Ready, Fire, Aim - Difference Maker Part 4

Well, hey, good morning, real life.

We're so excited. You are here in the house with

us today or watching online. Stand to your feet so that we

can worship God together this morning.

Come on, do you see what I see? Do you see what I see?

I see. Something storing 6 feet under,

dead things coming back to life again.

I believe it's about to be another resurrection.

I see signs and I see wonders. I see for something color dead

things coming back to life because I believe it's about the

pain of the resurrection. Come.

On Let's get those hands together today.

Come alive. Wake up, Sleeper.

He is risen, we are risen with him.

Hallelujah, women's, women. Be the great little party in it.

Then things coming back to life again.

I believe he's about to be another resurrection.

Come alive. Wake up, Sleeper.

He is risen. We are risen with him.

Paradise from wind open he is risen, we are rising with him.

Over life with a sleeve. He is rising, we are rising with

him. There a time long wind open.

He is rising, We are rising with him.

Come on Church, there's resurrection power in the house

today. Give them a shout of praise.

Come on. You see?

What I see crave is empty. Anything is possible.

Do you? See.

What I see? Do you see?

What I see, do you see? What?

I see. I see something.

I see wonder. I see what I see, I see coming.

I hear the other. You see what?

I see northern strands and feet under come alive.

Wake of Sleeper. He is risen.

We are risen with him. Where I die.

Amen. Give him a shout of praise this

morning man. I love in the scripture it says

it's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead that.

Lives in US. It's that resurrection power

that not only gave us power over death and Helen the grave, but

it gives us the power we need to conquer the powers and

principalities we face every day, the strongholds that hold

us back from knowing God, from sharing God's love, and from

being His people. day-to-day. That power is in us.

So let's praise Him, the cross. This is my beginning, the line

drawn in the sand, the end of all my striving.

Now I am born again there. Jesus was forsaken, so I will

never be. His grace is my salvation, the

gift of God, the work of Calvary.

It is done, it is finished. Christ has won, He is risen,

grace is here, and love is triumphed over, dead forever.

The cross needs no addition. His mercy is no please.

His love is not in question. The Son of God has spoken over

me. It is.

Not Christ has won. He is risen.

This trial and all the. Death forever, strongholds

bowing to the Saviour, resurrection power over every

circumstance. His word stands.

Fine and forever it will not. Be shaken because he.

Alone is 1. It also now the stronghold is

bowing to the sand and resurrection power over every

circle shades his worst stands final and forever.

It will not be shaken till alone as rolling all his life it is

being as Christ has won, He is rising.

Grace is here, love is triumphed over dead.

The earth is finished. It's mostly worth, and that's

what gives. It is worthy.

Jesus. Father, what a day that'll be

when we get to stand together as one, people singing to your

praises. Forever God, it's because you're

alive, because you loved. Us so much that came for us God.

We can't do anything, but you see, we crisis.

Because how great the chasm that lay between us, how high the

mountain I could not climb. In desperation, I turned to

heaven and spoke your name into the night.

And then through the darkness, your loving kindness tore

through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished.

The end is risen Jesus Christ, my living.

To imagine. So.

Great of mercy, what heart could I have them?

Such boundless grace? The God of ages step down from

glory to bear my sin and bear my shame.

The cross has gone again, and I am forgiven.

The King of Kings falls with me days.

Old you live for Savior, how me yours forever.

Jesus Christ my living, Hallelujah.

And someone sent me free. Hallelujah.

Death has lost his dream. All day you have broken.

Every day there's salvation. Your name, Jesus Christ, my

life. Then came the morning that

sealed the promise. When your.

Very body. Began to ream, and out of the

silence the roaring lion declare the grave has no.

Claim. On Hey, if that's your story,

give him a shout today. He's alive and he is arisen and

he. Came in the morning.

Lift him up. That's to the Paramus.

You're. Very

bad has no power. There's tears, as you know is

the victor. Hallelujah, praise the one who

said we breathe. Hallelujah that has lost his

grip all day. You have located me change.

There's no nation. Oh, say Hallelujah, oh

Hallelujah, praise the world is saying in green Hallelujah.

And I've lost this green light. You have broken every.

Day. There's salvation in your name,

Jesus Christ, my baby heart. God has not called us to fear in

this moment. He's not called us to be

shackled by chains that hold us down.

He's not called us to be a people who cannot stand without

power because He's given us His power.

He's given us His strength, but the power of His resurrection to

go from this place as worshippers to a Holy Father, to

go from this place as a people who are together standing on His

word, to go from this place with the power of the gospel and the

power of His resurrection to make a difference in this world.

He's calling us out because He is alive and we get to worship

Him. No.

Oh, Hallelujah, there's the one who sent me free.

Hallelujah. I thought this was a make.

You have broken every chase. There's some ocean.

Oh, Jesus Christ, my leg. My God.

Today. That living hope, I mean, that's

what makes all the difference. When we don't, we don't, we

don't, we don't, we're not living for somebody that was

was, you know, dead and buried and never came back.

And Jesus, he did both of those first two.

But more importantly, man, he was raised, he was raised just

to newness of life and he brought that newness of life to

anybody and everybody that is part of the family and the part

of the Kingdom of God. So can we give it up for God one

more time, man? Amen.

Man, you guys are killing us today, man Worshipping.

I just love it. Just living here.

You guys give worship back to God.

I don't know if you guys know this or not, man, but we have an

awesome crew with us today online.

We got a lot of new people and a lot of new people with us today.

Can we show everybody this some love?

Give them a round of applause, man.

Thank you guys so much for choosing to worship here at Real

Life at this gathering Kentucky Trail.

Hey, take this opportunity. Take the next 30 seconds and

greet somebody around you. All right, you guys can go ahead

and catch a seat. Man, we are so excited.

You guys are here with us today. Man.

We've been praying for you guys all week.

As you guys are sitting down, I want you guys to know that

you're getting ready to sit on a connection card.

This connection card. Now you guys see them week in

and week out. Man, we love it when you guys

fill this out. So if you call real life home,

you feel this outlet us know what's going on your life, Then

maybe it's your prayer, maybe some God's laid something on

your heart. Something's going on in your

life or maybe maybe God showed up in a way that you were just

miraculous. You have a praise, write those

things down. Our team loves to read these

week in and week out. Know what's going on your life.

Stay connected and pray for you individually.

They look forward to getting these week in and week out.

If you're new or newer with us, this card is for you as well.

I'm going to make a promise. We're not going to ask anything

else from you today except this one simple thing.

Just give us an introduction. We won't know who you are and if

you fill out the top part of that card, we're not going to do

anything crazy. You're not going to do anything

weird. We're not going to show your

house. We just want to have a way just

to send you out some more information this week about real

life, about who we are, about why we exist.

And we would just love to send that out to you.

And as far as why we exist, we believe this and we say this,

We're a church on a mission. And that mission is to see

people far from God discover their real life and purpose in

Jesus. So follow with me real quick.

What does that mean, Mary? It means this.

If you live in this world and you live in your day-to-day

lives, whether it's job, school, whatever it is, and you walk in

and out of your daily routine and you get punched in the face,

right? People are beating you down.

