He Gets Us

A caring man took a walk. Everywhere he looked, people suffered. Anxiety ran high. Hope dwindled. Hatred rose.

His neighbors had lost trust. In the system and in each other. I need to do something, he thought. I'll bring them together and feed them. Around the dinner table they can talk and see how much they have in common.

Shared struggles. Shared joy. Shared pain. So he prepared a feast. And invited all into his home.

But some refused to sit at his table. Because they chose to only see differences. He was heartbroken. Because he wanted everyone to eat and be filled. Not with food and wine.

But with compassion. He gets us. He gets our joy. He gets our pain. He gets our struggles.

He gets our outrage and our anger. He understands those things. He gets us. He gets our loneliness. He gets our times when we need relationship.

He gets the times that he doesn't need relationship. He gets the times where we just want to be childlike. In fact, he asked us to be childlike. Let our hair down. And have some fun once in a while, right?

He's called us to do that. And he knows the good days. When things are exciting. The joy that fills your heart. When you see a child born.

Or you have something extraordinary happen in your life. And he knows the bad days when you lose someone close to you. He understands that pain. He understands loss. He understands betrayal.

Because we have a high priest, as Hebrew says, who is unable. We don't have a high priest who is unable to emphasize with our weaknesses. We have a God who understands. He gets us and he gets us all. If you've been able to follow that campaign last Super Bowl season, all those things ring true.

And Jesus is trying, desperately trying, to communicate his love to a lost and dying world through his church. He's doing everything he can to pull us in and help us engage in time. Through reaching the lost, reaching the hopeless, because he gets it. He understands. He's been through it.

He knows. He's been through the heartache. He's been through the trials. He gets it. He has temptations on every corner.

He had them thrown at him. Yet, he got through it as the Son of God. He understands and he invites you and he invites me to be a part of it. He gives us opportunities and he invited me to do something I had never done before and I knew nothing about. I rarely even knew how to pastor.

I never led pastor a church before. And he called me to do this. He gave me a call to start a church and I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that the Lord called me to do it. And I didn't want to start another church just to add on the grocery aisle of churches, so that Christian people could walk in and decide, I want this flavor for this week and I want that flavor for that week.

I didn't want to have a church like that. I didn't start a church that is in the competition of other ministries and other churches. This is not what it's about. I didn't want another social club. We've got lots of social clubs out there.

You can find one anywhere. I didn't want to start a social justice ministry. There's plenty of social causes to be involved in. There's lots of those out there. I didn't want any of that.

All I knew is that Jesus had called me to seek and save the loss for Him. What He called us to do, what He said He came to do, that He didn't come for those who didn't need a doctor. He is the great physician and He comes to help those who are lost and hurt and sick in spirit. Sick in spirit. And He invited me.

He invited me in. He invites you in to be a part of this. And from the beginning, my heart has always been in. And you can ask my wife. You can ask my family.

Finally, I've always been drawn to those who are far from God. I always had an aching for those who were seeking Jesus, who were far from Him. I've always had that hunger in my heart. How can we reach more people for Jesus? Since the day I was called, the first thing I thought was, how do we reach more people that need to know what I have now, that filled me up?

What do we need to do? So, we started a church. Didn't know all the ups and downs and ins and outs that would be a part of it. It was very exciting. We were just a small group of people.

There was about ten of us. Maybe not even that many. We loved Jesus, and we wanted to follow His will. That's all we had. We didn't have a big group.

Had a church launch about the same time for my in-laws' church. They had 150 people, a full staff, $500,000, headed to Colorado and did a wonderful job there. We didn't have that. We had just a few people, little money, little space. All we had was a heart to reach people for Jesus.

So we, I call it camping chairs, connection cards and coffee, is what we really had. So we went out and bought 30 camping chairs, rolled up connection cards, and put them in the cup holder, had a little speaker unit, and we began to have church. Of course we had coffee. You know, you need coffee, right? But that's what we had.

