Understanding the Times

Sermon Transcript

Amen. Amen.

We want to praise the Lord for all he's doing. Today is our 14th anniversary. Would you help me welcome all our campuses who are worshiping with us today? So great to worship with all of you.

Also, it is a special day. Today's the 249th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, and tomorrow is also Veterans Day. So if you've served in any service, any branch of service for our country, would you please stand so we can honor you today?

Thank you.

Amen.

Thank you. Thank you for your service. Hey. As we continue our worship today, I'm going to invite up our supervising elders who serve in the role of overseers. We have 21 elders in our church.

Some function as shepherding elders that pastor and pray for and serve the flock, counsel and do all that. Some are stewarding elders that work on the business side of things on the 501C3 and the budgets and the finances and all those things. All of these men are qualified men. These are our supervising elders. These guys are overseers.

These guys are mentors and coaches to me. These men also serve in a capacity. If for some reason I'm unable to fulfill my duties, they would step in, help find your next pastor and serve in that capacity. In many ways, they've been serving in this role for me for a number of years. It's now completely official.

You know Pastor Cal here, who has been my pastor for about 30 years. This is Lynn Crowley. Lynn's pastored a number of churches as well over the years and lives down in Colorado Springs area. We've been friends and been meeting. And Ken Shaw, who you'll hear about later, he was directly responsible for me moving my family to Denver and planting a church.

So we've been friends since about 2009 and he served as our very first elder here. Now, these men collectively, I was asking him this morning, they have 113 years of ministry experience collectively, and more importantly than that, 132 years of marriage collectively. So praise the Lord. But they were kind enough to come today to pray over me and they were going to pray over Kim as well. Kim is recovering super well.

It's just that she's tired and she's a hugger and she knew if she came, it was not going to do her well. But thank you so much for the prayers and we've served our family. She sends her regards today as well. But I'll turn it over to Kent and thanks for being here, guys. Really appreciate it.

Well, thank you and happy 14th anniversary. We've come a long way since Cherry Creek High School. Well, Jeff, before we pray over you, the supervising elders want to just to acknowledge a few things about you and Kim. You know, Jesus builds his church, but he picks humans instruments. And what you and Kim have done over the last 14 years has just been such an example of faithfulness, of tenacity, of no quitting, of obeying the Lord.

You moved your family out here with nothing. You walked by faith. You've modeled that. You've taught so many of us how to pray, how to share the gospel, how to disciple men and women. And we are just so thrilled to be a part of this with you.

And, you know, the Bible says that we're to give honor to those to whom honor is due. And we just want to acknowledge on behalf of Brave Church that we want to honor you today for, first of all, for 14 years of unusual faithful service and fruitfulness. Secondly, 20 years of marriage to Kim this May. And then thirdly, a wonderful news that you shared this week about Kim's surgery and that she's cancer free. We praise God for that.

So we praise God for that. So on behalf of Brave Church, we have a little gift we want to give you. We'd like to send you and Kim for all those things to Hawaii for a week and all expenses paid. So here you go. All right.

Love you, man. Thank you. I know. All right. I love being at Brave Church.

This is where the abundant life gets celebrated so marvelously. Would you pray with me for pastor Jeff and his family? Lord Jesus, in your name, by your power within us, we come to your purposes for your glory. And we pray in particular, Lord, this morning for pastor Jeff and for Kim and their children, that you would provide them extraordinary grace in these days, that you would provide them extraordinary protection in these days. For we know that we do not wage war against one another or fellow human beings, but rather, there's an adversary who comes only to heal, to steal and to kill and to destroy.

But you have given us the abundant life and call us to that, and we rejoice in it. And, father, we pray for all the pastors really ministering across this country and really the globe today that you would give them a special modest portion of grace, that you would give them some extraordinary sense of protection of your power upon them so that they might stand firm against the adversary, rebuke him. We pray in your name and by your power, by your spirit, Lord God, then for Jeff and for the Brave church and all these campuses and the many others that are around the globe where allegiance to Christ is celebrated. This morning, we pray that you would give them a great sense of your presence, your power, your purposes, so that as they continue to walk faithfully before you, you will endow them with the power from on high to declare your gospel of grace, the winsomeness of your forgiveness, the extravagant glory of who you are that you would call these servants in many cases, and Jeff in particular, Father, to that continued faithfulness, that your glory might sit upon him and reflect the character of Christ our Savior in all this, Father, we know that you are the author of it all, and we bow the knee afresh to you. For Jeff and Kim and their family, Father, a special prayer that you might continue to uphold their marriage, continue to provide for them in all the ways that you do, that we might faithfully serve you all the days of our life, and they, too, for the honor and glory of Christ that we ask.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Amen.

I'm glad I was called here to just share a word with this young man. I'm not old enough to be his dad, but I feel like he's. He's like a son in the faith. And now since I'm not on the stage preaching every Sunday, it's like I'm living my life vicariously through Jeff when I watch him. But, you know, the Bible says when you come to Jesus, he gifts you.

Every one of us have gifts that the Holy Spirit released in our lives. But then there's another gift, and that is God gives gifts to the body, and that is the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are called gifts that God places in a body to lead. And I hope you know that God has given you one of the finest gifts in terms of this pastor and teacher who's been leading you. He's an incredible, incredible leader, incredible preacher in my book, one of the tops going in this country today. And it's okay for you.

The Apostle Paul said we're to honor men like him. We're to honor those who lead. We're not robbing God of his glory. When we say, lord, we recognize and we give you glory for the gifts that you've given to your church. I always used to feel like, as a pastor, man, one good word of encouragement would take, you know, that was good for about a month.

Man, that. Give me some fire and, you know, give me wind in my sails, you know, and so I know that you guys, any encouragement you give Jeff and Kim, I know what they carry. And you can only know that when you've lived in that position. So don't ever think that somehow. Well, you know, if I, I came out of a culture where we almost felt like if you, if you encourage somebody, well, you're going to give them a big head.

You know, I remember hearing somebody say, baloney. Where in the scripture do you find the Lord ever saying, don't encourage anyone unless you give them a big head. Unless you give them a big head. He said, no, no, no, you give them the big head. And if God needs to humble them, he'll humble them.

He didn't call you to humble anybody. So he's planted Jeff here as a gift in this body to lead, to teach you the word of God. I'm so grateful for. He's just a clarion call for the gospel and the truth of God's word never wavering from that. But then I want you to know I'm here to pray for you today because brave church, I want you to know Denver needs you.