Even in the best of days, there's something that goes

wrong. And I, I see this week and week

out, even on social media, there's things that divide us

that tear us apart. But the beautiful thing about

this gathering is that we're on mission for God, and what unites

us is bigger than what divides us.

And what unites us is to be on mission for Jesus.

And the blessing about being at this gathering week in, week out

is to see people give their lives to God, give come back to

what God's created them for. And that's our prayer today is

that somebody's walking in here today that is far from God, and

they're going to get reconnected with God.

So man, that's our mission. That's why we exist, and that's

why we do what we do. So man, we're excited to see

what God does in your guys's life today.

And you guys are here in the middle of an awesome season.

We're in the middle of probably the biggest series we've ever

done. So for the last several weeks,

if you guys have been here, we're in the middle of a series

called Difference Maker. And this is for everybody.

We don't have classes here. We don't have groups, special

people and not special people. Everybody in this room is a

difference maker. And so it's been awesome.

It's been awesome to see Pastor Sean just lay out his heart for

this next season for this church because for the last eight

years, then God has showed up and used this church to bring

hope and transformation just to people that were far from God

and God's calling to something big.

And we're in the middle of a building initiative, but it's

not about. About a facility, it's not about

a building, it is about building a movement.

And we all play a part of that role.

So I want you guys to lean in to see what it looks like for God

to remove obstacles out of our way to make the impossible

happen, and just to bring hope and transformation,

transformation to the next generation by our faithfulness

to what God's called us to in this moment.

So once you guys take this opportunity, put your hands

together for Pastor Sean as we continue Difference maker.

I'm going to get over my chair. I was so excited.

Bear the kick in the bucket. Amen.

It's perfect, man. Well, good morning.

I'm excited for today. Thank you, Barry.

You're the man. Look at this guy.

I'm going to wear this longer than I need to.

It's going to be good. Well, I will start out just

sharing a story, really what makes real life different.

And it's just the way the gospel goes out through people.

And this is how it just works. This is the simplicity of this,

how God made it. But a few weeks ago, let's say

like a month ago, there's a man that started to come to our

church. He was invited by somebody that

probably would not be connected to most churches.

It's one of those people that just kind of doesn't fit in too

much of A history. This kind of situation.

This man has been bringing this person last last month.

He drives quite a distance to get here.

And so we've reached out to our welcome party, said, Hey, would

you love to come out and our welcome party if you've been

invited, if you're not invited, you are invited.

If you're newer or new to real life, we'd love you to come out.

It's going to happen after the gathering.

So stay late, but invite them out.

And it's like, hey, if you need, if you need a place to belong,

you need to find some people and you get connected, learn about

our church. We'd love to come out.

And so we're inviting them. And this man replies back to our

to, to reaching out. They texted us and they said,

man, I really need Jesus. I want, I want a star

relationship with him. I want to get baptized.

I want to learn and I want to spread his word.

I'm like, that's a 10 out of 10. Amen.

Like this dude's hungry. So the staff, the lady, she

comes to me, she goes, hey, I'm thinking, you know, we're going

to get together. And just now it's like, hey,

I've I've got the person. And so I called my man Rick.

Rick is sitting up here in the front row.

If you know anything about Rick, I'm like, hey, Rick, you want to

go fishing? And he's like, yeah.

And, and you know, Rick's one of those guys and when it gets

frozen, he he has made a few holes in the belt in the

Cleveland Lake, which there are signs now.

So if you're in the parks and Rec border, Belden, you didn't

hear anything this morning. But it was because of Rick,

right? He loves fishing.

And I said, man, fishing for men.

And dude, Rick gets excited like Rick walks the Lord, Amen.

And so he goes, yeah, tell me about this.

So I tell me about this man. I said this man is hungry for

God. I'm not sure he's saved.

He wants to get saved. So leave that boy to Christ.

Show them through Scripture about salvation.

Teach them all the different pieces.

Walk through these different things.

Going to take a few weeks, right to seven, like hour a week.

Teach about baptism. He wants to get baptized.

By the way, we're baptizing the last Sunday of the year,

December 28th, 8th. This will be very new for us,

but we want to baptize that last Sunday, Amen.

We've had a lot of people say, hey, I want to get baptized.

We want to do this. I'm like, hey, you know what,

there's probably no great time that tomorrow, but we could do

that the 28th, right? And so we're excited for that.

So if you're interested in getting baptized, that'd be

amazing. But I told Rick, hey, walk him

through scripture, let him know who God is getting connected,

like just build a relationship with him.

And that's just what God's doing, Amen.

This is just one Sunday. And it's really because somebody

brought somebody had spiritualized to see brought the

gospel and they've been working together showing things to God,

but bringing them here, which has been fantastic.

But the goals are bringing the gospel out.

Amen. And we play a part of the story.

So every the difference makers just happens all through our

church and we have so many people like that.

Now I think about his story. How many of you guys would say,

you know, if I was starting on my walk with God, I would love

to have a spiritual coach, a spiritual mentor or somebody to

help me in my first few steps with Jesus.

Show hands, show hands, right? I mean, I remember when I first

got saved, I would have loved to know what I just got into.

Amen. Like I didn't know.

I mean, I prayed the prayer. I was in this choir room, in

this little back choir room of this Baptist Church.

I had no idea what was doing, but thank God there was a

spiritual until they came along. There was somebody that spent

time with me and invested me. I would not be following Jesus

today if it wasn't for that person.

And so I would encourage you, we're going to be leaning into

this in this next season to find spiritual mentors and coaches

older in the faith that know God and can teach younger people,

new believers, how to walk with Jesus.

Anybody sound interested in that?

Because we're really calling you guys to do that.

Amen, Like we've been thinking of this, praying through this,

and it's going to be a ready fire aim kind of situation.

I promise you that, right? Like we know enough to lead them

to Christ and show these things. Well, today we're jumping in.

We got our 4th part of the series, Difference Maker.

If you got your booklet, we'll be on page 20.

If you're taking notes, if you didn't get one, there's one,

bring it every week. But there's some out there.

But page 20, I always believe if you take notes, you get closer

to seat in heaven. Amen.

So just get those notes going, OK?

It's going to be good. But today we're leaning and we

talk about a building and I'll touch the building.

We think about steel and put up a structure.

And I'll just remind you guys, this is about souls.

This is about the man we just talked about.

This is about people's stories been written by God.

This is not building a building. It's about building a people.

It's about building people that transform by Christ.

And it's very easy to go well, I don't know about the building.

It's like we don't care about the building as much as we care

about people. The building is a is a means to

an end. Amen, It's a tool, it's a

resource and we got to be passionate about people.

There's a lot of empty church buildings.

Amen. There's a lot of buildings that

5 or 10 or 30 people. We're looking for a building of

people and the the building itself is a tool to get there.

And so today I want to share a story from somebody that has

been in our church before we officially launched.

This person was actually in our very first.

I don't even call it like a, it was like, I don't even call it

like a meeting. It was like, hey guys, you want

to launch a church together? Like it was that original

meeting and this lady was in there and she's been there since

the very beginning. And God has used her story and

she's walked through some very difficult seasons.

And I want you to see the power of community and the power of

God through life. Church with her story.

So lean in. My name is Tanya and this is my

story. I never thought I'd be the one

to go through separation or divorce or heartache.

I went through a season where I felt abandoned.

