The Power of Discipleship and Evangelism

Oh, crossing family. It is so good to be with you.

I hope somebody's already told you this past week, but if they

didn't, I want you to know I love you.

God loves you, this church loves you, and we are so thankful we

get the opportunity to gather together every single week.

I want to welcome those of you joining in our physical

locations and I want to welcome those of you who are watching

online, and I want to send a special shout out to all of you

who are part of the crossing inside.

Yesterday morning, I got invited by a group of wonderful

volunteers out of our Hannibal campus to go to the Vandalia

women's prison, and I got to preach the Easter message for

three different services. There's over 200 women that were

in there, and they are part of our church.

And when they worship, when they listen to the sermon, when they

are taking their communion, it just helps you realize how good

our God is that no matter where you are, no matter what you've

done, no matter what you're going through, our God has not

and will not give up on you. And I'm so thankful that I get

to be a part of a church with people like you who are making

sure that moments like that maintain a reality that even if

you're in jail, well, the gospel of Jesus Christ will find its

way to you. So the Hannibal crowd, we want

to give you a big round of applause.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

And to all of you who serve in our inside ministries, God bless

you. You're doing a very special

work. I also want to welcome those of

you who are joining our church for the first time or the first

time in a long time. And one of the things I want to

constantly remind you of is anytime you come to our church,

take advantage of that QR code on the seat in front of you.

It'll give you access to lots of different ways for you to

connect to our church, but also join us in making a difference

in this region. And Speaking of making a

difference, this upcoming week we will be celebrating Easter.

And if you want to figure out which service time, you should

attend because we're going to have a lot more service times at

all of our different locations, There it is,

crossing.net/easter. We're going to be having 36

services that are different locations.

We're going to be having five online services and depending on

your campus, your service times, maybe not just having an

additional one, but they might be moving the time you normally

go to. And as we're preparing for

Easter, there's four things bring someone park far away,

serve somewhere and pray. I finished up the Easter message

on Thursday. I'm going to probably retool it

a little bit, but you can be praying for the message.

You can be praying for all the people who are going to be

making invites. You can be praying for people

when they're walking in. And you might be going Clayton.

Why do you guys make such a big deal about Easter?

Well, it has to do with our mission as a church.

Our mission is to help people find an intimate, personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. We believe to the very core of

our being that there is nothing better than finding and

experiencing the love of God through Christ Jesus.

And on Easter weekend we get a chance as a church to minister

to more people than any other weekend of the year.

Many people, many people that you know, that you love, that

you care about, are going to give church a try on Easter

weekend. They're going to give God a

chance and they're going to say yes when they would otherwise

say no. And when they walk into our

different locations and they see it full of people just like you

who look like them, and it will encourage them and it will

inspire them and help them realize that there really are

people all over our communities and region who are having their

lives changed by Christ. So that means that the way we

worship, the way we engage in the message, the way we storm

the steps in prayer, sends a message to their heart that

there is hope in this world and that hope is Jesus Christ.

And we want to make sure that as a community of believers, we are

ready to love them and care for them.

You've heard us talk about the spiritual spectrum before.

We had to kind of switch it up because we flipped the TV

around. But God loves absolutely

everybody on this spiritual spectrum, whether you're a -, 5,

and let's say you hate God and you're a + 5.

And you know you were with him when he created the heavens and

the earth, right? You were just, you've just been

walking with Jesus that long. Everybody on this graph matters

to God. Every person on this graph God

loves. And then as a church, we need to

make sure that we are doing our part to help move people.

So no matter where they're at on the graph, if if +6 is where

Jesus is, any time someone is taking a step as a church, we

want to be rooting them on. Every time they're getting ready

to take a step, we want to be guiding them and helping them

and directing them to move in the direction of Jesus.

You might know somebody who's a -, 5 and they don't believe in

God at all. Or you might know somebody who's

a -, 4 and they know about God, but they're not, You know, they

don't really care all that much. Or a -, 3 might be somebody who

knows about God, but they're not really interested in spiritual

things. It's just kind of a back burner

dealer. You might know somebody who's a

-, 2 and let's say a -, 2 is someone that believes that God

exists, but they really wrestle with what it means to trust him.

We can relate with that. Or maybe they're a -, 1 and they

believe that God exists, and they believe that God loves

people. They're just not sure if he

loves them. And then maybe a person who's a

zero is a person who's just starting to really place their

faith in Jesus Christ. Or perhaps A + 1 is someone

who's taking their first baby steps.

