The Values That Shape Grace City Church

Welcome to Great City Church Online.

This is our podcast channel for all sermon content from Great City Church in Wenatchee, Washington.

We exist to help more people meet, love, and follow Jesus.

We're praying this message encourages you today, wherever you may be listening from.

Good to see you, good to see you.

Long day, long day.

Let's pray.

I need prayer.

Lord Jesus, thank you for this day.

Thank you for the chance for us to be together.

Lord, we ask as we um look at all you've done for us and you're doing, wanting to do through us, Lord, we pray that uh there'll be a sense of joy and anticipation of what we get to do and who you are and what you're doing.

And Lord, I pray um, even as we talked about some exciting news today, uh I don't feel like we even have the capacity to fully comprehend all that you're doing.

And so I'd pray even now for just a supernatural impartation of capacity to see, hear, experience, and to just taste uh, just get a sense, just a flavor of what you're doing and how you're using very, very simple, ordinary people's obedience to do extraordinary things generationally.

We're grateful, Father, and we ask that you would be pleased with uh all that is said and done here this morning.

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, good morning, everybody.

How are you doing?

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

Uh I'm gonna jump in here real quick.

Uh last week was Vision Sunday, and if uh you weren't here, I'd I'd really encourage you to go back and check it out.

We kind of walk through kind of the vision of Grace City Church, who we are, where we come from, why we're here at this moment, and where we're hoping to go.

And then uh we talked through kind of about just fun all the sermon series we preached through uh since we've been here in the building.

And that was kind of fun to talk through that and memory lane, and so many of you came out afterwards, you're like, oh, I I came during that series, or we started watching online from another state in that series, and then we moved here, and God did this in this series, and my kids got saved in this series.

So it was super fun to walk through that with uh everyone, everyone last week.

And then we we landed here, if you don't uh remember, if you weren't here, and this is kind of like just a visual of our mission statement, our our vision and our values, uh, our vision and our mission statement, rather, we existed to help more people meet love, follow Jesus, so that more folks might know God, live free, and do good in the world God made.

And we unpacked the nature of being a family of servant missionary disciples and all that is.

That's all under the hood, that stuff we hammered out 20 years ago, uh, with our Bibles on our knees, just seeking the Lord for what grace city would be like, and and we haven't found a better way to say it.

And maybe we'll change it later, and we'll find different ways to say it, but we'll never not say this in some form or fashion.

We're here because we believe that men were made to know God, that man was made to know God, that man was made to live free, and man was given good work to do in the world.

And you can't do that if you haven't met love and aren't following Jesus.

Amen?

So that's just kind of like that.

That's it.

And then all sorts of stuff flush out from that.

But that's where we started, and then and then we ended real quickly with kind of how we do that practically here.

We do um, you know, we do uh teams, groups, and gatherings.

So we get together on teams and serve with our gifts, and we gather in groups and and live out life on life together and growing in healthy relationships, and so many mentoring relationships happen there.

Fun story I was at my daughter's volleyball game this week, and and I'm just making my way around, and you know, I try to sit with uh I try to like, you know, you're there and you're like, you know, conscious that you're like a pastor and you know, and you're waving, but you're like, I don't want to talk to you, I want to watch my daughter play, you know, and so you're like, you're like, oh yeah, and you're you know, watching your daughter play and praying for and rooting and cheering and watching your wife and how she's navigating all the the competition of 1B volleyball.

And uh, and so I I sat next to Chad and Julian Hurst, and you know, across the the court there is my wife, and next to my wife is of course the beautiful um Stephanie uh Parkinson and then her daughter, Laney's there, and all those gals uh that are that are there, and then my daughter is there, and we're watching them all play, and Laney and coming on and off the court and serving and playing, and and Stephanie coaching them.

And I'm sitting next to Chad and Jolene, and I I hadn't I hadn't remembered this because Stephanie and her husband Levi are just baked into the bones of this church.

They're just they're just some of our most faithful, dear, sweet people serving and helping everywhere.

And and Chad goes, man oh man, he goes, Remember when they first came to our city group?

I was like, oh yeah.

Weren't married, had a kid or two, living in sin, far from God, struggling and stuff, and somehow they got invited to Chad Angeline's city group.

And over the course of many, many weeks, I remember praying for this young couple they had, because it back then we had like two and F City groups.

I mean, they're like, there wasn't like a hundred like there are now.

And they're like, we got this young couple, and they're really sweet and leaning in and praying.

And and over time we got to see the Lord use Chad Angeline Hearst up on a random house on a sunny slope on a Tuesday night or whenever it was, opening their home, opening the word, talking about the sermon, talking about life, lead Levi to Christ and lead Stephanie to Christ.

And then Chad married them, I think in like their backyard, and then for I don't know, I'm getting the story wrong, probably 10 years ago now.

And they're having more kids and loving Jesus and just some of the most faithful folks here in our church family.

That's what city groups do.

Like that's how that works.

We just invite people in to our life and we love on them and we allow them to watch us and how we live and we invest in them.

And so Grace Teams is where we serve in the strength that God supplies, grace city or city groups where we do life together, and then gatherings where we gather and we stoke the coals before they go back out to light more fires in the world.

So that was all last week.

If you missed it, go back there.

We got it there.

No charge, free of charge online.

Check it out.

This Sunday, values Sunday.

Values Sunday.

So Vision Sunday last week, values Sunday this week.

Next week, we're jumping into the book of Ephesians, and uh as the Lord is my witness, it was gonna be an eight-week uh study.

I thought, let's just, you know, let's just who was that?

Who was that?

That's someone who isn't new.

As the Lord is my witness, it was I I thought like, let's just do like a flyover, you know, just kind of big ideas and big chunks.

It'll be great.

And then I remembered that we had preached through it back when we first first started, and so I went back this week and pulled out the file.

How many sermons do you think I preached through Ephesians back when we planned the church?

16?

That's a ballard.

Is that what Michael?

Okay, that's close.

Yeah.

36.

Yeah, that was that was back in our deeply reformed days.

So no, uh I was like, man, so I was like 36, my gosh.

And then I got looking through them and I'm like, oh man, it's so good.

