At the Movies: Guardians of the Galaxy | July 23rd | Pastor Paul Mints

Well, thank you so much, I'm so glad you're here.

Can we just celebrate how good God's been already this morning?

It is so good to take a break, isn't it?

It's so good to just kind of rest and relax and be refreshed.

And so you know what happens when your pastor is resting, relaxing, refreshed.

The first sermon back, you're going to get it.

You're going to get double barrel.

I want to welcome all of you who are working with us online this morning.

I know we have several families that are out and they're traveling.

One of my dear friends is in Tennessee, just across the lines.

I mean, we've got it, we've got you know, we're watching on our phone.

Others are watching on iPads.

Some of you are on vacation, others of you you're just, you're part of our extended family.

You were part of this year and you moved away and you started inviting other families to join in on these Sunday mornings.

I know a few weeks ago we had four families, I think, from Alaska, that were watching.

They said, man, we just need the heart of God and the message of God and the word of God that you guys are part of, and so for all of our extended family around the country, really around the world.

We say good morning to you as well, or good night, whichever time zone that you're in.

I love you and I'm so excited about this series that we've been doing.

It's been a fun series for me because, again, as we've talked about, as Jesus did, Jesus was so cool.

He was the greatest teacher that has ever walked the earth and Jesus could just be walking by a fig tree or something like that.

He goes.

You know, the kingdom of heaven is a lot like Groot, and he would turn Groot, or roots or a tree, into an illustration of right.

The kingdom of heaven.

You know, the kingdom of heaven is a lot like this seed.

Or the kingdom of heaven is a lot like this, or you know what?

There was this man and he had lots of employees.

He went away on a long trip and he came back and he was constantly taking the kingdom of heaven, which was invisible, but that came with power and authority, and he was trying to bring it down to tangible things that we could see, we could smell, we could taste, we could feel, we could understand, we could wrap our brains around.

And it's amazing to me.

Listen to me, one of my favorite chapters, and all of you all know man acts is such a powerful.

We spend a whole year teaching through the book of Acts.

If you have never had that, you could go back.

I think it was two years ago now and we just taught through the book of Acts.

But one of my favorite chapters is Acts, chapter 17, where Paul the Apostle one of the greatest preachers that's ever you know, walked the earth beside Jesus.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

One of the greatest minds who understood had most of the Old Town Means, like the first five books of the Bible memorized.

I don't know if you've ever seen Leviticus.

Well, that's a tough chapter to memorize.

That's a tough book.

But he would.

He knew the Torah, he understood that and yet was called to reach not only the Jews but Gentiles, to take the gospel to those that felt and were truly far from God, those who didn't have all the cultural understanding.

They didn't understand all the Jewish practice, they didn't understand the framework of who God was and the way he was working through the Jewish nation to be a blessing to every other nation.

And Paul, in chapter 17, is finding his way on his first church planting trip, or a lot of our Arthelians call it his first missionary journey, and I'm not going.

It wasn't just a missionary journey, matt, it was a church planting journey, because that's what he did.

As Antioch sent him out, they planted a church here.

He would go and lead someone to faith in Christ, gather a few more that they led to Christ, they would organize a church there.

Then he came back to Antioch, was there for two or three years and they said, hey, we need to go and check up on all the churches that we've planted.

And in Acts, chapter 17, he was in the midst of that first journey and he is in Athens and he's and he's gone.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

He saw this and he's just going up and down in their businesses.

He was in their marketplace and he was just trying to connect with how they thought, how the Athenians would understand the gospel.

And then he finds an area where they have all of these altars, where they were worshiping just multitude of gods, and he finds one of those altars and it said to the unknown god, to the god that we don't even know about yet, and he said, oh, oh, oh, oh, I got you now.

And then he got invited by some people to speak at the Areopagus.

The Areopagus was just this public, cool place where they were just always having new people come and teach and think and all that.

And so they said hey, you ought to come speak.

And when he goes and speaks he says I've noticed your business practice.

Talk about their business for a little bit.

And then he said I know that you're religious people.

I've even seen all your altars, but one of them was to the unknown god, and that's who I'm here to talk about, the god that you don't even know about yet.

And then he goes on and then he goes, as even some of your own poets say.

So now Paul the apostle is quoting the poets of the Athenians in his sermon.

Now, do you know who our poets are today?

We quote our poets all the time.

We just don't think of them as poets.

We quote lyrics.

Anybody got that like 60 song that you got like swinging in the air baby, and your wife knows exactly the song that you're talking about.

Take you back to those early days.

Come on, some of you old folk.

Or we have some of our rappers.

You know we got some of that and all of a sudden we just slide into one of those little.

You know, we're just doing it.

We're quoting our poets.

One of the other major cause.

You know what it's like.

Bill Ted's the excellent adventure and he's always and he didn't know what to say to get all awkward.

He would say lyrics, man Lyrics.

Just quote the lyrics.

I find the people we quote our music and our movies all throughout our life, that's what we do, and so we're just doing something literally biblical, just so you know, something like going.

I don't like these movie stuff.

It's all about Like I thought I was coming to church, all right, all right, we just trying to do it.

It like Jesus did it.

We just trying to do it.

It like Paul the apostle did it.

Paul wrote half the New Testament.

So we just trying to do it the Bible way.

And some of y'all getting all upset about that.

I can't believe that's a movie that's a Godless man that's not even got the Bible in it.

