Store It Or Pour It | Worship Service | Kurt Johnston

if somebody loved you so much they died for you wouldn't you want to know them and if there's a better way to live then i'm going to run to it and i want to see your purpose and plan for my life open your eyes see how good [Music] god is welcome to church everybody come on let's stand psalm 122 says i was glad when they said unto me let's go to the house of the lord i'm so glad you're here tonight come on let's clap our hands and worship our king together come on this is my testimony from death to life cause grace be wrote my story i'll testify by [Music] this is my jesus this is my testimony [Music] [Music] but the miracle that i just can't get over my name is registered in heaven are you grateful tonight i believe in signs and wonders i have a resurrection power [Music] is [Music] by jesus [Music] come together sons and daughters sing the praises of the spirit son and father our god will finish what he started [Music] [Music] by jesus [Music] this is [Music] greater things are still to come oh i believe if i'm not dead you're not done he's not done with you greater things [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] this is my testimony from death to life cause grace rewrote my story by jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] christ the righteous i'm justified this is my testimony this is [Music] thank [Music] [Applause] [Music] we can you today because of god's faithfulness and the great things and the new things that he's about to do come on this worship [Music] he has done great things yeah [Music] see how his love overcomes he has done great things [Music] and break [Music] oh jesus [Music] you'll be faithful forever and i know you will do it again before your promise is yes [Music] [Music] oh [Music] hallelujah [Music] yes [Music] [Music] and break every chain oh god [Music] [Music] if you have some great [Music] [Applause] what's going on saddleback how are you guys doing tonight come on how are we doing tonight that's what i'm talking about praising god in the park this is a beautiful night this is awesome for those who don't know man my name is anthony one of the pastors here we're so glad you're here finally we have a weather that we've been paying for you know what i'm saying go ahead take a seat say hi to your neighbors and say thank god it's not 97 degrees out and as you find your seat let me just say hello to everybody uh watching online and everybody watching in the drive-thru we're so glad you're here if this is your first time thank you for coming thank you for worshiping with us we understand the big commitment the challenges of of coming to a big scary church and a scary new family and we're not too scary we're cool peeps so we're glad that you're here in fact if this is your first time we would love to get to know you there's many ways that we would love to serve you and your family so after the service make sure you stop by the connection center and we have a gift for you just to say thank you for for spending some time with us wow this is amazing i'm so glad to be here with you guys uh i i first i want to just say thank you thank you for those of you that are here that has been just enduring the crazy elements of this weather praising god in the park outside through heat through cold through the rain this is amazing we're i just want to say thank you we haven't said thank you thank you so much we are we are working really hard and diligent to get our worship center up and uh open so that we can worship as a family up there in the big house so in fact it's coming up soon and we need your help we need your help to serve there's a lot of ways for you to serve so if you've not served the on the weekends at all maybe this is your first time that you get to jump in and help out we need ushers we need greeters for those that have a big smile we need you to to put your big smile and welcome people as they come in or help organize the grounds or maybe you can be a part of the worship team and the production team there's so many ways for you to serve we would love for you to find out so on the screen we're putting up a url it's saddleback.com lf weekend we would love for you to serve your church with that being said we're going to watch church news but i just want to say this for those of you that know this we are one church in many locations we have transformation stories happening all over the world really and so we have this beautiful story of transformation coming at our san diego campus so let's watch this together hi my name is sophia i'm from china i came to ucsd three years ago to study now i am attending setback church san diego before i came to u.s i did not know anything about god the first day i arrived in usa i was hosted by a christian family and we spent a lot of fun time together i felt super peaceful when we had our prayers before our meals and then i began my journey with curiosity excitement and a lot of questions and i figured out that if i wanted to be an educated person i need to read the best selling book of all the time which is the bible i came to set back a church with my spiritual parents we all want to find a church that has solid teaching has strong ministries and care about people from diverse background and that's why we chose setback church my mother is a devout buddhist so as you heard that i was going to church she wanted me not to get baptized otherwise she would cut off my financial support and i pray that god could give me a peaceful mind so i could