Grit & Grace: Week 1

Happy Mother's Day. So glad to see the mother's here

today and we just want to welcome you and today

we are just again celebrating our moms. Hope you have

a good uh you know afternoon, that it's wonderful, that

it's blessed. Also, we have a free gift for you

out there. And uh, now for those of you who

are wondering what was in the basket, I do know

that there was one hundred dollars massage gift certificate in there,

so just to ruin all those who lost, just to

ruin your day, to let you know what you lost.

And uh and also that way you're not fiddling through

the basket while I'm preaching. Okay, as so, so congratulations.

We are starting our new series this week, Great and Grace,

And basically it's a series uh that kind of reminds

us of like what type of people are we're going

to become? Who are we going to become? Who is

God calling us to be? And so over the next

three weeks we'll be talking about that. It's kind of

one of the reasons why I'm wearing, you know, a

jersey today is kind of like I'm the coach Andrew

and Michael be wearing jerseys next couple weeks, kind of like, hey,

we're the coaches saying, all right, team, here's where we're going.

And so we're again so excited to just again talk

about our vision, talk about who God is calling us

to be and what God wants to accomplish through us.

Can you just take a moment and pray with me.

Let's pray. God. We just give you pray today, and

we thank you for the opportunity to worship you, to

celebrate mothers, to seek your face today. And God, I

just pray that you will help us to conform to

the image of your son and become the people that

you have called us to be in Jesus' name. Amen.

You know, I've learned something over the years that I

don't necessarily necessarily love, but I do know it's very true.

And that's just simply this, Anything that really matters, anything

that's actually worth something, usually takes a lot longer and

a lot more grit than I thought it would. You know,

years ago, just a few years back, I decided that

I was gonna actually go out and do this manly

man camp thing. And so I went out and I

set up a big camp in the woods, big tent,

all those things, and for the most part it was

just me and my dog. And I decided that I

was not going to go home until I had at

least a ten point buck. Okay, now here's what that meant.

That meant that I needed the buck to comply, and

they weren't willing. And so cold mornings, rainy afternoons, miserable weather,

and I went out on twenty three hunts. Now you

might not think that's a big deal, but have you

ever sit and stared at a field for five hours

and not move? Here's here's how you hunt, just in

case you never went hunting before. Here's what you do.

You have a gun in your hand or a weapon,

and you do this for five hours. You start that

over again. That's that's what you do. And the mental

exhaustion that that takes is insane because you can't move,

you can't speak, can't make a sound. And I did this,

and I got to the point where I was getting

very frustrated. But I had committed in my soul that

I was not coming home without this deer. And so

the last day that I could hunt, because we were

going back to Ohio for Thanksgiving. I finally my wife

was like, you do have to go to your family's holiday.

And so I went out to the store to get

my last supplies and there's this old man and he

just walked up to me and he said, the rut

is over. We're not gonna get a deer. And that's

all he said to me. And I was like, he

is one hundred percent correct, and I and for a second,

I felt like, you know what, I just need to

listen to this old man. He's old for a reason.

He knows what how to live life and do life.

And so I just sit there and I was just

very discouraged. But I decided, you know what, I've committed.

I'm gonna go out one more time. And sure enough,

at the last ten minutes of light on that last evening,

this ten pound buck comes running literally several fields, over

stands in front of me, says, hey, where you've been?

And so, you know, God blessed. But that took so

much time and so much effort, and it costs so

much money, and it was full of you know, but

it took grit. And let me tell you something, anything

worthwhile takes grit and I've learned the same things with

my education. You know, it took me eleven years to

get a four year Master of Divinity, and most people

like again it takes them four years. It took me

eleven years. But that meant that every day off, most

evenings that were free I was reading or writing or studying,

are in class. And there are so many times. You

can ask my wife that I just wanted to quit

and give up, but I decided, you know, you got

to push you like, because anything that's worth something costs something.

I understand that. And right now I'm in the same

boat with my doctorate. You know, my evenings, my days off,

I'm reading and I'm writing. Michael Diickpen called me two

Thursday nights ago after I preached, and it was probably

about and goes, hey, how you doing. What are you doing?

I'm like sitting here working on a paper because that's

my life right now. But I do know this, and

he's saying, that's worth something, call something and it takes grit.

But those who see it through, those of us who

see it through, and you get to experience the breakthrough.