They need the witness that is coming forth from this church. Always remember, without God we cannot. But without him or without us, he will not. You understand? It's a partnership.

And just before, I love the little story of the farmer who took this dump of a farm and turned it into a great crop producing farm. And one of his buddies was out there one day looking at, he remembered when it was a dump. You know how we kind of get spiritual. He said, wow, I can't believe what God has done with this farm. And the old farmer wisely said, yeah, that's pretty good.

But he said, you should have seen what it was like when God had it by himself. You understand, the partnership.

I'm grateful that Jesus is lord over Denver, but he doesn't have it by himself. He planted you here to partner with him, to reach many for Christ. And as I said in the first service, I look up and I go, hey, we're filling it up. But you know what? You see these empty seats?

If you want to be offended by anything in your life, you be offended by empty seats. And you let that be the catalyst that you're going to pray and you're going to share the word of God. You're going to live your life such that we just continue to see people come to Jesus and we fill the seats up all across this campus and the other campuses. Amen. That's who you are.

You're the testimony for him. Come on, lift your hand to him today if you're comfortable with that. And I want to just bless you and Father, we would just call on your name again as the body of Christ. Every one of us here have a testimony of grace if we've come to Jesus. And we say again today, thank you for that day that you saved me.

And Lord, there's a reason why you left me here. And that is because you wanted me to be a light for the gospel. And so until you call me home, may I shine as bright as I possibly can. I pray that over this church, Lord, that we would live lives that honor you and that we would be those who are a voice for the gospel here in Denver, that we will see many raised out of darkness and into your marvelous light. We pray even as the early church did.

Lord, would you stretch forth your mighty hand to heal and to do signs and wonders and to bring many into a relationship with you. And so, God, we call on you just like Isaiah of old. Would you take that coal from off the altar again today? Touch my lips, touch my heart. Make me, Lord, a burning coal for you that you can use mightily.

We say again today, here am I, Lord, send me. And Lord, may Denver again be awakened to the gospel. Because of the witness of brave church and all the other churches that are faithful to preaching Jesus and being clear about the gospel and standing firm on the word of God, we say thank you for the 14 years. But Lord, we look ahead to greater things tomorrow. And our prayer is more, Lord, More, Lord, more, Lord, in Jesus name and everyone agreed with his prayer and said amen.

Amen. God bless you guys.

Thanks, Ken. Wow. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Love you all.

And I can tell you it is an honor to pastor this church as someone that used to do itinerant ministry and travel all over, see different crowds all the time. Having been here now 14 years, there's no place I'd rather be on a Sunday opening up God's word than right here with all of you. And it's an honor. Hey, one more thing we're gonna cheer for. We're gonna cheer later in the service.

You know, we have 61 people being baptized across our campuses today. Can we give God praise for that? So good. And if you're here visiting today and you're here because of somebody you know that's getting baptized, welcome. We're glad that you're here.

God's doing a work here. He's still saving people. He's still alive, and he's still doing an amazing thing. And we're glad that you're here with us. Let me just quickly pray as we get ready to hear God's living in active word among us that he would speak directly to you.

Would you pray with me? Our Father in heaven, we give you all the glory, honor and praise for who you are. And Lord, we thank you this day that your word is about ready to be proclaimed. And we as a people believe that every time it is proclaimed, it's faithfully and accurately proclaimed. Lord, that you are speaking so.

Lord, speak so so that we may hear you. And so now, for all who have gathered, who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith, put into practice what he shows you. Will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word Amen? Amen. This morning I want to talk to you about understanding the times.

Understanding the times. You know, in 1st Chronicles, chapter 12, there were the group called the Men of Issachar. And the Men of Issachar not only understood the times, but they knew what to do with the times that they were living in. It's important for you to understand the times. And I don't know about you and what your week looked like, but some of you know that on Tuesday night was a special night, right?

Tuesday night was a special night because we had first Tuesday, and it was incredible and it was awesome. And while the national election was going on, this is just a slide of what was going on here in Inglewood, and it was also going on in Colorado Springs, and it was also going on in Westminster, because we as a people said, regardless of what's going to go on in our nation, here's what we're called to do. We're called to pray. Our job is to pray. And then we're called to go vote.

And so I hope that you went and voted your biblical conscience and the American people did that, and it was decided. And some states can't count as well as other states, and it takes them a little bit longer. But Donald Trump is now our president elect and is going to be going into office.

And I would tell you this. I think God has given us a mercy in our country to move forward. But had it gone the other way, it doesn't change our resolve and what we're called to do. Because I've been looking at, like many of you, whether you look at msnbc, cnn, Fox, all the back and forth, and look at electoral maps. There's a map that wasn't shown on the news that I want you to see, and that's this.

That's the states where Jesus is still Lord. And so if the election excited you, fantastic. It excited me. If the election didn't excite you, that's okay. Jesus Christ is still Lord over all the nations, not just the United States, but over every single nation.

And you need to understand the times that you're living in and know what to do. Because as I've been watching different people and different newscasts and social media, there are some people that are absolutely freaking out right now. They're freaking out, they're shaving their heads, which I don't think is a big deal. But some people are doing these things that are seemingly crazy and in protest just because something didn't go their way. And here's what I would say.

Jesus Christ is still Lord. So how do we understand the times? And if you find yourself in a time like why is it going this way and why is it not going that way? And I thought God was going to do this, but it seems like it's going there. I want you to know that Jesus Christ is still alive and he's still on his throne and he's still moving and he's still active.

And if you're not in that season now, you will be in that season. And if you're not in that season now, there's a lot of people outside this room that are in that season now that need to know, where do I look and what do I do and how do I understand the times? So this message is for you, even if it's not for you today. And this message will be for people that you meet with today that need to hear what in the world is going on. I need to understand the times.

Well, how am I supposed to respond and what am I supposed to do? And to answer that question, this morning, we're going to look at Isaiah, chapter 43. In Isaiah, chapter 43, we're going to be in verses 14 to 21. And in Isaiah, chapter 43, verses 14 through 21, we're going to understand the times by asking, what should we do? Where do we look?

