Farewell And Final Charges | Sunday Sermon | Bethel Church

hey i'm excited this is um this is actually the last message i will be preaching to you as your pastor and so i was debating on what somebody you who what who was that oh no good i thought it was like a celeb celebratory one of my most favorite people in the world hannah i thought you were celebrating but you're sad huh hannah good i'm glad you're sad so anyways but i was debating on what to title this message for for those of you that are lord of the rings fans i thought about calling it fly you fools but if you're not familiar with lord of the rings that doesn't sound awesome and you'll be like what kind of message is this so i'm not going to call it fly you fooled but in some sense that is what i want to be gandalf just for a second and say fly you fools and it's actually a very complementary positive statement but the title today's message really is just farewell i just want to take some time and this is not our last sunday so the next couple sundays will be traveling but the final sunday for candice and i will be january 31 so we will be here for that and we'll share a few things from our heart but this is actually officially the last sermon that i will preach as your pastor and i'll tell you why i'm actually looking forward to that so when you hear me again i will probably be that crazy uncle and and who come back and one tag and i will poke and then i can go and then you guys have to deal with it all and i'm i'm think i will enjoy that very much you might see another part of me come out and as i was preparing this morning i was debating should i do a farewell or a timely message and i chose farewell because crazy uncles love to give timely messages it's they love to just give these messages and so the next time i share with you will actually be i don't know if i'll be crazy i'll be i just won't be this guy i'll be someone else and but you know honestly the last three or four months had been a mixture of grieving sadness and a little bit of anger as well as wonder and dreaming and really just an excitement for what's ahead and i have learned a lot in the last couple years of my life specifically just being vulnerable and real and honest with the process and there's no joke the last few months has been a process the last year has been a process but i just want to be real with you guys on that but i also for the record i want to let you know candice and i are very excited about the future we are in a really good place we're not in a depression state we're not in a low space um we we went there for a little while just to work through the process but we we haven't set up camp there and we're actually in a really good space and we want to just invite you guys into our own process of just we're actually very excited about what's ahead we're looking forward to it we don't know fully where we're still looking for a city and we're going to find a city but we are definitely excited and looking forward to what god is going to do for just this house but also for us as we step out and as you know you're not getting rid of us it's going to be very hard to get rid of us uh you're going to send us off and bless us on all those things i i know but i just wanted to let you know we're actually doing really well we're looking forward to what's ahead and we know that god's in it and that's that's a that's a wonderful thing to say this is not a facade this is not a making it up to make myself or you guys feel any better it's really true we're actually in a really good space and really looking forward to what's ahead you know as i think about we've been on staff here for 18 years and that's a long time especially when you're only 44. that's a chunk of your life i mean that's a good portion of your life and in many ways i feel like i grew up here you know weaverville mountain chapel i grew up as a kid but reading in bethel i feel like i grew up as a man and i remember the early days of working here i was the associate youth pastor and banning was the youth pastor at time and i had just gotten out of college candace and i were getting ready to get married and we were the associate youth pastors and you know it's very fascinating when you're 21 years old trying to figure out how to be pastors to pubescent teenagers um they their their attention spans are actually they don't have an attention span so it's working sort i just remember being in the back corner office which is now a stairwell or actually where the creative department is now and just sitting in there banging and i and we had way too many intern we were way too responsible for way too many people and we just really didn't know what the heck we were doing banning and i joke about it very often we literally sat around trying to figure out what do we do how do we lead young people and how do we do this and so we occupied our time and space and you know it was actually a really wonderful season because we were forced to get creative and and we learned some work ethic we learned some like you know what you got to show up you got to do your job and you got to put in you got to put some skin in the game and it was a really wonderful season and i tell youth pastors now i said you won't get the fruit of your ministry until like two decades later when you work with young people don't expect much fruit you'll get some but you always want more fruit than it being shown to you so give yourself 10 20 maybe even 30 years and then all of a sudden that fruit begins to show up and i know for candace and i we're in youth ministry specifically youth ministry for nine years and i was saying the last five ish years we're starting to see a lot of the fruit of the seeds that we sowed so i tell youth pastors all the time so it's a really important season for us and then sometime later we were asked to be the mission pastors and you know at the time the vision of beppa was to have 10 bases in 10 countries in 10 years just a while ago now and although that model would actually change actually became non-existent that model over a period of time we realized that model did not actually contain what the lord is actually doing because it was more than 10 nations and it would