Beyond Expectations: Embracing God's Abundant Grace || Pastor CJ Johnson

So if you have it, you can pull it out

right now because we're about to jump into the word

in just a few moments. If you did not get

one last week, would you raise your hand because our

dream team is gonna grind and get it to all

y'all as fast as possible, and so would you do

me a favor until you get it, Would you just

keep your hand up because they're gonna do this.

As fast as they can.

So that you have a journal, we want to make

sure that you can follow along with us. If you

miss the launch last week, you could go to our

YouTube channel and you can go listen to our launch.

I'm gonna give us a little play by play right

now in a moment. When you get your journal, you

could jump to page thirty six, because that's where we're

gonna be at. We're gonna be in week two in

our series as we this week talk about God's perspective

of our life. And so just keep your hand up

so that we can get.

It your way.

And while your hands are up and they get it

to you, I'm just gonna do some brief overview about

what we shared before we jump to the word last week.

So last week, what we shared about is Ephesians chapter three,

verse twenty.

I have it up on the screen. Here's what the

Word of God says.

It says, now to him God, who is able to

do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,

according to the power that works within us. Do you

know oftentimes God does more than you ask or think.

God goes beyond.

God is abundant in his grace, And so we've seen

God do that in our church right now. Across all

of our campuses pretty much at many of our services,

we have zero parking at most of our campuses. Rancho

second service has ran out of parking. Our Pomona campus

has ran out of parking their second service. Our Alameda campus,

right outside of Oakland, they don't even have parking, and

so we want to get them parking as soon as

possible because God has been absolutely growing that campus and

there's tons of opportunities to reach the area and city

of Alameda. I know, we just got a few more

hands up.

Keep it up. I'm getting you your workout.

You're learning what the quarterback feels like at the end

of the Super Bowl today. By keeping your hand raise,

we're gonna get it to you as fast as possible.

Additionally, what we shared is, you.

Know, even for me, there's often times I put my

own limitations on God, and I did that last week.

We launched our Saturday night service last Saturday. And when

we launched it last Saturday, I had convinced myself that

our attendance was gonna be relatively the same over the weekend.

I thought, there's gonna be a little bit of people

that don't show up for first service, there's gonna be

a little bit of people that.

Don't show up for second service.

Well, we had in a very long time, literally years,

even before COVID, we had a record setting weekend. Last weekend,

we had seven thousand, three hundred and thirty three people

in attendance for that week.

Our attendance in Sunday day not change at all.

And so where we thought opening a Saturday service would

mitigate parking on second service.

It did it. Everybody still came.

And so that's part of our vision is as our

church is growing and reaching more people, and we're so

blessed right now in America, for every one church that starts,

four churches close their door because they're not able to

either financially take care of the church anymore, or the

church has not grown, they've lost people.

We're seeing the opposite in our church.

We're seeing an increase of attendance across our campuses anywhere

between twenty and thirty percent right now, and we're seeing

our record setting baptism numbers this past year that we

have in the history of our church.

And so God has been moving.

And so last week we shared with the church that

over the next three years, we're doing a campaign together

for those.

That call Patriot home.

If you're still exploring our church, if you've got made

it your home base, then this isn't for you, but

God's gonna speak to you every week regardless. But we

did it campaign of twenty million.

Dollars as a church, and with that campaign that we're

doing over the.

Next three years together as a church, it's not equal gift,

but what we're committing to is an equal sacrifice. And

with this equal sacrifice, we're going to see and it's

in your journal as well if you'd like to look

over it.

More is you see all the projects we're doing.

And so we're going to be setting aside money to

get physical locations for our Alameda and our Corona campus.

We want to be able to do renovations all across

our Rancho campus. Our Overcomers Ministry has been growing, and

so we want to do sensory rooms. We want to

remodel our children's ministry. We want to do new playgrounds

for our children's ministry on the backside, so that when

they're in church, we're going to renovate that space. This

campus at Rancho, believe it or not, in the next

two years, is going to be twenty years old, and

so we got to figure out parking as a church.

In the past, all the businesses around us used to

let us park on Sundays, but just over years, businesses

don't really have a respect as a whole. People don't

respect as a whole to not be.

Open on Sundays.

So most of the businesses around us they even work

on Sundays, and so they've told us over the years, hey,

we don't want you parking our parking because we open

our offices.

I mean, we used to not get mail on Sundays.

Now I get like six Amazon people a day starting

at three am, you know, at my house on a Sunday.

And so with that, our parking is sustained fully to

our on site, and so we're looking at land opportunities

nearby so we can extend our parking.

And so there's a lot of things. How many of

you guys.

Know, growth is good, but it comes with new expectations.

You know, when your cousin asks to come live with

you for a season.

You think, oh, this will be fun, this will be exciting.

But when they bring their six children with them, you think, oh,

that's more food, more refrigerator space, that's more laundry, that's

more water, that's more gas. And so as we're seeing

God moving our church, which we're so thankful for, it

means that we are in a season where we got

to resource this. If we want to see God do more,

some of us need to sacrifice mores because this is

our house. And so if you missed last Sunday, that's

what we talked about, is we take care of our house.

And so before we jump in the word, there's four

things we're asking everyone who calls Patria home to commit to.

If Patria isn't your home, you sure could join us.

But this is really for those that if someone was

out in the streets and they said do you go

to church and you said yeah, and they said where's

your home church? If you say, Patria that this is

something we all should commit to in some way. You'll

see in your journal there's a pledge card that we

don't want you to fill out yet, but we do

want you to pray over We do want you to

ask God if he would want you.

To be a part of this.

Not decide with your mind, but decide with your heart

whether God wants you to be a part of this.

