Created for God's Purpose - October 19, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's

plan for your life. Thank you, Paula.

Great. Well, we are so happy to be able to be here with you.

I'm Pam, I'm my husband, Tim, and then our girls, Elena and Yanni,

and we are Wholehearted Ministry.

We just want to share a little bit about us.

After about 25 years of pastoral ministry, the last eight of them in Payette,

God called us into full-time evangelism.

And so people ask us where our home base is.

Well, our home base is in your parking lot right now because we live in that RV full-time.

We've been blessed to be able to be in the Pacific Northwest since August.

And so now, after we leave here later this afternoon, we'll be heading to Michigan,

and we've got a few weeks that we'll be there.

We don't normally travel 2,000 miles between churches, but that's just the way

things worked. But God has just called us.

Our mission statement is helping people become who God created them to be one step at a time.

And that one step is really important to us because sometimes as Christians, we complicate it.

We say we have to have everything figured out. And so as we go through the service,

I want you to lean in, start asking God, what is my one step,

my next step in my relationship with?

Some ways that we help is we come and do the Unbreakable Families,

and we started Friday night by learning to have fun together.

That is one of the things that as families we miss is by learning to have fun

together. We get so busy that we forget to have fun.

And then yesterday, we learned how to build healthy relationships,

how to rebuild connections, because we don't have to look very far to know that

the enemy is destroying the family.

And so we learned about that. If you missed yesterday, we will have those training

videos online in the next month or two.

But we also have written some books. And this is the book that was most about

the conference yesterday. If you're interested in that, it could be a standalone

or it could be as a small group study.

And then we also have our Alina and Yachty. The girls came to us five years ago.

And when they came, they struggled sleeping a little bit. And so Tim would tell

them bedtime stories or dreams, and that has become The Adventures of Life,

Yachty, and Elaine's book that is about our story of adoption into God's kingdom.

So it's a kid's devotional and fiction book. We have another one of those in

the making, as well as a new book that will be out.

People held by God. And I'm really, I'm sad but excited about that book.

I'm sad because how many people are interested in it, but also that we don't

have to stay hurt, that we can be held by our amazing and wonderful God.

And so our ministry, we just travel wherever God opens the door, and we don't set a fee.

We just come for whatever churches bring, and God has always been so faithful.

And if you would like to stay in connection with us, we do have,

I don't know if the QR code will we have today, but we have on our table out

there, you can sign up for our email and our Bible studies, our videos.

Oh, yeah, there it is. We also offer virtual Christian counseling.

We offer Bible studies because we don't have a church home anymore.

And this is like coming home to us because we are on back on our district.

So can we just count you as part of our church family? Is that okay?

All right. We would love that because while we love our life,

sometimes it does get a little lonely, so we need to have community.

And so on our website, you can sign up if you want to have a Christian counseling

session. If you have prayer requests, we have a prayer request page.

If you want to be a financial partner with us, there's a page for that.

But we do request that if you're not already supporting your local church,

that's your primary responsibility before you were to help and support us.

So we have our books, our t-shirts, and then also if you would just pick up

a prayer card, because we really do need prayer as we travel these miles.

We've had not too many serious accidents, but we've had a few little things

we've run into, and so we appreciate that.

But it's just such a sweet, sweet spirit this morning.

I hope you're sensing that, that God is in this place, and the girls are going

to sing a song called Mansions.

You know, and we get to worship Jesus here in this beautiful place,

but someday we will be in heaven and worshiping Jesus with all our brothers and sisters.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, we are so glad and so blessed to be able to

continue to worship together, celebrate together.

If you have your Bibles with you

this morning, I invite you to turn to 2 Corinthians 5, verses 14 to 21.

2 Corinthians 5:14–21

2 Corinthians 5, verses 14 to 21.

2 Corinthians 5:14–21

Now, you know, how many of you have ever heard God has a plan for your life?

Anybody ever heard that?

And God has a plan. He has a purpose for your life. Thank you.