it was not just a base it was more relationships and influence and and so that was quite a journey and i'll tell you what one of my greatest privileges in life is working with missionaries i mean this is a person or a group of people that have surrendered the comforts of whatever nation they are from to go be with the people in a culture that is foreign to them and to give their life to see the gospel of jesus be expressed and it what an honor to work with those people and i remember just being so humbled as a literally a 20 year old working with people that were seasoned in the lord and being in charge of them was quite humbling it was one of the greatest privileges of one of my roles here at bethel and i was also in charge of the missions trips now at the time there were about eight trips a year and in about a three year span they went from eight trips the next year was 11 trips and then things started to double around here everything just exploded so 11 trips became like 20 something trips and then the next year i think it went to 47 trips so in three years went from eight trips to almost 50 trips and so that's a unique spot to be in charge of because the infrastructure were non-existent to handle 50-something trips let alone the money the people and all of that and so it's a really wonderful experience for me just to learn how to build systems and processes and budgets and i got a front row seat to students who had faith for impossible money miracles i mean just it was really interesting and i was the one and our team was the one having to make sure money was turned in on time or they couldn't go and of course you have hundreds of students that were believing in god to provide and it was unbelievable to see how god provided for hundreds and eventually thousands of students as they went to the nations and it was just one of one of the great privileges was to lead the mission trips and we eventually hired a team to run that and then eventually we brought on mike and lynn chandler years ago to run with our missionaries and i'll tell you what they've done a stellar job they they they they made me look like the worst mission pastor and i'm so grateful for that because they really know what they're doing i'm just a young buck trying to figure out you know which way is up and am i still saved and do i even have you know and then we bring in seasoned leaders like mike and lynn and they've done just an absolute stellar job you know at one point leading the mission department and then the senior team asked me to join the senior team and then they asked me to take over second year i was doing all of that at once i'll just say that didn't last very long that was a little bit too much on my place where eventually offloaded and my primary focus became second year leading the second year school of ministry and i'll tell you what it's a special place to be when your responsibility is to help raise up a generation of people to be recklessly abandoned to jesus your entire year and your school weeks and off season all of that was geared around how do we create a space and a place for people from all over the world to come and to encounter god in a way that marks them for the rest of their life and you know there's so many moments and i'll forever hold these moments close and there's so many of them going through my mind and we would be here all day if i even recited all my memories but it was a special season because there was actually a four month period in one particular year where something happened and a lot of things led up to the kind of it was there was just momentum that built and then something something just kind of clicked and all i know is for about four months every day before class started the staff and i would meet in the back and we we had a schedule we had a plan and but as this thing took on we realized that that schedule just an idea yeah it's just a suggestion and and it became very secondary in that specific season i mean in general it was but that specific season because every day for about four months you had no idea what was going to happen in the room it was just this anticipation and i remember students pulling in and we walk in the room like something is going to happen in between these four walls and so we would have to text or call all the speakers that day and all the classes and say just be prepared to not do what you planned on doing and we it was a really interesting season because some of the speakers that would be like their one time in the school for the whole year and we'd be like really sorry and of course everyone for the most part 99 of everyone was very compliant but it was a really unique season because sometimes it would just be a normal time of worship and then a student would just break out in a dance or song or or you know they would something would happen and then the whole room would be pulled into an encounter with the lord and entered into a new space for the god and other times someone would strum a chord or hit a certain note and it would just it was just such a precious time of of learning to lead when you aren't in control and that's uh that's a fascinating position to be in and how to lead an environment and there's things that need to be done but the same time the most important thing would when god showed up that was the most important thing and it was really unique season for me and learning how to co-label with god and i learned so much in that season every season really but i learned so much in that season specifically because sometimes when we think god comes we don't want to touch it so we do nothing and oftentimes when god comes he actually wants to co-label with you and he actually wants you in a positive sense put your hands on it with him and how to steward it and that season i learned that deeply it forever marked the way i interact with god when he shows up radically in worship or are you just there and i'm just really really grateful for that season then as that season ended we were then eventually asked to become the senior pastors which is our current just for a couple more weeks but our current role and many of you don't know that when i would ask to be senior pastors i had one main main