How cool is that? Across our campuses, man, let's give God some praise. Guys, it's been an incredible week of ministry here at Mercy Hills, specifically through our age-based ministries. Alright, these age-based ministries are our student ministry, you know, kids ministry, student ministry, college ministry, and we had our Kids Week that was awesome a few weeks ago, and that has now moved into our student camp.
Man, we're gonna talk more about camp. I'm sure that God has just done some incredible things this week at camp, and so we can't wait to hear more of those stories. Also, these very college students now are, you know, they're on their way and many of them have landed. They've been gone for a couple of weeks overseas, sharing the gospel, helping strengthen the global church.
It's just an amazing thing. I don't know about you, but I get the impression in a lot of Christian circles of like doom and gloom when it comes to the next generation of Christ followers, and I'm just gonna tell you, man, that is not the case here. God is doing something crazy here, and these kids are running after him from their very young age, and it's just really awesome to see. Our campus pastors mentioned this.
I'm gonna mention it. It's gonna kind of lead into what we're talking about even for the weekend, but guys, if you are giving to Mercy Hill, I mean, these type of stories and videos and the kids going to camp and all this stuff, like, take the time to take joy in seeing what your generosity is producing. Like, without the generosity of the church, there aren't the pastors.
There's not the buildings, the light. I mean, it's all mission. Like, it all is kind of going forth in terms of this engine that God is using to produce what we're seeing in these age-based ministries, and so take that joy.
If you are not giving at Mercy Hill, look, I understand this. When people come to a church, especially if they're new, they kind of want to hang around for a little bit and figure out if it's a place they can trust. You know, they're trying to figure out, like, are they about to break snakes out the one week I wasn't there, and you know, they're trying to figure that out, and so it's like, no, you know, I get that. There's a little bit of like, man, we go, we're trying to figure, okay. But some of us have been around.
Now's the time to, like, jump all the way in, you know, and take that step and jump all the way in, and a lot of times that is really spearheaded by the giving of the church. Do you guys remember merry-go-rounds when you were a kid? I think they don't do them anymore because they're, you know, I think little Johnny gets his knee scraped or whatever, right? So, but I'm talking about the merry-go-round that looked really scary, rusty, it's very sharp edges everywhere, you know, thing looks like it was put there a hundred years ago. You know, people now don't do them because they don't want the kid to fly off. When I was a kid, I thought that was the point, right? Like, you see how fast you could get it to go until people can't hang on.
The thing about a merry-go-round is, and you guys know this, the thing about a merry-go-round is if a bunch of kids jump on and they don't push with everybody else, it slows down, right? And so what we want to call the church to do is like, hey, if you're jumping in, be one that pushes with everybody else. Man, your time, your talent, yes, your treasure. Now, if we're gonna do that, it's gonna be for one reason, that God is first in our life. That we have seen Christ, we have valued Him, and we say, man, He is first, therefore I give my first. I don't just mean money, I mean my whole life. My time, my talent, my calendar, everything that I'm good at, I leverage my life, everything that I can. That's what we're gonna talk about today from Colossians chapter 1, all right?
So if you have a copy of Scripture, turn with me to Colossians 1. I certainly was out of town for a couple of weeks. We had an incredible time. We were down in Florida with my family.
We tried to do that in the summer. You know, they call Florida, everybody in Florida calls it the free state of Florida, okay? And I think they're really into freedom because they begin to shoot off fireworks for 4th of July on like June 4th, okay?
And they just keep the party. I mean, we were down there the whole couple of weeks before and it's like every night, every day, people are shooting fireworks off. July 4th rolls around and I'm sitting there at a church I know very well, just from from being a kid growing up, Russell Road Baptist Church, and we're sitting there waiting for the awesome fun. They have a great outreach they do every year and it's really cool.
People from the community come. We're sweating it out, 150 degrees, you know, in Florida. I got my snow cone or whatever sitting there in my jorts, cut-off jeans. There's a sea of cut-off t-shirts, okay?
No sleeves in sight. And, you know, I'm sitting there and the fireworks are beginning. Chris Stapleton's version of the Star-Spangled Banner, okay? And, you know, the, you know, all the fireworks are going off and all this kind of stuff and it's just, man, you're so blessed. You're like, man, I love this country.
