Serve | Pastor Andrew Carter

Church planting takes place when a healthy church multiplies to create a new self-sustaining church, all to fulfill the Great Commission for the glory of God.

It happens in a variety of ways, in a variety of settings.

Our church, in fact, wants to help with the expansion of the kingdom through our church planting partnerships.

Now we do that in a variety of places.

We go to Colorado, we do it in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, Fort Worth, Texas, even in Brazil.

And there's a variety of ways that we even help these guys with the church planting work that they do.

So we at United City love to come and help our church plants for a variety of reasons.

One of the reasons is these guys need encouragement.

We've been here in Puerto Rico all week and they are so thankful for the encouragement that we brought.

But one of the things another thing that we do is we pray for them in an ongoing way and stay in touch.

I'm telling you, they need boots on the ground.

They need people to come and go door to door.

They need people to help them meet their community and love their community.

There's a thousand reasons why we do that.

But at the end of the day, it's all about expanding the kingdom for the glory of God.

Matt Kendrick here in Fort Ward's Redemption City Church.

Thank y'all so much for sending the best mission teams.

The past couple of years you get to partner with us to send people and always send the best folks happy to serve and realistic.

Thank you, United City, for sending teams to help us in Colorado to do park parties and outreach.

It's been such a blessing to have your church serving in our community.

My name is Joseph Gibbons.

I'm the pastor and planter at Favor City Church in Las Vegas, and I just want to say thank you, United City.

Your support has helped us create a youth ministry, send youth to their first ever camp, where four of them have recently given their lives to Christ.

Thank you so much for your support.

My name is Ben Lacey, and I serve as the lead pastor of Trinity River Baptist Church.

And on behalf of our church, I just want to say thank you so much for your generosity towards our church plan.

Without churches like United City, our church would not exist.

Thank you, United City, for praying for us and supporting us as we reach our neighbors here in Los Angeles, California.

For your generosity, for your partnership, we love you.

We are City Connect in Fontana, California.

God blessed.

When the team came out in the spring, we packed over 7,000 Easter eggs.

We had a huge block party, which led to our largest contended services ever.

Over 900 people joined us on Easter Sunday.

So many came to know Jesus.

We've been seeing captives and Catholic churches being planted.

You guys have jumped in on that.

We just say thank you, we honor you.

How great is that?

My name is Chris Kuba.

I have the privilege of being the lead pastor.

I've been out for a couple of weeks.

It is so good to be back in the room worshiping with you.

It's just an amazing morning of worship.

This is church planter weekend.

This is the opportunity that we have once a year just to shine a big bright light on what God is doing through United City and allowing us to be a part of through church planting.

It has been amazing to see how God has allowed us in the last three years to be able to mobilize and to do some pretty significant things.

And what we want to do is really just allow you one the opportunity just to be exposed to what you've already done.

Through your giving and through your generosity here at United City, we partner with things like Zen Network, which is an organization that helps plant churches all over North America.

They train up, they mobilize, they provide networking opportunities, and we have been a part of so many churches as a result of being a part of Zen Network.

In addition to that, we also give something called the Houston Church Planner Network.

Did you know all demographic studies seem to suggest that in the next 10 years, the city of Houston will move from number four as the most populated city in America to number three most populated city in America?

It already is the most diverse city in all of the United States.

And so therefore, we want to be strategic about planning churches all over North America, but we also want to partner with churches in our own backyard.

And we want to see God begin to raise up.

And so we partner with a number of different churches all throughout the city of Houston for the purpose of church planning.

But in addition to that, we want to have some direct relationships with some church plants.

You saw some of those there on the video.

We help have started uh two churches in Fort Worth.

We've helped with the launch of two churches in Las Vegas, we've helped with two churches in Los Angeles, as well as one in Colorado, two in Brazil, and two in Puerto Rico, which is just amazing.

Let's give God praise for all that He has done in the last three years in the life of United City Church.

Part of our goal this weekend as well, though, is to connect to you relationally.

We want you to be able to know these church planners.

Not just know that we gave money to that church, but instead you actually know who these people are.

That whenever you go and you visit these cities, that maybe you look these guys up and that you have an opportunity to bless them, to go sit in their services, to even take them out to dinner, whatever it may be, that you could be a source of prayer and encouragement.

Right now in United City Espanol, which is taken over uh across the uh the way there in our student building uh at 11 o'clock here this morning, we actually have Luis Rodriguez who is here with us and he is preaching.

He's one of our church planners from Puerto Rico, and we just got through sending a team to Puerto Rico, spent there all week, uh, a whole group mobilized, being able to do some work there at both of our church plants in Puerto Rico.

And now Luis Rodriguez and his wife and family, they are here with us being able to preach in United City Espanol.

But this morning, we have the incredible opportunity and privilege to hear from Andrew Carter.

Andrew and his wife Kyra are here with us this morning.

He has an amazing testimony that I'm gonna let him share with you.

But God has done an amazing work in this man's life, and they've he planted Royal City Church, which is literally just down the street from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

It is very different than here in Northeast Houston.

But God is doing some amazing things through him and through this church, and I want you to have the opportunity not only to hear about it, hope that your heart will be stirred to begin to pray for what God is doing.

We've even got a team that's gonna be going in October to go and to help and assist Royal City Church, gonna participate in a baptism service.

He can tell you a little bit more about it.

God's done an amazing thing, though, in this man's life, has over a million followers on TikTok, over 350,000 followers on Instagram, over a million followers and subscribers on YouTube.