I mean, every verse, my gosh, the whole first chapter is one sentence.

It's just crazy.

So uh the Ephesians series is is in a process of evolving right now.

And it might go longer than eight weeks, it might go 16, it might go all next year.

Who knows?

But it's gonna be awesome.

But we'll we'll deal with all that next week.

And so that that's coming uh next Sunday.

But today I wanted to do just something quickly on values, and this might be a little different.

Uh we did this a lot in the first like 12 years, and then Levi said something funny to me last week at family dinner.

He goes, Daddy goes, it was so great to hear you talk through a vision.

I've never heard you do that before.

And I was like, I've done that nine million times.

I was boring myself three minutes in.

I thought, oh my gosh, eye roll, everyone's heard this.

I'm sorry, just deal with it, you know.

And he's like, No, I've never heard you do it quite like that.

I mean, like, you know, with Bible verses and stuff.

I was like, it's always had Bible verses.

And I'm listening to my son who's been here for at least two services every weekend for the last 18 years, and and in his conscious mind, he hadn't, and I was like, how did this happen?

And so what struck me was that in my mind, I've said some things a lot, right?

And so I'm trying to give you new stuff up here.

And then I forget that I haven't covered some of the most important things for a while, and that's on me.

And so I thought it might be nice to go back and visit some of our values a little bit, because these are our house values, these are our things important to us, and I want you to know them so you can embody them, live them out.

It'll also help you make a little more sense of who we are and what we do.

Because we get lots of questions sometimes, and like, why this, that?

And like, well, this is because we've thought this out.

Okay, I I I know some of you on the internet they've thought about it for 13 seconds and they fire something off.

Like, no, we've actually thought this out.

Bibles open, hearts open, knees on the ground, praying.

Well, like we we've thought some things through.

So as scatter-brained as I oftentimes appear, like back blowing my nose in the bathroom when the Family Capital Minute video is ending.

That was nice.

Uh we actually have a plan and we and we've and we've thought some things through.

And so, what I want to do this morning is just to briefly, and when I say briefly, we're gonna cover a lot of ground very quickly, go over um some house values and house distinctives.

This isn't all of it.

Uh, there's a lot more here.

Maybe I'll circle back around Christmas and do another another layer.

But I thought this might be helpful for us as we're kind of coming back together and pushing into the year, both to know um who we are as a church family, but also what we're calling you into.

And when I say our house values, I'm meaning like the people who are gray sitting, who are here and who are dialed in, this is who we are.

This is this is like this kind of bleeds out of us.

And if you're new or newer, I'm guessing, at least I'm hoping, as I talk through some of these values, you're gonna be like, oh, I've seen that.

Oh, oh, I've heard that.

Oh, oh, that makes sense now.

As we talk through how we want to go about doing what we do.

So here's where we're gonna start.

I want you to think about the puzzle principle.

And you know what the puzzle principle is?

Well, of course you don't, because I made it up yesterday.

A puzzle.

So I'm not a huge puzzle guy, but I want to connect with my 16-year-old daughter.

And so last night after the game, they're home, and it's of course beautiful weather.

The weather's been amazing.

So this is this September's crushing it, by the way.

Like this, I'm September.

Welcome back.

This is what September's are supposed to be like, amen?

It's been so nice.

And I'm like, hey, what do you want?

She's like, I want a fire.

Copy that, build a fire.

What do you want next?

She's like, I want to do a puzzle.

I'm like, Yes, I was hoping you'd say that.

So she runs and gets a puzzle and comes back, and I'm thinking, like, you know, a 200 piece would be nice.

300 piece on the outside, and she pulls it out, and I'm like, oh, is that a 500 piece?

She goes, no.

I go, oh, good.

It's a thousand.

I'm like, well, we're not gonna get this done before I have grandkids, probably.

And so what and she said, oh, it'll be great, that'll be great.

And so we get the table out and we're going, and and I'm like, where do we even start?

And the the funny, this is why, this is why I hate puzzles, okay?

Because everyone in my family gets excited about let's do a puzzle.

And here's what happens every time.

They get 10 minutes in, they're gone, and I'm frustrated that this thing's been put together and I'm there for eight hours.

I don't even like puzzles, but I'm like, I gotta fix this, and and then it just gnaws at me.

Couldn't sleep last night, the thing sitting out there undone, drives me crazy.

So I I I I as I was thinking about this, and and and I'll just kind of think about today, it kind of hit me.

I this may not be right, but this is how, and I am not a sophisticated uh puzzle on uh connoisseur, so this is my simple way that I go about solving a puzzle.

The first thing is uh I I memorize the picture.

And so some people are like, oh, that's so cheating.

You're that's because you're dumb.

People are like, oh, we do it upside down with no picture.

I'm like, you have no life.

I need to get this thing done as quick as possible to move on to something more important.

And so I I stare at the picture.

I'm looking at the picture because I'm trying to, okay, colors and shapes, and I'm trying to have the picture.

I want to burn the picture into my mind.

So every every time I look at every other puzzle piece, I'm seeing that puzzle piece in light of the larger picture.

Does that make sense?

Now that may not be the way to do it, but that that's how I do it, okay?

This simpleton brain making up puzzle principles for a sermon last night.

The second thing I do is I establish the perimeter, at least for me.

That's what my mom taught me as a kid.

Go find all the flat pieces, Josh a poo.

Okay, mom.

So we find other flat pieces.

Now, there's like nine million flat pieces on this stupid puzzle.

And it's it's it's it's Snoopy Fall Thanksgiving.

It couldn't mean like a New York skyscraper or like the Statue of Liberty or George Washington Cross.

No, it's Snoopy.

So I'm like great.

So we got Snoopy on fire.

So I memorized a picture of Snoopy throwing leaves in the air, and then I'm looking for the perimeter, okay?

Because the perimeter will establish the boundaries in which every other piece will fit, right?

After that, then I sort to pieces, and it's like, okay, lots of blue sky over here, and like the black tree over here with the brown streaks and the green grass, and these are all leaves, and here's, you know, uh uh the the peppermint girl, whatever her name is, and here's the the uh the the guy with no hair, it's looks like he's 50 and Snoopy.