We didn't have much, and we did what we had well. And every morning I would walk out. I would walk out. We lived over on Norfolk Avenue in a condo. I would walk outside, and I would pray to God that He would fill me, number one, with His Spirit.

That the Spirit of God would guide me today. Because I didn't know where to go or what to do, but I knew that He was guiding me and to connect me with opportunities. Connect me with opportunities to share Jesus with somebody. So I would go out in the community and do that every day. And there were many stories, but I want to share with you one story of a man named Dwayne.

Now, I didn't go out in the community, holy man, you know, with the Bible in my hand. I want you to understand, God created you as you. God created me as me. I went out as Leon Dunning, a follower of Jesus Christ that loved the Lord, but it was just me. And people want authentic relationships.

They want to know that you're a real person. They want to connect with something, someone. They're not interested in perfection. They're not interested in holy rollers. They're interested in real people, and that's what I did.

I just went out, and I said, God, just take me. I just want to connect with people. This is my community. This is what you've called me to here in this oceanfront community. You've called me to people here.

Who will you have me connect with? And it was Dwayne that he set in my direction. And I walked into a surf shop to grab a fix-it kit for my surfboard because I had busted it out in the water a few days before. And we began to have a conversation, and we shared a lot of interests. And it was fun conversation.

We just connected right away. And we started developing that relationship. Of course, you know, in the first conversation, the question always comes up because I don't go out telling people I'm a pastor. Hey, I'm a pastor. I'm called to this ocean.

You know, I'm just Leon. I'm just Leon. I'm interacting with people. I'm just waiting for opportunities because I've been praying for opportunities. But he asked that question, so what do you do for a living?

Oh, no. Here it comes. I'm going to tell- I told him I'm a pastor and the door is going to be closed completely because I know how people are and I told him I'm a pastor and I'm starting a church here and he was like oh really and his eyes he had these big icy blue eyes and they just opened up and he was just so interested about what we had and and he he came to church that Sunday because I invited him and he said I'll be there and we were like I was like he's not gonna show up. I have lots of people tell me they're gonna show up to church and never show up to church right? I have lots of people do that but he did that he showed up and he came in and he sat right on the front row in that camping chair all up on the edge of that camping chair and he grabbed this curled up connection card and the note page that I put in there and held it in his hands and he just sat there soaking it up soaking up every minute of that message.

Because what you probably don't know about Dwayne and I didn't know about Dwayne at the time is that he was seeking he was a seeker he was he had tried every philosophy he had tried every religion he he played with crystals he'd gone to Edgar Cayce he tried Buddha Hindu he'd even tried Christianity at some point. But he was seeking he was seeking he was trying to find the real Jesus he wanted the real Jesus and that day in that little yoga room we were having church which we took back for Christ by the way we took that little yoga room and we turned it into an evangelistic station and that day on the front row he found Jesus. He found Jesus that day he was changed forever and he was so excited about God he was so excited about Jesus I love new Christians because new Christians are super excited they want to invite everybody to church they want to evangelize to everyone he was bringing all of his friends in and and and we moved over to a brewery because we we lost a place where we were and and then we had this little room upstairs and it was getting filled up about quarter of the people were Dwayne's friends right they were just surfers from the community he was just grabbing them and pulling them and pulling them and all these guys like in their 50s like in their 50s that were at a crossroads in their lives and giving their life to to the surf gods all their lives they they were there and they were trying to find hope and people were finding Jesus and things were happening and just it was just amazing he was so excited about Jesus he'd get so frustrated we'd have conversations and he would get so mad he's like why do people not understand that this this Jesus is hope why do not why do people keep taking those paths and I have to explain to a man you know they're just blinded because they're just blinded because of sin it's okay just keep moving keep preaching the gospel keep sharing the hope and love of Jesus Christ you're doing a great job and and it was just so exciting to see that that that heart change that life change that took place in him and uh one day I got a phone call from his girlfriend and said that uh that he had had a seizure he was cutting his grass and he had a seizure and they ran him to the hospital he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he had a seizure he So I went over to the hospital, and I found out that he had a glioplastoma. He had brain cancer. He had a tumor in his brain, and it wasn't good news.

