How Far Would You Be Willing To Go? | With Johnny Woodfield

Crossing family, how we doing today?

Are you guys doing all right? I am so excited to be with you

now. Several years ago on Super Bowl

weekend, we hosted Super Bowl champion Steve Weatherford from

the New York Giants, and traveling with him was a young

man by the name of Pierce Show. He was an ultra runner.

I didn't know what that meant, but the entire weekend that we

were here, he would go out for like these long 10 mile rides or

runs. And I started following his

journey on social media and he participated in some nasty

races. Turn to your neighbors, say

nasty. Let me just walk you through the

races he ran in 2023. He did the Tahoe 200 Miller,

then he went and did the Bigfoot 200 Miller, Then he did the Moab

240. As in 240 miles through the Moab

Desert. However, in 2025, this kid set

his sights on the Guinness Book of World Records for consecutive

days running a half marathon on a treadmill.

The previous record holder had done so for 125 days, so Pierce

started running. He ran for days, weeks, then

months until on August 2nd, 2025, he shattered the old

record by 28 days, running 153 consecutive marathons.

For those of you who are not good at math, that is 2004.3

miles. It reminds me of the quote that

I am sure almost all of you are familiar with.

The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.

I titled my message How far would you be willing to go?

I want to welcome all of our different campuses that are

watching online. Those of you who are part of the

crossing inside, I am so thankful that you are here and I

want you to hold my sermon title intention.

How far would you be willing to go Now, Super Bowl weekend is

just around the corner and I want to remind you that we'll be

hosting a special guest to help you answer some of the key

questions that you have about defending your faith in Jesus

Christ or having a faith in Jesus Christ.

We titled the weekend Defend Your Turf.

And if you want, you can go ahead and hop in the app and go

down to the news and events section and it will help you

invite a friend to come with you because that weekend will be a

great weekend not only for you to in your faith, but to help a

person who is close to you but far from God begin their faith

journey. We are in a series called There

Has to be a place, real stories of real people with real faith.

As Jesus was speaking to the multitudes, he said this at the

very end of his time here on earth.

Matthew chapter 28. He was actually saying this to

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

his disciples. He said, then all authority, or

then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven

and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them

in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,

and surely I will be with you always to the very end of the

age. There's a couple things to

notice here. 1 Jesus comes in all authority.

There is no negotiation. If you are a Jesus follower,

He's in charge #2 this is a command.

Jesus is not asking us to do something.

He is telling us that if you are a Jesus follower, this is what

you were to be about. This is an expectation for

believers. When you get baptized, you don't

just make Jesus your Savior, you make him your Lord.

And how do you know that you have made Jesus the Lord of your

life? It is really easy.

Are you doing the things that He has commanded you to do?

And three, you and I are to be about making disciples.

And you might be asking, how do we make disciples?

Jesus answers it by going, by baptizing, by teaching, and by

obeying. In other words, if you've ever

wondered am IA Christian, you can answer it by those four

ways. Am I going about the things that

God has called me to do? Have I been baptized?

Am I teaching other people the word of God?

And am I obeying the word of God?

And this is to be our preoccupation.

If somebody were to ask you, what do you do?

Your answer should be, I make disciples of Jesus Christ.

That should be your answer. What we typically do is we tell

them where we work, but that is not why you were put on earth.

It is helpful that you do that while you were here on earth,

but that is not why you are here on earth.

In other words, it is not where you work that matters nearly as

much as what you do for God while you are at work.

Where you work is your occupation.

What you are about is your preoccupation.

And you and I are to be preoccupied with the things of

Christ. And you might be going, hey,

that sounds great, I'm just not there yet.

And I want you to hear me say this.

That's OK. It is just not OK to stay that

way. The Bible zooms in from time to

time on people and what I want to do for just a second is I

want to zoom in on just three of them.

The first person I want to zoom in on is Peter.

Peter is one of the lucky people that has chosen to spend close

time with Jesus over a three-year period.

He has seen almost everything that Jesus does.

On the very last night of Jesus's life, he's gathered in

an upper room. They're taking the Last Supper,

and Jesus is telling them that things are about to get bad and

you guys are going to abandon me.

