Legacy Sunday

What you do and How you do it matters.

And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. Revelation 20:11-12

For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body. 2 Corinthians 5:10

For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field,God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. 1 Corinthians 3:9-15 NIV

For the Son of Manis going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Matthew 16:37

Before Jesus, your whole life is about finding Jesus. Once you find Jesus, your whole life is about making an impact for eternity

Because Heaven and Hell are Real:

1. I will intentionally give what I have.

You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 2 Corinthians 9:11

2. I will intentionally serve others.

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26-28

3. I will intentionally share Christ with others.

We are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. 2 Corinthians 5:20

Discussion Questions:

When you hear Revelation 20 described as a real moment you’ll stand in, what rises up in you first? Curiosity, fear, hope, urgency?

People often don’t reject Jesus, they reject the version of Him they’ve seen in us. How does that challenge you without condemning you?

Sharing Christ can feel intimidating. What makes it hard for you?

What makes it exciting?

Scripture shows that individual gifts become exponential when offered together. How does it change your perspective to think of your generosity as part of something bigger than yourself?

If we truly believed heaven and hell are real, how might that shape the passion behind the offering we bring and the work it fuel.

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Transcript

Welcome And Holiday Season Preview;

SPEAKER_00 2:49

How many of you guys are excited to be here today? Well, I am more excited than that. I am thrilled, thrilled to be here today on Legacy Sunday. And as soon as I get this straight, awesome. I am uh I'm so excited not just about today and uh the things that we get to talk about. I think I'm gonna move really quickly today, but before we dive into the message, I want to say welcome to all the guests. If you are new or if this is your church, I'm uh you're home. I'm glad you're here. And if you are watching online, maybe the first time, or you're back, you're returning to to worship with us online. It means a lot to us that you choose to worship with us. It's a big deal. And um it is awesome. Awesome. And I'm um if you're if you're traveling, we have a lot of people traveling right now. I'll just slow down and say that we're continuing to pray for you and continuing to lift you up as you're on the road, which happens a lot during the holiday season for a lot of us. Awesome. Let's jump into a couple things actually uh before we get to our legacy message, and I'm gonna share some uh some pictures of some things and some of the stories of stuff that you may have missed this year, things that are that are going on all around you, things that you made happen. I'm gonna share a lot of that with you. But before we get there, I want to let you know what to expect through the end of the year. We've got um the holiday season is packed full of stuff that have to do with the dream team and small groups, and I can't go into all those things, but I can tell you what we'll all be doing right here on a few of the different holiday days. And I know that everybody has their own holiday traditions. I would just encourage you to make the house of God, make the church community part of your tradition. So maybe you haven't done that in the past, but it's time to start some family traditions. And so here's some opportunities that you have next week. You did hear uh you did hear correctly that Santa Claus will be here, but we're also starting on December 14th. Hope has come, a two-week series where we'll be talking about Christmas and the hope that Jesus brings and the birth of Christ and how that impacts the really the whole world. And then our the next Sunday, the second part of that series will be our traditional Christmas service. There'll be lots of exciting things happening in the foyer on your way in and um great times of tradition. Even though we are seven years old, we have uh we have a lot of traditions, a lot of things that are going on. And then on December 24th, everybody say Christmas Eve. It is certainly my tradition, our tradition to spend Christmas Eve together. And I know that uh many families have uh meeting times trying to meet with this part of the family, that part of the family, but it'll just be a one-hour candlelight service, and it will be very special time of worship. And um I'm looking look forward to that all year long. December 28th, the last Sunday of the year, is actually a day where we're inviting and encouraging all of our everyone to stay at home and rest together. All of the activities, all of the the the service and efforts and really stuff going on every single day between now and the end of the year with our serve teams and uh meetings and events and programming and all of the different services that are happening. We're encouraging the 120 or so of you that are on the dream team, especially for the dream team. This was born out of that. That we want you to feel rested and renewed and ready for a brand new year as we jump into uh 2026. And that brings me to the last thing on the schedule, January 4th through the 24th. I want you to be ready for uh 21 days of prayer and fasting. This is something that we have done since the beginning before we started as a church. Angel and I have done it for many, many, many years, and this gets us ready for the whole year and giving up some things, sacrificing some things, whether it's a meal one day a week or one day, uh one meal a day, or whether it's a few days of meals or a whole 21 days. We'll most many of us will be doing a whole uh whether