You know these these are people who who they know a little bit

about God. They obey a little bit, but they

share a lot. Like they're always telling

people about Jesus. Or a + 3.

It might be somebody who knows a little more, obeys a little more

and shares a little more. Or a + 5 might be somebody who

has a really long spiritual journey with God.

And not only are they obeying a lot and knowing a lot and

sharing a lot, but they've helped other people to do the

exact same thing as a church. When we talk about discipleship,

what we're really talking about is moving people this way,

helping them take their next step of knowledge, obedience,

and sharing and passing that on to other people.

The reason why we have to do this, or the reason we have to

share this, is because our love for God and our love for people

compels us. The very beginning of every

discipleship journey starts with someone sharing the good news of

Jesus Christ being an evangelist, evangelizing,

telling people the good news. Look what it says in Romans

Romans 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10. Everyone who calls on the name

of the Lord will be saved. How does that happen?

Well, how then can they call on the 1:00 they have not believed

in, So you can't call until you believe.

And how can they believe in the one in whom they have not heard

well before? You can believe, you have to

know. And how can they hear without

someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless

they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of

those who bring good news, the beginning of every discipleship

journey, of everybody taking a step of faith?

It begins when someone who looks exactly like you and exactly

like me takes seriously our part in God's plan to tell the people

around us about what life with Jesus looks like when we take

seriously the gospel message and we tell people what God has done

on our behalf and on their behalf as a church.

If we are going to be people about the Great Commandment and

the Great Commission, this is inescapable for us.

Because what are the Great Commandment and the Great

Commission? Tell us you already know this.

Mark chapter 12. Love the Lord your God with all

Mark 12 · chapter mention

your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all

your strength. The 2nd is this.

Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater

than these. And remember what it says in

Matthew chapter 28. Then Jesus came to them and said

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

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 the Son and the Holy Spirit, and

teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely

I am with you always to the very end of the age.

How can we as Christians possibly say that we are loving

God with our all? How can we say we are loving our

neighbors as ourselves if we keep silent about what God has

done for us and what God wants to do in others?

I know many times we have this desire to talk to people about

starting relationship with Jesus and then all of a sudden our

feelings take over. Maybe from time to time you've

said something like this. Man, I really want to talk to

them, but I just don't feel like it.

I don't feel like I'm ready. Or, man, I really want to talk

to them, but I'm nervous about what they'll say.

You've had the desire to talk to your friend about Jesus, but

you're worried about what they might think about you.

You want to talk to somebody about Jesus, but then you're

concerned that you might not have the answers to some of

their questions. All of a sudden, we have this

desire to do something for God, And then our feelings take over.

Our emotions take over. But I've been hammering this

home During this series, Steve Weatherford taught us this.

Amateurs make decisions based on their emotions.

Pros make decisions based on their commitments.

If you and I want to go pro in our faith, we're going to have

to make a commitment that I'm going to care more about the

eternal destiny of the people around me than about the

temporary feelings I might have about sharing my faith.

Because if we are going to be governed by our emotions, we

will never make the difference that we were called by God to

make. We will never make the

difference that you and I were created to make.

However, if you and I were to make decisions based on our

commitments to Christ and our belief that God is real, Jesus

alive in the Bible is true. There is no way that we could

keep silent. We would be praying.

We would be looking for opportunities every single week

at our church. You guys get to see the baptism

videos and we tell you every single week that behind every

single one of those baptisms there is an incredible story.

And today what I want to do is I want to zoom in on just one of

them. So that way you can see the

power of 1 Invitation and how God can take a small sea that's

planted and produce an incredible harvest.

I'd like you to watch the baptism video of Colin Clay.

Hi Church, this is my friend Colin.

Today he's, he's taking that step, he's taking that step out

of darkness and into the light and he's ready to start taking

ground for the Kingdom. So.

That's why I give the. Name of the father of Son.

Isn't that great? So Colin was going through a

rough time and he was kind of posting some stuff and somebody

saw it and they reached out to their brother and said, hey, I

think we should talk to him about Jesus.

And so Colin came to church and he ended up getting collect

connected to our college age ministry and eventually our

college age ministry collective had him hop on stage and share

his testimony. And I would like you to hear

Colin's story and Colin's own words.

Would you watch this video? Thank you, Sir.

So good evening. I'm Colin Clay.

As he said, and I'll just get right into it.

So before I found Jesus, I was always a believer in God.

I never lived though the way he intended.