And not only did I get to lead Dwayne to Jesus, not only did I get to be a part of the process of God leading him to Jesus, I also got to be a part of the last part of his life. I got to walk that season out. I was able to walk him to heaven, and it was just a blessing. And I remember him being in his room as he began to deteriorate. It was just a few months.

It just happened so fastly. And he was just, he was deteriorating, but he was so excited about Jesus. He was ready to see Jesus. There were verses all over his wall. If anybody here, we got people here today that came to church because of Dwayne, they're still here today.

And you would see those verses on the wall, and you would see them all around, and he would be telling people that they need to get their lives right before they exit this world. And I watched him as he went to heaven. And I think all the time, any time I get off focus, I go back to Dwayne. What if I had never decided to start Salt Church? What if I bailed when the times were hard at the beginning?

What if I decided to do something else contrary to what God had called me to do? What if I had taken my focus and my vision off of that and went somewhere else in my ministry? Where would Dwayne be today? God has called us to seek and save the lost. And there's lots of philosophies, and there's lots of religions right out this door, and they're called seekers.

They're people that are looking for God. They're looking for God. They're out there surfing right now, thinking they're going to find it in the waves because the waves are good today. And they're out at coffee shops. They're out in bars at night.

They're all around. They're trying to get through a hangover right now, and they're trying to figure out, okay, what is this life about? They're out on their boats, and they're trying to get some joy, but there's no joy. What is it that I'm missing? This weather is changing.

It's getting nice and cooler, and I'm enjoying the season, but there's something that I'm not enjoying, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. They're called seekers. They're people who are looking for what we have. And we're called to seek and save the lost. He was seeking.

Dwayne was seeking, and I was praying. I was praying that I would seek him. We need to be praying for opportunities. We need to take hold of opportunities. We live in a post-church culture, and we can say, oh, we can't do it.

It's impossible. Instead of looking at the lack of opportunities, we should be leaning into the opportunity. This is a great opportunity, a great time to minister to people all the more because we live in a post-church culture. Because God moves no matter what. In fact, times where the church seems oppressed, God's moving even more.

So how do we do this? We need to focus on what God has called us to to seek and save the lost. So I'm excited to share with you that that starting next week, starting next week, we're launching into October. And what we notice about October, November is that we get a lot of guests, local guests and guests in the community come to church. I don't know why October, November in Virginia Beach is like that.

September is like kind of dry, October, November. So we've chosen to do more of an evangelistic series, if you want to call it that, more of a seeker-focused series called Decades. Decades, guys. And it starts next week. And we have cards outside for you to take and invite your friends.

And we're going to start next week with the 1950s. 1950s. Father knows best, right? Yeah? Yeah.

We're going to talk about that. And we're going to take and we're going to have fun. Jesus calls us to take our, you know, let your hair down. Let's enjoy church. Let's invite our friends and our family and those.

Don't just don't. We're not after people from other churches. We don't we don't want that. We want people who don't go to church, don't know the Lord, have been broken from the church for a while. Bring them in and we'll love them all the way to heaven.

Amen. We're going to do that. And we're going to do that with this fun series. I want you to invite people next week. We're going to have like candy for the kids from the 50s.

We're going to have some people are going to be wearing some some garments from the 50s. We're going to we're going to do it up, guys. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. Each week you'll see some different elements play in a little more, a little more of this, a little more of that.

And we're just going to have a real good time with this. But but the principle is times change, but God never does. And we're going to connect God. We're going to connect people to Jesus Christ because he never changed. There's always a crisis in every decade.

And we're dealing with a crisis right now. Amen. A crisis of faith, the crisis of in the world. But but our God never changes and there's always hope in him. And that's our focus is to do that.