So I'm getting around, I'm I'm sorting the pieces, and then from there I can connect the pieces.

So I'm memorizing the picture, I'm setting the perimeter or the border, and then I'm organizing the pieces, and then I'm connecting the dots, and that's how I go about solving a puzzle.

And I got like 13 pieces in last night.

I had to go to bed, drove me nuts.

I'm gonna move on from that because it's it's bugging me right now.

This is the picture of the puzzle, right?

This is what we want to have burned into our memory.

Like, like, like when we think about every other puzzle piece of church life and your life, and from your home to relationships, to your finances, to your personal life, to your thought life, to your resources, to your relational network, to this property, to a ministry plan and program, and service flow and liturgy flow and master calendar plan and where we put energy, time, resources, and this property or that project, every part of the piece of the kingdom puzzle in our mind is fitting somehow on this master plan.

This is the picture.

We want to help more people meet La Follow Jesus as a family of servant missionary disciples that more people might know God, that they were made for, live free as they were created for, and do good that they were destined for to the glory of God.

So this is this is the piece that the picture I want you to memorize in your head and heart.

And then our values function as the perimeter pieces, meaning they provide the border inside which we do all of this stuff.

So if we val if if we were to violate a value, we'd be outside the parameter and border of the picture we're trying to paint and the puzzle pieces we're trying to put together.

So as we go through this morning, I want you to teach these values as a piece of the perimeter that that provides the border in which we're we're attempting to paint this picture called the Kingdom of God coming to Winanchee, Washington in 2026 by the grace of God through the people who call themselves Grace City Church.

Copy that?

That's the picture.

So, our house values.

We have a lot of these.

I boil them down here to 10.

I walk every one of our employees through this.

It's in our employee handbook.

I spend two hours every hire walking through this in detail.

I tell them, I'm not telling you these things so you can memorize them and then regurgitate them.

I'm telling you, we've seen all these elements in you, which is why we're not hiring you off a resume to come here and be someone you're not.

We're identifying this is already in your bones, and now we'd like to pay you to come here and be you in this role.

I've said that nine million times.

Because resumes don't tell me anything.

They tell me what you want me to see on a piece of paper.

Observed life tells me who you are, which is why we've never hired anyone here at Gray City that we haven't observed for many, many months or years in relationship, in city group, in ministry together.

They're serving, they're volunteering, they're leaning in.

We don't do resumes, we do relationship.

And so what I'm gonna walk you through here is kind of like the bones of Gray City, and it's in the bones of our leadership, and I want you to have it too, because we're all in leadership at Gray City.

We're all on staff.

It's like we're God's team trying to do all this together.

So, house values.

The first is courageous obedience, and that is that God has our yes.

God has our yes, and this is what I mean.

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you, Joshua 1.7.

We talked about this this January.

I did a whole sermon on obedience.

It's funny to me that God would come to Joshua and say, Be strong and courageous before he says, Now obey everything I told you to do.

What's that imply?

It implies that obedience is not for the weak, nor for the cowards.

Obedience is for the strong and for the courageous, meaning it might be terrifying and take some guts to obey God.

That's what he's implying here.

Be strong and courageous so that you can be careful to obey all that I've taught you to do.

It's oftentimes not that pastors or elders don't know what they should do, but that they don't have the guts to fall through because if they do, they'll be called bullies, or they'll be called mean, or they'll be called whatever you want to be, the name gets thrown at them.

And it's a failure of nerve that oftentimes leads to leadership failures in the church.

And so we want to be known.

One of our values is courageous obedience.

That God has our yes, it's on the table.

And when he reveals himself or or leads, or the word is alive, boom.

And people are like, oh, you're saying you hear from God outside of scripture?

Wake up.

Give me a break.

Think how many decisions you've got to make in your life any given day that have to do with righteousness or unrighteousness, wisdom or foolishness that there are no Bible verses for.

Who are you gonna marry?

What job are you gonna take?

Where are you gonna go to school?

Where are you gonna make an investment?

How are you gonna spend your time?

A thousand decisions to make that could be the difference between righteous or unrighteousness, wisdom or foolishness, that you need the leading and help of the Holy Spirit from.

So you soak your mind in the word, you build the parameters of the principles of God in your life, you learn to live by wise counsel and seek godly advice and build out a vision for your life according to the word of God and the unique wiring that he's given you, and then you're just like, here we go, and you're and you you want the help and leading of the Holy Spirit so that when something comes, you know, James says, for those who know what's right to do and not do it, for them is sin.

And I think he's implying there that there are some things that God might call you to do, he doesn't call you to do, that if you don't do it, that's no problem.

It didn't have your name on it, but he put your name on it, you said no, and that's for you is sin.

And so for us, our first value out of the gate is we don't define Christianity as things we adhere to or boxes we've checked.

It's obedience to Christ.

Following Jesus, like that's just like we could boil it down.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

It means to obey him with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I thought he said to love him with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But I repeat myself.

It's the same thing.

To love him is to obey him.

He literally said that.

If you love me, you will what?

Obey me.

You can't say I love Jesus and act like a jerk.

You just can't.

And so for us, our first house value across the board is that we want to all be growing in a desire to obey God no matter the cost.

I love Acts 5.

But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.

Such a great verse, isn't it?

You know what makes it great?

The context.

You know the context, don't you?

They're standing before the powers of the day with their life on the line, where the most likely outcome is that answer means they're dead.

Prison, best case scenario, but probably dead.

And they're like, you know, we know this isn't politically uh correct or expedient, we know this is uncomfortable and probably controversial, but no offense, you're not God.

And if you force us to be in conflict with him and what you demand that we do, we must choose him over you.

That's courageous obedience.

Now, what doesn't make the news, or what doesn't make it into scripture, or what doesn't move believers 2,000 years later, is like, you know what, we want to respect authority and obey the government no matter what they say and not be controversial.

So you just tell us what you like us not to say, and we'll write that down carefully and obey it.

That doesn't move the kingdom needle.

What moves the kingdom needle is do what you may, I'm going to obey.

Or Daniel.

If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.

And he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.

But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden images that you have set up.

Another great passage.