request and that it would be candace and i would be the senior pastors because god had been doing stuff in her heart for a while leading up to this that a church needs a mother and a father and that was important to us and that's not a commentary on any other any other churches or any other environment it's just for us we just felt like no this is really important and so when we when we stepped in it was it really was with around the idea of being being a mother and a father in an environment and i'll tell you what you know candace and i had never worked that close together before we've done ministry all the way up until that point but we had never worked literally that close together and i'll be frank with you it was very challenging my wife is making making the face in agreement like it was it was um i don't exaggerate but it was brutal it was challenging but we knew the lord we knew we knew it's what we both wanted but we knew the lord was on it we knew that we're gonna we're gonna hammer this thing out we you know our we just make sure we are nice to each other in the process and it really was it really was um it really was a unique season for us and i think i had to learn the most because yeah i'll just leave it there i think i had to learn the most i i think that's true my wife might disagree with me but i mean that sincerely because there's so many ideas of what it looked like and what i thought partnership and ministry looked like and it really had to be brought down to nothing and then built up to what we both felt that needed to look like and it really was a special season for us and i'm very very proud of this co-laboring and we still have a lot more to learn but i'll just tell you what we learned a lot in this season of leading together for the last nine years this intimately and i'm very proud of it i believe we've only just begun candace we've only have just begun and we just need to find a new city that's what we're that's what we're praying about but we will we'll find a city one of the highest honored outside of being married to each other and having two daughters pastoring this church is that my microphone okay for those of you that are listening there's some activity on the roof above us so i hope you can't hear it but let's just stay focused because i can i can stay focused one of the highest honors in our life outside being married and outside of having two daughters one of the highest honors and chief choice of our life was pastor in this church and i love you i love bethel and i forever will you know my brother brother gabe said one i love us and it's such a great three word phrase it says i love us when i think of bethel when i think of this church and all that it entails i love to say that often i love us it's impossible to talk about all the moments we've experienced here we will be here forever but it really has been an amazing privilege to pastor a church that went from five or six thousand people and then within 10 years went up to about 11 ish thousand people what makes that unique is is that it's in a city of 90 000 people and that's a very unique dynamic and the more we interact with leaders around the world that that's just not it's not common at all to have a church of this size in a very small community and not just a small community but a rural community in northern california which is a very unique space and the dynam that dynamic that of having a large church in a small city shaped me more than i've ever realized and i think in the coming years i'll realize it even more and it it it forced me and i speak for us but because i'm talking i try to speak for myself it forced us to look at the dynamic of being a big presence in a small city how do we actually affect a city i was talking to a pastor once from london he was with the hillsong church in london he said i can outside the sidewalk of our church i figure he gave me some massive number tens of thousands of people will walk by during one church service and no one knows us i said well that's the exact opposite in reading everyone knows you and so that dynamic is such a unique dynamic and what did that teach us is that our actions our words our our ability to interface is really crucial and so this whole message of us and them got pretty much eradicated from from our paradigm from our language and our mission statements our our language around what churches in a city began to had to mature and grow up and it was because of that dynamic of being pretty big presence in a small community and you're getting feedback from the city and we were always the crazy church on the hill we were always that church and we had to learn how to not lose the craziness but actually be somewhat interfaceable i don't even know that's a word but to be to be able to interface with the city how do we actually serve and love a city i know and i know for me that that shapes me that experience of leading this house in this size and this this kind of city in northern california has given me keys and given us keys for what to do in the future and i really am forever grateful for that it's just just simply that of how do we how do we be in a space where it's not us and them anymore but it's actually we and i'm really really grateful for that i remember i this room is you know every room in this on our campuses have different memories but i remember this was a number of years ago there was a gal that you could tell she had a rough life that had a rough life and she would come and stand right here it was either here or there there was kind of two spot depending on who got here first but she pretty much this was her space at the beginning of worship and and all the way through worship and she was a character she wasn't quiet she was rather loud and what she would do what she became famous for she would clap at all the wrong times and she would never clap on beat not even offbeat it was just random clapping it was it was actually quite distracting and because we're right there it's just we're very pro the proximity is and and it was going on for weeks and i'm like you know it was awkward i'll just be honest with you it was like loud clapping really off would yell when it's quiet and it was