Fiercers Take It By Force | Connect Class 5

Hey, what up?

It's Mark Carter.

I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.

Welcome to our podcast.

I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.

I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.

Enjoy the message.

We're going to talk about going all in today, and we're going all in on Jesus, all in on the church and all in on those to come.

When you go all in, it means you just jump.

Dude, I don't know if you've ever done any cliff diving.

There's a couple things you need to do when you're going to dive off a cliff.

First, you need to make sure it's deep enough down there.

You also need to be sure that you can jump out over the ledge far enough that you won't hit some stuff on the way down.

Once you've checked that, though, if you just keep looking down and you never decide I'm gonna go, it gets harder to go after a while, because you're like doggone, this is high, oh my gosh.

Well, what if something did happen?

Once you know it's good to go, you should just go.

And once you know it's good to go with Jesus.

You should just go.

Once you know it's good to go with fears, you should just go.

Once you know it's good to go with those to come.

It's good to just go.

So let's start with this big idea of this is all about Jesus.

You've seen this on the doors, you've seen it on the website, but it's really important for us to review this.

Some have been coming.

I've talked to some of you over this connect class series and you're like getting into it, man.

You're like I like this stuff.

I like you know talking about Jesus more.

I'm even talking to people in my life about it and, carter, I don't even know necessarily what to do.

Like, do I just?

I just keep doing the religion thing.

Do I just keep going in this direction?

Yes and no, you keep going in this direction, but it's more than religion.

You've got to close the relational deal for real, go all in with Jesus.

And there's a religious guy that was having a hard time understanding this.

You can be super religious and miss Jesus, and so for us to go all in with Jesus, we just need to understand what we mean.

A religious guy named Nicodemus approaches Jesus and he says he says Jesus, I don't understand what your deal is, man.

I know you're from God.

And Jesus interrupts him.

He says I tell you the truth Unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

What do you mean, exclaimed Nicodemus.

How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?

Jesus replied I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit.

Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives spiritual life.

Listen to that.

Humans can reproduce only human life.

Stuff humans do, religious stuff that humans do, can produce religious stuff, but it can't produce life from above.

He says born again.

When he says that, you've heard that word before, what it really means.

It literally means born from above.

It means God is doing something that causes us to experience a rebirth of sorts on planet earth, and it's really important.

He says you cannot see the kingdom of God Coming to Jesus.

Yo, it's an eye-opener.

You cannot see.

I don't know if you saw the movie Free Guy, but Ryan Reynolds he's in this video game, okay, he's walking around and at some point he finds these glasses that he's not supposed to have and he puts them on and he sees all the other stuff digitally that is going on in his world.

That's a little bit what it's like when we're born from above.

Suddenly, jesus puts some Holy Spirit goggles on us and we're seeing the goodness of God and his hand in our life and all the ways that he's active around us.

We cannot see the kingdom of God, though, unless we ask Jesus to make us born from above.

When that happens, we get a reset.

That's what it talks about.

It says you got to be born of the water and of the spirit.

That's not just baptism.

Baptism is actually referencing what he's referencing, which is a throwback to things like Isaiah chapter 32 and 44 and Ezekiel 36, where God is promising when I pour out my spirit, I'm going to make people that are not fruitful suddenly fruitful.

Isaiah 32 · chapter mention

I'm going to make generations that were not blessed suddenly blessed.

I'm going to take idols and false gods out of people's hearts and put myself there.

That's what it means to be born of water and of the spirit, and when we do my friends, there's no going back.

Jesus says no matter what, I will never leave you, no matter how much you mess up, no matter what you get wrong, no matter how you change as you get older.

Jesus says I'm not going to change.

I'm never going to leave or forsake you.

I'm going to walk with you.

You're going to grow in your knowledge of my kindness and of my will.

And the way to do it is super simple.

He says it right in Jude.

You've heard this John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God loved the world.

This is the difference between Jesus and religion.

Religion is all about me trying to get to God.

Jesus is all about God getting to me.

God so loved the world that he sent.

That's what happened.

We didn't like oh God, would you please come to us?

No, we weren't even paying attention.

And God says I'm in love with these people.

I'm sending my son.

It's God's intentional kindness and mercy toward you and me.

That's where it starts.

And all we do, yo, is we believe.

And he says we have eternal life.

And that believe we've talked about this before that believe is not mental assent, it's trust.

It means I regard it as though it's going to happen.