I'm blessed to be here. And, you know, one of the things that we're so blessed by in our nation, and we know this and we and we we praise God for those who have fought because we know freedom isn't free, but what is the big thing for a believer? What is the big thing about freedom?
The big thing for us about freedom is, unlike a lot of places in the world, and I mean we love freedom for a thousand reasons, okay? But for the believer, it's like we get a chance to live in a place in the world where I can say out loud, openly, Jesus Christ is number one in my life, right? You can say that. We can say He is first. We can openly say He is first. I build my entire life around Him.
What are we just saying a few minutes ago? He is the foundation. The Bible calls Him the cornerstone, like, of my entire life and everything that is being built.
He is first. And the thought hit me, maybe it was the, you know, sweating it out in the snow cone and the whole deal, but I just thought to myself for a minute, you know, we are so blessed to live in a country where we can say Christ is first. Do we live that way? Man, do we live that way?
We happened to hit the lottery in terms of where we live, and we are free to be able to say this and live this. And yet I wonder, I'm like, well, but are we taking that freedom and using it to say Christ is first in my life? Well, I think if we're going to do that and we get to that place where we say, man, He is the priority in my life, He is number one in my life, it's going to be a response to seeing some things about Him.
And that's what I want to talk to you about this weekend, alright? Colossians 1, very famous passage of Scripture. I've preached on it before, I'll preach on it again.
Here's the big idea this weekend. Jesus is first and should be first in our lives. In our lives, everything can either be used to kind of prop up and and bring a spotlight and glory to that idea.
Jesus, you are first. Or all the stuff in our life can start to compete with that statement that Jesus is first, right? That instead of saying everything in my life, man, my career, the way I parent, the way I take care of my household or finances or whatever it is, it's like instead of saying those things are in service to Jesus is first, all of a sudden some of those things can begin to functionally compete with what is actually first in my heart. And I don't have to go into a million examples, I will give some later, but I think we all kind of get that. It's like, man, I know as a believer that Jesus is first, but then when you start thinking about my ambitions, what I dream about, what I thought about most of the day, what my Google search says, like all of a sudden it's like, well, functionally is he first. The antidote for us who have ever struggled with, man, I know this is true but I functionally, I struggle with and I want to bring those things in line. That's what maturity is, okay? A good antidote for that is a good dose of Colossians 1, all right?
And that's what we're gonna dive into this weekend. Here's what it says, he is the image of the invisible God, talking about Christ, the firstborn of all creation. Your Bible may say, over all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.
Did you get the point? Jesus is first. By him, through him, for him. Jesus is first. He is before all things. Now, the book of Colossians is pretty awesome for this reason, okay? You know, the Bible is the number one bestseller of all time, all right? And the Bible is a Christ-centered book. Well, you want to know what the most Christ-centered book in the most Christ-centered book in the world is? It's Colossians, maybe, okay? Colossians is all about Christ, him being first, him being before all things, him being preeminent, him being the firstborn, him being the priority, all of that. It's all bound up in this.
What do we call in the series? He's more than enough. Man, we don't go looking for more when Jesus is more than enough and he is what we already have. And what did the Bible say?
Well, let's just kind of take it in turn here. He is the image of the invisible God. What does it mean that Christ is the image of the invisible God? Well, I think it means two things. Image means representation and image means manifestation. These are two distinct ideas that are probably formed in this one word, especially our commentaries would tell us this, that you might see different aspects of that representation, manifestation, when you're looking at this word in the Greek. Representation.
What does that mean? It just means very simply this. Whatever God is like, we see it in Jesus. He represents God to us. We're able to see God in him. He is the perfect reflection of the character of God.
And, you know, other passages say this. For example, Hebrews 1-3 says Jesus is the exact representation of the nature of God. So Jesus represents God. Whatever God is like, we see it in Christ.
But he's not only that, this is actually very Trinitarian here. You know, Christians believe this wonderful doctrine. It's kind of hard to get your mind around but, you know, we are talking about God here, okay?
