Better Than Jesus

Summit it to all of our campuses. Can we celebrate what God has done in the past 12 months? And that we would begin to believe in faith and what God is going to multiply and do. My name is Todd and I am one of the pastors here at the summit. And I want you to know that this right here is what we are all about. We want to see the gospel go deep and multiply deep into the lives of every single person who is part of the summit. And we want to see the gospel multiply wide to our city and to all of the cities and all of the nations on the earth.

When you came in at all of our campuses, you should have received a book and a commitment card like this. That's because over the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at how we are going to multiply in the gospel. And this is a resource for you to use as you pray, as you think, as you talk about with your small group. That you would be asking God the question, God, what do you want me to do as part of your mission in this next year and the years to come? You know, Pastor JD says all the time, a church that is not on mission is nothing more than a bunch of disobedient Christians who just simply get together on the weekends. And I don't know about you, but I want the mission to be part of my life in everything I do, just not what I do here on the weekends. If you are a guest here with us, let me first say that I am glad that you're here. You are honored and we are so thrilled that you came to worship with us. And I also know that some of you are watching this video and you're kind of like, man, I chose the wrong weekend to come.

This kind of feels like insider talk. This feels like family time. Can I just tell you something? This is the perfect weekend to come. This is the perfect time to come between now and the next three weeks because you're going to find out exactly what we're about here at the summit.

This is what we are about and we want you to return. Last week, Pastor JD talked to us as we looked through the whole story of God's plan. We looked last week at the most tangible, visible action of God's love and that was what he showed us and did for us on the cross. He died and took the punishment for our sins that we deserved because he had lived a life that we could never live. But you know what occurred to me last week as Pastor JD was preaching? The cross is sweet to me because I know of the resurrection.

But for those first followers of Jesus, something dramatically happened from when they were there at Good Friday to when the early church started expanding. And that's what I want us to see today. We're going to do something a little different. I want to read this story to you the way that I would read it to my kids. Now, usually when I'm reading to them, I don't have a microphone, I'm not in front of big lights. Also, usually when I read it to my kids, at some point in the story, I have to say, sit down, be quiet, I'm reading right now.

I hope I will not do this at any of our campuses this morning, but I'm going to start it like this. It started that first Sunday morning, the first Easter morning, when in a sad and stombard state, the disciples, they go to a funeral. The women go to Jesus' body just as the first light was coming up.

Oh, how could this happen? Wasn't Jesus the rescuer, the king that God had promised? But then God sends an earthquake and an angel comes from heaven and a huge stone is rolled away as Jesus' friends walk quietly along a hilly path through the olive groves until they reach the tomb. They peer through the opening and they look into the dark tomb. Jesus' body is gone. And there in the dark, there's a man.

He's shining and his clothes are made from lightning and he says, don't be scared. This is a tomb and tombs are for dead people. Jesus isn't dead anymore.

He is alive. Mary thinks she sees the gardener and she's going to go talk to him until she realizes that's not the gardener, that's Jesus. And hope leaps in her heart and Mary falls to the ground and tears fill her eyes and she sobs. And all she wants to do in that moment was to cling to Jesus and never let him go. But Jesus says, not right now, Mary.

I have to go to the Father, but soon I'll never leave you. So Mary gets up and she's the first multiplier, the first gospel proclaimer, and she goes running off to tell the others. And some begin to see him also, but then others, they start doubting. But Jesus finally, he comes and he appears to all of them. He appears to them and he shows them his hand and his feet and he eats with them and he reminds them that all of scripture, the whole story, pointed to the fact that he would come, that he would take their place, and that he would rise again. And then after 40 days, Jesus rises up. He's with his disciples and he rises up into the bright air, higher and higher. So much so that they have to shade their eyes because they watched him go up and hide behind the clouds. And it's just as he's gone and they see him disappear, his voice rings in their head, even though you won't be able to see me anymore, I will never leave you.

No, not ever. I will always be with you, always and forever. And days later they were being obedient. They were waiting and they were praying when a strong wind fills a little room and it whistles through the walls and rustles on the straw on the floor and there above everyone's head, shining in the dark are flickering flames.

Fire. Fire that didn't hurt or burn, but inside of their hearts they feel a strange melting away of all the coldness of doubt, the coldness of fear, and the hardness and pride. Jesus had to go away, but now he was closer than he had ever been. Now he was inside their hearts.

This time nothing could ever separate them. Jesus would always be with them, always loving them, telling them, make your home in me and I will make my home in you. So the apostles did what was only natural.