If I tell you right now hey, I'm gonna get you a burger, I'm going to McDonald's.

I'm picking up some burgers.

I'm bringing you one in half an hour.

If you trust me, you regard that as real.

You're planning on it now.

Like half an hour from now I'm going to eat my burger.

Well, when Jesus says I'm going to forgive you and I'm going to walk with you and mentor you in the things of the Bible and how to walk with me and hear my voice and fulfill my will, and like I'm really going to do it, that's what it means to trust.

Like a child, we put our hand in his hand and say, lord, I trust you.

And guys, it's a little bit, it's more like.

In some ways, it's more like giving up than straining to reach.

It's more like giving up than straining to reach.

So some of you have seen this painting.

This is Thomas Blackshear.

It's the painting called Forgiven.

Now I've got two versions here.

Okay, there's a white guy and a black guy, because I just didn't want to be racist.

Okay, so there's multiple guys.

I wish there was Hispanic guys and other guys, but it's all tribes, tongues and nations, it's every gender, it's everybody.

They're falling back into the arms of Jesus.

But you'll notice there's a mallet in his hand, there's a nail in his hand.

He's the one who's murdered Jesus, and yet he's weary from life.

He needs rest for his soul and Jesus grabs him.

That's what it is.

It's a oh my gosh.

I give up and I fall back.

I give up into Jesus's arms.

I said, lord, I cannot save myself and I'm such a fool I would kill the son of God.

Would you just forgive me?

And he says, yes, that's what I'll do If you'll trust me.

I came to get you if you'll trust me.

So here's what I want to do before we get any further.

We're going to do our questions in just a second, but for some of us, we never understood it like that and we need to understand it like that now.

So I want us to just bow our heads right at our tables right now, and I'm going to pray for the next 27 seconds.

And what I want to invite you to do is pray with me.

If you're asking Jesus, would you do that for me?

Would you make me born from above?

So I have the Holy Spirit goggles on for the rest of my life and I'm trusting you.

You're really going to bring me into heaven.

Let's bow our heads right now.

You just pray with me and if you want for your mercy to come, get us that.

It's not about what we do.

It's not about religion.

It's about relationship.

Thank you that you sent Jesus Christ.

He died on the cross for our sake and was raised from the dead.

Thank you that we can trust you Like little children.

You're going to fulfill every one of your words.

You're going to walk us all the way home into your presence.

We fall now backwards into your embrace.

We say, lord, I'm sorry for the ways I've opposed you, but I'm so thankful that your love is unshakable that I cannot get away from it.

Thank you, lord, for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hey guys, for real, if you prayed that prayer for the first time today, you don't have to tell me now, but if you could tell me at some point, amen by force, fiercers, take it by force.

We're going all in on the church, specifically this church where you're at.

Before we get into this point, let me just point this out this is a little commitment card, and the fear with this point is the fear of commitment.

We're going to turn these in at the end of this point.

You can fill those out.

I'll get to that in a couple seconds, we're going to go through these little four guys, but there's also a little sticker that I put on because I'm all in.

I'm all in on this church.

I think I'm going to go here for a while, and I want to invite you to go ahead and do that too.

This church is named after the verse Matthew 11, 12.

You don't have it in your notes, but it says for from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

Jesus loves us fiercely and we fiercely pursue him as a people.

That's what it means to be fierce.

That means we're not going to do it on accident.

We're going to do it on purpose.

What you might be afraid of because of the time, though, is the fear of commitment.

When we commit to a church.

I just want to tell you what you should be looking for.

Okay, it's okay to be looking around.

We got to look around until we find the right one.

One of the ways you can tell is if you begin to hear the voice of the shepherd through the teaching pastor, if you begin to hear the voice of the pastor through those who are teaching at that church.

I would say that's a good chance that God is telling you.

I want to speak to you through this community.

This is where I'm asking you to land for a little while Now.

I'm not saying that you're going to agree with every decision that that leader or those leaders or that church makes.

Here's why.

Let's all be real, okay, let's not have magical thinking.

Let's just think about this.

You don't agree with yourself.

Like you can look at two weeks ago and be like why did I make that decision Right?

There's stuff you probably did yesterday You're not in total agreement with.

It's just unreasonable to think humans are always going to agree with one another.

So don't look for what you agree with.

Look for the culture that you like.

Look for you can say I like it how it's done around here, like I feel better about this, I feel like I'm growing here.

I feel like I love and I'm growing here.

