Giving Worship to The King - Here I Am to Worship Part 2 (Gathering 2)

Hello, there we go. Good morning and welcome to real

life church when we are so excited to worship God with you

this Christmas season. So go ahead and stand to your

feet this morning. We're going to worship him big,

together, joyful. And triumphant.

Oh, come ye to bear the hell, come and behold him born the

King of angels. Oh come, let us enjoy Him.

Oh, come, let us enjoy. Oh, come, let us adore him,

Christ the Oh come on, ye faithful.

Come, let us adore him. Oh come on, ye faithful, come,

let us adore Him and sing choirs of angels.

Sing in exultation, or sing all ye citizens of Him number.

Glory to God, glory in the highest.

Oh, come, let us adore Him. Oh, come, let us adore Him.

Oh come, let us adore Him the oh come on, ye paper, Come let us

adore him. Oh come on, ye paper, Come let

us adore him. Hosting Hallelujah.

Come let us adore him hosting Hallelujah.

Come let us adore him. Yes, we.

Born this happy morning, Jesus to thee be all glorying in for

of the Father, now in flesh up here.

Oh, come, let us adore Him. Oh come, let us adore him.

Oh come let us adore. Him.

Christ the Lord, let's lift him up this morning.

Oh come all ye favour come, and us adore him.

Oh, come on, ye favor come and us adore him.

Ho say Hallelujah, is he alone is worthy Hosting Hallelujah, He

alone is worthy. You invent us to come.

Come on the people, come. Let us adore him hosting.

Hallelujah this. He alone is worthy.

Come on, you've got some praise this morning after he alone.

He's worthy of our worship this morning.

Light of the world, treasure, heaven.

Brilliant life is just no way to rescue Joy the Father.

Reach through the darkness, shine across the earth, send the

shadows to flood the light of the world.

From the beginning, the tragedies of time with no match

for your love. From great heights of glory you

saw my story got you into you. And begin.

One over. Sing Hallelujah, sing

Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah for the things he has done.

Come and assure him. Bow down before him.

Sing Hallelujah to the light of the world.

If I eat up the crowning, A Manger born for the coast to

suffer to sea high king of heaven.

Death is the poorer we are the ancient by the price that he

paid. Sing Hallelujah, sing

Hallelujah, sing Hallelujah for the things he has done.

Come and adore him. Bow down.

Before him, sing Hallelujah to the light of the world.

The light of the world. Soon we'll be coming.

With fire in his eyes, he wore in some Hazel the clouds the

straight to the where he shall be forevermore, oh forevermore.

Sing Hallelujah, sing Hallelujah, sing Hallelujah.

Or the things he has done. No man, the door meltdown before

him. Sing Hallelujah to the light of

the world. He's.

The light of the world, light in the.

Door. Amen.

So in Matthew chapter 2 in verse one, it says after Jesus was

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,

Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked where is the

one who has been born King of Jews?

We saw his star when it rose, and we have come to worship him.

When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed in all Jerusalem

with him. When he called together all the

people's chief priests and teachers of the Law, he asked

them where the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem and Judea.

They replied, For this is what the prophet has written.

But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least

among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who

will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi

secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had

appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and

said, go and search carefully for the child.

As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and

worship him. But after they had heard the

king, they went on their way, and the star that they had seen

when it's rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the

place where the child was. And when they saw the star they

were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw

the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and

worshipped him, and then they opened their treasures and

presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

You know, every week we have an opportunity to gather together

and worship to offer ourselves as gifts to Christ, to see Him

to be overjoyed, filled with the people together to celebrate

what God has done. And we get the chance for our

response to be just like those magi as they came following his

star to say, Lord, I bow myself down.

It's a picture of yielding myself.

I surrender myself. I give myself to you and then to

give gifts to say, God, Ioffer you.

All I have is yours. And so as we continue in worship

today, my prayer is that all of our hearts will be bowed to

Jesus today, yielded to him for all that he has done for us.

Because where? Would I run?

But to. The throne of Mercy and where

would I kneel but have this cross of?

Grace. And tower grant the love a

strong hand that holds us beautiful.

It's so beautiful. So here I bound to lift you

high. Jesus be glorified in all things

for all my life. I am yours forever, Yours 'cause

there is a kid who bore the scars of healing, and there is a

Son who came in grace and truth in tower great, the love that

carries us to kindness. Wonderful, so wonderful.

So here I bow to live, lift you high, Jesus, being alone,

fighting all things for all my life.

I am yours forever. Yours you got here and now be

lived in high. And right here.

And now, beloved, I, God of heaven, and there, God, who

brought me back to life, I am yours.

I'm forever yours, oh God, here and now be live behind and right

here and now be the love if by God of heaven and earth, God who

brought me back to life. I am yours forever yours with to

hide God here, I'm out to. Live.

If you hide and Jesus beloved, fighting all things for all my

life, I am yours, forever yours. So here I bow to live too high.

Jesus be. Glorified in all things for all

my life, I am yours forever. And Amen, Amen.

Man, just that idea of coming and bowing down and knowing that

you're God's and really God is yours.

And that opportunity to exalt God.

Man, Jesus is the only name under heaven where we're saved

and just give honor back to him. What a great opportunity to do

that with you guys in concert in this gathering.

So let's get up. Let's give it up for a guy one

more time, can't we? Man?

I love worship with you guys. Man.

It's been a beautiful day coming in.

I know you guys were warm and everything, but man, we are so

excited just to choose to you guys shows worship with us here

at Real Life this morning on this beautiful sunny day.

Hey, we've been praying for you. I don't know if you guys know

this tonight we have a lot of new people that are with us in

person and online. Can we show those guys some

love? Give them a round of applause,

man. Thank you guys so much for being

here today. Hey, won't you guys take 30

seconds and find somebody around you and just give them a good

rating? All right, you guys can go ahead

and be seated. Hey, you guys are sitting down.

What you guys know that you're getting ready to sit down?

An awesome card and that is our connection card.

This is for everybody in the house today.

We love it when you guys fill these out.

So if you call real life home, let us know what's going on in

your life. Maybe guys showed up in Iraq

this way. You had a an awesome answer to

prayer. We'd love to hear about that.

Maybe something rough's going on this week.

Job, health, whatever, we love it when you send your prayer

requests and so we can pray over those individually for you.

Our team looks forward to getting these, and we'd love to

stay connected to what's going on in your life.

If you're new again, we've been praying for you.

Thank you so much for being here.

We won't ask anything else from you today except for this one

small thing. Just give us an introduction.

We want to know who you are, and we do that because we want to

get you connected to what's going on here.

Let you know who we are, why we do what.

We'd love to send you out some information this week.

We're not going to show up at your door or anything but like

that, but we want you to know that God loves you, who we love

you and man, and just let you know who we are in real life.

And I will give you a little glimpse of that right now.

Real life is a church on a mission, right guys?

And that mission is to see people far from God discover

their real life and purpose in Jesus.

Man, we got it over here. We got them trained.

I love it. It's not training, it's who we

are. It's what we believe in.

That's why we show up, why we do everything that we do throughout

the week. It's because we want to be on

mission for what God has in our lives.

And I don't know about you guys. We call this real life for a

reason. There's no shine here.

There's no smoke and mirrors. We call it how it is.

And I was listening to a pastor this week and he says so many

churches fail. They're, they're people because

they, they, they give them this the shiny package.

