Show and Tell

I want to share today for a few minutes on show and tell, something real simple.

Just show and tell.

Show and tell.

I believe that you and I are living in days when you look around us that God has called us.

He's called us as spiritual family.

He's called us as parents and as neighbors and people in the community and the marketplace.

He has called us to take the great story of grace and mercy and salvation and all the things that we celebrated last weekend about Resurrection Weekend and what Christ has done for us.

I believe He's called us to take that, to show it, and to share it and to serve the people around us, as many people as possible around us, because we are living in moments where so many people need Him today.

They need our story of what God has done in our life all around us.

There are people all around you that are waiting to hear your story of grace.

People far from God that need to know that He cares about them, that He loves them.

And you and I get to have that opportunity to show that, to share that, and to serve people for the cause of Jesus Christ.

Not a greater privilege on the world.

So let's all pray.

Father, we love you.

Thank you for this great church.

I thank you for what you're doing today at Gateway.

We thank you for our great pastors and thank you for them, Lord, and their heart for so many in the leadership team here.

Lord, it's just exciting to be in this house and to be at every campus, Lord, because I believe you have something to say to us today.

We believe you have a word for us.

We believe you want to grow us, you want to change us.

So Lord, we thank you that it's not by power and might, but it's by your spirit.

We pray that we would decrease and that Jesus, who we worshiped, would increase in our life.

We love you, we love you, we love you.

In Jesus' name.

And everybody said a good amen.

Why don't you turn to the person next to you and say, I'm so glad you made it to church today.

Come on, look at that other person that was your second choice, and tell them, I'm glad you showed up also.

At least you know who the second choices are now in the room.

One of my favorite words that Jesus speaks in the Bible is from the cross.

It's found in John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

John chapter 19, with celebration, celebrating Resurrection Weekend.

John 19 · chapter mention

It's fresh on our heart.

Jesus says this from the cross, John chapter 19, verse 28.

John 19:28

Later knowing that all was now completed, it's an important word, so that the scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I'm thirsty.

Verse 29, a jar of wine and vinegar was there, and they soaked the sponge, and they put it on a stalk and they on a hyssop plant and they lifted up to Jesus' lips.

But then the Bible says when he had received the drink, Jesus said these words, and we even heard it during our worship time.

It is finished.

It is finished.

With that, the Bible says that our Lord and our Savior, the Son of God, bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

It is finished.

Probably three of my favorite words, one of my favorite statements in Scripture.

It is finished.

I like that.

Finished.

The Greek means completed.

It means paid in full.

It means accomplished.

It means done.

It is finished.

Jesus did exactly to the assignment that the Father set him out to do.

A fantastic finish for people.

Fantastic finish for people.

As I was thinking about that, I've been studying that.

You know, I wondered, you know, what do you do with finished things?

I know that we we embrace it, we acknowledge it, and we we thank God for it, but what do you do with finished works?

And when things are finished, when Jesus said it is finished, and we we walk and we live and we we make our home and we we live our life under and in and uh in the finished, fantastic, completed, done, paid in full work.

What do you do with the finished work?

So I thought about that, just kind of thinking to myself about the finished work that I've embraced and the finished work that our church and our family, and we've embraced the finished work of what Jesus did.

I found out that church, when something you do is finished, when it's completed, there's always a purpose for it.

There's a purpose when something is finished.

And I believe what Jesus did on the cross, there's a purpose for it, and it's a now purpose for our life.

You know, my wife is, you know, she's from Louisiana, so she cooks well, as you can tell.

She can handle herself in the kitchen.

And one of the things she does is she bakes, and she bakes a chocolate cake, make you want to run around the house for it.

I'm telling you right now, just it is a fantastic chocolate cake.

I mean, it is something when she says I'm baking that cake today, boy, I get fired up and you know, I just get all excited and I'm like, oh, what's up, what's up?

I mean, it just puts me in a good mood.

When I walk in and I smell this chocolate cake.

Can I tell you?

When she's finished with it, she puts it up on our little island.

Can I tell you?

I look at it, but that's not the only thing I do.