I feel like I love and I'm developing a love and a passion for the people around me.

That's really what you want to look for.

But we also want to commit to the virtue of commitment, which is in short supply today, guys, we need.

There's something good for the soul when we just say I'm going to stick it out because that's what someone who wants to grow would do With your family.

You can't easily get away from that.

For most of us, right, your family like.

It's not that your family's awesome, honestly, it's because you just can't get away from them.

Your commitment has to do with the fact that you're family and you're going to have to see them from time to time.

So don't have any illusions that this is the perfect spiritual family.

It's a lot like a family so you can't.

It's a lot like a family so you can't.

It's weird if you just walk away.

But we're not perfect.

We're just the people that god is saying grow and and stumble and love hard through sticky, nasty stuff sometimes.

Stick with this people, so the spirit and personality of christ can be formed in you.

Somebody say amen and what that means.

What I'm asking you to commit to, what the elders, what all the church is asking all of us to commit to, is proactively love.

Proactively love, that means don't just wait around to be loved.

No, that's not what fiercers do.

Fiercers say I'm going to go, do the things, I'm going to go to places, I'm going to serve, I'm going to put myself around stuff.

I'm not going to wait, I'm not going to say, well, I wish somebody would love me.

No, that's not the job.

The job is for us to go love others.

And if we just sit back and we wait and we don't serve and we don't go to stuff, I know that you're an introvert but, baby, if you're gonna love people proactively, you have to go to stuff.

I'm sorry, I'm an introvert.

I have to do this Like we just gotta.

I can't love you without it and you can't love people without going to stuff that you probably don't always want to go to.

But that's how.

You might not want to go to Christmas, but you still go because you love your family, right.

So just go to the things to the degree that you can, but do good with us, make it better here.

That means you're going to give here.

That means you're going to serve here.

That means you're going to go out of your way sometimes because somebody needs help across town and you're going to go, try to help them.

That's proactively loving, proactively grow.

Proactively take your next steps.

We're all talking about take, take next steps.

So, proactively, take your next steps.

That means keep learning, keep keep expanding your understanding of who God is.

Go to stuff like the growth.

Go to stuff like fierce men and fierce women.

Understand that, dude.

It is not about coming in this room.

Hopefully, we've learned that in the last five weeks.

It's about getting Jesus' life into us and into others and deciding.

I learn more about God by seeing other people being exposed to new opportunities and teachings about what God is doing Proactively love.

Proactively grow.

Proactively protect unity.

Proactively protect unity.

I hope that you've noticed this.

We don't gossip here.

We don this.

We don't gossip here.

We don't.

We don't gossip here.

Hey, just so you know, we don't gossip here.

I don't know where you've been, maybe they did.

We don't do it here.

Here's what we do.

We don't pass things around, we pass them up.

Okay, so when you hear something like I don't know about that, you just pass it.

You don't go tell somebody.

You go ask the person responsible for that thing.

I love it when I had a gal come to me once and she says you know, I heard something weird about you and that you said something.

Did you say that?

And I'm like no, but I'm glad you asked.

I'm glad you didn't ask seven other people before you asked me.

You could just come to me and ask.

And so anytime you hear something weird, I promise I will tell you the truth, even if it's bad, I'll tell you.

Just come ask.

Like that's way better.

The Bible teaches that gossip destroys and poisons churches.

Dude, we don't need any more poison.

All right, the world's plenty of poison for us.

That means we honor one another.

It means we invite leaders to lead.

You know that horrible word, submission.

That's all it means.

It means invite leaders to lead.

It just means God has chosen people to lead.

I'm just going to, I'm going to make this easy rather than hard.

I'm just going to make it easy.

I'm going to trust God has his times and his ways with raising people up and all that kind of stuff, and that's where we get.

This is really the hardest fierce code.

It sounds the most curt, it sounds the most mean.

Super, not mean.

But here's what it is.

No church can have more than one vision.

No church can have more than one vision.

Now you can.

I hope you don't hear that mean it's.

Hear it like you hear a stop sign.

Stop sign isn't mean, it's just telling you what's true, what's happening.

Hear it like you hear the governor gets to make the decisions about the state.

No church can have more than one vision.

There is a falcon called the peregrine falcon Maybe, maybe, we got a picture of it for you.

This is the most aerodynamic creature on earth.

This thing can dive at 240 miles an hour.

Now, something you'll notice about that falcon it does not have two heads.

None of them do Anything.

