We're in week two of a series called scent and we we talked a
lot about this last week. We're going to talk about it all
month long in with particular emphasis.
And it is this idea that when God saved you, say me, he didn't
just save you to then sit in a seat as a spectator sport and
watch someone else do ministry. He put his Holy Spirit inside
you, commissioned you, called you, has a plan for your life.
To be a minister of the gospel. To be a vocational minister is
not to be a minister of the gospel.
It is to equip you. The Saints say me for the works
of service. And so all week long or all
month long, we we want to continue to open up Scripture
and look at this call in the New Testament to go out to be the
hands and feet of Christ, to plant seeds of the gospel, to be
workers in the harvest. And we're going to continue
along the way to find opportunities for you to
investigate so that you can continue to to pursue this idea
of calling in your life. And we're going to bring people
in to open up the Word of God and preach that to you.
And so today we're going to invite a guest speaker up to
open up the Word of God and speak to us from both God's Word
and his personal testimony. His name is Gerard.
And that means it sounds like a fishing rod.
It's not Gerard. I know we're from Oildale, but
we don't have to add extra letters to things.
Gerard is so here from Fresno, as I like to call Fred.
Yes, I moved to the teaming metropolis of Fred.
Yes, from Pennsylvania. Like everybody dreams when
they're a young child works for an organization called CCO,
which is a coalition of Christian outreach and is going
to come and talk to us particularly about reaching
young people with the gospel on college campuses.
Most of CC OS footprint of putting full time missionaries
on college campuses is in the East Coast.
So draw was the first missionary to come out to the West Coast to
the best coast and begin to spread the gospel.
And so he's going to come speak with us today.
Would you welcome him to rest church?
We're going to pray over Jerrod before we get started.
And Father God, we thank you so much for the call that you have
on our lives. I thank you for running
relentlessly after me in college when I was far, far from you.
And I thank you for the call that you put on Jerrod's life.
And Father, today we lift him up as he proclaims your word, as he
teaches, as he preaches, as he testifies to your goodness.
And God, would you use these words in this time to cut us to
the heart, to encourage us to bind up wounds, but also to give
us a vision and for what it looks like to follow you, Holy
in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
Good morning church. Like pastor said, my name is
Gerard Brumfield. And so if you don't say Gerard,
you just don't listen to your pastor and that is your problem,
not mine. And I, like you said, I servant
friends. Yes, California, and I am
partnered with a Presbyterian Church there, so it's fantastic
that the Presbyterians and the Baptists are together this
morning. Yeah, and I serve with a bunch
of really fun folks at Fresno State, Fresno City, and Fresno
Pacific universities, and it is a joy for me to be here with
you. If you have your Bible, go ahead
and open up to Luke chapter 10, verses one through 9.
But before we dive in, I want to tell you that what I'm going to
talk about today is not just of what the CCO does, but how it
has shaped who I am. In the CCO, our mission is
transforming college students to transform the world.
That is a bold statement to make, but that phrase just isn't
a tagline. Again, it is my testimony.
Over the last decade and 1/2. I have.
I have watched transformation happen.
I've watched it happen slowly, relationally, imperfectly, and
often scared and but transformation happens when we
go to. That is true in scripture and
that is very true in my own life.
I went to school to be an elementary school teacher and it
always been a dream of mine since I was in the 4th grade and
had Mr. Carter as my teacher, who was a fantastic male role
model. And I knew from then that I too
wanted to go and do the same thing.
So know my surprise that when the day I was standing in front
of my class and I had this overwhelming sense that God is
telling me that it's time for me to go, I learned in that context
how to present the gospel in public education in an
appropriate way. I learned how to wake up early
because friends, I got here at 7:45 today and I'm, if I sit
down, I might fall asleep, right?
So I also had a great time learning how to use my giftings
to be creative and fun and interactive with my students.
I thought that was my, I was going to be my way of sharing
the gospel in the classroom with 25 fifth grade students.
But then God said go. And looking back, I realized
that God was less interested in my comfort and far more
interested in my obedience. So Long story short, I called my
mentor and to my surprise, I found myself stepping into
college campus ministry. And I want to be honest, I had
no desire to be a pastor or minister or having any
significant role in the in the church.
