Embracing God’s Powerful Design for the Church

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name is Andy.

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I lead our Crossroads Anywhere community

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and today we are diving into the Book of Acts,

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which is about the acts of the church,

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like how the early church acted.

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That makes sense, right?

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Specifically, we're looking at how

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a bunch of normal people scattered all over the place

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were filled with this power that literally

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enabled them to change the world.

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It changed empires and ended injustice,

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and it brought hope and freedom in a new way.

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And that's who we want to be.

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Crossroads is a church that meets in person

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at our physical locations, as in church buildings

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and online and in person all over the globe,

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just like the early church did

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in homes with families, friends and neighbors.

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Today we have something really important to share

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with you about the future of our church,

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so make sure you stay tuned in for the entire thing.

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And a little pro tip, I know it's easy

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to hit the jump to message button

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or to skip the worship, but this moment right here

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is where we can not just learn about God's power in our lives,

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but experience that power for ourselves.

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Because for thousands of years,

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in good times and in bad, followers of Jesus

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have used music to connect with God,

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just like we're going to right now.

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I can see so many of you in this space

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going, "I agree with that." Can I get an amen?

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I've seen that.

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Have you seen God move in your life?

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If so, say amen. All right.

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I see you getting on board.

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We believe those words.

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They come right from Ephesians.

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Ephesians says this God can do immeasurably more

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than you could ever imagine.

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The work He's doing in you right now

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is bigger than you could ever imagine.

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It's bigger than just one person.

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It's bigger than you.

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You may not realize this,

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but we're not just a church here in this space,

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but we're a church that meets physically,

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digitally across the United States, across the world.

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And every week we sing the same exact songs together,

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no matter what building or what coffee shop you're in,

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we move at the same pace, saying the same prayers

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every single week together to say, "God,

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we're following you together as one church

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because we believe You can do immeasurably more."

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And so this moment this weekend,

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we're going to level it up a little bit.

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We're going to bring every site that we have

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and everybody online all together in this space,

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well through video, but all together in this moment

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to sing the same exact words at the same exact time.

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And so I'm going to ask you to do me a favor.

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We're going to welcome all of our sites

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in just a minute, and all the folks online.

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And I want you all to celebrate

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and shout louder than you have all night.

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This is us telling our whole church,

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"We're one church and we love you

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no matter where you're at or where you're from."

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So right now I'm going to welcome them,

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and then I'll set you loose. All right.

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Hey, I want to welcome you from all of our sites,

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everybody online, and here in Oakley,

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why don't we make some noise for our church?

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[cheers & applause]

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We love. That's right. Keep it going. [cheers & applause]

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You can join us too.

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If you're in the building, make some noise right now.

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Maybe you're my buddy.

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One of my best friends joins every week from Ethiopia.

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Maybe you're an Indianapolis, Batesville, Indiana,

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down in Orlando, Florida.

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Maybe you're in Columbus, Dayton,

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down in Lexington,

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or one of our sites meeting all over Cincinnati.

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We are one church united,

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moving in step in the same spirit and saying,

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"God, we believe and trust that

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You can do immeasurably more."

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Jesus prayed for you and He prayed for me.

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He prayed for His followers that we would be one,

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that we would be united.

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Because with unity, when we move in step with Him,

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He can do immeasurably more than we could ever imagine.

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So right now, right where you are,

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whether you're in a coffee shop, a pub,

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a dorm room, Dayton, Columbus, a site.

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Wherever you are, we're going to sing together

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the same words at the same moment,

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one church moving with one spirit

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after the same God together.

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Let's do it. All together we call upon this God.

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- He alone is who we stands,

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every site, every place we are, every race,

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every age, every background, we call upon Him.

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- We're going to sing it all together one more time.

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If you've seen God move, if you can say with faith,

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"I believe You have more in store for me

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and more in store for us,"

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then I want you to sing it with full hearts.

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I even invite you across all of our sites

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right where you are, lift both hands and say,

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"This is me saying, I trust You, Lord."

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If you're on board with it,

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if you're not, we're glad you're here.

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But if you're on board with it, then right now,

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more than we could ever imagine.

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We'll sing it all together, Oh, God. My God.

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- We need You. We need You.

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Some of us are so clear that we need You.

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There is a medical diagnosis we can't get over

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and docs can't help. We need You.

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There's a root of bitterness inside of us

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that just won't come out, and we need You.

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There is a source of loneliness that we have,

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loneliness from not having family,

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not having a spouse, not having a date,

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not having a child and it's pervading,

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not having a friend, and we need you, God.

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We are just frustrated, endlessly frustrated.

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We can't get out of the frustration for some of us,

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we just need You.

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And then for others of us,

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we're blessed enough to not have any of those needs,

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but we just say, "We want You, we want You,

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we want You more, I want you more.

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We want You more than a 10% pay rate increase.

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I want You more than a date.

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We want You more than losing 10 pounds.

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We want You more than another upgrade.

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We want You more than the approval

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of my friends and the masses.

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We want You more than a church that is growing.

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We want You more than any adulation that may come.

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We want You. We just want You, God.

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If you're dipping your toe

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anywhere at Crossroads right now,

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I hope you're I hope you're sensing Spirit,

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I hope you're sensing the water's warm here.

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We want You. We want You.

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God, we want You. - Sing that.

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- You know, there might not be many places

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in all the world where there's a group of people

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that's not complaining to God.

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We're just saying we want God.

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Not accusing you, God.

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Whatever You have for us, we want it,

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because we want You, we want You.

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We want your face more than

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we want whatever's in Your hand. Amen.

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Go ahead and have a seat.

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So I've been looking forward to this talk

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for quite some time.

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And this is the day.

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This is the day I hope you understand

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what I believe God has been doing in my heart

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for the last several months.

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And what I thank God is inviting our church into.

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No action today. Nothing to do today.

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Just want to let you in on what I sense

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God's doing in our church

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and what He's asking us into. Okay?

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And let's pray before I do anything else.

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God, I am thankful to be able to go public

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with the things that I feel

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You've been stirring in me and in us.

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And I pray that You would, man,

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You'd give us clarity and You'd give us peace,

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and You'd give us insights

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and maybe even give us a swift kick in the rear, too.

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I just am thankful that I get to talk

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about transcendent things,

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and thankful that I get to know You.

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And I ask You to help me to help

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all who are within eyeshot and earshot

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come to a better understanding of You

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and maybe what You want in our world.

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And I pray these things according to

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the character and identity of Jesus. Amen.

00:27:22

Well, it may not surprise you, but I like to have fun.

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I do. I've been having fun this whole service.

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I like to have fun, all kinds of fun.

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And one of the things I've liked to do

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is I have liked to get out on the water

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and do water sports.

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I say liked because I used to, I don't anymore.

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I had a boat that I had to sell because I needed

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the cash for other things a couple of years ago,

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but I learned a lot in the midst of

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doing motor sports on the water.

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And I think it relates to the spiritual realm.

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Let me give you a little background.

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Most people, when we grew up,

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when we grew up, those of us who are 50-ish. [hoot]

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Yeah, water sports meant water skiing

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and water skiing meant you want

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to get out on the water early in the morning,

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if you're going to do that because you want

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to cut back and forth across the back of the boat,

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and you need it to be very smooth, smooth water.

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And so designers of boats for decades

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and decades and decades just had this down.

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They knew exactly how to shape the hull.

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They knew how to put the the engine

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in the middle of the hull, so even distribution.

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And that's the way it was back and forth on the water.

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And then around the '80s or '90s,

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and no one's really sure exactly what it is.

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I've researched it and tried to find it.

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I can't find it, but they started kicking off wake,

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like, people intentionally said, "Hey,

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let's get in the boat and actually kick wake."

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Do we have pictures up here, by the way? Yes.

