Jeff Cartwright

Chase: Amen. Good morning, church. ⁓ Good morning. ⁓ So we do this little thing at New Hope where I God is good, ⁓ and you repeat all the And then I say all the and you say God is good. So we're gonna try that. God is good ⁓ and all the time? Dude, ⁓ you all just need to come Zini Avenue with me, is you need to do. ⁓ I am honored to be here with you this morning. And I just want to start by saying how much I love Pastor Chase and Pastor Sam and what a blessing they are in my life. It's a pleasure getting to know them and their heart for Centerville and Dayton and the Miami Valley. God is using you. Maybe you don't even know this, but God is using you in mighty ways to do great things. But I think greater things are still to come, and I'm excited to see how God is going to use you for his purposes in the season that's ahead. So I know that you've been walking through the book of Revelation together over the past several weeks, and I admire Pastor Sam for diving into that complex book and tackling it chapter by chapter. And I listened a couple of weeks ago to his message on the seven churches, to the seven churches, ⁓ a couple of weeks ago, as I was praying about what God might use me to share with you here at the point. And here's what I found myself wrestling with. Based on what God challenges the early churches in Asia Minor to do and to stop doing, what would He say to us? What would God tell us that we should be doing as the point, as the New Hope Church, as the church in Greater Dayton, about how to live out his call for us as we seek his kingdom come and his will be done in Dayton as it is in heaven? What would that look like? Here's some of what I believe that God would write to us this morning if he were writing us this letter. First, I think that God would say to us that we need to remember the fire. That we need to remember the fire. For those of you in this room who've been following Jesus for a little while, how many of you remember when you first encountered Jesus? How many of you remember? Do you remember. How you felt the moment that you began to first follow him, the passion, the fire that burned inside of you with every opportunity to share his love with others? Do you ever ask yourself, where's that fire? I find myself every once in a while looking back on those days and going, man, I remember when. And sadly, it's one of those things that I have to walk back to because I'm not always living into it in the day-to-day of my life, right? I wonder what happened to all of that passion and all of that excitement sometimes. I grew up in a church and served in the church for several years before I ever had what I would call an encounter with Jesus that transformed my life. I remember the day like it was yesterday. It happened in a charismatic church in Oklahoma City in nineteen ninety-one. And the only thing I really remember about that church itself was the first time that I visited, I wanted to get out as fast as I could go. Yes, that's how I felt. Right? I mean, as fast as I could get to the door, I wanted to get there. And I remember feeling the same thing when I walked in for the second time, the very last week of the summer that I spent in Oklahoma City. I went with my friend as a as a courtesy to him, and I'm sitting there, and I've I remember feeling that same thing again. But as the pastor got up to preach, he started reading from the text. John chapter 13, and some of you are probably familiar with it. It's a story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. Now it wasn't the first time that I'd heard that story, but it was the first time that I heard that story, if you know what I mean. It was the first time that God spoke directly to me, and I had this image of the Savior of the world kneeling down before his friends, washing their awful feet, and telling them this. This thing that I'm doing for you right now, I want you to do this for every person that you encounter. I want you to serve like this. I resisted the altar call that morning out of fear and embarrassment, but that night I committed my life to Jesus, and I remember telling him, I will go wherever and whenever, and I will do whatever for the rest of my life. I had fire in that moment. And I carried that fire into ministry. I did a youth ministry for several years, and then I planted a church in East Dayton called New Hope back in 2008. But you know what happens over time? Your passion starts to wane, right? Your desire starts to deteriorate. You get distracted by the day-to-day. You settle into a pattern, and before long you're in cruise control, and you find that you're doing stuff, but you forget why you're doing it. And you forget who you are. That described my journey to a T. Early on, that life led to burnout, and I would walk away from things without finishing them because I didn't know what else to do or how else to do it. And I left some things undone in the early days of ministry because, as it turns out, as I look back on it now, I'd lost my first love. God told the church at Ephesus, you don't love me or each other as you did at first. And what I think he meant is that over time, despite our good intentions, we stop putting him first. The work, the schedule, the precision, the execution, they become idols. And we forget why and for whom we're doing things in the first place. We stop being devoted to him and start doing things that may or may not be connected to him and his mission at all. And if he were writing us a letter this morning, I think he would remind us, as he did the church at Ephesus, to remember the fire that you first had. Remember your first love. Keep me at the front of your mission and your vision, not the work, but me. Remember the fire. Here's what else I think he would say to us. I think he would say to us: stay the course. Stay the course. I remember in 2006 when the conference called and asked me to plant a church in the impoverished neighborhood I'd been serving in for several years. I laughed out loud at the district superintendent on the phone. I don't recommend that if you're thinking about ministry. But the whole thing just seemed ridiculous to me. I didn't know anything about planting a church except that when you plant a church, you plant