just very i know for the worship team to like who is this person and and i finally one day i said i need to go talk to her i need to figure this figure this lady out so i went up to her after service one day and i said can you tell me your story and i introduced she told me her name i told her my name and we sat down here on the steps i believe and i said tell me your story and she told me a long story but the short of it was this that she was a heroin addict for almost 30 years she was a prostitute and she met jesus and had a complete complete salvation to jesus and i thought you can clap all you want and i remember i had to tell the front row don't touch her like i'm okay with odd awkward clapping and loud noises because this woman has a story and she can stand here and clap all she wants and you remember that remember that it's one of one of my favorite stories and i remember another's time where i was talking to a lady over here who had a four-year-old that had a disease that was actually dying from and remember just trying to help her as a mom how do you how do you believe for a miracle in the midst of just hopelessness and evidence of hopelessness from a medical perspective and i can remember those moments and i still don't know what happened to that four-year-old but i but i also remember other moments where someone would get healed in this room i remember over there a guy had a leg was three inches shorter than the other and we watched it grow right over here and so this room and our campuses i remember vividly conversation with people and then i loved the conversation just about how to own 15 acres and talking with a guy in the church he got a tractor and this is what he does and i just i just love every moment of being a pastor here and being a part of this community it's not only just about what god's done but it's about the life on life it's about the people that you you go to war with and not just go to war with but you just do life with and we are we are richer we are we are much better people because of you and i want to thank you for encouraging us i want to thank you for challenging us and disagreeing with us i am actually thankful for that because when we are able to do that well we are better people and you you have you found us and all the you know you always find us in the aisle that trader joe's or actually every establishment in this county you find us and i just want to say thank you bethel church for championing us believing in us and for disagreeing with us and for coming alongside of us and we know that we can leave and go into the next phase of our life be add better people because of you for the remainder of our time this morning i want to give some final charges um at least for this time and i'll be the crazy uncle next time i'm up here and so we'll have a lot of things to talk about and i i'm looking forward to that i believe in this community and the mission of this church more today than i did decades ago it's pretty remarkable when you stop and think about the fact that god invites us to be a part of his plans of what he wants to do and let's never lose sight of that let's never never put ourselves above that just simple truth that god actually said i want you to be a part of what i'm doing in the earth and i believe bethel has a part in that obviously so there's a few things i just want to leave you with that are just things that we've talked about before but they're very important to me and i want to leave them with you i want to encourage you to gather because of jesus be willing to be engaged with each other and avoid only gathering the people that have the same opinion as you and this is this is probably very relevant right now in this climate and what's happening around our nation not just in the last week but just for a while now is that it's very easy it's human nature to point fingers and and demonize and spiritualize our actions and demonize others actions it's it's the human way and we're better than that we're redeemed humanity and i want to encourage you through the church make sure that we continue to gather because of jesus because if we if we lose sight of that then then that community will only become one dimension instead of becoming multi-dimensional and i want to challenge you this is a big deal and we learned some big lessons over the years at the church but one thing i want to bring into this conversation is many of you know the good friday service that we've done for many many years and if you're wondering what we're doing with that i don't know you have to talk to the other pastors now that's their job and their responsibility but we made it a primary purpose that we were gathered around the cross and that was it and that was one of the main ways we were able to gather hundreds of different churches and thousands of people every good friday and worship together and it was the most beautiful some of the most beautiful moments in worship was when that took place so let's go into a microcosm of that with bethel bethel is unique in the sense that in this room or if you're watching we have people on the left side of the aisle we have people on the right side of the aisle we have people in the middle we have people that are very affluent in life and we have people that are still working through some really challenging things in life economically socially etc we have a very diverse opinion environment and what protects that or what enables that or what will continue to enable that is if we gather around jesus and i believe the coming days we'll have to fight hard to protect that it's already been a lot more work and testing in this season but i want to just appeal and i want to implore if you will exhort this church to fight hard to gather around jesus and then individually what you can do is not only gather with those that have the same opinion with you as you this is crucial for the coming days because the enemy is doing a really good job in the world system today of bringing mass division and he's also working hard to bring division within the church and it's really important that we remember the purpose of why we gather it's around the cross is around jesus i understand there's more to that