Go Jesus

This is already an amazing day.

And I am so glad you guys are here.

You know, if you're here for the very first time, I want to say welcome.

Um, probably should have said that earlier, but um my bad.

But we want you to know first and foremost a couple things if you are here for the first time.

Number one, we love you because we love people.

That's that's that's our mission.

We exist to love people to Jesus, and and we say that very purposely because we believe with conviction that the answer for life is Jesus, that it's not something that we need, it's someone, and that someone is Jesus.

And when you know him and when you're connected to him, and when you put your life under him, like you give him your life, it takes on a whole new meaning.

And so we get together every single week to celebrate this man named Jesus, God in the flesh, who came for us, who died for us, and who lives within us through the Holy Spirit.

And we come here together to celebrate that and to learn week in and week out how we can live the life that he's really carved out for us.

It's exciting.

And so we're glad to have you with us today.

Um, we're gonna do something a little different today.

It's not like a normal Sunday.

Last Sunday we finished up a series called Blessed.

We've been going through Ephesians chapter one, kind of got through the first half of that last week.

Next week, we start a brand new series called The Essentials, and it's gonna be the second half of Ephesians chapter one, so be here for that.

That's what we'll be doing this summer.

So excited about that.

Today's kind of its own thing, though.

Today we're gonna be talking about our mission as a church and one specific aspect of our mission that we really kicked off at the beginning of this year.

It's not very often that we get together to talk about us as a church, as a whole, but it's important that we do that because yes, we are individuals, but we are a family.

We are united.

You know, I've spent most of my life wanting to be part of something bigger than myself.

I think that's natural.

I think that that's normal, right?

We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves because if we have any wisdom within us, we recognize that individually, we're not that big.

But if you belong to Jesus, you're part of the greatest movement this world has ever seen.

You're part of a movement that has changed more lives than could possibly be counted.

And so together, we're family.

We are what the Bible calls the body of Christ, which means we get to be the ones who do his work in this world.

In fact, the Bible says very clearly in Ephesians 4 that my job, that the job of church leadership is to equip God's people to do God's work.

So God's got work for us to do.

We're here not just for ourselves to grow, which we absolutely are, but we're here to do something together.

So it's important for us to talk about our mission.

And like I said a few moments ago, our mission is pretty simple.

It's to love people to Jesus, but for the last several years, we've had these three G words that have guided us in that, that have been sort of our focus.

How are we gonna love people?

And it's the words get, grow, and give.

As we've said for years, we want this to be a place where people get the love of Jesus.

We want this to be a place where people grow in the love of Jesus.

We want this to be a place where people give that love back.

And this this last year, the beginning of this year rather, we added a fourth word.

Another, we went 4G for the first time.

We're a 4G church now.

It's good.

Um and it's the word go.

So now we say, hey, our mission is to love people to Jesus, and to do that, there's four things that have to happen.

People have to get it, they've got to grow in it, they have to have a desire to give it, and they've got to go out and take it with them.

And so, go, that that's the new word, but to be fair, it's not really that new.

It's not an outside-of-the-box word to add in in Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Jesus is about to leave his disciples.

He's about to ascend to heaven.

And Jesus says this right before he goes.

These are kind of his parting words.

It's verse 18 in Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

It says, Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So again, it's not novel for us to add the word go to our mission because Jesus made that pretty clear.

Hey, go.

He said go.

And it's kind of crazy to think about the fact that Jesus gave his disciples a global mission before anyone could have even thought to go global.

Right?

He didn't mean, hey, I want you guys to put this out there on podcasts and videos, I want you guys to really, you know, hit the like button on your social media, let's really get the message out there, let's go global.

No, this literally meant the disciples were going to need to physically travel to places they had never been, languages they did not speak, people groups they did not understand to bring the message of Jesus to the world.

But they did that.

And here we are today.

And so from the beginning, from the beginning of this Jesus movement, Go has been a big part of the mission.

And this year we said this is the year that his hands needs to go.

This is the year that his hands needs to kind of get going.

And so we've been doing that.

And one of the biggest, one of the biggest things we're doing as part of that that Go mission is going further than the borders of our community.

We love our community, we serve our community, we love doing things in this community, but but Jesus told us to go to all nations, and so this year we knew that it was time for us to do that.

And so for the very first time, we we have we have people, we have a team that's focused on taking the message of Jesus and the love of Jesus that is so prevalent in this place beyond even the borders of our own country.

And it's really cool how this all happens, because like, does anyone here ever know what it feels like to not know what you're doing?

Like, is that is that am I alone in that?