Here's something we're asking.

Would you join us every weekend for the next five weekends. Really,

it's for the next four weekends at this point, from

February first to March nightk of all, we're asking, would

you pray and believe God for one lost friend? Because

that's what we do everything for at our church, not

only for the people that come, but the people that

would be potentially coming that may want to find out

who Jesus is, and when they meet Jesus, their life

will be radically transforward, and so we want to pray

for those lost friends. As a church, we don't have

a care to build big churches or build big buildings.

We want to build big people that's what we want

to do as a church here. We want to build

giants in the faith, and everything that we're doing during

this campaign is to build our children, to build our youth,

to build people who are yet to come here, and

also to build your faith up as well. And so

we're going to pray on Wednesday. We're asking that would

you join us across our campuses. You may work in

La stop at our Pomona campus. Some people I know

they're actually doctors and nurses and they work every couple

of weeks up in northern California, and they actually go

to our Alameda campus now every couple of weeks as well.

So wherever you're at this Wednesday, would you either watch

online with us or would you join us in person,

because we're gonna worship and we're gonna believe.

God for the lost.

We want to see lost people come to faith in

Jesus Christ. We want to see marriages restored, we want

to see a people that is healed. We want to

see people come to know God as their Lord and savior.

That's what we're believing God for and that's what we're

doing as a church. Come worship with us this Wednesday, Additionally,

we're asking would you pray about a three year commitment

your pledge card.

We don't want you to turn it in yet because

we're gonna do it all together on March.

We have it right on March first and second, we're

gonna ask would you come on that weekend and if

God put on your heart to be part of this,

we're asking that you would make a three year commitment

with us. You could do it annually, monthly, and it's

above the ties and offering is what it is. And

so we don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul.

We don't want to say, oh well, I'll stop tithing

and then I can give to this and we just

may not have electricity one Sunday if you do that.

So it's on top of our ties and our offering,

and it doesn't matter how big or how little.

It's just all of us doing our part.

You may be in a season financially where you say,

pastor Adam, I can't participate in this at all. It's

been so hard for our family financially. I understand that

please don't overstretch in order to be part of this,

but we do want you to at least fill this

out and just let me know if you can't commit

financially on March versus second, would you just put pastor Adam,

We're with you, You're in agreement that you want to

see God do something in our church. I just want

to know that you're with us on this. And then lastly,

March eighth to ninth, we want to do a one

time miracle offering. In other words, the projects that we

want to do as a church. It's not something we

start in three years. It's something we start right away.

As the money comes in, it immediately goes to impact.

It immediately goes to growth in our church. It immediately

goes to looking for opportunity. It immediately goes to deposits

to architects to start work working on architectural plans for

all the things that we're doing. Everything starts moving right

away on March eighth and ninth, And so three to

four years from now, you won't say whatever happened to

that campaign you were doing. No, you're gonna see it

every single month happening before your eyes, just like you've

seen with our courtyard and our lucky climber and fire

pits and our whole courtyard renovated and done. You're gonna

see it in front of you as well. And so

we thank you so much for coming alongside of us

as we see God doing incredible wonders in our church.

We're so thankful that God would grace us as a

church to see that we are growing and we are

reaching more people. And so we thank you that you're

a part of our family and you're a part of.

This with us.

And so in a moment we're about to jump into

the word, I really felt led by God to ask

a friend, pastor CJ.

Johnson, to come speak to us.

I'm in a cohort of eight men who have all

transitioned into senior leaders from pretty much larger ministries, big

heroes in the faith. And so the cohort with like

Rick Warren's person that took from him, Andy Wood, and

some others, and all we do is we meet each

other together twice a year, and we text each other

every week, and we pray for each other and we

encourage one another.

That's our whole goal together.

And CJ's in that cohort with me, and he's from Indianapolis, Indiana.

I don't know if I got any Midwest people in

the house, we got a view. My mom's from Gary, Indiana,

so she's at home today with Pastor CJ in the house.

Pastor CJ pastors sixteen campuses all across Indiana, over twenty

thousand members in their church.

Last year, they.

Had just finished a campaign of eighty million dollars as

a church, and their church in just a couple of

years raised about eighty million dollars. I really felt like

God wanted to show our church our future, to say,

if God continues to blow this wind in our heart

and in our church, that there could be a day

that we could see God do more campuses. Because it's

not about campuses, and it's not about cities, it's about people.

And you can go out in the cities and you

could say, no, one's going around and saying, you know,

they really need less churches in these cities. No, we're

saying we need more churches in these cities. We need

more transform people in these cities. And maybe God would

grace us to do something like that as an impact.

If Indiana is being reached like that, I believe in

California we could be reached as well.

And so Pastor CJ is going to deliver the word today.

Last night, man, he spoke a word to me that

I've been ruminating on all night, and so I'm excited.

To hear it again.

But before we do that, I have a testimony from

a family and a couple in our church that God

has done a miracle in their life.

And I want to encourage you this Sunday morning. Let's

check this out.

I met Liz in twenty eighteen.

No one nerve each.

Training the eight steen. Let me start, all right, Well,

it's testing her all right. My name is Carlo Garibaldi,

and this is my wife, was Zeth Garibaldi, and we've

been coming to Patriot Church since pre COVID. So Liz

and I met in twenty nineteen. We started dating, we

fell in love. I knew right away that she was

the one for me. We sought premarital counseling through Patriots,

and we got married in twenty twenty one. You got

married a few times.

We got married during COVID, so we had the civil wedding,

and then we got married another time in Cancun, and

then we got married here.