You know what makes it great?

The context.

They're standing for, oh, newsflash, a government.

Again, I thought Christians are supposed to be political.

Only if you haven't read your Bible.

Christians are literally entangled with governments constantly because governments continually try to play God rather than honor God.

So Christians have to go, uh, foul.

And so they're standing before the most powerful man on The planet in this moment, who has said, bow to this image of me and worship me.

They're like, hey, look, we can't, and our God is able to deliver us.

But even if he doesn't, we will not bow.

I love that.

What's it say?

Obedience doesn't always mean expediency of comfort in this life.

But what obedience does do is secure the reward of God forever.

It's worth it.

But we need that perspective as a house that obedience is better than compromise.

And obedience is better than sacrifice.

Oh, we got some fired up saints this morning.

The prophet said, hey, God's looking down on all your activities.

He's like, what he wants is obedience, not a big show.

And so one of our first house values, and there could be lots of first, and they'd all contend for the proper place.

But for us, it's like, man, just courageous obedience.

We want to be known as those who have given God their yes.

It's a pre committed decision to obey as the Lord leads.

Might get us in some trouble.

We won't always get it right, but that's our heart.

That's the heart of our house to be those who are known for their courageous obedience.

Secondly, happy warriors.

We fight and we feast.

I was going to read this to you because I wrote this to you.

For a courageous obedience.

Faith is for action.

We live all in.

We walk in wisdom, but don't play it safe.

We think God's power favors the bold, and provision follows obedience.

Talk is cheap.

God has our yes.

Happy warriors.

Psalm 23.

You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

What a strange text.

We take the mission of God very seriously in ourselves not so much.

If we're not laughing along the way, we think we're doing something wrong.

Yes, we've been made to make good battle.

Yes, evil has set its will against us.

Yes, we're attempting to attack the gates of hell.

And yes, we live in the current domain of darkness.

And yes, spiritual war is a reality.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Sword out, shield up, and one of the ways we fight is we smile.

We laugh.

We enjoy the good gifts God's given.

We refuse to be distracted by the enemy and focus on the on the silly and miss the glorious.

Like think how many, like when Paul said, don't get entangled in petty arguments, I think he was foreseeing the internet.

Maybe?

I don't know.

You know?

Prophetic vision.

And you can get sucked into these worlds and then miss the fact that you have a home, a family, a spouse, children, friends, food, September weather, a glorious life.

There's all these things to make battle over, yes, and we fight and we feast.

We enjoy the good gifts of God.

I've been telling my staff this week and the elders like, look, like we've got good battle to make, and the hills we're climbing, never been steeper, and we should be careful to make sure we don't misenjoying the ride.

Because honestly, if we were to fail to enjoy all God's done and given, I think, I don't think he'd be happy with us.

I think he'd be like, hey, I appreciate the battle, you know, but did you enjoy the gifts I gave you?

I gave you so many gifts.

And so for us as a house, happy warriors.

We're not cranks, we're not bitter, we're not argumentative, we're not contentious.

We're making good battle on objective evil, and we're happy.

We're laughing.

Like if if one of the mark, I mean, if you want to be my friend, and by the way, my dance card's full, so I don't have any more space for friends, but but if how you got on, if you're on the dance card, how you got there was lots of rings, but you you you probably embody most of these values, but also you just like to laugh.

I mean, some of the darkest moments in the last 20 years, we found ourselves just chuckling and laughing and like, okay, because we know that we win.

And so sometimes when like your boat is swirling, the big black hole in the ocean out in the the Bermuda Triangle, and you're like, we're gonna die.

Yeah, but God says we survive.

That's crazy.

How is he gonna do it this time?

I don't know.

Pastor Root beer.

We fight and we feast, and so we do that as a house, and we we we encourage our families to do as families.

We we want to be known for courageous obedience.

Amen.

Those people are happy.

They're not like not like rinky dinky, cheap plastic happy, but like deeply happy.

Enjoying the good gifts God's given us.

Next, healthy relationships.

In other words, we don't do weird.

Somebody say amen.

We don't do weird.

Let's just say that together on three, right?

We don't do weird.

One, two, three.

We don't do weird.

We don't.

People try to do weird.

We don't do weird.

We communicate, we have hard conversations, we don't keep lists or cultivate grievances.

We talk to people, not about them.

We have no ears for gossip, we believe the best, we act in good faith, we refuse to be easily offended, and we forgive quickly.

There is no spiritual progress or relational maturity without the above.

If every church literally just did that four sentence paragraph, it would change the world.

It would change the world.

What cripples churches and what cripples spiritual growth.

Now, some of you think Chaz walking down the front row here might distract me, but it doesn't because he's been doing that for 16 years, baby.

He's got the bladder of a 13-year-old junior high girl.

And so, and so this is something special we have.

I'd be I'd be nervous if he didn't get up.

Is Chaz okay?

Is he on dialysis?

What's happening here?

He he so this actually, I know it might, it might, you're worried for me that it's distracting.

It's endearing.

So uh good to have you back, Chez.

I love you, buddy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He used to whistle when he walked in.

That was that was that was fun.

We don't do weird.

Romans 12.

Well, sometimes we do awkward, but that's different than weird, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Chaz isn't weird.

He's not awkward.

You know, he this is great.

Chaz is impossible to embarrass.

I've tried.

It's either a deep sense of identity in Christ or total lack of self-awareness.

One of the two.

I'm going the first.

That's what I think.

Romans 12, 2, uh 10.

Love one another with brotherly affections, outdo one another in showing honor.

That verse right there, word to be obeyed in the power of the Spirit, secures and guarantees relational health.

Or Ephesians 4.

With all humil uh humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

What's the inference there?

You're hard to live with sometimes.

That's the inference.

Everyone thinks, like, yeah, there's a lot of folks I have to bear, I have to bear with.

It's like, what?

You're one of them.

I mean, I mean, there's probably been instances this week where my family has had to bear with me in love.

And I'm grateful that they cover over my idiosyncrasies and all the all the all the stuff with love.

Otherwise, it just there'd be no chance for a relationship.

Bear bury with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

Not always possible, but that's the posture and desire of the brother or sister filled with the Spirit of God.

