Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / Stop Waiting Until You Feel Prepared - January 11, 2025

Transcript

Stop Waiting Until You Feel Prepared - January 11, 2025 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

0:00
We're in week two of a series called scent and we we talked a
0:04
lot about this last week. We're going to talk about it all
0:06
month long in with particular emphasis.
0:08
And it is this idea that when God saved you, say me, he didn't
0:13
just save you to then sit in a seat as a spectator sport and
0:17
watch someone else do ministry. He put his Holy Spirit inside
0:22
you, commissioned you, called you, has a plan for your life.
0:26
To be a minister of the gospel. To be a vocational minister is
0:29
not to be a minister of the gospel.
0:31
It is to equip you. The Saints say me for the works
0:34
of service. And so all week long or all
0:37
month long, we we want to continue to open up Scripture
0:40
and look at this call in the New Testament to go out to be the
0:44
hands and feet of Christ, to plant seeds of the gospel, to be
0:49
workers in the harvest. And we're going to continue
0:52
along the way to find opportunities for you to
0:56
investigate so that you can continue to to pursue this idea
1:00
of calling in your life. And we're going to bring people
1:03
in to open up the Word of God and preach that to you.
1:06
And so today we're going to invite a guest speaker up to
1:10
open up the Word of God and speak to us from both God's Word
1:14
and his personal testimony. His name is Gerard.
1:17
And that means it sounds like a fishing rod.
1:20
It's not Gerard. I know we're from Oildale, but
1:22
we don't have to add extra letters to things.
1:25
Gerard is so here from Fresno, as I like to call Fred.
1:31
Yes, I moved to the teaming metropolis of Fred.
1:37
Yes, from Pennsylvania. Like everybody dreams when
1:40
they're a young child works for an organization called CCO,
1:45
which is a coalition of Christian outreach and is going
1:47
to come and talk to us particularly about reaching
1:50
young people with the gospel on college campuses.
1:54
Most of CC OS footprint of putting full time missionaries
1:57
on college campuses is in the East Coast.
1:59
So draw was the first missionary to come out to the West Coast to
2:03
the best coast and begin to spread the gospel.
2:07
And so he's going to come speak with us today.
2:09
Would you welcome him to rest church?
2:17
We're going to pray over Jerrod before we get started.
2:19
And Father God, we thank you so much for the call that you have
2:22
on our lives. I thank you for running
2:25
relentlessly after me in college when I was far, far from you.
2:29
And I thank you for the call that you put on Jerrod's life.
2:32
And Father, today we lift him up as he proclaims your word, as he
2:35
teaches, as he preaches, as he testifies to your goodness.
2:39
And God, would you use these words in this time to cut us to
2:42
the heart, to encourage us to bind up wounds, but also to give
2:45
us a vision and for what it looks like to follow you, Holy
2:49
in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
2:52
Good morning church. Like pastor said, my name is
2:56
Gerard Brumfield. And so if you don't say Gerard,
2:58
you just don't listen to your pastor and that is your problem,
3:00
not mine. And I, like you said, I servant
3:04
friends. Yes, California, and I am
3:07
partnered with a Presbyterian Church there, so it's fantastic
3:09
that the Presbyterians and the Baptists are together this
3:11
morning. Yeah, and I serve with a bunch
3:14
of really fun folks at Fresno State, Fresno City, and Fresno
3:18
Pacific universities, and it is a joy for me to be here with
3:21
you. If you have your Bible, go ahead
3:23
and open up to Luke chapter 10, verses one through 9.
3:26
But before we dive in, I want to tell you that what I'm going to
3:31
talk about today is not just of what the CCO does, but how it
3:35
has shaped who I am. In the CCO, our mission is
3:38
transforming college students to transform the world.
3:42
That is a bold statement to make, but that phrase just isn't
3:47
a tagline. Again, it is my testimony.
3:50
Over the last decade and 1/2. I have.
3:53
I have watched transformation happen.
3:56
I've watched it happen slowly, relationally, imperfectly, and
4:01
often scared and but transformation happens when we
4:06
go to. That is true in scripture and
4:09
that is very true in my own life.
4:12
I went to school to be an elementary school teacher and it
4:14
always been a dream of mine since I was in the 4th grade and
4:18
had Mr. Carter as my teacher, who was a fantastic male role
4:22
model. And I knew from then that I too
4:24
wanted to go and do the same thing.
4:26
So know my surprise that when the day I was standing in front
4:30
of my class and I had this overwhelming sense that God is
4:33
telling me that it's time for me to go, I learned in that context
4:38
how to present the gospel in public education in an
4:41
appropriate way. I learned how to wake up early
4:44
because friends, I got here at 7:45 today and I'm, if I sit
4:48
down, I might fall asleep, right?
4:51
So I also had a great time learning how to use my giftings
4:55
to be creative and fun and interactive with my students.
4:59
I thought that was my, I was going to be my way of sharing
5:02
the gospel in the classroom with 25 fifth grade students.
5:07
But then God said go. And looking back, I realized
5:11
that God was less interested in my comfort and far more
5:15
interested in my obedience. So Long story short, I called my
5:19
mentor and to my surprise, I found myself stepping into
5:23
college campus ministry. And I want to be honest, I had
5:26
no desire to be a pastor or minister or having any
5:32
significant role in the in the church.