it's Daniel fasting or a full fast or a soul fast or there's lots of different options. Look, dig into it, investigate a little bit, strategize, be specific and intentional about going into the new year and giving God the first part of it and um fast and pray with us. We'll have prayer services going on during that time, but I'm telling you that so you can be intentional and be prepared and be ready. Amen. Are y'all with me? Okay, good. Then let's change gears. That that's cool stuff for you to be a part of. Now, I wanna I wanna really just for the first part, first half of my message here, I want to give you um some of the things that you have been knowingly or unknowingly, you've been a part of. If you've given your time, if you've given uh money in the offering, it's gone towards these things. Some of them are new this year, some of them are things that we've been continuing to sew into every single year to s to just partner with different people and partner with different programs and seeing um things that you some things that we started that are just incredible. And I don't have time to really break it all down for you. If you have any more questions about it, I'd love to show you more. We just for for sake of time, I want to show you a lot of the things that you have been doing and making an impact. We'll start with international missions, things that happen outside the United States that we've said that we're not just here to have church and to say amen and to give each other high fives and pats on the back because we're doing good stuff. We're here to make a difference in the world, and that's not just right around the corner, but literally things that most of us will never see outside of the internet. Um, the first thing I want to show you is uh and remind you of the Ikange orphanage that's right outside of the Nairobi, Kenya. Right outside of Nairobi. We started years ago when they were they had just a dirt floor shack with kids that didn't have anywhere else to go. Uh where they were trying to feed them, try and we we when we found out about them, we said we can really make a difference here. And so we built a water well, which gave them fresh water every day. And after that, we we built them uh restrooms and then a kitchen. Every time we finish with a project, we're like, okay, what can we do next that will just revolutionize the the lives of these kids and then help like the impact that we're making on them? Not only do we get to um help build their life up better and give them a better quality of life, but we also get to tell them about Jesus. We also get to share the gospel and give them a foundation that these young kids who knows what God will do with their life, but for right now, while we have an influence on them, and so this year we were able to put um dormitories. You guys saw that earlier this year. We saw the uh the dormitories um the dormitories go in. Our next project that we really hope to to be able to get off the ground is to be able to get the uh the schoolhouse going. Because as you can see here, they're meeting, they're sitting, the floor you can't really tell here, but it's dirt. Um we want we want to build them the same quality uh as the dormitories. We want it to be uh very nice and um something that they can um that that really will impact their community as well as they get older. So another project that I want to uh sh remind you of is uh this year we partnered with uh Pastor Luigi and his wife Leiki and who are who moved from Katy, Texas. Uh they've been my friends for a long time, but they moved to Katie, they moved to Columbia, Medellin, Colombia, so to plant a brand new church. To go into a place. They they keep sending us pictures of them going up into the mountains and doing like reaching some of the poorest people on this planet and and serving and poor that there is a city there in one in in a very big city in Colombia. They have technology, they have the the opportunity to do a lot of things, but it's hard to start anywhere when you're parachuting into a place and you don't know people and there's not a church there already. It's incredible the amount of of impact that we can make through them and with them by partnering with them. And so we're so excited to see the updates as they keep coming, and they're gonna have their very first church services in a church building in January. Amen. Thank you, thank you. All right, Brother Gentry. Thank you. National missions. As we narrow back down into the United States, there's several things here. I'd love to give you more about some of the big things that a bit uh a good portion of our budget every month, every week goes towards. When we started, uh, we partnered and chose to to link up arms with a group called ARC, an organization called ARC. That's the Association of Related Churches. And in the last uh few years, last 20 years, they have planted uh over I think we're at 1,100 churches or so so far. We are one of those that were were helped by them and coached by them and and given, okay, here's how we you start the process when we realized we the the very first time that we invited a bunch of you to our house after we had had started a Bible study and decided to start uh uh a church in our home. 175 people showed up to our house, and I thought, we need some help. This this will never, this will not work. We cannot meet at our house again. Our neighbors were mad, the police were called, the traffic, it was just a nightmare, and so we needed some help, and so we connected. Uh ARC was our friends, and um they have been such a tremendous help along the way and helping us to just raise money and figure out how do we get a building going and how to like they've just given us so much support, and we realize that we can do the same for other people. We can we can jump in and uh be a part of that network, and so we have. And this year, ARC, with our help, has helped has planted 55 new churches this year in the United States. 