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Okay, so here we have nice no waves cut back and forth.

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\And then they started making boats with wake.

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And the history of this is a little spurious. We're not sure.

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Most people would agree, but that what happened was

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people started slamming a bunch of beers in the boat

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and got to the end of the day,

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and the heaviest people in the boat

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were towards the back, and they realized that

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there was like a wake being kicked off.

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And so somebody said, "Hey, why don't we

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get that blow up inner tube

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and throw it overboard

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and let's see if we can get caught up in the wake?"

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And then that's what happened.

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And then they started designing boats

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that would intentionally kick off wake,

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because you could do a lot of fun things with a wave.

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Like, if it just flat, you could slalom ski

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back and forth just the way you want it.

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But more and more people, especially

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the younger generations, want to play on the wake.

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They want to play on the wave.

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So the game became get as big of a wake as possible.

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So they started redesigning hulls.

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How do we actually make wake?

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They started having things that shaped the wake,

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actually sucking water onto the boat

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in big bags to make it heavier so that

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you could have more wake and you could have more fun

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experiencing all the water had to do for you.

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WakeMakers.com says this:

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So if you want to create wake,

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you gotta have a lot of people in it.

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You gotta have some weight in it.

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When we look in the book of Acts,

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we're going to see again and again

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there is wake that's being created.

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There is waves that are being created.

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There is movement that is happening.

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It happens again and again and again and agai

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So God added 3000 to their midst,

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3000 more people of ballast.

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God added 4000 people to their midst,

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different things in acts 2 and acts 4,

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throughout all of Acts

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and God added to their number daily,

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God multiplied their number.

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It comes up again and again and again.

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And what this means isn't like, "Don't we feel good

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that there's a lot of people who believe like us

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and think like us?"

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But no, it was a sign that more people wanted God

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and we're coming to see Him as the source of life

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and the positive reverberations all over culture

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were taking place as well,

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because they were kicking up wake.

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This last week, I was looking at some numbers

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and some people threw some numbers this way.

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We've been kicking up some wake here around our church.

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God has been kicking up some wake around our church.

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God has given us some weight.

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Would you like to see some of the wake

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that we've been kicking around here?

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I think it's pretty interesting.

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First of all, look at weekly attendance,

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people who come to a site or go online.

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After COVID, we've been going up, up, up, up.

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And it's been like every year better than the last,

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more people, new people. It's been beautiful.

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This last week on Easter, we had our largest service

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in 28 years of Crossroads, nearly 62,000 people. Wow.

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And all that weight, all that ballast means

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we've been able to do more to bless the world.

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Our reach out, our reach out wins and people

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who have been going on trips, helping those in need,

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helping those in poverty, trying to have an adventure,

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it's been going up every single year.

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Every metric of how wake, a wake of blessing

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on top of people has been going up.

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It's so encouraging.

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We are about adventure because

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a spiritual walk with God is adventure.

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If you don't want adventure, then be an atheist.

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But when you start understanding that

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there is an invisible entity who knows you

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and loves you and equips you and empowers you

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and will ask you to do unpredictable, scary things,

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you realize spiritual growth is an adventure.

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And so we have these physical adventures

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that mirror the spiritual realm.

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One of them is Go Trips, another one is is camps.

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Our camps have just been going off the charts.

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People are coming from all over the country, all over the world.

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The last camp we had, we had four countries.

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People came in just for that camp

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because they're sensing God is there

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and wanting to be a part of it.

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Student camps, our student camps are taking off.

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Even our numbers today coming on is so positive.

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I mean, the wake and the ballast is really stunning.

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Now all this means if we don't --

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All we have is people showing up, big deal.

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But we have people who are showing up

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and are saying to God, "I want You, I need You."

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They're coming, we are coming to faith.

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And the best understanding of how many people

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are coming to faith is how many people get baptized.

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How many people is that?

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Jesus says the very end of the book of Matthew

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and the beginning of the book of Acts, He says,

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"Go into all the world, make disciples,

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baptize them in the name of

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the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

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Go, go, bring people into the kingdom.

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And our baptisms have been going up, up, up,

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every year, up, up, up.

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Last week at Easter, look how many people

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came to faith last week: 857. [applause]

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Actually, it's, I understand the latest number

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is actually 877.

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So people need to get fired for not counting right

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and having me have a wrong slide here,

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but pretty interesting.

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You might have heard of Gordon-Conwell.

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Gordon-Conwell is one of the most respected

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Christian seminaries and research organizations

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in America, and they decided to look at

00:34:29

of all the money that's given to Christian causes,

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all the money that's given to churches,

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all the money that's given to non-profits,

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you know, the Great Commission,

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bringing people into relationship with Jesus

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is like, centeral, that's the thing.

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All the other things are really important

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and Jesus cares about those things.

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But they put the number, they just took

00:34:47

the number of total given to Christians,

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churches, all that stuff,

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divided by the number of reported baptisms

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and they found that this year

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it'll be $1.4 million per baptism.

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Every baptism will cost $1.4 million.

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Here Crossroads this last year it was $35,000.

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That's pretty good.

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$35,000 to get somebody into heaven.

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It's pretty interesting.

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And camps it's even better, camps it's $928.

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Oh, my gosh, I just find that encouraging

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because of all the money we spend around here

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in terms of a Great Commission fulfillment vehicle,

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we're doing really well.

00:35:27

Well done friends. Well done.

00:35:29

Really, really, really good.

00:35:30

All this is background before I get into

00:35:32

where we're going here.

00:35:35

And I think that's it. I think that's all my slides.

00:35:37

In the book of Acts 17:6, here's what's said

00:35:44

of the early church. There's Paul and Silas,

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two apostles, and they've got another guy

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who's hanging out with them, a bunch of people

00:35:50

in this guy's house by the name of Jason.

00:35:51

And people who are a part of the establishment

00:35:54

are getting really intimidated

00:35:57

of all the changes that are happening.

00:35:59

And here's what they say about these folks in Acts 17:

00:36:08

That was the reputation of the early church.

00:36:10

They've turned the world upside down.

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Is that what you think of Christians as?

00:36:18

Is that what you think of the local church as?

00:36:20

Most people think of the local church as

00:36:22

a place where people are nice.

00:36:24

A place where there's morality.

00:36:26

I'm into niceness. I'm in the morality.

00:36:28

But when God is wanted and needed and welcomed,

00:36:32

and when the fullness of His Spirit is unleashed,

00:36:35

things get wakey and people start to notice it.

00:36:42

I want to ask you, in your personal life,

00:36:45

do you want to create wake in your personal life,

00:36:47

or do you just want smooth sailing?

00:36:48

Just smooth. It's so interesting to me.

00:36:51

I mean, some of us, unless it's smooth,

00:36:53

we feel God isn't operating.

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Like, in fact, when we have

00:36:57

stuff that's turbulent in our life, we think,

00:36:59

"Oh no, this is awful. God must not exist."

00:37:01

No, God's the midst of maybe doing something right now.

00:37:04

Because when you're wanting everything to be flat

00:37:06

and calm, that's what you want.

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That's not what God wants.

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God wants to use you and me.

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He wants to use our church to create wake.

00:37:18

My favorite genre of reading is history.

00:37:25

I just love history. History.

00:37:26

I love biographies, autobiographies,

00:37:29

especially American history. I find it fascinating.

00:37:31

And then when you get into Kingdom history,

00:37:32

church history, that's even better for me.

00:37:34

And so I've been consuming and learning all that I can,

00:37:38

dusting off things I started to learn decades ago

00:37:41

to get a fresh take on what happens

00:37:43

when there is an awakening that comes to a region

00:37:47

or a revival that comes to a region.

00:37:52

Revival meaning normally meaning reviving

00:37:56

the faith of people because it's basically been dead.