but that has to remain the premier the paramount reason that has to be the overarching that's why we're here because that that's the only way the church survives if the church refuses to do that and that's not in the heart of this house at all it would just require it'll just require a lot of work in the coming days so i want to encourage you remember we gather because of jesus secondly if you're not moving forward then your past becomes your destination if you're not moving forward your past will become your destination they talk about how success is the greatest enemy of future success of becoming great i actually think success is the greatest enemy of change and i want to challenge bethel as a house you have to believe there are better days ahead but you have to also believe change is inevitable you have to and this is challenging because there's a rich history here and it's very easy to just want to reproduce what has already been experienced or learned and put a new name on a new brand on it put some lights on it and repaint it and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that but if we truly want to move into the future we have to actually be willing to change and i believe the best days are ahead for bethel i mean that sincerely i'm not just saying that i mean that sincerely because that's how the lord works but i do want to just implore you and appeal to you that change is inevitable and that if we don't move into the future we will just become another place where god was and that's worth it in of itself but i can't help but think the better days are ahead and it's going to look different it's going to look radically different and we have to be willing to embrace that simple idea of what the future looks like we have no idea and oftentimes we pray for new but what we really mean is pray for something we're familiar with we can just rebrand it and then we can call it new when we truly pray for something new it means we've never seen it before so that's my second final charge to you is your future is vital don't settle for the past and try hard not to reproduce what has already been experienced third thing and this one's a little bit longer but i'll try to keep it concise how we interface and how we engage bethel is not the solution to the world's problems it is to be engaged with the world's problems every church or movement eventually struggles with every idea is from god because what happened when favor and momentum hit you it naturally opens up doors that you prayed about or you didn't even know existed and it's easy to go oh god's on all of this and i want to tell you right now that's not true and you can go to the scriptures you can find it i just want to challenge bethel i believe the future of bethel is going to have to get very keen and very focused on what is going on and be willing to let go of some things because i'm telling you the future is brighter than our present and our past so i want to encourage you this is important for us to realize and we don't gather out of the church and i told students before in school whenever i have a chance to speak and i said you did not come to bssm to become right and sometimes we don't understand sometimes we go i've got it dialed in i know exactly how to do it and then we go from this place thinking we are right and just about everything no no we did not come here to be right we didn't come to school to be right we don't gather the church to be right we came here to learn to be servants that would be my dream and my ambition that we gather because we want to be servant in a broken world we want to we want to follow the path that our leader jesus who gave his life for a broken humanity he served them in fact the entire structure of spiritual authority is upside down the apostles and prophets are actually beneath the foundation they're not they're not add much on top they're actually more on the bottom you can read this in ephesians and so that's not the point today but i just want to say that we didn't come here to be right we don't come to bethel to figure out the only code the only way to crack codes no we came here to learn to be servants and the more the lord takes us to the future i believe our our ability to serve needs to increase it's actually how we stay healthy in our walk with the lord is we learn to serve more as the anointing and the favor and the momentum grows so i want to implore you so forgive me for this analogy but i love the game of golf and i um i'm deeply passionate about the game i love sports you all know that i think i do have one i probably have many failures but one failure i'll admit to is that i was unsuccessful in helping bethel movement become fascinated with sports i i think i made some dent in the conversation but um i'll leave that one alone that's for another time but forgive me for this analogy of the game of golf golf is golf is a fascinating game on so many fronts the whole goal is to get this little white ball into a four inch hole actually four and a quarter inch hole to be exact and you start on a tee box which can range from 100 yards to 700 600 yards and your goal is to hit the ball into that hole the least amount of time that's your entire goal now one of the challenges of the game is to know which club to use now the funnest club for most people is the driver that's your that's the club that hits the ball the farthest and it's also the worst club where you don't hit the ball well because the ball goes nowhere near where you planned it's actually a very complex club and but when you're good at hitting the driver you it's fun you love seeing that ball fly two three hopefully someday 350 yards you it's it's it is a rush to your system when you crush a ball especially when you have a group you're playing with and they all admire how far your ball goes i don't play for that reason that my friends do but that's definitely not why i play the game but my point of this is we often want to use the driver on every hit because it's fun especially when you hit the ball well but you see the golfer game is much more complex than that it's very complex and it's much more than just trying to hit a ball it's trying to determine what club do i use in