And Peter says I will never deny you.

And then a few hours later, not once, not twice, but three

times, he denies Jesus. The Bible zooms in on another

person. His name is Thomas.

Just like Peter. He is one of the 12 who gets to

spend a whole lot of time with Jesus and see a whole lot of

things that Jesus does. But Thomas was the one who

showed up late. He wasn't at the meeting when

Jesus appeared to them after he had been crucified, buried and

rose from the dead. And so all the other people are

the other ten are saying Jesus is alive.

We've seen him. And Thomas says this in John

John 20:25

chapter 20 verse 25. But he said to them, this is

Thomas speaking, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and

I put the my finger where the nails were and I put my hand

into his side, I will not believe.

Then there's Paul. When we're introduced to Paul,

though he doesn't go by Paul, he goes by a name, Saul.

The first time he's mentioned, he is in attendance of the very

first person who was killed for their faith in Jesus.

The man that they were killing was named Stephen, and there

were a group of men who were throwing stones at him to kill

him. That's how you stoned a person.

You threw rocks at them until they died.

And while the guys were throwing rocks, they needed to get a

little bit more heat on the rock.

And so they took their coats off so they could get a better

throw. And guess where they put the

coats? They put their coats at the feet

of a man named Saul, so he was keeping watch over the jackets

while the people were stoning the very first Christian martyr.

Acts chapter 8 picks up the story.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And Saul approved of their killing hymn.

And on that day a great persecution broke out against

the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were

scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

But Saul began to destroy the church, going from house to

house. He dragged off both men and

women and put them in prison. Why is he putting them in

prison? For their faith.

Their faith in what? In Jesus, the Bible zooms in and

we have a denier, a doubter, and a destroyer.

Some of you today you could fit into one of those 3 categories.

Maybe you're a denier, you're a person who you deny Jesus with

your words. Or maybe you don't deny him with

your words, but you deny him with your life on a regular

basis. You deny him in your home.

You deny him at work. Depending on the crowd

surrounding you, you deny Jesus. Others of you, you might be a

doubter. There are just some things that

make it hard for you to fully commit your life to Jesus.

And there might even be some of you today who you would be a

destroyer. You're actually against God.

You're against the church. You're against his people.

You've made fun of people for their beliefs, you've shamed

them, ridiculed them, picked on them every time they take a step

of faith. However, these pesky Christians

that are in your life that you keep picking at, they keep

praying for you, loving you, inviting you, and for some

reason or another, you find yourself here today for this

message. And I for 1:00 AM so glad you

are here. Recently I heard a story about

one of our staff members that was just way too good to be

true. So I asked him if he would come

and share his story with you. So would you please welcome

Johnny Woodfield to the stage? Come on up, Johnny.

You're going to be great, OK? You're going to do great.

So for those of you who don't know, when we launched our

Weaver location, Johnny ended up being the worship pastor at the

Weaver location. So Johnny, you should probably,

they'll hate you if you don't. You should say hi to the people

in Weaver real quick. Hi people in Weaver.

There you go. Good job.

OK. Thanks for loaning us to him for

the weekend. Now, Johnny, tell us a little

bit about you. Yeah, so ever since I graduated

high school, I had been on a constant search for what God

wanted me to do with my life. When I graduated, I moved 1000

miles away from the East Coast to Quincy, IL, where I wanted to

study to be a pilot. But I found that career path

required far too much debt that I was comfortable with, so I

enlisted to the National Guard to try to get them to pay for

it. While in training, I became

obsessed with the need for biblical counseling and decided

that maybe that should be what I'd study.

A few months later, I got the opportunity to join another

military group to take a flight halfway across the world where I

fell back into the dream of being a pilot.

And for whatever reason, on that trip I decided I wanted to do

social media professionally, if that's even possible.

I I gave it a try and quickly became obsessed with how much of

A creative outlet outlet it was. There were very few limits on

the things that I could create as long as somehow I could get

people to notice. And while I was brainstorming

for my next idea on what to post about, I stumbled upon a short

video describing a town in Nebraska with only one resident.