00:37:58

I like the word awakening better because

00:38:00

it's awakening you to a world of possibility,

00:38:03

awakening you to the presence of God.

00:38:05

Awakening happens when a wake boat

00:38:10

of the presence of God passes over your life

00:38:14

or in your region, and people around feel it.

00:38:17

Northwestern University says this:

00:38:35

This is the real thing historically.

00:38:37

And I'm going to give you a bunch of examples

00:38:39

of what we can learn from them today.

00:38:40

Because here's the big thing,

00:38:42

I want to see an awakening.

00:38:44

That's what I want to see.

00:38:45

I want to see an awakening. [applause]

00:38:48

I love seeing charts that go up into the right.

00:38:51

I love that, but that does nothing to me like

00:38:54

I want to see an unpredictable flow of

00:38:58

the Spirit of God touching and convicting

00:39:01

and wooing and uplifting and including

00:39:04

and converting millions of people.

00:39:06

It's happened before. Why can't it happen again?

00:39:13

[applause] This is the heart behind the change

00:39:17

that we made when we made Kyle Ranson

00:39:19

Lead Pastor of Crossroads

00:39:21

who reports to me as Senior Pastor.

00:39:22

I said, "Kyle, we need to have the trains

00:39:25

running on time at Crossroads.

00:39:26

We need to have the basic bread and butter

00:39:28

ministries of Crossroads just doing, doing, doing well.

00:39:31

It would be great to double the size of Crossroads,

00:39:33

2X the size of Crossroads.

00:39:35

That would be great over time.

00:39:36

But for me, over the next ten years

00:39:39

I'd like to 10X Crossroads.

00:39:41

More specifically, I'd like to 10X the influence of God,

00:39:43

whether it was reflected in the numbers

00:39:45

of Crossroads or not."

00:39:46

So I'm just -- anytime I can think of it, I'm just 10X.

00:39:52

What would it look like for God to use us

00:39:55

to 10X the impact of the Kingdom of God

00:39:59

over the next ten years?

00:40:01

Like to have 600,000 people part of our church,

00:40:06

to have 8,000 people baptized on a single day.

00:40:12

Why not? Why not? It's happened before.

00:40:15

God's about due. He's about due.

00:40:19

This is what I've been structuring my life for

00:40:21

and what I've been kind of stewing

00:40:24

and crock potting on for quite some time.

00:40:26

There's nothing for you to do today.

00:40:28

Nothing for you to do today.

00:40:29

This is just a kind of making you aware of this.

00:40:31

There's something that we're all

00:40:32

going to be able to do next fall.

00:40:34

Next fall we're going to have a push.

00:40:36

We just push on each other a little bit.

00:40:37

Just push, push, see if we can get a little kickstart.

00:40:40

Push, push and just see if we can take new ground.

00:40:44

It's going to be a financial push.

00:40:46

We're going to have the ability to make

00:40:48

a commitment to see if we want an awakening,

00:40:50

because we'll get in the moment

00:40:51

that always is a part of a true awakening.

00:40:54

Sometimes we just want the Spirit of God

00:40:56

to just fall on our street.

00:40:57

He doesn't work that way.

00:40:58

He never has worked that way.

00:41:01

He works through people.

00:41:03

He works through an organization or organizations,

00:41:05

churches working together.

00:41:07

So next fall we're going to have a push.

00:41:08

It's going to push on deepening you.

00:41:10

Do you want a revival in your own life?

00:41:11

Do you want awakening in your own life?

00:41:13

Do you want to be a part of that? 10X.

00:41:18

What's the characteristics of an awakening?

00:41:20

One: increase in the spiritual weight of followers.

00:41:26

The reason why we have so many people

00:41:28

deconstructing the faith, walking away from the faith

00:41:31

is because we have had so many weak light Christians,

00:41:36

people who haven't been having

00:41:38

a regular conversation with God,

00:41:40

people who don't do the spiritual disciplines,

00:41:42

people who don't read their Bible,

00:41:43

people who weren't on a mission feeling like

00:41:46

they're gifted by God to do something.

00:41:48

People who don't say, "I need God."

00:41:49

Instead, "I need money, I need insurance,

00:41:51

I need America to be the way I want it."

00:41:53

That's why people have been flocking

00:41:55

from Christianity in droves.

00:41:57

It hasn't been because

00:41:58

there's a problem with Christianity.

00:42:00

We have too many lightweights,

00:42:02

too many people who don't want an awakening,

00:42:05

too many people who aren't playing for bigger stakes,

00:42:07

too many people play victim.

00:42:10

And in an awakening there's a weightiness,

00:42:14

a weightiness to us.

00:42:16

One of the awakenings that I find so inspiring

00:42:20

happen 1904 to 1905 over in England,

00:42:22

and it's called the Welsh Revival.

00:42:24

And the Welsh Revival had a bunch of

00:42:27

working class Welsh folks coming together.

00:42:31

And there was a meeting, a church meeting

00:42:33

where people were there and there was this girl,

00:42:35

this girl, she's about 10, 11 years old, I think.

00:42:39

And she said, according to a witnesses

00:42:43

and accounts of this, in the most deep,

00:42:47

awe inspiring, humble way, she said,

00:42:51

"I love Jesus with all of my heart."

00:42:56

And the way she said it and how she said it,

00:43:00

everybody there believed her.

00:43:02


00:43:06

And accounts say that the Spirit fell on that room

00:43:09

and crazy things started happening

00:43:11

and it woke everybody out of their spiritual malaise.

00:43:15

I want more people to Crossroads to say,

00:43:18


00:43:22

When that happens, there's a spiritual weight that comes.

00:43:25

And when one person feels that

00:43:27

it cascades to another and another and another,

00:43:31

and before you know it, you're looking at an awakening.

00:43:35

Tim Keller said this:

00:43:55

We don't even like to use the word converted anymore.

00:43:58

Like the world has taught us certain words

00:44:00

that are core to my faith are evil words.

00:44:02

"Oh, you're just trying to get converts converted."

00:44:04

Converted, that's what Jesus does.

00:44:07

He comes to save us because He wants to convert us

00:44:10

from the kingdom of darkness,

00:44:11

a kingdom of worthlessness, a kingdom of shame.

00:44:14

He wants to convert us from our own self,

00:44:17

convert us to Him, convert us from darkness to light,

00:44:20

convert us from shame to grace,

00:44:23

convert us from fear to courage.

00:44:26

It's a conversion.

00:44:28

It's a conversion is what He asks us to.

00:44:31

And there's conversions

00:44:33

when there is an awakening happening,

00:44:35

when there's people of depth that happen.

00:44:37

There's also, number two,

00:44:38

there's cultural and societal impact.

00:44:43

There is ripples and wakes that go across

00:44:45

all of culture and society.

00:44:47

Now, as I talk about this,

00:44:48

I'm not here talking about philosophically.

00:44:50

There's been a number of these

00:44:52

in the last couple thousand years.

00:44:54

And when you look at those and stitch them together,

00:44:57

it starts to make sense, the pieces start to come together.

00:45:01

The first person who was a Christian

00:45:03

and used advertising was a guy

00:45:06

by the name of George Whitfield.

00:45:08

He actually used drama in his preaching.

00:45:12

He would, instead of preaching monotone

00:45:14

from a script like some people did,

00:45:16

like Jonathan Edwards, if you know that old name.

00:45:18

George Whitfield would do these big gestures

00:45:20

and he would command the stage

00:45:22

and he would go into a town ahead of time,

00:45:24

and he would put advertising up on bulletin boards

00:45:28

and all that kind of letting people know that he was coming.

00:45:31

And as a result, people came

00:45:33

and he had a supernatural preaching voice.

00:45:37

He could speak to 20,000 people

00:45:41

without use of a microphone,

00:45:43

because microphones weren't invented yet. 20,000.