22 different states, eight different countries. Most of those 55 were in the United States. I think eight or so, uh, I think eight different countries, those are one in each. But this year, uh in those 55 different churches, 20,479 people showed up day one of the first service for for those 55. That is an incredible amount of people for our very first church service across 55 different churches, and 1,626 people gave their life to Jesus for the very first time on those first days. Since then, the the numbers become exponential as we work and and all just in one year, 55 different churches put their shoulder to the wheel to help be boots on the ground for the kingdom of God, to join together with us. Many of those churches, uh so close uh and looking and acting and the culture of our church, wanting to serve the community. One of those 50, one of those arc churches, we we have partnered with uh my friend Jeff and friends, Angela's friends, uh Jeff and Kelly Couture. They're in Spicewood, Texas. They're starting a church called Rescue Church, and we have we've given them equipment, we've given them, we're we're supporting them and praying for them all the time. You're you'll be seeing updates from them in the new year as they're settling into their building and doing outreach and just doing incredible things like is happening right here in this city. Another thing that you're doing, I wish we could slow down and just cheer for each one of the things, but another thing that we're doing, the next level relational network is something that uh years ago I found that um I I I was meeting with some pastors and and I heard one of them say this that you know what, if you're lonely in ministry, if you're feeling like you're struggling and you don't know how you're gonna keep going, then you're doing it wrong. And we had I had always just put my head down and I didn't have a I I encourage everyone to have a small group for years, decades. Get in a small group, you need a small group. And we have had some kinds of small groups, but I never had a like a pastor small group. Now I have 15 guys who continue to support me and I meet with them regularly and share and pour out my heart and take the math. The same things that I ask you to do in your small groups is what I'm able to do and what so many other pastors are able to do when they get connected in this relational network. And so we decided to support this. It needs to be bigger. We need to reach more pastors. We need, and so part of our budget every month goes towards helping pastors become healthy. It doesn't affect me. It's not it's not part of my budget, it goes right into the network and helps them to reach out and serve and support. Uh, in fact, there was a uh one of the pastors in the network, his house flooded and became they couldn't live in the house. And the network decided that they put together, I can't remember what the budget was, but like$25,000 and wrote a check and got their house uh flood repaired. And something that uh some churches are not able to do, but the network was able to do over and over and over again to help support and make sure that this group of hundreds of pastors is healthy and high impact. And so we'll continue to support there. I want to show you a brand new thing that we have started this year that our hearts just got connected to, and we said we cannot not do this. This is so amazing, and we're thrilled to be a part of it. It's it's bigger than I can tell you about, so I'm gonna want let you watch this video.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus told a parable about the end of time, about the way he would judge the ones who saw the hungry but chose not to feed them, the ones who saw the sick but gave them nothing. The ones who saw the incarcerated but chose to ignore them. At God behind bars, we want to foster a generation of Christians who no longer ignore the incarcerated. We believe that when we introduce inmates to Jesus and connect them to the local church, our hearts are beating with the heartbeat of God. Since 2009, God Behind Bars has been on a mission to provide every inmate in the United States with direct and personal access to the gospel. We want to help inmates to grow their faith, heal trauma and emotional things, break addictions and cycles, and to step into their calling as sons and daughters of the Most High God. We do this by launching churches within prisons, with worship, sermons, and teams of volunteers to pray and build relationships. We've also created the Pando app, the very first Christian app ever allowed inside of prisons, providing 24-7 access to digital Bibles, devotionals, Christian music, and sermons from hundreds of churches, all designed to reveal the love of God. But our ministry isn't just for the inmates. Throughout the year, God behind bars facilitates events for the 10.8 million children in America whose parents are incarcerated. Christmas dinners, daddy-daughter dances, moments that were once missed, now given back to the children who longed for them. 95% of all incarcerated individuals will one day re-enter society. And when they do, we want them to already be connected to the church, to their families, and walking in the ways of Jesus. We believe God is truly moving behind bars. Today, over 10,000 inmates are worshiping weekly in more than 75 prison churches. More than 2.5 million individuals are deepening their faith through the Pando Act, and thousands of families are reunited every year. Our gatherings, like the 1,300 men who worship at a Florida prison in 2022, are among the largest prison gatherings ever. God Behind Bars has made more than 1.1 billion decisions for Jesus. By the end of this decade, we hope to be reaching 95% more of the entire U.S. elite population. This is how we can be the hands and feet of Jesus and to display the love of God behind art.