God uses a ministry that he has called Coffee in Prayer that takes place at 7:30 our time.

Is that right?

7.30 our time uh that he can tell you more about, that you can join in every day, a Bible study online.

Uh but give it up.

United City, big welcome to Andrew Carter, and let's welcome him to the stage today.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Hope you guys are ready to rock and roll.

Uh, which is the better service, morning or the little bit later?

Which one has low memoir energy?

I couldn't tell.

I mean, I can't tell from the the welcome that we got.

Can we stand real quick and give God praise?

I'm gonna have you guys stand.

If you have the ability to do so, stand with me real quick and let's give God praise, first and foremost.

Let's give God praise.

You got those, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A little more, a little more.

Right, right, right.

That's good.

I know you don't got these high ceilings for nothing.

You gotta let that that praise.

Go ahead and keep standing.

I'm gonna do something.

Uh I just kind of want to read the room, get an idea of who I'm preaching and ministering to this morning.

Before I do that, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you, United City Church.

Thank you, Pastor Chris, for having me out.

My wife uh and I, Miss Kyle, where where did she go?

She disappeared.

Oh, she's in the back.

Okay.

So my wife and I are so grateful and honored to partner with you guys and look forward to future collaboration and partnerships in the future.

We love you guys, and we really do appreciate you.

So give yourselves a round of applause.

There's gonna be a lot of clapping, standing, sitting.

It's gonna be uh a lot about a lot of that.

So I want to talk a little bit about who I am, and before doing so, I want to get an idea of who I'm speaking to this morning.

So I'm gonna name a couple of things, and if it applies to you, go ahead and sit down.

Okay, there is no judgment, there is no opinion here.

It's just to get an idea of who I'm speaking to.

So if you've gone to YWAM, share, uh, carry the love, excuse me, circuit writers, or any kind of young life group, go ahead and have a seat.

Just curious.

Okay, not a lot of that.

Those are great programs, by the way.

You guys should get connected.

That's not my opportunity to plug them.

But next thing, if any of you guys have gone to seminary, bible college, or a Christian school, sit down for me.

Just out of curiosity.

Wow, okay, good.

Got a lot of diversity in here.

Um, if any of you guys are PKs, any pastors' kids in the house, go ahead and have a seat.

We know they're all sitting in the front like good pastors' kids.

We love that.

You guys, I don't have to look far.

I'm like, okay, sit down.

That's great.

If any of you guys spent time in high school youth ministry, when you were in high school, you spent time in youth ministry, or you grew up in church, go ahead and have a seat.

Meaning you had mom, dad, you guys went on a somewhat regular rhythm.

Maybe it was Christmas or Easter.

Awesome.

So the rest of you standing are in good company.

We're all heathens, basically.

None of us grew up in church.

Uh uh, look around.

Everybody look around.

Just have a look around.

Okay.

Go ahead and have a seat.

I appreciate it.

Can you give them a round of applause?

That's like they're screaming, I'm unchurched.

I didn't grow up in that.

Uh, you're in good company.

Um, me either.

I didn't grow up in church.

I didn't go to a Christian school.

Uh, I didn't go to Sunday school or any of those programs.

Um, I didn't hear the gospel of Jesus Christ until I was 17 years old.

I went 17 years without hearing about salvation, about eternity, about the blood sacrifice, about where I would spend eternity if I didn't put my faith in Jesus.

17 years without hearing that.

Now I heard of Jesus.

He was a little baby in a manger that we would go to during the assembly.

You guys remember the assembly when they would let Jesus be talked about in school?

There were these assemblies that you would go to, and there was a little baby in a manger, and three wise men, and it was just an assembly.

But to me, he was about as real as Santa Claus or the Easter bunny.

I didn't have a faith.

I didn't know who Jesus was.

And so I do this illustration just to remind you guys of the diversity and the breadth of experience that we have.

We have some of you who have grown up in church, we have some of you who are new to the faith.

We have a lot of people who might be uh not too familiar with the Bible, or all that you know of the Bible is from what you learned in Sunday school.

So you know about what are the stories, uh Noah's Ark, you know about Jonah and the well, you know about David and Goliath, and it might kind of end around there somewhere.

But I I want you guys to come to this understanding that we as the body of Christ are one, we are together, and there is a mission that we need to come together in order to complete.

Amen.

So I'm gonna encourage you guys uh to be open, honest, and vulnerable.

That is one of my superpowers.

It is a gifting that God has given me.

It is the gift of transparency.

So I'm going to be very real, very raw.

I'm gonna share some things that might stir up some feelings or emotions.

I'm going to share some things that might trigger you.

I might even say some things that you might not have heard said in church before.

I promise it will not be vulgar.

I will merely share my personal testimony and some of the things that I've seen and experienced in my life.

So, with that said, I also want to encourage you, if any of the next couple of things that I share apply to you, I want you to stand up.

So you guys can stay sitting, but if it applies to you and if you feel comfortable enough with the people around you, I want to encourage you to stand up.

If any of you are fearless enough to share, if you've grown up in foster care, would you stand with me?

Anyone here who's grown up in foster care, we got a couple of people.

Thank you.

Awesome.

I appreciate your guys' honesty.

Anybody who has been incarcerated, been to jail, been to prison, stay standing with me, stay standing with me.

Okay?

And and listen, the the the 48-hour bender that you stayed in jail because you were drunk and disorderly doesn't count.