Hanging around the church very long. Hopefully you'll hear it soon if you haven't

already heard it before.

But I've also found that after pastoring and now traveling to evangelism,

that oftentimes in the church, we hear that, but we look at God and we think

that God's up there going, hey, I got this great plan.

I got this great purpose. It's for the best life possible.

You can't even imagine it, but you got to guess what it is.

And we kind of look at it and we think that he's going, okay,

just pray more, read the Bible enough,

go to church enough, give enough, serve enough, and maybe possibly we can coerce

God to kind of reveal his plan for us or his purpose.

That's not God. You see, what I found is that from Genesis 1 all the way through

the end of Revelation, God is revealing his plan and his purpose for us.

And that is that we would be united with him and with each other,

that we'd be in loving relationship with him and with each other.

And that's what he's called us to.

And that's what he is working on. And that is his plan and his purpose for every one of us.

And here, as you look in 2 Corinthians 5, 14 to 21, Paul is going to share with

us a little bit more about what it looks like as we live in that plan,

as we live in that purpose, and we come together with God and what he desires for us.

It's in 2 Corinthians 5, beginning of verse 14. Please follow along as I read.

It says, For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died

for all, and therefore all died.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves,

but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come,

the old has gone, the new is here.

All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us

the ministry of reconciliation.

That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.

And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through

us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become

the righteousness of God.

God, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, God, that you have a

plan for us and you're working that plan.

We pray, God, you would speak to us today, that you would speak to us and show

us what our next step is in joining you and partnering with you in your plan,

that you may be honored and glorified and that your will may be done and that

your kingdom may grow as you desire.

In your name we pray, amen. Amen, thank you. You may be seated.

So Paul is here and he's saying, hey, we've got this plan. God wants us in unity

with him, in loving relationship with him and with the people around us.

But in the midst of that, God says, I have got even more for you.

I've got even a greater purpose than that. That's awesome, isn't it?

If that was all God had for us, that would be enough in relationship with him,

in relationship with each other.

But God says, guess what? I've got even more.

I've got even more. The thing I learned about Jesus, the thing I learned about

God, he's the gift that keeps on giving.

All right? He doesn't run out. That's why John says in 1 John 3,

how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God.

He just keeps pouring it out, pouring it out, pouring it out upon us.

He just keeps giving more and more.

And so God, as he works with us, as he walks with us, as he calls us,

he says, I've got a plan for you. I've got a purpose.

Yes, first be in relationship with me, love and relationship with each other.

But he says, but I've also got purpose and plan beyond that.

He says, and that purpose and that plan, it's a kingdom purpose.

It's a kingdom purpose, which means it's beyond us.

It's beyond what we can, how, as I look around, as I've grown,

as I've talked to people, I've run to people all the time.

They're searching for purpose in their life.

They're searching for purpose in their life, right? And we look for it.

We see it out in the world.

When I was growing up in the 70s and the 80s, it was, I need to find myself.

Are you ever familiar with that one? Of course, no one ever came back and said,

you know, I was driving down the freeway the other day.

And when I reached the exit, there I was.

So I pulled over, picked myself up. I found myself. Life is great.

Why? Because because it's all about purpose, right? We want to know our purpose.

We want to know that God created us and we are here for more than just consuming

oxygen and taking up space.

Right? And God has said, I've got a purpose for you. It's so much greater than that.

And what he's called us to, as we look at this kingdom purpose, in verse 20, he says,

my kingdom purpose, this purpose that is beyond you, this purpose that is so

fulfilling and so fruitful for your life, is that you would be my ambassadors,

that we would be the ambassadors of Christ,

that we would join God in his purpose of bringing people into the kingdom of heaven.

See, an ambassador is a representative. An ambassador is someone who goes out

on behalf of a kingdom, on behalf of a government,

on behalf of a nation, and represents them to other nations with the intent

of bringing about relationship, of bringing them together so they can work together,

so they can function together, so that both nations are improved.

