Don’t Skip Samaria | Pastor Noah Ray | Sunday Service

Good morning, church.

Are you doing good?

I want to take just a moment.

I want to echo what Pastor Jeremy said about the 21 days.

And um last night I was always spending Saturday night just praying for Sunday morning service and praying for you guys.

And um just felt the Lord drop a verse on my heart for the 21 days.

Over these 21 days, as Pastor Jeremy said, we're we're focusing on the world and we're focusing on reaching out.

But I also believe that these 21 days are gonna be significant for you personally.

And I believe that it's gonna be a 21 days where the Lord's gonna bring breakthrough in your life.

How many know as we pray for others?

God always has this tendency to bring breakthrough into our lives as well.

Last night I was reading, and the Lord took me to Isaiah.

I want to read, I want to read you this real quick, Isaiah 58.

This is what the Lord speaks through Isaiah to the people of Israel.

He says, Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen to loose the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to break every yoke?

And then he goes on in verse nine, and he says, Then you will call, and I will answer.

Can I tell you the secret over the next 21 days to sing the breakthrough that God wants to see in your life?

Is you just gotta go all in.

I want to encourage you over the next 21 days.

Join the Zoom calls, read the devotionals, join us on Wednesday nights.

Fast something.

You need to know what you're fasting from and what you're fasting for.

Sometimes we need to push the plate away.

Sometimes we may need to say no to social media.

Come on, you ain't missing nothing, anyways.

Come on.

I want to encourage you over the next 21 days, go all in.

Come on, say I will.

Go all in.

All right.

That was completely free of charge for you right there.

I want you to get your Bibles.

Go to Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 8 this morning.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

We are in part three of our series called Missions on the Move.

Have you enjoyed this series?

Oh, let me say it again.

Have you enjoyed this series?

Pastor Jeremy last week encouraged us in talking about Jerusalem and our Jerusalem assignment.

How many guys have your Jerusalem assignment from last week?

Talked about our street is our Jerusalem.

And I want to continue in our missions theme today.

We're going to look at Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Will you stand with me?

Stand with me this morning as we look at Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

We're going to start in verse 1.

Open up your Bibles if you got them, your iPhones, whatever you have.

Let's read the word of the Lord today.

Verse 1, starting in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And Saul approved of their killing him.

We'll come back to that later.

And on that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

I want you, if you can, I want you to circle or highlight that Judea and Samaria.

Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

But Saul began to destroy the church.

Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

And Philip went down to a city in Samaria.

Everybody say Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there.

And when the crowds heard Philip and saw signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.

And then in verse 7 and 8, for shrieks and impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

How many of that sounds like the gospel going forth?

And then I love this last line.

So there was great joy in that city.

There was great joy in that city.

This morning, I want to speak for just the next few minutes on the topic: don't skip Samaria.

Turn to one person around you, just say, Don't skip Samaria.

Come on.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you today for your word.

Father, I thank you, God, right here at the beginning, God, for just a beautiful expression of worship that's already in the house.

Over the last month, this focus on missions, Father, has stirred our heart to not be inward focused, but to be outward focused.

And I pray as we leave here today, God, we would have a focus more on others than ourselves.

More on the people that we see every day than ourselves.

Father, we give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen.

Everybody say amen.

Here's what I know about most of you today in the room and those that are worshiping online is you are routine people.

Will you just raise your hand if you would admit, because confession is really good for the soul, that you are a routine person?

Wow.

Okay, so statistics hold true.

This makes me feel so good.

I am a routine person.

You are, most of you are a routine person.

Come on, how many you do the same thing on a daily basis?

You do the same thing on a weekly basis.

Come on.

I see some of the spouses nudging each other.

This is good for you today.

You do the same thing on a monthly basis.

We are routine people.

We have our routes on how we get to places.

Come on, how many of you have your routes, how you get to work?

And if someone asked you to go a different direction, you wouldn't know how to get to work.

You would just be completely lost.

Right?

We have our routes and how we go.

We have our routine restaurants.

Come on, how many of y'all have your favorite routine restaurant?

It's the go-to.

It's the Friday night spot.

You have your routine neighborhoods.