I didn't feel qualified, nor that I feel comfortable with the
idea. However, God made it apparently
clear to me that I need to go. So I embraced it and now here I
am serving college students 14 years later.
And that is the heart of what Luke 10 is all about this
morning. So let's read it together.
If you have the Bibles again, you're going to go to Luke
chapter 10 verses one through 9. Here's the word of the Lord.
After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by
two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to
go. He told them the harvest is
plentiful, but the workers are few.
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers
into his harvest field. Go.
I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
Do not make a Do not take a purse or bag or sandals.
Do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first
say peace to this house. If someone who promotes peace is
there, your peace will rest on them.
If not, it will return to you. Stay there eating and drinking
whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages.
Do not move around from house to house.
When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to
you. Heal the sick who are there and
tell them the Kingdom of God has come near to you.
Amen. Right away we see that God has
has already started sending people.
Jesus sends people before they feel ready.
He went to 72 people that were not the 12 original folks who
were his disciples who have been following Him to go.
He went to. He didn't go to the experts,
those who knew how to travel and how to figure it all out.
He didn't even try to train a group of professionals to do it.
He went and got 72 people who had experienced His grace
themselves and sent them out to go and tell the story.
He was looking for the available people.
He was looking for us. It is important to notice that
Jesus also sent them out in pairs.
That he wanted them to have a friend, a companion, someone who
else who could make to, who can protect them and verify what
they're saying. He didn't expect them to be
alone in the mission. When I was in college leading a
Bible study, we always had a Co leader.
It was why go alone when you can go together?
Jesus knew something about us. He knew that we could probably
be bold for a good 15 minutes, but then if fear came, we were
often run. So he didn't want them to go
alone. And the text shows us that Jesus
started to send them to the places that he was already going
to be going. Which is where?
Everywhere Church in Matthew 2818 to 20.
It says that 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,
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely
I am with you always to the very end of the age.
Friends, God is already moving in Bakersfield.
The question is not is God at work?
But will you join him? When I was a kid, I hated being
ignored, all right? Hated it.
I'm an I'm the eldest in my family and so I often times my
brother's got more attention than me.
And it's OK. I'm not bitter.
I'm I'm over it now. My therapist and I have been
talking about it. She's great.
Well, I'm great. It's good, all right, but I
hated being ignored. When I would ask the question,
she would just like act like I wasn't talking to her.
And again, it's fine. But what was important for me,
whenever she didn't answer me, instead of me just being annoyed
or frustrated, I would just do something.
I would just do the thing and then she would ask, why did you
do that? I was like, well, you didn't say
anything so I thought you were saying to me you trust my
decision making skills. So I made a decision and now
here we are. Here's the thing, Oftentimes I
made a good choice, not just because I'm thinking about
myself, but because I made a choice because I knew what my
mom would want me to do because I knew her heart, right?
I knew what she would want from me.
And guys, that's the same thing what's happening here in
Bakersfield. You, it's not about if God is
wait, like if God wants you to go because sometimes we're
waiting for this like lightning strike to happen, but God has
already told us to go. But if you are waiting, friends,
here I am to let you know that God wants you to go.
All right? I don't know where it is, but
God wants you to go. We already know that God is
moving in our in our city, in Fresno and in this city in
Bakersfield. And maybe the discernment is
what you were waiting for. Maybe it's working with college
students, or maybe it's children in foster care and their
families. Maybe it's the unhoused
population in in your city or victims of human trafficking.
No matter where it is, though, God is sending you somewhere.
The text continues by saying the harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are few Last week. Pastor Daniel told us that the
harvest was never the problem. I say to us, even though I
watched online, OK, I know it's like you weren't here, Jerrod.
I know I watched it. He told me too.
But he told us the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are
few. Last week, that's my spot.
We go. It was always about those who
love the Lord being obedient to follow his commands, right?
The people at Bakersfield are waiting for you to follow his
command. Those in the margins, the
broken, the orphan, the widow, the outcast, those who are down
on their luck are waiting for you to follow the command to go.
Those in government are waiting for you to follow God's demand
to go. Your child's teacher, the
baseball coach, the band parents, the cult, your Co
workers are waiting for you. Your mom or dad who has given up
on faith waiting for you. Your son or daughter who never
understood why you bought in the church is waiting for you.