And what God is saying hey, as my ambassadors, God is sending us into the world

as his representatives. It's our purpose.

It's our calling. He wants us to join him in reaching out into this world with the purpose of what?

Reconciliation. He says that people will be reconciled, brought into relationship with God.

Now, there's some things, there's some requirements if we're going to be ambassadors.

And the first one you see up there is that there is no dual citizenship.

In the kingdom of heaven. There's no dual citizenship. In other words,

what God is saying is he says, you can't say I'm a kingdom of heaven,

I'm a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and I'm a citizen of this earth.

We can't sit there and go, well, you know, on Sundays and Wednesdays and other

times, then I'm a kingdom of heaven for purpose.

When I have a need God, well, then I'm a kingdom of heaven for purpose.

But you know what? When I'm at work or I'm at school or I'm with the family

or the neighbors or stuff, then, you know, I kind of like being a part of the kingdom of the world.

He says, you can't have it both ways.

You have to make a choice.

You either are going to say, I'm going to be a part of the kingdom of heaven.

I'm going to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and live as a citizen of

the kingdom of heaven, or I'm going to be a citizen of the kingdom of this earth.

And I run into people all the time. He says, well, I'll just kind of be on the fence.

Can I just kind of live the fence,

you know, kind of have one foot in each kingdom. That seems good to me.

The only problem what I've learned, the devil owns the fence.

The fence is not a part of the kingdom of God. You have to make a choice that says, I'm all in.

I'm all in God. I want to be a member of your kingdom and be a part of it.

And so he calls us that and we have to realize that we have to make a choice.

What kingdom are we going to function as?

Whose kingdom are we going to live in? The kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of this earth?

And then as we make that choice, we have to also understand that in order to

be an ambassador, we need to represent the kingdom well.

In other words, people are looking at us and saying, what's the kingdom like?

As we're coming and saying, hey, we're these ambassadors, we're these representatives,

We want to bring you into relationship with God and get you in to be part of his kingdom.

People are saying, well, what are you like? How are you living?

How are you representing the kingdom? As they look at our lives,

do they want to be a part of the kingdom of God?

As they see us and as they watch how we interact with people,

as they see us and how we interact with each other, as they see us out in the

world, and has anybody ever noticed there's like some difficulties,

problems, and craziness in our world?

They're looking at us and going, how are you responding to it? How are you reacting?

Are you saying all the same things and doing all the same things and having

the same hopelessness and helplessness and lack of peace that the whole rest of the world is having?

Or is there something different about how you're responding to everything going on?

And they're watching us. I got a real eye-opener to this when I was a junior

in high school and a friend of mine came up to me and I grew up in the church,

but I'll have to admit in high school and stuff, I was not trying to follow God.

I was trying to fit in with the world and what they wanted.

But I still proclaim to be a Christian. And then one day this friend of mine

came up to me. He says, hey, Gerdes. I said, what?

He says, so you think I should become a Christian? And I said,

yeah, you really should.

And he looked at me and says, why? You're no different than I am.

And he was right. He was right.

I wish I could say that woke me up and I changed right then, but I did.

It took a little longer and probably a couple more two-by-fours for God to get

to me and say, let's get this going the right direction.

But that was a real eyeburner as I look back on it and go, the world is watching.

And whether we want to admit it or not, I think sometimes the world understands

what the kingdom of God should look like better than most Christians do.

Yeah, I know. I stepped on toes, didn't I? It's okay. But it's the truth.

They seem to, at least, even though they don't live it, they know it.

And they're watching and they're saying, is there a difference?

Is there something different about you?

Why should I want to be a part of this kingdom? Why should I?

And so we need to represent the kingdom well. That means when we're talking

with people, that means when we're typing or texting, or social media?

How are we representing the kingdom of God in those areas?

What are people seeing? Do they see a difference?

Do they see a difference that draws them, draws them to want to be a part of the kingdom of God?