I think it was Valentine's Day twenty twenty two. Pastor

Diego had a price and commitment ceremony at the church,

and we all engaged and married couples could have an

opportunity to get married here at church, and so we

sought the Lord, and we felt that was a welcome

especially since this is our We considered Patriot our church,

and we got married here. After we got married in

twenty twenty one, we were looking to have a child

of our own. We tried all things. Ironically, I'm an

obguan and infertility doctors specialist, and I did everything possibly

in my power that I could to, you know, help

us try to conceive a baby. But we struggled.

Yeah, it was. It was really hard getting pregnant. We

tried many things and nothing worked.

And as a physician and as a husband, it was

an added challenge because again I'd seen my patients go

through the same struggles, and it hits a little differently

when it involves your own personal case.

As a woman, it's something that hits you emotionally very

hard as you're not able to conceive. You don't know

what's going on, you don't know what's wrong with you.

You We attempted different methods, different treatments, different diagnostic procedures.

She had tests done to confirm that her anatomy is adequate,

that her ovulation was adequate, there was nothing wrong with her.

I did test on myself and there was a deficiency,

uh in my ability to conceive. So I had to

submit myself to six months of treatment with medication. Even

after that I was cleared. So we you know, we

tried again. The last straw was doing the inter uter insemination.

We had already tried, you know, the calendar method.

Yeah, it's it's tough because you have you have this calendar,

you have this time, like you got to do it

at this time, and you know because if not, it's

going to pass, and now you gotta wait.

And it was it was a chore.

It was terrible. You feel the pressure on you, like,

what's happening with my body?

Why isn't it happening.

One of the procedures was intrigued in insemination, where artificially

the womb is inseminated to hope which you've pregnancy by

bypassing the cervix.

I was sure one hundred percent that it was going

to work because we had already done treatment before, tasks

and things like that, and they had told us that

there was nothing wrong with me. My husband had also

taken medication, and everything was good to go pretty much.

So when we did that dad procedure, shortly after, I

found out.

That it didn't work.

So it was a very very tough time for me.

And I did have friends that were getting pregnant and

just you know, having their families with their partners, and

I didn't have that, So it was.

It was very tough as for woman.

It was a reality check on a daily basis that

you know, I was there helping other families in their

happy times, but yet in my own family we were

struggling with infertility. There was times where I cried out

to God lots of times and you know, just begging

for this to happen if.

It was as well.

And after that, we had a conversation and we're like, okay,

so it didn't work, so maybe we should start trying IVF.

But Carlo who said, you know what, before we do that,

let's ask for prayer.

We met with faster Adam after service one day and

we shared with him our struggles in our journey. He

suggested that we try anointing the womb besides praying. I

think we went home that night with the oil from

the library, and that woman was getting annoyed to every night. Yeah,

And miraculously I come home from work one day and

she had made a little box with little baby slippers

no they weren't Jordan, Yeah slippers, and said you're gonna

be a daddy and the positive pregnancy stick. And I'm thinking, yeah, baby,

God's God got us.

You know this will happened.

And God's tiny She like you really, don't you get it?

I'm pregnant and I'm like, you're pregnant now, And like

I could, I can't explain.

What that thought.

God went above and beyond for us. I didn't think

it was gonna happen for us, and when it did,

I was just mind blowing to have.

It immediately answered in that fashion. Yeah was what really?

May understand that as a miracle that God can do

above and beyond, exceedingly above and beyond, when we didn't

even think or ask for.

Come on, in church, you won't believe God's still in

the business of doing miracles.

Amazing. I believe he's still in the business.

I believe he still wants to display his might, his glory,

his creative redemptive power in and through our lives. He's

still looking for willing people to be a platform and

a pedestal to his goodness, like people who long.

For the miraculous.

The problem is people long for the miraculous, but they

run from problems.

Right, You can't run from a problem.

Yet declare God's power in might over your life. You

at some point either have to decide or you gonna

live governed by a victim's mentality or victor's mentality. You

can either view your God through the filter of your problems,

or you can view your problems through the filter of

your God. I know who my God is. He is

wonderful and majestic. He is intentional and thoughtful, and he

is actively productive in my life, even when I can't

see it. In the moments when I can't trace the

hand of God, I have to be able to trace

the heart of God. I know that he's loving, and

I know that he's faithful, and I know that whatever

comes my way, if it's not good, well He's just

not done, because he works all things together for the

good of those who trust him.

Amen.

The victim says, why is this happening to me? But

the Victor says, why is this happening for me? How

is God going to use this as an opportunity to

showcase to the world, Look how good my God is.

Amen.

I love that this is a house of miracles. Anyone

thankful for your house? You just love the place that

you get to worship. You can tell a lot about

a person's house, right like you walk in. You can

be oh, I know who your favorite team is. I

can tell you're not organized, I know who you voted for. Right,

you can just tell a lot about a person's house.

And spending time around Patriot and the team and just

all the different ministry initiatives that are an expression of this.

Body of believers. The one thing that is the most

apparent is this is a house of wisdom.

And we're just thankful for the wise leadership and the

just thoughtful, visionary, futuristic strategic thinking that would produce something

like this. And it is really amazing. And folks, you're

blessed with the best. You are blessed with the best.

And I love my guy, Pastor Adam Ashley, just a wonderful,

mighty dynamic duel. Can we just show some love to them?

Anybody have an annoying friend. The annoyance is rooted in

your jealousy. You know, the parable the talents. One guy

gets one, the next guy gets two, another guy gets five.

It's how you steward it.

I always felt like I'm a two talent guy, and

then you become friends with a five talent guy. I

was thinking of Pastor Adam, and I thought, you know,

is there a prototype for him in scripture? If I

were to think of my guy and the different mantles

and anointings and assignments that you see throughout the Word

of God, where would I try to envision God's thoughts

towards Adam? And I think there is a younger sons

mantle upon his life.