And that's a deep, deep, deep house value.

What that means on the backside is we refuse, and this is important, to tolerate relational dysfunction.

We just can't.

We can't.

I've been driving by barrels of apples and pears all week, and I'm reminded there's all these pears and apples on the ground.

And my wife I'd go out there and like Ruth, she gleans the orchards and she brings in because our farmer in nature's like, grab all you want.

And she, well, she's like, this only had one little nick.

Why'd you throw that away?

And she's like out there, like, you know, apple rescue person, you know, like dog rescue people.

My wife said apple rescue person.

And she's and she's rescuing all these apples so we can put them in apple pie later.

And she's like, just one little nick with a problem.

And I had the thought, because it takes just takes one little nick for poison and for and for rot to get in, and then the whole barrel's in jeopardy.

Man, isn't that a metaphor for the for people and community?

And so, and so we just have a very high expectation.

Lots of grace, we bear with one another, believe the best, act in good faith, cover over a multitude of sins, and for the persistent, for the bitter, for the grieved, for the perennially offended, we have conversations.

You're like, yeah, you can't keep doing that here because it's gonna get to everywhere else.

And then the humble respond in with gratitude and repentance, and the stubborn uh get offended and dig in or leave.

And it's like, well, the body of Christ won either way, because as Adam heard Adam heard say many times, your sin will leave or die, but it won't live and stay.

Isn't that good?

Aren't you grateful that there are you have pastors who have that kind of commitment to protecting the house?

It's a big deal.

Thanks be to God.

So holy ambition.

Holy ambition, house value four.

We capture this all in one name.

We don't drift through life, we march on mission.

Look at Colossians 3.17.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That's that's a wild, that's a wild verse.

You're like, well, that's probably for like a pastor, but like, like, I mean, uh I run a business or I am employed out of such and such.

No, no, literally, in whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord.

Think about everything you've done this week.

Could you have said it was all done in his name?

You're like, well, Tuesday afternoon, I wouldn't want to put Jesus' name on that one.

It speaks to this kind of like like that that there's an ambition in my heart that's holy.

It's moving me and driving me, and I've got vision for it, and I've got motivation for it.

Ecclesiastes 9, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might.

There's no half-heartedness in the kingdom of God.

There's no kind of lack, lust, or just kind of drift.

Well, burn another week.

No, no, there's a sense in which where the Spirit of God comes and fills and is moving, there are people who have holy ambition.

Now, selfish ambition from the devil.

Holy ambition is from heaven.

Meaning there's a people who are individually, and I just love this, just the creativity in man that God has made in his image.

But the ways that you here in this room can find a holy ambition for your family, for your marriage, for your children, for your business, for your neighborhood, for your friend group.

It's awesome.

And I get to see it up close to personal all the time.

And I hear it just kind of leak out and overflow, and God gives you a holy ambition for that neighbor, that person you're gonna call or pursue, or get into your city group or your kids and how you're shaping discipline, the environment they're living in and they're growing up in.

And I mean, I just hear holy ambition bubble out everywhere in this church, and I love it, and I want to stoke more of it.

God gives us individual holy ambition, collective holy ambition.

The things that God's calling us into this last year are ambitious.

And by ambitious, I mean stupid.

Unless the Lord's in it.

I mean, and I honestly say that.

Like, I don't even I didn't even want to bring some things to the table in January.

We talked through all that.

It's just the the the reluctance of a recovering coward trying to be courageous in his obedience, going, man, I think the Lord is leading us to go this way, but it seems so impossible.

Remember lessons we learned?

God goes where he's wanted.

And you currently have as much of God as you want, and you could have more of God if you wanted more.

These are the principles of a revival that we have seen lived out consistently throughout history.

My good friend John Tyson spent six months traveling with his family to every physical location where there was revival and reformation, and after six months, his thesis, his big conclusion, his summary of talking and visiting and studying was simply this there was nothing special about that place.

They simply wanted the presence of God.

God goes where he's wanted.

And so the holy ambition for us is deeply embedded in our values.

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Or 1 Corinthians 9.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives a prize?

So run that you may obtain it.

Run as if your life depended on you winning and not losing.

When I watched my son and then my daughter run track, there was a focused discipline to their life that spilled over everywhere.

When they went to bed, when they got up, how they ate, how they trained.

And it was so they could strain to win the prize as they were competing against every other person in their category, in their age group, in their event, in the state.

There's something about that event and that observation that Paul's tapping into here.

You're to run that way the Christian life.

Not to drift, not to be aimless, but to ask God for a holy ambition and to press after it.

Every man, every woman, this is my assignment.

God has my yes.

I'm happily making good battle, endeavoring to live in and contribute to healthy relationships as I live out the ambition of God's calling on my life in this classroom with these students, with my family.

I think it's contagious to be around people who have a holy ambition.

I love it.

I'm attracted to it.

I want to stoke more of it.

It's a house value.

How about unwavering integrity?

What you see is who we are.

We say it like this: no layers, open book.

We don't cut corners.

The way we do anything is the way we do everything.

We say what we mean, we mean what we say, we do what we say.

It's from Adam.

We despise duplicity.

We reject compromise.

We live by principle and we walk in the light.

And by God's grace, man, we live here.

And I'm telling you, when you live this way, you can sleep at night.

I mean, I've probably told our elders 10 times, it's like, man, I like how we live.

It's relieving because you're just like, my heart's clear, my conscience is clear.

Walk in community, walk in plurality, never out on your own, always checking in because you assume you don't see everything, and you put godly men and women around you.

It's oh integrity, such a gift.

Such a gift.

It's a house value.

Integrity with our money, integrity with our time, integrity with our words, integrity with our offline conversations, integrity with our phones, integrity with our private life.

Just through the bones, integrity.

Psalm 78, the end of a long passage of scripture talking about God's work in Israel.

He's talking about David.

And he gets to this last night.

I teach a whole section on leadership on this in our old foundations class, whatever we call it now.

Girl track.

And David shepherded them with integrity of heart and with skillful hands, he led them.

Leadership is two parts.

You have to have competency, of course, so you can't lead.