In seasons where things are seemingly not going the way, or they're different than what they've been before, which they certainly are that then where do I look and what do I do? And as you're opening up to Isaiah, chapter 43, it's really just a great passage where God is talking to his people, Israel, as they're in captivity in Babylon, and they're there because they haven't been living for him. And they're under judgment because they've been there But God is telling them, you're still my chosen instrument. I haven't stopped loving you. And he starts the chapter by saying, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name. You're mine. He goes on to tell them, even from eternity, I am he, and there is none who can deliver out of my hand. I act. And who can reverse it?

I'm still God, even though it's not going the way that you thought. And then here's what he begins to say. In verse 14 of Isaiah 43, he says this. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I have sent to Babylon and will bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, into the ships in which they rejoice. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

Now we're going to talk about where you look in times of uncertainty. And where you look, if you want to understand the times. And the first place you look is you look up. And you look up with worship. You look up with worship.

That's the first thing that you're going to do if you want to understand what in the world is going on and how can I understand what's happening? You need to look up with worship. Notice what he tells him. He says, I'm your Redeemer. I'm the one that brought you back.

I'm the Holy One of Israel. He tells them that even though the Babylonians seemingly have success, he's going to take care of the Babylonians. Even if you're under oppression, your oppression is not going to last forever. Everything on this side of heaven, it's temporary. They're light and momentary afflictions.

They don't feel light and they don't feel momentary, but they're always light and momentary in light of eternity. So to understand the times, if you want to say, what in the world's happening now, and what should I do? Look up with worship. And why? Because that's who God is.

He's the only one who's worthy of all your glory, honor and praise. Notice what he says in verse 15. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Translation to us today, who is the Lord? He is the great.

I am. He's the One who has always been. He's the One who will always be. He's the One who formed and fashioned you in the womb. He's the One who gave you your gender, whether male or female.

He's the one who's Been directing your life. He's the Holy One. He stands outside of time and space. He stands outside of history, and yet he intervenes in it because he's the only one worthy of your worship and friends. All of you were created to worship.

All of you were created to give God your best. There's something inside of you that's always looking for what's worthy of my best? What's worthy of my time, my energy, my resources, my money? Here's the answer for the test. It's Jesus Christ and him alone.

And no one else can bring you complete satisfaction. So look up to him with worship when you don't know what to do. Look up to him when you're excited about what's going on. Look up to him when you're just going through a malaise. Look up to him with what?

With worship. And worship is not simply just singing songs or attending a church service. Worship is your lifestyle. It's the way you treat your spouse. It's the way that you date.

It's the way that you honor one another. It's the way that you forgive each other. It's the way you handle yourself in school. It's the way that you handle yourself in business. It's the way that you treat your neighbors.

Every part of your life, every attitude, every action, every belief, every behavior is part of your spiritual worship. That you're not transformed, but you're not conformed rather to the pattern of this world. But you're transformed by the renewing of your mind. And yet things get in the way of that, right? Things get in the way of our full allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I just listed a few. This is not an exhaustive list, but think about some of the things that grab your heart and take it. How about this one? Materialism, the accumulation of stuff. If I just have this.

If I just get this. If I just get this, it's going to make me feel good. Now, the older I live, the more I realize how foolish that is. Because in the mid-80s, when people went shopping and had to get the coolest clothes, many of them that bought the coolest clothes don't wear those same cool clothes that they Wore in the mid-80s. Parachute pants have not made a comeback, but I had a bright pair of red ones, I promise you, right?

I mean, there's things that we think are important or how many of you that have gotten married? You know, you get married and you're young and you have nothing, and then you've been married for a period of time. And you're looking around your house like, why do we have all this stuff? We need to give this stuff away. And then if you're married, there's probably one of your spouses like, no, we can never give it away.

It's very valuable. And then you have discussions and you learn to love each other. But I digress. And then. But there's just stuff, right?

There's just stuff. We accumulate stuff. And sometimes we think if we have more stuff and more houses and more stuff inside the houses and more need to buy extra houses to keep the stuff in that we're buying that's going to bring us satisfaction. But here's why it doesn't. Because you always need more.

There's nothing wrong with having things as long as things don't have you, right? Sometimes it's not materialism, it's hedonism. Hedonism is the fulfillment through pleasure. I got to please myself, please myself, please myself, please myself. Some of us have pleased ourselves with immoral things.

Some of us please ourselves with moral things. Like we got to go on vacation, like every other weekend. We gotta get to the mountains. Cause that's where I find God. And I gotta please myself and I gotta please myself and I gotta have this and that.

For some of us, it's comfort and the ease of life. As long as I'm comfortable, as long as nobody's asking anything hard from me, that's my God. Summit success. It's how you measure yourself with others and where you see yourself on that status. And if you're really better than they are, summits wealth.

And you're comparing yourself to others with how much you have. And just a side note, for those of you that are here listening to me, you're in the top 5% of all wealth earners in the entire world. Even you that are in high school, you're in the top 5%. If you wanna know what rich is, you're looking at them. Well, I'm not that rich.

I know people, you know, people that are richer than you, but globally, y'all are rich. If you can eat a meal today, you're rich. Drive a car, today you're rich. You have a place to lay your head tonight, under a shelter, you're rich. We don't think of that as rich because we don't see what the world really looks like.

Or how about health? Nothing wrong with your health, but for some of us, health is everything. And what we eat, we got to eat organically and we can't have any mgo. We can't. We got to eat this, we got to do that because we got to stay healthy forever.

God's already ordained all your days. You're going to die when he says you're going to die. You can have quality of life up until that time, but you can do everything you want and still die at 32. And that's exactly what your timing was. But for some, it's health.

For some, it's food, either too much or too little. For some, it's intelligence, how you compare intellectually with other people. Some, you know, it's some I saw this week, it's the government. If the government's meeting all my needs, I'm happy. If the government's not, I'm not happy.

Right? And there's nothing in and of itself that's necessarily wrong. We should have opinions about government and we should. You know, I mean, there's nothing wrong with taking a vacation and being comfortable or enjoying the good things in life or enjoying your marriage or enjoying your kids and having pleasure and going to games and doing stuff. There's nothing wrong with being successful and being the best that you can be at something, or having money as long as money doesn't have you.

It's when this becomes the center of your life. And it's so insidious in how quick that can happen. Because here's the number one God of every single age. That's been the biggest problem. You know what that is?

