Crossing family, how we doing today?
Are you guys doing all right? I am so excited to be with you
now. Several years ago on Super Bowl
weekend, we hosted Super Bowl champion Steve Weatherford from
the New York Giants, and traveling with him was a young
man by the name of Pierce Show. He was an ultra runner.
I didn't know what that meant, but the entire weekend that we
were here, he would go out for like these long 10 mile rides or
runs. And I started following his
journey on social media and he participated in some nasty
races. Turn to your neighbors, say
nasty. Let me just walk you through the
races he ran in 2023. He did the Tahoe 200 Miller,
then he went and did the Bigfoot 200 Miller, Then he did the Moab
240. As in 240 miles through the Moab
Desert. However, in 2025, this kid set
his sights on the Guinness Book of World Records for consecutive
days running a half marathon on a treadmill.
The previous record holder had done so for 125 days, so Pierce
started running. He ran for days, weeks, then
months until on August 2nd, 2025, he shattered the old
record by 28 days, running 153 consecutive marathons.
For those of you who are not good at math, that is 2004.3
miles. It reminds me of the quote that
I am sure almost all of you are familiar with.
The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
I titled my message How far would you be willing to go?
I want to welcome all of our different campuses that are
watching online. Those of you who are part of the
crossing inside, I am so thankful that you are here and I
want you to hold my sermon title intention.
How far would you be willing to go Now, Super Bowl weekend is
just around the corner and I want to remind you that we'll be
hosting a special guest to help you answer some of the key
questions that you have about defending your faith in Jesus
Christ or having a faith in Jesus Christ.
We titled the weekend Defend Your Turf.
And if you want, you can go ahead and hop in the app and go
down to the news and events section and it will help you
invite a friend to come with you because that weekend will be a
great weekend not only for you to in your faith, but to help a
person who is close to you but far from God begin their faith
journey. We are in a series called There
Has to be a place, real stories of real people with real faith.
As Jesus was speaking to the multitudes, he said this at the
very end of his time here on earth.
Matthew chapter 28. He was actually saying this to
his disciples. He said, then all authority, or
then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,
and surely I will be with you always to the very end of the
age. There's a couple things to
notice here. 1 Jesus comes in all authority.
There is no negotiation. If you are a Jesus follower,
He's in charge #2 this is a command.
Jesus is not asking us to do something.
He is telling us that if you are a Jesus follower, this is what
you were to be about. This is an expectation for
believers. When you get baptized, you don't
just make Jesus your Savior, you make him your Lord.
And how do you know that you have made Jesus the Lord of your
life? It is really easy.
Are you doing the things that He has commanded you to do?
And three, you and I are to be about making disciples.
And you might be asking, how do we make disciples?
Jesus answers it by going, by baptizing, by teaching, and by
obeying. In other words, if you've ever
wondered am IA Christian, you can answer it by those four
ways. Am I going about the things that
God has called me to do? Have I been baptized?
Am I teaching other people the word of God?
And am I obeying the word of God?
And this is to be our preoccupation.
If somebody were to ask you, what do you do?
Your answer should be, I make disciples of Jesus Christ.
That should be your answer. What we typically do is we tell
them where we work, but that is not why you were put on earth.
It is helpful that you do that while you were here on earth,
but that is not why you are here on earth.
In other words, it is not where you work that matters nearly as
much as what you do for God while you are at work.
Where you work is your occupation.
What you are about is your preoccupation.
And you and I are to be preoccupied with the things of
Christ. And you might be going, hey,
that sounds great, I'm just not there yet.
And I want you to hear me say this.
That's OK. It is just not OK to stay that
way. The Bible zooms in from time to
time on people and what I want to do for just a second is I
want to zoom in on just three of them.
The first person I want to zoom in on is Peter.
Peter is one of the lucky people that has chosen to spend close
time with Jesus over a three-year period.
He has seen almost everything that Jesus does.
On the very last night of Jesus's life, he's gathered in
an upper room. They're taking the Last Supper,
and Jesus is telling them that things are about to get bad and
you guys are going to abandon me.
And Peter says I will never deny you.
