Speaker: Amen.
Buenos dias church.
It's great to be here before I jump in.
Michelle just wants to say a word.
Speaker 2: So after that, uh, wonderful communion lesson by Maurice, I felt
like I should confess all my sins.
And after that introduction, I felt like I was going to fall on the stairs, so.
I just, I want to say I'm glad to be here.
And um, I'm looking forward to getting to know people and um, and feel
so honored to be able to be here.
And also really excited because I feel like God has made this like
the most precious time of our lives.
And I'm seriously with Robert getting his doctorate.
I didn't get anything and I read all those books too, but I feel
like I should get up a teddy bear or something, you know, I don't know.
But, um, I just feel so blessed, you know, because I mean, I have been a
Christian for 40 plus years and I feel like this is the best time of my life.
And this is the closest to God I've ever felt, ever been in my life.
And I feel really happy to be able to share that, to live that with you, to
walk with you and excited to be here.
So I just wanted to say good morning and thank you for having us.
Amen.
Speaker: You know what they say behind every good leader, there's
a woman rolling her eyes and that's my woman keeping me on the path.
Uh, we are very honored to be here with you and to serve you.
Uh, it's funny, I feel kind of emotional and even a little nervous, which I usually
don't get nervous anymore, but I do.
Uh, I think this is a very monumental moment.
Uh, I think it's a sacred moment that we are starting a relationship.
And we are your servants.
We're here to serve Orange County, which is a a wonderful church and
even I say that fully aware of all the problems and dysfunctions, but
incredible people with incredible hearts and we are eager and happy to serve.
Uh, technically, we're part time.
Um, but emotionally, spiritually, we are a full time 100 percent as
much as God will allow us to be.
And, you know, we're also excited to share.
Much of what God has given us and the experiences, the teaching, the
training, and to just serve you with what we have, you know, what we
can and to the best of our ability.
I'm excited about where I see Orange County ministry going, where I see
the church here going from, you know, the challenges and dysfunctions
that you've had to deal with and struggle through to moving towards a
functionally highly functioning church.
Healthy, happy, excited church that can be a light to the world, which
the world so desperately needs.
And I know we have a long ways to go and we've got a lot of things to change
and grow, but that's the journey.
And we're all on the journey.
And God is with us, though we walk through the valleys of dark shadows,
we will fear no evil for he is with us and he will guide us through this.
Um, I feel very grateful for all of you.
Because you're here.
You're here.
And you've persevered, and you've pushed, and you've persevered through many
challenges, some of you for decades.
And you're here.
You're still here.
Yeah.
You're still here.
And I don't, and I don't mean that as any judgment on those who've left.
They have their reasons.
They have.
We don't know their pain.
We don't know their struggle.
We don't know why they think the decisions and it's not our place to judge.
It's our place to love.
Amen.
It's our place to love.
That's our calling.
But I'm encouraged because you're here and we're here and God was, as I am
confident, going to do great things.
I am encouraged And I, and I'm so thankful for the leaders who have, uh, the staff
you have that have submitted themselves to be tested, to be scrutinized, to, to
be challenged to make changes and to see their weaknesses and to see their faults.
I mean, you know, that's not easy for anybody.
When somebody challenges how good of a spouse we are or how good of a parent
we are, or we get job evaluations, those are tough things to go through.
But those are things that we have to go through in order
to be our best for God, right?
To be our best for our families, for our spouses, for our
children, for our grandchildren.
And I'm very grateful.
And we're going to have some times where they're going to be able to share what
they've learned in all this process.
And I know you want to hear that.
The lessons they've learned and seen, and we'll have time for that.
I'm very grateful for Steve Staten, who devoted a big chunk
of his life to just serving here.
And truthfully, he's done this now in several regions,
and been a great help for us.
I know in Metro, he was instrumental to helping us get
through a very difficult time.
It was before I got here, but I've heard so much gratitude,
because he really helped.
And Pablo Nicole went through the middle of that.
