Why don't you guys go ahead and turn the book of Ephesians?
We're not going to go through the whole thing.
We're just just kind of have your spot there.
But man, so much and so little time here.
OK, so always happens. I just, there's a part of me
honestly that kind of want to just close the Bible, maybe read
a passage, close it, and then just go back into worship.
I just really feel like it has been such a rich morning
already. But I do want to show you guys a
few things in the in the spiritual warfare series that I
think will be helpful in laying the groundwork just to the kind
of something to capture why we're doing this series again,
giving you a little bit more of a vision to why we're doing
this. And so before we get there, you
know the, there's been a lot going on, right?
We got Acts 931. We laid out the plan for
strengthening families to multiply.
We want to strengthen as a family, as a church.
So we might multiply. That is in our marriages, that's
in our personal life, that's in our parenting, that's in the way
we do mission. We want to strengthen to
multiply. How many know that we don't want
to invite people into an unhealthy church?
We're not we. Don't want to multiply that.
We want to multiply something that's healthy.
Amen. Right.
So God wants to do that. That's the word of the Lord for
us to multiply. Amen.
I mean, everybody wants that. We want our church to grow.
We want our church not just to grow in church transfer.
We don't want to just take other sheep from other churches.
That's fine if you're here and you're new and you're coming
from another church, especially if you're from college.
You know, like you're in Fort. Lauderdale or Tampa or
something, you have to have a local church to belong to.
We love that. But if you know, but at the same
time, we want to grow with new church conversion, right?
I mean, we want to. We want to.
New conversion growth, that's what I'm trying to say.
New conversion growth, we want to have people that are lost and
come here and find find Jesus for the first time.
And those are the most fun people to be around.
That was George Lopez. I mean, just I, it was, it's,
it's so fun to watch. I mean, I could go down the
line. I'm literally looking at people
that got saved with us. It's so much fun to walk with
you. And again, I am not saying
there's anything wrong with coming from another church.
That's great. I mean, welcome you.
We want you here. We want you to actually live it
out and disciple. Those people you know?
But we're just saying, man, it is so much fun to to see the
lost get saved. That is the business of Jesus.
That's like what he's doing, you know, like, hey, just transfer
churches. That's what I came for, you
know? No, he came to seek and save the
lost. Anybody want to do that?
I mean, let's do that. Let's give our life to that.
Let's actually do that for a living.
I don't care what you do during the week.
It don't really matter because people change jobs all the time.
But one job does not change. Make disciples.
That job never changes. For everybody in this room.
The one thing you'll be doing until the day Jesus comes back
is make disciples. He will ask you on that day.
Well, my good and faithful servant, that's not just hey, I
did a good job at parenting and this and that and the other
right, or or I I've done a good job at my job, you know, like
literally my day job. No, no, it's did you make
disciples? And part of that is like.
Having a family, like I'm making disciples in my household.
There's four dudes in my house, you know, one girl in my house,
we make disciples. And that is the hardest one
that, you know, like me being at Barnes and Noble with a college
student is a little bit less challenging than raising up.
Kids, but it's worth it. That is making disciples.
If you've given your life to making disciples.
And I'm not just talking about going on campus and sharing the
gospel. I'm talking about actually
talking to them about Jesus, sharing the gospel, and then
teaching them to do everything Jesus said and did.
Are you doing that? That is the greatest privilege
of my life. It's crazy to think about this
church like to look at this church is this this is like this
is like Nicole and I this is this is our baby.
You know, this is like y'all are kids, right?
I mean Dick, you're not my kid other than but everybody else
right? You know I'm your kid, your
child. He rebukes me all the time.
He just called me the other day and rebuked me.
So no, he encourages me. But it comes a challenge.
As well. I'm thankful for that.
But. Where's Where's Christian Bravo?
What is the definition of discipleship?
Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready.
Are you ready? Yeah.
Nope. I mean to live.
Yes, you want. You don't want to be OK.
Yeah. You can't make disciples dead.
All right, Courage. And challenge.
Someone to live full? Harmony for.
Jesus and his purposes and his purpose.
All right, 85%. There we go.
Way to go. You did good in the car
yesterday when we're in Texas, it was 80%.
Now you got 85. You got missed.
One word. All right, we'll get we'll get
better every time. OK.
So, yes, if you didn't hear them, it is to make disciples.
Discipleship is right to encourage.
And to challenge someone right you're walking with to live
wholeheartedly for Jesus and his purposes and then multiply that.
Amen. That's it.
My question to you is, are you doing that?
My question to you, are you in discipleship?
Are you a follower of Jesus? And making more followers of
Jesus, That is the greatest joy. When we came here in 2011, we're
like, I mean, literally and, and just even, it's crazy to think
about this. One of the girls that was with
us, she's a college student. She's a part of the youth
ministry. She's in Hungary now picking up
her adopted daughter. But that was like 18 years ago
or something back in the youth ministry days.
But Nicole and I came just with three of our young kids in
diapers. One of them is newborn, 14 years
ago. And the reason why I keep
bringing that before you is because God doesn't want to just
do it here in Oviedo, but he wants to do it all around the
world, and He wants to do it with you.
He wants to do that with you like Morello's.
He wants to do that with you. Jurwitz's, he wants to do that
with you. Now, it doesn't mean you have to
move, although that could be a part of it, right?
And go plant something somewhere else.
But if he did it with us, we did not know what we were doing.
