My Church, My Mission

You know, the psalmist wrote until I came into the sanctuary of God.

Then I understood.

And there have been so many times when I've come in here, maybe during praise and worship, maybe pastor's preaching one thing and the Holy Spirit will just drop something significant on the inside and just a couple of words, maybe a picture.

But there's been so much understanding that's come For me personally just by being in here in this room, just by being with you worshiping together, just by sitting under our pastor, listening to him.

Minister, out of God's word, minister, the revelation that he has.

God will give you things, significant things for your life, significant things for this ministry.

And I didn't get all of this in one moment sitting in the sanctuary, but I got little pieces, another piece, another piece and it just kind of ramped up until I couldn't contain it anymore.

And so I've got something for you today and this is different and this is outside of what I was expecting.

I just I presented something to pastor and he said you need to bring that, and so here I am to bring that, and so I hope you receive, I hope you hear, I hope your heart's open to hear what God has for you.

This isn't James talking to you.

This is what God showed me and I believe it'll bless you.

I believe it'll help you.

The title of this morning's message is my Church.

My Mission is my church, my mission.

You know God has given different mandates and missions.

You look through Scripture and, starting in the very beginning, you know there was a mandate for man.

He created Adam and Eve and he said be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over it.

That was a mandate of the big picture of what they were supposed to do.

It wasn't the little details of daily life, it was the big picture.

In Hebrews, chapter 11, you know that's the hall of fame of faith right there, and it starts out by faith, by faith, by faith, with each one of the testimonies that are written in there by faith Noah, by faith Moses, by faith Abraham, and each one of the testimonies that are written in there by faith Noah, by faith Moses, by faith Abraham.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And each one of these patriarchs had something significant that God gave them to do and it was a purpose for their life.

It was a mandate, it was a big picture thing.

Noah was commanded to build an ark for the saving of his house and all of the species of animals that we get to see on the earth today.

God made a covenant with Abraham that he would be a father of many nations.

Moses was charged to bring the Israelites out of bondage and into the promised land.

Now, moses didn't get to complete that because he had an uncooperative generation of people that doubted, that said we'd be not able.

And so what did God do when one generation wouldn't pick up the mandate and wouldn't follow it?

What did he do?

He said I'm going to save it for the next generation.

And so there was Joshua.

And the word came to Joshua and said Moses, my servant is dead.

Now, therefore, arise and go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I have given you.

And so mandates are significant, but mandates are also transferable if there's not a cooperation to go with that.

And so let's look at and I'm not going to read all the Scripture here, I'm just going to briefly go over this story but just for one sake of one of these, let's look at Noah in Genesis, chapter 6, 7, and 8.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

You can find the whole account there.

But in Genesis, chapter 6, verse 5, it says Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 6:5

Man had gotten so bad that it was a hopeless condition and God actually said I regret creating man, and so he was set to destroy man.

But it says that Noah found favor with God.

He found mercy with God.

Found favor with God, he found mercy with God.

And in verse 13, this is where God gives Noah all of the directives, and there's a lot of details in here, but this is a mandate he said in verse 13, he said the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them.

And behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.

Make rooms in the ark, cover it inside and outside with pitch.

And this is how you shall make it the length of the ark shall be 300 cubits.

Its width shall be 50 cubits.

Its height's 30 cubits.

You shall make a window for the ark and you shall finish it to a cubit above and set a door in the side of the ark.

You shall make it with lower, second and third decks.

I mean these are detailed things.

He's commanding Noah to build this ark, to build a boat for the saving of his household and the species of animals on the earth.

And there hadn't been rain.

And God's talking about something that had never been.

He's talking about a flood that's going to come and destroy man.

And he said you have to build this thing and I'm going to cause the heavens to open up and it's going to rain and the springs are going to open up and it's going to flood.

Noah had never been this way.

Nobody had ever been this way before.

And I look at the time that we're in right now and nobody has lived in the last days, except us and this generation and the people that are here now.

Nobody has pastored a church in the last days, except those who are pastoring a church right now.

These patriarchs of old would look forward to where we are in history and be excited about where we are.

Look at the great things that they've done, but look at how they would be excited because we're so much closer to our soon coming king and we get to be the ones to prepare the way of the Lord.

So Noah received this mandate and some say it was 120 years to build the ark.

I don't believe it was 120 years.

You start doing Bible math in there and understand when Noah was born, how old he was when he received this mandate, and it said that he had his three sons with him on the boat and so those sons had to be born.

You start backing into all this and there's a gap, there's an estimation of time in there and it's probably somewhere between about 55 and maybe 75, maybe somewhere up around 90 years to build the ark.

I can't be certain, but it was a lot of years.

And when you receive a mandate you're going to build an ark and it's big and it's just him and his family and he's got all these naysayers out there heckling and mocking him daily for what he's doing.

