The Hills Church Live | September 19, 2021 | 10:00am

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey good morning church as you stand with us this morning we have the god who is good we come to worship him with joy with excitement hope you're ready to do that as well let's hang out this morning [Music] [Music] what you [Music] people from every nation and town from generation to generation we worship you hallelujah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh for people from every nation [Applause] hallelujah for who you are [Music] who you are [Music] [Applause] [Music] now [Applause] [Music] from every [Applause] hallelujah [Music] look who you are [Music] [Applause] hallelujah hallelujah [Music] who you are [Music] are a girl [Music] [Music] you stood before creation [Music] eternity in your hand you spoke the world into motion my soul [Music] failure [Music] my soul now [Music] this is [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] my is is yours [Music] [Music] and what can [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] yes [Music] [Music] peace [Music] every way at your name jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus this silence fear in jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus [Music] once again i will pray [Music] jesus you make a darkness tremble jesus jesus fear jesus jesus you make the darkness [Music] that the jesus can't deny your name cannot be the darkness tremble jesus jesus jesus you make the darkness triple jesus jesus [Music] come on [Music] cause your name is a lie that the shadows can't deny your name cannot be overcome your name is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] jesus jesus you'll make the darkness tremble jesus jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus church [Music] [Music] good today is a special day as we continue to launch the new vision ask for nations and generations today we're focusing on generations and another special thing that we're going to do is share in communion together as we remember what jesus did for us on the cross if you'll uh take your cup out you can remove the top peel it back and you'll find the bread and under that you'll find the juice and because we're celebrating generations today i've asked my granddaughter claire stone to share some scripture this is scripture that paul wrote about the lord's supper and generations in first corinthians it says for i pass on to you what i received from the lord himself on the night when he was betrayed the lord jesus took some bread and gave thanks to god for it then he broke it into pieces and said this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way he took the cup of wine after supper saying this is the new covenant between god and his people an agreement confirmed with my blood do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it for every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are announcing the lord's death until he comes again and in ephesians it says now all glory to god who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think glory to god in the highest church and in jesus christ through all generations forever and ever amen y'all pray with me god we thank you we thank you that we get to come together today and that we get to proclaim your name god we thank you that we get together and that we get to take communion together god and remember you and the sacrifice that you made for us god we thank you for the generations that are in this room god and the generations to come god we thank you that we have a bold church who will ask you for nations and generations god and we pray that you move greatly through this church and this new vision god thank you for this day thank you that we got to wake up this morning and come to this church god um we are so thankful for everything that you are doing god in your name we pray amen [Music] so [Music] who will stand against the lord [Music] no one can no one will [Music] who will stand against the king no one can no one will [Music] the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to him [Music] victory belongs to jesus [Music] [Music] who will stand against [Music] [Music] the victory belongs to jesus [Music] the victory belongs to jesus the picture he belongs to him oh see this with us [Music] the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to him [Music] so we put our trust in you [Music] and we put our hope [Music] [Music] victoria [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] forever [Music] [Music] now [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to heaven the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to him the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to him the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to him [Music] the victory belongs to jesus the victory belongs to him one more time [Music] the victory belongs to jesus [Music] the victory is his there is power there is authority in the name of jesus and so in this place this morning as we worship the name of jesus i'm praying and believing that fear is leaving in the name of jesus like we sang about and that peace is coming in the name of jesus because he is a priest peace bringer i'm praying that god is meeting all of your needs in christ jesus i'm praying that in this place this morning if you've never had an awareness of what the presence of god is like would you realize that his presence is here this morning would you realize that he's here to meet with you this morning that where two or more are gathered in the name of jesus god is here among them he is here among us there is power there is authority in the name of jesus thank you god thank you god we are so glad that you're here with us this morning as we lift the name of jesus my name's alexandra and i'm a student minister around here hey good morning fam i'm chris one of the ministers here it's great to be with you it is beautiful to see your faces welcome to what god is doing here among us at the hills yes so so glad that you're here we