Y'all even have your routine places where you sit in church.

Some of y'all got real fired up about that.

There have been many of you that if I I have told you personally, if you sat in a different spot, I wouldn't know how to preach to you.

If Miss Emily moved from right here, I wouldn't know what to do.

There's a lot of you if you move spots, we we might as well just go home.

We're routine people.

We all have our things that we we do, our places that we know.

And parents, how many of y'all are ready for some routine back in your life?

Come on.

You're ready for your kids to go back to school.

Even our phones know our routines.

I got in my car the other day and was driving here.

I come here six days, five, six days a week.

And I got in my car and it said, here's your suggested route.

Because I know exactly where you're going.

Right?

We are routine people.

Routines are not bad.

Routines help us.

We like routines.

Routines help us know things, and we like knowing.

But if we're not careful, routines can also become ruts.

Right?

There's a lot of different areas in our life that routines are really good, but routines can become rough when it becomes ruts, and routines only keep us around familiar people and familiar places and familiar things that we know.

I mean, we're meant to expand beyond our everyday life sometimes, right?

And this is what happens in Acts chapter 8 is the church in Jerusalem was familiar with what they knew.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

They were familiar with the streets, and they were familiar with the synagogues, and they were familiar with the temples, and they were familiar with all of the people.

And Jesus comes along and he does what he does best and he messes up their routine.

I don't know, Jesus is really good at messing up our routines, right?

And how many of we should invite Jesus messing up our routines?

So he comes in and Jesus messes up their routines because routines are really good until they become the boundary for our obedience.

Okay?

So Jesus walks in and he tells them that he's really gonna kind of redraw the map of the church.

He's gonna mess up where they like to eat.

And he's gonna mess up the people that they know, and he's gonna mess up their familiar places because there's people that need to be reached beyond their familiar.

There's people that have to be ministered to that are beyond the streets that they know.

And really, that is the heart of today's message is I want to stir our hearts and our spirits to go beyond what we know, to move past what is familiar, because there are people that need to be reached in Birmingham, in Alabama, and then in the United States of America.

Amen?

So that's what we're gonna look at in Acts chapter 1, is where we're gonna go for just a minute.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

A really familiar passage.

But we cannot really fully understand Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

We're gonna go there in just a minute, until we really fully understand Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

Acts 1.8 and Acts 8.1 through 8 are very, very closely connected.

And here's what it says, very familiar verse.

We've really looked at it almost every week, but it has significance for every piece of this mission series.

And Jesus says last words from Jesus, very last words, he says this, but you will receive power, everybody say power, when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

And then you will be my what?

My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

It's Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.

What Jesus was telling them in Acts 1.8 is that the mission is bigger than our normal routines.

The mission is bigger than our neighborhoods.

So he tells them, he says, You're gonna go into Jerusalem.

And we know about Jerusalem.

Pastor Jeremy, if you missed last week's message, go to our YouTube page, catch up on what is Jerusalem.

Okay, Jerusalem is what is near to us.

That is our everyday life.

That's our everyday roads.

That is the life that we live.

Next week we're gonna talk about to the ends of the earth.

That's the nations.

How many of God has called us to reach the nations of the world?

That's what we're gonna talk about next week.

That's going.

That's planes and passports and going to the people on the ends of the earth.

But then right in the middle is Judea and Samaria.

And you hear Jerusalem talked a lot about, and you hear the ends of the earth talked a lot, but you don't hear a ton about Judea and Samaria.

And we're gonna tackle that today.

What is Judea and Samaria?

So before we get to Acts 8, we'll get there in just a minute.

I want us to look at Judea and Samaria because it carries a lot of weight for us.

Judea, everybody say Judea.

I want you to see this.

I'll have a map behind me of what Judea was.

Judea was the surrounding region around Jerusalem, is what Judea was.

It was the area that was around all things Jerusalem.

Okay.

If Jerusalem was their city, then Judea was the region that was around them.

So think of Judea as surrounding suburbs around us.

Think of Judea as the next county over.

Think of Judea as our state, and then the Southeast.

How many of those are all places that need to be reached?