But if you don't have a foundation of integrity, who's to say where you lead them is any good?

And so the foundation of leadership is always integrity.

And here's the thing it's not both, it's not either or it's both hands.

And if you have integrity, the more you will grow in leadership skills.

If you only have leadership skills, the irony is the less you'll have over time of integrity.

So amen.

If you're walking in integrity, just just do that.

And in 10 years, you'll be in front of the pack, the herd will offend, you'll have very few peers, and you'll have a lot to offer about anyone who wants to talk to you.

Integrity is what separates, I believe, the exceptional leaders from the crowd.

Proverbs 10.

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely.

Can you feel that?

But he who makes his way, his ways crooked, will be found out.

I I I've just lived my life.

I wanna I want I want to find myself out first.

Lord, expose me quickly.

Lord, don't let me go.

Self-deceived in covering things up.

And by God's grace, integrity, it's a big deal.

House value.

Open book.

We don't do fake.

What do I mean by that?

We don't do fake.

We walk in the light, we reject Instagram church, where everyone pretends life is great.

We do authenticity.

We don't put up a front, we're okay with being vulnerable.

We want real Christianity, not a cheap plastic knockoff.

We foster an atmosphere where people can be honest because Jesus has paid for our sin.

Transparency is a superpower and keeps us out of the grips of sin.

2 Corinthians 12, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.

We have no need to hide or pretend or project something we're not.

We can be honest about our story, honest about our shortcomings, honest about our failures.

We have nothing to defend because fundamentally we acknowledged before we got on the team that we are utter catastrophic failures.

It couldn't get any worse.

And for some reason, sometimes in church, the the vibe, the environment, the culture can be a bunch of people faking their way through life as if everything's okay.

Now, again, we're not all victims here.

We don't come in, oh, you don't know how hard I've had it.

Oh try me, you haven't hurt my week, and blah, blah.

No, no, we're not competing for victimhood here.

But we can be honest about difficulties of life, the shortcomings of life.

It doesn't mean we're wearing it on our sleeve.

Because sometimes, like, how you doing?

I'm I'm doing good.

I mean, had a crazy week and life is hard and and circumstances are crazy, but I'm not covering that.

I'm saying no, I'm genuinely good because because because because God is good.

But what I want you to hear, if you're new, especially, that like Mike, man, don't, and I hear this all the time, I'll come after I clean it up.

Man, that's not the story.

Come and then the Lord cleans you up.

If you're waiting to come here before, you know, until you get things cleaned up, that's Satan's way of ensuring you'll never show up.

And so we just we're just open booking, nothing to hide.

Nothing to hide.

Walk in the light, transparency, authenticity, honesty about our stories.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Paul goes the opposite way than most of us go.

I want to hide my weakness.

Paul's like, no, no, I'm gonna talk about it.

Because the more I talk about it, the more glory God gets for all he's doing through me.

A total idiot.

Paul literally views the sin God's forgiven him of as more fuel in the fire of the glory of the grace of God.

And so we we can live life as an open book.

Radical generosity above and beyond.

We say it like this: we think the good life is the giving life and embrace it fully.

We work like owners but live like stewards.

We reject stinginess.

Our current much is our new little to steward, and we resolve to be faithful with it.

We believe in the sowing and reaping principle.

We test God, we trust Jesus, we live to give.

We just we want to grow in that sense of radical generosity.

Look at 2 Corinthians 9.

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Be honest.

How many of you want to sow bountifully or reap bountifully?

Yeah, let's go.

The glory of God, the blessing of God, the favor of God, the anointing of God, the gifts of God.

Yeah, I want a bountiful harvest.

Then I better get after sowing radically.

And Sharon and I have endeavored to do this, and how you do it will look different for you and how we've done it.

You have different gifts and skill sets and perspectives and Abilities that I don't have them, so you'll do it your way.

Like, just find a way for you to be radically generous.

You cannot outgive God.

And God doesn't bless the stingy, He blesses the happy and the generous.

Overflowing gratitude.

Come back, say thanks.

We say it like this.

We think gratitude is the antidote to a thousand sins.

We really do.

We can hardly believe the life we get to live.

We're stunned by God's grace.

We're moved by God's kindness.

We don't take any of this for granted.

Every moment is grace, every day is a gift.

We are passionate about enjoying every one of God's 115,200 daily gifts.

You know, He gave you 115,200 gifts yesterday?

That's how many times your heart beat.

That nobody knows why it kept going, but God said I'm going to keep it going.

Over 100,000 gifts he gave you yesterday.

We want to go, oh Lord, thank you for those.

We treat entitlement like cancer of the soul and ruthlessly root it out wherever it is found.

We say thanks a lot.

We will be the one leper who comes back to tell Jesus thanks.

We say with LMA.

She says it almost every day.

I think today was the best day of my life.

If she can say it, you can figure it out.

That young lady faces daily challenges that no one will understand.

And when I hear her say that, I marvel.

I marvel at the grace of God on her life.

I'll tell you what.

Luke 17.

Then one of them, when they saw, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face before Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan.

It's a great story.

It's a huge, it's an incredible, it's an incredible story.

But the the point is ten lepers were healed.

One came back to say thanks.

It's my life mission to be the one leper.

Never failing to miss the grace of God in my life and say thanks.

Because it heals your soul.

It shapes your perspective.

There are a thousand sins you can't commit to being grateful.

It's a profound antidote to selfishness in the flesh.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Man, oh man.

Green grass, take care of home.

We don't look over the fence.

We don't wish we had a different life.

We don't talk a big game on the road.

We don't look good on paper.

We work where we live.

We grow where we're planted.

We water our grass.

We take care of our assignment.

We reject the renter's mentality.

We leave everything better than we found it.

Green grass.

I remember in early days, church blind was connected to a network, and I'd go and I'd travel around and I would hear guys give the same talk.

And they were rock stars and they were, you know, podcasted, and they were books, and the people that did great.

And I'm like, yeah, but their church at home sucks.

Who cares if you're a rock star on the road and you suck at home?

Like that makes no sense to me.

And I just remember very clearly early on, I'm like, I don't care if I'm known on the road, I want to be awesome at home.