See, I have a firm belief, and we look and we talk about our nation,

and I know there's some things going on in our world and in our nation that

are kind of crazy, but I think about this whole thing of immigration.

If you talk to people who know me, we've got a bunch of people,

you'll find I'm the least political person on the face of the earth.

But as I started looking at that and started thinking about how many people

are wanting to come into our nation, wanting to become a part of our nation,

it's because they see a benefit to being here, right?

They don't go, hey, I want to move there because I'm going to be worse off, right?

No, they're saying we have benefits. We see benefits to moving here and being

a part and coming and being in our nation.

They go, we see these benefits. That's why they're coming here.

I am a firm believer that if we as the people of God lived as the people of

God, the world would be flocking to the kingdom of God. Right.

Because they would see the benefit and go, I want that. I want that.

Don't believe me? Just look at the life of Jesus. The people flocked to him, right?

Flocked to him. He had to preach a lot of honey. I shrunk the congregation sermons

to get people to not keep doing that.

And I believe that if we truly live, if we truly represent the kingdom of God,

the way God calls us to, there will be people who will be straving,

they will be straining to get into the kingdom of God and to be a part of what he wants.

So then what do we call the well? We're no dual citizenship.

We need to represent the kingdom of well.

And then we need to reconcile people to God, right? God has given us the ministry

of reconciliation, Paul writes here.

Given us the ministry of reconciliation. What's that reconciliation?

Bringing people back into relationship.

Finding healing. Finding reconnection. And what's he saying?

He's saying we need people from this earth.

And I don't know how you think about the people in the world.

We have a lot of different terms. we tend to give loss, the world, the whatever.

Here's how I look at them. They're prisoners of war. You ever thought about them that way?

This world is at war with God and they're trapped and they're caught and they're snared in this world.

And God wants to set them free so they can be back where they belong.

And he's called us to help to set them free, to bring them back in that reconciliation.

But we've got to give them the message. And so we've got to talk to them about

that. We need to talk to people about this. And how do we do that?

Well, a lot of people say, I don't know how to witness. I don't know how to

share. Well, it's really simple.

It's really simple. You start off with, in the beginning, there was God.

And I've got a purple silk here to represent God because God is the King of

kings and Lord of lords, and purple represents royalty, right?

And God is there, and God began to speak, and God created humans,

man and woman, all of humanity, boys and girls. I got a blue silk.

It's going to represent all of humanity, both men and women. All right.

And God was there and he created every one of us for relationship,

to be together, to come together.

We see him, they were walking in the garden clear back in the beginning.

They talked, they shared, but we find that God created every one of us for relationship,

to be together, to be connected with him.

Relationship, a loving relationship with God, loving relationship with each other.

I don't know anybody that doesn't want this, right? But there's a problem.

You see, in the midst of all of this, we don't always live in a loving relationship with God.

In fact, the Bible tells us that every one of us have chosen to disobey God at one time or another.

Starting clear back with Adam and Eve all the way up to us here today,

we've all sinned, right?

We've all chosen to disobey God. We've all chosen to do something we knew we

shouldn't or to not do something we knew we should.

We've all sinned. And the thing about sin is it doesn't just sit out there,

but sin attaches itself to us, right?

Can't just kind of wipe it away. It attaches and that sin actually gets into us.

And with that sin in our life, that sin comes between us and God.

So we can no longer be in connection with God. We can no longer be in relationship

with God that we were created for. And if we're honest about it,

this sin messes up our relationships with each other too, doesn't it?

Yeah, it gets in the middle, wreaks havoc, causes problems.

And we're here. And the thing that the apostle Paul teaches is this sin is not

content to just be in us or be with us, but this sin takes control of our lives.

Right? Paul says it makes us its slave.

And we can't do the right thing. No matter how much we try, we can't strive

enough, work enough, try hard enough to get ourselves free from it.

In fact, this sin becomes a prison for us.

I got this blue box here. You can see the little bars here on it.

It becomes this prison for us where we can't get away.