He's building something because there's a flood coming and we've never seen anything like that and there's no evidence that what he received from God is true.

But it was counted to him for righteousness because by faith Noah received the mandate, he believed the word and he acted on it faithfully.

I got to believe that there were some days out there where Noah got tired of building the boat.

He got tired, him and his sons got tired of hewing the timber, and it wasn't just him and his sons doing this work.

It was the family, I mean.

Think about all the support that had to happen.

They had to survive, they had to live, they had to feed themselves all through this, and so just the work of daily life compounded on, we're building a boat, and not just a little boat, not just a lifeboat, a little thing, but a big ship that's going to house animals and birds and his family and going to have food stores for some undetermined period of time that he didn't know.

It was a big project and I got to imagine that he got tired of building a boat from time to time, but he stayed faithful to it.

At no point there is no record of Noah saying God, I don't like this design.

I'm going to make some changes here.

I don't think it needs to have three decks.

I think two will do just fine.

This has taken a long time.

My back is sore, we're tired, we're running out of trees, we're having to haul stuff further and further to the building site.

People are giving us a hard time about this.

Can we just do two decks?

Maybe I could just build a pergola and an easy chair and just sit back and watch what you're going to do.

He didn't change the vision.

He didn't change the mandate.

He didn't change the mission.

He didn't veer off of it.

He was faithful to the end.

Hebrews 11, 7 says by faith.

By faith being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, he prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world, and he became an heir of righteousness, which is according to faith.

By faith, he did some big things right there.

You know, some of these mandates that we're going to talk about today came with a warning.

There was a warning this is coming and this is what I need you to do.

And by faith, he moved with godly fear.

What does that mean to move with godly fear?

It means to care more about what God said on something than you are concerned with what anyone else in this world thinks about you and your family and your church.

No matter how crazy it seems, I can't not obey God.

I must complete this mandate.

In verse 6 there in chapter 11, it says but without faith it is impossible to please him.

How many want to please God?

I hope every hand goes up with that.

How many want to please God?

It requires faith to please God.

If you don't have faith, you cannot please God.

It's impossible to please God, it says.

And then it also says that for he who comes to God must believe that he is, that he is God, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

So you're not doing this in vain.

He's a rewarder and he's faithful.

In Hebrews 10, 35 and 36, it says therefore, do not cast away your confidence, your all outspokenness, your boldness of speech, your consistency in what God has said.

Do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.

Your confidence has great reward.

Why would you not be bold in speech?

Why would you not be outspoken?

Why would you not be continually proclaiming the things that God has given you to proclaim and to do those things that God has given you to do?

Why would you not be outspoken?

Why would you not be continually proclaiming the things that God has given you to proclaim and to do those things that God has given you to do?

Why would you not?

There's a great reward.

Verse 36 says for you have need of endurance, and that's not just the endurance of carrying the load.

And I've been building this ark for 60 years, 65 years.

I've got another deck to put on this thing.

We still got to add pitch I'm getting tired.

It's not an endurance where God is piling things on you, to see how much you can take without breaking Endurance.

Here is the active fortitude that resists weariness and defeat.

So you've got to constantly build yourself up.

Come to a place where you can be built up, be refreshed continually so that you aren't just pressed into the ground under the weight of this thing.

You must work to endure fighting against weariness and defeat so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

Claire and I just took Thea, our oldest daughter, up to Oral Roberts University and dropped her off.

She's a freshman this year and that was a long, eight-hour drive back home without her.

But I got to hear some things there at ORU and especially during that.

First, that inaugural service for this freshman class.

The president of the university got up and laid out the vision and laid out the plan and the expectation for these students and what they were stepping into.

And you know you think about this university, oral Roberts University.

You know we got Roy sitting over here and his dad, lonnie Rex, who was a member of this church.

Lonnie helped put Oral Roberts on television.

Oral Roberts was an amazing evangelist, talked about God, a good God.

God is going to do something good for you today.

He was a healing evangelist.

He had a ministry of healing, he had a ministry of salvation.

And you know, at one point Oral Roberts the name Oral Roberts was one of the most recognized names in all of the world.

People all over the world knew who Oral Roberts was.

God told Oral Roberts to build a university.

Now who does that?

Who just says I'm going to build a university and sets out you know we'm going to build a university and sets out you know we're going to build a university, let's get going.

He argued with God over that.

Why?

Because that doesn't make any normal sense in our natural thinking.

How do universities get built?

They start because there's some institution of learning at some level somewhere and people start coming and they valued the education and they added on to it and more people valued it and money came in and more buildings went up and more students came.

It was something that just happened over time because it was a successful thing.

You don't just say I'm going to build a university and build a university, but God told Oral Roberts to build an ark at a time when you don't do that.

And people heckled him and made fun of him and criticized what God gave him to do and called him ambitious and all kinds of things, and people were very critical of his ministry and things that he heard from God along the way.

