Heart for the House: Faith, Hope, and Love in Action

well let me tell you a little bit about Journey's story as we're starting the heart for the house series and by the way before you leave today you can grab one of these bracelets that says heart for the house uh if if you're not happy with heart for the house just flip it over it says more all right so H it'll it'll show you that what we believe here we we have a holy expectation that God's always able to do more did anybody not get a bracelet did anybody not get one of these he didn't get one of these I want to make sure that you get one so before you leave grabbing the lobby if if you're uh watching online would you visit us next week in person and we'll make sure that you get one as well so 14 years ago we started Journey Church my dream was that we would start a church for people who don't like church because 14 years ago when we launched Journey Church there were already a lot of churches in B so did Bend Oregon really need another church well you know there's a lot more people not going to

church that are going to church so we started a church for people who aren't going to church that was the whole vision of Journey Church and when we launched Journey we met at Ben High School it was a 15 00 seat Auditorium you know they're tearing that sucker down it was a 1500 seat Auditorium we said every single seat is going to be filled so leading up B eyes of of Journey Church in the auditorium we said how are we going to let people know that we exist well we decided to do a billboard and on this billboard we decided to try to grab people's attention that there's a new church in town and the closest billboard to Bend High School happens to be in the parking lot of Star Strip Club all right so so we're thinking if we're going to get a billboard in Star Strip Club here was actually this is the graphic that we had for our first billboard to promote a

brand new Church Central Oregon all it said was the nick of Truth and we had our website we launched it took every penny of our budget we launched this and I tell you we were just trying to generate Inc like interest you know we were just like we were hoping that people would see something different and I would just tell people we we are stripping down religion and we're getting to the truth and you know what I learned over this region there's a principle that I learned that there are some demonic spirits over our region stopping people from being liberated the Bible says the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there's Freedom so when there's not Freedom we're missing something and you know I got some nasty emails for that billboard that just said the naked truth and do you know who the nasty emails were from religious people

I'm not even going to call them Christians they were getting hard and me said this isn't a church and how dare you do something and they were trying to mock us and bring us down from the beginning we met in that High School in fact uh Pastor Chelsea who's our our kids Pastor now I've got just a picture of her she was serving in kids even from the beginning this is Pastor Chelsea before she had kids and she's still around 14 years later you know last week we we made 400 kids packs to give away at church in the park those 400 kids packs were gone so quick we decided okay next year we're keep doubling everything uh last year we did 250 kids packed I so I'm just so blessed by by what God's done but you know we had to move out that was right during

that recession do y'all remember that recession some of y'all uh and what the government decided to do is to throw money at everything and so they were trying to stimulate the economy and so the the school got a grant to remodel that auditor so we had to move out we moved to the Regal Cinemas we decided to have church at the movies so that's what we did we had church at the movies and so we moved down to the Regal Cinemas and you know one week after church on Sunday after church we went down to the rivers because we had three or four baptisms plann three or four and at the end of these baptisms there was a just a group of 30 or 40 people on the side and people were walking by I don't know what got in me it wasn't plan I just I I shared the gospel you know Jesus loves you he died on the cross for your sins and on the third day he rose from the grave if you believe in him today uh you can get baptized just come forward if you can get baptized and I didn't expect anybody to do it but there's just something in

like mustered up I'm going to just share and I did it and someone came into the water and I and I baptized him and I followed him up to the shore and I said hey so were you at church today and he says no I'm on vacation I was just walking by and do you know from that moment forward from that moment forward we have done spontaneous baptisms every single time we've done baptisms and I'll tell you God is so faithful last week we had 162 baptisms at church in the park this year that makes for 310 baptisms this year praise be to God 310 baptisms this year last year we had just over 200 so we're just so grateful for what God's doing and he's not finished yet some of

you have already asked you know hey when can I get baptized I've believed in Jesus and I just didn't want to get in the cold River you know so I I tell you if if you haven't been baptized we'll probably do it again next month in October we'll have another baptism opportunity you see once You' believed in Jesus you've got to take that step of Faith you got to just keep taking one step of time you don't just arrive this is a journey of faith and so if you've yet to be baptized and you have believed in Jesus you just need to take that step of faith and it's absolutely worth it so that was our first spontaneous baptism well we went back to the high school and the problem is it was, 1500 seor but we launched with about 150 people and I was really good at growing a church smaller all right come on somebody I think we were just under a hundred and it was just like we were lost in that big Auditorium so we decided to find a