00:45:45

We know that because

00:45:47

Ben Franklin was there and counted off.

00:45:50

Ben Franklin was a deist. He wasn't a Christian.

00:45:53

But he became a very close friend of George Whitfield.

00:45:55

He became a close friend of his

00:45:56

because Franklin was publishing papers.

00:45:58

And he said, "Oh man, George Whitfield,

00:46:00

if I could report on all this stuff that's happening,

00:46:02

people could buy more of my papers."

00:46:04

And so they actually became friends.

00:46:05

They needed each other.

00:46:06

Someone asked Ben Franklin, they said,

00:46:08

"Why do you -- why are you his friend?

00:46:09

You don't even --

00:46:11

You don't even believe what he believes."

00:46:13

And Ben Franklin said, "I know, but he believes it."

00:46:17

There are too few people who actually believe

00:46:20

and aren't bashful about it.

00:46:22

We're almost apologetic about it.

00:46:24

[mumbles] He believes.

00:46:26

Who will actually put their life on the line,

00:46:28

who actually will use their words and say,

00:46:31

"I believe in Jesus Christ."

00:46:33

Who actually will say, "No, that's not what God wants."

00:46:37

Very few people are up for that.

00:46:40

Whitfield is one of those guys,

00:46:42

and Franklin was drawn to him.

00:46:44

And as he was coming in, and by the thousands,

00:46:47

people were getting converted

00:46:49

in pre-Revolutionary War America.

00:46:52

This is what Ben Franklin said

00:46:53

was happening in those communities:

00:47:14

When he talks about religion.

00:47:16

I'll give you another quote here too.

00:47:17

And it's not the same kind of religion

00:47:19

that we tend to think of, which is kind of

00:47:21

staid and rules and predictable.

00:47:23

They're talking, our terms would just be spirituality,

00:47:25

right? A vibrant faith whenever they say,

00:47:28

whenever they say religion.

00:47:29

Now here's the interesting thing is

00:47:32

Whitfield and there were others right with him.

00:47:34

There was John Wesley and there was Charles Wesley,

00:47:36

we'll get into them in a moment.

00:47:37

As they as they were going up and down the colonies,

00:47:41

historians are pretty united that because of

00:47:44

Americans being converted,

00:47:46

converted from dead attendance at a church

00:47:50

to having a vibrant understanding of

00:47:52

a personal relationship with God,

00:47:53

this was the foundation for the Revolutionary War.

00:47:57

Because what took place was people were no longer just

00:48:00

committed to the institution of the Church of England

00:48:02

and committed to the King of England,

00:48:04

who just told them how much to pay.

00:48:06

They felt like, "Wait a minute,

00:48:07

God cares about me personally?

00:48:10

God knows me personally?

00:48:12

God loves me personally?"

00:48:14

And personal relationship with God

00:48:17

and freedom also came in.

00:48:19

So that was the foundation for being able

00:48:23

to rebel against an oppressive government

00:48:25

that the Americans didn't want to be a part of anymore.

00:48:28

John Adams, referring to this awakening

00:48:32

or revival, says this:

00:48:33

The revolution was effected.

00:48:34

This is the second President of United States.

00:48:47

So, the Spirit of God swept over these colonies,

00:48:51

and people started getting converted,

00:48:53

and people started getting weighty in their belief,

00:48:56

and they started being light in their stress levels,

00:48:59

and they started being abandoned unto God.

00:49:01

And the culture of America changed.

00:49:04

I would just tell you, if this doesn't happen,

00:49:07

we're under Nazi rule right now.

00:49:10

If this doesn't happen

00:49:11

with all the problems in America,

00:49:12

all the horrible things America has done,

00:49:14

like kidnap people and bring them in on slave ships,

00:49:16

we're going to get in just a minute.

00:49:18

We're not some pristine country

00:49:19

that has great, great history.

00:49:21

There's a lot, a lot of pain, horrible, horrible stuff.

00:49:23

And there's also a lot of unbelievable things

00:49:27

that our country was able to interact with the world

00:49:30

because of an awakening that took place in those colonies.

00:49:35

The civil rights movement

00:49:37

is actually part of an awakening.

00:49:39

Now, you wouldn't know this because

00:49:42

the media doesn't want to talk about this.

00:49:45

In fact, if you talk to and read accounts of people

00:49:49

who were in the in the early civil rights movement,

00:49:52

obviously Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy

00:49:55

and others, they were very clear and said,

00:49:57

"Man, we met to talk about passive resistance,

00:50:01

the cameras always went on

00:50:02

to talk about passive resistance."

00:50:04

But what always bothered them was

00:50:06

the cameras were never on before that,

00:50:08

which was a prayer and worship meeting.

00:50:10

A prayer and worship meeting

00:50:12

was what brought them together.

00:50:15

There were people coming together because

00:50:17

this is part of their faith.

00:50:18

And all kinds of people globbed on to it.

00:50:21

But Martin Luther King was a man of faith,

00:50:24

and what came out of that was getting weighty,

00:50:29

more weighty spiritually.

00:50:33

So when awakening happens,

00:50:35

it affects things and culture.

00:50:37

It blesses things and culture.

00:50:38

The Great Awakening happened in the Revolutionary War

00:50:41

wasn't just enabled us to have Revolutionary War,

00:50:43

but also the public school system came out of that.

00:50:45

Because people got converted

00:50:48

and all of a sudden they wanted to read the Bible.

00:50:50

This is history, friends.

00:50:52

Again, you don't hear this. It's true.

00:50:53

They wanted to read the Bible.

00:50:55

So they said, "You know what we should do?

00:50:57

We should teach people to read.

00:50:58

In fact, we should have an institution

00:51:00

that would teach people how to read."

00:51:02

And public schools were born

00:51:04

on the wake of the awakening that took place.

00:51:07

Third thing that happens when there is an awakening

00:51:10

is there is a a vision for more.

00:51:14

Not pleased with where we are right now,

00:51:17

not pleased with how much of God I have right now,

00:51:20

but I want more.

00:51:21

I've said it before, I'll say it again,

00:51:23

man, I want everything God has offer.

00:51:24

I want all the spiritual gifts.

00:51:26

I want them all. All of them. Want them all.

00:51:27

I don't have them all. I don't have them all.

00:51:30

People say, "Well, what about the gift of tongues?"

00:51:32

That'd be awesome. I've asked for it many times.

00:51:34

I don't have it. But if God wants, I take it.

00:51:36

I'll take it. I'll take miracles.

00:51:37

I'll take interpretation. I'll take prophecy.

00:51:39

Whatever. I want them all, I want more,

00:51:41

I want, I want all of that. I want all of it.

00:51:43

And you should be the same way too.

00:51:45

And I believe us as a church, we also have to have

00:51:48

the same idea and we have to be saying to God,

00:51:51

"God, we want more.

00:51:53

We'll take more responsibility,

00:51:55

more things You want to give us,

00:51:56

more experiences You want us to have,

00:51:58

more opportunities to take advantage of,

00:52:00

a vision for more."

00:52:02

Friends, do not be deluded by any nice numbers I have there.

00:52:06

We are not satisfied with where God has us right now,

00:52:09

because we do not yet look like the book of Acts.

00:52:12

We don't let -- look, look.

00:52:14

We don't have those kind of numbers,

00:52:15

those kind of stories, those kind of healings.

00:52:18

We want more. I want more.

00:52:21

Is there anybody else who wants more, or is it just me?

00:52:25

[cheers & applause]

00:52:28

This is a verse that is important to a lot of people,

00:52:31

and it haunts a lot of people, but I'll read it.

00:52:37

Acts 12:48:

00:52:50

This is a good verse, and is normally

00:52:52

only used to talk about giving, that hey,

00:52:55

when God is -- when you're making more money,

00:52:58

you'd be growing in the art of generosity.