So let me just just ask you, you know, today, I'm going to are you all in? Are you all in? Are you ready to do this? Well, let me let me just give you four points real quick here. First of all, being all in means you're invited.

OK, you're invited. You're invited into the family. And I want to speak to those who may not be all in yet. I want to speak to you here for a second. Here's here's what Jesus says.

He says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened. If you're weary and burdened, guess what? There is a place for you. And I will give you rest and take my yoke upon I will take my yoke upon you and learn take take my. A yoke upon you and learn from me, and I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest in your soul.

Maybe you're here today and you have no rest in your soul. You have no hope in your soul. Come on, you've got a place at the table. There is a place at the table, and guess what? The dishes are set, the forks are out, and they're shining pretty.

They've cleaned off a little place for you. It is nice and neat, and Jesus is saying, come on. I've got it for you right here. Come to the table and sit with me. Come into the family.

You're invited into the family. We are a family, and there's a place at the table for you. And I'm going to tell you today, if you have not given your life to Jesus, you can make that decision today. You've got to just come on in. Be a part of the family.

You've tried everything else, but today you can make a decision, and guess what? You can make a decision, and guess what confirms that? Baptism. Baptism. You can get baptized today.

I'll be straight up with you, okay? So there's some people here today that want to be baptized. And we had a few people signed up, but guess what? Everybody declined. So guess what?

We have nobody registered for baptism today. But you know what we did? We put a tub out and a background out, and we have bags of things that you can wear because this is the most important. It's not about... It's all about Jesus, and Jesus has asked us to be baptized.

And if you receive Jesus today, we will celebrate with you today. We have it available for you, and we can do that today, and it can be a big celebration. And heaven, like my wife said earlier, heaven's a big celebration when we baptize. Angels in heaven are singing. Beautiful things happen, and you can do that.

Take that next step, and come on into the family of God. You're invited. You're invited to be a part of what God is doing. You're invited to be... Every one of you are invited to be a part of the greatest mission that's ever been set forth in this earth.

Jesus has called all of us to be invited to the table. Let's do this, is what Jesus says. Let's come on. Let's make disciples. Let's reach nations.

Let's reach our city. We can do this together. Let's all be in. You're invited to the table. Be a part of the table.

I want to invite you to be fishers of men. And you can be a part of what we're doing these next few months, and just bring some people in, and let's see what God does. Amen? He's going to do some amazing things. I know it.

He's called us to be invited. He invites you. He invites me. He invites our church. He's inviting us.

Next, you're invaluable. You're invaluable. Meaning, you are like gold to the kingdom of God. I don't care what you do. I don't care where you're from.

I don't care what you're going to face, even when you leave this building. What I do know is that God sees gold in you. He saw you from the beginning. I don't care. I don't care what you're going to say I'm going to be right here.

of creation. He knew you. He formed you in your mother's womb, and he knows you well. And he's created you with personality and gifts, and you are part of the body. That's why, you know, when Paul's teaching, he describes the church as a body.

He says the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. I'm going to put my glasses on so I can see. So, it is with the body of Christ. And then he goes on in verse 14, he says, Yes, the body has different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, I am a part of the body because I am not the hand, and it does not make it less part of the body.

I mean, Paul's kind of getting funny here, you know, getting quirky here. And if the ear says, I am not part of the body because I am not an eye, would that make it less a part of the body? No, no. If the whole body was just an eye, you know, eye walking around, what does that look like? Right?

It's just kind of silly. It doesn't work. Or an ear. Like an ear with hands and feet. Just picture that for a minute.

There's no hands and feet on here. Ear just roll around. I mean, it can't do anything. It just lays on the floor. Right?

Right? I mean, this is what the body of Christ is like. Every part is important. Or if it's a whole body or an ear, would you smell anything? He even said that.

Would you smell anything? You can't smell with an ear. I mean... And then he goes on to say in verse 22, In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. All of you together are Christ's body and each of you is a part of it.