But God told him to build a university and so he did and he set out to build that university.

It was commissioned in no-transcript.

What do you do if you're going to build something?

You start buying up land, royce was telling me.

He and Evelyn started buying up land when it was cheap, out away from everything, where there wasn't anything out there.

They just started buying land as they could and making preparations to build a university.

1963, commission first students 19, 1965.

Royce is old enough.

He told me he was at the groundbreaking of that university.

You were what?

12 years old, something like that.

He was at the groundbreaking of oral roberts university.

It's kind of a big deal.

It's kind of a big deal, wasn't it 2008 when we got to go visit with Oral Roberts?

It was 2005.

The pastor went to interview him because in 2005, somewhere along there, oral Roberts had had an incredible vision, one that he experienced.

He was in his body in his apartment, in his little condo right there, and he experienced something that was as real to him as the room that he was in, but it was so powerful and he felt the sound of what he saw.

And he saw this thing and I'm not going to get into what that is, but he had a wake-up call and it was a wake-up call.

It was an urgent one for the church and, as pastor heard the wake-up call and what Oral Roberts was talking about, he said he's got more inside and I want to interview him.

People are talking to him about this and they spend more time talking than they're asking questions and there's more to come out.

And so we got an opportunity to go out there and Pastor interviewed him in his home.

Oral and Evelyn Roberts in their home and our family got to go and some of our staff got to go and be there in his home and Oral Roberts laid hands on each one of us and prayed over us, prayed over our family, and Thea wasn't born yet, but she was there.

I just for us.

That's an impactful thing.

She was there.

Claire didn't know she was pregnant until that day she realized she was pregnant.

Oral Roberts had just laid hands on Claire and I and effectively Thea, and now Thea is attending that university.

Tell me, god isn't in this stuff.

And I know that that university has had its troubles over the years.

It's had its financial difficulties and Oral Roberts passed away and his son picked up the mantle of that and tried to carry it forward and he didn't have maybe the skill sets and maybe everything that his dad had.

He didn't have it all and it just fell into trouble and started to go down.

Things fell into disrepair and started to deteriorate and the enrollments were going down and the money they were hemorrhaging money and it was not a sustainable thing.

And so he left the board and another president was installed and there's been some changes and now there's a new president in there and he's been there 12 years.

Bill Wilson is his name.

He's been there 12 years.

But that president stayed true to the mission, to the mandate that was given to Oral Roberts back in, you know, before 1963, when God first spoke to him he didn't say well, this is a good university, but we're going to take this in a new direction.

I've got some great ideas about this thing.

We're going to do something a little.

He didn't do that.

He stayed true to the mission that God gave Oral Roberts.

The mandate did not leave for that university.

There was purpose in that that had not yet been fulfilled.

That must be fulfilled, and if this generation isn't going to do it, there's going to be another one that will, and so there are replacements lined up at any given point in time for each one of us.

If we won't, someone else will, and God has them ready.

I don't want somebody replacing me.

I don't want, I don't ever want to be in that position.

I want you to know that today that university is flourishing.

They just graduated their largest graduating class in history.

Our daughter, thea, is part of the largest freshman incoming class in history.

They have brand new buildings going up.

The old ones are coming down or being remodeled and renovated and renewed and updated, and they're doing it debt free.

How do you do that?

That's God.

That's somebody who knows how to cooperate with the anointing and be true to the mandate and to do His part, and God is doing the other part.

And so we got to hear the president of the university speak on some of these things and he gave some statistics out of Barna regarding the church and I don't remember the exact numbers, the stats that we heard, but there's a significant portion of the church and a lot of pastors who don't believe that this, right here, is God's holy written word for today.

The idea that this is God's word for us today is a waning idea in our culture, in our society and sadly, it's true in the church in so many places.

And that president stood up and he said I want you to know that 100% of our staff believes that this is God's holy written word and it's true for us today.

And it gets better.

He said I want you to know that 100% of our staff, our faculty, if you work here, you are a born again believer and you receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

There's not one person hired on staff who doesn't believe that and isn't born again.

And then he took it one step further.

He said I want you to know that 95% of our faculty and staff have been filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.

I feel bad for the 5% who had to sit in the room and listen to their president say that they're going to get it or they're going to get out is what it looks like.

They're going to get it or they're going to get out is what it looks like.

And then he said this.

He said we have a mission statement and we can go ahead and put it up there.

He said our students are going to know this mission statement by heart in the first semester.

This was God's word to Oral Roberts.

He said raise up your students to hear my voice.

You're getting ahead of me, you're reading.

Raise up your students to hear my voice, to go where my light is dim, where my voice is heard small and my healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth.

Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased.

Think about Oral's work and the students that are being raised up will far exceed that.

That's God's mission, that's his mandate, and I'm just talking about the mandate for that university.