We can't do the right things. We can't live the life we were created for or the life that we want.

And as we're trapped in there, we have God, right? And most of us,

most people believe that while we're trapped there, God is out here just kind

of going, yeah, you deserve it.

You made your bed, now lie in it. I told you so, right?

That's how we tend to view God. But that's not God.

That's not God. What the Bible teaches us is that as we're trapped in our sins,

God didn't sit out here saying, well, good luck.

But what it teaches us is that God comes after us, right? where we are.

It's called prevenient grace.

God works on our behalf before we even know we need it.

And he's coming after us. John Wesley calls him the hound of heaven.

He says, I can hear his footprint, his paws pounding behind me.

I can feel his breath on my neck as he chases after me.

He's coming after me where I am.

In fact, God is so committed to this. God is so much desiring of this that he took action.

He sent Jesus and Jesus came. We celebrate his birth at Christmas.

Emmanuel, God with us. And he grew up in a 30 years of age.

He started ministering on the face of the earth. He started healing the sick,

causing the blind to see, the lame to walk, healing leprosy.

He taught the truth about the kingdom of God, even raised the dead back to life.

He showed us what it looked like to live in right relationship with God.

And after three years of that, at the age of 33, there were some people who

hated him. And they put him to death, death on a cross.

And after he died, they put his body in a tomb. It was a borrowed tomb.

And as they were putting his body in his tomb, his enemies were saying,

we've won Satan. Satan and all the demons were yelling, we've won.

His followers, his, his disciples were, were weeping and crying and going,

we've lost. What happened?

What's, what's going to happen now? What, what.

But in the midst of that, his enemies said, oh, wait a minute.

When he was here, he taught that he was going to rise again after three days.

And we don't want his disciples to go and steal his body.

And so they went to Pilate. They said, Pilate, will you help us out?

And Pilate said, yeah, I can help you out with this.

They'd already rolled a stone in front of the tomb. But Pilate gave him a seal to put on it, his seal.

And we don't know what Pilate's seal looked like, but we got this here today, okay?

And then he gave him Roman soldiers to stand in front of the tomb to guard it.

So no one could get in and no one could get out.

And they were there for one, two, three days.

And on the morning of the third day, the women were coming to the tomb to do

the final preparation of Jesus' body for burial.

And as they're approaching the tomb, they're saying, hey, who's going to roll

the stone away? How are we going to get into it so that we can do this?

But when they got to the tomb, they found out that seal had been broken.

The stone had already been rolled away. So they went in and prepared Jesus' body. Whoa!

But his body wasn't there. And they freaked out. They're like, someone stole his body.

He's gone. What are we going to do? And most of them ran back to tell the disciples

about it. But Mary Magdalene stuck around.

And as she was weeping there, Jesus appeared to her. She didn't recognize him.

She thought he was the gardener.

She said, hey, if you've hidden his body, if you know where it is,

would you please tell me so we can get this taken care of?

And at that time, Jesus spoke to her. He said, Mary, and she recognized him

and she fell at his feet, began to worship him.

And he picked her up and he said, no, I want you to go back to Jerusalem and

tell the disciples and Peter that I'm going to meet with them in Jerusalem.

So they need to wait for me and let them know that I am alive. And so she did.

And we celebrate that. We celebrate that. But then we think about it for a minute.

And if you're like me, you tend to go, but what difference does that make?

Why would God do Jesus. Why would Jesus die?

Why would he go through all of that for us? Oh, yeah.

We're in prison of our sin, and we can't get out, and God still loves us.

And what we find is that what God tells us is that when we choose to believe

in Jesus, when we choose to receive the forgiveness through Jesus,

that something amazing happens.

You see, through Jesus, our sin is forgiven and removed, and we are brought

back into reconciliation.

We are brought back into connection with God, into that relationship with Him,

so we can be brought back in that loving relationship with Him and restored

in loving relationship with each other, just as He created us to be.