Supporting Pastors Through Relational Networks;

God Behind Bars Partnership;

Local Outreach And Community Impact;

Why It Matters: Eternity And Judgment;

Works, Rewards, And Excellence;

SPEAKER_00 20:52

So excited for that new new outreach and new endeavor to be able to make an impact in a place that is so dark is incredible. So now we'll bring it down a little bit to the to the local level and how we're impacting right around us. This building has become a game changer for us for a long time. I thought we could do everything that the church needs to do without a building, but it turns out a building helps. A building helps a lot because we need a base camp. We need a place to work from, a headquarters, and we've done that. So uh we have our regular elderly outreach, elderly home uh outreach where we go and we visit and we pray and we preach and we help and we serve and do nails and toenails and wash hands and all the all the incredible things that you guys do. Uh we have our street ministry where we're giving away coats and blankets and breakfast and um we have sponsored Sawyers Elementary. They are our elementary school, and not only do we do uh school supplies, but take care of the teachers on a regular basis every month. We're finding out how can we serve teachers and bring meals and uh do breakfast for the teachers and prayer. We'll walk the halls with them and pray over the students and the classrooms. And it's an incredible open door that God has given us in Sawyer's Elementary, the Christmas Angel Tree and feeding meals at Christmas time and Thanksgiving time and holiday times. All of those opportunities are happening all year long. Um, hosting community baby showers for teen moms and uh throwing community block parties right here in our very own building, community prayer walks through the neighborhoods, all all of those things are uh quick insight into the many, many, many like so many events, like more events than I can keep up with at this point. I I remember it wasn't that long ago that for a long time, Angela and I, everything that happened around Relate, we were with it, we were able to be a part of it. We were at every meeting, every every small group, it felt like. And then all of a sudden, there were today, there are a million things that we don't even get to hear about. We'll hear about it months later, and like, why didn't you tell us we would have been there? And you guys are incredible and incredibly generous to just pour out your lives and have picking up the mantle and the torch of we're gonna serve our community. We're here not just to have church, we're here to be the church. I love that you are those people. I love that this is that church and that you are so generous. And so today, even though we're taking an offering, even though this is our one special offering of the year, I'm here to tell you thank you for doing what you do, that we could not do the millions of things that we do without your help, that the lives that are being changed by Relate and uh because of this community and through us by the power of God, it would not happen without your generosity. So thank you. And we're gonna continue to make that bigger and a bigger and bigger impact each year. Why? And to answer the question of why, I just want to switch gears and you can pull out your notes. If you have your notes, pull them out because we're gonna take some notes that I'm gonna share with you in the 15 or 18 minutes that I have left. Um, not even that much. Let's see. About 15 or 18 minutes. I'll share with you the uh the why. Why, why does it matter? Everybody say it matters. It matters why, because heaven and hell are real. We could live our lives just oblivious to the things that, well, I don't see it, it must not be real. No, it is as real as the hurting and dying people all over this world, people walking around in darkness. There are people who are aimlessly, unknowingly, uncaringly just living their lives on their way towards hell. And we wanna we wanna say, hey, God has a better life for you. And we we honestly, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so we we start with our hand out. We we start with our hand before they they can know what our heart looks like for them, and that the love of God is for them and not against them. So, because heaven and hell are real, because eternity is real, and because that's true, what we do matters, and how we do it matters. We could just show up every Sunday and say, uh, hey, we don't need lights on in a stage and music, and you guys can park in the dirt and walk through the mud, and I'll just open up my Bible and and tell you what the Bible says. We could just let it be as simple and as raw, but there is a reason why we do things the way we do them. There, there is a hope in what we do, and I'll show you why it matters. Revelations chapter 20. My first verse for you today is Revelation chapter 20, verse 11. He says, I saw a great white throne. Everybody say a great white throne. He's he's he's about to show us a picture of the great white throne of judgment that everyone will have to stand before. He says, and one sitting on it, that's God. The earth and sky fled from his presence. This is like a this is uh an awe and uh inspiring and scary moment for a lot of people, but it says they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And watch this the books were opened, including the book of life. Notice it says the books, there's