Every body, everything, every little element is important in the body of Christ. Don't feel like just because you're not visible that you aren't important. You are very important. The most invisible things in the church are the most important things. Do you think these lights just set up themselves?

There's people that actually come in at 6 o'clock in the morning and set these things up for the glory of Jesus Christ because they want to see people come to Jesus. They work hard. They burn out sometimes. They struggle sometimes. And if you come in here and see all the...

Oh, it just magically... No. It's a part of the body of Christ. People come in and do kids ministry and set everything up. Your hospitality people are putting things out.

They're constantly trying to figure... They're working hard and you don't even know they're doing it. You don't know what strategies they're putting in, the work they put in during the week and not receiving a single dime for doing it because they love Jesus as we did back in the beginning. We just had a heart for Jesus and people. We love Jesus and we want to see people come to Christ.

We love Jesus today and want to see people come to Christ. And every part of the body is very important. Every part is a 10. Everyone is a 10 in the kingdom of God. Whatever you can offer, don't feel like it's too minimal.

Come on board. Let's go. Let's get all in. Let's do this together. Amen?

And then you're influential. winch. You're influential. You're an influencer. Did you know that?

Here's our verse for our church here. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. That's what Matthew 5.

13 says. That's our theme verse for our entire church. That you're light. You're salt. And in that context, it wasn't primarily a flavor enhancer.

It was a preservative of the entire world, meaning we have influence over the entire world. God uses the church over the entire world, for the entire world. And we have a part. We're influential. I remind you in the Gospel of John when Jesus meets the woman at the well.

All of you probably, even if you don't go to church, you may be familiar with this story or watch The Chosen or whatever. But he meets a woman at the well. And a Jew and a Samaritan don't interact. That's against the law. That's not right, right?

You don't do that. And she's asking him, what are you doing? You're asking for a drink of water from me? You're a Jew, aren't you? And sometimes we have to step out in little uncomfortable places, right?

And Jesus did that often. He stepped right in the middle of the mess sometimes. The controversy and all that. Sometimes we have to do that with the love of Jesus. We have to kind of step out.

We have to step out of our comfort zone. Even in our church, step out of our comfort zone a little bit. Maybe wear a 50's outfit. Just whatever it takes to get people in church. Whatever it takes to get people to the table of the Lord.

And it says this, And the woman was surprised for Jews refused to have anything to do with the Samaritans. And she said to Jesus, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink? And Jesus replied, If only you knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me and I would give you living water. And Jesus replied, Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.

But the one who drinks the water I give will never be thirsty. That's what he had to offer her. And what happened? He said, Go to your husband and tell him, bring him back. She says, I don't have a husband.

And Jesus said, You're right. Because you had five husbands. And you're living with somebody who's not your husband. And she's like, Oh my goodness. And it says, The woman left the water jar beside the well and ran back to the village telling everyone, Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.

This prophet, this guy, he's got to be the Messiah. Could he possibly be the Messiah so that the people came streaming from the villages to see him? They came and they came and came. Let me just say this. You don't have to have your life together to influence someone for Christ.

You don't have to be perfect. Get busy. Now. Go out. Yeah, we got.

That's what I'm saying about being real people. We are. We're real people. I'm broken. You're broken.

We've got things in our hearts. We've got things in our lives. I hang around pastors all the time. I know they're all broken, okay? We're weird people.

You know, we got people problems. Because when somebody that doesn't like us leaves our church, we get hurt. So people that likes us is bad, you know, it's bad enough. But man, even when our enemies leave our church, we're like, oh, well, we're just hurt people. We're broken, right?

That's how we are. I mean, we've all got broken things in our lives. We do. And we need to be real people because Dwayne was looking for a real person. He wasn't looking for a guy in a robe and a golden cross, okay?

He was looking for somebody he could relate to. And Jesus used simple old me, Leon Dunning, who was called to be a pastor. I'm nothing fancy. You know that look here. I'm nothing fancy.

I'm just somebody who's called by God to share the hope of Jesus. And we connected at a real level. We had interest. You have interest. You have a sphere of influence.