And the Word of God tells us that anyone, anyone who chooses to say yes will

be forgiven, will be set free, and will be brought back to be who God created them to be.

Isn't that amazing that God calls us to be His ambassadors?

So where does it start?

In your home. We've been talking about unbreakable families.

Your first and foremost place is in your home.

Are you representing Jesus well in your home?

My second daughter, she's 28. And when she was in middle school,

you know, those nice easy years, we were pastoring in Legrand at the time.

And I remember walking up to her, she didn't see me and she was talking to a

friend and she said, you know, my mom's nice to everyone here,

but she's not very nice to me at home.

I got righteously and dignity. I wanted to interrupt the conversation and tell

her friend, do you know how hard Natalie is at home?

But instead, God said, Pam, something has to change.

You can't, we can't be an ambassador to the world if your own children don't

see it in you. It doesn't matter if she's tough.

And that moment, God started speaking to my heart and he continues to speak

that if I helped reach thousands of people for the world, but I haven't shared

the love of Jesus in my own home, I failed.

Now, I am not talking about having wayward children.

Our oldest son was wayward. He's 25 until just recently starting to come back to the Lord.

I understand that more than I wish I did about having prodigals,

but I am talking about if we are raising children, our mission field is first

to our children to make sure that they know God loves them, to make sure that

they know that they are part of the kingdom.

That's what this weekend is about. It's about, first of all,

unbreakable families in our home, and then an unbreakable family here as the body of Christ.

God has called you as Mountain View Church of the Nazarene, so the people here

in this church and in your community.

They need you to be an ambassador.

So how do we do that? Well, the first thing that we need to understand is we

need to be seed scatterers, not soil testers.

That sounds a little weird, but you know what? Maybe not to you guys because

you're a farming community, right?

If you've read, been in a church long, I'm sure you've heard of the parable

of the sower in Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

We've probably done Bible studies. Pastors probably preached on it.

But you know, one thing that I noticed when we study it, we talked about the

soils, but rarely do we talk about the farmer.

The farmer, did you notice that Jesus never told the farmer,

don't scatter seed in the thorny soil.

Don't scatter seed where it's shallow.

No, you see the farmer everywhere he went, he just scattered seed everywhere he went.

When he was at school, he would scatter seed.

When he was at work, scatter seed. When we come in our families, scatter seed.

What would happen if we just started scattering the seed of Jesus's love everywhere we went?

I was just talking to a dear friend who has a prodigal son, and I was sharing

with her, you just keep scattering that seed.

You keep loving him. You keep teaching him about Jesus.

So the first thing that I want to encourage you to do is to be a seed scatterer.

You see that place that you live, that school that you guys go to,

that job that you have is not just because you need a place to live or you need

an income or an education.

God has strategically and on purpose placed you there because somebody needs

to know about the love and freedom found in Jesus Christ.

Okay, I get it. But how? How do I share this message of reconciliation? How do I scatter seed?

The first thing that we have to do is we have to live with Christ-like love.

Christ-like love? What does that look like? You see, right now,

Tim talked about some of the issues of the world.

One issue we have is the church is being divided and a lot on this topic because

we think that love is either just accept people however they are,

don't judge, just love them, it's okay, or we got to speak the truth and it

doesn't matter if I hurt their feelings.

Let's look at Jesus. What Jesus did is he brought compassion and truth.

You see, that's what Christ-like love is, is we do meet people where they are.

We love them where they are, but we say Jesus loves you too much to leave you that way.

You see, when Jesus brought into people's life, he didn't say,

oh, just keep living your life of sin. Yes, he healed them.

Yes, he met them where they were, but then he said, leave your life of sin so

that nothing worse happens to you.

So Christ-like love, church, we have to have compassion, but we cannot buy into

the lie of this kingdom that says we just have to accept sin and that sin's okay because it's not.

So the first thing about scattering seed is to live a life of Christ-like love.

The second thing that you have to do is you have to have authentic relationships.

That's why we spend a whole day when we come for weekends on how to have relationships.

