Courage | Part 3

Hey hey, how do you guys like the new lobby setup? It's pretty cool, Now now you guys are probably the smartest service of them all. I don't need to tell you this, but those TV screens are not touch screen. Okay? So keep your paws off. We don't wanna break the bank on Windex.

Okay? So that yesterday people were like, hey, can I touch this? No. They're they're that's not how they work. But hey, you know, it's weird. I woke up this morning and and and I thought someone left water running or something. And and then I went out and then I said, what is this this moisture falling from the sky?

And it was cloudy and rainy and it it actually this time of year is the only time I reminisce about having lived at the beach. And it kinda reminded me of a beach day till I walked outside. But but but but I thought about living in the beach and then and as you think about that, I I I this the last song we sang, oceans.

And it and it and and it reminded me of of of this song that says, hey, what's that story about? That song is about, hey, God calls us to the deep waters. He calls us out to the deep waters. Not the safe water, the deep water, the scary water. And but that's where he'll take care of us because that's what he designed us to do. And and that's really what we've been talking about in this series on courage. And and I and I really thought about putting those two together this morning because when I when

I lived at the beach, I had a friend that owned a sailboat that invited me down to the harbor to to kinda take a little, fourth of July cruise barbecue on the back of his boat. So I go down and this is a beautiful restored old sailboat. Big, awesome.

And I was like, man, this is amazing. He goes, yeah, it's great. And he goes, I I come down here. We barbecue. The family comes. We'll sleep over. There's people that live in the marina.

And and and a matter of fact, I use it as a little guest house. If I have someone coming in from town, out of town, husband and wife, hey, you wanna have a nice little romantic dinner? You can stay on my boat. And and he goes in at Christmas time, everyone puts Christmas lights on their boat, and we cruise around the harbor.

And and and so we cruised around the harbor, had some barbecue, watched some fireworks. And as I was talking about all these cool things, I go, this is a pretty impressive sailboat. Goes, yeah. I go I go, how far can this thing really sail? What's this designed to do? And he goes, oh, you can sail around the world in this thing. I go, wow. I go, how far have you gone? And he goes, oh, I I I don't ever go out of the harbor.

I'm like, what? He goes, oh, I never take it out of the You don't wanna even try to go to Kelly? No. It's dangerous out there. There's storms. It's scary. I'm afraid of sharks.

He goes, no. I I I just like having the boat to to do the Christmas parade and barbecues and hang out with my family. And I thought, you know, I I literally looked at my friend and I said, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. This someone built this beautifully handcrafted designed sailboat

to sail around the world on oceans and you won't even leave the harbor with it. I feel bad for the boat because you wanna feel safe. That's really why we're doing this series called Courage because that's how many of us choose to live our lives. You see, a boat is safe in a harbor, but it's not designed for the harbor.

And just like the boat, you and I may feel safe in harbors of our lives, but God didn't build us for the harbor. He built us for the deep oceans,

for the waters out there, to go to far off places, to go to places that God has called us to go to. And, yeah, there's storms. It's scary. It's hard. And and and it's terrifying. And it's easier to stay in the harbor. And many of us build our life around safe harbors.

And even if we come to church and we pray to God, our prayer life is all about God. I'm in this safe harbor. I think it's time to move, but can you take me to another safe harbor? And all we wanna do is go from one harbor to the next. When God says, I've called you to the depth of the ocean. I've called you to a greater thing than this. I've called you to have a life that I built you for, and many of us are are wasting what God built us to be by trying to stay safe.

And that is why we're talking about courage.

Because courage is that willingness to get out of the harbor. Courage is and you know what? And and as of we said each week, if if you're not scared, it's not courage. And the reason being is courage is a condition of the heart, not our circumstances. So many of us say, I'll go out there when it's perfect.

I'll I'll I'll I'll once when when this gets lined up, I'll I'll I'll trust God. When when when my time works out, when my money's right, when this is right, whatever. We're waiting for a condition to change in order for us to to to have courage. But if you wait to not be scared, then it's not courage. Courage is that willingness to say, I trust God. I know what he's called me to.

And even though that looks terrifying, I've been designed to sail out there. I've been designed to go out there. And that's what we've been looking at. And we've been unpackaging six conditions of the heart

that enable us to be courageous, enable us to really live the life that we were designed to live. The life that we actually long for, that you will never ever truly have satisfaction staying in the harbor. You never will. You might have fun. You might feel safe. You might have barbecues.

You might have your Christmas pageant. You might have all that kind of stuff, but you will never truly have what God built in your heart to long for fulfilled

until we get out to the depth, and we need to do that. And we've been unpacking where does that courage come from? How what does that condition of the heart? And we've been looking at six of them, and we've been taking it out of the story of Nehemiah, the guy in the bible.

Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king, as we've seen each week. He was a faithful Jew that knew God's word and loved the Lord, but he grew up in the in in in a in a foreign land. He grew up in this city called Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire.