Where hold, hold on, and just so.

You know also that one of our core values for our church I'm talking about stuff that we will to die for is that we ain't afraid to have fun.

That's one of our core values.

So we gonna have some fun.

That's one of our core values.

So we gonna have some fun when we're talking about who God is and our ability to relate to our cultural messaging and then finding the roots.

Did you know every rescue story, every damsel in distress, that's just the message of the gospel.

Because we, the bride of Christ, were in distress, we were in need, had Jesus, our husband.

He came to rescue us and set us free.

That's the gospel.

You know, superman is just a twisted, turned around version of Jesus, who was like us but from another place, came to us to save us.

I mean, every movie that has a rescue story is just building off the rescue story of what God has done for us.

And so let me just say it in the words of one of the great theologians I am Groot.

You understand what that means, right, cause that's I am Groot.

So I'm gonna say only three words a hundred times from now to the end of my sermon.

And of course, you'll know what that means, cause I'll have a different inflection and it will communicate clearly, right, like I am Groot, I am Groot, and so a Guardians of the Galaxy was so much fun.

Guardians of the Galaxy, I love this movie.

That means not like.

You know, it's not like Spider-Man.

Spider-man is one of my favorite cause, spider-man, you know he's not like Batman, batman superhero because of all the stuff he got.

But Spider-Man got bit and got totally transformed into something else, which I believe is what the Holy Spirit does for us.

But we'll talk about that, because I didn't get assigned Spider-Man.

That was Pastor Josh who came in and got to speak on that.

But and I just wanna build on kind of what a pastor or Dr Walker taught us on last week, kind of our Maverick moment Better remember our Maverick moment from last week, really having the feet, you know, not allowing fear to hold us back from stepping into moments.

Listen to me, I believe that as a church, as a whole body, believes we're at a Maverick moment.

I really do.

I believe there's a lot of us, I think there's several hundreds of us already that have registered and we've already been assigned to a team.

You're ready to go?

Listen to me, listen to me.

Those of you who are worshiping online everywhere else, listen, it doesn't matter if you're in another state or the other way.

Like all of us are going.

We have the opportunity for a Maverick moment this coming week, a Maverick moment to serve and make a difference Now, one of the very practical ways that we're gonna do.

That is, all of us together next Sunday are going together here for a rally time.

We'll be out on the front lawn and then all of us are gonna go into these.

I mean like 28, 30, I don't have any a process we have, but we're gonna go into, we're gonna serve the community because, like Jesus said, right, Jesus said, I didn't come to be served, but to and to, oh, but to serve and to give my life.

And so we just wanna be like right.

We want to teach you how to grow up in and grow into what it means to live out the gardens of the galaxy.

To me there's just several biblical themes.

It's cool how it really you see them come together as an unlikely team, don't you?

There's this band of misfits, but when they all come together and they begin to find their place, and then Mantis comes, they got the little you know.

She's empathin'.

It's just this cool way you got, you got struggle, you got muscle and you got charm and you got you know technology and you got some who's been experimented on and ticketed in that where the raccoon, which he hates to be called, turns into rocket, which is his new identity, his new name, which, in that goal in and of itself, they keep trying to come.

Oh a little raccoon.

He goes.

I'm not for the million, I'm not a raccoon, but was he kind of a raccoon Kind of?

But was he a raccoon?

Because he had been so tinkered with, experimented on and transformed that he was not a raccoon, he was now a rocket.

And I love how, just this idea of our identity shifting over something that you couldn't just see with the naked eye, except for the fact that the raccoon's talking.

But besides that, and that's what's happening to us, right?

I mean, we still physically look somewhat the same, even though some of our sorrow has been turned to joy and some of our fear and insecurity has turned into boldness, because we have a new mission, a new purpose, and I love that.

As that came together.

You know, none of them were really superheroes or heroes really whatsoever apart, but when they came together and when each one of them kind of played their part, like they became this band of rescuers.

And of course, in this, as I've studied, I haven't yet seen it, but this most recent one, you know, rocket falls into a fearful place, and all of them for fear that if rockets are not a part of them, then the team won't be complete and their mission fulfillment won't be, and so they all band together to go rescue rocket from a false god.

Isn't that incredible, yes or no?

Just me, just that's all.

I'm the only one To be a rescue from a false god.

It's kind of a good thing, and in that whoa and then what we're doing, we're really kind of abandoned.

Anybody like get alone, even on vacation, and you feel good about your resting and all that.

But then you, you know, like, like I don't know about you, like public corporate worship does some things in us that nothing else in our, our walk with God can do.

It reminds us that I'm not in this by myself.

It reminds us we're part of a larger family of faith.

The household of God is what the scripture calls in Ephesians, chapter two.

See, you belong here and we want you to experience belonging on your way to believing and being the impact and the catalyst for change in that community around you.

Reading chapter two describes this really well, but I think acts is where I want us to look at chapter two.

And now again, we, we, we talked through this for an entire year and and this was one of the passages that really stood out in that entire study was acts, chapter four, verse 13, where he talks about they noticed James, they noticed Peter and and the, the, the religious elite of the day, were astonished by them.

Now, I don't know if you understand that they, like, they really despise the disciples because they were talking about the things of God and the kingdom of God with authority, when, when they had not been to rabbinical school, they had not studied the scripture, they didn't maybe know all the Torah, like you know, and that apostle Paul did.

