Man, it is good to be with each and every single.
One of you. I don't know where you're
joining from today, but I am excited to be with you.
There's a huge part of me that she's kind of excited that
Easter's over and I'll tell you why.
Leading up to Easter was a halt. I don't know what it's like in
your world, but we were plowing at the Hensel house.
I woke up on the Tuesday after the are the Tuesday before.
Easter. And I was locked up.
If you guys are here this past weekend and I was, you know, I'm
calling the doctor like, give me all the steroids.
You got my son cracked his leg. So he's going like he's going to
hospital getting in a boot on my son, my other son gets food
poisoning, so he's like in and out of bathrooms, my wife gets
sick, can't move. My dad has open heart surgery
like it's been a first of all. Well, that was very kind of you,
I appreciate that. It was fine.
We're hensel's were prone to heart attacks.
Gotta watch the cheeseburgers which is why, you know me, I'll
eat Culver's when it's important.
Okay? And you know, anyhow like it was
just there was just a lot. There were campuses multiple
campus pastors across our region were down for the count.
We had worship pastors, who were sick?
There was just a lot of depending on where you are on
the spiritual Spectrum. Opposition felt like a taller
Hill to climb and I'm just, I'm Come forward for an opportunity
to be together and hang out with you and not have bright yellow
lights. Searing.
My eyes and making me a colorblind and we have so much
to be thankful for and I just want to talk on the front end
just with a couple groups of people to those of you who serve
and give at this church. I want to say just a special
thank you to you because this past weekend was an incredible
weekend of ministry and opportunity at our church and
you We couldn't do it without you.
It's just not possible and we're so thankful we get an
opportunity to do it with you. We're celebrating the fact that
between all of our different locations, we had over 10,000
people, physically, attend over, 4,000 people, watch online.
And that is a big deal. It's a really big deal.
Because those people are your friends and your family members
and your neighbors, and some of you who aren't a part of our
church. Be like, why are why is this
church excited about 10,000? I want you to hear that number.
So that way, you know, you're not weird and you're not alone
that there are a lot of people who are turning to God and
asking questions and trying to figure out their faith.
One of the things that Satan can do is he can try to isolate you
and think that you're like the only nut job.
And what I want you to realize is there's actually people all
across this region. Who are certain trying to seek
out. Follow God and figure out what
that looks like in their life. We had 21 baptisms, some of them
were spontaneous, you just saw that baptism video while we were
singing and we, my goodness, we need to never take that for
granted that every single week we're seeing people's lives
changed, you know, you see it for six seconds, but you don't
know how many prayers were prayed.
How many conversations were had? How many tears were shed leading
into that six? S that you get to see.
I grew up in a church. Where if we saw that many
baptisms in a decade, we would have been feeling like we were
in Revival and I just don't ever want to be a church.
And you guys, you know, you're a part of this.
This isn't just me that ever takes moments like that for
granted. So that being said, there's
probably some of you who are you just came back.
You like you know what, I went to church on Easter that was fun
and you know what, I'll come back because I'm you know, I'm
bored this weekend and I want you to No, we're so glad that
you're here. And I want to let you know, we
have incredible Ministries at this church.
And one of the incredible ministers, we have is our kids
ministry, our 02:18 ministry, we call it this Jen.
And if you want to encourage you to try and get connected to that
Ministry, it's going to be really good for your child's
Spiritual Development. It's going to be really good for
you as you try to be a parent. While it may be fun at times to
have them in the auditorium hanging out with you.
The best place for them to learn about God.
God is not from Jerry. Or I from this stage, it's in an
age appropriate environment where they get to see other
people and make relationships and grow.
And sometimes kind of like today at the end of my message, I'm
going to say things that you probably gonna have to answer
questions later and you probably don't want to have to do that
because I don't want to do it either, which is why my kids are
back there. Okay, so pay attention that,
that's a great resource for you. For the next four weeks, we're
going to be in a sermon series called surrounded.
Surrounded. And we're going to look at the
four groups of people that surrounded Jesus during his
Earthly Ministry. And we're going to take a look
at the groups of people that he invested in and people that were
in close, proximity to him. Jesus was always surrounded.
He had to work really hard to get a loan.
