Welcome to those of you in the room.
If you are here and you're new to this space,
meaning you're new to the church or you're new to faith,
I just want to say an extra special welcome to you.
You came at a great time.
We're walking through something called the critical journey.
And over the next weeks,
you're going to see where it's all going to,
like the intention of what this whole journey of faith is about,
the intention of how God made you to mature spiritually
and what you're maturing into.
Like in weeks to come, you kind of see the end goal.
So if you're here and you're going,
I don't really understand,
or you're sitting across the screen,
you're going, I don't get Christianity,
then hopefully what happens is over the next weeks,
you get to kind of just go,
oh, that's what this is all about and where it's heading.
And so you have a clear picture ahead of you.
And so hopefully that's you.
You'll be happy to know,
I don't have any football to talk about today.
Yeah, the season is over.
Somebody just went, praise the Lord.
The season is over, we are done.
But what we do have to talk about is this,
winter camp, middle school winter camp is happening right now.
Yeah.
You guys are excited
because the middle school is on here.
It's great, right?
But middle school winter camp,
so here's what I want to celebrate with that.
We put on a camp every year.
And by put on a camp, I mean, we connect,
we collaborate with churches from Phoenix
and kind of different churches carry different things.
And for middle school this year, our youth band,
our youth worship team,
and people from the church are leading worship for the camp,
which is phenomenal.
And then we also have our youth team,
meaning different ones that are a part of the youth team
in leadership positions.
They are putting on all of the rec for the camp.
And so it's like 500 students, something like that.
And I got a video of Pastor Todd yesterday,
running around in an eagle costume
because he is the bald eagle.
And I was like, it's fitting, it's fitting.
So just a lot of good stuff that's worth celebrating.
But if you've never been to a middle school camp,
count yourself lucky.
There are smells you will never forget, right?
And like this is as a youth pastor,
one time we were up there
and the food hadn't settled right with some of them.
And so one after another,
they just started throwing up, right?
And so now I'm up at night, like checking on kids.
And so this one kid, he'd been like, I don't feel good,
but I haven't thrown up yet.
And so I go to check on him and he's on a top bunk.
And so I have to climb the bunk.
And there's like a cabinet next to the bed.
And I put my hand on the top and I go,
oh, that doesn't belong there.
That's not where that goes.
And so yeah, middle school camp, you'll never forget it.
It's amazing.
But as you think about it, pray for our kiddos
and pray for our leaders.
And also if you've been with us,
we're on this thing called the critical journey.
I'm gonna say this every week
because I believe we give credit where credit is due,
where the critical journey is not unique to Heights Church.
Somebody wrote a book and we are taking that book.
Why?
Because it maps the spiritual journey of the human soul.
And so the idea is that as humans,
this is how we are formed.
And so what we're doing each week
is we're looking at it through a biblical lens going,
how are we formed and what does that look like
at different stages along this mapping?
And so the idea is this, that you would get your home base,
that you would know this is where I am in my growth journey.
And then you can take ownership
of your kind of home base stage where you're at.
You can go, hey, this is my next step.
This is what I need to lean into in this season.
This is what I need to lean into in this part of the journey.
And so the goal is that kind of like last week,
absolutely phenomenal.
There was like over a thousand responses to people going,
hey, I wanna step into discipleship
or I'm ready to disciple somebody.
And you're like, well, a thousand,
that doesn't surprise me
because you bullied us into doing it.
So well done, well done.
You responded, but here's what's beautiful, you guys.
Like there are hundreds of people that went,
hey, I want somebody to walk with me.
And then there's hundreds of people that went,
hey, I would love to walk somebody
and pour out what I've been given.
Can you imagine, just slow down for one second,
imagine what happens to a church family
when a whole bunch of people
step into a life of discipleship
and now they can take it and transfer it to somebody else.
That's how we change the community.
That's how we change our families.
That's how we change the church that we're inside of.
That now along the way,
there's a whole bunch of people going,
hey, I want that and I'm willing to give it away.
Now the caveat to that is a thousand people
is a lot of people.
And so if you were in different services,
I mentioned it in two of them, I think,
but we're not formally ready to help you with that yet.