Okay, I know some of you guys have had some wild spring breaks.

I'm talking about anybody who's done some time, okay?

Like getting booked and released, sit down.

That's not that's not real time, okay?

Uh this one's a little this one's a little touchy.

Anybody who's been divorced, anybody who's been divorced and feels comfortable, and stay standing, guys, stay standing.

You've been to foster care, you've been incarcerated, you've been divorced, stay standing with me.

And then lastly, anybody who's struggled or wrestled, and again, if you don't feel comfortable sharing this, then don't you don't have to out yourself, but anybody who's wrestled with substance abuse or alcohol abuse over-the-counter uh prescription drugs, anybody who's wrestled with those things.

Um look around.

Right?

There are again people who have grown up in church, people who have wrestled with some real things, some of both, where there's that intersection.

You grew up in church yet still wrestled with some of these things.

All I'm trying to do is show you guys the diversity of what this church is made up of.

And it is a beautiful mixture of stories and experiences and observations and life lessons and failures and mistakes and growth and learning, and it all comes together for one common goal, and that is to make the name of Jesus Christ more known.

Amen.

Give them a round of applause for their honesty.

Go ahead and have a seat.

My story is a lot like theirs.

Okay, my story has foster care, it has incarceration, it has drug addiction, it has divorce, it has all of those things.

And I'll get back to my story in just a moment.

Um, but I want to answer the question why church planting?

Right of all of the things that I could have done in my life, why church planting, um, and why are we here doing what it is that we're doing?

The first thing is that I was called, I was called to plant a church when I was 23 years old.

And this will be a part of the story that I unfold as we speak.

However, it was over 10 years between the time that it was spoken into my life and the time that we actually planted.

And there was a lot that took place in between those 10 plus years.

Um, but again, when God calls you to something, many times he's not going to let that go.

It's gonna burn down inside of you, nothing will satisfy, nothing will bring you peace.

You'll have long nights of staying awake, you'll be chasing after your own things, wondering what it is that I'm supposed to be doing when you know what it is.

And for me, it was to be in ministry and to plant this church.

Now, the second thing is that um there wasn't a lot of representation.

The first questions I asked were to just kind of stir up your guys' understanding.

There wasn't a lot of people who look like me who come from where I come from doing what it is that I do.

And what I found, and this is not a criticism, and I'll explain why in just a moment, what I found in Christendom or in the church is that we like to be around people who sound like us, look like us, believe exactly what we believe, have a lot of the same life experiences, and it becomes this echo chamber.

It's this echo chamber of the same views, the same ideas, the same beliefs and the same opinions.

And some of you are like, that don't sound too bad, right?

Um, but when you move to a place like Los Angeles, where there are people who are lost and need Jesus, there is no comfort, there is no familiarity, there is no echo chamber.

You're in a place where there are opposing views and lifestyles and beliefs.

And how do you find yourself as an ambassador or a light for Christ in a place that's so dark?

So I not only was called, but I realized there was a lack of representation, and I found myself sitting in a church and I was complaining, I was criticizing, I was judging.

And what I've found is that criticism without a solution or criticism without change is just complaining.

So I would sit in church and go, There's not enough people of color, there's not enough people who look like me.

Everybody comes through this same pipeline of ministry teaching and training.

How can somebody who's never been where I've been understand what I've gone through, or how can they relate or be empathetic to my life situation?

How, how, how?

And God said, if you've got a problem with it, do something about it.

Because that's the God that we serve.

Many times you are the solution and the answer to your own prayers.

You might be asking for something to change, and he might be looking at you saying, Then change it.

And that was the situation with me sitting in church complaining, and he said, Stop complaining and be the solution.

And so here we are.

And the last thing that why we planted a church is my wife and I were called to it.

Uh, if any of you guys, who who here is married?

Show of hands, and don't be ashamed, like put them up high.

There we go.

Some of you guys, some of you are like, Man, me, um, no, be excited.

That's good.

Because all the single people wish that they were married, and vice versa.

So um, yeah, I said that.

Uh you get a drink of water.

But I I ask, I say that because in God fashion, what he did is uh he kept telling me it's time to plant, it's time to move, it's time to grow.

And I was like, Is that you, Lord?

And he was like, Yes, plant.

And I'm like, no, it's not him.

Let me lay down a fleece.

And I was like, if I see three yellow cars in a row, then maybe I'll plant.

And you know, I'm driving places and I'm like avoiding yellow cars.

And uh, so what he did, like most people do, he went to my wife and he basically told my wife, if you want to get anything done, you go to the wife, and she was like, Hey, have you been feeling in prayer that we're supposed to plant a church?

And I was like, God, okay, I hear you loud and clear.

So we were called decades after, uh not decades, I'm not that old, a decade after I got the call to originally plant.

So that's the why.

I want to share with you guys the one thing that I pray and hope that you take away from this today is that God is deeply and passionately in love with every person that you come into contact with, regardless of their age, regardless of their race, regardless of their past, regardless of their background, regardless of the sin that they might be living in today.

Now, I know that this is going to make some of your theological brains implode.

You're gonna say, no, not everybody.

God hates a couple of things, but I'm gonna tell you this.

I refuse to be the person who judges another individual's heart.

I refuse to be the person who walks into one chapter of somebody's life and assume that I know how it ends.

So for me, every person that I come into contact with, I'm going to look at them through the lens of the Lord and believe that God has a plan, purpose, and will for their life.