finish my study and be independent after i graduated i successfully find a good job at a good company and after i get my first paycheck i just say to everyone i want to be baptized at the moment when i went out of the water everyone was just chilling for me i was feeling super excited and happy now i am more peaceful more confident and i became more grateful because i'm just so grateful that god brings the people in my small group and spiritual family together i have been celebrate church for two years now and i will continue to be there because it's a good place for people like me to grow and learn and i keep praying for my parents and i hope someday i could take them to jesus what a wonderful story i love it stories like that are happening every single day throughout all of our campuses and it's so great to share it with you before we continue to worship we just want to pause and pray together the church family because we realize there's a family this size some someone here has to be feeling some sort of pain maybe some frustration maybe some hurt that you came in with and it's a burden that maybe it's even hard for you to raise your hand and worship because you're carrying the weight a lot of you already know this that last month i lost my father and it's hard sad yes i have the hope that he's in heaven i get to see him one day but that doesn't change the fact that i don't get to call him anymore it's sad and it's okay pastor rick says all the time that it's okay to not be okay you don't have to fake you don't have to pretend not with your family so if that is you maybe you're carrying some weight maybe you're carrying some grief maybe you're carrying some pain some hurt whatever that is we just want to pause real quick and give that to god and surrender to god so do something different with me if that's you you're you're bringing some weight into this place just close your eyes and put your hands up like this just open your hands and say god i give it to you i give you my grief i give you my hurt i give you my pain i give you my frustration i give you my anger i give you my confusion god you are such a big god and you say you can handle it in fact you say come to me those who are heavily burdened and i will give you rest so father it is yours this is yours to deal with help me and as we continue i want you to close your hands nice and tight because you release those emotions those feelings that god welcomes he wants you to give those to to him but now we're going to hold on to his promises god thank you so much for your great promises thank you that you say everything works together for good for those who love the lord everything god thank you that you say you comfort those that are brokenhearted god thank you that you say you will never leave us nor forsake us so as i'm going through this pain as i'm going through this hurt as i don't know how i'm going to take the next step god i hold on to your promises because i know a promise from you as good as finished as good as complete so we hold on to your good promises and we magnify your name jesus because jesus you your love is relentless your love is sacrificial your love is endless even when we are enemies with you you chaste after us so we thank you and we praise your precious name and all people say amen amen let's stand together and sing be madness let our praises be your crown let the heavens hear the sound [Music] the one who was it is to come received [Music] from life to death [Music] jesus christ [Music] perfection wrapped in glory [Music] by the sun morning [Music] mercy [Music] grace abounds [Music] and the seams of hearts are bursting [Music] the lamb of god [Music] let the heavens hear the sounds is [Music] [Music] bye [Music] [Music] salvation [Music] is [Music] let the heavens here [Music] [Music] glory [Music] to the kingdom of glory holy holy [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] fine [Music] no borders [Music] you have promised i'd be leaving [Music] is [Music] is [Music] we [Music] is [Music] [Music] he's [Music] [Applause] [Music] and all things [Music] there's nothing [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that opened that great is moving right here in this place [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for ourselves [Music] oh you're still healing still [Music] speaking forever [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well good afternoon everybody go ahead and grab a seat say hi to somebody if you haven't already said hello to the person you're sitting next to it's great to see everybody if we've never met my name's kurt and i'm one of the pastors here i get the joy of spending most of my time working with everybody in our church that's basically aged birth all the way up to college i think i have the coolest job in the whole church but i'm a little bit partial i need to ask you guys a question it's a question that i will ask my new seventh grade small group we actually have an eighth grade small group this year when we get back together in about a week or so i'm going to ask the same question i ask them at the beginning of every fall it's a question you probably ask people it's simply this what'd you do this summer what what'd you do this summer um so turn turn to something just tell them what you did this summer give them a highlight what was the highlight of your summer somebody yell something out to me what'd you do this summer anybody worked church okay that's a better answer i mean work's a good answer too i just i felt sort of sorry for