Waiting for the church to be the church instead of just staying
inside the church. And yes, the harvest was never
the problem. It was the workers being
obedient. And who are the workers?
US. It's us.
And they're usually reasons people don't go.
They're usually a few fears. I'm going to give you 3 that I'm
aware of. 1 is the fear of rejection.
It is common to think that when we go that out and share the
gospel, people would abandoned us or mock us or not engage.
However, God doesn't ask you to change hearts because He already
does that in the CCO. One of our core values, one of
the things we believe to our core, is that Jesus changes
people's lives. We believe that we are just
called to show up, be present, and be the living testimony of
what Jesus can do. It is our job.
It is not our job to make people get it.
We show up for Him to let him. We show up and let him do the
work. Another fear is us being afraid
of being hypocritical. Here it is friends, I got some
news for you. We all are right, so get over it
.3. I'm just kidding.
I know that we want to be perfect.
I don't know who taught us that. I don't know where it came from
in our minds that if we don't do it perfectly, we shouldn't do it
at all. But that is not what Jesus is
telling the disciples. What is not what Jesus told the
72 even in their brokenness, even when they didn't get it
fully, he still sent them. I still remember this one time I
was preaching at this event and it was an event where people are
breaking their friends. We hadn't heard the gospel and I
was super excited. I gave the talk and then I sat
down. I was like, I didn't mention
Jesus name not a one time. Gosh.
And so then I was afraid. I was like I messed up, messed
up. Then what happened is that
somehow people still started giving their lives to Jesus
because that night reminded me that God is not limited by my
forgetfulness. God is not limited by my
mistakes. God is not limited by my
imperfect, my imperfect obedience, because God doesn't
call us to do it perfectly. He calls us to do it faithfully.
So our Third Point is that the third fear is that people are
afraid of not knowing enough, enough.
Now, I know because you guys have Pastor Daniel.
When I was hanging out with him, this man feels, well, red,
right? He looks like he has it all
together. He gets up here very confidently
and he just does his thing, right?
And we feel like, oh, he must have it.
But here's the truth, just like Pastor Daniel, the reason he's
able to get up here is because Jesus is working through his
imperfections. Second Corinthians 12/9 tells us
that God's power is made perfect in weakness and and you're going
and you getting up and going out, you are actually allowing
God to work through you to make a difference in your city.
And we also begin to see that in Mark 28, Matthew 28, he would
never leave us to fend for ourselves.
And when we listen to the context of the rest, rest of
Scripture in John 15, he tells us to abide or to stay connected
to him because he wants to work through US.
So there's no need to try to find an excuse.
All you need to do is go. It is important to know when I
read Scripture that it was go with an exclamation point.
When I was when I was in school, my teachers told me that those
were commands. She said that those are things
that you need to do, like stop me.
It's not a suggestion. And it's the same thing true for
God here. When he said go, it wasn't a
suggestion, it was a command. He would say that this means
that Jesus understand, and Jesus understood that he was
commanding us to do it because we wouldn't do it otherwise,
because we know he knows that He was asking us to be vulnerable,
to get uncomfortable. It's a maybe risk it all.
I went from a job that was going to give me a really good pension
on the end to a job. I'm asking people to give me
money to do it. It doesn't make sense and I'm
I'm still having questions about it.
But here's the thing, God has taken care of me for a good 14
years, I believe, or 37 years and I believe he's going to keep
doing it. All right.
And so here's the thing. When we read the scripture and
he tells us to do something, he's doing it because he knows
he's going to be with us as we're doing it.
In verse 3, when he says the statement sending you out like
lambs among the wolves, my first thought was hold up Jesus.
I don't know if you know, but wolves eat lambs.
They don't, they don't just bully them.
You know, I'm not going to just get rustle and tussle, you know
what I mean? He's like, no, they eat them.
So in like reasons, first, I just want you to know that it
didn't make my top 10 of 2025, and I doubt it's going to make
my top 10 of 2026 because it feels almost like he's misspoke
a little bit because why would you send me somewhere if
something's going to potentially eat me?
But Jesus says this, I would never see you somewhere that I'm
not willing to go myself. Because Jesus was explaining
that he knows he was sending us to people who might not respond
the way we need them to. He he might send us to to be
among folks who don't like us. But in Philippians 2, it shows
that that Jesus came from heaven to be among people, and those
same people killed him on the cross.