Well, this mandate applies to our church just as much.

It's God's word to his people.

This is the Great Commission right here.

It's the Great Commission.

It was given personally in these words to Oral Roberts regarding that university Raise up your students to hear my voice, to go where my light is dim, where my voice is heard small and my healing power is not known even to the uttermost bounds of the earth.

Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased.

There's places that don't know God's voice.

There's places that don't know his healing power.

There's places where God's light is dim, where people are just have barely a recognition that there's a God of creation.

Now, all of creation screams out and cries that there's a creator and he is God and he's the God of the universe.

They're without excuse.

One of the warnings that Oral Roberts had and he talked about it with us in his home was that my church is not ready for the second coming of Christ.

God can't stand it to have a generation of people that are not ready for the second coming of Christ.

He can't stand the idea of having somebody stand before him and saying I didn't know, I never heard, and we're getting close to the end.

He's our soon coming king and if we're not going to pick this up and run with it, there's another generation that will.

Well, those students are memorizing this.

This is going to be ingrained.

It's not a mental memorization, it's going to be in their heart and they're going to carry out this mission.

It's their life's mission.

And Habakkuk 2.2, it says write the vision, make it plain on tablets.

It means you've got to put it on something in a visible place that he who may run, who reads it, so that you can read the mission and understand your purpose in that mission.

What is my role in this mission?

And I'm going to run and do it to the uttermost, I'm going to do it to the end.

And so I expect in our church we're going to have to put some stuff up on the walls because this church has had mandates over the years.

We're going to have to put some things up.

I'm sorry we didn't do that, but we're going to do it now and make it plain so that you understand the mandates that God has given this ministry, this church, and that you can run and do your part, because everybody here has a part and there's a lot of people out there that have a part in this mandate and this mission and they're not here yet and part of your part is to ensure that they get here.

Anytime you start something new, that's a little bit foreign, a little bit awkward.

You have to kind of have some repetition to get it going.

Think about people in a rowing belt, a team of rowers.

You know you're in there.

I've gotten in a rowboat with about.

It was a rowboat that had positions for eight people and everybody's got an oar and somebody's at the front of the boat giving direction and getting everybody in rhythm and pulling the same stroke the same time and everybody's putting their oars in the water and pulling at the same time.

I tell you, our boat looked like a drunk spider walking on the water when we first got going, but after we kind of got into a rhythm of things and started pulling, everybody was in unison and the boat started efficiently going through the water and everybody's pulling and doing their part and we're doing it together and I can't pull on somebody else's oar over here and they sure can't pull on mine, but we're doing our part and that boat starts moving through the water and so that's kind of a picture of what it looks like to get something started for the first time.

And once you get in that groove, you're doing the same motion over and over and over again.

You're in what we call I got in the groove, right.

What happens if you stay in the groove for 10 years and 20 years and 30 years?

We're in our 30th year.

What happens when you're in the groove for 30 years?

That groove gets a little deeper, right, and a little deeper.

And I don't think it's true for everybody, but it's probably true for a lot of people here that maybe you feel like you're in a little bit of a rut.

If you stay in a groove long enough, it can become a rut.

A rut is something deep that you can't get out of.

Pastor put it this way a rut is just a grave that's open on both ends.

We don't want to get in a rut but we want to do our part and do it efficiently and be faithful over that, to not quit.

But that might mean that you need some times of refreshing in between.

It might mean you need some times of re-equipping and re-upping.

Maybe you go out and do something for a while and then you come back in and get filled back up.

That'll keep you out of a rut.

I can imagine Noah's family got tired of building the boat, got tired of doing the things that they were doing, but they didn't quit.

They stayed true to that vision.

They stayed true to the mission.

Oral Roberts stayed true to the mission.

The new president for the last 12 years, true to the mission.

It didn't die, it didn't go away.

It may have kind of slowed down a little bit, maybe have lost a couple of steps, but then it got picked back up and it's renewed and refreshed and they're pulling together and they're accomplishing the thing that God gave them to do.

In 1962, john F Kennedy was visiting the NASA Space Center and he was touring the facility.

You know, you can imagine him walking, the president walking the halls, and you can imagine he's probably got a big entourage of people with him and all the scientists and all the engineers and all the staff that are excited about their part.

Their mission was to put a man on the moon and we were behind as a nation, behind in the space race.

Russia had done things that we hadn't done and we just kind of had to hit the reset on that and we put the bar further out there so that we would have to start doing something that had never been done.

Okay, we've got satellites going in orbit around the earth, we're going to do something that's never been done.

We're going to put a man on the moon.

So JFK is walking the halls, he's with his entourage, he's getting this tour, he's seeing all the technology, all the knowledge of that place.

And he sees down one hall one man working by himself and he left the group to go walk down there and talk to him.

Man's pushing a broom.

He says what's your job here?

What's your role, what are you doing here?