you if that was a highlight of your summer well here's what i did this summer um i like to spend the free time of my summers surfing here's here's what i spent my summer doing is i i went to the beach and i surfed when i told my wife i was going to show a picture of me surfing she saw that picture she said like her why would you show that picture it's not super awesome it's kind of grainy the waves are tiny you're on this really big board it's not an impressive surfing picture if that's what you're gonna tell people you spent this summer doing and so i said well then babe you know that's the one i could find why don't you find one of me that you like and i'll show that one instead and so this is the one that she found of me surfing this summer which is probably a little bit probably a little bit better when i was growing up i grew up just about a half hour up the road in a city called whittier california and um my family moved to whittier when i was in the summer going into fifth grade and then i spent the rest of my childhood and almost all the way up until i got married in whittier and we went to this really small church in whittier california and i went to a really small youth group in a really small church in whittier california in fact our youth room was really maybe about the size of of this section of the stage it was tiny and the only thing that fit in our little youth group room when i was in junior high was a three cushion couch that was it you would open the door and there would be a three cushion couch which was perfect because our youth group consisted of three people it was me my best friend mike pace and a girl whose name i i can't remember and every single week rain or shine good day bad day me mike and the girl would show up to youth group and we had this awesome sunday school teacher youth group leader he was an old guy i mean he had to have been i don't know 26 27 years old he was this but you know how it is when you're 13 right i got news for you if you're over about 25 as far as our kids and teenagers are concerned you might as well be 80. right but to me 25 he seemed like this old guy he was married john miller was his name he was married and john miller every single week he would come and he would pull up his chair and he would sit down in front of me mike and the girl and he would tell us about jesus share stories about life we never missed we never had a visitor never it was always me mike and the girl every single week we didn't know we were we were allowed to invite friends to church i don't know if john miller knew that we were allowed to invite friends at church every single week me mike and the girl it's kind of a good thing that nobody knew ever showed up because one of us would have lost our seat on the three cushion couch and that would have been totally unfair to the girl it would have been totally unfair to the girl for somebody new to show up but john miller not only showed up on sundays but john miller would show up at my pop warner football games and cheer me on john miller and his wife would have me mike and the girl over their little apartment complex and they would roast hot dogs and we would swim in the apartment complex swimming pool john miller was in a dirt bike riding and he went out and he bought a little honda 100 and invited us to go dirt bike riding with him me and mike went the girl wasn't totally into that so she sat that one out it was the same it was wonderful i knew that there was this old guy that really cared about me and one day something changed one day we're sitting there and john miller comes and he's a little bit more serious than normal and he pulls the chair up a little bit closer than usual to the three cushion couch and he sits down and he looks us in the eye and he says kurt mike girl um i need to let you know that today's my last day as your sunday school teacher he said i got a new job and i've kind of you know we've kind of we're going to move to where the job is and i've kind of mapped it out and i've done a few test drives and it's just too far to come to church every week and we feel like we should probably find a church in our neighborhood that we can be a part of so i'm just i'm just letting you guys know that i've loved hanging out with you i've loved going to football games and having you over the apartment but today's gonna be my last sunday with you and i can remember it like it was yesterday going home to our little apartment in whittier california and crying just crying in that kitchen to my mom and my dad how could he do this to us i never want to go to church again it'll never be the same you see i was feeling a sense of loss because there was somebody in my life who had been pouring into us what god was doing in his life he was turning around and he was the to the best as he could he never went to bible college he didn't go to seminars he didn't know how to be a preacher he was just sort of talking to us about jesus and pouring into us what god had done to him and i suddenly realized i don't want to not have that and the tears flowed and i said i don't ever want to go back to church now i don't know if my parents made the right decision parents out there you know how you you have these moments and you make a decision and you kind of second guess and you don't know if it's the right call but in that moment my mom and my dad said kurt you're you're becoming a young man and if you don't want to go to church anymore we're not going to force you like you've got to decide on your own if you were going