space that that would be more appropriate for the size of church we we are so we decided to we found this location right downtown that nobody else wanted to rent that's because it was right underneath a nightclub called Boondocks all right so we moved to downtown underneath Boondocks and let me just show you an image of the first uh sign that we had there our budget we didn't really have much so we just we had a banner made and we that right above above their Marquee and uh this is the truth they had strippers Tuesday through Thursday and men would show up expecting that to go into a strip club and walk into the church and they would look at me like kind of sted like this isn't where I was thinking I was going because the nightclub was up above but I'll tell you what that did for us as a church it set the stage that we wanted to go where Jesus would go to reach people Jesus would reach and it was really important to us that we do that

and I'll tell you we kept growing the church smaller but I'll tell you just Faithfully one by one people to get saved and they continue to get baptized some of you are right here today and we were right by the river again and we got to just continually Point people to Jesus and we got to so many Sav here's our a picture of our Auditorium down Bel uh Small Beginnings never despise Small Beginnings uh I'll tell you my wife and I along with our kids we took off theing paper of every sing one of those chairs on the ceiling you'll see a bunch of garbage bags that's because that Auditorium we could call it a sanctuary would flood every single week because of the bar I mean they would just they

would take buckets of water and throw it down to get off the alcohol and stuff and then all the water would go right into our sanctuary and at the time we didn't understand the significance of of really what leaks represent to to us it seems to be in our lives that every time there's a leak there's a breakthrough of God this is not like a Biblical thing but it's a principle that we found in our lives and even at this location we're we're no longer of course underneath a strip club because eventually we moved into that strip club and uh eventually we bought the building eventually we outgrew the building eventually we sold the building eventually we ended up buying 38 acres on the south end of town which is the fastest growing region right now and even on our property line the city is building a $30 million sewer project on

our property come on somebody God is doing something good so here we are now at a strip mall come on you tell me that God can't meet you anywhere right in between Goodwill Ashley's Lottery Harbor Freight I tell you God will meet with you anywhere at any time and so I want you to believe that today we are believing God's best if you'd get out your Bible and just hold it in the air uh we're not here just to hear the story Journey Church we're here to meet with God come on if you brought your Bible hold it there and keep it there even if you didn't I want you to participate 100% participation on the count of three shout word one two three word we're getting into God's word that God's word will get into us we dream that God will do more more in our city more in our day

and More in our time why wouldn't we ask God for more he is the god that's able when Paul was praying for a church that was in a city called Ephesus he writes to the Ephesians and at the end of his prayer he says now to him who is able to do far more someone shout more more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us we have a God that's able we have a god of abundance and now it's time for us to trust in that God it's time for us to step out in faith with that God believe God's best and to put our faith into action I tell you we have a living God Jesus Promised in John 1010 he says I

came that they might have life and have it abundantly you know Jesus doesn't give you a pathetic life he doesn't give you a partial life he wants you to have true life he wants you to have Abundant Life more than just Abundant Life he says in John 1511 these things I have spoken to you Jesus said that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full this is what the world wants and Jesus gives us joy he gives you life abundantly he gives you Joy and then in John 16:33 Jesus said these words I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace in the world Jesus said

you will have tribulation but take heart I have overcome the world Jesus gives us a piece that surpasses understanding but you must trust in him life and identity must be in Jesus for you to have that joy and to have that peace we don't want to be just a church that goes through the motions we don't want to just sit here on Sundays and look at the back of some We Believe God's best and we want to participate in what God's doing it is clear that God is changing lives here at joury church it is clear that God is doing the work he's going to do more we have a

mission here at Journey Church we exist to lead people on a journey of transformation in Jesus that's why we exist why does Starbucks exist to serve you bad coffee I'm just kidding I actually really like Starbucks I know there's just coffee snobs that say oh it's burnt but I like burnt coffee but I'll tell you this if Starbucks didn't serve coffee something would be wrong why does Chick-fil-A exist sell you the Lord's chicken you ever notice when you want it on Sundays now Chick-fil-A didn't sell chicken if they ran out of chicken game over it's done now for us if we do not see God