It is a sweet, sweet thing. Now here's what I

want you to see that it's not only true in

hunting and not it's only true in school, but it's

been true for us as a church. Okay, I'm halfway

through my ninth year's pastor here and it's been a

wonderful but let's be honest, a bit crazy. Eight and

a half years. The world has changed, the church has changed,

ministry has changed. But here's what has not changed. God

is still at work and I can honestly tell you

today I'm more excited about our future than I have

ever ever been. And I want you to hear this clearly.

I am so proud to be your pastor. This is

the greatest honor of my life. I love you. I

hope you know that I dearly love you. And I

feel like I get to serve on the best staff.

I get to serve the best people in Indianapolis. And

there's so many times, just even over this weekend, I

kept saying God, I'm just so blessed, Thank you God.

Now here's why I'm saying all this, Because what we're

seeing right now and what we've been seeing in our

church in this last couple of seasons, people being saved,

lives being changed, community being served, that doesn't just happen.

It takes grit, It takes the faithfulness of people. It

took people showing up when it was hard. It took

people showing up when it looked like it wasn't working. Now,

let me show you what I mean. Over the last

few years, we stepped out of faith again and again,

let's just talk about the last few years. Several years

ago we started a Thursday night service, and let me

tell you something. Thursday Nights, there was a lot of

weeks for several years where we had twenty thirty forty

people from the church showing up. Just this past Thursday,

we had ninety six adults. And it's not uncommon for

us now to see we hang right in every between

eighty to one hundred adults on Thursday night, and we're

seeing God at work and it seems to be an

entry point for people into our church. Took many years though,

a lot of weeks where it was like, I don't

know if this service is going to make it. And

we walked through the Arabic merger that took over two years,

and now we have one hundred and fifty to two

hundred of let me tell you some the greatest people

you ever meet in your life. The Arabic people, let

me tell you, they are amazing and we all we

see them every week on our stage. Amen. Amen, they're awesome.

And if you get a chance, especially to meet some

of their college age, they're just such bright, young, amazing kids.

Our Spanish ministry, you know, the week before last we

baptized six. It here last week Spanish baptized seven. And

at the end of the service, yeah, amen, Amen, that's

something you should clap about. And then at the end

of the service, Jose say, come up here and touch

the water if you want to be baptized. And so

now they have twelve more scheduled for the end of

the month. Isn't that awesome. We open up a neighborhood

market and you know, they take something that's a lot

of hard work over. I mean, thousands of people have

been fed through that neighborhood market, and not only thousands

have been fed, but hundreds of people have been prayed for.

And we've launched free legal clinics, citizenship class. We've seen

people's future change because of these things. We built and

launched the four to six Ministry, which by the way,

is four through sixth graders. It is the most insane

ministry that we have in our whole church. If you

want to see pure insanity, just take your life into

your own hands and go over to the staff building.

Our staff building now turns into a youth center, and

I know that here in the next couple of months

they're going to receive thirty more fourth graders into that ministry.

We've invested in our young adults and now we're seeing

God do an amazing work among our young adult ministry.

We've remodeled spaces. Think about the gathering place, think about

our old choir room which is now the neighborhood market.

Celebrate Recovery continues to change lives. Last week, this past Tuesday,

they had sixty two people at Celebrate Recovery and that awesome.

It's the most they've had. So they called it see

Our Demayah instead of Sinko Tomaya, But really what it

was it was a safe haven for those who didn't

want to be out and about on Cinco de Maya.

I mean, that's some amazing, amazing ministries, and we recently

we've expanded our ministry to those who were on the

spectrum and we're getting to serve and honor those families.

And in this past year alone, we've welcomed over when

you look at our children, our youth, Arabic, Spanish, our

English ministries, we've welcomed over one hundred new people in

our church. And this is about the fourth year in

a row that we've seen one hundred people join our church.

And almost every single week someone comes up and says,

I've decided for this to be my church home. Now,

don't miss this. None of this came easy. There was

moments where we didn't know if things would work. There

was moments where it would just be easier if we

stay comfortable. But the church didn't quit. People didn't quit

showing up, stepping out, trusting God. And now we see

the fruit and all those steps to grit. A few

years ago I introduced the concept of us be coming

people of grit, and I'll be honest, I've said this before.