5:35
I didn't feel qualified, nor that I feel comfortable with the
5:38
idea. However, God made it apparently
5:42
clear to me that I need to go. So I embraced it and now here I
5:48
am serving college students 14 years later.
5:51
And that is the heart of what Luke 10 is all about this
5:54
morning. So let's read it together.
5:56
If you have the Bibles again, you're going to go to Luke
5:58
chapter 10 verses one through 9. Here's the word of the Lord.
6:03
After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by
6:07
two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to
6:11
go. He told them the harvest is
6:14
plentiful, but the workers are few.
6:16
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers
6:19
into his harvest field. Go.
6:22
I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
6:25
Do not make a Do not take a purse or bag or sandals.
6:29
Do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first
6:33
say peace to this house. If someone who promotes peace is
6:36
there, your peace will rest on them.
6:39
If not, it will return to you. Stay there eating and drinking
6:44
whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages.
6:47
Do not move around from house to house.
6:50
When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to
6:54
you. Heal the sick who are there and
6:56
tell them the Kingdom of God has come near to you.
7:00
Amen. Right away we see that God has
7:05
has already started sending people.
7:07
Jesus sends people before they feel ready.
7:10
He went to 72 people that were not the 12 original folks who
7:14
were his disciples who have been following Him to go.
7:18
He went to. He didn't go to the experts,
7:20
those who knew how to travel and how to figure it all out.
7:23
He didn't even try to train a group of professionals to do it.
7:27
He went and got 72 people who had experienced His grace
7:32
themselves and sent them out to go and tell the story.
7:36
He was looking for the available people.
7:40
He was looking for us. It is important to notice that
7:44
Jesus also sent them out in pairs.
7:48
That he wanted them to have a friend, a companion, someone who
7:52
else who could make to, who can protect them and verify what
7:57
they're saying. He didn't expect them to be
7:59
alone in the mission. When I was in college leading a
8:04
Bible study, we always had a Co leader.
8:07
It was why go alone when you can go together?
8:10
Jesus knew something about us. He knew that we could probably
8:14
be bold for a good 15 minutes, but then if fear came, we were
8:18
often run. So he didn't want them to go
8:21
alone. And the text shows us that Jesus
8:25
started to send them to the places that he was already going
8:28
to be going. Which is where?
8:32
Everywhere Church in Matthew 2818 to 20.
8:37
It says that Jesus came to them and said, all authority in
8:41
heaven and on earth has been given to me.
8:44
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
8:48
in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
8:51
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely
8:56
I am with you always to the very end of the age.
9:00
Friends, God is already moving in Bakersfield.
9:04
The question is not is God at work?
9:07
But will you join him? When I was a kid, I hated being
9:13
ignored, all right? Hated it.
9:15
I'm an I'm the eldest in my family and so I often times my
9:19
brother's got more attention than me.
9:20
And it's OK. I'm not bitter.
9:21
I'm I'm over it now. My therapist and I have been
9:24
talking about it. She's great.
9:26
Well, I'm great. It's good, all right, but I
9:28
hated being ignored. When I would ask the question,
9:30
she would just like act like I wasn't talking to her.
9:32
And again, it's fine. But what was important for me,
9:36
whenever she didn't answer me, instead of me just being annoyed
9:39
or frustrated, I would just do something.
9:41
I would just do the thing and then she would ask, why did you
9:43
do that? I was like, well, you didn't say
9:46
anything so I thought you were saying to me you trust my
9:48
decision making skills. So I made a decision and now
9:54
here we are. Here's the thing, Oftentimes I
9:59
made a good choice, not just because I'm thinking about
10:01
myself, but because I made a choice because I knew what my
10:05
mom would want me to do because I knew her heart, right?
10:09
I knew what she would want from me.
10:11
And guys, that's the same thing what's happening here in
10:13
Bakersfield. You, it's not about if God is
10:16
wait, like if God wants you to go because sometimes we're
10:19
waiting for this like lightning strike to happen, but God has
10:22
already told us to go. But if you are waiting, friends,
10:25
here I am to let you know that God wants you to go.
10:29
All right? I don't know where it is, but
10:31
God wants you to go. We already know that God is
10:36
moving in our in our city, in Fresno and in this city in
10:39
Bakersfield. And maybe the discernment is
10:42
what you were waiting for. Maybe it's working with college
10:46
students, or maybe it's children in foster care and their
10:49
families. Maybe it's the unhoused
10:52
population in in your city or victims of human trafficking.
10:56
No matter where it is, though, God is sending you somewhere.
11:01
The text continues by saying the harvest is plentiful, but the
11:06
workers are few Last week. Pastor Daniel told us that the
11:10
harvest was never the problem. I say to us, even though I
11:13
watched online, OK, I know it's like you weren't here, Jerrod.
11:15
I know I watched it. He told me too.
11:18
But he told us the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are
11:22
few. Last week, that's my spot.
11:25
We go. It was always about those who
11:27
love the Lord being obedient to follow his commands, right?
11:32
The people at Bakersfield are waiting for you to follow his
11:35
command. Those in the margins, the
11:38
broken, the orphan, the widow, the outcast, those who are down
11:43
on their luck are waiting for you to follow the command to go.
