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>>KALEB WHITE: Whoo! Man, I'm just excited to be in church today, to be alive. The sun
is up. The weather has been beautiful. If you can't get a fire under your butt on Memorial
Day weekend then your wood's wet. This is the right weekend to be excited. There's a
ton of guests in church. Some of you guys are literally praying that this is a ten minute
message so you can get on the lake. Welcome every single campus. I am not Perry Noble.
I'm nothing like Perry Noble. I'm much shorter. I'm a lot less intelligent. We have very different
diets. We're just different humans, okay, but you're already at church so you can't
leave because it would be awkward and a little bit mean, so just stick around and bear with
me and give me a chance. My name is Kaleb and I used to be on staff
here with Fuse which is our student ministry. Now I am not on staff with Fuse. I am now
the Rock Hill Campus Pastor because we decided that we were going to start a campus in Rock
Hill. Shout out to everybody in Rock Hill right now. We're having an 11:15 service.
Shout out to Donny and Holly and Merle and Pearl and I feel like I'm winning a Grammy
right now. I want to give a shout out to everybody in Rock Hill, we love you guys. This is awesome.
We're going to get to doubt here in just a minute, but first I need everybody to just
do me a favor. Find somebody around you and don't run across the auditorium or something.
I know some of you guys might be Pentecostal and so you're just looking for an excuse to
hit some laps or something. Look for somebody around you in the general vicinity that you
don't know and introduce yourself, shake their hand and I want you to tell them, you're going
to have to be vulnerable here, I want you to tell them your middle name. Go, meet somebody,
introduce, shake a hand. Go ahead, get out of your comfort zone. We're
going to get nice and vulnerable here. There it is. I see some people kind of getting up
a little bit. Yeah, that's good. That's good. It's very good. My middle name is Carl. Got
that out of the way. Yeah, that's good. We're going to come back to that in a minute. At
the end of this message you're going to understand why we did that, but here's also what we're
going to do. Before we get into the sermon and get into doubt, we're going to take a
few minutes here at the top and we're just going to celebrate some things because God
is absolutely moving in our church right now. He's doing some incredible things and shame
on us if we're the church that shows up and doesn't know how to celebrate, okay? We're
going to celebrate some things. The first thing we're going to celebrate, I wrote these
numbers down, I know we saw the video earlier, but I don't care. We're going to celebrate
them again. FSKO this week which is our student ministry, we had, this sounds like a joke,
but this was real, 16,461 teenagers showed up this week at FSKO. Three thousand, five
hundred and one volunteers took three nights out of their week to come and serve at FSKO
and 737 twelve to eighteen year olds in the state of South Carolina made decisions this
week to give their lives to Jesus and that's freaking awesome.
Listen, if you're a Fuse volunteer or a KidSpring volunteer or whatever campus you're on, I
want you to stand to your feet right now. If you serve in Fuse or you serve in KidSpring
and we're going to lose our mind and say thank you. That's not loud enough. These people
are setting our future up, man. You guys are incredible. Whoo! Listen, there are people
in KidSpring wiping your baby's butt right now. You guys are awesome. Some of you get
to church as fast as possible on Sunday morning so you can get rid of your kid for an hour
and that's awesome. We have people that love doing that and love
serving. FSKO is incredible. Let me tell you something else that's incredible that's coming
up. It's this little thing, if you've been living under a rock or maybe you just are
new to our church, we do this thing every year called the Gauntlet. It's coming up in
a few weeks. Listen to me. Some of you, you need to not leave church today until you're
signed up for the Gauntlet. Ten years ago I was a little brat kid in a horrible season
of life and I had one, let me tell you a couple of things I had. I had a mom who loved me
enough to fork out the couple hundred dollars it was to send me to the Gauntlet. Thank you,
Mom. I had some leaders that were colleged-aged.