a bunch of books, and then there's the one book. A lot of books and the one book. I'll tell you what those books are. Those books are full of the deeds of men, they're full of everything written down, all of the good things, all the bad things. Some of you guys have much bigger books full of bad things that you've done. Some of you have smaller books. But then the one book says the book of life. We talk about how we want to see our name written in the Lamb's book of life, because when your name is written in the book of life, the other books don't matter. And there will be a lot of people whose names are not written in the book of life, and what'll happen is when they stand before the great white throne of judgment, they'll be judged based on their deeds. And there are no good, there aren't enough good deeds to outweigh the bad deeds. The only the only thing that we can do to justify ourselves in God's eyes is to have our name in that other book. It says the books were opened, including the book of life, and the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books plural. If your name's in the books and not in the book of life, then you will be judged based on. So you do sitting here in the room, I'm not I'm not going to assume that every person's name is in that book. I want your name in there. In fact, first and foremost, before you ever give in an offering, I don't care if you've given the legacy offering or not. What I do care about is if your name is in that one book. And the question when you stand before the great white throne of judgment will be, and I'll give you the question and the correct answer, the question is it will be, what did you do with my son Jesus? If your answer is, well, let's go look at all the books, that's not the answer. The answer is I gave my life to him. I gave him everything, I gave him my life. That's not the only day of judgment. And often in culture and life, we talk about the day of judgment. There are actually multiple judgments that will happen. The first is the great white throne of judgment. And when we stand before the great white throne of judgment, the Bible says that if our name is written in the Lamb's book of life, what he'll say is, Well done, my good and faithful servant, come on in. I've prepared a place for you. Jesus said, My father, in my father's house, there are many mansions. I'm going there to prepare a place for you. If your name is in the book, he says, Well done, my good and faithful servant. If your name's not in the book, he's gonna say, Depart from me, I never knew you. But then for those of us whose name's in the Lamb's book of life, in the one book, what'll happen is there will be a second judgment. I'll read it to you in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 10. I'm not saying that we're saved by works, I'm saying that we're saved because we have a relationship with Jesus, our name's book and the written in the Lamb's book of life, and then there will be a judgment of works. You won't be saved by works, but there will be a judgment of works where you will be rewarded because of your works or not rewarded. Watch this. Verse 10 says, For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done on this earthly body. So all the things I hope that we are building for ourselves a reward in heaven, not on this earth. So all of the money that we're pouring into, people say, Pastor Sean, why would you want to spend$20,000 supporting a prison ministry that we'll never step into? You know why? Because I want to build, I want to build a heavenly reward that is waiting for us in eternity. I want to sow my life, my blood, sweat, and my tears, so that by the end of this life, I've spent everything. I'm not trying to save up anything on this earth, it's not gonna last. And so when he says, What did you do for Jesus? What did you uh that'll be that second judgment? What have you done? A judgment of works. Here's another here's in another uh verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 9, Paul gives us this description of for we are co-workers in God's service. This is works, this is these are the works that we do. We're not saved by these works. You are God's field, God's building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it, but each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than that one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the day, notice the day is capitalized there. It's a specific judgment day, will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire. The fire will test the quality of each person's what? Work. Some of y'all are reading along there. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. Everybody say reward. That's what we're working for, not a reward of this earth, and we're not just doing it for the reward, but there's a reason why it matters. