The Locker Room | You Qualify | Chad Bruegman

Uh let's do this.

Let's say hi to everyone at the Mo City campus and the West End campus and everyone watching with us online and let's do this.

Let them let them hear us, guys.

All the men at God behind bars at our Rams unit.

We love you, gentlemen.

Such an honor to get to worship with them week in and uh week out.

So uh as many of you know who were here last week, we are in a series that we've titled The Locker Room.

If you missed last week, no worries, but I do want to challenge you to go back and listen to uh the first message.

But let me just quickly uh catch you up if you did miss.

Um the whole premise of this series was number one, it's football season, and I love me some football, so I'm gonna connect God and football together.

Uh but uh most importantly is simply this is uh the church, um, especially in modern times, and this isn't on purpose, and I think it's been done a bit unwittingly with the best of intentions, but the church sometimes, as big as they've gotten, and as beautiful as the buildings are, and as vast as the amenities are that can sometimes come with uh churches like ours, we can show up to church and there's full crowds and there's lights and cameras and great music, and uh it can feel more like the football field than it feels like the locker room.

And the local gathering that we do once a week on Sundays was never intended to look like or be the football field.

The football field, let me remind you, is out there.

It's the worlds we live in, it's the jobs you go to, it's the schools you drop your kids off of, it's the sports leagues that you find yourselves in with your kiddos, it's out there doing what you do in the real world.

Jesus didn't say uh come into the church and make disciples.

He said, Go.

Go into all the world.

And the reason we have the locker room, that's why in week one I did a message called suit up.

Because if you go out into this world again for the next six days until we meet again and you don't have on the armor of God, man, we know what this world is like.

It's gonna beat you up.

We want you protected, we want you provided for.

When I talk about suit up, I'm really talking about one of the reasons we gather in the locker room is to remind ourselves who we are.

A good coach before a game always gets up in front of the team and reminds them who they are.

So they go out and they play with some confidence, right?

So we did this series called the locker room to remind us: hey, there's a specific reason that we come here to gather, but make no mistake about it.

The the real Christian life is not in here once a week.

That'll just become religious duty, and none of us want that.

The real Christian life is out there amongst the people.

Living not of this world, of course, but living in this world.

And so today we're gonna talk about that more.

What it looks like to, after we suit up, to go out into our world and proclaim the gospel and participate with God and his bigger story and help make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, in the name of Jesus, in the name of the Holy Spirit, baptizing them.

That's what we've been kept here to do because the Bible says it is God's will that none should perish.

And so we're gonna talk about this word, and it's a really big word because it has big implications when it comes to who we are as followers of Jesus Christ.

We're gonna talk about this word evangelism.

If that word's new to you, I think even if you've not been in church more than two minutes, uh, you kind of probably have an idea about this word evangelism, right?

It's Tim Tebow with John 3.16 on his thigh things, you know, before the game.

No, it's so much more than that.

Evangelism simply means to herald the good news, to proclaim the good news.

And we'll see today, sometimes that's with words, and a lot of times it's with actions.

You guys remember that quote: preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words.

We're gonna look at that uh today, but I don't know about you.

I grew up as a church kid in the 80s, whether I wanted to be there or not, I was in church multiple days a week, all of the time.

And when I would hear the word in the 80s, evangelism, here is the first image that came to my mind.

Look at that right there.

That's what I thought of when I thought of evangelism.

The late great Dr.

Billy Graham, and man, so much honor and love for Billy Graham and how God used him in unique ways that the world had never seen before this guy came on the scene.

But that's what I thought.

I was like, uh, the evangelists are the people that fill the Yankee Stadium with uh 75,000 people and preach this powerful, clear gospel message that is anointed by God, and then thousands of people at the end would come down onto the field, and Billy Graham would pray what we've now made up as the sinner's prayer, and uh so many thousands of people in just one night would give their life to Christ and praise God for the evangelists like Billy Graham, and I do praise God for the evangelists like Billy Graham.

But you know what Billy Graham reminded us of before he died, and what he would be screaming to us from heaven if he could this morning when it comes to evangelism?

He said, Yes, I proclaimed the gospel technically to more people than anyone ever has had the privilege to do in the history of the world.

But I hear bit I hear Dr.

Graham saying, but don't miss this.

It was just a drop in the bucket if you just do simple math compared to the eight some billion people that are currently on planet Earth.

Yes, I got to reach millions.

No, none of us in here as individuals will ever come close to anything like that.