How many of you feel like you have to work really hard to get
a loan because no matter where you go, there's people the other
day. While I was on the toilet,
everybody in my house came through and I'm like, There's
how many rooms in this house soon, as I sat down as like
everybody wanted to talk and I'm like, this is a sacred time
right now. This I'm prying.
Okay, this is my prayer closet. This is my war room and
actually, it was a bit of a war room to be honest with you.
But, um, Got to be honest with you, you appreciate that about
me and you just need some time alone.
Jesus had to actually fight to get some alone time because he
was always surrounded. There were people who are
looking for Hope and they were people who are looking for
someone to lead them into the future.
There were some people that actually cared for Jesus and
there were others who wanted to silence him and destroy him,
while people surrounded Jesus, for a variety of reasons, Jesus
allowed himself to be surrounded for two reasons.
He wanted to love them and he wanted to redeem them.
And what if you saw some of the inconveniences?
What if you saw some of the people that were sucking the
life out of you? As an opportunity to love an
opportunity to redeem. There are lots of people
surrounding you. There are people, you like, And
there are other people, right? My grandpa used to say, there's
three kinds of people in the world people, you care what they
think about you people. You don't care what they think
about you and people you haven't met And there's probably you're
going if I were to pick some people in my life, there's some
people I really care about. There's some people I don't care
about and then there's all the other people I haven't met and
some people like, you think you're in one category, but
you're in the other category, how do you deal with that as a
Christian? How do you deal with some of the
people that you're surrounded by?
Well, how did Jesus deal with these situations?
Well, if you're wondering how do I live as a Christian, how do I
operate sir and and surrounded State?
The sermon series is for you and you might be new to this.
Thing. And you might be wondering if
there's room for you next to Jesus.
I remember I having those feelings like you see the super
spiritual people you like AA makes total sense that they get
to be with Jesus. But I mean you know I'm a bit of
a mess like where do I fit in to the Jesus picture?
While back? I talked about a spiritual
Continuum from minus 5 to +5 at. What point did you think that
your, oh, it's okay for you to be by Jesus?
Like I remember feeling, I had to be like a plus for before
Jesus would be okay with me hanging out with him.
What if I told you that doesn't matter where you are on the
spiritual Spectrum, you can have access to Jesus.
What if the people that are around you?
It doesn't matter where they are on the spiritual spectrum, they
could have access to you and you might, you know, you might be on
the plane. I have some crazy ideas and I
have a crazy past. I just want you to know.
So did some of the people who surrounded Jesus and that didn't
bug him. He let him in any way.
So, before we jump in, I want to welcome those of you hear.
Those of you joining at all of our different locations, to
those of your part of our online family are inside family worse.
Thankful that we get an opportunity to do ministry with
you, and I hope that this sermon series will be a blessing to
you. When I was in high school before
school during study hall, and during lunch, everything
happened in, for better, in the multi-purpose room, which is
where we ate, and they had circular tables of eight chairs.
And so, every time you walked into this room, there were
tables, and there were certain people that were at certain
tables and I don't know what it was like in your world.
But like it are and what our high school there was like the
cool kids table and then there was the wish we were cool kid
table and like if a spot wasn't taking it to cool kid cable,
though. Wish they could be cool.
Kids would like try and sit in that chair for, you know, a day.
And then there was there was whatever sport was in season
table. So if it was football season,
all the football, people would hang out that kind of stuff.
Then there was the camo table. Is where the okay there just
was, it was just a couple tables of camo and then there was the
smart kid table. And then there was the I need to
get my homework done fast table and sometimes the smartest of us
and I use to us. If you need to get your homework
done fast table, you don't sit at the need to get your homework
done. Fast table, you sit at the smart
kid table, okay? And every time you went in,
depending on your status, or your situation, you would try to
get a seat at the appropriate table.
And there were certain people that I always looked out for
when I walked into school, and there was one guy named Neil, he
was super smart, and he was very accommodating.
And if I was behind on some homework, I could like, hey, how
did you solve this? Do you remember, did you get the
same answer? I got 716.
He's like no Clayton. It's 212 like, oh yeah.
Silly me carry the 2. I get it now.
Okay, thank you. Sometimes you have to do it.