We still don't know what we're doing.
Like. That's a little laughter from my
wife. If you didn't hear where that
was coming from, that was hers a little.
Awkward laugh. But what I what I'm saying is if
we, we don't know what we're doing back then, it was just a
call of God and all it was was the call to make disciples.
It wasn't even like, I don't look at it as like, oh, we're
planting. A church and so we got to kind
of have to do the thing. I don't even know what The thing
is. It just we're just meeting with
people. So we got a team from Waco, TX
and they just said, hey, we're going to come and we're going to
help you guys get launched. And many of those people in that
early stages of the church are still with us.
They're leading, they're leading this church with us.
What a joy and a privilege. Why would you not want to do
that? You don't have to do it to the
same degree. And I understand there's gifts
and calling gifts and all that. I understand all that makes.
But God's called all of us to do that, to just take the few in
front of us, to inspire them, to equip them to multiply.
It's what he's called us, everybody to do.
Do you understand that? Everybody in this house, you're
like, that's not what I want to do.
Then you're not going to like this church very much because
we're going to kind of always push you in towards that
direction. And by the way, that's what
Jesus said. I.
Am with you until the very end of age.
What is He with us? What is He with us for?
What's the purpose? What?
What is he with us for? What is He giving us His power
to do, to make disciples? Amen.
So we have to understand what is a healthy church.
Before we understand what spiritual warfare is, we have to
understand what is what is what are we living for?
Like what is the what is the big purpose, the grand scheme?
Like what's? The What are we living for, what
are we giving our lives for? And what is the enemy trying to
get? Us to do.
What is he trying? What is he fighting against?
He's fighting against a healthy church that will multiply.
That's what the enemy does every day of your life.
In my life, that's what he does. And we'll dive in this morning
as much as we can. We'll get as far as we can, but
we have to start off with what is a healthy church.
So what we're going to do is we're going to put that up on
the screen again. Is Joel back there?
Where's Joel at or who's? Back there I can't see all.
Right, Jordan Morgan. All right, Morgan, you got this.
OK, Morgan, what is a healthy church?
OK, so put that up. All right, So God, all right, so
we're going to look at this and we're going to look at this
again, and we're going to look at this multiple weeks because
until it's in US, until you sit like this is who we are as a
people. And we have to look at what is
healthy. And then we see that, wow, the
enemy wants to destroy that like every day.
So all right, so. OK, so God is the main topic of
the Bible, not the devil. I, I wanted to spend on purpose,
spend more time talking about who God is than who the devil
is. And not that he doesn't, not
that it doesn't matter. The Bible talks about the devil,
but. How many know?
The Bible talks a whole lot more about God and who he calls us to
be than about the devil and his tactics.
Amen. So that's why we're doing that.
All right? So God is building a transformed
family. He's the one building it.
He's the one that built that 14 years ago.
It's not us. He built it, He gave us a family
and it's a transformed family. You're no longer the same.
You've been bought with a price. You're no longer under the
Egyptians rule of reign, but you're a Jesus now.
You've been bought with a price. Your life is not your own.
He's a family, right? And then?
Because we are transformed because of what God has done in
our lives. Now we are seeking Jesus with
our whole heart. How many know when you are
redeemed, when you're adopted, you're no longer a part of that
orphanage that was under the power of the enemy.
And now you're in a new family. Now you're in a with a new
people. The the the light of God has
shined into the darkness of your hearts and transformed you.
You no longer can live the same way.
Do you guys know that? The greatest weapon that you
have in your arsenal against the enemy, Do you know what that is?
My Italian friends are shaking their head.
Yes, I want to know. Huh.
Light. OK.
Yeah, yeah. Is is light Lalouse.
Oh, that's the Spanish Luche. I like that.
See. OK.
La luche. OK.
Yes, that's great. No, the greatest weapon.
The greatest weapon, I mean, it is, you know, it is to a degree,
it's our holiness, it's our transformed lives.
That is the greatest weapon because that really is the whole
armor of God. It's just showing the
transformed life. You have the breastplate of
righteousness, you have the helmet of salvation.
He's showing you what something that you, you don't just go in
the closet one day and just grab it.
It's something that you have, it's already in you, the
transformed life. So you seek Jesus with your
whole heart building up and honoring one of us.
And now it not only they transform from the inside out,
now it, it has to go horizontal. It has to actually begin to
transform other people's lives, right?
Building up and honoring one another, serving them with
humility, grace and joy. We are a family who lives on
mission. We are not selfish.
We are not people who hold us in.
We make disciples of all nations.
That's why we go on mission. That's why every summer we have
7 locations this summer, because we can't hold it to ourselves.
We can't just keep this to ourselves.
Our lives are full. They should be full in God and
it's our delight and our joy to give that away to other people.
So we accomplished this not in our own strength, but through
word worship and prayer. That's why we spend time in
corporate worship. There's something special about
corporate worship and something special about your individual,
individual worship that you do in your own bedroom with God.
You put on worship music. That's great.
There's something different about corporate worship.
We fight the enemy by praying for one another, by fighting for
one another. If you know someone else is
going through a hard time and you know that the Lord speaks to
your heart, he might be tapping you on the shoulder, say, hey,
why don't you go across the room and pray for them.
We had an incredible moment up here.
Incredible. It was incredible.
Some some some beautiful moments of I've just Nicole and I tag
team and praying for different people just to tears.