And then when stuff falls apart, they haven't prepared them with

the gospel. And the gospel is this is that

Jesus came, lived and died and was resurrected for you.

No matter what stage of life for you're in, no matter if you're

on the mountaintop or in the valley, God is there for you.

And so the gospel isn't just for when everything's going right.

It's there for when everything's going wrong as well.

We have people come in every week where their lives are

falling apart, they've got kicked in the teeth, nothing is

going right. And like Pastor Sean talked

about last week, you know the end of the rope and they can't

do it on their own. And you're not called to.

You're called to be on mission with Jesus and the joy of what

we get to do here in real life is to get people connected to

their purpose. And awesome week every week is

that we see people make that commitment to Jesus and their

lives are radically changed. So we love it when you guys are

on mission with us. You guys are here for an

awesome, awesome Sunday. This is celebration Sunday.

Are you guys ready to celebrate? And you guys are going to see

some awesome metrics. And these aren't just metrics.

These aren't just the the what do we call them, Sean?

The three BS. But budgets and buildings,

right? And put it crudely, and that's

what we, a lot of times we focus on.

But really what they are is their stories.

They're people's lives. That's what we care about.

So whether it's fascism, we can celebrate or people committing

their lives to Christ, where people are becoming difference

makers. And you guys get to hear an

awesome number today, that of what you guys have committed in

generosity to difference makers. Man, that's what we're going to

celebrate today. So you guys, buckle up, you're

going to hear something awesome. But we're going to do that

shared through the story of the wise men.

Diane read a passage of scripture about the Magi, and

these weren't kings. You know, Sean's going to talk

about the song. The song's messed up.

These weren't kings. These were kingmakers.

And they traveled over 1000 miles to come worship Jesus.

And they didn't come empty handed, became full of

generosity. And you guys are so much like

those wise men because real life has gone a distance to be where

you're at right now. And you guys through the

Difference Maker Initiative and your generosity has just been

incredible. And guys going to use what you

guys have done to further his mission.

And so we're getting ready to celebrate.

So once you guys put your hands together for Pastor Sean is we

get your kickoff celebration Sunday.

The guys ready to celebrate. I love you guys, man.

Oh, I just know today is going to be one of those Sundays.

Look back and say that Sunday was the Sunday that changed

everything. Like trajectory changing.

There's a moment somewhere in the future you can be like, man,

what's that building we're at? Oh yeah, Kentucky Trail

elementary. Remember Kentucky Trail that's

going to happen this Sunday. You're going to see this

difference in every story. Sprinkle in different difference

maker all day today in the and I've just over just ecstatic

because it's even the stuff I'm going to learn right now is

really cool. But we're going to just sprinkle

in stories, engagement stories and then at the end we're going

to reveal our total all in number, which is going to be

amazing. You guys are going to be really,

really excited. But couple things celebrate one,

we had two people come to Christ last Sunday.

Amen. It's always deciding one person

comes to Christ. All of heaven shouts and

rejoices and man, I just love that heaven is busy all the time

shouted rejoice and our people come to Christ.

It's our goal to keep heaven cheering.

Amen populated heaven. It's just absolutely amazing.

So thank you guys bringing people, inviting people.

This is a great season to do that.

I'll encourage you if you came to Christ or if you've never

been baptized, but you know Jesus, you got baptized even

before you do Jesus. But if you've never been

baptized afternoon Jesus. I would encourage you guys to

get baptized if we were baptizing the last Sunday of the

year, the 28th and it's a picture of what Jesus did for

us. Death buried in death,

resurrected new life. It's really the life of

obedience towards Christ. And so I encourage you if you've

not been baptized yet, get signed up.

We have 11 people signed up already.

Amen. That's good news.

Come on somebody that is not insignificant.

Our goal this year is may we let's try 50 like Lord, how can

we get to 50? We've been strategically working

behind the scenes with new, new believers and different things

and just trying to just see if we can increase that.

And we are 12 away from 52 weeks out.

And so this we'll baptize more just as it is than any of your

real life. But it's like Lord, we see 50,

we see 50. If not, we trust you.

But we're we've been just praying and searching, seeking

after a lot of strategy, different things because it

that's what Jesus majors, Amen. I mean, you said go, which is

measurable and baptized. And so these are the metrics and

to see people baptized like to this level, it isn't like you're

finding people from other churches.

These are conversions. These are people who don't know

Jesus that find Jesus and decide to follow Jesus all inside the

window of a year at a church. It's a significant number and so

just be proud of yourselves for what God's doing.

But if you know somebody or maybe you're a candidate for

baptism, if you sign up, we're going to help you through that.

There's a card on your chair for that, the 28th.

So I'll talk about just just for a second, this is the end of

your social. So our stuff is set up.

The school lets us keep stuff up for like before Christmas to

like the 5th or whatever, the Sunday, the 4th of, of January.

And so we're like, hey, we used to take off that week like

Sabbath, but like, why take off the week?

The stuff is here. Amen.

Like what were we thinking for the six years we did that?

So now we take off like 4th of July, right like y'all went out,

blew some stuff up, but let's get together and have a fun

time. So we're it's really like a

hangout. It's a social, it's a family

gathering. It's at 10:00, which won't

affect you guys right, because you know, maybe late, but it's a

10 plan on a couple hours, but it's it's going to hang it out.

It's a family gathering. We have food.

I think we're doing charcuterie, drinks, tables, chairs and just

a big hangout. We're sharing story stats,

baptism commissioning, which is man, I wish this word was like

more regular culture. It's going to be this year

coming 26, but commissioning people to scatter on a mission

for Jesus to to take to take spiritual accountability in

different areas. And So what we're going to

really Commission people in this season we've worked towards is

people commissioned to build disciples in disciple makers.

And you're going to see stories of people that we've worked with

the last year on the stage. And we're going to share those

stories and hear what God's going to do in 26.

But we're really strategic this year, Like how can we get more

people to live on mission where the work live and play and study

and just give you some rhythms? But we're it's going to be

really good. But anyway, you're going to see

that word, but it'd be a fun time.

Amen. And there's food and it's free.

So come on out. He loves free food.

OK, perfect. It's going to be good.

Second part of the series, Hear in the worship.

Did you guys get a chance to listen to hear in the worship at

all? I noticed in this gathering

there was not as many people that knew the song.

I asked the first gathering. It was like, yeah, everybody

almost. But this gathering was like, I

don't know about that. I would encourage you to listen

to it. And the heart of that song is to

get to Jesus and just to worship Jesus, to worship bow down and,

and to, to say, here is my king, right?

And there's worship. You are my God and my king.

And you're going to see it today, the story of the wise

men. Now, Diane, read the whole

story. Well, most of the story, Barry

kind of alluded to it, but we're going to dive through the story

of the wise men and the real heart.

They, they, they didn't just give worship, they did just give

gifts. They actually changed the

trajectory of humanity through Jesus through their gift, like

in so many ways that there's so many levels of the story that we

may not have seen or heard. So I would encourage you to lean

in and maybe take some notes because God's going to show you

some new stuff through this story.

So we're going to be in Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Oh, by the way, somebody left this Bible last week.

Let me recognize this Bible. Anybody see that?

It's, it's worn thin. You know, it's got small words.

So you got to be young. Come on, somebody, but I will, I

will say, whoever's Bible this is, I'm very proud of you

because there is tons of notes. You're not a person who carries

a Bible. You're the person who reads the

Bible and studies it. Amen.