As well as some of the leaders here.
Very grateful for him.
And I know he's sending out a report.
I think it's going to be sent out tonight.
Of just all that he learned, all that he saw.
And recommendations of how to help Orange County be the best that it can be.
Because that's what we all want.
Amen?
We want to be our best for God.
Because we love God, we're grateful to God.
He saved us.
What a powerful communion message today.
Thank you, Maurice, wherever you are.
I think it just really set us up to have a great time in Bible study and even about
the mission we're going to talk about.
I'm very hopeful because we're taking a very important and
significant step in the coming weeks.
We've begun the process of building up our eldership and having a
body of elders, a team of elders.
Because if any of one of the bad lessons that we've learned
or one of the tough lessons has been that one elder can't do it.
It's not enough there.
The ministry, the church needs to have a body of elders.
There's a reason it's always plural in the Bible.
It's needed.
It's important.
And we're taking that incredibly important step that I think is going to bring us
towards a balance and a healthy church.
We submitted two names several weeks ago.
Ron Richmond and Kenny Barber.
And we, and we put their names out there as part of round one, not the end.
Okay.
That's not it.
And I know there's people say, well, what about the other guys?
How come they're coming?
That's coming, which we just, we have to be patient.
It's going to be one step at a time.
And we will get there.
And the goal is to have elders in every ministry.
Every ministry needs shepherds.
That's a healthy setting.
That's the way it should be.
Not that we're gonna rush the process.
There's a reason the Bible warns us not to be quick to lay hands on people.
Because that is a mistake.
And I know sometimes when it's long overdue, we feel rushed.
Like, we gotta do it now.
And it's long overdue.
But we can't make the mistake of rushing the process.
And we have to be wise and spirit led and walk at the pace that Jesus
walked and not run ahead of him.
not run ahead of the spirit.
And we asked, you know, for the we put those names out there.
We also asked for everybody to give us feedback.
There's any concerns, and there were several concerns raised, and we
took those concerns very serious and investigated and had discussions to
make sure that these men qualify and should be elders and they're ready.
And so I'm very excited to announce that.
That in one week, both Ron Richmond and Kenny Barber, Lord willing,
will be appointed as elders in the Orange County Church of Christ.
And again, I say, there are more coming.
There's an elder coming to a town near you, okay?
And again, we're not going to appoint somebody an elder just because they
can represent a segment of the church.
We're going to appoint elders because they are the godly men that want to serve.
That God wants shepherding his church and that we want to fulfill as fast as we can,
as fast as the spirit will allow us to.
So let's keep that in mind.
We want elders.
We pray for elders in the south, in the north, in the central, in the
Spanish, in the Korean, in coastline, in all those ministries, with
marrieds, with families, with singles.
With teens, with campus, over the children's ministry, all of
those ministries need shepherding.
That's incredibly important to God.
And that's part of our mission that we have.
Let me see if I can get my
There we go.
Okay, so, oops, close your eyes, don't see that next slide.
So today we're taking the mission, right?
The mission collection.
Incredibly important.
How many of us have been given missions collections for more than 10 years?
More than 20 years?
Wow.
More than 25 years?
Years?
Decades?
By now you could have owned a boat.
By now you could have bought two motorcycles, a jet ski, a snowmobile,
all parked in your driveway.
By
But you chose not to.
You chose to give it to God, to spread his kingdom, to spread his gospel.
You chose to sacrifice.
When Michelle and I in 1988 moved to Mexico City, we were a group
of 18 people with a dream to plant churches in all the major cities.
To have churches in all the Latin American countries that would make
disciples that would spread the gospel to every city and village.
And it's a crazy, it was a crazy dream and it had to take, it,
people had to sacrifice for that.
And it's so exciting, I just finished teaching a class, a course, With
young leaders from Mexico city.
And there's like 38 different churches just in Mexico alone.
There's a church of over 3000 people in Mexico city alone.
There are churches in nearly every Latin American country.