That was extremely painful and hurtful season of my life in

which I was alone. But it didn't stop there.

My story didn't end being in the community and my local church.

Real life, I was seen by my people from crying with me in

the bathroom stalls right after service, from delivering food to

my front door before I need it. I needed it.

There have been different instances of generosity from

real life that have really impacted my story and my walk

before a snowstorm, I had a knock on the door from the Goku

Cheyas and they had just opened their whole trunk and just

brought food. That moment I felt seen in a

tangible way. Not just I'm going to pray for

you and we're not going through part season, but we see you and

then you couldn't get out with three little kids before snow

storm to the grocery store. There's another instance, but I

was able to show up at my very close friend Christy Hardy's

house and just cry on her couch and she stopped what she was

doing and just let me cry and let listen to me.

Another great moment is Scott Jermaine came and took out a

dead mice out of my washing machine because I was too much

of A scaredy cat. Moments like that, that's not

natural for people to give up their time, their energy, and

just to pause to listen, to care on others in a tangible way or

take out the dead mice in my washer.

The difference that changed who I am today are people by showing

God's love, by showing their generosity and different moments

of their life. I would not be where I am today.

God to use these people at real life in my community, I found

practices or disciplines of my walk with God and it was not all

at once. It was slowly how God asked more

of me. It started out in the moments of

horrific pain and abandonment and sadness that turned into my

daily prayer, God, I need you. The next step was seems so

simple but it's so big as reading scripture.

I joined three life groups to surround myself with women that

wanted to teach and encourage me and was able to join a mission

strip where I was able to stop worrying about what was me and

learning of other cultures and giving my time and money and

energy to something bigger picture.

In the last two years, I've been able to leave some life groups

and that's been huge because it pushes me spiritually.

Fasting's a big one. I fast regularly.

Putting these practices in my life have really shaped my heart

for God, my understanding of who He is.

My encouragement to you would be if you are giving, don't stop.

That time for that energy, that lunch, that money, that gift, it

makes a difference. It is more blessed to give the

receive. People are watching.

In my case, my kids see it. They see when we stop and give

somebody a meal, they see us giving financially.

They see us giving of our items because somebody else needed a

bed. Hear that voice.

It's the Holy Spirit that is saying I want you to be blessed

and you don't always see it right away.

My close spiritual mentors, they didn't know what that was doing

for my story. They knew the Holy Spirit was

encouraging them to give. And because of that, I am where

I am today. So if I could encourage you,

listen to the Holy Spirit. Listen to that push.

Because of the season I went through and of your generosity

and the church surrounding me, I now help those in the community

through my job, parents, as teachers, and I'm able to be

generous as well. Because you gave.

I found healing and hope and there are so many more like me

waiting for their forever to change.

Come on, where'd it go? Real life?

Come on. I love it when the church gets

it right. Amen.

Because there's a lot of stories where it gets it wrong.

There's a lot of people that have come, a lot of churches

that have said, man, I can't go back.

But I love it. I love when the church.

Where's Tanya, by the way? She's somebody's, she's hiding

in the 2nd row. Give it up for Tanya one more

time. Thank you for sharing your

story. You know, and she mentioned this

at the end, but there's so many people that have setbacks.

There's so many people that walk through hard seasons like

everybody has a plan to get punched in the face.

Amen. Like it's doing great.

And then life took a drastic turn.

And it's been our honor and privilege to serve you and care

for you. And if so many people in our

church have been praying for you and supporting you, and I think

we do even more, Amen. Like part part of being a church

is we see the needs of the people that are in the house

that know Jesus and we take care of them.

That's the priority order of generosity.

You see all throughout Scripture.

Like there should be nobody hunger in our church, Amen?

Like somebody's homeless in our church, somebody's broken our

church. Somebody needs a hand up, like

just just meet it, Amen. Like you don't have to call me,

you can. It may be big enough, but it may

be something you say, Lord, what should I do?

And we help each other. That's part of life groups.

That's part of our community. And that's the power of

community. Amen.

The the thing that breaks my heart about the story, it's not

your story, It's that so many people have that story.

But what would it be like without community?

Like you take the church out of that story.

You take good friends out of that story.

You take the gospel out of that story.

You take mentors out of that story.

You take people showing up and loving on somebody outside of

that story. What do you got left?

A very depressed, broken family that's barely getting it by and

probably considering suicide and running as far as I can from

God. See it all the time.

One of the scariest things I think about is people who walk

through hardships without Jesus. You ever been there?

Like I'm old. I was old enough when I got

saved. I can't remember what it's like

to be lost. Like I can remember what it's

like to do a chase down my own things.

And it is desperate and it is dark.

Amen And we get this, the opportunity in our lifetime in

just a season, like in a little dash in those 8090 maybe God

bless you, get those years to make a difference in people's

lives by just pointing them as one beggar to another where the

food's at. Amen.

So God help us if we're going to come here and not go out and

share it, Amen. Like that's what it's all about.

And so I'm going to encourage you guys to do something today

that maybe you've never done before and it's going to be

taking a step of bold faith. Bold faith, not easy, but bold

faith. I'm going to give you a phrase

today. I believe it can change not just

your life, but can change the life of a church.

And you guys have all heard the phrase ready, aim, fire, right?

Show of hands. You all seen heard that ready

and fire. If you've been the frontier

justice come on somebody Hogan's alley.

Let's go old school, right. Send me all like what?

Yeah, that's just age. It's all right, right.

And you think about that. It's like those situations ready

aim fire this perfect for those because you have the perfect

conditions. You have the perfect timing.

You got get a clear vision. You know exactly what to do.

But who knows that's not reality.

Come on. When was the last time you had

the perfect conditions and the perfect funds and the perfect

timing and everything is going to work out magically.

And when you follow Jesus, it's no different.

There's not a perfect time. There's not a perfect reality,

it's not a perfect condition. But God wants us to walk by

faith and not by sight. It's only give you a different

phrase and it's really very similar, but it's ready fire,

aim. Everybody say it.

Ready fire, aim, ready fire aim. Do not take this to front your

justice. And said Pastor Sean said to do

this, OK, But when it comes to faith, readiness is a lie.

There's a readiness of the will come on somebody.

There's a readiness of faith. But there is a lack of

character, often times a lack of skill set, a lack of competency,

a lack of a blueprint, a lack of a plan, a lack of funds.

But we're called to take action. Amen.

You cannot steer a ship that's not in motion.

It cannot be moved. And for most of us, we're

paralyzed by perfection. It's fear.

I'm waiting for the perfect moment with the perfect

conditions that in reality will probably never show up.

Amen. So I would encourage you guys to

take a bold step of faith to do something a little different.

Ready fire aim. It's readiness and willingness

over perfection. And I'll tell you this, God

already has a perfect plan. Amen.

You find this in the Ephesians 289 and you got to add in 10 and

this is so, so perfect. And God, we're actually stepping

into his plan. Just listen to this.

It says Ephesians 28. It says for it's by what's it

say? It's by what who said works?

That's right. It's by grace, Amen.

There's nothing you can do to have it.

It's the grace of God. And look what it says you, you

have been saved through what? Through faith.

It's it's your faith and God's grace just comes to your life.

You don't deserve it. That's what grace is.

