It All Goes Back In the Box | Chad Bruegman

I want to say hi to everybody at our Missouri City campus.

We hope you guys are having an amazing day of worship so far.

Everybody down at our West End campus downtown.

I want to say I had an absolute blast being with you guys this last Thursday night at our night of prayer and worship.

It was really special.

We love you guys.

Of course, everybody watching with us online, so grateful that you get to be with us.

And let's do this.

Let's make sure all of our men at our God Behind Bars campuses feel the love.

They feel so welcome.

We love you, men at Ramsey Unit.

God bless you guys.

So I want to do this.

I want to start off this.

We're in a two-week miniseries with a little break last week in the middle.

I hope you guys enjoyed your time off on Memorial Weekend.

We're in a two-week miniseries, and uh I did a sermon last time called The Trust Fall.

And uh we're gonna go here this week.

I'm gonna start by asking a question.

Do we have any at all campuses, do we have any really competitive people in the house?

We have some competitors.

You just love to win.

Own it.

Put your hand up.

My hand is up.

I absolutely uh, and it's God's fault, so I don't apologize.

I was born with the spirit of competition, man.

I'll compete over anything.

I absolutely love it.

And um a few of my four kids uh took on that trait from me.

Um and then on the opposite end, and I don't know why God did this with marriage, but you know, opposites oftentimes attract, my wife could not be less competitive.

And that's why we've been to marriage counseling several times.

Is there's a dynamic there that's very hard to deal with, and one of the hardest parts for us in marriage with this dynamic was anytime it was board game night, right?

Because I want to win at all costs, and oftentimes with you have board game night with your friends, it's a husband and wife, you guys are partners, and you play against your friends, husbands and wives, right?

And I want to win, and my wife's just happy to be there, could care less.

I'm not there to have fun.

She's there for what I think they call it community or something, friendship.

I don't care about that.

I want to win.

And so we've had trouble, but right now my youngest son, he is the most competitive person in our household.

His name is Cruz, he's 10 years old, and he's on this huge board game kick.

Do any of you guys grow up playing board games as kids?

You might still as a family.

Uh we love to do that uh as a family, and so every night at dinner um he says, What are we playing tonight?

and half the nights we say, we're not playing anything, go to your room, we're tired, life is lifing.

But then a lot of times no one will say they're gonna play anything, and so me and my son took up this game called chess, and that's a thinking man's game, and neither of uh myself or Cruz are thinking men, so we're trying.

We should probably play checkers, but it is what it is.

And uh I'm older than him and I've played chess more than him, and so all I do is beat him, and I let him know it when I beat him, because as a fellow competitor, we know that's what you do.

His name's Cruz, and I beat him the other night, and I said, Hey Cruz, you know what rhymes with Cruz?

Lose because you lost.

I did.

I said, You know what else rhymes with Cruz?

Bruze, because you got beat.

That's how we do it, but we've also, as a family, the game we're on right now is a game called Clue.

Any of you guys familiar with Clue?

So we played the other night, it was me, Cruz, and my wife.

We were the only ones signed up, and we played three games, and my wife won all three, three in a row.

And here's what she would do when it was over.

She's like, I can't believe I won again, man.

This is a really fun game.

Good game, guys.

And I'm just sitting there like, oh my word, like, babe, your love language is time together, right?

Mine is talking trash.

You have to capitalize on the W.

Please talk some trash.

Anyways, we love board games, alright?

So here's what I'm getting at.

This is probably arguably one of the most famous games.

It's gone through decade after decade, still being uh played.

It's the game of Monopoly.

And if you're not familiar with the game of Monopoly, uh let me just boil it down to its most basic part, and it's simply this.

This is a game uh where you compete to become the have at the expense of everyone else, eventually becoming the have nots.

That's the ultimate point.

You want to monopolize everything, right?

You you got these pieces, we all know, and it all comes back to this right here.

This is what we're talking about in this series.

Right here, the money.

The dough.

He who gets the most of this wins, right?

And eventually nobody else has any left, and the person that wins has it all.

That is the game of monopoly.

And you go around and you buy properties and and you start by when you land on something, you have the opportunity to spend some of your money, and you get what's called a little greenhouse, right?