But we were talking and they and here's what they said about them Said, said they were like, like what's going on?

How can these men speak with such authority and such insight?

Cause they're just ordinary men, average.

And they were astonished and they said, but they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Oh, oh, you talk like the Jesus who that we just killed.

And here we have this movement of the kingdom of heaven, this movement that they were a part of, with boldness and authority, at the risk of their lives For the one.

They were proclaiming that people could be saved in his name, that people were being healed.

With Acts, chapter three, we're going to go there were starting to act chapter two, right now Act chapter three.

They healed someone and they said by what authority and what name did you heal this guy?

And they said by the name of the guy oh, the guy that you crucified, that you killed, and I know you probably have the power to probably get killed.

Us See what they're doing.

They were saying the good news of the gospel, the work of the kingdom of heaven, like we're going to be a family of faith, we're going to band together, we're going to be the body of Christ, the community of believers, at the risk that you'll do to us what you did to the one that we follow, and at that risk.

They loved, they studied the word of God together, they broke bread together and in that breaking of bread they had the Lord supper.

They celebrated his death, his coming again.

They ate meals together.

The Bible says in Acts, chapter two.

They prayed together, just this family fellowship.

They just did what families do and they did it with and among those who they loved, enough that they wanted them to come to faith.

And it was interesting that the way they served each other and the way that they served each other and served those that they loved in the community.

They served them in such a way and with such heart that acts as day by day Things, in an organic way, their new way of life and loving and serving day by day.

They were added to the church, those that were being saved.

They served each other.

Listen to me.

They loved one another.

And when you love family especially the weird uncle when you love them well, did you know when we do that?

Well, and people who are far from God, who don't have a sense of family, they observe that you know what they do they go.

I don't know if I believe what you believe, but I sure would like to have a part of how you treat each other.

I'm so inspired and I'm so lonely.

I want to be a part of how y'all do life, even if I'm not sure about this Jesus thing, even if I'm not sure about all the things the Bible says, even if I'm not sure about the guidelines that God's given us for true sexual fulfillment and sexuality, even if I don't understand all the quote rules that's how most people see it.

You got these rules and we go.

No, it's not about rule keeping.

It's about a new relationship.

I get to be in a new family, have a new heavenly father.

I got new brothers and sisters and see, family produces something in me that I don't do what I do out of duty but I do it out of a sense of gratitude for the family I'm a part of.

Isn't that just way cool?

Isn't that way better than checking boxes and earning your way to heaven and trying not to mess up so God won't be mad at you?

Isn't that way better?

We're the household.

I love Ephesians 2,.

We're the household of God.

The household Now being a family and serving one another, has its unique opportunities.

Anybody got somebody that's challenging I'm trying to find the right word to love in your family.

Anybody got somebody that's like oh, are they going to come to the family and go, oh, okay, okay, here's how we're going to do it.

When you make a plan for how, if you ever get caught talking to the weird owl of Yankovitch of your family, you're like go ahead, if I wipe my head like this or if I start scratching my neck, you come, rescue me, get me away from the weird uncle.

Anybody understand this.

Only my family's got weird uncles.

Anybody else?

Anybody understand this concept.

How many of y'all got the weird uncle in your family.

Let's see, weird aunt, weird uncle.

Anybody got that.

If you're not raising your hand, you're the weird aunt, you're the weird uncle and you're like wait a minute.

Is that why I don't know?

Anyway, so here we go.

Acts, chapter 2, verse 42,.

Acts 2:42

Let me just read and describe.

I've been listening to somebody like oh, when are we going to get to the Bible?

I've just been teaching the Bible.

I've just been trying to paint the picture for you.

Now we're going to get to the text.

But some of you, we read the Bible and it looks like cold words on a white page.

Okay, and you got to read this more as a letter from your heavenly Father.

You got to read this as your dad's sitting down and handwriting you a note and slipping it under your pillow, and that's not when you put your.

You're like what is this, oh, dad, and you open it up and you get a little from your dad.

What was that mean to a daughter?

It's supposed to be if you didn't have a dad.

That's what this is.

It says in Acts, chapter 2, verse 42, isn't this powerful?

Acts 2:42

Listen to this.

Right here, some of you are missing the best book you ain't never read.

I know I say it all the time.

You got to read this Bible, dad.

You just trying to get us to read the Bible.

Yes, read, learn, study, memorize, live, love, live the Word of God.

Okay, here we go, acts 2, 42.

And they devoted themselves to these apostles, teaching and to fellowship.

Don't you love that?

They just one of the most important functions of the body price Just being together.

Like they fellowshiped, but it had a purpose to it, fellowship, but that fellowship had a reason.

You know, like they were fellowship.

You know, being and belonging is kind of underrated in our culture.

Doing is what we worship.

But here it says they studied the Word of God and they just decided to be together.

They were practicing being a family and then, out of this being and feeling the sense of I'm a daughter who is treasured in chairs, I'm a son of the most high God, I am loved and I'm going to let myself be loved, because when I am loved, then all of a sudden, loving God, loving each other and loving the loss becomes much more natural, just like, oh well, that's yeah, of course that's what we do, because we're a family and we don't do this well enough, and I just want you to know that this coming next Sunday, some of you are going to serve you.

You're not signed up yet.

Some of you are going to come serve because we're a family.

We're going to talk about it today and you're going to go, okay, pastor says we got to.