00:53:00

You need to be tithing and then have a normal thing

00:53:03

like getting beyond the tithe, like growing,

00:53:05

because God's giving you much, much is required.

00:53:07

And I think that's fine.

00:53:08

I think that's a fine interpretation of the verse,

00:53:10

but that's -- I think it's a fine application.

00:53:13

That's only one application of the verse.

00:53:15

There's a bunch of applications in this verse.

00:53:17

One of them is our church here.

00:53:20

Now God has given us so much,

00:53:21

the talent we have on all of our stages,

00:53:24

the amazing volunteers that we have,

00:53:26

the vision He's blessed us with,

00:53:28

the resources that He gives, the buildings,

00:53:31

the environment of freedom to say stupid things

00:53:34

and make mistakes. I mean, shoot, man, I'm serious.

00:53:37

If I was me in 99% of the other churches in America,

00:53:41

I'd be fired. "You can't say that. Can't."

00:53:46

I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding either.

00:53:48

It'd be like a regular board meeting.

00:53:50

A regular board would be like, "Okay, [mumbles]"

00:53:52

But there's an attitude of freedom and like,

00:53:55

let's not get too --

00:53:56

Let's not get our panties too twisted up,

00:53:58

you know what I mean? Let's just relax a little bit.

00:54:02

And I feel, I'm preaching to myself right now.

00:54:05

I feel the encroaching NyQuil.

00:54:10

Nyquil could come and say, "Just drink me,

00:54:12

drink me, slow down, just slow down, calm down."

00:54:15

Crossroads has gotten to a good place,

00:54:17

more than recovered after COVID.

00:54:19

Things are looking good.

00:54:20

Just you're getting older, Brian. You're 58. Relax.

00:54:25

Just, just, just go into what you know,

00:54:28

do the things you know how to do

00:54:30

and just get ready to sail off in the sunset

00:54:33

and give somebody else something good to do something with.

00:54:37

Hit cruise control.

00:54:39

I feel it. I feel it, and I say no.

00:54:43

[applause] I say no.

00:54:47

That's why I wanted to give Kyle more significant leadership,

00:54:50

because I wanted somebody else

00:54:52

who was not going to be lulled into doing,

00:54:55

making the same decisions for 28 years

00:54:56

that I've made and the same things,

00:54:58

though I'm in those meetings still and around.

00:55:00

I just need somebody else to be on that weight.

00:55:02

And I wanted to have creative energy

00:55:05

to go after more in the Kingdom of God.

00:55:09

I wanted a fresh start,

00:55:12

and the board supported me on this.

00:55:14

Just saying, "How else might God use us as a church?

00:55:17

Do we want more?"

00:55:20

Yes, I want more than 60,000 people at a service.

00:55:24

I want more than 857, 877 baptisms.

00:55:28

I want an awakening.

00:55:29

I want the Spirit of God to come on a region

00:55:32

and all churches be elevated, all churches be elevated,

00:55:36

and all tides are raised, churches working together.

00:55:38

I want to see all.

00:55:39

I want to see a region of the Spirit go,

00:55:41

"What is happening? What is going on?"

00:55:44

Because God has dipped His toe into us

00:55:48

and He's found us worthy of a plunge

00:55:53

and of more empowerment.

00:55:55

Every time, every time there is an awakening,

00:55:59

there is somebody who's not satisfied and wants more.

00:56:05

And it's so weird.

00:56:06

It's like you start talking about wanting more

00:56:08

and it's like you have to apologize for it.

00:56:10

Like, "Well, shouldn't we be content in all circumstances?"

00:56:12

Yes, and want more.

00:56:15

This is the this is the teaching of the Bible.

00:56:17

Yes, and want more.

00:56:19

Not be bitter if I don't get more,

00:56:21

but say, "God by faith, if you give me

00:56:24

more of your spirit, more grace,

00:56:26

I'll use all the energy I have

00:56:28

to do Your bidding and to push."

00:56:31

Fourth thing that happens in awakening:

00:56:33

A capacity for a difficult adventure.

00:56:37

Every awakening happens because a group of people

00:56:41

chose to do a difficult adventure,

00:56:44

because when you look at awakenings, it's really messy.

00:56:48

It sounds wonderful, but it's really messy.

00:56:50

There's a lot of criticism that happens.

00:56:52

There's a lot of chaos.

00:56:54

It's just odd. Like really, really odd.

00:56:58

There's odd stuff happening.

00:56:59

Like historically, in some of these awakenings

00:57:01

or some of these revivals, like the Spirit of God

00:57:03

fills a room and people like pass out like,

00:57:06

bam, pass out.

00:57:07

People start, you know, rolling on the ground.

00:57:11

They start, like, laughing hysterically.

00:57:14

They start speaking languages they've never learned before.

00:57:17

By the way, we had that at the last Man Camp.

00:57:21

We had four guys from Portugal

00:57:23

that came to to Man Camp,

00:57:25

and they came to the prayer tent.

00:57:27

And a friend of mine, Steven, was in there,

00:57:30

Steven Wilson, I'll give you his name.

00:57:31

And he was saying, "God, I'd love to

00:57:34

do this book of Acts tongues thing if you want to do it.

00:57:36

I would love to see it happen."

00:57:38

And these guys come in and he said, "God, okay,

00:57:40

God, I want more. I'm going to try this."

00:57:43

So he has the gift of tongues.

00:57:46

And so he just started doing the gift of tongues.

00:57:49

And this guy, there's one guy of the four

00:57:51

who speaks Portuguese and English.

00:57:53

And his eyes just light up.

00:57:55

He's like, "Wait a minute.

00:57:56

I don't have to translate you right now."

00:57:58

And Steven has no idea what he's saying.

00:58:00

And the guy says, he says,

00:58:04

"You weren't speaking Portuguese.

00:58:05

We have no idea what you were speaking,

00:58:08

but we all heard every word you said.

00:58:10

And here's what you said."

00:58:11

And they told him back what he said.

00:58:12

Well, if you look at Acts 2, when tongues comes down,

00:58:15

it's not really clear if God's supernaturally

00:58:18

giving people the ability to speak Spanish

00:58:20

who hadn't learned it before

00:58:21

or if people had the supernatural ability

00:58:23

to understand Spanish or hear Spanish.

00:58:27

I don't know what would happen if some of that stuff happened.

00:58:30

I mean, I don't know what I would do

00:58:31

if really, really weird, crazy stuff happened in a service.

00:58:34

I don't know what I'll do.

00:58:36

I'll tell you what, I'd like to find out what I would do.

00:58:41

I'd like to find it out.

00:58:45

I mean, sometimes there's such a thing

00:58:47

as spiritual bullying.

00:58:48

One time I was at a place, someone came down

00:58:50

and they said to me, "You know what God told me...

00:58:52

[indiscernible] and just laid into me. "God told me."

00:58:55

And I had a friend of mine

00:58:56

who was standing right beside me.

00:58:57

His dad was a Pentecostal pastor.

00:58:59

And I looked at the person who came down,

00:59:00

and he was just telling me what to do with my life

00:59:02

and everything, because God had told them.

00:59:04

And I and I looked at this person, I said,

00:59:06

"God didn't tell you that. He didn't tell you that."

00:59:10

And my friend said people do that to his dad,

00:59:14

his Pentecostal dad, all the time.

00:59:15

He said, "Wait, you can do that?

00:59:17

Wait, you could, you could, you could do that?"

00:59:19

"Yeah, just because someone says it's God

00:59:21

doesn't mean it's God."

00:59:22

And if you get deep enough with God

00:59:24

and have a weighty enough, you can hit,

00:59:27

you can hit a very high percentage of those things

00:59:29

and not just be bullied.