Now track with me on this.

Get beneath the surface of the thought. There's a lot

of younger sons in scripture. Isaac was a younger son.

Jacob was a younger son. Joseph was a younger son.

David was a younger son. And when I think of

Pastor Adam, I think of a David's anointing, I think

of a Joseph's favor, I think of an Isaac's identity,

and I would think of a Jacob's authenticity. You guys

have a remarkable leader. Can we just honor the grace

that's upon his life. I do believe that maybe part

of my assignment here today is to bring some self

awareness to the room. You would have a friend who

doesn't or lacks some self awareness. You just wish you

could live vicariously through them for one day, Like what

is like to just go through life that ignorant?

And there might be some ignorance in.

The room because what you think is normal is not normal.

What God is doing in this house, he's not doing

in every house. And God's a good steward and for

whatever reason, he has entrusted this house with a great

measure of influence and a long standing track record of

effectiveness within this community.

Why is God trusting you with so much? Man? Aren't

you proud of your church?

We're in a generosity conversation and it's like, oh, this

is red meat for this group. This is preaching to

the choir. This church gets it. Rise up, men and

women of God like stack hands once again, Let's take

the hill, folks. I'm ten minutes into preaching. I've not

introduced myself. I am CJ. Johnson, like pastor Adams said,

I am from Indiana. I got a picture of my

family here. That's my wife, Kristen, daughter Riley, Cannon, Miles,

and Presley. My wife is Native, like true Native American

has a number on the reservation. Now everybody wants to

be Native. No, like she's a real Native. So we're

pulling for the chiefs, but loving this season of life.

Ages.

Our kids are fifteen, thirteen, eleven, and six.

We had a bit of a surprise.

That's what you get for going home for lunch on

a Tuesday. Come on, if you can't laugh at that,

your halo's too tight.

That's funny.

You know, when you have four kids, you just get

accustomed to the same questions and over again.

As the husband.

They always ask you, how's Kristen doing? So over the years,

I just start saying, well, you got to pray for her.

She's got a bad case of booty. Do her stomach

stick out further than her booty do. Come on, church,

I'll be the most honest place on the planet.

Listen.

I will make you feel really good about yourself. One

of the best compliments I ever received from someone's day

lady came forward at the end of the message, and

she said, you know, Pastor CJ, I just love hearing

you speak every single week. Every single time I hear you,

God reminds me man, he truly can use anybody.

That's funny.

Pastor Adam introduces me as this past with these things.

On my resume. That feels so odd to me.

I'm a senior pastor of a church with sixteen locations.

We just did a generosity initiative of eighty million. But folks,

I can't take an ounce of credit for any of that. I, too,

like Adam, went through a season of succession. I was

leading a church in the heart of Minneapolis, loved Minneapolis,

thought I gave my life to Minneapolis, and got tapped

on the shoulder to take the reins at Northview and

follow a legacy leader who did it right.

Anyone thankful for the leaders who do it right. Yeah.

We love to talk about the train wrecks, the extreme situations.

We don't like to talk about the models and the examples.

And you have an example in this house. Anyone tired

of being defined by the extremist in your camp.

I want to be defined by the example in my camp.

And I love that.

But I you know, I stepped into a great situation.

I am an opportunist. If anything, I'm like a Phil Jackson, Like,

how good of a coach was Phil Jackson? That one's

talking about it? He's got eleven rings. He's one of

the greatest of all times, if not the greatest. I'm like, yeah,

but he he coached Mike and Pittman and Kobe and

Shack like all of us would have been winning championships. Bro,

you're not that good of a coach. You coached goats.

That's a bar that like rhymed and everything. And I'm

an opportunist, you know, I think the fruit of a

good leader is found on someone else's branches, you know.

Think about it, and I think I've got fruit on

my branches.

That is not my doing.

I followed a wonderful leader, and I tipped my hat

to the general. But uh, to be here thankful to

at least get to be a spokesperson for what I

got to witness God do in and through our church.

But if anything, I would just love to be another

individual that can be placed in front of you to

show you what God can.

Do through an individual's life.

It's weird for me having a conversation about eighty million dollars.

When I grew up in conversations more rooted in poverty.

I don't know what your your context was, and I

think I got some pictures.

Of me growing up. Let's see, Oh there it is

a hood rat.

Listen, you know you are from the hood when you

got a couch like that.

At one point that was white.

It was just hot box too many times. That What

I love about that picture right there is it was

in that room I gave my life to christ and

Andrew Hollins was the first person I told right there,

that's a sacred space for me.

The next one.

Check this one out, folks, not even slim shady like

Malibu's most wanted.

I grew up around the kindness and.

Maybe passive black people who just let me slide on

things that were completely unnecessary. Bro, you're not ashy. You

don't need all that cocoa butter. You don't need a

brush in your back pocket, you don't need the do rag.

They were just like, let them go, look at our

team photo. I think they've got our team program. That's

a mugshot.

Here's what everyone.

People will ask me that, hey, where did you grow up,

which is always a how do you answer that question?

People want a visual? This next picture, it's the only

picture I've got and here's what's funny about it. So

it's in those apartment complex. This is the photo my

buddy sent me to wish me a happy birthday.

What is that? Happy birthday? Dog?

And photus drive And yeah, I just I find that

my story is so comical that somehow God does things

in and through your life that you just would never expect.

Yeah, Like that's the theme verse of.

Your initiative is God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly.

More than you can ask, think or imagine.