My life was full of sin, such as wild parties, drinking, lying

and other sinflax. These led to depression, anger

and even suicidal thoughts, causing me to lose things such

as my home when my parents kicked me out because I was

turning into a man they could not control and my family not

happy with the example I'm creating for their children.

And even promises, empty promises that I was making, even

friends, started to question the man I was becoming.

I was out of control and I was on the verge of losing

everything. That all changed one day when I

ran into an old friend. He asked me how life is going

and I couldn't lie to him. The man I was, not, the man I

was, not someone to be proud of. Instead of pushing me away, he

asked me if I would like to go to church with him and his wife.

At first I thought church was not a place for a man like me,

but I also thought, what do I got to lose?

So I attended The Crossing in the winter of 2022.

I sat in the farthest chair from the stage and didn't talk to

anyone. But it's hard to walk around

here and not talk to anyone due to the amazing staff and the

volunteers we have here. We were doing the Reclaimed

series and some of you might remember the motto was restoring

what what was lost and fixing what is broken, and I was both

of those. Slowly I started to get more and

more comfortable and eventually got baptized by the same man

that invited me here. But I was still not 100 with

God. And all that changed on January

25th of 2023. That morning I was involved in a

bad car accident after hitting a tree at 50 plus miles an hour,

an accident I shouldn't have walked away from, but something

greater than me was watching over me and I walked away with

only a bruise. This led me to not only believe,

but to know that God was bigger. God had bigger plans for me and

it was time I walked with him and not only live the way he

intended, but also to spread his word and becoming a follower.

This took away all the bad, the depression, the anger, the

suicidal thoughts. I quit the drunken nights and

all the other sinful acts I had been involved in and when I feel

those feelings I turn to God and I pray.

I pray daily. I can honestly say now I'm a man

that my friends and family can be proud of and someone they can

go to for help. I'm hoping I can help others

find Jesus the same way that I found him.

I pray that someone hears this and knows it's OK to not be OK.

Give your life to him and I promise God will turn it around

because if he can forgive a man like me, he can forgive anyone.

You just have to turn to him to close this out.

Some people ask me, I wish there was a playbook to life on what

to do and how to do it. And my reply is it's called the

Bible. It'll tell you everything you

need to know. God can move mountains.

God can part the sea. You just have to believe in him

and talk to him. Walk with him and you and him

can do anything. Because like Clayton always

says, God's way is the best way. So I would like to introduce you

to the person who invited him. This is Colt Doyle.

Would you guys give Colt a big, warm welcome?

So Colt is one of my favorite people at The Crossing, and I'll

tell you a couple of reasons why.

One, he goes to us on a lot of our uncommon conferences.

He's been to South South Carolina.

He's been to Indiana twice. We just got back from doing one.

Our team won in football. For those of you who are

wondering, when we were at that men's conference, we won.

And then, But one of my favorite things about him is he has a

serious heart for the Lord. And every time when Jerry or I

get done preaching, Colt goes to the steps and he doesn't leave

the steps until the first song is over.

And no matter how bad the sermon is, he's there praying for the

next service. For Clayton not to suck as bad

as he did the previous service, that's not the real reason he's

up there. He's up there because he wants

to humble himself. He's up there because he wants

to have that time with the Lord. And God has been doing a very

special work in Colt's life for the last couple years.

I had an opportunity to be with him on the highest of highs and

the lowest of lows. And when I'm working on sermons,

I think of different people in our church in a positive way.

And I always am making sure that I'm writing a sermon for the

people that Colts can be bringing into our church,

because that's what Colts trying to do.

He's trying to help people find an intimate, personal

relationship with Jesus. So, Colt, tell me, what was it

like baptizing Colin? Yeah, so this was the first time

baptizing a non family member. And you know over the last four

years, you know our family's gotten really serious in our in

our walk with Christ and resulting in my mother, my

sister, my two brothers, my wife and I all being baptized.

But this was, this was different from being baptized to to

baptizing someone. It was real and it was like

almost didn't feel worthy. But that was Colin's decision,

and I had the the privilege to walk alongside him and see the

story that God was writing in his life.

And when you think about it, I mean you you went from reaching

out to him to making sure he was OK to inviting the church.

And you probably never thought that you'd be getting the phone

call to like, hey, I want you to be the one who baptizes me.

Well, I also know you've invited people to our church.

How many people do you think you've invited to church?

A lot. I try to do it as often as I

can, to the point now where I I feel guilty if I if I pass up,

you know, an opportunity, is it going to be awkward?