Thank you, God. We have college kids. This is incredible. This is church you all. This
is the kingdom. We have kids that go off to college in a season where the world tells
them to completely throw their life away and not only do they excel at college, they also
come and serve with teenagers all throughout the week.
We have college kids. It would blow your mind. They're going to go to the Gauntlet and some
of you guys are going to ... You know what I had? I had people that took a week off of
work and sacrificed. Said, "Hey, I get two weeks of paid vacation. One of them I'm taking,
I'm going to the Gauntlet. I'm going to pay $100 and I'm going to go serve." Listen, as
a 15 year old kid in a confusing season of life where I didn't know my butt from a hole
in the ground, okay? Especially when it came to spirituality. I met Jesus at the very first
Gauntlet and it changed everything about me. This can be a week that changes ... Listen,
if you've got a teenager that is just all over the place, we need to kidnap them. We
need to bring them here on that Monday morning when everybody's checking in at 4:00AM and
we need to get them to the Gauntlet. Some of you, let's just be honest, you've got the
patience of a Labrador Retriever. You have no business going to the Gauntlet, but you
can give. You can give scholarships and you can fund raise and you can support kids going
on this trip. You need to do it. It happens every year and this is awesome.
I love this church. Earlier instead of drinking a water I drank a sparkling water and I was
burping the whole time I was trying to celebrate, so sorry. I'm not burping now. I'm celebrating
that. Okay, another couple things that we're going to celebrate here. I don't know if you
much about NewSpring or if you've been coming for a while. This church started fifteen years
ago in a living room. It was handful of people in the living room and it wasn't because there
wasn't enough churches in the community. It wasn't because there weren't enough. You had
to drive past a church to get to this church starting.
It's because we thought if we do something different, if we do church a little bit differently,
if we get some people together that are just fired up and believe in the ability of God
to save people and change people and change a community, and it grew and it grew and it
grew and it grew. Then this past year Perry just felt like you know what? Let's just take
that and let's start NewSpring over in some houses.
My wife and I, this is my wife. She's much prettier than me. It's Kristen. We met. She
was volunteering here at Fuse as one of those incredible college kids that is like totally
destroying life and also serving and also is hot and also hallelujah. We got married.
She was on staff here. She came off staff so we could move to Rock Hill and we could
plant a living room, start church in our living room.
This was a picture of last week. We had 67 people in our living room. It's awesome. Listen,
our living room is tiny. It's so small. It's awesome. We have everybody shows up like an
hour before church. They show up at like 8:00, 8:15 and we take literally all of our furniture
and we go put it in the backyard. Then we set up chairs. Then they have KidSpring on
our furniture in the backyard. It's awesome. Last week we had three kids crying when they
left because they had so much fun in our backyard. Man, it's awesome. Thank you for praying,
thank you for giving. It's so funny, typically they give in KidSpring they've got perfectly
portioned out, like you're going to eat goldfish at this time and you're going to poop at this
time. Everything is perfectly lined up. We've got a bag of Tostitos and we're like, "Who
wants chips? Yeah!" I've got a puppy and kids are out there. My puppy's licking all the
kids' faces and we're playing corn hole and all this stuff. Kids are having a blast.
I though man, that's church to them. They're hearing about Jesus, they're singing a song,
they're getting licked by a puppy in the face, eating a handful of Tostitos and they're having
so much fun. It's awesome. We're doing that. Down in Hilton Head Josh and Allie Seabaugh.
They were blowing up. I just texted Josh before I walked out of here. They had 70 people there
in Hilton Head this morning. That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Just
applaud right here if you are in Rock Hill and you haven't been coming to church. Call
me, text me, send me an email. You can get online and find all that information. We want
you to come to church, okay? This thing is growing and it's exploding. It's growing like
crazy. Let me tell you why it is. Because we're not moving to Rock Hill and Hilton Head
and getting ready to be Sumter and Aiken and we're not doing that to start a movie theater.