Meaning You're gonna get down the road and see God's

goodness in your life and have the thought, I didn't

even think to ask for this one, right, you know,

want thankful for all the things God did in your

life that you didn't know to pray for. You didn't

know to pray for that friend, and you didn't know

to pray for that job, and you didn't know to

pray for this church, and you didn't know to pray

for that situation. But God, in his sovereignty, he knew,

and he works it all together, you know, I was

raised in that context. Probably more specific to my life.

I was born legally deaf. I was just immediately immersed

in the challenges of hearing. I had six surgeries on

my ears. I went through nineteen years of speech therapy.

My only preaching class in college once I'd given my

life to Christ was a Homilytics course where at the

end the professor pulled me aside, and I respect him

for his honesty. He said, hey, ACG, I love your

heart for the ministry. There's just a lot of other

things you could do besides preach. I had this terrible

speech impediment combined with like ebonics. I sounded nuts, and

so I just stuck with it. For whatever reason, I

felt called to it, and I start serving at this

small church about seventy people, very similar to many of

your experience. You showed up to a church and they're like, hey,

we need volunteers.

Someone signed up. I just signed up. I started leading

a youth.

Small group, and before long I stumbled into being a

youth pastor at that church.

And one weekend the.

Senior pastor said, Hey, I'm going to have you speak

to the adults, which was terrifying. I was nervous speaking

to children because of my speech impediment. Now I'm going

to speak to seventy adults. Was too much to me

in my mind. But that weekend I come up, I speak,

I get done speaking, and at the end, all these

people come forward as if it's an altar call. And

my wife is among the front and she says, Babe,

it's gone. And in that moment, somehow, in that sermon,

God healed me in my speech impediment. And I've just

been preaching ever since. He still does miracles. What's crazy

is think about how funny that story is. I spent

twenty years of my life struggling with communication to spend

the rest of my life as a communicator. Right Like,

where most people miss it is they don't realize God's

use of their pain, that he doesn't waste an ounce

of it, that oftentimes your pain becomes the greatest source

of your power and purpose.

It's like, watch what God can do.

And that is so much of the message of my

life is just, man, watch what God can do. I

end up in college. My dream was to play college basketball.

I just threw myself into that. I was hooping at

a junior college in Chicago.

That's how impressive I was. And we lost in.

The tournament right before spring break. And so back in

the day, MTV used to throw these big parties in

Panama City Beach, Florida.

Remember that back in the day. And so we get

spring break ahead of us.

So we drive down to Panama Beach City, Florida, and

we just go nuts. Night one, I come stumbling out

of a club at a PD Pablo concert, North Carolina,

going and raise up, No, I'm dating myself, check them out.

And boy was cold.

And I come stumbling out of this club and I've

got all these I got stuff.

In my system, and I'm in.

Rare form and there's this van on the curb and

the guy sticks his head out the window and says, hey,

anyone need a free ride. I said, well, yes, I do,

me and my teammates. This was uber before it was

the thing. And they take us to the next club.

They give us their phone number and they say, hey,

you want to go to your next spot, just give

us a call. They take us to the hotel. At

the end of the evening, they tell us in the morning,

we're doing a free breakfast on the beach, free barbecue

on the beach a flag football tournament.

Just give us a call, We'll come pick you up.

And so the entire week we're at spring break, I'm

selling out. CJ gone wild. It's a terrible situation, and

I'm spending all my time doing everything and taking full

advantage of the free rides and the free meals. And

at the end of the week we would discover that

they were Christian students from Eastern Michigan University, just down

there serving reckless college students like myself. Anyone find that

you need to to encounter Jesus with some skin on.

And it's amazing because I was heading in the wrong

direction with the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Yet God still got it right. Is that amazing?

That's acts Chapter nine Paul's Journey to Damascus. Heading in

the wrong direction with the wrong people for the wrong reasons,

yet God still got it right. And many of you,

that'll be your story.

Watch God get it right.

And God is so mindful and desiring to do a

great and mighty work in and through every single one

of us. That's what is exciting about a generosity initiative.

The two sharpest tools in the discipleship toolkit are serving

and giving. You can fake a lot of things in church.

You can fake like you're praying, you can fake like

you're worshiping, but you can't fake like you're serving and

your giving.

You're either doing it or you're not.

Skinning the game is what makes all the differences. To

understand why submit and apply walk by faith, take him

at his word. But what happens is is in moments

like this, God is hyper productive in and through our

lives because of the tangible, practical nature of generosity. And

I'm so excited to see what God's going to do

in and through your church. There's no question for me.

The number one takeaway I would say from our experience

of our initiative was it was a spiritually significant season

for our entire church. We see in a momentum in

people's spiritual formation that we've just not seen and it

was just so tied.

To living by faith.

Financially, I think you have to understand that God cares

deeply about your character and who you are becoming as

an individual. We get this twisted sometimes, folks. We have

to be reminded he cares more about your character and

your conduct than he does about your comfort and your convenience.

It's who you're becoming. Every single day.

God longs for the opportunity to introduce you into the

person he designs you to be. And some of you

have an unhealthy loyalty to a former version of yourself,

sacrificing your purpose on the altar of your personality. And

it's just saying, no, I'm going to lean in and God,

would you strip away anything in my life that's not

of you? And would you just continue to bring forth

the fruitful righteousness that you desire to see in and

through my life. See this is where most Christians are

walking around with a sinner's complex.

If you are in Christ, you are a saint.

Not to gas you up and say walk around arrogantly

as if you have accomplished this on your own, but

because the finished work of the Cross, when God looks

at you, and God looks at he sees the perfection

of Christ, the pressure of religion is off. We get to,

in freedom, live into that potential.

Who you are.