But then eventually, if you get enough money at the expense of the other people, here's what you end up getting: you go from houses to hotels, and that's when the game starts getting real good, because then they pay almost double in the tax when they land on your thing, and everybody gets to pick their thing, gets to pick their thing, and still, just kind of like life, no matter how good your strategy is, no matter how much you think you've got this boiled down, this is still involved.

Dice.

King Solomon called it this in Ecclesiastes, time and chance.

So, in that sense, it's a lot of not just strategy and how hard you work and how much sweat equity and great ideas and systems you put into anything in life.

A lot of it still at the end of the day comes down to what?

Time and chance, right?

But here's the truth about monopoly in any other board game, no matter who wins in Monopoly, do you know what happens when it's over?

All of it goes right back in the box.

It goes right back in the box.

And here's the truth about life.

At some point, the Bible says it's appointed unto every man to die once, right?

Before eternal life starts.

It's appointed unto every man to die once.

And the truth is, as soon as you and I breathe our last, everything on this side of eternity goes back in the box.

And Jesus gives us this stark reminder of the fact that all of it in this game of life, on this side of eternity, it goes back in the box.

And so I want us to go, if you have your Bibles at all campuses to Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

If not, don't worry, the scriptures are going to come up on the screen so that you can read along with us.

But let me just set up what's happening before we get into it.

In Luke chapter 12, starts by saying this Jesus was preaching to thousands of people in this instance.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

It was packed.

It said thousands of people.

In fact, people were, it says, trampling on each other, and then Jesus just starts doing what he does best.

He starts teaching about the principles that he's trying to restore back to the earth, which had at that point in that area become pretty corrupted at the time by Rome.

And he's teaching these principles that are antithetical to the way their systems worked, and it was such an upside-down set of ideas, but these were the original ideas that we study all the time in the book of Genesis, what God really wanted for everybody to have, and so he's just preaching his heart out, and then one guy with thousands of people there has the audacity to make it all about him.

And he interrupts Jesus.

Could you imagine interrupting Jesus while he's teaching and he's on a roll and there's thousands of people there?

Here's what I say: just don't be that guy.

Nobody likes that guy.

But he interrupts them, and here's where we pick up.

This is Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 13.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Someone in the crowd, while Jesus was teaching, said to him, Hey, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

And Jesus goes, Man, well, here's how I read it.

Man, come on, man.

He says, Who appointed me judge or arbiter between you two?

And then he goes, you know what?

I need to change my, I need I need to put the notes away and I need to pivot.

We need to talk about this.

He goes, because it's not just this man who has the audacity to interrupt me, because you know what he's so worried about?

He's not worried about everybody else there.

He's not worried about the thousands of people.

He's worried about making sure he gets his.

And him and his brother are having a big fight over possessions that they never were the ones responsible for getting in the first place.

And Jesus is going, oh man, this was a great reminder about how quickly this nasty, toxic thing of the soul called greed could get into us if we are not really careful.

And so Jesus, he says this next watch out, exclamation point.

Now, like if you're like me and you really believe Jesus is the creator of the universe, he is the king of kings and lord of lords.

He is from beginning and he is to end.

Then when he says watch out with an exclamation point, we really want to watch out.

He's not playing around.

He says, Watch out, be on your guard against what?

All kinds of greed.

It manifests in all different kinds of ways.

He says this then, life.

Everybody say life real quick.

Life.

In John 10, 10, what's Jesus say he came to do?

He said, I have come to this world so that once again you can have life and what?

Life to the fullest.

That's a good God right there.

I came into your space so I could restore to you what's been lost.

I want you to live life and life to the fullest.

And so he's teaching us what life isn't to the fullest right here.

He says, life does not consist in what?

The abundance of possessions.

Keyword abundance.

He doesn't say it's bad to have possessions.

We'll talk more on that later.

We all have possessions.

That's not inherently bad or wrong at all.

But he says, full life.

If you really want to experience full life, do not fall into the trap of thinking that the game is just to get more and more and more, which will often in our worldly systems be at the expense of the have nots.

Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

And so he goes, you know what?