I I don't know what I'm doing.

I want you to know that.

That should make you either afraid or or happy.

I don't know.

Um, because like I don't know what I'm doing.

So it's it's funny.

Last Sunday, who's here last Sunday, just out of curiosity.

Last Sunday was awesome.

You you know, like it was just it was electric because the Holy Spirit was all over this place.

It was awesome.

Had so much fun last Sunday.

And if you weren't here last Sunday, you know, you should really come on Sundays.

Um, because you missed it.

I'm just joking.

No, but if you weren't here, we talked about the Holy Spirit and what it's like to encounter the Holy Spirit and have an experience with God that is so real that you go from someone who's like, Yeah, I believe in God, to someone who says, No, I know God is real because he's done something in me and it's undeniable.

And so we talked about that, what it's like to experience the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

And a good buddy of mine named Dave sent me a text.

He's like, hey man, great message, and it's so cool the way you worked it out that that was on Pentecost Sunday.

And uh, if you don't know the story in the Bible, Pentecost was this day shortly after Jesus left, and it's the day that the Holy Spirit came upon God's people in a powerful way, and that's really like it was like the ignition moment of the Jesus movement.

And I was like, awesome, except I had no idea it was Pentecost Sunday.

I had no clue.

I mean, literally, like I planned these messages out months ago, and I'm looking through the scripture, and you know, we're we're going through the Bible, so we kind of let the Bible tell us what we're gonna talk about, and so I knew that this week was gonna be the Holy Spirit, or last week rather, and I had no clue.

I'm not a calendar guy.

I've forgotten my wife's birthday before.

Like, I don't even know what date it is unless I look at a calendar.

So I'm like, I had no idea.

You know, I don't know what I'm doing.

But that's the beautiful thing about following God, is he knows what he's doing, and it means you don't have to know what you're doing nearly as much as you think you do.

Because God will orchestrate things and he will bring things together, and this whole mission thing, it happened that way.

And if you want to know the whole story, I encourage you to go back and listen to the message at the end of January.

It's entitled Go.

You can find it on our podcast, on our website, on the mobile app.

Because I really went in on to all the intricacies, all the details.

But God, through some really crazy circumstances that are far too amazing to be coincidence, just far too amazing.

He connected us to a ministry called Hope Chest.

And God has a sense of humor, by the way, with the ministries he connects us to.

As a church, we support a lot of ministries.

We work together with people.

We do not need our name on everything.

If we find someone that's doing an amazing job and something we feel called to be involved in, we want to come alongside them and help them accomplish their vision rather than just start our own version of it.

And so God connected us to this missions organization called Hope Chest.

And I say he has a sense of humor because we have a Hope Quest that we work with, a Hope Chest that we work with, we have a ministry called One Need that we work with.

And last week we started a partnership with an organization called One Race.

And so we've got One Race, One Need, Hope Chest, and Hope Quest.

And I think if there's a ministry out there called One Hope, we need to find them and we just start working with them like right now.

So if you know of some, I don't even know what they do, but if there's a One Hope out there, we should probably, I bet there is, by the way, we should probably find them and say, hey, do you need our help?

Because it seems like this is a God thing.

And so God connected us to Hope Chest.

And I got to know them and we started talking and we knew that we wanted to do work with missions.

We wanted to go beyond our borders.

This was about three years ago that he started laying the groundwork for this.

And we assembled a team, and really quickly, really quickly, God made it clear to us that we should go to Guatemala.

That's one of the countries they work in.

And uh, and so we started doing that.

We started working toward that.

And last October, myself and a small team of people here from his hands, we all went to Guatemala.

We got a chance to meet a lot of amazing people, and we were there for a specific purpose.

We were there to find a ministry, to find a group of people that we wanted to partner with, that we wanted to come alongside, and we saw we saw a variety of places.

We saw a variety of different groups with different missions.

We had to ask them a ton of questions.

We had this amazing team of people, like like Tessa Hilton, who, or Tessa, I'm so sorry.

Tessa Bost, okay, I've Tessa, I've known you since you were a kid.

You were Tessa Hilton and you got married and your last name's not Hilton anymore.

And Patrick, that's offensive to you as her husband.

I'm sorry.

Just I need you to forgive me.

Or can you will you forgive me?

You need some time?

Okay, take your time.

All right, that's good.

So Tessa Bost, she's who leads our mission team.

She's amazing.

You guys get a chance to meet her.

She was there and she's like, she is awesome.

Um we'll pray for you in a minute.