And then a few hours later, not once, not twice, but three
times, he denies Jesus. The Bible zooms in on another
person. His name is Thomas.
Just like Peter. He is one of the 12 who gets to
spend a whole lot of time with Jesus and see a whole lot of
things that Jesus does. But Thomas was the one who
showed up late. He wasn't at the meeting when
Jesus appeared to them after he had been crucified, buried and
rose from the dead. And so all the other people are
the other ten are saying Jesus is alive.
We've seen him. And Thomas says this in John
chapter 20 verse 25. But he said to them, this is
Thomas speaking, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and
I put the my finger where the nails were and I put my hand
into his side, I will not believe.
Then there's Paul. When we're introduced to Paul,
though he doesn't go by Paul, he goes by a name, Saul.
The first time he's mentioned, he is in attendance of the very
first person who was killed for their faith in Jesus.
The man that they were killing was named Stephen, and there
were a group of men who were throwing stones at him to kill
him. That's how you stoned a person.
You threw rocks at them until they died.
And while the guys were throwing rocks, they needed to get a
little bit more heat on the rock.
And so they took their coats off so they could get a better
throw. And guess where they put the
coats? They put their coats at the feet
of a man named Saul, so he was keeping watch over the jackets
while the people were stoning the very first Christian martyr.
Acts chapter 8 picks up the story.
And Saul approved of their killing hymn.
And on that day a great persecution broke out against
the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were
scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.
But Saul began to destroy the church, going from house to
house. He dragged off both men and
women and put them in prison. Why is he putting them in
prison? For their faith.
Their faith in what? In Jesus, the Bible zooms in and
we have a denier, a doubter, and a destroyer.
Some of you today you could fit into one of those 3 categories.
Maybe you're a denier, you're a person who you deny Jesus with
your words. Or maybe you don't deny him with
your words, but you deny him with your life on a regular
basis. You deny him in your home.
You deny him at work. Depending on the crowd
surrounding you, you deny Jesus. Others of you, you might be a
doubter. There are just some things that
make it hard for you to fully commit your life to Jesus.
And there might even be some of you today who you would be a
destroyer. You're actually against God.
You're against the church. You're against his people.
You've made fun of people for their beliefs, you've shamed
them, ridiculed them, picked on them every time they take a step
of faith. However, these pesky Christians
that are in your life that you keep picking at, they keep
praying for you, loving you, inviting you, and for some
reason or another, you find yourself here today for this
message. And I for 1:00 AM so glad you
are here. Recently I heard a story about
one of our staff members that was just way too good to be
true. So I asked him if he would come
and share his story with you. So would you please welcome
Johnny Woodfield to the stage? Come on up, Johnny.
You're going to be great, OK? You're going to do great.
So for those of you who don't know, when we launched our
Weaver location, Johnny ended up being the worship pastor at the
Weaver location. So Johnny, you should probably,
they'll hate you if you don't. You should say hi to the people
in Weaver real quick. Hi people in Weaver.
There you go. Good job.
OK. Thanks for loaning us to him for
the weekend. Now, Johnny, tell us a little
bit about you. Yeah, so ever since I graduated
high school, I had been on a constant search for what God
wanted me to do with my life. When I graduated, I moved 1000
miles away from the East Coast to Quincy, IL, where I wanted to
study to be a pilot. But I found that career path
required far too much debt that I was comfortable with, so I
enlisted to the National Guard to try to get them to pay for
it. While in training, I became
obsessed with the need for biblical counseling and decided
that maybe that should be what I'd study.
A few months later, I got the opportunity to join another
military group to take a flight halfway across the world where I
fell back into the dream of being a pilot.
And for whatever reason, on that trip I decided I wanted to do
social media professionally, if that's even possible.
I I gave it a try and quickly became obsessed with how much of
A creative outlet outlet it was. There were very few limits on
the things that I could create as long as somehow I could get
people to notice. And while I was brainstorming
for my next idea on what to post about, I stumbled upon a short
video describing a town in Nebraska with only one resident.
For those of you to kind of catch you all up, I want to show
you guys the cool video that he found online.