Where that came out of was being a pastor and

looking over really the church of the whole United States

during a pandemic, and this was our moment. This was

the church in the United States. This was our moment,

and we just blew it. And I've never seen so

many churches fight amongst themselves, so many churches split, so

many churches close, so many Christians, and it just became

this war that we allowed politics to become involved in it,

and the church lost its focus. And I remember during

that time just talking to our leadership team and saying,

you know what, all right, it would be so dumb

for us to open this church back up and then

just do the same thing we've done the last however

many years, because I don't know if we made the

right disciples. I don't know if the church world made

the right disciples. And I do know one thing that

needs a change. We need to become a people of

grit A people who are not flaky, of people who

are willing to get their hands dirty. A people who

were not so much interested in how the building looks,

or how the design of the building, or how cool

the worship is, but they're more concerned about what are

we doing for those in our neighborhood. And let me

tell you something. This church is stepped up and you

guys have allowed the Holy Spirit to lead and shape

your life and we are seeing that through. And so

my challenge today is simply this, for those of you

who haven't committed to being a person of grit. You know,

I'm challenging you today to say, all right, Lord of

mull In. For those of you who have been going

you know the Bible talks about do not grow weary

and doing good. I'm asking you to recommit yourself to

being a person of grit for God's kingdom. And I

mentioned a lot of physical ministries that we launched, but

let me tell you something. There was even some decisions

that we made that involve a new ministry that required

a lot of courage and grint. You know, I still

remember the moment where our elders in an elder meeting

talked about we can no longer be silent on a

certain issue. We must bring clarity to our people. It

might cost us some people, costs us some money, might

cost a lot of pain, but we got to do

what's right. And so, in the midst of this world

that is divided by sexual ethics, Churches of Crossing produced

and published a deeply biblical and traditional Orthodox theology that

cleared up any questions of confusion about what the Bible

teaches about sexual ethics and sexual purity. Why because we

don't want the world to teach our kids about sex.

We want to teach our kids about God's design for

sex according to biblical counsel, and we want to trust

in and follow the infallible word of God. And that's

what we're going to teach our kids about purity. And

as a result, many churches in our denomination just grabbed

our document, cut and pace use it for theirs. Even

our state ministry, Church of God, Indiana State, they copied

a lot of and it ended up becoming the foundation

for what the pastors in our state had to sign

so they could keep their ordination. I mean, God, this

was a big step. And I remember thinking, you know,

you know, telling the elders, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if we want to publish this, because

you know, we've just been through so much with this pandemic.

I don't know if we want to do this. And

the elders, the elders of our church, said, you know what,

let's not fear those things. If we say this is

who we are, then let's not shy away. Let's just

be honest about what we believe. And so we published it,

and let me tell you something. I was so worried

about the consequences of Here's what I saw over the

next couple of years. So many new families come to

our church, and I would ask a lot of them,

what made you come to this church? And he said, well,

we were searching all the websites and we could not

find a church that was clear about what they believed.

You guys, were clear about what you believed about sexual ethics.

So we came. We tried when we joined the church. Now,

that was something that in that time, in that moment

when the world was blowing up like right today, that

probably wouldn't feel like a big deal throwing it out,

But in that moment, that was a big deal. That

was like tossing a grenade out into Indianapolis. But a

lot of the things that God has calling us to do,

it takes grit. Our working definition of grit around here

simply this grit is doing what it takes to get

what matters done. Is doing what it takes to get

what matters done. And we've seen a lot of grit

throughout the Bible. Think about Joseph, he Ian dear prison

so he could fulfill his calling. Moses stood before the

most powerful man on this earth, and he said, let

my people go. And all he had was a staff

with him, just a simple piece of wood. And he

was bold enough and grit enough to stand before the

most powerful man on the earth. Think about David. He

stood up to this giant and just clabbered him, knocked

him out. It is shocked all of those in the

valet of Elah. Here is a young boy with grit.

Think about our Jesus. Jesus knew from the day that

he started his mission that he was gonna endure pain, suffering,

that his body was gonna be torn apart. Yet he

still preached, he still loved, he still did ministry, he

still defied those who were in charge, and he made

his way all the way to Jerusalem, knowing that when

he got to Jerusalem it was gonna be nothing but

misery for him. Jesus was a man of grit. Think

about Paul. Paul, Oh my gosh, what he endured over

and over and over again. You know, when we think

about grit, it would do us, do us good today

to go back to the original man of grit. And

today I want to talk about the first person in

the Bible that we could point to and we could

say now that that's a person of grit. This person

I'm talking about lived when the whole world was corrupt,

being godly nonexistent. The task given to him insurmountable, and

the faith that it took for him to do this

God given task is almost unmatched in the whole Bible.

