Vision Sunday 2020

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. This is Vision Sunday, so I'm going to sit down here for a minute and talk to you for just a few minutes about some things that God has been sharing with me this year. My seat is a little low today. Yeah, I feel like a wee little man here.

Okay. Why is it so much lower than it usually is? Okay, we're good now. Okay. So, if you'll look to Deuteronomy 6, 10, and 12.

And every once in a while, we pause from the series and the teaching series just to kind of take some time and so that I can share a little bit with you about what's going on this year. And, you know, just to kind of get re-inspired, to kind of redirect us, to look at our vision, where we are right now, where we've came from, and then the most important part, where we are going. Because we want to go to higher heights as a church as we're taking steps towards that. We've got big vision for this house. I kind of pick and say, you know, a little bit of salt.

We use this term here, a little bit of salt goes a long way. Salt always makes a difference, and a little bit of salt goes a long way. And we are a small church here on the oceanfront, and a little bit of salt goes a long, long way. But we want to turn that little bit of salt into a whole lot of salt, right? Amen?

Because the little bit of pieces that come together under a vision that God has given takes things to next level, to next level. And I want to talk a little bit about that today. But it's important for us to take a moment and look to the past. In Deuteronomy 6, it says, When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to give you a land with large flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, and wells that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant, then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord. I think it's interesting here, he lays all this out, and these are things that you did not do.

These are the Lord's blessings. These are the Lord's provisions that he gives us despite our own doing. But we don't forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. So God gives us these promises, and he intends to fulfill these promises. He's already began to fulfill these promises in our church, and he is beginning to aim us towards a direction where he will continue to do.

So we're looking at the promises of God here. We're looking over the promises of God. He has promised some things to us. He has promised to bless us with these things. And we are living in a place where we are aiming towards the fulfillment of those promises, and living in those promises already.

So Scripture is telling us not to forget where we came from. So I think it's important that we go back for a second. And many of you have heard the story of how we started, and what we've been through. But it's good to go back to that again, and lay it out again and again, because we have new people here, and people need a refresher, amen? Our brains kind of, I know mine doesn't hold things very long, and sometimes we have to just be redirected.

We didn't start this church when Miranda and I had a heart to start this church. We didn't start this church because Virginia Beach needed a new church, or more churches. There are a lot of churches here, for sure. Great churches. I'm friends with many pastors of small and big churches alike here in the area.

Great people of God. Great church movements. But we didn't start Salt Church because there necessarily was a need for another church, but there was a need in general. We saw a need here. And little did I know that when I moved to Virginia Beach in 2005, to go to Regent University to get a degree in theology, to earn my degree in theology so that I could pastor one day, that I think that I would be here in Virginia Beach 15 years later, serving the community of Virginia Beach, and God doing the work in me, and actually starting a church.

I had no clue that that was going to happen. I didn't know. I was here to drop in, get a degree. I'm out of here, guys. I'll see you later.

I could onceFirees Hospital. I'll see you later. I'm going to see you later. God's calling us out. I'm about to enter God's calling.

I didn't know where God was calling me at the time, but I didn't know it would be here, and I didn't think it would be here, but while I was here, God began to lay the people of Virginia Beach on my heart. There's this thing that God does. It's a supernatural love for a city, and I can't explain it. I only experienced it, that God gave me a heart for people here. I just saw a lot of people who were far from God.

When you have four out of five people who don't attend church or even have any kind of religious affiliation, and that's just the four out of five that say they go to church. Many of those probably have a religious relationship with Christ, but they don't have a relationship, a spiritual relationship with God. They may have a religious leaning towards a denomination or idea of what Christianity means to them, but there are many, many, many people who need to know the love of Jesus. They need hope in their hearts and lives, and we saw that, and we saw the need. And little did I know that taking up the sport of surfing when I was just a teenager and getting passionate about that, that it would lead me to an oceanfront community in Virginia, of all places.

You know, I think I would have moved, you know, to Hawaii or down south to California, you know? But it brought me to Virginia, and that would be a great instrument of influence in this community, just being connected to the people here, connected to the beach and surf community where we started. I didn't have a clue, but God had a clue. God had a clue what he was doing with me many, many years ago when he gave me a passion for a sport, when he gave me a passion for his word and for Jesus himself and the love that he had for people, when he gave me a passion for ministry and for people, and when he gave me a passion to serve him all the days of my life when I made that commitment to him in an office in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I was working in business and commerce and heard the voice of the Lord saying, you are not supposed to be here, you are supposed to be somewhere else. And I heard it plain and clear.

