The Power Of Yes | Worship Service | Pastor Steve Carter

[Music] well welcome to our service here at saddleback we are so glad you decided to join us for church this week my name is jay this is chris so we're part of the online community team we're so excited that you've made time for church right now that you're watching with us yeah uh you're in for a special treat we got steve carter with us he's a pastor a podcaster too those are two different things and an author of the things beneath the thing uh book um and he's gonna be talking about uh the power of saying yes and he's continuing our series on living truth and it's gonna be really good we can't wait for you to hear it yeah very exciting and we want to take a moment to give a shout out to mary mary joined us online last week to watch service and she left a comment on youtube saying that she was asking for prayer for her business and we just want to let you know mary that we are praying for you we are so glad that you are part of our online community and we also want to invite other people to leave comments too whether that's a prayer request or whether that's i'm just introducing yourself we read through them we actually read them so yes so i love thank you mary for sharing that and thank you for inviting us to pray for it so please drop your prayer requests or just about anything and we love engaging on that on facebook and youtube yeah and a great question to answer this week a comment to leave is what are you saying yes to this year so why don't you leave a comment telling us what you're saying yes to this year for me i'm saying yes to reading more to learning to engaging in podcasts and books and things like that what about you jay i'm saying yes to eat eating healthier which practically means going to in and out less oh that's hard it's really hard um actually steve talks about in and out in the service so you'll be thinking of me in that scenario but yeah so leave your comment what are you saying yes to this year we love seeing that we love engaging with other people and so please engage and reply to other people while you're there well i wanted to let you know about something brand new we just launched it's called uh plan a visit where if you're thinking about it maybe you have a friend or a family member that's thinking about coming to saddleback in the near future you know we have locations all around southern california and the world but we want to make it easy for you to plan that visit so if you go to saddleback.com plan a visit you can actually see everything what to expect and if you sign up for the campus near you it will actually connect you to that campus via text message wow that's awesome so you can actually text with somebody who you're going to meet and ask your questions about you know what i do with my kids or you know should i bring a jacket is it going to be hot you know here sometimes it gets a little cold yes and so uh the idea is that you can actually text with them so go to saddleback.com planetvisit or send a friend to that it's a great tool in order to get you and maybe a friend or somebody to actually check out church in the near future i love that another great way to engage with us is by joining our facebook group you can go to facebook and then search saddleback church and just let us know send us an email at online saddleback.com too thanks again for being with us you're in for a great treat with the service and we'll see you at the end hey family so good to see you so glad you're in church [Music] [Music] come on [Music] [Music] i know [Music] is [Music] there's nothing for me [Music] [Music] [Music] is bringing it back [Music] [Music] [Music] keep bringing me back [Music] is [Music] time and time again [Music] [Music] yes come on [Music] [Applause] [Music] you call out into darkness you reached us yeah [Music] hey [Music] [Music] is [Music] set free set free [Music] my name [Music] [Music] come on [Music] okay [Music] [Music] yes let's declare these words together every tribe and every time here we go [Music] every tribe every time [Music] [Applause] [Music] i see [Music] [Music] yes say that's a way to kick off a saturday night at saddleback huh do me a favor before you take a seat turn around say hey to somebody that you don't know give them an airwave whatever you want to do [Music] all right well go ahead and have a seat and again welcome to saddleback it is so good to see you and i don't know if you know this but every week as we're planning this time together as a staff this service time we pray for you that god would bring the perfect people just the right people to be here with us this weekend so i don't believe that you're here by an accident i believe that god has something special for you tonight and we are so glad that you're here and if this is your very first time with us a special welcome to you this is our worship center here at saddleback but in a very real sense it's also kind of like our living room because this is where we gather with our friends and our family and lift our collective voices and celebrate the love of god in our lives and we're just glad that you're a part of it we hope you feel right at home and if you have any questions you need anything grab somebody with a name badge or a lanyard they'd be happy to answer your questions as would anybody at one of our connection centers on your way out they'd love to just get to know you see if they can point you in the direction of anything whatever you might need and they will also they'd love to give you a gift is our way of saying welcome to saddleback church we really are glad that you're here and you'll find out pretty quickly here at saddleback that we believe that god invites us to come just as we are to him he doesn't ask us to get ourselves cleaned up to knock the dust off he just says come he loves us that much and just wants to begin a relationship with us and he loves us too much to allow us to stay that way he wants to transform us over the course of a lifetime and we want to provide opportunities to allow him to meet you in that space and grow in your faith over time and that's why we included this little card in the little pocket that you received on your way in it says dive deeper into every area of life just highlighting some opportunities to grow in your faith in this next season opportunities such as class which happens next week it's a great opportunity class 101-401 to discover jesus his purpose for your life and meet a few other people here at saddleback so you could sign up for that some marriage resources podcasts so many opportunities here to grow in your face so check that out and i would invite you to take a next step in this next season you'll be glad that you did in just a moment we've got a real treat because we've got a special guest steve carter who is a pastor yeah we can yes pastor speaker author he's actually he hosts a podcast really cool podcast on the intersection of faith and sports with a couple of espn personalities football personalities uh we'll have to talk more about that later but we're going to be blessed by steve in just a moment but before we get back to worship i just want to tell you a little bit about a conversation i had about four weeks ago it happened actually out on the patio i met a ukrainian pastor a longtime partner of saddleback church and we talked for a bit about ministry and what was going on in each other's churches and then i asked him about just the looming threat that was gathering on the borders of his country and as soon as i did everything about him changed his chiseled jaw