But Tessa is this incredibly sweet, engaging person, and when we're there, she's just like engaged with the children, and they're loving her and they're surrounding her, and she's having a blast, and everyone's drawn to her.

And then we had like Eric Broll, Eric, I see you there.

Eric, less less engaged with the kids.

I'm gonna be honest.

Like, you weren't dancing and stuff like that with the kids, but Eric, Eric was there, it was like shark tank for like ministry.

We would we would get into these meetings and we're talking with these different organizations, and I'm just blown away by all of them.

And Eric has like a thousand questions he's asking them.

You know, like like he's basically saying, Okay, so if your vision is this, that means that five years from now, you guys are really gonna have to figure this out.

What's your plan for that?

And they're like, ah, they're speaking Spanish, I didn't know what they were saying.

Um, but but it was we had this amazing team, and we were there and we were praying, God, show us who we need to work with, and he made it clear eventually.

At first it was very muddy, at first it was the opposite of clear.

We all had different groups that we were drawn to.

In fact, at one point we thought we were gonna be working with this this one group, and and we all felt drawn to them, but as time went on, several of us had the same exact uh thought that God was like, No, actually, I think this is the ministry that you need to work with, and it's this ministry in Guatemala called Centro del Canse Pueblito.

Everyone say that.

We just call them Centro for short, so that that makes it that makes it a lot easier.

So we work with Centro.

Guys, this ministry is amazing.

It's so amazing.

I had a chance to meet Mimi, the woman who runs it, Lorena, is this other woman who runs the specific center that we're working with.

I mean, I don't know if you've ever had this experience before where you think you're doing pretty well in something, and then you meet someone who's at a whole other level, you know, and it's it's it's humbling.

Like spiritually, I met these people and I'm like, oh, I have I need to grow like now.

Things need to happen in my life because the faith that these people have and the faithfulness that they have and the courage, guys, the courage, like, like, like what they do, they put their lives on the line to win the hearts of these children for Jesus and to make sure that these children in this community have a chance in life.

Just have a chance because life is very different in Guatemala than it is here.

This ministry is on the outskirts of Guatemala City.

Guatemala City is a very rough place.

It is an incredibly high murder rate.

25% of children born in Guatemala are born to adolescent parents, born to an adolescent girl.

And in the vast majority of those situations, it it's rape that is the cause of that pregnancy.

It's a very, very different world than the one we live in.

The area that we're working in on the outskirts of Guatemala City, the average person in this area has a third grade education.

And the nation is such that if you if you want to do anything of value, if you want to have any chance of getting outside of the slums, you have to have an education.

Like you have to.

If you don't have an education, if you don't graduate high school, you've you've gotten no shot.

But the dropout rate is enormous.

It's enormous.

These kids, they are often raised by a single mother who's very young with many children.

The public school system is very different than it is here.

They're only in school for a few hours a day.

The rest of the day they're on the street, they're trying to defend for themselves.

They are they are hungry.

A meal is not a guaranteed part of their day.

Because they're hungry and they're exposed, they're vulnerable, so they're vulnerable to being recruited by a gang because the gang can offer them some security, the gang can offer them some food.

They drop out of school, they get pregnant.

It's just this horrible cycle.

But Centro, this ministry that we're working with, they're there to solve the problem and they're doing work that is that is unbelievable.

They provide a safe place for these children.

And it's children from like preschool all the way through through high school that when these kids are not in school, which is the majority of their day, they have a place to go or they're loved, they're safe, they're fed, they get a meal.

They're educated.

People come alongside them to tutor them so that they don't fall behind in their classes.

Because if you have a single mom who only has a third-grade education, you don't have anyone at home who can help you keep up with your studies, and you're gonna drop out.

And if you drop out, you've just you've just sealed your future.

And so they have these tutors that come alongside the kids that they keep them educated, they teach them who Jesus is.

These kids love the Lord.

I'm telling you, these kids love the Lord, and they have hope, they have dreams.

See, when you're in survival mode and you're just wondering when you're gonna eat again, you don't dream about the future.

You dream about three hours from now if you can eat.

But when you're fed and you have safety and you have security, and you have people pouring into you, and you have people giving you the perspective of Jesus, you have the capacity to dream about your life, and you have the capacity to reach further than you ever would otherwise.

In Centro, they do this.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

I'll never forget when we went there for the first time.

We're we're in this very rough part of Guatemala City, and there's not a lot of nice parts of Guatemala City.

It's a pretty rough town, and and and we could tell though, we're in like a rough part of a rough town.

And so we're on this very busy street, and we pull up, and there's this little green building with this metal sliding door.