I just don't stare at it.

I just don't gather everybody around and say, let's just check it out.

Guess what I do?

I eat it.

And I taste it and I hide it, and I don't tell anybody else about it.

How many in here you have a problem with hiding desserts?

Come on, I'm not the only one.

I'm seeing some folk all up in this house.

You've been hiding something if you know what I'm talking about.

You don't stare at it.

I can remember back in my college days when you would finish your paper, man.

That would be such a great feeling of turning in a paper.

You turned it in, we're done, and you you would turn in this paper.

It's a great feeling.

When our kids have school projects, I'm so proud when we together, and these days when a child has a school project, it is a family project.

I'm very proud of my project.

You know, we do a project together.

I was like to my daughter, we have a little 11-year-old, and I'll walk, be careful with my project.

You just want to be careful with your project.

But it's a great feeling when you turn it in.

I don't know if you've ever paid anything off.

When you've paid off debt, man, that is a fantastic feeling.

When you've paid something off, you want to tell the world uh car's paid for, baby.

It's paid for.

Check it out.

It's paid for.

I mean, I know it's in 1972.

I've been paying on it for 30 years, and it's paid for.

You're so proud of something paid for.

One of our facilities, we moved in, and it was such a large step for us as a church.

We were just a couple hundred people, and we we we we bought this facility for about$400,000.

And I remember it was such, it might as well have been, uh Pastor John,$40 million.

I mean, we were just two and a half years old as a church, and we bought that, and we went about the process of let's pay for this as soon as we can so that we can do more outreach in our community, so that we can have greater margin to help the poor.

And we got real aggressive.

And I remember the Friday when we sent in our last payment.

Boy, it's just three years, three and a half years later, we paid off that first facility.

Boy, it's a great feeling.

The next Sunday, boy, the whole church service was about, you know, here's the note, and we've paid for the note.

We had a big old thing we stamped paid on it.

Man, I was stamping it on people's arms, and we were getting tattoos paid for.

Great feeling.

Great feeling when things are paid for.

When things are paid for.

What Jesus did on the cross is better than a cake, it's better than a project.

His finished work changes us and it calls us to a response, it calls us to a life lived, it calls us to a story that's told.

And the work that he did is not something that we admire, it's something that activates something in us.

We we share it with others.

And that's why I love the challenge in Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus is at the Sermon on the Mountain, he just kind of says what we're to be, and he says this, Matthew chapter 5, verse 13.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention Matthew 5:13

It says, You're the salt of the earth.

After salt loses its saltiness, that's a great word.

How can it be made salty again?

It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out trampled.

You are the light of the world.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead, they put it up on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.

I love verse 16.

In the same way, let your light, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and may praise the Father in heaven.

I think one of the greatest responses that you and I can have when we embrace and we celebrate and we say yes to the finished work of Jesus Christ, is to be salt and light.

To be salt and light.

You know, salt has its purpose.

You know, we if there's any people who know salt, it's Texas and South Louisiana.

I mean, we understand the blessing of salt.

I mean, salt has a purity to it, but how many know salt has a flavor?

Flavor! I mean, you put salt in something in Louisiana, we put some salt in it, we put a little something in it, bam, whoa! I mean, salt has flavor to it.

It just kind of mixes it up a little bit.

It's like, yeah.

I mean, I've been, I you know, you travel, I've got one of my closest friends in Minnesota, and I go up to Minnesota, we eat some pot roasted, some taters, and some carrots.

It's like, wow, this is incredible, but where's the bam?

I smuggle Tabasco when I travel.

When I'm not looking.

Yeah.

Salt has a radiance to it, it has a purity to it, it it changes things.

Jesus says, I want you to be that.

Then he calls us to be light.

We're to guide, we're to warm.

My wife loves a fire.

Her dad builds a fire about nine months out of the year.

He gets wood for days, and his whole backyard's wood.

We'll be in like May, standing in front of a fire.

And I'll be, oh, this is good.

It's about to wear me out.

Have you ever been in a house with a fire and you're like, I gotta go outside?