So I want to get this back to that person.

So I don't know, I guess I'll go to my office.

I hope they recognize it's here because otherwise it's just,

I'll put it here in case you're like, that's mine.

But I don't want to stand up and make it weird.

But it'll be over there for you. Amen.

So Matthew chapter 2, it says after Jesus was what?

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

After he's born in Bethlehem, Judea, after he's born.

So I hate to do this, but this is just going to throw a wrench

in all your nativity scenes. But the wise men were not there

at Jesus birth. OK?

So if you're going to put those wise men out about a year from

now, yeah, if you guys could drive, if you could drive like

to maybe West Virginia, then you'd be where they should be

about now. So you go and put them out there

1000 miles away during the time of King Herod.

We'll talk about him today a little bit.

The magi that these wise men, we'll talk about them as well

from the East, came to Jerusalem and asked where is the one who

has been born king of the Jews? This question may not have been

asked by any other group of people than these magi like to

think about how do they get to the point to ask the question

where is this king that was born king of the Jews like that is an

amazing place for them to come to and you realize they had

studied scripture and knew that there was a sign that happened.

This is how they knew. They said we saw what's it say

his star this talk about Jesus. Now, I don't know what happened

to your birth, but Jesus got a *.

Sometimes you get the like a cigar, come on somebody or a, or

a bubble gum cigar, right? But he got a star.

And when it rose, they recognize there's a new star.

What's this new star? Hey, the scripture says.

And they began to study and understand that this is actually

a king that has come. It's a supernatural star.

The star actually moves. It actually stops over his

house, but it's a * and it says this we saw the star when it

rose and have come to what? Yeah, worship him that that's

the that is really truly the only way that you should come to

Jesus is with worship. Like we don't come with demands.

We don't come to try to tell them how to do things.

We come and say we trust and worship you and these magi.

For them to come and worship is a whole nother level when you

understand who they are. So let me just walk through a

little bit. Who these guys are?

They come from Persia or Arabia. How many magic were there?

People assume there's three because there's three.

What? There's three gifts, right?

Like it never says in the story how many wise men there are, but

we assume, oh, there's 33 gifts. But that is most likely not the

case. There's probably a whole

entourage of people with these magis, their spouses, their

families, their servants. They would usually travel with

military, like military personnel.

And this could not just be in the dozens, This could be in the

hundreds of people that showed up to Jerusalem.

This would been the big thing you're seeing like Aladdin where

he comes into the city. You know what I'm talking about.

I'm not saying that elephants and maybe not that Far East, you

know what I mean? But like they, they came in to

that city and the city knew that they were there.

And like I said, what's really amazing about they were traveled

around 1000 miles just to get into the presence of Jesus and

to worship him, bow down and worship him and then give him

gifts is even further sign of worship.

Like in other words, the wise men really went the distance.

Like most people. You don't see the story of a

Jewish person that should have been worshipped like they're in

the backyard. You would have thought there

have been other people, but the story of these wives been coming

was a story of traveling distance, understanding

scripture and coming to worship Jesus.

And I think about what they did is really in our season of our

church is what has been happening in our season.

Like this 2025 season, we've gone some distance like we had,

we set out a goal this year, like we would like to raise

$1,000,000 towards our first permanent space.

Now in January, we had raised zero money.

We had zero plan. We had a hopeful plan, right?

And we met with some people, but there's nothing really put

together. And this year has been a season

of faith. It's been a season of meetings.

It's been a season of pacesetters and pacesetter

events and advance commitment nights and one-on-one

conversations and then launching difference maker, building all

these things like praying, believing, trusting, bold faith.

I've been bold and courageous, right falling the Lord, like

just all these things have been stretching expands.

That's the season we've been in. Amen.

And it's been a distance. Like if you if you're around my

staff team right now, we're like Christmas.

What, like we legit started Christmas last Sunday.

Most people start Christmas like 3 or 4 months ago.

We're like, all right, Christmas is Christmas, but difference

makers been the thing, right? And like, I'm not trying to kill

my staff team, Amen or they're trying to kill me, right?

But it's still going to be good, right?

But I just want to do is celebrate some of the moments

that brought us this place where we are today to celebrate.

And so there's some moments. I'll give you some numbers every

say 100. So 100% is this number.

And this is a significant number because it represents all of our

leadership, 100% of our leadership.

So staff, elders, our board members, our main oversight like

overseer, Dream Team leaders have all pledged for difference

maker. That's significant.

Amen Because you're not in a church where it's like, well,

these guys got a vision and those guys got their other

vision. We're all together in one.

Amen So, so it means if we win, we win if we lose or lose, but

we're all doing it together. But we're not going to lose

because we're Jesus. Amen.

We're following his footsteps. 72 You might say, what's 7272 is

the amount of families. Let's take that back. 73 because

it changed, changed a little bit ago. 73 is the number of

families and individuals who have committed and pledged to

difference maker. Thank you guys that have done.

Can we give a big hand to people who participate in this?

Do you remember the goal out front was 100% participation,

right? Like it's like the number is a

number, but if we all get behind it in faith, like God is going

to make a move and someone say thank you guys who have pledged

and said, yes, we could not do this without all of your

guesses. It just takes all of us.

And it's not about the amount, it's about us doing it together

in faith. It's a faith family.

And so I want to say thank you guys for jumping in to be a part

of this next number 22. So we have 22 first time donors

in our church. Now we'll say out of 22, there's

been eight that have given very, very, very sporadically over the

years. They're pretty much like, I

don't know, I don't want to say the word nominal number.

It's just very small number for what it is.

But they stepped up and there's 22 really first time donors that

pledged to difference maker. That's pretty amazing.

Amen. I mean they went from like, hey,

we are not involved to like we're jumping in.

And what's really cool about the number, you may not know this if

you've never given here or you're in that new giver level.

Everything you put on that Difference Maker card, it didn't

go back to our ministry fund budget.

That's all one fund, right? But you've never given before.

And so all that money goes to the expanded giving for our

building. So everything you gave as a new

person is directly affecting and propelling our difference maker

initiative to find a first pair of space.

So Amen, Amen. That that, that.

By the way, that number is just shy of $170,000.

That's a pretty significant number.

So thank you. You guys move the needle.

That's 17% of that. 1,000,000 would be a credit to first time

givers. It's pretty good. 2100, let me

say 2100. This number, I will never forget

this number. It reminds me of launch.

We, we launched our church the very first Sunday.

There was a teenager that gave $300 on launch Sunday.

It it was by far, I believed up to to this point, we've been the

largest faith give number we've ever had.

Because when a young person gives a number, it's not like

they have that kind of money, right?

This number 2100 is it comes from a 16 year old teenager in a

youth group wrote 2100 dollars. That's pretty significant.

Amen. Because when you're like 40 or

50 or 60, you may have had the opportunity to put something in

savings or you might have a big boy job a little bit, maybe not

a big boy, maybe right on the level right, maybe a little

more. But for a teenager to save 2100

flip burgers or whatever they're trying to do, it is significant.

And what's interesting about it, it's not last fruits.

It's first fruits that that young person is not giving out

of excess. That young person is giving out

of want and desire. And so to me, I looked at that

young person and I'm like, thank you Jesus for bold faith.

And I know just from your heart of making that pledge that God

is going to do great things in that young person's life because

that is so abnormal for not just anybody, but especially for a

young person to say, I'm going to go on for Jesus.