it a place where it has a chance to flourish, not in the middle of the desert. Right? In fact, our logo was born out of that early image that we were called to bring hope into a place that had no life, into a desert place. Over the years, we kept being reminded of how hard it was over and over again. We would lose key leaders that would develop with us or they would join us in a mission in the mission. But because the work is so slow and so hard, they would walk away. Then in 2015 and 2016, the opioid epidemic, which for some reason we hadn't figured out was a problem in the first place, became national news and it centered around East Dayton. And we did funeral after funeral for people who were dying from overdoses in our community, and we even lost one of our very own. Ben was a father and a husband and a son who had spent years masking the pain of not having a father of his own, and despite the progress he seemed to be making. He didn't have the strength to overcome the last time. And our whole community mourned his loss. Then back in 2025, we found ourselves invited to try and bring God's peace and his love to make sense of an unspeakable tragedy when young Herschel Kriechbaum was killed and his body was hidden in a wooded area just blocks from New Hope Church. Add to all of that the financial challenges and the building issues and the staff turnovers, and we find ourselves often in the place, myself and some of our leaders, where we are just ready to pack it all up and be done. Right? The work is overwhelming, the loss brings unspeakable grief. It often feels like more than we can bear. But over and over again, God reminds us, just as he reminded the church at Smyrna, don't be afraid. Of what you're suffering. Because what seems too big for you is not too big for me. You're not alone in this. I'm with you, and if you will stay the course, good things are coming. Aren't you glad that God has not left us alone in the midst of the trials? It is hard in the middle of the worst stuff to keep your eyes on the prize. You know this. It's hard to be Jesus followers wherever we are. Dayton or Centerville or in the middle of rural Ohio or in Zambia, there will always be pain and there will always be opposition and there will always be difficulty. But God's calling his church to keep going. And by the way, I don't know if you knew this, but his church is you. You are the church. Don't let the trials keep you from doing what I've called you to do. Don't let the disaster become your destiny. Something great awaits all of you who stay the course. I think he would also say to his church in Dayton that we need to repent when we miss the mark. We don't like this word repent. Because it means we did something wrong and we have to change our course. But that command to repent or change course or correct shows up five times to the seven churches in Asia Minor. And what I learned from that is that the church is not immune to sin and brokenness because the church is made up of people who are sinful and broken. That's us too, right? Individually and as a body, we are guilty. We turn our backs on injustice all the time. We treat people who are made in the image of God as if they were not. We don't care for the widow and the orphan and the poor and the outcast as we're called to. And in fact, sometimes I don't know that we even know what a widow and an orphan and the poor and the outcast are anymore. We make idols of wealth and church growth and cultural relevance, just to name a few. I can't tell you how many times over the course of the years that New App New Hope Churches had to stop and say, Man, we are not getting this right. Right? Whether we had our eyes on the wrong things or our priorities were out of order, we have multiple times in the 18 years that we've been in East Day and had to call out and say, God, we are deeply sorry that we did this. Or that we didn't do that. Forgive us and help us put our eyes back on you again. And I believe that God is calling out to his church everywhere. Not just in Dayton, not just in Centerville, but everywhere. Stop. Turn back to me. Love me above everything else. Love those people who are challenging to love. You don't know anybody like that, do you? Stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves. Turn from your sinful, selfish ways. Know me and make me known. I know we take this passage out of context all the time, but I actually believe. That when God's people who are called by his name will humble themselves and pray and seek his face and turn from their wicked ways, that he will hear from heaven and that he will forgive our sins and that he will restore our land. When we take that charge seriously as the people of God to turn back to him, guess what? It changes the whole atmosphere around us. It has implications not just for us but for the communities where we live and where we serve and where we work. I also think that God's calling his church in Dayton to guard your Can we just be honest for a minute? It's really, really easy to let our guard down, to become satisfied with how things are and with what we're doing. To approach ministry and mission half heartedly or to pretend to be something that we are not. Really easy. And I think it's the very thing for which God challenges Laodicea and Sardis. They had become too comfortable with the status quo. They were really comfortable with the idea that they could pretend to be something other than they were. And God reminded them that He would spit them out, and like a thief in the night, he would show up unexpectedly to confront them in their sin. It happens to the best of us, doesn't it? It's easy to compare ourselves to other people. Try to become somebody other than who we are. The church is good at that. We are good at that. We model ourselves after the latest and the greatest. We forget that God called us to a life of humility and of servanthood. And like every church, New Ope has had to wrestle with our identity. The temptation to add ministry and programs to attract people or to expand our demographic so that we can reach people who have what we don't have is sometimes really overwhelming because the harvest is plentiful all over the place, but the workers are often very few. And never more