And you can connect with people, too. And it says, and many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, he told me everything I ever did. And when they came to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days long enough for many more to hear the message and believe. This woman, everybody knew her and knew she wasn't, in their opinion, wasn't worth anything.

But guess what? God used her to win lots of people to Jesus. He wants to use you to win lots of people to Jesus. And how that looks depends on who you are and how you're created. And then finally, you're invested.

You're invested. This is where it really gets heavy. You know, like, okay, I can get the other three, but how? I want to be invested in this, but you're, how do I be invested in this? Well, Jesus was very clear in the Gospel of Matthew.

He says, don't store up treasures on earth, right? Where moths eat them and rust destroys them. So things deteriorate. You can collect all the possessions in the world and they mean nothing in the end. You can't carry them to heaven.

Y'all have heard that term, right? You can't carry it to heaven, right? You can't. You can't carry it with you. And we focus all of our lives on building up possessions, right?

But Jesus tells us that we are to focus on things that are eternal. And when we invest what we have, everybody coming in together, investing, a group of people, you know, just giving it all and giving what they have. Maybe you're not ready to give a lot, but maybe you're ready to give a little. And one day you can give a lot. I don't know where you are in your financial journey, but if we could do this together, we could change the world in every area.

This is probably the hardest place for people to go deep into. They'll do everything else. But man, when you start messing with my pocketbook, that's why you hate politics. You know, you're mad at your president. Or you're mad at your congressman or whatever, because your pocketbook's getting played with, right?

But Jesus calls us to invest. It's an investment. You know why it's an investment? Because when you invest, you get back a lot more. I'm not saying financially, necessarily.

I'm saying fulfillment in your heart. They actually asked a group of people out on the street and around a community what they believed riches were. What does it mean to be rich? They asked that question. These weren't people that just went to church.

Some of them went to church. Some of them didn't go to church. And they asked them, you know, what does it mean to be rich? Most people didn't start out with money and possessions. All of them actually didn't start out with money and possessions.

They didn't talk about riches, financial riches and stuff like that. That wasn't what they determined. Well, if I have five million dollars in the bank, then I'm considered rich. They didn't start out there. One person said, it's peace of mind.

It's internally being rich. That's really what it is. He says, and that's why I'm out here fishing, because it internally gives me peace. That's what riches are to me. And then one said, enough left over for others.

Whoa, that's interesting. So you think a rich person should have enough left over to help other people? That's really interesting. That was just a very common. One said, riches is the wealth of something.

She was kind of jabbering on about it. But she says, riches, I don't know, riches is the wealth of something you can't receive without giving. And I know that's kind of selfish. This is what she said. I know that's kind of selfish, but it makes me feel good when I give.

It makes me feel really good when I give. And when you give your gift to others, it's what she said, you're giving away true wealth. And I guess that's what true wealth really is, right? And these are people, just random people, probably has no theology degrees, probably may have not even been raised in church. This is just general people asking that question or being asked that question, what does it mean to be rich?

That's why Jesus says, where your treasure is there, your heart is also. Because you're not going to, your heart's not going to be filled. Let's reverse that. Your heart's not going to be filled if your treasure is in the things that deteriorate in this world. And our focus and our heartbeat of our church is reaching people and leading others through whatever means possible.

And that's where I find the most fulfillment. Because I didn't get into this to be rich, I can tell you that. Pastors don't go into ministry to get rich, I can tell you that. Those guys online that preach prosperity gospel that you dislike so much, there are very, very few of them in general. A lot of us preachers, we settle for very, very little because we know what it means to be filled in here.

And I ask you, God has created us to pour, not store. He's created us for that. That's why it's empty when we hoard and we put things in barns and barrels and just hold them away. That's why we're created. created.