So thank you Jesus. Amen.

Number six, let me say 6. This number represents single

moms that gave Pledge to Difference Baker.

And it's not to say single dads aren't significant, but I just

think there's something special about these single moms.

And these are people like some of them are looking to rub 2

nickels together and protect their family financially.

And looked at our church and looked at their kids and they

said, I want a church that my kids are going to know and

follow Jesus. And there's some men in their

life that can show them the things of God.

And they committed. And I saw some of these people

drop cards in this basket and it was hard for me to want to

accept it because we take care of those people, but God takes

care of them. And so I don't rob a blessing

from somebody. I know that because Jesus

watched the, the, the widow put the bite in.

I'm not there yet, but that's what Jesus heart was.

And so I don't, I don't ever tell people they should never

give because they were on hard times or life is crazy.

I just think you got to trust the Lord.

The Lord always provides. And these six single moms

pledged just under $60,000. That's bold faith, Amen.

That's bold. That's like man, look what God

can do and this believe in what God's doing here.

So thank you for not taking the easier out.

Thank you for stepping on a journey of 1000 miles.

Thank you for having boldness and courage to not to just to go

halfway. You're not even falling a star.

That'd be cool and make it easier.

Like there's a star, but you're falling a vision from God, Amen,

and just stepping out in the journey that God has.

So I appreciate you guys that stepped out in that moment.

So thank you guys looking back to the wise men.

So Matthew chapter 2, verse 3, when King Herod heard this about

Matthew 2:3

this child that's going to be born to come in to worship him.

He was what, what's it say disturbed?

And what you see about this word disturbed is a little different

than the word that Mary was disturbed.

Remember that last week, But she was disturbed because she's like

God. What are you up to?

Herod's disturbed for a whole other reason.

He's disturbed about a like he of power insecurity, fear he he

he's disturbed because he thinks his throne's going to be taken

away from him. And it's interesting about the

story goes on it says and all what to say Jerusalem with him.

And this is how you get the first indication that these

aren't just three people that show up, little quiet guys from

Persia that sneak into Jerusalem and say here, Jesus, because all

of Jerusalem was disturbed. So you have this entourage, this

caravan, this large group of people that's from a foreign

territory, that their main objective as a magi was to

basically accept and establish kings.

And so they're looking outgoing. Why are they here and who are

they going to put in as king? And they would have been a real

threat to King Herod. He should have been disturbed.

Now, it's not too crazy. He's disturbed because if you

know history, he had murdered his wife.

He had killed his father-in-law. He had actually killed his three

sons and had murdered hundreds and hundreds of leaders around

him because he was worried that they were going to have a coup

and take away his power. That dude is disturbed, but to

have the whole city go, what's going on?

There was a ruckus when they came in town.

These people look differently, they dress differently, they

talk differently, and there's a king they're going to establish

like that is crazy. Think about a magi, A magi's

job. First of all, the magi weren't

kings. So you see the song We 3 Kings?

There's nothing right about that song.

The title is trash. There's not 3.

They're not kings and they weren't at Jesus birth.

Sorry, you know. Great song, but nothing to do

about the Bible, right? The spoiler alert, yeah. close

your eyes, close your. The magi were this, there were

educators of kings. They're advisors to kings.

They were interpretive dreams. They were keepers of the ancient

prophecy and texts. That's why they knew about the

prophecy, about the Messiah, about Jesus.

And this is their ultimate job was to select and confirm kings.

So in ancient Persia, where they're from, there was not a

single king that was ever established on into a throne

that was not first selected and affirmed and put in place by the

Magi. And so when they came, they,

they didn't come just to, to, to find a king.

They, they come to make a king in an earthly standard.

They're, they're not like, oh, there's kings here.

Like, oh, hey, are you, you fit the qualifications.

You're in the process. Hey, this is the guy.

This is who we believe should be the person, and they establish

them. Now with Jesus it's totally

different because when the magi showed up, they didn't establish

Jesus, a king even. That's their role.

They knew from the Scripture that there was a king of kings

that was coming to be in the Manger, and they saw that star.

They recognized that our job has been to establish kings, but the

king has shown up. Not any king, not a king, but

the king has showed up and we're going to come to worship.

That's pretty amazing. Amen, that God would use these

people just to bring glory and worship to Jesus.

And they followed that star to worship him.

That's how I knew he was born. I always think about, they

always baffled me that more people didn't like follow the

star because there's a need about the star is it's for all

humanity. Amen.

Sometimes we think like Jesus is playing a sick game of hide and

seek, you know, like, where's your presence?

And oh, I don't know, I got to be good enough.

Maybe he'll reveal some truth to me.

No, Jesus wants to give you all of himself, like He is all

available to all humanity. He wants every person to know

Him fully. It's us that have moved, not

him. And so he gave a star for all of

humanity. Recognize that the King has

come, He has arrived here on earth.

It's just these Mads that show up.

Now I think about on your birthday.

I know what you get for your last birthday, but to have a

star is pretty amazing. Amen.

You can buy a star, I think it's like 5 or 15 bucks depending on

the size of your star. But Jesus actually got a star,

like a real star, which is pretty cool.

I don't know what happened to your last birthday, but my last

birthday party I went to was this family right here, Carson

and Owen, the twins. They had their birthday party at

Extreme Wrestling in Raytown off of Woodson and 63rd Raytona

Beach baby. And it was something else.

Brother. Let me walk in.

There's MC Cable hanging down from the ceilings.

Drew knew was great when there's like electrical tape on all the

the sides of the the ropes, you know, like this is top notch,

you know what I'm saying? It was it was like this is going

to be great. And it was it was fun.

The kids are clothes lying people.

They jump off the Reds, they're Spearing people.

Just every young man's dream, you know, just smash things,

people, people get hit in the head.

It was just great. And but it got kind of weird.

But the last 15 minutes or so, they did like an exhibition

round. And I'm going to say there was

not enough spandex, you know what I'm saying?

Like it was like, hmm, probably should think about extending

that, you know? And, you know, you, you, you see

like The Rock and those guys. And that, by the way, it's that

kind of wrestling, like WWE kind of style.

This isn't like real wrestling. Hard to hit.

It's a good kind. Yeah.

You see The Rock. It's like, you know, at least

you're in shape, you know? But these guys, it wasn't pecs,

right? It was Cellulite, you know what

I mean? It was rough.

And I don't know why I'm on this right now, but Jesus got a star.

Amen. Jesus got a star.

The the best part about this birthday party, Chuck had

dropped off his grandkids and went out shopping, not knowing

really what was happening. He came in right during the

exhibition match. It was great.

He opened the door. I was sitting there and he

looked at the people wrestling and he looked over at me and he

goes, are you for real right now?

And it chucks over like gouging his eyes out, you know, Oh man,

it was great. But anyway, Jesus got a star.

Come on, somebody. Jesus got a star.

And here's the point of the whole thing about the star.

The wise men, they saw what everybody else saw.

If we talk about this during the Difference Maker series and they

did what no one else was willing to do Amen.

Like somebody. Oh, a new star, cool Netflix

show, those guys. Like that's significant.

I've actually heard about that and they studied the scripture.

They understand it means to think about they have to go

through would have been Micah 5:00.

They have to understand Daniel, they have to go through Psalm

22, Isaiah 56, that the prophet from Balaam about the star

rising. They'd have to know every one of

these scriptures and just put it together and say no, God's on

the move. That's amazing.