For those of you to kind of catch you all up, I want to show

you guys the cool video that he found online.

This is the smallest town in the United States.

Welcome to Manawai, Nebraska, a town with only one resident.

But why is there only one resident and who is it?

The town is located in the continental United States, 4

miles from the South Dakota border and 60 miles from the

nearest supermarket, surrounded by dirt roads.

The town used to be home to 150 people and had stores,

restaurants, and even a prison. But all the people moved away to

the big cities and now only Elsie is left and she is 90

years old. There are only three buildings

in the town, a house, a library and a Tavern.

The Tavern is open 6 days a week where you can eat a burger made

by Elsie and drink a beer. It's easy for her to get a

liquor license, just apply as a bartender, sign it as a clerk,

get it as a secretary and send it back to the bartender.

She holds all these positions and she's also a librarian and a

mayor. She is alone but not lonely as

there are many customers in her place.

If you are interested in Land in the Middle of nowhere, Elsie has

a list of available. So you see this video and what

goes through your mind? So after I realized it was only

8 short hours away from Quincy, I knew that I just had to go

there. I didn't really have much of A

game plan. I couldn't imagine there was

much content to capture in the world's smallest town.

But for the next few months I worked on some other projects

and kind of put the Mono Y project on the back burner.

Until one day I was driving around and for whatever reason,

Monoi came back to mind. Except this time I wasn't

interested in how to capture content, but curious if there

was any possibility that Elsie, the town's single resident,

could have a church to go to. I kept thinking about it, then

wondered if she even had access to a Bible.

This thought solidified my plan. I no longer cared about the

content, I just cared about getting her a Bible.

I ordered a nice large print Bible with her name just stamped

on the front. A few days later it came in the

mail and it was no longer if but when I would make it to Elsie.

The next open weekend I had I made the trip up to Monoi and

normally on these projects I'd I have a list of things I wanted

to record, but this time I didn't have a plan at all.

When I got there it was about how you'd expect a town with one

resident to look empty. I walked into the Tavern and

ordered a burger and fries, and it didn't take long to start a

conversation with Elsie after guys.

After the guys at the bar had left, I asked her if she'd be

open to an interview. I set up my phone and a mic that

really hardly worked and started an interview that I had 0

qualifications to give. It didn't take long for the

conversation to shift to questions about what finding

community looks like in a town with one person.

I knew that that would be my chance to ask her if she had a

church to go to. She shut down the line of

questioning, saying that she believed she didn't need to go

to church and that life is just about being good to people just

like Jesus was it. It seemed to me that she thought

that Jesus was a good teacher, but wasn't too concerned with

Christianity. At the end of the conversation I

told her that I had a gift for her and I pulled out the Bible I

had ordered a week prior and I could see her eyes water as I

slid it across the table. She said thank you and asked me

to sign my name on the presented by line on the first page and I

knew something was happening in her heart but I didn't think it

was quite appropriate to ask. We got up to take this picture

together and just when I thought that that was the end of my

trip, she stopped me just before I could reach the door to tell

me that she would find a way to make it back to church.

Yeah, I hope God raises up 1000 more people just like you.

You obviously learned a lot and you have some takeaways from

that experience. Share them with us.

At first this whole trip seemed to be like something that was

just a fun, curious project, but by the end I really felt the

weight of the fact that this isn't just a fun thing to do,

but a soul who needs Jesus just as much as anyone else does.

A few days after the trip, I I really had internalized the fact

that the trip mattered, regardless of whether anyone

heard about it. Even though it was just one

person, it still matters. What I'm learning is that as

long as you were living life completely surrendered to Jesus,

you aren't going to miss God's will or His plan for your life.

You don't have to go into missions or vocational ministry

to be obedient to the Great Commission.

Every person that you encounter needs Jesus just as much as

anyone else. Dude, my man, you killed it.

Hey, you seriously did an awesome job man.

Great job. When we talk about making this

region the hardest place on planet earth to get to hell

from, that is exactly what I'm talking about.

In the book of Acts chapter one, verse 8, there's a second Great

Commission. It just never gets called that.

But when you read it, you'll see it.