It's not any of the things I mentioned. It's yourself. It's yourself. As long as I'm happy with me and what's going on in my life, I'm good. And it's the God of self, self esteem, self preservation, self help, self worth, self value, self confidence, self awareness.

And then, if you're really, really into it, self actualization. I know how myself fits in with everybody else. I mean, self and friends, we're doomed from the womb. I mean, that's who we are because we're born in sin. And when you're born in sin, one of the big problems with sin is yourself.

The Bible says you're a sinful, depraved, blind, wicked human being who believes that they know best. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says you're blind to it. So not only are you dead, and not only are you sinful, but you don't see that you're sinful and dead. Which means you think that you're doing everything right and everybody else is doing everything wrong.

And how come they're not meeting your needs? And when people act like that, they're acting upon their own self and their own problem, which is their own sin, which they think is what everybody else is supposed to fix for them. But to make matters worse, it's not just that. We also have a devil in the world who is the father of lies, who is the prince of the power of the air. And so he lies to you all the time to tell you this, you're not blind, you're not dead.

Look at you. You're better than everybody else. How come they're not doing this? And then lays temptation in front of you so that you can fulfill all your sinful desires so yourself is dead. Satan's lying to you and saying you're not dead.

And here's what you can do to enjoy life. And lays out a litany of all the ways you can do it. Some of them I just read to you. And then, guess what? We have a third problem.

The world. It's our world system that can give you all the sinful things that you're looking for. It can just never fully satisfy. And so from the time that we're conceived, when we come out, we think about ourselves, we think about our own needs, we think about who we are and what we can do to get where we go. And then we start grabbing on to different gods to give worship.

You say, well, I don't worship anything. I'm an atheist. You worship. Worship is giving your full allegiance to something. And maybe your full allegiance is to your intellectual dullness, that you're a fool that says there is no God and that's your worship.

I mean, you give your worship to something. And friends, I don't know how many concerts or sporting events I've went to where people are like, I'm not a worshiper. I'm not a worshiper. And no matter where they are in the audience, front row or back row, they got their hands up the whole time. Even Christians that aren't hand wavers and raise their hands at concerts, they do.

I mean, I've been to Broncos games where people worship and they raise their hands. Been to Nuggets games where people worship and raise their hand. Been to ABS games where people worship and raise their hands. I've been to Rockies games and on Faith Day, people raise their hands after the. You know what I'm saying?

But there's something natural in us that wants to attach to that which is successful and driven, that can give us something and fulfill us, and we're worshiping it. And the only one whom you can ever give your full allegiance to that will ever be satisfying is the Lord Jesus Christ. Because he came to set you free from sin, death and the devil. First John 3. 8 says, for this reason Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil, the works of the devil.

He put the devil on public display when he hung on the cross and said, it is finished. He came to change the world system so that you would always have a way out and you wouldn't need to choose the world. You could choose Christ instead. And he came to set you free. The wages of sin is death.

But what the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. And through the cross of Jesus Christ, going and taking on all the sin of humanity and taking the wrath of God and dying on that cross. And three days later, rising from the grave, he offers life to anyone who would turn from their sin and turn to Christ. It's called repentance and faith. And what you're going to see later today in our service are those who have believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who have been set free from sin, set free from the devil, and set free from this world.

They've died to themselves. They've risen with Christ. They are a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have been made new.

And now when they go into the water, it's symbolic of what Christ has already done. They've died with him and now they're living with Him. Amen. That's the gospel. And the good news that we proclaim from the Word.

And the good news we're called to proclaim in the church is not how to join the church and not how to become a better person and not how to live a better life. The good news is this. You're dead and you're blind to it, and you're wicked and you're under the wrath of God. But he doesn't want you to stay under that wrath. And God loved you so much, he sent His Son Jesus so that you could be fully forgiven, experience all the full measure of his grace, be loved completely by him by simply turning from your deadness and turning to Christ and anybody, anywhere, at any time, even if you're in one of our campuses today and you say, I've never heard that, and I want Jesus to forgive me, and I want to experience that love.

And I've never felt loved, and I didn't think God could ever love me. Come to Jesus Today, give Him all your sin. He'll give you all his life. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except by him.

And he will set you free from everything. Come to Jesus today. Amen. So that's what we do.

We look up in worship. We look up in worship. Romans, chapter 6 and verse 4 says, Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life if we're doomed from the womb. Only Christ can redeem this mess.

And that's what we preach here, that the Lord Jesus Christ can set you free from sin, from death and the devil. And that's what he is doing. That's what he continues to do. So if you want to know what in the world is going on, look up with worship. Look up with reverence.

Second thing you want to do is look back. Once you've looked up to the Lord. Look back with gratitude. Look back with gratitude on all the Lord has done. Notice verses 16 and 17.

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way through the sea and a path through the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the mighty man. They will lie down together and not rise again. They have been quenched and extinguished like a wick. He says, look back. Do you remember who I am?

You know who I am. I'm the God that delivered you from Egypt. I'm the God that gave you full deliverance. I walked you through the mighty waters. I made a way where there was no way.

I'm the way maker. I'm the miracle worker. I'm the promise keeper. I'm the light in the darkness. That's who I've always been.

That's who I'll always be. Remember when the largest army in the world was marching against you and you had no hope and I protected you from the back and I opened up the Red Sea and y'all walked across. You remember that, right? And then when you got to the other side, do you remember how I invited the Egyptian army in and once they all got in, I crushed them and defeated them. Here's what he was saying.

Look back with gratitude. Because I'm the same God that still delivers and still defeats. That's who I am. And he delivered them from what? He delivered them to death.

I mean, the Egyptian army, they're not around. They get to the other side and they sing praise songs because Egypt is drowned. They were under oppression what does God do today? He still delivers us from sin. He still crushes our enemy.

Through faith in Jesus Christ. We're delivered from what we once were, right? We're delivered from the penalty of sin. We're no longer under the penalty. And God continues to work out and deliver us from the power of sin.

That's what he's ongoing. That's what he's doing, right? God in his mercy saves you. God in his grace and mercy continues to grow you. That's why every Christian everywhere, even after they get saved, have seasons in their life that they look back on and say, oh, if I would have only known then, if I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have dated that person, shouldn't have married that person, shouldn't have taken that job, shouldn't have spent the money that way, shouldn't have done this.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. They don't look back with gratitude. They look back with regret. And they're always living in their past, friends. Every single person has regret in their past.