You come in, you pay for your ticket, you just watch everything that happens and then
you leave. We're not doing that, man. We're starting a church where it takes everybody
to make everything happen. I've heard it said like this before and this is great, a great
church is not built on the gifts of a few. It's built on the sacrifices of many. I can
tell you, we have a great church because some of you guys, I'm telling you, some of you
portable campuses people got there at 3:00AM this morning to drive a box truck and sweat
and set up church. Some of you guys have been up praying. You've
been just praying and serving and everything. This church is awesome. Now we're going to
get into the doubt thing. If you've got a Bible, turn to Mark 9, now that we're had
some fun and celebrated. I'm going to take a sip of water. I've got allergies, sorry.
You just have to deal with it. All right, Mark chapter 9. We're in a series all about
doubt, this idea about doubt. Every single one of you, I don't even need to go into this,
every single one of us has had doubts. Some of them are funny and some of them are
kind of serious. Maybe you got, we sent a little mailer out to a couple of people that
live close to our churches. We had a lady come last week because she's going through
a divorce. Her life is in a terrible storm. Just bad circumstances and she was praying.
She's like, "God, I'm giving you one chance. If you're real, I'm doubting that you're real.
I don't think you're real. I'm giving you one chance to prove yourself to me." Goes
to her mailbox, finds this mailer that there's this church a mile away from her house that's
doing a series on doubting God and whether or not he's real.
She came last week. She went to the Care Room. She prayed with people, she got hooked, she
got connected. I hope you're back this week. Wherever you are, it's awesome. Maybe you're
here because you got a little mailer. Maybe you're here because you're visiting family
for Memorial Day and you kind of have doubts. Everybody doubts God or maybe you're here
and you've been coming to church your entire life, week in and week out you never missed
and you still have doubts. All of us have stories in our lives where
doubt plays a significant role in the outcome, right? Some of you doubted that you were going
to make it through college. Some of your parents doubted that they were going to be able to
afford your victory lap in college or your victory laps in college. For me, when I was
in high school and there's just something here in the south, listen, if you're watching
online or you're listening on the podcast or something, you'll just have to take my
word for it. High school football in the south is just awesome. It's embarrassing as a grown
man to go out and cheer for sixteen year old boys running their heads into each other,
but it's awesome. High school football is awesome.
When you're in high school, high school football is even more awesome, so back when I was in
high school after the football games we used to go to this, my friend's house and we'd
have a big bonfire. This was pre-Jesus, so we'd all have a beer or 40 and hang around
this bonfire after the football games and after everybody won. We're just, "Yeah, this
is awesome." After we lose we're just like, "Yeah, this sucks, blah, blah, blah."
One night we're hanging out at this party. I had been there for two minutes maybe. I
just pulled into this party. I don't know, one of my best friends, he had this little
sister and we used to pick on her all the time and kind of poke fun at her and all this
stuff. I don't know if she had just had the worst day of her life or if she was just distraught
that we had lost the game or what was happening, but she was not in a good mood.
I walk up to this bonfire and I'm kind of standing around with this group of guys and
she comes up and she looks me in the eyes and she says, "I swear to you, if you say
one more mean thing to me, I'm going to slap you." I'm literally looking around. I'm like,
"Dude, I haven't even said anything. What is she talking about?" Doubt works its way
in right here. A couple things. I have a spiritual gift of
sarcasm. It's directly from God, it's a spiritual gift. I also have the spiritual gift to drive
people to the point where they're ready to pull out a glock and unload it into my chest,
okay? I can really frustrate people. It's a spiritual gift. I'm exercising my spiritual
gift at this party and she doubted, when she said that, she doubted that I was going to
cross her. She put it out there. She put the ultimatum out there. I'm going to slap you
if you say one more mean thing to me. I doubted she would slap me. I look at her
in the eyes, I'm like, "Okay, let's see how bad you are, chick." I said, "One more mean
thing to me." I just said the most sarcastic thing I could think of. She went straight
Jackie Chan, just full on extension and slapped me so hard in my face. I doubted I was going
to recover. It hurt really bad, but also for some reason, and I know girls, this makes
you even madder, Mom, when you're spanking a kid and he's laughing, I couldn't stop laughing
which made her cry and run off. It is what it is.