I heard the voice in my head. Little did I know that it would be in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And, wow, what God has done with nothing, because we started with nothing. We really did start with nothing. You hear the stories about pastors, well, we started with nothing, and then you look behind and you're like, oh, yeah, they had a $300,000 budget from a mother church, and they had, you know, a hundred people, and they kind of started with nothing.

I didn't have any of that. I had just a few people, and most of them were teenagers. From a youth group I was part of, and we may have had $1,000 in the bank that was donated to us before we even started. I had left my job. A source of income that was supposed to come in was not there after I quit my job.

I got really sick, was in the hospital for at least a week, septic around that time. My son was diagnosed with special needs. My daughter was just born. There was a lot of reasons not to do what I am doing, not to go forward with what I was called to do, to start a church, to start not just a church but a movement in this community. I didn't know that what God had for me would be something like this, but wow, is God so good.

He has been faithful, faithful to us. He's provided everything we need through it all. So we started out in a house, and then we moved over, and I'll just show you, for those of you who aren't familiar with our beginnings, give us a clip of the brewery. I can't really see the TV here. But let's go back to the workout center that we actually started on.

I think Lydia goes back to that. Do we have anybody else that was in the workout center here that actually came there? We had this little space. You and George are about it. Yeah, and there were just a few people coming in, and we were there.

And it was just, we bought these camping chairs from Walmart, and that was our seats. And we had coffee, we had a kids program, and we had a worship band, but nothing else, you know. It was cool that we had a worship band and kids, but that was our church, you know. So what would I do? We would meet together as a small group right there on the oceanfront.

And when we actually started it was in the warm season. It was like on the cusp of summer. So guess what? If you're at the oceanfront in the cusp of summer, what's going to happen? Nobody's going to come to your church, okay, because they're going to be out at the...

So we felt a need for this, to reach this community, but we really didn't know exactly what we were doing, but we loved the Lord, and we loved people, and we had a heart to reach people, and God began to pour people in, and then we lost that space, we moved across the way to Back Bay Brewing, which had just opened, and they had a place upstairs that was gutted out and turned into a little performance complex there. So we moved across there, luckily, you know, God provides, you know, people wanted to come and see us, but what kind of church is in a brewery, you know, like, are they, you know, we would set up bagels and coffee right in front of the beer taps, and we literally had people come in thinking that we were going to get some, get some alcohol, you know, like, what kind of church is this, but they were getting something else when they walked in that door, and it was really laid back, it was really cool, it was an organic period of time, we did little advertising, we did little marketing, we were just loving the people that came in the door, and we experienced some amazing times there, God changed some lives, I got story after story, I don't have time to tell you about today, people that found God right before they passed from this earth, there's people that found God right on the nick of time before they were about to lose their family, their situation was messed up, and God did some amazing things during that period of time, and we saw a lot of people come to Christ, a lot of people healed, a lot of people experienced freedom, a lot of people hear from God that never heard from God before, just a celebration in that little place was phenomenal, phenomenal, I mean, just loud, and even here today, I mean, we had some background sound going on, some of you were like, wow, it's loud in here, I apologize for that, we work really hard, because we are in a cafeteria, guys, okay, we are in a cafeteria, it's really, really, really hard to get that sound just right, but it was, if you think that was bad, you should have heard us in the brewery, oh my gosh, we were just boom, boom, you know, just praising Jesus, hopping up and down, people were lifting their hands, we were rejoicing, I mean, it was just a very interesting time, in that little upstairs area in a brewery, and God was just doing some tremendous things, and then we had to make the decision that we no longer had a safe place for our kids, and because we had people coming in and out, we didn't know what kind of people were coming in, and, but we wanted to minister to those people, and also, we were running out of space in that top area, we just couldn't fit any more people in there, people were sitting on the bars, and sitting on benches, and just all over the place, we just had so many people there during that period of time, and it was a really, we just knew that we had to move out, and wouldn't you know, there is no places near the oceanfront big enough to support something like we were doing, So, our next move was into SeaTac Elementary, which was across the street, we launched in 2016, in September, a public launch, a full public launch, where people knew we were here, or we did the best to let people know we were here, and then we ended up moving over here, because we lost a custodian there, so they could no longer support us, but this was open, so this school has been super gracious, I mean, we've had, our principal is so supportive of us, he lets us do things that normally wouldn't happen, and we've been able to do so much here, and it's been a blessing to have this place, amen, that we can gather during a Sunday morning, and celebrate God, amen, amen, are y'all excited about, I mean, are y'all, are y'all in gratitude, y'all in gratitude for, for a place that, that we can actually meet, amen, it's, it's very limited, the spaces, this is even in the school system that you can meet, because it's a popular thing now, you know, churches and organizations meeting in a school, and this was available for us, and it's just been, you know, some of you can tell me story after story, I probably could do a testimony service today, and many of you would come up and tell us how, how God has really done some amazing things in your life, but, so, so, so, so, I just wanted to share that, you know, just, just remembering the past, and what God has done with nothing, and he's created something, because God takes things that are nothing, and makes something out of them, he takes things, and he increases, he's a God of abundance, and he increases, and as we serve him, and as we, as we follow hard after him, he's going to continue to bless us, so, so I wanted to take a minute, and just share some things with you, first of all, where are we, and we have a board of trustees here in the church, just to share some of the governance, governance of our church, we have a spiritual overseers, that keep me accountable spiritually, and, and keep me in line, and, and love our church, and pray for our church, and help us out in a lot of ways, they are pastors of other, Churches and also other parachurch ministries. So I have that level of accountability that that's over me and it's in our church governance, but also to keep me and the church and the ministry team accountable to the finances, we have a board of trustees that looks over the account and we do our best to leverage what we have to be able to serve you, to help you grow, but more importantly, can we leverage it enough to reach more people? Because we want to think outside our church. We want to think outside ourselves.