I've never met a Christian who would say with authenticity, well, from the time I met Jesus, from that moment on, I've just totally trusted him and I've done everything he's ever asked. I've never had an evil thought, never had a bad idea. I forgive everybody. I'm awesome. Where are those people?

I mean, you think about it for a moment. Some of the most painful things in your past, even after coming to Christ, are the very things that God uses to start freeing you from the power of sin that once held you captive so that now that you're free from them, you can help free other people that have dealt with the same stuff. Amen. And there's a lot of men. I'll just say this.

I was one of them. I can't go into ministry because after I became a Christian, I still did this. And how could God forgive this? Because He's God and He still redeems and he's still growing and he's still developing. We never get to a place on this side of heaven where we would say, I'm there.

How come you guys aren't with me? I've arrived. I'm fully sanctified. I mean, if you just come near me, you'll feel the oil come off my body. I mean, come on.

And yet so many of us look back and we live with shame and guilt and doubt because the enemy lies to you and says, see what you did? And then here's what you say I did. And I repented and Christ forgave me. And I'm new and I'm healed and I'm different and I'm a new creation. Amen.

So when you look back, look back with thankfulness. The same God that delivers delivers. Today. When I read all the stories of the Bible, I get fired up. I mean, this is the guy that created the whole world out of nothing in six days.

He sent a flood and destroyed the world. He created the nations. He's always been faithful. Not just the 14 years here at Brave, but he's always been a faithful God. When I see David defeat Goliath and Jonas, witness to Nineveh and Elijah triumph over the prophets of Baal and Peter, the fallen apostle who preaches to 3,000 and they're saved.

When Paul took the Gospel all over the known world, it gives me great hope because I say, that's the God I serve. He uses imperfect people to do what he's continued to do. And he's used imperfect people for the last 2000 years to advance his church. When I hear people say the church is dead, it's this and that. Have you looked at the church?

Have you seen all the ways that we've done so much stupid things in the church? If the church was simply human beings without the Holy Spirit, it would have died 2,000 years ago. And yet the church is still flourishing because Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Amen. So when we look at this, we look at it as, you know, we see the story of the Exodus, this deliverance from bondage and a journey towards the promised land.

That's exactly what the Lord is still doing today. And I think as we have our 14 year anniversary, I think it's important that we look back with gratitude. I mean, over the years it's taken us some time to form our vision and mission statement. But our vision statement is to assemble a spirit filled army to fight for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our lifetime. That's our vision.

Church is not a hospital for sinners. It is not a country club for saints. It's an army of the Lord Jesus Christ and we are on mission for him. And to enjoy the church and to enjoy Christ is to give God full allegiance and then live on mission that you know that His Holy Spirit is working through you to live that out in front of other people, in the way you think, in the way you behave and in the way you speak. That's the mission.

And if you're not Living that way, of course, church feels boring. I just don't like the songs. Not a big fan of the pastor. Seats here in Inglewood are pretty uncomfortable and they are. Do you understand what I'm saying?

But if you're on mission, you don't care about the seats and you don't care about the carpet and you don't care about what songs played. You care about the Jesus that's being proclaimed and you're honoring him and you're being filled with his spirit, living obedient and controlled by him. Because you know in your world when you go out, you're living on mission for Christ everywhere you go. So look back with gratitude. Jesus Christ is a loving God who is the one who has brought us all the way here.

And we're here to assemble a spirit filled army to fight for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our lifetime. Pastor Jeff how do you know when it's over? Because Jesus will be here. If it happens in our lifetime, you'll see Jesus, then you can stop sharing the gospel. When you see him face to face, you're done, right?

And until that happens, let's go, let's roll. Let's take ground for his kingdom. Amen. So how do we do that? At Brave, Our mission is to challenge brave warriors for courageous kingdom advancement.

If you're coming here, the unique way God's called us to share the gospel is to challenge you to be brave, bold in your faith, resolute in your identity, authentic in relationships, virtuous in your character and engaged in mission. And we're challenging you to do that. If you come to Brave, we're going to challenge you to get a Bible and open it up. If you come to brave, we're going to challenge you to sing. If you come to Brave, we're going to challenge you to pray and pray out loud.

Everything we do is to help you take your next step of faith with Christ. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus, I want to challenge you to repent and believe that he's the Son of God. If you know Jesus and you're living nominal, I want to challenge you to take your next step of faith. If you're comfortable, the only people that aren't really welcome here are people that are comfortable in their sin, that have no desire to grow with. I don't have anything for you.

If you want to play patty cake with Jesus, do that on your own time. If you want to grow in Christ, we got options for you. We're going to do everything we can to help you be the best you can be for Jesus so that when you meet him face to face, you can hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. You had opportunities to give financially. You had opportunities to serve.

You had opportunities to grow your marriage. You had opportunities to help other people, and you took advantage of those. You had opportunities to share friends. We got people that are going outside of our church. And just so you know, I mean, some of the election results good, Some of the election results, not so good.

They enshrined abortion in our state. Boo. Bad. But do you know what changes that? When Jesus changes hearts?

Doesn't matter what the government says, Jesus can still change hearts. And we still have people out on the front lines loving women that are on their way into abortion clinics. And just last week, we had another gal that chose not to abort her baby and to save her baby because of people like you that are out there doing it.

Everything I read about Jesus, and we even sang it in our service today, he's the same God yesterday, today and forever. That's who we serve. So look back with gratitude, right? But that's who we are. That's what we're doing.

And I just want to tell you, I'm so grateful. I mean, this week I've been moved to tears several times talking to my wife. I know she wishes she could be here today, but you have to realize some of the story that we have. When I graduated from seminary in 2002, right before I graduated, I was invited into a program in Little Rock, Arkansas, at Fellowship Bible Church to be one of four guys that was part of a church planning network to go out and plan a church. And I believed I had heard the Lord telling me that what I was doing in student ministry and how we were growing that, that I was going to do with adults.

And I needed to go to that program. So I went. They were looking for guys that they thought could grow a church to a thousand people. And I was one of the guys they selected. And so graduating from seminary, I was thinking, this is going to be great.

God, here we go. Where are we going? Have you ever had a season in your life where everything falls apart when you know you heard God? If you haven't, it's coming. That was my season.