Somebody cut the AC on.

It warms everything.

Jesus says, with my finished work, what I've done in your life, then go be salt, go be light.

Go help others, let it be seen.

Let it be seen in every every part of your world, let it be seen.

Let the radiance of what I've done in your life be tasted.

I love what an old missionary says.

He says, there can be no such thing as secret discipleship.

For either the secret seed destroys the disciple, or the disciple destroys the secret sea.

It tells us that a person of faith in Jesus Christ is visible and vocal.

Visible and vocal.

See, I believe once you come through the door of grace, once you come to know Him, once you walk through the door of salvation, and however that's happened in your life, but once you walk through the door, we don't let the door slam behind us.

We keep the door open for others.

One of the greatest purposes and one of the greatest things that you and I get to do is once we walk through the changing power, the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, is we get to turn around and be a doorkeeper in the house of God so that the addicted, the lonely, the hurting, the messed up, the painful, the forgotten get to find a way to Jesus.

We get to do that.

Have you ever been somewhere and you accidentally let the door slam on somebody?

Just kind of fogging out, and you just roll through it and you turn around and it like knocks the lady back into the parking lot.

Have you ever been carrying anything and somebody lets the door on you?

That's not a fun feeling when someone lets the door close on you.

As the church and as the people of God, we get to hold the door open.

I want to encourage you.

Hold the door open for people.

Hold the door open for those around you.

You know, when I was growing up, I had a speech issue, stuttered a lot, and uh was a little touch ADD.

I know that shocks many of you here today.

Wow, that's a shocker.

Um and so I would be in normal class and then be in resource for a little bit back in those days.

And in normal class it was kind of hard because everybody knew you were in resource, and back in those days it wasn't hidden.

Special needs and exceptionalities were not blended.

You were just kind of like, okay, I might go to resource, and you just kind of guess me, what's up?

On the PA, everybody just roll out funny class, resource kids, get the resource.

Holla.

And so you would do that half of the day, and then the other half of the day, you would go to normal class.

And I didn't have much game in my normal class because of resource class.

They just didn't go real well.

You got bullied, got punched a couple times, you know, things like that.

But but you know, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I could remember, you know, there was one thing that we did that I excelled in called show and tell.

I got it like an A in that.

And I remember I was an R Rizzo, so I was at the end of the year, and just a few more, and so we did show and tell, and we would only do it a certain time of the year, and so came down to that month and that week where we're gonna show and tell, and passed around and slipped there, just a few of us that were gonna do show and tell left.

And so they passed it around, and and I I wrote down, I was looking at lists.

Nobody had, I had just I had a really cool GI Joe.

It was just a slamming G.I.

Joe.

So I wrote down G.I.

Joe, had to tell what you were gonna show.

So there was a few more after me, and so you know, after the list went through, and so I was gonna show mine like on a Thursday, my G.I.

Joe, and another guy was gonna was before me on Wednesday.

Well, obviously, he saw my selection G.I.

Joe, and he copied it, and he did G.I.

Joe, because on Wednesday, when he did his sheet his show and tell, he brought a G.I.

Joe.

Like, why you why you gotta get up on my G.I.

Joe for?

I mean, that's what I wrote down.

You're copying my G.I.

Joe.

And when he brought it, he was like that morning, I brought a G.I.

Joe.

Got a G.I.

Joe too.

It's not kind of how you do it.

So he brought his G.I.

Joe, and his Pastor Tom was like in this cool box.

It was like a collector's G.I.

Joe.

It was like never been touched, and it was like, you know, limited edition G.I.

Joe.

Look at this G.I.

Joe.

It's got like a snorkel and some fins, but it's a limited G.I.

Joe.

It's never been out of the box.

It's still sealed up in the box.

Here's my GI Joe.

Ooh.

And then at the end, normally in most show and tell moments, you would pass around your show and tell item and everybody, ooh, it's amazing.

That's so incredible.

And so, you know, after them, teachers like, you know, Johnny, would you like to pass around your G.I.

Joe?

No, nobody can touch my G.I.

Joe.