How can we use what we have for missions, local missions, national missions, international missions? What can we do more? How can we help church planting? How can we help, you know, the ministries that are in this area that we support? How can we do that more?

How can we look out beyond ourselves and how can we leverage that? And I can tell you, it's very challenging as a small church that started out with a thousand dollars in the bank account. But we do what we do what we can and we give away as much as we possibly can to ministries and outreaches and we put a lot of money in events to do things for those because we're thinking not just about ourselves but thinking about those who are outside the church. So let me just give you our numbers in 2018. Here's where we were.

We brought in 87,600 $3,370.11 and then we spent $93,390.32. So we were in the negative in 2018. And you know that I was praying, God, you know, provide for us.

Because we try to be as conservative as possible with our spending. But it is expensive to have a church to do ministry. And we spend a lot on ministry and spend a lot on resources to be able to do ministry. And that's not just on Sunday mornings. That's outside of Sunday mornings to do what we do.

So in 2019, we actually had a jump in giving. So let me share that with you. We brought in $107,287.86 this year. All right.

So I mean, from $87,000 to $107,000, that's a big thing. Give yourself a clap, man. Y'all are generous people. And we're a generous church. And we're giving.

And every part we give makes a difference, right? And we spent $101,360.16. So we actually had a surplus this year. Amen?

Amen to that. But, hallelujah, we're still able to perform the ministries we needed to do and to reach people and give to missions and do more. So this year, I'm taking a step. And I'm just going to throw this number out to you, okay? And maybe this is a big number.

But I just made it an even number. Something for you. And I'm praying for more than this. I'm just going to be honest with you. I'm praying that God increases our finances so much that we can do so much more.

But this year, we're going to set a budget for around $138,000. $138,000. So I'm praying that we do that. You know our goals. I just want to be very transparent.

If you ever need to look at anything, numbers-wise, you're welcome to look at it. We want to be transparent as a church. We want to let you know that your money is being taken care of well. But to be able to get to where we want to go, we need more. We need more.

We need God to bless us with more. We need to reach more. It's kind of like a rock and a hard place in some ways. You invest more money into a ministry and more people come to your church. But you need more people in your church to invest in those ministries.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about that practically today. So where are we going? Where are we going? Well, I do want to, first of all, introduce next week, we're starting a new series, a relationship series called Relationship Goals. Relationship Goals.

I think this is going to be an amazing series. Every year, we have a relationship series. I have so many testimonies pouring in about how God is doing amazing things in people's marriages. I mean, that has been one of our biggest seasons. So guess what?

Your job is invite somebody to start, as we start our relationship series next week, Relationship Goals, as we enter into the next teaching series. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be amazing. On top of that, next week is our Super Bowl Sunday potluck. Super Bowl Sunday potluck.

So what does that mean? Wear your favorite jersey. Bring in some food. Don't mess church next week. We've got this new series starting.

Come next week, come with five or six friends, bring an item, we'll have something out through our Salt Church community if you guys want to sign up to bring something so everybody's not bringing macaroni and cheese, right? But this is a great time for us to get together. I will not be long-winded like I am today, okay? I will be shorter next week. We're going to focus a little more on relationships next week.

We're going to get together, we're going to eat, we're going to have a good time, amen? I like that part of church, being relationally and eating together and having a good time together. So come on out, bring some friends, bring a potluck item, and let's just fellowship together, amen? Let's get together. Super Bowl Sunday's next week, so don't miss church because of Super Bowl Sunday.

It's a great opportunity to bring somebody to church because, hey man, wear your jersey, we're going to eat. And we're going to eat Super Bowl food, okay? So how can you not want that? And there's a great message too, and it's a wonderful church. And you love your church, and you love your church, amen?