It's unmerited favor that that means we've robbed God, we've

stole from God. My sin put Jesus on the cross,

but yet God gives me grace, gives me salvation.

You can't earn it. You can't keep it.

It's given by God, Amen. That was a soft Amen for grace.

For it's by grace you've been saved through faith and this

this important. This is what this grace is not

from yourselves. It's a gift of God.

May suggest it's a free gift of God.

Not by what I love people that try to work their way to heaven.

It's like you know what you're doing an awful lot of trying.

You do not need to try. Amen.

I don't know how you get around this verse.

If you're like man, I keep on my good deeds.

Pray, chant, meditate, help the old lady cross the street.

I gave some money, I came to church, I read the Bible.

I did all this stuff that doesn't mean anything.

It's God's grace, Amen. You cannot earn it.

It is freely given to you. Why?

So that no one can what you know, we can boast.

No, no one can say. Look, look how good I am.

You can't say I did it. All you can say is he did it.

He did it. He did it.

He did it. I didn't deserve it.

I, I I'm just, I'm just a servant of God.

I am so much a Sinner. But Jesus, the man in the middle

of cross said I could come into heaven.

Amen. There's nothing to do about our

ability. It is it.

Thank God, thank God, because I don't have the ability and none

of us have the ability to be perfect, but it's the grace of

God. Now we've heard these verses

potentially, right? Like these are basic salvation

verses. If you don't know these verses,

you should memorize this passage because I promise you they're

going to be somebody in your life that needs to hear the

Scripture from your heart. You may not quote it perfectly.

OK, you can do the preacher version, you know, do what you

got, work what you got, but share the Scripture.

But here's the point, verse 10, it says for we are God's, what a

handiwork. Now you think about this, we

start thinking about creation. We start thinking like, oh, God

instantly formed us and he did and he knit us together and he

breathed in the breath of life. So we became a living soul and

our first thing we saw, we opened your eyes, was the face

of God. That's all true, Amen.

That's all true. How much is it true?

But that's not what I was talking about in the Scripture,

which says we're as handiwork. What's it say?

Created in Christ Jesus? When were you created in Christ

Jesus? Because my Bible tells me that

we're dead in sin and then we're enemies with God.

And then we met God's grace. We were all things become new

and now we're created in Christ Jesus.

Amen. And so it says you're God's

handiwork created in Christ Jesus.

He's talking about now, like when you came to Christ, God

tore down every part of your sin and gave you part of His

righteousness. He gave you His righteousness

for your wrongs and He recreate you.

He didn't upgrade you in Christ Jesus, and now you're his

handiwork because Jesus is in your life.

Amen. That's what he's saying.

Yes, you're his handiwork because we're God's creation,

but now we're created Christ through grace.

Here's the purpose. What does it say to do good

works? Now we do works.

We don't work our way to God, Amen.

We're not, we're not working our way to to grace.

We're living from grace, not for grace, Amen.

So now what? So why you're created?

Because God wanted to have you and His family to do good works.

We fell, we sinned, and God came a plan, we had no plan, Amen.

And he came a plan to go to the cross and die for us, and then

we accept His grace for free, which has nothing to do about

our own ability. And we humble ourselves and the

grace of God, the power of God, the Holy Spirit of God comes to

life and we're saved. Now we're created new in Christ

Jesus. Why did God save you?

To do good works, Amen. Over here, He's saved you good

works. If you're not about doing good

works, what are you about? Are you betting your life on

yourself or you're going to bet your life on God?

Amen. Like what are you doing with

this breath that God's given you?

And look what he said he prepared when which God

prepared. Help me out when like tomorrow.

So so some point like in eternity past, God created these

works that we're supposed to step into for us to do.

Here's what this means. And this is basic, but that

gives you bold faith. Is that when you step out on

faith? You're not creating your own

mission, Amen? We've not come up our own

mission statement, real life church.

We came up with a, it's the Great Commission, Amen?

Like we're not recreating the thing of God.

But when you step out on faith, that's what you're doing.

You're stepping into what God is doing already.

Come on somebody, that's good news, Amen.

You show up to work and like step in all these projects for

all these other people. Well, we need to step into what

God's doing. What that means is there's

divine appointments, there's people, there's countries,

there's spaces, there's places, there's a marriage, there's

kids, there's coffee shops, there's people around you,

there's marketplaces, there's businesses, there's things

already that God wants you to step into that he's already

prepared in advance. Amen.

That might I suggest that us building a building is one of

them. So we when we step out of faith,

we're not going well. I hope it works out.

We're like, no, is God in it? Amen.

That's what Ready fire AIM is all about it.

It requires faith. If we had all the funds and we

had all the people and we had a building and all, like turnkey

ready to go and a blueprint, all this stuff, would it require any

faith? No.

What is God bless? Yeah.

It didn't bless our ability because we'd say look what we

did. You couldn't do without me.

Hey, can you put my last name on that building?

I'd love to have it. I guarantee you none of you are

going to get a name on that building.

Amen. There's not a room that's going

to be like Sean Peach's room. There's not going to be on the

pulpit. You guys been in those churches?

Billy Sue donated $1,000,000, Billy Sue's wing.

This ain't Children's University Hospital, love the hospital,

right? You don't get to put your name

on the tower. This is about Jesus.

Amen. And we give in faith to what God

has asked us to do. There's this appointment that

God has ready for us. And so I'm going to just give

you some people in the Bible that were full of ready fire,

aim, faith, very firing faith. We talked about this man early

on in the series at week 1. You guys remember our boy

Joshua. You guys remember Joshua, one of

the 12 spies, He wants to go into the promised land.

And he was one with Caleb, right?

Him and Caleb only ones that said, hey, what?

We should go in. Yeah, there's giants.

Who cares? God's with us.

We cross the Red Sea. We took Pharaoh out like when

the world will be stopping here for.

But they took, they could vote. They took a vote, the people

gave bad reports, the people got political and they were, they

were full of fear. And so the faiths that he

couldn't do it. And what they do then of

wandering the wilderness, remember how many years they

wandered? 40 years.

What was the purpose of wandering?

For every day the spy was in the land, they would wander for

another year until every person over the age of 20 would die in

the wilderness for the lack of faith.

You may not know this, but you know who the last person to die

was in that wilderness of that generation?

Moses, Moses, the man who should have led the whole thing in

spite, God put him in this place where his whole rest of his life

he would spend in the pain of regret, which is far greater

than the pain of failure. By the way, Amen.

God help me forget the end of my life.

And I say to myself, I wish I would have God help me because

that is most people, they're afraid to step out on what God

wants them to do. This happened to Moses.

He watched every person that he led astray die in the wilderness

and eventually died. If you get a chance to read

Deuteronomy, it's the last 30 days of his life.

He writes so much. The powerful truths there is to

follow God. He wrote a song you're supposed

to teach your kids because he recognized the generations have

gone far from God. He wants to teach them things of

Scripture. He tells Joshua who's going to

take his place. Be strong, be very courageous.

The Lord's going to be with you. Make sure you don't apart from

these words, make sure you know the Lord is behind you.

He's never leave you or forsake you.

He's going to lead you into the promised land.

The moment then Moses dies and then Joshua does something very

special that we saw last week didn't happen with Saul.