And so I'm believing that today, after we leave here, yeah, you can clap.

That's okay.

That's good.

We'll clap.

That's good.

Feel free to clap as much as possible whenever you feel led by the Spirit.

But the idea is that every person, your friend, your family members, your cousin, your Uncle Pookie, who's been locked up for 25, like all of the people that you come into contact with, God passionately loves them and wants a relationship with them.

And it is our absolute privilege to be vessels of that love.

Amen.

So we're gonna talk about uh a parable.

I know that you guys have been in a series of parables, parables being short stories with big points.

And so the parable that uh really resonates with me is the parable of the found sheep.

Right?

It's told twice over in the Gospels in Matthew as well as Luke, and I believe that both Gospels are um they're great stories, but have a different meaning, different contextually.

And so the one that I want to share from is the one found in Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Um now please forgive me in Los Angeles.

The Bible literacy, this is not the Bible belt, right?

It's uh it's like a Bible shoelace.

It's it's not very strong there, okay?

Uh the Bible literacy level is extremely low.

People just aren't reading their Bible.

So forgive me if I am slow and kind of break this down.

What I like to do is give you guys an idea of how, when, the who, what, when, where, and why this was written.

So Matthew is where we're gonna read today.

It's at the beginning of the New Testament, it's the first book of the gospel.

Uh so if you guys would turn with me to Matthew, that would be great.

Who wrote it?

Not a trick question, Matthew.

Now, some of them are trick questions, and some we don't know, but Matthew, we understand that Matthew disciple wrote it.

What is it about?

It is about the life and times of Jesus Christ through the eyes of one of his followers, somebody who is there next to him and is watching his every step and every move.

When was this written?

Somewhere between 20 and 30 years after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

It was written in a Roman province called Antioch in Syria.

And why was it written?

Matthew was written to the Jews to prove that Jesus was the promised Messiah.

The Jewish people believed that there was a coming Messiah.

They didn't believe it was Jesus.

And Matthew wrote this book in order to prove that that's who it was.

So we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 18, the story of the lost sheep, what I like to call it, and uh take this with a grain of salt.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

It's the sheep that went astray.

In Luke, they talk about a sheep that was lost.

In Matthew chapter 18, this sheep went astray.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

And there's a difference between lost and astray.

Astray means you've wandered off the beaten path.

You knew where you were, and you've strayed and gone a different direction.

Lost means you have no idea where you're at.

And so today we're going to talk about the sheep that's gone astray.

In Matthew chapter 18, verse 11, it says this.

Matthew 18:11

Then verse 12 says, What do you think?

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, just one, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is strain?

So Jesus is saying, Hey, what do you think?

What would you do?

He's provoking thought.

What do you think?

It's like, what would Jesus do?

Is what he's asking his disciples.

First bracelet ever made, right there.

Verse 13 says, And if he should find it, assuredly I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the 99 that did not go astray.

Even so, it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

There's three things that this parable reminds us about.

The first one is that Jesus cares about the lost.

And so should we.

We should be mission-minded and passionate about those who are lost, those who don't look like us, those who don't sound like us, those who don't come from the same place that we come, those who don't vote the same way as we vote.

That's a hot one.

I know that some of you guys have like cast them to the fiery lake already.

Now, I'm telling you that there are people on the other side who are lost, and you're like, clearly they're lost.

They're not voting right, but they need Jesus too.

Amen.

They need Jesus.

The second thing this parable reminds us of is that Christians need to continually seek those who have gone astray.

And I can say from experience as somebody who was found and had gone astray, I think that Christians can do better at being more receptive, offering more love, grace, and compassion when it comes to those who might have wandered.

What I see a lot of are Christians who stand at the front door and the front gate.

And again, this isn't condemnation, this is observation from somebody who spent a lot of time in the world, but now is passionately in love with Jesus.

So what I've observed, this is my testimony, is that a lot of Christians, after getting saved, they harden their hearts, they forget where they came from, they forget that they were once lost, they forget about the struggle and the past and what they've gone through to get where they are, and they become hardened to the same people that Jesus loves.

And they push them away.

They allow their opinions, their belief, their stances on this and that, and they allow these things to separate them from the very people Jesus is calling to set foot in this place.

And the third thing is that he rejoices over you.

He rejoices over the lost.

When those who have gone astray come home, he rejoices.

He rejoices.

A couple of definitions.

I love definitions.

I love uh etymology.

I love getting down to the root of words.

We're just gonna do like the etymology uh or or the definition of this word.

We'll talk about it according to Webster.

All right, it's a Webster definition.

Uh, you guys like want Greek and Hebrew, no Webster.

We're just gonna go real simple, okay?

Sorry, Pastor Chris.

I wanted you to bring that deep theology.

No, Webster.

So lost is somebody who is unable to find one's way, not knowing one's whereabouts.

Anybody in here ever been lost?

That should be everybody.

At one point, you had to make a personal decision to put your faith in Jesus.

Your faith isn't grandfathered in.

I know that your grandmother and grandfather and those who came before you were Christians, but at some point you were lost and had to make a decision to put your faith in Jesus.

So every hand in this place should be up because at one point you were lost and made the decision to no longer be that, so now you are found.

Uh I want to testify to that.

I was lost.

Like I said, I didn't hear the name of Jesus Christ in the context of salvation until I was 17 years old.

My mother was a prostitute, and my father was her pimp.

And I am the product of their twisted and sordid love triangle, whatever that looks like.

I didn't choose it.