We love our church, and we want to bring people to our church. We want them to know about Jesus, and what a great place to do that at. I do want to share something, though, we're currently aiming towards. All of you are aware, we have been looking for a new location, a new location. And we didn't want to be too far off the oceanfront, although at some point you say, God, what are you telling us?

Where are you carrying us? Where are we going from here? So, just wanted to share with you, we have been in really good relationship with Elevation 27. Are you familiar with Elevation 27, anybody? So, I just wanted to show you a few pictures, and I'll come over here.

This is probably the closest TV here. This is Elevation 27. Okay, so, we've been praying about whether we should go to a theater or a concert venue, but really what's important to us is that we love it here, but it is a lot of setup. We've actually lost congregants because they got tired, because there's just so much setup to do. And we're like, how do we eliminate, how do we focus on the people more and less on where we meet so that we can really leverage our resources and leverage our ministry and leverage our people sources to ministering to those outside the church?

Amen? Bring people in and love people and minister to them. And we're not where we can have a facility right now, so we know that we have to partner with local businesses, which is a heart of mine anyway. And I even see our church, at some point, partnering with local businesses, even when we have our own facility, because I believe of supporting and helping the community and partnering together, because we both love the same place. Amen?

So, being a part of that in the future is a big deal for churches, and our church in general, or specifically, that's something we want to do. So, we've formed a relationship with Bill Reed, who is the owner of Elevation 27, and he is on board with us meeting there for services. Let me tell you about Elevation. Elevation is a very, here's the reasons why. You know, you've got some pros and cons, and I'll share the con there for you in a minute, and what you can possibly do to help us get in there.

The pros of this place is, we won't have to do light and sound setups anymore. Can I get a good amen? Man, all right, I'm talking about state-of-art equipment, some of the best in Virginia Beach. We have complete access to it, lights, it's the venue. We don't have to worry about feedback and all that stuff we have in here, because guess what?

It's a concert venue, so they have soundproof stuff everywhere. They have plenty of room over there. There's another picture also, and this is kind of the back area. There's a restaurant area there, and we can use that space while we're having service. He is completely open to that.

It will be a lot less set up, a lot less curtains, more intimate. This building will be a lot smaller, so we won't have to walk along this real long hallway here and try to come all the way. I feel like it's a puzzle. It's a maze to try to get people back here, and that has been a hindrance. So we really need a new front door.

We've been praying for a new front door. How can we have a new front door? And this kind of just dropped in my lap. Somebody connected me with him. He was all about us meeting there.

So it's just going to be a—this is an amazing opportunity, but we're not there yet. We don't have it nailed down yet, because here's where we're missing, and that's kids. It's a wide-open space. There's not many rooms in there. There's one room.