transforming lives if we don't get to see Jesus working in a tangible way and by the way it's not always easy God works in our pain he works in our problems he works in our sickness sometimes God works in just the the the most incredible ways but if we don't see God transforming lives is game over we're not here to sell you coffee or to sell you chicken we're here so that you encounter Jesus in a real way we want every kid to know Jesus every teenager to know Jesus we want every single person here to know Jesus and we get this Mission like any Bible believing church that believes in Jesus it comes from Jesus words himself at the end of his life in Matthew chapter 28 it's been described as the Great Commission Great Commission that we

would join Jesus when he says all authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me go therefore and Make Disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit so someone say why do you do what you do we're actually just trying to do what Jesus told us to do and every Church ought to do that and we're not saying we're doing it better than any church we're not saying that we are better than any church we just want to be who God's called us to be we want every church and Central organ to be filled over flowing We Believe God's best we pray for those churches we actually support some of them even financially we're going to do whatever it takes to see Central Oregon saved this church is built on three pillars and I want to just share those three pillars with you briefly the first pillar is faith in Christ we really

believe that that's where your life is changed when you believe in Jesus it's not faith in yourself it's not faith in humanity it's faith in Christ that's why when we gather like we do today we will always Point people to Jesus we have a declaration that we say often around here and we even put our hands in as if we're doing a a pep rally and we say it's all about Jesus we truly believe that your life is transformed and change when you put your faith in Jesus not only do we want you to put your faith in Jesus we believe hope is found in community you're not meant to do life alone that's why we were pointing you earlier to rooted this is a season at the beginning know the school year that we launch a whole bunch of new small groups included rooted we want you to be in community it's a core value at

Journey Church we are Community creators Community does not happen on its own God does not design you to live your life alone if you live in isolation you're giving room for the enemy hope is found in community you've got to help other people and you've got to allow other people to help you and this comes in many different forms sometimes it's just through food and fellowship other times it's through prayer sometimes I'll tell you some of the greatest healing that happens in community is through laughter so it is good gather together in community and finally the third pillar is this love and compassion we went our love to be put into practice now when we talk about love and compassion it comes from a Greek word which is agapa agape

it means an unconditional love it's literally the picture of the old King James English charity I'll give you something with nothing expected back you'll notice the these three faith hope and love it's actually the name of The Three Peaks of the three sisters faith hope and charity it comes from the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 13:13 when the writer says these three things abide or in the New International Version says these three things remain faith hope and love but the greatest of these is love now the reason we have love and compassion is that word compassion and the original Greek word is is spagma it's an interesting word it literally means moved to action it's to be really

graphic spagna means moved in the bowels where you just can't sit there anymore see someone get up and run to the back it's because they've had too much coffee right they're moved to action if they moved now when you have the Holy Spirit by believing in Jesus you're in community you can't just sit there if you see a problem you do something about it you serve other people if someone is sick you go lay hands and you pray for them if someone needs food you give them food if someone needs a cat you give them a cat this is what we do we're moved to action now our church we do a lot of love and compassion everything from helping schools to helping people with their utilities and rent and a whole list of other things we don't

always boast it Jesus says don't let your left hand say what your right hand do so we don't come with a microphone every week telling you let me tell you what we did this week but I will tell you this is a church that we give generously o over the next three or four weeks you're going to hear from some of the Ministries we support we support some Ministries monthly where we come in and we say listen if you can do it better than we can do it then we're going to support you and I want you to hear about some of those in the weeks to come as we talk about a heart for this house this is what God desires for us if you take away one of those three pillars faith hope or love the whole thing crumbles it's like a three-legged stool you can't sit on a two-legged stool you need all three legs to operate this this this is what we want to build this church on faith hope