The janitor said, sir, I'm helping to put a man on the moon.

He didn't say I'm cleaning up somebody else's mess, I'm just a janitor.

He saw his job every bit as important as mission control.

As the engineer that designed the space helmet, as the engineer that worked on the rocket boosters, he saw himself as an integral part of that mission and he was helping everyone there completely.

He recognized they need a clean environment For the kind of technology and the things that we're doing.

We got to have a clean environment and my job is to make sure that it's a success.

And if I don't do my job, something out here is going to fail.

And I'm helping to put a man on the moon.

It doesn't matter how small the job seems or how insignificant it seems.

If you're helping to complete the mandate, if you're helping to accomplish it, whatever small piece is critical.

Don't let the size of something determine its significance.

It's critical to the mission.

Now I don't want to have a critical voice here, so I want you to hear my heart behind this.

I have heard people in this church and I'm not pointing anybody out, but I've heard people and along the years they refer to this as hey, you've got a great church.

They might say this is a great church.

They might say they might refer to this church you know, hey, that's the Griner's Church, and they might call Pastor John, they might call him John Griner and it's missing the title.

Why is the title important?

Because the title is an office.

The title is a position that's critical to completing the mission.

It's not.

It doesn't matter the person, who's in the role, it matters about the role.

Nobody at NASA got upset because Joe was the engineer in charge of the design of the space helmet or whatever.

I mean.

He was an engineer, he was in that role and he had a job to do and he was doing that job.

So it really doesn't even matter who's standing right here in this pulpit at any given time, whether it's one of our family, whether it's pastor, whether it's a visiting ministry.

If they're brought in, they're brought in to pour something into you.

That pastor recognizes our congregation needs and it's going to help us accomplish the mandate, the mission that God has given this church.

And so we can't be critical of the voice that stands here in the pulpit.

Oh well, I don't like the way they preach as much as I like this, but I got my favorite preacher.

It's not about that.

God will hold the one speaking up here accountable to him for what's said and what's done.

Let God hold that person accountable.

But the office is the office, the position is the position and it requires all the offices, all the positions, no matter how big or how small.

Every one is critical and significant to the success of this mission.

Now, when you call, if somebody says your church, you know you've got a great church.

I really enjoy coming to your church.

That tells me that you're not a member of the team of this mandate given from God, and that's okay.

We have visitors come in all the time.

Visitors can come in, people can come and you've got attenders, people who attend the church and come here.

You know, at every one of these spacecraft launches, there's always an audience out there.

They're cheering people on.

They have people who are part of the team and they want to see them be successful and they're cheering them on.

They're every bit as excited about it.

They're supportive, but they're not part of the team that's actually accomplishing the work of it, but they're supporting from the outside.

I'm good with that.

We can have support, we can have encouragement, we can have people who recognize this is a good church.

It's just not their church and that's okay.

But if you call this your church, then the mandates and missions given by God for this ministry are yours.

That's why the title of this message is my Church, my Mission.

If God gave a mission to this church, it's yours and what you do in your life needs to help accomplish that mission.

You have a purpose.

That's mission critical, and if you don't do it, there's a replacement lined up.

If we don't do this, there's a replacement lined up.

If we don't do this, there's a replacement lined up.

If this generation doesn't accomplish what God has given us, the next generation will.

I am so desperate about this.

Let's get this one right.

The days are evil out there.

We've got a job to do.

It's a big one, and we're not the only church doing this.

There are others that have a similar mandate, similar mission.

So I'm not, we're not the end.

All be all, but we have a part.

We have our part.

So if you say this is my church, I know you're on the team and if you're on the team, you have a job to do.

You have a role to play in this.

Every one of you has a role to play in this and I see and Pastor said it at the beginning there are opportunities that are now becoming available.

There are things that need to be opened up in this ministry to have more of you get into the right positions.

Maybe some are in a position where they got in a rut.

Maybe they need to be shifted into a different position.

Maybe they were out of position to begin with.

If you're ever out of position, you're in the wrong spot and you're keeping the person who belongs in that spot out of it.

That means, for every one person that's in the wrong position, two are out of position and there may be some shuffling, some adjustment, but we want to get people in the right place so that what God has given you the gifts and the talents and the abilities and the anointings that God has put on you in your life you're part of the team and you've got something to add to this and you're going to help accomplish this mission, this mandate.

So let's walk backward in time to the founding of this church, 1995,.

The very first message that pastor preached was called kingdom shipbuilding.

That was the launch.

Now that's a that came out of Psalm 107, 23 and 24.

That reads they that go down to the seas and ships and do business in the great waters.

These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

That's always been see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

That's always been for a long time.

It's been a very important scripture to me before I even knew anything about Claire.

In fact that was how she tested to see if maybe I might be the one God had for her.

What's your favorite scripture?

I said Psalm 107, 23 and 24.