They unlocked the door, they surged into the streets as if they had never been afraid before, and Peter spoke with a loud voice to every nation, every tribe, and every tongue, and miraculously everyone heard these words. Jesus died for you. He loves you. God made him alive. He rescued you. Stop running from God.

Run to him. And Peter then told the story, the whole story, God's story of love, his never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love how Jesus came to die and all that had happened and that this was God's plan and nothing in the world would ever stop it. Can we pray together? Father, thanks for including us in your story. Every single one of us here is here because you made it possible. So God, we ask in this moment that you would work in and through us that same way you did with those first followers 2,000 years ago, that God, you would move, your Holy Spirit would move in us, and we would know we were a church filled with the Spirit because we made much of the Son. God, we pray this for his name and fame.

Amen. So I love to tell that story with my kids. I'm very thankful for Sally Lloyd-Jones who was here a couple months ago. She wrote this book, The Jesus Storybook Bible. It is not just for kids. It is so devotional to go through and we sell copies of this at all of our campuses in the Next Step area or in Summit Kids.

And as always, anything we sell here at the Summit, we don't profit that. We put that money right back into the ministries of the church. But I love to read that kind of story with that because I think it captures the emotions and where the kids can see these disciples. They were this scared, doubting, eclectic group of people, and God radically changed them into a bold group of followers.

So here's what we're going to look at this weekend. We're going to understand that the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit multiplied the early church. It was the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit that multiplied the early church. So take your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts is the fifth book of the New Testament.

Or you can pull it up on your phone, Acts, unless you have a Galaxy Samsung 7 and that's not allowed here. But Acts is a picture of the early church. It's a picture of the history.

It's the springtime. And what we're going to see is that because we serve a God who was the same yesterday, today, and forever, we're going to see what God has in store for us as well. Acts 2, 42, they devoted, they, meaning the disciples, the followers, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers.

Did you catch that? That's what the early church devoted themselves to. If you were like me before I became a Christian, I thought church was boring. But then I look at this and I'm like, wait a minute, they're just committed to learning, hanging out, eating, and praying.

I can do that. What were they learning? It says the apostles' teaching. It was the word of God. That's what we are doing all across the triangle right now is we are listening and engaging with the word of God. It's more than an audience and a speaker. It's us diving into the word of God and seeing what He is going to speak in and through us.

It's why Pastor JD tells us all the time that we believe that if you are sleeping during a sermon, it's a sign of demon possession. And if you're doing that or you see someone next to you just elbow them right there, you can get away with that because we want you actively participating in the word of God. It's why we have the Bible reading plan that we as a church all across the summit, we are reading the Bible every day together.

You can download that on the app. It's why we tell you get in a small group. We want you devoted to the apostles' teaching just like the early church because, let me just tell you this, we are not united on what Pastor JD says. We're united on what God declares.

And we didn't come here this weekend to hear some eloquent speaker. We gathered to hear the Bible proclaimed and preached exegetically. That means what did God say then is what He meant and what He means today. People are always asking me, they're like, you like to play the game, you know, stump the pastor game. It's like, I really think you guys just come up like, what's the most outlandish theological question and I'm going to get him this weekend. Some people walk up to me and somebody's planning on doing it after this service and they'll say, so Pastor Todd, what do you think about? Well, I got a good line for all of it now. I just say, you know what, it really doesn't matter what I think, what does God say.

Because the last thing this world needs is some other guy giving his opinion on something. What we need is a declaration and a revelation from the word of God. And that's what the early church did was they were devoted to the apostles' teaching. Number two, they were devoted to fellowship and breaking of bread. This refers to communion, sharing of meals, doing life together we call it today, living life. The Bible calls it fellowship.

They were intentional about meeting together with other people. You know what God's saying here? It's my favorite commandment, eat.

I think it's about the only commandment that I've never broken. I eat at least 21 meals a week. We're all going to eat, why don't we be strategic and eat with someone? For my family, we just look at the calendar and we're like, okay, there are certain nights of the week. We're going to designate certain nights of the week. We eat with our neighbors certain nights of the week. We say, you know what, we're going to eat with the body, with you guys. Because we need that fellowship, we need that communion, we need to be reminded of the gospel because I don't know about you, but I can get off on my own.

When I get off on my own, I think I know it all. I listen to the world and that doesn't leave me anywhere. I need you, we need each other and that's what they were devoted to. Look at the last thing, prayer. No wonder the early church moved and turned the world upside down because they were devoted to prayer.