It's not my story.

I didn't mean to write it.

That's how it happened.

So, growing up, I grew up in a house.

There was drugs, there was alcohol, there was domestic violence, there was abuse, there were all of the things that you can possibly think of.

Twelve years old, I started selling drugs, doing drugs, having sex.

That was my reality.

It wasn't wrong.

I didn't know what sin was.

This was my view of my reality.

These were the people, the adults, the grown-ups in my life did these things.

And so I did them too.

There was no concept that these were wrong, because that was my reality.

Now, some of you grew up in a house with morals and values and things are instituted, but I want you to understand that there are kids, there are men and women who are growing up around you in the neighborhoods, in the schools, at your workplaces who are growing up with these same ideologies, these same belief systems.

Believe it or not, and it's hard for us to understand how other people are living when we're surrounded by, again, our echo chamber or what we're seeing, but there are people who are growing up who are completely lost.

They have no morals, they have no values, they have no direction.

So it wasn't until 17 I gave my life to Jesus.

I found myself in church, 23 years old, a Bible-believing church.

It was one of those churches where we had a service or an event every day.

You guys ever know of any of those churches?

We had two services on Sunday, and they were different messages.

They weren't even the same.

So if you missed one, like you were encouraged, you got to be there in the morning, you got to be there in the evening.

You didn't want to miss.

Monday was men's group, Tuesday was outreach, Wednesday was a service, Thursday we had a concert in the park.

But it was something different.

Now, I'm not saying that's how churches should be ran.

I don't run my church like that, but at that young age, I needed something that was I was all in on, and I was.

And so in that church, I was discipled, I was encouraged, I was built up, I had leadership, and I was basically being prepped to be a pastor.

And it wasn't until a prophetic word was spoken over my life.

I went to a revival, I'm praying in the back, like, God, I need a word, I need to hear from you, Lord.

And the evangelist calls me up last night of the revival, seven days, and he says, Come on up.

And I'm I'm running up there, like, you know, yes, like I just won the lottery.

I'm thinking, man, God's gonna give me a financial blessing because that's what I needed at the time.

I was thinking that I was gonna find out I had a great uncle who died and donated me all of this money, you know.

Like, you guys are holding on to that wish.

Some of you guys still think about that.

You're like checking your family tree, and you're like, who do I know, and who am I related to?

But that's not the word that God gave me.

God gave me a word, and it was that, Andrew, you have words of gold.

You've been called to ministry, and you're gonna speak to millions of people about Jesus.

Now that sounds really cool, but I'm 23 at the time.

There's only my space.

I got about 13 to 16 people that are my grandmother, my aunt, and like some random people I don't even know.

Okay, 13 people.

So this terrified me.

What do you think I did?

I left the church.

Gone.

I was like, you know what, this is you've got the wrong Andrew.

I don't know a million people, I don't like to talk publicly.

This is the worst thing you could have ever told me.

So I left.

I went astray.

Now, when people think of going astray, you think of like the prodigal son, right?

You cash in all your chips, you go down to Vegas, and you're just woo partying and getting drunk.

No, I I was married, I had two kids.

I went back to school.

Okay?

I went back to school, I earned two college degrees: health promotion and education, public health.

I ended up playing college basketball.

I ended up starting a business when I graduated, and I started to uh pile up these achievements and accolades and awards, and I started doing good.

And for a kid who came from foster care and nothing and has been in the system and had a prostitute and a pimp for a mom, like of all of the things where I was going, I was being celebrated for my success.

But behind closed doors, because I had walked away from my faith in Jesus, none of those things amounted to anything.

I was broken inside, I was empty inside.

I kept trying to achieve more and more, hoping that it would fill the gap inside of my heart.

But we know that the only thing that will ever fill that gap in your heart is Christ Jesus.

Amen.

That was a clappable moment that you guys missed, okay?

You guys want to clap for other stuff.

That's a clappable moment.

Now I share that because I never went to counseling, I never healed, I never worked on myself, I never got to a place where I was um I was whole because without Christ Jesus, you're always empty.

Everything is counterfeit.

So I found myself in prison.

Found myself getting locked up for 18 months.

I hit somebody with a wine bottle.

They called me a derogatory term, bam, five seconds it took me to swing that thing.

Gone.

All of the achievements, all of the accolades, all of the awards.

Before that, I was on the Chamber of Commerce.

When you came into our city, I was on the front page, like I thought that I was doing my thing.

And in one swing, all of it gone.

My reputation, all of it gone, out the window.

I had nothing.

I spent 18 months in prison thinking about what I did.

Do you think that I came back to God?

No.

I was I was upset.

I mocked and persecuted Christians who were in that place.

They were like, come on, let's go to Bible study.

I was like, I'm good.

God let me down when I was free.

Where was God when I was in the car and I swung that bottle?

Where was God through all of this?

And what I know now, kind of spoiler alert, he was with me and preparing me the entire time.

But in that moment, at my rock bottom, at my prison moment, I had no idea where he was.

After getting out of prison, I found myself dusting off my faith.

I was on the road to achievement again.

I was doing well.

One thing about me is you could leave me in the desert and I'd find a way to get water.

Like I'm very resourceful, I'm very resilient.

So, with or without God, God has given me a talent of how to provide and to develop things.

And so I found myself developing and resources and succeeding again, but I was still so empty.

And I would start to go to church with my past, my baggage, all of the places that I've been.

And what do you think was the reception?

I felt somewhat rejected.