I'm going to tell him another story.

Jesus was the ultimate storyteller.

So he tells what's called a parable.

If you're newer to church, a parable is simply a made-up story that is full of truth.

So here's the story.

He says, The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.

And so this rich man, and I want you to note how self-absorbed as I read this, his inner monologue is.

After he gets this windfall.

This farmer's dream.

This is what they used to call a bumper crop year.

He thought to who?

Himself.

What shall I do?

I have no place to store what?

My crops.

To which I picture record scratch right there, and God's looking down, going, I'm sorry, whose crops?

Yeah, my crops.

I just had a bumper crop.

I just had a windfall.

What am I going to do with all of my crops?

And God's like, listen, man, I appreciate the passion there, but kind of let's re-up on what this whole thing called life is all about.

So you don't fall into this nasty trap known as greed.

He says, I appreciate your sweat equity, man.

I appreciate that you got out there every season and you started tilling the soil, getting it maximized to receive the seed.

I'm so grateful that you have been faithful and you kept planting seed year after year, season after season.

I love all the work you put into harvesting it once it came.

Yeah, I mean, when you work, River Point Church West End, it is worship to God.

We were designed to work, and so God's going, I love that you're doing that, but as we talked about two weeks ago, you can't forget that these aren't your crops.

Because no matter how hard you work, and no matter how much grind and hustle you put into that harvest that year, you still had to sit back and hope that the rain did what only rain can do.

You had to sit back and hope that the sun came out another day.

You had to hope that the miracle of the seed when it meets with soil and the embryo in the seed dies and then it resurrects, and not only does it give you what you hoped for, there's more seeds in it, so you can multiply and repeat and do it all again.

That is miraculous, and that is from the creator.

So before you say, What shall I do with my new crops, this new windfall?

Maybe he should have started with, God, what are you up to?

He thought to himself, what am I gonna do with my crops?

It goes on to say this.

Then he said, Okay, this is what I'll do.

I will tear down, here it is again, my barns and build bigger ones.

Sounds amazing, right?

American dream.

And there I will store my surplus grain, and I'll say to myself, self, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years.

Take life easy.

Eat, drink, and be merry.

And I'm not gonna pretend to know you, but let me just talk about me for a minute.

That sounds amazing.

It's like I can I can live off this for years.

Finally, I've worked so hard.

And I've been under a lot of pressure, like we're all under a lot of pressure, and as soon as you you earn something, it's basically all spent pretty quick right away.

But now I can I can do things and I can relax, and I don't have to worry about the miracle of creation and working and putting my hands to something and seeing it repeat and multiply.

I can just build bigger barns for all of my stuff, and I'm just gonna sit back for the rest of my life and take it easy.

I'm gonna eat, I'm gonna drink, and I'm going to find merry men.

And Jesus is trying to get all of those people in the crowd and every single one of us in our crowds today to know this.

This right here, what this guy's doing, is the lie that we all can tell ourselves if we're not careful.

And the lie is this the lie is that more stuff is what satisfies the soul.

If I can just have more, if I can just get more, then we'll be okay.

As soon as we get that thing, right?

Come on, we've all played that game in our heads.

You've all played the if I win the lottery game, we do that, right?

My wife and I do it.

Don't act holier than thou.

We all play it.

Man, if I win the lottery, then we're gonna do this, and then we get to do this, and we're gonna do this for them, and we're gonna have it's gonna eat, drink, life's gonna be merry, right?

We all we all do that.

But the lie of the soul is if you really want to have full life, more stuff, and spending all your energy, passion, time, talent, and treasure on getting just more things is gonna leave you wanting.

See, and endless acquisition of stuff pacifies the soul, it does not satisfy the soul.

The endless pursuit of more and more is putting so much of your God-given talent, time, and energy into getting something that will never give you what Jesus said he wanted most for you, which is living life and life to the fullest.

Hear me when I say this stuff is not inherently bad.

I really want golf clubs really bad right now.

I'm three years into my golf journey.

And every time I start to justify and get ready to go and buy that new set of golf clubs, because I've been given this free set of hand-me-downs, and I'm grateful for it.