And it's because his people got taken there when God gave the people of God, the Israelites, a time out because they refused to get out of the harbors. They they didn't trust God, so he took them someplace.

And but he said, I'm doing this to get your attention. I'm not doing this to punish, but to pull to bring you back. And I promise I'll bring you home, which he did.

And a couple waves of of Jews had went home, but a lot of them stayed. Nehemiah was born during this period and and and and after this period actually. And he's only known this foreign land, this safe place to him because he's cupbearer to the king, which is actually a good job. It's it's a high ranking, comes with wealth and position and power Because what you are is is you are the head of the secret service. You keep the king safe.

Cup bear, you taste the food, you make sure. So it has to be a highly trusted position,

which also makes you the number one adviser to the king. So he's got this great job in the land he's only known. But what he finds out is after a hundred years of his people returning to where God promised to bring them back to, he promised to reestablish the Israelites,

to reestablish the city of God, Jerusalem, to declare God's glory, to be a part of God's amazing plan of what he's doing in the world. So when his brother came back and and and he wanted to know how's it going in Jerusalem, because his brother had been there, he says it's terrible. It's a disgrace.

The walls are torn down. And that meant something in that day. He got really bothered by this because if you had a city without walls, it meant two things. One, the obvious, you're defenseless. But the most important one, the second thing is you're useless.

Meaning, if you could have a city there for a hundred years and no walls, that meant your city was podunk. Didn't mean anything. No one cared. And he can't he's like, but wait. God promised that his city would be the city that declares his glory again. Part of his plan was to do this. How could it be?

And that's where courage began in his life. As we looked at the first week, the first condition of the heart for courage is a dislocated heart. The first thing if we're ever gonna have courage is Nehemiah's heart. He was in Susa, but his heart went to Jerusalem.

The first step of courage, the first act of courage in heart is, does your heart dislocate? Does it go where God wants you to go? Is your heart where God is? Do you care about the thing God cares about? Do you ache for the mission God has given you?

Or do we want God's heart to dislocate to us? That's what a lot of us do even as Christians. Our prayer life turns into, I gotta pray really hard to get God's heart to come towards my plans. Doesn't work that way.

So step one, did my heart dislocate towards God? Step two is still not to go into action. We looked at that last week. Nehemiah started praying.

And what he prayed about was was this this dislocated heart. And he prayed the heart of a broken heart, broken spirit. That's condition number two. A broken heart is one that's broken for the Lord that that confesses that I'm broken. I'm a sinner. I'm far from God. Basically, confess I'm not God.

And because of that, I can confess and repent. I turn back to God. And that broken heart leads to prayers that says, God, my prayer life is about where you want me to go, not where I want you to go. And now I have a dislocated heart and a broken heart. Those two combinations always leads to action.

And that's where we're at week three. We're now at this third condition of a courageous heart. And that third condition, the big idea for today is this,

courageous faith or radical faith. A radical faith. Now we're ready to step out and and and do something. Because a broken, a dislocated broken heart always leads to action. It leads to trusting God. If it doesn't, then your heart probably is either a, not dislocated

or not broken before the Lord. There's something wrong in your heart.

And so today we're gonna talk about this idea of radical faith. And I have a definition for radical faith here so we go into it knowing what we're talking about. This idea of a radical faith is I choosing to step out and fulfill God's clearly revealed will at possible personal cost and sacrifice.

Or as I said, leave the harbor. Sail where you're supposed to sail to even if it looks scary. This kind of radical faith is born out of faith. It it needs to be true faith. And when I'm talking about faith, what do I mean by faith? Faith is I actually believe in the character of God and trust the promises of God

to the point that I'll actually act upon them. I will step out and act in this way. I will step out and act not just when it seems safe, but when it seems scary. When it seems improbable. When I can't see how this is supposed to actually help me,

I will trust God first. That's what it's talking about. We're gonna see it in Nehemiah's life today. And I said last week, you don't wanna miss today because this is powerful what happens here. So we're gonna pick up the story in chapter one verse 11. This is the end of his prayer that we we went through last week.

When he said this, oh lord, please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me. You see, this is the only request he got in this prayer. He prayed for four months. He's praying and he finally prays. And what does he pray about? He's asking God for the resource

to go after what God planted his heart. Basically, give me the ability to sail where you've called me to sail to. If I don't have a dislocated broken heart, my prayer life turns into God, please please please sail to where I want to go. Instead of give me what I need to go where you want me to go.

So he gets really clear about that. And then you see in chapter two, early the following spring in the month of Nissan. Nissan, isn't that a wonderful month? They do specials on rogues that month. No. Nissan is actually March, April. So now we know it's been about four months he's been praying.