I felt somewhat discouraged.

I kind of felt like I was going to church and people were looking at me, snickering, gossiping about where I was and what I did and where I was for 18 months.

It wasn't a very comfortable place to be.

But you and I both know that was the very place that I needed to be.

I needed to be in the loving arms of a savior.

I needed to be received home.

I wanted somebody to rejoice to the fact that I was going to repent, change my life, and come back to Christ.

But it wasn't there.

There were Christians, people with hardened hearts, their opinions, some of their ideas, their own beliefs, their own stances.

Oh, well, people like that can't change.

You guys ever heard those worldly sayings?

That's not biblical.

Oh, well, once of this, always of that.

Some of us have used that.

We use these sayings that are based on the world's wisdom and philosophies, and we use those to put people in boxes, which completely discounts the goodness and the grace of the blood of Jesus Christ, which is transformational.

There is no person who is too far lost, there's no person who's gone too far astray that cannot change with the power and the blood of Jesus.

Oh, now we're preaching.

That was right on point, you guys.

We're getting this.

By the end of this, we're gonna be locked in.

I love it.

Um so I know I'm like most pastors, it's like I've got so much I want to say, uh, but so little time.

I'm gonna ask this question.

This is where we'll kind of switch gears.

Oh, let me let me finish the story.

I guess I should start there.

Um I came back to Jesus.

Jesus redeemed me, transformed my life.

I'm not gonna pretend like it wasn't a big deal, but he met me on a place, a platform, social media called TikTok.

TikTok, of all things.

Who here has heard of TikTok?

Right?

Yeah, Pastor Chris said he kind of let the cat out of the bag.

We've got some following on social media, but that was the very vehicle and method in which God got a hold of me.

I found Christian TikTok as I was scrolling, trying to numb my pain, trying to ignore my issues, trying to get away from my actual reality of being uh a mid-30s ex-con with nothing to show for his life, holding on to some dream that was spoken over to my life, my life a decade before, trying to wrestle with my worth and my identity and my value.

And I found myself mindlessly scrolling until I found this Christian TikTok, and there were people who were preaching and ministering and praying and pointing to Jesus.

And I said, you know what?

I'm gonna share my testimony.

15-second video.

I didn't say a word, it was a quiet video.

I pointed at boxes.

You guys seen those TikToks where people just they smolder, right?

It was it's they're super cheesy and cringe, but we're like smoldering to a song and you like point at stuff.

That was me, okay?

By myself in a room.

I pointed at a box that said things God's carried me through.

I pointed at a box, prison, divorce, foster care, everything else.

Posted it, went to sleep.

My phone went crazy.

The next morning I woke up with 15,000 followers.

15,000.

I know it's not about numbers.

I want you guys to hear me say this loud.

I would throw those platforms in the trash if God asked me to tomorrow.

I guarantee it.

It's not about followers, but it was a confirmation of the calling that he spoke over my life 10 years prior.

So as I'm going through the messages and through some of the DMs, one said, Andrew, last night I saw your video.

I've been to prison, I've been divorced, I've been to foster care.

It was last night I was going to kill myself.

And I decided not to because I saw that you were pointing to God and that he carried you through.

And if he can carry you, he can do it for me.

So I decided not to.

That's a clappable moment because that is God.

God has the power and ability to meet people where they are, whether it's on the other side of a screen, whether it's social media, whether it's in person, whether it's over coffee, over lunch, he has the ability to meet people right where they are, and he met me in that place.

I weeped and cried and had the Holy Spirit wash over me, and I knew in that moment that this was the vehicle that would get me to the place that was spoken over my life.

And so today we speak to millions of people every single day on social media through YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, threads, Twitter, whatever you got.

Like if you're looking for a job, we're on LinkedIn.

We'll pop up.

Hey, let me pray for you.

You know, as people are looking.

People are looking for recipes on Pinterest.

I'm like, hey, we're gonna pray for you there too.

Like I post on everything, everything.

We're there spreading the gospel, and it works.

People are coming to Jesus at these remarkably large numbers.

They're just giving their lives to Jesus and they're getting connected to local churches and they're getting plugged in.

The lie that the media and the world want you to think is that people are running from God, that there's a mass exodus from the church.

People aren't running from God, you guys.

People are hungry for God.

They're looking at rocks and moons and stars and horoscopes.

They're searching for truth.

What people are running from are the representations of Christ in us that are standing at the front door, judging, being opinionated, discarding, overlooking, and pushing people away.

So, again, every person that you come into contact with, whether lost or astray, Jesus loves them passionately, rejoices over them and wants a relationship with them.

Uh by a show of hands, who here has put their faith in Jesus Christ?

Unashamed.

Now keep them up, keep them up, keep them up.

Uh, anybody who's been saved less than a year, put them down.

Awesome.

We love you guys.

You guys are new, you guys are young, you guys got little bobbly baby necks that you're like holding on to stuff and you can't even keep your neck up.

We love you.

And we're gonna do a better job of like discipling and encouraging you guys.

Anybody been saved less than five years, put them down.

Ten years down.

We got some OGs in here, 20 years down.

Anyone been saved more than 25 years?

More than 30 years.

I know your guys are shoulders hurt right now because you're so old.

Um, I want to like you've had three shoulder surgeries.

You're like, oh, uh like Moses, somebody hold their arms up.

We need an Aaron and a her.

Help them.

Awesome.

Put your guys' hands down.

Let me ask you guys a question.