Okay, well I just I guess that was kind of how I worked and
sometimes I would like connect people like oh man, you need
help with this. Oh, you should talk to
so-and-so. Like, that was just kind of how
God hardwired me. Well, I went to, I went from
high school. We're, we're, I had a pretty
decent group of friends. I went to Bible College and I
didn't know anybody. I haven't even been to the
school and I got dropped off in my parents dropped me off
without a vehicle. So it's like, I guess, I guess
here I am. and there were some people that should have a Bible
College that had pedigree like they would walk into the class
and the professor's would be like oh you must be so and so
son, your dad leads such a good church and like they knew
everybody I walked in and nobody nobody knew me.
And there were certain professors that were circling up
certain kids and in making a Strategic investment in them and
I never got picked. In the back of my mind.
With the I told myself is the reason I didn't get picked is
all the professor's thought that I had already been picked and so
they didn't try to have the awkward conversation with me
when in reality, nobody went you.
So I was at Pizza Hut eaten with a group of guys and I would just
started finding people and I'd take him out to lunch and by and
pizza and that I would take outside.
Ask a professor. I'd ask you a couple of college
guys that were older than me. Just take them out to lunch and
talk to him. Will someone That me that I
could not create a fake Club at the school.
This is going to sound super dorky.
I know this just track with me and because I was from Iowa and
I said oh yeah I could make a club called wannabes of Iowa.
Now who would want to be from Iowa if you're not from Iowa?
Well, I took that as a challenge.
And we held it at Pizza Hut and had the Punch Cards where if you
ate five you got the sixth one free.
And so I started on Tuesdays after Chapel I would host a
wannabes of Iowa and you would get inducted with five Iowa
power claps. I would introduce you and then
as part of you being inaugurated into the group, we pulled out a
map of the state of Iowa and you had to pick your hometown and
you had to sign it. Well, it got out of hand.
And when I say got out of hand, here's what happened.
They closed down. Pizza Hut.
For me at lunch on Tuesdays, I met the regional manager because
I single-handedly changed their bottom line.
The founder of the school, the Board of Trustees, the
president, the dean of students, and every single Professor ended
up attending it was so big. That I had protesters at my
college who would pop their collars on Tuesday because that
was the day that I would take people to Pizza Hut because I'm
a polarizing figure. Now this was sink.
We raised money for the school, it got so far out of hand.
I one time put five thousand dollars worth of Pizza on my
Dad's credit card. I paid it all off but that's how
big this thing got just for perspective, okay?
And at the time I was making like two thousand dollars a
year. Now, the whole the whole reason
I ended up doing this was because I wanted a college kids
to have an opportunity to be surrounded by a professor.
If only for a meal to get an opportunity to learn from them
and connect with them, Well, five years later Jerry and I are
Jerry not Jerry and I Jerry gets invited to go back to preach the
Bible College and he takes me with him and in the middle of
his message he goes hey we'll have Clayton come up here and
talk for a second and I get up there and I make a wannabes of
Iowa joke at the college. And nobody gets it.
And I'm used to jokes, not falling flat and it was a good
joke and nobody. The biggest thing outside of
Jesus Christ that had happened at that school in the last 10
years was one of these of Iowa. Like the only thing missing was
a statue in my honor at the college.
That's not an understatement. I can't it's I can't even fathom
how dumb and crazy this thing was and nobody got it and the
reason nobody got it is because I left nobody behind.
And all of the interactions and all of the Investments, I didn't
pass any of the principles of what that was to the next group
of people to make sure there were connections when Jesus came
to Earth, Not only was his primary goal was to bring
Salvation. The healing of souls for every
single one of us, but a second thing was to make sure that that
message got out. And so he picked a group of
people to pass it on and you would be surprised at who, You
picked this one. It says, in Matthew chapter 10,
these are the names of The Twelve Apostles first Simon, who
is called Peter and his brother, Andrew James, son of our Andrew
James, son of Zebedee. And his brother, John, Philip
and Bartholomew Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector,
James, the son of alphaeus thaddaeus Simon the Zealot and
Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. Like as soon as you're
introduced to Judas there like this guy gets enough, right?
They don't even wait there, like this guy, no good.
Now, every time you You read the disciples there, mentioned,
three times in scripture, it's a bit of a different list, don't
let that confuse you because they were written to different
audiences and by different authors, you know, how some of
you, you know, you don't want to do this because it will get
weird but you have a name but you go by something else whether
it's your nickname or you know, someone forwarding your name.