That's going to go fast doesn't have two heads because it would be trying to go two different ways.

Let me show you another assertion.

Here's a boat Now, in this first boat, everybody's rowing the same direction.

It's super easy, man, there's power, it's aerodynamic, we can go places quickly because everyone's together.

Now let's see the next boat, where people are not in unity.

People all got their own agenda, they're all trying to go a different way.

And, baby, I just want to ask you, the elders and I, like God has called us, to decide a lot of where we're going.

Now, that's got a lot of influence by leaders and you and people get to say anything that they want to say, but at the end of the day, we make the decision and I just want to let you know if you, if you don't like where the boat is going dude.

There are so many other dope churches, but we're going the way that we think we're supposed to go and we need you to like be on board with that, because we man, it just hurts to row against us.

I'm just saying, okay, I promise, like we're very like we try to be as careful as possible, as educated as possible, but we got to go the same way.

Proactively communicate here's one of my favorites, because it's the most overlooked.

When something goes wrong and stuff will go wrong, you're going to get hurt and most of the time you're just going to have to like forgive it and just move on.

That's what it is to forbear.

That's how we learn to forgive.

But sometimes you're going to be hurt enough, or you're going to be confused enough, or you're going to be in a troublesome situation enough that what you should do is let the staff or myself know about it.

You should.

Now here's what people do instead.

Often they're like well, I don't want to bother Carter, you know, I know he's busy, and that is true.

I am busy, but can I tell you, don't assume that what I'm busy with is more important than you, cause it's not necessarily.

In most cases, what happens is it's just like when you you don't go to the doctor quick enough and then when you finally go, it's worse.

Like now you're dealing with a worse situation than if you just would have gone so many times.

People come to me as a pastor and they're like, well, here's what it is.

I should have come to you six months ago.

And I'm like, yeah, you should have come to me six months ago.

It's like way harder now.

It's way later in the game.

Now.

That's way harder to turn this thing around.

So I'm just telling you you are more important than a lot of the stuff I do, even though I'm busy, and I pretty much I do a lot of important stuff.

But, dude, I will run to you.

If you're really in trouble, tell me, because it's not worth it for me, for my people, to just get unnecessarily bruised and hurt and offended and waited too long.

Is that a deal?

I will come running if you will tell me.

Now we're going to commit, we're going to go all in For those who already feel like this is your church home.

If you're like I don't know, there's no pressure for you to commit at all, okay, like know, when you know, don't marry somebody you're not sure about.

Okay, we're going all in here.

I want you to be really sure and it's you know.

It's not that you can't leave, it's not that life doesn't change.

You don't move on.

But what we're really asking you to come into is the culture, is to how we do it here so more people can know Christ, to the priorities of helping people discover Jesus and take their next steps.

We're going to go into our next six minutes.

You're going to talk about it, but while you're doing that, please fill out that card or snap the pick.

It's easier to just go online.

It's easier for us, it helps the data go quicker and if you've already, if you already are an owner, just do it again for us, please.

Sometimes the it's weird and there's things that it's not quite accurate data.

We just need a fresh update for everybody.

So do me a favor If you're all in, go on.

If not, that's all.

It's all good.

You can still talk about all the things at the table and maybe someday you will go in.

But let's go into our six minutes.

Right now.

Let me give you the questions what do you like about that and which proactive commitments love grow?

Let's go into the final point, and this is see what god can do through you.

See what god can do through you.

This is the fear of sacrifice that we need to push past and go all in.

Some of you know the story.

I was sick in my early 20s for four and a half years with this debilitating autoimmune disease, life shut down, couldn't go to work, very difficult to eat much at all, had almost no energy, and yet I felt like God was telling me go to this random little youth group thing with like four people at it and they're in a closet and just be their pastor.

I'd already been a pastor, like it wasn't.

That wasn't, it was a familiar world to me.

But I was like God, do you know that I'm sick and there's only four?

And yet I just felt he didn't give me the vision.

He didn't give me like what's going to happen next?

He didn't tell me that that would turn Ultimately.

It would keep snowballing into a church plant and then snowball into more and more stuff and finally, in my story, end up right here.

He didn't tell me any of that.

He just said go, let's see.

I want to challenge this, guys.

We can't say we're going to follow Jesus without the sacrifice component.

But what if?

What if, because of your sacrifice, what if, because of your involvement, think of the people that you love right now, think of your family and friends, and maybe they're far from, they're distant from Jesus and you'd love to get them a whole lot closer.