But I'm like, I've got to graduate, I've got to look the part.

Right?

If you look the part, you'll be the part.

Not true.

Every time I'm about to pull the plug and buy the new golf clubs, here's what I hear in my head: God's saying, This is how he speaks to me.

He's going, Chad, all you're gonna get is a more expensive slice.

You will buy those clubs and you will still slice the ball just as bad.

And then you'll get a little better, and you'll see an ad on on Instagram for this new club with new technology where you'll slice it even less and you won't.

You'll still slice it because you're not good and golf's hard.

Listen, stuff isn't bad.

I do believe there's gonna be a season where I have those new golf clubs and I hope to enjoy them, but it can't be at the expense of looking at the bottom line of the Brugman household and going, what really matters most?

Is that really gonna satisfy my soul?

Or is it simply for a minute gonna pacify my new soul till the new technology comes out?

Those are questions that I have to wrestle with, and I imagine you have to wrestle with quite often.

And so while stuff isn't inherently bad, I wrote this in my notes.

The accumulation of stuff cannot compare to the accumulation of stories.

Testimonies.

Right?

I said earlier it all goes back in the box.

I once heard a wise man say, you will never see a U-Haul attached to a hearst.

But do you know what is going with us to heaven?

Testimony.

Stories.

Do you know what we're gonna be able to lay at the feet of Jesus when we get there?

How we used our time, how we used our talents, how we used our treasure.

We created stories.

And the best stories that bring the fullest life.

Come on, you've all done it.

You've tasted and seen that I'm not lying.

The greatest stories that bring the most satisfaction in life are the stories where you took some of yours and gave sacrificially to someone else that currently couldn't do it for themselves.

It's called sharing.

And it is this gift from God to bring the world back to what it was originally intended to be.

God did it at the highest level, for God so loved you and I that he what?

Gave sacrificially his one and only Son, his first and his best, that whosoever would believe in him shall not perish, but have what?

Everlasting life.

Guys, they can't fix this problem themselves.

They cannot save themselves.

And so I'm taking from my resource that I could justify hoarding for myself because I am God, the owner of it all, but I'm going to let go of it.

I'm gonna let go of my son, send him down there, and he is going to pay as a gift for everything that we did not have the ability to purchase on our own, namely salvation.

That is the process, and then Jesus says, Be my disciples, pick up your cross.

The way I'm sacrificing for the good of you, now I want you to take your God-given resource and sacrifice for the good of other people, and in doing that, more heaven, as he told us to pray, will start to come to earth.

So it's about the accumulations of stories, not stuff.

Let me give you the best example I know.

Years ago, when I was pastoring in Denver at the church that we had planted in 2005, things were going really well.

We got this gift.

We were uh invited to participate with a ministry called God Behind Bars, just like we have here.

And we opened up our first one with a women's prison, and it went so good, and then eventually we had some favor with a warden, and we got into a federal prison, men's prison, maximum security, and we just had God ordained favor with the warden, and he gave us way more latitude than we probably should have had at a maximum security prison, but God, right?

God loved those men in that prison.

And so we had been doing ministry with them for a couple years at this point.

There were a few hundred men that were showing up faithfully to service.

This was their church, and we got a letter in the mail, and we read it at one of our executive pastoral team meetings on a Tuesday, and the letter was so humbling, I'll never forget it.

Uh, one guy wrote on behalf of a bunch of the guys who uh go to God Behind Bars, and it basically said this it said, Hey, we want to ask a big favor before you say no, please hear us out.

They said, Listen to this.

We want to throw an outreach for some of our friends in prison that don't come to church.

We want them to know about Jesus.

And so we've got this thing that we get to do once a year for all of us on good behavior, is we have this big softball tournament, this big softball, and and we usually they give us food outside instead of um you know in the cafeteria, and it's just a really big deal, and there's gonna be a lot of people out there, and so we asked the warden, and it's been fully cleared, which I still to this day don't know how, but we have permission to buy a bunch of hot dogs, listen to this, with our commissary money we've put together, and a bunch of soda, and we're gonna play our softball tournament, and then all we're asking is that, and I was the preacher kind of like here, and my my best friend Sean, he was the other preacher every other week, and so they kind of knew us better than anyone else.