So he started praying because he knew that I'm cupbearer to the king. And in those days when you serve the king, he can't just put in two weeks notice. And you're not allowed to just even if you're the most trusted advisor, you can't just go, hey king, can I talk to you about something? You're not allowed to do that. So he had to pray to God because he knew if my heart is there and I'm supposed to go be a part of what's going on in Jerusalem,

God, you're gonna have to open the door that I can have a conversation with the king. Because I can't just walk in and do it. If you just barge in and start talking to the king about something, death penalty. So he had to wait. He prayed for four months for an opportunity.

And then as you're gonna see right here, the opportunity that comes is not probably it's definitely not what he was thinking it would be. It didn't play out the way he thought. It plays out much scarier.

So look, he's been praying and he says in this this four months later, he goes, I was serving the king his wine, making sure he's not poisoned, which is common. His this king's dad had been poisoned. He says, I had never before appeared sad in his presence.

So he says he's never appeared sad in the presence of, of the king. Now is that because Nehemiah is one of those irritatingly positive people? The kind you wanna punch in the face sometimes? No. You're gonna see in a minute that's not why he'd never appeared sad.

This story is not gonna be as terrifyingly powerful if you don't understand what's going on here culturally. Not only could he not just approach the king about what he wanted to talk to, in this culture, they had the no Eeyore policy around the king. You all know who Eeyore is from Winnie the Pooh? Well,

I guess this isn't gonna work. You know, you weren't allowed to harsh the king's mellow.

You weren't allowed to do that. Now now before you go, man, kings were really fragile ego, weren't they? Like does he stare in the mirror all day going, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me. That's that's not what we're talking about. The reason is if you serve the king

and all of a sudden your personality looks much more disturbed, what do you think the king's gonna think? Especially if you're the guy that makes sure his food's not poisoned. You are the one that's supposed to protect him. And all of a sudden you look really weird one day. You're acting all, you know, jumpy

and and weird. The king's gonna get paranoid. He's gonna think, are you betraying me? So here's the problem. If you appeared sad before the king and it upset him, death penalty. So you realize when he said he's never appeared for the king sad, it's because if you do, you could die. Now,

you're gonna see here, I don't think his plan was alright. It's been four months, God. I haven't had an opportunity. I'm gonna go in and act really disturbed. That'll get the king's attention.

We know that he didn't plan it that way. He just couldn't help it anymore. He'd been praying so hard that it just showed on his face. He was so his heart was so dislocated and broken before the Lord that he just couldn't hide it anymore. And and so it says here, he says he never appeared sad. And and it says

the very next verse says, so the king asked me, why are you looking so sad? Uh-oh. And then he says this, you don't look sick to me. If you look sick, that's another story. Hey, you look sick. Take the rest of the day off. He goes, you don't look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled. Now you're in trouble. Why

are you deeply troubled? What's freaking you out? Are you are you doing a coup on me? Guards. Gone. So he's put in this moment that's terrifying. And we know this because that's what he says next. He says, then I was terrified. So for him to say then I was terrified indicates that wasn't his plan.

He didn't plan his idea of God opening the door was not opening the door by the king noticing something that could get him killed. His his that's why he's scared. He's like, woah. I didn't expect it this way. I've been praying for a chance, and now my chance is the king might kill me.

And you realize that that God will often do this. God, when you pray for God's will, when you pray for the way for God to open the door for you to accomplish his will, we just always assume. Don't we always pray that it'll be the easy way? We always pray. And when we imagine God accomplishing

his will in our lives, we always imagine it being these great stories of like, wow, that was simple. That was easy. God doesn't do it that way.

We always say, God, I know this is where you want me to go. Like, Nehemiah, like, to use an example, he's like, I know I need to go here and I need to go to Jerusalem. And we imagine God will go, okay, here's the plane. We get on the plane, we fly, and we land. But oftentimes, God gets you on the plane, you flying over Jerusalem. We're at Jerusalem now. Okay. And then he hands you

a parachute, opens the door, and says there you gotta jump the rest of the way. What? You're not gonna land the plane? I'm not gonna just get to walk on that tarmac thing? No. This is the way it goes. God will often put us in that moment that to go where he wants us to go, the way he opened the door is difficult. It's

terrifying as it was to Nehemiah. Why? Because that's that moment you can step out in radical faith and God can show up and come true with his promises. And it absolutely shows you that you trust God more than anything else. So oftentimes the way he answers the prayer

to even do his will is scary because it looks like this is either God's opportunity or I'm gonna die.

You know, they look the same. Door number one and door number two are the same, you know. You're looking at it. And God will do that in our lives. He'll challenge us. He'll put us in those moments where we need to have courage.

And that's why many of us don't have courage. We're praying, God help me. You have this opportunity, but you go, that's gonna I don't have the money for that. I don't have the time to trust God on that. I don't have the blah blah blah blah. And that's the whole point. Is you're gonna go, alright. This could end

terribly if God doesn't show up awesomely. That's the point. And what he does right here, this phrase is the definition of biblical courage. He says this, I was terrified, but I replied. I was terrified, but

That's the biggest but in the Bible, folks. Right there. He was super terrified, but what did he do? He stepped out and acted. He didn't say, no. No. I'm fine. Okay? He's like, he didn't chicken out. He was honest. He stepped forward and said, I guess this is the opportunity.