got a special group with us in here right now and i'm about to dismiss you to your bible study groups but before we dismiss our kids i want you to know kids i got a word for you so i want your eyes i want you to see me before i dismiss you okay what i want to say to you is i want to say thank you for helping our church become more like jesus christ you need to know that jesus told us some of the older people in this room that if we wanted to go into his kingdom then we would need to become like you yeah and so when we see you and we see your faces and we see the way that you love god you are helping your church become like jesus and we just want you to know this morning that your church is crazy about you can we give it up for our kids today church can we let them know how much we love them you bless us young kids we are so thankful for you and so now you get the privilege to go to your bible study groups so first through fifth graders you can get up and go find the kids ministry volunteers at the back of the room that are in those neon shirts have a great bible study group also sixth and seventh graders you have bible study groups as well you'll make your way back to the student ministry center or emmanuel dominguez waving in the back or our brother manny's at the back picking you up back here we want to walk with him we invite sixth and seventh graders to go to your bible study groups as well thank you kids for teaching us how to live like jesus uh ladies how you doing this morning we have ladies conference women's conference coming up in just a few weekends it is there it is women in the room this is what i'm excited about and expectant for this theme get up and walk get up and walk i believe that as we gather together at women's conference both in this room and online because we have an offering online that that's going to be a space where collectively we get on our knees before the father and that as we bow low in worship god's going to call us to get up and walk to get up and go pursue the world that is lost and broken and needing to hear the name of jesus that if you come into women's conference down discouraged heavy laden that something's going to happen at women's conference that you're going to get up and walk that god is going to lift a burden from you and i believe too that if you come into women's conference fired up life is good you're full of joy you're overflowing in this season the same is true for you i believe that you're going to leave women's conference different than how you came because of the presence of god and so if you're not signed up yet would you sign up would you get registered to join us in person or online i believe god has something for you at women's conference and so would you take a step would you say okay god let's go let's go he has something for you that's right yeah church we also want to invite you to a special gathering that we are going to have at all three of our campuses next sunday september 26th at 5 00 pm i want you to be marking your calendars for this we are in vision season and pastor rick is going to unpack the next portion of that for us today but you'll hear rick say often and we want to reiterate this as a church over and over and over again that the first word of the vision is not nations and it's not generations but it's ask and so next sunday night we're going to gather together for a prayer service for a worship time where we come together and we ask god for nations and generations because that is the place where all great visions of god start because we want to declare as a church lord that we can't do this without you and lord we don't want to do this without you we want to come before you and we want to cry out to the god of heaven who is giving us a vision to live into father we ask for nations and generations so would you come would you come expectant to be in the presence of god would you come ready to pour out and ask god in prayer for the nations and generations next week we hope that we we will see you there if you need child care you can go to the website and sign up at thehills.org for child care if you need that to come be a part of it we want you to be present with us as we ask for nations that's right i feel the need to clarify something really quick so last week if you were here big ryan little ryan i'm not really sure which one he actually goes by and david we're hosting and they were talking about our uniform we were supposed to be wearing and i wore the t-shirt yeah and i want to clarify for everybody that's curious that chris i believe you have it on friends i got my uniform home right here he's repping the uniform right there it was just cold in here earlier it's too cold for me to go without the sweater there it is but we're rule followers we wore the uniform we wore the uniform this morning you got it it totally counts it's on okay we are so excited about this vision that god is giving our church and this morning we get to hear about generations how god is calling us to pursue generations in the name of jesus and so however you get ready to hear the word of god get your bible out get your tablet out get your pens out take some notes lean in as we hear this word from pastor rick ashley on what god is doing here as we pursue generations [Music] ask ask for nations and generations welcome to the hills my name is rick ashley i'm the senior teaching minister of our church and if you are a guest maybe you're in person at the north virtual news campus the south lake campus the west fort worth campus or you're watching online you've picked an amazing time to be with us because what we're doing is unveiling our church vision for the next five years we're calling it ask for nations and generations last week i shared our seven huge goals to reach nations not only around the world but the different ethnic communities right here in our city and we saw that god's heart for the nations is huge he cares not just for one people but for all people and his redemptive agenda is not just for one time but for all times so