kind of kind of clinched and he looked off in the distance and he thought for a second he looked back at me he goes jason it's bad it's really bad it was almost as if he could see ahead of time the images that we've seen on our tvs and on our phones over the last three four days images of apartment buildings blown to bits the scourge of war people fleeing and leaving i heard yesterday that at the end of this conflict there may be up to four million people who are displaced and forced to leave everything that they've ever known behind to flee for safety we talked and i asked him i said hey is there anything we can do and he looked at me and he said jason pray you saddleback church please pray for ukraine and as we've checked in with partners over these last several tragic days they keep saying the same thing pray pray pray and i think they understand something that our friend ann voskamp who was here if you were here back in december she posted to instagram she said prayer isn't the least we can do and prayer isn't all we can do she said prayer ultimately is the most that we can do and so i want to honor our friend's request and invite you if you would to pray with me let's pray for all that's going on there in the ukraine would you join me father uh this week as i have seen the same images that all of my friends here have seen i couldn't help but think back to some of jesus's last words he was preparing his his disciples his followers his friends then and i think us now because he said i have come to bring my peace to you in this world you will have trouble jesus of course better than anyone knew the state of our broken world but then he reassures them and says i have overcome the world father in times like these when we feel so helpless we don't know what to do we're grateful for the reminder that you have overcome the world and one day you will restore it and return it to what it was meant to be all along and we can't wait for that day but in the meantime father we just come to you and we ask your protection over so many innocents so many people caught in the middle of this conflict god we just pray that you would shelter them and be their refuge and their strength god we pray that there would be some breakthrough some opportunity to restore peace we pray for those who have been forced out of their homes and god i also want to pray for the many we we have church partners in russia and they're not party to this and god i just pray for for our friends there as well impacted by sanctions and and whatever else god we don't know all to pray but you do and we just come to you with open hearts and open hands and ask you to do the work that only you can do father we thank you that prayer is the most we can do and god as we turn our hearts now back to worship turn our hearts back to you our rock our strong tower god i just pray that you would speak a word to us in this moment and meet us in this place and together we pray all these things in jesus name amen [Music] hey they say this mountain can be they say these chains will never break but they don't know you like we do there is power in your name we've heard that there is no way through we've heard this tide will never change they haven't seen what you can do so much power in your name [Music] from the impossible [Music] [Applause] we know that hope is never lost [Music] we declare these words tonight so much [Music] [Applause] we [Music] if [Music] [Applause] we're [Music] help me sing this song [Music] yes [Music] we [Music] [Music] you said it i believe it you said [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] yes amen what a prayer what a prayer that is you know the past few days i've been having this passage of scripture constantly on my mind constantly on my heart it's found in first peter 3 12 says the eyes of the lord are always on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers i'll say that again the eyes of the lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers when we come into this space when we offer our prayers that are in in the way of songs are spoken when we shout them when we whisper we pray not with hesitance or wondering if it's gonna work is he gonna pick up the phone you know we say these prayers because we know that his ears are open we pray them because we know his track record we know what his word says he who begin a good work in you is faithful to complete it so when i came in tonight that was my prayer my prayer was god i believe that when i pray for my brothers and sisters in ukraine i know that you have ears to hear when i give you my prayers for my brothers and sisters in russia i know you have ears to hear when you come into this room and you have prayers for those or maybe yourself that are struggling with addictions he has ears to hear when you have the prayer that says god i don't know if my marriage is going to last he has ears to hear he has ears to hear let's pray lord there are so many prayers in this room and we trust what your word says that your eyes are on the righteous and then your ears are attentive to your people and so we lift up those prayers tonight those prayers that we don't even know if we can say him out loud we say them out loud tonight because we know that you're a god that's able and we believe when there seems to be no way you seem to make a way time and time again because of your son jesus there's freedom there's always a way because of the cross because of your son jesus it's always same time [Music] i worship you i worship you you are here you're working in this place i worship you [Music] i worship you you are here you are here moving in our midst i worship you i worship you you are here you're working in this place i worship you [Music] i worship come on offer your prayer tonight [Music] [Music] who you are you are here you turn your lives around i worship you i [Music] [Music] [Music] is who you are [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] cause that's who you are [Music] you never stop [Music] you never stop oh [Music] don't worry [Music] is [Applause] [Music] who you are [Music] is who you are that is who you are [Music] that is who you are that is who you are that is who you are that is who you are that is who you are [Music] we make a miracle work promise keep light [Music] keep light in the darkness my god that is who you are that is who you are come on and that is who you are that is who you are that is who you are that is who you are that is who you are amen i love singing with you i love worshiping with you i love that the god we sing to just always has ears to hear even before we say the prayer even before we sing it he already knows it's coming and he has ears to hear his ears are always attentive to his children i'm really excited about you hearing this message it's a wonderful message as you take a seat let's give a warm saddleback welcome to a great preacher great teacher our friend steve carter come on thank you hello saddleback how's everyone doing man it is an honor to be here um you don't know me but i've been blessed by this place we've got campuses all over uh tuning in we've got people all over the globe tuning in but i'll just tell you as a 19 year old i showed up here on this campus to celebrate recovery and i came because i had heard about this ministry and i heard about a man by the name of john baker and a pastor had told me hey you want to learn how to be a pastor go sit with john baker and go sit with the people that celebrate recovery and for a month i just showed up and i learned now now as a pastor who like has other interns i tell