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive reward, a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss. Watch this, yet will be saved. So we're not talking about salvation here. Where you can, it'll be like this. You didn't do anything for God, you gave your heart to him, but you didn't do a single thing, you didn't lift a finger or give a dollar. Hey, welcome. You can you made it into heaven, you got your foot in the door, but you don't have a reward other than you just made it here. He says the builder will suffer loss, but yet will be saved, even though as one escaping through the flames. Like you escaped the flames of hell, but the reward you're looking for, the crown that you receive in heaven, is is it will be different for each of us. And so we have to make a difference. Salvation is a free gift, but significance is costly. So when we give an offering, we're gonna take a legacy offering. It's not so that we can build this offering, it is not about us. This offering is about how can we make an impact in the world and leave a legacy that remains and seeds that are being planted that will outlive us? How can we do that? We have to let our light shine before men. Uh, Jackson, can you bring me my cookies? I need some help over here. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is my cookies. All right. How many Oreo fans do we have in the building today? All right, we got some of you guys just said a hand about halfway, and some of you were like, that's me. And then some of you shouted out, woo! I'm not giving these away, these are mine. So just I can just uh we'll just leave it at that. Oreos. Double stuffed, of course. They have to be double stuffed. This is a double anointing right here. And those of you who know, there are three rows in here which represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There are cookies out there that want to make you believe that they are Oreos, but they are not Oreos, and they are not double stuffed. This package matters a lot. How it's packaged truly matters, and I'll prove it to you by showing you this right here. If I was to take this, and I'll put an exclamation point too. Three exclamation points. Oreos. Anyone want Oreos? These are fresh. No thanks. Who said that? Yeah, not these, these ain't the ones. These uh they are Oreos, I'm telling you. I tried to give them away in the first service. Those ones are mine right here. These nobody wants them because if I tell you how great they are and I I can show you smells just like Oreos, nobody wants these because the packaging matters. And people ask, why does it matter? Why? Because why does this little the what's on the inside is the same? What's on the inside is the same, and we could tell people about God all the time. We could tell, we could have God inside of us. And I've had people say, Well, why don't we just let God be God? We could just meet anywhere. Why do we need a beautiful building? Why do we need to make sure the parking lot's a certain way? Or why do we need to spend extra on a fence outside? And why can't we just use a basic fence? It's cheaper. We should just do the cheap version. I said, It matters what it looks like. The packaging matters. Because some people are gonna look at it and they're gonna say, ooh no, I don't think so. I'd rather not. I if that's you know, I know it's God and everything, but uh, you know, I'd rather have something that looks right. I'd rather have the one with the actual with with the uh an excellent label on it. So that's why excellence matters. That's why we push in the dream team to make things clean and beautiful, and we buy uh a better thing than we have to. Why can't we just sit on pews? In fact, there were lots of opportunities for us to have free wooden pews. We wouldn't even have to pay for them. And everybody said, Amen, we got a nice cushioned seat to sit on this morning. Why? Because it matters. We could just let God be God. Why couldn't we just be listen? I hurt some of y'all's feelings whenever we were looking for a building, and y'all came and told me, hey, Pastor Sean, the Lubi's closed. We can meet in the Lubies building. I said, no, hold on. No, and then you guys came and told me the Wendy's closed. We can meet in the Wendy's. No, we can't meet in the Wendy's, and you got your feelings so hurt. There's a reason why the packaging matters. There's a huge reason why the packaging matters. We can let God be God, and if we don't care about that the the packaging and the way that we uh the way that we live, what happens is people don't know God. They know you. And they know me. And when people get to know you, do they still want to know God? When people get close enough to figure out what you're about and how you live and the packaging that you have, when they get close enough to you, do they get close and they're like, I don't need that. It's probably the real, I trust you, but no thanks. But whenever we can approach people and show them, hey, we've got the we've got the right thing, you want this, then they believe us. And we can share what God has done for us. Matthew 16, 37 says, For the Son of Man is going to come in his father's glory with his angels, and then we will he will reward each person according to what they have done. It matters how we live, it matters what we build and how we outreach and the kinds of gifts that we give away. That's why we try not to give away garbage. We want to give away beautiful gifts. Before Jesus, your whole life is about finding Jesus. It's not about a legacy offering or what what I'm not asking you to, if you don't know Jesus, you're the first thing you need is to know Jesus. But once you find Jesus, your whole life is about making an impact for eternity. It's about making an impact for eternity. So because heaven and hell are real, I'm gonna give you three quick things in closing in the next five minutes. I'll give you three things that because heaven and hell are real, because eternity is real. Number one, I will intentionally give what I have. I'm not asking you