So by that fall, I was engaged. I ended up having to break off the engagement, which was the right choice, but was devastated on the inside, emotionally distraught. I couldn't figure out what city God wanted me to go to, let alone get people to go with me to help plant. And come December, I was sitting down with my supervisor at a coffee shop and we were having a one on one conversation and he was asking me questions about where are you and are you going to plant? Because next spring we're going to come in, all we're going to talk about is where you're going and what you're going to do.

And in the church world, we're too kind to people. He should have just fired me. But in the church world, we don't do that. We ask questions and we may, we should transition, maybe should be somewhere else. Because what he was trying to tell me is, I don't want to pay you anymore if you're not going to go plant a church.

And he was kind about it and he was nice about it. He's like, I know you love to preach, but I was like the black sheep of that internship. Like guys were even asking me, are you even called to ministry? And all this kind of stuff. And I was questioning everything.

And so he said to me was the lowest point ever in my life in ministry after serving the lord for about 20 years. He said this, and you guys know how unmechanical I am. And I don't go to Lowe's and Home Depot and stuff like that. You guys know that. So here's what he says to me.

He goes, if you do want to come back after Christmas and be here in January, then perhaps here's what we need to do. Maybe you could get a job at Home Depot so that you could make money and stay here in this program. And I remember thinking, I wouldn't work at Home Depot if it was the last job in the world. And now I gotta work there so I can stay in Little Rock and feel even worse than I already feel. I'm like, I'm done, I'm out.

And so I left there feeling like God, did I hear you wrong? What's wrong with me? I for sure thought I heard you say I was gonna plant a church and not miserable. So I moved back to Illinois, started doing itinerant ministry, started preaching for seven years. I met my wife during that time.

We got married. You know what I told my wife when we got married? She said, are you ever going to pastor? Because we traveled around, we met all these pastors and pastors, kids. I said, baby, don't you ever worry, I will never ever pastor a church.

You have my word on that. And what we did was we traveled around and we shared the gospel. We'd see 40 people get saved or 400 people get saved. Guys like Pastor Cal would let me come into his church and preach on Wednesday nights and preach the Word, but I didn't have any responsibility to the people, so I could just preach and drive away. And so that was fun, and it was really good up until about 2009 when I started feeling all these feelings where I was like, something's not right.

I'm enjoying preaching at Cal's church, and I'm enjoying preaching the Word. And we're traveling around. We're seeing people come to Christ, but they're not growing. And what do we do? There's nobody that grows in churches, and it's the same people sitting in the same seats doing the same stuff.

And God used a bunch of different conversations. Kent Shaw was one of them, where I remember I called him on the phone and I said, we're making enough money. Our ministry was on a couple different radio stations. We're writing books. It's good, but I'm miserable.

And Kent said, well, have you ever considered planting a church? And I'm like, oh, yeah. I thought about that about eight years ago. Let me tell you why I'll never do that. And ranted.

And he asked me three questions. When I was done ranting, he said, well, can you preach? I said, yes. He goes, can you call up men? I said, for sure.

He goes, can you cast vision? I said, yes. He goes, if you can do those three things, we'll staff around you. I said, well, if you're telling me the truth, I'll give the rest of my life to do that. Now, I was in the car with my wife on the way to see Billy Joel and Elton John at Wrigley Field in Chicago when this call took place.

And I looked over at my wife. When I hung up the phone with tears in my eyes, I said, we're moving to Denver and plant a church. And she said, okay. On the way into the concert, I said, God told me we're moving to Denver and planting a church. And she said, well, you didn't say God said.

I said, well, I'm telling you now. And she said, well, we'll make sure you send postcards because the kids and I are going to miss you. So I started walking her through the process. And my wife's great. She hears the Lord.

She listens to the Lord. So step by step, we did this. And when we made the decision to come to Denver, where she agreed, yeah, you're hearing God and I'm with you, and let's go do this. We went up to Chicago with this network of churches that we had to talk about what we needed to do. And I went off with the men, and she went off with the gals.

There were probably 40 different pastors, 40 different pastors, wives. And when my wife came back, I saw her face. It looked like she had seen a ghost. My wife's pale skinned as it is. She was white.

And she said, what in the world did you sign us up for? I'm like, baby, what's wrong? She's like, jeff, you don't understand. These 40 women. One woman started sharing her story about the church.

She started crying. Then the next woman started crying. She's like, by the time we were done, everybody in the room's crying except me. She goes, what did you sign us up for? I'm like, I don't know.

And she's like, well, why do you think they're crying? I said, baby, here's what I said. I'm like, they probably don't have husbands like me.

I'm like, have you ever felt that way around me? She's like, no. I'm like, we're fine. And we were used to seeing 40 to 400 people come to Christ every single time we preached. So I thought when we moved to Denver, this is what the church would look like after year one.

That's not what happened. We've gone through some of the highest highs since I've been here and some of the lowest lows. We've cried many, many times. There's several nights I have not slept because of the pain that I've experienced from people that I have loved that have left our church and spoken ill over my wife and I. It's been hard.

There's so many times I've sat, and there were about year three and another one in 2019 where I went home and told my wife after an elders meeting, I don't know that this is where the Lord wants us to be anymore. And I'm holding it with an open hand. So we'll just pray about it and whatever happens, happens. And by the time we got to 2019, my wife's like, I'm good. You want to go?

We'll go. Both times that we would have left. One was right before we bought our first building, and one was right before the 2020 pandemic happened. And it's no wonder that the enemy laid those things in our life right before those two times, because both those times is when we saw exceptional growth. And sometimes it's the hardest times and now when I have people that we send out to go plant, like my younger brother that I talked to on the phone last night, who's starting to feel the weight of what it looks like to plant a church, I understand, because I know how hard it is.

I know the difficulty. I know the mantle that you wear. I know the care that you have. I know the fact that people misunderstand you when you say things wrong or that they don't feel loved when you actually love them. And they say mean things about your wife and mean things about your kids and mean things about you and how much that hurts.

I live that I've been. That I've been there. But I want to tell you that God has been so, so, so faithful. We talk about kingdom advancement. Can I share a few stats with you?

I mean, we started with 12 people. And when I moved out here, to add insult to injury, I read a statistic that 95% of church plants in Denver fail. And then as I started calling around to other pastors, they all told me I was going to fail, too. One pastor in particular told me, if you think you're going to come out here and plant a church and grow it to 700 people like what you've seen back in the Midwest, you're crazy. It'll take you 20 years, and you'll be lucky to ever get half that many people to come to your church.