Like that that's the that's the building.

And it looks so innocuous.

It's this little tiny green building, literally like inches from a very busy road.

We go inside there, and we got a chance to meet with our leadership, and instantly kids started coming in.

And this was the second batch of kids they were gonna have in the day because they have different groups of different ages come at different times depending on when those kids go to school and get out of school.

And this group of kids came in, and the very first thing we did was we fed them, and so they're they're making food, and these kids are coming in and they're they're sitting down, and I'm trying to like talk to them, and I don't speak Spanish at all, and so it's very difficult.

But I'm smiling and I'm using the five words that I have to the fullest of their capacity, you know?

And uh and I'm connecting with these kids, and we're eating together, and they're laughing, and I think they're laughing at me a lot.

Um, I could tell because you know they're children, they're not super subtle, and uh and it's good, it's good, like we're having fun, and and when they're done eating, all of a sudden they like jump up, and and and it was it was so cool.

They spring into action and they start clearing all the tables for food and they move them out of the way, and now we just have this wide open space, and then someone gets up and starts talking to them about Jesus, and then they start singing songs, and they're looking at me, and these kids are like, sing with us and dance with us, and I'm like, I don't know the words, but okay.

And they're doing these motions, and I'm just acting like a fool, we're dancing together, and then all of a sudden that finishes, and then the kids they go back, they get the tables and the chairs, they set them back up, and then they they pull out their books and they're studying together, and these adults show up and they're they're pouring into these kids and they're helping these kids with their studies, and then these kids go and they play, and it's it's it's incredible because you you you forget when you're in this place that literally just a few feet away outside the doors, you're talking about as dangerous of an area as you can imagine.

Two of the children at Centro have been murdered in the last year alone.

There was a boy that we met, a 16-year-old boy that we met when we were there, and two days after we left, he was kidnapped by a gang and killed.

And you forget about that though, because they're so joyful, they're so safe.

You can tell the security in this place is so real, there's so much love that that after being in there for a few hours and watching them play, it's like your mind forgets that, oh yeah, these kids live in a very difficult world.

Centro is like a haven for these children.

And it provides them with something that they can never have otherwise.

And it's it's amazing.

That's our family.

You know, that's that's not that's not some some group of people far away.

That's those kids, they're ours.

They're family.

And you guys, you know, you're connected to them.

That's the amazing thing.

And in several different ways.

You know, number one, we're partnering with them for the long haul.

The vision for this is that they would be self-sustaining eventually.

They wouldn't need our help.

And trust me, the vision and leadership that they have will happen.

But right now, we're committed to them for the long haul.

There's 218 kids part of Centro that are currently being sponsored monthly by people here at His Hands.

And so, you guys, you're doing that, which is awesome.

Hope Chess said it was one of the largest launches they have ever had, and you guys took every single kid within a week.

And that's amazing.

In fact, we have a waiting list of people who are waiting for other kids to come so that you can you can sponsor them as well.

And I think we have about 30 more on the way sometime in the next few months.

And so you guys are taking care of them.

As a church, if you if you give here financially, for example, we give to them every single month.

They have they have vision, they have goals, they have they have things that they're putting in place that are making what they do even even better.

And we get to give to that.

So those of you contributing financially, it's going there.

Everybody here who contributes in any way, you you serve people, you love people, you pray for people.

Look, I'm just gonna be honest, the healthier we are as a church, the healthier we are as a as a body of people, the more, the more we get to go out and do.

And so, all of you, I want you to know, all of you are part of what's happening in Guatemala because you're making this church what it is, which is putting us in a place where we can go out and do that, where we can go out and love people and serve people and help people.

I am I am so blessed to be part of this ministry.

And I'm so glad that those kids that we all watch, those are our kids.

They're every bit as much ours as the kids who are in the garden right now playing around.

And again, when you watch that video, you kind of forget for a second that right outside those doors is is violence and danger like you can't even imagine.

It's so amazing that we get to be people contributing to that.

I hope you feel as blessed as I do.

It's awesome.

It's so awesome.

And here in a second, what I want us to do, because again, today's kind of a special day for us to talk about this in a second, um, we're gonna have our mission team come up.

We have six awesome volunteers who leave tomorrow morning to go to Guatemala.

Yeah, there we go, front row.

And so they leave tomorrow, they're gonna be spending the entire week in Guatemala, and and I can't even wait to get some of the stories back from them when they come.

They get back on Friday.

In a moment, we're gonna bring them forward, we're gonna pray for them.