They go down to the sea in ships, do business in great waters.

These see the works of the Lord, his wonders, in the deep.

She went huh, that's interesting.

But think about that.

You will never see great things or wondrous things if your ship is still tied up to the dock.

It says you have to go out into the deep places, you have to launch.

Then you can see some great things, then you can see some wondrous things.

I've been in some deep places, literally on a ship across the Atlantic Ocean, a sailing ship like, with big sails and stuff, wind power.

I've seen things out there that most people don't get to see.

I couldn't get away from God.

I was trying to literally run away from God and the call of God on my life.

My dad was a preacher.

I wanted nothing to do with that.

I went the opposite direction, just like Jonah did.

I hopped on a boat and sailed away and all the time out there on the ocean I couldn't get away from God.

He was real to me and he was very present and I felt so small and yet so loved from the great things that I saw, the wondrous things that I saw in the deep.

That's the founding scripture of this church, the very beginning, and so we're going to go some deep places and you're going to have to launch.

We'll get into launching in just a moment.

So now we're talking about the mandates.

In 1996, the church is a year and a half old and pastor is motivated by God, through the unction of the Holy Spirit, to start looking for a piece of property they were meeting in basically a startup church in a strip center that was falling apart, and so he's looking for a piece of property.

And he had a measure of faith to look for a piece of property.

Thank God he did.

And as he goes and starts looking, he had an open eye vision where he saw a giant star in the sky and it was a star with a circle around it.

He relates it to a marshal's badge and he said that giant star sat down on a piece of property in this area.

He was looking in this area and he saw that star.

And then he zoomed away so that he was up and he saw that star.

And then he zoomed away so that he was up and he saw that star become very small as you zoom away and it was like a star on a map, like a capital on a map, like when they mark the state capitals.

He saw that on a map and he said what are you saying to me, lord?

And he heard regional center.

There's a lot wrapped up in regional center, but that's one of our mandates right there.

It wasn't a you're going to do this.

It started with who you are, to recognize who you are and what kind of a ministry this is.

You're a regional center.

What does that mean?

What is a regional center?

Are we a capital, a capital on a map?

A regional center is an apostolic thing.

This is an apostolic church.

What does apostolic mean?

It means it's cutting edge, it's a forerunner, it's somebody who blazes a trail, who goes and does things that haven't really been done before and obeys the call of God to make way for something other, for others to come in behind and do their part.

That's the apostolic.

And so that's what a regional center is.

It's a central point, it's a hub.

A regional center is someplace where people go out from, they untie their ship from the dock here and they go into deep places and they go do something for a while and then they come back and get re-equipped and refreshed and built back up so that they can be launched again.

So there's a coming and going that needs to be constant from a regional center and then back to that capital star.

The significance of that says you have governmental authority.

How many know, we have governmental authority According to what Jesus did.

I mean in the beginning.

We were supposed to fill the earth, subdue it, take it by force and have dominion over it.

That's governmental authority right there to rule over it.

And so we're charged in the spiritual way, spiritual realm, to rule over things as a governmental authority.

And then pastor is reminded that there's a legislative, executive and judicial authority that goes with that.

And we didn't know what that meant at the time.

But fast forward all these years later and we've got my God Votes and we're going into capitals, state capitals, across the country, and bringing pastors, bringing the church into the capital, bringing the presence of God into the capital.

We're having an effect.

The church at large and this church is having an effect on legislation, on judicial rulings, on the executive rulings of this nation.

We're in a position to take this nation back and to prepare it for our soon coming king.

Our part is a regional center with some governmental authority.

It's the apostolic.

So that was 1996.

In 1999, pastor was awakened up in the middle of the night with a gruff voice that said get up, wake up.

And, pastor, you know he had been out and it was late and he was tired and he just rebuked the devil.

And then he thought what if it's the Lord?

So he gets up out of bed and stands there beside the bed and Lord is that you.

Your servant heareth Nothing, gets back in bed and questions and prays.

And then he gets this.

He says wake up.

I want you to wake up the church.

They are just like you, asleep in their beds with their covers pulled over their heads, and when I speak to them they think it's the devil.

Wake up the church.

There's a mandate.

The condition is they're just like you asleep and they don't even know my voice.

That was kind of an indictment.

I mean.

The pastor felt like gosh, we're getting involved in some of these political things.

We're helping to.

What do you mean?

We don't know what is it that we're asleep to, and he had to pray and find that out.

But the mandate is to wake up the church.

And so we're awake to some things now.

We're awake to what time it is.

We're awake to what our role is.

We're helping to wake up the church.

We're helping people to recognize the voice of God and not not, not say it's, it's the devil when he speaks.

At some point in here, god told him that he was going to send a hot, dry wind and he said when they come, you can roll the next slide.

He said I'm going to send a hot, dry wind and when they come, make sure there is water.