They said, Hey, could either Chad or Sean, could you, if you're not preaching that weekend, could you come down and at the end of the softball tournament after we do that and barbecue, could you give a gospel presentation?

Because we really want these men to know about Jesus.

Now, let's let's not pass that story by too quick.

Think about that.

They're commissary money.

If they get one little smidgen of a chance behind bars to eat and drink something they like and maybe get a little bit of merry money, eat, drink, and be merry.

You know where it's coming from?

That oh so precious commissary money that you get like a dollar per hour at work there.

And you know what they thought to do as members of our church?

Pull all of that together.

And so we're sitting there going, well, of course, we could we could pay for all the hot dogs.

That doesn't even affect our budget one bit.

We got this, and we were like, of course, we're gonna write them back and say we'll be there and we're paying for it all, don't worry about it.

And then one of uh the pastors in our team spoke up and said, No, no, no, no, no, we need to let them pay for it.

We're like, What?

It's like, no, no, no, we can't rob them of the joy and the satisfaction they are gonna get from giving of their hard-earned commissary money for the good of someone else that can't currently help themselves.

We can't preach that to our church and then play by different rules with the men behind God behind bars.

So we said, okay, you pay for it, one of us will show up.

I had to preach on the weekend, so Sean showed up.

Long story, kind of long.

He shows up, they have a blast for several hours, he gets up, they have some worship music like they do there, and then and he got up and he preached just a good old fashioned, clear, crisp gospel message.

And 30 men that were not a part of our church there gave their life to Christ that day.

Thirty men.

And I don't care what kind of candy bars and drinks those men eventually would be able to buy again with the money they then recouped from working hard again.

They wouldn't say even one bite of those candy bars or drinks of those drinks or whatever else they paid for with that commissary money would have come even close to comparing to the fact that God gave them an idea, put it on their heart, and they use their time, their treasure, their talent, and their resource to help some other people who couldn't help themselves when it came to eternity.

And they got to watch 30 of their friends and inmates humbly bow a knee and give their life to Jesus that day.

And this, I promise you, I promise you, this is where you're going to find that life and life to the fullest that Jesus was trying to get them back to when he started to tell this story.

He finishes up with this.

God said to the man after he made these great plans, listen to this, you fool.

Then who will get all this that you've prepared for yourself?

And then Jesus says, This here's the lesson.

This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.

He said to this man, Your whole life is about to go back in the box tonight.

And you're making plans about eating and drinking and being merry.

And for what?

For you, it it's over tonight.

Surely you want a better legacy than that.

Surely you want it to pass on to something more noble than that, right?

And he says, This is how it will be for those who want things and store up things for themselves, but is not rich towards God.

And so the thousand-dollar question that we have to end on uh this week is this okay, Chad, so what's it look like to be rich towards God?

Because I believe we have a church.

In fact, I'll say this I know we have a church that wants to be rich towards God.

I'm not up here spitting and getting all passionate and sweating through this dumb shirt I bought for Sunday because I just want to try and preach good.

No, no, no.

I know with all of my heart we have a church that wants to live this kind of lives.

I know we have a church that wants to heed these warnings of just making life about the next thing and getting more and more and more.

So, what's it look like to be rich towards God?

We get such a practical answer right in front of our faces in Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

I'm gonna start in verse 31.

It says this, this is Jesus talking.

He says, When the Son of Man comes in glory, talking about him coming the second time, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

All of the nations, everybody on earth will be gathered before him, Jesus, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He, Jesus, will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then King Jesus will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father.

I don't know about you, but I really long to hear those words whenever this plays out.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance.

The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

And then Jesus says, Here's what that looks like, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in.

I needed clothes and you clothed me.

I was sick and you looked after me.

I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer, like we would.

Jesus, how's that possible?

It's 2026.

You're not here right now, currently, physically.

And then Jesus explains it.

The righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?

Or thirsty and give you something to drink?

When did we see you a stranger and invite you in?

Or when did we see you needing clothes and clothe you, Jesus?

When did we ever see you sick?

You were never sick, or in prison and go to visit you, and this is what Jesus will reply.