That's God's gift to you. Who you become, that's your

gift to God. Right salvation gets you to heaven. Sanctification

gets heaven through you. Salvation happens in a moment. Sanctification

takes the rest of your life, and it's saying God,

would you do a work in me and through me?

And God's is absolutely I'm going to go to work

on your character.

And all throughout scripture, there's no doubt there is an

emphasis on three attributes over any other character attribute. I

would call them the tripod of godly character. And the

tripod of godly character is integrity, humility, and generosity. Integrity, humility,

and generosity.

And here's the thing.

If you've ever said, at a table that has three legs,

what happens when one leg is shorter than the other? Yeah,

the table's wobbly.

So what do you do?

You get like five packs of sugar and you try

to stuff it under the weak leg.

Well, here's the deal in.

Your Christian life. If you start to come up short

in the areas of integrity, humility, or generosity, your faith

is gonna fil wobbly, and then you're gonna show up

the church hoping pastor Adam just packs some sugar beneath

the weak leg in your life rather than say no,

I'm gonna flip this table upside down and address the

matter also that I can operate with some stability. God

has stableness in mind for you, fruitfulness in mind for you,

strength in mind for you, and it's rooted in a

rock solid character. That's something interesting to think about that

God has that in mind. And so as we jump

into this, if you have your Bibles, go to Second Corinthians,

chapter nine.

A couple verses.

Here, and will just kind of lay out maybe some

things as you're jumping into this to consider in terms

of generosity, some things to think about. Verse six, he says,

remember this, whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly, and

whoever sos generously will also reap generously. Each man should

give what he has decided in his heart to give,

not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Now look at this next statement, verse eight. And God

is able to make all grace a bound to you,

so that in all things, at all times, having all

that you need, you will abound in every good work.

That's a great passage.

What you see in that moment, and you see consistently

throughout scripture, is the connection between grace and generosity. Paul

is talking about generosity. He's talking about sowing and reaping

and those who are cheerful in their giving, and he says,

those who live this out, they abound in all grace,

grace and generosity. Grace and generosity. I believe grace and

generosity are twins that the Church keeps trying to separate

from birth.

They're twins.

You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.

These two go hand in hand.

The cornerstone verse of our faith John three point sixteen,

For God so loved that he gave Christianity is not

only a movement of grace, it is a movement of

radical generosity. I mean, if you are just building a

theology from cover to cover in your Bible, and you

open up the Genesis chapter one, verse one, where God

flips the lights on and you start to see his

ability and what he does through creation, you have to

immediately think to yourself, he's a wonderful host. He's thoughtful

and intentional, and he's wildly generous. He could have put

us on a speck of dust with nothing, but he

gave us the stars and the moons, the ocean and

the mountains. He's been wildly generous to us. When we

live out of generosity, we live as a reflection of

our heavenly Father. I'm traveling with my son, who attended

the service last night. He's seen your kids room. He's like, Dad,

your second place to this deal. I'm going to kids,

and I think in this season one of the greatest

things you hear as a father is, oh, your son

is much like you.

You're so much like your father.

And so much of our Christian walk is living like

our father and living out the imago day thumbprint of

Heaven upon your life. Scripture says a lot about generosity.

You can bail it boil it down to three. Basically,

themes are streams. There is priority giving, there is percentage giving,

and there is progressive giving. If you're just new to

this and you are a responsible person approaching your faith

and you just want to know, okay, give me the

handles of this conversation.

What does the Bible teach.

It teaches priority giving, percentage giving, and progressive giving. God

wants to be first in your life. He wants to

be the priority. In fact, folks, he's not an item

on the list of the priorities. He's the very paper

you write your priorities on he takes precedence and is

pre eminent above and before all things, which if that

is the case, that means every spending decision is a

spiritual decision.

You can't separate your.

Faith from your finances, and your checkbook is your theology.

And so it's just learning to be that.

Responsible Christian that leans in and says, what is the

reality of my life? And how am I growing? And

is there any room for God to do some things

in my character in this season? Priority giving is making

him the priority. Percentage giving is what you read scripture,

that idea of the tithe, which means the tenth. Many

of you are familiar with this, that all throughout scripture,

even before the law even existed, the tithe was implemented.

It was a natural response to the generosity of God.

It's yours from the beginning. It all belongs to you.

I just get to steward it. I'm not an owner, and.

The tithe is the tenth.

What you will see at times is this delineation in

scripture that says tithes and offerings.

You ever seen that.

The delineation is the tithes represented the tenth, and in

scripture the offering was what individuals were giving above and

beyond their tithe If you are wanting to live linked

to the heritage of your faith, that's how they function.

There was once a time where the saints in the

community of believers lived with radical generosity, and that's where

the progressive giving idea comes in. And in many ways,

tithing is more the starting line than the finish line.

God starts to build a muscle in your life for

radical generosity. And I know that it's always tricky to

talk about giving in church. It just comes with a

certain feel in the room. We can all acknowledge that.

Right when you're a pastor, you just learn to live

with some of that awareness. Anytime you introduce yourself to

someone you tell me you're a pastor, you can feel it.

It's an immediate buzzkill. It's like saying, Hey, I'm a cannibal.

You want to go to lunch? You know, talking about

giving can film. Why does it feel strange? Why are

people uncomfortable with this conversation? I'll say this, The one

thing I've discovered in twenty years of being a pastor

is the only people who complain about the giving conversation

are the people who aren't giving, like some of you

are telling on yourself, you know, And it's just learning

to say, hey, what is that?

Why does come with attention in my heart?

And why do I still build fences when it comes

to God, God, you can have this area of my life,

but you can't have this area of my life. And

consider what that communicates about you and I. When your

child is born, you you bring that child to church.