It's kind of a big, big thing to try to get your mind around, that God is one God in three persons, okay? And we see that here because Jesus is not only representing God but he is also manifesting God because he is God. What's a manifestation? A manifestation is to see the thing before you.
It's manifest. And that's what we see in Christ. He represents, he manifests. He is the 5th verse 15 image of the invisible God. What else does it say? Y'all, if we want to respond to him as if he's first, we need to see that he is first. And what does it say? He is the firstborn of all creation.
Now I want to stop for just a second. I want to give you the framework here, okay? I want to convince us that Jesus is first and we should respond to him as first. But there are two distinct ideas.
There's a lot of ideas here, okay? But I can kind of boil them down into two ideas. Jesus is first in the terms of creation and he is also first in the terms of being crucified and being brought back from the dead. You could say it like this, we praise him as creator and we praise him for his crucifixion, alright? So let's talk about, or you can say it like this, we praise the cosmic Jesus and we praise the crucified Jesus, okay? So we're talking about cosmic here.
What does this mean? He is the firstborn of all creation. It means simply that Jesus is the priority among all that is, okay?
He is first. Now people have gotten a little bit weird on this because, okay, fourth century guy named Arius, okay, the Arian heresy, which is alive and kicking today, that's the Jehovah's Witness Church, okay? So what, you know, Jehovah's Witness, if you ever talk to them, this is what you're gonna get to this eventually. The idea is that Jesus is chief among what is created, that he was a created creator, that he was God but not like God God, you know, he was like a little God kind of idea. And that, of course, was a heresy that was condemned in the fourth century at the Council of Nicaea where the famous statement was made that Jesus was begotten but not made. He's eternally begotten but not made, being of one substance with the Father, meaning he is eternally the Son of God but he was not made.
This is not the idea that Jesus was created to be a little God creator. What we see in the scripture is, and what you see all throughout the Old Testament, guys, what does firstborn denote? It denotes the authority. It denotes the headship. It denotes the inheritance. It denotes who is first in priority. You know, we might, you know, bristle against that in our day and age because we don't want to have a lot of favoritism with kids or whatever. Well, in the Old Testament, they didn't really care a lot about that, okay? It was like, man, you're first, you're the most important.
And everybody's gonna know it and that's just the way it was. But that's what it's saying. It denotes this kind of idea. It's not the idea of, man, there's a creation here.
I'll give you an example. What was David called? He was called, I mean, he was, he was, he was like the firstborn even though he wasn't.
In fact, that's, think about this, that's actually sort of a theme in the scripture, isn't it? The firstborn actually not being the firstborn. You've got Abel that was overcame. You've got Isaac over Ishmael. You've got Jacob over Esau.
You have David over Jonathan. I know they weren't brothers but you understand. And I think you even see it with Jesus, that firstborn is more of this idea of a, you know, an authority. What God is gonna do with someone than it is just this idea of creation. And you think about that with Jesus.
I mean, the younger serving the older. I mean, he was born as a carpenter in an out-of-way place in a no-name town but he is gonna be elevated over all the religious leaders of the time, right? And so he is the firstborn. The Bible is trying to get us to see this, that he is before all things and he is first. Let me just ask you the question, you know, just as we're kind of making our way through this.
Do we honor him as such? Because what happens sometimes is things like a relationship or a 401k or boyfriend-girlfriend or our next career move or the next possession that we have or whatever. They all of a sudden, instead of us saying, my life is about what is first. I'm responding to what is before all things. I am created to bring glory to Christ and I want to see all these other things as ways to do that. Instead, what happens is we say, well, bringing glory to Christ is one of the things. And then the career is kind of lined up right next to it.
And then the marriage is kind of lined up and then the parenting and then the kids sports and then all the stuff is kind of lined up. And I almost want you to think about it like this. Jesus is not first on the list.
He is the list, right? I mean, it's like a different kind of category almost that we need to get in our mind. I want you to imagine if I said to my wife, Anna, of almost 20 years now, if I said, Anna, listen, okay, I got a lot of girls, all right? But you're my best girl, you know? I got a list of women that I'm into, but you're at the top, babe.