I just sit it on a table and they can walk by and look at it.

Who wants to walk by and look at a G.I.

Joe in a box?

And so we all walked by and he was standing in my G.I.

Joe.

Don't touch that.

And then just walk by the G.I.

Joe and just looked at it.

That's great.

It's in a box.

And so, you know, I went home and I was bummed out about my G.I.

Joe.

Then I got a little attitude.

I was like, I got a cool GI Joe.

I mean, my G.I.

Joe, it had been in battle.

It been living in the backyard.

I mean, my G.I.

Joe, I mean, I had one day torch arm off and duct taped it back on because I want to look like it'd been to Korea and Vietnam.

It'd been in war.

One day I stuck an M80 in and blew a hole in its back, lit a tear on fire.

And half of a hair wasn't there.

So the next day, I just said, I'm bringing my daddy said, you bring that G.I.

Joe.

That G.I.

Joe's been through some things.

You show those people what a real GI Joe looks like.

I brought my G.I.

Joe to class.

Shut up, so there's a real G.I.

Joe.

It's not in a box.

I mean, it's been in the backyard.

Passing around.

Throw it up against the wall.

Step on it.

Stomp on it.

Hey, my man, tear its arm off.

It loves it.

Light a terror on fire.

Put out.

Say, what does that have to do with anything related to church?

I'm glad you asked.

People are not looking for some perfect plastic.

Come on, somebody.

Me, better than everybody else, never been used before.

G.I.

Joe Christianity.

They're looking for real lives.

People that have been through some things, that are not afraid to tell their story, tell their pain, tell their good, the bad.

So I love your pastor.

Your pastor stands and tells the good, the bad, and the ugly and lets you know real life, real situation that he's walked through.

That's what people are looking for.

Guess what?

They're looking for it in your life.

You have something to show, and you have something to tell that I can never show and tell.

How do we respond to that?

You know, it's just a couple ways.

I just want to I want to leave you with this idea.

I want to challenge you, I want to encourage you, I want to compel you with the idea, because I I think this is so important, and this is for you, that you have something, you, everyone at every campus, today, you have something to show off about God Almighty in your life.

You have something to show.

I love what Romans 5 says.

I just want to read it real quick.

I love this verse.

And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Many of you, God has poured out his love into your heart.

You've walked through some things.

And he has poured it in you so that he can pour it through you.

He has poured it into your life so that it can be poured out on the campus, so that it can be poured out in the hard places, so it can be poured out during the tough times.

Those people that look and those people that you hear, those people that you know about that are walking through tragedy, that have messed up their life, God has poured in his love into your life, into your world, so that you can pour it out.

You have something to show off about God.

And I'll tell you the second thing, you have something to share and to serve for others all around you.

The passion of scripture, Matthew chapter 20, verse 28.

Matthew 20:28

It says it is just as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

I love that Matthew 20, 28.

To serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

There are people all around you.

All around you that are looking for the love of God.

They are far from God.

And guess what?

You're the closest person to them.

They're far from God, and you're the closest person to them.

Many of you have been watching this uh situation with the NFL.

A little NFL lockout.

I had a draft uh yesterday, and and you know, I know this is Dallas Cowboy World, and uh, you know, the Saints won the Super Bowl, and we still think we won it.

It's odd about Louisiana.

We've won the Super Bowl, we still think we're the Super Bowl champs in Louis Land.

In 10 years from now, if we never win another one, we will still think we are the still reigning Super Bowl champs.

It's just kind of how it works in South Louisiana.

We're a little deranged.

But in the NFL right now, there's a lockout.

They're not playing football.

And there's a lot of negotiations.

It's in the paper every single day.

ESPN, it's on, talk radio.

And in that, there is a negotiator you see on about every talk radio and about every press meeting, and you'll see it in the USA today, all over.

There's there's a negotiator that is in the middle of all this.

He's in New York, he's in Washington, he's going back and forth with the team.

His name is Kevin Millai.

Kevin Millai, he's a chief negotiator.

Uh, when you see the things that are happening in the NFL uh things right now, you see Kevin.