All why, how did that happen?
Well, clearly, and obviously that's the Holy spirit's work, but the Holy
spirit prompted you to sacrifice.
And that's what paid for all that to happen.
And they can't all be here to thank you, but let me just say
on their behalf, thank you.
Thank you for sending people.
Thank you for paying for it.
Thank you for not buying that jet ski.
And it's okay if you own a jet ski, but I'm sure you made sacrifices other ways.
Thank you for denying yourself and giving so that a people you may never know,
may never see, may never hear a thank you from can have hope in their life,
can have a future, can have hope for their children, hope for their grandchildren,
hope for the future of their life.
Spreading the gospel.
It's no easy thing.
It's tough.
It's hard because not only do we have to fight the world and fight Satan,
but we gotta deal with ourselves and our sinful natures and all the problems
and and and it's a mission, right?
But okay, now you can look at the slide.
It's a mission impossible, right?
It's a challenging mission.
You guys remember the movie, right?
You How many have you seen the movie?
One of them because there's like eight of them, right?
That it's always, they would go and they would get this, you know,
remember he'd get the, the tape recorder or recording or something.
And some of you guys remember the original mission impossible.
Some of you are that old.
You remember that one.
And he'd get a tape recorder and then it would smoke and burn up.
And, you know, do you accept this mission?
You know, and, and he'd have to say yes or no or whatever.
God gave us this mission.
God sent us.
He didn't send a tape.
He sent a text.
He sent us a text.
Here it is and gave us a mission to accomplish.
And just like in those shows, it's not easy, and there's all kinds of things that
go wrong, and they've got to be quick on their feet, and they've got to figure out
how to solve the obstacles and all that stuff and still get the mission done.
God sends us on missions.
It's a little obscure passage in Exodus 22 to, he says, and he said to them, you have
done all that Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded and you have obeyed me and
everything I commanded for a long time.
Now to this very day, you guys have been obeying for a long time to this very day.
You have not deserted your fellow Israelites.
You're still here.
But have carried out the mission.
The Lord, your God gave you.
And it's a tough mission.
It's not easy.
The mission.
We all have a mission.
You're what is his name?
Ethan Hunt.
You've received a mission.
Now, I think sometimes it gets a little foggy.
What exactly is our mission?
What are we here for?
What are we doing?
I've had a number of people ask me, what's our purpose?
What are we supposed to be doing?
We, what's the future of the Orange County Church?
Where are we going?
And trying to figure out and I think it's easy, but there's
actually a technical term.
It's called mission drift.
It happens in organizations all the time.
They lose sight of the mission.
Or they get caught up in the details of the mission, and
the details end up becoming the mission instead of the mission.
And they end up getting focused on fulfilling the details instead
of fulfilling the mission.
And that's called mission drift.
And they lose heart, or they lose sight.
And of course, the Bible's full of that story.
Of God's people struggling to understand the mission.
So what is our mission?
Is the mission to baptize as many as possible.
Is that our mission?
I think for many years, that seemed to be the clear mission that
ties as many people as possible.
Is it to be the largest church?
Is that our mission to be the mega, mega, mega church and pack the seats
and pack the halls and have big church buildings and big church things.
Is it to grow the most?
Is it to outgrow everybody else and be the fastest growing?
Or to offer the most services?
To be better than the YMCA?
To, to have everything, to have more on our little card of things that we
provide in the committee than the YMCA.
And certainly we know all those things have been part of our history.
We know all those things have been part of us, but we know it's not just
baptized because in that case you'd have to give the victory to the Mormons
because they baptize even the dead.
They baptize everybody.
You don't have to be there, so it's not just baptizing as many people as possible.
We know it's not to be the largest church because some of the largest
churches, especially recently, have gone down in flames because of the
challenges that large churches face.
And the pressure that goes on leaders and how they fall and crash.
And we know it's not just to grow the most because some of the weirdest movements
are the ones that have grown the most.