we should not be surprised that he would give the church today a vision for the church tomorrow because god is just as passionate about generations as he is about nations last week i took some time and just walked you through in the scriptures god's heart for the nations i'm going to do the same thing in a moment regarding his heart for the next generation but i want to deal first with a couple of legitimate questions you might have about the unveiling of this next vision one might regard the timing you see it was our intention to launch our new vision in january of 2021. it was our intention this time last year to be sharing this with you if you've been here a few years you know for a long time our church was guided by our 2020 vision it served us well and we were planning to embark on our new vision at the start of this calendar year then the pandemic came for six months we couldn't even meet in person and we couldn't get together to build the things that we needed to build for the next division so leadership determined it'd be best to wait one more year before we rolled out our next vision we're going to start tracking our next vision january 2022 and it'll go through december of 2026. now you're thinking but we're still in the pandemic you're right the future is still very uncertain and tenuous but we affirm that god is in control and that the mission of making and growing followers of jesus is always in season and god has a pretty amazing track record of advancing his kingdom in circumstances that are not ideal so instead of waiting for the future that we want we've decided to start creating the future that we want so we're launching this vision starting in january and that's going to mean pursuing some very specific and measurable goals with regard to nations and generations and that raises the second concern some might have regarding using numbers like i'm just not into measuring things the church should be about quality not quantity now let's think about that a moment you and your mate are at a state park you've got five children they get lost you search frantically you find three do you say to your mate honey we found the quality kids we can go home now now if you want to find all of your lost children why wouldn't the father in heaven feel the same way here's the truth if you can't measure it what you have is a slogan but not a strategy and it explains why many churches are stagnant they only have slogans you go to the website we exist to in we exist to invest in fighting what does that mean and how do you know if you're doing that here's the truth you count what you think counts how did the shepherd know one of his sheep was gone because he counted he had a hundred sheep only 99 came back i got a lost sheep so he went looking in the parables jesus told about the master that comes back how does he determine which steward has been faithful he counted how much he gave them and he counted how much he got back several times in the book of acts you have literal numbers given of the counting of the new disciples that are being made you count what you think counts and we recognize that our goals may need to be tweaked in the future but we also recognize that goals that cannot be measured are goals that will not be met you say i want to lose weight okay what do you weigh i don't know i never get on a scale you don't want to lose weight you just want to talk about losing weight if you can't or won't measure it you have a goal you can't or won't meet now we recognize that these goals that we're throwing out are daunting but we also think they are god honoring because it's not a vision from god if you don't need god to do it and so the first word of our vision is ask we're asking god for nations and generations so next week taylor and i are going to launch a series called building the future we're going to use the book of nehemiah as a platform to show that god is willing to show up and help his people create the future they want but in the chapter 1 when nehemiah finds out the walls of jerusalem are down the first thing he does is pray ask god and that's why next sunday night is so important we're going to show up at every single campus and we're going to launch the vision with prayer and i want you to come because prayer is going to help you own the vision and so many benefits come when a church owns a common vision one of those is that it helps us align our monies and our ministries we get asked to do so many things how do you say yes to some and no to some well you see what's consistent with the vision god's given him it helps current members get on the same page and new members get on board it eliminates a sense of jealousy and competition with other churches we're not in competition with any church in our community any church that lifts up christ is our friend and our ally but we're going to do what god has called us to do and pray that god will bless what he's called them to do i tell you a very important blessing when a church has a vision she'll stay focused on what matters and stop fussing about what doesn't churches without a vision will fuss about anything we don't want to be an issue-oriented church we want to be a church focused on the issue which is making and growing followers of jesus and maybe most of all the power of vision is that it creates on-ramps for the people of god to do the work of god slogans don't do that but a clear vision creates this path and this plan that we all can engage this is one of the things i'm most excited about now i loved our last vision it served us well but the primary way you could engage the last vision was to go on a mission trip what you're going to see as i about to reveal our next set of goals is that there are so many ways right here where you live that you can be an active part of the next vision of our church because we're asking for more than just your affirmation when my oldest son michael was only three years old we took him to chicago to visit my parents my dad was wrapping up a career with sears and my dad and mother collected