Joshua talks to the Lord, he goes to the Lord and he probably

met the Lord at what place we talked about last week.

Where does the Lord speak to the leadership at the mercy seat of

God, Ark of the Covenant. He would knelt down before it in

the presence of God would have spoke to him and said Joshua, he

says the same thing Moses said because that's what he told

Moses early on too. He said be strong and very

courageous. I'm with you.

Make sure these words of these of this law does not depart from

your heart. Meditate day and night and I'll

be with you. Do not be afraid.

That's Joshua 17, Amen. That's what he that's what he

told him to do. Do you know how long it takes

Joshua between that verse when he met the Lord at the mercy

seat before he went into the promised land here?

To take a guess, Three days. Three days.

Yeah, I could do a lot in three days, Amen.

Do a lot in three days. Matter of fact, when Joshua left

that mercy seat, he turned around.

He said, hey, boys, come here 3 days from now.

We're going to we're going to leave right here and we're going

to cross the Jordan and we're going to go into the promised

land. So you start getting ready, you

start praying it up, you get, you get yourself together

because we're going in. And then Joshua, he learned a

little something from Moses. He sent 2 spies in, but he did

it in secret. He wouldn't look for no

consensus. Amen.

Huge looking for faith. He goes, why don't you go and

check out Jericho? Because if I remember right, 40

years ago, that's that was a pretty strong city.

So why don't you give me a little vibe of what's going on?

So when we cross the Jordan where so I have a little mental

plan. So he spends his spies in this

Rahab, you guys know Rahab the prostitute ends up the Hall of

Fame of faith and all she did was hide 2 spies.

People got word. They were deathly afraid that

God's with those people, God's with them.

There's something crazy going on with those people and they're

supposed to come over here and they're freaking out.

They heard these spies are coming in.

Get them boys. And they try to chase them down.

The Rahab goes, they went that way, but they didn't.

They're under the roof. They put the flax over him.

And then she says, hey, I've been merciful to you.

You think you're merciful to me. So, yeah, put that scarlet cord

out your window and we'll protect your family.

But they better be in this house because if not this house when

we come, that's blowing your hands because we're going to

kill everybody else. And they were afraid.

Those boys ran back home, took him two days.

They went to Joshua said, Hey, it's time.

These people are, are deathly afraid of us, of the living God.

They've heard the stories of the Red Sea crossing.

And so they went in full of faith, Amen.

Here was their plan. And the plan was like, I mean,

we, we would never follow this plan.

This is, this is like one of the dumbest plans, you know, like

we, we would write a lot differently if we're writing

plans. This is the temptation.

This is human nature. But he comes to the plan.

He says, hey, the send the send the Levites with the Ark of the

covenant and they're going to go in front of us.

I want you guys hanging back about 2000 feet because there'll

be some power that's going to happen that moment and we're

going to send the Ark of the covenant.

First, I want you to pick up the story.

It's in Joshua 39. Actually, let's start in three

five. It's not on the screen.

I didn't sorry, guys in the back.

I the Lord told me to put it up here, but I didn't go into So it

says Joshua told the people, consecrate yourselves.

It's not up on the screen, but can you say consecrate

yourselves? So before we win the battle,

Joshua says what we're going to do.

This is the Lord's battle. We're just going to give

ourselves to the Lord. You guys been praying and

fasting and said, Lord, we need you.

You're going to go bound in front of us once your army going

in front of us, want the power of God that split the Red Sea to

go in front of us. We need you to win this battle.

Want your army to win the battle?

Whatever you got to do, Lord, risk, trust, you're going to do

it. That's what consecration means.

You know, I get to teach people all the time.

They're like step up in church leadership and preaching and

stuff and they get done. It's like, how was it?

I was like, was it the Lord's or was it yours?

That's really all that matters, Amen, because it's not your

ability or inability, it's God's.

And so when you step off the stage, you say, Lord, do what

you can with it. I'm I could have maybe done

better. It could have been worse, but

Lord, I trust you. And then you go and you watch

the Chiefs game, Amen. Like, because the guys that

you're so worried, like, did I do good?

Is it enough? Is it enough?

The Lord's enough, Amen. That's the confidence you have

in the Lord. And so he says, just conjugate

yourselves for tomorrow. The Lord look at this, we'll do

amazing things among you tomorrow.

The Lord's going to do something amazing.

You guys believe that he can do something amazing.

Just get ready for a miracle boys.

It's going to happen and this is the plane he tells them in verse

9, Joshua said the Israelites come here and listen to the

words, the words of Lord your God.

This is how you will know the living God is among you.

That's always a good day. But it's something that was

supernatural happened in our in our community and our family and

somebody's life because this is only proof that God could do it.

This is salvation in a nutshell. He says in that he will

certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, the Hittites,

the Hittites, the Pezerites, the Girishites, the Amorites, and

the Jebusites. Took me all week to do it.

I'm just kidding. The one thing I learned in Bible

college. Come on, somebody see the Ark of

the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the

Jordan ahead of you. You guys remember what the Ark

Covenant's all about, the power and the presence and the

provision of God we talked about last week in that mercy seat on

there. And it's like the Lord is going

to go first into the battle, Amen.

That's how you know you're going to win, by the way, because the

God's power's in it. It's you're going to look at

yourself and what you're doing with your life.

And it is this Sean Petrie's power, is this manpower?

Is this my dream? Is this my will?

Is this my direction? Or is this the Lord's power?

Is this the Lord's direction? Amen.

And some of y'all are like holding on to like the American

Dream or like your version of how life should be.

That is, that is the saddest place to be in life, by the way,

is a Jesus follower that holds on to your own will.

You've never had your own will. You only get your own will

because God gave it to you. You can either step into his

dreams and his version. It's like this when we go to God

and he's given us resource or bank account or influence or

network or intellect or or physical talents.

All these things we go to. Lord, we don't go.

Lord, will you bless my plan? Lord, I got a great blueprint

for my life. Can you go and sign off my

blueprint? That's what we all desperately

want. But what we need to do is go to

Lord, and it's like he's a king, He's a savior, he's a warrior,

he's a God of all gods, He controls everything, create

everything. And we go to him and say, Lord,

what would you have me to do with what you've given me?

Amen. That's a totally different place

to be. 1 is you're a servant, and the other is that you're

your own king. And we go as a servant to God.

And this is what they asked him to do.

So they sent the ark of the Covenant of Lord of all the

earth going to Jordan ahead of you.

Now then choose 12 men from the tribes of Israel, one from each

tribe. As soon as the priest will carry

the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, and set foot in

the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and

standing up in a heap. Who knows?

That would be an amazing thing. I like to watch that.

They haven't seen that yet. And so when the people broke

camp across the Jordan, the priest carried the ark of the

covenant, went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at its flood

stage all during the harvest. Yet as soon as the priest who

carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet, what?

What's to say? Touch the water's edge.

Now, I don't know if that means their feet got a little wet,

like you touch the water at the edge or like right at the edge

of the water. But here's the point.

They were willing to get their feet wet.

Amen matter of fact, they weren't so sure how is it to go

down they they might have walked in and drowned in the middle of

Jordan. Think about it.

You're carrying a giant ark covered in gold with golden

cherubim with stone tablets had the 10 commandments.