I don't remember a whole lot in my two theology degrees, but I know this. Every single revival that ever started was started and sustained by prayer. Summit, do you know that right now in the sound of our voice all across the triangle, we have people who are meeting to pray and you know what they're praying for? They're praying for you and they're praying for me right now that God would speak to our hearts.

You can volunteer next weekend to be a part of the Boiler Room and do that. Be on our prayer team up front. Get together with people in your small group and pray throughout the week. They devoted themselves to prayer. Verse 43, All came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common. Admittedly, I don't know what all these wonders and signs were done.

I'm not really sure, but I do know this. People took notice. People noticed the early church and they were a church that was united around something.

And that was unusual. I mean, I'll have to tell you, we live in a divided world today. I mean, it's divided. White, black, young, old, rich, poor, Republican, Democrat, Tar Heels, Blue Devils, Wolfpack, Eagles, East Coast, West Coast, North, South. It's a divided place.

Now sometimes, honestly, having lots of divisions is fantastic. What do I mean by that? Because here at the Summit, we believe the Bible teaches in the Imago Dei. That means that we are created in the image of God. And so any time you have a diverse group of people, we are all reflecting the glory of God.

His image is the collective group of what is made up of together. For my family, we wanted to move into a neighborhood where not everybody looked and dressed and came from the same place that we came from. And so we have such great joy. I mean, literally just a couple days ago, we look outside. We counted 22 kids in our backyard. Our house is kind of turned into the place where all the neighborhood kids come, which is both awesome and terrifying at the same time. And we kind of look out, and I was like, wow, Ashley, look at that. There are more kids of color than kids that look like our kids in our backyard.

God answered that prayer we had three years ago. Because my kids are going to grow up differently than I grew up. I got a little picture we just took of the slide. By the way, that wasn't a staged photo. I don't know what their goal was, was to get how many people they could get kind of stacking up on that slide. But when I think about those kids, you know, they're united. They don't really care what the color of their skin is or what their moms and dads do for a living or who's getting voted on in the election.

You know what they care about is one three-letter word, and it's called fun. And this early church united around a five-letter word, and his name was Jesus, and he is the name above all names, and he is the one that brought them together. And people in Revelation 5 and the future, it's a picture of the people from every tribe and tongue and nation around the throne saying, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and honor and riches and might forever and ever, amen. It was just a foretaste of what we all have for the future.

It's not that our ethnicities go away, it's just we have a new identity. And that's what was going on here, we see here with this group. Let me ask you this, there's math professors. Math professors, people are good at math. What's the inverse of multiplication? By the way, inverse for the rest of us, that means opposite. What's the inverse of multiplication? Division, right? Unity always leads to multiplication, division always leads to death. We want to be a church that multiplies the gospel deep in us and the gospel wide with us.

We've got to be a unified body. Verse 45, they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any who had need. They were strategic with their gifts, weren't they?

They were using them as with needs, it wasn't just some random thing. There's also people all the time will say, well, you know, Todd, it looks like the Bible's teaching about communism and socialism. That's good, with all due respect, that is not what the Bible's teaching.

How do I know that? Because communism and socialism say what's yours is mine. But the church says what's mine is yours. They sold their possessions and their belongings and yet they met in homes.

Notice that? It wasn't like there's one side that says this is the poverty gospel, that I'm going to sell everything and I'm going to sell everything for the gospel. Maybe God is calling some of you to do that, but that's probably not what most of you wrestle with. The other side was this, was that people who would say, you know what, I'm going to be strategic, but I'm only going to be strategic with my leftovers. The only church said is, you know what, what's mine is yours.

What's mine is yours. And maybe for whatever God's calling you to in this season called Multiply, I don't know what it is, but could you imagine if all the people at the Summit Church, that's how we entered this season, and we said, God, what's mine is yours, because when we get right down to it, He gave it all anyway. Look at the next verse, 46, by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. By the way, can we just be generous and glad and happy people? Christians, do you know what a testimony that would be if we just smiled when we left here? 47, praising God and having favor with all people, that means they at least had a good reputation, and the Lord added to their number day by day, literally every day, those who were being saved. Oh, but Pastor Todd, that was Bible times.

That's not realistic today. I know some of you are thinking that. That's shame on us, because God, through His Holy Spirit, what He did was He, when God rose from the day of that same power and He ascended in heaven and He sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, back to us, God wants to do in and through us what we could never think we could do on our own. And so if we're going to be truly a multiplying church, we've got to see three factors of that. Three factors is what I wrote down of a multiplying church. Number one, we have got to have a new agenda. The early church had a new agenda, a new mission, and we have got to be about a new agenda that the early church was about. See, there's a lot of good things that we can be a part of, but they're not the one thing that God's given us.