But he would say, Listen, what I did, God is always gonna call some great, unique men and women of God to do what I did.

But the ultimate hope for the world to know Jesus is that each believer takes it upon themselves to say, I am a witness, I am a participant, I am a player on this team.

And I don't just suit up so I can protect myself, I suit up so I can go there and be uh ready and available and open to however and whoever God wants to use in my life so that I can testify, I can evangelize about the good news of Jesus Christ and what he's shown me in my life.

Evangelism isn't just for the Billy Graham's, it's for every single one of us.

Now, last week, again at the end, I gave a teaser for this week and I ended with a quote and I said we would start with that.

And so here's the quote I showed last week.

It's from Mother Teresa.

She said this.

I love this quote.

She said, You and I are the pencil in the hand of a writing God.

You and I are all a part of how God is choosing to tell his story.

The Apostle Paul, some 2,000 years before she said that, said the exact same thing, only in his own words.

He said this, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20.

2 Corinthians 5:20

We, everyone say we, we are therefore Christ's, here's the word, ambassadors.

As though God were making his plea through us.

You know what an ambassador does.

We have them in our nation, right?

They are envoys or messengers that are sent by a greater authority than themselves to other people, other nations to do and speak on behalf of the United States of America, right?

Namely the president.

They don't speak about their opinion, they don't speak about their personal politics, they go there simply to deliver the message that is coming to that particular part that they're an ambassador to from a greater authority.

And Paul's saying, you and I are Christ's ambassadors.

Live your life as if he is making his appeal through you.

You're speaking for, not the president, you're speaking for the greatest authority in the history of the world because he's the creator of the world.

Now, here's what both Mother Teresa and the Apostle Paul were trying to get at when they used language like that, and it's this.

I want you to hear this today.

Your story.

Everyone, every campus, men at God Behind Bars, listen to me.

Your story, your life, your testimony is meant to play a role in God's bigger story.

This Bible is done being written from Genesis to Revelation.

Here's how we'd say it in the Christian world: the canon has been closed.

This book is finished.

But listen to me, God's story is far from finished.

I would put it this way there's 66 books in the Bible.

We now, the Ecclesia, the Gathering, the Church, we are the 67th book of the Bible.

But no pressure, y'all.

Right?

Like I remember hearing language like that when I was a newer believer.

And here's what I thought the first time I remember this.

I don't know the exact words, but I remember the first time I was in my early to mid-twenties.

I was just submitted my life and heart to Jesus Christ.

And I started reading the Bible like crazy.

And I remember the first time I read that verse that Paul said, We are Christ's ambassadors.

As though he was making his appeal through us.

Here was the conversation I had with God when I read that in my head.

Wait, what?

Me?

Like God, I've been a follower of yours for two minutes.

And prior to those two minutes, I was an absolute train wreck.

I was a walking idiot, God.

That's why I put my faith in you.

That's why I surrendered to you.

I can't, you can't make your appeal through me.

Give me some time.

I gotta learn some things.

I gotta figure some things out, right?

But listen to me.

You are already, if you were like me back in the day, just giving your life to Christ, you are already prepared by God to be his ambassador.

And here's why: because God's in the business of storytelling.

And every one of you, in the sound of my voice, has a story.

It's called your life.

And God wants the good of your life, the bad of your life, and one of the most effective tools in evangelism to other people who are far from God is being open about the ugliest parts of your life.

We are saved by grace and grace alone.

We have nothing to fear when it comes to the absolute ugliest and most difficult parts of our life.

That is something that the world needs to hear about.

Why?

Because then you can say, that's why I ran to Jesus.

That's why I humbled my heart to Jesus.

Because I have no other hope that I can put in than Jesus.

Like when we gather, let's just say the locker room was only meant for one thing.

If we just gathered to come here and do what we did earlier, which is sing about the awesome finished work of Jesus, that would be enough for a healthy gathering.

Now it's so much more than that, but your story is sacred to God.

And here's why.

Because you're sacred to God.

Because all of human life is sacred to God.

And when I'm talking about evangelism, that's what I'm talking about.

Share your life.

And at the right times, you will get an opportunity to share your story.

And you may just think, well, it's just my story, I'll tell you, but what's the power in that?

No, when you share the good, the bad, the ugly, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the highs, the lows, the beauty, the brokenness, when you start to share that with people, you have the Holy Spirit in you that is energizing those words more than you will ever even know while you're having that conversation.