This is the smallest town in the United States.
Welcome to Manawai, Nebraska, a town with only one resident.
But why is there only one resident and who is it?
The town is located in the continental United States, 4
miles from the South Dakota border and 60 miles from the
nearest supermarket, surrounded by dirt roads.
The town used to be home to 150 people and had stores,
restaurants, and even a prison. But all the people moved away to
the big cities and now only Elsie is left and she is 90
years old. There are only three buildings
in the town, a house, a library and a Tavern.
The Tavern is open 6 days a week where you can eat a burger made
by Elsie and drink a beer. It's easy for her to get a
liquor license, just apply as a bartender, sign it as a clerk,
get it as a secretary and send it back to the bartender.
She holds all these positions and she's also a librarian and a
mayor. She is alone but not lonely as
there are many customers in her place.
If you are interested in Land in the Middle of nowhere, Elsie has
a list of available. So you see this video and what
goes through your mind? So after I realized it was only
8 short hours away from Quincy, I knew that I just had to go
there. I didn't really have much of A
game plan. I couldn't imagine there was
much content to capture in the world's smallest town.
But for the next few months I worked on some other projects
and kind of put the Mono Y project on the back burner.
Until one day I was driving around and for whatever reason,
Monoi came back to mind. Except this time I wasn't
interested in how to capture content, but curious if there
was any possibility that Elsie, the town's single resident,
could have a church to go to. I kept thinking about it, then
wondered if she even had access to a Bible.
This thought solidified my plan. I no longer cared about the
content, I just cared about getting her a Bible.
I ordered a nice large print Bible with her name just stamped
on the front. A few days later it came in the
mail and it was no longer if but when I would make it to Elsie.
The next open weekend I had I made the trip up to Monoi and
normally on these projects I'd I have a list of things I wanted
to record, but this time I didn't have a plan at all.
When I got there it was about how you'd expect a town with one
resident to look empty. I walked into the Tavern and
ordered a burger and fries, and it didn't take long to start a
conversation with Elsie after guys.
After the guys at the bar had left, I asked her if she'd be
open to an interview. I set up my phone and a mic that
really hardly worked and started an interview that I had 0
qualifications to give. It didn't take long for the
conversation to shift to questions about what finding
community looks like in a town with one person.
I knew that that would be my chance to ask her if she had a
church to go to. She shut down the line of
questioning, saying that she believed she didn't need to go
to church and that life is just about being good to people just
like Jesus was it. It seemed to me that she thought
that Jesus was a good teacher, but wasn't too concerned with
Christianity. At the end of the conversation I
told her that I had a gift for her and I pulled out the Bible I
had ordered a week prior and I could see her eyes water as I
slid it across the table. She said thank you and asked me
to sign my name on the presented by line on the first page and I
knew something was happening in her heart but I didn't think it
was quite appropriate to ask. We got up to take this picture
together and just when I thought that that was the end of my
trip, she stopped me just before I could reach the door to tell
me that she would find a way to make it back to church.
Yeah, I hope God raises up 1000 more people just like you.
You obviously learned a lot and you have some takeaways from
that experience. Share them with us.
At first this whole trip seemed to be like something that was
just a fun, curious project, but by the end I really felt the
weight of the fact that this isn't just a fun thing to do,
but a soul who needs Jesus just as much as anyone else does.
A few days after the trip, I I really had internalized the fact
that the trip mattered, regardless of whether anyone
heard about it. Even though it was just one
person, it still matters. What I'm learning is that as
long as you were living life completely surrendered to Jesus,
you aren't going to miss God's will or His plan for your life.
You don't have to go into missions or vocational ministry
to be obedient to the Great Commission.
Every person that you encounter needs Jesus just as much as
anyone else. Dude, my man, you killed it.
Hey, you seriously did an awesome job man.
Great job. When we talk about making this
region the hardest place on planet earth to get to hell
from, that is exactly what I'm talking about.
In the book of Acts chapter one, verse 8, there's a second Great
Commission. It just never gets called that.
But when you read it, you'll see it.