because you want to learn about jesus or because of john as great as john was as great as he is you need to decide and i decided well then i'm out if you're giving me the choice and john miller's not going to be there i'm out and i didn't go back to church until i was a soph a junior in high school and to this day when i look at my life most of the regrets and most of the scars and most of the things that kind of went sideways in my life were pretty early on in my teenage years in that season sort of between eighth grade and my junior year in high school you see john miller was doing for us what really should be common behavior it should be common practice for those of us who call ourselves followers of jesus if we're a follower of jesus it should be common for you and i to do for others what john was doing for us to take what god's done in our lives and pour it out into the lives of others our relationship with jesus was never meant to be passive it was never meant to be passive our relationship with jesus christ was meant to be this alive exciting multiplying thing i want to look at two famous passages of scripture if you've been coming to saddleback for any period of time these passages are going to be really familiar to you they're going to be very familiar to you they're the great commission and the great commandment let me read in matthew 22 verses 37 to 40 jesus says this you must love the lord your god with all your heart all your soul and all your mind this is the first and greatest commandment and the second is equally important love your neighbor as yourself the entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments then in matthew 28 18 to 20 says this jesus came and told his disciples i have been giving all authority in heaven and on earth therefore go and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and of the holy spirit teach these new disciples to obey all the commands i have given you and you can be sure of this i am with you always even to the end of the age now everything that jesus says everything that jesus says is important everything that jesus says is true everything that jesus says is authoritative but there are certain things that sort of jump off the page that jesus said and these two passages jump off the page for what i think is a really unique and important reason one is because he's answering a question that somebody asked him hey jesus there's a lot of laws there's a lot of rules to this religious thing out of all of um what's most important he says well let me tell you the first is love the lord your god and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself well that is an active command right an active command loving your neighbor as yourself means doing something about what god's done for you and the other passage is really important because it's actually the last instructions that jesus gave his disciples jesus had spent three years with his disciples and before he ascends into heaven he says this is what i'm telling you to do i've been given all authority in heaven on earth go and make disciples baptize them teach these new disciples to obey all the commands that i have given you jesus could have said all sorts of things as his final command right he's been spending three years with his disciples he could have said hey guys i'm not gonna be with you anymore so eat three square meals a day it's really important hey guys i'm not gonna be with you anymore so make sure you remember to water the lawn because if you don't and he could have said all kinds of important things brush your teeth floss and jesus said no if i've got one last shot with you if you're going to remember anything from the last three years if anything's going to stick this is what i want it to be go and make disciples baptize teach them to obey what they've learned in other words take what i've been doing for you take what i've been doing in you and now go and do it with everybody else aren't you glad they took him up on that command aren't you glad that they took those words seriously you see what john miller was doing is simply what jesus asks all of us to do go back 2 000 years and he put this thing in motion and said go and do if you're my followers i'm not going to be here go and do go and do what you've learned what you've experienced what you've seen go and do and john miller every week when he was there with me and mike and the girl he was doing what jesus said we're supposed to do god had been pouring into john miller and he was pouring into us jesus had been pouring into the disciples and he was saying now disciples you go and you pour in to others look at what the bible says in the book of titus i love what it says because this is a reminder that god is still pouring into each and every one of us in titus 3 verses 4 through 7 it says this when god our savior revealed his kindness and love he saved us not because of the righteous things we had done but because of his mercy he washed away our sins giving us a new birth and a new life through the holy spirit he generously poured out the spirit upon us through jesus christ our savior because of his grace he made us right in his sight and he gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life you see from the moment you surrender to jesus christ he begins to pour into you from the moment you say yes to jesus god starts pouring into you um it's saddleback we talk a lot about that at saddleback um we we call it um our shape right that god is shaping us he's pouring into us our experiences and