Anna's from South Carolina, okay? That wouldn't go very well. Her people would probably come and find me and then you guys would never see me again, okay? And that's rightfully so, okay? I mean, they should come after me like that. I mean, you know, and if I was to do something, of course that's not, that's not the idea of being first. It's not like, well, you're first among many.
It's like, no, no, no. This is a different category. Like, you are first. And I think in every analogy breaks down. I understand that.
But you get the point, right? It's like, Jesus is first. He is priority. He is before all things. And everything else that we do, I'm talking everything, y'all.
Work, vacations. If you want to go back on our website, we did a whole sermon series on this. It's the entire book of Ecclesiastes. It's like, this is what life is about. And if you don't have this key that Jesus is in this class by himself, he's not just the top of the list.
He is the list and it's all for him. Then none of the other stuff makes any sense because we're not using them in the right way for their chief in to glorify God. And I think this is what the Bible is trying to get us to see. And then it moves us into kind of showing how the cosmic Christ, we're going to talk about cosmic and crucified, cosmic Christ is worthy of praise. You know why? Because he was the agent of creation.
Look what it says. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
By him, through him, and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Do you understand that if Jesus Christ did not sustain creation it would fly apart?
Gone. He's sustaining it right now. And he could do that because he was the agent of creation. We see in 1 John or we see in John 1 3, all things were made through him and without him design anything made that was made. I mean this is simple, okay? If it exists, he made it.
All right? If it is there, discovered or undiscovered, a billion galaxy light years whatever way, if it's there, it was created by him. And so we see the cosmic Christ as one who is firstborn.
He's the priority. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the agent of creation.
But you know what else it says? It says that it was not just made through him and by him but everything that was made was made for him. Don't you understand today that Jesus Christ is both the agent of creation and the goal. The goal of everything that is is to bring glory to him. In other words, we exist to bring glory to God by being reconciled through Jesus Christ. We make him known and we know him and that's how we bring glory to him. We live a life that is joyfully obedient to what he has called us to do so that we reflect his glory. My point is this, y'all.
It's about him. If you've been around here, you've heard this before, but I think it really gets at it because anybody who's ever had this experience, you're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about. If you've ever taken a two-year-old to a bunch of two-year-olds birthday party, you know exactly what I'm talking about here, okay? If you've ever had that experience because at some point, it's a hundred two-year-olds or whatever, at some point, you've got to go to your two-year-old and you have to get down on their level right in their eyes and you have to say, child, this ain't your party. You see that little kid over there? It's their party, okay? You see all these presents? They're theirs.
You see the balloons? It's not yours. It's theirs. In fact, you should just be excited that somebody invited you to their party, okay?
That's what you need. It's not your party. And I think that Colossians 1 gives us a really healthy dose of that. That it's not our party. It is not for us. It is not by us. It is not through us. It is all for him.
It is all for his glory. You know, there was a book that came out a few years ago, maybe some of you guys 20 years ago, some of you guys read it. It was called The Purpose Driven Life. 50 million copies in a hundred and thirty languages and I know the book had a lot of awesome stuff in it. You might have read it. I'll tell you why my little theory of why that book went so viral, it's because the first sentence says this, it's not about you and that is revolutionary because we just sort of assume our whole life it is about me. You know, it's not about us.
It's not our party. Why do rapids rage? Why do stars pulse?
Why do little babies cry at their first breath? It's all for Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 drives that point. It's about him and our praise comes from a deep humility of understanding the cosmic Christ but he's not only that.
If it was that, it would be enough but it's not only that. Look what it says in verse 18, and he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross and you who are once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds and that's every single one of us.