His faithfulness to those around him seemed like mental illness. Okay,

his task caused him to be an outcast. Yeah, he

believed that God was calling him, and so he was

faithful to his calling. I'm talking about Noah here, and

let's just take a few moments to look at the

original man of grit. All right, here we go. It

says the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the

human race had become on us. If let me tell

you something. He saw that the earth was murderous, violent, lustful, evil,

corruption was the norm, Hatred was commonplace, war was on

everybody's menu. He said, the wickedness of the human race

had become on earth in that every inclination of the

thoughts of the human heart was only what check this out,

was only evil all the time, Evil all the time. Okay,

So the Lord regretted Andrew talking about this a few

weeks ago. What did it mean that word regret? It

It means that he was deeply heartbroken that he had

made human beings on the earth, and his heart was

deeply troubled. So the Lord said, I'm gonna wipe out

from the face of this earth the human race that

I've created, and within the animals, the birds, and the

creatures that move along the ground, for I regret that

I've made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes

of the Lord. See God looked out on his surf,

and he realized this is a behavior problem that new

commandments or new rules are not gonna fix. A new king,

a new leader, it's not gonna fix it. I gotta

start all over. And the evil was so mess it

seemed into the very heart of every human on this earth.

So the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the

human race had become on earth, and every inclination and

the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all

the time. Let's look at this phrase, inclination of the thoughts.

It's literally translated the forming of their thoughts, the molding

of their thoughts, And so it gives us image of

a person who's in the hands of a potter, and

the potter is forming the clay. And so God looks

out on this earth during his time, and it looks

like everybody who was born is being molded and shaped

to have a mind of wickedness, a mind of debauchery.

They're molded into evil, molded into hate, molded into lust,

molded into violence and murder. And so the people knew

it was written on their hearts. Do not lie. But

then they would say, well, sometimes it's necessary. It was

written in their hearts, do not murder. And they're right, well,

sometimes murder is necessary. It was written on their hearts.

They're supposed to be with one person for the rest

of their life. They said, well, who wants to just

be with one person when there's other people I'm attracted to.

It was written on their heart to love one another.

They're like, why do that when it's so satisfying to hate?

And so on and so on and so on. And

by the way, our culture today is not much different.

Think about the phrases we have today. Live your truth,

in other words, make up your own morality, do what

feels right to you, follow your emotions, do what makes

you happy, or it's all about love, right, Love is

all that matters. We have the same rebellious spirit today

not to follow the ways of God. By the way

their early church and apostles reign into this. Just four years,

four years after Jesus resurrected, we see this guy Caligula

and he starts to reign as emperor over Rome. This

guy was sadistic, He was a pervert, He was messed up,

and this guy created a culture that was sex crazed

and immoral. Following in his line was a guy later

down the road, Nero, who was so messed up in

his head that he thought it would be fun to

make sport of humans, threw them into the gladiatorial games,

light them on fire. I mean, these guys were twisted,

they were messed up. And so this is the culture

that the church thrived in. Think about it. It started

in a room. It was just a few who gathered

together to hang out in fellowship and focus on God's word.

And yet they spread out in the midst of this sadistic,

messed up world, and God bless them. Why let me

tell you something about the early Church. They were people

of grit, They didn't care. They did what it took

to do what matters. And so you know, even today

we say that man, those guys were messed up. But

let me tell you, I'm neither today nor the early

Church came close to the evil of Noah's day. It says.

So the Lord said, I will wipe from the face

of earth to human race I've created. Yet faithfully he

found one that was faithful to him despite what was

going on in the rest of the world, it says,

but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

And so here's what God did. God said a timer, okay,

to give Noah time to raise his family, to have children,

to build a huge arc, to gather the animals. That says,

then the Lord said, my spirit will not contend with

humans forever, for their mortal their days will be one

hundred and twenty years Now. A lot of people see

that passage as we're gonna live to be one hundred

and twenty years old. The way I read that passage

is God was gonna give people on this earth one

hundred and twenty years to repent. Why because we serve

a holy God, but a graceful God. He didn't want

to destroy for one hundred and twenty years. As Noah

built this ark, God was hoping that people would repent,

that people would turn, that people would draw near to God.