He came as a Lamb of God and died among the wolf.
His very own people, other Jews, people who probably knew him
when he grew up, people who where he probably played ball
with outside of his house, people that his mom knows.
It wasn't strangers, it was people he knew.
When Jesus sends us to share the gospel, he wants us to be aware
that being attacked is this common place.
But you know who else is ready to attack?
The shepherd church. Jesus will protect you, He will
be with you, and He's ready to care for us in those situations.
I still remember the first whenever I was I moved to
Fresno, I was trying to find a creative way to reach students
on campus. So we went and we were going to
hand out free hot dogs on campus and we're going to do every home
game. And so I went earlier in the
week. So like find like what's the
right spot to go? Because you can't just hand out
hot dogs for free at night and think it's going to be OK
without being in the right spot. So I found this corner that had
a light post and I was like, this is great.
And so I want to go there. I want to I want to ask all
these people to come with me. It's going to be a good time.
And the and as we pull up there, I tell my friend, oh, before I
get there, I ask a friend, will she go with me?
And she goes, oh, you going to Sin City?
And I was like, no, I'm just going to Greek Road.
And she's like, no, we call it Sin City.
I was like, oh, I call it a place that Jesus loves, right?
And so, yeah, because of that, because he calls it, I want to
go to this place because I know that Jesus will be there.
I want to show you a picture of what it looks like.
This is where we go every home football game to interact with
college students. And then that house in the back
is the house that we went to. We arrived the first night,
right? And I'm so excited with all my
friends. We're there.
And as I get to the the corner where the street light was on,
it's now gone, right? And listen again, like I said,
you can't be handing out hot dogs at night for free in this
economy and expect people to trust you, right?
So I, I was like one of my friends, her name was Mindy.
She said, you know, Girard in California, the from the curb,
from this grass to the curb belongs to the city.
I was like, whatever that means, like that doesn't mean anything
to me. Where I'm from, you don't just
go stand in someone in front of someone's house.
She goes, so we can go stand down there and they will, we'll
be OK. I'm like, but what if they don't
want us there? I mean, like the corner I was
standing on, no one was going to stop us.
But This is why God sends us in pairs, because when I was ready
to give up, Minnie wasn't going to allow me to, right?
And so we took our hot dogs and our waters and when stood on
this little corner, well in an intersection, and then I said, I
probably should go tell this house that we're there.
And as I'm walking up to the house, they have trash bags,
like covering everything from the porch, so you can't see any
windows. And they have just like this
little enclave of like the Lucy from the peanuts of this little
guy bouncer who was not that big, still sitting at the door.
He's like letting people in and out.
And I just walked up to him and say, Hey, hey, I'm from my
church and we're here to hand out hot dogs and some water.
I just want you to be aware. And in my mind as I'm like
telling myself this narrative, I'm ready for him to say, like,
why are you here? Don't be here.
Get off our lawn. Like, right.
But what? He stands up, he goes, that's so
awesome. And I don't know if it's because
he was drunk or if he was just excited, but either either way,
he welcomed me with open arms and I was excited about that.
And he goes, because do you need some chairs?
He goes in and grab the chairs and grabs the president of the
fraternity comes out and they say to us, you're welcome back
anytime. And now for nine years, we still
have been standing in that same spot handing out hot dogs,
right? Here's the thing, I wanted to
give up. I knew that guy was telling me
to go, but I didn't want to. I was a little nervous about it.
I was like, what if, what if? How about let's reconsider, how
about we do it in the daytime, right?
But when, as God sent us, we have opened up a door for
relationships that have now changed multiple people's lives.
No one, I want you to know this. And no one in the group who went
with me, not one of them was a Greek life student.
None of them understood how Greek life works.
And I still don't get it right. But here's the thing, I do know
that they are looked hungry for something and I have what they
need, so who am I to withhold it from them?
Same thing for you. No matter where you are going,
you have what people need. So don't wait until you feel
prepared. Obedience prepares you.
What Jesus was doing for the 72 when He sent them out, He told
them not to bring a bag. Not to bring a purse, a bag or
sandals. He was basically was telling
them don't worry about money or food or how you're going to get
there. Just go.