And when you come and you're going to go out to the, to the, to the, to the, to the four you're right after this and you're going to go to the next steps counter You're going to say pastor says I have a son of this, serve dinner and you can sign up.

Or we're going to put it up.

Put it up right now, put it up right now, before we even do this, yeah, or you're going to just get your phone out.

You're going to go onto the digital sign up form and you're going to sign up.

You are.

Everybody say amen, amen, amen, amen, amen.

You love us.

I know you do.

You ever got that child that we're going to go out and we're going to work in the yard together?

They got the one child said I think I have to answer a text.

No, you don't know.

You don't know right now we're going to serve, right.

And then after a while you're sweating and everything.

Oh my gosh, it's so hot.

And then, if you get done, you look up and you go man, look what.

That's very well.

Look what we did, look what we did together.

And then there's this new sense of bonding.

You've accomplished something that match together and the togetherness is enriched because of what you did together.

That's what the Builders trip is about.

Anybody ever been on our summer Builders trip Like you go and you miserably serve Sweating, cleaning, painting, tearing it up, tearing it down, building it back up, replacing it but in the afternoon didn't even guess what they did.

Let's talk to Nathan Siggler about this.

He said my wife's not going, we just need to go do some fun things.

Like all y'all do is sit around.

He's just like y'all just talk.

He's like I didn't ask him for permission.

So, sidney, I'm sorry, I don't think they're going to let me go.

I apologize, sweetheart, I'm so sorry.

I will say it in the 11 o'clock.

She won't even know, don't tell her.

I told you this Anyway.

So Sidney was like why don't we go do some fun things?

And Nathan's like I don't think you understand.

See, we serve, we work, we do all this stuff and then we just sit here and what?

No, we just no, we just we just took it Like we just, and there's this thing that happens.

Mark, is that true?

You're just there.

That's what they did.

Man, y'all ain't listening fast enough.

We got to go.

I got a lot to preach about today.

I didn't get to the four major points.

We go you better have your pen ready.

Here we go.

The fellowship and two, the breaking of bread and the prayers, and it all came upon every soul and many signs and wonders were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together See that again and had everything in common.

In other words, they were willing to share with one another, serve each other, because they were aware of each other.

This is why we want you in a community group.

This is why we want you on a discipleship group.

This is why we want you on a served team.

This is why you're a greeter.

How many of y'all are on the first impressions teams?

Let me see your hand.

Okay, try this again.

Number one that is one of the specific teams.

Everybody's on the first impressions.

Let's say it again how many of y'all are on the first impressions teams?

Let me try this one more time.

Everybody's on the first impressions team.

How many of y'all are on the first impressions team?

Oh, y'all are.

Are you on the first impressions team?

Okay, all right, my little crayon right here.

All right, you two.

But what happens is when you get on the official served team that greets people, this is what happens.

You're doing something together and we got these kind of these cool things like hey, when they get to 12 feet, you got to make sure to look them and I say greet them and I this is like and they're going to hold the door, we're going to host you and other.

You're passionate about the next thing, like you're doing something so important and you're doing it together and all of a sudden there's these togetherness moments.

So you're serving what you get as much as you give.

That's the question, real quick.

Where are you serving?

But as you just trying to get to go to work, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You're going to miss the point.

Here we go, you ready, and all the believers are together and had all things in common and they were selling their possessions.

Hear this, I love it.

Out of their connectedness, they saw the needs, they saw the other people in their neighborhoods, they saw people around and they sold things.

They were selling their possessions.

I really like my boat.

I just got my ski nautique.

I love this boat.

Yeah, I know I got that one little ding over there where the big wave threw us in the dark, but that's a nice boat.

But I love this family and they're hurting and then they need some things and they have a child.

That is like that's a cigarette.

You know, baby, you know what we could do.

I've been looking on the.

You know, I think you know we could go on one of those little titty-totty little things and they got all this research.

You know, I'm talking about all those places where you can do research, as they don't know the names.

But you go to that and I say, like we could get this much money for that boat if we could sell it.

You know what I heard?

That's what they need and I think our boat could be just about enough to help them with the medical needs that they have.

Like what if we sold our boat and then we used to serve these families?

You know I love about y'all, y'all crazy.

Y'all do like, listen, y'all do stuff like this.

I've seen it with my own eyes this last week we had a family that just said hey, we know that there's some non-budgetary we're.

You know, summertime we're a little behind on the budget giving all that.

But they said we also know that there's some things that the budget doesn't do, can't handle.

We just like, could we give, like we got some things here, like we can sell these things.

We want to give.

I'm not going to tell you how much, because it doesn't matter the amount, but it was a good amount.

But I'm going to say, and it doesn't matter the amount, matter the heart behind that amount.

Does that make sense?

You do this.

You know those of you who are leading these services, I know, at personal cost.

You have prepared, you have put money together, like you're taking what you have and you're going to serve that nursing home.

I just sat there, I was so inspired.

Thank you for telling us more deeply how, when we give as a larger family of faith, they're going to make a difference.

Because you know, ms Shannon's mom was in a place like that before she went to be with the Lord and I know how important that is.

And all those families trust me and the daughters and the sons of the people that are living, that we're going to touch all of them in Jesus' name, haven't even got to my point yet, you're still not listening.

They were selling the possessions and their belongings and they were distributing the proceeds to all as any had need and, day by day, attending in the temple.

This was all happening day by day, by day.