There's a big kitchen area. His long-term vision is to open up space on the— ...side and add more rooms in there, which that could be a potential place for our kids' ministry in the future, but right now we're trying to figure out kids, and there's a lot of creative things we can do, but the biggest thing that Bill kind of pitched to us is he has some land in the back area, and he says if we can get a classroom or a construction, classroom type trailer for our kids, he's willing to give us as much land as he possibly can back there in the back, so we've been really looking for, and he needs it too, so this is a win-win, you know, when we partner with people, we want to help people on both sides, right, he needs the space, we need the space, he's got concerts all during the week, guys, this is a very famous place, we'll be able to put up signs during the week, we'll keep them up, there'll be so much more permanent pieces to the this, it will be a great way for us to increase our front door, to market better, to pitch, you know, we can have signs during the week as people are going to concerts, amen, is that not cool, you know, so we've got this place here, so we, but we need to figure out the kids' situation, so there's two things I want us to do, first of all, we need to raise money for a construction trailer, or for a classroom trailer, and that's kind of what I put in our budget, this year, because we need $20,000, $20,000, some of you are like, okay, we're a small church, but I believe that God can provide that $20,000, I believe that God's going to speak to some people's hearts here, some people that aren't here today that are listening online, and we're going to come together and be, and we're going to just be generous people, and we're going to do that, because we care so much about our kids, I mentioned the other week that our kids are, are, without salt, without our kids, we aren't salt church, without our kids, we aren't salt church, we care about kids, I come from a long background of, of kid ministry, my, my, my family has been involved in kids ministry, we love, love, love kids, and they're the future of our church, they're a legacy we want to leave, so we need to raise money, we need money, you need, we need to talk to some people, if you know people, if you are somebody, maybe somebody in here right now, that's, that's like, oh, I can do that, that's, that's pocket change, yeah, just, just write that check, and we'll be ready to go, and then, and then we'll be, be able to move in there tomorrow, right, we'll be ready to go, amen, and I, I, guys, I believe this is going to be a huge move for us, it's going to increase our growth, it's going to double our attendance, it's going to triple our attendance, we can do multiple services in there if we need to, there'll be less set up, just so many things, so many pros, just across the board, we can keep our trailers there, I mean, just so many things we could do, guys, to, to, to decrease the, the, the overhead, so that we can increase salvations, and we can increase baptisms, and we can increase the effect of our community, and everything beyond, that we can do that, and it's going to be amazing, but that's where we are right now, another thing we need, I ask you to do, if there's anybody in here that has a heart for kids, and has a heart for children, and is quite as creative, is, is maybe form, you know, if you say you're interested, maybe find, coming over to the facility, and taking a look at it, and maybe we can put our heads together with some creative ideas, until we're able to get that trailer, and we can make that move, so there's all kinds of ways you can be a part of this, and, and help us figure this out, but I believe God's going to, going to do it, I, I feel so, this, when I walked in that place, and everybody that's come in there after me, and looked at it, says, we need to move here, we need to move here, we need to move here, we need to move here, we're right there by Walmart, we're right there by the business, and, and commerce areas, people will see us all week long, it will be a great, great, great, great move for us, and I, I, I'm, so I'm praying for that, so have that in your heart, and, and in your thoughts, I want to share with you, just for a short minute, I think I only have about 10 minutes left to share, because I just wanted to kind of share those things with you, and I want to kind of speak to you for a minute, what God's been kind of calling, I feel like he's calling people to, this year, as I've been sitting, and praying, and meditating, and, and fasting, and, and, and talking to God, and listening to God, I heard this message by Jensen Franklin, is a popular pastor, love him to death, and he, he did a, a sermon on Genesis 26, 12, and 18, and it was very interesting, I'm going to take it a little bit of a different direction, but, but it really spoke to me, and it says, uh, Isaac, talking about Isaac, the son of Abraham, Isaac planted. The man became rich and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him.

Now, Philistines in context here, obviously there were a people group in that age that were very evil people. But there's typology we see here as we read in the scripture. And Philistines always represent something evil, something sinister. The enemy, the devil, Satan, the adversary. So we see that the Philistines envied him.

So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up. They filled it up, filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac, move away from us. You have become too powerful for us. So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the valley of Gerer.

And he settled. And Isaac reopened the wells. That's what I want us to get to. Isaac reopened the wells. And I left the blank note sheet this week, guys.

I just had a really busy week this week, so I'm sorry about that. But if you want to write down notes and write down Genesis 26, 12 and 18 and go back to it. And Isaac reopened the wells that he had dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. And he gave them to the same names his father had given to him. So we see here wells.

And wells always signify life. Signify a life-giving, flowing water, life-giving. And I think that represents ministry and church. But when things are going well, when things are being blessed, when God is providing and God is doing things, the enemy stops up those wells. So our job is to unstop those wells, to dig them back out.

It's important for us to come back and look and assess our lives and assess ourselves and assess our ministry and assess us as we are a part of the body of Christ, to dig out those wells and look and see if the enemy has dropped any earth in those wells that we have. In fact, here's a great example. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Rodney, Mississippi. If any of you are from Mississippi here, you may know that Rodney, Mississippi was a place, a small town on the Mississippi River back in 1828. It was found in 1828.

It was bought by a rich man. It was on a river. And anything on the Mississippi River during that day was flourishing. It was life-giving. And it was a town that had all kinds of industry because, you know, the Mississippi River ran up.

It's the second longest river in the United States. And you can take and transport commerce and supplies through the river and take it all through the United States all the way up to near Canada. And it was one of those places. And by three votes, it just missed being the capital of Mississippi over Jackson. That's how popular this city was.

Yet, over a period of 150 years, a sandbar started to build up. And instead of taking action, they just allowed it to continue to build up. Mud and sand and dirt and tar and whatever was in the river began to fill in that area of Rodney, Mississippi. And over time, Rodney's waterway was lost. In fact, the river redirected itself two to three miles away from Rodney.

And today, the population of Rodney is zero. It is a ghost town. In fact, I have an example here, a picture here of a church in Rodney, Mississippi. One of the few structures that's left there. Buildings are there just dead.

Everybody's left because there's just no life. And sometimes I think about when I look at these pictures and I look at a church picture, how at one point the life-giving energy, the gospel and the people there and what was going on in that time, the life that was there and how it was lost. So the question is, are we going to our river mouths? Are we going to our wells? Are we digging?