he's molding us or shaping us and you know it kind of looks like this that the s in shape is you know it's our spiritual gifts the bible talks about that when we become followers of jesus that the holy spirit gives us supernatural gifts we're supernaturally gifted through the holy spirit he pours that into our lives he also pours into our lives what we would say is our heart or you might want to say like the things that you love the things that you're passionate about and all of us have different spiritual gifts none of us have all of the spiritual gifts but collectively we do right none of us love everything none of us are passionate about everything but collectively in the body of christ everything that should have some passion or love attached to it is represented and kind of as a side note if you ever feel guilty maybe that why aren't i as passionate about this or this or this as he or she is and that's because none of us are passionate about everything right we're not we can't be passionate about everything but collectively when the body is functioning as it should everything in earth everything here that's broken everything that needs redeemed all of the injustices collectively we should be able to meet every single need every passion everything that needs some heart poured into it should be represented in our body but you and i can't be gifted completely you and i can't be passionate completely we can't have a love and a heart for everything but god has poured some things into you that you love he's poured into you some special abilities some things that you're just naturally good at you're just naturally good at some stuff you were probably good at that whether you were a follower of jesus or not the spiritual gifts are what god through his spirit gives his children our abilities are things that we're born with before we even know we love jesus or there are things that we develop over time because we took an interest in it so all of us have and god is pouring into us our spiritual gifts our heart or the thing we love our abilities are personality some of you are extroverted some of you are introverted some of you tend to be a little bit quiet some of you tend to be loud some of you are more intellectual some of you are a little bit more spontaneous right and that's our personality he pours that into us and he pours into us our experiences god allows us to go through good and bad experiences in our life and he's pouring all of these things into us he's molding us he's wiring us at saddleback we would say he's shaping us into the the man or the woman that he wants us to be now when we get poured into we we have a decision to make when god's pouring into us you and i now have a decision and there's really only two options there's really only two options and one of the options is that we can store it we can take what god's done in our life and it's pretty tempting right we can say gosh god thank you and thank you for my spiritual gifts thank you for giving me some passions in life god thanks for my personality and my heart god thanks for the experiences that you've allowed me to go through the good ones and the bad ones god because they've helped me become closer to you and it's really tempting we can say this is my shape this this is this is what god has poured into me and i'm so thankful and it's so precious because in our shape is life right i mean in our shape what god has done in us is meaningful and personal and life-changing and it's really tempting and i would even say maybe natural in our human nature to store it up to put a lid on it and to store it up i think there are some consequences if we do that you see if we store it up um you might want to write this down the the result of storing it up is this is storing it up is safe and sterile storing it up is safe and sterile now safe and sterile isn't always a bad thing if i'm having surgery i kind of want it to be safe and sterile if i'm having surgery safe and sterile is a good thing but when it comes to my relationship with jesus christ and his desire that my faith be active the result of storing it the result of something in our life being safe and sterile is stagnation it's stagnation and i think there are a couple consequences if we choose to store up and choose to let what god's done in our life become a safe and sterile clean thing i think one of the consequences is that jesus really takes issue with us storing it up i mean jesus really takes issue with us choosing to store up what he's given us in in the in the bible jesus teaches a lot of parables now what a parable is is a parable is a made-up story it's a it's a story that is not true but it's designed to teach us something that is true okay so the parables didn't happen they're not true stories but they're stories to teach us what is true and jesus tells a really famous parable that if you've gone to church for for any season of time you've probably heard it i'm just going to paraphrase it super briefly but jesus tells this parable about a rich guy who's going to go away on a trip for a long time and so he calls together some of his most trusted workers and he divvies out some of his money because he wants them to take care of it for him while he's gone and so he goes and these guys have the money and they all do different things with it two of them go and invest it to differing degrees but they go and invest it one of them takes what the master had given and stores it he buries it in the ground because that's the safe sterile simple thing to do to him