So he replied. And what does he say? Well, he was tactical. He goes, long live the king. That was good good good of him. But then he says, how can I not be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.

So then you think, okay. The king then says in verse four, ask, well, how can I help you? You think, oh, he's out of trouble. It worked. The king's like, how can I help? But that's not necessarily true.

Because look what he says next. He says, how can I help you? And he says, with a prayer to God of heaven, I replied. Pray to God of heaven. He didn't fall down in front of the king and prayed. What he meant was, you ever get that moment like, okay, this is happening. I guess it's happening. You're And about to do something. You don't have time to just fall down in front of someone and pray. That's one of those prayers that in a nanosecond in the back of your head said, dear Jesus,

I'm trusting you now. I hope this works. He is still scared. Why? Well, if you're married, you know what's go probably going on here. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. For example, if you go to your spouse, hey, I really wanna do this or go blah blah blah. What do you think? And your spouse says, sure.

What does that mean? That means danger Will Robinson. Danger. Run. Now some of you guys are like, wait, what? She said yes. So I assumed it was okay. That's why you're in counseling right now. Wake up. It's the tone. It's not the actual words. Listen to the tone.

And so I think that's what's happening. I think why you needed to pray is we hear how can I help? But how can I help can literally mean what do you want from me? You ever had someone, hey, can you come help me? Well, do you want? And you know the big difference is, hey, what do you want? Or what do you want?

The what do you want is, I gotta hear what you have to say, then I'm gonna decide. I think that's what came out. The king's like, wait, what? Because you're telling me this. What do you expect me to do about this? Now he has to tell the king, I wanna leave you.

Have any of you been really really good at your job and you went to quit and your boss felt betrayed and they're mad at you and they make you feel bad. Think about it. All they can do is make you feel bad and refuse to give you a reference. Right? Not this boss. If he feels like how dare you wanna leave me,

Off with your head. He can still die. You have got to understand what's going on. This is huge. Nehemiah was put in a position by God with what he called him to do to literally, literally put his life on the line.

He didn't fall back. Oh, god. You you're not you can't possibly ask me. No. He just said, okay. With a prayer to God, he replied again. Because now he knows the king might not like what he has to say. But he says it.

He says with a prayer to God of heaven I replied, if it pleases the king and if you're pleased with me your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried. The king with the queen sitting beside him asked, how long will you be gone and when will you return? That's good. He got God showed up.

He says, but if you notice, Nehemiah never said I'm definitely coming back or leaving. He just wanted to go. The king kind of threw in, okay, you can when are you coming back? Which Nehemiah did. So he didn't want him back. But he says, after I told him how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request. Wow.

But here's what's crazy. Why does God put you in those terrifying situations? Because when he did it and God showed up, it made him more bold. Go read what happens next. We'll talk about it later. But what happens as he's walking, goes, hey, woah, woah, king. Just one more thing. One more thing.

I need you to pay all my expenses to get there. Could you imagine quitting a job where you where your boss feels like you've been my best player. Now you wanna leave me. You're terrible, but fine. Get out of here. Oh, wait. Can you pay my moving cost to my new job? And I and can you hire some militia?

I need some defenders. Can you hire a private army to go with me? That's what he asks. Why? He got more bold. Because he realized, wait, God is showing the way. God is providing

where he's guiding. So I took the scary step and it worked. So hey, why not go all in? And so he asked the next day, by the way, can you pay for it? It's a crazy story.

But this is the heart of courage. This is that moment where I have to have radical faith. I have to be willing to step out into that great unknown. I gotta be willing to risk stuff in serving God.

And and as I read through this every week I use like, there's three things you can pull out here. Two that no three points in a poem this week guys. There's one simple bottom line in this story that it takes to have that kind of faith, that kind of courage. It's this. Absolute surrender. It just comes down to that.

It comes down I don't care. You can say I believe in Jesus. I come to church. I get this. But you will never experience courage that'll get you to the life God designed you to. That'll get you out of that harbor and into the open ocean of where he really, really, really wants to do something in your life. Where you really will feel the fulfillment. Even if scary and terrifying.

It will only happen if you absolutely surrender

all of your life. All of who you are, all of who you have, everything to God. It's not about getting God to surrender to your will. It's about you completely surrendering to him. Period. And you know what? You don't do that just one time. You don't do that one time. This is kind of a a a reoccurring

thing actually. It's a it's a thing you have to decide over and over again. We have to continually do that. We have to continually decide am I gonna surrender completely. I have to do it all the time.