Everybody, thank you.

Let's give them a round of applause.

The OG's in the face.

They're like, oh, my shoulders.

For those of you who have been saved for so long, since you've been saved, have you sinned?

The answer is yes.

All you gotta do is just nod your head.

Have you guys made any mistakes?

Have you guys fallen short?

In 30 years of knowing Jesus, you're still falling short and making mistakes.

I'm surprised you guys don't have it all together by now.

Have any of you gone astray?

Yes.

In Isaiah 53, 6 it says, all we like sheep have gone astray.

Every single one of us.

There's never a point of arrival when it comes to your walk with Jesus.

It is something that is forever growing and evolving and being sanctified and processed.

And it's it's this beautiful picture that we are invited to go along.

We have the privilege of being with and with him throughout every step of the way.

And I just want to remind you guys don't allow your heart to become so hardened.

Don't get so high on your horse or think that you've come so far that you can start looking down your nose at other people who might not be where you are in your faith.

So many people gave up on me.

They wrote me off, they discarded me, they counted me out, they wouldn't allow me in the church doors because I smelt like pot, because I smelled like I was smoking a blunt in the car before I was trying to get in there.

Right?

That might be too real for some of you guys, but like that's where I was at.

Like I had this, I wanted this relationship with Jesus, and I was trying to get around the people, but because I didn't look like them or sound like them or come from where they come from, they pushed me away.

Now I see United City Church.

You guys are a diverse looking group.

I see people from all over the place, and I love that.

I honor that.

And as you guys continue to grow and God continues to do things in this church and in this body, I just want to encourage you guys to keep your heart soft.

Remember the lost, remember those who have gone stray and be the arms of Jesus.

Wide welcoming those people and loving them and helping them get to a place of knowing their identity, their value, and their worth.

This is a reminder to stay compassionate, to stay empathetic, and to stay soft-hearted.

Be very, very slow to judge.

You don't know what chapter you're walking in on somebody's life.

It might look like they're at the rock bottom, but God can just be starting a brand new work in their life.

Don't discard them just because they don't got it figured out.

Because truthfully, none of us do.

Amen.

Last thing I want to say.

Um, there's four things that we do in our church that help us be more intentional and more mission-driven and locked in with um with reaching the lost and those who have been astray.

Number one is share your testimony or the gospel of Jesus Christ at least once a month.

Right?

Whether it's on social media, whether it's in person, however that looks, share your testimony on a regular basis, share your story, share what God has done with you from somebody who's close to you and far from God.

Number two is uh A, so it's the acronym SAVE, S-A-V-E.

S is share the gospel or your testimony.

A is attend.

I want you guys to attend at least four Christian community-based events.

Now, some of you are like, man, I barely made it to church today.

Okay?

I'm not saying you gotta come to four services of church.

What I'm saying is something that points you closer to Jesus.

There's seven days in the week.

Majority of the time, four of those days each week, spend more time with him.

Whether it's a Bible study, a men's group, a women's group, maybe you're watching an old service of Pastor Chris's from the archives.

I know most of you have been to every single service he's preached.

No, you haven't.

You don't lie in church.

You guys have services that you can go watch, okay, for every week.

Be intentional about being closer and keeping your eyes on Jesus.

The V is volunteer.

Now, I know that there's a lot of opportunities for you guys to volunteer here in the church, but I want you guys to know what we do is we try to get people to volunteer outside the church.

So once a month, volunteering outside of the church and what we've seen, whether we're at a soup kitchen or we're feeding the homeless or we're working with people who are outside of the church, is it creates this curiosity.

We'll show up tin deep to a soup kitchen or out to the the to Skid Road to help with the homeless people.

We're like, where are you guys from?

We're from Royal City Church and we're just here to serve.

We're not here to preach, we're not here to hand out tracts, we're not here for transaction.

We just want to serve.

And it starts to pique people's curiosity.

Oh, well.

Let me, you guys are kind of normal.

You're somewhat normal, right?

You're not super judgy, but um you know, we want to get to know you better.

And what happens is these people come from these volunteer situations and they start showing up to church.

So we're going out to the community and impacting them, people who are searching for good, who want to serve, who want to do well, and we're partnering with them and they're coming to church.

And then last is E, eat a meal.

Now, I've looked in the scripture and I have not found where Jesus says, go out into all the world and bring everybody to church.

It's not in there.

Um, unless it might be in the Hebrew or the Greek.

No, no, it's not in there.

Um, what Jesus would do is he would go out and have a meal.

He would go and be relational, he would sit with sinners and be in those places without sinning, without compromise, keeping full integrity.

He was blameless, he was sinless, he was pure, refused to compromise, yet he built relationships.

So the goal is to every month eat a meal with somebody who is close to you but far from the Lord.

And not the coffee date where you go in and you bring your Bible and you're just like, well, I'm gonna pray for you.

Now, there's no, I'm not against that.

If that's the way you do it, awesome.

But what we've been doing is just getting to know people.

Just come and have a meal with me.

I I don't need to preach to you, I don't need to pray for you, I don't need to do any of those things.

Just how are you?

Because what happens a lot of the time is we as Christians, we go out there and we have this agenda and this list of things that we want to go over, and so we sit down and we preach to them, preach, preach, preach, preach, preach.

We never listen.

What's going on in your life?

What we've been able to do are create these relationships that are non-transactional.

And what God has been doing is positioning these individuals and bringing them to a place where they start to get hungry, they want to know more.