What if, because you decided I'm going to participate, I'm going to do this thing, the numbers of people that you know and other people know begin to rise dramatically, of people who, through this church, know Jesus' voice, begin to feel his presence, experience his kindness.

They begin to experience people who understand that the best you is in community.

They're literally shutting their lives down.

They're spending more time with people, not just on themselves and not just money on people.

They're actually going because they really do believe that God thinks, take time and relationships are worth investing in.

They're being transformed.

Their families are being transformed.

Their workplaces are being transformed.

Some of you are here because others were transformed and they invited you here.

That's how you got here.

You're part of that story.

And what if that same thing happened to you?

What if it seems like your family and friends won't respond to you?

But maybe if you started to invest over here, God would send somebody over here.

See, sometimes when we make something happen for one person, god will make it happen for us.

And what if we start serving over here?

What if we get involved in more dramatic ways and God begins to move?

He never really uses us to reach those people, but he sends other people whom they will receive it from.

What if those very same people, instead of stepping back, they begin to step up?

What if those very same people decide you know, there really is room for one more?

And I could severely inconvenience myself to help people who are far from God find their way back to him?

It could really happen and maybe we could all walk home together and not apart.

And people that don't even know Jesus Christ right now.

They would come together and they would say you know, it's no longer time for me to sit down, it's time for me to be sent.

And so, in their own little world, people you never thought as I've had people in my life who I never thought they were resistant to the very idea of the Jesus I was talking about today are serving God gladly, because God moved, and I really believe prayers and obedience just produces that kind of a thing.

What if there's people that you know right now that are kind of hateful, they're kind of honoring, they're kind of that kind of person, and a few years goes by, because of your participation in the gospel, they turn around and say I can love anybody because I was greatly forgiven by the master.

I can give anybody a second chance because I've been given a million chances.

And what if those very same people, they won't settle for sacred cows?

They'll do whatever they've got to do to help more people in the current generation come to know and love and find Jesus Christ and to leverage their Christ and to leverage their gifts and to leverage their money and to leverage their life, because they know their life is going to be over like that and the best place to invest it they're finally figuring out is a God first life, not a God second life, and that's the life that God anoints and that's the life that God blesses and that's the one that you most enjoy.

Well, if we could do that, god bless us and that's the one that you most enjoy.

Well, if we could do that, guys, who knows what God would do?

But I would tell you he would do a lot.

We've got little places around the auditorium right here.

There are little tables over here.

These are the places we most need God's people's help to get stuff done to reach more people.

I'm asking you to give big.

I had one of our financial people run a little test for me.

He did some numbers, like he does, and he found that if everybody in our church currently just people who already are committed to Fierce if everybody in our church currently tithed like gave based on where they live, their demographic he's that smart that he can do that.

If they did that, we would have an extra million dollars per year.

That smart that he can do that.

If they did that, we would have an extra million dollars per year.

Can you think of what we could do with a million more dollars?

Because we don't spend a million dollars a year now?

That's what happens when God's people decide it's time for me to see what God can do for me.

I'm just going to go ahead and go.

I'm going to give whatever I've got.

Jesus gave it all for me.

I'm going to give it all for Jesus.

Would it be worth it for you to see that happen?

If so, if you don't, if you already serve awesome applause, encourage other people that maybe aren't yet.

Help them, take their step, encourage them.

Be that one to hold their hand through it.

Maybe invite them on your team.

If you haven't done that yet, man, I'll just ask you to go.

Like, find a way.

I know everybody's busy, I know it's hard and it is sacrifice.

Don't be afraid of sacrifice.

It's your very best friend.

Those who lose their lives for Jesus sake will find it, and those who try to hold on to their lives are going to end up losing it.

So I want to invite everybody to.

We're going to, we're going to go through the rest of the service.

We're going to go through a song of worship or receive offering that we always do, and then we're going to break early so folks can go to these different tables and just kind of mingle and walk around.

You can still keep up all the relational gold that you've been having with one another, but, guys, let's prioritize the kingdom.

So here we go.

I'm going to give you your breakout questions what do you like about that and tell a story about a time you felt inadequate because you couldn't do something as well as others, either digitally or in person.

Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.

Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.

It's because of you that this is possible.

You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit fiercechurch for more information.

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Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.

Don't give up.

Hang on to Jesus.

He won't let go of you.

Jesus loves you so much and we love you.

I hope someday we get to meet in person.

Thanks again for listening.