That's coming, and officially,
we're looking at the fall for that.
But here's what I would encourage you in the meantime,
if you're somebody that went,
hey, I would like somebody to walk with me,
there's many other ways that you can get in relationship.
Asking somebody, I heard somebody this week go,
hey, I just asked my friend,
would you go through a study with me?
Because you're further down the road than me.
If you know somebody, you can do that.
You can hopefully get into a group of people,
like a life group,
that you just know somebody who's in one and go,
hey, can I hang out with you?
I know it's not official sign up time,
but can I just join you
because I want to be around people and I want to grow.
And so I would just encourage you,
if you're somebody that said yes,
we're not officially ready till the fall,
but you can step in today in many different ways.
So with that, we are in this thing
called the critical journey.
Why is it critical?
Because it's critical that your soul,
that your soul matures as God intended it to be.
And so we talked weeks ago that the,
kind of the first part of that was this recognition of God.
You have to have for yourself a moment when you go,
man, I see Jesus, I see who He is,
and I am going to take this one life
and put it into His hands.
I'm going to trust Him as my Savior,
and I'm going to trust Him as my Lord.
And so there's a moment when you have recognition of God,
that's at home base,
that you have recognition of God for yourself.
Now, there's no linear path to this, right?
It's not like, okay, I got recognition of God,
now I instantly jump to the next.
But we talked last week that after your recognition of God,
part of what's going to happen is you're going to go,
I want to know more, I want to learn more,
I want to belong to a community, right?
Like I was made for this.
And so within that, you advance into what they call stage two,
the life of discipleship.
Somebody walks alongside you,
like we talked about last week,
where you get to now have somebody intentionally
help you learn and grow and understand
what does it look like to follow Jesus?
What does it look like for you to actively structure
your life around the person of Jesus,
to take rhythms and spiritual disciplines and go,
I'm going to grow in these things,
I'm going to grow in my understanding of the Bible,
I'm going to grow in my prayer life, right?
And so the idea is that you're really creating
this foundation.
And as you create the foundation,
hopefully what you get from stage two,
the life of discipleship is this,
that you understand your identity,
that you know who you are,
you know how God made you.
You understand when you said yes to Jesus,
the identity that you were given in Christ,
that you have a brand new identity,
that things like you are completely loved by God,
that that's your identity, you're a son, you're a daughter.
That's identity language, right?
That you are completely forgiven.
That's identity language.
So the idea is that as you go through the life
of discipleship, you gain all of this identity.
And at the same time as you're doing that,
you're also understanding God made you unique, right?
That God packed into you gifts and talents and abilities.
And so you begin to see those in a new light now.
Before Jesus, those things were there,
and maybe you just used them as you wanted to use them.
Now you begin to understand, wait,
inside of my uniqueness, I'm also a part of a family,
and that family has a mission, and it's the kingdom of God.
And so now what happens is you start to look
at what you've been given and you start to go,
how do I use it?
How do I use it for the kingdom of God?
Which leads you to the most next natural step,
that as you discover your identity and you discover,
wait, I've got a responsibility to use what God is given
for the kingdom of God.
And that may be within the church,
that may be with outside of the church,
but what happens is you start to go,
I've got to do something, which leads you to stage three,
which is the productive life.
Maybe a different way to say that is you do work for God.
You go to work for God, you understand what you've been
given, you understand who you are, and you're like,
ah, I got to step in and give it away.
I got to step in and use it.
It reminds me, if you've ever met a guy
who really likes to eat meat, right?
Which you're like, that's probably every guy, right?
But if you are like, no, I like to eat meat,
I'm very specific about the meat.
If you've got one of those kind of guys in your life,
they learn how to grill a good steak, and what do they do?
You gotta, I grill the best steak, you gotta come have it.
And so you go over, it's all right.
And you go, we gotta go hang out with our other buddy.
And so you go hang out with your other buddy,
and guess what your other buddy has?
A smoker.
It's a true story for a lot of you.
Where you went, wait, I didn't know it could be this good.
All right, and now, now you're so convinced
that the next natural step for you is what?
To get a smoker.