and love so what is the church let me just go on and describe this just for a moment when we talk about who is the church and who is the church for it is clear in scripture church is not for church people contrary to what we might actually believe church is not ever meant just to be for us for no more it's never meant to be the Frozen chosen look at us we don't want to grow you'll hear that even the tension at Journey Church I've heard this over the years oh this church is getting big are we trying to be one of those mega churches do we just want to get bigger well I want to just flip question and say how big do you think Heaven's gon to be Heaven's gonna be pretty big so we don't get used to being around people we're going to miss the object of Heaven which is to be in community to give glory to God to be surrounded by

his love so we're okay no matter what size it is we are a multiplying Movement we planted a Journey Church in 2020 do you know we planted that church four weeks before the whole world shut down with the pandemic I mean they they launched with maybe like three or 400 people and most churches would have failed from that point forward but do you know today they're averaging about a thousand people on Sundays between three services they are a lifegiving church in Redmond and we don't want to stop there we're believing a Journey Church in primeville in madress in leine in sisters we are believing there will be a Journey Church everywhere it doesn't have to always be a journey church but we know that the church is God's plan when Jesus asked his disciples who do people say that I am well the disciples which were his students they said well some people say you're Elijah some

people say you're a prophet some people say and they were given all these different answers and he asked them who do you say that I am and you know Peter was the first one that piped up he says you are the Christ the son of the Living God and Jesus responded to Peter and said this and I tell you you are Peter and on this rock on the foundation of who Jesus is he is the Christ that word Christ means God's chosen one his anointed one Jesus is God's Messiah the plan the salvation of the world is in Jesus and Jesus said on this rock I will build my church Jesus said he would build this church this is not man's idea this is not a religion that just came out of nowhere this is God's idea that word church is

the Greek word eklesia but before we get to that word Jesus says and the Gates of Hell shall not Prevail against it do you know why you put a gate up don't want people to come in and the devil is doing a good job putting gates up all over our lives he will do it with your kids he will do it with the region of Central Oregon he's doing it with our nation and you know what Jesus says those Gates will not stop you from doing what I'm gonna do which is to build my church that's why this summer we did this Kingdom series the violent take it by force we don't just sit back idly and say well it is what it is the world's going to hell in a hand basket no we say God's plan is a church and we're taking

back that which the devil has stolen so if we have to knock down those Gates of Hell to go in and steal people that look like they're going to hell and rescue them and redeem them and let them know that they can have hope in Jesus that's the the church now that that word church is an important one the church is never meant to be a building or programs or even a cute clever name even though journey is a good name for a church there is no First Baptist In Heaven There is no nazarine Church there is no Journey Church there's one church it's the eklesia that's the Greek word that Jesus used eklesia itself wasn't a spiritual word it means the called out Gathering it's those who leave their

homes and they gather in an assembly that's what Ecclesia means so when we gather together that's the church that's why we can have church in the park we have a new name for the the family camp out they decided this year they're going to start calling it Church of the woods because on Sundays they always end their time up in the mountains with no self service and they worship and they do baptisms at the lake you can have church anywhere but you can't have church alone it's the Gathering of God's people so what we want to do is we want people to move from being Sinners where they're distant from God to being Saints forgiven by their sins so I want to just spend just a moment that you would understand the heart for this house so that we could be on the same page I'm not going to spend a great deal of time with this but I just want you to see what is God's plan for his people he's

always had a plan for his people if you brought your Bible I'm going to conclude our time with Genesis chapter 28 it's a story of Jacob now Jacob is the son of Isaac Isaac is the son of Abraham you ever heard of Abraham he had many sons and many sons had Father Abraham I one of them and so are you come on so let's just praise the Lord if you don't know that song that means you were saved from Sunday school so Abraham is the father of our faith because he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness we now have that same righteousness when we believe in Jesus you are not counted as righteous because of your good deeds or any good works you do you do those because you believe in Jesus but Abraham was counted as righteous not because oh

he did all these good things he believed God and the Bible says he was counted as righteous and he who should have never had children we have a god of Miracles he had a child and his son's name was Isaac now Isaac would go on to have two sons and those two sons were Esau and Jacob Esau came out first which means he would have received the birthright from his father he would have got the bigger blessing he would have got the greater inheritance he would have received more but one day Esau was so hungry he saw that Jacob was making stew and he said I will sell you my Birthright for a bowl of Stew sounds like a dumb deal but you'll do crazy crazy things when you're hungry uh you got to be careful when you're weak you will trade things into the devil it will compromise your character be really careful when you're weak the devil's looking to do something