Some of you are here because of the hot, dry wind.

There's a lot of churches out there, dead churches, who don't have the presence of God, don't have the spirit of God.

They may teach some word, they may have some understanding of the word, but they don't recognize the times they're in.

There's some things missing and that hot, dry wind is still rolling through the church.

People are in dead churches.

They're in places where they ought not be and they belong in a church where they can carry out a mandate like this one.

And so some of you are here because of that hot, dry wind.

And our job here, all of our job not just the one standing in the pulpit here all of our job is to make sure when they come through the doors, when they arrive in our parking lot, they've got to have water when they get here.

That means the first people to water them is some of you.

We've got to water people when they come, help them feel refreshed, welcome them in here, make them feel comfortable, help them get healed up, make them feel a part of what's going on here.

It starts out there, it happens in our lobby and all the way into this sanctuary and through all of the ministries, all of the volunteer ministries, it happens, sanctuary, and through all of the ministries, all of the volunteer ministries, it happens.

And it happens in here, through the ministry, in this place, 2003,.

Pastor got this word and it was during a time when this building was under construction.

He said God told him there's a dearth of the word your children don't know what you know and the mandate teach what you take for granted.

And so pastor was concerned about our children's ministry.

What do you mean?

Our children don't know.

We need to focus on children.

Well, that was part of it.

The children, they need to hear the word too, the important words of God.

They need to hear that.

And so we did some things to improve the children's ministry.

By the way, our children's ministry is flourishing.

Our youth ministry is flourishing.

These kids are more fired up about it than some people in this room.

We've got to come up to their level.

But God really wasn't talking about the children in the children's ministry so much as it was the next generation.

This generation doesn't know God.

Romans 128 says and since they did not think it worthy or worthwhile to retain a knowledge of God.

He turned them over to a reprobate mind so they would do those things that ought not to be done.

They're doing those things right now, today, in our culture, in our society, in our schools, in our families.

Out there, they're doing things that ought not to be done.

They're doing unnatural things that God never intended, and it's because they have a reprobate mind.

Why do they have a reprobate mind?

Because they didn't think it worthwhile to even recognize that there's a God of creation who loves them, who created them a particular way, in his image, and has a plan for their life and a plan for the family.

We've got to help wake up people out there, this next generation there's a dearth of that word and so we've got to wake them up.

That's a mandate for this church 2006,.

This building is already constructed.

We've been in this building a couple of years and God said to pastor you're going to build a barn for the harvest, and this is not it.

Referring to this GWC building, you're going to build a barn for the harvest and this is not it.

So pastor thinks, okay, well, lakewood Church is.

You know, pastor Osteen.

He had a big church and he warned me not to build one less than 3,000 people or something like that.

We built 1,000 seats.

So he's starting to think and work through this and process this and you know, maybe we need a bigger church, maybe we need a builder building.

And he started to.

You know we need 10,000 seats, we need to build a building for 10,000 seats.

But then I got to wonder what is 10,000 seats in the harvest of humanity that God wants to harvest?

It's nothing.

You can't build a building big enough to contain the harvest that God has in mind for humanity.

There's a harvest to be had, the fields are ripe, it's ready.

We got to be putting in the sickle.

And where are they going to go?

There is a structure that needs to be built to preserve the harvest.

So I asked, pastor, not long ago, what if that barn is not a building?

And you know, revelation comes in stages.

God reveals things to you along the way.

We've got my God Votes the worship at the state capitol, projects where pastors are coming together and bringing the presence of God in there and ministering God's Word, and those relationships are being created and churches are becoming more engaged.

And what if that's part of the network?

What if that's part of the structure of the thing that's going to preserve the harvest.

I got to think that that might be because we can't build a building big enough to even house a half a percent of the harvest that God has in mind.

Yet we're part of an effort to build a structure of pastors and churches and network in multiple states where there's a great potential to preserve the harvest.

I mean it just kind of washed over.

What if?

I don't think it's a building, I think it's a work, it's a structure that's going to preserve this, and so that's a mandate to build.

You're going to build a barn for the harvest.

What is your part in building a barn for the harvest?

Every one of you has a part in every one of these mandates.

If this is your church, this is your mission.

All of these mandates.

I want to put these mandates up where people can see them.

I hope you wrote them down.

They've been up on the screen.

I hope you wrote them down In Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 11, and this is the mandate for the fivefold ministry.

Ephesians 4:11

It says and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and some teachers.

For what purpose?

For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.

The equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.

The equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.

That's the purpose for that five-fold ministry.

Pastor is not all of those things, but he is a pastor and he does have an apostolic anointing.

And we've got people in this church that can teach and some of you can evangelize, and we have the gift of prophecy that happens.

We have all of these things at work in this ministry and the purpose of that is to equip you, the believer, for the work of the ministry.

You are to come in here to be equipped for the work of the ministry.