them go to celebrate recovery because if you can actually sit and hear the honest and human the trauma the brokenness people being just open with their life and actually hold space for it it just will transform you i've been blessed because a number of summers uh over the last decade i've had the privilege to come and speak to saddleback high school ministries and there's there are few places that compare to a high school ministry camp that saddleback puts on the students here the leaders here the volunteers here if you have kids you should be thanking god that they are a part of saddleback high school ministries and junior high ministries would you agree it's just amazing amazing and then i'll just say lastly personally um four years ago just went through one of the most difficult seasons of my life the most unexpected thing you could imagine and pastor k pastor david shawn pastor rick just made space for me and i've just been forever grateful that this isn't just a a place that talks about hope and peace there it's a place that walks it and so it just means the world to be able to come here my first time ever to speak to you all um so it is truly truly truly an honor to give back to a place that's given me so so much a number of years ago someone asked me they said steve besides jesus who's your favorite person in scripture i had to think about that for a second and the first name that came to my mind was a guy by the name of ananias not the dude who stole money from the church bad guy bad guy but ananias is a guy who's mentioned a little bit later in the book of acts he's mentioned less than a dozen times in scripture but if i'm honest i feel like he's like every one of us here he's someone who really wants to make a difference he's someone who wants to actually be used by god he's someone who who wants to follow in the footsteps of jesus and he's someone that god wants to use if you have a bible turn with me to acts chapter nine if you have a small black bible it's going to be page 883 if you don't i can't help you but i did get it on the bulletin this is this in verse 10 in damascus which is modern-day sirius syria it's 150 miles from jerusalem in damascus there is a disciple now in hebrew the word disciple is talmadin and to be a talmudim a disciple meant you had high desire and high devotion to be like your rabbi so 150 miles away from jerusalem which was like the center of the religious expression to the jewish people there was this jesus movement that was happening and there were these people who had this high desire high devotion to be like jesus i love this the lord called to this man named ananias in a vision ananias and i love his answer yes lord that's just so so human there's this 150 miles from jerusalem god is still reaching people there's this disciple talmudim named ananias and god just speaks in a vision to ananias calls them by name ananias and i love it because ananias knows the voice of god and he just says yes lord i think we are living in profoundly distracted days i think we are living in times where we are just so unsure of each other we're living in days where there's this unsettled trust we're living in this days where we're so busy we are so hurried we are so exhausted we're just so distracted that i think many of us miss the voice of god calling us by name what i think is so amazing is ananias says yes lord and then god gives them some specific instructions look what it says verse 11 the lord told him go to the house of judas on straight street and ask for a man from tarsus named saul for he is praying in a vision he has seen a man named ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight i love it because god says ananias and ananias is like yes lord and then god's like all right here's what i need you to do you need to go down the 405. as you get off on jamboree i need you to head down and then i need you to show up to this house and like god has these specific instructions or if you've ever experienced this that's amazing a number of years ago i was in bujumbura burundi real place it's in africa and i i was there because a group of us had raised money that we were gonna provide for a group of women to start businesses we wanted to empower these women to start businesses to feed their families to support the church and to advance the kingdom of god in the capital city of burundi the problem was the three people who could give us government clearance to move the money to these women weren't calling us back weren't returning our emails and so i fly to bourgeois burundi super late at night go to the hotel next morning i'm in a room of eight people the person leading the meeting is like this world-class business leader and he's looking at each of us we're all jet-lagged he's like i need an idea of how we're gonna get these funds and how these government officials are gonna say yes to allowing these funds to go to these women and so he just starts going around he's like you got an idea and nobody had a good idea and this business leader was so frustrated that he just said y'all are wasting my time so here's what we're going to do it's 10 a.m i'm gonna let you go back to your rooms but at dinner time tonight every single one of you better bring one good idea dismissed it's like man this is intense that this was a jesus thing so i grabbed my backpack i'm walking out a little jet lagged and look at my friend i'm like bro what are you gonna do man he's like i'm taking a nap and i'm like yeah god does speak through dreams that's possible i go back to my hotel room and i i don't know what to do i'm a little antsy i feel like god whispers to go for a run which obviously i don't run and i i don't know bourjombora i don't know burundi but i put on some basketball shorts and i decided to go for a run and i'm just running past un vehicles running downtown i'd probably run it probably felt like a 5k but it was probably less than a 1k and i find myself like coming to the city center where there's like 500 people around the basketball court so i just run up and i just kind of stand at the baseline and i'm just watching and i'm there maybe 60 seconds when a guy walks up to me and he pokes me and he goes you're good i'm like yeah man i'm all right he goes no no no you're good in basketball i'm like i'm okay you you all don't know this i played basketball at cal state fullerton play is not the right word i sat the bench but i did get free shoes so i'm standing there watching this guy says you good in basketball i'm like i'm all right i've been scouting he goes i think you're good and then he goes hey dime out you you're out you're in i'm like what i'm like i do i haven't even warmed up i haven't even stretched and i kid you not for the next 90 minutes we go 6 and 0. at the end of the 90 minutes a guy walks out with a basket filled with burundi dollars i didn't know i joined the bba the burundi basketball association but i did add that to my linkedin account and this guy walks out the older guy who had poked me goes tomorrow same time championship game and i'm like bro i'm here for work he goes who's your meetings with i'm like well here's the deal and we raised all this money trying to get to these women but like we can't get like these government officials because what are their names i rattle off the three names he goes i'm the second guy i'm like check your email bro he goes i have deal for you will you win game tomorrow i take meeting so now i gotta go back with the one good idea yeah no mercy gift here but man i got an idea i'm sitting down and one guy's like you know what we do like we'll