That on the way home, you're telling your significant other,
hey, so what do you think if I got a smoker, right?
And before you even get home, you're on marketplace
trying to see if you can get one cheap,
so that you can convince them
that you should be able to get this, you know what I mean?
Right, but the next natural step is if you love meat,
you're gonna get a smoker.
It's kinda like when COVID hit, right?
And all of a sudden we realized how bad we were at cooking.
Right, and so then all of a sudden we start watching videos
and how other people, and we're like, we gotta try that.
Why?
Because you learned something,
and you were like, I gotta do this.
The same is true in the spiritual sense
that as you sit in the life of discipleship
and you begin to know who you are
and know the responsibility that God's got for you
in the kingdom, and you see your gifts that you go,
I have to step in and give it away.
I can't contain this all to myself.
It's the next natural step, which in Luke chapter nine,
Luke chapter nine, Jesus is with his disciples.
And in verse one it says this,
when Jesus had called the 12, so the 12 disciples together,
he gave them power, he gave them power and authority
to drive out all demons and to cure diseases.
He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.
So those that have been walking with Jesus
for a specific amount of time,
they've been living the life of discipleship
with Jesus in person.
There comes a moment where Jesus goes,
hey, the next natural step for you is what?
To go and you are now gonna be the ones
doing what I was doing.
You're now the ones that are gonna be doing,
and you're gonna be giving away what you've been given.
I'm gonna give you power to drive out demons,
to heal diseases.
I'm gonna ask you to go and proclaim the kingdom of God
everywhere you go.
The next natural step is you have learned with me,
now go do it.
Verse three, he told them, take nothing for the journey.
No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.
Can you imagine you guys roll up one day?
And we're like, okay, here's what we're gonna do today.
You're gonna go to Yuma, don't take anything,
just what you got.
Nope, don't even take a staff, don't take your car,
you're gonna walk there.
Like this delivery, what he's doing,
he's like, you're gonna go,
and here's what you're gonna do,
don't take nothing with you.
That's terrifying.
Can we just all agree that's,
thankfully we're not doing that today.
Verse four, whatever house you enter,
stay there until you leave town.
Okay, you're gonna go to Yuma,
you don't know where you're gonna stay.
Don't make plans ahead of time.
When you get there, the Holy Spirit's gonna show you
which house, we're like, uh-huh, sure.
Verse five, if people do not welcome you,
leave their town and shake the dust off your feet
as a testimony against them.
So they set out and went from village to village
proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.
Verse 10, when the apostles returned,
they reported to Jesus what had been done,
and then he took them with him,
and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida.
Okay, so Jesus has this like,
hey you guys, you have been in the life of discipleship,
and now, and now I need you to begin to step
into the productive life.
I need you to begin doing work for God.
Right, essentially what he's doing with them
is he's giving them like a moment
to put their foot in the water.
You know what I mean?
Like put your foot into the productive life,
but here's the thing, come back to,
which is a great picture of how this whole journey works.
Their home base is still the life of discipleship,
but they are stepping into, hey, I'm gonna be productive,
I'm gonna step in and do some work for God,
but really my home base is here,
so here's where I'm landing.
They come back to Jesus, and when they get to Jesus,
what do they do?
They start to tell him all the things they got to do.
What do you think Jesus did in that moment?
Like he continued to teach them,
they continued to learn, right?
They weren't ready to fly yet.
So here's what happens then, as the story continues,
if you were here last week, you get to Matthew 28,
and in Matthew 28, he tells them, right?
He's gonna ascend, go to heaven,
and he looks at his disciples and he goes,
hey, you got work to do.
Here's the work that you're gonna do.
Go tell everybody about the kingdom of God.
Go tell everybody, go proclaim it everywhere you go,
all the way to the ends of the earth, right?
So he sends them out.
What is he doing in that moment?
He's taking them from what was the home base
of the life of discipleship, and he's going,
you're ready for what?
To step into doing work for God.
You're ready for the productive life.
There's this natural transition that is happening,
this natural progression that is happening
within their world, which then they go on,
and the early church is established, right?
And it says that people were coming.
We talked about this last week, that they come
and they would devote themselves to the apostles
teaching, they're learning from the apostles.