antique clocks michael was your typical three-year-old he was all over the place and somehow he caused one of those clocks to fall off the wall and break this was a teaching moment and we taught our son to say he was sorry and apologized to papa for breaking his clock now later in the week michael found a few coins on the ground and he was so excited and my wife jamie thought this is another teaching moment so she said michael do you think you should take your coins and give them to papa to help pay for his broken clock and michael said nah i'm pretty sure i've done enough already and that's the spirit of a stagnant church where we're just going to talk about what ought to happen god is calling us to do more than just ascent to his passion for the world he is calling us to invest especially in the next generation because our god is always thinking ahead and that's why he often accompanies his commands and promises in the bible with the phrase for generations to come so let's go back to the call of abraham when he launches the redemptive agenda to bless the nations of the world and he says i will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come to be your god and the god of your descendants after you and then god said to abraham as for you you must keep my covenant you and your descendants after you for the generations to come god is always thinking ahead and so for example when he instituted the passover meal the moment to celebrate the greatest metaphor in scripture for salvation that people are delivered from bondage by the blood of a lamb this is what he said in exodus this is a day you are to commemorate for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the lord god wants the blessings of alignment with his will and obedience to impact the generations to come but god also warns the fruits of disobedience we'll have generational consequences it's popular today to say just let me do whatever i want to do as long as i'm not hurting anybody what you don't realize is you are infecting others whether you realize it or not our obedience or our disobedience right now is impacting the generations to come and so when god gave the ten commandments he said i the lord your god am a jealous god punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments and so when you read the old testament you see this repeated cycle of revival and decline in revival and decline israel always struggled to think ahead to pass on faith to the next generation for example in the book of judges we read after that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors another generation grew up who knew neither the lord nor what he had done for israel and so what you have is this scene in the bible of impacting the next generation for good and it's a two-way street the young people need to lean into the wisdom of the old people in deuteronomy 32 we read remember the days of old consider the generations long past ask your father and he will tell you your elders and they will explain to you so the young need to seek the wisdom of the elder but the primary emphasis in the scripture is for the older generation to influence the younger and to be proactive psalm 22 posterity will serve in future generations will be told about the lord they will proclaim his righteousness declaring to a people yet unborn he has done it i love psalm 71 even when i am old and gray do not forsake me my god till i declare your power to the next generation your mighty acts to all who are to come this guy is saying i may be old god but i'm not through let me live long enough to give my faith story to those who come after me in psalm 78 we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the lord his power and the wonders he has done in psalm 745 one generation commends your works to another they tell of your mighty acts they speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty and i will meditate on your wonderful works so this theme runs all through the bible be proactive in blessing the next generation joel the prophet said tell it to your children and let your children tell it to their children and their children to the next generation god's mission is for all people and it is for all times and churches that want the kingdom to come will have a passion and a burden for the generations still to come when i was a boy back in the 1960s i heard of a church in tennessee called the madison church of christ at that time it was over 3 000 members it might have been the largest church in america no one had ever heard of a church that big they had a preacher named ira north and i want to tell you why i believe god blessed that church ira north had a burden for neglected kids one sunday he's in his pulpit and he brings a ten-year-old boy up named eddie says eddie have you ever been in this church before no sir well eddie you're as welcome here as the president of the united states then he sent eddie out of the room then he turned to his church eddie has no home i was talking to the district judge this week and he said i'm going to have to send eddie to a reform school to get him off the street and his only crime is that nobody wants him and i returned to his church and he went off he said you got your big houses and your fancy cars and i'm not against big houses of fancy cars but what about eddie and while he's preaching there's a man in that church named perry underwood and he's whispered to his wife and in the middle of ira north sermon he stood up and said brother north eddie has a home and he'll have a home until you get that children's home built and i will be convinced for the rest of my days that god showed particular and unusual favor on that church because that church cared about kids nobody else was caring about want to be that kind of church we want to be intentional about the faith development of the next generation that's why i am thrilled to share with you that we're hiring jill shelby for a new position called next gen ministry now you know jill she's been a missionary rwanda she was the principal of a christian