Like I don't ever go by Clay. If you call me clay I'm like
there are a lot of great churches in town like that's
just you should pick one because you're going to love it there.
Like now there's other Lebanon. Clay.
Totally fine. I'm just a Clayton.
My parents gave me seven letters in my name.
We're going to use all seven of them.
All right. And do you write have your own
thing that's when you're reading through scriptures, don't go.
I don't understand why these things don't mix.
Don't don't get tripped up by that.
Now, here is what these here's what these names are.
And I want to walk you through some of these guys, and some of
them, you know, some of them you don't.
So here's Simon who Jesus changed his name to Peter.
Jesus gives out nicknames. You gotta like that about him.
He's kind of like that. He's got a cool uncle.
Her to him, right? He's like, oh, I'm gonna call
you, I'm gonna call you Peter, he's the one who walked on
water, he's one of the open his mouth before he knew what he
should have said. You guys all, you know, some of
you married that guy, right? Check this out.
He's got a brother named Andrew. It was at Peter's
mother-in-law's house that the guys ripped open the roof and
lowered the paralyzed, man on the map. that's kind of cool
because if you were ever going to do something to your
mother-in-law, That's the thing you want to do, right?
Like maybe it's Jesus. You know what I mean?
So you can't get mad at me cuz it's him, but you're like,
you're gonna want to fix that roof.
Okay. Now there's Andrew.
Here's the crazy thing about Andrew.
Jesus picks an inner three. He picks Peter James and John,
he doesn't pick Andrew. But you know what's super cool
about Andrew? Everytime Andrews mentioned in
scripture. He's doing one thing.
Bringing people to Jesus. How cool is Andrew.
Here's one of them, some some Greeks.
Come some. Gentiles to people who wouldn't
have been welcomed into the circle and they have questions
about faith. They go to Philip.
Philip doesn't feel comfortable talking to Jesus about it.
So Philip goes to Andrew, and Andrew takes the questions to
Jesus. You know, who else?
Andrew introduces, the Jesus Peter, you know, who else?
Philip introduces, the Jesus. A little boy, with Five Loaves.
To fish, man. If you wanted to be a church
that like reached people, we've got to have some answers that
like they're just always bringing people to Jesus.
You're like my favorite group of people in our church like every
time you show up, you're bringing a new friend.
Like that's just your heart, you can't go to the gas station, you
can't eat at a Mexican restaurant.
You can't get a pedicure without going.
Hey do you want to come and sit with me?
And listen, our church at all of our locations, we've got to have
some answers. Then you have James and John.
These are the sons of Zebedee. Jesus gives them a nickname.
He calls them, the sons of thunder which of all the
nicknames is Bad to the Bone, right?
Like we are getting two week with our nicknames.
Yeah, this is Clayton. We called Thunder.
Come on man, we've been naming biceps, we should have been
naming other people. These guys are prideful.
They're arrogant and they're hot headed.
These are the guys who who you would have maybe told your kids
to steer clear of And Jesus is like yeah, you can roll with me.
Chances are these guys were his cousins which makes it even
cooler. Of course, he gave him his
nicknames because he's been playing kickball with them and
knows what it's like. When they get out the like,
thanks for getting a fight and she was like, you guys are
pretty thunderous Sun, Sun, fun, to thunder.
Then you have Philip then you have Bartholomew, then you have
fattiest, you have Judas, Iscariot, which We already know
about him. He messes it up.
You got you got Thomas. Also known as didymus which
means he's nicknamed. The twin don't know if he has a
twin brother or not, but the Bible tells us that's hey, he's
also known as didymus the twin, which is cool because you makes
you wonder this isn't super spiritual If he had a twin was
it, identical? and if they're identical, do you
ever wonder? It's like, Thomas and Timmy.
Switch spots with Jesus and they had gotten away with it, their
whole life. And then Jesus walks in Timmy,
what are you doing here? I'm Thomas.
I made you man. Quit doing that with me.
Get out. Okay, anyhow.
This is not spiritual will get to the spiritual stuff.
Here's here's Thomas. And he was famous for struggling
to believe after Jesus crucifixion.
And I got, to be honest with you, I'm not one of those guys
who likes to call him doubting Thomas because that's a pile up.