it made sense thank you i want to protect what you've given me so the best way to steward it and not mess it up is to store it for a later date and jesus says when the master returned and heard what they had done he was really happy with two of the three who had invested and put his money into action and he was extremely frustrated with the person who had stored it up so one consequence of choosing to store up what god's done in our life as god pours into us as he molds us as he shapes us one consequence of storing it is that it's displeasing to jesus it's displeasing to our father to our master another consequence is simply this it's boring choosing to store what god has done in our lives is boring if you show me a bored dissatisfied christian i will show you a christian who is storing it up every single time you show me somebody who's bored and dissatisfied judgmental angry i promise you that is a believer who is storing it up but that's a choice that you have you can store it or you can pour it if you choose not to store it the other option is that you can pour it and pouring it is simply what john miller was doing with me and mike and the girl john miller was taking what god had done in his life and he was pouring it into our life now here's the thing with pouring it is pouring it is messy and muddled when you choose to pour it things get messy things get a little bit muddled you know that people don't turn out the way that you think they should it looks different when you pour it in different people's lives it just kind of looks a little bit different from person to person sometimes it just gets a little bit messy right things don't always go good gosh i got water all over the place there because it's messy it's muddled here's the result yeah it's messy and muddled but the result is multiplication the result is multiplication and that's what we were designed to do that's what john miller was doing when he was pouring into me and mike and the girl now to be fair messi'd and muddled pouring it has consequences every action has a reaction right there's consequences i think here's two of the consequences consequence number one is you'll be living the way of jesus if you choose to pour it you're living the way jesus wants you to live that's consequence number one and consequence number two is it's exciting it's exciting you find me an excited follower of jesus if you want your walk with jesus to be exciting and fresh and new every day start pouring it out start pouring yeah it's messy it's muddled it doesn't always go the way you want it to jesus was way better at pouring it out than you and i right i mean we could agree on that jesus was probably definitely way better at pouring it out than you or i and it was messy and muddled i mean the people he poured into the disciples they were jealous of each other they fought for position and favoritism with jesus they denied him they betrayed him for money they chopped off some guy's ear that came to arrest jesus right they were violent at times i mean things at one point jesus had to look at one of them say get behind me satan that's somebody that he's pouring into and the guy that he's pouring into has things so messed up he's saying all kinds of crazy stuff and jesus has to go hold on get behind me like i'm not hearing that from you right now that's the enemy trying to take me off course so if it was muddy for jesus it's going to be muddy for you and i when we choose to pour it out we're choosing to kind of get in the weeds of kingdom work we're choosing to get on the front lines of of seeing god's kingdom and his love and his grace advance into this world it's a choice that every single one of us gets to make now if today you're going okay i i'm in i i would like to start pouring it out but how where would i start um we've got some good news for you at saddleback um first of all you can pour it out anywhere anytime you just there's opportunities all the time as you're walking through life to pour out what god's given you but if you're thinking okay i get it but where do i start does a church have any ways for me to pour it out how can i serve the answer that is yes if you want to sometime even tonight you can go to saddleback.com ministry quiz saddleback.com ministry quiz and on there we've created a really short it'll take you 90 seconds two minutes that's probably a dozen little questions really short really fun i've kind of got some slides that show you um how how they work it'll it'll look like that and you'll drop down your campus now if your campus isn't represented there that's okay just pick a campus because it will eventually get to the right campus but you can drop down and then the next slide i'll just show you kind of what the questions are like it's basically like that would you rather work independently you're on a team you click the one really short and fun and simple it would be awesome to do with a friend or a spouse and kind of talk through it together and then after you answer a handful of questions it will show you this kind of response page right there in this case this person is labeled a compassionate helper and it said here's the top three ministries that might be a fit for you it's not a guarantee it's just kind of giving you a starting point on where you can serve and where you can at saddleback begin to pour pour it out in this case it's healthcare food pantry and the meals ministry now i decide well this should be fun i was tempted by the way to rig it so that no matter what you answered the ministries