We're gonna pray that God blesses them in amazing ways, and we're gonna pray over them all together as a church, then we're gonna worship.

Before we do that, though, I do want to have, I do want to say a few things, because even though today is all about all about going and our partnership in Guatemala, obviously, not all of us are going.

Six of us are, and there's more than six of us in the room right now.

You know, those of you watching this video, do any of you have the thought, man, I wish I could go?

Like, I wish I could go.

Okay, good.

Good.

And by the way, if you don't have that thought, it doesn't mean you're a bad person.

Okay?

Not all of us are called to do every single thing that we do as a church.

But I want us to know today that this this whole go thing, it's not just about missions.

It's not just about us going to other nations.

The mission to go has been given to every single one of us.

Every single one of us here.

In fact, Paul said it this way in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 14, he said, How can they call on him to save them, talking about Jesus, unless they believe in him?

And how can they believe in him if they've never heard about him?

And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

You follow his logic.

And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?

That is why the scriptures say, How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news.

We should have been called his feet after reading that.

You know?

It's good, it's a different we could have like a shoeline.

Ooh.

Oh, why didn't we think of this?

Okay.

So, you know what Paul says there, he's like, Look, guys, being a Christian isn't complicated.

We make it really complicated.

It's not, it's about calling on the name of Jesus, it's about putting your faith in Jesus.

But Paul says, how can people call on Jesus if they haven't heard of Jesus?

And we might think, hey, we live in Georgia.

Everyone's heard of Jesus here.

Might I suggest they haven't heard of the real Jesus?

In fact, I think in some ways it is harder to reach people with a message of Jesus in our community than it is in communities that have never heard the good news at all, because people in our community have been given a fake Jesus.

They've been given a false Jesus, a religious Jesus, and so they may have heard the name of Jesus, but they haven't met the person of Jesus.

How can they hear if no one tells them?

And how can someone tell them if they don't go?

And how can they go if they're not sent?

And you might ask yourself, Am I sent?

And the answer is yes.

You have been sent by God.

You have been sent by God.

Galatians 3 26 through 27.

It says, You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

And all of you who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ.

Like putting on new clothes.

Okay, you're wearing Jesus essentially.

And in fact, that's a more literal translation.

In the New American Standard, it says, All of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

And then we're told in 2 Corinthians 5.20 that we are Christ's ambassadors.

God is making his appeal through us.

So what this is essentially saying is, look, we are the representatives of Jesus on this earth.

We are his ambassadors.

He's making his appeal to the world around us through us.

And when we go out into the world, when we leave this place and we go back out into the real world, we go as Jesus.

We're wearing Jesus.

We are clothed with Christ, and we have been sent to the world we're part of.

We've been sent.

We have a mission.

So you may not be going to Guatemala this week.

You may not be going in October when we take our next trip.

We're going to be taking two trips a year.

You'll have many opportunities, but you may never go on that trip.

But make no mistake, you're called to go.

I've been thinking that about that a lot the last week.

Okay, Lord, go where?

Where are we all supposed to go?

And I want to give you two thoughts.

Just two quick thoughts that hopefully bring this idea of us going home for you, and it becomes personal.

That it's not just some team here at the church that goes a few times a year, but that all of us feel a calling as a church to go.

And these are the two thoughts that are really simple, they're really quick.

Number one, go where you go.

Go where you go.

Where do you go?

Like I think about all the places I go.

There's places I go every single week.

There's places I go almost every single day, and those places make up what is my sphere of influence.

All of us have a sphere of influence.

And it's probably bigger than you realize.

Like, for example, I go here and I have a sphere of influence here, right?

But this is kind of an easy place to talk about Jesus.

It's a church, it's expected.

I also go home.

And when I'm home, I'm the ambassador of Christ.

When I'm home, I'm not just supposed to be myself.

I'm supposed to be Jesus.

I'm supposed to be Jesus for my wife.

I'm supposed to be Jesus for my kids, and I don't always do a good job of that.

I go there, and when I go there, I'm being sent by God to be his ambassador to my family.

I go to a Texaco station and an Exxon gas station almost every single day, at least one of them.

Um I pick gas stations based on one very simple criteria.

Do they sell Fifth Avenue candy bars?

That's it.

That's my criteria.

Um I don't know why, but the big ones don't.

Anyone here ever had a Fifth Avenue bar?

Anyone here not?

Yeah.

There's a conspiracy.

It's the best dang candy bar there is, and yet you can't find it at Quick Trip or Racetrack or any of the big places.

You gotta, if you see a gas station that looks like, I don't know if that should exist, um, you know, go inside.