We know it's not just to offer the most services.
Because we do look at the book of Acts.
What are the services the church in the book of Acts gave?
Not much beyond spirituality.
Not that it's wrong to offer services.
We serve.
We're servants.
Amen.
So, of course, so what's the question?
What is the mission today?
To what are we sacrificing?
For what cause are we giving money?
For what motivation do we continue doing this year after year after year?
And of course, we're disciples of Jesus, so we look to Jesus for our answers.
We.
Most of us here came to believe, repented and got baptized, and we
got the gift of the Holy Spirit.
What does he want?
What does he say the mission is?
What does God say the mission?
If we asked him, what is the definition of the mission?
How would he answer it?
If we ask Jesus, Jesus, what's the mission?
Well, he did talk about it a lot, and he said a lot about it in John 3 16, the
one we all know, if you've ever watched a football game for God, so love the
world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish, but have eternal life for God did not send the sun into the world
to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him, his mission.
It was to save the whole world, save all of us, save you and me.
That's his mission, right?
He said on hearing this in Mark two, we read on hearing this.
Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
If you're a sinner, you're his mission.
His mission was to help us get out of our own sin and rescue us from that.
And Luke 4, 43 somebody said, I must proclaim the good news of the
kingdom of God to the other towns also because that is why I was sent.
So you want to know why Jesus came?
To proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God.
That's why he came.
That was his mission.
And they try to stop his mission.
They try to get him to stay in town.
He just kept going.
He said, I just got to keep preaching because that is exactly why I'm here.
Paul told Timothy, he said, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
So if you're a sinner today, you're the mission.
You're his mission.
Jesus, when he began his ministry.
He said, the spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight for the
blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
I mean, what a great mission statement.
That was his first sermon, officially.
So this is what my mission is.
Here's his mission statement.
To set you free, to bring you good news, to help you see, to heal you.
And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind
will see, and those who will see will become, those who see will become blind.
Whoa, that's a scary one.
Some people who think they see are going to be blind.
And some people who are blind, they're going to see it.
They're going to get it.
They're going to, they're going to understand this.
And that's why Jesus came to help us understand the parable.
The sower was not for non Christian visitors is for us.
Call us to listen, to understand, to let the word penetrate, let the word change
us, grow roots in the word of God, get rid of the rocks and the weeds that
try to tangle out our faith and to bear much fruit out of this in our lives.
And right after he shared that, he said, but it, but it was said of Isaiah that
they will be ever seeing, but never understanding, ever hearing, but never
perceiving or the other way around, not perceiving, not understanding.
His mission was to help us perceive and understand, help us to see and understand.
John 10 10, the classic statement, Jesus said, I've come that they may
have life and have it abundantly.
He wants you to have life.
And you know, it's that word sewing, not bios.
Not bios, which is just a living organism.
But Zoe, the quality of life, the good life, La Pura Vida, to give us
the life that we all want to have, that you want to have, I want to have.
That we want for our children, that we want for our grandchildren,
that we want for everybody we love.
Life in abundance.
And that, he said, knowing
that the Lord of this world is not Jesus, but the Lord of this world.
It's Satan himself.
He knew that he knew that in this world we would have troubles.
It would be difficult.
We would be challenged.
And even with all that, we can have life in abundance.
It's what Jesus's mission was.
In first john three, eight, the son of God appeared for this purpose.
It tells right there, straight up.
Here's why it came to destroy the works of the devil.
And we know the works of the devil to deceive us, to lead us in the
wrong way, to undermine our trust in God, our trust in each other, to
divide us, to keep us separate and keep us from loving one another, to
cause us to distrust and not believe.
And unfortunately, we constantly provide him with arrows to shoot at us
because of our sin and our weaknesses.
But Jesus said, I came to undo his work.
He challenged Satan for the hearts of women and men.
That's why he came.
And then the big one in Luke 19.
Jesus said, for the son of man has come to seek and save that which was lost, lost.