We have the ability to know God, and they saw that they do what

no one else is doing, which is if you follow the culture, it's

very likely you're going to miss the things of God.

And there's a difference maker. You guys have seen things, the

same things that most people have seen, but are doing things

differently than they do with spiritual eyes.

You're seeing what God is doing here in real life.

And so here's #50 percent, 50% there.

There are at least two people I know of that have committed and

pledged 50% of their annual income for the next two years.

The difference maker. That's significant.

That's faith, Amen. And it's it was younger people

that stepped in and said, I'm going to do this.

And so can we give up for those two people?

Damn, what an act of faith, Amen.

When you think about it, they see what God's doing here and

they believe like the salvations, the baptism, the

stories of transformation. And so I'm going to keep you

behind that. And it's first fruits like God's

just going to carry them. And you shouldn't not ever leave

that stage of life where you just fully trust Jesus.

The Magi were king makers, but we get to make the king famous

and our generation so didn't. Their generation did all they

could to bring themselves to the point where they saw Jesus

himself. It was not enough to stand by

and they got into his presence and they worshipped him.

I've seen some of you guys make the king famous and for

somebody, it's been like a hard season.

Like I've seen numerous people in my church that have walked

through very difficult seasons at prior churches that were like

this to this whole season. When you start talking about

money and campaigns, initiatives, and you've been

down the road with a church that's not done so well or even

treated poorly, you're like, think I'm good.

And those people that I try to be with that didn't want to be

with me. I know you're all shocked, you

know, and they're like, man, I'm not, I can't get behind that.

Tell Sean like we're I'll I may give.

I'm not sure. And I saw people that walk

through some very difficult seasons at churches that were

just, I literally was looking at the list.

I'm like, I don't think I can even call this person because I

just know they've been hurt so bad that this probably is not

the perfect conversation. And to my surprise and my lack

of faith, these people gave. These people stepped up and

gave. And I was like, I wrote notes to

him. I said, thank you for giving the

church its fourth chance, hopefully not its last chance.

And it's our job to do it right. And I appreciate you believe in

what God's doing, but never, ever, ever substitute the power

of God for a power person. Because like if you put

somebody's voice and it drives your life, you give them power,

that means you've taken Jesus off the throne and you worship

somebody else in fear. And I've been there.

So that's a word for those that may be burned down in church.

But man, thank you for stepping in, Amen.

And our job as a church is to be healthy and let God move and get

out the way, Amen. So I got good, good men around

me, good people around me. I tell them if you start getting

selfish, just come up here and slap me in the face like that's

a roll. Amen.

I got people around me that have to do that, just like you.

I know how this goes, you know, and just to keep on the straight

and narrow, I'll say this. We had eight people, families

that come from they're in fixed income situations that gave

towards difference maker gave just shot or just over 130,000

towards this. And I'll say thank you guys.

They're in fixed incomes because you know, you're really like

practical, like you've already set a budget.

This might be vacation. This may be like a lifestyle

change. Maybe out of the savings you

would have done things. It's a difficult season to to be

generous because you can't create more revenue.

So thank you guys that are in retirement, that fixed incomes

that stepped in. Amen.

So give it up for those guys. Thanks for seeing what everyone

sees and doing what no one else does.

Matthew 24 it says when Herod, he, Herod had called together

all the chief priests or people's chief priests, Ivan his

and the teacher of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was

reborn. He had no idea.

Verse 5 it says in Bethlehem, Judea, they replied, for this is

what the prophet has written. So he quotes Micah 5/2 and 5/4.

He says, But you, Bethlehem and the land of Judah are by no

means least among the rulers of Judah.

For out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people

Israel. This is Jesus, Amen, the great

shepherd who is going to die as a lamb for his sheep.

Like this is an amazing prophecy.

So this gets subscribed to Herod.

So Herod does this verse 7. Then Herod called the Magi

secretly. He didn't want the world to know

he's got a plan here and he found out from them the exact

time the star had appeared. Now this is real interesting

because the Magi could have lied about this little white lie to

kind of like protect Jesus. And if you know the rest of the

story, Herod's going to have everybody who's younger than two

is a male in Bethlehem, around Bethlehem.

He'd have them slaughtered to try to protect his throne.

And so if they would have said, oh, it happened six years ago,

then Herod would have been six years down, right?

And so there was just some honesty in this.

And so he tells them the date or when they saw the star, verse 8,

and they sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search

carefully for the child. And as soon as you find him,

just let me know, report to me. So I too may go and what?

Worship him. Worship him.

Yeah, this. He's not going to worship him.

I was just lying to him. He is this the first plot?

This is a king, by the way, that's trying to kill a toddler

Jesus. And then pretty amazing that

kings on the earth are already coming after Jesus.

Verse 9 after they had heard the king being the magi, they went

on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead

of them until it what? It stopped over the place where

the child was. You got to know this moment's

full of anticipation, full of excitement.

You've been traveling with these gifts and all this time to see

Jesus and it's finally come to a stop. 1st 10 when they saw the

star. Who knows?

That's a good moment. Amen.

I don't know how many of you ever seen a star up close and

personal, but they did. This is their record.

Like, I saw a star and they were what?

That was pretty weak. They were overjoyed.

Amen. They were so excited that this

is the place where the King is at.

We've arrived and on coming to the house, not the Manger, the

house. He's a toddler, right?

Less than two. They came to the house and they

saw the child with his mother Mary.

So they saw Jesus. And the moment they see Jesus,

they bowed down and what? And worshipped him.

This is a fantastic moment. Like, you know, they make movies

like David and all these other things, right?

They should make a movie called Magi because this is the essence

of the gospel that we are just going to come and we're going to

worship Jesus. They knew this wasn't a baby or

a child or a toddler. This is the king of all kings

and they brought their gifts to Jesus.

What's amazing about the wise men is they worship Jesus before

they saw the full picture. Like we get to look back at

Jesus and we've seen the crucifixion and we see him with

the disciples. We see the miracles, we see all

these things. We see the resurrection, the

Holy Spirit, the birth of the church.

We see the early disciples, like we get the full picture.

But those magi, they had a handful of verses and had a

heart full of faith, Amen. And we, we need to be those kind

of people. We just get so excited about

Jesus. They didn't have that full

picture, but they gave before they saw the miracle.

And I think about difference makers.

You guys have given before the miracle like we have.

Like even the right now we have a pledge for an amount.

We don't have a building, we don't have the land, we don't

have a blueprint. We don't have an architect or an

engineer. We know a lot of them, but we

stepped out in faith. Amen.

There'll be a generation behind us.

They'll say, man, isn't that crazy that those guys gave

before there was even a thing. That's crazy.

Like most people are raising money for a first initiative.

Would you put a thing on that? It's like giving skyrockets.

We're talking about an opportunity in front of us which

God will provide. Amen.

He will provide. And so you guys are blessed.

You're worshiping and giving ahead of the miracle.

And for some people that gave in the in this difference maker, it

was like the epitome of what this looks like.

So number six, let me say 6, there are 6 people that have

given to this difference maker initiative that have been coming

for less than three months. That's pretty significant.

And this number is just shy of $60,000.

And all of that would go directly towards that space.

But you talk about giving by faith, like you just started

showing up. There was one person in

particular that came the week before commitment Sunday and

gave and pledged on commitment Sunday.