school in africa she's been the principal of a middle school in our city and she is uniquely qualified what jill is going to do starting from cradle to high school is help us think strategically and theologically and impactfully about how to pour faith into the next generation our goal is not a next generation that makes a lot of decisions our goal is to raise up a lot of disciples for christ our goal is not a room full of young people our goal is a generation of young people full of jesus and by the way 95 of the christians in america made their commitment to christ before they were 25 years old now the church cannot take the place of the home and it shouldn't the church is here to serve mothers and fathers and impacting the next generation but mothers and fathers you've got to engage for example our primary programming night for students is wednesday nights it should be a priority in your home that your student is a part of our wednesday night program our student ministry is starting on september 29th a study of the book of proverbs where the kids are going to read a chapter of proverbs every day proverbs 16 time says my child the book of proverbs is wisdom from the older generation to the younger generation your students need to be apart our student ministry prepared this booklet called goldmine listen i read it this needs to be in the bookstore of every christian bookstore in america it is that good we want you to pick one up for your student seven dollars is what they cost if you can't pay it just get one anyway listen the book of proverbs says chapter one these proverbs will give insight to the simple knowledge and discernment to the young make engagement with your church and with our children's and student ministries a priority in your home you know it's helpful to remember our savior was once a child and people poured into him and it's also worth remembering jesus always made time and space for the next generation we will too so with all that said let me share with you for the next five years the seven audacious goals we have as we ask for generations here's goal number one we will intend to launch and lead celebrate recovery and a freedom ministry for the redemption of broken generations here's what we all know that one generation may not be guilty for the sins of another but is impacted and there our children are going up at home for a generational sin that have been passed down and passed down and passed down to the point that bondage feels normal now here's what we know the gospel offers freedom on both sides of the grave and the gospel has the power to create a new normal for the next generation and so at the nrh campus we have launched recovery ryan young is leading the ministry on thursday nights it's off to a powerful start today we've already had six people surrender their lives to christ and get baptized seeking freedom goal number two we want to raise up 25 new foster families in our church and we want to train a hundred members to be respite workers to serve foster families because we know god has a heart for the fatherless and the family less now currently in the communities around our three campuses there are over 900 children temporarily placed in foster care due to abuse or neglect the truth is there are more children that need to be placed than there are families available now some in our church are already engaged in this powerful wonderful ministry in fact would you let us know we don't know who you all are if you're fostering right now would you contact our church leader just so we can know and be a better support to you but we're going to partner with local agencies to try to raise up 25 new families to take in foster kids we're going to train a hundred people in our church to be respite workers people who give the other families a break and take care of the kids for a short time we're going to need people to volunteer for parents night out we're going to need community groups to adopt a foster family and give them the encouragement they need here's what i know the bible especially the book of james says any faith that doesn't care about neglected kids is fake and so we're going to get more involved in fostering goal number three we want to see 2 000 members a year serve in ministry to kids and students in our church and community because nothing is more critical to the discipleship of the next generation than inter-generational connections study after study shows that kids that stick with faith are kids who have memories of investment with other generations in their church family we want every member to be intentional about blessing a child every year and there are so many ways for you to be a part of this goal think about our new partners you can counsel a pregnancy help for you you can be a mentor at academy for one hour a month blessing a fourth grader uh you can work with teen lifeline or our father's children helping kids go to camp think about inside our church we have upward sports ministries we have people that lead student groups and we have our bible classes a tremendous opportunity we want to have a culture where you come and you worship in one service and then the next service you go with your teenagers and you teach kids there is no reason every member of our church listening to me cannot once a year specifically and intentionally be a part of something that is blessing a child and then goal number four we want to launch a ministry residency program that trains at least 10 people for future service in the church i'm thankful for colleges and for seminaries but the church should take the lead in raising up the next generation of ministers no we're not talking about summer internships we'll keep doing that we're talking about bringing in young people to stay with us for at least a year and train for a future in ministry at our church as they consider what the future may hold for them we hope our first resident will be here next spring goal number five we want to guide 3 000 people to connect to god church and their purpose through rooted