I had to pray I had to pray. I have a prayer I pray whenever it's scary. Whenever I'm like I throw up that prayer to God of heaven. My throw up, Gary, is when I come into moments I'm like, alright God, know you're asking me to do this, but this is terrifying me and I don't really wanna do this. I have a standard prayer that this is my surrender prayer. And it goes something like this. God,

anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, I'm yours. Anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, I'm yours. Can you pray that prayer? It's scary every time I do it.

Every time. Because it's even though I trust God, I have boldness, and I've seen him always come through. There's always that brokenness in us that wants to go, well, maybe not this time. Maybe not this. Maybe I know more, but maybe I know more, or not even know more, but we know that, God, I don't wanna leave the harbor this time. I wanna stay. And he goes, come with me. There's something much more beautiful out here. Come with me out here. Let's go. And I prayed all the time. Like I said, I prayed for this sermon.

Because it's the worst kept secret. We're also in a building campaign right now. Nehemiah was called to go build a wall. We, Rock Point, are called to go build several walls to be a part of what God's plan is.

And that's what we need to do. And I need to get up and challenge us to get uncomfortable to do it. That's my job. That's what I gotta do. And you know what? I gotta challenge you. Say, hey, remember a few weeks ago when I was yelling, we are And everyone was super excited Rock Point. Did you mean it? Because

this is where Rock Point needs to go, and I need you to come with me. Because that's how God works. He always calls out a person to take a people to be a part of his plan over and over and over through scripture. A person, a leader, a people, his plan. Person, people, plan. That's what he does and that's where we're at now. Rock Point. I got here first, but I'm not the one that's gonna make it happen. I need God's people. We are the people of Rock Point. And now we have a calling to be a part of his plan and I need every one of you to do it. But

you know why I had to pray that prayer? People hear what I'm not saying every time I have to talk about this. Because we are such the people of the harbor that if I challenge you to financially sacrifice for something, you I know that people will take it as manipulation. That's not really what God's doing.

I don't like to hear that. And I don't like to be that guy. I like to be liked. I like to tell goofy stories and wave my arms around. Make us cry and go home all excited. But this is one of those moments guys like you're gonna have to ask people to sacrifice financially for where we need to go next.

And my fear is they might not like it like to hear it. But you know what? My job is not to worry about that. My job is what did God call us to do? Where has he called to all years of your leaders, your elders, your your staff, the the volunteer, the key? Where have we been praying and where we're going?

Well, we need to realize that that that we have been invited just like Nehemiah. Nehemiah was invited to join God's amazing plan. And guess what? You and I have the same thing. We are still invited to join God's amazing plan. And that's how we have to look at it.

You see, the fearful way for me to try to talk about where we need to go next, the fearful way would be to try to land it this way with you. Manipulation would be this. Guys, if we don't do this, people are gonna go to hell.

If we don't do this, this community is gonna go down the toilet. If we don't do this, if we don't do this for God, God's will will not happen. And you know what? That's easy. I can get everyone in reality to go, we better do it. But that's not true.

So my risk is I'm gonna tell you something that might make you think, fine, that I won't be a part of it. If we don't do what God asked us to do, guess what God will do? He'll do it anyways.

Our calling to do what God's called us to do is not so it'll get done. It's so we get to be a part of it. You realize God's gonna do what he needs to do whether Rock Point and us obey God or not. That's a manipulative way to try to get us into this.

I've learned better than that. When I was younger and stupor and stupider and had a good knee and shoulder, maybe I would have preached that way. But what I've learned is getting out of the harbor to be courageous and live the way God designed me to live, to be a part of his plan is a privilege. It's an opportunity.

It's not an impression. That's not what it is. So the question I should ask is not, I better do this or it won't get done. The question you and I need to always ask ourselves is, will I have the privilege of being a part of it? Will I have the privilege of being a part of it?

Because I am telling you, when we do what God designed us to do, even if it's scary hard, we finally sail to where he want us to go, and he gets to allow us to celebrate the victory. We go through the hard stuff, but he allows us to be in the game and celebrate the victory.

You see, God's like a team unto himself. He doesn't need us. If he was a football player, he goes stand out there, hike the ball to himself, and run through the the the opposing team and score every time. But for some reason, he wants us on the team. He goes, I wanna throw you the ball. Why? So when we win,

he lets us have a part of that. It's a it is a privilege and an honor to give your time in serving God. It is a privilege and honor to give your money. And here's the deal. God will accomplish his will whether we do it or not. But you know what I want to say? Why not it be us?

Why not us? Why don't we get to have the joy? We get to have the victory. We get to be a part of it. We're just missing out.

So before I finish this sermon, I wanna say here's what we need to do next. This is what prayers and our previous giving and our last campaigns have come to. We've designed a building and stuff and and and here I just wanna show you this short video that talks about what we need to do next. I'm Dave Sutherland, the executive pastor at Rock Point Church. I'm excited to share some information with you about what's going on here at Rock Point.

Now, you've heard that we've been growing. You've heard about the courage campaign.