This wasn't just a Sunday serve day.

We're doing a Sunday serve day to pull it all together and to plant the seeds of the excitement and the passion of serving into all of us, so that those seeds will grow.

And we do it day by day, by day and day by day, attending the temple together, together and breaking bread in their homes together.

They receive their food with glad and generous gratitude and generosity go together.

And so, if you don't know that, you having resources, the Kingdom Financial Resource or any other resources time, talent, treasure, testimony, touch or even trials those are Kingdom currencies.

But a lot of us want to be generous.

Man, if I had a lot of money, I'd give a lot of money.

If you're not given of the money you already have, you won't be given a bunch of money if you've got more money.

Okay, because it's a heart thing.

But it's interesting that it says that they were glad.

There was gladness, there was gratitude and, listen to me, their world was not easy in this season.

They had just saw their Savior be murdered, at risk remember, all this is at risk of their lives.

They were glad, they were great, grateful they, and that gratitude produced this generosity in them and they were praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who have been saved.

Look at Acts, chapter four, quickly see if I can read this without giving too much commentary.

Verse 32, the title of this is they had everything in common.

Listen to this now.

The full number of those who believe.

Did you hear what that just said?

Everybody say.

Let's read this out loud together.

Now the say it again.

Now the say it one more time.

Now, the oh number.

You know what that means.

Oh, y'all, we'll go to that one.

Everybody, oh y'all.

I said what did he say?

Full number.

Or everybody, dolo, dolo, everybody, oh, y'all, the full number.

There was not this band of the early body of Christ that was over here like going.

Yeah, you know, that's what we pay y'all to do.

Yeah, y'all know.

I know like some people are really grateful that their sins are forgiven, they're really grateful that.

Oh okay, they're gonna heavenly father and I.

They're really grateful and they say, well, I mean God, come on.

Like, let's live in the real world.

The Romans don't care, they're like what did he say?

I got, remember.

I said no, stop, not too much commentary.

Here you go Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and look what it produced.

And no one said that they had anything that belonged just to them.

Now, this was not socialism, this is not how we take all the wealth and divided.

No, no, all they saying was that if I have it and I love you and you're part of my family and you need it, like hey, hey, let's just connect the two.

Like how many we got more stuff in closets that we don't even remember we have Anybody ever been cleaning out a closet?

Oh, my God, I don't know, I forgot we had this.

So me and I need to clean your closets out, cause you got stuff in there that somebody else in our church needs and you could go serve them by showing up and saying, hey, you know, if you need this man, please, please, amen.

No one said anything that belonged to them was their own, but they had everything in common and, with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ.

So this is as they were doing all that with great power, the apostles would stand up and they would declare their testimonies of Jesus' death and burial and resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus and they were telling those that were around them why they were so glad and why they were so generous, which is why we do that.

So we did that this week.

Do any of y'all heard here about our soccer camp that we put on this week?

Some of you don't know that you give generously and radically and because of that, we had over 100 children at Arlanderson Stadium, which the school was super gracious to us to discount me like 90% of the cost of that off and allowed us to do a soccer camp probably it's $500, $600 soccer camp with professional soccer players.

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, not yet.

Okay, you can do just that one, just that one, and did it for $25 a person.

They showed up there like how are you doing this?

How are you doing this?

I want you to know that we have one of our missionary partners here with us today, which y'all give a TCAL family welcome to Matt Kiefer as he comes and joins me on stage this morning, matt, you and I talked about let me go like through a bunch of this, because our people just didn't listen very quickly today.

So first of all, he's one of our missionary partners.

You don't necessarily call yourself a missionary, right?

It doesn't feel that way to you because you just go, man, I just want to serve there.

But you are indeed, because you were.

So how did you get from where you were in Shreveport?

You were in my student ministry, your little middle school kid, and we were just talking about that.

How did y'all get from Shreveport and your business and all that all the way to Keto?

Tell us about that.

Yeah.

So I was in Paul's youth group back in 20, 25 years ago, a long time ago.

Normal people just like you guys, sitting in a church service, had a great job, my wife had a great job, my kids went to a great school and God kind of turned all that around and called us to Ecuador.

An opportunity to serve with Inka Link International, with a small soccer club in Ecuador.

This is Matt, and this is his wife, april, who I remember her when she was in middle school and high school.

And then this is their three beautiful children, ava and Madeline and Lil' Jack.

Oh, we love Lil' Jack.

He is a he's three handful.

He's not a handful, he's three handful.

And then that's me and Michanne and our Lil' Jack.

It was fun to have Lil' Jack and Lil' Jack together and they share similar energy sources.

I think they have atomic energy sources in them.

Anyway, this is your family and y'all have now, god's, relocated.

Y'all been there, been connected to it, for about four years, but been there three.

Is that right?

Yeah, been there about three years and really we have a soccer ministry.

Really it's just the hook to build relationships Down there.

Soccer is pretty much God and really our unofficial motto of our club is to give them a place to belong before they believe.

We have now about 280 soccer players.

Wow, so tell us, yeah, can we celebrate that?

So it was a little club.

Now it's not so little and it continues to grow and the men's team, since you've been there, has gone to a professional team.

I mean, they've won, they've done better and better and that has helped y'all attract more of the little ones so that you can afford to them.

You've had to get new fields, you've had to expand the club.

So tell us about because God put it on your heart to although this is a third world country and all that, you know a lot of poverty there, a lot of difficulty there, but you mobilize them to come and give back in America, to come serve here.