11:47
Those in government are waiting for you to follow God's demand
11:51
to go. Your child's teacher, the
11:53
baseball coach, the band parents, the cult, your Co
11:56
workers are waiting for you. Your mom or dad who has given up
12:00
on faith waiting for you. Your son or daughter who never
12:04
understood why you bought in the church is waiting for you.
12:08
Waiting for the church to be the church instead of just staying
12:12
inside the church. And yes, the harvest was never
12:17
the problem. It was the workers being
12:19
obedient. And who are the workers?
12:23
US. It's us.
12:26
And they're usually reasons people don't go.
12:29
They're usually a few fears. I'm going to give you 3 that I'm
12:31
aware of. 1 is the fear of rejection.
12:35
It is common to think that when we go that out and share the
12:39
gospel, people would abandoned us or mock us or not engage.
12:44
However, God doesn't ask you to change hearts because He already
12:48
does that in the CCO. One of our core values, one of
12:52
the things we believe to our core, is that Jesus changes
12:55
people's lives. We believe that we are just
12:57
called to show up, be present, and be the living testimony of
13:02
what Jesus can do. It is our job.
13:05
It is not our job to make people get it.
13:09
We show up for Him to let him. We show up and let him do the
13:13
work. Another fear is us being afraid
13:16
of being hypocritical. Here it is friends, I got some
13:19
news for you. We all are right, so get over it
13:25
.3. I'm just kidding.
13:26
I know that we want to be perfect.
13:28
I don't know who taught us that. I don't know where it came from
13:31
in our minds that if we don't do it perfectly, we shouldn't do it
13:33
at all. But that is not what Jesus is
13:36
telling the disciples. What is not what Jesus told the
13:38
72 even in their brokenness, even when they didn't get it
13:43
fully, he still sent them. I still remember this one time I
13:47
was preaching at this event and it was an event where people are
13:51
breaking their friends. We hadn't heard the gospel and I
13:53
was super excited. I gave the talk and then I sat
13:56
down. I was like, I didn't mention
13:58
Jesus name not a one time. Gosh.
14:04
And so then I was afraid. I was like I messed up, messed
14:08
up. Then what happened is that
14:11
somehow people still started giving their lives to Jesus
14:16
because that night reminded me that God is not limited by my
14:20
forgetfulness. God is not limited by my
14:23
mistakes. God is not limited by my
14:26
imperfect, my imperfect obedience, because God doesn't
14:30
call us to do it perfectly. He calls us to do it faithfully.
14:34
So our Third Point is that the third fear is that people are
14:39
afraid of not knowing enough, enough.
14:41
Now, I know because you guys have Pastor Daniel.
14:44
When I was hanging out with him, this man feels, well, red,
14:47
right? He looks like he has it all
14:49
together. He gets up here very confidently
14:51
and he just does his thing, right?
14:52
And we feel like, oh, he must have it.
14:53
But here's the truth, just like Pastor Daniel, the reason he's
14:57
able to get up here is because Jesus is working through his
15:00
imperfections. Second Corinthians 12/9 tells us
15:04
that God's power is made perfect in weakness and and you're going
15:09
and you getting up and going out, you are actually allowing
15:12
God to work through you to make a difference in your city.
15:17
And we also begin to see that in Mark 28, Matthew 28, he would
15:22
never leave us to fend for ourselves.
15:24
And when we listen to the context of the rest, rest of
15:27
Scripture in John 15, he tells us to abide or to stay connected
15:32
to him because he wants to work through US.
15:36
So there's no need to try to find an excuse.
15:40
All you need to do is go. It is important to know when I
15:45
read Scripture that it was go with an exclamation point.
15:48
When I was when I was in school, my teachers told me that those
15:51
were commands. She said that those are things
15:53
that you need to do, like stop me.
15:55
It's not a suggestion. And it's the same thing true for
15:57
God here. When he said go, it wasn't a
15:59
suggestion, it was a command. He would say that this means
16:03
that Jesus understand, and Jesus understood that he was
16:05
commanding us to do it because we wouldn't do it otherwise,
16:09
because we know he knows that He was asking us to be vulnerable,
16:13
to get uncomfortable. It's a maybe risk it all.
16:17
I went from a job that was going to give me a really good pension
16:20
on the end to a job. I'm asking people to give me
16:23
money to do it. It doesn't make sense and I'm
16:26
I'm still having questions about it.
16:27
But here's the thing, God has taken care of me for a good 14
16:31
years, I believe, or 37 years and I believe he's going to keep
16:34
doing it. All right.
16:35
And so here's the thing. When we read the scripture and
16:38
he tells us to do something, he's doing it because he knows
16:41
he's going to be with us as we're doing it.
16:44
In verse 3, when he says the statement sending you out like
16:47
lambs among the wolves, my first thought was hold up Jesus.
16:53
I don't know if you know, but wolves eat lambs.
16:58
They don't, they don't just bully them.
16:59
You know, I'm not going to just get rustle and tussle, you know
17:02
what I mean? He's like, no, they eat them.
17:04
So in like reasons, first, I just want you to know that it
17:07
didn't make my top 10 of 2025, and I doubt it's going to make
17:10
my top 10 of 2026 because it feels almost like he's misspoke
17:15
a little bit because why would you send me somewhere if
17:18
something's going to potentially eat me?