People are weeping in the presence of God because they're
being touched by the Lord and not only by the Lord, but the
love that they feel from their family.
That's how we fight the enemy. We kind of know what health
looks like. What is health look like in the
church? This is it.
This is who we are as a people and this is what the enemy is
attacking. All through COVID, ever really
since the day we birthed the church, he's been trying to take
this thing down. We got people on the outside
that who hate us, who literally want to see this church
destroyed. And the cool thing is, is God,
Jesus already said it. The gates of hell will not be
able to prevail against it. Like it's not going to happen no
matter how hard you try because Jesus is the one that birthed
this thing and he will see it to the end.
Amen. That should give you great
confidence. God is here, here he's working
on our behalf. So we do this in the power of
the word, worship and prayer. We do this by the power of the
Spirit until Jesus comes back all for his glory.
It's not for our glory. As I said, we could set up and
say, look, I'll look what a great job we've done.
No, no, no, it's to say it. Look, he did it all.
He did it all. And if you have any victory,
whether it's, you know, personal, like you've overcome
sin this week, you know, you just said, no, you found the way
out, right? And you got victory.
Not great isn't great isn't victory tastes much sweeter than
defeat when you when you go that direction.
OK, so you feel that you feel that victory.
That's God. God did that.
Did you partner with them? Yes.
You work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
You work out what he works in. And so we give him glory because
we know that. All those little tastes.
Of victory is because of what Jesus has done in our lives to
the power of the spirit. Amen.
OK, so we have kind of like what you see like a vision.
The vision is like 1355. I know that sounds kind of
funny, but just in your head. There's one vision that we have
that's transformation. The three is Jesus family
mission. OK And then the five rings of
the church again, this is what the enemy attacks all the time.
He's attacking these areas all the time.
And when I flew in I we just got back from Texas, We took 95
people to to world mandate. We've been going to world
mandate for years. So back in 2007 was my first
world Mandate ENIAC Wheaton. And so for 18 years just being a
part of this conference is a great deal.
But there there's so the enemy is attacking is not necessarily
Christians going to a conference.
He don't care if people go to a conference that don't matter
really to him. I mean, it doesn't want you to
hear the word, but people have been doing that for decades.
What he cares is if you live it out because again, that's the
greatest weapon. Jesus came to destroy the works
of the devil. And as we are in him, we also
destroy the works of the devil, not only in our own life and not
only in the church, but the city and the nations for his glory.
Amen. So these five areas that I know
a lot of you guys are like, I know them, I know them.
I can I just say that's great that you know them.
That's awesome that you know them.
Are you living them and are you reproducing them into other
people? Because we can't, we can't carry
Nicole and I can't carry the church.
We can't we this it's impossible.
It's been reproduced in the next generation, the next generation,
next generation. You have to carry these vision
and values. This is what a healthy church
looks like. And what does it look like?
It's people spending time with Jesus everyday.
The first thing isn't that interesting.
You know, like you, you have plans.
You're like, man, I can't wait to spend time with God tomorrow
morning. Well, something happens, right?
If your mom, you're up all night, you're up all night,
right? With your kid.
You're like, it's just one of those nights.
You're like, man, I planned on spending time with God and now
I'm up all night. Like I'm just what is that?
You. Can't always just blame that on
the on the devil you know. Right.
But they're right, so. But there's distraction and
instead of looking at that, oh, there's an opportunity to be up
with my child. Spending time.
You could spend time with God as you take care of your child.
That's the season you're in is mom's, that's the season you're
in. It's a good season.
It's a great season. It's not going to last forever.
But you could. Spend time with God in that
season. No one's telling you you can't
put worship music on. No one's telling you can't pray.
No one's telling you can't read the Word or listen to the Word.
No one's telling you can't do that.
But sometimes you can get all bent out of shape because we're
we're thinking, Oh my goodness, all my time is being disrupted
for that time in the morning. Sure, OK, maybe.
But you can utilize that. For your for.
Your benefit, you could, you could say like, OK, Lord, what
am I doing right now in this moment?
Because God wants all of us to spend time with him.
Sometimes even college students, you stay up like a super late at
night, you're getting 4 hours of sleep the next morning.
It's just impossible to spend time with God.
Then you're doing it like 10:00 in the you know, or 12:00 you
get up or you know, whatever you know.
It's like you're just like frustrated with yourself all day
because you didn't get time with God.
The enemy's going to do whatever it takes to distract you from
God. Everything He's going to use
all, he's going to use his arsenal of weapons and he has a
lot of them to use against you so that you won't spend time
with God. So we have resources, right?
We have the McShane plan. We have other plans.
But if you don't have a game plan, if you do not have an
actual plan to spend time with God, then you're going to fail.
Like you're, you're not going to, you're not going to actually
do it. You can't play Russian roulette
with the Bible. You have to actually open up the
Bible and say, OK, God, there's a plan and I need that plan.
I've been walking with Jesus for 25 years and I need that plan.
I need someone to tell me like this is what you're reading
today and I get to check that off right?
It's a steady diet of the word of God is going to defeat the
enemy in your life. It's just going to happen guys.
It's just basic. You're like, I know that, but
are you doing it because everybody does that in this
room. It's I mean literally like this
is crazy little experience for Bible.
Like it's incredible. There's no doubt.
And then are we praying? Do we have a prayer card?
Do we have something to guide our prayers?