came back saddleback kids and saddleback student ministries that no matter what you answered those are gonna be the top three um i decided to to let the holy spirit do his work um and trust him i took the quiz didn't take me very long um and here's the results it gave it gave me it said no thank you please do not try again so you know it's not a guarantee but for the most part uh here's the thing we want to help you pour it out saddleback church has built our entire strategy our entire way of doing church is built around those two passages i read at the top of our time together the great commission the great commandment saddleback church is not a church that thinks we should store up all the awesome stuff god's done in our lives god's done some really great stuff every single one of you is carrying around a jar of what god's spirit has poured into your life how he shaped you and at saddleback we believe it is a tragedy and it's not true to scripture it's not what god has planned for us to just simply store it up we're a church that believes in we've built our strategy around taking jesus's word seriously and living out of faith that goes and does that's what john miller was doing it was messy when john miller was pouring into me and mike and the girl um i didn't i didn't become a christian when i went to that little church i never said the prayer i never pulled john aside and said oh thanks john for telling me about jesus i want to be a follower of his i'm sure there were times when john would go home from spending time with me and mike and the girl and think did it ever matter did what i was doing make it make a difference because man they're kind of squirrely junior hires and they're not really responding and they don't listen it doesn't it doesn't really matter and like i said earlier when he left i checked out a church and i don't know you know if i were to ask my parents was that the right decision or the wrong decision i don't know what they would say to give me that freedom but but they did and i checked out of church i got reinvited when i was in high school and you know why i went back i got invited to another youth group and the first thing i thought in my mind was well if there's people there like john miller i'm in if there's people there like john miller on me and so i gave it a shot and it changed my life fast forward about 10 years from when john miller had sat us down and said this was my last sunday i'm now a follower of jesus i'm in my senior year of bible college i'm commuting from whittier california to costa mesa to what used to be southern california college now it's vanguard university and somebody in our church had given me this total clunker a 1960 chevy which today would be amazing if i still had it then it was just this beat up old car and i was commuting back and forth back and forth and on my way home one day i stopped at what was a brand new in and out burger in like the wittier santa fe springs area and i went in i ate my double double i came out and my car wouldn't start and i don't know anything about cars but i know if it doesn't start it's probably in the engine somewhere you know so i went over there and i popped the pop the trunk and i'm sorry i popped the hood i don't know anything about cars pop the hood hood is where the engine is pop the hood and i'm digging around and as i'm digging around out of the corner of my eye this 1970s van pulls up the kind of van that you would say to your children do not approach the van stay away from the van and i thought that looks like john miller's van because he drove that kind of van and i look up and out of the door out of the door of the van hops john miller i hadn't seen him since the day he said this is my last sunday with you he hops out of the car now you know how it is with adults we tend to age a little bit our appearance doesn't change as rapidly so like from 25 to 35 he looked kind of the same for me i had changed a lot from 13 to 23 in a split second before i could say john before i could really get i was still kind of processing it he goes kurt johnston john miller yeah he said well what what's wrong my car won't start now let me take a look and he fixes it right away because he was that kind of guy and then he says hey are you hungry i had just eaten a double double fries this is john miller i said i'm starving i'm starving so let me buy you a burger so we go in we get our food we sit down and i take a bite i mean we've we've been sitting down for 30 seconds not very long i take a bite and he says so kurt what's god been doing in your life i'm so glad god had been doing something in my life that would have been an awkward meal uh but i mean i joke saying he wasn't the greatest smartest bible teacher he'd never but i'll tell you what he was a faller in love with jesus he was somebody who constantly poured it out and he knew this is my moment to reconnect with this kid i'm going for it what's god been doing in your life and i got to tell him how i walked away from faith how i got back into church and it was because of his influence i had accepted christ i was going back and forth to bible college because i was a part-time junior high pastor at my local church and he just just little tears just little tears in his eyes and i don't know i don't know if he had spent very much time over that 10 years wondering whatever happened to me and mike and the girl but man the fact that as i was talking tears are rolling up you know like all of us you know was it all worth it did any of it matter i mean i