The apostles are doing what?
They're taking this life of discipleship,
and what their work for God is is a responsibility
for the kingdom of God to give it away.
You realize that everything you've been given
was meant to be given away.
That everything you have ever learned about Jesus,
everything you have ever held true, every ounce,
every story, every moment that you have had this been growth,
it's designed for what? That you would take it
and you would build into the kingdom of God, right?
There's this imagery, whether you like this or not,
I don't know, I don't know if it's good or not, we'll see,
right, but you ever noticed that in the Bible,
sheep come up an awful lot, right?
Like Jesus refers to himself as a shepherd,
he actually calls us like under shepherds at one point,
but sheep are a part of the story.
You know what's interesting with sheep?
They really aren't that smart, right?
Like they're very, very social.
They move together, do things together,
if one figures out how to get out of the fence,
they all get out of the fence, you know what I mean?
I can say they're not very smart.
I grew up in England where there's more sheep than people.
Like this is just reality, we're on an island
with a bunch of sheep.
But here's the thing that's interesting about sheep,
that they need a shepherd to guide them.
They need a shepherd to help them know
what to do where they are.
The life of discipleship is somebody walking alongside you.
Here's one of the problems that I think exists
inside of the church.
It's some people never want to leave the life of discipleship
for the productive life.
And in essence, what you are is you're a sheep
that just continues to eat and eat and eat and eat and eat.
And what happens to a sheep that eats and eats
and eats and eats and eats, it becomes a fat sheep.
Right, it doesn't move.
And so we've got a whole bunch,
and I'm not just talking about heights,
I'm talking about the church in general.
We got a whole bunch of people that wanna just continue
to learn and learn and learn and learn and learn
and consume and consume and consume,
and they're not giving it away.
It was never designed to be that way.
You were designed to take what you're given
and pour it out into the kingdom.
And what happens is, is the sheep gets so fat on this side
that they don't wanna move.
They don't wanna go anywhere.
They don't wanna do anything.
They just want to eat.
Now, there's a whole nother group of people.
You had a recognition of God,
and out of the recognition of God,
you're like, man, Jesus is amazing.
I cannot believe I get to, and what happens?
Somebody comes alongside you and goes, you know what?
You should join a serve team.
And what happens is you jump straight from recognition of God
all the way into the productive life.
You start doing work for God, right?
And so now you don't have any foundation on how to do it.
You don't have any foundation under you.
You're over here, and I believe this is where burnout
comes from, within the church.
I believe this is when people walk away from their faith,
and we'll talk about this more in the weeks to come.
It's because what happened is I met Jesus,
and now I'm doing work for Jesus, and I burn out
because I don't have the foundation and understanding
of who I am, how God has made me, how He's gifted me,
and the responsibility to the kingdom.
I just feel a responsibility to the church,
and that cannot sustain you.
On this side, right, if we're not careful
and you skip the middle, you get skinny sheep,
and they're so weak that they can't even stand up.
And so on the one side, we've got you're so consuming
that you can't move, and on the other side,
it's like, I'm so weak, I can't bear the weight
of doing the work for God.
And within this, there's a lesson to learn inside
of what happens within Acts chapter six,
within the early church.
In those days, when the number of disciples were increasing,
the Hellenistic Jews among them complained
against the Hebraic Jews because their widows
were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
Okay, so lots in there.
The Hellenistic Jews were ones that had Greek language,
Greek culture, right?
So they are different than the Hebraic Jews
who had different language, different culture.
So inside of this early church,
you have two very different groups,
both with the same problem.
You have widows who need to be taken care of.
And one group's going, hey, you're favoring their widows
over our widows.
Like ours are being neglected.
So I don't know how this makes you feel.
It encourages me that even in the early church
that sometimes we go, oh, it was so good.
I wish I was there.
They still have problems, right?
There's still stuff there.
So the 12 gathered around, verse two.
So the 12 gathered around, gathered all the disciples
together and said, it would not be right for us
to neglect the ministry of the word of God
in order to wait on tables.
Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you
who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.
So there's specific things they're looking for.
They're not looking for somebody who is brand new,
just had a recognition of God.