But what do we see, Oh, they never turned to God.

But in the midst of all this evil, we see

God's grace. It says in chapter six, verse thirteen. Then

God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has

come before me, for the earth is filled with violence

because of them. And behold, I'm about to destroy them

with the earth. He said, make for yourself an ark

of gopher wood. And he said, you shall make you

know the ark with rooms. This Noah did according to

all God that commanded him. So he did. And God

tells Noah, I old this incredible montrosity of an arc,

and he does it. And let me tell you something.

Because of Noah's faithfulness, because I Noa's great, you're here today.

We're all here today because one man was faithful to

God and did what it took to get things done.

It was grueling work, it was backbreaking work. You know,

each winter our household goes through at least a two

truckloads of wood. And I love the cutwood. I love fires.

And almost every night during the winter Gena and I

in our evening with a fire and a fireplace. That's

just kind of like that's where we reset every evening.

And I'm again, you know, but I cheat sometimes I

use a wood splitter when no one's around, and I

come inside look at my wife, like wow. You know.

I was in Wisconsin a few years ago for a

hunting trip and we were driving out in the Boonies

and I look over and there's this mina nite guy.

He's wearing a jacket, a suit jacket and a hat

and this tree. I mean, you could not even put

even four or five people stood here. We could not

get our arms around it together. This tree was gargantiuman

and he was out there in the middle of the

day with an axe. And we drove by quickly and

going was that guy cutting that huge tree with an axe.

So what we did was we went around this country

mile I said, I gotta see this again. And then

we drove back by and I'm like, this dude is

cutting that tree with an axe. He's cutting it with

And I said to my buddies, like, there's one true

man left on this earth. And we found him a

few hours later. We came back by, and he was

still cutting that tree. And let me tell you something

that blows my mind. But Noah would have given anything

or a high carbon steel axe. He had this early

form of iron acts. And let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something. The amount of hours that

it took him to cut one tree would blow your mind.

And so Novah he labored any sweating and suffered for decades.

Why all because of a calling from Gossie. He again,

he was the original man of guilt or of grit.

And let me tell you, here's what I'm asking us

to do today, in light of the calling for our church,

in light of looking at Noah and all the biblical

examples of all these people of grit, here's what I'm

asking for us to do today. We're gonna look at

the characteristics of Noah, and I'm gonna ask you at

the end of this message to look at those characteristics

and have a conversation with God about which one you

need to grow in. So that's what we're gonna do

for the rest of time, just a few moments. We're

gonna look at the characteristics of the original man of grit.

Let's look at number one. He fulfilled. He fulfilled his

call through grunt work. He he he worked like like

no one had ever worked before. He was a beast. Tough,

grueling work and by the way Kingdom works sometimes can

be grueling. I can't help but think about Thursday nights.

Every Thursday night for the last eight years, there's a

group of people who at around five five point thirty

have to transform a cafe into a sanctuary. That takes

quite a well, you know, it takes a bit of time.

It's all physical work, lifting up chairs, moving tables. After

service send his services over, they don't get to hang

out and chat and and and you know, just chill

out with our friends. They then gotta take him, put

everything back up and set the room back up for

a cafe. It eight years. That group has never came

to me and complained. Why Because they know what they're doing,

They know what they're mis I think about another group

are people who run our neighborhood market. Now here's what

you need to understand about our neighborhood market. Because we

feed so many people that about every two weeks we

gotta go out and get a lot of food. We

got we got a red shirt all and then we

gotta go and put it all back out now about

every two weeks. That's a lot of work. And that

work is done when no one's really around. It's done

not in front of a crowd, not in front of

a group. But basically, think about a mini mart. They

have to restock a whole mini mart every two weeks

just to serve and love on our community. And here's

the reality. They do it about glory. They just get

in there and get physical and see. Sometimes kingdom work

is tough on our bodies. Number two, Noah labored for

the good of others. He suffered for his family, but

he also suffered for us. We're here today because of him.

He suffered for future generations who wouldn't even know him.

And that's why I calling us to work hard for

our children in our youth ministry is to pour into them.