17:22
But Jesus says this, I would never see you somewhere that I'm
17:26
not willing to go myself. Because Jesus was explaining
17:30
that he knows he was sending us to people who might not respond
17:33
the way we need them to. He he might send us to to be
17:37
among folks who don't like us. But in Philippians 2, it shows
17:43
that that Jesus came from heaven to be among people, and those
17:47
same people killed him on the cross.
17:52
He came as a Lamb of God and died among the wolf.
17:58
His very own people, other Jews, people who probably knew him
18:04
when he grew up, people who where he probably played ball
18:07
with outside of his house, people that his mom knows.
18:12
It wasn't strangers, it was people he knew.
18:17
When Jesus sends us to share the gospel, he wants us to be aware
18:20
that being attacked is this common place.
18:24
But you know who else is ready to attack?
18:26
The shepherd church. Jesus will protect you, He will
18:32
be with you, and He's ready to care for us in those situations.
18:37
I still remember the first whenever I was I moved to
18:40
Fresno, I was trying to find a creative way to reach students
18:43
on campus. So we went and we were going to
18:45
hand out free hot dogs on campus and we're going to do every home
18:50
game. And so I went earlier in the
18:53
week. So like find like what's the
18:55
right spot to go? Because you can't just hand out
18:57
hot dogs for free at night and think it's going to be OK
19:00
without being in the right spot. So I found this corner that had
19:04
a light post and I was like, this is great.
19:08
And so I want to go there. I want to I want to ask all
19:10
these people to come with me. It's going to be a good time.
19:12
And the and as we pull up there, I tell my friend, oh, before I
19:17
get there, I ask a friend, will she go with me?
19:19
And she goes, oh, you going to Sin City?
19:22
And I was like, no, I'm just going to Greek Road.
19:25
And she's like, no, we call it Sin City.
19:26
I was like, oh, I call it a place that Jesus loves, right?
19:29
And so, yeah, because of that, because he calls it, I want to
19:34
go to this place because I know that Jesus will be there.
19:36
I want to show you a picture of what it looks like.
19:39
This is where we go every home football game to interact with
19:44
college students. And then that house in the back
19:46
is the house that we went to. We arrived the first night,
19:49
right? And I'm so excited with all my
19:51
friends. We're there.
19:52
And as I get to the the corner where the street light was on,
19:56
it's now gone, right? And listen again, like I said,
19:59
you can't be handing out hot dogs at night for free in this
20:04
economy and expect people to trust you, right?
20:07
So I, I was like one of my friends, her name was Mindy.
20:10
She said, you know, Girard in California, the from the curb,
20:14
from this grass to the curb belongs to the city.
20:17
I was like, whatever that means, like that doesn't mean anything
20:19
to me. Where I'm from, you don't just
20:21
go stand in someone in front of someone's house.
20:23
She goes, so we can go stand down there and they will, we'll
20:26
be OK. I'm like, but what if they don't
20:29
want us there? I mean, like the corner I was
20:31
standing on, no one was going to stop us.
20:34
But This is why God sends us in pairs, because when I was ready
20:37
to give up, Minnie wasn't going to allow me to, right?
20:41
And so we took our hot dogs and our waters and when stood on
20:45
this little corner, well in an intersection, and then I said, I
20:48
probably should go tell this house that we're there.
20:50
And as I'm walking up to the house, they have trash bags,
20:53
like covering everything from the porch, so you can't see any
20:56
windows. And they have just like this
20:58
little enclave of like the Lucy from the peanuts of this little
21:01
guy bouncer who was not that big, still sitting at the door.
21:04
He's like letting people in and out.
21:06
And I just walked up to him and say, Hey, hey, I'm from my
21:08
church and we're here to hand out hot dogs and some water.
21:10
I just want you to be aware. And in my mind as I'm like
21:14
telling myself this narrative, I'm ready for him to say, like,
21:16
why are you here? Don't be here.
21:17
Get off our lawn. Like, right.
21:19
But what? He stands up, he goes, that's so
21:21
awesome. And I don't know if it's because
21:23
he was drunk or if he was just excited, but either either way,
21:27
he welcomed me with open arms and I was excited about that.
21:29
And he goes, because do you need some chairs?
21:32
He goes in and grab the chairs and grabs the president of the
21:35
fraternity comes out and they say to us, you're welcome back
21:38
anytime. And now for nine years, we still
21:40
have been standing in that same spot handing out hot dogs,
21:44
right? Here's the thing, I wanted to
21:50
give up. I knew that guy was telling me
21:53
to go, but I didn't want to. I was a little nervous about it.
21:56
I was like, what if, what if? How about let's reconsider, how
21:59
about we do it in the daytime, right?
22:03
But when, as God sent us, we have opened up a door for
22:06
relationships that have now changed multiple people's lives.
22:10
No one, I want you to know this. And no one in the group who went
22:12
with me, not one of them was a Greek life student.
22:15
None of them understood how Greek life works.
22:17
And I still don't get it right. But here's the thing, I do know
22:21
that they are looked hungry for something and I have what they
22:24
need, so who am I to withhold it from them?
22:27
Same thing for you. No matter where you are going,
22:30
you have what people need. So don't wait until you feel
22:34
prepared. Obedience prepares you.