Acts chapter one, verse 8, this is Jesus talking again.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and

Samaria and to the ends of the earth Jesus mentions.

Four specific places he mentions Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and

the ends of the earth. If he were saying it to you

right now, Jerusalem would be your family, your neighborhood,

the people in closest proximity to you.

After you do a good job there, you would make it to Judea, your

country, the United States of America, or wherever you're

watching from. Now, when you get to Samaria,

those people would have been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

whoa. You don't mean Samaria, because

Samaria, that's your enemies. That's the people.

You don't mind if they go to church as long as it's not

yours. You don't mind if they make it

to heaven. You just don't want them to be

close to you when they get there.

The people that have hurt you, frustrated you picked on you,

the people who've made your life difficult, your enemies.

But one of the hallmarks of the Church of Jesus followers has

that they have always been known for their enemy love.

No wonder Jesus says pray for those who persecute you into the

earth. Well, that's everywhere else.

That's everyone else. So I titled my sermon.

How far would you be willing to go, Johnny?

He traveled from Quincy all the way to Nebraska, a distance of

523 miles, to tell one person about Jesus.

Remember Peter the denier? Well, that's not how his story

ends. Peter goes from Jerusalem all

the way to Rome, a distance of 1500 miles.

Thomas the doubter doesn't stay a doubter forever.

He ends up taking the Gospel from Jerusalem all the way to

India, a distance of over 3000 miles.

And through the mission partners of this very church, we are

still carrying out Thomas's desires to reach that reason for

Jesus. And remember Paul the destroyer

it his story doesn't end that way.

Paul starts going on trips. He goes on so many trips that

they bundle them into missionary tours.

His first missionary tour he travels 1235 miles.

This is before planes, This before power boats is before

locomotives. This is either by foot or by

donkey or camel. Second missionary journey, he

goes 2700 miles. He likes it so much he does that

journey again. The 3rd missionary journey,

another 2700 miles to tell people about Jesus, the one he

used to persecute people for believing in.

And you would think after that he was all done.

He wasn't. He made a final trip to the

place that would eventually kill him.

He traveled from Jerusalem all the way to Rome, a distance of

2130 miles. And I am so glad he made that

trip because before he died, he wrote the book of Romans.

And if you have ever read the book of Romans, chapter 3,

Romans 3 · chapter mention

chapter 5, chapter 8, all the chapters really, you would

realize that it was the message that he spoke to them that is

still speaking to us all. 8583 miles later.

So today if you're here and you're a denier, A doubter or a

destroyer, God can still use you if you'll let him and your

journey you might be going. There is no way I'm ever going

to go that far for Jesus. You don't know that because the

journey of 1000 miles begins with one single step, and every

time you take a step towards Jesus in faith, He will help you

take everyone after it. But here's the crazy part.

Every time you take a step of faith, you make it easier for

somebody else to take theirs. To those of you who are Jesus

followers, my question is simple.

How far are you willing to go? Are you willing to go across the

hallway at work? Are you willing to go across the

street in your neighborhood? Are you willing to go across the

gym, Across the factory floor? Because the next step that you

take just might be the step that somebody else will take because

of it. We're moving to a time of

decision. To those of you who don't know

Jesus yet, let me just talk to you for a little bit.

I love this time, and I say this every time I get the opportunity

to share in this invitation. The first step is very scary.

I get it. If you haven't ever taken that

step to trust Jesus and surrender your life to Him, it

can be scary. I get it.

It could be laced with tons of fear for some of you.

You're like, man, I got so many questions and that's what's been

holding you back from taking that step.

I don't know what it is for you, but I know it can be scary.

I've been for a long time. If you think about your life and

you think about all the decisions you've made in the

past, you have been making the decisions, you have been running

the play. You've been leaning on your own

strength. You've been leaning on your own

understanding. And I just need you right now,

wherever you're at. For those of you who have not

started relationship with Jesus, those who are online, those in

this room, I need you to take a deep breath and I want to ask

you this question. How is that working out for you?

And I don't say that in a in a, in a condemning way.

I don't say that in like, Hey, this is me putting my thumb down

on you. I'm just saying, are you

satisfied with the direction of your life?