to give what you don't have. I don't want you to go sell everything. Jesus told the the rich young ruler when he first asked, What must I do to be saved? He said, just follow the rules, do the things, do what I've asked. And he said, I've already done all that. What else? And he said, Go sell everything you have, give it to the poor and come follow me. Jesus asks for everything. That doesn't mean you have to go sell everything you own and give it to the church, but your life belongs to him. He's not asking for something you don't have. 2 Corinthians 9 11 says, You'll be made rich in every way so that you can be what? Generous on every occasion, and through us, your generosity will result in the thing in thanksgiving to God. Ultimately, we are generous because we want people to look at Jesus. We don't want people to look at us. We don't have a huge focus on each of the singers and creating superstars and preachers and people whose names and my name's not on the front of this building. I don't need to be famous. We're here to make Jesus famous. We're here to get people's lives transformed because he can change people's lives. I can't. Because eternity is real. Number two, I will intentionally serve others. I will intentionally serve others. Jesus said, Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came to be served, came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. That's what this should look like. We're serving, we're giving. This week I saw uh preparing for this message, I was just moved in uh reading one of our single mom's uh posts online. And I'll read you part of it. It's a very long post and there's a lot to it. But she says, it's been one year and two days since I packed up my babies, one mattress and our clothes in a U-Haul to relocate. Depressed, heartbroken, sad, lost, hurt, empty from giving my all to everyone around me. And while I needed me in that capacity, you never uh you ever been around family and friends and still felt alone? Thirteen long hours I drove, only stopping for gas and food, pregnant. The first night I slept on my living room floor like a newborn baby. She begins to describe the process of what it looked like from leaving everything behind and coming into a community where she didn't have a family, didn't have a community, but she found a community, and she talks about finding us and finding the church and being able to find people who cared about her and the difference that has made in her life. That's why we're doing this. Because how we live matters. And I saw, I remember seeing when she came into town, and um we don't have a program. Sometimes people think, oh, they must have some uh they must have text and computers that send out programs, and what we have is people who see people online and they connect and say, hey, you should come sit with me at church on Sunday. And then several of you guys did that for her, and she came and sat with us. We don't we're not building something high-tech just so that we can we can check all the boxes. We we're here to love people because that's what God asks us to do. So we serve in the community during the week, we serve on Sundays. The dream team. You guys my challenge to all of you is to not serve every day, every every Sunday, every service. My my challenge to you is to uh worship in one and serve in one so that you're being refilled and finding health and balance and a good rhythm to serve God and be poured into that you can also pour out. But we need you. We need you. I can't do this alone. If one person could do all the work by themselves and we could just find the best of us and just let that person do it, then Jesus would have done it all himself because he's the best one of us. But Jesus passed the torch and said, Go build my church. And those of you who uh love that we are a church where people can come in and serve, or you can say, uh, Pastor, it's been a l I I just need to rest. I need to sit and I need to rest for a while and get healed up. And if that's you and you've been sitting and it's been a while, maybe it's time to jump in. I'm just saying. If not, rest. I've always told you guys we will I will never pressure anybody to give or to serve, but we'll go and grow as fast as you do. So number three, and finally we'll close. Number three is I will intentionally share Christ with others. If we're not doing that, then why are we even here? If we're not sharing the gospel, if we're not sharing the love of Christ, then why are we even here? We can cheer and shout for our kids and baseball, football games, and all the uh celebrities on television and influencers that we'll get excited for all those things. But if we can't get excited to go and reach and save the lost and do the work of the kingdom of God, I'm telling you that that is our passion. That is our greatest passion to be able to serve the King of Kings and to pour out our lives for that cause. That's why we say that we will do anything short of sin to see the lost saved. That's why we'll spend money, that's why we'll come up with programs and spend our time and serve, and that's why we'll sweat and bleed and get out and put our lives on the line, if that's what it takes. Second Corinthians 5.20 says, We are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. Relate, church, God is making his appeal to the lost and to a lost and dying world through us. That's why it matters how we live, how we give, how we serve, how we share. I'll