He's right there as the president of the NFL Players Association.

Kevin Wai.

Kevin Wai is from Leesville, Louisiana, and uh got a football scholarship to go to none other than the great university and the great football powerhouse, LSU Tigers.

There's always one in every crowd.

Normally one.

So Kevin played football at LSU, did a great job there, went and played at the Seahawks for a while, and then got one of the highest paid contracts ever for a center for the New York Jets.

Played at the New York Jets for several years, and then went from there to the Tennessee Titans, all pro eight years in a row.

All pro center.

They say he really helped change the game as it relates to an offensive lineman and a center.

And then became president of the NFL Players Association.

You see him in the middle of all this.

I met Kevin when he was a junior at LSU.

His wife was a friend of Delyn.

They went to youth group together, and they had fallen in love at LSU and wanted to get married, and they called out to some churches to marry them.

And Kevin was not a Christian, and she was away from the Lord, and they called a couple places and they didn't really feel like marrying them, and they didn't want to go to Justice Peace.

And she called me one day, she said, listen, hey Dino, this is Tracy.

I haven't heard from you in a while, and I and I just you haven't heard from me in a while.

And I wanted you to know that I'm getting married to a guy by the name of Kevin.

He plays football LSU, and he's not a believer, he's not interested in being a believer.

Now, our church was about six months old.

I gotta tell you, I didn't, I'm I just didn't have a lot to do.

I I'd visit everybody in the church.

We started with 12 people, you know, our first Easter, we had a handful of people, 72 people.

I don't know where all they came from.

And so I didn't have a lot to do.

So, you know, and so you know, I was visiting the widows on Monday.

I did everything on Monday.

The rest of the week, I was like, hey, what's up?

Let me tell you something, a board pastor in a in an office is not what I want to do stuff.

So we started doing all kinds of crazy outreaches, just reaching people.

And I had this idea look, I'll marry people.

I'll just marry people far from God because then when I get them in the office, I'll just tell them about Jesus the whole time.

Because I've only been married six years.

I don't know that much about marriage, but I can tell me about Jesus.

And so she said, Would you marry us because we've been turned down by three people?

I said, sure, I'd love to marry you.

So, you know, wouldn't y'all come over here a couple months before you get married?

We'll meet a couple times.

We've met three times and she we've got to meet three times for pre-marriage counselor.

Premarriage counselor.

Now we've changed things since then, but that was the early days.

And um they came in and sat down, and so I just said, Hey, it's great, gonna get married.

We talked for two or three minutes about the wedding and marriage, and I tell them all that I knew in about 30 seconds, you know.

You know, just say yes and just be kind and pray and take the garbage out.

And then I began to proceed to preach the gospel, the Romans road.

We're all sinners.

We've sinned, we fall short of the glory of God.

But the free gift is Jesus Christ.

He gives eternal life, he can change your life.

And so for three times we did this.

I got to the end of it.

I remember big old Kevin, big old boy.

He said, I said, Kevin, we've talked about Christ for three weeks.

Would you like to receive Jesus as your Savior?

He said, No, not at all.

Are you ready to pray with me to receive Christ as your Savior?

I'm not interested.

Would you like to bow your head and pray with me right now?

Repeat a prayer for me to receive Jesus because you're going to hell, my son.

Which, I mean, I just kept, I kept asking, kept asking.

He kept saying, no.

Finally, he said, I'm not interested in praying with you.

I said, Okay, Kevin, I love you.

I'll see you at your wedding.

We prayed together.

Um, and I went to the I didn't say, well, if you're not gonna pray with me, then I'm not marrying you.

Or I'm gonna go to the marriage and embarrass you.

Or Dylan's singing, and we're gonna we're gonna shut it down midway through the marriage and walk out on you.

We had a great wedding, a great time.

Dylan sang, it was a great moment.

And then I never heard from Kevin for three and a half years.

He went on to play NFL football.

One Sunday as I was preaching, I looked up.

There were just three or four hundred people in our church.

Kevin's standing up against the back wall.

He's a big old boy.