show up at the courthouse like before the guy walks in and maybe we can see him before he meets and i'm like bad idea and i'm just like listening finally they get to me they go carter what do you think and i'd say you know when i thought god loved the game of football i thought he loved the game of baseball but i'll tell you what i know for a shadow of a doubt everything in my being i know he loves the game of basketball and they're like what are you talking about i tell them the story you know what the guy says to me he goes you go to your room right now you sleep if you need a massage you get a massage if you want a rib eye you get a rib eye i don't care what you do you win this game we win the game the next day they take the meeting why do i tell you this story cause it's so weird i tell you the story because this is how god works that god wants to use you i could have just been in my hotel and been like i'm gonna take a nap you know what god was trying to do see redemptive potential in every moment do you understand this and sometimes sometimes i think we're so distracted sometimes we're so insecure sometimes we're so unsure sometimes we're just good at making excuses but god wants to use you the broken and beautiful honest and human you and what's so amazing about ananias is god gives him this instruction this one needs to do man go downtown straight street man's name is judas knock on the door three times open it go see a man put your hands on them fray god is gonna work and you know what i love is ananias just is so honest and so human and so like me he just makes excuses look what it says verse 13 lord ananias answered i have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in jerusalem and he has come here with the authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name what's ananias doing he's literally going up to god going hey god i know your whole like you're like a big deal you're really important you're taking all the prayers of humanity i don't think you've been watching the news saul bad dude saul like is this religious zealot he literally he literally got stephen killed and why would you kill a guy named steve and i mean like this this guy this guy he's like this guy's not in a tesla driving from jerusalem to damascus 150 miles he's walking and he's on horseback and air birkenstocks and he's come here with permission to probably beat us imprison us maybe even kill us and you want me to go talk to him come on god really aren't we like that like we want to be used by god and then god's like great i want you to call this person i want you to invite this person i want you to hear this person's story i want you to share your story with this person and we're like whoa god i want to be used but you don't want me to go to that person a number of years ago i was in palestinian territory and i i was doing some work and i'd taken a team from orange county and i'm there and it's super late at night and the wi-fi in bethlehem at the intercontinental bethlehem was down but i found that there was free wi-fi across the street at a hookah lounge so my plan was to stand outside the hookah lounge and steal free wi-fi i'm walking across the street and out of the corner of my eye i see four palestinian soldiers in fatigues massive guns and in this moment like i look over see them and then i look maybe a three iron away and i see the massive security wall barrier between israel and palestine and i see an israeli soldier who has a gun that's basically looking at these soldiers i'm going to get free wi-fi to talk to my family and god whispers go talk to those soldiers which i respond give me free wi-fi and god's like go talk to them so how do you start a conversation at 1am with a bunch of palestinian potentially muslim arabic like soldiers how do you start a conversation so this guy walks up and goes beautiful night here in bethlehem they're like i'm like what's your name they start walking around telling me their name they asked me my name i said my name's steve one of them says like my favorite us actor i'm like who's that steven seagal and my response is god you can use all things for good i started talking i'm like you guys live in bethlehem they say no we live in bilotta i'm like you live in belotta they're like yeah you know what i'm like yeah man i'm going there in two days and i'm taking a team of 20 people from orange county california they're like why i'm like because it's a u.n refugee camp and 1.3 uh 35 000 people live in 1.3 miles you all live on top of each other i i just want to show people what it's like to live in this refugee camp and i'm like yeah that's that's where we live i'm like will you give us a tour you're like for sure i tell them the time they're like awesome and i'm just like don't bring your guns like okay just show up there they give us a tour at the end of the tour we're at the like the gates to this refugee camp and i'm like hey guys do you do you see this building over here like yeah have you ever been inside of it they're like no i'm like well you got to come come with me and i walk them into a church building and i take them down to the basement of this church building outside this u.n refugee camp that's like just fraught with pain and trauma and all these issues and down at the basement of this church is a well and what the story is is that this is the well in john 4 where jesus met a samaritan woman right outside their u.n refugee camp and in this moment i just start to preach because preacher's going to preach and i'm bringing up water from this well and i'm talking about what we desire because every one of us in this room we desire something we desire to be used we desire peace we desire to have this hope we desire to have the security and in john chapter 4 jesus begins to go after this desire someone call it shalom it's like heaven invading earth or in arabic salaam jesus calls it peace and and in this beautiful picture he talks about in him that he's this living water so i'm pulling up this water and i'm just sitting like we have this desire for peace and our world's broken and fractured but jesus is the one true one that can literally put every broken molecule and atom part and piece of our story back together so that we can be whole and holy and spiritually healthy and i'm like does anybody want a drink of this living water named jesus christ and the first people to come forward the palestinian soldiers so then i'm starting to second guess was i clear enough with my gospel call so i start to redo it and they're like we get it we just want this so they drink it we pray for them the guy one of the soldiers gives me his necklace another one of them gives me his senior picture and i'll tell you what friends the only redemptive thing about facebook is that i can stay connected with these guys and the crazy piece about it is i was walking across the street looking for free wi-fi god was looking to expand heaven you walk in trying to get your mocha frappuccino from starbucks and god's trying to expand heaven you drive down your neighborhood and you're trying to get into your garage as fast as possible and close the garage and god's like i'm trying to expand heaven you go through your marketplace you go through your school i'm here to tell you god's heartbeat is for everyone always but is that our heartbeat and in this moment ananias is being asked to go to see this man and all he sees is his past and christians are really good at this they're really really good at like zooming in on someone's faults someone's brokenness some decisions that they made in the past it's