Acts chapter one, verse 8, this is Jesus talking again.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and
Samaria and to the ends of the earth Jesus mentions.
Four specific places he mentions Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and
the ends of the earth. If he were saying it to you
right now, Jerusalem would be your family, your neighborhood,
the people in closest proximity to you.
After you do a good job there, you would make it to Judea, your
country, the United States of America, or wherever you're
watching from. Now, when you get to Samaria,
those people would have been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa. You don't mean Samaria, because
Samaria, that's your enemies. That's the people.
You don't mind if they go to church as long as it's not
yours. You don't mind if they make it
to heaven. You just don't want them to be
close to you when they get there.
The people that have hurt you, frustrated you picked on you,
the people who've made your life difficult, your enemies.
But one of the hallmarks of the Church of Jesus followers has
that they have always been known for their enemy love.
No wonder Jesus says pray for those who persecute you into the
earth. Well, that's everywhere else.
That's everyone else. So I titled my sermon.
How far would you be willing to go, Johnny?
He traveled from Quincy all the way to Nebraska, a distance of
523 miles, to tell one person about Jesus.
Remember Peter the denier? Well, that's not how his story
ends. Peter goes from Jerusalem all
the way to Rome, a distance of 1500 miles.
Thomas the doubter doesn't stay a doubter forever.
He ends up taking the Gospel from Jerusalem all the way to
India, a distance of over 3000 miles.
And through the mission partners of this very church, we are
still carrying out Thomas's desires to reach that reason for
Jesus. And remember Paul the destroyer
it his story doesn't end that way.
Paul starts going on trips. He goes on so many trips that
they bundle them into missionary tours.
His first missionary tour he travels 1235 miles.
This is before planes, This before power boats is before
locomotives. This is either by foot or by
donkey or camel. Second missionary journey, he
goes 2700 miles. He likes it so much he does that
journey again. The 3rd missionary journey,
another 2700 miles to tell people about Jesus, the one he
used to persecute people for believing in.
And you would think after that he was all done.
He wasn't. He made a final trip to the
place that would eventually kill him.
He traveled from Jerusalem all the way to Rome, a distance of
2130 miles. And I am so glad he made that
trip because before he died, he wrote the book of Romans.
And if you have ever read the book of Romans, chapter 3,
chapter 5, chapter 8, all the chapters really, you would
realize that it was the message that he spoke to them that is
still speaking to us all. 8583 miles later.
So today if you're here and you're a denier, A doubter or a
destroyer, God can still use you if you'll let him and your
journey you might be going. There is no way I'm ever going
to go that far for Jesus. You don't know that because the
journey of 1000 miles begins with one single step, and every
time you take a step towards Jesus in faith, He will help you
take everyone after it. But here's the crazy part.
Every time you take a step of faith, you make it easier for
somebody else to take theirs. To those of you who are Jesus
followers, my question is simple.
How far are you willing to go? Are you willing to go across the
hallway at work? Are you willing to go across the
street in your neighborhood? Are you willing to go across the
gym, Across the factory floor? Because the next step that you
take just might be the step that somebody else will take because
of it. We're moving to a time of
decision. To those of you who don't know
Jesus yet, let me just talk to you for a little bit.
I love this time, and I say this every time I get the opportunity
to share in this invitation. The first step is very scary.
I get it. If you haven't ever taken that
step to trust Jesus and surrender your life to Him, it
can be scary. I get it.
It could be laced with tons of fear for some of you.
You're like, man, I got so many questions and that's what's been
holding you back from taking that step.
I don't know what it is for you, but I know it can be scary.
I've been for a long time. If you think about your life and
you think about all the decisions you've made in the
past, you have been making the decisions, you have been running
the play. You've been leaning on your own
strength. You've been leaning on your own
understanding. And I just need you right now,
wherever you're at. For those of you who have not
started relationship with Jesus, those who are online, those in
this room, I need you to take a deep breath and I want to ask
you this question. How is that working out for you?
And I don't say that in a in a, in a condemning way.
I don't say that in like, Hey, this is me putting my thumb down
on you. I'm just saying, are you
satisfied with the direction of your life?