It's every one of us. He is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. We've all done evil deeds. Have we all been reconciled to Christ? Depends on what you have done with him. If you put your faith in him, have you stepped over that line? If indeed you continue in the faith stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I Paul became a minister. Now guys there's I mean there is so much in this you could you could you could break down we could be here for hours and it would be it would be fine it would be good stuff we don't have that kind of time I want to keep kind of pounding this one point away here today Jesus is first we respond to him as first this passage shows us there's two reasons that we should respond to him like that the cosmic Christ and number two we see here the crucified Christ the resurrected Christ I think a good way to say it is like this he is first in two areas Jesus is first first born over creation and he is first born from the dead that's good news for us because it means that Jesus has reconciled us if you are a believer by making peace with the blood of his cross now if you're new here you're like man I kind of lost you I get the J Jesus created okay here's the deal now when God created the world he created humanity to follow him but we don't we rebel against him man we have sin in our life every single one of us and you know that I know that there's no getting away from that and so what we understand from this passage is wait a minute something about the blood of Christ has made peace where there was hostility there was a relational and legal rift between us and God not because of something he did but because of our sin you and I chose it freely and there's no works that's gonna get us back to him there's nothing like that that's going to assuage the guilt that we have there's nothing that's going to cover the wrath of God by trying to do better and try harder instead Jesus Christ came from heaven and put on flesh representation manifestation okay puts on flesh lives life for us never sin becomes a spotless lamb and at the end of his life he says hey I'll make a deal with you I'll take death so that you can have life that's what the cross is the cross is the great exchange theologians call it it's this idea of Jesus got what we deserve for our sin and then gives us what he deserved which is eternal life and a heaven to wait and purpose in our life and a thousand other things okay in terms of blessing and spiritual gifting and an ability to have brothers and sisters in the faith and I mean just all this stuff man and he's given us this not because of something we did but because of what he has done we deserve eternal death apart from what Christ has done but Jesus stepped in for us he is the firstborn from the dead meaning he resurrected from the dead he was the first one to do that he will not be the last one to do that but he will not be the last one to do it because he was the first one to do it he was the first one to be sinless and defeat death and throw the door wide open for you and I to put our faith in him and to come following him for all eternity see it's like he he loosed the pangs of death he entered he created an entrance into into the the Holy of Holies that we could come in where we could never with our sin he broke a barrier that couldn't be broken any other way he throw a door open that stands open to this day you know I thought about this first one to do it not the last one to do it you know a guy named Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile and he did it in 1954 at age 25 and he wasn't even a really I mean he was a professional but back then he was all he was a doctor and a runner wasn't even training that hard okay and he goes to this obscure race in Oxford England kind of an out-of-the-way place and all of a sudden gets on the track and on May 6 1954 he breaks the four minute mile for the first time in world history by running three minutes and 59 seconds point fifty nine point four seconds okay and it was it was just kind of a crazy event you know the mile was a gambling distance that's how it began the mile run began in England in the 1700s here's my point people have been racing each other okay since there were people right I mean people been hey I'll beat you in a race they've been running the mile for 200 years and nobody broke the four minute mile until Richard Bannister did it on May 6 1944 do you know how long how long his record stood a whopping 46 days after 200 years of nobody breaking the four minute mile 46 days later somebody else did it and then you know what 10 10 days later somebody else did it and since then almost 2,000 athletes have broken the four minute mile it was something that people thought could never be done and my point is this he was the first one but he wasn't the last one he kind of created a way and created a belief and all of a sudden people could do it I know every analogy breaks down but this is similar to what Christ has done for us he has broken a barrier that now the door stands open for any of us who would put our faith in him to be joined with him he was the first but he ain't the last many will follow him and in fact any of us who would put our faith in him would follow him into his resurrection you know Jesus is first Jesus went first he threw the door open by going first for us and you have the opportunity to follow him this is what I want to call you to do today I want to call you to put this is a big this is the application point y'all put Jesus in the first position in your heart I know some of you like how do I do that I'm gonna get to how you do it actually I'll tell you know how you do it you know what we got to do the only way to do it is pray that the Holy Spirit of God would do that for you we've got to pray God I want the idols dethroned now if you are a Christian this is legally true of you Jesus is the deepest desire of your heart he is first in your life he is before all things in your life if you are a believer but sometimes functionally that's not how we live now it's true of you because the blood of Christ covers you right but