so does it seem like that than on Xenia Avenue. But we landed at this truth a long time ago. God called us to a place and to a people to change lives and a community one life at a time through Jesus Christ. And when he calls us to something, he will equip us for it. Let me say that again. When God calls us to something, he will equip us for it. Right? And so we don't have to pretend to be something else or to compromise that call. But in order Fall into those traps. We have to learn to guard our hearts. Because the enemy and the world are coming after us. Amen? Right? So we have to be aware of what we're allowing to influence us. We have to constantly examine ourselves and invite other people to hold us accountable so that we know who we are and what we're supposed to be doing. Most importantly, we have to remember who we are and whose we are. Don't compromise. Don't let Comfort, drive the bus of your life, but guard your hearts. I love how Pastor Sam outlined the churches in his message a couple weeks ago. You might remember. He talked about their strengths and then he talked about their weaknesses. But every one of us, the favorite part of the whole sermon, was when he talked about the promises. Amen? Because we love it when God makes a promise because we know that when God makes a promise, He keeps it. And so he makes several promises to the church, and all of them were connected to a reward. What I want you to hear this morning, church, is that when we are obedient to God's call in Greater Dayton, he makes a couple of promises to us too. Here's the first one: the first promise is that he will be with us, he doesn't leave us alone, right? Jesus made that promise when he was going to be with the Father, that he was sending a comforter, an advocate, a helper who would be with us and in us and guide us into all truth and remind us of what we need to remember. And as his people, we are heirs to the same promise. He's with us. When we walk in obedience, he protects us and he guides us and he leads us and he reveals to us and he never leads us astray and he never leaves us. Hello. He's with us. He will always be with us. That's the first promise. Here's the second this life is not all there is. We forget that, I think, in the day-to-day. We forget that we're living for more than this. Right? The suffering you're enduring, the persecution you're facing, the hard things that you have to go through, the daily grind and responsibility, the persecution, it's going to get better. Jesus told his friends in John 10: I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I'm the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved, and they will come and they will go freely and they will find good pastures. The thief's purpose is to steal and to kill and destroy. But listen to this, my purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying, the NIV says, an abundant. And here's the thing. I'm crazy enough to think that those who find the abundant life don't have to wait until they die to experience it. It starts now. It starts right now. And how do I know? There is evidence of it all around us, right? All around us. When God's church is inviting God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, lives are changing in real time. Can I tell you just a couple stories? Let me tell you about my friend Andy. Andy came to New Oak Church a little over three years ago. He lived in Hamilton. He'd been deep in the drug scene there for many years. His entire family struggled with addiction, and Andy followed in their footsteps. And he was using and he was dealing and he was in and out of county lockup. And finally, he was tired of having nothing, no meaningful relationships, no place to go, no opportunities. And so he decided it was time for a change. And he was transported from Dayton. ⁓ from Hamilton to Dayton into a treatment program and he detoxed from drugs and he landed in a sober living program and one night he heard that a group of his friends from that sober living program were going to this crazy place called New Obe Church to do a thing called after hours. After hours used to happen on Saturday nights after our Christian 12 step meeting where people would come together and they would do karaoke and they would play games. All the things that maybe you used to do when you were doing things you shouldn't be doing. But in a sober environment. And so Andy came. He didn't know how he what he thought about God, but he certainly hadn't surrendered his life to him. But he loved to sing, and so he decided to stop by for karaoke one night. And when he walked in the door, he heard the song Here I Am to Worship, playing in the background. And his heart was flooded with memories of the last time he went to church with his mom. Of all the times that she would sing that song, and all of a sudden, this place became a safe place for Andy. And he started to search for God, and within six months, he surrendered his life to follow Jesus. He was baptized back in April. And when he posted the pictures on social media, one of his friends saw the post and she wrote this. I love this. She said, Today I watched a miracle unfold right in front of me. My friend, someone who has been through hell and back, got baptized. This man has walked through addiction, the kind that steals years and peace and almost your soul. He's buried his mother, he's lost his brother, he's endured heartbreak and pain that most people couldn't carry for a day. But God, but grace, but healing. He didn't stay in the dark. He chose light. He chose life. He chose change. And today, as he came up out of that water, it wasn't just a baptism, it was a resurrection. A new beginning. Proof that no matter how far you've fallen, you can rise up. I'm so proud of you, my friend. That was his friend Jen from Hamilton, who, by the way, has started connecting at New Hope Church, driving from Hamilton to connect to New Hope because of what she saw happen in Andy's life. Today, Andy's part of the leadership of the Christian 12 step program that saved his life at New Hope Church. He's part of our prayer team ministry. He's front and center every single week in worship. He's working, working in the recovery field today, helping other people experience the