It's where we get the term, the world is lost.
People are lost.
We are lost in this world.
What was lost?
I mean, we know he came for all these reasons.
This was his mission.
To save us, to help us, to set us free, to rescue us, to heal us, which is,
the older I get as a Christian, the more I see how much we need healing,
to heal us, to recover what was lost.
But what was lost?
What did we lose or what did he lose that he wanted back?
He told a whole chapter about that.
Finding what was lost, describing what was lost.
I've asked several groups what was lost.
And it's amazing to me.
People always know.
Not everybody, but there's somebody that's always just nails it.
What was lost that Jesus came back to recover in Genesis 1 when it all began.
Reread.
We read.
So God created mankind in his own image.
In the image of God, he created them male and female.
He created them.
God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number,
fill the earth and subdue it.
Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky over the every live
living creature that moves on the ground.
Then God said, I give you every seed bearing plant on the face
of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds in it.
They will be yours for food.
Vegetarians love this one, because they say, See, he said
the plants, not the animals.
And to all the beasts of the earth, and the birds in the sky, and all the
creatures that move along the ground, everything that has breath of life in
it, I give every green plant for food.
And it was so.
Thankfully, later on, he told Peter to kill and eat, so that you can have
your steak with a clear conscience.
But God saw all that he had made and it was very good.
And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
This is how it all began.
We were with God.
We were one with him.
There was no pain.
There was no suffering.
There wasn't even death.
We walked with God.
In complete unity.
It was a time of harmony.
It was a time of being one.
It was a continuous state of shalom.
It was, it was that place that every single one of us wants in our heart to
be confident, to be secure, to be happy, to be joyful, to be at peace, to be able
to overcome whatever challenges we face.
To be loved and to be able to love.
That's where it all started
and we lost it.
We lost it.
We lost that perfect unity with God and the entire Bible is the
story of getting that back and getting back to that he said.
When we were there, it was good.
No, it was very good.
Tov Me'od in Hebrew.
Not just good, really good.
That's the way it's supposed to be.
That is the way it's supposed to be.
I love how the message describes it.
He says, God, in the message version, the translation says, God created
human beings, He created them God like.
He created them like Him.
They're like, you look like me.
Reflecting God's nature at peace and righteousness and purity
and wholeness, healthy, happy.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them.
God looked over everything He had made.
It was so good, so very good.
It was evening and it was morning.
It was awesome.
You think about how hard it is to deal with death.
When somebody we love dies.
They don't have to deal with that.
How hard it is when somebody we love is in sickness.
In pain.
In suffering.
When somebody we care about is chained in an addiction.
How hard it is.
to watch the effects of sin.
It wasn't happening then.
We were in that place with God in perfect harmony with him.
And I know that can sound kind of like a mythology or a story.
It's real.
It's where everything started out.
And we all long for that.
We all deep in our hearts want that.
It's the story from Genesis to Revelation is getting back to that.
Isaiah wrote, Seek the Lord while he may be found.
Call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways, and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them.
And to our God, for he will freely pardon.
God is inviting us back into that relationship again.
into that life again.
Jesus said, I give you my peace.
I have come that you may have life in abundance even.
And you don't even have to wait till you die and go to heaven.
You can have it now today.
Yeah, but Robert, my life's hard.
We got this problem, that problem, sickness, all this.
Yes, but even in the midst of all that, God can heal us and strengthen
us and help us in our weakness.
This is what he is working towards.
This is his mission to get us to be back with him.
And we know how this story ends.
Let's just jump to the last scene of the story.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven.
And the first earth had passed away.
And there was no longer any sea.
And there was I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look!
God's dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them.
They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them, and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, There will be no more death, or
mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
He says, he who is seated in the throne said, I am making everything new.
And then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.
That's really gonna happen.
That is really gonna happen.
And I know, you know, we, we might be like, yeah, of course.
And then someone's like, I don't know, that sounds too good to
be true, but it really is, these words are trustworthy and too true.