Truly, when Jesus says truly, you want to lean forward and hear what he's about to say.

Because it is the essence of the purest form of truth that we have.

He says, Truly I tell you, River Point and West End Church, don't miss this.

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.

Like that's what he's saying.

This is the people I'm looking for.

If you want an inheritance that will last for trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years, it's about taking stories to heaven, not stuff, because stuff ain't going.

Again, nothing wrong inherently with having some stuff.

We were put here before sin got in the way to enjoy earth.

God is not the God of saying you just have to sell it all and give it all away if you really want to be a noble disciple.

God simply saying this, and here's the rule at the Brugman household.

I've said this to you guys before.

My kids can quote this verbatim.

Here's the rule: the Brugman family will never apologize for any and all blessings that God gives us unless we don't share.

I will never apologize for a bumper crop.

Because I know where it came from.

I'm not in charge of sun or rain or soil or seed.

They're miracles from the Creator.

If I ever get a season, or if you ever get a season where there's a windfall or a bumper crop of some sort, a really good year, praise God and take joy from the hard work you did to contribute to that, to participate in that.

That's worship.

But just know this.

It's all his.

And so we we give those things so that we can enjoy them, yes, but also so that we can share them.

It says, truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters, you did for me.

This, my friends, is what it looks like to be rich towards God.

So I want to talk real practical now, and we're ending this two-week miniseries about being a church of great generosity.

And we already two weeks ago had an incredible response.

You remember I gave you these cards that said, I'm all in, and I've got another one here, and then we took an offering, except it wasn't supposed to be an offering for money.

It was just supposed to you re-upping and saying, Hey man, I want to participate in this.

Because if you think you can do a lot on your own, imagine when we galvanize as a church the way we're supposed to as New Testament believers.

We pour pool our resources together.

Imagine what we can do for this community.

Imagine what we can do for our church as well.

People in need here.

You're our first responsibility.

And then our second responsibility is to the communities of Houston and Richmond and Sugarland and Fulshire, and I'm still too new to know all the things I'm supposed to say.

Missouri City, the Siena area, all the places where God's given us stewardship over, along with some other amazing churches, to say we're all in.

27, 28 years ago, whenever this church got started, um, I want to I want to take time out to brag on Patrick and Lisa Kelly.

Because for over two decades, God sent to this part of Houston a builder, a dreamer.

Not only a builder and a dreamer, but Patrick Kelly was someone who was so passionate.

You guys know this about being a church for people who were really, really far from God.

He called it an outward-facing church.

He had a passion for those that didn't yet know Jesus to create a church where they could come in and they could hear about and find Jesus in ways, and he obsessed over it and he thought about it, and he gave him and his wife, and then eventually the staff around them sacrificially paid prices that you and I will never fully know that leaders have to pay in quiet so that things can happen in public.

And now, look, some 27, 28 years later, we don't have one amazing big barn.

We have not two amazing big barns.

We have been blessed to have three incredibly big barns and a fourth in the Ramsey unit now.

A barn we continue to cultivate and grow.

There was an incredible season.

And so many of you that have been here through a lot of that, it was your sacrifices and your generosity and your kindness that made us able to have these big barns.

And there is a season, like Solomon says, there's a time and a season for everything.

Please hear me when I say this.

God gave us Patrick and Lisa Kelly and put a vision on the inside of them and gave him skill sets and abilities to build big barns so that crop and harvest could come in.

Jesus said, Hey, the harvest is plentiful.

Get your barns ready.

But the workers, the participants, that's the problem.

The workers are few.

The people who really step up and and and participate and don't just consume.

And so we've got these three incredible barns.

And when I came in as the new guy, the question is, okay, who am I?

What did God make me to do?

And I'll tell you what God made me to do, and this is why I feel like there was a bit of a divine compliment from Patrick to me is we've got bigger barns.

Our barns are great.

But you know what I have a passion for?

Let's now just have bigger tables in those barns.

Let's take full advantage of these beautiful barns that we have been given.

Because let me tell you the danger of River Point Church, so you know how to pray for us as a church.

The temptation is when you look around.