Few years. Going into summer, we actually went over 3,400 people. Not only that, in 2017, we were the fifteenth are that

the

one

We have adult classes going on, middle school communities, young adults, CR, all sorts of activities, events. We're using that building to its maximum. Not only is Rock Point growing, but the community around Rock Point is growing. Queen Creek currently has 44,000 people in it. They're projecting growth to 70,000

people by 2026. Not only that, but Santan Valley currently has a 105,000 people in it. The town of Gilbert has 230,000 people in it. 60% of them are unchurched. Another exciting thing is the town of Queen Creek has approved the development straight to the south of us. It's called Box Canyon. It has about 3,700

homes in it and which equates to about 13,000 people. All of them are gonna be passing right by Rock Point Church because the main entrance is Power Road. So what's our plan? Our plan is to build a new building. What we've learned from our current building is people love that courtyard.

So we're gonna do that even better at the new building. We're gonna have a metal canopy that's gonna be more than three times the size of our current outdoor space. It's gonna be covered and rainproof. It's gonna have activities and cafe and seating under it. So we can do all sorts of ministry and events out there.

That metal canopy is gonna lead into a large lobby. Those lobby doors are gonna try to disappear as much as possible to create that indoor outdoor feel. The worship center will have between thirteen and fourteen hundred seats.

And then we're also gonna move the littlest kids over to the new building so they're close to their parents. So nursery through preschool will be in the new building. Attached to the worship center will be a prayer room. It'll also lead out to a prayer garden.

In the lobby will be an adult classroom at Volunteer Central and a cafe that's gonna be available not only on the weekend, but during the week as well. Since the youth want an activity space, we gave them a large grass area to use for throwing the football around or kicking a soccer ball around.

It'll also come in handy for events like Easter and Christmas Eve. We're also creating a new courtyard space. It'll have lots of trees, lot like the Queen Creek Olive Mill, with trees, patio lights, picnic tables, and it's gonna be surrounding the new baptism.

The new baptism will be large enough to baptize two to three people at a time. And then during the week, it's gonna look like a beautiful fountain. Our existing building will turn into kindergarten through young adults.

It'll also have a special needs area with their own lobby and two large classrooms and their own restroom. The current worship center will be middle school, high school, and young adults. They'll all share that space.

Each kid's space is gonna be broken up into every two grades. So kindergarten, first, second, third, and fourth, and fifth are gonna have their own spaces. We're amazed what God has done at Rock Point so far, and we're so excited to see where God takes us in the future.

That's pretty cool, ain't it?

What's cool is visually you can see in this moment that we need to sacrifice to do this to reach people. But that's pretty awesome for us to experience too, isn't it? It's it's a great thing. And people, why do we have to spend money? Because we're called to reach the people in this community.

We need to point them to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. And we know from having a place to relate, having a place for us to bring our friends, having an inviting place, hang out and family friendly and all that. That's the tool we need in this community. The building

is not the purpose. The building is just the tool that we need. Just like the walls around Jerusalem was not the purpose. The walls just were for something.

And whenever we gotta build something guys, we have to sacrifice for it. It helps us build a tool that helps us reach more people and build them up. But what most people don't realize is us being a part of it. Why God calls us? Why doesn't he just make it rain and, you know,

dollars fall from heaven and we build a building? Because when we sacrifice for it, that that scary moment that he says, hey, I'm gonna put you in the game. You're gonna be a part of it. You're gonna get to see it. And by us sacrificing financially, it builds us.

Every time we've done a campaign, there's been more spiritual growth in the people that actually paid for it than what we did with it. God lets us have these moments to grow us. And some of you like, well, I'm broke. I'm not this. I'm not if you have the hardest time with trusting God with money,

this is more for you than anyone else. From the bottom of my heart, you might give the least amount. And so in the general overall scheme, we might not get there, but I will praise God because what you do will change you from the inside out. And that is good for us. We will learn to trust God for what's coming next.

So my challenge to us is not equal sacrifice or amount, but equal courage. What is that scary step we need to take? And I'm gonna ask you to step out and pray about what you can pledge over a two year period.

It's a two year campaign. How much can I give to this over two years? And I'm gonna ask you to pray. Go, alright God. If I sacrifice, if I tighten it up, maybe I won't go get coffee as much or I won't do this or I won't feed one of my kids. No. I'm just joking about that. But but whatever you decide to do is is like, okay. That'll be hard and scary, but I can do it. And I'm gonna ask you to just do one more thing.

Go one more little step further than that into the courage zone. The zone that says God's gonna have to show up for this to happen. Now, I didn't say the stupid zone. I didn't say I make 42,000 a year, 5,000,000 is my pledge. No. Just what is that for you? What is the courage zone for you? And I guarantee,

even if you feel like I didn't give a lot towards this thing, God will use it and God will build you in it. That is the beauty of this. That we get to do it. But I'm gonna encourage you to do it. And then here's what we're gonna do. I got a few dates up here on it. Think. When we end this series, I'm gonna ask you to start praying now like Nehemiah did. And we want our us to pledge by August eleven, twelve, and eighteenth, and nineteenth as the latest. Those are the pledge weekends. You're gonna get a brochure when you go out that has some of these pictures, talks about some of the stuff, has a picture of a really good looking couple in the front of it.