He wanted them to begin to understand how to have full
reliance on God. He didn't want them to to
overthink it or wait till they got the perfect logo on it.
And I know that my detailed oriented friends are like
Jerrod. I've been trying to get these
people to focus and they haven't for so long.
Like don't just tell them to go now or my risk management folks.
But I found out in California, you can't just hand out hot dogs
without a permit. So I'm really glad that the
letters come on their grass because it's legal there, but
it's not legal where we were standing.
But praise the Lord, he saw us. He saw us, right?
But and so he tells them not to worry about it, but just to go
to trust them. He then also tells them not to
greet anyone. Now, as a person who's a natural
introvert and I do have ADHD, that felt offensive to me that
he told me not to greet anyone on the road.
It felt a little rude. But what he was actually telling
to them is stay focused. Keep your eyes on the prize.
Why? Because Gerard, when you get up
from the living room and go to the kitchen, you forget why
you're there. So how about I tell you not to
say hello to anyone and keep your eyes on where you're
supposed to go, right? And I was like, you know what?
That makes sense. Yeah, that tracks.
And then later he tells, he begins to tell them, no matter
what, where you go, just stay in one house.
Like I'm like, if, how do we multiply our time, right?
If I go, if I'm going to go to one house, how about I talk to
the neighbors as well? Jesus told them, no, focus on
one house. Every marketing major was like,
that is such a bad idea, right? Like you, you how do you
multiply time? But Jesus was saying, I want you
to be counter to what everyone else is trying to do.
I don't need your flashiness. I need your faithfulness.
And I and he wanted us to be faithful to the mission.
So one house at a time when he was asking them to take their
time. And the last part of this is
that he made the game. So because he made the game, he
gets to tell you how the rules of the game work, right?
We don't need to do that ourselves.
So I believe that in this moment, Jesus was saying you
don't have to save the whole world, you just have to be
faithful to the places I send you.
And it reminds me of the time I invited John to come out with us
to head out hot dogs. At the time, John was in his mid
50s. I wonder if you can find him in
that photo. He's a very thoughtful man.
He's not one to be in front of the crowd, but has meaningful,
thoughtful conversations in the background when no one else is
listening. And in my e-mail, I sent
everyone all the details about what we were doing.
And the only thing John sent back was, I'm with you, brother.
So even I was like, oh, even an e-mail.
He has not much to say, but he showed up and he, and when he
showed up, he had a great time. And I asked John, John, why did
you say yes to coming? He said, well, I didn't have
anything else to do at 10:00 PM. So I thought I would come on out
with you and I thought that was amazing because he, he still
shows up to to this day of still handing out hot dogs,
remembering where students are from and telling them random
facts about that place, but always hoping that they will
come to know the love of Jesus. And honestly, John wouldn't have
been someone I thought would say yes.
But when God told John to go, he went feeling unprepared, not
sure what he was going to do, didn't know if he had the gifts
to connect with college students, but he came anyway.
And then when John went back home, his wife Lisa, originally
the first year, didn't join us. It was past your bedtime or
something. But here's the thing, John kept
going home and sharing stories about what we were doing.
And the next thing we know is Lisa joined the team and she
comes with her glow sticks and her and her bulldog prints and
students love it and she loves doing it.
The one time we actually had she'd hand out glow sticks and
she'd get these paw Princess. We said go dogs and one of the
guys was like, put it on my chest.
And she was like, ah, all right, I am married, I am married, I am
married, I am married. And she's like putting dog
points on the students. And it's wild because Lisa, who
brought these things that seems so juvenile and so useful,
college students are loving it. So it was really wild to watch
Lisa step into the space where God is saying go.
And this is one of my favorite stories to share, not because of
anything that I was doing, but what God was doing in the hearts
of John and Lisa. Because what happened for John
is that he told me that hey drunk, my faith has come alive
again because I'm sharing it with other people.
He then was asked to become an elder of the of the church
because they saw him on mission and they wanted others to be on
mission too. And John was inviting them to do
so. So friends, this idea of going
is not just I'm going. You may not know what happens.
You will grow and be different in your faithfulness.
And as we begin to wrap up this text, it's important for us to
remember that we are people who are supposed to bring peace.
He says. When you first step into a brace
a space, say peace be to you. We don't bring arguments or
division or dissension or the rememberment.