Again, we need something outside of ourselves to direct us and
Jesus has many ways for us to pray.
You can lose the Lord's prayer. I've, I've shared with this many
times, but just me, you know, me and Jesus.
I have there's like probably the longest because I have a lot to
pray for for myself. And then I start praying for my
wife and then that moves into praying for all four of my kids.
And then that moves into praying for all you guys is the church.
And then I move into praying for the nation's five.
And I just sometimes I'm running and I have to hold my finger as
I'm running and praying because sometimes I can't just sit and
pray. I have to run.
But I'll be holding on to my finger just so I can keep me on
my place because I want to make sure I get through those
prayers, not out of legalism, but because God answers them.
See, I haven't talked about the devil much, just talking about
the disciplines of God in your life and worship.
Why is worship so important? I remember that one of the
speakers, the conference speakers, his name is Clint.
He's spoken here before. He but I think back in 2020 and
he one of the things he says he's like.
Why would you? Listen to anything other than
worship music, you know, like, why would you do that?
Like, it just doesn't make sense, right?
The pull of the world is so strong.
Why would we want to listen that?
And again, that's not a legalism.
It's like I want my heart to be engaged with God.
I want I because music is powerful.
It's just sticks in your head. And sometimes when I'm shopping
or something, I go out or the store, you know, like they're
playing secular music and I get in my car and I like I and I'm
not, you know, like I'm not ready to listen to worship me.
And it's just in my the secular songs in my head and something
is not something I want. I had like just a dirty song in
my head when I was in Vancouver. Ricky and I were in the car and
it was just, it is a bad song. And like the guys from like the
Middle East or something like that.
He's driving this car and I'm looking at him and like, should
we tell him to turn it off like. You know.
But just in my head, like all day, I'm like, no, get it out of
my head, you know? But music's powerful and the
devil knows that. So we need to make sure like how
we fighting this battle. We can't fight this battle with
the wrong songs in our head, which is not going to happen.
Like it's not even the thing you want to do those things in the
song. It's just it's there.
And I already have the bombardment of the world
everywhere. I need something to again point
me to Jesus. That's just point #1 it's so
important. That is the bull's eye of this
church. Guys.
If you're not spending time with Jesus, you will not defeat the
enemy at all. You will continually be knocked
around every day and even that quiet time of the half hour or
an hour or whatever it is, I just challenge you, at least you
30 minutes tomorrow. But whatever that is, it's still
not enough for me. It's still not enough for me.
Like I need all day with God to keep me from all the devices of
Satan. I need him.
I need God. And there's nothing wrong with
that. To say like I'm weak.
I can't, you know, like to say like, you know, it is better to
say, hey, I can't do Instagram because I'm weak than to fail
and say I shouldn't have done that, right?
I mean, just, it's preventative. It's like I I'm just weak, but
no one's going to fault you for that.
People might fault you for falling, but no one's going to
fault you for saying, hey, I'm weak.
I can't go there. You see what I'm saying?
Just know your weakness. The devil knows your weakness
probably better than you do, but you want to get in tune with
your weakness. You want to know what you can
and cannot do. All right, so the second thing,
what would you talk about is discipleship.
Please everybody, everybody make this promise.
Spend time with God tomorrow and say, all right, who am I being
discipled by and what is who is God calling me to disciple?
You got to have that written down somewhere.
I know that if you ask me, if you want to ask me after church
something, I don't want to test John.
I want to see if he's being discipled and I want to say
fine. Ask.
I know that off the top of my head.
I'm not going to just name names up from the front, but I, I,
there are people who are pouring into me and I am pouring into
others and there's mutual. Everybody should have a Paula
Timothy and a Barnabas, right? We've heard that before.
Do it. So much of what I'm going to
repeat on, I'm from the front on purpose.
I, I, I'd say that with a twinkle in my eye, right on
purpose. I am going to be saying things
that are so obvious. I'm just hoping someone actually
does it because that's where the transformation begins.
I'm actually on purpose not going through like 3/4 of my
notes right now. I'm making this painfully
obvious because I'm done with just teaching something and
people are not living it out. That does nothing for anybody.
We are going to be the church that's known to live it out.
And if you don't like that, go somewhere else because we're
going to live this stuff out. And and look, there is so much
grace. There's so much grace.
I cannot do this myself, but we are going to live it out.
We are going to say we cannot just hear the word of God.
We must be doers of the word and where there's weakness must be
like, man, I'm just struggling. I mean, I call people on a
weekly basis. I talked to my wife and a week
my wife on a weekly basis and just say I'm not doing OK.
I need help. It might be just 20 seconds.
Let's just. Go for a walk.
Let's talk about it. We are weak, but lean in in your
weakness. Lean in, don't shy away.
So like, oh, what was me? I can't ever do it right.
That doesn't do anything. That doesn't do you good to
compare. Comparison will destroy you.
I'm never going to be like that guy.
That guy's too holy. They're not holy.
They're just facade. I mean, in some ways, you know,
I mean, it could be real and genuine, but if they are
genuinely holy, it took them work.
It's work, it's hard work, and they're leaning in.
To the people of God to say, hey, would you help me?
Would you lift me up? Would you pray for me?
Let's fight this together. That's discipleship.
Amen. If you need more, you need to
definitely just go to where's Christian Bravo.
Wherever he sit, just go to him. He, he knows discipleship.
OK. All right.