Man, if you would, I remember the first time I guest spoke here and I pulled up to this campus at Richmond.

I was like, oh, this is Texas money.

This is oil money.

Got that a restaurant outside and climbers for the kids and turf fields out there, and there's amazing buildings and all these things for the kids, and I hadn't even seen Missouri City and how beautiful that is, or West End with a three-story, incredible coffee shop next to it that we also own.

Praise God for Patrick and Lisa Kelly being the builders that they were.

Thank you.

If you know them, thank them.

Get a hold of them.

Say, we could not be where we are without you.

But as we move forward, here's what I have a sobering job to do is this.

When you have barns that are full like this, the temptation is this as a church.

Just start taking life easy.

Eat, come to church and eat and drink, and we better leave Mary or else we'll find another church.

That's the temptation.

And you know what we end up being?

Is a church that pacifies instead of satisfies.

We we come here believing, hey, could you just give me the divine binky again so I can get through next week because it's really hard, right?

How creepy is it if a nine-year-old's walking around with a binky in their mouth still, right?

Like we don't want to be that church.

Where it's just, hey, I need to be pacified because life's so hard and it's so hard.

And it's like, no, no, no.

I want you to come here and be satisfied.

And there is only one pathway to getting out of uh pacifying, being pacified as believers and being satisfied.

It's when you start to say, God, let me take everything you've blessed us with and ask this question: what do you want me to do with my crop?

As a family, as husbands and wives, as single people, God, what do you want me to do with my crop, what you've entrusted me with?

And then just be open to whatever God says.

But I am telling you, if we will if we will enter a season, and I'm so excited about this, we can do this, where we will leverage these three incredible, blessed barns that are plenty big for us right now, and we will start to say, we're gonna bring more and more crop into these barns so that we can be known in the community as the church that loves to share.

We can be known in the community.

I want to be a church where if we were gone tomorrow, everyone in our community would miss us.

And I think we're doing it, and I think in the past we have done it, but we can't rest on the laurels of look around, man.

We got it good here.

No, we have stuff to do.

There's a mission to do.

And I just I just wrote here, man, every time you say, I'm in, whether it's for the first time or whether you're re-upping and you've faithfully for a long time been participating at this church instead of just consuming.

Every time that happens, you have to know this.

And we talked about it in week one.

The first thing is this before you're ever thinking about giving to a church, you have to say, No, I'm giving to God.

And it happens to go to a church the way the New Testament designed it.

But ultimately, this is first and foremost an act of worship and trust with God.

Right?

And then you trust churches that have systems in place where we are going to use your faithful worship and hard-earned giving to maximize it for the community, for the good of the people here and for the good of the people who aren't here yet.

That's our job, that's my job, that's our team's job to do that.

But man, I'm telling you, when you re-up on that, or when some of you for the first time say, you know what?

I don't want to come to church simply to eat, drink, and be merry, and then go back until we meet again next week.

I want to be a part of a church where we all have skin in the game.

And here's the beautiful thing about the kingdom of God it is so simple, it's not complicated.

The more people in the body of Christ that just choose to simply do their small part means nobody has to do this huge, overwhelming part.

But the nature of the beast in the church is almost identical to the nature of the beast in the organizational communities.

That 20% of the people typically do 80% of the work.

And in the kingdom of God, Jesus says, This isn't how it's supposed to be.

If everybody just simply does their faith-filled, trust-filled, obedient part, nobody gets overwhelmed.

And we always have more than enough to do what we need to do, to make a difference.

And everyone starts to win.

Every time my wife and I take from the first of our paycheck every two weeks, and it comes back to River Point and Weston Church or whatever church we would find ourselves at, every time we do that without even speaking 20-some years in, there is a level of peace and joy that we get of knowing, hey, we do this as an act of worship, but also as an act of accountability, so that where our treasure is, there our heart goes also, so that money doesn't end up getting the best of the Brugman household.

Every time we take the first portion of what we and we give it to God to say, God, you're the owner, we're the managers, this is our worship and our trust back to you.

Every time we do that, there is a level of peace, and there is a level, listen to this, of confidence when things are getting difficult.