That's a pile of poo. And I'll tell you, why do you
want to be nicknamed by your struggle?
Yeah, I didn't think so. I mean, I'm not saying it's bad
if we do, but I'm just saying this guy was a really good dude
who did really good things and we just want to check out but
check out what happens after John chapter John chapter 20
now, Thomas also known as didymus.
One of the twelve was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
So pause. All the other guys got to see
that Jesus was alive. And so, they've been able to get
their heads around the fact that there's a resurrected Jesus, but
he wasn't there. Now, you tell me what you would
do. if your wife came home and said, Remember the dog, that
died that we buried, put Six Feet Under I saw him running
around chasing the cat today. What I'm sweetheart.
It was it must have looked like him.
No sweetheart. Our dog Fido was running around
the neighborhood. Look.
He's upstairs. Do you hear him?
No, I know. You would have been looking at
your spouse going. You're crazy.
This is Thomas. He's going.
What do you mean? He's alive.
Because dead people don't come back from the dead.
This is him. This is a real deal.
The other disciples told him. We have seen the Lord.
But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands
and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand in
the side, I will not believe. That's reasonable.
A week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas
was with them through though, the doors were locked.
This is what tells us about our heavenly bodies because our
resurrected bodies will be like Jesus is bodies to check out
some cool stuff. We're going to get to do even
though the doors were locked Jesus came and stood among them
and said peace be with you. So he's walking through walls
just showing up which means we're gonna have some a lot of
fun. When we get when we, when we get
a resurrected bodies, then he said to Thomas So he shows up
peace be with you. Thomas heard you had some
questions? Can I see your finger?
Put your finger here. See my hands, reach out your
hand, and put it in my side, stop doubting and believe.
That's Thomas. He was a normal guy who wrestled
with faith trying to figure out what to make of this Jesus
thing. And some of us we've all been in
that spot. Then here's to other people when
you go back to this thing to the 12 disciples.
There's two here. One is Simon the Zealot.
And the other one is where is he on here?
Matthew Simon the call him. Simon is Zealand for one reason
or the Zealot for one reason because he was a zealot.
He was a part of Jewish people who are frustrated at Roman
occupation, he wanted to overthrow the Roman government,
he wanted to push back against all the things that people what
that his people were experiencing, he was a
rabble-rouser, he was the guy who was meeting late at night,
trying to come up with plans on how to overthrow the government.
We know people like this This is him.
And then you have Matthew also known as Levi, the tax
collector. Well, Matthew would have been
the sell out in the group. Matthew is the guy that when
Rome came to town said, I'll collect taxes for Rome.
And so he goes to all of his hometown friends and he is
taking money from them. And the way Matthew makes his
money, as he skims off the top, And he is the one who is
channeling the money to Rome. That is oppressing his friends.
So in Jesus's Circle, you have a guy who wants to overthrow Rome
and a guy who is funding it. What was that campfire like. if
you were to pull up into Jesus house and see the vehicles
parked outside for his small group, you'd had bumper stickers
on both sides of the aisle. You two had beat up pickup
trucks and brand-new F350 su2 had rusted out minivans and
you'd had Jaguars. You two had not my president and
God bless America and whatever bumper sticker from whatever
crazy person you roll with. And somehow, check this out
there allowed to be surrounded by Jesus.
At their present situation, wasn't a hindrance to Jesus
giving them access to him. And what happened over time is
these guys laid down their Earthly mission for a Heavenly
one. They lay down their Earthly
agenda for a Heavenly one. They did not get United because
they believe that they they agreed on the Earthly methods.
It was when they realized that the thing that they wanted in
their heart could only be fulfilled in Heavenly ways.
And that group of people got United.
And that's the group of people that Jesus wanted to leave
everything with a divided group, who would have been frustrated
with each other? Who would have hated each other?
And he goes, yeah, you're going to be my life group.
Figure out how crazy that is. Think of the people you get
frustrated. When you see their car in the
parking lot and juicing, like I think you and you should be in
my group. That Unity isn't us agreeing on
everything here on Earth. It's actually agreeing that the
most important thing we could do, our Heavenly things.
When we finally realize that we're not going to create the
kind of change. We want through marches and
movements through yard signs, and bumper stickers, through
boycotts, and super Pacs, but it's only through the power of
the Holy Spirit and personal investment in spiritual growth
by leveraging, our hearts and spiritual ways.