22:39
What Jesus was doing for the 72 when He sent them out, He told
22:42
them not to bring a bag. Not to bring a purse, a bag or
22:47
sandals. He was basically was telling
22:49
them don't worry about money or food or how you're going to get
22:52
there. Just go.
22:54
He wanted them to begin to understand how to have full
22:57
reliance on God. He didn't want them to to
23:01
overthink it or wait till they got the perfect logo on it.
23:05
And I know that my detailed oriented friends are like
23:08
Jerrod. I've been trying to get these
23:10
people to focus and they haven't for so long.
23:12
Like don't just tell them to go now or my risk management folks.
23:15
But I found out in California, you can't just hand out hot dogs
23:17
without a permit. So I'm really glad that the
23:21
letters come on their grass because it's legal there, but
23:23
it's not legal where we were standing.
23:24
But praise the Lord, he saw us. He saw us, right?
23:28
But and so he tells them not to worry about it, but just to go
23:31
to trust them. He then also tells them not to
23:34
greet anyone. Now, as a person who's a natural
23:38
introvert and I do have ADHD, that felt offensive to me that
23:43
he told me not to greet anyone on the road.
23:45
It felt a little rude. But what he was actually telling
23:48
to them is stay focused. Keep your eyes on the prize.
23:53
Why? Because Gerard, when you get up
23:55
from the living room and go to the kitchen, you forget why
23:57
you're there. So how about I tell you not to
23:59
say hello to anyone and keep your eyes on where you're
24:02
supposed to go, right? And I was like, you know what?
24:04
That makes sense. Yeah, that tracks.
24:07
And then later he tells, he begins to tell them, no matter
24:09
what, where you go, just stay in one house.
24:13
Like I'm like, if, how do we multiply our time, right?
24:17
If I go, if I'm going to go to one house, how about I talk to
24:19
the neighbors as well? Jesus told them, no, focus on
24:23
one house. Every marketing major was like,
24:25
that is such a bad idea, right? Like you, you how do you
24:29
multiply time? But Jesus was saying, I want you
24:32
to be counter to what everyone else is trying to do.
24:35
I don't need your flashiness. I need your faithfulness.
24:39
And I and he wanted us to be faithful to the mission.
24:43
So one house at a time when he was asking them to take their
24:47
time. And the last part of this is
24:51
that he made the game. So because he made the game, he
24:56
gets to tell you how the rules of the game work, right?
24:59
We don't need to do that ourselves.
25:01
So I believe that in this moment, Jesus was saying you
25:04
don't have to save the whole world, you just have to be
25:08
faithful to the places I send you.
25:09
And it reminds me of the time I invited John to come out with us
25:14
to head out hot dogs. At the time, John was in his mid
25:18
50s. I wonder if you can find him in
25:19
that photo. He's a very thoughtful man.
25:24
He's not one to be in front of the crowd, but has meaningful,
25:27
thoughtful conversations in the background when no one else is
25:30
listening. And in my e-mail, I sent
25:33
everyone all the details about what we were doing.
25:34
And the only thing John sent back was, I'm with you, brother.
25:38
So even I was like, oh, even an e-mail.
25:40
He has not much to say, but he showed up and he, and when he
25:44
showed up, he had a great time. And I asked John, John, why did
25:47
you say yes to coming? He said, well, I didn't have
25:52
anything else to do at 10:00 PM. So I thought I would come on out
25:55
with you and I thought that was amazing because he, he still
26:00
shows up to to this day of still handing out hot dogs,
26:03
remembering where students are from and telling them random
26:06
facts about that place, but always hoping that they will
26:09
come to know the love of Jesus. And honestly, John wouldn't have
26:13
been someone I thought would say yes.
26:16
But when God told John to go, he went feeling unprepared, not
26:22
sure what he was going to do, didn't know if he had the gifts
26:25
to connect with college students, but he came anyway.
26:30
And then when John went back home, his wife Lisa, originally
26:34
the first year, didn't join us. It was past your bedtime or
26:37
something. But here's the thing, John kept
26:40
going home and sharing stories about what we were doing.
26:45
And the next thing we know is Lisa joined the team and she
26:49
comes with her glow sticks and her and her bulldog prints and
26:53
students love it and she loves doing it.
26:56
The one time we actually had she'd hand out glow sticks and
26:59
she'd get these paw Princess. We said go dogs and one of the
27:02
guys was like, put it on my chest.
27:04
And she was like, ah, all right, I am married, I am married, I am
27:08
married, I am married. And she's like putting dog
27:11
points on the students. And it's wild because Lisa, who
27:14
brought these things that seems so juvenile and so useful,
27:17
college students are loving it. So it was really wild to watch
27:22
Lisa step into the space where God is saying go.
27:27
And this is one of my favorite stories to share, not because of
27:29
anything that I was doing, but what God was doing in the hearts
27:33
of John and Lisa. Because what happened for John
27:36
is that he told me that hey drunk, my faith has come alive
27:39
again because I'm sharing it with other people.
27:42
He then was asked to become an elder of the of the church
27:45
because they saw him on mission and they wanted others to be on
27:48
mission too. And John was inviting them to do
27:51
so. So friends, this idea of going
27:55
is not just I'm going. You may not know what happens.
27:57
You will grow and be different in your faithfulness.
28:02
And as we begin to wrap up this text, it's important for us to
28:05
remember that we are people who are supposed to bring peace.