what situation and and sometimes and let alone okay the distance calls for a nine iron the challenge is now you have to determine what's the wind doing what's the temperature of the air is it cold so right now it's winter time the balls do not fly as far as they do in the summertime and then you gotta factor in what directions when blowing now the grass what kind of grass am i dealing with here how's the ball lying on the ground there are so many factors and at the ball above my feet below my feet am i hitting am i hitting at a certain angle there are so many factors and oftentimes as christian we love hitting the driver but we've not developed a skill set to hit a ball in certain situations and my dream continues to be if we want to truly engage with culture we have to learn to know which club we use in certain situations and oftentimes we treat jesus like a set of beliefs he is a person he's nuanced he's multi-dimensional he's he's got so many aspects to him that we don't even understand and and yet we just want to come in with a set of beliefs and doctrines and this is it that's the driver that just lied this is it and i want to challenge you the driver need to be put back in the bag sometimes and you need to understand this game of the game of finesse this is the game of fundamentals this is the game of creativity this is the game of recognizing what situation what's the wind doing here what's the grass doing and is the green elevated or the blow it's undulated and we'll ask these questions because we truly want you engaged with culture we have to develop skill sets necessary to actually play the game well and my my biggest concern is that we just get content with the driver because it's fun man when you hit that ball voice sounds awesome it flies and it's great but if you actually want to shoot well and have a good score for the analogy's sake you have to learn finesse you have to learn you have to learn creativity and you have to learn to determine what's the environment doing right now and i want to encourage us i believe the coming days requires that and it's already required of us so keep growing in your understanding of jesus keep growing in understanding the culture around you and then more specifically the broader culture of the country or state that you live within because the coming days requires christians that are able to move and be creative have some finesse and to develop skill sets to know which club to use in certain situations i want to leave you with two verses that are some of my life verses ephesians chapter 2 verse 7 that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding richard of his grace in his kindness toward us in christ jesus for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of god but we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them i love this verse because it reminds me that god wants to use you and me to reveal him that's that's his intent that's his plan i want to use believers i want to use humans that confessed and gave their life to me to reveal my goodness it's one of the greatest privileges in our life second verse that i want to leave with you is this ephesians chapter 3 verse 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of god might be made known by the church to the principalities empowered in the heavenly places the theme in chapter two continues into chapter three but what's unique about this is it actually accentuates the multi-dimensional intelligence of god i spoke on this just recently about the genius of god one of my highest things i am ambitious about i'm passionate about is that my life and that our life would be one that revealed the multi-dimensional intelligence of god that when people experience us they don't just experience us but they ask the question who's your daddy who who are you because they're experiencing the nuance the flavors the colors the multi-dimensional aspect of who god is and i believe that's an amazing privilege for you and i we he said yes to jesus he entrusted us with that opportunity and responsibility bethel i love you i don't have enough words to thank you for everything i am a better person because of you you helped candace and i become better leaders better people and you played a huge part in shaping us thank you our kids grew up here and they are they're adults now and they moved out of the house they have seen a lot i am grateful my daughter got a front row seat to the constant display of the power of god i'm forever indebted for that candace says often love is what makes you beautiful thank you for loving us well we look forward to the days ahead and we will champion you from wherever we are at and we look forward to bringing back the spoils from another land to show you where god is taking us we love you guys thank you so much i want to pray father i thank you for this church thank you for allowing us to be here for this season of our life and what a wonderful season it's been 18 amazing years i just want to say thank you publicly and obviously personally thank you for that privilege and father i just asked that this church that they recognize their best days are ahead and they be locked in on this reality that you're taking them somewhere and father i pray that all of us would embrace the idea that change is inevitable and it's going to it's going to cause us to be willing to ask big questions because we know you're taking us into something new so i pray for a blessing on this church i pray for every family every individual that calls this place their home i pray that they would experience even more blessings and favor in the days ahead and even in this tumultuous unbelievably crazy season in our city in our state and in our nation that the peace of heaven would rest on each home that called bethel their home that their home would be a light in their neighborhoods would be a place of refuge would be a place to come and experience the presence of god i pray for miraculous provision in every area of life and i pray that even as 2021 has started off a rather roughly i pray that the rest of this year would be an amazing year of experiencing you in new ways that we only have dreamed of or even in ways we never knew existed so