They're looking for people who have displayed.
How do you know they've displayed?
We've been walking in relationship.
We've been doing life together.
We're in this life of discipleship.
And out of that, they're going, hey,
is there people that you recognize
who are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom?
Verse three, sorry, verse four.
Actually, let's read three again.
Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you
who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.
And we will turn this, what's that next word?
Responsibility.
We will turn this responsibility over to them
and we'll give our attention to prayer
and the ministry of the Word.
We will give this responsibility to this group of people.
Right, so now they're dividing out.
They're going, hey, this is great that the church has grown,
but the complexity of what the needs are
are too great for this group of people to meet them.
So what happens is they go, hey, look for these people
with these specific things that you've seen in their life.
And now we're gonna hand over ministry to them
while we focus on this part of the ministry.
Verse five, this proposal pleased the whole group.
They chose Stephen, a man full of faith
and of the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus,
Nicanor, Timon, Parmenus, and Nicholas from Antioch,
a convert to Judaism.
They presented these men to the apostles
who prayed and laid their hands on them.
So the Word of God spread,
the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly,
and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
So they look around and they go, wait,
you've got that gifting.
So don't miss it.
It's so important, you guys,
that when you're in a life of discipleship
and somebody comes to you and they go,
hey, I see this in you.
Don't underestimate that.
When they look at you and they go, you know what?
You could do this.
I've seen this in you and this in you.
You should step in and be a middle school life group leader.
And what happens almost every time,
oh, I could never do that.
Right, you ever had that moment for yourself
where somebody looks at you and they go, you got this.
I see it in you.
You're like, oh, I don't see that in myself.
What they're telling you is within your life
of discipleship, as they walked alongside you,
they see that God has gifted you, that He's equipped you,
that you've matured to a point where maybe
the next step for you is that you now have to
put your foot in the water.
Why?
Because we don't wanna stay and just consume,
but we wanna move when we're ready.
And what you see in this moment is there's very real problems.
This food distribution, they believe that
it was their religion's job to take care of their widows.
It's all the way through scripture.
And so the way it would work is they had two distributions.
One was, in the Jewish religion,
they had two distributions.
One was that every single week,
if you were a widow to that area,
you could come and receive enough money
for 14 meals for that week.
So your meals were covered by
whatever the religious group was.
There was also another one that was a daily food offering.
And what the daily food giving was
is that if you were passing through,
but you were a Christian, you could stop by
and you would get food for that day.
You would more than likely get somewhere to stay for that day.
They just looked after one another over and over.
It says in here that there was no needy people among them.
Right, so it's a really important part
of what they were doing as a church.
They were taking care of those
that God had told them to take care of.
And in the midst of that, they go,
our needs have grown to the point where we need help.
And so there's this moment where they begin
to point people out and go, they could do it.
They could do it, they could do it.
I wonder how many of you have been approached by somebody
and they go, you could be a life group leader.
And you're like, I don't think so.
How many of you have been approached by somebody?
Maybe Kathy was up here earlier, right?
And she goes, you could be a table leader.
And you're like, I don't think I can do it.
But there's a moment, there's a moment, a catalyst
that moves you from the life of discipleship
into doing work for God when somebody looks at you
and goes, you can do this.
It happened in probably one of the most famous
early believers, right?
The apostle Paul, it happens in his life.
So if you were here a couple of weeks ago,
we talked specifically about Paul
and we talked about how the apostle Paul,
who was known as Saul then, is on the road to Damascus.
He sees Jesus in a miraculous way, his life has changed.
This is a little later in that story.
In chapter nine, verse 28, it says this.
So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely
in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews,
but they tried to kill him.
When the believers learned of this,
so when the church learned of this,
they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
Okay, so this is Paul, remember,
who wrote most of the New Testament,
a lot of the letters of the New Testament.
Okay, so that's chapter nine.
Chapter 11, we meet another character named Barnabas.
1122, news of this reached the church in Jerusalem
and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done,
he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true
to the Lord with all their hearts.
He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith,
and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.
Verse 25, then Barnabas, then Barnabas, he goes where?
He went to Tarsus to look for Saul.