So you could also say it like this Jerusalem was here, Judea is near.

It's around us every single day.

It may not necessarily be your road, but it is around you.

And it's still people that need to be reached.

It's still people that need.

The gospel of Judea represents communities close enough to reach, but easy enough to forget about.

You can reach them, but it's also easy enough to forget about some of these places.

Judea is a reminder.

I want you to write this thought down.

Judea is a reminder that the mission of God is bigger than our immediate zip code.

Our immediate zip code needs the love of God.

Amen.

But I want you to think broader than your street and your immediate zip code.

The greater Birmingham area needs Jesus.

Our state needs Jesus.

Birmingham Metro needs Jesus.

The Southeast needs Jesus.

Especially all the Auburn and Tennessee fans, they need Jesus.

Amen?

I'm sorry, college football's coming up.

I had to nudge it a little bit there.

So Judea is a reminder that the mission of God is bigger than our immediate zip code.

And then there's Samaria.

Everybody says Samaria.

Samaria was different.

Samaria was different.

When Jesus is about to go into heaven and he says, You're going to be my witness, and you're going to be my witness in Jerusalem, they would have been like, okay, great.

That sounds good.

Got that.

Awesome.

When he went on and he said, You're going to be my witness in Judea, they're like, okay, great, cool.

Like that.

We can branch out a little bit.

But when Jesus said, You're going to be my witness in Samaria, all of their breath would have left their body.

And I'll explain why in just a moment.

There was hostility.

There was hatred.

When Jesus said Samaria, the disciples heard more than a place.

The disciples felt the tension of the relationship.

When Jesus said Samaria, it wasn't just about a location.

It was about a place that they had been taught for decades to naturally avoid.

It was a place that their parents taught them, you don't go there.

That was Samaria.

And Jesus said, we're going to be witnesses not only in Jerusalem and Judea, but we're also going to go to Samaria.

Samaria, you'll be able to see, you saw in the graphic behind me.

It's just north of Jerusalem and Judea.

It was not necessarily far away geographically, but it was relationally.

All throughout the Bible, Jewish people and Samaritan had a long, long history of tension.

It was full of ethnic, religious, historical divisions.

Samarians were known to have conquest and intermarriage and mixed worship practices.

And through all of that, the Jewish people looked at them as a compromised people.

And because of that, there was this division.

It was a place in their mind.

Samaritans don't hang out with Jewish people, and Jewish people don't hang out with Samaritan people.

I'll kind of summarize it like this is that Samaria was close geographically.

It was connected historically, but it was divided relationally.

I want you to write that down because that's significant for all of Acts 1 and all of Acts 8.

Samaria, it was close geographically.

But they were divided relationally.

I don't know about you, church, but that kind of sounds a whole lot like our nation right now.

We're connected and we're not connected.

There's some history there, but there's also a whole lot of division there.

Right?

We're close geographically, we have some relational divides.

But I believe that God is empowering the church in this season, not just to reach our street and not just to reach the ends of the world, but he's calling us to unite the nation that we live in.

Come on, I believe this.

God still has his hand on America, church.

And God's gonna use the big sea church to reach the Samaria.

So here's how bad it it was.

We can see this, and you can see on the graphic behind me.

In biblical times, Jewish people, when they were going from Jerusalem or Judea to Galilee, is oftentimes the Jewish people would take a route that would go sometimes two to three days outside of their way to go to Galilee, simply so that they would not go through Samaria.

Two to three days outside of their normal routes and normal routines, just so that they would not be in the vicinity of where Samaria was.

That's a problem.

But what I love about Jesus is that Jesus came to take what was broken amongst people and heal it.

There's an interesting verse that I found myself reading in a really a whole story in John chapter 4, where Jesus has this conversation with this woman at a well, and she's a Samaritan.

John 4 · chapter mention

First off, that did not happen.

But what's so interesting is that before you even get to the conversation with the woman at the well, is there's an interesting verse in John chapter 4 that I want you to see, and here's what it says.

John 4 · chapter mention

You could just read right past it and not understand the significance of what Jesus was doing in this verse.