in your life when you are weak well Esau sold his Birthright and Jacob ended up tricking his dad Isaac and he stole the blessing he stole the greater inheritance but that didn't work out real well for him because now he was afraid of his older brother Esau and he went on the Run God still blessed bless Jacob though don't you know that God blesses you even in the mess he blessed Jacob with the family he blessed Jacob with provision I mean he was blessing Jacob all over the place but Jacob was still fearful he was uncertain some of you today you're blessed but you're still fearful and uncertain may I just encourage you God wants to meet with you on your journey that's what we pick up in the story Genesis chapter 28 starting with verse 10 Jacob left beers Sheba and went toward Haram and he came to a certain place in Genesis 28:1 Jacob came

to a certain place he stayed there that night because the sun had set taking one of the stones of that place he put it under his head and laid down in that place to sleep and he dreamed may I just say that God can work in so many different ways he will even work through your dreams he dreamed and behold everyone shout behold behold the author Moses is capturing our attention here wake up look what happens in this dream there was a ladder set on the earth and at the top of it it reached to heaven and behold shout behold behold the angels of God were ascending and descending on this ladder this is the original Stairway to Heaven and and it was on this place as they were ascending and descending verse 13 and behold

someone shout behold behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord this is the sacred name for God Yahweh I am the Lord the god of Abraham your father and the Lord of Isaac the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your Offspring your Offspring shall be rest of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the East and to the north and to the South and in you and your Offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed this is a promise of God his people will be blessed behold shout behold behold God says I am with you and will keep you wherever you go that's the same promise

that Jesus shares with us Jesus in Matthew 28 said Lo behold I will always be with you in the book of Hebrews we read that Jesus will always be with us will never forsake us this is the same God of Jacob he will always be with us then Jacob it says or look at verse 15 for I will not leave you until I've done what I've promised you then verse 16 then Jacob awoke from his sleep and this is what Jacob said surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it I tell you God can meet with you anywhere at any time that's why the Lord meet with us at Drake Park and

many would say I did not know it I not know the Lord could be here sometimes the Lord will meet you in your bathroom on the floor I didn't know the Lord could meet me in my depravity over the toilet sometimes the Lord will meet you in your car sometimes the Lord will meet you in your bedroom sometimes the Lord will meet you right here at this building in this place this is not a Sacred Space because we created a Sacred Space it's sacred because we've invited the Lord we've been praying for you we've been asking God to move it becomes a Sacred Space when you see that the Lord could be anywhere at any time and when God meets with you and you recognize it like Jacob you say surely the Lord is in this place now look at

verse 17 and he was afraid he was afraid this is the fear of God you should have a reverence for God the trick of the devil is for you to think small of God for you to treat the name of Jesus flippantly you should have a reverence and a fear for God and he was afraid and he said how awesome is this place I love it when people come to journey and they say something like that how awesome is this place people are kind people are nice now we're not perfect every once in a while we'll get a nasty email and say you know I came that not a single person said hi to me I'm like wow you got through all those people ain't nobody looked at you and sometimes that's cas we're not perfect but I tell you when

God meets with you you have to declare how awesome is this place there's an anointing when we sing songs and all of a sudden I feel differently than when I normally sing songs how awesome is this place because the presence of God is there this is none other Jacob said none other than the house of God and this is the Gate of Heaven I'm gonna stop there and I want you to see this Jacob said this is none other than the house of God now granted he's not in a building he's not in a church space he says but this is the house of God the word in the original Hebrew is Beth L Beth meaning house and L meaning God this is the house of God bethl this is the house of God then he says of the house of God this is the gateway to