Remember when Jesus performed the miracle, probably one of the most popular miracles in the Bible where he took the bread and the long John Silver snack pack and he said, let's bless it and let's break it, and the disciples said, you're crazy, there's not enough here, how are we going to give all this away, this is not enough, and that's what a lot of us are like, I don't have enough, I can't do it, I don't know how to, and Jesus was showing us a principle here. What did he do? He distributed, he prayed, blessed it, had the disciples distribute it, and he said, go and collect all the stuff, collect all the bread. What happened? Twelve baskets came back.

A miracle. And that's what he does in our lives when we pour, not store. There's a fulfillment in our lives, in our hearts. So the question is, are you all in? Are you all in?

Are you ready to do this? Are you ready to come into this season? And let's just try something like if you, if it's just one step for you, just like taking a little baby step into maybe serving, maybe taking a baby step into starting a small group, maybe it's a baby step into, I don't know, giving or whatever it might be. Just those little things make a big difference. And if we're all in together, and those of you who are watching online, I'm hoping you're watching this, and if you're all in together, if everybody's all in together, we can change the world.

We can change the world. We can populate heaven in no time and build the kingdom of God in a time where it seems impossible, right? People are saying it's impossible, but I tell you, all things are possible through Jesus when we operate in our giftings and in His church and through His church because Jesus is desperately trying to get His message any way He possibly can to this world. All things are possible through Jesus. So when you walk out today, I want you to pray and think about that and make a decision.

Am I all in? Am I all in? Am I willing to go get some connection, grab some cards? I'm going to be handing out cards as you go out. We got our team handing out cards for our series next week.

Are you going to grab a card or two or three or four and just go and start inviting people? Are you going to go to that place you work and just start inviting people from your workplace in? Or are you going to go to your uncle that's far away from God and say, Uncle, I'm going to take you to church next Sunday. Look, we're doing a 1950 series and it's going to be really cool, or a decade series, and we're starting in the 1950s. And you're alive in the 1950s, right?

Let's go and figure out what they're going to talk about. And, you know, just get people in the church. Get people around. Get people engaged. Even if it's not, you know, directly inviting them to church, indirectly through social media.

We're going to have things out on social media. Share them. Get people here. You know, engage people into what we're doing. And let's see.

Let's see what God does. Let's see what God does. God can use anything. He used a donkey, okay? He used so many weird things in the Bible because, you know, God is God and He's a creative being and He does it this way.

So let's be all in. Whatever, just take that next step. And if you need to take that next step in baptism, take that next step today, I beg and plead with you. Let's be all in. That's the step that really builds us all in, okay?

Let's pray. And I want to pray from John 17. It's called the prayer for all believers. And Jesus is praying to God right before He leaves to go to the cross, before He's taken to the cross. And He's praying for His disciples and He's praying for us as well.

And He says this, My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. That all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.

I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and I love them even as you have loved me. In Jesus' name we pray. Again, thank you everybody for being here with us today. Just as a reminder, if you feel like the Lord is calling you to be baptized and you want to do that today, you can.

We have everything you need. If you were like me when I was 14 and got baptized and brought no towel and was wearing a sweater and jeans, that was a sad, sad time for me. I was excited to be baptized, but boy, was it not fun putting my clothes back on with no towel. We have brought that. We have towels, we have shirts, we have shorts.

So if you would like to just head out after the service and we can make that happen today. We don't pass around buckets or anything, but there are ways that you can give to support Salt Church and our ministries here around the country and around the world. If you are a first time guest with us today, please don't feel obligated to give. We're just really excited you gave the gift of your presence today. But for everyone else, they'll throw up on the screen the ways to give.

As you know, you can pop something in the box on your way out. You can even mail something into our P.O. box if you'd like to do that. But the simplest way is to download the Church Center app and you can give online secure.

And you can also text, which is linked to the Church Center app, to 84321. You just text to the amount you want to give to that. We thank you so much for your support of Salt Church. Financially, physically, spiritually, it all is felt and reverberates, and it is doing great things to build the kingdom of God. Thank you for being here with us this week.

We cannot wait to see you next Sunday.