So I thanked him for his time and didn't talk to him ever again. But I will say this because I think you give honor where honors do. Pastor Shawn Johnson at Red Rocks was the one pastor I talked to that said, you come to Denver, you plant anywhere you want. It is so needed out here. I don't care where you plant.

We're for you. So kudos to Red Rocks and Shawn Johnson for telling us that.

I had the chance of telling them that six weeks ago, but look what God's done. I mean, we had a place where we were meeting in an apartment. We didn't even know if we were going to be able to afford a school. God gave us a school. We didn't know if we were going to be able to afford a building.

God helped us raise $1.93 million in six days to buy what is now Brave Academy. Amen.

In 2016, we had a person in our church buy us a building. Said, if you put a screen there, we'll do this. We prayed about it. We did it. We had 30 people that went up there that got it started.

A bunch of people told Me at the time. That's the stupidest thing to do at campus. Nobody's going to listen to you online anyway. It's just a TV screen. Nobody looks at screens anymore.

They want you live. We got another building recently for Westminster. Westminster, we love you. There's 1,500 people that call Westminster Brave Church their home. God's doing amazing things there, setting people free.

He's doing it great. Now we have a campus in Colorado Springs. 200 people. A little more than that. God's doing great things in Colorado Springs.

One day I know you'll be over a thousand people, too. I just believe it by faith. We were told in 2020, God spoke to my heart, where I was realizing I was railing on public schools, which I still will, although I'm grateful for all every public school teacher here who loves the Lord Jesus Christ and is in there being a light. And if you're a student in there being a light, praise God that he's calling you to do that. Amen.

But it's really felt a burden that we can't keep doing that and not have an option. So we started Brave Academy, and people said that'll never get off the ground. Now we have K through 12 that's meeting there. And by God's grace, we'll continue to grow that school and put other Brave Academies all over the administration and the teachers are par excellence. There's nobody better that loves kids and loves Jesus and they're doing a great job there.

Can we just give God praise for Brave Academy, please?

We started an internship of young men seven years ago that has about 30 guys that come through that God's done incredible things with. You know, our attendance went. I mean, it was abysmal. I mean, I used to preach to 55 people, wondering, where are they all going to come from? And the word I got from the Lord and from those who mentored me were just keep being faithful.

Because it's not how many people come, it's what they get to hear when they get there. And we've been faithful to the word since day one. Amen. And now we have over 5,000 people in attendance. We have four campuses.

You say four? Yeah. We have an online campus. Our online campus is our biggest campus by far. It meets all over the world.

Can we give God praise for our online campus? We love you far and above. My most exciting thing we do is we're a praying church. I remember when we introduced prayer into our services, we got to about close to a thousand people and we introduced prayer into Our services, we're going to pray out loud during service on a Sunday. And 250 people left, said, pastor Jeff.

Like your preaching, like the church. But I'm uncomfortable praying out loud. If you stop that, we'll come back. My father's house will be called a house of prayer. If we can't teach people to pray in church, what in the world are we doing?

And now if you come and we turn and pray and you don't, you stand out like a sore thumb. Because we're a praying church. We pray on all our campuses. We seek the Lord. It used to be we'd have 25 people.

And guess who led worship? Me. I played guitar. Bet you wish you could have been there for that, don't you? Because God doesn't care about the talent.

God cares about the heart. And we have people that seek his face and believe that God still answers prayer like he always has. Amen. Our women's conference last week had over like 700 people. Almost 800 people, something like that.

Incredible. Last year we had a men's conference in here. 1,300 people. This year we'll have double that for the men's Conference in February 1st. You'll hear about it next week.

You're gonna wanna have everybody here. The speakers that are coming are awesome. I'm just telling you, God's doing some incredible things. When I hear people say God can't do it, I'm like, oh, yeah, he can. And who has he chosen to do it with?

With you. You people congratulate me on anniversary. Okay, Jeff, congratulations on your anniversary. It's not my anniversary. It's our anniversary.

Jesus said he'd build his church. He's still building his church. Who's. He built his church through us. He's doing it through you.

I want to tell you. I mean, keep flipping through the slides. We'll do this really quick. We've had thousands of people saved and baptized since we started our church. Thousands.

I don't even know how to count them.

Like, I don't know the first year. For those of you who were here when we did bandimere on Easter Sunday, we had nearly 5,000 people get saved and baptized. We didn't even know how to count them all. We weren't expecting that. That was one day.

We've had days where we've had 88 people baptized, 61 people baptized. We're doing it all the time. Not to mention people online that are telling us what they're doing. Not to mention people on the radio. That tell us they're getting saved.

We don't have any way of counting. Here's what we know. The Lord knows those who are his. So for anybody who would say, what's happened? Why would you start a new church in Denver, which we used to get asked all the time?

Because thousands of people have been saved and baptized who are now living on mission for the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. And you're all part of that. Let me give you another. Our service, our corps champions of real people serving.

You know, we have over 1800 people serving in our corps that make the church go every single week. Almost 2,000 people that serve. It's amazing. And in cadres that we got started, we got over a thousand people that are in cadres, which is more than a Bible study. It's people that are living on mission.

Some doing it locally, some doing it internationally, some doing it by prayer, some doing it by going out and sharing the gospel. It's awesome. They're putting their money where their mouth is. And how about radio? We've not even tried to do radio until recently.

It's just been something that we've done. But now our radio ministry is in all 50 states. It's being heard on the air everywhere. You say, what's the big deal about that? Because there's people that.

That's the only place they can ever tune in and hear the gospel. We've had people call us and tell us, I wasn't even looking for Christian radio. I just found your station accidentally and I heard it, and I stayed in my car while I was supposed to get groceries, and I stayed all the way to the end and I prayed to receive Jesus. That's happening through our radio ministry, y'all. God's doing some incredible things because when his word goes forth, it still accomplishes things that accompany.

Friend I hadn't seen for about 15, 20 years. That was back in central Illinois that called me or emailed me the other day from Florida saying, I heard a Jeff Schwarzen traub on the air while I was walking the beach in Florida. And I'm like, there can't be any other but you. That had to be you. Way to go.

God's getting his word out. Amen. It's amazing. And just think about this, Our global impact. I mean, this is just a stat that was handed to me this this week.