So the third deal is you need a family.
People are so lonely. When I flew into Orlando, I was
reminded again, so I was in Texas.
I, I don't know what I, I don't live there.
I mean, it's like my second home.
I know Dallas airport, Dallas love airport like the back of my
hand. But I, I mean, and then driving
down I-35 to Waco, I mean, that's like a second home to me.
I, I still today don't really know what they deal with over
there, but they have, they have strongholds in the city, OK, but
I don't know what they deal with.
I know what we deal with. Do you all know what that is?
Sometimes you're just so used to your own dirt, you don't even
know. You don't even know what's on
you. You know, like that smell, like
everyone. Some people are like, you know,
they could like if somebody borrows a shirt or something,
like I have a shirt somewhere. They're like, it must be the
criolis. Like, how do you know that?
Like you know what I mean? You know, you're like, you know,
you're like smells like, oh, that's.
That like just have a certain scent.
Everybody has a certain scent. Oh, it's good.
But like a certain scent, right, But it's like you can blindfold,
you can smell like, oh, I'm, I'm at this person's house, you
know, just have a certain. Well, when you come.
Here when you're, you're so used to the dirt, you know, you're so
used to, you know, the, the, the atmosphere of, of just, you
know, it's, it's apathy. One of them is apathy. 2
loneliness. And three, immorality,
particularly sexual immorality. Anybody struggle with any of
those 3? It's real.
And I'm not saying there's more, because there is.
We don't live in New York City. They got their own demons, so to
speak. We have ours.
And every time I fly in and I see that green carpet, right?
You don't know what I'm talking about.
The green carpet. It's the famous green carpet of
MCO. I love it.
It's like, I want to hug the carpet.
I want to like lay on the carpet, but I don't, you know,
there's like dirty spots and there's the clean spots they
always like trying to put. I just love that carpet.
I don't know. I have AI have socks that are
from the carpet like I've and they're in my office.
I don't wear them, but I just look at them.
It's a reminder of how much I love our airport, but it when I
fly in, it's a reminder of like, uh oh, I'm under it again.
Like I walk into this building and I just, I just, I don't know
how to explain it, but I just sense this like apathy, like
there's a part of us that's like, man, I want to do the
things of God. I want to change the world.
I want to be a part of that. I want to give my life to
something that's where that's eternal.
But. Something is pulling me away
from that. Do you ever feel that?
Do you ever feel indifferent and apathetic?
That is demonic. I mean it's not from God.
The second is loneliness. I mean people feel lonely if I
mean even as much as we do family, it's still there's
people that are like, I just don't feel like I belong.
I don't feel like I'm, I'm really in, I mean, Florida in
general, when you think about where we came from, like just
the state of Florida, it's all these people from the north who
want to get out of the cold and move here and they left half
their family up north. So it perpetuates loneliness
anyways. It's just a, it's just a lonely
place for a lot of people. It's just in the, it's like in
the soil. But I'm seeing God change that.
I see a room full of radical people who are like, I want to.
I want to live on purpose. I want to be, I want to have
purpose. I want to live for Jesus.
I want to live for something outside myself.
Like there's your like. The apathetic spirit is breaking
here and it has over the last 14 years and it's awesome.
But there's more to go and there's newer people are coming
in. They're still feeling that,
they're still under the apathy and they're like, man, let's
break that off. Let's continue to share vision.
It's like, it's almost like, I feel like there's a, like, I've
seen this illustration before, but there's like a Styrofoam cup
and you're putting it under, you know, water fountain, but it's
got holes underneath, right? And you're just pouring it in
and every week is pouring in, pouring in as soon as like you
get to Monday for as soon as you just even leave the building,
it's like, oh, I'm back, I'm back to it's like I'm back to my
like the, the the pull of the world.
I had a guy this week. I just, I like, I he's a dear
friend and I've known him for years, but I saw him in Texas
and Antioch, Waco, and I was like, we're just talking about
Vancouver. And he's like, oh, I love the
mood to Vancouver. I've always wanted to move
Vancouver. And he does, like, he, I mean,
he is literally all over the world.
The guy like has a lot of vision.
He's sacrificing in unreached places like that.
I can't mention it from up here, but he says he's like he said.
I was just kind of joking. I was like, yeah, well, you
know, a lot of people, when the new church went out to
Vancouver, not many people went there, but a lot of people went
to Miami. And he's like, oh, I could never
move to Miami. I was like, why not?
He's like, oh, I lived there when I was until I was 11 years
old. He's like at the worldliness,
the worldliness that's in Miami, I can never live there, which is
kind of funny in a way, because I mean, like some of these
unreached places. But I understand what he was
saying. And he's like, Orlando.
I was like kind of the same. I mean, maybe it's not as
intense as Miami, but we just have so many things to pull us
away, so many things. And I'm not saying that everyone
like I'm not just saying it's Disney World.
And I think that's why Joe Ewen back in 2011 and we just got to
have it was so cool. The same guy that spoke this
word, we got to have, I don't know about 20 of us just in a in
a small room, just he was praying for our kids.
He's praying for a family, He's praying for a lot of you guys.
And he said, man, this is before the church even got off the
ground. It was not even a church yet.
But he's like you will be a part of a move of God in Orlando that
shines brighter, stands taller than anything Disney and
SeaWorld have to offer. We're seeing a glimpse of that.
But I nothing till I think the magnitude of what I think God
intended that to be just the pull of the world is so strong.