like we fail to see what if christ were at the center of this person's life and you know what heaven is heaven doesn't zoom in heaven's like google earth and it just keeps going back and goes i see i see if the spirit of god if christ were at the center if grace and hope and peace were true of this man what he could be for the kingdom of god do you see that ananias continues on look what it says verse 15 but the lord i love it but the lord said to ananias go this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the gentiles and their kings and to the people of israel i will show him how much he must suffer for my name and i love it verse 17 then ananias went to the house and entered it placing his hands on saul he said brother not murderer he says brother it's like he's speaking the redemption in the moment brother saul the lord jesus who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the holy spirit and immediately something like scales fell from saul's eyes and he could see again he got up and was baptized and after taking some food he regained his strength my friends i want to ask you one simple question when god whispered said the name ananias what if ananias said no and did you ever think about this when we flipped through the new testament we've got like the theology of romans we've got like church values in the kingdom of corinthians we go through the supremacy of christ and colossians we can talk about our identity when it comes to ephesians and worship we can talk about joy in the midst of circumstances from philippians i mean i could walk through mentorship through first and second timothy there's so much of the new testament almost half that was written by saul who we know as paul and my question is what if ananias said no can you imagine just going through your bible and it just like literally ends with like acts and then it goes revelation because it was written by john but we like missed all of that theology here's my here's my thinking is that the god of all creation wants to use us every other religion they tell their story through idols and buildings you know the way that god chose to tell his story through broken and beautiful people like you and me and right from the jump as he started as an artist playing with the dirt and he begins to breathe life into the nostrils and he puts his imago a day the image of god in this person which means every single one of us has something to teach each other about the image and characteristics of god he chose to tell his story through you and me and the question is is like what if god who the scripture says is here god is at starbucks god is at the marketplace god is even with the dallas cowboy fans god is with everyone god is everywhere and if he's everywhere then that means every moment is brimming with redemptive potential the question is can you hear it and when he whispers do you say yes because if you say no when god whispers that god's got to go to somebody else and what if that person says no then god's got to go to somebody else and what if that person says no and then god goes to somebody else and that person says no and we are living in a time right now where we are distracted and i don't think it's consciously i think it's subconsciously we are not hearing god's whispers and promptings and many of us are just saying no and what ends up happening is this church starts to falter families start to falter cities values start to falter counties states countries start to fall falter and the dream of heaven welcoming everyone who says yes to jesus gets halted but the question is man what if we said yes a number of years ago i remember after teaching an older person came up and grabbed me by the shoulders and said steve when are we going to get more paul's in the church you know what my answer was when an ananias shows up and i think every one of us can be an everyday ananias i want to teach you how you can do it straight from god's word how you can be in every day ananias all you gotta do is follow these four marks the first one is this you gotta live deep with jesus i love what it says in damascus there was a disciple a talmudim high desire high devotion to be like his rabbi we're often taught you got to keep the main thing the main thing you know what jesus taught you got to keep the remain thing the main thing john 15 10 times he says the word remain or abide and abide comes from the word abode which literally means to make your home in and what jesus is saying is i want you to make your home in me apart from me you can do nothing but with me you will bear much fruit and what we have to learn to do as the church what we have to learn to do as christ followers is keep the remain thing the main thing to remain abide and make our home in christ second you got to show up with expectation because god's here god's at costco that's on the freeway god's online when you show up with expectation your head's on a swivel you're just looking you're looking to go god is this is this some person you want me to engage with you're trying to hear and listen to god saying and giving you some clear instruction of how you can carry grace and hope to someone who's hurting and suffering right before you you live you show up number three is you relate to everyone you look to build relationships with everyone and i'm one of those guys i could talk sports all day i have this thing that if i'm at the airport or if i'm walking and i see someone who's wearing a college team or an nfl team nba team i'm just going to try and chop it up i saw a guy recently he was wearing an alabama university of alabama sweatshirt and he's just walking to the airport i just look at him i said hey excuse me sir he's like yeah i said how can a man who has so much integrity from that from the shoulders up have such like depravity over his heart he's like what i'm like i'm just kidding i just your your team alabama just seems to beat everyone i'm a michigan fan you guys are just so good my favorite bible verse is get behind me saban and like i just i just i don't like it i don't like how much you win and he chuckles and he feels good and i and then we just go we spend like five minutes and i'm like dude where are you from what were you up to little by little just conversation start i was in denver a couple weeks ago i'm sitting at this this restaurant a guy is by himself and he's got like papers and folders all over this like table and he's wearing a michigan sweatshirt i can't tell that it's fully michigan but i can see the the i-c-h-g and so i'm like i'm like oh he's wearing him he's a michigan fan so i'll walk up to him i'm like are you a michigan fan he goes yeah i start chopping it up with him and i'm like what are you doing with all these papers he's like the fires that happened in denver my house i lost everything so i'm living in this hotel right now i'm like what and then he spends like five minutes and i was like did you save anything were you able to rescue anything and then he tears up he says you know the one thing one thing i was able to save it was my father's dog tags from world war ii he was a fighter pilot and and they made them so if the plane crashed that that would survive and he lost everything and he went back the next day and the only thing that was remaining was his father's dog tags he's like just holding these reminded me that it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay just have this moment just to kind of pray with him and here's the thing it's not that hard to relate to people i mean have you ever had someone who encouraged you then you were like stop