Are we digging? Are we digging? Are we digging? We'll be right back. I want to bring out our wells once again so that we can be life-giving Christians, so that we can be life-giving people, so that we can be a life-giving church.

We need to be a life-giving church because this community needs something life-giving because there's a lot of death. The opposite of life-giving is death. Amen. But we want to be light and life and salt. That's why we call ourselves Salt Church.

So let me give you five things real quick. So God just kind of poured into my heart. First of all, one of those wells we need to dig out is this higher level of urgency. We need a well of urgency that flows out to realize that there are lost people in this world and there's not a lot of time to catch them. Right?

We need to be reaching people. We don't need to be comfortable. We need to be comfortably uncomfortable where we're stepping out and we're willing to do anything and everything to reach as many people as possible for Jesus Christ. Amen? We need to be thinking beyond ourselves and God forbid if we ever become a church where it is all about ourselves.

That's where churches begin to die when it's all about themselves. Let's make it inward. Let's do our own thing. And what happens is the churches die away because the people grow older and they never think of anybody outside the church. So we've got to be willing to do anything and everything and we need to have a sense of urgency.

John 4 35 says, I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. It is there. Jesus said it was there. He's opened up the door for us.

He's given us opportunity. We need to change our mindset from temporary to eternity. We need to have eternal mindset. 2 Corinthians 4 18 says, so we don't look at the troubles we can see now. Rather, we fix our gaze on the things that cannot be seen for the things we see now will soon be gone.

Amen? They're going to be gone. All those things you put all of your passion into, they're going to be gone one day if they're not eternal things. Okay? We need to fix our eyes on the eternal things, on what God has for us now that will reflect and echo in eternity.

I love that because it's a gladiator statement, echo in eternity. It's so true in the spiritual world. It's so true in Christianity. When we see things, he wants us to have an eternal mindset. I love Ephesians 5 15 and 16 and forgive me if I'm talking really fast because I want to get you out here on time.

Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. You need to underline that opportunity if you're looking at Ephesians 5 15 and 16. I forget. I don't have it in your notes today, but anyway. Make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.

What does that mean? Opportunity. That we take hold because the time is urgent. There's not much time. The Lord is coming back.

He's holding back his judgment so that we can reach more people because his love for people is so hungry for people to know him. He holds back his judgment, but we don't have much time. And Jesus says, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of Jesus. We should be baptizing people in the name of Jesus, reaching people in the name of Jesus. And start with Jerusalem, then go to Judea, and go to Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.

So start in Virginia Beach, then go to Hampton Roads, then go to our state, then go to our nation, and then go to our countries all around the world. We need to have a sense of urgency, an eternal perspective that what we're doing here and doing for ourselves is good. But you know what? There's a lot more to do, and we need to get busy, and we need to get urgent, and we need to get shaken up a little bit about those who are lost out there. Don't be afraid to say that Jesus is the hope of the world when he is the hope of the world.

We need to be reaching people. We need to be inviting people to church. We need to be getting them plugged in to the life-giving message that Jesus has for them. So we need a sense of urgency. And I see a church so refreshing and so life-giving, so refreshing.

I see this church being so life-giving that we will not be able to hold people out, that they will be coming into this place experiencing the love of God. The second thing I want to mention is a higher level of prayer. We need prayer. I was reading a book about prayer, and the man who wrote the book talked about being in a church of thousands and was lucky to get 20 people to a prayer service. Why do we not do that?

There's been some days during our prayer and fasting that I've been by myself in that church praying. We've got a couple of days where we set aside for prayer and fasting and it was just me. And then it was me and Chris Lee and me. You know, and then we have a few other people come in. And I say that to say we need to get a higher level of prayer life.

We need to believe what we believe. Can I say that? If we believe that God can answer prayers, we need to pray for him. Look what the scripture says in James, the prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah, who was a human being, even as we are, he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it didn't rain for three and a half years.

But again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced what crop? We need to be praying for spiritual rain and believing God's going to deliver on us. That spiritual rain. The problem is we don't believe that he answers prayers. I'm not talking about you personally, I'm just in general, the church has fallen in that area.

So I'm calling us as a church to have a higher prayer life. Thirdly, we need higher levels of righteousness. Higher levels of righteousness. I'm not talking about positional righteousness, guys. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, right?

We are positionally made right by the righteous faith. We have our son of the son of the Christian who is the son of Christ. We have been made right. We have been made right in him, but there's a sense of personal holiness that I'm asking our church to step up in because most of the world does not live holy, righteous lives. Now, I used to think that, you know, the scripture where Jesus says in John 14 15 if you love me, keep my commandments, I used to think, well, I've really got to work hard.