Well, the wife is really good looking. Not so sure about the husband. But and and it'll talk about this. And in there is a pledge card.

And and on there, I want you to pray about turning this pledge in. And you could do it online too or the old fashioned way. But pray about that for that date, and that's when we wanna do it. And that and this first fruit things are necessary to finance this project.

Because to get the finance, they have to see pledges and first fruits. And and what that is is pledge is how much can I give over two years? Now, just a precursor, If you already give, it's not I'm gonna take my regular giving and give to this. That doesn't help us at all.

We would build the building and then have to sell it because we wouldn't have a church left. Okay? This is above and beyond. If you've never given before,

maybe this is the first thing you can try. But but that's I pledge over two years. First fruits is how much can I front load? That's kinda like a down payment sort of be able to how much can I give right up front because that's critical for financing as well? And and and that's and that helps us have a cash inflow. And if we do this right and raise the amount we need in pledges and first fruits, we will probably be able to break ground this year

because of the success of the chairs program, our last campaign. All the design you saw, that's usually what you do in the first phase of a building program. We would have been asking for money and spending the first year getting these designs. We already paid for that. You guys were already faithful and courageous. We're a year ahead.

And $1,200,000 ahead on this already. So that's the awesome part. Here's the scary part. This is a $17,000,000 project. We need $5,000,000 minimum in pledges to do this. 5,000,000. Now we it would be better if we can blast past 5,000,000.

And and to to try to encourage you, to just give you a little encouragement, I went to some of our core leaders, our staff, families, our elders, our finance team, and some core volunteer families.

Basically, about a 130 families, which equates to a little like right around 4% of our church attendance. We have well over 2,000 families that call this church their home. So I went to a 120 of them, and I met with them ahead of time because I feel like leaders should lead the way to encourage everyone to follow. And I went to this group and I said gave them the spiel and said, here's what we're gonna do, but here's the deal. We need $5,000,000,

and I scared the snot out of them. I said, here's what I'm asking for 4% of us to do. I want you guys to get us halfway there. You guys pray about it, and I want us I want the 4% to get 2,500,000 of this committed. And I asked them to do it and they've all they've turned theirs in and they didn't get to 50%.

They got to 68%. $3,400,000 is already pledged. But guys, that's from 4% of us. What would happen if the other 96% of us decided to say I'm in on this? We should blast past. Matter of fact, the last campaign we did this, the the another 96 provided over 60% of what we brought in. If we do the same thing, that's over 7,000,000.

That enables us to get the building done quicker, better ministry. We're off to the races. So don't think, oh, already 3,400,000. I could check out. No. No. No. No. No. Celebrate that and help us blow past this goal.

Let's just really be the courageous church. Let's be the church that people say, how do you guys do that stuff? Because we simply trust Jesus. Okay? That should be our answer. The answer in church is Jesus.

So I encourage you to pray about that. Pray about your first fruits. You'll get the card. It'll say when. And I'm just inviting, please. Ask yourself, will I have the privilege of being a part of it? And when you get to the other side, you're gonna understand what I mean by that.

You'll understand that the blood, sweat, tears, the sacrifice, the fear is so worth the victory on the other side that God gives us. That he invites us to be a part of. Because to summarize this, I just want us to close with a story to pull it back to the heart of what I'm talking about. That's the details.

Here's the heart. When I was in high school, I told you guys a story about my friend Jimmy before, a couple weeks ago. Kind of a squirrelly guy. We used to play football in the streets. I don't know how you parents have gone soft. My kids can never go outside. Yeah, they can.

We would play this time of year in the middle street in high school. Be like a 108 out. It was so hot that the edges of the blacktop sometimes would get liquidy. And we would be playing. And we go out and play, and we were playing one day, and my friends and I, we all played sports. Jimmy showed up. He never played sports, so we didn't know what he could do. He wanted to play. And we get in the huddle, and what we do is we time our games, and and as whoever's ahead at the end of the time was winning won the game. So we're playing. We took this game serious. It was like it was like street

Super Bowl. So we're in there, and Jimmy's playing, but he's never played before. But he would come into the huddle every time just so obnoxiously positive where you wanna punch him in the face. And he was getting away and go, hey, guys. Throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. All he wanted us to do is throw in the ball. We proceeded to not throw him the ball because he looked goofy. Didn't even look like he could chew gum and walk at the same time. So he went throwing the ball. So we're playing this whole game. Whole game. We are drenched in sweat. We are dehydrated.