I think about it like this. I used to be a sports reporter. I covered college football for a living.

I did it for about five years. And there was something that I started picking up after a few years was that every winter when these guys would get up at 4.30 in the morning to go work out, and then throughout the spring and then when it was 100 degrees, they volunteered to go outside and practice every day. And then in August when it's 120 degrees, they put on the full pads twice a day, and they'd go out and then they'd practice every day during the week, and they'd play the games, and you know what they're doing on Sunday? They're watching the games over again that they just played. And all of that devotion, and you know why they're doing all of that? For one reason, to win football games.

That's it. So any time you hear your favorite alma mater's president or athletic director say, oh, this is all about the scholar athlete. They're lying. Oh, this is for the institution, for the people. That's not true.

And can I let you in on a little secret, fans? It's not even for us. Those guys come together and they've got one purpose in mind, and that's to win. That's why sometimes you'll hear, oh, there's trouble in the locker room. This team's not getting along.

I can guarantee you they're not winning because I never met a team that was winning that had problems in the locker room. They've got one purpose, and maybe that's the same thing with us as a church, that if we're focused on one agenda and one agenda alone, we don't have time to be divided on anything else. That's making disciples.

Maybe what we should talk about, study for, pray for, hope for, prepare for, go for, all of it. It is only God that breaks and softens the heart of people that need to be drawn to Him. God is the one that does the work.

I get that. But Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, 6, I plant the seeds, Apollo is watered, God gives the growth. Pastor JD doesn't grow this church.

I certainly don't. It is God who grows the church. That's because there is no such thing as a doctor of resurrection. God is the one that brings people from death to life, and we have the mission for our Jerusalem and our Judea and our Samarian, our ends of the earth, because if a church is not on mission, it has no reason for existing.

None. Now, if you're sitting there and you're kind of like, man, I'm starting to feel a little bit bad, Pastor Todd, you kind of make me feel a little bit guilty, let me just ease up a little bit. The apostles, they didn't get it right right away either.

They were tempted to always go back to things that, it's not that they were bad, but they weren't of first importance. I mean, look at this. Look at Acts 1, 6. Jesus rises from the dead. He's resurrected, and He comes back, and the political question that they ask Him, Lord, at this time, are you going to restore the nation of Israel? In our terms, that would be like, are you going to make Israel great again, Lord?

Who are you voting for, Trump or Clinton? And He says, I gave you an agenda. I gave you a job to do. Make disciples of all nations, and then I'll come again.

What is our agenda? The resurrection gives us a new one. But it not only gives us a new agenda, a new mission, it gives us a new body. God has chosen us, the body of Christ, to be the Jesus on the earth now. Now listen, God can do anything He wants.

I get that. I mean, this is the God that created the world. This is the God that spoke the stars into being, and He named all of them. He's the God that parted the Red Sea. He's the God that calmed the storms, that raised the dead, that made the lame walk, the blind to see. He knit us together in our mommy's wombs. But this is also the God that most often uses His church to accomplish His mission. What, Pastor Todd? You don't believe in miracles?

Yeah, I believe in miracles, but that's why they're called a miracle, because they don't happen that often. God most often uses you and me for His mission, so that's why I call it, and I say, hey, you know what? Our faithfulness to the mission produces God's effectiveness in the mission. God's going to accomplish His grand plan, and He's going to use the church for it.

That's why Paul woke up thinking, who can be added to the kingdom today? What are we thinking about? What is our primary mission and our primary agenda?

As we multiply, we are a new body that says, you know what? Whatever I do, whether I'm a schoolteacher, or I'm in advertising, or I'm in finance, or I'm an investment, I stay at home with my kids, whatever I do, I'm going to do it for the glory of God, and I'm going to do it for the mission of God. You know, we had 130 people the other night. 130 people, they were schoolteachers, and they were people in the medical community. They came and they met with some agencies that we brought in for the sole purpose where they can get jobs either overseas in other cities or in this city where they can strategically share the gospel of Jesus Christ. 93 of the 130 signed up that night. They don't have to leave their jobs to be a missionary.