This sucker is not light. It's going to sink, Amen.

And so you're like by faith, like I'm walking in hope it

parts come on somebody right. I mean that's that's faith.

I mean somebody has to go first, Amen.

I guarantee it. If I was on the sidelines

watching, I'm like, yo, I'm so glad those boys had some big

faith like I'm going to walk behind them.

You know what I mean? Like I don't know if I could

carry that in there, but somebody has to go first.

Somebody has to get wet. Somebody has to get willing to

to jump in like it ended a foolish plan.

I mean about you. If we lined up a war and we put

like we thought was the presence of God in front of us, I might

be like you. So sure, we've got some aircraft

carriers. No, we just need God.

Amen. And they step in verse 16.

The water from the upstream stopped flowing.

It piled up in a heap a great distance away in a town called

Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water

flowing down the sea of Araba, that is the Dead Sea, was

completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite

of Jericho, it says the priest who carried the ark of the

covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and

stood on what dry ground? That's a miracle of God, Amen.

Those boys, they're not, they're not down.

And this is a miracle. When all of Israel passed by

until the whole nation, the entire nation, how many hundreds

of thousands of people walked across dry land because the

presence of God went first? I completely crossed on dry

ground. Can I encourage you to a couple

things ready fire aim. That's a step of bold faith.

Amen out about you. There's only a few moments in my

life where I've had to say, Lord, if you don't show up, I'm

going to drown. If you don't show up, I'm not

going to make it. We launched this church.

We had no idea. You know, you know, the only 10%

of churches only survive in elementary schools.

Hear that groove song. I don't know what that was, but

to say if I look over in the young or old, it's going to pin

my next comment, you know, but think about this.

It takes a step of faith, Amen. It takes a step of faith, like a

step of faith makes a way for the power of God, like until we

move, why would we expect God to do anything like if we're not

willing to go? And and when I say willing, I

mean fire like ready is in the mind.

Firing is an action, right? And so if we're not willing to

cut a check or we're not willing to show up or we're not willing

to say, hey, I'm selling my house to get there, by the way,

sold duplex, duplex to launch the church.

Amen. I said, oh, we need some extra.

We like to have this lighting. Well, maybe we can just, we'll

just, we paid off the van already, but hey, just pull a

loan in the van. We'll buy some lighting.

That's where I was at. Do or die, Amen.

Like I believe in what we're doing here, but somebody has to

say it's a step of faith. Like you have to get a one way

ticket. Some of y'all got a one way

ticket. Some of you know what it's like

to go into a foreign country or to move and have no destination

in mind. That's faith, Amen.

And God is not going to show up and move until we're stepping

out and saying, yes, there's a man not too far from here.

He's in Raytown. He has a church and there's a

property that came available and he really wants it.

He's like, really wants it, which is awesome.

And so he's on social media, he's reached out.

He's like, hey, I need $1.5 million by the 17th of November.

I mean, I mean, God bless you. I, I pray for him.

I hope he gets it. Amen.

If church has the, the capacity to do it, they can do it.

It'd be great thing. Let me tell you something, I

would like to do it a little differently, Amen.

I would like to be like, no, we had this awesome initiative and

we by the faith, by the men of God and people of God said, you

know what, we're ready. We're going to step out with

that destination. And when the opportunity comes,

like, oh, hey, guess what? We've actually raised the money,

Amen. Like, I mean, I mean, God could

use you either way. God could do a miracle.

But I'm telling you, it'd be far better for us to say, you know

what we are just putting out there, then we're ready to go.

And we can only move with the speed of which our people, that

God's people are willing to be generous, Amen.

And then God also works in divine flow and some miracles

through people, Amen. But I'm just telling you it will

move at the pace we're willing to step out and get a little wet

for him. And it looks like I'm going to

be late on my time, which I can't because I have a welcome

party today. So I will bridge everything else

down as far as I can. I was going to talk about Peter,

but you knew about Peter as he stepped out of the boat.

He was the only one stepped on the boat.

By the way, you know Peter walked on water, right?

It was a big storm that the waves baffled the boat.

And then he saw, they thought I saw a ghost and said his eyes

Jesus. And so he said, Jesus, calm out

the water. He said, OK, he steps on the

water and he sees the wind in the rain and he was afraid and

he sank. But then Jesus said something

very special. He says, oh, you little faith.

Why do you doubt? Because some people have the

faith to look the wind rained and not sink.

Some people have the the faith to look out and see a storm and

say God's going to do something. Most of us don't.

Peter didn't. Now he failed, right?

But he stepped on water, didn't he?

He is the only human outside of Jesus, right?

That whole thing here to, to join the I walked on water club.

Pretty good club to be in. Amen.

So we can say, oh man, Peter failed man, blah, blah.

You know what, at least he stepped out of the boat.

I'll tell you the real failure was it was 11 people still

sitting in the boat. That was failure.

Matter of fact, that's regret because I'd be sitting there

going, man, I wished I walked on water that day.

Like I wish I would have tried like the worst that happens.

I got a little wet. Jesus rescued me, put his hand

down and pull him back in the boat.

That had been pretty legit. Amen.

That been pretty legit. Last person I was to talk about,

which is going to be very bridged down is a man named

Abraham. You guys know Abraham, Old

Testament, he got a what? The second everlasting covenant

of God. I'll make great people you, I'll

bless those, I bless you. I'll curse those who curse you.

I'll make your name great. You'll be the father of a great

nation. I'll go and he says this.

I said you go from your country, your people and your father's

household. You know, it's oftentimes that

Abraham, like we think about how he left the land to go

somewhere, but he left his family.

He left his country. He left his people around him.

They settled in the promised land or near the promised land.

Can you imagine thinking about this Abraham?

He's very wealthy. He's with his dad.

He he lived in the early calories, but they actually

moved up to harem, which like 500 miles away.

And he told his dad one day because the Lord told him like,

I got to go. And he imagined that

conversation with your dad. I was just thinking like,

because his dad stayed back, he had to leave his father's

household. That was part of the of the of

the command. He imagined telling your dad,

Hey, dad, I'm going to take my my wife and all my kids and all

these flocks, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of sheep.

I'm going to take all the servants.

I'm going to take my stuff and we're heading out.

Where are you going, son? I don't know.

What would your dad say? That is the dumbest plan I've

ever heard in the face of the earth.

Some of y'all have to tell your kids that already, you know what

I'm saying? Like, what are you talking

about? I'm going to go somewhere like,

well, the Lord's in it. Is he is he in the that's a

that's a really dumb plan, you know, but the Lord's in it.

And we're going to go, son, you're going to go back home or

the counties. Oh, no, no, I'm going to go up

to the Canaanites. OK, nights.

But why would you go up there? You get across the desert, you

get across mountains. It's treacherous.

Another 600 miles away. He but he didn't know where he's

going to go. You didn't go.

I mean, and I feel like sometimes like we're in the

season, like, man, if we had a space picked out, right?

Like it was a blueprint of a building, right?

Like we don't know where we're going either.

Amen. Like we don't have a Fang

sitting out there. Now, we could.

I mean, I mean, I like to think, oh, yeah, that's going to be it.

But you know what? We we have to have the funds

that get to the table. Amen.

That's what we're saying yes to, but God has a place already

picked out. Amen.