Pray for me, pray for her. Doubt has worked its way into all of our lives at some point.
Every single one of us, if we were sitting around having coffee right now we could tell
stories about how doubt has really played a significant role in the outcome of our lives
up til this point. All of us have different degrees of doubt, whether you doubt that you've
got enough money to pay your bills for the rest of the month. Maybe every morning when
you get up you're just doubting. God, you've got to do something today. I don't have this
money. Maybe your marriage is on its last leg and
you're just doubting. God, I don't think our marriage is going to make it. I really, really
don't. Maybe you have a family member that's sick. You just doubt. You doubt they're going
to make it. We pick up the story in our Bible in Mark chapter 9 which is where we're going
to be, we run into a guy that's got some serious doubt. He's got good reason for it.
When I was thinking about, when Perry asked me to preach in this series all about doubt
and I'm sharing, I spent a couple of weeks praying, like, "God, what do I really doubt?
What is it in my relationship with you that I've really just had zero faith and I really
just doubt?" Because I just personally, I don't have a hard time believing that God
is good. He's done so much in my life. From time to time I kind of get off track, but
I believe God is good, man. I love Him. I'm grateful for Him. I believe He's good.
I don't have a hard time believing that God wants what's best for my life. Here's what
I doubt most in my relationship with Christ. I doubt that God cares as much about my lost
friends and family as I do. I feel like I've been praying for some people in my life, some
friends, some family, some people I grew up with. I've been praying for them for years,
eight, nine, ten years. I'm seeing no fruit. They're still running their life into the
ground. They're still making bad decisions. They're still doing the things that they've
always done and I just, some of you guys, you've been here. I talked to handfuls of
people at this church that you've got people that you've been inviting and praying for
and inviting and praying for for years and years and years. They're still in the same
season of life. You ever get to this point where you're just like, "Do you care?" Am
I the only one that wants this person to get his life together? Am I the only one that
wants my brothers to get their life, to get their act together or my family, my friends?
Am I the only one? This story in Mark chapter 9 is so encouraging
because we see a guy who I feel like he's just on the last leg, man. He's at wits end
when it comes to the people that he's praying for. Mark chapter 9, let's pick up the story
at the first part of Mark 9. Jesus is up on the mountain with a couple of disciples. It's
a story called the mount of transfiguration. If I tried to explain it, you'd all leave
or fall asleep, so I was actually, I was preaching during the first service and there was a man
sitting right here who was asleep. I wanted to take my pen and throw it at him and hit
him right in the head, but I didn't. God, please help me God. Pray for me. If you're
asleep, please wake up. Somebody in Charleston is asleep right now
because you're at the beach and you're a beach bum and you're sleeping. Hopefully not. Okay,
Mark chapter 9. That didn't go anywhere. Here we go. "When they returned to the other disciples
they saw a large crowd surrounding them and some teachers of religious law were arguing
with them." Shocker. Religious people arguing about something.
"When the crowd saw Jesus they were overwhelmed with awe and they ran to greet Him. 'What's
all this arguing about?' Jesus asked. One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said
... " I love this guy. I can level with this guy. Some of you guys are going to connect
with this guy. He's standing in front of Jesus. He says, "Teacher, I brought my son so you
could heal him. I brought my son so you could heal him. He's possessed by and evil spirit
and it won't let him talk." This guy has a son who obviously, he's had
a tough life and I don't know how long he's, how old the kid is at this point, but some
of you guys, you have kids and you've done everything in your power to get them to Jesus,
right? If you were standing in front of Jesus this is what you'd be saying to. Jesus, I've
brought my son to you so you could heal him. You know what I love about this church? One
of the things that makes me just, it breaks my heart, but at the same time it fills me
with such faith and such excitement about this church is I've been here for a lot of
years now and when it gets to raining outside, and I'm not talking about a little drizzle.