Is that crazy? I mean, we're likely to get a

phone call back in a week. And he turned to commitment card

and said, I'm all in for what God's doing here.

I believe in what you're doing. That's significant.

Amen. Like you don't have people like

that that show up to your church, but God's been sending

people. It's just confirmation what God

is doing. We've had 10 young people, I say

young, below age of 55. I'm scared the number keeps

rising as I get a little older anyway.

But below the age 30, we've had 10 people commit to difference

maker and they've committed just over $120,000.

That's pretty good, Amen. So you're like, man, you know,

young people like they're in it, they're on it, and so they're

giving full of faith. Last verse Matthew 211 says then

after they bowed down, they worshipped the King of kings.

That says this. Then they opened their treasures

and presented him being Jesus with the gifts of gold,

frankincense and myrrh. It's pretty amazing.

Amen. Let me imagine that moment.

They've traveled with all these items.

I don't know how much there are of each item.

And maybe they're outside on donkeys or somebody's been

carrying him or they, they're carrying him.

And there's just this moment they they worship, they bow

down. And then they said, oh man, I

can't, I'm so excited. Let me give this gift.

And they open it up and they unfold it right in front of this

toddler and they give this gift of gold to Jesus the King.

That's pretty good. I think Barry mentioned that his

gold may come from Babylon, which may have been stolen from

the temple. And it's like giving God's gold

back to God. It's pretty good.

Amen. Not that he didn't own it all

anyway. This is act of worship, but

they're saying you, you, these are gifts fit for a king, this

gold. And that's what some of you guys

have done Difference maker as well, right?

And then this frankincense, like what a weird gift frankincense

is this incense that was put in the temple and the priest would

burn it and rise up and it would have this pleasing aroma to God.

And that Jesus is our high priest.

That they understand that Jesus is going to be the one that is

the mediator between God and man.

That there is Jesus would be tempt in all ways, yet without

sin that that he he would be the one that we would pray through

to the father like there's only one way the way truth and life.

His name is Jesus Amen. He's only which you're saved and

you look at his who he is. They recognize that that just

from scripture. They said get the gold somebody

find some frankincense because we're going to go visit the king

who's going to become a priest for all humanity that they could

know God himself some pretty wise men, Amen.

The last gift of myrrh, which is a weird gift because it's a

burial spice. So bringing a barrel spice to

this toddler, if you tried to pull it off this Christmas, you

might get punched, right? Like who would ever do that?

It'd be like giving an urn to your toddler.

You know, here I mean it, it, it makes no sense.

But they understood because they read Psalm 22 and they

understood that he'd be crucified or, or he'd be put on

a tree and killed. They understood all these props,

Isaiah 56 that the sheep's can lead to a slaughter.

They'd be unrecognizable as a human to be disfigured.

They'd be pierced. Like they recognize that this

man is going to die for the sins of humanity, and they're going

to take this gift of myrrh and say, use this.

Now, I don't know, this is complete speculation, but I like

to think that somehow in God's Providence and his sovereignty

in his way, that that gift of myrrh somehow end up with Joseph

Arimathea and they took Jesus to the tomb.

Amen. You know, God orchestrated that.

And so these wise men just understood Scripture so well.

They didn't worship him with practical gifts and gifts that

represent who he is, a king, a priest, a sacrificial lamb, the

Messiah, the Savior of the world.

What's interesting about the gifts you may not know.

Well, first of all, let's say this, how crazy is it that the

first gifts ever good that Jesus did not come from the Jewish

leaders? How crazy, because you would

have thought there's got to be a Pharisee, there's got to be a

rabbi or a disciple that's these disciples would memorize the

first five books of the Bible. By the time they're eight, they

memorize the whole Old Testament time.

They're 14. There's got to be somebody in

the Jewish culture that recognizes that this star is

Jesus, a star, and they're coming to worship him, but it's

not. It gives us hope, Amen.

Like we're Gentiles and these Gentiles, they read the

Scripture for themselves, good plan by the way, and they

recognize that Jesus wasn't showed up with gifts.

Thank you Jesus. The first gifts given to him

came from some wise Gentiles. It's significant for us because

any one of us can open this book and fully know and understand

who God is. So thank you Jesus for setting

that table. But these gifts are so

incredible. This gift of gold.

You may understand this when. Herod went to kill everybody's

under 2. That's a male in Bethlehem and

around the city of Bethlehem. Do you guys remember what Jesus

family did? Joseph, Mary and Jesus remember

what they did? They did flood where they

flooded Egypt. How do you think they funded

that trip? These people are poor.

They didn't have a space to have a baby Jesus born in a Manger.

The only way they fund the trip is because a wise man who read

the scripture came and worshipped Jesus as a king and

laid their best gold down at his feet.

And the family said thank you so much and I recognize what Jesus

was and Herod said I'm going to eradicate Jesus.

They said no, we got a gift and that God called him to Egypt.

They used that money to flee to go to Egypt.

They had no idea as a wise man that when they gave that not

only saved Jesus life, they actually saved ours.

That's pretty good. Amen.

And you don't know when you give God something, how God is going

to use it. And I think about our space and

what we're doing as a difference maker and truly at the essence

of what we're doing is to protect the gospel and to see

humanity saved. Like we cannot get past that.

Like to have a place that we're not going to be shut out of

where the gospel can go out, disciples are made and protects

that and the future of the prosperity of the church and

that people come to Christ through that place is the point

of why we gave. So I want to do is just walk

through a few stories and then we're going to reveal the

number. You guys are going to have fun.

It's going to be exciting, you're going to cheer.

Amen. It's going to be great, but let

me just share a few stories. We had two men in the church,

young men in the church who gave sacrificially and have given

pledge to give over $25,000 apiece towards difference maker.

That blew my mind. You know, when I see names, I

see card. I'm like, do that, that that's,

that's a lot for a person in that situation.

We we had families fill out cards, then then fill another

card out or scratch the number and put a bigger number.

It was so fun to watch some of the families that just recognize

like, man, I can bring more to this.

And we've been playing a little safe and they just said, Sean,

hey, we turn number in, but this is new number because the vision

is bigger than we, we, we know it's going to take more and we

know when you step up in generosity to do this, I'm like,

thank you, Jesus, Amen. That's just bold faith.

We our youngest pleasure. We had 14 a fortune year old

that pledged to give the difference maker.

Amen. Found out a little bit ago we

had somebody who's nine years old pledged difference maker.

That's pretty cool. Faith like a child like I

thought, man, you know, our kids can be a part of it.

Hey, dollar a week, right? And they can play that part like

man, I play part of the story, right?

We, we had a family turn the card in last week with tears in

their eyes because they've been listening the whole series and

they're like holding on, you know, and they're like, you

know, taxes. I mean, all, you know, property

tax, all the things are coming and life's this and that, like

all the stuff we face every day. And that generosity instead of

being number one on like the budget or the plan is like, like

most people, right? It's like 5-6 or ten or like

100th and they got the points. Like, you know, I really need to

move that up like it's not getting the priority.

And so they just in tears like hand the card in to our staff

team and said we're getting right here.

Like we've been putting this off and we know God's calls to do

this like we're in and they give the card.

That's good. Amen.

Like you're seeing people's faith level change.

We, we had a lady two weeks ago. I just found out about this this

week and I didn't didn't make sense to me.

They told me in the meeting and then later on I was like, oh,

OK, this is not making sense. But I'd given her last money

like all lasts of her money here at real life two sides ago.