In John 4 4, it says him it talks about Jesus, and it says, Now he had to go through Samaria.

Now Jesus had to go to Samaria.

This verse proceeds.

The interaction with the Samaritan woman.

Can I just tell us this morning that Jesus didn't have to go through Samaria?

He chose to go through Samaria.

He chose to go through Samaria because there were lines that people had created that he was the one that was to break down those lines.

Everybody else had created these cultural and racial lines.

And Jesus said, I'm not just going to go around, I'm going to go straight through Samaria.

I'm going to go from Galilee to Jerusalem, via right through Samaria.

Because there were lines that he had to break down.

There were things that he had to show us because the Samaritans had just been taught there's lines that you don't cross.

And Jesus said, I'm going to cross every one of them.

And our job as believers is to continue to cross the lines that he crossed 2,000 years ago.

That is our call.

So Jesus did what we are called to do.

And I just want to remind us this morning, church, you don't have to go across the world to reach people.

You can reach people right now in our city, in our state, in our nation, and we can reach across lines that we've been taught to avoid.

Right here in Birmingham, right here in our state, right here in the Southeast, we can reach Samaria by reaching across lines.

I mean no, it's the call of the church to reach people that nobody else is reaching.

So here's what Samaria represents.

I want you to see this this morning.

Samaria represents reaching across cultural lines and racial lines, economic lines and political lines, regional lines, generational lines, language lines, class lines, and comfort lines.

That's what Jesus was doing in John 4 when he said, I have to go through Samaria.

It's our job to cross these lines to continually reach more people for the gospel.

In Birmingham, in our state, in the southeast, and in the nation, because people are worth reaching, church.

People are worth reaching.

And Jesus said, cross every line you have to to reach every person that you need to.

Cross every line that you have to to reach every single person that you have to.

So that's Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

It is Jerusalem.

It's Judea.

It's Samaria.

And then it is to the ends of the earth.

And that's why Acts 1.8 and Acts 8 are so connected.

Acts 8 really is the moment where the mission of God begins to move from Jerusalem out into the world.

Acts 1.8 is what Jesus said would happen.

In Acts 1.8, he said, You're going to be my witnesses in all of these different places.

And then we get to Acts 8 and it begins to happen.

Acts 8 is the practical application.

It is the prophecy fulfilled of what Jesus said would happen in Acts 1.8.

And I want you to see this morning how the mission of God moved forward in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

I want to just show you three ways as we've been talking about Judea and Samaria and we get to Acts 8.

I want you to see three ways this morning that the mission moved forward.

And here's the first.

Number one, if you're taking notes, as we look at this Jerusalem church, number one, is the mission moved beyond comfort.

Everybody say beyond comfort.

In America, we love our comfort, don't we?

Come on.

Even when I just said comfort, that one thing just popped in your mind.

We all like comfort.

There's nothing wrong with comfort.

We like comfortable things, but comfortable can become a problem when it stops us from the gospel being progressed.

And this is what happens in the church in Jerusalem.

Let's pick up in verse one.

And Saul approved of their killing him.

You need to remember that very significant verse.

And on that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem.

And all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

But Saul began to destroy the church.

This is a significant moment in the life of the church, right here.

Significant moment, these verses.

Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Two things very, very important that happened in these first few verses.

Number one is Stephen is martyred.

That is where we pick up in verse one of Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

All of Acts chapter 7 is Stephen being martyred, the first martyr in the New Testament.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Okay.

We see him being martyred in Acts chapter 7, and then in Acts chapter 8, Saul, who would go on to become Paul, is persecuting the church in a great way.

Acts 7 · chapter mention Acts 8 · chapter mention

So Stephen is martyred, and then great persecution breaks out against the church.

Right?

So what happens is in Acts 1.8, God, Jesus tells us everything that's going to happen.

You're going to go out into Jerusalem, into Judea, and this begun, it starts to fulfill itself.

But what was happening in the church in Jerusalem is the church was thriving in Jerusalem.

The church was growing in Jerusalem.

The church was seeing miracles.

The church was seeing all kinds of great things that were happening.

But there was one problem with the church in Jerusalem, is that they had gotten comfortable in Jerusalem.