I'll keep his commandments and I'll do all of his things and my stuff, and then I'll prove to him I love him. But I got it backwards because when you read that scripture in its context and in its understanding, it's like if you're really, Jesus says it with this heart, if you really love me, it won't be a problem to keep my commandments. You're just going to do it. So love me. Love me deeply.

Start there and love me deeply. And if we love Jesus, we are going to get some of that mud out of our wells and start living righteously and living holy. Deuteronomy 7, 9 says, know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is faithful. He is, right?

He is the faithful God keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. John 14, 15, uh, excuse me, Deuteronomy 7, 9. See, see, that's something that gets me excited because I look at this and I'm like, oh, uh, he's faithful. He's good. He's, he, he, his covenant lasts.

And that's something I can get excited to. And I want to be more like him because of that, because I love him so much and I have a passion to be more like him. And every day, how, Lord, how can I, how can I be more passionate, passionate about that? Fourthly, God is calling us to a higher level of generosity. He's always calling us to a higher level of generosity.

Psalm 112, 5 says, good will come to those who are generous and lend freely who can tuck their affairs with justice. We all know Matthew 6, 19 and 20, do not store yourselves up treasures on earth where moth and varmints destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up yourselves treasures in heaven, right? Eternal things, eternal things. See, here's, here's the deal. Generous people determine success by what they were able to give up.

And I see a church so generous that we can do so much more, that we can help ministries here. We can overwhelm them outside our church and, and we can give to missions. We can bring leaders in, we can develop leaders. We can send out church planters and communities that need churches. We can, we can do so much.

If we have a church that is so generous and everybody's generous and they work together and they, they give together and they offer their time and their lives together, we can see so much more happen. We can change the world. So, gosh, it's 1150, man. I'm way done by now. Are y'all okay if I just continue for a few more minutes?

I'm sorry, guys, but I'm just very, very passionate and I got, I just had a lot to share. So I know that it's difficult to talk about money, but God uses money and uses us and our money to do things that we could not do, that we normally wouldn't do. And then he blesses us back. That's the beauty of it. He tells us he's going to, if you trust him.

And I don't like, I don't do a lot of tithing, I do a couple of tithing messages a year. Because People get so, like, weird about it when I talk about tithing and giving, and there's a lot of ways you can see tithing. Tithe means 10%. But I call tithing the training wheels of giving, because really, if you love God, and Jesus said, told the Pharisees this, you guys tithe, and that's not an issue, you know, you're tithing, and I'm glad you do that, but man, if you really love me, you would do more than that, you wouldn't just be doing it in front of people, and you would probably give all your money. Are you willing to give all your money?

You're like, no, absolutely not. Of course not, because if you really knew and understand what the kingdom of heaven was all about, it wouldn't be about the 10%. And so I see it as a spiritual principle and a guiding line, a chart, if you would, to giving. So if you're not capable of giving 10%, I get it. But start out with 3%, or 5%, or 6%, and see what God does.

He says to trust Him at it. And then from there, you know, maybe you do 10%. Maybe I need to do 12% this year. Maybe I need to do 15%. See, it really isn't about the amount of money.

It's about the heart of giving it and trusting God with it. And he says in Malachi, in fact, if you look in your bifold, we have something called a tithing challenge. And many of you did it last year, and it was a really cool thing. And here's the crazy thing. I'll give you a week to think about it and come back and do it.

You know, you can drop it in the offering bucket. We'll talk about it again next week. But we believe so strongly that you're going to be blessed when you start giving, that you're going to be blessed, that in 90 days, this is a commitment we're going to make. Okay, guys? And this is crazy.

We did it last year. I'm telling you, nobody was not blessed, okay? We had nobody come back and ask for their money, but we will give you your money back after 90 days. If you stay solid to that commitment, you can sign it. We'll sign it.

We'll make a covenant with you. If you're not blessed, it's going to go through the Easter season, okay? You're going to commit that amount, 10%, whatever it is, the tithing challenge, whatever God lays on your heart, to give for 90 days. And if you do not experience some type of blessing in your life, I'm not saying your bank account's going to overflow with money. Please, we're not a prosperity church.

I'm not going to say that, you know? But I will say that something is going to happen. Last year, we had people find jobs that didn't have jobs. We had people, relationships that were healed in their marriages, in their families, their kids came home. All kinds of things that people were praying for simply because they started trusting and honoring God with just a little bit of their paycheck.

And I say this because pastors are equippers, and this is what we do. This is how we want to do it. I want to challenge you to give it a shot. I want you to fill out that card. I want you to say, hey, I'm going to commit 90 days.

And pastor, if nothing happens, if God doesn't bless me, I'm going to ask for it back. Within 30 days afterwards, you can put in a little note, I need my money back, and we'll give you that money back. But you won't need it back because you're going to have plenty. You're going to have abundance. You're going to see God do some things in your life.