You know how many years between what we just read,
where the believers put Saul out,
like they send him off to Tarsus.
And when Barnabas goes to find him,
it's roughly eight to 10 years.
We have very, very, very little information
about what happened to Saul while he was in Tarsus.
Some of the stuff that we can find
is that he was learning how to live the life of discipleship.
He was learning about his unique calling.
He was learning about his identity, right?
So that's happening in Tarsus.
And now Barnabas goes and he goes,
Saul, it's time.
God sent me, it's time.
And so what happens then is, verse 26,
he found and brought him back to Antioch.
For a whole year, Barnabas and Saul met with the church
and taught great numbers of people.
The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
Chapter 13, verse two says this,
while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting,
the Holy Spirit said, right?
So they've come back from that journey.
It's after the year.
And so, they said,
the Holy Spirit has set apart for me,
Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them.
So after they fasted and prayed,
they placed hands on them and sent them off.
You realize that language there?
The work that I have called them.
You realize that today, God has a work for you.
God has something unique to you.
How do I know that He made you that way?
He's given you a unique background
into coming into relationship.
He's given you an identity.
The parts of that identity you will latch onto and go,
this is life-changing to know this.
And you'll go, I gotta tell that to others.
He's given you unique giftings.
And the same as Saul, there is a call on you
to take that and put it into the kingdom of God.
And as you are at this stage and as you are at this step
and as you are within the home base
of the life of discipleship, for some of you,
for some of you, God is calling you forward
into doing work for Him.
For some of you, you're already in the stage
of doing work for God.
You could stand up here and tell us your journey,
but here's the danger.
Here's the danger.
Paul took eight to 10 years to know what Christ had done,
to learn His identity, to gain, understand His responsibility,
to step into His calling.
I got some language last night.
Those of you who know Austin, who's part of our worship team,
he plays drums a lot, he's music directs for us.
He's over at Park Collective today.
And Austin, we were chatting after
and he gave some language to this.
He goes, you know, so often we get busy doing for God, right?
We step in and we're just doing work for God,
but we haven't taken time to receive from God.
He goes, we have to receive from God
to be able to do for God.
And I just wonder, I wonder how many of you,
how many of you are busy for God
and you've completely skipped the step
of going, I need to understand who I am
and you need to sure up the foundation.
Doesn't mean you stop, but it means you recognize,
hey, I don't think I ever shored up this home base.
There's others of you that today, today you are here
and you're like, John, I have stepped in.
I am a leader in this ministry.
I feel responsibility for this, right?
So this idea of you may not be leading,
but you feel the weight of what God has put in your hands
and so you show up out of responsibility to the kingdom.
We talk about a lady and here somewhat often, Miss Beth.
Miss Beth's amazing.
She was here in the last service.
Some of your kiddos right now are being loved by Miss Beth.
Miss Beth has loved kiddos for as long
as I can remember at the church.
And she just shows up faithfully over and over and over.
She shows up and feels the responsibility
to love those kiddos like Jesus would.
But that's the unique calling that Miss Beth has
and she is doing work for Jesus.
And in the process, your kiddos get loved.
Here's the truth, right?
That is you are here and you are doing work for God.
If you are doing work for God, I wonder if what Paul wrote
in Galatians 6 resonates.
Galatians 6, 9, he's encouraging the church,
let us not become weary in doing good.
If you're doing work for God,
there's a good chance you're tired.
If you're carrying somebody else's burdens,
there's a good chance it weighs heavy.
Let us not become weary.
Let us not become weary in doing good.
You know what he's saying?
Don't quit.
Don't give up.
The calling is worth it.
The responsibility and weight of what he's put on you,
he knows you can walk with him in it.
But don't get weary of doing good.
Keep showing up when you don't want to.
Keep stepping in when you prefer to stay home.
Life group leaders, I know how it feels when you're like,
I don't wanna open my home today
and yet you still open your home.
Keep showing up, keep doing why.
I'm not the smartest guy in the room.
I'm an unintelligent sheep, right?
But I'm pretty sure this is a promise.
Don't get weary of doing good.
Let us not get weary of doing good, why?