Heaven meaning I have encountered God here I didn't have to go to heaven to experience God God came from Heaven to Earth this is the symbolism of the latter with angels which means Messengers messengers of God came from Heaven to Earth and not only that but God spoke to him this is how you know God's work in your life when God speaks to you I love it when we read the Bible and someone comes to me and says oh Pastor it's like you're reading my mail it's like how do you know what's going on my life I don't but the Holy Spirit does and when the word of God speaks to your heart that's because the Bible is not an ordinary book this is the word of God and when God's word gets into your heart it speaks to you and he says the house of God is the gateway to

heaven so let's fast forward to Jesus Jesus Is God incarnate if that's new to you what that means is that God decided to reveal himself through a man through a person and that is Jesus Christ holy completely man and completely God that's why we celebrate Christmas God and Arn that God came as a child he came as a human being Jesus did what no human being has done before he did not sin he was sinless because he's God In the Flesh God shows us what love looks like and his name is Jesus now who did not sin did not deserve death willingly gave his life on the cross that's why we call him the Lamb of God that we sang about it might sound silly at first until you understand the principle you don't have to sacrif a lamb for your sin God Made A

Way Heaven came to Earth and the King of Kings his name is Jesus he died on the cross he was buried but on the third day by the power of the Holy Spirit one God in three persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Jesus was glorified he's resurrected He's Alive Now and Forever More he defeated death he is not resuscitated he actually is resurrected just as he proclaimed I am the resurrection and the life he did what he promised to do it is this is the story of God and so because of Jesus we no longer have to travel to a temple to meet with the priest or to give our offerings or to sacrifice a Slaughter of a lamb but now your body becomes the temple of God and now when there's the

Gathering of the saints that is the assembly that is the eklesia all of a sudden it is the gateway to Heaven all of a sudden we experience the power of God all of a sudden we get to experience the message and the word of God that's what we desire for this house we want a heart for the house of God so that we would be a Gateway of heaven so that when someone comes forward for prayer we believe that God is able when someone raises their hand we believe that any sinner can be saved it doesn't matter how old you are it doesn't matter how young you are we believe that you can be a house of God no matter what you you've done you can be forgiven but that doesn't mean that you continue to send so that Grace would abound it means you

allow God to transform your life and he's in the transformation business today you see so many common themes with church a building a name and music and kids but I'll tell you the church is not a building the church is not a concert and we are certainly not child care we offer Journey kids church which means that we introduce them to Jesus and if a child believes in Jesus they do not get a junior holy Spirit they get the same holy spirit that any adult gets we've got to start believing this today we've got to start allowing our kids to be disciples we've got to believe today that God wants to work through even the youth we've got to believe today that when we sing songs this is not a concert if you think that there's lights and Haze and all of that just so that we can come together and do something fancy

you're missing the moment we're trying to set the stage to welcome the presence of God we are singing Praise songs the Bible says that God inhabits the praise of he loves it when we praise it's what we're made for the Bible says that we should Sing a a new song let every breath praise the Lord that's why we gather and we sing these songs if you see cameras running around listen we're not trying to do a show we're trying to offer for any person that's out there to see what we're doing to glorify God this was his idea the devil loves to Rob God's ideas because the devil's not a Creator we have the Creator and it's okay to use creativity to give God some praise and so if you just think what we're doing now is something we're believing God's best this is just the

beginning of greater things that are still to come and ultimately as we saw last week it's not about a building or physical house it's about allowing your life to be a house of God we have a saying around Journey Church it's all about Jesus we want that to be true in every area so we praise God and we pray to God that's what we do we pray and we praise we call that here at Journey Church Pursuit we're on a Pursuit Of God starting this Thursday we're relaunching Pursuit night we took a pause through August but starting on Thursday at 6 PM we will have Pursuit night right here where we pray and we sing songs and we praise and I want to invite you to encounter and pursue God with all your heart but may I just say this and this is the challenge to you if you call this

church your home we need some superheroes to serve in our journey kids church at Pursuit nights so here's what that means if you choose to change the life of a child you will serve every other week you can come to a Pursuit night and the next week disciple a kid at Journey kids church I'm telling you we need you we have so many kids here and we have kids that are being discipled they memorizing Bible verses they're being changed last week we saw so many of them get baptized praise be to God but we need your help to make disciples so would you consider starting serving in our journey kids church there's just a couple of qualifications one is you got to pass a background check come on somebody this is Journey Church so you gotta pass a background

check and you got kids listen you don't like kids please we don't want you we want you to serve in our Hospitality help us make some some coffee we want you to serve in our media team uh we have a place for you somewhere we have a place for you but that's starting this Thursday at 6 p.m. and we want you to make sure that you get involved may I just conclude with this and then I'll just give you some action steps as we go today if the church is the Ecclesia do I only show up to church as I do a punch card a time card to God to say look at God look what I did I showed up today or maybe for other people to see me or or do I only go to church when I feel like it I'll see people say that I just wasn't feeling it today so I didn't go to I watched online that's what I did let me just tell you you don't go to church to punch a Time car when you get to heaven