People come from all over the world to be entertained here.
What if they came from all over the world to meet with God, to
actually meet with God? And I'm not saying we're the
only ones. I mean, let's partner with other
people that are like minded. Great.
I mean, it's not like we're not the heroes here.
I'm just saying like, wouldn't that be awesome if people went
all over the world to come here? Because testimonies like George,
testimonies that are just what God's doing in our city, what
he's doing in our neighborhoods, because we're getting this
stuff. The enemy wants to attack that.
He wants to attack you with loneliness, that you don't
matter, that you're alone and you got to.
He wants to attack you with apathy and indifference.
That's what he's doing. Do you understand that?
Stop letting him blindfold you and fool you.
When you see the health of what the church can be and then you
see how the enemy comes against that, It's it's like there's you
understand, you're like, wow, OK, I think I understand the
battle a little bit more because we could go in depth and we can
do it. We're going to unpack a lot of
this as as we go throughout the weeks leading up to mission, but
I just want us to understand in the simplest way, like you
belong to a family, like there's a life group invitation for
everybody here and you could either make that life group
amazing and worthwhile going to or just like the world.
Like, that's up to you. That's your fault, not my fault.
My life group's great. I have like 2 engaged couples.
They're amazing. We have fun together every week.
That's my life group in this season.
Then I'm going to college. If your life group is boring,
it's your fault. If your life group is not worth
going to, it's your fault, not my fault.
It may not even be your leader's fault, although it might be.
And if you're under that impression, if you're under that
spirit of apathy, you come to life grief, you're like apathy.
Just get together with a bunch of people, say, hey, man, we're
feeling that, You know, that empathy that John was talking
about. I'm kind of feeling that a
little bit. Let's.
Just break that off because that's not how we're supposed to
live as people of the people of God supposed to come to the
household of God. I mean, look at can I just, I
mean literally, can I read you like a?
A passage in the Bible that speaks of like I'm just curious.
I'm, I'm just, I'm not I'm not saying that it is like this or
not like this, but Acts 242 right people just got saved in
verse 41 thousands, three thousands of souls.
And so they're like, well, what do we do with all these people?
We said, well, this is what we need to do.
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles
teaching the fellowship to breaking a bread into prayer.
Man is like just listen to this and see like, is this the is
this the family that I go to on a Wednesday or Tuesday night?
Is this the people of God? We all have a role to play in
this. We all come with this
understanding. Lord, break the apathy, break
the loneliness, break that orphan spirit that I don't
belong. I belong in this place.
I was invited to this place. Come on, I want to be in let's.
I want to see God. Move to become of the household
of the Lord. On Tuesday night like that,
everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.
When was the last time you've sensed awe in your life group?
Because God was moving powerfully.
We're going to do a few baptisms this week in the college man.
There's a sense of awe. There's a sense of awe on
Thursday night, the encounter nights, there is a sense of awe.
I mean, it was, it was 11:00 PM that night and college students
didn't want to leave the building because they're
experiencing God. They're encountering him in a
real tangible way. Everyone kept feeling a sense of
awe and many wonders and signs were taking place to the
apostles and all, all, all, everybody.
Not just the leaders, not just the elite, not just people, but
everyone in in that household had believed they were, They
were together and all things in common and they began selling
their property and possessions. In other words, they were giving
generously to people who were in need and they were sharing with
all as anyone might have need there.
In other words, like how do you know that someone has a need?
They share it. It's pretty simple.
They're just vulnerable. Are you guys coming in
vulnerable? Because family can't happen
without vulnerability. It can't happen with without
humility and coming in and can't happen with we're not honoring
and meeting those needs and sharing that the love of God
with such graciousness and love. People coming in broken and
hurting and lonely, apathetic and these should be a no
apathetic zone or life groups, no loneliness zone.
Everyone should feel a sense of all and sense of family.
They began selling their property they shared with those
need and day by day continuing with one mind.
That's the unity factor. That's a healthy church.
Unity in the temple and breaking bread from house to house.
They're taking communion. They were remembering what?
Jesus has done for them. They confess their sin without
you can't have community without confession of sin and and
authentic. So that's what it's Speaking of
it, although it's not explicit in the text.
But if they're breaking bread, yes, they're eating together.
There's fellowship, there's meals, and then there's breaking
bread. Breaking bread speaks of
communion and sharing meals together.
Just it's, it's there's a sense of fellowship.
And when you break a meal together, it's softened people's
hearts. Do you ever notice that?
Like you might even be a little bit at odds with somebody or
might even have in one of those meetings, you know, you have to
have with somebody and you just have a meal just softens hearts,
especially if you cook for them. Showing the love of God softens
hearts. The people aren't going to come
in all right with Gladys and sincere to heart.
They're praising God and having favor with all the people and
the Lord again, here's multiplication, right?
The Lord was adding to their number day by day.
Those who are being saved, new conversion growth multiplied
because they sense, man, you guys are a healthy church and
will the enemy do something about that?
Yes, because the whole book of Acts, at least the 1st 8
chapters, 9 chapters, which Scott said even last week in the
context of our passage at 9 Acts 931 for the year, I mean, that
was in the context of people being persecuted and the devil
works through persecution. We'll talk about that next week.
Just the four areas and ways that the devil just attacks us
as a church. He attacks our unity.
He attacks, he attacks us through external persecution.