What tell us about this week?

And a little bit about the camp that you guys, that we've partnered with you and we brought it.

So a lot of our volunteers helped but, man, you had incredible I love that what we got to do together.

Yeah, so we had never started out our ministry to minister in United States.

It really just kind of happened organically.

Last year we had an opportunity to do a camp in Shreveport Louisiana.

Somebody asked us hey, can we do a soccer camp?

And you know, I think that's what God has empowered us to do is to do soccer, and to do soccer well.

And really, on a personal note, it kind of hit me I came from a broken home, I didn't grow up with a lot of resources and, as you know, like the cooler the event, the better the camp, the more expensive it is.

And so I just started thinking, you know how cool it would be to mobilize a lot of people and to create a camp, a professional, well organized soccer camp with professionals, at a cost that is just unheard of.

And really just take what we do in Ecuador, bring it to the States and do it bigger and better than other people, really all for the glory of Christ.

And at the same time, you know, give an opportunity for our coaches that are all not all of them are Christians an opportunity to get outside of their comfort zone, to come to America and then to be blessed by people like yourselves and to really take our motto and live out our mission in a foreign country.

Yeah, so give me just some of the unique pieces to the camp that are different even from some of these $500, $600 camps that are going out there.

Just some of those, really quickly, that make this camp so different.

You've described some of this or anything else.

I mean you've partnered together.

It's really the collaborating piece that is so exciting to me.

Yeah, I mean first and foremost it's a bilingual camp, so all of our guys come from Ecuador.

Of course they speak Spanish there, but just about all of our coaches speak English as well.

God has blessed us with that.

So, first bilingual soccer camp and then really, like you said, just the collaboration part, where we're able to bring together a community in a unique way.

We're able to bring corporate partners, we're able to bring church partners, we're able to involve local school systems, volunteers, soccer people, non-soccer people to do this, to create an environment.

We don't know the background of all the kids, but first and foremost, we wanna give them a place to belong, whether they believe or not, and then show them Christ when they come to this camp.

It's exciting because you got to meet several from multiple other countries that were part of our week Uruguay, a lot of those from Latin America, some that were all part of the African continent.

We had this incredible multi-ethnic.

I mean, if you just look at the diversity of the camp and the crazy coaches who had so much fun to watch people who they are like, they're professional at what they do, but they also know how to relate to kids of all ages it was brilliant to watch.

So the last question I wanna get to is this why?

What do you think is the key, though?

What's the key for all of us, or really for y'all, or for any of us, in being a part of what is it that tips over the edge to go from kind of latent energy and all that to being really active?

I mean, because y'all were there and you were Christians, you loved God, but what would you say the key to all of us like is the key to your team.

I just have a willing heart, a willing heart to serve and to give your time and resources to give your heart and serve other people well.

So I mean obviously you're a professional soccer player, right?

No, oh, but you played college soccer, right.

No.

But you played high school soccer right.

No.

So soccer was your hobby.

No.

And you knew how to speak Spanish before you went right.

No, I knew that word in Spanish no, ha ha, ha, ha ha ha ha.

You taught me this this week, but you said this and I wrote this down the key is just be willing, and I think you and your wife are such living examples of just what willingness.

Lord, if you're a lot mean, you know you're successful insurance man, insurance business, run your own company and all that.

And you just said, god, I'm willing.

And what I heard you say is you just built a home, beautiful house and a beautiful neighborhood and all that.

You had comfortable life and now you know don't own a home.

You know you're in keto with all your stuff.

You know the little stuff you have left you put in storage.

And you said something about the way life is for you now, by your willingness and even though you don't have all the world's goods that you even had three years ago, what has that done in you?

Just by having a willing heart.

That's a tough one.

Yeah, I think you found, I think we found true joy we didn't even know that we needed, certainly weren't looking for, but found, you know God in that process, who transformed our life and more happy now than we've ever been and at peace.

Can you say thank you, let me take that with me.

I love you.

Thanks go, James.

Some of you are begging God for happiness and he says I'm gonna give it to you Through serving.

Some of you are begging God for belonging and God is saying I'm gonna give it to you Through serving.

I need this pain and this ache in my heart to go away and God's gonna do that for you Through serving.

And some of you are just gonna have to trust us.

Some of you are just gonna have to trust us that you don't even know what we're about to do for you by offering you the opportunity.

Walking into the auditorium as we speak, I think our 19 of our church family that are gonna go these are our children, our kids' ministry, elementary age and they're gonna go to Oklahoma City is that right, ms Brandy?

Oklahoma, tulsa, Oklahoma, and they're going to serve for a week.

Like we're gonna.

Like we're trying to raise up a whole generation that understands that belonging and family.

Anybody remember it?

Like that, you're extended Thanksgiving gatherings.

Anybody remember those?

And everybody brought something to eat and everybody, you know, like, my job because they want to keep me away from the food was the trash.

That was my job.

In our larger gatherings.

My job was to make sure, notice, gather, take it out, shake it out, replace it, rinse and repeat.

And then I had another job back this is way back when we would go to my parents' house.

My dad had built a new shop but he kept the tables and the chairs in the snake infested, you know, like spider infested.

You know little shack thing he had out there.

Also, that was their first and I don't know why we kept putting the tables and the chairs where death could be achieved, but that's where it was and my job was to go, you know, because no, paul don't cook anything, but so my job trash and the tables.