00:59:31

But a lot of people don't want the X factor of God,

00:59:34

because sometimes somebody has the word

00:59:37

that you need and didn't want to hear.

00:59:40

And you need the openness and the ability

00:59:42

to actually hear that.

00:59:43

See, following God is a difficult adventure. It's rough.

00:59:47

I think that's why Proverbs 14:4

00:59:49

sets us up for this. It says this:

00:59:58

Where there's no oxen, the manger is clean.

01:00:01

Here we go, going to say something

01:00:02

that's could get me fired, but it's very clear.

01:00:04

And if it was you and I on my back deck,

01:00:06

I would say, here is, "If you want a clean stable,

01:00:11

don't have any oxen."

01:00:14

If you have oxen, what the Bible says,

01:00:16

if you have oxen, you're going to have shit.

01:00:20

And if you don't want to clean that up,

01:00:22

then don't have any oxen.

01:00:25

This is what ministry is like.

01:00:27

If you want people to be a part of the ministry,

01:00:29

get ready to shovel a lot of manure.

01:00:32

And this is the history of awakenings.

01:00:34

They are messy.

01:00:35

In fact, some buildings where this has happened,

01:00:37

the building has been destroyed.

01:00:39

It's just been run down.

01:00:40

They couldn't keep up with it.

01:00:44

A fix for that is to have

01:00:45

a building that's crappy to begin with.

01:00:47

This is the story of the Azusa Street Revivals

01:00:51

in Los Angeles.

01:00:53

It was an old 2400 square foot lumber yard building.

01:00:57

And in 1906, 300-1500 people would come every night,

01:01:04

every night to this building, I think about 2400 feet.

01:01:07

That's, I mean, a lot of your houses in suburbs

01:01:10

are way beyond 2400ft.

01:01:11

Probably if you're in the city,

01:01:13

depending on where you live, 2400 feet is not a lot.

01:01:17

Just a room, old place to store lumber.

01:01:19

And people used to come and first hand accounts

01:01:22

were of blind having their sight restored,

01:01:25

disease is cured instantly.

01:01:27

Immigrants speaking in German and people understanding them.

01:01:32

Spanish being spoken in the native tongue to people.

01:01:36

And these were, this was brought about by,

01:01:38

quote unquote, uneducated black members,

01:01:41

black members who translated the languages

01:01:44

that people had supernaturally

01:01:45

so other people could understand.

01:01:47

The pastor of this was William Jay Seymour.

01:01:51

He was not your classic megachurch pastor.

01:01:55

There was nothing attractive about him.

01:01:57

He didn't care about his appearance.

01:01:58

He was blind in one eye.

01:01:59

I think he was actually missing an eye.

01:02:01

And he would sit up over a milk crate

01:02:05

and just on his knees praying and mumbling,

01:02:09

and every once in a while he'd say something

01:02:11

everyone could understand, he'd say, "Repent,"

01:02:13

And then he'd go back to praying and mumbling.

01:02:15

And the Spirit of God had its way.

01:02:17

The LA Times came to do a story on this

01:02:18

because the whole city knew what was going on.

01:02:20

This wasn't like Christianese is just talking about this.

01:02:23

The whole city knew this is going on.

01:02:24

That's why thousands of people, 1500 people

01:02:27

every night for like two years, coming and coming.

01:02:30

Here's what the LA times said:

01:03:16

Now, I'm not drawn to have

01:03:19

a bunch of crazy, wild things happening.

01:03:21

I'm just drawn to have more of the Spirit of God.

01:03:24

I'm drawn to have more people converting.

01:03:27

I'm drawn to have more people

01:03:28

having a spiritual weight to them.

01:03:31

I don't know what else could happen.

01:03:33

I don't know what else, all I know is this:

01:03:35

I'm tired of putting limits around God.

01:03:37

I don't do that anymore. Not good.

01:03:40

This was an adventure what they did

01:03:42

at Azusa Street revival. It was an adventure.

01:03:45

Today you might have heard of the Methodist Church.

01:03:48

Methodist Church is loosely affiliated

01:03:51

with the most recent revival in America

01:03:54

that was at Asbury, Asbury Seminary down in Kentucky,

01:03:58

where college students sang 24 hours a day

01:04:01

for a couple of weeks.

01:04:02

People came from all over the place.

01:04:03

And I wish I would have gone.

01:04:04

Really stupid, stupid, stupid.

01:04:06

I should have gone. I didn't go.

01:04:10

What many people don't understand is that

01:04:13

revivals and awakenings aren't about

01:04:16

an experience in a room.

01:04:18

They're about the experience in a room

01:04:19

that propels me to have more weight,

01:04:22

to be a blessing to my world, to be a missionary

01:04:26

in whatever field of operations that I'm in.

01:04:29

Asbury Seminary was named after one of

01:04:31

the greatest bad-asses in Christian history.

01:04:33

His name is Francis Asbury.

01:04:35

Francis Asbury was commissioned

01:04:38

by John and Charles Wesley to start churches

01:04:42

all over the colonies.

01:04:44

I don't know if you've ever ridden a horse before.

01:04:46

It sounds really fun until you actually get on one.

01:04:49

It's not. It's not fun at all.

01:04:51

He would go out and he would commission people

01:04:53

to be itinerant preachers, 4000 itinerant preachers.

01:04:56

And he did, he logged himself on a horse

01:04:59

300,000 miles on the back of a horse

01:05:02

over the course of his lifetime,

01:05:04

going to little frontier settlements,

01:05:06

telling them about the love of Jesus,

01:05:09

enlisting them in something that was meaningful.

01:05:13

And out of Francis Asbury, that's where

01:05:15

the Methodist Church actually came from.

01:05:17

This was an adventure.

01:05:20

Friends, when you want God

01:05:21

to get involved in your life, you have to say,

01:05:23

"I'm up for poop.

01:05:25

I'm up for unpredictable messiness.

01:05:27

I'm up for things I don't have the gifts for.

01:05:29

I'm up for things I don't have the answers for."

01:05:31

It's part of what happens with it.

01:05:33

Fifth, the last one I'll share with us,

01:05:35

share with you, is organizational drive.

01:05:37

When there is an awakening,

01:05:40

there's organizational drive.

01:05:42

We like to think that, you know,

01:05:44

God's just going to descend on a city

01:05:46

and people are going to come to know Christ.

01:05:48

It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way.

01:05:51

It looks like it worked that way in Acts 2,

01:05:54

only because there were believers there

01:05:57

who were praying for that and were gathered

01:05:58

and were organized.

01:06:00

Francis Asbury was organized.

01:06:03

Methodists had a method, that's why

01:06:05

they were derogatively called Methodists.

01:06:07

They would take the first row of their tent

01:06:10

when they would bring people in to hear about Jesus,

01:06:13

and they would seed the crowd in the first row,

01:06:16

so that when Francis Asbury

01:06:17

or one of the itinerant preachers

01:06:18

asked to come forward and receive Christ,

01:06:20

the people in the front would immediately come up

01:06:22

and spring into action.

01:06:24

And this was known as the Anxious Bench.

01:06:26

The people in the front were not unbelievers,

01:06:28

they were believers who were seeding the crowd.

01:06:30

And they got derived of this.

01:06:32

They called this the anxious bench.

01:06:34

Like you're manipulating people.

01:06:36

By the way, if you ever watched

01:06:37

a Billy Graham crusade on TV,

01:06:39

you'll see streams of people coming forward

01:06:42

and Billy Graham gives an invitation coming forward.

01:06:44

I've been a counselor at two Billy Graham events

01:06:48

in two different cities.

01:06:49

All those people coming forward initially,

01:06:51

they're all taking a play from the Methodist.