28:09
He says. When you first step into a brace
28:12
a space, say peace be to you. We don't bring arguments or
28:17
division or dissension or the rememberment.
28:21
Remember when you did that or remember how you said that.
28:24
We don't bring the hurt. What we do is we bring peace.
28:28
What does it mean to bring peace?
28:30
It means that we need to be present.
28:33
It means that we have to listen to the people we are serving.
28:36
It means that we have to give them a love that blows their
28:39
mind. When we bring peace, it also
28:43
means that we have to receive the hospitality the same way I
28:46
received the chair. I didn't even think about
28:49
bringing chairs because I'm not detail oriented.
28:50
But he brought me the chair and I was like, Oh yeah, this makes
28:53
sense. I should have had chairs next
28:54
time, like, right. So we received the hospitality
28:58
of those of people that we are serving as well.
29:01
And then we tell them that the Kingdom of God has come near to
29:05
you. And it's important for us to
29:08
realize that the Kingdom of God is more than you think.
29:13
When Jesus came preaching, he didn't just preach about
29:16
salvation. He preached the Kingdom of God
29:19
from the very beginning of his ministry.
29:21
Jesus invited people to something bigger than the moment
29:24
of belief. Invited invited them into a
29:27
whole new way of life. The Kingdom of God is more than
29:32
just salvation. Salvation matters deeply, yes,
29:35
but the Kingdom is not only about where we go after we die.
29:39
It's about how we live right now.
29:42
The Kingdom of God is an invitation to join in the
29:45
building of God's Kingdom and to participate in his redemptive
29:48
work in the world by living under His reign of King Jesus in
29:52
every area of our lives. The Kingdom of God is more than
29:57
just coming to church. The gathering together matters.
29:59
Yes, worship matters, absolutely.
30:02
Community matters. You bet, You betcha.
30:05
But the Kingdom of God calls us beyond just attendance.
30:10
It is an invitation to the church to be the church, to
30:14
become the hands and feet of Christ who brings healing to a
30:19
broken, to The Who brings peace to divided and bring hope to a
30:23
hurting world. The Kingdom of God is more than
30:27
just a future promise, it is a present reality.
30:32
Wherever Jesus is King, wherever his will is done, wherever love
30:36
over accomplice overcomes hate or justice replaces oppression,
30:41
and where mercy triumphs over judgment, the Kingdom is
30:44
breaking in Jesus. Invitation is simple, friends,
30:48
but it is costly. It says repent, for the Kingdom
30:52
of God is at hand. The Kingdom is now.
30:55
The Kingdom of God is not just something we believe in, it is
30:58
something we step into. So when we go and tell people
31:03
about the Kingdom, we invite them into something far greater
31:08
than just simple salvation, far greater than just church
31:12
attendance, far greater than just joining a small group, far
31:16
greater than just something that happens when we die.
31:19
We're inviting people into the active work of bringing the
31:22
Kingdom to Fresno and to Bakersfield.
31:26
And serving hot dogs was not was never the full goal.
31:29
It was always meant to just be an enrolled an inroad to
31:32
something deeper and meaningful relationships.
31:35
Another family that has gone with with me to Greek life
31:38
students has been Jamie and Mindy.
31:41
Now, when we met these guys, they when we would when Jamie
31:44
and Mindy and I would meet students, they will often tell
31:47
us we are in college now, so we're going to party that after
31:51
we graduate, we're going to lock in.
31:55
I didn't agree with that logic. However, I had to build a
31:58
relationship in order to have the conversation.
32:02
So now as they are figuring things out, what we begin to see
32:05
is that they were like, hey, we're like, how do we invite
32:08
them into our home? So then Jamie and Mindy open up
32:11
their table at their house to say, come and have dinner here,
32:16
have a space to study here. And then it became a tradition
32:20
of that fraternity's brothers to say, before you join our
32:23
fraternity, you have to go meet the Franklins, right?
32:27
That is a big deal, right? Because they, the Franklins, are
32:32
going to tell them about the gospel every time.
32:33
If you meet Mindy and Jamie, Jesus is the first thing out of
32:36
their mouth, right? So they know they're going to
32:38
meet Jesus. But then it changed the ethos of
32:41
how they worked. And then it also began to change
32:45
one brother and specific one brother specifically named
32:47
Bryant, one of the fraternity brothers who took a special
32:50
interest into the Franklins as they took an interest into him.
32:54
Every time we went to hand out hot dogs, Bryant would come to
32:57
the table and look for the Franklins.
33:00
One parents weekend he brought his mom and sister over and said
33:04
you need to meet them. They're like my home away from
33:07
home. Then as Brian begin to have
33:10
milestones celebration in his life like graduation and baby
33:15
showers and daughter's birthdays and all these things that
33:18
Franklin's were inviting, invited into those faces.
33:22
And Mindy, who once told me she hated graduations and almost
33:26
miss her kids own commencement, when she received an invitation
33:30
to Brian's graduation, she took her book and showed up anyway to
33:33
celebrate them. And at the end of graduation,
33:36
when Brian it's like it's time for a family photo, he made sure
33:39
that Mindy was in the photo, right?