It is doing something to that other person that's hearing your story more than you'll probably visually see or realize.

And when we start to trust that man, evangelism goes from being intimidating and scary to being fun.

And so I was thinking back to when I first heard that, therefore, we are Christ's ambassadors, as though God was making his very appeal through us.

And I remember thinking of the mind games I had.

And so I'm just going to talk about three of them very practically because I think these are the three big ones that I personally felt and that I have seen amongst a lot of my friends that struggle and are scared to put themselves out.

They'll do a lot of things, they'll serve better than anyone, they'll contribute more than anyone, but just don't make me talk to anyone about my faith.

I can't do that, and I would say wrong, you can.

But the biggest one, I'm gonna give you three points.

I'm a good pastor, I'm gonna give you three points, and we'll end with a poem.

Alright?

You guys go with that?

The first one, and I think this is the biggest mind game, and it is not true.

So let's dismantle this lie, and it's this God, I'm not qualified.

I remember feeling that.

I still sometimes struggle with that mind game every now and then.

God, I'm not qualified.

So let's just let's dispel that notion real fast.

Let's go straight to the word of God.

This is our first pastor, the first pastor and leader of the church when it was birthed, the Apostle Peter.

He says this, I want you to hear him saying this as a pastor.

This is a suit-up talk that he's given.

I I'm not gonna do it because I'm not a good actor, but I wanted to get up here and memorize this and quote it like a coach would say in the locker room.

Because, like I said, every good coach before the game will remind the team who they are.

And this is what our pastor Peter's doing.

He says, But you are a chosen people.

You're not better than everyone else.

Don't get it twisted, church.

We don't want to be the people known for thinking we're better than everyone else.

We're just chosen.

And it's God's will that none should perish.

Let's go and uh let's go and invite people to be chosen.

Let's go and find the chosen, right?

You're a chosen people.

You qualify.

You're a royal priesthood, not just a priesthood.

You qualify to minister to people, to share your life, to share your story, and every now and then when God wants, share some words.

You are a holy nation.

This should make us so humble in how we treat uh non-believers, because the only reason we are uh holy in God's eyes and can stand before Him someday when He judges the living and the dead is that our holiness comes from the holiness of Christ.

Nothing more and nothing less.

We are a holy nation.

You qualify.

You are God's special possession, you qualify.

Why are we all these things?

He says, so that you may do what?

Declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into this wonderful light.

Once he says you were not a people, but now you are the people of God, the gathering, the church, the ecclesia.

Once you would not receive mercy, but now you have received mercy.

He says, Dear friends, I love that.

He's a pastor.

And I'm saying to us, as one of your pastors, I'm saying, dear friends, and I mean that sincerely, he says, I urge you.

Do you hear that?

He's saying there's urgency in what I'm about to tell you.

And he says, there's two things that here make a really healthy locker room.

There's two things that make a really strong team.

The first one is this I urge you as foreigners and exiles, right?

Jesus said, This world is not our home.

We are to be in it, but not of it, right?

He says, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to do what?

Abstain from sinful desires.

Here's why.

Because they wage war against your soul.

Today's not about that, it's about evangelism, which he'll get to next.

But let me camp there for just a minute and just say this disclaimer.

A healthy church, a healthy gathering.

If we're going to be healthy here at River Point and West End, we have to talk about sin.

Not because God's the big stickler in the sky.

Not because he's sending you to the Sunday gathering to beat you over the head.

Not because he's the cosmic killjoy who's trying to ruin your party down here.

We have to talk about sin because at the end of the day, it wages war against your soul.

And God is the God of your soul.

He's the God who wants to protect your soul.

He's the good father that wants to shepherd over you.

And so, yes, we got to talk about that.

But then listen to the second thing he says when he says, I urge you.

He says, I urge you, live such good lives among the pagans.

That sounds like a really mean word, right?

That simply was an ancient word for what we now say non-believers.

Most translations say Gentiles.

It's that simple.

He says, Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds.

Not hear your good words.

They may see your good deeds, and then they'll what?

Glorify God on the day that He visits us.

So much of evangelism, my friends, is simply this: it's living good, honest lives.

And you are qualified to do that because good and honest lives do not mean perfect lives.

It doesn't mean that you are the Michael Jordan of behavior compared to those pagans out there.

It doesn't mean that you've got it all together now.

And so you qualify to be God's ambassador.

If he was waiting for us to qualify from behavior to be his ambassadors to make his appeal through us, we'd be just here for thousands and thousands of more years.