You you gather in front of the body of believers,

you have a pastor pray over them, and you dedicate

your child early on. Lord, we recognize that you love

this child more than we love this child. We recognize

that it is you who knit this child together in

his mother's womb, and you have a purpose and a

plan for this child, and from the very outset of

their life, we are placing the trust and the care

of this child into your hands.

We leverage our faith to dedicate our children.

When you get married, you sell out. You push all

the chips to the center of the table. You celebrate.

You have a party. You you bring all the friends,

all the co workers, all the family members together. You

stand in front of everybody and you make a vow

and a promise in front of God and the presence

of everyone in attendance, that I'm going to live my

life in this committed relationship, and I'm asking in trusting

God to bless this union.

We'll trust them with our marriage.

Someone in your family passes away, and what do we do?

We once again call together the community. Once again we

have a service, and we get another faith filled person,

the pastor, to stand in front of everyone and to

once more declare with confidence and assurance life beyond the

grave and the reality of heaven in our future, that

we did not lose this individual. We know right rare

to find them because even in eternity beyond the grave,

we trust God with our soul.

We trust them with our eternity. So we will.

Trust God with our kids, we will trust God with

our marriages, and we'll trust God with our souls in eternity.

But we won't trust them with our finances. What does

that communicate? Every week when I preach, I always tell

my church and say, hey, you got to always ask

the question in the text, what is the courageous question?

Come on, you got to go to text like a ninja.

At some point, like stop going to scripture. So passively

and bored, open your heart and mind to the courageous

invitation to live out God's powerful working and through your life.

What's the courageous question, what's the thing that God you

want to shock and pierce my soul and call me

to something higher and greater. And here's the courageous question

in the generosity conversation for a church community, and that

is this, what kind of church would we have if

everybody pattern they're giving after you? Man, that's a clarifying question.

Some of you are thinking we would take over the world,

We'd have campuses everywhere. God would extend influence, we'd be

debt free, and we would just have an impact for

the glory of God. If everyone patterned themselves after me.

Game on, let's take the hill. While for others you

would think if everybody patterned themselves after me, this church

wouldn't exist. That's just wild to think about. Here's a question.

How many of you are new within the last five years?

Just go ahead and raise your hand, don't be embarrassed

about it. Look at that's incredible. Can we just celebrate

the growth of your church? So many of you when

you showed up, this place.

Was set.

And What is amazing about a generosity initiative is it

open swings wide the doors for the new family members

of the faith to say, hey, be a part of

the next chapter.

Be a part of the next chapter.

And so if you're new, my challenge or question would be,

would you consider doing for others what others have already

done for you? And would you play a part in

passing on to the next generation a stable church that

they can run to in times of need. If you

are a millennial or higher and you are in the faith, listen,

you're gonna make it. By the time things get really

crazy in our world, will be called home to be

with Christ. But the challenges our grandchildren are gonna face

and their children are going to face are things we

can't even comprehend or predict. And when push comes to

shove and life strikes, because every single one of us

gets punched in the face. Whenever found that you don't

have to go looking for trouble. Trouble knows where to

find you. Yeah, because wherever you go, there you are.

And it's gonna come with that challenge. But I do

think it is learning to just live. Hey, I'm I'm

rooted in this Okay, I'm rooted in this. I lost

my train of thought there. But I'll close with this

and just say God could do something remarkable in and

through this church if everyone just said, hey, we're all in.

My prayer for you is one hundred percent engagement. Here's

what I know. God knows the math. He knows what

he's gonna put on your heart, and he knows what

he's gonna put on the next person's heart.

He knows the math.

And so every single one of us just has to

pray collectively, God, what do you call me to?

And here's what I know.

Everybody can do something, some can do more, and few

can do the unthinkable. Everybody do something. Those of you

with the capacity to do more, do more. And those

of you who, for whatever reason, God has blessed you

beyond measure to do something, possibly in terms of a legacy,

do the unthinkable, like twenty million dollars. Is insane to

think about what some of you could do that in

a stroke of a pen.

Not everybody could. Can you imagine if somebody did that

would be nuts.

I'm not too bashful enough to be like, hey, let's

just try it. Let's put the invitation out there for

that guy. But just see what God can do. God,

what do you want to do in and through our life?

And Jesus ends with this parable. At one point he says,

the Kingdom of God is like.

A man who's making his way through a field.

He finds a treasure, he buries the treasure, he goes

and sells all that he has, and he buys the field.

I love Jesus's style of teaching. He would just drop

a random parable and then drop the mic, like I

want to.

Try that at some point.

I just want to walk out into my platform and say,

chapstick only works with the lid off, and then just

drop the mic and like walk away and.

Just let me be like what. That's what Jesus was.

He was trolling folks, and he says, there's a man

going through a field. He finds a treasure, he buries

the treasure, he goes and sells all that he has,

and he buys the field.

Well, that's a bizarre thing.

Those who would have listened to it would have scoffed

at It doesn't make any sense. The law of the

day was similar to what we had at recess on

the playground, and that was finders, keepers, losers, weepers. If

he found that treasure, the treasure was his meaning, he

doesn't have to go sell everything. He doesn't have to

go by the field. The treasure already belongs to him.

But what's amazing is this man finds such great value

in the treasure that he now appreciates, adores, and also

values the place where he found it. It's as if

he knew, I can't afford this treasure, but my goodness,

I can afford to treasure it. I will sell out

to treasuring the very treasure I've discovered. That's what's the

heart that drives an initiative like this. Many of you

discovered Christ right here at Patriot, found your bride, found

your husband right here at Patriot. Overcame your addiction, healed

of your illness, walk through abuse, just discovered firsthand God's

goodness in and through your life in this very place

you discovered. He still does provide, He still does layout

a purpose before us. He still does draw near to

the broken hearted. He still does use random people at

random times to accomplish very profound things. He still does it.