Jesus surrounded by himself with people who were searching and
people who are looking and people who are unsatisfied.
And our church has to be a place for people who haven't got it,
all figured out yet. And if you're going, I don't
have my faith figured out yet. I want you to know what this
church, you are in good company because the people that Jesus
picked had huge struggles and massive failures, their
spiritual, they would Peter. For example, we do something
great for God and that he would just blow himself up and we've
seen that over and over again. James and John were prideful and
hot-tempered. They got themselves into
situations where they were spiritually outmatched.
Spiritually confused, all the disciples spend a hard, a lot of
time trying to figure out how to understand Jesus message.
This was a constant challenge for Jesus.
In his people. He didn't pick the most
spiritual people or the most put together people to be around
him. He picked normal people.
He picked us kind of people people with moments, of
Brilliance, and people who struggle with backsliding.
They were allowed in Jesus Circle.
And so if your Real growth looks more like an EKG.
This is a place for you. We have Grace for that because
she has Grace for us. One of the most encouraging
characteristics about the group of people that surrounded, Jesus
is that they had questions and doubts.
The church should be a place with people who are questioning
their faith and have doubts about their faith.
Because Jesus had people close to him who struggled in really
big ways already read about Thomas right, here's the first
that doesn't get preached nearly enough when people struggle with
doubts, look what it says in Matthew chapter 28.
For those of you are super spiritual, you know that this is
the last chapter in Matthew at the very end of this, we go into
Matthew 28:19-20, which is the Great Commission.
Jesus came to them and said all authority in heaven on Earth has
been given to me, therefore, go and make disciples of all
Nations, baptizing them in the Father, the Son, the Holy
Spirit, and teaching them. To obey all the commands and
surely I'll be with, you always to the very end of the HK.
That's and then the ends like the story of Jesus Through
Matthews eyes ends. Check out the verses right
before that, then the, This is 40 days.
After Jesus has been rolling around them with them in a
resurrected State. This is why I have a problem
with Thomas being doubting Thomas.
Because there were all there were 10, other fools, who were
struggling, then the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the
mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
When they saw him, they worshiped him.
Can anybody else read that? But some doubted.
Doubt. Scripturally means standing in
two places, have you ever stood in two places?
Man, I love her but I can't stand her.
Okay, right? I love you, son.
But you better get away from me. You ever stood in two places?
Man, I believe in Jesus but man it's hard to believe in Jesus.
Whoever stood in two places. They worshiped him.
I don't know what this is all about.
This still doesn't make sense to me.
It's not just Thomas, there's a whole crew of people after
spending 40 days with the resurrected Jesus who still had
questions. And I want this to be a place
for people who have questions. So I want your help.
We've got a QR code, and I'm going to go through the super
fast, but if you don't do it now, make sure you do it before
you leave. But if you click on that QR
code, it's going to take you to a link tree and there's a spot
on there that says Sermon survey.
Okay, here's how you can help me out.
You're gonna want to do this. If you miss out you're going to
hate Church forever. Ready?
Go to the next slide. I want you to not me know where
you have questions and I want to preach sermons that address
them. I want to help you with your
questions, I don't want us to run from them.
I want us to run into them, so you might be going on.
I want to know what heaven's like that's interesting to me
here. I want to know what God has a
plan for my life, where I want to know, how to share my faith
with my friends because they matter to me or I'm I'm dealing
with difficult people or I want to have a better marriage
because the one I got stinks, but I think I should, you know,
figure out how to fix it. Instead of leave it.
I want to figure out how to become a Godly leader.
I want to lead, I want to expand on my Your ship skills.
I want to defend my faith. I want to understand how to
creation and evolution and can the Bible be trusted and can the
Bible and science be harmonized? Because my kids are getting
caught this but I feel like I have a faith.
How do I, how do I put these things together?
Doesn't make sense to me then you could pick something else
you'd like. I want I want information on
Clayton's fashion. Like I want to hear how he gets
that fly. You can do you think you're
going to go to the next one and you're going to go.
I want to figure out how to how do I overcome addiction with
God's help or how do I handle stressor?
Sir, I want to talk about forgiveness because maybe you're
going. I've never forgiven others or
maybe you've never forgiven yourself.