That's a bad business plan, right?

But that's not that's not what he's saying here.

He's just simply saying, like, love people well, serve people well, show people that deserve wrath because of what they've done, show them mercy.

The same thing Christ showed us.

There is nothing more evangelistic than when you, by the power of God, give somebody what they least deserve, but you know they most need it.

When you forgive someone, when they least deserve it, but you know they most need it, you are doing what Christ did for you.

You are showing to the world that we are people of mercy, not judgment.

Another one of our first pastors, James, he would say that in his writings.

He would say, Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Let me remind you, I know you know this, but let me remind you, God is coming back to judge with total justice the living and the dead.

We can all put down their gavels.

God gave us a lot of tools as believers.

A gavel was never one of them he handed to us.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

It's one of the greatest witnesses.

Do you know that uh King Solomon said this?

Uh he said, he says, when you show someone mercy, it's like you're putting burning coals over their head.

And that sounds violent and graphic.

It sounds mean, doesn't it?

That was simply an ancient expression that meant this.

When you show them or give them what they least deserve but most need, there will be a conviction that they're now gonna have to wrestle with, whether they say thank you to you or not for the for the kindness.

When we show something otherworldly to people, I think it is the most powerful act of evangelism because it does the first thing that needs to happen.

It starts to soften someone's heart, it starts to get them ready for when the the words of the gospel are actually preached to have soft enough soil to actually receive the seed of the word of the gospel.

You guys understand that?

You are qualified.

The second thing is this.

Well, I don't know enough.

You ever thought that?

I did.

That was the first thing I thought was, God, I'm a high school graduate barely.

God, I'm a college dropout.

I can't be your ambassador.

I would never hire me, God, to do that.

No disrespect.

But here's the good news.

Knowing enough is never enough.

You ever tried to argue someone into faith in Jesus?

How's that working?

Maybe it happens every now and then.

It's definitely the exception, not the norm.

I have never, I don't like someone arguing with me to get me to change.

Do you?

To get my heart to be open to what they're saying.

I don't like that.

We don't have to argue people into the kingdom of God.

In many ways, until the Holy Spirit, the Bible tells us, is drawing people, softening the heart in the way that only the Holy Spirit can, your argument is just loud noise.

It's a clanging symbol, Paul said.

A loud gong and a clanging symbol.

It says, but without love, we have nothing.

You don't have to know everything.

You just have to know your story.

And I always tell you guys this you have a PhD in your story.

Nobody knows your life and story better.

So tell all of it.

Get good at telling your story.

Get ready to tell your story.

Pray and ask God that He would allow you to tell your story.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

If you don't share the ugly, when are you going to show them why you needed Christ?

Say, God, give me the grace to tell my story the way I know it in my heart and my mind, because here's the truth.

This is an old adage, right?

A man with a testimony is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

A man with a testimony is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

I love this quote too.

It's cliched, but it's cliched for a reason.

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

So much of evangelism isn't what we think, it's not Dr.

Billy Graham on a massive stage.

Age.

It's you caring for people.

The people that would least expect you to give a rip about them.

Seeing them, noticing them, serving them, helping them.

God uses those things.

Those things are divine.

Like I literally, I don't know about you, I pray to God for divine appointments.

And I am telling you, He will answer that prayer.

That is a prayer he is excited to answer.

God, would you give me some divine appointments?

Would you put some people in my path that need my personality, that need my story, that need my way of saying it, that need my testimony is what drew me to Jesus Christ.

Would you put the ones in my path that need me to be that person for them?

Whether it's a stranger or whether it's a family member.

God, would you give me that opportunity?

I don't know enough yet.

Listen to what Peter says a chapter later.

He says, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to what?

Give a reason for the hope you have.

We all qualify for that.

You don't have to give answers for how old the earth is or how Jonah got in a whale and didn't die from the acids in the whale's belly.

You don't have to know all the ins and outs of eschatology and how this thing's gonna wrap up.

You don't have to have every scripture memorized and ready to go.

Look, all of those things are good if you ever get to the point in your faith where you also have some answers that you think are solid to that.

Great.

But all Peter, our first pastor, said was be ready to give an answer for what?

The hope that you have in Christ Jesus.

That's just you reciting your story.

That's you getting to the point where you you bowed a humble knee and a humble heart to Jesus and you tell them why.

Where did that hope come from?

What's changed?

For most of us, we still will have trouble and problems and trials and suffering, like all of the non-believers that we're encountering.