Come on, we've all been there and done that.

Because it's like, God, this money isn't mine.

So when it's good, I share.

And when it's bad, I confidently come to the throne of grace.

And I call on the resources of heaven to see me through this.

And the Bible says God will meet all of your needs according to his riches and glories.

Not all your wants, it says, it says he'll meet all your needs according to his riches and glory.

God always has more than enough to provide, and what he's looking for is our trust.

I have so much excitement for the future, and I want you to practically know this.

Not only is your participation saying, I'm I'm going all in, not only is it worship to God, but every time someone gets saved, you've got stock in that.

Eternal inheritance.

That may sound dramatic, or that's just the preacher trying to talk his.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

It's all over scripture.

Every time someone's baptized, every time a disciple here or at any campus is being made, over and over and over, you have stock in that.

Every time a marriage is saved at this church, no marriage could show up to church if we didn't keep the lights on at the church, pay the bills at the church.

Every time, and you guys don't hear about this a lot, I get to hear these stories all the time.

Man, if you could hear as many stories as I get to hear, you'd say, man, what we're giving and participating in is making an incredible difference.

Not just marriages that are saved, but every time a divorcee comes here and finds healing from that divorce in the name of Jesus, you're participating in that healing.

Every time on a prayer service or a Sunday service where the prayer of faith goes out and somebody gets healing in their body, and I get to hear these stories.

We couldn't do it without your participation.

You have stock in that.

There's an inheritance.

Every time an addiction's broke, every time somebody in our church gets laid to rest in honor and grace at a funeral, and we do sometimes more than one funeral a week around here.

Do you understand that doesn't happen?

We're not able to do that.

Our team's not able to do that for free.

But you understand how honoring it is to God that we lay our people down with peace and grace and honor?

And that takes resource to do it.

And when you give of yours for the good of other people, even knowing you won't know all the stories that I know about what's happening around here.

Do you not think that doesn't get God really interested in your business?

As I say all the time, man, you just take care of God's business, the least of these, and He'll take care of your business.

But that demands trust.

It just comes down to a trust issue.

And so here's what I'm wanting to end by saying is this it's all gonna go back in the box when it comes to stuff.

And I want to be a church that like sets the standard when it comes to telling stories.

Look what the Lord has done, look what God is doing.

And I want stories from you and your household, I want stories from me, my household, I want stories of salvations, I want stories of baptisms, I want stories of all the things that we're doing and gonna do and even get better at doing in the community.

I want stories about how we're pe helping people all around town, a church that is rich in stories, not in stuff.

Be known as a church that loves to share.

And so I want to thank you guys for the last two weeks, letting me challenge us as a leader and sitting soberly in these conversations that are so necessary and so important to all of our lives and to the kingdom of God, but they're sometimes very convicting and hard to hear.

And what I love about this church is I see people, and I know it's happening at the other campuses, I see you guys leaning in.

I see you guys listening with humble hearts, I see you guys listening with interest and curiosity.

And so on your way in at every campus, you got one of these.

It's just kind of like the one we got last time.

We're not gonna do an offering or a song or anything, but this is for those of you that maybe didn't make the last service.

On here's a QR code.

And it just simply gives you, if you so choose, uh the most streamlined way to be able to participate when it comes to um dealing with our barns, the finances, that side of it, and all that we hope to do with these barns in the next several years.

And I promise you, man, you get involved in God's business and you will watch in these cool ways.

You need to journal it when it happens, how he starts getting really intricately involved in your business.

Amen.

Let's pray and let's go have an awesome Sunday.

I want to golf.

Now I pray the blessing of God over every single one of us.

I pray that the Lord would bless you today.

I pray that he would keep you in the grip of his grace.

I pray that he would cause his face to shine upon you.

I pray that he'd be radically gracious to you and to yours, that he would turn his countenance towards you as you go about this week until we meet again.

And I pray more than anything that you would walk out of the doors of your campus with a peace that passes understanding, that guards your heart this week and guards your mind.

In Christ Jesus, we pray this.

And everybody said, Hey, we love you guys at every campus.

If anyone needs prayer, we're gonna have an awesome team down here that would love to pray with you.