functionally how we get what is true of us to become and this is what sanctification is fancy word for Christian growth and maturity becoming in practice what God already declared us to be in truth in truth we are a people who live singularly for the glory of God we want to be a match that is struck and burned and then discarded it's what our life is about functionally sometimes it don't look exactly like that right and we want to bridge that gap and the way we do that man as we look at the gospel we become overwhelmed with God's love for us and what he has done and then we pray God through your Holy Spirit dethroned these idols I want to cast them down and I want you to be re-enthroned on my heart now of course if you're not a believer yet then today is the day that you need to if you're not going back and asking God to make something functionally true it needs to be actually true I mean if you're not a believer then listen when I say these things they're not things that you have declared Jesus is the Bible says this he is first he is before all things everything is by him through him and for him he is preeminent he is the firstborn over creation he is the firstborn from the dead he isn't just the agent of creation he is the goal of creation and he has reconciled the church to himself for his glory and our good and that's what the Bible says about him what do you think if you're not a believer you haven't assented to that today you can all right so what we want to see today is you need to step over that line for the first time you do that by admitting your sin believing it Christ is done and confessing him as the Lord of your life and for us that are believers already what we want to do is we want to say God functionally man functionally I want you to be in top position and I don't want anything to compete with the glory of Christ in my life and that this is this is crazy y'all all right the word priority in the English language was singular for 500 years until we came along okay and for the last 50 years it's been plural people say well these are my priorities that makes no sense priority means first priority means chief priority means the highest most notable distinguished of the best quality first-class primary fundamental from which all else is derived that's priority that's primary that's first that's what before all things means and yet here we are and we say well I've got a list of priorities or we say hey man these are the primary things in my life no there can only be one primary thing in your life actually we even say this we say hey we're gonna keep first things first what does that even mean how many first things are there you you understand what I'm getting at now I listen I do this like everybody else okay I've got a list of priorities like everybody else okay but I'm just trying to punch you way here of making the point actually there's only one priority for us in your life there can only be one really there really can there can only be one primary thing you can't say first things first because there ain't but one first thing what is first what is primary what is before all things see what happens in our life when we start listing out our priorities and we get this wrong we don't understand there's a one thing and then everything else that feeds into the one thing or is built off of the one thing what happens is confusion where we begin to lay right up beside because we got all these priorities right we have all these our career all of a sudden it lays up right beside the priority our parenting lays up right beside the next thing in our career you know lays up right beside a brand new four-wheel-drive Honda Rubicon four-wheeler with independent rear suspension electronic shift not that I've ever googled that okay and and it and it listen it all the sudden it's like yeah I got all these priorities no no no first things are not first what is first and do the other things help glorify what is first play into what is first or are they built off of you know that's another one I want to switch the analogy here because the Bible does this it also gives us another analogy that gets at the exact same thing we sang this earlier I loved how aligned it was the foundation very similar to a first principle right it's the idea of and this is why we have this it's this idea of like I want you to think about this this this rock is incredibly heavy okay and it's not literally what I'm gonna say we pulled this off the land it this is like one of the rocks that's building the new home and hub okay it's like one of the the you know blocks and stuff but you guys have heard Jesus is the what the cornerstone in Matthew 7 he is the firm foundation what's the idea of a cornerstone it's the idea first there's one rock that's not like all the others there's one rock that everything else is built off of and around it's it's a different way of thinking about it but it's almost the exact same idea it's about what is first right and so what I want to do now is I just want to say this guys what we need to do today is we need to pray and ask the Lord if you are not a believer to save you today to get say we call it a thousand that get saved become a Christian ask Jesus into your heart step over the line go from death to life I don't however you want to say it that moment of where I wasn't a believer and now I am all right that's what needs to happen in your life if you're not yet but if you if you are a believer and I'm right here with you if you are a believer there's probably none of us that don't need some hard work of saying God there's this thing in my life that keeps wanting to compete with what is first in my life and so let's flood the altar let's pray all right I'll move this rock so it's not directly right over anybody praying right there okay so we'll move that but you know what I mean and the last thing I want to say is this guys I do want to bring it back to deeper two years ago we started a journey that many of us in this room many of us in our campuses are on and some of us are newer and you're so new that you're you're not on this journey with us yet we want you to to be on it you