share with uh I'll close with this one last idea, and that is story. Briefly, my son today, he's sitting right here, he's 23 years old. But when he was probably two years old, Jake was uh, I remember we we were going to meet, there was probably eight or ten of us going to meet for uh for dinner. Family dinner and a few friends, and uh Jake, two years old. Well, actually, maybe not quite two years old because Grace wasn't here yet. So almost two years old. We got him buckled in the back seat in his car seat, and everybody was in the car, and we carpooled over to the restaurant. We get there and we pull up to the front, and I let everybody out of the car, and they uh everybody unpacks and does all the stuff, and just me in the car, I go park and then I walk back inside. I get inside and realize after a minute or so, hey, where's Jake? Where's Jake? You're you're you had Jake. Where is he? Is he did you let him and she says, no, you had Jake. You have Jake. And so the two of us, we had this moment where like, where's Jake? And it didn't take us long to figure out, of course, that I was the problem, and I left Jake in the car. Sorry, Jake. I have apologized many times, and I still, but there was a moment there where nothing else mattered but my lost son. Where is he? Between the two of us, between anyone else at the table. I don't care what you're ordering, I don't care what you think I should order, I don't care where you want me to sit. I'm looking for my son. Sometimes we go to the Father and we have all these things that just like God cares about our stuff. I'm not saying he doesn't care about your stuff. He the Bible says he cares about the hairs on your head. If he takes care of the sparrow in the sky, why would he not take care of us and and love us and care for? But when we're taken care of, and my name's written in that book, now the the the focus becomes who else's name can I get put in the book? Because his focus is what about my lost kids? I think I I want to say, God wants to just say, stop telling me about I I don't want to belittle your prayer request, is my problem here. I don't want to belittle the thing that you care about or the thing that you're hyper focused on for Christmas because you need this thing to happen or you want this thing. God, I just need a new car. I mean, I got a great car and it's paid off, but if you could just help me get a Lamborghini, I don't think God cares about your Lamborghini as much as you, as much as he cares about the lost children that he has. And I think he would say to us, we gotta we gotta save the lost. The Bible says that he so loved the world that he gave his son, he paid the ultimate price, not to make sure that we could have uh 10 Rolexes. He paid the ultimate price so that the lost could be saved. That's why we're doing this. That's why we're taking an offering today. So whether you give today, you go online, you can click the box, and there's a drop-down you can give specifically to the legacy offering. That money is not gonna pay the bills, it's not gonna, we we live within our budget and we're budgeting all the things that we want to do here. This offering, whether you give today, some people have already asked, can when's the latest I can get? Listen, at the end of December, we're no longer taking legacy offering, it will disappear from the website, so just do the best you can. I hope that we want to we want to do the best that make the biggest impact we can for the kingdom of God. So, with that said, I want us to pray. And then we'll close. Lord, we thank you for making it helping us to make a difference in the world. We want, we are working for a reward, but God, we're also working for your approval to make an to make transformation happen in the lives of the people of this city and around the world. So, God, bless us so that we can be a blessing, not just so that we can live in blessing, but so that we can be a conduit of blessing, so people's lives can be changed. Lord, use us in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. For those of us hold on, hold on, hold on. Those who are in the room, maybe you've never given your life to Jesus, maybe you've never made that had that moment where you have submitted your life to him and surrendered to him and had your name written in the book. I want to give you an opportunity to do that. And it just starts with the confession of faith that we do in this prayer, and that's the first step in this journey that God wants to take you on. And all it takes is that uh the decision to follow him. So if that's you and you're in the room today, then I'm gonna ask every head bowed, every eye closed, and I'm gonna just invite you to say this prayer with me. If you'd like to give your life to him today and take that step of faith, would you say these words out loud out loud? God, today I give you my life. I choose to follow you. Thank you for sending your son to pay a price that I could never pay. Thank you for your grace and your mercy. So I accept your free gift of life. Forgive me of my sin. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Now, let's put our hands together for everybody who said that prayer. The band is coming. Would you guys stand up on your feet? I'm going to invite the prayer team to join me at the front. If you would like to pray with someone before you leave, come on down. Otherwise, I love you. You're just missed today, but we'll see you next week forever.