Because you will reap a harvest at the proper time.
So keep showing up, why?
Because there's a harvest coming.
You might not be able to see it today
and you show up as a leader and you're like, I'm tired.
Don't get weary, keep showing up.
Don't give up.
Why?
Because there's a harvest coming.
And if you find yourself within the productive life
and you're doing for God, keep doing.
Doing work for the kingdom of God,
because it's worth it.
Don't slow down.
You will reap a harvest.
Whatever that work for God looks like,
maybe it's in the church, maybe it's outside of the church,
maybe it's in your family, I don't know.
Don't give up.
Don't slow down.
Here's what I'd love to do.
There's a group of people in the room that you're like,
ah, I got the life of discipleship.
I think I'm ready.
Then here's what I would encourage you to do.
In April, there's Growth Track.
Sign up for Growth Track.
It'll help you understand your identity,
it'll help you understand your gifting,
it'll help you understand ways
that you can step into the productive life
and for people to look at you and go,
you should step there, right?
So Growth Track's coming, you sign up for Growth Track.
Come and you sign up for that on the app, on the website.
You can even go out these doors and do that.
But I'd like to do this in this space
and across screens today.
I'd like to pray for you.
I'd like to pray over you.
I'd like you to leave encouraged.
And so if you're in the room and you carry a leader role,
and by leader role, I mean you show up
and you are leading that space.
So that could be around the table
that you lead around the table.
That could be that you lead an entire ministry.
That could be that you sit on a team
that is a leadership team.
And so if you're in the room and that's you,
you are a leader, would you stand up, please?
Thank you.
Can we tell them thank you?
Church.
Okay, don't sit down.
Stay where you are.
Don't sit down.
I know you hate this, but don't sit down.
If you're here and you feel responsibility,
meaning you feel responsibility for something
that God has put in your hands, a ministry,
you feel responsibility for people.
If you're here and you go, I have a responsibility,
meaning you're carrying, you're not the leader,
but you're carrying a weight for that ministry
or for that space or for those people, would you stand up?
Yeah.
Thank you.
And then one last group.
If you are here and you show up and you are consistent,
like this is where I serve,
this is where I do my work for God,
and you don't carry responsibility or leadership,
but you show up and you serve, would you stand up?
Thank you.
Thank you for what you carry and what you do.
Before you sit down, would everybody stand up?
I'm just gonna pray over us as a church.
And so God, we come before you today, our creator,
our sustainer, the God who promises
that we will reap a harvest for the kingdom of God.
God, I pray over those in this room
that carry the weight of leadership.
I pray over them that as they make this journey,
I pray over them that as they make decisions,
that you put them in seats where they have to make decisions,
that you put them in seats where they have to carry
on behalf of others.
God, that they, in that moment and in those spaces, God,
they have to have wisdom that's not from themselves.
God, I pray over them right now that through the Holy Spirit,
you would encourage them today, that you would empower them,
that you would not allow them to grow weary today,
that through your Spirit, you would make alive again,
remind them of their identity, remind them
of their responsibility to the gospel,
remind them of their calling when they've lost it.
But God, would you encourage the leaders here today?
Would you encourage those that carry responsibility
without leadership?
God, that's a hard place to lead from.
Would you let them know that they are seen
and that what they do matters today?
Would you allow them that on the days
they don't wanna show up because they're tired
or they got many, many other things happening around them,
would you remind them and would you encourage them
that it is worth it?
God, for those who show up and they serve so faithfully,
God, would you let them know that what they do matters
in the kingdom of God?
Would you empower them to continue to step forward
into the productive life?
God, for those who are standing with us
and with them, God, would you continue to move each of us
on our journey, this critical journey of faith?
Would you show us what we need when we need it?
Would you encourage those that are in the life
of discipleship to continue to lean in and learn
and discover who you've made them to be?
Those that are on the side of the productive life,
God, would today, would you encourage them
and would you ignite them?
God, would you remind us all that everything we need
is in you?
And so God, we look to you today.
We take our voices, we take our worship,
and we declare that we are looking to you
where our help comes from.
You are our sustainer, you are our maker,
you are our God, and so God, today, we look to you.