I need help with that. This is on me.
I don't understand like, if God's really healed me.
Why do I still struggle with? You might be going, I want to
know how to like read my Bible because when I read it I get
confused or I want to know how to how to pray or I want to know
what it means to worship or faster.
You want to get out of a spiritual, right?
Like you feel like you've just worn the same thing and you've
lost your first lover? You're going man, I need help
raising my kids in today's culture because it's a, it's
getting bad out there, you could you click other?
You can be like, hey, I want to know, you know what?
Clayton thinks about CNN can go to the next one.
I'm interested in more of these topics.
How do I handle burnout or family or hope?
Or how do I navigate my time or my Identity?
Or what does the Bible say about finances?
Because this God, have anything to speak into my financial
situation, talk to me about death and what happens talk to
me about the Holy Spirit, go to the next one.
I'm asking all of you to do it because it's going to Inform me
I want you to answer for sure. This one tell me where you're at
your spiritual journey. Man, I've been hanging out here,
but I'm not following Jesus yet. I'm just here because you know,
I like to sing songs and, you know, this is the only place in
town with live music. I don't know, maybe I'm brand
new to my faith. You're going, I just got
baptized me and I just started coming, man.
This is all brand new to me and you're way ahead of me, or you
might be going clicking. I was asked, to be honest with
you. I was with Jesus.
Like, I've been falling in that long.
Like I was that Matthew 28 passage.
I was there, like, I've been with him since before, there was
a Bible. Okay, fine, let me know that be
cool for me. Now, here's the cool thing as a
church, we want to be a place where you can have questions
about your faith and that doesn't push you away.
You get brought in that when you're here at the Also, you can
have questions and we don't have to be afraid of them that they
can lead to our greatest discoveries.
The disciples had questions and doubts, but that didn't stop
them from growing in their faith.
These guys who struggled with their faith?
Ended up finishing strong with their faith.
These group of guys who are prone to fail and prone to make
mistakes, they went on to do incredible things for the cause
of Christ, even though there was a period in their life, where
they wrestled with questions and they had doubts.
Even though there was a period in their life, where they were
things, that they didn't understand, God went on to use
them in amazing ways, and I think the same can be true for
you. John one of the sons of thunder
went on to write the Book of John first John, second John
third John, he went on to write Revelation everything you know
about heaven, came from a guy who used to be called the son of
thunder. The prideful guy went from never
even mentioning his name, he just called himself the disciple
Jesus loved, which is kind of like a humble Flex.
Like it's a humble brag, but he doesn't list himself.
He was the only one who died of old age.
He was exiled to the island of Patmos for spreading the faith.
James, his brother was the first to die.
You can read about that one in Acts chapter 12.
Peter was killed by the emperor Nero in 64 ad.
And he refused to be crucified the way Jesus was crucified.
So they crucified him upside down.
The guy who denied Jesus before his crucifixion.
Refuse to die. Like Jesus.
He didn't deserve the honor of dying right side up, Andrew.
His brother, the guy who all he ever did was bring people to
Jesus. He was crucified on an x-shaped
cross which is how you get st. Andrew's cross.
Bartholomew, he was filleted his skin removed from his body and
then he was crucified Matthew, the tax collector was beheaded
James, son of alphaeus, was beaten to death with a club.
Thaddeus was crucified Simon, the Zealot was crucified and
Thomas the one that everybody wants to call doubting Thomas
died, at the tip of the spear all the way in India.
This is before Planes Trains and Automobiles.
This is a guy who hooked it from Jerusalem, all the way to India
to tell people about the guy who he put his hands in the holes of
Jesus's hands. Every single one of them pushed
past their doubts and they finished strong.
And their testimony is what gave birth to my testimony.
Because when I was trying to figure out the questions about
my faith, one of the pillars that God used to bring about
substantial change in my life was, I had to ask myself this
question. Why would a group of guys?
Who were so close to Jesus? All died for the cause of
Christ. There's no way that those guys
would have died for a lie universally across the
landscape, every single one of them going.
I'm not they died because they preach this gospel.
That Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living.
God that he died on the cross at the hands of Pontius.
Pilate was laid in a borrowed tomb and three days later.
Came back to life. They preach this gospel.