Jesus said, I'm not just going to let you be my witness in Jerusalem.

And then he stopped there.

He added three more places after it.

But they had forgotten about the three other places he mentioned at Jerusalem.

They said Jerusalem, he said Jerusalem, and all they heard was Jerusalem.

And so they had begun to get comfortable in this environment, and persecution comes against the church.

Now, I don't believe that God calls the persecution, but I do believe that God used the persecution.

So God uses the persecution that happens because this discomfort that happens was necessary for God to accomplish what needed to happen.

Right?

And I want you to get this in your heart.

I want you to write this down because comfort is not the goal of the church, obedience is.

Okay?

So all of Acts chapter 8, verses 1 through 3 shows us that God is not as concerned with our comfort as He is the gospel getting to where He needs it to get to.

Acts 8:1–3

And we've built life in our country around comfort and convenience.

And all of that is great until the gospel stops being spread.

And what ends up happening is God will begin to shuffle things and he'll begin to move things around, not because he's mad at us, but because he wants more people to be reached and he's less concerned about our comfort.

So this is what happens in the church in Jerusalem.

Things begin to be shaken and things are being attacked, and all of this stuff breaks out.

And I kind of liken the persecution that's happening in Acts chapter 8 to a bird's nest.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

These people in Jerusalem are comfort, they're comfortable in this church.

They're growing.

They're being fed.

They're with family.

And what happens is eventually God tells them, I'm gonna have to shake you because you're not moving yourself, because there's other places that have to be reached.

Right?

So God begins to shake and God begins to move.

Jerusalem was a good place, but it was never intended to be the place.

There were other places that had to be reached.

It's what a mama bird does with the baby.

She'll begin to shake the nest, and she won't just kick them out, but she'll shake it enough until they get uncomfortable.

You ain't got to go, but you can't stay here, type thing.

You know what I'm saying?

And this is what's happening in the church in Jerusalem as these attacks come.

And there's some shaking.

But can I just flip the script back on us?

And I wrote this in my prayer journal this week.

Is that what if we stop looking at the attacks from the enemy as simply attacks and more like moments when God is trying to get us to where he's ultimately called us?

Too often we look at the attacks of the enemy like, man, I'm just being attacked, and where's God's hand on my life?

And often the moments that we're being attacked are the moments where God is shaping us for the next season that He's called us into.

Because we've settled where we are.

And in the settling where we are, God has this tendency to shake things up because he knows that you're ultimately never intended to stay in Jerusalem.

You're called to go to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

But if we're not careful, we'll stay here.

Because we love it, and it's nice and it feels good.

So sometimes, if you want to write this down, God uses uncomfortable seasons to move us into places we would have never gone on our own.

He'll use an uncomfortable season to move us into a place that we would have not done because it feels uncomfortable.

So this is the shaking that's happening in the Jerusalem church.

The mission moved beyond comfort.

Here's the second one.

Number two, is the message moved through every believer.

So Saul has been persecuting the church in Acts 8 4.

I want you to see this, just one line, one verse, but there's a whole lot to this verse.

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

This is such an important verse.

Those who had been scattered.

It did not say that it was the apostles who preached wherever they went.

It said, those who had been scattered.

Who were those?

It was the people of the Jerusalem church.

It was the people of the church that when the persecution came, they were the ones that went out and they were the ones that preached and they spread the gospel.

Because may I remind us that the mission was never meant to sit in the hands of a few, but it was meant to move through the lives of all of us.

Listen, God never relegated his mission to a few holy people.

It's all of our jobs.

Whether you hold a mic, whether you whatever you do, the call of God was never relegated to just a few people.

Acts 8.4 tells us the church went.

The apostles stayed back in Jerusalem, but it was the church that spread the gospel.

It was the church that meant the scattered believers that it talks about, we don't know their names.

They didn't have platforms, they didn't have titles, they didn't have microphones or church buildings.

What they had was a mandate to reach Judea and Samaria.

That's what they had.

They had a mandate to reach Judea and Samaria.

So you keep reading later on in Acts 8, and we'll get there in just a moment.

There's a guy named Philip.

