking them to do that it was a test and john also tells us because looking back john got all the scoop because he was there for this and when he talked to jesus afterwards jesus told john look i knew what i was going to do the whole time it was a test for you guys i had a very short period of time i'm trying to teach you to trust me i'm trying to teach you to step into areas where you're not adequate and trust me to do what only i can do so when i you said hey send the people away and so they can get something to eat i thought hey this is a great opportunity you give them something to eat andrew one of the apostles who i was named after just thought i'd mention that andrew speaks up he says well um jesus there is a kid in the audience here and apparently he overheard our conversation and he has offered us his lunch um but i've looked at his lunch and all we have in his lunch box all we have here are five loaves of bread and two fishes five loaves of bread and two fishes now if you haven't been paying attention pay attention i love what jesus says next five loaves of bread two fishes for thousands of people i love what jesus says next this you're looking this is how big problems are solved this is how macro community-wide city-wide nationwide salt problems are addressed and this is an invitation to all of us and jesus smiles and he says bring them here to me i know it's one kid with one lunch bring them here to me and there i stand and there you stand with our loaves and our fish some of you have more loaves than fish some of you have more fish than loaves no we don't all have the same resources we don't all have the same capability but we all got a little something and every single jesus follower is invited bring them here to me you you want me to do something i want you to participate you want me to do something big you want me to do something big for the next generation you want me to do something big in the community you want me to do something big in the nation you want me to you know been praying for change i want you to participate so you bring me what you got remember sometimes i ask you what breaks your heart hey what breaks your heart we all kind of know what breaks our heart what breaks your heart jesus says bring me what you got well god i know what breaks my heart is such a big issue just just bring me what you got is it the faith of the next generation bring me what you got is it your neighbor or your neighborhood bring me what you got is it university students bring me what you got is it the people at work bring me what you got so there they stand there are thousands of people kind of milling around sun's starting to go down there they stand staring at each other and andrew just you know all right jesus there it is this should be interesting but every day with jesus if you're one of these guys it's interesting right so jesus directed the people you know this story to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven i love this this is like when he's standing outside of lazarus tomb he prays that cool prayer before he raises his lazarus from the dead dear heavenly father you know what's about to happen but i just want them to know that we're connected so okay here we go boom lazarus that's what this is what this prayer is all about heavenly father you know what's about to happen i just want everybody here to know this not me it's you through me so here we go and he said looking up to heaven he gave thanks and he broke the loaves and then he gave them to the disciples now what and do you know what they did they did what they knew how to do and they trusted that jesus knew what he was up to that's it they did what they knew how to do and they trusted that somehow jesus was going to come through they literally we use this phrase out of context all the time it drives me crazy we don't but i hear it all the time out of context this is literally what they did they walked by faith they didn't come up with something for god to do and say god i'm just going to trust you know this was not their idea walking by faith isn't coming up with stuff to do and then imposing on god walking by faith is when you feel the nudge to do something you know you can't do and you step into it anyway they literally walked into the crowd hoping they weren't going to look like total fools and the disciples gave them you know the story and the disciples gave them he gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the people and their active activated faith intersected with god's faithfulness and something remarkable happened they were all they all ate and they all ate and were satisfied and the disciples picked up 12 baskets of broken pieces that were left over now this this whole concept is so personal for me and i so want it to be personal for you it's so personal for me when i talk about it in this room because 25 and a half years ago a group of us felt the nudge to start a different kind of church that we were told wouldn't work in the southeast because people had tried it it's not going to work there's too many churches in the southeast as it is but we wanted to create a church that unchurch people would actually attend and love to attend and bring their friends we wanted to create a church we got rid of all the stuff that got in the way of people just turning their hearts toward god and we left our jobs and we you know we just the problem was we couldn't not do it because the nudge was so strong and every time i see a baptism every time i walk into this every time i drive over and see the building or see what else god has done through us all over the city and different parts of the world it is so humbling to me and i just i know you look at me and it's like oh but it's successful and it's big but once upon a time i'm telling you once upon a time it was this big just bring them here to me ten years ago when sandra and i felt the nudge become foster parents whoo i'm like there's no way i mean i'm too busy it's like it just doesn't go away it doesn't go away you got to become foster friends like we don't have what it takes then we went through the training and we really knew we didn't have what it takes right you know what was in our lunch box empty bedrooms and a little bit of financial margin just bring it here to me and what's happened sorry it was happening in my heart and what's happened to my faith i'm telling you you know andy you got big faith you're the preacher no i'm just a human okay what what has happened in our heart in our life and our faith because we all right here we go but this is the way of god this is why i say this is how the world changes this is how communities change and on the other side of it this is how your faith just gets bigger so i want you to say something with me and i'm again if you're a jesus follower i make no apology for this if you're not a jesus follower you feel like i'm manipulating you i i apologize i really don't want to do that but if you're a jesus follower i just want you to repeat this after me would you would you