I had no idea and it handed in the giving bucket and said I

don't know Lord, what to do. This is all I got left.

I just trust you and just dumped it in.

And they wrote on a card last Sunday.

This is a Fast forward. The next Sunday they wrote on a

card and they said, hey, I gave my last amount of money to

church. I didn't know what to do.

And then God showed up and some of my life gave me and they

wrote the amount of money this last week.

I did the math on it. It's 30 five times what they put

in the giving buck bucket is what that person bless them

with. Now, I'm not saying God does

that for everybody. So I'm not like a crystal

cathedral kind of preacher, but I will say God does do that.

Amen. Like you could never out give

God. And there has been numerous

times in my life where I have given my very last sent and God

has always showed up. So thank you Jesus for being

faithful. Amen.

We had a guy last week that told our team, hey, I'm going to give

some gold. I've never had anybody give me

gold. I've never thought about what

are you doing, right? I know some people that collect

silver coins, gold coins, they usually put them in their safe

at home because it's a doomsday. Preppers, come on somebody

right, because you're, you know, electronic stuff and your cotton

stuff isn't backed by nothing. So once it goes downhill, it's

nothing. So when you think about that

gold, some people call gold God's money and that gold

represents more than just money. It represents independence,

freedom, security, power, independence, right like that

that's usually hold that tight. And for this person was like,

I'm gonna bring some gold towards difference maker.

I thought, well, there's no better Sunday to bring some

gold. Then we talk about the wise men

bringing some gold. Amen.

And so God just brought the story all the way around.

And so I'm very proud of what God did that We're going to

reveal the number. The number is total pledge, OK,

plus expected giving. So if you didn't fill a card out

and people give, it's going to be added in there.

And so I want to have a big excitement with this.

We're going to countdown. There's a video just in

countdown from five once you cheer on the countdown, and then

we're going to reveal the number.

You guys ready? You guys ready some of y'all

like I didn't get it behind that, but we're going to do it

anyway. Y'all ready here we go play the

video all right 543210 early number oh man legit we got

nothing. So this was supposed to be

really cool and may happen some moment, right?

But there's confetti cans up here, but they didn't go off.

So yeah, sorry, didn't make it to the first family.

Oh, nice. Going to go, Holly.

She's still going. Nice, nice.

That one was kind of aimed at me, dude.

Nice work. Nice work.

There's still this one. Didn't go.

It's all right, TuneIn, you come back next year.

We're going to get that figured out.

So listen, this so $1,861,000, is that amazing?

Hey, man, it's amazing. All right, so we've actually got

to change the number because somebody, you know, had to say,

hey, I'm going to give some more this last gathering, actually

two people. So, so this number, I tried to

do math on this, it'd be 1,000,890, $8000.

We set a goal, 1.9 million and we're $2000 away from 1.9

million. Is that crazy?

Ah, man, I need more faith. There you go. 1.9 million.

There you go, Jerry. I knew somebody was going to do

it. Jerry.

Jerry, 1.9 million. So this this is what this means.

This is so significant because we we set a goal like we're

going to raise 1.9900 thousand is our regular ministry budget

makes the one fund and a million is 1,000,000 above that.

So officially, as of this moment, we have pledged $1

million towards the building towards the dude.

Fantastic. So I would say first of all,

thank you Jesus. Like I'm not the, the 9 lepers

do. We're one leper church.

And thank you to those who fasted and prayed for this

moment and for the people in church to to grow in faith and

grow in generosity and for God's game to come to earth and for

God to use us. It's that that made the

difference. Like I've so many people say,

man, I know we're going to do this.

Like I don't know how we're going to do it, but God can do

it. It's just so much faith on this

number, $1 million raised. So thank you guys.

That Saul, what everybody else can see and literally have done

what no one else is going to do. It's so powerful, it's so

amazing and it's so humbling because this number, when I sat

down with different generosity coaches and people that looked

at our finances, I thought if you were to raise $720,000,

you'd be doing pretty good. They said the North End of your

number may be 900. That we've had some really,

really, really generous, like first line donors.

I'm like, well, it's going to be kind of hard to get into a

building in our area if we can't raise at least 1,000,000 because

there's nothing for sale for anywhere close to 1,000,000.

Like I need something. So Lord, we're going to try

1,000,000 and the Lord showed up.

Amen. And we will blow people on the

water. We tell them like yo church

raised $1,000,000 towards our first building.

It's amazing. I told you this was the Sunday I

told you like you like remember what those guys gave with faith?

There wasn't nothing, just a dream.

We we, we literally have a dream and nothing and then something's

going to happen and be like that took more faith that season took

more faith than another season our church and then you guys got

this other grand work. So thank you Jesus, Amen.

Thank you Jesus, God, we come before you.

We we praise you God that we have hit the number that you

gave us. Why are we surprised?

We are not surprised. Lord, we trust you.

Thank you for the faithfulness of our people that you have

given here God that we have bold faith.

God, we just worship you. God, we bow down, we worship, we

trust God, we follow. Thank you Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, we give glory to you.

You are a king and you've ruled all.

God, you own everything and we trust you.

I want to pray for one specific group, people in the room today,

and that's those of you who may not know Jesus yet.

You've watched these stories, you've heard the stories, these

radical people giving all this money for something they deeply

believe in because it's true. And you recognize that Jesus is

not just a fable or a story, but a God that is real and active

and sits on the throne. And he came and was born in

humanity to die for you. And today, if you need Jesus,

this is the day of salvation. The Bible says it's been a call

to Christ. Forgive us the sins to be made

new from the inside out. If you need Christ today, if

that's you that ain't be looking around, raise your hands high in

this place. I need Jesus to worship Jesus

for the first time I'm over not just my hands but my heart to

you that's you just praise prayer.

The prayers not save you but your heart towards him say

Father God thank you so much for these crazy people of faith for

showing me today. There's something so much bigger

than my eyes have never seen you give me spiritualize at sea

today God I'm following you in faith because I've seen the

faith of these people. I'm trusting that your son died

across from you got to put faith in you, a crowd to you and I

praise in Jesus name, the name has given his birth the save of

the world to come save me today and I pray this in Jesus name,

Amen. Give some glory to God today,

Amen. Come on, thank you Jesus man.

What is a powerful Sunday today and just a reminder to be people

who see what everybody else sees, but does what nobody else

it does. Man, what an encouraging word

this morning. Hey, some of you saw Jesus, his

love for you today for the very first time, recognizing he's

calling you home. If that's you and you pray that

prayer, you raise your hand to commit your life to Jesus.

Man, we are so excited for you. We know there are just great

things ahead for you and we would love just to come

alongside you and to resource you in that way.

So if you would grab that connection card that's on your

seat there, you can fill out the information there at the top and

then just make sure and check that box that says I committed

my life to Jesus. And you can drop that in the

giving buckets as they pass here in just a few minutes.

And man, just by doing that, we would be able just to get you a

couple things. The first one is a free book and

to drop in the mail. We'll drop that tomorrow.

But it is a short read. It's called Begin, but really it

is packed with some powerful truths and really will help you

on your next steps with Jesus. And if you pray that prayer,

you're right here at Kentucky Trail as you exit the worship

center, there is a table with some red bags as well.

Inside those red bags is a free Bible.

A few other resources that we know will just be a blessing to

you today as well. And if you are newer with us, if

this is your first Sunday at real Life church, man, you got

it all such amazing stories of of how God is moving confetti

cannons. Man, it's a great day.