And he says, we'll be with him and he'll be with us and he'll wipe away your tears.
Who wipes your tears right now?
Only people we are intimately close to, right?
People who love us, who are there for us, that we care about and care about us.
That's who wipes our tears.
Genesis to revelation.
What's the mission?
Everyone with God forever,
but it has to happen now.
Now is when we introduce ourselves to God.
Now is when we become one with God.
Nobody's going to meet God in heaven and be with him.
We meet him now.
We set it up now.
We clear the path.
We walk the walk.
We live with him now, and we reap the benefits of that.
Now, we are blessed.
God's mission is that you be with him forever.
Forever.
That's his mission.
And the person sitting next to you.
And the person behind you and your children who are here and your children
who are not here and your grandchildren and your unborn grandchildren.
God's mission is that they all be there with him because that is true
and right and it's going to happen.
And some of us, we come to church and we keep coming and we keep doing, but
we have doubts and we have struggles and we're still going to make it.
But on that day we're going to go, dang, this was true.
I think a lot of us are going to be at least a little bit shocked.
Wow, thank God I didn't quit.
Thank God I didn't walk away from the Lord.
Thank God I persevered.
And it's going to be a great day.
It's going to be awesome.
That's the mission.
Do we get that?
That's the mission.
Everybody with God forever.
Amen.
So that's an outrageous mission.
Is that realistic?
By faith?
Yes.
Will everybody turn to God?
No.
That doesn't mean he loves them any less.
Jesus didn't die for the righteous.
He died for sinners.
He came for all of us.
So why would he do all this?
Love, love, It's the greatest command.
It's the greatest attribute.
It covers a multitude of sins.
It never fails.
It's what God is.
God is love.
That's why, why does he want to spend the day with you?
Why does he want to spend eternity with you?
Because he loves you.
With a love Honestly, we struggle to even begin to grasp that love.
I think about, we have three kids.
I can remember the day every one of them was born.
You know that feeling, Kyle, when you first held your son.
You just feel like, love.
You just, wow.
You just feel like you're going to explode with love.
That little teeny being.
Who's not going to ever pay rent.
Who's going to be years before he does any chores who may never contribute
much economically to you and will cost you a lot, but you just love him.
Even though he poops on you and pees on you and vomits.
Well, I guess I'm not supposed to say that.
Sorry.
But you love him anyways, right?
Would you not lay down your life for him?
We know many of us who've had children.
Our grandson was born three weeks ago.
He was born with some pretty serious health issues.
He's going to be facing major surgeries in the next few months.
And I remember when we found out, first of all, how painful it was to
think that little guy's going to suffer so much in his first year of life.
And you know, as a parent, you don't want to see your kids suffer.
And what was equally, equally painful was seeing my son and daughter
in law weep over his suffering.
And what he would be going through.
I thought about God, where his Children, how much it hurts him when we suffer,
when we go through hardships, when things are not going well for us.
And he's a far better father than I'll ever be than any of us will ever be.
And he loves us more Then we could ever even capable of loving anyone.
But I know how hard that is to see somebody you love so much.
When I was serving hope worldwide, it was a very spiritually impacting time because
God took me to the poorest villages on the planet in India, Africa, and Asia.
In Latin America, all over the world, in the Middle East, I sat in refugee
camps and broke bread with people who gave me their last piece of bread
because they wanted to give to me.
And I saw them weeping, I wept with women who buried their children
because they couldn't afford the medicine that any of us could run
down to Walgreens and buy on any day.
And the amount of pain and suffering.
And I kept thinking about God because I would get on a plane and come home to
my beautiful city and my beautiful home.
But God would still be there with them holding their hand, hurting
over them, hurting over them.
And even as I've studied spirituality and the effects on humans when
we're not spiritual and seeing the connection It's just, it's not third
world countries alone that suffer.
We suffer right here.
We have lots of suffering around us.