I'm talking about torrential downpour, you see, I've seen single moms come into church
with their baby under one arm and baby under the other arm in the pouring rain just trying
as hard as they can, doing everything in their power, trying to get their kids to a place
where they can hear about Jesus. I've seen teenagers, the season of life where
the world just completely writes you off, right? I don't know if you guys have watched
TV or heard any of the music that's populating our teenagers' brains right now. There's nothing
good going to them. It's a miracle that they're not all addicted to everything and running
their lives into the ground. I'm telling you, we have teenagers in this church, thirteen,
fourteen, fifteen years old that have absolutely given their lives over to the belief that
Jesus can heal and Jesus can fix and Jesus can save.
They will bring people. There was a story a couple years ago at FSKO. There was a kid
who was coming who he and a couple of his friends, they had a group of people and they
were so, they wanted one of their friends to come to FSKO so bad. He kept saying no
and no and no. I'm not, I'm totally condoning this, but I'm not saying you should definitely
do this. I'm not suggesting it. I'm more saying if you do, it would be a good idea. Maybe.
They went to his house the first night of FSKO. Literally broke in his house, tied him
up, put him in the back of the van, brought him to FSKO, straight up kidnapped him. Guess
what? He got saved. Now he's one of our best small group leaders. He won't quit showing
up. He's incredible. He's one of those college students that's blowing people's minds with
what he's doing because we have people that are just dedicated man. They're committed.
This dad is there. Some of you dads, you're here. You're like,
"Man, it doesn't matter what we're doing this weekend, we're getting to church. God, we've
got to get them to church." Some of you moms, I don't have to tell you about dedication.
Dear Lord, if it wasn't for moms we would all be screwed. Thank you moms. Yeah, thank
you moms. This isn't mom's day. Every day is mom's day. Amen, right moms? Every day
is mom's day. This guy's father has him brought to Jesus
and he's standing right in front of Him. He says, "Jesus, I brought my son to you." Some
of you, you're there. You're like, "I've took this responsibility upon myself. I brought
my son to you." Look what happens. "Whenever the spirit seizes him it throws him violently
to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and he grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.
I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn't do it." This is
the part that got a little bit frustrating. Have you ever been to the point where you're
like, "Jesus, I had my kid in Sunday School his whole life and then he still got to middle
school and acted like a thirteen year old. What happened? What happened? I raised my
kid the right way and he still got to college and just went completely bonkers. What happened?
It didn't work. I tried to pray with my kids. I tried to share with them. I tried to train
and raise my kids the right way. I tried my best and it didn't work. What happened? Jesus,
what happened? I gave everything that I could. I had them in church and I taught them to
respect people and pray and all these things and it didn't work."
Look it, this guy is here with Jesus and I can imagine him kind of being frustrated at
Jesus. Like hey, I've heard all these stories about your disciples right? About how they
can just pray for people and they'll just get up and walk when they've been paralyzed
their whole lives or people that were sick and your just disciples. They just come and
pray for them and they get healed. Well guess what, Jesus? I brought my son to
them and they couldn't even do anything. Look at what Jesus says. "How long has this been
happening?" As if He didn't know. "He replied, 'Since he was a little boy.'" This shows me
this guy has been struggling with this for years. Since he was a little boy. Who knows
how old this kid is now. This is years and years and years of dedication and God knows
I don't have to tell some of you what years and years and years of prayer and dedication
for friends and family looks like. You're here today because some of you, you're
just exhausted because of how many years you've been praying for somebody or begging God to
save this or heal this or fix this. You've just been begging God for it. Since he was
a little boy. "The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water trying to kill
him." This is a bad situation for this little kid or maybe for this grown man. I don't know
how old he is at this point. "Have mercy on us and help us if you can."