which is a small group discipleship experience rooted was created by some pastors in kenya and it has been a powerful influence around the world it's an opportunity for people to practice the disciplines and the commitments that form us into the image of christ it is not a class it's a communal experience that introduces people to the ways of jesus as you meet together with a small group for 10 weeks at senior staff we did that last spring now the entire staff of our church has gone through rooted now the elders of every campus are currently going through rooted this fall we're going to train the facilitators to go through rooted and next spring we want to make it open to the church and i'm telling you in a couple of years after a couple of thousand people have gone through rooted it will make a transformative difference in this church it'll be for our students and our adults and it's going to be powerful goal number six we want to strengthen marriages providing relationship champions to impact and encourage 250 couples now we already do a lot of things our church best marriages but we want to be more pro-active do you remember when the pandemic began and we couldn't meet together we sent out a survey how are you doing 20 of our respondents said our marriage is struggling imagine training veteran mature godly older christian couples to come alongside struggling couples imagine being a newlywed and going to our newlywed training class and being assigned an older mature couple who are going to walk with you in the very first year of your marriage as mentors and as coaches because nothing impacts the faith engagement of the next generation more than growing up in a home with a stable marriage now i need to spend a little time here the studies are unassailable there is one factor above all others and there's no close second that affects a child's emotional financial educational and spiritual health did the child grow up in a home with a mother and father that stayed married now i need to be careful in no way do i want to make our single parents feel bad you guys are my heroes but think even our single parents would say god's ideal is best that the next generation is blessed by a stable marriage and when we build strong marriages we're laying the foundation for the generations to come and so we want to raise up these 250 couples who were blessed by relational champions and then goal number seven we want to create an intergenerational mentoring experience for men and women on every campus with the goal of maturing 300 kingdom influencers we don't want to just try to find the next generation of church leaders we want to form them we want the leadership culture of our church to get younger and more ethnically diverse and so at every campus we're launching groups for men and women parrying past and future leaders together because we don't want to just wish for the next generation of leaders we want to raise them now i realize i have given you so much to absorb let me encourage all of you to check out a website we've created called nations and generations.org all 14 of our goals the seven for nations and the seven for generations are there you can learn more about there's also a form there where you can say i want to know more about a way i might be able to help with that go you're not committing you're just learning but i would encourage all of you to go and be a part of what we think god is going to do for the next five years as i prepared this lesson a memory flooded back i've retained for a long time when i was a boy i announced to the world i wanted to be a preacher i don't know what that meant but the little church where i was raised was down the street from a nursing home and one sunday afternoon a month we had the assignment of going to that nursing home and taking communion to the residents who wanted to participate my dad signed up to do that one sunday and informed me that i was going to bring the lesson i was sixth or seventh grade i think it was the first talk i'd ever given and i was terrified and i will admit it didn't help that half of my audience was asleep with their mouths wide open but i powered through the best i could and when that service was over there was an older woman in a wheelchair and she did like this and i walked up beside her and she she grabbed my hand she said are you going to go to seminary i didn't know what the word meant i had no idea what she was asking me but i remember that she squeezed my hand and she said i think the hand of god is on you to preach his word now [Music] that was many decades ago but i still live off the fuel of that blessing here was a woman who didn't think i'm too old i'm too frail i'm too weak to bless the next generation here's the truth you are here because somebody in the previous generation remained faithful you must be faithful to the next generation yes our goals are huge but our god is bigger and so we ask like paul in his prayer now all glory to god who's able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think glory to him in the church and in christ jesus through all generations forever and ever amen so would you bow your head please i'll finish the prayer but i want you to start it i want you to take a moment i want you to thank god for some people in the generation before you that poured into you and i want you to thank them by name thank god by by their name was it a coach was it a teacher was it a youth minister was it your parents a grandmother name them and lift that name up before the lord and say thank you so god thank you for all those who poured into us the wake of their life is still having an impact and god we want to live our lives in such a way that long after we're gone we're still having an impact so we ask for generations in jesus name amen please stand we have a prayer room to our right and we would love to pray with anyone today who's dealing with anything the comfort and the encouragement of prayer is a true blessing so we're going to sing a song and if you'll just walk down here over to this room