The only difference is there's a degree of hope that Jesus brought.

There's a degree of peace that Jesus brought.

There's a degree of trust in what you're walking through that Jesus brought.

There's a persevering spirit that we have because we know this world isn't the final end of the story.

Tell them about that.

That's the hope we have.

So let's dispel the mind games.

I'm not qualified.

You're absolutely qualified.

If you're two minutes into this Jesus thing, you're qualified.

Well, I don't know enough.

Yes, you do.

You know you.

You know your story.

You know how your and Jesus' story collided.

The third one is this, and this is a big one.

Well, I don't have my act altogether.

Come on, guys.

None of us do.

For all have sinned.

Memorize that if you want to use words when you evangelize.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But we can be justified, key word, freely by the grace and the redemption that came through Jesus Christ.

The reason, I'll say it one more time, that we all put our faith in Christ is because we didn't have our act together, and he perfectly did.

And so we let him ransom us from our own mess.

We let him be the substitute for us in our own mess, and he promised us over and over and over if we would believe.

It didn't say behave.

The disciples said to Jesus, John said, What must we do to do the works of him who called you, who sent you?

And Jesus says, to believe on the one he sent.

It doesn't say to behave on.

Listen, behavior always follows belief.

When you get it wrong, one of the greatest evangelism tools you have is to look at that non-believer and go, I just got it wrong.

Thank you, Jesus, that I'm not that it's not over.

Thank you that I get to try again.

Start again smarter.

And you can too, because that's how good and how big and how awesome and how wide and how broad the love of God is for every single human in Christ Jesus, if they will just believe in Christ Jesus.

There's a verse every church loves.

Every time I quote it, I hear this, oh, praise God, amen.

Yes, and I love it.

It's a beautiful verse, right?

Paul's talking about the thorn in his side, and he prayed God to take it away.

And God's response was, no, I'm not going to take it away.

He says, Paul, in your weakness, my power will be made perfect.

My grace is sufficient for you.

And that's where everyone goes, amen, hallelujah.

Preach, preach, and preach.

Right?

And we should.

But then we usually don't say what Paul says next.

He says, Therefore, based on that response God gave me, I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Guys, we don't have to pretend.

We don't have to put masks on and act like Ned Flanders.

Don't do that.

No one likes Ned Flanders.

Don't do that.

Go be you.

My big brother says this to me all the time growing up.

If you're not you, Chad, who will be?

Go be you unapologetically.

You get it right, help people get it right.

You get it wrong, humbly repent and tell people you got it wrong.

And then praise Jesus that although I got it wrong, he got it perfectly right, and I find my righteousness in him and him alone.

And you can too.

None of us are gonna have our act together enough to ever qualify or to ever know enough.

What God's asking for us is just a life submitted.

God doesn't call the qualified, we've all heard that, right?

He qualifies the called.

That's his job.

And he's in the business of qualifying people and equipping people and giving the people the words that they didn't have yesterday, that in that divine moment with that encounter, all of a sudden you have.

That's the power of God.

It's God's desire to do that because it's his will that none should perish.

So I love studying the Bible.

I love geeking out on all things theology, which is good.

You want your pastor to do that.

You want him to be a geek about that stuff.

I love it, but but can I tell you there was no seminary class I could have ever attended that taught me what I'm passing on to you today more than the story I'm about to tell you.

If you forget everything I just said, and I hope I hope you don't forget it all, but I know how we are.

Please don't forget what I'm about to tell you.

The single greatest lesson I ever learned as a pastor came from my alcoholic neighbor named Cliff.

That guy, since I knew him, spent his whole life that I lived next to him trying to destroy his life.

And no one has taught me more about what a church should be and what it shouldn't be than my drunk neighbor Cliff.

Let me explain.

Now, I told this story, a version of it, about three or some years ago when I was a guest preacher here.

Some of you may remember it.

I promise I'm working on new material, guys, but I will, I promise you, I will bring this story up when it's appropriate.

Maybe once a year.

Because it's foundational for me.

I'm not telling this one because I ran out of material.

I'm telling this one because it's foundational to me and to what I'm trying to get to the heart of what it looks like when we say the word evangelism.

So I move into our first home.

We had just moved there a few years before to plant a church in Denver, Colorado.

The cost of living there is absolutely stupid.

So our house wasn't the prettiest thing.

It's not like we didn't take pictures afterwards and like, we bought a home.