Now reading this story, it's so easy for us to look at this and just go, "Dude, do you
know who you're talking to? You just said if you can to Jesus." Like any of us would
go, "I don't know, man. I'm pretty sure He can. Have you read the rest? I know you don't
have a Bible, but if you could read the rest of the Bible you would see He did some pretty
cool stuff. I think He can kind of heal this guy."
Look at Jesus' response. This is awesome. "What do you mean, if I can?" My dad is a
tall guy and played basketball and was pretty good at it, used to be. Now he's old, washed
up, broken jump shot. Just kidding. Back when I was in middle school we used to play basketball
together all the time. I've got two brothers and we'd be out in the yard playing ball all
the time. I just remember him saying, just asking questions. You know when you're in
middle school, some of you guys, girls, I'm sorry. Guys are stupid but all of us guys
were all the same person. You know in middle school you tried as hard as you can to jump
up and touch the bottom of the net. Then you get a little bit older and now you're
trying to touch the backboard. Then you try to get old enough that you jump and try to
touch the rim. I remember asking my dad, "Dad, word on the street you used to boss, son.
Do you think you can still dunk?" He's like, "What do you mean if I can?" He went straight
Jesus on me right there. "What do you mean if I can?"
I remember my dad in his early 40s or mid-40s, in middle school I'm thinking God, you're
almost dead at that point. No offence. I don't think that now that I'm older, but you know
when you're a middle schooler you're like 40? Geez, how are you still walking? He dunked
the ball in our driveway on a ten foot goal. I just remember being like, "Oh snap, my dad
is a gangster." Now he can barely walk and ... I'm just kidding. I'm exaggerating. He's
a very healthy guy. Anyway, I guess this is what I picture, Jesus
saying this. I imagine Him going like, "I'm going to spiritually dunk on you fools just
to show you that yes, I can. If I can? What do you mean, if I can?" It's funny to look
at this, but all of us have been here. Every single one of us has gotten to this point
whether you are fully believing in God, probably if you don't believe in God you've done this
more than everybody else, where you go, "I don't know if You can, Jesus. If you're out
there, if you're real, if you exist, I don't know if you really can see the situation that's
happening in my marriage, but if you can, can you fix this?"
Maybe you have a brother who's just so lost. He's just doing terrible things. He's running
his life into the ground. He's so far off and you're just like, "Jesus, I don't know
if you can." Some of us need to hear today, God brought you to church today so Jesus can
tell you hey, I can. That's why some of you are in church today, because you're at the
end of your rope believing and you're doubting God. If you can. Jesus says, "What do you
mean, if I can?" Look what He says. "Anything is possible if
a person believes." This is where I call a time out. This is where I call a time out.
Let's rewind in the story a little bit. Jesus takes the fact that his son, this guy's son
isn't healed and He puts the responsibility back on him. If I'm standing here in the crowd,
I'm going, "Excuse me, Jesus. You're saying anything is possible if a person believes.
Didn't he bring his son to you? Is that not belief? Is that not what you're asking for
when it comes to belief?" Some of you are here today and you would say
the same thing. You're like, "Hello. I'm believing. I brought my kid to church. I've prayed for
this friend or this brother or my mom, my dad. I've prayed for them everyday. What do
you mean if a person believes?" He puts the responsibility back on the guy. This kind
of drives me crazy, but I want you to see it's for a reason. It's for a purpose. Jesus
says this, "The father instantly cried out, 'I do believe. Help my unbelief.'"
That's where some of us are today. It's funny. I don't know if you're like me, but I've got
a couple of friends, they're like, "Dude, I'll do anything you need me to do, but I
ain't praying out loud." It's funny because some of you guys here in the south, you're
like, "I work til my hands bleed. Hold my beer. I got to praise." You'll sing, I'll
dance, I'll do anything but I ain't praying out loud, brother. I ain't doing it. I ain't
praying. It's so funny. I hear that all the time, but
I get it. I've been in prayer before with God and thank God He doesn't listen based
off of how good my prayers are because some of them sound so stupid. This guy, he's like,"God,
I believe you can heal him. I'm not sure if you can." He's like what? I'm not sure I'm
following, Jesus. Kaleb, what are you asking for?