it don't say something nice to me you s you knock that off right now like someone a fur you see someone who's patient like affirm that person you go to the airport and you see a tsa agent who's dealing with a whole bunch of passive aggressive people every single day and you're like you are so kind teach me they're like what am i just how did you do it they're like oh man i just know that they're having a hard day it's not personal like that's good to know like if we could just start building relationship and remembering names and faces and stories who knows what god might do you live you show up you relate and then lastly you risk it all for what matters most friends let's just be honest this whole book is about people encountering yahweh people encountering christ this whole thing points to a redemptive story of god redeeming people back to himself and this has always ever only been about people coming to discover the one true god name christ and friends for me risk in our family it's become an acronym it's become this acronym and the r is simple rescued people rescue people rescued people rescue people and the truth is if you've been rescued you've got this whole idea and story of grace it's not supposed to stop with you you're supposed to give that away man i didn't i didn't grow up in the church not until seventh grade uh the first christians i ever saw were these two guys juniors in high school they went their names were dominic and nathan but they went by the name dominate which is just awesome and i remember i was playing basketball trying to play with these older kids and i'm walking to get some water and dominic walks up to me i didn't even think he knew who i was i'm in seventh grade he's a junior in high school and dominic walks up and goes hey carter i think my voice cracks i'm like yeah he goes you want to learn how to dominate life i'm like yeah you know what they did they started to pick me up and they took me to in and out you know what it's where the shekinah glory of the lord descends in burglary form they disciple me without even knowing it and within six months i'm getting baptized i get baptized you know what dominate tells me go after your parents i'm like you go after my parents try taking my dad to in and out see if your little voodoo works like no no you got to go after your parents my senior year of high school i got to baptize my mom my sophomore year of college i got to baptize my dad here's here's the thing rescued people rescue people i mean i use the truth like i think that you're going to get this chance someday when you're going to go to heaven and dominic he works in hollywood he's like a steadicam guy nathan lives in georgia married they're both married they're amazing guys and christians someday they're gonna die and i think they're gonna show up to heaven and i think god's gonna walk them up and just say hey you had no idea what those thursday afternoons of you pouring in to that punk kid named steve carter look at all these people who are here because you said yes nobody knows dominic nobody knows nathan i would not be here if they did not say yes and you probably wouldn't be here unless somebody else said yes and the crazy piece about it is when rescued people rescue people they realize oh i've been given this gift of grace and my job's just to give it away i invitational fails this is this this one this one hits home because i think for so many of us we're like man i don't know how to do this sometimes when i invite my friend to come to church or i invite them to hear the story of the good news or the gospel and they they don't they don't they don't say yes to it then i just feel like i must have done something wrong any of you feel that way ever i know i did for many many years and then i started thinking about the chicago cubs and you know you look at the chicago cubs roster i've got nobody who's hitting over 300. we were paying millions and millions of dollars per year for a dude to hit 235 which do the math we are paying millions upon millions of dollars for someone to hit the ball and get on base 23 of the time and truth be told god doesn't expect you to every time you literally make an invitation for someone to be like yes but sometimes it's gotten into our psyche and our subconscious that we're like well they might say no because they might say no then i'm not gonna say yes it's calculated risk and so what i started to do when we started this church in fullerton california we started to dream up this idea called invitational fails and this was the idea is that we wanted we didn't care what people's response was i mean sure i want people to come to faith sure i want people to come to church but what i really really wanted i wanted when god whispers that we would be so quick to respond to god no matter what he asked us and we wanted to be the kind of church that celebrated people responding to god's promptings and not just celebrating whether people said yes or no to our invitations we wanted to celebrate faithfulness steadfastness listening to god and put it in display and so sometimes we'd say hey anybody have an invitational fail story never forget one guy tony he was like a guy who just did insurance and like crunch numbers he'd been praying for his neighbor who also was like his boss and he'd been praying and his his boss shows up into his office and he felt god say now is the time and so he goes hey boss he's like yeah because what do you like what do you do what do you do on sundays and boss was like i watched football is it cool you wanna you wanna come to to my church with me and the boss was like no and then he just walks tony tells this story and our whole church stands up and goes it's okay you heard god and you went for it and i was like dude this is what it's about i want to be someone who celebrates when someone hears god and begins to put that into practice which reminds me of my son my son loves creatures and loves animals my father built him a bat house we put it in the backyard my father-in-law built him a birdhouse we put it in the backyard we're setting it up putting it on this perfect tree i've got a just a bucket that i filled with bird seed because i'm going to try and teach my son how we can attract some birds to the bird house i get a ladder climb the ladder and i literally have like taken a handful of bird seed and and he's got the bucket of bird seed but i'm like saying emerson that's his name i'm like hey bud here's what we're gonna do we're gonna take some bird seed we're gonna put on the bird house birds gonna see seed they're gonna move in then they're gonna pay us rent it's gonna be awesome and i'm like saying this and if you're a parent you probably have this moment where you're talking to your kid but then you look back and they're not even listening and you know what my son's doing my son's walking through the backyard going hey birds here you go guys hey you're welcome here you can show up anytime anywhere this is your this is a safe place you want to move into the house move into the house you just want to come eat on the some of you are like he's making a mess i know i know i am but like this is the point this is the point and so many of us we have these seeds of grace from our story of what god has redeemed what god has restored and yet for many of us we're not scattering seeds we have like bought into remember the andy griffith show we have bought into like barney fife theology where he had like one bullet and he just kept it in his pocket and we're like i got one seat of grace and when i think she's ready then i'm just gonna