We're probably needing to go to the hospital and get IVs. But but he kept saying throw me the ball the whole time. Never stop. Finally, we're running out of time. We have a couple more plays to finish the game. If we get a touchdown, we win.

And he's skating, throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. I was so tired. My hands are cramping from from from heat exhaustion.

And I look at him, my friend Dave, who's quarterback, and I go, just throw him the ball. He goes, alright, Jimmy. You run straight for the end zone. If no one else is open, we'll hail Mary to you to end the game. We're like, yay. So so so he gets all excited. We hike. He takes off running. He actually gets separation. He's open. We're all running. My friend Dave's looking for anyone else to throw it to. I'm over there. I'm not even walking anymore. I'm hugging the guy that's defending me like we're boxers that ran out of punches,

and we need to get separated. And I'm like, throw him the ball. Even the defender. Yeah. Throw him the ball. And so we're sitting into my Dave friend Dave chucks this ball. Just heaves this Hail Mary. And we could tell from the way he threw it. We're like, no.

Because this ball is gonna go about seven, eight feet past Jimmy. All of us know the game is over. We're like, it's done. Dave blew it. Game's over. We're finished. Everybody knew the game was over except for Jimmy.

He kept running. We're like, what is he doing? And then right at the last minute, he did the dumbest thing I've ever seen, running full speed. He dove right in the middle of the street. Not down low. Literally leaped Superman style that he's this high off the ground flying through the air. We're like, what?

And as the ball comes down, it hits the tip of his fingers, bounces around, and he pulls it in and catches it and tucks it in. You're like, yay, victory. It'd be nice if it ended there, but he's still coming in like a seven forty seven with no landing gear.

And he was so committed to not dropping this pass that he would not alter how he was standing. He kept it tucked tight like this and went down elbows first right into that street. If you're squeamish, cover your ears now. He slid and there was two trails of blood. His right elbow he left

enough there that we thought should we put that on ice because the doctors might wanna reattach it. It was disgusting. He was just this heaping, messy, sweaty, bloody, asphalt y, moaning mass of humanity laying there. But as he laid there, his hand went up with the ball. And we had won the game. It was awesome.

And being the sensitive freshman in high school where we ran over, grabbed the ball, said good catch, Jimmy, ran through the sprinklers, got a drink of water, and said let's play another game. And went over and started playing a game and left him sitting there in the street.

He crawled to some shade and just laid there. And we went over playing and I I I was the most sensitive one. Go, is he okay?

And then I watched and after like ten minutes, I go, I think he's okay. He's getting up. And after like ten, he started getting up. Blood all on his jeans, pouring down his leg, sweat everywhere. His shirt was shredded. And and he and he gets up and he's like

and he goes, ugh. And I see him stand up and he starts going like this. Almost got you. And he started just walking like some of you do on a Saturday night when you stayed out too late. Call an Uber. And

he's just walking like the walking dead. It was like he looked terrible. He looked out of it and could barely walk straight. And we're like looking. And as we were in a huddle, all of sudden he comes walking over to the huddle. We're like, what is he doing? And he walks right over to us. He goes,

looks around at all of us. He goes, throw me the ball.

So he did. From then on, he went on to play in college. We threw him the ball. Why would he do something so dumb? Why? And then after he did something so dumb and was so beat up, it was so hard, so sacrificial,

he gets up and walks over and says, throw me the ball again. You know why? Because all he wanted, the goal of his heart was to catch a football. And once he caught that football and got to be a part of a victory and hold it up, he's like, I want that more. That's what I want. I just wanna catch the ball. And what he felt on the other side of it, he's like, I wanna continue to catch the ball. Keep throwing me the ball. Because his heart said, I want to catch the ball. And when that is truly your heart getting scraped up, yes, it hurts. Yes, he'd prefer not to do that. But in the moment, it didn't matter. It was worth it, because he met the goal of catching the ball. That's what I'm talking about. That's what we're saying. Yeah, we need to raise money. Yeah, we need to do this. But we need to be the people of God that simply says, I wanna catch God's will with my life. God's the one that throws it. He's the one that invited me to be on the team. He's the one that gonna make sure it's where I need to catch it. And even if I gotta get dirty and sweaty and bloody, if I get to catch that ball in victory because God allowed me to be a part of it, that's the victory. That's where I need to be. And I will come back into the huddle every time and be the person that looks to God and says, throw me the ball.

Throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. That's what God wants for our life. That's what he wants us to be. That's where joy and passion and power and meaning and everything comes from. But we have to have courage to just say, God, throw me the ball. The question is, will you? Will you? Let's pray.

Father God, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that what you've asked us to do here can seem like a huge burden when it's really one of the biggest blessings. Lord, you've invited us to be on a team that you don't need us on, and you want us to have the privilege of catching the touchdown pass that wins the game.

So Lord, I pray for myself and each one of us in here. My prayer is simple. May we just be a person that says throw me the ball. No matter what, throw me the ball. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.