We have lots of pain around us.
You know that Orange County divorce rate is 72%, 72%.
Seven out of every 10 marriages within 10 years will be divorced, 20% higher.
And this is one of the wealthiest parts of the of the world.
And yet we suffer.
We suffer.
Why is it that over 700 people have died from drug overdose right here
in Orange County in the last year?
What was so painful in their lives that they had to escape and had no solution
but to numb themselves out to the point, literally to the point of death?
Why have 7, 000 people in the last three years taken their
lives, committed suicide?
And I know the pain of suicide.
My mother committed suicide.
And I know that she reached a point that was so low, so hopeless, so
painful, she couldn't endure it anymore.
What drives people to that level?
That's, that's twice as many people has died in 9 11.
They took their own lives in despair.
God's watching.
You know, you can, you know, well, that's not me, that's not my family, who cares?
God cares.
And God's people care.
God cares because He loves us all.
He cares when you're hurting.
When you're in pain and he's there, even when we don't acknowledge him, even when
we don't turn to him, he's always there.
Even when we're in darkness, God can see in the dark and he is
there and the mission, the mission is to save everybody, to bring us
all into his presence and heal us.
And give us hope and give us life.
That's his mission.
That's the mission of God.
But things get in the way, don't they?
Things get in the way of the mission.
What gets in the way?
Well, we got obstacles.
Our sin gets in the way.
Our own sin gets in the way.
We get caught up in sin.
We, we, sin blocks us from God.
It gets in the way.
It creates walls.
And even when he gives us solutions like baptism, where all our sins
are washed away, it's very easy to get back right back into trouble.
Sin gets in the way.
Our weaknesses.
We're all weak.
Every one of us.
We all have our weaknesses.
And that gets in the way.
The evil one gets in the way.
He's trying.
To divide us and fill us with despair and, and rob us of our faith and
turn us to hate rather than love.
I appreciate so much that communion, compassion, that is
God having compassion, ignorance.
People don't know who God is.
They don't know how loving is.
They don't know how good God is.
And so many of us Have gotten a just terrible theology over
the years that's not healthy.
It's not helpful.
And he uses that ignorance.
Everything that separates us is what gets in the way this world gets in the way.
We live a hurried life.
We have so much to do, so many places to go.
There's so much traffic and we have so many distractions and
things getting our attention.
Attention is the new currency.
Everything is trying to get your attention and get you to focus on it.
Instead of on Jesus.
Instead of on the scriptures.
Instead of on the spirit of God.
That will build us up and make us healthy and help us to overcome
things that will tear us down, make us depressed, angry, upset, and hopeless.
Distractions, and social pressure, and social conflict, and global
conflicts, and isolation, and all of this junk that's happening.
And these are terrible times.
We live in it.
And even all the beauty of nice cars and beautiful homes and
palm trees doesn't cover it up.
It's still there.
And we know it, right?
We know it.
We're living it.
We know it.
Augustine of Hipple, one of my favorite quotes, he said, You
have made us for yourself, O Lord.
And our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
We have this big hole inside us.
Only God can fill.
Everybody does.
And everybody tries to fill it with money and looks and things and material goods
and prestige and power and all this stuff.
And they're just as unhappy as everybody else.
I shared before there, they did.
There was a study, the Allied Times did.
They analyzed an interview in Beverly, a neighborhood in Beverly Hills, and
compared it to a neighborhood in Compton.
And there were a few things worse in Compton, and there were some
things way worse in Beverly Hills.
We all struggle.
Money, we know, is not the solution.
God is.
His mission Is to bring us back into that.
Jesus said, what good will it be for someone to gain the whole
world and yet forfeit their soul?
Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
We have to understand what really matters here.
What is most important and live according to that.
That's the mission and God provides the way.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through
our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Through these, he has given us his very great and precious promises
so that through them, you may participate in the divine nature.
There's that God likeness.
Having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil.
desires.
He gives us everything we need.
So what's the mission?