You know what I'm saying.

You know the only people who didn't serve at family gatherings like that, like extended Thanksgiving, you know only people didn't serve.

This is family right.

Only people didn't serve the little kids, little Jack, like we get it right.

We understand, I mean, they're still, they're a little too immature for that and they're just, but we get that little, the littles.

You know who else didn't serve as our family kept growing, my oldest brother's oldest daughter had a sweet, sweet friend who's still part of our church.

Her name is Candace and Candace would come with Ms Marlena and every now and then Candace's mom would come to our Thanksgiving or our Christmas gatherings and they were guests, and so we didn't have expectations of them serving.

So the littles didn't serve and our guests we were hosting them, and the only other person who didn't serve was that weird selfish uncle who sat on the couch with a remote and demanded all of us to cater to them.

Does this make any sense?

Yet, hello Pastor, I don't serve in the children.

I just don't have a heart for children.

Everybody serves in the children's ministry.

When you're a family, right.

Well, I just can't be around children.

Good, then you can be security.

Well, I just don't want to be near the children.

All right, I will help a check in.

I can't be around.

I will help us follow up with parents.

Well, you know what I don't really like?

The little ones, all right.

Well, you give you the bigger ones.

You give it like the middle school, the high school, or maybe the college age, or our young professionals, or the really big kids, like my mom, who's 86, I think, in August.

We'll give you the big kids.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Everybody serves in the church.

Everybody serves in a church plan.

We're still a church plan because we are planting churches.

Let me give you five things.

You're going to write them down.

You know you're not even going to write them down.

I'm going to say to you here are five things.

The Bible says Serving is one of your life's main purposes.

It's why you were saved was to serve.

Mark 835, write it down, read it later.

We exist to serve others by showing God's love in practical ways.

That's what we're doing next Sunday.

That's what we're doing all week.

That's what we've done.

Listen, they're going to Tulsa to do it.

We did it this last week here in Mansfield, where people from all over Arlington, all over the way, just 100.

Oh, it's so exciting to see kids.

She said I had to drag him the first day.

He was up before me.

Mom, are they going to do this?

A two-week camp, because they had felt a sense of belonging.

I'm talking about hot.

We had volunteers that were doing registration.

We had some of our students that were there doing soccer drills with them.

We had other people that were hosting homes.

Some of you had soccer players that were professionals inside your home hosting.

Listen, this is one of your.

Some of you just go.

You know what?

Hey, I can have people in my home.

Some of you have the gift of hospitality and we need dozens of you because the different times we'll have missionaries or different people coming in and out and we just need a place to put them and you can serve that way.

But we're going to practice this coming Sunday all together on these projects.

Some of you are going to be indoors in Jesus' name and some of you are going to be outdoors.

You're going to go, thank God, I don't want to be trapped in there.

You know what I'm saying and I don't want you to be afraid to sign up, because what your availability is and what your tolerance is, we have an opportunity for you.

It's one of your life purposes.

I love this quote that says you make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.

Serving makes you more like Jesus.

Ephesians 20, 28 says even the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom.

The truth is that serving is your highest use of your time.

1 Corinthians 15, 58 says always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord, your serving in the Lord, is never in vain.

Never in vain, always has an ROI.

Listen, how can you?

The problem is, you tell me one other way you can use your time, that you have a guaranteed ROI.

Serving is your highest, greatest use of your time.

That's why we brought man.

That's why we've been serving all week long.

Remember I called it this time?

You all remember I said we're going to have a summer of impact.

Anybody remember that?

Do you know?

Some of you are even here this morning because some of our families have been praying for you, serving you and investing in you and inviting you.

And you're here and others of you do.

You know that you're here and you're sitting in that chair and you didn't pay for that chair.

You just came in and sat in.

What you don't know is that we have some people that have been sacrificially giving for 17 years and they helped to pay for that chair to be bought so you could sit in it.

Guess what you're going to do?

You're going to pay that forward and you're going to give and when we launch our new campus, you're going to help us buy the chairs that you'll never sit in unless you go on the launch team to help us launch our second campus and you're going to serve people.

You know, mark Sigler and his family came and they served us through their youth group because they were part of a church in Marietta, oklahoma, and they came and they served.

And there was another church serving our church.

Did you know?

We do that all the time?

Have you ever talked about, have you ever heard us talk about, the other church plans, the other church that we helped serve and we give them money and all this stuff?

And then Josh, who preached for a slide two weeks ago.

We've done that for them, we served to help them.

We know they have church after church after church that we're giving and serving, because that's what somebody else did to us and if it wasn't for Sigler's, we went door to door and got the word out.

But you know what?

They don't just do that, they didn't just do that to help start the church.

That's their way of life.

Even this week their business Mark, launched a company and he and Brenda, they have a heart, they have a DNA that's sewn into them that we're the servants of God.

It's our gratitude, it's our gift, this is who we are.

And this week their company, whole company, volunteered an entire morning of their all, their all their stuff and they served and they gave back.

See, service and serving others makes us more like Jesus, and it's the highest quality use of our time.

First, just idea Serving is the secret to greatness.

It's the secret Matthew 2026 says if you want to be great, you must become the servant of all.

The true greatness comes from serving hood, not from serving yourself or living for yourself, because the greatest leaders are those who serve the most.