I'm not worried about that. We're stepping on what God is

doing already. It's same thing everything.

I'm like, I don't need to know the destination because I know

who's leading on the journey. Like I know who's going to cross

the Jordan. I know, I know God's faithful.

He doesn't lead us all this way all these years to fail us now.

He never is going to fail and we just walk by faith, Amen.

Faith looks like this Lord. I'm just taking one step at a

time. I can see them barely edge of my

toes. That's all it is.

Amen. I've had people in my life I've

met that are missionaries that went to South America and they

didn't even speak Spanish before they went.

They couldn't exchange their money back in the day.

Maybe had was it money orders? Traveler's checks, That's what

it is, Traveler's checks. She had traveler's checks and

she couldn't speak to the lady and just got all she had to sign

her name and she'd know to sign her name.

This is crazy. And now she's a missionary

that's changed the country. It's crazy.

I feel blessed to sit at the table and lay like that.

Oh, what faith you have. Like most of us struggle to give

anything, but to give your life to Jesus, not just, oh, I need a

ticket to heaven, thank you for saving me.

But to actually say every breath, every tomorrow, my

entire life. Lord, what would you have me to

do? My hands are open.

Lord, where do you want me to go?

What do you want me to go? I own nothing.

I'm a steward of everything. I trust you on the throne.

There's only oh, by the way, God does not share his throne very

well. Amen.

Scoot on in there. That ain't going to work.

He'll just move to somebody else, Amen.

The Bible says he takes blessings from the unrighteous

and he moves it to the righteous.

Hello, Moses, Joshua, Saul, David, we've talked about it,

Amen. We need to be the type of people

that God takes talent for people, the talents in the

Bible, he moves them from somebody who doesn't invest them

and use them for the Kingdom and he gives it to us.

I mean, I've been praying for a church to be an 11 talent

church, not a one talent church, a good place to start, but A1

talent person that's faithful to God, God will take from other

people and give to them. That's biblical, Amen.

That's not prosperity, that's gospel.

It's in the book. And I think about Abraham not

having a place, but he gave himself to God.

He'd stepped out on faith and says this about him in the

Hebrews 11. He says by faith Abraham when

called to go to a place he would letter later received his

inheritance was to say he obeyed and obeyed and went.

This is what this is right now. It's a step of obedience, fire.

And then God will direct our steps ready fire aim even though

he didn't know where he was going.

This is faith Hebrews 11/1 through three now faith is a

confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what do not

see. It's when you sit in that chair,

you have confidence going to hold you up.

You've sat that chair so many times you don't even think about

anymore. This is the faith.

This is what the ancients were commended for.

This is what the ancients are honored for.

That's why I read these stories. Amen.

These are bold faith. This was celebrated for we look

back and say, man, that's a man of God.

Well, how do you know that because they walk by faith,

yapity yap all you want. They stepped out.

They did it and by faith we understand the universe was

formed by God's command so that what is seen was not made out of

what was visible. That's amazing.

The creator, the creation demands a creator.

Amen. I was thinking there's a Ronald

Reagan did something amazing. He he said, I wish I had all the

atheist over at the White House and put together an exquisite

meal, the finest foods, the most amazing, just delicacies you

could ever have, and then give a speech and tell them there is a

chef, Amen. Like when you look at the night

sky and you see the storms and you think of the wonders of the

world. You saw this giant hurricane.

You said, man, the power of God and the same God that's control

of all that thing, everything you see, he can be trusted with

your life. Amen.

That's what I see when I see the creation.

You have those mountain top experiences.

You go down and you just maybe in the Rockies or we've traveled

to Machu Picchu and you're just like, wow, you turn the corner.

The guy goes, this is those. This is going to be an OG

moment. You turn the corner like, whoa,

wow, I'm so small, but thank you Jesus that I'm your handiwork

that that I'm in your work. Like this is what you're using

today is US. He's going to use us.

Amen. If you're willing to step out on

faith and say yes, there are so many people that we we know that

needs Jesus in our city. There's so many people just like

Tanya. They're walking through

hardship. What if, what if you would open

your hands and say, I'm going to write the next generation of

stories. I'm going to be the person of

faith that God help me that they talk about in the future.

Like we're going to be the church that they look back and

say, thank God they got it right and we continue to do it right.

Amen. To be led by the Spirit, to be

humble, to make his name famous, to lower ourselves and to be

outrageously generous because we trust God.

So Father, come before you. God help us to have open hands

and open hearts. How many would say as Jesus

followers that God is speaking to you?

Just to be bold in faith that we'd stop counting on ourselves,

but start counting on God and that we trust that we're as

handiwork and just like God to control the universe is control

of me. And so God, I trust you and I

know God's calling me to fire. I need to step out.

If that's you and the Holy Spirit speaking you just raise

your hand in this place. Say that to you today to hands

across all this room. God, thank you so much for

speaking in your power. Thanks for these examples of

faith, God. We know these are humans, God,

and what you did in their life you can do in our life as well.

But God, we give you glory. God, we trust you.

God, we humble ourselves to the point where you're in charge.

God teach us to obey, teach us to follow, and teach us to walk

by faith that we be a Church of people that are healed and

changed and the gospel goes out not because of our ability, but

because you are working through US.

I'll pray for one more good people.

That's just you. They recognize you need Jesus.

You heard the story, that free gift to salvation that comes to

you. And today, if you need Christ,

I'll tell you about Jesus. He's a sinless Son of God down

the cross for you. He's the one that took

everything, every wrong, every idle thought, everything that

you came in your mind that's far from God.

All the pride, every part of you, past, present and future.

He died for those. It is planned so He could give

you His presence. He can give you His grace.

He can give you a new identity. He can give you the Holy Spirit.

He can change you from the inside out.

Why? Because He has something better

planned for you. It's called the abundant life.

It's called His good works. He wants to change your family

legacy. He wants to change a culture and

a nation and a neighborhood. He wants to change you today.

He can do it through you when you humble yourself, not because

of your your ability because his finished work on the cross.

And so today if you need to call to God and say thank you so

much, what you did I could never do in a million lifetimes.

God, you're the one I need. If that's you today and you need

Jesus, we just raise your hands place not going to make it weird

to call you out, but if you need Jesus a day, we should raise

your hands. I need Christ and walk your

relationship with him today. So your hand.

That's why we do this, the gospel goes out.

If that's you and you raise your hand, just humble yourself and

just crowd to God, thank you so much for loving me, that you saw

me and you loved me. You died for me.

Why was you yet Sinner? God, I was helpless, I was

stranded, I was broken, I was doing my own thing, do my own

direction. But God, you cared enough for me

to send your Son to love me and die for me and set me free from

the power of sin. Oh thank you Jesus, thank you

Jesus come into my life and save me, make me new and I pray in

Jesus name and the church said Amen.

Come on, give it up for Jesus today.

Amen. Amen.

What a reminder of what bold faith can do.

It can make a difference in your life, it can change a people, it

can change a nation and it bold faith is what will change the

world. And so if that's you today, you

made that decision to say yes to Jesus.

We are excited for you. Let's give it up for them one

more time. And what God can do, I know he's

done so much in my life and we believe he can do so much in

yours. And so we want to walk with you

in this journey. If you made that decision today,

we would love to help you take that next step.