I want my wife to think I'm a rock star.

I want my kids to love the life I'm building for them.

I want the people in my church to flourish.

I I want to water the grass where I am.

And and someone said, Oh, the other day, like, oh, you guys are the are the and this just drives me nuts, so we'll cut this out of the recording.

Oh, you guys are the big rich church.

I just want to go.

No, we're the church with filled with courageously obedient people who are radically generous, living in healthy relationships, who've gotten a vision to be grateful to God, and so generously, and what do you know, he showed up.

Wouldn't it be great if 30 churches in the valley felt like that?

That'd be awesome.

It's like everyone has as much of the blessing of God as they're reaching for and want.

And so for us, like we're just trying to water the grass God's given us.

And sometimes there's some dry patches, and sometimes, whoop, a little too much fertilizer, burn spot, sorry, weed you got to feel, you know, it's all the things that come with grass, but to the best of our ability, we're not looking over there going, I bet it's easier over there.

Oh man, if I only lived over there, boy, look what they have.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

No envy, no jealousy, no wishing upon a star I could be somewhere else.

God's assigned me here, I live here, it's gonna flourish as long as I am here.

Like that's just a fundamental commitment for I think a Christian.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

Adam didn't pick it.

God assigned it.

He wasn't like, well, I wish I could have been put over there.

North American continent.

Now, those the Tetons, that would have been awesome.

Why the garden here, Lord?

No, no, God put me here, I'm gonna work it.

Proverbs 27.

Know well the condition of your flock and give attention to your herds.

What's the point?

The proverb.

He's like, hey, it's easy to look at that herd and go, man, look at all the things they got over there.

He's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, your job is to make whatever God's put in front of you flourish.

Lastly, sanctify progress, always moving, always growing.

Everyone's welcome to join wherever they're at, no one gets to stay, but no one gets to stay where they're at.

I'll read it again.

Everyone's welcome to join wherever they're at, but no one gets to stay where they're at.

We will not be the same place we are in five years.

We want to learn, improve, get better, grow deeper in our relationships.

We ask for feedback and open our lives to counsel.

In ministry, we do after action planning with everything and look for ways to get better.

We reject perfection, we chase excellence.

We love growing, getting better, evolving.

We have no pretenses.

We have not yet arrived.

We reject static Christianity.

Following Jesus means never staying where we're at.

Sempre reformanda, always reforming.

That's the adventure of obedience, of following Jesus.

Where's this going to go?

And what's he going to do?

Sanctified progress.

Philippians 3.

Brothers, I do not consider to have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining for what is ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize which God has called me in Christ.

We value growing.

We value growing up in Christ, maturity in Christ.

This is not a place to come and just exist for 10 years and never move.

In fact, sometimes, I mean, the word of God, the preaching of God, the mission he calls us on will force us to move, and that makes some uncomfortable.

That's the point.

Because you can't grow if you're not moving.

Now, I got a land of plane that the band can come out.

Those are our house values.

We also have a set of ministry values.

And I'll just hit those quickly and won't read the verses with them because we've got to go quick.

But these are these are the ministry values.

These are how we put a parameter around how we do ministry.

Number one, stack the rocks.

We tell better stories.

I'll read this one.

For the accuser of the brethren and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down.

They triumphed over him.

Watch this.

Have you ever wondered what's the biggest weapon in the spiritual warfare arsenal?

Here's one of them.

They triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb and by the what?

Word of their testimony.

There is profound spiritual power in the telling of your story, in the telling of the work of God in your story.

They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

And they're not giving testimony to how they figured everything out, they're giving testimony to how good God has been.

That's why we love stacking rocks, telling stories.

Chaz is our resident storyteller.

It's his job to look for, find, see, highlight, and then tell stories.

Caleb tells stories.

Ben, writing family, like Family Capital Minute is not filling time.

We're telling stories of what God is doing.

And you've been around, I mean, like that picture, mission advanced, that wall, building home, that corner, lift off and be fruitful.

We want to tell the story of God.

Stack rocks, remind us of faithfulness.

Ministry value two, relentlessly industrious.

Duty is ours, results are God's.

Man, if you're around here and you see anybody in my team walking, let me know.

We're gonna be the less schwab of churches.

We are running, man.

We are running.

We bite stuff off that makes us run because we don't want to waste our time.

Stubborn perseverance.

Hold the line, never quit.

Man, like we just want to be like just like a Holy Spirit stubborn.

Like, no, not moving, not caving, not quitting.

We will endure.

Always on offense, first to the fight.

So many churches are and Christians are defensive and whoa, whoa, whoa, and backing away.

No, no, no, no.

Like we serve the king.

On offense, first to the fight.

Get there first.

Help everybody out.

Catalytic experiences.

We create moments that move people forward.

We believe in creating moments, whether it's Stronger Boy Way or Man Card or FreedomCon or our weekly gatherings, catalytic moments in the presence of God that move people forward in a relationship with Jesus.

I think what God's wired me.

One of the things He put me to planet is to formulate, dream up, and execute catalytic experiences that move people where they're at.

And we value that as a ministry team.

Burning hearts all in the field.

Man, like like it like it.

This is not an exercise in intellectualism.

Like, yes, rigorous intellect, and yes, study, and yes, all those things, but man, the heart, the heart.

We deeply value burning hearts.

We value mobilized saints, everyone on the field, decentralized ministry.

We value big dreams.

We ask what if a lot.

We value creative excellence.

Beauty is worth the work.

Truth, goodness, beauty.

Truth is not an end in itself.

It's mobilizing goodness for the sake of beauty.

You can't have beauty without truth, and the truth serves the purpose of beauty.

You need all three.

And we value that deeply.

Into the breach, leaders go first.

Both offense and defense.

Where there's a breach in the wall, we stand with their shield up.

And where there's a weakness to exploit in the enemy, we plunge headlong.

Into the breach.

We want to live an into the breach kind of life.

Not over sipping a latte in the shelter hoping someone else will do their job or our job.

No, no, we step up to do our job.

And we believe that leaders got to go first, so we don't ask you to do anything that we're not doing ourselves.

And lastly, party culture.