We're still glad you chose to spend your morning right here

with us. We would love nothing from you

today except for this and it's just to introduce yourself to

us. And you can do that by grabbing

that same connection card that is on your seat there.

Fill out information that top section and just check that box

that says first time here. You can also you can take that

to the new here booth as you exit the worship center just to

your right. There's a new here booth there.

Somebody will be there with a smiling face.

Would love to take that card to get you a free gift.

Just our way of saying thank you so much for being here.

And we would love to see you back here next week with us.

And man, what just or just an amazing Sunday.

I just get goosebumps and chills as I'm sitting there hearing all

these numbers and somebody chiming in another 2000.

Man, God is just so, so good. And just what a powerful day

today is. I mean, I really want you to

know that you should be so, so proud of yourselves for really

stepping in the gap, for saying I am all in, for pledging to be

difference makers in this season, not just for us, but for

the people that are going to know Jesus ahead of us for

generations to come. I know Jesus through you guys

saying yes and pledging to be difference makers.

So thank you so much. And man, today is celebration

Sunday and really this is an opportunity for us to give our

first and our best gifts to Jesus, just like the wise men,

we're going to bring him and lay him down at the feet of Jesus.

And So what does that look like? That really is your stored

resources gift on your commitment card there.

So that can look like a lot of different things.

Some maybe it's investments, it's stocks.

I know some people sold some things, maybe it's savings

account, whatever that looks like for you.

Some people even literally bringing gold today.

So whatever that looks like, that's what we're asking today

to give for that. I do want to say if you are part

of that, of your pledge for Sword Resources is giving stock,

you can head to our website. It's just real life church

kc.com/give. When you get there, they'll be a

button there that says give stock.

You can click on that. We have a third party that we

work through and so they have a process that's super simple.

It'll walk you through step by step to be able to to do that.

Also, if you want to give a non cash gift for that, you can do

that as well. Maybe that's items you wanna

donate, a boat to the difference maker, a car or property,

whatever that looks like for you.

There's all of that information on the website as well.

I also, we don't always talk about all of the details about

giving, but we're going to go there for a few minutes just as

we walk through because it really will make a difference as

we're leading into this difference Maker initiative.

So today is the day, if you have a new number that you are

regularly going to be giving as part of your expanded giving for

the Difference Maker pledge, today is that day to go in and

adjust that number, whatever that looks like for you.

I also want to give a plug as well if you, this is an

encouragement to set up procuring giving, especially if

you give by card. And that is because of this,

there are some processing fees that are attached to that.

And so when you go in and you ACH that gift, it actually takes

that 2 to 3% that we give to the credit card company, brings it

right back to the difference maker initiative.

And so it really does make your money go further.

So I encourage you to do that as well.

If you're a recurring donor and you have a new recurring number

for this pledge and you can head on over to that same website,

reallifechurchkc.com and click on give.

You can go in there as well. You can log into your profile as

well. You can update that number.

You can see all of the details. Your pledge will be in there as

well. So you can kind of see your

numbers and where you're at over these next two years.

Also, if you give online here at Real Life Church, when you go to

give, there are a lot of options in the drop down menu for you to

be able to choose. You want to make sure if you're

giving towards difference maker that you choose that top line.

It says ties slash difference maker and it's our ministry one

fund. And really that one fund is just

a combination of both pledges and expected giving.

So if you want what you give online to go towards your

pledge, make sure and choose that option.

And once again, you can see your pledge, it's in there as well.

Kind of your progress on that. We'll also over the next couple

years be reaching out at once, 1/4 with a statement kind of a

thing. So you can track that as well.

I also want to say there's room for you to step in as well.

There's no reason we cannot raise more than 1.9 million.

So if you've not turned in a commitment card and maybe you're

feeling today like this is the day I need to do it, I want to

play part of this story. I want to tell you that it is

worth it. And I was just telling Graham,

he was sitting beside me. We were talking about giving and

I said, man, whatever you give to this, think about when there

is a building that we're going to and you can say I played a

part in that. My birthday money went to that

man. It is so worth it.

And so I don't want you to miss out on this opportunity to play

a part of the story. So there is still time.

There is commitment cards on your seat.

You can fill it out today, drop it in the giving bucket as it

passes here in just a few minutes.

You can also scan that QR code that's on that side.

It takes you to a digital commitment card if you want to

do that as well. And so the buckets are going to

pass here. If you call real life church

home, you can see all the ways to give there as well.

You can check all of those out. And as always, if you or your

family find yourself in any kind of immediate need today, this

week, whether it's food or clothing, maybe it's shelter,

whatever that looks like for you, would you please reach into

those giving buckets as they pass and grab out any loose

cash. You see, so we can be a blessing

to you and your family. Let's pray.

God, I just thank you, Father, just for who you are and just

your goodness to us. God, you're so faithful and God,

you have just exceeded expectation even.

Father, thank you for calling us to bold faith in this initiative

guide. We pledge to be difference

makers to move your Kingdom forward.

And so God, I just pray over this, offering God over these

stored resources, gifts. God, I know, I know you're going

to bless it, Father. And we are so expected for all

you're going to do through this. And so God, we today, we give

you all the glory. It's in your holy name that we

pray. Amen.

Hey, man, what a day after Jerry threw out his number, I was

really expecting the second two cannons to go off and that

didn't. That didn't happen, but it's OK.

It was still a phenomenal day. I'm so proud to be a part of

this with all of you guys. Before you guys jump out of

here, I have a couple announcements for your calendar.

Christmas Eve. We're celebrating here at Real

Life at 2:00 and 4:00 PM. Invite your friends, invite your

family, invite any creatures that you might know, invite

anybody that you can think of that would join you here on

Christmas Eve. I would love to see all of you

and all the people you can muster.

To all the parents in the room right now, I'm talking first to

the parents of 6th through 12th graders.

I would love to see your students join us for our New

Year's Eve celebration at Main Event.

Scan the QR code, get registered as soon as you can.

It's $40. That covers dinner, that covers

all the fun we're going to have, covers ice cream that we're

going to have, and maybe more confetti cannons to celebrate

the ball drop. I don't know.

That was a lot of fun. But yeah, if you have a student

in that age range, you get them signed up as soon as you can.

That helps me out a lot and I'd love to see all your students,

younger children, parents in here.

Next week is going to be the RO Kids Sunday.

A lot of singing, a lot of fun. If you were here last year, you

know that this is not a Sunday that you want to miss,

especially if Piper is given another solo.

I don't know what the plans are, but out of fear of that, I would

say don't miss next week. It is going to be awesome.

If you have not registered your kid yet, it's not too late.

Go ahead and get him registered as soon as you can though,

because let us know what time, what gathering they're coming to

get that knocked out. And I would love to see all of

your kids out here singing on the stage next week.

It is going to be awesome. And let's leave here in worship

today kind of how we've been carrying ourselves so far.

Psalm 96, eight says ascribe to the Lord the what the glory do

his name bring an offering and come into his courts.

Revelation says worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive

power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and

praise. If you need to talk to somebody

or if you need prayer, if you need to talk to a pastor,

there's going to be somebody down here to pray with you, to

talk to you. I'd love to see all of you here

again next week at 9:00 or 10:45.

And remember, whoever finds Jesus discovers real life and

purpose. I'll see you guys next week.

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