throw it at her as hard as i can and i'm like what are you talking about like you should be scattering seeds and if someone says no okay it's like it's like our friend like roma uh downey and mark burnett you know what they always say when they hear the word no when they're pitching a show like survivor or the voice when they get rejected and they hear no you know what they hear next opportunity n-o next opportunity our job is to be faithful with scattering seeds of grace because rescued people rescue people and if someone says no that's okay because you said yes to god and that grew your faith s seven days and you're like what does that mean here's my here's my problem with the local church at times i love the local church i believe in it more than ever but sometimes when i sit with longtime christians you know what they tell me stories of how god moved in their life from decades ago they tell me only god's stories are like 1984. god worked in me 1988 man i was on fire 1994 crazy hair baggy clothes flannels but man god was using me and i'm like yeah that's 1994 it's 20 22. like you you don't you don't get to take a play off you don't get to be like a retired christian it's like well i helped saddle back out when i was 30. now i just kind of sit are you kidding me can you imagine jesus on the cross and he's like well guys i did give three years i'm just i'm serious like we we've gotten to this point can you imagine if we had this sense to pray and ask god god every seven days i want you to give me an only god story in the course of one year you'd have 52 and in five years you'd have 260 and in 10 years you'd have 5 20 i went to college and this is the crazy thing can you imagine if every single person here in one decade who called saddleback church home in one decade 10 years had 520 only god stories when adversity came you would not crumble when all of a sudden crisis came at you you would not crumble when the unexpected punched you in the face you would not crumble because you would go back to this altar of 520 only god stories and you're like god i don't know how you're gonna do what you're gonna do but i'm trusting you to get me through because like we're just saying you are the waymaker can i get an amen so question is [Applause] what only god's story do you have from the last week i mean wake up tomorrow and just ask god god in this week give me an only god story if you whisper i'll say yes if you prompt i'll say yes i will say yes to what you asked me to do even if it stretches me because that's how you grow in faith even if it stretches me because that's how you grow in generosity even if it stretches me now i know i know some of you are saying steve you probably have a spiritual gift of evangelism just want everybody to come to faith hey can i just be really honest you know that every spiritual gift leads people to who jesus if you have the gift of hospitality you know what that is you create safe and secure environments for people to experience who jesus if you have the gift of leadership what is that you understand the values of heaven and you work to instill those values in your home or in the marketplace or ministry so that people can experience who jesus you have the gift of mercy you're the hands and feet of who jesus every spiritual gift leads people to jesus now i know some of you are like you're probably an extrovert you probably like people you probably just talk to people all the time friends just get this right get this right some of you are extroverts you know what that means you just skim the surface you could talk to a ton of people i'm really good at talking to a ton of people i could chop it up with a ton of people but some of you are introverts my wife is an introvert you know what introverts really really do unbelievably well is that you are safe and you are like an anchor that goes deep i'm not asking you to go talk to everyone unless god asks you but i'm not asking you to do anything that's not you but i'm asking you with those three four five or six people you go deep with would you share your story did you make an invitation would you invite people i mean seven weeks from this weekend is easter can you imagine if every one of us just started to pray for a name a face there are so many people who are hurting who are in need of peace and hope and grace they need the story that all things that the tomb is empty than all is possible by christ but somebody invited you and what if we just started praying who knows what god might do with one message on easter rescued people rescue people invitational fails seven days only god's story every seven days and then k knees in prayer every move of god has begun when people were on their knees in prayer he's in prayer and praying specifically for names faces when i was in college i i drove a 1983 ford country squire station wagon with woody paneling um that's probably why i didn't have a date um i was given this car so i was like thanks and i i would drive this car and i counted out i could fit like 13 people in that car i remember driving at one time and i was driving by myself to church and god just whispered i gave you this car what if you started praying for the guys on on cal state fullerton's basketball team and started to invite them the most i ever got that car filled taking people to church was eight i'm a junior high pastor i tell this story trying to inspire the students i had a little junior high ministry 200 people tell these students like man your mom god gave her that that toyota camry god gave your your family that minivan god gave you that truck like you should start praying and i kid you now we had a big event two weeks later and all of a sudden i stood outside and i saw every seat packed cars pulling up kids just getting out and these junior high students were like i prayed and i invited and they said yes and no joke the last car that pulled up was an old station wagon like i had in college dad gets out goes to the back and they all pop out like junior hires do of the back there's one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14. not legal now 15 16 is the last kid he's got a beehive going due east and he looks at me and goes i prayed and it's the miracle of the station wagon and he walks in and i kid you not eight of those 16 that were in the car within five months got baptized gave their life to christ they go to this little public junior high school and they end up like leading more kids to christ then they go to one of the most difficult public schools in grand rapids and they're like we're going to start an uprising on our campus and they did and it all comes back to this one kid with a beehive going due east who named every seat in his car prayed over it because he believed that if christ were at the center of his friend's life what would their life be like it would be better who are you praying for i mean i dream of seeing this room filled at easter i dream of seeing people saying yes i'm dreaming of people just getting back problems because they're just baptizing people gotta have chiropractors on staff at saddleback because people are just being baptized because god is on the move but it requires us to say no rescue people rescue people and i i'm not gonna hit a hundred percent i'm gonna i'm gonna beg you god for an only god story every seven days and i'm gonna be on my knees in prayer praying praying for my friends who are far from you praying for my friends who need hope i'll end with this story my 10-year anniversary i went to hawaii i'd never been to hawaii before saved up for a couple years my family