33:43
Because he knew there was something about Mindy that he
33:46
needed. And in those three years that he
33:48
was a student, he never came around to coming to church, but
33:53
he always showed up to Mindy. Mindy and Jamie's, if they
33:55
invited him, they still, he still responds to text messages.
33:58
So much so that when Mindy texted him a few weeks ago to
34:01
say, hey, you should come be a part of our Alpha program at
34:04
church, he was like, I'll consider it even though he's
34:07
lives 45 minutes away. Because the relationship that
34:10
they built opened up doors for God to do what God needs to do.
34:15
And what did Mindy do in response to him saying maybe she
34:18
went back to her community and said, can you pray for him?
34:21
That's why we don't go alone because now when she said pray
34:24
for Brian, I know exactly who Brian is.
34:26
I know exactly why we're praying for him because Minnie does not
34:29
have to do the heavy lifting by herself.
34:32
So what? We need to go, I need you to go.
34:36
I need you to go with me to share the gospel because it
34:39
actually encourages me to make as we're making it happen.
34:44
As I was preparing for the sermon, an old Tim Hughes song
34:49
called God of Justice kept playing in my mind.
34:53
And it's like we must go live to feed the hungry, stand stepping
35:06
forward, we keep us from just singing.
35:11
Move us into action. We must go.
35:17
Then it then it goes into this prayer to Jesus when he goes,
35:21
fill us up and send us out. Fill us up and send us out.
35:27
Fill us up and send us out. Lord, it's almost this begging
35:33
and pleading of my God. I know that there's people out
35:36
there. Can you send me to go?
35:38
But I need you, God, to be with me.
35:42
I'm not asking you to go on your own strength.
35:45
That is not why we are here to just to say just go do your own
35:49
thing. We actually ask you to go in the
35:52
power of the spirit, to love students at Bakersfield, to love
35:56
students at Big Swiss College, to love students at CCSUB.
36:00
That's also a lot of letters and we got a big tongue.
36:05
It's hard to say, but we must go into bring the Kingdom here to
36:10
Bakersfield as it is in heaven because we are inviting people
36:15
into the Kingdom. This means we're inviting
36:17
husbands to come and love their wives like Christ loved the
36:20
church. We're calling musicians to use
36:23
their gifts to build the Kingdom.
36:25
We're calling students to use their majors to bring out the
36:27
goodness of God from all of creation.
36:31
In the CCO, we say we are inviting students to join Christ
36:35
in his restoration of all of creation.
36:37
This means that marriages will be healed because we're we are
36:41
going. This means that government, the
36:44
government will be redeemed because we are going.
36:47
This means that every student will get the education they
36:50
deserve because we are going. This means that entertainment
36:54
and media will bring out the best of us in creativity because
36:57
Christians are going and giving hope and then bringing healing
37:01
to a world that is yearning and crying for something to be
37:05
different. And although Jesus didn't
37:08
mention it here he clearly is saying that the start of
37:11
redemption is by his people going he chooses to include us
37:18
like Pastor Daniel. How do you say say me look, I
37:21
came from a Baptist Church as a kid.
37:22
So look at each other. They say you he wants us.
37:27
He wants us to go and be his hands and feet.
37:34
It blows me away, church, that God wants us to be a part of it
37:40
with Him, to redeem this broken world.
37:43
We often want to give up. We often want other people to do
37:47
it. That feels like their problem.
37:49
But for some reason, God says, no, I want you the broken, the
37:55
flawed, the confused, but the one who is fully redeemed to
38:00
come and do it with me. And as I close, I want to tell
38:04
you about a young man who's a part of our ministry.
38:08
His name is Eli. He we met him.
38:12
He is in the far corner up the top your right my left.
38:21
He even though he wasn't a Fresno State student, he found
38:23
himself on Greek Rd. looking for the same thing everyone else
38:26
was. Hope.
38:28
And because of his personal life story he had no interest in
38:31
Jesus or the church or any church group.
38:35
But for some reason, he kept showing up to be with us at the
38:39
table. We invited him to come over and
38:42
to our biweekly dinner at our pastor's house once and we sat
38:46
together. He didn't eat any food because
38:48
he was so nervous. But we did sing together and
38:51
homeboy has the voice of an Angel.
38:54
He didn't really feel comfortable in the space, but
38:57
for some reason he kept showing up.
38:59
And what I know I didn't have to do, I didn't have to do anything
39:06
but make an invitation. God did the work to change his
39:10
heart. After a bit, After a bit, he
39:12
decided he was not going to just show up anymore.
39:14
He just stopped coming. But we stayed in contact.
39:18
I once sent him a text message or we were talking.
39:21
I said, hey, you should come with us to this conference in
39:24
Pittsburgh. He was like, yeah, we got this
39:26
plane ticket that was non refundable.
39:30
See where the story is going. I got this ticket and he said he
39:33
was going to come. And then the day of, he just
39:37
stopped responding to text messages.
39:39
But in that process, I asked for my friend Michaela to pray for
39:42
him to say, hey, would you be willing to pray for Eli to see
39:47
me, hoping that he's going to show up because it was a
39:49
expensive ticket. But he did it.
39:54
And we left, and we did our thing.
39:56
And then for seven months, Eli didn't respond to a text
40:01
message, a phone call, even when I slid in his DMS.