Why not do it here? I got some point God's

going to do what God wants to do whether we

decide to get on board with it or not. At

some point it's like, Hey, we are going to sit

in the cafeteria of Heaven across from legends Noah and

Abraham and Moses and Elijah, and we're gonna have to

hear of their stories. And they've got some amazing stories.

And I'm competitive. I don't want to be sitting at

the table and not have a great story for us.

To tell, God, what are you gonna do in and

through us?

If not here where.

Right?

If not now?

When?

And if not you who? And it's just saying God,

I'm in it. I'm all in on what you want

to do in and through my life. And what you

discover is, folks, generosity is a genius way to live.

You start to discover God's work in your life is

tied to God's work in someone else's life. You start

to live beyond yourself and you start to realize that

general truly is the remedy of greed. It's the remedy

of greed, and it breaks off the bondage of materialism.

And here's the thing which is more valuable people or possessions.

People.

Here's what we don't understand in the stewardship conversation, God

can't trust you with influence. If God can't trust you

with affluence, if you can't steward well the tangible things

that He's placed in your hand, why would.

God give you influence over others.

It's just saying, God, I want to live in a

way that, for whatever reason, you extend more trust, more grace,

more favor, and more provision for what I'm trying to

accomplish with your mission to work in the world. Amen,

at this time, would you bow your heads and pray

with me? The Christian life, it begins with an act

of generosity. It is the individual saying today, I'm giving

my life to Jesus Christ. I'm receiving them as my

Lord and Savior. And if you are new, you're not

a believer, and you're with us for the first time,

and you know and you sense within the depths of

your soul a need for a relationship, a personal relationship

with Jesus Christ where there is a grace that is

abundant and abounding and a life that you've yet to

taste or experience.

And that's you.

I just would love to lead you in a prayer,

and so altogether, would the entire church just pray this

with me so we can support our friends. Say, Dear

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your son to die

on a cross for my sin. Today I give you

my life. I ask for your forgiveness, and I receive

your grace, and I am choosing you to be my life. Lord,

my Savior, my God, and my King. In Jesus' name,

we pray Amen in faith. Can we celebrate people praying

that for the first time, folks, that's been an honor,

so blessed to be a.

CJ for sharing that word with us. Thank you so much,

my friend. We're gonna leave here all together right now.

I'm so thankful for the message. I felt like it's

very uncommon, given this is more like a family meeting

series that we've been doing, But I really felt like

God had shared with me one day when we were

talking a few months back, that God told me that

CJ had a word that would not only stretch our

church but encourage our church about where we're headed.

And I believe he did.

That, and.

I just felt the Lord was like, I know that

CJ during this series has a word for your church,

and it was important for me to have him come

and share that. I legitimately last sleep last night over

just that sentence alone, that if everyone in my church

pattern they're getting giving after me, what kind of church

would I have? I lost sleep thinking about it because

I just I've been in church my whole life. I've

never heard it done like that, and not in the

amount some.

People think they're talking about. He's talking about the amount.

No, he's just talking about the way that person gives

percentage and sacrifice wise, if everybody matched my sacrifice, what would.

My church life?

I would just like I've been in church my whole life,

never heard it put so simply, but really felt personally

challenged myself by that statement as well.

And I'm be thinking about I want to courage you guys.

I'm gonna pray for us.

I want to courage you guys to come with us,

join us next week. Next week we're gonna talk about

how do I know that I can hear the voice

of God? How to know when God is speaking to me?

How can I determine what is God's voice, what's the

enemy's voice, and what's.

The world's voice.

So we're gonna talk about that next week, and so

I'm courage you to be with us or join us online.

I'm gonna pray for us.

If you said that prayer today and you want to

grow next steps in your faith and you gave your

life to Jesus. We have a website called ww dot

grow dot Faith. I want to encourage you to go

to that website.

We want to get a free PDF book your Way

that you can read over one cup of coffee.

But we want to walk alongside of you as you

grow in your faith in Jesus. And additionally, I can't

wait to see this Wednesday if you're available to come

out as we're going to worship God for what he's

been doing through this series and also believe God for those.

That we love that have yet to meet Jesus.

God has put some names on my heart as well

that I'm really believing that in this next year, I'm saying, God,

would you capture a hold of their heart so that

they can see you. That may be your children, your grandchildren,

a loved one, a friend, a coworker, but we want

to come in agreement with you that God would reach

them exactly where they're at. If anyone needs any prayer

at all. Our elders and deacons will be up here

in the front. They've loved to pray for you and

with you, and I'll pray.

God.

We thank you for this word today, Father God. I

pray that as you stretch us as a church. Father,

I thank you Lord that I think the sign of

what we're seeing as a church with the growth and

the necessity of what we want to.

Do to further your vision.

Father God, I believe that you only put it in

the hands of those that you believe could responsibly as

a church do it. God, thank you so much that

some churches has they're talking about today doing less services

and closing down doors and closing down their churches. We're

having a totally opposite conversation. God, That's nothing we could

have done. We thank you for your grace today, Father God.

We thank you Lord that this church will be an

example to other churches throughout the region of what it

means to see God move in our church. You're moving

in so many other churches. God, We thank you Lord

that you're doing it in our lives today. God bless

every person. Lord, bless every person as they go to celebrate,

enjoy be amongst family and friends today, or just be

at home resting. We thank you for this rest today

in Jesus name. Amen and Amen, God bless your family.

Have a great Sunday.