Are you are you fulfilled? Do you feel fulfilled?
And I have good news for you. For those of you who want to
take that step, even though it's scary, although it's filled with
all those things, listen, there's a better way.
And his name is Jesus. You heard about him were crazy
about him and his desire is to walk with you and to enter into
this relationship with you and to give you this hope and to
give you this, this assurance of his love and and in a
forgiveness. And I love as we talk about this
story, we talk about these these three men specifically that that
scripture points out that that Peter was the denier, right?
You heard it. Thomas was the doubter and and
and and Saul or Paul was a destroyer right.
But it reminds me that God can change anyone, anyone, and he
could use them in a way that they never thought was possible.
And that's why I think there's somebody in this room and online
right now that Satan has convinced you that you have
messed up too much, that you're disqualified, that you can't be
loved by him or be part of this family of believers.
And I'm here to tell you, you have not messed up more than
those three guys. You have not messed up too much.
You have not said the wrong things.
You have not done the wrong things.
You have not gone too far because when you turn your heart
to Jesus, he did a mighty work through those guys.
And I believe, not only do I believe, I know he can do the
same thing in your life in an instant, in a moment, as soon as
you take that first step, as soon as you trust them.
And so if you're listening to my voice right now and you want to
like take off those names that you've called yourself, whether
you've been that denier, whether you've been that doubter,
whether you've been that destroyer, you can put on a new
name, a son or a daughter of the most high God.
And that is only through an intimate personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. And so if you want to take that
very scary step and trust him and start that relationship with
him in just a little bit as we start to stand and meet, the
band's going to come out and we're going to we're going to
worship. Some are going to come down the
steps right away. And they're just simply bowing
in humility and giving God praise.
If you have questions and you want to start that relationship
with Jesus, there's going to be someone over right by the
baptistry underneath that screen that you can just say, I need
that. I want to strip off those names,
and I want that name of being a son or a daughter of God.
And that's our prayer. That's why we're here today.
And for those of you who are listening, who know Jesus, let
me ask this very clear again, deep breath.
How far would you be willing to go?
What step do you need to take even in this moment?
What person is the is the Lord placing on your mind in your
heart right now? Because I have a feeling he's
putting the name in your mind. That's not that's not me, that's
not Clayton, that's the Holy Spirit.
He's putting someone on your mind.
And I invite you during this time that you would just bring
that name, get down on your knees and you would just give it
to the Lord Ask God, give me a burden for the lost.
Give me a burden to, to, to reach that person to do whatever
it takes. Johnny went a lot of miles to
Nebraska. Paul, Peter, Thomas, they
traveled a lot of miles. But here's the deal, Church, we
have 10,000 square miles. And in order to make this region
the hardest place on planet Earth to get the hell from, we
have to be willing to go. We have to be willing to obey.
We have to be willing to share our faith.
So let's join God on this mission together.
Let's lock arms. Or maybe I feel like I have to
speak to this real quick for that person in this room who's a
Christian. Maybe you felt like you went
backwards this week or it's been backwards for the last couple
months and you you drop down that name of son and daughter
and you've been living in shame, you've been living in regret and
you've been living like in darkness.
Listen, you can just also come back up to these steps.
You can recommit your life to Jesus and you could say, I don't
want that name. I am your son.
I am your daughter. And you can get down on your
knees and you could get back in that right relationship with
Jesus. You haven't gone too far.
Come back, come back to him. So would you guys stay with me
right now? Let's let's worship and let's
believe that there's power in the name of Jesus in this
moment. How far would be be willing to
go right now? Jesus, we, we pray God, in this
moment as we lift up this song, as we lift up our voices, as we
take those steps, even though they're scary, we do it with
your strength. We do it with your power.
We do it in your name, Jesus. God, I pray for that person who
has been wearing the wrong name, wearing just walking in their
own strength, God, that they would just drop all of that and
just trust you and walk with you.
God, I pray for, for the people that we want to reach, God that
we go out of this room with your strength, with your boldness,
with your courage that you give us.
Lord, there's power in your name, and we want to declare
that right now in Jesus name, Amen.