Remember when you did that or remember how you said that.
We don't bring the hurt. What we do is we bring peace.
What does it mean to bring peace?
It means that we need to be present.
It means that we have to listen to the people we are serving.
It means that we have to give them a love that blows their
mind. When we bring peace, it also
means that we have to receive the hospitality the same way I
received the chair. I didn't even think about
bringing chairs because I'm not detail oriented.
But he brought me the chair and I was like, Oh yeah, this makes
sense. I should have had chairs next
time, like, right. So we received the hospitality
of those of people that we are serving as well.
And then we tell them that the Kingdom of God has come near to
you. And it's important for us to
realize that the Kingdom of God is more than you think.
When Jesus came preaching, he didn't just preach about
salvation. He preached the Kingdom of God
from the very beginning of his ministry.
Jesus invited people to something bigger than the moment
of belief. Invited invited them into a
whole new way of life. The Kingdom of God is more than
just salvation. Salvation matters deeply, yes,
but the Kingdom is not only about where we go after we die.
It's about how we live right now.
The Kingdom of God is an invitation to join in the
building of God's Kingdom and to participate in his redemptive
work in the world by living under His reign of King Jesus in
every area of our lives. The Kingdom of God is more than
just coming to church. The gathering together matters.
Yes, worship matters, absolutely.
Community matters. You bet, You betcha.
But the Kingdom of God calls us beyond just attendance.
It is an invitation to the church to be the church, to
become the hands and feet of Christ who brings healing to a
broken, to The Who brings peace to divided and bring hope to a
hurting world. The Kingdom of God is more than
just a future promise, it is a present reality.
Wherever Jesus is King, wherever his will is done, wherever love
over accomplice overcomes hate or justice replaces oppression,
and where mercy triumphs over judgment, the Kingdom is
breaking in Jesus. Invitation is simple, friends,
but it is costly. It says repent, for the Kingdom
of God is at hand. The Kingdom is now.
The Kingdom of God is not just something we believe in, it is
something we step into. So when we go and tell people
about the Kingdom, we invite them into something far greater
than just simple salvation, far greater than just church
attendance, far greater than just joining a small group, far
greater than just something that happens when we die.
We're inviting people into the active work of bringing the
Kingdom to Fresno and to Bakersfield.
And serving hot dogs was not was never the full goal.
It was always meant to just be an enrolled an inroad to
something deeper and meaningful relationships.
Another family that has gone with with me to Greek life
students has been Jamie and Mindy.
Now, when we met these guys, they when we would when Jamie
and Mindy and I would meet students, they will often tell
us we are in college now, so we're going to party that after
we graduate, we're going to lock in.
I didn't agree with that logic. However, I had to build a
relationship in order to have the conversation.
So now as they are figuring things out, what we begin to see
is that they were like, hey, we're like, how do we invite
them into our home? So then Jamie and Mindy open up
their table at their house to say, come and have dinner here,
have a space to study here. And then it became a tradition
of that fraternity's brothers to say, before you join our
fraternity, you have to go meet the Franklins, right?
That is a big deal, right? Because they, the Franklins, are
going to tell them about the gospel every time.
If you meet Mindy and Jamie, Jesus is the first thing out of
their mouth, right? So they know they're going to
meet Jesus. But then it changed the ethos of
how they worked. And then it also began to change
one brother and specific one brother specifically named
Bryant, one of the fraternity brothers who took a special
interest into the Franklins as they took an interest into him.
Every time we went to hand out hot dogs, Bryant would come to
the table and look for the Franklins.
One parents weekend he brought his mom and sister over and said
you need to meet them. They're like my home away from
home. Then as Brian begin to have
milestones celebration in his life like graduation and baby
showers and daughter's birthdays and all these things that
Franklin's were inviting, invited into those faces.
And Mindy, who once told me she hated graduations and almost
miss her kids own commencement, when she received an invitation
to Brian's graduation, she took her book and showed up anyway to
celebrate them. And at the end of graduation,
when Brian it's like it's time for a family photo, he made sure
that Mindy was in the photo, right?
Because he knew there was something about Mindy that he
needed. And in those three years that he
was a student, he never came around to coming to church, but
he always showed up to Mindy. Mindy and Jamie's, if they
invited him, they still, he still responds to text messages.