from candace night from the bottom of our hearts we bless you and we love you bethel church and we look forward to the days ahead amen amen thank you guys so much bless you well now i get to give my farewell i didn't know he was doing a farewell message you know we have been in this role for the last almost 10 years and it as eric said has been one of the biggest privileges of our lives when we moved here in 97 that's the year we got married uh was the first time we lived in bethel or in reading and went to bethel um i remember having a dream it was right before eric and i got married and in the dream i as i was waking up that morning this is the this is the picture that i was waking up to and it was me lifting my hands and screaming the name jesus and there were tears i was screaming it was the craziest most emotional feeling that i had ever had and i was just worshiping but worshiping to where i couldn't even contain myself and i woke up i thought oh my gosh i had never had that level of emotion and i couldn't it wasn't even just singing i was everything was coming out of me and what's interesting is coming to bethel one of the biggest privileges has been being able to run with such passionate lovers of jesus i feel continually called higher and my what i give him the level of surrender that i have the level of worship and so i'm just thankful for this house i'm thankful for everyone who calls this place home we are like eric said we are better because of you and um at the beginning of this last year after we had walked with the heligenthals uh with their young daughter olive passing away um something got turned inside of our church and even the levels of worship became so much more vulnerable and it was just this authentic passion for god rising up because we just felt even closer to heaven i remember one night on a sunday evening and morgan was up on the stage and he went into this um haka dance um it's a song and a chant and a song a chant and a dance and as he went into it there's he brought his authentic self because he's from new zealand and as he did that something broke inside the room and i felt that same level of passion that i had woken up with i don't know how many 24 years ago 23 years ago when i moved to redding and that's really what what this time at bethel has really done inside of me and changed something inside i mean this deep hunger for um the lord like i'd never known before so bethel we love you we're so thankful to be a part of this house and even as we transition see i'm gonna get all emotional now too i need my own farewell we love you guys and i just want to pray over us before as we're transitioning out you know we're going to we want to put our best foot forward this week as we're getting the opportunity to engage with lots of stuff lots of people i know that we're all doing our best and sometimes our best really isn't good enough you know there's what i've been most impressed with in this last season is our humanity and we we all love the lord and we um we you know we give him our give him our all but um at the same time we're still humans and sometimes just our own thoughts and um opinions and ideas uh don't always lead us to the best spot and so uh in this time i want to encourage us just to anchor into who he is and uh know that that he is our righteousness and um and we're not perfect none of us are even though we're all doing our best so even as church leaders i just pray that we would just have grace for each other and even as people who are following jesus that we would have grace for ourselves and for each other and this week any time that you feel like you want to judge or you feel this judgment thing rising up because of what someone's saying or what someone's doing maybe because you don't understand or we fully disagree i encourage us in that moment that we would ask god what is inside of us that needs to change if there's so there's judgment right rising up in us or something inside of us that needs to be dealt with or that needs to be adjusted because we never it's never our place to be judgers and it's not anything that god has called us to and that's not our pathway forward so if that's rising up in us there's something else that's true in us that just needs to get closer to god a lot of times for me it's uh something that i that's causing pain or something that makes me sad or something that makes me afraid like god i'm afraid of what's happening to our nation or i'm afraid what happens if this it comes true and that's not a time to judge it's a time just to come before god and um to let him into that place and then as bill was saying earlier that we go into a place of prayer i think prayer is one of the best things that we could do this week and i'm going to read lamentations 3 22-24 because god is our rock and he never changes lamentations says the steadfast love of the lord never ceases yes things are going to change it is the nature of life that god made it in seasons there is we're always going to be growing if we are breathing but one thing doesn't change and it's the lord and his love the steadfast love of the lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning great is your faithfulness the lord is my portion says my soul therefore i will hope in him and i just want to encourage you that when you feel like either you don't have enough or there isn't enough hope there isn't enough peace that god has it all that when we don't have enough he's our portion and that's what gives me hope this week that's what gives me hope every day and so i bless you i bless you in your home i pray that you would experience god his love his strength uh his faithfulness like never before and that you have more to give away than what you actually have because of who he is so more than enough peace and hope for yourself for your family for your neighbors and grace i just say grace grace grace over you we love you guys and just bless you and pray that you have an incredible week

Channel: Bethel

Views: 51,505

Rating: 4.9097223 out of 5

Keywords: Bethel Church, Christian, Bethel.TV, Bethel, sermons, church

Id: 4pxjw6gNEYs

Length: 45min 45sec (2745 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021