40:07
He didn't respond. Then he came to, I was out of
40:11
town for a little bit and he came to a meeting that I wasn't
40:14
at and I saw a picture on the Instagram page that showed him
40:17
in the background. I'm like, what is he doing
40:19
there? And then he he walks in, he
40:23
goes, oh, Gerard, let me tell you what happens.
40:25
I was like, I don't want to hear it.
40:28
The the Lord might move your sins as far as the easiest from
40:31
the West, but I'm still here. All right here.
40:34
And he tells me like, hey, like it was just it was a hard last
40:37
seven months while I'm here and he asked if he can go with us to
40:40
our fall retreat. And I said yes, but you have to
40:43
ride with me because I'm not getting stood up twice in the
40:45
same year. And so as we go down, he's we're
40:49
talking, we're having a great conversation.
40:50
We end up talking to the speak the, the retreat speaker
40:53
together, just the three of us, me Eli, the speaker.
40:56
And she asks him like, why are like what, what made you be a
40:59
part of the group? And he start, he's trying to
41:01
explain what has happened in his life over the last seven months,
41:05
but he can't explain it. Like, and you can tell that he's
41:08
trying to say like, like, I want things to be different, but I'm
41:10
also stuck like he's in this space.
41:12
And then because he didn't have the words, we just begin to say,
41:15
I think God is doing something in you.
41:17
And he was taken aback for a moment because he was surprised
41:21
that God could do something in his life.
41:23
A man who'd been running from God the majority of his life,
41:27
and he begins to have this conversation with us about,
41:30
like, that God. God did something in him, and
41:35
he's ready to process it. He's, like, coming to all the
41:38
sessions fully alive and alert. It was just really cool.
41:42
And that toward the end of the retreat, I had invited Michaela
41:46
and her husband to come and be our cooks for the week.
41:49
And Michaela pulls me aside, and she goes, Jerrod, I finally know
41:53
who Eli is. And I was like, OK, I guess like
41:57
what makes you say that? She goes back in February.
41:59
You asked me to pray for him and I have been praying for him ever
42:02
since because he will pop up randomly.
42:04
So I took a post it of his name and just put it on my mirror in
42:07
my bathroom. So every time I go into the
42:09
bathroom, I pray for Eli. And then it clicked.
42:17
I'm tired. That's all it is.
42:18
I'm just kidding. It clicked for me that Michaela
42:22
was praying for a man she didn't know, but she was in on mission
42:27
with me and Eli was having a whole life thing happened where
42:32
God was meeting him in places he never expected.
42:35
And God gave me a front row seat to see these two things merge
42:38
together because I decided to go.
42:43
God wants to show you that the Kingdom is not broken.
42:46
He wants to give you hope, but you have to get up and go.
42:51
You have to get up and go a really cool thing.
42:57
That's that's enough, right? But here's another really cool
42:59
thing. I'm in conversations now still
43:01
with Eli about the day he's going to get baptized because
43:03
he's ready, right? And I'm really excited about
43:11
that because he graduated from Barber school and now he's on
43:13
Barber and it's a lot cheaper than my last Barber.
43:15
So great things are down in pipeline, friends.
43:19
Great things, great things. As I close, though, I want us to
43:24
think about Eli's story. Eli didn't walk into our
43:28
ministry ready to follow Jesus. He didn't show up convinced he
43:35
didn't trust the church. But he just kept showing up and
43:40
people kept loving him. And what Eli didn't realize was
43:50
that long before he said yes, God was already at work in his
43:54
life before Eli chose Jesus. Jesus has already chosen him.
44:04
And I believe that there's some of you here today who are
44:07
finding yourself in the same space that you may not have
44:12
plans to say yes to Jesus or come back home.
44:16
You might still have questions or feel a little unsure, but
44:21
something in your heart feels stirred and you don't fully know
44:26
why. That's OK.
44:30
That's how Eli showed up to you. The good news of the gospel is
44:35
that we don't need to find God. Is that God comes looking for
44:40
us. That Jesus lived a life for us.
44:48
He died for us, and He rose again to make us new.
44:55
And today He's inviting you into this life with Him.
45:00
So I want to invite us into a quiet moment with every head
45:05
bowed and eyes closed. Today you're realizing that you
45:11
want to say yes to Jesus for the first time, or you're actually
45:16
saying, hey God, I've just been gone a while and I want to come
45:19
back home. I want you to raise your hand
45:24
saying, God, I trust you and I believe you, and I'm in this for
45:28
you. And I realized that all I have
45:31
to do is take a step toward you because you've already been
45:34
coming toward me. That is you just go ahead and
45:38
slip your hand up. I see you.
45:41
I see you, and what I want you to know is that you are.
45:48
This is not going to be a journey where you're in it
45:51
alone, because we're going to walk toward Jesus together.
46:00
So will you pray with me, Jesus, the one that ascends us to go,
46:09
the one who loves us before we knew how to love ourselves.
46:14
We thank you. And may you help us to know how
46:19
we can love you as we figure out how to love college students
46:22
here in Bakersfield. Because our desire, Lord God, is
46:28
to see Bakersfield as it is in heaven and to see Fresno as it
46:32
is in heaven, and to see California as it is in heaven.
46:35
Because that's the only way earth is going to look like it
46:37
is in heaven, Lord God. So we are here begging God that
46:41
you send us up, fill us up, and send us out to build your
46:46
Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
46:49
Amen.