Because when I was a kid, people, the big thing for evangelism was passing out

tracts, you know, the four spiritual steps of the gospel, which was great 40-some years ago.

We don't live in a world that that works anymore.

We have to build relationships with people.

They're going to listen to us if we care about them, and we've entered their

world and we've been connected to them.

So the second step that we have to do is build those authentic relationships.

The third step of scattering seed is that we have to share our story.

Now, you might be like me and you don't have this massive testimony where God

pulled you out of the trenches and you pulled you out of addiction and pulled

you out of all this stuff. It doesn't matter.

Your story can be used to help set other people free if you share it.

All you need to do is share what God is doing in your life, how God has helped

you, how God has set you free, how God has changed you.

Share your story. It matters.

Fourth, that we need to use Scripture.

We need to be able to share God's Word naturally in our conversations.

This is another divide that I'm seeing in the church. and maybe hopefully we

don't see it necessarily here in Idaho as much as other places.

But there is this movement that wants to say dumb stuff like,

let's throw out the Bible and be more like Jesus.

In the church, I read a post from a dear friend of mine that said that Jesus

was the Word of God, but the Bible is not the Word of God.

My heart broke because how can we know who Jesus is without Scripture?

We cannot get away from the Bible.

We have to use Scripture not to beat it over someone's head.

Remember, we start with compassion, but we do need to share Scripture as well.

And then the fifth thing about scattering seed is that we pray over every seed.

Why do we pray over every seed? Because it's not our job to make the seed grow.

Boy, I wish it was sometimes. Not that I want it to be my job,

but I wish I could make it grow. That's what I mean, you know.

When we say, God, I want this person to come into relationship with you,

our job is to plant seeds or to water seeds. It's God's job.

It's God's job to make it grow. So we have to bring those seeds and say,

God, I've done what you've asked me to do. What do you want to grow?

I think it would kind of look like this. We bring ourselves,

let's pretend this is us, and we empty ourselves.

We say, I'm not going to live for my plans and my dreams. I'm going to surrender them to you.

I'm going to understand and live in a way that says that I am where I'm at because

God needs me there because there's somebody that needs me and needs Jesus?

What would happen if we planted seeds after emptying ourselves?

What amazing thing would God start growing?

What kind of beautiful things would you see in people's life if you said,

okay, God, I'm going to make it all about you. I'm not going to have dual citizenship.

What would change in your family?

If you started prioritizing being in the church, family devotions,

prayer, I wonder what would happen in your family.

You see, we have to say, it's all about you, Jesus.

And when we do, He has beautiful, amazing things that He wrote.

You see, there's people that you know that need this. They need Jesus.

We have to be willing to be as ambassadors.

Is it easy? No. But it's always worth it.

Three years ago this week, we left Idaho. Pretty hurt and broken people.

Some of our dear friends are in the congregation, and I remember you guys just

helping us load up our view hall, and we didn't know what God's plan was going to look like.

And we went through some tough times, but what I can tell you is what Satan

meant for evil, God meant for good.

What the locusts destroyed, God has restored.

If you will surrender your hurt, you will surrender your difficulties,

you'll surrender your gifts, you'll surrender your blessings,

and say, Jesus, what do you want to do? What do you want to do?

I remember our first church that we pastored.

It was a church in Doris, California. We went there, there was about 30 people

in this church, all 80 years and older.

We were 21 and 22 with a brand new baby.

They were very gracious to us. We made a lot of mistakes.

But when we looked at this community, it was drug-infested, impoverished,

with lots of kids with no one loving them. We said, okay, here's our mission field.

And so we started pouring into these children.

And within, I don't know, a year or so, we had about 100 people in the church.

And 35 adults with 65 children or so.

Now, that newborn baby is 31 years old, so this would have been about 30 years ago.

And I remember there was this family.

Shaley was four and Brian was two. Their mama was a drug addict.

Their daddy was a drug addict. Their grandma was a drug addict.