We practice for heaven now.

We throw parties, we have fun.

Like, why the food?

We're practicing for as on earth as it is in heaven.

And it's not doldrums up there, it's a party.

And so we love to party.

So those are the pieces that form the parameter of the puzzle we call gray city.

And there's the picture.

See how that works?

That's what we're trying to build, and we do it inside the parameter of those house values and ministry values.

So we're gonna worship here.

I gotta be quick.

We've got six house distinctives.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Family Cup of the World.

We value men, that's stronger man nation.

Value women, that's noble women.

We value patriotism, that's liberty and justice.

We value pastors, that's the Black Road Regiment.

Which by the way, I was in DC last week, a bunch of pastors, it was awesome.

Eric Metaxis uh came and spoke for me, it was great.

Tim Barton was there, it was great.

Uh Ted Cruz swung in uh for the group before us.

Um got to take a tour of the Capitol.

It was awesome.

The entire C-suite team for Liberty University flew up.

CEO, CFO, CEO, uh chair of the board, uh Chancellor, Jonathan Falwell was there and they were doing our little one-anche tour.

What in the world?

It was awesome.

And then this week, uh tomorrow night, a bunch of pastors showing up, and then on Tuesday, a bunch more pastors right here from all over the state.

We're gonna get them fired up with Black Road Regimen, how to move their cities and move their churches into the public square for the sake of flipping our state.

Like that's happening on Tuesday.

Be praying for that.

It's gonna be awesome.

Our last distinctive is education.

And I don't say Christian education, it's education because education fundamentally is by nature Christian.

Because you can't do it without the foundation of truth.

Uh, Pastor Kyle's awesome sermon two weeks ago.

And so for us, that's the Little Farmers Garden City Academy, and yes, Vector West University.

Which leads me to uh, we're gonna skip this video here, guys.

The property update.

Uh, so the deal was we sensed the Lord calling us to step out in faith.

Uh we the Lord provided the 20 acres, or an additional 30 came up.

Church camp, uh, we put out there, we just finished$16 million uh for phase four and launching the school and crazy stuff.

So we wrapped that up January, uh excuse me, December 31st, and the Lord provided this property opportunity very soon after, and we sense the Lord calling us to step toward it.

But we had no, I mean we were we were not a penny to our name.

We were like, we don't we don't store at big storehouses of money.

What God gives, we push their front lines.

And and so I just brought it before you and said, hey, this opportunity is there.

If the Lord leads, you know, I don't know.

If not, this isn't a push, it's not an ask.

I'm just letting you know about something I'm not even sure I want to do, but it's there as an opportunity.

And then Russell Johnson showed up.

And that turkey gets me into more trouble.

And for those of you who are there that night, he gave a$50,000 gift.

Now, the crazy thing is he knew their building was coming up for sale for$45 million.

The seller, in a very twisted story I won't get into now, bumped it by$10 million right before they signed it.

So he he he was going into a need to raise$55 million in Seattle where all his big givers are moving and leaving.

He had$15 million in one week leave because they're they're taking their businesses to Arizona.

And it's bought it's raise the money or die and lose their building.

And in the context of that, he gave us$50,000 out of their poverty, they gave.

And he gave it as a gift of faith.

He said, If if if the faith is there and the soil is good, that seed will come back 30-fold in the next seven days.

30-fold is 1.5 million.

The next morning we walked the property.

878 people showed up in 23-degree weather over the course of the day to walk that property and pray over that property.

And with without an ask, without a push, the Spirit of the Lord led in the sweet, I'll never forget her face.

I don't know her name.

Came up to me and she said, and she said, See those color shoots over there that Adam's talking to?

I want to see more of that happen.

Here's a gift.

And she gave me a check.

And I walked away.

And that happened again and again and again.

And I walked away from that Monday.

And you know the story with 1.48, 1.5 million dollars in my pocket.

An exact 30-fold return less than 24 hours later.

And you're like, you're like, oh, there goes Josh getting charismatic again.

What do you call it?

That's wild.

I mean, that's crazy.

And and and then and then more money started coming in, and then in DC and the pastors, Black World Regimen, and all the things going on.

And then Freedom Con hit, and it was our sole focus seven days a week for 82 days.

And as God is my witness, I forgot about the property.

And I'm telling you, people came up in July, they're like, what about the property?

I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like the property.

I'm like, I'm like, we own it, we're on it, we build the place.

They're like, no, no, the river.

I was like, I don't know.

I mean, it was, I mean, as I it was that on, I was like, I I don't know.

Went back and talked and get all whatever.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Long story.

Chaz will do a story about it.

Okay, Chaz?

We'll get it on video pictures, you can see it all.

But the bottom line is.

You know what I'm gonna say.

You just you're just trying to figure out how I'm gonna say it.

By the grace of God, and because of your radical generosity and courageous obedience, we're gonna close on 30 acres with cash for five million dollars December first of this year on that property.

Yeah! Come on! Woo! Yeah.

Woo! Woo! Yeah!

So, Father in heaven, we lift our hearts to worship you.

We're grateful that when the lead pastor forgets about stuff, you still keep moving the hearts of your people.

Father, we're grateful for this historic provision.

As I was talking with Jonathan Falwell, sharing with him what was in my heart, he chuckled, like that.

Sounds like my dad 75 years ago.

And I thought, crap, it's gonna take that long.

Lord, we we realize that our lives may just be like seed going into the ground to bear fruit for generations we'll never meet.

If that be the story, then write it, Lord.

If that be the call, then send it.

If that be what it takes, we're telling you you have our yes.

We want to follow you, we want to obey you, we want to love you, we want to see you use us in this generation for far beyond what we thought was ever possible.

So we love you, Father.

We're grateful for this house, and we're grateful for this moment where we can celebrate your provision and your grace and your kindness to us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Can we just thank the Lord again for the provision?

We got the property! Woo! Woo!

Thanks for listening.

If you want to learn more about Great City, check out our website listed below and check out the Stronger Man Nature podcast with Pastor Josh McPherson for regular podcasts tackling issues on marriage, fatherhood, growing as a stronger man, and how to be a faithful Christian in a world of depravity.