we'll meet you there and pray with you and we'll receive anybody this morning who is ready to confess christ and be baptized we're going to sing and we're just going to acknowledge that god is a god who loves the generations [Music] you and keep you make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you the lord [Music] peace [Music] me [Music] [Music] lord bless [Music] make his face [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] upon you in a thousand generations and your family and your children and their children their children [Music] [Music] is [Music] he is [Music] he's [Music] [Music] [Music] can you call me [Music] is [Laughter] [Music] good morning church speaking of generations this is my friend ellie john and she and her mom attended baptism class a few months ago and she has not been able to stop talking about baptism since and yeah absolutely and so last week after church she turned to her mom and said next week is the week there was no holding back and so we're so excited for you ellie so i have a couple of questions for you ellie do you believe that jesus christ is the son of god that he came to earth and he lived and he died and he rose again all for the forgiveness of your sins yes [Applause] and are you ready today for him not just to be your savior but also for him to be the lord of your life for the rest of your life yes awesome i know you are because of that confession i'm going to baptize you in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit so for the forgiveness of your sins and you are going to receive the gift of the holy spirit is going to be with you always are you ready okay here we go [Applause] thank you god thank you god thank you god he is in pursuit of every single one of us every single one of us there is no one too young too old jesus leaves the 99 and goes for the one he comes for you thank you god he's for you he's for you as i was thinking about generations older than me that have poured into me through my life earlier when rick prompted us there was this couple that immediately came to my mind who are like spiritual grandparents to me now but i met them my family we were planted in a church and when i was 16 years old my life just hit rock bottom and it seemed like we were in the midst of this chaotic season and we just looked up and this couple was there they were just there they were just obedient pursuing my family hermann and yvette are their names in church in a time when i needed it they reminded me that god was for me this older generation that took it on themselves to come and pursue me for the name of jesus and i'm grateful that in that season my family my parents had made it a priority to plant me in a church they came from that church to pursue us and so if you're new here just checking this place out considering planting down here being a part of this vision would you text new here to the number on the screen we really want to be able to look you in the face and come to know your face come to know your name remind you and tell you that you are welcome here that god has a place for you here in this house and so do that so we can get to know you absolutely in church we we are a people who have been given a mission and a vision and the mission is to make and grow followers of jesus and we're going to do that by asking for nations and generations that we've been unpacking together these last couple of sundays one of the ways that we say lord i'm in lord i'm with you i want to go where you go and i want to do what you do is by being able to give of what he's given to us we invest what we have so that the nations and generations can hear about the jesus who loves them so much that has been passed down to us and now we get the privilege to pass that to other people so there are a lot of ways that you can give give online you can give one of the boxes you can text it in but we invest as a church into what is most important and that is the nations and generations being able to hear who jesus is make sure you go check out that website nations and generations.org it is live we would love for you to go check it out as you kind of look through all of the things that god is laying before us as a church maybe one of those goals piqued your interest and you said yeah i want more information about that go to that website fill out a form and one of those leaders of the ministry is going to contact you and talk about ways that you can get involved church we are in a vision season and what this means is that we have been given a gift we have been given a gift of holy sight because god is calling us to see what the world could be in five years god is calling us as a church to say this is if we pursue nations and generations this is how our community can be different this is how our church can be different this is how the world can be different and that's why it is so important for you not to say yeah maybe that's for somebody else no this is for you that's right this is for me this is for all of us to say god we're going to partner with you to see the kingdom of heaven come to the earth because church the earth doesn't need more earth the earth doesn't need more people to see things the way everybody else sees them the earth needs people who see things the way god's children can see them as the holy spirit empowers us to do that that's right we need to see what can happen in five years so let's do it church let's do it let's partner together to see heaven come to earth and in the next five years imagine how our church is going to be different how our families are going to be different how our community is going to be different and how the world is going to be different jesus live your life through the hills church and may it come to pass we love you may you be blessed have a wonderful day we'll see you next time [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Hills Church

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Id: dGazEV5SmNA

Length: 77min 19sec (4639 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021