They just leverage their job for the mission of God. I know that there are some of you right now at all of our campuses, some of you right now, you need to be at this next church plan or meeting. And maybe you've never even thought of leaving Riley Durham. You're one of those like, nope, this is where we are, we're never leaving. Well, maybe you're the exact kind of person that God is talking to right now and says you need to go to the interest meeting on November 7th and you need to join Pastor Cam down in West Orlando as they plant a multi-ethnic church. Or maybe you need to be with Pastor Mike as he goes to North Atlanta and they plant a multi-ethnic gospel-centered church there.

Maybe some of you are like my friend George. I love this email I got from George. About a month or so ago, he says, Pastor Todd, here's what I'm going to do. I want to tell you what I've been working on for a year.

By the way, you want to make your pastor happy, just tell him that. He says for the last year I've made a business plan. I'm going to expand my business into a major city in South Asia. And I'm going to do that because one, it's going to be profitable for my company. Two, we're going to be able to create jobs in that city.

It'll be good for that city. And three, I'd like to send people from the summit where they can go live out the gospel as part of this business. And there are people that I'm talking to right now that are listening to us online or at campuses, and you can do the exact same thing. How about stay-at-home moms? You know there's a group in our church of stay-at-home moms that, you know, they're like a lot of stay-at-home moms. They live for the play date. Some of you moms are like, yeah, I get that. You know what they're doing? One night they said, husbands, you guys watch our kids. We're going down to World Relief, and we're going to get trained on refugee resettlement. And now when we have our play dates, we're going to do our play dates just like we always did, except this time we're going to invite Afghan and Syrian refugee women and their kids, and we're going to share the love of Christ with them.

Just doing what they do for the glory of God and doing it strategic for the mission of God. How about college students? Maybe study abroad. Retirees. Forbes Magazine says you're going to be retired for 20 years, and it dawned on me. Why don't you guys tie that retirement and say, you know what? I'm going to take the first two years of my retirement, and I'm going to say, Pastor Todd, which church plant should I be a part of?

It's a really easy answer, any of them. Every church retirees, every church plant wants you at their plant. You have the education, the resources, and the time to be a part of something that a bunch of guys in their late 20s and early 30s desperately need. There will be plenty of time for the rocking chair and grandkids, and can I tell you, as my in-laws are just finishing up two years of doing that, do you know what a joy it is? Because they miss their grandkids.

But do you know what a joy it is for me to tell my children, Mamie and Papa, they'll be home in a few months. They're telling people about Jesus. Join your homeowner's association. Work with the homeless. Be a part of our prison ministry. Whatever it is, get involved in the mission of God. Help with unwed moms. Really be pro-life, and don't just flip a switch in the election booth, but get involved in our pregnancy centers.

Get involved in fosterings, because you plant, and you plow, and you water, but God is the one that gives the increase. It's not just what the body does, it's what the new body is. And I told you before, it's a diverse body.

It's made up of different people, and you know what that does? It not only shows the Imago Dei, but it's a testimony that there's something greater than where we came from. I am so thankful for our church in so many ways. One of the things I'm thankful for is God has allowed me to partner in the Great Commission with people who don't look like me.

They don't come from where I came from. One of those guys is Pastor Chuck. And if you don't know Pastor Chuck, I've got a picture of he and I together. This may come as a shock to you, but we're pretty different.

We're different in a lot of ways. You are not going to catch Pastor Chuck with me at a Midnight Madness sale at Bass Pro Shops. Just not going to happen.

I am probably not going to yell glory in the next three minutes either from this stage. But I can tell you this. When I look at Chuck and I look at myself, two different ethnicities, two different cultures, but as we've grown together in not only our friendship, what we've discovered is that, you know what?

We have one problem. That's sin. We have one Savior, Jesus, and His blood covered us and washed our sins white as snow. And the same Holy Spirit infused His life, infused mine forever. And now what we've discovered, what Chuck and I, is that we actually now have more in common than what our family and friends who we spent our entire lives with.

Why? It's not because that identity is gone, but we have a new identity that's in Christ. And guess what? This new culture identity is going to last forever. This is what God wants to do with this new body and with our church is to be a display of the resurrection and the coming Holy Spirit to a world that desperately and it knows nothing about that because we don't sit around here to celebrate diversity. We celebrate the one who brought the diversity together. Last thing. Not only a new agenda and a new body, but God, the resurrection and the Holy Spirit, God gives us a new power.

He gives us a new power. No one can deny that something dramatically changed from the gospels to the book of Acts. In fact, a lot of people use it as proof that the resurrection happened because when the resurrection came and the Holy Spirit came, this same group of people, they left everything to tell everyone about it. And not one of them gained really anything. Nobody got elected to office.