Are you are you fulfilled? Do you feel fulfilled?

And I have good news for you. For those of you who want to

take that step, even though it's scary, although it's filled with

all those things, listen, there's a better way.

And his name is Jesus. You heard about him were crazy

about him and his desire is to walk with you and to enter into

this relationship with you and to give you this hope and to

give you this, this assurance of his love and and in a

forgiveness. And I love as we talk about this

story, we talk about these these three men specifically that that

scripture points out that that Peter was the denier, right?

You heard it. Thomas was the doubter and and

and and Saul or Paul was a destroyer right.

But it reminds me that God can change anyone, anyone, and he

could use them in a way that they never thought was possible.

And that's why I think there's somebody in this room and online

right now that Satan has convinced you that you have

messed up too much, that you're disqualified, that you can't be

loved by him or be part of this family of believers.

And I'm here to tell you, you have not messed up more than

those three guys. You have not messed up too much.

You have not said the wrong things.

You have not done the wrong things.

You have not gone too far because when you turn your heart

to Jesus, he did a mighty work through those guys.

And I believe, not only do I believe, I know he can do the

same thing in your life in an instant, in a moment, as soon as

you take that first step, as soon as you trust them.

And so if you're listening to my voice right now and you want to

like take off those names that you've called yourself, whether

you've been that denier, whether you've been that doubter,

whether you've been that destroyer, you can put on a new

name, a son or a daughter of the most high God.

And that is only through an intimate personal relationship

with Jesus Christ. And so if you want to take that

very scary step and trust him and start that relationship with

him in just a little bit as we start to stand and meet, the

band's going to come out and we're going to we're going to

worship. Some are going to come down the

steps right away. And they're just simply bowing

in humility and giving God praise.

If you have questions and you want to start that relationship

with Jesus, there's going to be someone over right by the

baptistry underneath that screen that you can just say, I need

that. I want to strip off those names,

and I want that name of being a son or a daughter of God.

And that's our prayer. That's why we're here today.

And for those of you who are listening, who know Jesus, let

me ask this very clear again, deep breath.

How far would you be willing to go?

What step do you need to take even in this moment?

What person is the is the Lord placing on your mind in your

heart right now? Because I have a feeling he's

putting the name in your mind. That's not that's not me, that's

not Clayton, that's the Holy Spirit.

He's putting someone on your mind.

And I invite you during this time that you would just bring

that name, get down on your knees and you would just give it

to the Lord Ask God, give me a burden for the lost.

Give me a burden to, to, to reach that person to do whatever

it takes. Johnny went a lot of miles to

Nebraska. Paul, Peter, Thomas, they

traveled a lot of miles. But here's the deal, Church, we

have 10,000 square miles. And in order to make this region

the hardest place on planet Earth to get the hell from, we

have to be willing to go. We have to be willing to obey.

We have to be willing to share our faith.

So let's join God on this mission together.

Let's lock arms. Or maybe I feel like I have to

speak to this real quick for that person in this room who's a

Christian. Maybe you felt like you went

backwards this week or it's been backwards for the last couple

months and you you drop down that name of son and daughter

and you've been living in shame, you've been living in regret and

you've been living like in darkness.

Listen, you can just also come back up to these steps.

You can recommit your life to Jesus and you could say, I don't

want that name. I am your son.

I am your daughter. And you can get down on your

knees and you could get back in that right relationship with

Jesus. You haven't gone too far.

Come back, come back to him. So would you guys stay with me

right now? Let's let's worship and let's

believe that there's power in the name of Jesus in this

moment. How far would be be willing to

go right now? Jesus, we, we pray God, in this

moment as we lift up this song, as we lift up our voices, as we

take those steps, even though they're scary, we do it with

your strength. We do it with your power.

We do it in your name, Jesus. God, I pray for that person who

has been wearing the wrong name, wearing just walking in their

own strength, God, that they would just drop all of that and

just trust you and walk with you.

God, I pray for, for the people that we want to reach, God that

we go out of this room with your strength, with your boldness,

with your courage that you give us.

Lord, there's power in your name, and we want to declare

that right now in Jesus name, Amen.