Well, then who do they know?

Their Christian friend who's not always trying to shove it down their throat.

We've created this real these relationships, these equitable relationships with people who aren't saved, and they know that we love them, we know that there is no transaction, and it's not just another ministry lunch, it's not just another ministry meeting.

We actually care about them, whether they say a prayer with us or not, whether when we get up from coffee, they go right back to the place that they need to be rescued from.

But we trust and know that God will work through those relationships.

So those four things save.

S-A-V-E.

Let's be more intentional about being a church that is looking out for the lost and those who have gone astray.

Would you guys bow your heads with me for just a moment?

Jesus never gives up looking for us or those around us.

Jesus is longing for our return.

My question for you this morning is are you lost?

Are you lost in some way at this time in your life?

Have you maybe gone astray?

Maybe you knew the truth, maybe you knew Jesus, maybe there was a time in your life when you served him and you've gone astray.

This is not a coincidence that I'm here sharing from my heart, sharing from a place of transparency and vulnerability, pouring my life out in front of you with the hopes that today you would say yes to Jesus.

Today he is searching for you.

It is our decision and choice to say yes to him.

If you're in this place, maybe lost, maybe gone astray, and you want to come back home, maybe you want to know who this Jesus is that transformed my life.

If that's you, if you will publicly declare that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody goes to the Father except for through him.

If you know that you are a sinner in need of a savior, and that through his death, burial, and resurrection, his precious blood, there was a way made for us to restore fellowship to the Father.

If that's you and you're here and you want to know Jesus Christ, would you slip your hand into the air?

Real brief, just slip it up in the air.

Yes, yes, amen.

I see those hands.

I see those hands.

Yes, amen.

Don't miss your opportunity this morning.

You didn't come all this way, you didn't come here this morning willing to walk away.

Don't leave this place without getting what you came from.

Maybe it's that connection, maybe it's that prayer, maybe it's that healing, maybe it's to get baptized.

I don't know what that is.

Don't leave this place.

I'll give you one more chance.

If that's you and you have it, and you're feeling the nudge of the Holy Spirit, raise your hand now.

Slip it up in the air.

Yes.

Yes, amen.

Amen.

Glory to God.

Let's pray.

Father God, I just want to thank you for the bold men and women who made a decision for you this morning.

God, we are honored and thankful.

We are so grateful for your love, mercy, and grace.

We are thankful that you would seek us out, that the hound dog of the Holy Spirit would never stop pursuing us.

But we thank you for loving us as we are, but not allowing us to stay that way.

God, I pray for softened hearts.

I pray for eyes that are open.

I pray for ears that would become unplugged.

I pray that we would not leave this place the same way that we walked in.

God, we love you and we honor you.

And as we go from this place, I pray that you would give us opportunity to be the light of Jesus, that we would have the opportunity to be the salt of the earth, and the opportunity to share what you've done in our lives with those who might be lost or astray.

And we pray this all in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

I'm gonna ask you to stand up if you would.

If you just raise your hand indicating you want a relationship with Jesus, you just pray that prayer of faith with Him.

I'm gonna ask you to step out from where you are, and I'm gonna ask you to come forward.

Our team is on the sides, our team is up front.

We want to talk with you, we want to pray with you, we want to celebrate with you.

Others maybe want to come and join United City Church.

Maybe you feel like you recognize, just no, we're gonna be a church, it's gonna be about the lost.

Part of our core values is lost people matter.

We want to make sure that in all that we do, we are facing outward.

The most important people are the next 100 at our church.

That's not to say anything about the ones that are already here.

We just believe we will be better disciplers if we are better evangelists, if we are seeking those who are lost, these who are far from Christ.

Let us never be a church that stands there as people walk in making judgments about their story.

Instead, let us be the people that are marked and noted by the ones who believe that God's got the final today, that He can write the story.

And so if God's calling you and leading you to come and join United City, I want to invite you to come.

Maybe some of you need to come and be baptized.

You saw these four that gave their lives to Christ and publicly displayed that through baptism.

Come and let us talk with you about that.

As we sing, as God is leading you to respond, I want to ask that you step out from where you are and that you come.

Let's let's worship together.

Come on.

You don't wait, you come, come on.

When a couple gets saved for service, you're not alone, you come, come on.

We'll keep singing.

Let's pray together.

Father God, we come before you and we thank you for how you're moving in our midst.

Father, we thank you for the way that you have allowed us to be so encouraged, Lord, just by the fact that you did not give up on Andrew.

God, we're thankful for that.

That He's been able to use this story, not only that you've saved him from, but Father, now how you so clearly are saving him to something so much greater.

God, I pray your profound influence on his life.

I pray, God, that you would move and stir in his heart.

That God, you would work in Royal City Church in powerful ways in that Inglewood community.

God, that you would allow this reach that you've given him through social media, Lord, to be something that leads many, many people to your saving grace.

Father, thank you so much for these who've made decisions today, Father, for those who've determined in their heart to come back to you.

Father, I know they will find a Father who is waiting for them, who loves them, who shows them his grace and his mercy and his abundance, steadfast love.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

What an incredible message.

If you made the decision to follow Jesus today, it's the greatest decision that you'll ever make, and we would love to know about it.

Text the word UC Next to 55498, and someone from our team will be reaching out to you, want to pray with you and help you on your journey with Jesus.

Well, that's it for today.

We look forward to seeing you next week, either in person or online at 9.30 or 11 o'clock.

Have a great week.