They've got Fifth Avenue bars.

They know what's up.

It's like some shady enterprise to buy those things.

Like, by the way, if you haven't had one, the Texaco station that's right before you get on 575 sells them.

I know this because I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that buys them.

And over the course of a month, there's just fewer Fifth Avenue bars in the little box, and I'm like, I think I get all these, but you know, I it's okay.

If you like peanut butter, look, I'm just gonna say this.

A Fifth Avenue bar is what a butterfinger dreams of being, okay?

It's like so I go, I go to this Exxon station and I go to this Texaco station on a regular basis.

I'm in there a lot.

Too much, to be honest with you.

But do I view that as a place that God has sent me?

Or do I view that as just a place that I go?

Because if it's just a place that I go, then it's for me, and I go there and I buy my Fifth Avenue bar and I leave.

But if it's a place God has sent me, then I'm there to be Jesus.

And so do I know the person's name?

And it's there every single day.

Okay, I'll just be honest.

At least every other day.

Do I know that person's name?

Do I know anything about their life?

They see, they see me.

I have an opportunity to talk to them.

I have an opportunity to share Jesus with them.

And it probably won't happen the first time.

I'm probably not gonna like hand on the Fifth Avenue bar and be like, I've never heard of Jesus.

It may not be an effective exchange.

But I have an opportunity to be Jesus to that person, to talk to them, to get to know them, to find out little details about their life, to pray for them.

And God will provide the opportunity to share my faith with that person, make no mistake.

There's lots of places I go.

There's a place in Holly Springs called the shooter's nest.

It's a basketball training facility, and my son basically wants to live there.

And so we're there a lot, and I'm there, and is that just a place that I go, or is it a place that I've been sent?

It all depends on how you think about it.

And so if you're wondering, well, where should I go?

Well, go where you go.

Go in the name of Jesus.

Where do you go?

Go be Jesus to those people.

Number two, go Jesus.

Okay, so it's go where you go and go Jesus.

When I say go Jesus, I'm using Jesus as a verb here, so I know it's a weird sentence because goes also a verb, so it's like it's two verbs, but you know, there's there's lots of times we do that, right?

You know, go run.

Well, go Jesus.

See, see, being a Jesus follower is not meant to be a passive experience.

It's not meant to be a religion, just this thing that we believe in and this person we believe in, and we we show up for church once a week or you know, twice a month, or whatever it is, and we go, okay, cool, I did it.

No, no, no.

Like Jesus is meant to be us, everything, it's intimacy, it's a spirit living inside of us.

We're his ambassadors, we're clothed with Christ.

The Bible says that we're the temple of the living God, which means that he doesn't live in buildings made by human hands, he lives in our hearts.

So everywhere we go, the kingdom of God is because the kingdom of God is in us.

But we just have to go Jesus to people, right?

Every day you have an opportunity to be Jesus to someone.

Every single day.

So I pray that as a church, I'm actually praying really hard right now, that this new passion develops in us as a church.

And it's a passion to see the world around us and know Jesus.

Seriously, I'm like something that God's put on my heart big time.

That as a church, this is something God wants us to grow us in.

He wants us to be people who live here on a mission.

Saying, alright, I'm gonna go where I go, and I'm gonna go Jesus.

I'm gonna go be Jesus to the world around me.

I'm gonna love people, I'm gonna talk to people, I'm gonna take the time to get to know people.

I'm gonna care enough to have the courage to share my faith.

Whatever that looks like.

Maybe it's inviting people to church, maybe it's just praying for them.

Maybe it's praying with them.

But go where you go.

Home, work, the gym, the place that you shop, wherever you frequent, go there, but go in the name of Jesus and be Jesus to those people.

In fact, we're gonna we're gonna mess with something.

Everyone likes it when we mess with things that are that are tradition, right?

Y'all love that?

Um you know, we do we do hands in the pile every single Sunday.

And for years, we're still gonna do it, okay?

Um for years, we've we've stirred the pot at the end of every service and we go, oh, and then we yell Jesus and it's fun.

And or cheesy, it's both.

Okay?

Um it's both.

You gotta have a little cheese in your life, it's good.

So we're gonna mess with that slightly.

Instead of us stirring the pot with oh, it's gonna just gonna put a little g on the front of that, okay?

And it's gonna be go Jesus.

Because it's time for us as a church to go Jesus, all right?

Like we gotta go out of here and be Jesus, and that's everywhere.

That's in your car with your family, that's wherever you eat.

That's that's everywhere.

This is for all of us.

You have all been sent.

So let's go.