We weren't wanting to show anyone the home, but it was ours.

We were proud of it.

We were proud of it because it was ours, right?

We signed the 30,000 pages and eventually it was ours.

We almost didn't buy the house, though, and hear this.

For one reason, one reason only.

It was because of our neighbor.

When we went to look at that house, and some of you have lived next to this neighbor before, it's the house where the grass is this high and paint's falling off of the front of the house, and there's six cars in the driveway and in the street, and only one half of one works half the week.

You guys know I'm tired of you ever had that?

Don't raise your hand if you've had that neighbor.

Don't raise your hand.

And if you don't know that neighbor, maybe you're that neighbor.

That's not good.

Don't be that neighbor.

I'm saying don't be that neighbor.

But we almost didn't buy that house for that reason, because we were going, this isn't our forever home, at least we hope not.

This is our get started home, and we hope to have a bigger family and maybe a little nicer house, if God willing.

And we know the resale game, right?

And we're like, even if we do a lot of nice things to our house, if they're our neighbor, it still might knock the worth of it down.

I'm not proud of that, but that's literally what we were thinking practically.

But by God's grace, the best thing that ever happened to me, we ended up taking that house.

And the day I was moving all of our stuff and I was with my bro, my big brother, and some of my best friends, and this would be the day I would get introduced to Cliff.

And I'm about to lift the desk and hand it down to my brother and another guy, and Cliff comes barging out the door so loud.

And he has on no shirt, and he's got on a really impressive beer belly.

And he's got very holy jeans, but not the kind you buy that are super trendy, the kind like I haven't had a new pair of jeans in a long time.

And this is the first words I ever heard from him.

This is how he introduced himself to me.

He goes, Hey, you're not gonna call the cops on me, are you?

And I'm literally sitting there holding the desk, and I didn't say this out loud, thank God, but I'm going, oh, I'm absolutely gonna be calling the cops on you.

If that's how you introduce yourself, there's a pattern here.

Yeah, I will be calling the cops on you.

I've got two young kids, right?

So uh several months later, I'm at work, I get a call from my wife, and she says, Cliff just backed out of his driveway and almost hit Jane, and she was tiny at the time.

Jude and Jade would play on this really pretty tree we had in our front yard.

And I am a new dad at this point, and for the first time that papa bear adrenaline came over me.

I hung up the phone and said, I'll be right home.

I'd beeline to my house, I get out of the car, I don't go to my house, I go right to Cliff's house, and I just bang on the door.

And this is one of the worst moments I've had as a pastor, maybe the worst.

I banged on the door, he opened it, and I said, Listen to me.

My wife told me that you've been driving drunk today, and I don't think you even realize this because you're drunk.

I said, But you almost backed into one of my kids.

You almost killed one of my kids, Cliff.

And I said, Cliff, listen, I'm gonna tell you something I haven't told you yet.

My wife and I, we are Christians.

And we have this value that we are supposed to love you as much as we love ourselves.

And Cliff, I am telling you, my wife and I can be really, really good neighbors to you.

But I'm gonna say this: if you ever drive drunk again when my kids are out front and you even get close to hurting them, I'm not coming over again and knocking on your door and yelling at you, and this was my horrible moment.

I said, I'm gonna come over here and I'm gonna kill you.

And I'm a lover, guys.

I'm not I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover, all right?

But that's my kids, right?

And and I and I I I walked off, and that's all I said, and I got into the house and I started pacing back and forth talking to God, right?

And a few minutes into it, I started to calm down.

I imagined the presence of God started to fill that living room, adrenaline started to relax, and I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Go tell him you're sorry.

And then the adrenaline's right back.

I will not tell him sorry.

I will not.

He needs to come over here and tell me sorry.

You go tell him, Holy Spirit, not that you go in that house, but you go tell him, Holy Spirit, to come tell me sorry.

And then I calmed down, same thing happens.

Go tell him sorry.

So I went over there and I said, Cliff, listen, man, you can't do that.

I have no judgments for you if you're drinking all the time.

I have no judgments.

I don't pretend to know what it's like to be you.

I got enough problems of my own, man.

But listen to me, I have to protect my kids.

You cannot drive drunk.

You cannot.

And I said, but listen, regardless of that, nobody deserves to be talked to like that.

And I was wondering if you would forgive me.

And I feel like when I said, Would you forgive me?

He sobered up for the first time I think I'd ever seen him.

Something changed.

And I would eventually get to know more and more of Cliff's story.