Philip, first time we see him is in Acts chapter 6.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

In the Jerusalem church, he's an ordinary believer, and his role was simply to pass out bread.

Him and five other guys are commissioned to pass out the bread.

It wasn't preaching, it wasn't laying on of hands, it wasn't anything like that.

He was simply passing out bread, doing what he was called to do every single day in the mission that God gave him.

It was every believer doing their part.

Can I say that again?

Every believer doing their part.

Come on, you will reach people that I will never ever be able to reach because your sphere of influence is completely different.

And we need every single person doing what they're called to do to reach their Judea and their Samaria.

So Philip, he begins to do what he's called to do every single day.

It says those who were scattered, and it says they preached.

It just means they announce the good news.

Because every one of us needs to know that your life is preaching wherever you go.

Everywhere you go, your life is preaching.

It's preaching on the job site.

It's preaching in the classroom.

It's preaching in the office.

It's preaching at the dinner table.

Your life is preaching.

So the mission moved beyond comfort.

The mission moved through every believer.

It wasn't just the apostles, it was every believer.

And then number three, number three, this is it.

Is the gospel moved into Samaria?

Everybody say Samaria.

I want you to see this, verses five through eight.

We pick up with the life of Philip.

And here's what it says.

I want you to see this.

Philip went down to a city in where?

In Samaria.

And he proclaimed the Messiah there.

And when the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.

I want you to pick up on the significance of what's happening here.

In light of Acts chapter 1, verse 8, and the first part of Acts chapter 8.

Acts 1:8 Acts 8 · chapter mention

Philip is now moving down into Samaria, and the gospel is going with him.

The power of God is going with him.

For shrieks and impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was great what joy in that city.

There was great joy.

Philip went where others were unwilling to do, but knew they needed to go.

Because Philip chose to live outside of his comfort and take the gospel to Samaria.

I want you to see.

I don't have time to break down the rest of Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

I wish I could.

But I want you to see this.

There's five things that happened because he spread the gospel and he went, he was obedient to go to Samaria.

Number one, Jesus was proclaimed.

If we did nothing else, that's enough.

Jesus was proclaimed in Samaria.

Signs were performed.

People were delivered.

People were healed, and joy came to the city.

Jesus was proclaimed, signs were performed, people were delivered, people were healed, and then joy came to the city.

This church, this is the power of not skipping Samaria.

This is the power of the church and Philip and these ordinary believers choosing to not just stay where they were comfortable, but to reach the people that were around them.

To reach the other side of a city, to reach the other part of their region and the places that were around them.

Because I want you to know, church, and I just feel this burden all this week since I've been writing this message, is that we need more Phillips in our cities, in our states, in our nations.

People that will go to these places.

It may not be your street, but it is a street and a location that somebody needs Jesus at.

How many of y'all believe that?

We all have that responsibility.

And here's a couple ways, real quick.

I'm gonna end with this.

How do we make sure the gospel gets to Samaria?

I'm gonna pray in just a moment.

We're gonna be done, but I want you to see this.

Write these down.

Because one of these, one of these four is gonna be you.

How do we make sure the gospel gets to Judea and Samaria?

Number one, is we go.

We go.

I've already said it, but we need God to raise up Phillips in our nation.

We need God to raise up Phillips in our cities, in the Southeast, and the United States of America.

I'll kind of give you just a few just church stats.

In America, 3,500 churches start every year.

And we would celebrate that.

That's great.

But 4,000 churches shut their doors every year.

Did y'all hear that?

3,500 start, but 4,000 stop.

Shut their doors.

The median age of senior pastors now is in their mid-50s, with only 15% of senior pastors being at the age of 40 or around 40.

Now here's the problem.

The issue isn't that older pastors are ineffective.

The problem is that we have less younger pastors that are coming behind them to continue the legacy and continue what they've built for decades.

We need more Phillips.

In the next, they say in the next seven to ten years could be.

One of the largest leadership shifts in the church that we've seen.

Talking about one third in the next five to ten years of pastors will retire from vocational ministry.

Can y'all imagine that?

What if one third of teachers retired in the next five to ten years?