Do I get nervous 110%? You never know.

I mean, again, we don't want to be told no, right?

But you got to keep coming back. But it's my responsibility to to

to reach out and to ask that person and and to get them, you

know, get them connected with with the church or with Jesus.

But it's their responsibility to, you know, they got to make

the decision. What's next?

That's exactly right. It reminds me of the story of

Lee Strobel, who many of you guys have probably heard of his

books. He wrote Case for Christ, Case

for Creation and The Case for Easter.

He used to be a a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and he was

an atheist and he went on this journey and he became a

Christian and one of these days he was getting ready for Easter.

He really felt a prompting from the Holy Spirit, from God, to go

into the business office and invite his atheist friend to

church on Easter weekend. And he's thinking, oh man, this

is going to be great. God's obviously leading me in

this direction. And so he walks into the

business office and he turns to his friend and he says, hey, how

are you doing? And his friend goes, I'm doing

great. And he was going, oh, I was

hoping that maybe his life would be falling apart and I would be

swooping in at the right time. But his life was doing great.

And I said, well, listen, I want to invite you to my church for

Easter. And he goes, Lee, you know, I'm

an atheist. I don't believe in the

resurrection. And then Lee goes, well, I

happen to have a lot of evidence to believe in the resurrection

of Jesus Christ. And he starts to walk him

through that evidence, And his friend looked at him.

He goes, I'm not going to your stupid church.

And Lee walked away distraught and frustrated.

He tried to present the gospel to him.

His friend kind of shut him down, and he walked away kind of

bummed. And to this day his friend is an

atheist. And Lee wondered, why did God

lead me in there to have that conversation with my friend only

to get shut down? Well, years later, Lee is a

pastor at a church. And after the service, someone

comes up and says, I just want to shake your hand and thank you

for the profound spiritual impact you've had on me and my

family. And Lee looks at this guy in

front of him and goes, OK, that's great, but can you tell

me who you are? And he goes, Well, years ago I

had lost my job. And I was worried about whether

or not I was going to be able to keep my home and keep my car.

And so I reached out to a friend of mine who worked at the

Chicago Tribune and I said, I need some work.

And he goes, well, can you, what can you do?

He goes, I've got some tile work that needs done.

He goes, yeah, I've, I can lay tile.

And so I was in the business office one day on my hands and

knees behind this really big desk, fixing some tile.

And you came in and you started witnessing to the guy who was

working at that desk, and you couldn't even see me.

And he was shutting you down. He goes, But as you were talking

about God and the reason to believe in the resurrection, I

started going, I need God. And my heart started beating

really, really fast. And so you walked out of there.

And I called my wife up on the phone.

I said, honey, we're going to church this Easter.

She goes, what? He goes, we need God in our

lives. And she goes, OK, And so we went

to church that Easter at your church.

And I got baptized, and my wife got baptized, and my teenage son

got baptized. When you were witnessing to that

guy, you had no idea that you were changing our lives.

And when he took that step of faith, it's like Ricochet

evangelism. He just reached out to one guy,

but God used it to point another person to Jesus Christ.

And when we say no for somebody by not inviting them, we never

give them the chance to say yes. But when we invite people, we

give them at least the opportunity to say yes.

So let me What advice would you give to the people at all of our

different locations when it comes to talking to people about

Jesus or inviting them? Absolutely.

So first of all, never pass up an opportunity to to acknowledge

someone. A simple hello.

Whether you're open a door or just in passing, just saying

hello, that's the end is going to lead to your next opportunity

of, hey, how can I impact that person?

You got to be real and you got to build relationship.

You know there's going to be, there's going to be people that

you're comfortable with. There's going to be people that

God places on your heart, and there's going to be people that

God puts in your path. And each one of those

individuals, they deserve to know that that God loves them.

So we've talked about this before.

Talk about the strike. Zone.

Oh, yeah. So, absolutely.

So we've got to open up the strike zone a little bit also

because again we got to give people time and I know you've

preached about it before, you know time and there's biblical

time and this, that and the other, but we got to give people

time because they've got to make the decision.

It's not, it's not, you know, we don't make the decision for

them. Again, we it's our

responsibility to get them here. They've got to make the

decision. When when he talks about opening

the strike zone, I think sometimes there's a really

narrow strike zone that we think of people who are ready to say

yes to Jesus, but we don't get to know people's hearts, only

God does, and we open up the strike zone.