He's alive and every one of them died for it with the exception
of John, and that made me go if those guys believed it.
I can too. and I'm hoping you guys will consider that as we
move to this time a decision I went long.
So I got to be quick. Okay, sorry about that.
I want to talk to three groups of people real quick group.
Number one, you're struggling with your faith.
You don't believe yet. You're still trying to figure it
out, you don't know, this sounds crazy, little whack doesn't make
sense of watch the Discovery Channel Clayton.
I don't get it. I've paid attention to Bill Nye,
the Science Guy. I've been coming around for a
really long time. Everybody else seems to feel
something, but I don't, I don't feel anything.
I only feel like this coffee is making me want to go the
bathroom so soon as you stop talking.
I'm going out that door. I get it.
That might be where you're at.
I just want you to know. I'm cool with it.
Like, I don't want you thinking, you can't come because you don't
get it yet. No, no, this is except this is
where people. This is a great place for people
who don't get it. You can belong to this church
before you believe you can be treated with dignity and respect
and love and care and concern long before because that's how
Jesus operated. Jesus loves people way before
they believed in him. Like Jesus believed and loved
and people before he even came to them.
And if we're going to be a church that loves like Jesus,
that is the hands and feet of Jesus.
That's how we got to be. So listen, you are totally
welcome here. Wherever you're at on the
spiritual Spectrum, this is the place for you.
But if you're going, you know, what I've been coming here, long
enough and I feel like God's asking me to do something.
It's time for you to start. You might be going man.
I've heard it for a long time. I've seen it for a long time.
I've watched other people experience it for a long time,
but it's never been my time. Maybe you need to take a step
and actually ask some of those questions because you've been
writing yourself excuses for a really long time.
Like, I would say yes to Jesus, but I just don't.
Well, what steps are you taking to solve the?
Just don't Tom's was at least honest man.
I believe I got to touch some holes.
First like what's your thing? I got to meet with somebody
because I got some questions that need answers.
Hear me. Can I do this in a loving way?
Ask the question. Like the questions not going
away. Ask it.
What's the worst thing that can happen?
Ask it talk to somebody. Who brought?
You talk to a pastor. Fill out a connection card.
Ask it. Because it's not doing you any
good to have the question in your head?
Ask you and maybe that's what you want to do.
Is you have questions about what it means to start a relationship
with Jesus in just a few moments.
There's gonna be people over by the baptistry and they'd love to
answer some of those questions or at least give you a place to
ask it. Third group of people in here.
We got to finish strong. We got to finish strong.
It's not about how you start, it's about how you finish.
But you can't finish if you don't start.
Some of you have been following Jesus for a really long time.
I'm just going to say this gently like a big smile on my
face. Like, are you surrounding
yourself with the people that you should be surrounding
yourself with the help them grow and their relationship with
Jesus? When they group of 12 are
introduced, their introduced as disciples people who learned
from God? The Greek word there is matthäus
if you have a someone named Matthew that word comes from the
word disciple, to learn from Jesus.
They are originally listed as disciples people, who sat under
learned from instructed by Jesus, that's how they're
introduced. But that's not how they're
introduced at the end of all of those books.
Do you know how they're listed at the end of all those books of
Bible scholars? Apostles.
Do you know the word Apostles means?
It doesn't mean old and gray with an attitude.
It doesn't mean rich and opinionated.
It doesn't mean ruggedly handsome with the beard. it
doesn't mean, I'm just, I'm just saying it doesn't mean those
things, it means sent Commissioned.
On a mission sent by God. They started off learning from
God and then they were sent by God.
And some of you have been disciples for too long and
haven't been Apostles long enough, And we should change
that. We should go from learning from
to being sent out to teach because you wouldn't have your
faith. If those dude had stayed
disciples, you have their faith because they chose to be
Apostles, they chose to be sent. And if you haven't been sent,
you haven't been close to Jesus, because Jesus is always sending.
All right, stand up. God, use this moment right here.
Please use this moment right here to bring about a change,
not just in US individually. But in us, corporately God, do
some deep work, some foundational work in US.
Create a shift in our mindset or in our in our walk with you
break down some things that are holding us back repair.
Some things that have been busted in the past that need to
be healed. But use this time, Lord to
reorient our church and our hearts more focused on you.
Your name I pray. Amen.