And I realized when I said, Would you forgive me?

This guy has spent a lifetime asking for forgiveness and never having anyone apologize to him.

Something softened in his heart just by me saying, Would you forgive me?

I don't like what you did, but I know who you are.

You're human.

You have value.

May not look like it externally right now, but we don't judge by appearances.

We judge by the heart.

And God fearfully and wonderfully knit Cliff together in his mother's womb.

And eventually we had this tradition where he'd sit in the garage with me after I mow the lawn and he'd drink a beer and I'd have a diet coke and uh, you know, good pastor.

And we would just talk, I would just listen, he would just talk, drunk most of the time.

And over time our conversations would just get a little bit deeper.

And at one point, about three years into living there, he points over about 20 feet to his kitchen window from my garage, and he says, See that right there, Chad?

I'm like, Yeah, he goes, When I was 10 years old, I walked into my house from being outside playing, and my mom was on the ground.

She had a needle in her arm.

And I'd seen that before, but this time was different.

Because she never got up.

Said, I saw my mom that day and she was dead.

And then he just started going on with other conversation, and in my mind, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we gotta circle back here, Cliff.

This is a big one.

And then he went on talking, and then I was processing later, and God was teaching Pastor Chad about humanity and about church and about evangelism.

And one of the greatest lessons I ever learned was like, look, we don't have to love what everyone does, but I think we owe it to people that we want to witness to to hear some backstory.

I grew up with a mom I never heard cuss one time.

I grew up in that home.

I can't pretend to imagine or empathize with a guy who was the first responder to his mother's overdose and death.

You think that might stunt the emotional well-being of a 10-year-old kid?

You think that might draw someone later in life to maybe crack open a bottle a little too often, which creates so much other dysfunctional behavior?

Look, I didn't love his dysfunctional behavior.

It was an inconvenience to me, it was a frustration to the whole neighborhood, and it was ruining his life.

Let me be clear about that.

But you know what more importantly was?

Was like, I can't pretend to know what it's like for him to wake up every day and not want to do anything other than numb from reality.

And that I would learn later that he married one time and he's his wife, same thing, overdosed on drugs.

So, long story long, I got an even longer version, but I gotta get us out of here.

I want you to hear this.

There was a moment, three, four years in, to my time with Cliff, where I sat in our garage and he finally asked about Jesus.

Take notes, evangelist.

Four years.

Everything up to that was me helping mow his lawn.

My wife and I gave him a car.

My wife would cook him and his father meals.

I took him multiple times to go shopping so he could get some nice clothes to try and get a job.

We would go to Outback after the shopping spree, and to him that was a Michelin three-star.

Like it was a beautiful memory I'll always have with my buddy Cliff.

Finally got to say some words, and I got to tell him, Cliff, I'm no better than you.

If I've made you ever think that, I apologize.

I'm no better than you.

And I quoted Romans 3, for all of sin, falling short of the glory of God.

The only way we can be justified freely is through the grace and the redemption of Jesus Christ.

I never threw Bible verses at him before that.

I said, Cliff, here's what my faith believes the wages of sin is death.

All of us, death.

But the gift of God, the gift, is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

And I told him, Cliff, Romans 10.

I said, Cliff, listen, if you'll confess, and I got bold because I put four years into it.

And a car and some Outback stuff.

Like, if not now, when?

It's time for words.

He's seen the love and good deeds.

It's time for words.

I said, Cliff, it says, if if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus died for your sins and that God raised him from the dead on the third day, you shall be saved.

It's that easy, not because it's easy, it cost him everything, but it's a free gift to you, and belief is the only thing.

Do you believe that?

And with as much sobriety as I've ever seen, Cliff said yes, and I said, Let's pray together.

You want to receive Jesus?

He said yes, and we prayed together in my garage.

And I'm like, yeah, clap for Cliff.

I don't say that for me, I'm trying to say one example of how practical and simple and doable this is.

And a few months later, there's eight cop cars outside of Cliff's house.

And the protocol for Cliff was about two on a weekend.

So I knew something was off.

And my wife and I kept watching and watching, and then eventually an EMT truck pulled up, and I was like, oh man.

And then a little bit later, Cliff came out.

And he was in a body bag.

And you can ask my wife.

I started crying.

And it was crazy because I was like, Cliff was my friend.

He started out my enemy.

He started out with a first impression of almost hitting my daughter while drunk driving.

I'm supposed to never get near that man again, right?

And here's what God was teaching me as a pastor.