Okay, a couple quick things.

We're gonna finish up.

I meant to mention this earlier.

Um, I'm wearing a shirt, which is a good thing.

Um, but like this specific shirt, like I said, like it's surprising.

Like, hey, I wore a shirt today, guys.

Progress, you know?

Um no, this shirt, by the way, it's our it's our our Guatemala shirt.

It says get, grow, give, go, and then has Guatemala right here.

Same little logo that we have over there.

Um, these are in the source.

If you want to buy one, 100% of the proceeds go to Guatemala.

We're just we're just doing this as a Guatemala thing.

So it's a little fun thing you want to do.

Okay, so know that.

You can buy those today.

Um But here's what we're gonna do.

We're we're gonna pray.

We're gonna pray over and for the people going to Guatemala, and then we're gonna we're gonna worship with one last song, and we're gonna, and then after that, we're gonna go.

But you know what I'm saying?

Like we're gonna go, and we're gonna be Jesus to this community.

Like we're gonna go.

Are you with me?

Okay, good.

Because we're gonna go.

All right.

Um so here's what I like to have a worship team.

You guys make your way out here, and guys, you can go ahead and start start playing, start doing your thing.

Um, because I want this really to be kind of part of our worship.

And I've got a few people on the prayer team.

If you guys would make your way up, let's see here.

We're gonna pray for this team.

So I got Irene, I got Jim, I got Juan somewhere.

Where's Juan at?

There's Juan.

What's up, man?

Um, and those of you going on the trip, would you guys come forward real quick?

Here we go.

You guys come on up here.

Yeah.

Irene, come on up to the stage.

You guys stay like right about there, right about there.

That's good.

Yeah, come on up.

Come on up.

Okay, so let me introduce you guys to everybody.

Let's see here.

So this is this is this is Tim, he's gonna pray.

This is Juan, he's gonna pray.

Irene, she's gonna pray back there.

And then these five people, along with Jen, who's already in Guatemala right now, they're they're our team.

So we've got Britney.

So let's hear for Britney.

She's going tomorrow.

Okay, we've got Betty.

Betty's amazing, she's wonderful.

Tessa, she's awesome.

Tessa's who leads this team.

Nancy, no Nancy.

And then the lone dude, Dave.

Yeah, let's hear it for David.

Good.

Okay, so before we pray for him, I want to have some fun.

Um, if you have a phone, get out your phone, okay?

Go ahead and get out.

Take your time.

Some of you are like, can we do this in church?

Absolutely.

I use mine to read scripture.

Um, how many of you have have iPhones?

Cool.

I just want to, oh, I've always wanted to do this.

Hold on.

Hey, Siri, did anyone's phone react?

A couple?

Okay, good.

Well, that's good.

Our vocal tones must be similar.

Okay.

Um, set a reminder on your phone to pray for these people every day this week at 10:39 a.m.

Okay?

Very specific time.

I know.

1039.

Set that reminder because tomorrow they leave at 1039 in the morning.

So when they're getting on that plane, I want us all to be praying.

And I want you guys to know that we're gonna be praying for you.

And then every day at 10:39, just when that goes off, just take five seconds and pray and pray for their safety and pray that God uses them and pray that God grows them.

We're about to pray over them now, but just pray continually throughout the week.

Okay?

Tessa, do you have do you have your phone on you?

You forgot it.

Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, pay attention.

Um, phone, I know you were setting their reminder.

I'm teasing you.

Come on, give Tessa's phone to her real quick.

Come on up, Mr.

Bost.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, Tessa's gonna take a quick video, okay?

And uh, way to go.

Way to go, Patrick.

Yeah, okay, so Tessa, come here, center, all right, and see if you can get in the shot as many of the people as you can, okay?

I want, I want, when when they go down there, I want us to have a chance to say hi to all the kids.

I want them to have a chance to see us.

And so, everybody, real quick, I want you to say, we're gonna practice this.

Don't hit record yet, because we need to practice.

All right.

Everybody say hola.

Say te queremos.

Okay.

Is that correct?

Am I good?

Juan's give me the thumbs up.

Um, Juan's my good buddy.

Okay, so that that is hello.

We love you.

Okay?

All right, te queremos is we love you.

So let's say that all together again.

Let's practice it one more time.

Hola, te queremos.

Okay?

Now, one more time without me, because I want them to hear you, not me.

All right, ready?

So I'm just gonna get you started, but then you go.

Here we go.

Oh.

All right, you're gonna are you ready to do it for real now?

Okay, here, all right.

Now we've practiced enough.