It's not hard to miss.

I mean, and he standing there.

While I'm preaching, standing up.

Came to about the last 15 minutes of service.

I got done preaching, he came down and met me right here, and I was like, oh gosh, Kevin's mad.

I saw it was Kevin.

He's a big boy now.

Fertile Brown looked at me and said, I need to meet with you this week.

He said, When can I meet with you?

I said, Well, we can we can meet tomorrow.

Let's meet tomorrow.

He showed up, and we didn't back in those days we didn't have anywhere to meet, so we just went in a little Sunday school room, like a little barn room.

I actually had kid chairs.

Now he's a big he's 300 pounds, and I'm I'm a big guy.

We're like, promise you, we're sitting in kid chairs.

And he looks at me and he says, I've got some questions.

He says, Something's gone, I can't sleep at night.

I've gotten married, we've had a child, something's going on in my heart.

He said, and my brother passed away, and all these things are happening.

I've got, and he opened up a notebook, 67 questions.

He said, I don't know anybody to trust with spiritual questions but you.

He said, Here's the first question: Why did God kill my brother in a car wreck six months ago?

Whoa.

And I began to talk a little bit to Kevin about the sovereignty of God and the mercy of God and the plan of God.

And then he went to the second question.

He said, Why do I know God's there, but I feel far from him?

I talked a little bit about that.

He started into the third question.

I said, Kevin, hold up.

I said, Well, I can't, I can't answer 67 questions.

All I'm here to tell you is that Jesus Christ loves you, He's got a purpose for your life.

You need to surrender your heart to God right now.

And Kevin, that big old lineman, began to weep.

And Kevin reached across the table.

He said, Now I'm ready to pray with you to receive Christ.

Kevin Boy, I prayed with him.

We got done.

He's a big old boy.

He starts crying, he hugs me, and he's like that was 16 years ago.

Now God is using him in an incredible way.

You never know the people around you that need the love of Jesus Christ.

Let's be people of the show and tell as the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Let's be more visible and let's be more vocal than we've ever been in our life.

Because people all around us, they are far from God and God's put you in their path.

Can I have a good amen?

I want you to bow your heads and I want to pray with you.

Father, I thank you.

I thank you for every heart in this room, every person.

Lord, I pray for those who know you.

I pray that their knowing of you will not be a secret.

Help us to be vocal and visible because you just never know.

Help us, Father, to show, be willing to share, and to be willing to serve the least and the lonely.

Even those who on the outside look like they are not interested.

You never know what's going on in their heart.

Help us to be aware of that.

Let Gateway Church be known as a show and tell church.

Showing the love of God and telling people about the love of God.

Showing Jesus and telling people about Jesus.

Let it be birthed in this year like never before.

From this resurrection weekend we've just celebrated, let it be birthed like never before.

Let it be a summer of showing and telling all throughout this region.

But Lord, I pray for that person today in this room who feels far from God.

All across this room, I'm gonna pray for you.

Pastor David's gonna come and connect you.

But I just I just want to pray for everyone.

Maybe you're here today and you feel far from God.

You know he's there, but you just feel far from God today.

I want you to know that he is there for you.

He's there with forgiveness, he's there with a new beginning.

He's there to offer a fresh start for your life.

The name of Jesus.

Lord, I pray for every person who feels far from God.

If you're here today and you say, Dino, can you pray for me?

When you pray, would you include me in that prayer?

Because I feel far from God today.

I don't know why.

If that's you, would you just lift up your hand and say, Dino, pray for me just real quick.

All across this room, I see hands going up.

Thank you, thank you.

That's incredible.

Thanks a lot.

Just thank you, thank you so much for that.

You can put that hand down.

That's amazing.

Let me pray for you.

Father, I pray for every person who feels away from you.

I thank you that at the name of Jesus, we call upon the name of Jesus, you show up.

Lord, ignite our hearts because there are people in the room that feel like Kevin, far from God, and all around us, we feel like we have we know some Kevins who are far from God.

But Lord, we're not giving up on people because you didn't give up on us.

We love you so much in Jesus' name.