So much so that when Mindy texted him a few weeks ago to
say, hey, you should come be a part of our Alpha program at
church, he was like, I'll consider it even though he's
lives 45 minutes away. Because the relationship that
they built opened up doors for God to do what God needs to do.
And what did Mindy do in response to him saying maybe she
went back to her community and said, can you pray for him?
That's why we don't go alone because now when she said pray
for Brian, I know exactly who Brian is.
I know exactly why we're praying for him because Minnie does not
have to do the heavy lifting by herself.
So what? We need to go, I need you to go.
I need you to go with me to share the gospel because it
actually encourages me to make as we're making it happen.
As I was preparing for the sermon, an old Tim Hughes song
called God of Justice kept playing in my mind.
And it's like we must go live to feed the hungry, stand stepping
forward, we keep us from just singing.
Move us into action. We must go.
Then it then it goes into this prayer to Jesus when he goes,
fill us up and send us out. Fill us up and send us out.
Lord, it's almost this begging
and pleading of my God. I know that there's people out
there. Can you send me to go?
But I need you, God, to be with me.
I'm not asking you to go on your own strength.
That is not why we are here to just to say just go do your own
thing. We actually ask you to go in the
power of the spirit, to love students at Bakersfield, to love
students at Big Swiss College, to love students at CCSUB.
That's also a lot of letters and we got a big tongue.
It's hard to say, but we must go into bring the Kingdom here to
Bakersfield as it is in heaven because we are inviting people
into the Kingdom. This means we're inviting
husbands to come and love their wives like Christ loved the
church. We're calling musicians to use
their gifts to build the Kingdom.
We're calling students to use their majors to bring out the
goodness of God from all of creation.
In the CCO, we say we are inviting students to join Christ
in his restoration of all of creation.
This means that marriages will be healed because we're we are
going. This means that government, the
government will be redeemed because we are going.
This means that every student will get the education they
deserve because we are going. This means that entertainment
and media will bring out the best of us in creativity because
Christians are going and giving hope and then bringing healing
to a world that is yearning and crying for something to be
different. And although Jesus didn't
mention it here he clearly is saying that the start of
redemption is by his people going he chooses to include us
like Pastor Daniel. How do you say say me look, I
came from a Baptist Church as a kid.
So look at each other. They say you he wants us.
He wants us to go and be his hands and feet.
It blows me away, church, that God wants us to be a part of it
with Him, to redeem this broken world.
We often want to give up. We often want other people to do
it. That feels like their problem.
But for some reason, God says, no, I want you the broken, the
flawed, the confused, but the one who is fully redeemed to
come and do it with me. And as I close, I want to tell
you about a young man who's a part of our ministry.
His name is Eli. He we met him.
He is in the far corner up the top your right my left.
He even though he wasn't a Fresno State student, he found
himself on Greek Rd. looking for the same thing everyone else
was. Hope.
And because of his personal life story he had no interest in
Jesus or the church or any church group.
But for some reason, he kept showing up to be with us at the
table. We invited him to come over and
to our biweekly dinner at our pastor's house once and we sat
together. He didn't eat any food because
he was so nervous. But we did sing together and
homeboy has the voice of an Angel.
He didn't really feel comfortable in the space, but
for some reason he kept showing up.
And what I know I didn't have to do, I didn't have to do anything
but make an invitation. God did the work to change his
heart. After a bit, After a bit, he
decided he was not going to just show up anymore.
He just stopped coming. But we stayed in contact.
I once sent him a text message or we were talking.
I said, hey, you should come with us to this conference in
Pittsburgh. He was like, yeah, we got this
plane ticket that was non refundable.
See where the story is going. I got this ticket and he said he
was going to come. And then the day of, he just
stopped responding to text messages.
But in that process, I asked for my friend Michaela to pray for
him to say, hey, would you be willing to pray for Eli to see
me, hoping that he's going to show up because it was a
expensive ticket. But he did it.
And we left, and we did our thing.
And then for seven months, Eli didn't respond to a text
message, a phone call, even when I slid in his DMS.
He didn't respond. Then he came to, I was out of
town for a little bit and he came to a meeting that I wasn't
at and I saw a picture on the Instagram page that showed him
in the background. I'm like, what is he doing
there? And then he he walks in, he
goes, oh, Gerard, let me tell you what happens.