We invest, we serve, we labor, because they're the future

of God's kingdom. Jordan was telling me that right now

we have more little kids in preschool than we've ever had,

and this church is getting a lot younger, and we're

throwing out a lot of babies. And let me tell

you something. The most hero thing that someone can do

on a weekend here at church is to change the

diaper as some chubby baby that's not your own child

or your own grandchild, so that a young family could

come and hear in worship. That's kingdom love. Let me

tell you about our former head elder, doctor Terry Horner.

He's if you don't know him, he is a renowned neurosurgeon.

For decades, he was on the sidelines for Indiana University football.

For the Indianapolis Colts, he was their head injury guy.

So he actually got to touch Peyton Manon's head and

I don't know how many concussions it takes for his

head to get shaped that way. But you know, here's

this guy. He's hung out with celebrities and you know,

on the sideline, and he's lived a life that a

lot of us can't imagine. And he was our head

elder during the pandemic, very challenging time. And when that

time ended, he was trying to figure out why his

next ministry. But you know, he's not too many years

away from eighty. I don't know his zact age. I

think it's rude at a certain point to ask. But

as he was looking for his next role in ministry.

He took the toughest job in our church. He's a

nursery worker. And here's this neurosurgeon every single week changing diapers.

Why so the young families can worship in peace? You know,

Terry's one. We have a lot of Noah's in this church,

but he's one of the Noah's in this church. And

we need a lot more nous to rise up. Let's

look continue to talk about Noah. Noah was also jeered,

not cheered by society. And let's be honest, most people

thought he was crazy building a huge ship nowhere near

water that had never seen a flood before. And sometimes

your friends are gonna think you're crazy for, you know,

spending your time here, your resources, spending all this energy,

you know, not going out with your friends and partying

like you used to. And let me tell you, a

personal grit follows the Lord, even if no one around

them follows. Noah. We also see wasn't a complainer. He

just got it done. He didn't want it done for him.

He didn't expect the wood to cut itself. But he

was a man who saw himself as a laborer of

the Lord. Now complaining in this church. Here's where it's

okay if we drop your kid on their head, like

there's appropriate times to complain, like we shouldn't do that. Okay,

that's our bad, but just to complain over your preferences.

The person that grit doesn't do that, that's a sign

of immaturity. Is selfishness. And when a toddler in our

nursery grabs a hold of a toy and says, mine,

I want this, we kind of expect it. But when

an adult says I want this, it doesn't feel like

a person a grit. And we're calling us, we're calling

all of us to be people of grit. Next, we

see he was a man of obedience, not only because

he built the arms, but he followed the Lord's plans

and obeyed him. Next, he lived by faith and not

by sight. And that's what people of grit do. They

work and they labor and deliver even when they don't

see things happening, trusting that the Lord will be faithful

in the future. Also, he did what it took to

get it done, and there was times where he had

to be so creative. Think about this. He had to

build a zoo before there were zoos and here's the

thing that bothers me about Noah'm gonna tell you something

right now, here's what bothers me about Noah. Noah thousands

of years ago figured out how to get all the

animals that come to him, and he didn't write any

of this down. So every generation dumb hunters go out

there and stumble in the dark, and we don't know

what to do when some do thousands of years ago

figured out how to get every animal to him. But whatever,

he was creative, he took what he did what it

took to get things done. Okay, Now, why am I

calling us to be a people of great the people

who look at people like know and say, all right,

we need to become like Noah. Well, it's because our

goal here is to become a better church, not a

bigger church. And I'm not talking about comparing ourselves to

other churches. No, no, no no, I'm talking about us every

year becoming a better church. And how do we judge

ourselves by what standards? You know? Instead of looking at

attendant sheets, here's what we do. We look at Matthew

twenty five. That's if you want to know what our

attendants is. We compare ourselves to this, not to a number.

Let's look at this together, says When the Son of

Man comes in his glory, just talking about the end

of time and all the angels with him, he will

see on his glorious throne, all the nations will be

gathered before him, and he will separate the people one

from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from goats.

And he's gonna put the sheep on his right, then

the goat's on his left. And here's what happens. Then

the king will say to those on his right, Come you,

who are blessed by my father. Take your inheritance the

kingdom prepared for you since the creation of this world.

For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.

I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in. I

needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and

you looked after me. And I was in prison and

you came to visit me. And they're gonna say, when

we when did we do all that? Verse forty. The

King will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did,

one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine.

You did for me. Here's what I want you to understand.

Everything you do in the kingdom, you're not only serving others,

but you're serving Jesus and blessing Jesus as well. When

you love on a kid, you're you're loving on Jesus.