He attacks us in, in, in many different ways through sin,
blatant sin for people hiding their sin, right?
He attacks us and those that we'll unpack that and then we'll
unpack ways to fight the enemy and then give you tools in your
toolbox. But right now we got to discuss.
What is a healthy church? What is a healthy church?
What are we trying to protect around here?
All right, lastly, so life group is encountering family, life
time when Jesus is encountering God, life group encountering
family. We're living out the vision and
values together and we multiply that out Sunday service
encountering God, right? So we're encountering the vision
who he's called us to be. And then we, we serve the
church. So everybody in this house
should serve the church, right? We have 195 volunteers or
something like that. It's a good majority of the
church. That's amazing.
But with sincerity, with, with a love for one another, that's
what God's called us to. And then lastly, you know, I
don't even have to mention it. You all know mission.
I mean, everybody goes on mission around here, which is
amazing. But why do we do that?
Because we're, we're full. We go on mission because we're
full and I think there's quite a few people.
I mean, I can have the band come up.
I'm just going to go short today.
But I I think the I want to minister it to.
People who aren't full this morning.
Some of us have come full. We're full.
We have the fire of God. We're ready.
Let's go. Let's go make disciples this
week. Let's go change the world.
Let's go share the gospel. We want to do that.
But some of us are really. Struggling with that.
And I think maybe perhaps some of these areas that Orlando, for
whatever reason, has been plagued with this loneliness,
this, you know, the sense of apathy and indifference, you
know, like that. Do you ever just feel like, man,
I'm like, sometimes it's just hard to engage in the things of
God. You just feel like you're, it's
just, you're not there. You're, you're just not there.
You're I, I, I think sometimes you might need a nap, you know,
you might need more sleep. That could be.
But sometimes, you know, it's spiritual.
You know, the enemy's trying to distract me from something I
need to hear this morning or I need to engage with.
I just wonder if some of our guys in here and if you could
just if maybe that maybe that's the first time you've heard that
you're like, wow, I didn't realize apathy is like a
spiritual warfare. I didn't I didn't know that that
was something that I have to fight.
I just thought that's just the way things are in the world.
No, it's not like ask the disciples, you know, as they're
walking with Jesus and they're experiencing the time of their
life, watching literally bread come out of Jesus's hands to
feed 5020 thousand people. Like I don't think he'd be bored
there. I mean, imagine like coming down
from transfiguration. The transfiguration is pretty
cool, right? Jesus face glows and he's
showing you what he looked like before he came to earth, right.
The flesh sort of Shields you from that because you just can't
take the glory of God. You see the glory of God, you
die. But they got to experience that.
And then they go down the mountain and then they're seeing
this demon attacking this guy's boy and that some of the other
disciples that didn't go up on that cool mission trip, you
know, like little conference up in the mountains.
And and they're like, oh, OK, reality hits him on the floor or
on the ground. And Jesus said, you know, we're
praying. It's the demon comes out with
praying and fasting. I don't think they lived a
boring day in their life. And Jesus is inviting you on an
adventure. I think some of us forgot that
just living the everyday grind life.
And you kind of almost said like, maybe that's for the new
college student coming in. And that's just not for me as a
30 year old. I started the church at 29.
I think the adventure was just beginning.
And maybe some of you guys were like, I'm 2930.
I'm just wondering what I'm called to do.
Maybe just maybe just go on a surf project for a year or two.
Just go to Columbia. Just go get out of the just get
out of the, the whatever this is, you know, just get out of
your funk. You're the apathy, the just
you're so comfortable. It's like you partner with
apathy and it becomes comfortability and then you just
sort of waste away. I don't know, I, I don't, I'm
not saying a mission trip always fixes that, but I just think
getting out of your comfort zone, you know, just like I want
to immobilize the next generation to go change the
world. And I just think that's what
God's calling this place to be where the special OPS, where the
green Berets, you know, like we're let's just go, let's go
live it out until Jesus comes back.
Can't imagine anything it's all worthwhile.
Then just give me your life it's not your life anyway, right?
It's his it's his life. He owns you now he used to be a
slave of sin, kept pulling you in, but now Jesus pulls you in
you're a slave of righteousness. He tells you what you need to do
and just listen to him. You know, it's not just like the
apathy, but it's the loneliness. Like, I mean, I'm in love with
God, but I'm just having a hard time with this horizontal plane.
Like I'm good with God, you know, like I'm good and I
believe you. I think you are.
But just the horizontally, I'm just struggling and there's so
much disunity or like I'm comparing and it's just like
you're, you're, you're so horizontal.
You're not seeing that God put you in a family to encourage you
and for you to encourage other people to take what you're
getting from God, your relationship with God's great
and great, and give that away and be an asset, be a good
friend. Be a good friend, be a good
family member, be a good brother, be a good sister.
Pull someone aside and in your pain, you.
Reach out to other people, not to get something, but to bless.
Isn't that what he called us to you?
They're always going to feel. Good.
When you come to church, that doesn't mean you sit in a
corner. It means you.
Reach out and say, I either want to say I, I have a need to pray
for me or I'm just going to go pray for somebody else and I'm
going to refresh somebody. I'm just going to trust God, you
know, like he, he gave us everything, gave us everything
that we need. I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm
with you, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you.
That's enough. That means he's going to
overflow my life and to other people.
I'm going to want to bless other people.
I'm going to run this, spend the rest of my life not comparing.