And one way you can do that, if you take out that connection

card on your chair, you can check the box that says I'm

committing my life to Jesus. You can drop it in the bucket.

You can take it out to the new here booth.

We want to send you a little book called Begin this week to

help you say, what is my next step with Jesus?

But your journey with Jesus, it starts today.

It starts right now, so on your way out of the worship center,

we have a red bag you can grab that.

It's got a Bible in there, some resources to help you grow and

take that next step to know Jesus more.

And we would love nothing more than to be walking alongside

with you in this season for you. I also want to talk to those of

you who are newer at REAL Life or new today.

Thank you so much for being here.

I hope that God spoke to you today.

I hope that you got a word from him.

And I hope that he's moving in your heart, that you were so

welcomed and encouraged. That's our heart for you today.

But we would love to see you back again.

And it would be awesome to see you again, right?

Would we love to see him back again next week?

Yeah, so awesome. Hope you felt welcomed.

The only thing we asked from you today is we would love for you

to introduce yourself to us. And so same connection card on

your chair. If you check that box, it says

it's my first time here, second time here, just right.

I'm newish in the little box down there.

We would love to connect with you out at our new here booth.

We have somebody there to greet you who will welcome you.

We have some gifts and just some information to get you

connected. But me and we would love to get

to know you to get to see how why God brought you here and how

we can walk alongside you and your journey in real life.

And next, I just want to take a moment.

We're in a big season for real life.

We are taking a big step of faith that requires a bold

faith. And so I want to take just a

minute as we are leaning into what this difference maker is

going to look like and be. I want you to also take on a

chair nearby you is this difference maker commitment

card. I want you to find this card.

I want you to put it in your hand, take it out, hold it here

because I want to take a moment just to kind of explain how it

works and how we're going to use it as we get near to our

commitment Sunday. So while you have this card in

your hand, I want you to check out this video that it walks you

through the commitment card. Our primary goal and Difference

Maker initiative is not about dollars.

It's actually all about discipleship.

It's about faith that our giving is reflection of our heart.

So we're asking you to step out and bold faith as 100%

participation together. It'll take all of us linking

arms and choosing to be a difference maker.

On the back of your commitment card, you'll see a different

types of gifts that we believe it will take for us to reach

this God size goal. Take your time, pray and see

what the Lord would have you to give.

And let me encourage you. Let's take a bold step of faith

together. But listen, I don't want you to

give a penny more than God asks you to give, but also don't want

you to give a penny less. I'm asking you to hear from God.

Here's how the commitment card works.

There's a section on annual giving.

This is what you regularly give in ties and offerings below that

is expanded giving. This is what you're prayerfully

commit to above and beyond in the Difference Maker Initiative.

This goes directly towards reaching our $1 million goal

over the next two years. Add those numbers together and

multiply by two and that's your full 2 year commitment.

There's also a powerful third category.

It's called stored resources. And for some of us, generosity

may not come only in regular income or earned income, but

from stocks, savings, and maybe even stuff.

Maybe it's an investment account.

Maybe it's a donor advised fund or ACD or inheritance.

Maybe it's land. It could be a savings account

that you've been storing up for that next adventure or toy or

asset. It could be a vehicle or

something valuable God has entrusted to you that in this

moment could be released and leveraged to fuel His Kingdom.

Imagine with me the impact if each of us looked at every

resource in our hands and asked Lord, how can I use this to make

an internal difference? Now this where it gets really

fun. On Commitment Sunday, November

16th, we will come together as one as a church family to turn

our cards. This will be a powerful moment

of unity and faith as we place our commitment cards for a Lord

together as one. You can also turn your card in

digitally. Also filling out after November

16th at one of our gatherings in our giving buckets.

And this where it's really exciting.

On Celebration Sunday, December 14th, we'll give our first gifts

toward Difference Maker. This will be the day we give our

stored resources and launch our initiative.

This will be the moment of worship, a moment of joy, a

moment of gratitude as we take our very first step together in

faith to raise money for our first permanent home and write

the next chapter of real life. This is our moment to make a

difference together, to move in faith and generosity and

boldness. And listen, we all do our part.

We won't just secure a building, we'll build a home where

prodigals return, we're lost peoples forever changed, and

where the gospel launches out to the world for generations and

generations to come. So I invite you be bold and join

us as we make a difference together.

I'm encourage you to take this with you today.

Take it home and pray and fast and ask the Lord what He would

have you to do. He's going to give you a number.

We can't give you a number. I can't tell you what to do.

Diane. How much should I give?

I don't know, you got to go to the Lord with this, but the

goal, like it said in there is 100% participation.

Whatever we have in our hand, God asked us with a bold faith

to say yes to him. And you know what?

It's something that's really cool is over the last couple of

weeks, some of you had already said yes to giving to God.

Last week we had three brand new givers to real life and the week

before we had three more than that.

So last couple weeks, 6 new people saying, you know what,

yes, I want to be a part of what God is doing here.

I have a bold faith to say yes, that he is calling me to be a

part and to participate in this. And so I want you to take this

card two weeks from today is our commitment Sunday where we're

going to turn these cards in. You have two weeks to pray, to

fast, to ask of the Lord, say, Lord, what would you have me do

to be a part of prodigals coming home?

And so for each of you who already gives it real life,

thank you. You saw the fruit of your giving

today through Tanya's story. And there's so many more stories

like that. But if you call real life home,

there is a lot of ways that you can give.

They're on the slide behind me. You can give them the buckets as

they pass. There's a box in the back you

can give online, you can text to give, but we pray that you will

be prayerfully considering how you can be a part of this

difference maker initiative. And lastly, if you or your

family find yourself in immediate need of food,

clothing, or shelter, if you would reach into the buckets as

they pass by, grab any loose cash that you see.

We want to be a blessing to you and your family during the

season of need for you. Thank you.

Man, can we get it for God how He's just moving in everybody's

life today, whether you have a story on a video or just you

share in a life group, man, we love hearing those stories.

Hey, I want to let you guys know about something coming up.

Awesome next week. So this is a moment we love to

do every year and it's going to be child dedication Sunday.

So what that looks like and what that is, is this is an

opportunity for for families to come up on stage and just take

their most precious resource, that blessing that God's given

them and that's their children. And so this is for children of

any age. They don't have to be just for

babies. But if you've never made that

step, we're talking about generosity.

We talk about making a difference.

It starts at home, right? And so whether it's my money or

my time, the most important thing that guy gave me or my

children. So that step of faith of coming

up here and having a team, Sean and, and elders just pray over

you as a family for wisdom and guidance.

And what an awesome opportunity to give back to God what he's

giving you. The most important thing in your

life that that you have is your children.

So we'd love for you guys to sign up.

You can go on the vents page. You can hit this QR code and

that's it. Next, next Sunday at here real

life of both gatherings. So hey, if you need prayer for

any reason, we would love to pray with you here, either as

individuals or family. Can't wait to see you guys again

next week at 9:00 or 10:45. And as always, remember, whoever

finds Jesus discovers real life and purpose.

See you guys next week. This is the end of this podcast.

We hope you've enjoyed it. If you have, be sure to hit the

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podcast. For more great content and

updates, visit reallifechurchkc.com.