I want to say thank you to our staff of our camp that we do right here on our campus for 11 weeks this summer.

This is Hannah and our team.

I get and I do get emotional about it because we're serving kids and it's a pain in body parts that I can't describe.

Nightmare at times.

You ever want to pull some hair out just to organize and keep it up.

You know.

But the impact and that's why you I know that's why you do it, because way back before I even went on my study break, I could have heard that we'd already had over 20 kids that gave their lives to Christ this summer in our Skylark camp.

That's why we do this.

You know some of this.

To me, god wants all of us to serve with all of our resources and you don't know this and they don't even know that I've got a name for it, but I'm going to allow some of you to self-identify it.

But we have a team that now I'm calling Teacow Unleashed, and it is those and you can be everyone of you can be a part of the same.

It's our most generous givers.

Oh, you can decide about that.

But for those of you who give your tithes and offerings and you go, we love to give over and above that, because we want to unleash the people of God and unleash the mission of God through Teacow to do what we couldn't do otherwise.

If they're going to, it's just they help unleash us.

There are people that are in our church that their ministry is the gift of giving and God's giving them the ability to be, to have resources, to generate resources, so that they can leverage those resources to unleash the redemptive potential of this God's family.

So you go.

I'm not sure God is calling me to be on that team, and if your heart didn't just start going, then your gift is probably in another area.

What I'm saying is find your gift and use it in as many different ways as you possibly can.

There's no gift of setting up the chairs, just so, my God, do it Right.

Like if you ever told your kids how I want you to set the table.

I'm too old.

Is that the table I want to help cook?

Wait, wait, wait.

I know, but did you know whether you're two or 42 or 82, right, this is somebody got to set the table.

And so do you know?

We tear the chairs down during the week and we set up stuff for the camps and everything.

We've had the Ninja course in here, like somebody got to set up the chairs.

How many of you just go?

You know I could come help set up the chairs, you know, but some of you I'm just calling some of you today.

I just want you to know we have some dreams and some visions that are outpacing our current financial resources and I just want you to know that you could be a part of it.

Some of you are coming up to me after this.

Some of you are going hey, I want to be a part of TKL Unleashed and we want to give over and above our tithes and offerings.

We want to give sacrificial and generously and, pastor, if you'll just kind of keep us aware I know it's crazy Some of you all keep telling me, you know, when we say, hey, we're going to raise $250,000 for our annual office, you know you look at me like Pastor.

You had lost your mind Because two years before that we only raised 17,000.

But the year before that we raised 126,000.

And then 250,000.

I'm just saying, listen, I've got a dream and we have a dream for our playground out there for children that is of such quality and excellence that families in our neighborhood in Southmont and other people that hear about it that they're there to go, could we have our children's birthday parties at y'all's playground, at y'all kids' playground, and we're going to have families from all.

Did you know that not everyone has a nice HOA and some of them even do don't have nice things to swing and play on.

Sometimes you only have like one swing.

Like we want to have a place where families can come during the week and they can be here with their littles and they can do play dates and they can have fun and it's safe, but it is first class to the glory of God and it will attract people far from God and then we get to serve them.

I was going to go ahead and tell you playground equipment, apparently, is worth more than gold and if you have ever put in a public playground you know what I am talking about.

But I believe that God wants us to be reaching out to families that have littles.

You know what?

I am going to go ahead and put up the picture of our little, that's little Jack Jack, and Jack Jack didn't serve.

Yet we serve him and I have Miss Hanna's permission.

She said tell them the bad part, tell them the hard part.

That is a beautiful listen.

He's just busy and you know, sometimes you need something to do with, somewhere to go with a child, like all of a sudden, like I am better at it than ever.

Miss Hanna is way better at it than me.

We are better than ever, but we are tired.

I am like I ain't got the same energy I had when I was 27.

How many families out there need a place?

But you know that little cushiony stuff so that they fall off the thing and they don't like crack their head open.

You know cushiony stuff.

You know around the play things, it's worth more than double gold.

We've got dreams that we're going to move the mission forward in very practical ways to serve this community, like soccer camps that really do call about $600, you know $400, $500.

A kid flying all these people from Ecuador.

This is why Methodist Hospital part they were our primary spot.

We brought businesses together, our church together, the school together, like we're just going to keep.

Like we put on the soccer jersey, they got two jerseys and a full uniform and all that stuff.

Like we had our name on there but it was a little smaller up here, methodist Hospital Guerrero.

Everybody else was like they got the big stuff.

You know what?

We just want you to know we're here.

We're here to serve you, but we don't have to have all the credit for it.

Do you know?

We serve people this week that will never end up coming to our church, but they'll find Jesus a savior and we'll help them plug into some church and the kingdom of heaven will expand.

Where are you serving?

I just want you to know.

I have one big point You're going to serve for the glory of God and for your own benefit.

Some of your dreams are going to be fulfilled through giving your life away in service, because give and it will be given.

Under you, the kingdom of heaven is waiting to open its doors of resources to you and the key to unlock that is to give of what you do have, where Jesus opens the door for you to give it.

Some of you ask God to take some things away and he's saying all I need you to do is give some things away Time, talent, trade, whatever it is just serve, and that's going to be the key of faith to go.

Oh, and God says now I can trust you.

I'm leaving this pain in your life to get you to port you to something that's going to bring life and energy and healing and fulfillment.

Trust me, believe God, let's do it God's way and we'll get God's best.