I was like, I don't want to hear it.
The the Lord might move your sins as far as the easiest from
the West, but I'm still here. All right here.
And he tells me like, hey, like it was just it was a hard last
seven months while I'm here and he asked if he can go with us to
our fall retreat. And I said yes, but you have to
ride with me because I'm not getting stood up twice in the
same year. And so as we go down, he's we're
talking, we're having a great conversation.
We end up talking to the speak the, the retreat speaker
together, just the three of us, me Eli, the speaker.
And she asks him like, why are like what, what made you be a
part of the group? And he start, he's trying to
explain what has happened in his life over the last seven months,
but he can't explain it. Like, and you can tell that he's
trying to say like, like, I want things to be different, but I'm
also stuck like he's in this space.
And then because he didn't have the words, we just begin to say,
I think God is doing something in you.
And he was taken aback for a moment because he was surprised
that God could do something in his life.
A man who'd been running from God the majority of his life,
and he begins to have this conversation with us about,
like, that God. God did something in him, and
he's ready to process it. He's, like, coming to all the
sessions fully alive and alert. It was just really cool.
And that toward the end of the retreat, I had invited Michaela
and her husband to come and be our cooks for the week.
And Michaela pulls me aside, and she goes, Jerrod, I finally know
who Eli is. And I was like, OK, I guess like
what makes you say that? She goes back in February.
You asked me to pray for him and I have been praying for him ever
since because he will pop up randomly.
So I took a post it of his name and just put it on my mirror in
my bathroom. So every time I go into the
bathroom, I pray for Eli. And then it clicked.
I'm tired. That's all it is.
I'm just kidding. It clicked for me that Michaela
was praying for a man she didn't know, but she was in on mission
with me and Eli was having a whole life thing happened where
God was meeting him in places he never expected.
And God gave me a front row seat to see these two things merge
together because I decided to go.
God wants to show you that the Kingdom is not broken.
He wants to give you hope, but you have to get up and go.
You have to get up and go a really cool thing.
That's that's enough, right? But here's another really cool
thing. I'm in conversations now still
with Eli about the day he's going to get baptized because
he's ready, right? And I'm really excited about
that because he graduated from Barber school and now he's on
Barber and it's a lot cheaper than my last Barber.
So great things are down in pipeline, friends.
Great things, great things. As I close, though, I want us to
think about Eli's story. Eli didn't walk into our
ministry ready to follow Jesus. He didn't show up convinced he
didn't trust the church. But he just kept showing up and
people kept loving him. And what Eli didn't realize was
that long before he said yes, God was already at work in his
life before Eli chose Jesus. Jesus has already chosen him.
And I believe that there's some of you here today who are
finding yourself in the same space that you may not have
plans to say yes to Jesus or come back home.
You might still have questions or feel a little unsure, but
something in your heart feels stirred and you don't fully know
why. That's OK.
That's how Eli showed up to you. The good news of the gospel is
that we don't need to find God. Is that God comes looking for
us. That Jesus lived a life for us.
He died for us, and He rose again to make us new.
And today He's inviting you into this life with Him.
So I want to invite us into a quiet moment with every head
bowed and eyes closed. Today you're realizing that you
want to say yes to Jesus for the first time, or you're actually
saying, hey God, I've just been gone a while and I want to come
back home. I want you to raise your hand
saying, God, I trust you and I believe you, and I'm in this for
you. And I realized that all I have
to do is take a step toward you because you've already been
coming toward me. That is you just go ahead and
slip your hand up. I see you.
I see you, and what I want you to know is that you are.
This is not going to be a journey where you're in it
alone, because we're going to walk toward Jesus together.
So will you pray with me, Jesus, the one that ascends us to go,
the one who loves us before we knew how to love ourselves.
We thank you. And may you help us to know how
we can love you as we figure out how to love college students
here in Bakersfield. Because our desire, Lord God, is
to see Bakersfield as it is in heaven and to see Fresno as it
is in heaven, and to see California as it is in heaven.
Because that's the only way earth is going to look like it
is in heaven, Lord God. So we are here begging God that
you send us up, fill us up, and send us out to build your
Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen.