WE ARE ROCK POINT CAMPAIGN | Vision Weekend | Sermon · Rewind

WE ARE ROCK POINT CAMPAIGN | Vision Weekend | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Aug 26, 2024

Big Idea

We can't stop showing up as the church, because Jesus keeps showing up and has already prepared a harvest — all we have to do is get in the game.

Jesus has already prepared a plentiful harvest and the victory is already His — our only job is to show up and do our part. Following Jesus is hard, but not following Him is hard too, so Pastor Bill calls Rock Point to choose the hard that leads to victory: showing up with sacrifice, service, and generosity for the next phase of the church's building campaign.

Key points

1
1Jesus's mission statement for the church is to love God and love others, and that's the whole point of the law and the prophets.
Pastor Bill walks through Matthew 22, where a Pharisee tries to trap Jesus by asking for the greatest commandment. Jesus answers with loving God fully and loving neighbor as yourself, which Pastor Bill says is where Rock Point's own mission statement, point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus, comes from.
2
2The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few — the real problem isn't the harvest, it's people unwilling to be harvesters.
From Matthew 9, Pastor Bill notes Jesus already describes a huge harvest ready and waiting, contrary to the fear-driven posture many churches take toward the world. The struggle Jesus named to His disciples is the same struggle today: people want to come to church but don't want to actually show up and do the work.
3
3Showing up isn't the same as really being in the game — presence without engagement misses the point.
Pastor Bill tells a story about his father, a baseball coach, benching the team's effort after a lackluster game. When a player protested, "at least we're here," his dad answered that they were all there, but the player hadn't shown up yet — a line Pastor Bill applies directly to giving, serving, and sacrifice at Rock Point.
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4The campaign needs $6,000,000 more, and true generosity means equal sacrifice, not equal amounts.
Pastor Bill explains that rising interest rates and costs mean the church's finance team refuses to borrow more, so the remaining $6,000,000 must be raised directly. He asks everyone to prayerfully decide their own scary, sacrificial amount, noting the widow's mite matters more to God than a large gift that costs nothing.
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5Life is hard whichever direction you choose, so choose the hard that leads to victory instead of defeat.
Pastor Bill recounts his father, a decorated war veteran, teaching him that both sides in combat endure the same hardship, but only the side that keeps moving forward wins. He applies this to following Jesus: the difficulty doesn't go away, but moving toward Jesus is the hard that ends in victory rather than defeat.
6
6Paul's example to the Corinthian church shows that real ministry costs something, but victory is on the other side of it.
Pastor Bill reads through 2 Corinthians describing Paul's hardships, beatings, and sleepless nights in bringing the gospel, alongside the paradox of having nothing yet possessing everything. He identifies with Paul as a church founder and pleads with Rock Point the way Paul pled with Corinth, to open their hearts and not withhold their love.

Application

Pastor Bill's charge is to choose your heart and show up — because Jesus already showed up first and prepared the harvest.

Prayerfully decide your pledge amount
Take the pledge card and ask God what amount would require you to sacrifice, not just what feels comfortable, and commit to the We Are Rock Point campaign.
Get scared with your giving
Whether you've never given or you already give well, push past comfort — increase what you give and let it cost you something real.
Consider a larger, sacrificial gift if you're able
Pastor Bill directly challenges those with means in this high-income area to consider a gift as large as a million dollars, believing several in the room could do it.
Choose your heart and move forward
Recognize that life is hard either way, and choose to lean into the hard that follows Jesus rather than the hard that leads to defeat.
Follow through on your commitment
Make the pledge and then actually follow through on it, trusting God with the outcome rather than backing away from fear.

Take it into your week

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7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

Jesus doesn't bury the lead. When the religious experts tried to trap Him with a question about the greatest commandment, He answered without hesitation: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself. Two commands. One life direction. Pastor Bill reminded us that these two commands aren't just a nice motto — they are the foundation of what it means to be the church at all. Everything Rock Point is building toward, every seat in a new room, every dollar pledged, every hard conversation about generosity — it flows from this. Not from strategy. Not from ambition. From love. It's worth sitting with that before anything else in this week's devotional gets more specific. The reason to show up, to sacrifice, to take a risk with your finances — it isn't obligation or guilt. It's that you actually love God and you actually love the people around you who don't yet know Him. That's the whole thing. If the love is real, the showing up tends to follow. And if the showing up feels hard right now, it may be worth asking whether the love simply needs some room to grow. That's not an accusation — it's an invitation. Let the two great commandments be less of a statement and more of a daily orientation.

For reflection

When you think honestly about your everyday life — your schedule, your attention, your energy — what does it reveal about what you actually love most?

Pray

Pray for a fresh, sincere love for God and for the people around you — one that shapes your decisions this week.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Pastor Bill opened this message with a simple but loaded question: what does it actually mean to 'show up'? Let's spend a few minutes sitting with that before we dig into the passage.

Discussion questions

1
In Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus names loving God and loving others as the two greatest commandments. What do you notice about the order He puts them in, and what might that order say about how those two loves are connected?
2
In Matthew 9, Jesus looks at the crowds and tells His disciples that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. What do you think He means when He frames the problem as a worker shortage rather than a harvest shortage?
3
Pastor Bill drew a distinction between showing up in body and showing up as 'the player inside you' — ready to sacrifice and play your position. What does that distinction look like in practice for a community like Rock Point?
4
Pastor Bill leaned on his father's coaching wisdom to make this point: life is hard either way, so choose the hard that leads to victory. How does that idea land alongside Paul's account of hardship in 2 Corinthians 6 — where he lists suffering alongside joy, poverty alongside spiritual riches?
Related passage
5
Pastor Bill challenged Rock Point to think about 'equal sacrifice' rather than equal amounts — giving at a level that feels genuinely trusting and a little scary. What makes sacrifice feel different from just a transaction, and how might that distinction shape the way a church community approaches a commitment together?
6
Pastor Bill pointed to specific stories of life change at Rock Point — salvations, baptisms, special-needs ministry, students coming alive in faith — as evidence that Jesus keeps showing up. How do those kinds of stories connect to what Jesus promised about the harvest in Matthew 9, and what might they invite us to do next?

Pray together

Courage to show up fully — with sacrifice, trust, and an open hand — because Jesus keeps showing up for us

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Topics

Answered Call to Mission Church Engagement Commitment and Sacrifice Generosity and Giving Trusting God

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