This is the real deal, people.

I need you locked in.

Be focused.

Okay, here we go.

On three.

One, two, three.

Yeah.

There we go.

All right.

All right, you guys having fun this morning?

This is a good day.

Okay, good.

One final thing, and I I want to do something sort of special.

This is a special morning, you know?

Um, if you want to, if you wouldn't mind standing up and kind of coming forward a little bit, if you don't mind.

Um and if you guys wouldn't mind prayer, if you're getting prayed for, if you guys wouldn't mind coming and just kind of being on these steps right here.

Just kind of sit down on the steps.

We just want to surround you guys in prayer.

And if you can't make your way all the way up forward, just you know, reach out a hand, whatever you want.

But I want us to surround this amazing group of people in prayer.

We've got some awesome people who are gonna pray for us.

Tim's gonna pray first, and then Juan is gonna pray over you guys, but he's gonna pray in Spanish, which I think is appropriate.

And then Irene is gonna pray for you to close it out, okay?

And then we're gonna go right from that into worship.

All right.

So, um, Tim, will you get us started?

Glory to God, glory to God in the highest.

Thank you, Father, that you put a desire in these people's hearts to go and love the people in Guatemala.

Thank you, Lord.

Your word says that if we delight in you, you will give us the desires of our heart.

That doesn't mean that it is the desire of the flesh, but it you put a desire in their heart to go and love the people of Guatemala.

Thank you, Lord, for that.

You are going in the name of Jesus, and at the name of Jesus, every knee must bow.

So every knee must bow.

So we speak to spiritual forces of darkness in Guatemala, and we say that the name, they're coming in the name of Jesus, they're coming with the light of Jesus, and darkness cannot exist in the light.

As I sought the Lord as to what to pray for them, he reminded me that these are the first that we are sending out.

And he reminded me that when he sent out the 70, he didn't send them out in their own power, but they went out in the power of the Holy Spirit.

He gave them authority and power.

So you're going out with authority and a power, not your own, but that of the Holy Spirit.

You are not to worry about what you are gonna do, you are just to seek the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will guide you in all things that you are doing.

You are also going and representing His hands, so you're taking the heart of His hands with you.

So you are going to love people to Jesus, you are going to love people to Jesus.

You have gotten love, you have grown love.

Now that love is overflowing from your heart so that it can pour out on others.

So now you are going to love, you are carrying the heart of this church with you.

You are going to love.

So we pray for the people there that they will be ready to receive your love.

We pray, Lord, that they will be changed forever by the love of Jesus.

The love of Jesus will overwhelm them and they will get a greater revelation of your love for them, and the atmosphere will change there because of the love of Jesus that is poured out on them by these people.

And we pray, Lord, that they will know that there is a church body in Woodstock, Georgia, that carries them in their hearts.

We thank you, Lord, in the mighty name of Jesus for what you are doing there in Jesus' name.

Heavenly Father, we just give you all the glory.

We commit ourselves to you, we surrender all, and we strip away every weight of sin that easily besets us, Father, right now.

And in the name of Jesus, we step in to the calling of this mission, and we receive your empowerment, we receive the word of truth to be declared out of our mouths as we go.

Father God, we thank you for setting the people free.

Father God, we thank you for redeeming Guatemala.

We thank you, Father God, for changing that government and bringing it to the subjection of the Lord Jesus Christ, that this government of Guatemala will come under the alignment of the kingdom of God, under Christ Jesus, under God's reign, Father, and that this nation, this country would know who Jesus is, in and out, and that every child will be preserved.

And we say to the enemy, you will no longer take away our children, you will no longer steal them from their parents, you will no longer cause prostitution and any other evil sexual thing.

We come against that in the name of Jesus.

And Lord God, I thank you for the angels of heaven that is operating in that country.

Lord, I thank you for all the lies that they have sown into that country.

We honor them this morning.

We honor every life, even those have been martyred for the gospel of Jesus in that country.

And we come alongside of them, Father God.

And I thank you, Lord God, that you are breathing life, you're breathing life, you're breathing life, and every part of that nation will be healed, restored, and delivered in the name of Jesus.

So, Father God, we just commit ourselves to you.

Use us as you see fit as a church, and Lord God, we are there, even though we're not there in body, but we're there in spirit with our team.

So, Lord, I thank you for surrounding them with the angelic angels, the warring hosts of heaven, as they leave here and as they get there, and when they come back, they have completed their assignment under your hand.

So, Lord, we just rejoice, we thank you, and we say amen.

So let's worship Jesus with one more song, and then let's go! Come on!