We give people an opportunity to make the decision for themselves

about whether or not they want to start a spiritual journey,

and you have no clue how God can take one simple act of obedience

on your part and transform somebody else's life.

This isn't especially true in this story because in a tragic

twist of fate in on February 20th of this year Colin died in

a tragic farm accident. And so two years ago he didn't

have faith in Jesus Christ. And two years later he goes to

be with Christ and the family reaches out.

And they don't ask one of the pastors to do the funeral.

They ask you, talk to me. What was that like?

It was the IT was the hardest, easiest thing I've ever done.

Hard because he's gone, but it was easy because I knew where it

was going. Yeah.

A real thought that I had that I wrestled with as I was leaving

the gravesite and driving down Hwy. 79 is that I I got to tell

everyone that I love. Please don't ever put me in the

position to do your funeral and not know where you're going.

Colin loved being a part of this church.

And as Colt was getting ready to do the funeral, his family

brought Colin's 50 for 50 book. Colin had started the journey

with us here on earth and he got to finish it in heaven.

And these are some of the excerpts from his book.

One of the things I love, he says this is right here.

This is day one, that my relationship with God could be a

lot better. How many of you would agree your

relationship with God could be a lot better?

Yeah, Colin was one of us. I fight temptation and lust and

drunkenness and then he says something incredibly vulnerable,

something that I've said myself I want to be someone God can be

proud of. That was Colin's heart.

That wasn't his heart 2 1/2 years ago, but because someone

was willing to take a risk and make an invite.

That's what Colin was saying before the Lord.

Look at page 2. The challenge was that day is he

reached out and he talked to an atheist about God.

He was looking at the people around him and he was giving

them the same grace that Colt had given him, that he wasn't

going to say no for him. He was going to talk to them

about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Look what it says on the next page.

God put air in my lungs. God did not turn his back on us.

That God loves me for me. And then there at the bottom, he

wants to follow Jesus's word and spread and prepare people for

Jesus coming back like he wanted to start passing on the very

blessing that Colt gave to him. But perhaps my favorite thing is

what he wrote here is that my hope is in a blood stained

cross. So when Colt got up to preach

that funeral message, he was standing over a person whose

salvation was in the precious hands of Jesus.

And he was able to stand there and look at that family and

friends and tell them beyond the shadow of a doubt, where Colin

was. Because Colin's hope wasn't in

himself. Colin's hope is in Jesus.

And someone came up to you and told you something pretty

powerful before you did it. Talk to us.

About that, So the mother of one of Colin's close friends.

So they were at the Hannibal campus and they were visiting

and Colin had had told her. My goal is it is for all of my

friends to feel the way that I feel.

So Colin had started this relationship with Jesus and all

he wanted was for everybody close to him to find what he has

found in Jesus Crossing family. You've heard me say this a

bunch, that we want to make this region the hardest place on

planet earth to get to hell from.

And in order for us to become that kind of church, it requires

people that look exactly like you, exactly like Colt, and

exactly like me. Having the faith to share our

story, having the boldness to share our story and allow God to

use that to transform a person's life.

Colin's eternity would have been drastically different if Colt

hadn't had the courage to talk to him and a life was

transformed and an eternity is forever different because of

that. Charles Spurgeon had this

prayer, and I read it recently and it kind of shook me.

I'm trying to figure out if this is going to become my next

tattoo. This is what he says.

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our

dead bodies. If they perish, let them perish

with our arms wrapped around their knees, imploring them to

stay. If hell must be filled, let it

be filled with the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go

unwarned and UN prayed for crossing family.

God wants to do a work in us, to partner with us and His saving

work. I'm not just talking about this

Easter, but especially this Easter.

And every week after that, you are going to have opportunities

to share, to talk to someone, to invite them to pray for them.

And God will use those small seeds of faith to produce a

beautiful harvest in our presence.

I got a phone call on Friday and one of our the our Lima campus

pastor he from time to time he he drives Lyft and he picks

people up. And so he flips on his left and

he picks up somebody and she hops in the car and they start

having a conversation and then she and says where are you going

for church on Easter? And he started to answer the

question. They go back and forth and he

goes, well where do you go to church?

And she goes, I go to the crossing and he goes, well,

that's where I go, that's where I work.

She goes, well, you are my first invite.

I went to church on Thursday, and I made a commitment that I

was going to tell the people I know about Jesus and I was going

to start by inviting them to church on Easter.

And she goes, my first Test was going to be this lift ride.

And little does she know that the person she was inviting

already worked on staff at our church.