God is not going to pull out a long list of all the dates that you went to church and say Well done good and faithful Church goer that's amazing you know what God really cares about is your heart and here's the deal about your heart it's deceitful above all things so you should not trust your heart you should trust in the Lord so if you don't feel like going to church that's probably when you should be at church the most some of you are saying well I'm praying and I don't see God work in my life life that's that the Bible tells us in Luke 18 you should be persistent in prayer that's when you should keep coming to church you keep pressing in because you have a miserable marriage or your life is falling apart or you have no money right now and you're praying for financial breakthrough you have a health problem that just doesn't seem to get better that's when you keep coming to church somebody you go to church so that you would be the church so that you can experience the Gateway of Heaven the

house of God you cannot do that alone we come here to encounter God and we want to experience God Jesus prayed in Matthew chap 6:10 he taught us to pray your kingdom come and your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven we've got to take God at his word like Joshua who entered the promised land and as they got there he laid a steak in the ground metaphorically speaking he says as for me in my house we will serve the Lord he did not say when we feel like it he did not say when times are easy he said I'm laying a steak in the ground and I will serve the Lord so as we step into this season at Journey Church I want to I'm just going to go crazy here but I don't have enough time we believe God's best we launched a

mo initiative last September and we took out these impact cards like this and we put them on all the seats last year and this this year they're out at a table out in the lobby and the impact card looks like this it says more impact card now you open it up and at the top of this it's got that mission statement that I read to you earlier we exist to lead people on a journey of transformation in Jesus and then there's a whole bunch of lines in fact there's five lines and then there's a six line that says my long shot and we've asked all of you who have unchurched friends families neighbors co-workers to put down the names of those who are unchurched on this card and then we put them in this acrylic box right here now the last line says my long shot this is the person that says I will never step foot in a church this is the person that says oh the roof will fall down on me if

I go into church this is the person says I'm an atheist and I'll never believe in God you put your long shot down here's what we saw immediately when we put those names down we put them in that box and we started praying over the names in that box people started coming to church and so many long shots have actually given their lives to Jesus so that's why we do what we do if you have not filled out one of these cards maybe you're new here to Journey Church you just started coming in the last six months and you're like I didn't get to put my names down I want my friends and family saved I want them to come to church grab one of these cards you can take it fill it out before you leave today and put it in the Box take it home with you fill it out at home bring it back with you next week to church take that impact card all you do is take this

and then there's a slot at the top and put it in there and we will commit to praying over every single one of those names believing God's best that those who are far from God aren't going to stay there they're not going to stay there when I was 15 years old a friend of invited me to church problem is I didn't drive I was only 15 years old so they'd swing by my house pick me up and take me to their church then in the middle of the week they'd do the same thing for youth group pick me up Take Me to Church and you know what happened there a little punk Kid that never ever grew up in the church who had no hope of eternal life gave his life to Jesus I'm here today because someone invited me to church my life was changed because someone invited me to church it's the power of an invitation and if you invite someone to church we guarantee you will'll give them an invitation to

believe in Jesus can I tell you a quick story uh we've decided to make a commitment to get into the prisons Jesus said that's where he wants us to go into prisons in fact this week we have a team going down to San Quinton they're going to be a part of the largest church gathering in a prison so Pastor Noah's taking a group down there they get to do that this [Applause] week we are so grateful I got this text message on Friday night listen to this let me tell you a real fast story a young man lived right next to our old location and he was going to college drinking with his buddies and he was dissatisfied he grew up in the church but he was far from God he started coming to Journey Church renewed his faith went to Uganda met his wife at Journey Church they got married and he ended up going back to his home church