went out there and we're staying at the at this cove it's like in this condo at the top of this cove and i'm looking out and it's just beautiful and you get to go through like three condo associations to enter into this like water area and when it's low tide it's awesome because you have goggles and underneath it's like finding nemo and it's just stunning but twice a day the tides would switch it'd be the sea change and i remember it's like 5 or 6 p.m and i'm just grilling out watching whales breach and we're just like grilling when all of a sudden i hear this woman scream how and i'm like oh no and i look out and i see waves and i realize the tide has changed and she can't swim i don't know what came over me probably the spirit of david hasselhoff but i just took off running and i run through like one condo association another condo association another one and i'm thinking about my friends who are lifeguards and oc and before they took the tower they would pray not on our watch not on our watch and i'm like taking my shirt off i jump in the water and i'm just swimming and i'm pushing i'm praying not on my watch let me get to the woman not my watch not my watch number one i get to this woman i put her on my back i bring her in i'm like body surfing in she's not really breathing i put her down her eight-year-old son comes crying mom mom 13-year-old daughter comes crying like a little like uh is she faking is she real and but like and so we start to like resuscitate her she starts to breathe she coughs up and i exhale and as i'm grabbing my shirt to put it back on dude with corona looks at me and goes bro that was awesome and as i'm starting to walk back i look up at the mountain top that i had run down all these condos and now there's about 45 to 50 people that are just standing on the ledge and their arms are folded like just watching what happened in that moment god just whispered to me he said you ran like a crazy person after a person you don't even know their name and your actual life you know people's names who are drowning in their finances drowning in addiction drowning in their doubts drowning in their marriage drowning and who are you more like people up there the arms folded going ask somebody else's job or someone who would just run after like jesus ran after you like dominate ran after you and friends it was that moment that god lit a fire within me to say something's got to change my friends i believe that god wants to use you you just got to live deep with jesus you just got to show up with expectancy you got to be willing to risk it all but you can't just risk if you don't know people live show up relate risk god i just come before you and i'm praying a spirit of boldness i'm praying that my friends here at saddleback would hear when you whisper god i pray that as they walk into starbucks or costco or the marketplace or their school wherever they go they would know that you're already there and if you're already there it's brimming with redemptive potential and so god i pray that we would be people that when you whisper we say yes we will not store and hold on to grace god we will scatter grace make invitations and i'm praying that this easter and seven weeks would be a move of god throughout orange county that we've never seen before but may we say yes we pray all the surname and everyone said amen grace and peace appreciate it what a great challenge huh you and i we've got some seed to scatter in the weeks ahead between now and easter i don't know about you maybe somebody here tonight maybe you were thinking i i've never said yes to jesus myself and i would love to explore what that could look like we sure would love to to chat with you about that and i want to invite you if you would to text new start to 83 000 if that's you someone would love to follow up with you answer any questions you have and potentially uh point you to a next step and if there has been a moment where you've said yes to jesus but you've never taken that step of baptism well we could do that tonight because we have everything that we need right over here to my right shirts shorts towels waters warm we could join you in celebrating and marking that moment together this evening steve has a new book it's called the thing beneath the thing what's hidden inside and what god helps us do about it you might want to look that up wherever you get your books amazon or barnes and noble wherever you get your books check that out and then lastly our ushers they're going to pass the baskets here in just a moment and allow you if you came prepared to give an offering tonight if you're new if you're our guest please don't feel any obligation to participate this is something for our church family it's honestly us saying yes to something god has called us to because he says look trust me on this there's a life of generosity out there that's so much better than anything else and we say yes to god we trust you with some of what you've blessed us with so we're gonna do that we're gonna sing one last song but i just hope that you've enjoyed tonight it's been a great night together with you love you guys have a great week all right [Music] you said i believe it you said it is [Music] it is [Music] [Music] [Applause] like you is [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] god we believe yeah [Applause] have a great rest your week family we'll see you next weekend [Music] [Applause] [Music] well there you have it thank you again for being with us for church we're so glad you decided to join us this week uh two quick things one is i want to encourage you that if you prayed a prayer of faith today you know pastor jason there at the end was kind of talking about making jesus first in life we would love to know about that we can get you plugged into our online community or into one of our local campuses but you need to reach out so you can text 83 000 to do that or you can also email online at saddleback.com we would love to get you plugged in the second thing is like steve was talking about it's so important to share your faith and i was so encouraged and inspired by what he was sharing today and online makes it as easy as ever you can either invite them to church in person or you can send them the link so i encourage you uh when you hear a message every week but maybe this week maybe this is something hey i can send it to somebody that might relate to this use our online resource so saddleback.com online is a really easy link to remember or you can send them to the youtube link but just remember that please share this with somebody that needs to hear this and we just want to take a moment to close in prayer and to pray over our community so let's pray together dear god we thank you we thank you and praise you for our online community and we pray over that person that is watching right now that person joining us online god you know what they're going through you know what they're facing you know what's on their heart lord and you are with them in everything lord i pray that you would open our eyes to see moments of opportunity moments to be a light moments to be jesus to those around us god go before us and help us and give us the courage to say yes to what you are calling us to in jesus name we pray amen amen thanks again for being with us week don't forget to comment below anything that we would love to be praying for you but we will see you right here next week [Music] oh

Channel: Saddleback Church

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Length: 88min 0sec (5280 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 26 2022