You have a ministry.

You have a part in these mandates, both in here and out there.

You're coming in here to be equipped.

Some people come in here and they're in a desperate condition.

This is a hospital for people who need to get healed up and built back up so that they can begin to do this thing, and that's a mandate for this church.

That's a biblical mandate.

God didn't have to repeat that one, it's just in His Word.

Look in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

And in verse 12, this talks about the body.

So this is you know, we have a church body and you're members of that body, but collectively, as a born-again believer, we're members of the body of Christ.

Verse 12 says, for as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one, so also is Christ.

There are many members, but collectively we're one body working together.

Verse 15 says and if the foot should say because I am not the hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

Every one of us has a role, every one of us has a part.

Every one of us has a place and you're part of this body.

This church body and you're one of us has a part.

Every one of us has a place and you're part of this body, this church body, and you're part of the body of Christ.

And we have a role to play.

And it doesn't matter if you're the smallest toenail on the smallest toe of the left foot or if you're the right eye.

It doesn't matter.

You're part of the body and you have a role and you have a position and it's all critical.

Every one of you are critical to this work.

Every one of you are critical to this body.

This is your church.

This is your mission.

If somebody walks up to you in the lobby and you're picking up a gum wrapper off the floor, what is your response?

I'm helping to put a man on the moon, not the moon, but I'm helping to wake up the church.

I'm helping to build a barn for the harvest.

I'm making sure that this regional center is clean and can properly operate and accomplish the mandates from God.

We have an apostolic mandate to do some pretty big things around here and we don't have room for a piece of trash on the floor.

So I'm picking up the trash because I'm helping with all of these mandates and missions from God.

What is your role?

You need to be able to articulate this back to somebody who asks you what are you doing here, no matter how small it is.

If you're coming in and greeting somebody, if you're part of the hospitality team and you're serving food.

If you're on the prayer team, the prayer team prays things out.

They don't always get to see and know, but they are praying out the mandates, they're praying out the steps, they're setting things in order in the spiritual realm so that the actions that follow are in line and can be done.

I heard, you know we've got a sound team, and I heard one of the members of the sound team.

I'm going to brag on him, it's Stephen George, and I don't know if he's here today or not, it doesn't look like he's on duty.

But a couple of years ago he was talking about the sound team and how important that was and he was telling me you know, if we on the sound team do our job the way we're supposed to do, it, nobody knows.

And if we mess up, if we get something wrong, everybody knows.

He said my job as a member I didn't ask for this.

He's articulating this.

My job as a member of this sound team is to ensure that there is no distraction in the audio, to ensure that the message that is being brought forward has no distraction, the anointing is not interrupted, there's no break in the flow, so that the people here can receive what God has for them that day.

My job is to make sure might as well have said when they come, they're going to find water.

My job is to make sure that.

You know he could have filled in the blank with the mandate, but that was his heart behind that.

Every member of every one of our teams the ushers, the security, the children's ministry, the youth, whoever it is has the same mandate and we're all helping to pull and accomplish the same thing.

We're helping to wake up the church.

We're helping to ensure that there's water, that those that come when they're thirsty they find water, and not one.

Think back to that janitor.

I don't know this, but I'm imagining he was so faithful over his broom that he didn't get concerned with the designer of the space helmet and say I don't like that design, I don't like the color of that.

I think it ought to be this way.

Nobody argued with the engineer who you know, the secretary in the office of somebody over here didn't argue with.

They were working together on this.

There's a lot of sidewalk engineers that can walk past a building and look at the building going up and say why in the world are they doing?

That is the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

I can't believe they're building that building that way.

That is so stupid.

But they don't have an intimate knowledge of what's going on on the inside and so they can.

It's easy for them to have a critical voice from the outside looking in, but when you're part of a team, you have a job to do, you have a role, and we've got to do it and not be critical about it.

There's a lot of opportunities right now for people in this room to get off the sidelines and to get positioned into the place that God has you to help accomplish this mission.

Those are opening up right now.

To help accomplish this mission.

Those are opening up right now.

We're a regional center.

We're going to train people to go out, to go into deep places, to cast off the dock lines, to get in the boat and go deep places and see wondrous things and to go.

Do that for a while and get in the groove.

But don't get in a rut.

Come back and get filled up and refreshed and re-equipped and repurposed and launched out again.

Don't get in a rut.

Whatever little thing you're doing, don't despise the small beginnings.

Don't despise the small things.

It may seem like a small thing, but it's critical to this mission.

And that's not the end of this right here.

There's more to this message.

That's the part that God gave me to give you, and I know our pastor has the next part, and we didn't coordinate, we didn't collaborate on this.

He knew what I had to do, but God gave him something to follow up on this, and so what you're seeing is something supernatural, and I don't know what's going to happen next, but I have given you what God gave me to give you and I hope you receive that.