We had a really fast-growing church.

We could have so got on our high horse.

I could have gotten arrogant.

I could have been like, we're figuring this thing out.

Our locker room is massive.

It's getting so big, and there's cool lights and there's really good music.

And God's going, if the gospel doesn't work for Cliff, then the gospel doesn't work for anyone, Chad.

So get out of your little high horse at your fast-growing church and remember that it's a locker room.

The game's out there.

Cliffs aren't ever coming into your church, Chad.

But they're in your neighborhood, they're at your schools, they're people you work with, and they don't have to be dysfunctional alcoholics.

They can be CEO porn addicts that are on their fourth marriage.

And they're hurting women every time they get into the new marriage.

And they think that being the CEO gives them the right to be all these things because they got some trophies and plaques on the wall.

But what they really need to know is you can have something so much better, sir.

Thank you for employing me, but can I tell you you can have something so much better than what you've uh thought life is all about?

Let me introduce you to a better way.

And you don't have to quit being your CEO to do it.

You can do it together for the glory of God.

Let me tell you about that, right?

And that's what a church that's healthy is we gather here to get equipped to go out there and do works of service for lost people that are far from God.

Because lost people have and will always deeply matter to God.

Peter, our pastor, said this as well.

It is God's will that none should perish.

So we already know his will.

I don't know how all the perishing and non-perishings, I that's not my job to referee, but what I do know is while I'm alive and while you're alive, it's God's will that none do, and we should proceed as if none will.

Will some?

Absolutely.

Will have some?

Absolutely.

We don't have to worry about the numbers.

Our job is to simply go out and be ambassadors for Jesus Christ.

And so I end with this at every campus, I want you to hear me.

I want an initiative for this locker room.

I want us to play the game.

I want us to re-up on playing the game out there.

Some of you didn't come in expecting that, but this is what we gotta do if we're gonna be a church that makes the Lord smile.

What if all of us, some six, seven thousand on a weekend, well about six thousand because the Texans are playing again now, but uh, I'm kidding.

Cheap shot.

What if for the next 365, as many people as genuinely want to would pray this prayer with me right now?

God, in the next year, would you send me my cliff?

It might be a CEO, it might be a mom you partner with on the PTA.

It might be a dad that you're assistant coach with on your son's T-ball team.

Okay, it could be a teacher in your school that you just love, they've been good to your kids, but you just want to serve them and love them, and at some point, if God so chooses, you have that divine appointment.

What if we all just say, God, will you show me my cliff in the next year?

Because if if every church today just said, prayed that prayer honestly, Billy Graham's, God bless them, wouldn't really be that necessary.

Because the church was always collectively supposed to be that to the world.

But we've started to send this accidental message that get them to the locker room.

And then they'll know Jesus.

Even fast-growing churches, if you just do the math, ain't getting enough people to the locker room.

Biggest church in the world ain't getting enough people to the locker room.

Because we were never supposed to say the locker rooms where the biggest evangelism happens.

It'll happen here for sure.

But we come here to suit up and then go out.

And so if you're with me, don't raise your hand, don't stand up.

This is private, but if you're praying this genuine, I think we're gonna see in the next year God do something really special in our little plot of land in Sugarland, in Richmond, and uh Missouri City and in downtown and all the other Rosenberg and all the other places you crazy people come from.

Right?

God's gonna do something special and it's gonna be real and it's gonna be organic and it's gonna be beautiful.

And man, when you start to have a cliff in your life, it is a game changer for you.

So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, God, we are asking as a church, as your gathering here at River Point in West End, that God, you would be kind enough to send us a cliff.

Whoever that person looks like, whatever background in life, send the people, God, that each of us can most and best minister to.

Show us who those people are.

Put it on our hearts, God.

Give us a burden for those people.

Send us uh the person that's gonna make us weep over their situation, that's gonna make us wanna give our resources towards their life because we love them that much, we believe it that much, God.

God, awaken our souls to do something uh so much bigger than our own lives, to get outside of ourselves and to, again, re-up on telling the bigger story, God.

Invigorate us, challenge us, God, and then thank you that you will empower us to have the right words and the right wisdom at just the right time for your glory.

God, we ask this as a church, we pray for this as a church, and we believe that this is going to happen, God, as a church.

Just keep teaching us, God, what your story and what your mission looks like.

We pray all of this and ask this in the matchless, mighty, saving name of Jesus.

And everyone said, Amen.

God bless you all.