Free us of sin.
Free us of fear so we can be confident.
No slavery to sin.
Set us free.
Able to love, which we all want, right?
We want to love our spouses.
We want to love our kids.
We want to love our roommates.
Sometimes that's hard, but we want to love them.
We want to love our children, love our parents.
Sometimes that's hard, but we want to love them.
We want to love each other.
Amen?
Sometimes that's really hard.
But it came to set us free.
To be able to be pure.
And not be slaves to pornography.
Or any sin.
Able to follow Jesus.
Jesus.
Able to live the life he has given us.
This is the mission.
Because of this sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured
out on the altar of the cross.
We're a free people.
Free of penalties and punishments.
Chalked up by all our misdeeds.
And not just barely free either.
Abundantly free.
He thought of everything, provided for everything.
We could possibly need the Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
He set us
letting us in on the plans.
He took such delight in making.
He said it all out before us in Christ, a long range plan in which
everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in
deepest heaven and everything on.
Planet Earth.
Okay.
I know, you know, it's not the NIV.
That's the message.
What?
What a great vision.
What a great mission.
His mission.
That's our mission, guys.
That's our mission.
First to save me.
That's the one time you could be.
It's all about me.
Cause, you know, just like when you get an airplane, they say if, if the oxygen mass
drops, put it on you, then you're a kid.
Doesn't do you any good if you give it to a kid and then you pass out.
So, doesn't do any good if we're doing terrible, how are
we gonna save everybody else?
If we're all struggling with all this junk and garbage and fear
and anger and hatred and, and how are we gonna help anybody else?
We gotta get it right.
We gotta get on the mission.
Know that we're God's mission.
But then my family, my family, the Bible says anybody that doesn't take care of
their family is worse than a non believer.
Who is next generation?
Your kids are next generation.
Your babies, that little bambino is next generation.
And God is concerned about them.
And the teens and the preteens and the young teens and the old teens
and the middle aged teens, all of them, the campus, our future, the
singles, the thirties, the forties, the fifties, even old guys like me, where
the mission, because I can lose it.
God trying to keep me on point.
Our families.
The church.
God help us.
We're his rescue plan.
I sat in a high level meeting in the United Nations in New York.
Where they handed out, where they had all these organizations present
solutions to the problems of the world.
Sat there for three hours, didn't hear one good solution.
I walked out, I know the solution.
More disciples of Jesus because I've seen it.
I've seen it in these impoverished areas, disaster areas and bad areas, rough areas.
You inject a group of disciples and bam, everything changes because they're loving
and serving and giving and sacrificing.
They are being a light to the world.
That's the beauty of these whole projects is you get to see a microcosm of how
the whole plan is supposed to work.
That the church is supposed to be the light of the world that helps everybody
connect with God that shows everybody.
So yes, the church is really important because that's God's plan.
We're the rescue.
We're the, we're the first responders guys.
We're the firemen.
We're the police.
We're the rescue squad.
That's us.
And the world desperately needs it.
Our families desperately need it.
Our children desperately need it.
Those in the church and even more so those not in the church.
They need to see a church that loves.
They need to see a church that has compassion and
grace and presents the truth
to give hope to this world.
And of course the community needs this.
The community is his mission.
The world is his mission.
It's why we gave, it's why we're about to give, it's why we're gonna
dump money into this thing again,
to advance that mission.
Not to have the most baptisms.
Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations.
Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And he said, teach them.
Didn't end at baptism, does it?
Teach them, and the NIV says to obey everything I have commanded you.
But in the Greek, it's, it could be teach, it could be train, it could be hold onto.
Everything I showed you, that's spiritual formation.
And then what does he say?
And I will be with you forever.
That's the mission.
Baptism, that's the easy part.
Hanging in there for 20, 30, 40 years, that's the hard part.
All the way to the end.
So we are the mission.
And Jesus is the way, right?
He's the way.
It's not mission impossible, it's mission possible.
God bless you.