poured out i poured my life into these kids and for me to be able to tell them john i never said this to you when i was a punky eighth grader but thanks thanks and he said did you know what's going on and i said well you know i'm still good friends with mike and he's like oh and and i said do you remember the girl's name he's like no john what's going on well i want to i want to show you a few pictures this is a picture of my family that's me and my wife and my son cole and my daughter kayla and some dude she married um that's colton he's actually one of our college pastors and we love him dearly and our grandchildren and i can't look at my family without seeing the the thumbprints of john miller all over my life i i can't look at my family without being thankful that there was somebody who refused to store it and decided to get messy and muddled and pour it out into a bunch of messy muddled teenagers i'm still really good friends with mike pace here's here's a picture of his family and that's mike and his wife jen and their dog their their family and mike works for dreamworks up in hollywood and he's salt and light in a pretty dark industry and i can't look at mike mike still loves jesus i can't look at mike and jen and their kids without seeing john miller all over their lives because john miller chose to pour it and refuse to store it mike's family his kids family maybe generations are changed for eternity and believe it or not i have a picture of the girl i have a picture of the girl here she is there she is and there's there's the girl now let's pause for a minute i don't know where the girl is let's let's just for a minute pretend that she's far from jesus let's pretend that she she she never gave her life to christ john miller volunteer 25 years old didn't really know what he was doing messy and muddled john miller two for three two for three two lives changed for eternity because he chose to pour it and he refused to store it my friends i know that god is up to good stuff in your lives i i know that god like he began doing when you first said yes to him i know that he is still pouring into you he's still shaping you into who he wants you to be and the question i have for you is when you look at your life and everything that's god's done for you the question is simple are you going to store it or are you going to pour it let's pray heavenly father i thank you for your love i thank you for your goodness and your grace father i thank you for the way that you are shaping each and every one of us father when we said yes to you you begin to pour your holy spirit into our lives and you have shaped us to make a difference in this world lord i pray that even this week as we go through our daily routines that father you would open our eyes to opportunities to pour it into the lives of others in your name we pray amen what a message thank you thank you pasa kirk refused to store it import wow uh i i i hope that you don't just hear that message and do nothing with it i hope you hear that message and respond in a way that god can only do in your life so there's there's a few ways we would love to just help you in your next steps you could pull out your connection card that came in your program or if you're on the app there's a little button that says my response to today's message and there's a few options that you can walk through part of doing something great for god and doing something in his life and pouring it to others starts with taking that very first step of refree or receiving jesus as your personal savior savior and if that was you if you want to take a next step in in receiving the love of god and begin that relationship with jesus today then let us know you can actually text new start to 83 000 right now and we can begin that journey with you or you can stop by the connection center and somebody will be willing to pray with you uh if you would like to get baptized there's there's a flag right back in behind you and to your right you can walk over there we'll take you upstairs we're baptizing after the service right now after the service you would like to get baptized and tell the world that i love jesus and he loves me that's the way that you could take his next step or if you would like to start serving in ministry and pouring into others then just go ahead and mark down on the on the connection card or on the app that that i would like to get involved and start serving don't waste this message don't walk away and do nothing with this message that's what we ho that's our hope and plan for you as you do something new and different today with that being said we're going to continue our worship with the giving of our tithes and offerings if this is your first time if you're a visitor please do not feel obligated to give this is the way that those that call saddle back their church family this is how we worship and we give in faith and celebrate what god is doing in our life by giving back a little bit of what he has given us so let's worship come on let's stand and sing as we go out tonight this is my testimony from death to life cause grace rewrote my story i'll testify by jesus this is my testimony [Music] this is my testimony [Music] this is my testimony [Music] this [Music] it's is good to be together we love you church we'll see you next weekend [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Saddleback Church

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Id: ygehGroXHM4

Length: 69min 42sec (4182 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021