Or the next five to ten years, one-third of doctors or engineers retired.

We'd be in trouble.

We need Phillips in our nation, church.

We need God to raise up people that feel the call not just to ministry, but to reach people where they are.

We need Phillips right now.

Me and Pastor Jeremy are praying through what does a school of ministry right here at CLC look like?

Because we need Phillips.

People that say, I've been in Jerusalem, but I feel like there's a call to maybe Judea and Samaria.

And I'm not talking about senior leadership positions.

I'm talking about we need kids' pastors.

And we need youth pastors, and we need people that can disciple people.

We're praying through what does a ministry school look like?

We're praying through what does an expression, multiple expressions of CLC look like around the Birmingham area.

You know why?

Because y'all are coming from everywhere now.

Y'all are coming from Pill City and Trustful and Helena and all the way down 280 and Chelsea, and we're praying through God, what would it look like for different expressions of this to be all throughout Birmingham?

Because I believe what's happening here is special.

But we need God to raise up Phillips.

We need Phillips to go.

Here's the second way.

Number two, how do we get to Samaria?

You can pray, pray, pray, pray, pray.

What prayer does, prayer allows you to have authority in cities that you'll never step your foot into.

You can pray over college ministries and U.S.

missionaries and church plants that you'll never go to.

Number three, you can give.

I don't know if there's a more practical demonstration of us giving our resources to different ministries that are reaching Judea, Samaria, our city and our nation.

And then number four, I love this one, is we raise, and I'm not talking about raising money.

The next Philip may be sitting at your dinner table.

The next Philip may be that annoying teenager that's running from the call of God on his life right now.

We raise up Philips.

All of us have a responsibility to make sure that the gospel gets to Samaria.

We go, we pray, we give, or we raise.

Will you stand with me?

I want to pray for us.

Do you receive this word today?

I want to do this.

I want to end by just taking a moment.

I want us for just a minute or so to turn this into a prayer service.

So I want you just to close your eyes.

I got three things this morning that I want us to take a moment and just pray through.

I want you for just a second, I want you to identify in your heart right now what is your Judea in Samaria?

What's the line maybe you've you were taught not to cross?

What's the line?

What's the area?

What's the region?

What is it that when I said Samaria, that was the place that immediately came to your mind?

I want you just to hold that right there.

I want you to hold it in your mind, and I'm gonna pray that God would give us a new compassion for our Samarias right there.

Come on, will you just, I want you just to extend your hands towards heaven, just right where you are, and I'm gonna pray for us today.

We're gonna pray for a compassion for Samaria, that God would give us the courage to cross the line, and we're gonna ask that God would give us leaders to carry the gospel.

Father, I pray right now over your people today.

I pray over their Judea and their Samaria.

I pray that you would give them a supernatural burden, God, for whatever that area is right now in Jesus' name.

God, the area that maybe they've been taught not to cross, maybe it was an area uh that they've had a burden for.

Father, I pray right now, God, that you would supernaturally, God, give them compassion for not just Jerusalem, not just their street, but for Judea and Samaria, for our city, for the surrounding city, for the zip code, for the greater Birmingham area, for the Southeast and for our nation, God.

I pray a compassion over your people.

I pray, secondly, God, I pray the courage to cross every line that needs to be crossed.

Father, I pray right now over your people that we would be a people that cross over financial lines and racial lines and comfort lines to reach every person that needs to be reached, God.

Give us the courage.

And Father, I pray lastly, I pray right now, give us the leaders to carry the gospel.

Come on, can we take just a moment?

Give us the leaders, Father, to raise up in our nation, to reach our cities, to reach the state of Alabama, to reach the Southeast, and to reach the United States of America.

I pray right now, leaders, God, that may never step into vocational ministry, but will go to different cities and reach people that will never reach God.

Oh, Father, I pray raise up Phillips that won't just stay in Jerusalem, but will go to Judea and Samaria.

Father, I thank you this morning.

God, that you're expanding our horizon and you're expanding our comfort zones, God, to minister and reach people.

God, that we've never seen before.

God, let us go to Samaria in Jesus' mighty name.

Amen.