and sweet home and leading that church it's called River of Life and he wrote me this message on Friday night he says be encouraged today we have a guy who's been attending River of Life for a couple of months he he gave his life to Jesus in response to a message from you at Deer Ridge Correctional Facility in madis he's now 15 months sober for the first time in 40 years come on [Applause] somebody it is never ever too late with God never but to do this we need your commitment we need you to be a superhero you say what's a superhero superhero is what we call our volunteers because when you volunteer here you not volunteering your time you're changing the world so

there's another card that I want to just encourage you if you did not fill this out last time this is a more commitment card this is a financial commitment now if you're visiting with us for the first time or you're newer to joury church we are not asking for your money this is not about that but it does take money to do ministry we have 38,000 square feet that we're paying a commercial lease on that's a lot of money we've got a great staff that's a lot of money uh we serve you good donuts and coffee every Sunday that's a lot of money it takes money to do this ministry and what we're asking you to do is to trust God the Bible actually says everything is actually his even the cattle on a thousand hills that you see it's all actually his and when you trust God with your finances it's the Lord that says if you can be trusted with a little you can be trusted with more and so we are believing God's best

if you're not giving this is a great time to start trusting God with your giving the Bible teaches a principle of tithe that's 10% of your finances you give God your first 10% and see what God can do with the 90 he could do way more with your money than you can so if you're not giving it's time to start if you are giving this is a time to be stretched we committed a year ago to give more than we've ever given and I'll tell you we've always been faithful in our finances and God's always provide and he continues to do that in our marriage and in our family we have been stretched and by the way it is a faith giving that we're giving well above and beyond a tithe that we decided to do and I'll tell you God is so faithful I want to just share with you a story right now now I'm going to go into a video and then I want to give you an invitation to follow Jesus today if you haven't so

would you turn your attention and and watch this story I'm Marissa and I'm cross and we've been going to Journey for a few years now we've been able to get into some community at Journey um through just a small groups uh we joined one last fall we chose Journey out of all the churches here in Bend just because it is a very scripture focused Church teaching what the Bible actually says and how to apply it to your life at the time of more we were only 23 years old we had just gotten married just

moved he started a master's program for teaching I had a secure job but it was not the best paying job the culture for 23-year-olds is to start building your finances and holding on to things or spending money on something that's going to make you feel better God is asking us to honor him with our first fruits instead of trying to honor ourselves I think it was just us realizing that it was a great call on something practical to do in our faith when we first kind of made our commitment to the more initiative we had decided to stretch ourselves even further than what uh 10% would have been for us to give 3 days later I lost my job and that was our main bread winner so at that point we were like how are we

going to even make our first tithe like we have no source of income right now we decided that we're just going to trust him and continue moving forward with what we had promised God that we were going to give him it's easy to be faithful in the easy times but it was really like this is when the rubber hit in the road this is when great things happen and we feel the Holy Spirit saying this is right it's okay it's scary but it's going to be better because of this after I came home and told cross that I had lost my job that following month he got the most jobs and brought in the most income that he ever has to this date as I was home alone searching for new jobs and stuff I would see a job and

I would just kind of be like God should I apply for this as I interviewed for where I currently work I just really felt like God saying this is the one like go for this one I found out that I got the job in the middle of a Mexican restaurant I was just blown away that a I had gotten the job and then what my new salary was going to be I was like I can buy all the tacos now the storm right after the more commitment really was God's answer to our prayers asking for more like we got more money I have a more confidence in him I take more pray I am like finally starting to let go and being like no

God's got this I've gotten a raise out of cycle at work most of my co-workers are atheists I'll show up with my mug with more flame I get an opportunity to kind of tell them this is from my church it's Journey Church it's by goodwi you should check it out it's a boldness I've never had before to be able to talk about that we have gone from a kind of a burden of being able to provide for ourselves relinquishing that now the burden is so much lighter and therefore us so much Freer I feel like I have a stronger testimony now I can really confidently say this is how God moved in my life this is how how he changed me and I'll never be the

same all I have to say for someone who's looking questioning is that there's literally no reason to wait God's not going to fail you it's going to be so much better so much more um than anything that you could ever dream of or hope for come on somebody praise God