Nobody got rich off of it. In fact, most of them, all of those early followers, suffered greatly even to the point of death. Let me tell you something. That's not how you start a cult. They had something that they truly, truly believed in because God had infused, the Holy Spirit had given them a new power. Scripture says it's actually the same power that raised Jesus from the grave and we have access to it.

It's why Pastor JD wrote a book saying, hey, you know what? The Jesus inside of you is better than the one you could have beside you. What did this new power give us?

It gave us a living hope. The resurrection, when Jesus rose from the grave, he did what? He ascended to the Father and he now sits as our judge, our advocate next to the God of the universe. So the God of the universe, when he looks at Todd, he doesn't see all the filthy and ugliness of my sin. When he looks at me and he knows of all those thoughts that if any one of you knew I had in my head, you would never want to hang out with me again, he knows those thoughts but he doesn't count them against me. All the things that I will do, you know what he does?

He looks at me and he looks at me as his own son because he sees Jesus because I'm clothed with the Holy Spirit. Summit, if you were here this weekend and you walked in here, I'm telling to tell you this, do you know that you have access to unconditional love? You have access to unconditional love and total acceptance by the only pair of eyes that really even matter.

It's the God of the universe. That is a living hope. That's something that we can stake on and it is forever.

He is preparing a home for us. It's an eternal home, one without sin, without pain, without injustice, one with approval, with unconditional love forever. Lastly, you know what this new power does? It gives new life. This new power gives new life. It makes you born again. That's why it gave Peter a brand new life. Peter was the apostle with a foot-shaped mouth because he was always getting in trouble. And what did God do? God turned him around and made him the rock of the early church. So if you're a guest, one of our guests here this weekend, I'm going to just go ahead and tell you something.

I think everybody at all our campuses will be like, this is something I think everybody at all our campuses will say amen to. We are a church full of people who've just blown it. There are no perfect people in this church.

We just worship the one who is perfect. This church is full of drug addicts who have found new freedom in Christ. This church is full of husbands who are unfaithful to their spouse or kids that dropped out of high school or top executives that cheated on their taxes. This church is full of ex-convicts. It's full of prideful and arrogant rule followers.

And some at church, I just tell you that as the Bible says, I too personally. I was born a liar, a thief, a cheat, a drunk, a drug addict. There is no good that is in me. My heart is wickedly deceitful.

I can't even trust it myself. But God in His great love came down and He gave me a new life, a new heart, not because I deserved it because what Jesus did on the cross and whosoever will follow Him will have eternal life forever. This same power, it doesn't just turn over a new leaf in good people or give good people a second chance. This brings dead people and makes them alive.

This same power of God, this new power that we have access to, the great thing is it's being offered to us today. I don't know what you walked in here this weekend with. What kind of past failure you're dragging around. Maybe something you didn't do but just some injustice that you're carrying in here.

Or maybe the worry of an uncertain future. But something I'm here to tell you this weekend because of the risen Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit that your past failures and your worry about your future is no match for the power of God. And the early church, the resurrection of the Holy Spirit multiplied the early church with a new mission, a new agenda. God gave them a new body, a body made up that would reflect the imago day of Him. And He also didn't leave them alone.

He said, Lo, I'll be with you always, even to the end of the age. You have access to my power. And some at church, we have that today. At all our campuses, would you bow your head and close your eyes?

To my friends who, my new friends who are just coming to visit with us for the first time. I'm going to just raise more questions than you have answers right now. But I know deep down, you're sitting here and you're saying, you know what, this is not the way life was supposed to be.

And I'm going to tell you, here's the freedom. You do not have to trust in what you've done or what you will do, but just trust in what Jesus has done. And that if you would pray right now, you would say something to the effect, in your own words, but you would say, Jesus, I know that I have fallen short, not only of your standard, but even my own. Please forgive me and even though it scares me to death, I will trust in you and I'll go anywhere you send me and I'll do anything you ask me to do. I pray you would pray that prayer and I pray you'd come talk to me or one of our pastors at one of our campuses. And Summit Church, as we enter this time to multiply, I've been finding myself asking the question, why not RDU?

Why can't we not be a place where every homeless finds a home and every orphan finds a home and prisoners are set free and unwed moms have hope and at-risk teens have a place to go and the gospel spreads from here to the ends of the earth and people would say the gospel turned that place upside down. Let's that be our prayer today. Maybe it just starts with saying, God, what's mine is really yours. Take it. God, take my life. Use it for the name and fame of my Savior Jesus Christ. We pray this name.