say this with me all together ready i'll do what i can do come on just come on be bold i'll do it and second part and trust god to do what only he can do let's all just say that together ready i'll do what i can do and trust god to do what own that's the walk of faith and that's the walk that builds your faith and as long as it's just something you believe you're gonna have a little itty bitty frail muscle and when you need it it's not going to be there for you now here's the cool part i got to finish this story real quick do you know what jesus does after this imagine this moment okay the the apostles are collecting more fish and bread or more bread than they actually gave out to begin with i mean they are laughing they are giggling i mean this is like what just happened and i think jesus is smiling and the people are eating and they're beginning to think hey we got it going on let's go do this some more and matthew who was there says i love this the next word immediately before it goes to their head before they think wow look at us come on matthew says immediately immediately jesus says let's go they're like yeah but this is kind of uh let's go takes him down to the lake puts them in a boat pushes it off and says row row row the boat and once again they can't make it to the other side and the text tells us that he asked them to do this hoping they would connect the dots between the lesson of the loaves and the journey across the lake because he had a compressed time frame to teach these men trust me trust me do what you can do and trust me to do what you can't do this is the way of the kingdom of god and this is the way that the world changes in fact in that particular story the only person that connected the dots was peter but that's a story for another day and then imagine this at the very end jesus stands on another hillside and now he's just got the apostles and a few extra folks and about 20 or 30 women who had supported and followed him from galilee and jesus hands off the entire enterprise to the same group of people he says okay i've done all i do i've taught you all i can talk remember the loaves remember the lake remember the lessons now i want you to go and i want you to make disciples of all nations they're thinking wait wait wait most of us haven't traveled any you know we've been about 50 miles away from home you want us to go make disciples or jesus followers of all nations that's impossible we got it we get it i'm just going to bring you what we got make disciples of all nations we're we're outlaws and fugitives make disciples of all nations i tell you what jesus we'll do what we can do and we'll trust you and your heavenly father to do what only you can do and ladies and gentlemen two thousand years later here we are this is the place that every jesus follower finds themselves in at some point and when you hesitate when you say no when you decide i'm just gonna keep it here and not out there your faith atrophies in it it's weak and it's frail and it's not there for you when you need it and it's not there for somebody else when they need it but that nudge that that that nudge to serve that nudge to step in that nudge to step out that nudge to invite that nudge to lead whatever it might be that is your opportunity to experience god in a way you're just not gonna experience from the safety of hey i don't have what it takes somebody else is to have to do that when it comes when it comes and when you feel drawn and nudged you don't know what's going to happen on the other side you'll never know everything that hangs in the balance of your decision to step out or not step out but the one thing you know for certain hangs in the balance is your faith and the the practical application of your faith and the strength of your faith and the endurance of your faith and perhaps the maturity of somebody else's faith as well because personal ministry here's what it does two things it positions us to experience god's power in our weakness which is what god does personal ministry positions us to experience god's faithfulness in response to our little itty bitty i'll give you what i got acts of faith so if you want endearing go the distance faith don't just believe things you got to say yes to that nudge you got to step out before you're ready because you'll never be ready before you know what's going to happen because you can't know what's going to happen other than your faith is going to get bigger what we do know is this i'm going to bring you what i got is one of the five things that god uses consistently to grow up and blow up our faith and the folks that said yes i'll give you what i got those are the people that change the world and here's the warning the people that say no we don't know their names in fact perhaps you know somebody who gave into that nudge and it changed your world in fact you're here you're a believer you're doing things you never thought you'd do before because somebody knocked on your door or invited you to something or asked you to participate in something and they were scared to death in fact they told you later on it's like i almost didn't ask you and you're like i'm so glad you gave into that nudge because it so impacted your world here's the thing and i'm done somewhere in the world there is someone whose life whose child whose marriage whose grandchild whose faith will be changed once you step up and make available to god what's in your lunchbox again there's a story that has yet to be told and your heavenly father is saying just bring me what you got you you do what only you can do and i'll do what only i can do and you'll be amazed at what we can do together you give them you give them something to eat and we will pick it up right there next time in part four a faith full now before we go because of the season we're in as a group of churches there's just one question okay and it's the question i want you to answer today okay the question is are you and hope the answer is yes are you planning to serve in your local church this season is that simple are you planning to serve in your local church the season i certainly hope so and at this time in all of our atlanta area churches i'm going to invite your lead pastor up to tell you how you can take a next step if your answer to that question is in fact yes and that would be me okay so here's what we're going to do all right um if you're on if you're watching online and you consider any of our atlanta churches your home church especially npcc this is so important because i know many of you don't feel comfortable coming into the building yet i totally get that but here's what i'd love for all of you to do to reopen all of our family ministry strong we need 350 inadequate people who are willing to say all i have is some bread and some you know some fish but i'm willing to step out and it scares me to death i'm just we just need 350 inadequate people i know you're all inadequate all we need now is for you i'm just kidding so that's that's all we want so when you came in today underneath