01:06:53

Those are all believers who are trained counselors

01:06:56

who are all coming down to give people a freedom,

01:06:58

like, "Oh, there's other people going forward.

01:07:00

Okay, okay, I guess I can go forward."

01:07:06

Gosh, it just came to me. Oh, man.

01:07:10

I haven't had this memory for a long time.

01:07:12

I remember watching one of those --

01:07:15

One of those things on TV.

01:07:18

And I was kind of watching like, "Oh,

01:07:19

he's just so cheesy."

01:07:21

I think I was 18 at the time, you know?

01:07:25

I'm watching TV and cameras on

01:07:26

and all of a sudden went, "That's my cousin, Herb,

01:07:33

who is not a believer.

01:07:35

He's walking down the aisle. Oh, my gosh."

01:07:40

The reason I'm crying about it is,

01:07:42

it wasn't just he came to faith.

01:07:44

I've talked about it before.

01:07:45

You know, a few years ago, he caught bipolar

01:07:48

like you would catch a disease, the strangest thing.

01:07:50

And he tanked his life, marriage,

01:07:53

and killed himself in a six month span.

01:07:56

You know?

01:08:00

Herb isn't in hell because of his last act.

01:08:03

Our last act doesn't determine where we go.

01:08:04

The only act that determines where we go

01:08:06

is when we receive Jesus.

01:08:08

That's what determines where we go.

01:08:11

And herb came to Christ because there was

01:08:13

an organization that had modeled

01:08:15

some organizational behavior that made him

01:08:17

feel safe to get up and walk forward.

01:08:19

By the way, this is also my opinion.

01:08:22

This is also why we have MLK Day and not Malcolm X day.

01:08:26

Malcolm X was killed just like MLK was,

01:08:30

but MLK had an organization.

01:08:34

Malcolm X really didn't have a robust organization.

01:08:36

He had some thoughts.

01:08:38

He was arguably as good or better of a speaker,

01:08:40

but he didn't have an organization

01:08:42

to take his message and his things,

01:08:44

not least not as vibrant as Martin Luther King's were.

01:08:48

So, next fall on these things, we're going to push.

01:08:50

We're going to push all of us.

01:08:52

I'm going to get pushed.

01:08:53

We're going to go before God,

01:08:55

we're gonna get pushed spiritually, financially.

01:08:57

We're gonna push.

01:08:58

What if God uses us? Seriously?

01:09:01

Would that be something you'd love to see,

01:09:03

that God uses you for widespread things,

01:09:08

that, who knows, maybe people write about

01:09:10

in 100 or 1000 years? We're due friends.

01:09:13

We're due.

01:09:15

What part of what's gotten us into this

01:09:17

is noticing what God wants of us,

01:09:20

and that we do not have the resources for it.

01:09:23

Let me show you some things that God,

01:09:25

I think God has for us, but we don't have the resources for.

01:09:27

First is we need more land

01:09:30

because camps are growing so much,

01:09:31

and by the power of AI,

01:09:33

this is what our camps will look like in the future.

01:09:35

That's a 22 acre lake.

01:09:37

We bought more property

01:09:38

and we had the cash to buy the property.

01:09:41

And we want to raise money to build a lake.

01:09:43

Who knows, man.

01:09:45

Who knows, maybe there's an awakening Woodstock

01:09:47

that'll happen on our property. You got to love AI.

01:09:54

We got to stop being freaked out by AI. It's awesome.

01:09:57

Go with it. Roll with it.

01:09:58

Those are all AI renderings.

01:10:00

Also our stage experiences and what's here,

01:10:02

just like George Whitfield leveraged the latest

01:10:05

in communication, all that stuff, we do too.

01:10:09

And we're just not up to snuff.

01:10:11

We have the same LED packages that public schools have,

01:10:15

and public schools are getting ripped off

01:10:17

of their funding all the time or church plants have.

01:10:20

We're not in step with entertainment venues.

01:10:23

And by the way, God called us to that in 1996.

01:10:27

That's not being of the world,

01:10:29

that's a calling that God gave us in 1996,

01:10:31

which is part of why He's used us the way He has

01:10:33

to bring as many people to faith.

01:10:34

Because people come into big room

01:10:36

and they need to be swallowed into it.

01:10:39

And so we're going to have some augmented reality

01:10:41

on our broadcast stage in Oakley.

01:10:43

Here's kind of what it looks like.

01:10:44

Do you have it back there

01:10:46

or you're going faster than me?

01:10:48

You can see the hand of God right there,

01:10:50

the stage, the lower part is what that looks like.

01:10:52

This is going to raise the elevation in all of our sites.

01:10:55

It's going to raise what it is online,

01:10:58

because our Dayton building is going to cost

01:11:00

about $24-$25 million.

01:11:03

We could put for less than that into this AR stage

01:11:08

that will be a platform for millions and millions

01:11:11

and millions of people through our digital church.

01:11:14

And we want to elevate the LED game

01:11:16

at all of our sites, all of them.

01:11:18

This is Dayton, our Dayton campus

01:11:20

that was under construction.

01:11:21

This is the next iteration of a Crossroads building.

01:11:23

Shout out to Dayton for fulfilling their commitments

01:11:26

and working for it. That's great.

01:11:28

They've been working on it. Way to go, Dayton!

01:11:30

But we're going to need more to finish this out.

01:11:32

We want to be part of that.

01:11:34

Also in Columbus. Columbus, we see you.

01:11:36

We've been working hard. We've been negotiating.

01:11:38

But I'm sorry, your city sucks

01:11:40

as far as buying property right now.

01:11:42

It's way overpriced. It's tough.

01:11:44

But we have our eye on that.

01:11:46

And these are just some of the things,

01:11:47

I don't want to get into this.

01:11:49

Tonight was just awakening thing.

01:11:50

I'm saying this for 10X, 10X capacity for us,

01:11:54

it's going to take a lot of things

01:11:57

that are going to be really fun and really expensive.

01:12:00

And that's always the way it's been in and awakening.

01:12:04

Do the history. I've done it.

01:12:07

It's always arduous. It's always tough.

01:12:10

It's always difficult.

01:12:13

You guys go see the see the eclipse? Yeah.

01:12:19

I did as much as I could.

01:12:22

I did as much as I could to get

01:12:24

as many people as possible going to the eclipse.

01:12:27

I went in 2017.

01:12:29

I went down to Indiana just because I had heard

01:12:31

that there will never be another eclipse

01:12:33

in my lifetime where I can drive to.

01:12:34

There wasn't up to that point in 2017,

01:12:37

so I said, "Fine, let's go."

01:12:38

I didn't know at that point there would be one

01:12:40

seven years later. I'm glad I did.

01:12:42

It gave me a pre-understanding of it.

01:12:43

I went and was utterly blown away.

01:12:46

And so I have been an evangelist trying

01:12:48

to convert people to go to a --

01:12:53

I just forgot what it's called.

01:12:56

You're all saying the same time.

01:12:57

Total eclipse. Thank you. Total eclipse.

01:13:00

Total eclipse.

01:13:01

Someone just start singing a Total Eclipse of the Sun.

01:13:03

[singing] Once upon a time I was falling in love.

01:13:06

Now I'm only falling apart.

01:13:09

Nothing I can do

01:13:11

- A total eclipse of the heart.

01:13:13

- Yeah. Who was that? Who sang that?

01:13:16

Bonnie Tyler. All right.

01:13:19

Coming down the final stretch. Hang with me.

01:13:22

I did everything I could on my social media feeds

01:13:25

and I mentioned from stage too, to say,

01:13:28

"Find that little map thing where it comes,

01:13:30

comes down and get to the total eclipse.

01:13:33

Just get there. Trust me. Just get there."

01:13:36

And much to my depression,

01:13:39

I was interacting with friends who,

01:13:40

for whatever reason, didn't get there.