It's going to be amazing. It's going to be amazing. I believe that because it's happened to me. I mean, we've had money show up in our mailbox when we gave more. I mean, we've had, Miranda's gotten bonuses, you know, when we didn't think about, you know, when we didn't think we had enough to give.

We gave more. Things just happen. You provide everything we need. And lastly, I want to state a higher level of service. Hebrews 6, 10 says, God is not unjust.

He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and you continue to help them. So here's the point I want to make, guys. I shared with you a couple of weeks ago, you know, how it's important that we all as a church, as an organic unit, serve somewhere, even if it's once a month. Maybe it's serving with the kids. Man, we were, a few weeks ago, praise God, some of you have stepped up and come in, but we still need more.

But, man, we were down to just a few people in our kids' ministry, and that's something we're very passionate about. We want something for our kids. And so I ask people, you know, step up, give once a month of that. Then take a next step. Take the next step.

Give it a year. Give it a year. Whether it's plugging into a small group. We're getting ready to launch small groups next week. It's going to be awesome.

I mean, we just have some amazing times together as small groups and we're able to minister to each other at a heavier level. If you're not involved in a small group, get in a small group. Stop trying to do it on your own. And stop hanging around the wrong friends. Get with the right people.

People are influencing you. You need to dig out those wells. You need to dig out those wells. Get baptized. I've never, I never knew how, I guess I just don't, when I look at Scripture and I see, you know, when somebody comes to Christ and let me pray about it for six months.

That didn't happen in Scripture. When I know that I know that I know that I love the Lord and I'm ready, I do it. And He calls me to do it. Immediately people were baptized in Scripture. The disciples were just, baptizing people everywhere, right?

The apostles. The church was being, you know, people, they were stopping on the side of the road. The guy gives his life to the Lord, the Ethiopian. And he's like, well, I got to be baptized. Let's baptize you right here in this muddy puddle over on the side of the road.

Let's do it. Right? You take the next step. This is a spiritual next step. I challenge you this year to take the next step.

Join a serve team. Join a team here in the church. Become a part of our dream team. Because we got some big vision. I just shared some things with you.

We're going to meet some goals this year. We've got some outstanding goals that we're just going to pray that God will meet this year. But we can't do it without you, without everybody involved. Because we want to be a healthy, flourishing church. And in the meantime, what God does is bless you and give you, overflows you with abundance of spiritual blessings in the process.

Because that's how good God is. Amen? He uses you to reach people. And in the process, He reaches you. And He stirs up something inside of you.

And He gives you more than you can hang on to. And what do you do with that? You bless others. Trust God with that. Give it a year.

Join our prayer team. Join our prayer team. Let me just state that if we do not pray, if we do not seek God, how do we expect God to pray earnestly, fervently, with righteousness, seeking God? Standing before Him. I wrote down a few things.

And guys, I am so sorry I've kept you so long. We're usually way out of here by now. Especially to set up, break down people. I know you guys are like, oh my goodness, Leon. He's gone really long today.

But this is Vision Sunday. And I just have to share this. And many of you here are regular members. So I'm just not, you know, there's a few guests here. And thank you so much for being with us.

Fill out a connection card if you're a guest. Hey, just give us a clap today. Thank you so much for being with us. And if you would fill out a connection card and drop that in the offering at the end of service, we would love to connect with you and share a little more about our church. And maybe this is a church you want to be a part of and help us get to the next level.

Amen? We'd love to have you be a part of that. If not, there's great churches everywhere around here. We'd love for you to be connected somewhere. Get connected somewhere.

Amen? But here's what I see. I see a church where people have found a relationship with God instead of religion. Where living for God is no longer an obligation, but a heartfelt desire. I feel like Martin Luther King up here.

I see a church where people are continually taking steps in their spiritual journey with the goal of reaching new heights in every part of their lives. I see a church full of people who are growing in God and discovering that God wants to use them to make a difference. Where every person is experiencing the kind of fulfillment that only God can give. I see a church where God uses ordinary people, volunteer teams, dream teams, small group leaders, a church leadership team, serving the people of our city so that people in turn would open their hearts to God. I see a church so compassionate that people are drawn from impossible situations into a loving and friendly circle of hope where answers are found and acceptance is given.

The church that I see is a church committed to raising, training, and empowering a generation of young leaders, church planters, and pastors who would go from this place and change the world. I see a church who never stops searching for lost people because God never stops searching for us. And I see a church where people are so kingdom-minded that they will count whatever the cost and pay whatever the price to see revival sweep across this land. And I see a church where Jesus is made famous. Amen?

Amen.