I'm going to spend the rest of my life not being offended.
You know, we'll talk about that later.
Like just the. Bitter root.
I've seen people be so bitter, so bitter.
Bitter, bitter, bitter. Don't give your life to
bitterness. Don't do that.
It's bitter. Is anybody better?
I don't raise your hand. That's covered.
But it's like bitter like. Is anybody?
Bitter. You know that's not a way to
live. Believe God wants to break that
bitterness. Off of people today.
And just we live that, we have life, we have life.
We're full. We're people, the people of God.
If there's anybody that's full in this city, it should be this
room. Amen.
We're full wake up. Oh, Sleeper,
People mobilized all over the earth.
One of the things that Joe gave us, you know, it's like maybe
once a year or something I jotted down when he might speak
over us. But this year it was just
simple. He's like God's called to go to
the north, the southeast and the West, and the seeds that you've
been planting will turn into church plants.
He's called us to, and maybe that's a distant future.
Maybe that's a year. There's no time on it.
Maybe a year or two years, whatever it is.
But he's calling you in this room to do that.
He's calling you guys in this room to do that.
You know anything I don't know about that.
You this I don't know how to explain it, but this is not like
this isn't your typical pastoral church.
I don't know how to break the news to you.
There are other churches that are amazing at doing that.
That's awesome. But God's called us to be
mobilized all over the planet. He's called us to do that.
That's who we are. You will be pastored.
We have amazing pastors that can help.
You out with that, but you are called.
To take this Bible, open it up in the morning, say God, meet
with me, be with me this morning, me with me, speak to
me. I want to know you.
I want to hear your voice. I want to cultivate that.
But there's two, there's two riverbanks, right?
There's the word of God and there's the people of God.
As you get in the river of hearing him, as you get the
river of, of just knowing Jesus, there's, there's protection,
there's the word of God and there's the people of God and
you'll never miss it. I remember just, you know,
you're talking college students. It's not going to be out like
what Thursday night Jesus, like, I don't know, I just feel like
I'm going to miss it. And I don't know, I was like,
listen, you'll never miss it if you give with God and every day
when you're Bible and you give with the people of God who live
in isolation, you'll never miss the calling of God on your life.
You understand that. Never look at it that way.
You'll never, ever miss it ever. You don't have anything to worry
about. I know it's like and that's.
That's just calls to this for everybody.
Else we're called to intimate intimately meet with God.
You know, like this is what we're called to.
To walk with him. So Jesus, we ask you right now,
all across the rim, Lord, we pray that tomorrow would be a
new day. That as we wake up with you, we
spend time with Jesus, we spend time with you, We cultivate
hearing you. Walking with you is a
relationship. We talk to you.
You speak to us through your word.
You speak to us through your spirit.
Thank you for that. Lord, You play no favorites in
the room. You've called all everybody in
this room to meet with you to that doesn't have an apathetic
bone in their bodies. So that I pray for my kids every
day, Lord, I pray for hunger that they would not give in to
apathy or indifference, but they would be on fire for God and
nothing would be able to quench it.
That is my prayer every day for them and that's my prayer for
you this morning. That God, that they would, yes,
Lord, that the sons and daughters of the Lord would,
would take up their scripture, take up prayer and work, worship
in prayer and fall in love with you.
That they would never have an apathetic day ever,
it's great. We will not give into this
anymore. We will not give into
loneliness. If there's anybody that doesn't
feel like family, just go ahead and raise your hand.
Come on, just say have people pray for you.
Just we do this every time. Just people just are feeling
like that. Don't feel ashamed by that.
Don't feel that way, which is how about this, but everyone
just stand their feet. We're just going to give 2 calls
this morning. The apathy.
And the loneliness deal. If you're just feeling apathetic
from the Lord, just go. If you're feeling apathetic and
feeling a distant. From the Lord.
And you're like, man, I want to cultivate that intimacy, that
fire again. Just raise your hand.
We'll get around you. Don't be ashamed of that.
I've seen God change that in a day, in a moment.
You can look back at that and say he moved.
If there's anybody here feeling like they just don't feel like
family, they're in church. And you might be someone who've
been here for a while. There's no offense to that.
I can share you story after story after story of people
feeling that way. I've just given calls, whether
it's in Mexico or whether it's down in Miami in the early days.
There's people still in this room that said I don't feel that
way. And something changed in that
moment. Something changed because maybe
the devil's holding you in bondage and lying to you.
If you're feeling a sense of loneliness and outside, you're
feeling like that person looking from like an outside looking at
me, I. Wish I had that.
I wish I had that. Go ahead and raise your hand.
We want to get you around you and pray for you.
Just coming up to the front just to skip ministry in these two
areas because you can't move forward and the and the and the
rest of this series without these two things being taken
care of. This is the stuff that we deal
with in our city. So God, we pray over every.
Person stir hunger in their hearts.
Again stir hunger in their hearts.
Lord, we pray for every person in this room that.
Just feels on the outside. It's not how you made us.
Maybe you're new. Maybe you're like, I don't have
no idea what you're talking about, Laura.
I want to belong to a family, a people of God, the people of
God, living stones for your glory.
Lord, we pray for that. No one would leave with a sense
of feeling. On the outside, no more of that.
God, when they come back next week, they come back full of
God, full of hunger and full of the sense of man.
I belong to this place I'm in, not because anything I did.
It's because God