But I love the fact that she wasn't just moved by the

emotions of the message or Colin's story.

She made a commitment that the people she runs into need the

hope of Jesus in their life. They need to know where they're

going to spend eternity. And as a church, we must care

about them. I'm asking you guys, would you

join us in this beautiful mission?

We're moving to a time of decision.

I know there are many of you in this room right now or watching

online, and you have not yet started an intimate, personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe you've been around for a

long, long time, or maybe this is your very first time and

you're here today and you're wondering in the back of your

mind whether or not you are ready, whether or not you are.

Have all your questions answered so you can start a relationship

with Jesus Christ. And I want you to know it's

completely OK and normal for you to have questions and doubts and

concerns and worries. But I want you to know that

there's nothing keeping you from starting that relationship

today. And if you're here and you don't

know where you're going to spend eternity, it is impossible for

you to have peace. And if you're here today and

your family doesn't know where you're going to spend eternity,

you are robbing them of an incredible gift.

Your family deserves to know that when you die, you will be

in heaven waiting on them. And may Colin's story serve as

an inspiration and as a warning, that if we don't have a

relationship with Jesus Christ, hell is our future.

And you and I do not know when we will take our last breath.

Our days are numbered. We just don't know how many

numbers there are. And so don't put it off.

I say this frequently, but I'm I'm just becoming more and more

convinced of it during this invitation time.

This is a battleground for your soul and there are thoughts that

come running through your head. And some of the thoughts that go

through your head are maybe next week, maybe next month, or you

start going well after I get this figured out, after I get

through my divorce, after I kick my addiction, after I navigate

this habit. And I just need you to know that

all of those things that are going through your head are not

of God, they are of Satan. Because Satan wants to prolong

and put off you coming to faith in Christ.

But the voice inside of you that's saying right here, right

now, that's the voice of Jesus, he says Come to me, all of you

who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And if you're here today and you're thinking, man, I've

messed up so bad, there's no way that God could love me.

I'll just tell you, there's just too many testimonies, too many

stories of people who are as jacked up as you could possibly

be, who were transformed by the power of God's love and the

indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You are not supposed to change

you. God is the one who makes you

new. And if you're here today and

you've never started an intimate, personal relationship

with Jesus Christ, I implored, you don't put it off.

And in just a few moments, the people around you are going to

stand and they're going to begin singing, and some of them are

going to come to the steps and pray.

And I want to encourage you to walk right over there by that

baptistry. Underneath that screen, people

won't be able to see you. And there's going to be people

over there who'd love to talk to you, answer some of your

questions, pray for you, and help you begin that relationship

with Jesus Christ. To the rest of you in the room,

those of you who call yourselves Christians, it's time for us to

pray. It's time for us to storm the

gates of heaven on our knees, begging that God would open

doors into the lives of the people that we care about and

that we love. But I want to encourage you to

do something that the early church did.

The first church, did you know what their number one prayer

was? Boldness.

The people who were standing and proclaiming God's word in the

midst of opposition, you know what they were praying for?

They were praying for boldness, and we should probably be

praying the exact same prayer that at times when we don't have

the answer, we pray that God would give us the boldness to

share the gospel anyway. The times when we feel a little

uneasy stepping into a conversation, that we would be

praying for boldness. That we'd step into it knowing

that God would hear us and answer our prayers and help us

navigate those conversations. But this week, as you go out and

you bump into people, every person you bump into, every

person that you lay your eyes on, is a person that God sent

his Son to die on the cross. For.

There is good news. There's not a person you've ever

looked at that God doesn't love, that God doesn't want to be in

heaven with him. And we have the glorious

opportunity to taking their hand and bringing it to God's hand

and helping them find the relationship that changes

everything. There has to be a place that's

committed to helping people who are far from God find God.

And I say it's here. I say it's with you.

I say it's with us. Would you join me in praying for

that? Would you stand?

Heavenly Father, I'm asking you to move in a mighty way in this

church right now. Gather you would shift our focus

from our feelings to our commitments.

God, that we would be overcome by the depth and width of your

love. And God, that we would make sure

that we display it and tell people about it.

God, you've always done great things with just a little With

just a little bit of bread and a little bit of fish.

You fed 5004 thousand God with faith the size of a mustard

seed. You said we can move mountains

and God through Colton Collins story.

We've seen what you've been able to do with just one invite God.

I pray that you would take our prayers for boldness and you

would do a mighty work. And you name my pray.

Amen.