And Shaley's mama realized there was free babysitting on Sunday morning.

So she brought Shaley and Brian, which was fine. Except now,

Pastor Mike, you don't show up a little bit early because you have nothing better to do.

You have to show up a little bit early or a lot early because there's lots going on, right?

Yeah. So pastors, you know, we show up. If church was at 1030.

We probably showed up about eight.

And I'm trying to get ready for kids church for all these kids.

And when we'd pull into the parking lot, there was Shaley's mama with Brian

and Shaley to drop them off at 8 in the morning.

And I got righteously indignant. How dare they?

God, don't you know I'm trying to serve you? I better get ready for 60 children.

And there's no iPads and tablets back then, by the way.

So I have a newborn, someone else's

2 and 4-year-old, getting ready for church. And I had a bad attitude.

But I'm a schemer. I said, Tim, I know I got a plan.

Let's show up at 7 30. We can get there before she gets there,

get in, lock the door, and then she'll have to wait till 10.

But she never, we never beat her. And at the time we were there,

she was, and you know what?

God just said, shut your mouth, Pam. And I'm so glad I obeyed because had I

told her, you can't bring them until 10, she would have stopped bringing them all together.

So we got to be there for about three and a half years. And Shaley stayed in

the church after we left.

Years later, we were back on that district at a district assembly.

There, sitting next to us, was a man. We started chatting.

He was from Doris, California. This is a town of a thousand people.

And we're like, anyway, as we talked, we found out that this delegate,

so you understand the Nazarene churches isn't just someone who goes to church.

He's a leader, was Shaley's daddy.

Sitting next to Shaley's daddy was Shaley's grandma, because Shaley stayed in

the church, and the church kept loving her, and she was able to lead some of her family to the Lord.

So was it worth it being a convenience absolutely i can share story after story,

about how god has promised to make it worth it when we let him write our story

you're sitting here today and god is not asking you just to help other people

because it's good for them,

He's asking you because it's good for you too.

You see, when we are obedient to God, He will grow beautiful and amazing things in your life.

The blessings you will have when you're obedient to God.

Church, I want you, as I passed in the beginning, to think about what your next step is.

If you have breath in your lungs, God has a plan for you. God has a next step for you.

I don't care if you're the youngest kid in here or you're the oldest person.

Sometimes we get old and we think, well, maybe God's done with you. He's not done with you.

Those 21 and 22-year-old kids that became pastors of the church,

one reason that we made it through was because of Mrs.

Horn, an 88-year-old lady who prayed every day for us.

I want to ask you, what is your next step? Tim's going to come and just play

on the piano for a moment.

And I know we've had our family altar time, but it would not be right or fair

to share this message without giving you an opportunity to respond to God.

Now, I know growing up in the Nazarene church, when it's altar call time,

sometimes we're like, I don't want to go up there because I don't want people

to think that I have sin in my life or I'm vaccinated. That's not what this is about.

This is about standing up in front of other people and saying,

I choose to be obedient to what my next step is.

And I want some accountability. I want to talk to God.

If you're in this room and you've never accepted Jesus as your savior,

you've heard maybe that story that Tim shared.

Your next step is to say yes to Jesus, to get in relationship with him.

But I'm going to guess most of us have already taken that step.

So what is your next step? Is there a family member that...

I want Esther 10 plays to just ask God, what is my next step?

And if your proper response is to come to an altar and say yes to Jesus.

Person in this room that you would empower them and equip them when they leave

this place to be your ambassadors and Lord whether we've responded in our seats or come forward I pray,

Guide them, give them discernment, and protect them, God. Lord,

I pray for the leaders, the board, and the Sunday school teachers,

and all the people that attend here, God.

Lord, our world needs them to be a lighthouse.

Would you just pour your spirit out on this place?

Would every single person walk out of this place and say, we've got to meet

with God, and look what our God is doing and is going to continue to do.

Lord, would you just continue to let revival break across this land?

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.