your your seat you know there's this little card i need you to pull this out real quick i'm only going to take about five minutes to explain this then we're going to sing a little bit okay so this we're going to end on a high note this is going to be fun i thought the sermon was pretty good though anyway so what i need for you to do is i want all of you all of you if if we're your church home or even if you're considering us being your church home or if this is your second or third time to be with us and you're like okay how do you get involved i'm about to tell you how to meet some of the greatest people in our church i would like all of you to choose one of these four areas i'm gonna explain them in just a minute and just give us a little bit of information about you and we're going to collect this card at the end and then you're going to be invited to a leader interest gathering you're not signing up to serve you're just signing up to be invited to a leader of interest gathering and you're going to hear from us today about when that is so here's where here's where we really need the full court press in order to open strong as we transition to the summer and in the fall womba land is our infant through preschool environment let me just say this we do not babysit children this is not a nursery we are setting an anchor in the hearts and the conscience of little ones that's going to serve them for the rest of their life upstreat is our elementary age kids preparing kids for the road ahead again this is when we set the anchor even deeper we know eventually kids will wander in their faith like many of us wondered we want the anchor so deep that when they they can only wander so far and that rope tightens up and they end up back in faith with god and laying the foundation for their service and their love for god for the rest of their life elementary age kids um transit is our middle school ministry tran you know for many of us what happened in high school and what we were exposed to in high school of course now that happens in middle school so this is one of the most important these are all important but our middle school area transit our tagline here is helping kids develop a faith of their own love that helping kids and helping students develop a faith of their own and then high school you know what high school is inside out high school students can be intimidating but my goodness being with the seniors thursday night and just seeing you know the future is ahead and they're making some big decisions and navigating the complexities of young adulthood what an incredible opportunity what an incredible investment sandra and i spent 10 years working with high school students when we were first married to this day we say it was some of the best or maybe the best 10 years of ministry in our lives because now these kids are married have kids of their own and to think wow look at the seeds that were sown in those early years so we want you to pick one and here's the thing we need multiple kinds of gifts and services and these we need greeters in all of these we need people who sign people up we need hosts in some cases we need food servers we need small group leaders we need storytellers so again there's multiple ways to serve in each of these areas we just want you to pick one we're going to follow up with you today and you're going to be invited to an basically an information meeting where you'll meet some fabulous people get all your questions answered and then decide is this where you feel like god would have you serve also if you don't want to do it with um with the card you can use the qr code for those of you who are watching online if you please go to northpoint.org at some point today slash serve northpoint.org serve we need you to get involved as well as we reopen as we reopen strong because what is the faith of the next generation worth the faith of the next generation is worth everything so i want you to be a part and then we're going to pick these up and collect these from me on the way out so you got your pen everybody already filled it out everybody's just staring at me okay so we're gonna sit here so you do it okay just kidding so i'm gonna give you a couple minutes all right make sure we have that information and then uh we're gonna we'll collect again we're gonna collect these on the way out and then we're going to sing a little bit so i'll give you a couple minutes all right i don't really know those of you online go ahead and open up another browser or pull out your phone northpoint.org right here love for you to give us some information as well when i really [Music] okay so um allison's gonna come out we're gonna sing a song or two i love this song it's called love has a name heard this several years ago i love that we keep singing so if you would stand sing with us worship for a few minutes thanks so much for what you're going to do can't wait to see you next week here's allison [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] there's an answer to every question mark there's a [Music] through name [Music] [Music] overcame [Music] [Applause] who breaks the chain [Applause] [Music] jesus [Applause] [Music] there's a joy that's triumphs [Music] [Applause] [Music] overcame [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus jesus [Music] let's keep singing together sing worthy of every song here we go worthy of every song we could ever sing worthy of all the praise we could ever bring [Music] as worthy of every breath we could ever [Music] breathe [Music] jesus the name above every other name jesus the only one worthy of every breath we could ever [Music] breathe there is show me who you are [Music] there is show me who you are around me [Music] love it is a firm foundation i will put my trust in you [Music] come on [Applause] [Music] there is [Applause] who you are [Music] [Applause] my [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is earth will shout your praise our hearts will cry these bones will [Music] sink [Music] our hearts will cry [Music] [Applause] [Music] will shout your praise our hearts will cry these bones [Music] [Applause] so we pour out our prey [Applause] [Music] to pour out our praises are you lord [Music] north point thank you so much for being with us today we hope you have an incredible week as you leave make sure to use all the exits that we have and go ahead and drop your card into one of the buckets at one of the exits and we will see you back here next sunday have a great day [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: North Point Community Church

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Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: North Point Community Church, North Point, NorthPoint, North Point Atlanta, Andy Stanley, AndyStanley, Andy Stanley church, Andy Stanley message, Andy Stanley sermons, North Point church, NPCC, North Point youtube, Andy Stanley YouTube

Id: VD7JxFle_NE

Length: 60min 12sec (3612 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 28 2021