Over half a million downloads in 52 countries that are listening to what's going on at Brave. Pretty cool, right? And you probably don't know this last step, but we planted over 300 churches as a church. Some of those about 10 in the US and some of those overseas. We've been working with Pastor Paul in South Africa, all the way up the coast, and Pastor Moses in Liberia, and we've been down to Central America.

I mean, you have no idea the scope of our ministry. And as we hone what we're doing to go plant campuses, this is just a story that just came up. And I don't know what will come of this, but I had a guy that's a pastor of a church down in Austin, Texas, that was here within the last couple months send an email saying, I've never seen a church like Brave. We need a Brave in Austin, Texas. What do we need to do to make that happen?

I'll get the funding. Come to Brave. Come to. Come to Austin. Is that going to happen?

I don't know, but I think there's going to be myriads of opportunities to do that as we move forward and as the Lord does his work. Friends, you're part of a move of God where he is doing something special. I didn't share this in the first service, but I know Lynn Crowley, who one of our supervising elders when he was at our elder and pastor's retreat, who's been in ministry for nearly 40 years, who's been all over the world with pastors everywhere, says he was. What were the two words you used? Grateful and saddened.

He's like, I'm saddened. In all my years of ministry, I've never seen men like this leading a church. And I'm so thrilled I get to be part of this for the rest of my life. Friends, God's doing something super special here, and you're part of it. And here's what I believe.

I believe our best days are ahead. Let me give you this final point real quick. If we're gonna look up with worship and look back with gratitude, then we gotta look forward with faith. Notice what he says. Do not call to mind the former things or ponder the things of the past.

Wait, Pastor Jeff, you just told us to look back. Yeah, look back. But don't stay in the past. Look back at what God's done. But let's keep moving forward.

If God's done something good, you don't just hang out like, oh, I love Brave the way it was. It was so good. When Jeff was in the same circ every single week, and I saw him, you don't want to be that way. You want to be. I want to be on the cutting Edge of everything that the Lord Jesus Christ is doing to reach more and more people with the gospel so that one day we stand in his presence and there's millions upon millions of people that know Jesus and are walking with him because of what God did through brave.

That's what we want. Look forward with faith. Don't dwell on the past things. Be thankful for what he's done, but move forward. Behold, I will do something new now.

It will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. God says I will do the impossible. Says the same thing in the New Testament, Ephesians 3:20.

I'll do far more abundantly than all that you ask or think according to my glorious power that's at work within you. God does the impossible. He does the miracles. Now, I want to be clear. Pastor Cal said it earlier.

God doesn't need us. He's not waiting on us like if we don't do it. It's not like God's bound, but God is unfolding his purposes whether or not we ever participated in it or not. But, but, but he invites us to come to Him. He invites us to come die with Him.

He comes us to be filled with his spirit and controlled and obey him and live on. Mission wants to use us as His Plan A to get the gospel out. God's working now among his people. He's active. So there's two things you need.

One is hope. Hope is an anticipation that good things will come. I hope I'm going to get better. I hope I'll heal. I hope I get married.

I hope I get a new home. I hope I'll have children. I hope I have enough money. I hope I find peace. I hope right?

But faith is the certainty that in Christ the things you hope for are going to come true. Faith is when the Word says that what you're hoping for is true. If you're hoping for Jesus to come back as your blessed hope, you can have faith because that's for sure going to happen. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The Word says it, therefore I believe it.

Friends, I just want to tell you I believe our best days are ahead. I've watched God navigate us through things. I've been seeing some of the highest highs of people who marriages were broken and there's no way God can fix, and God fixed them. I've seen people who have been delivered from sin. I've seen people freed from demonic activity in their life.

I've seen God restore relationships. I've seen people forgive each other. I mean, there's stories behind the scenes that some of you will never know of people that hated each other, that as we began to work on a project, God had to bring them together. And both of them said, I'm not working on the project anymore. And we said, oh yes, you are.

And I sat between them and mediated forgiveness. Between 40 year relation. I've seen God do amazing things. There's times I haven't been able to go to sleep because I'm like, God, you're so good and you're still moving. I look out at our congregation today and I can only see what's going on in Inglewood, but Colorado Springs, I see you.

Westminster. I see you online. I see you. He's moving. He's always moving.

The question is, are you gonna get in with the move of God? If you're here just to sit, you're here for the wrong reason. If you're here to get up and go, God's gonna do some great things. Friends, when you hear about our capital campaign we're going to start next year, it's not just going to be about rebuilding our buildings and spending multi millions of dollars to have the best building in town. I don't care about that.

Maybe we need new chairs or maybe like one of the gals I've talked to, maybe we don't because they'll be so uncomfortable. You'll want to go to the other campuses, that's fine. But we're going to invest our money in taking the gospel out. Because friends, I can't think of a place in our city or our nation or our world where there isn't a need for a brave campus. I can't think of a place.

Well, they have too much Jesus there. You show me that place and I'll show you that you're wrong. And by God's grace, we're going to step on the faith pedal and we're going to believe God for all that God wants to do. Amen. So look up with worship.

Look back with gratitude. And friends, I'm telling you, look forward with faith. Our best days are ahead of us. We are just getting started. Just because we have 5,000 people coming in person and another 5,000 people online that are listening and people wanting to plant campuses closer to their home and all those different things.

I'm not stopping as long as the Lord gives me breath. Until I hear Jesus personally, physically in my face say stop. I'm here you're done. I got it. And until I hear that, we're not stopping.

You're part of the spirit filled army that God is doing something special with. And I want to challenge you as brave warriors of the Lord Jesus Christ, that from now until the Lord takes your last breath away to go all in with him, if you look up with worship, if you look back with gratitude, and you look forward with faith, God will take us places we never even dreamt of. Amen. He's already done it. He's going to continue to do it.

Amen. I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to have you watch this video of our baptisms. And we're going to celebrate Baptisms day before we close. Father in heaven, we give you all the glory, honor and praise for who you are.

Lord, we thank you for the 61 baptized today, the others that have been moved to get baptized because they've heard your word. If you're here today and you want to trust Jesus, here's how you can pray. Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner, but I believe that you want to save me. I repent of my sin. I give it all to you.

Give me all of your life and come into my heart and save me. I receive all your forgiveness right now. And Lord, for those of us who have received you, let us go and live for you. Lord, we love you and bless you and praise you as we celebrate new life today on this platform. In Jesus name, Amen and Amen.