When you when you when you pick clean up a mess,

you clean up a mess in Jesus's name. And let

me again, I want to break this passage down because

it has a simple but very powerful, blunt message. When

it's all said and done, what is gonna matter is

not what was said, but what was done with what

we said? In other words, did we preach the gospel

and then live it out? So how does this apply

for the Church of the Crossing. Well, we asked the question,

what is Matthew twenty five? To us? What is our

Matthew twenty five? Well, first of all, we begin with

the family, okay, And so we're committed to have the

best children's ministry and youth ministry around that that we

can possibly have. Okay, We're gonna invest our resources, our staff,

our dollars, and to our children in our youth because

they're the future. Next week, we will be announcing our

new children's pastor, and Jordan has been going through this

transition for a year and Jordan's gonna continue to stay

through the summer. But we're excited next week to be

sharing who our next children's pastor is. Our youth ministry,

we want to be a place that's safe where they

could build relationships at the same time not compromise the

word of God. We want our groups here at our

church to run deep, be deep, deeply connected with each other.

We want to worship with passion in here. We don't

want to just check in. We want to seek the Lord.

We want to pray over every situation, and we want

to preach the truth with grace and without compromise. See again,

our goal is to be a better church, not a

bigger church. So we have this desire to look around

our community and say, all right, what does it look

like for us to fulfill Matthew twenty five. Well, we

started some things, like I said, a neighborhood mark, get

autis the ministry, free legal help, citizenship class, celebrate recovery.

We're continuing Passport to employment soon, immigration connection. Well, those

things have taken time, just like Noah It took decades,

but our job's not over yet. I still see things

I still think about our future here at the church

and in our community. I still see a day where

when it comes around fall, if anybody needs a coat

or gloves, they know they can come here. We're gonna

take care of them. One of the biggest needs in

our areas a laundry room. I believe we can do

that someday. A couple months ago, I went to Chicago

just to check out a church that had a free

medical clinic. Let me tell you something, we could do this.

We have the resources, and we have the talent. We

can pull this off. And let me tell you with

health care and the all schooling crazy, this could be

a huge ministry. I still want to see us having

counseling offer for free to anybody in our community needs it.

You know, I've thrown this out a few times. I

would love for us to change oil about three times

a year for single moms. I will love when Thanksgiving

comes around for us to feed one hundred families. And

then when I look around and I realize, here's the stats.

They say if a child is going to come to Christ,

ninety seven percent of them come to Christ before they're eighteen.

So in other words, if someone really doesn't come to

Christ before they're eighteen, there's a very little chance that

they will come to Christ. And then I look at

our area around here, and I think we got to

do something about our children because their parents are not

going to teach them about Christ. And so I think

that we could easily have one bus or two buses

of maybe fifteen passengers, and we could just start a

ministry where we go around and we start ministering and

sharing the love of Jesus Christ and bringing these children

from unchurched families into our ministry. Like I said, we

probably can't do a hundred, but I think we can

start with fifteen because let me tell you something, if

we don't tell them about Jesus, they're not going to

know about Jesus. And by the way, everything I've mentioned here,

it takes a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice,

but one step at a time, see again, because our

goal is to be a better church, not a bigger church.

So in order to do this, we just have to

decide to throw a punch, throw a haymaker, and say,

you know what, I'm not gonna back down. We're gonna

be people of grit. We're gonna continue in the mission,

and we're gonna own this community and say, if there's

a need, if there is if there's a pain in

this community, and if we have the talent and the

resources to meet it, we're going to do it. But

let me tell you something. It takes an all play.

This is something that if we only have twenty percent

of the people in our church doing it will crumble.

And it's not self sustaining. This is an all play.

So here's what we're gonna do, is we cast vision today.

Here's what I'm gonna do. Could you throw back up

the characteristics of Noah? And what we're gonna do is

we're just gonna take a couple of minutes to pray.

And I want you to look at these characteristics of

Noah and I want you to ask, all right, God,

what are some of those that I need to grow in?

And I want you to commit and say, all right, Lord,

help me grow this here and take time allow the

Holy Spirit to speak to you. Maybe maybe you've been

on the sidelines and it's time to go get your

hands dirty. I'm just gonna allow the Holy spirit to

speak to you. So let's just take some time to pray.

Let's talk to the Lord. Now, let's pray