hear about it every week but the deeper journey was this two years ago then we came to this moment in our church where it's like guys ten you know ten becoming ten years old as a church is a great time for a church to go from being a movement to being a monument ten years in a church after it's grown and multisite and blah blah all the stuff it's like man that's a really good time for a church to decide you know what it ain't really about the mission it's about maintaining what we got I felt that very acutely and it was like no man we we need to go back to the beginning I mean we had 30 people that came and planted this church they sold out everything to come here for the mission of God what we need is a rekindling and that doesn't happen through guilt it doesn't happen even by talking about how awesome opportunities we have although we do have great opportunities it comes by asking the question what is first what is before all things so the way we said it if you remember as we said man what is the deepest desire of our hearts and the reality is that many of us can say Jesus is the deepest desire of my heart God's glory is a deal however you want to say it God's glory his mission deepest desire of my heart but the way we really know there's two ways what's your calendar look like what's your bank account look like because what we do with our time and our talent and what we do with our treasure man that really gets at it pretty fast doesn't it about what is the treasure of our heart we want to be church like the man in Psalm 1 whose roots go deep like that tree that finds its satisfaction in God and then the fruit pops out all over a slide and so we had a huge vision you guys remember man build a new home and hub so that we can have a base for planting other campuses and churches and growing the church I mean three times the size of any of our rooms right now that are constantly full we're trying to move people around and all that kind of stuff big vision worship Academy church plants campuses more children adopted fostered a new ministry that came out of all that all these churches that we have a chance to mentor guys and and and and we get a chance to pour into them and to see what God is doing across our state with some of them and so what we came to the church was we came and we said hey we challenged the church and we really believe that the the ministry and all this fruit we don't know what God's gonna do but we challenged the church man we want to give 30 million dollars over 25 months that we would be able to see these things happen throwing out that number was scary you know but it was it was it was that moment where we had a chance together to say who is gonna who's gonna get what's first if he is first is he gonna get what's first you guys know when you come home from the grocery store and you got like an awesome watermelon you cut up or an awesome like a bunch of fruit or whatever and everybody's grabbing what do they grab they don't go for like the soggy ones that are the wrong color right you go for like the best ones we don't want to be like the family or the idea doesn't want to be like hey three days after we've picked over everything that's awesome then we give the rest of it to God we want to give him what is first man what is first and best my wife I read I reference this early like southern woman okay if I told her we are inviting a new family from the church over but I am making a decree that you can only serve three-day old leftovers she'd kill me she would kill me right why because she would say no no people come over we're gonna honor them with our best it's not gonna be something that's left over that we didn't want it's gonna be with our best and the church rally to respond and I just want to give you guys a quick update y'all the church I want you to know the church is an incredibly healthy position okay and um you know our directional elders are which is which is five men that sit at the very top of the decision-making of this church of which I am one man we are figuring things out on the new home and hub but here's the deal right now as it stands we're probably have to borrow a little bit more money than we said then we thought that we said we would but that then we wanted to okay and here's why we said 30 million and probably if nothing changed right now by the end of this year over that 25 months maybe 27 or 28 million would come in and I want you to understand that for a couple reasons number one I do want you to hear this um man that's still pretty incredible right um and you know and we're excited about that and like I said man the church in a healthy position and we've got we've got plans of what we're gonna do and all that kind of stuff okay so everything's fine everything's good but I do want to throw that out to you because there are so many of you that are brand new and I think it's a good time to say guys you're brand new man you've jumped on the merry-go-round let's all start pushing because who knows what God could do between now and the end of the year I mean we may not need to go get any more money from a bank or we might not I mean who knows what God is going to do so I want to put this before you and I want to say if you're man if you were given which the majority of you are man just finish strong you're doing an incredible job praise God and I you know I'm right there in that boat with you okay but man if you're new or you haven't jumped on yet this is an incredible time to jump in and we won't do that if we don't first do the hard work of saying God what is first in my life man God is first and he deserves our best time talent in treasure let's pray father we come before you today across the locations that we have that you have set up across the triad and we just ask and pray right now Lord that we would respond to you with what is first in our life because you have gone first for us father we value your son Jesus Christ as being before all things preeminent first we want to bring him glory in our life and we want to give our first and give our best and so Christ I pray that you would help us to do that in Jesus name we pray amen