01:13:43

No judgment. I mean, important stuff came up.

01:13:45

They couldn't, whatever was. It's all good.

01:13:48

But, you know, it really bothers me when they say,

01:13:52

"Well, we got it. It was like it was 99%.

01:13:55

It was awesome. It was 99%."

01:13:56

And of course, those of us who went

01:13:58

to Total Eclipse know that 99% is not awesome.

01:14:03

It's not awesome. No, seriously. Not at all.

01:14:07

Like, if you have those, if you have those glasses,

01:14:09

you can look up there and you can see that,

01:14:12

you know, "Oh, it's cool, it's blocking."

01:14:13

But no, it's not awesome.

01:14:15

You don't get the night effect.

01:14:17

The temperature doesn't drop ten degrees immediately.

01:14:19

The birds don't stop singing, the crickets,

01:14:22

if you're by woods, the crickets

01:14:23

don't come out immediately at 2:00 in the afternoon,

01:14:25

like, oh, it's daytime.

01:14:26

It's just a little dim. It's it's nothing.

01:14:31

It's nothing like 100%.

01:14:35

This is what people are Crossroads are like,

01:14:39

people in churches are like.

01:14:41

We think 99% commitment is pretty good.

01:14:45

We think 99% is like the same as 100.

01:14:49

No, it's not. It's not.

01:14:52

There's not a single square inch of your life

01:14:55

that Jesus doesn't say, "Mine. That's mine."

01:14:58

There's not a single dream you have,

01:15:00

there's not a single proclivity you have,

01:15:02

not a single habit, not a single goal,

01:15:05

not a single possession that Jesus doesn't say,

01:15:07

"That's mine, that's mine.

01:15:09

That's because you are mine.

01:15:12

I am your Lord. I am your Lord."

01:15:15

And anything under 100% falls short.

01:15:20

And it's only when we start to have this kind of

01:15:23

abandonment to Christ, embracing of Christ,

01:15:28

the foundation of awakening is set.

01:15:31

And this is what happens, people when we talk about this,

01:15:34

people immediately go to, "Well, okay, what?

01:15:35

We shouldn't be drinking more, shouldn't be dancing?'

01:15:38

No, no. We go to these things,

01:15:40

which maybe there are some things

01:15:41

we need to be processing there.

01:15:43

But when I talk about less than 100, I say this:

01:15:45

There's nothing in my life right now

01:15:47

that I know Jesus is not good with.

01:15:50

There's nothing.

01:15:51

And when there is something, I go, "Oh jeez,

01:15:54

I need to repent. I need to change.

01:15:57

I need to ask God for forgiveness.

01:15:59

I need to pray, I need --"

01:16:01

Seriously, there's nothing, there's nothing.

01:16:04

It doesn't matter how I spend my money,

01:16:06

how I'm talking to my wife right now.

01:16:08

My preparation process for here,

01:16:12

how I talk with our staff.

01:16:14

I say hurtful, stupid things to staff.

01:16:16

And then when I remember, I go,

01:16:17

"Oh, I shouldn't say that. I'm sorry."

01:16:19

I'm saying it's 100%.

01:16:20

I'm asking you, are you a hundred percenter,

01:16:22

are you like, "Oh, it's pretty good. It's pretty good."

01:16:25

I'm telling you right now, for God to use you,

01:16:28

you got to be 100 in. 100.

01:16:32

Not good intentions.

01:16:34

You have to be a hundred in.

01:16:36

This is the call that God has from us

01:16:40

for us to be 10X in ten years,

01:16:43

it means more of us being 100 in

01:16:46

for God to have His way in your life,

01:16:49

for you to have a peace that passes all understanding,

01:16:53

for you to have a joy that can't be squelched

01:16:56

with a bad economy.

01:16:58

For you to have a hope

01:16:59

when someone you don't like gets elected.

01:17:02

For you to have a purpose in the future,

01:17:06

even when you don't feel like you can last another day.

01:17:09

It happens because Jesus has 100 of you

01:17:11

and you just love Him with all your heart, all of it.

01:17:15

And until we do, no one has any reason

01:17:18

to look into our God because

01:17:19

we're no different than anybody else.

01:17:22

We just got a veneer of religiosity on us

01:17:24

and a habit of going to church. Big freaking deal.

01:17:28

God wants you. He wants all of you.

01:17:34

Because He gave all of Himself for us.

01:17:38

The adventure is coming. He's worthy. He's worthy.

01:17:53

Anyone convicted? You're 99, not 100,

01:17:55

you want to stand right now and say,

01:17:57

"I'm walking out of here 100"?

01:17:59

Anyone going to walk out of here 100

01:18:00

who came in here 99? Anybody?

01:18:02

Come on. There you go. There you go.

01:18:04

It's 100. That's 100.

01:18:05

You don't have to stand if you already were 100.

01:18:07

Come on, that's 100, 100, 100. I'm serious. 100.

01:18:12

You're 100? 100. What does that mean, 100?

01:18:14

100. What are you doing different?

01:18:15

What are you, 100?

01:18:16

What are you going to do different with 100

01:18:19

than you were 99?

01:18:21

What are you going to do differently?

01:18:23

100, 100, 100?

01:18:27

God, thank You for blessing us with Your love

01:18:32

and Your compassion and Your patience.

01:18:35

You are just so kind to put up with us,

01:18:40

to put up with us to where we come to see,

01:18:42

no, it's 100. You deserve 100.

01:18:44

We want to be eclipsed 100% by You

01:18:47

and we're asking You to use our church for an awakening

01:18:51

and helping us to play well with other churches

01:18:54

and other believers to be one, to be one,

01:18:57

so that Your purposes come through.

01:19:00

And we pray these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.

01:19:03

- Amen.

01:19:06

- Hey, thank you so much for joining with us today.

01:19:08

As Brian shared, this is a big glimpse

01:19:10

into what's around the corner for us as a church,

01:19:12

and we just want to say thank you

01:19:14

for being here with us with actually a free gift,

01:19:16

one of these shirts.

01:19:18

So if you do not live near one of our physical sites,

01:19:21

as in you don't live near

01:19:23

one of our Crossroads physical locations,

01:19:25

I'd love to send you one totally free.

01:19:27

Just head to Crossroads.net/anywhere

01:19:29

and click the link.

01:19:30

And just to be really clear, man,

01:19:32

these are only for non-local people.

01:19:34

It's just too expensive to ship things

01:19:36

to people who are in the same city.

01:19:38

So if you're near Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati,

01:19:40

or Lexington, you can get yours at your location,

01:19:43

if maybe you get in your car and hurry. Okay?

01:19:46

Now I've said this a thousand times,

01:19:48

but I'm going to say it again.

01:19:50

We are a community, not just content.

01:19:52

And there's lots of great things happening

01:19:54

that you can be a part of, specifically designed

01:19:56

to encourage you and push you and move you forward

01:19:59

in your journey with God.

01:20:01

A couple of them. We have a new cohort kicking off soon.

01:20:03

We're hosting hundreds of people

01:20:05

from all over the world to come into Cincinnati

01:20:07

for Anywhere Weekend later this summer.

01:20:09

We've got a meetup happening in Indianapolis,

01:20:11

an Online Connect event next Sunday at noon EST,

01:20:15

and you can find these and so much more.

01:20:18

There's so much good stuff happening.

01:20:19

Just check out Crossroads.net/anywhere

01:20:22

or in the Crossroads app under your happenings tab.

01:20:25

So, just to summarize, head to Crossroads.net/anywhere,

01:20:28

get your shirt, check out the great stuff coming up,

01:20:30

and we'll see you next week, actually,

01:20:32

as I get to speak to you personally

01:20:33

about what might be keeping you

01:20:35

from experiencing more power in your life.

01:20:37

See you next week.

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