life changing power. That God had worked in his life. Only God. Does this sound like abundant life to you? Me too. And he didn't wait until the afterlife. He's experiencing it right now. My friend Sarah grew up in the neighborhood where New Hope Church is located, has lived there for many, many years. She's 29 years old. Primary caregiver for a sister with autism, a brother with severe mental and physical disabilities. She struggles with her own physical issues, battles self-doubt all the time. Last summer, we hosted a party in the park up the street from the church, and her family came up to eat and sat and was listening to some music, and we started talking with her. And we invited the family to come to church the next the next day. And the very next week, she and her fiance attended worship. As we were talking to them at after church that day, we found out that they lived right behind my wife and I in the neighborhood. And one morning, Sharon was walking home from something at church, and Sarah was sitting on her porch, and Sarah reached out to her and invited her to come over. And so Sharon walked over and they were talking on the porch, and Sarah asked the question: What do I need to do to be saved? Christians, let me ask let me tell you something. If you ever get that question, you should leap for joy. Right? And on the spot, she's like, I need to talk to Pastor Jeff because I want to get saved. And she said, You don't need him. Thanks, honey. But she's right. On the spot, Sharon prayed for her. Sarah gave her life to Christ. Sarah's now being discipled. She's growing in her faith. She's singing as part of the praise team. She is sharing the love of Jesus with anybody who will listen. And she's experiencing abundant life right now. Can I tell you one more? There's my friend Ashley. Ashley has struggled with addiction for many years. She also landed at a local sober living home, and within a few days she was ready to run. She showed up at the Overcomers Christian twelve step meeting that we hold on Saturday night, the week that she arrived, and she heard something that changed her heart. And she started listening more and more, and she decided that she would stay put. And in the past few months, she has grown. She made the decision to commit her life to Jesus. She was baptized in the fall in front of family who came all the way from Columbus and other places to see the miracle. They couldn't believe it. I got a note from her cousin, and her his words to me were this: very simply, thank you for being here and doing what you do. God changed Ashley's life and is reuniting her with her family. She's reconnecting with her kids. Listen to this. She got her first job ever. She's 35. She got her first job ever, less than a year ago, through a partnership with a local nursing facility. And she just recently celebrated one year clean and sober and walking new in Jesus Christ. Abundant life right now. Only God. There are so many stories like this. So many. God is giving abundant life to people all over East Dayton because He has found His church faithful. A people who are trying to remember and stay connected to their first love, a people who are who are trying to stay the course no matter the trials, a people who are willing to repent and cry out and recognize that we sometimes get it wrong. And a people who are guarding our hearts against apathy and fear and comparison and compromise. And God is honoring that and He's raising people and a community to new life. You guys have heard of Jonah, I imagine. For those of you who haven't, Jonah was a prophet. God came to him, said, I want you to go and I want you to tell the tell the city of Nineveh about me and tell them to repent before I wipe them out. And Jonah said, Nah, I don't think I'm gonna do that. And he got in a boat to go the other direction. But you know, God's pretty persuasive. And Jonah. finds himself in the middle of a storm and the guys on the boat are like, what did you do? And he's like, throw me overboard and they threw him overboard and a fish swallowed him. And for three days he sat inside this fish and he's finally like, Okay, God. So God spit him up, because God's got a sense of humor on the shore right where Nineveh was. Said, Okay, are you ready now? And reluctantly he went and he preached the gospel. And I wonder I wonder what would have happened to the people of Nineveh if Jonah had not chosen to go back, even reluctantly. I wonder how many people wouldn't have heard the good news about God's mercy and grace and love. I wonder how many people would have missed out on the daily manna that God promises to provide, not only now, but for the for the here and here for the time to come. And it got me thinking about it got me thinking about East Dayton. I wonder, I wonder what would have happened if a band of a few very faithful people hadn't said yes to God's call to plant a church. on Zeni Avenue. I wonder how many people would have never met Jesus and never discovered his incredible love and grace for them. I wonder how many people in Centerville wouldn't know him today if not for the point. called us to be his church wherever we're planted. And when he calls us, he will equip us with what we need. And his letter to you is simply this. Remember the fire. Stay the course. Repent when you're off mission. And guard your heart because the enemy in the world will do everything they can to take you off course. And when you do, abundant life awaits. Now and in the life to come. Do you want that? It starts with us, because you are the church and I'm the church. Each one of us individually called to remember the fire, to stay the course, to repent, and to guard our hearts. Let's cry out to God together. And invite him to help us to do that. Father, we love you. And we thank you that you never turn your back on us. That even when we wander far from you, which we do often. Тю welcome us with open arms. And you never stop loving us. Рекилла Фіренас. Хелп ус то стар и на промежу. Convict us to repent. And father Help us to guard our hearts. And as we do, Father, may we experience the abundant life now and in the life to come. That we long to experience. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen.

John 13 · chapter mention