I'm like, "Well Jesus, I think you can change their life. I don't know though. I think this
person is so lost and only you can heal them and bring them back, but I I'm not sure. They're
a long way off so I'm not sure if you can so we'll talk later." He's like, "Wait a minute,
you were praying and then you kind of backed out. Which one is it? Do you want me to do
it? Do you not want me to do it?" That's where this guy is. He's saying Jesus,
I believe man. Help my unbelief. Help the parts of me that just can't get it together
to actually believe. Help me. Help my unbelief. Some of you, that's why God brought you to
church this morning, so you can quit pretending like you're big strong, big bad men. Follow
this guy altogether and you can get in front of some people in the community and say, "Hey
God, I believe today, but help my unbelief, please. I'm struggling a little bit with this
doubt. I'm struggling." You know what drives me crazy about specifically
southern male culture? We leave vulnerability and openness and transparency to the women.
It's like no, you know what? Oh, you've got some problems? No, we aren't talking about
that. My wife will talk about it, but we ain't talking about that. My life's falling apart?
No, I'm good. Let's go wrestle in the mud with our knives or something. That was stupid.
What I'm saying is we think it's weak here in the south when it comes to being a man.
We think it's weak to have this doubt, this unbelief.
Right? Part of it is probably because we feel the responsibility to lead our homes and lead
our families and we don't want to be the dad or the husband that's leading out with unbelief.
Look at this example that he sets. This is him in front of people saying, "Jesus, I believe.
Help my unbelief. I'm struggling right now. Can you help me please?"
Here's what I want us to do. If you're taking notes or if you're going to type them into
your phone, here's three things that we can do when we have people that are far from God,
that are lost, that are making decisions that are hurting them and our heart is broken for
them. When it seems like Jesus doesn't care. The first one is this: we got to believe.
We've got to believe. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 is one of my favorite
verse in the Bible. Look what it says. It says, "Faith is the confidence that what we
hope for ..." If you have a paper Bible and you're old school and you like your Bible
with pages and not a digital thing, circle that word hope. That's one of the most important
words that exist. "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen."
I want to ask for something from this church. I want you to help me.
Next time you hear somebody say, "Hey, don't get your hopes up." I want you to tell them
to shut up. As Christians, as a believer and follower of Jesus Christ we should have the
corner of the market when it comes to hope. We should be the most hope filled, faith filled,
radically, irrationally, positive, hope filled people on the planet. The first step to a
God-sized faith in what He can do is a God-sized hope in what could happen. Let's get our hopes
up as a church. Dads, here's what you need to do. You need to lead the way.
When you wake up in the morning you need to be filled to the brim with hope of what God
can do in your family. Moms, you need to have hope. Every time you take your kid to school
or you have a phone call with them or you do whatever, let's get our hopes up. Let's
start expecting God to do something great in our families and in our friends. Some of
you, you're like, "Dude, shut up. I've been hoping for ten years. My hope meter is on
empty." Well, you know what? Fill it back up today. Go by the Care Room when you leave
today. Get somebody to pray that God would fill you up with some hope because we've got
to do it. I don't know if you're watched the news in
the last ten years, but this world sucks. I'm sorry if that language offends you. There's
no hope out there. This is the thing that will set us apart. You walk into a job that
you don't really love with people that you definitely don't want to be around making
money that's definitely not enough and have some hope. You'll start turning some heads.
Hope is contagious. Hope is something that you can't get away from. We're called to hope,
so let's believe. Believe for your friends. Believe for your family. Believe for those
people that you care about that nobody else cares about. Let's believe for them. The second
thing is love, is love. Let's take those lost people and let's love them. Imagine what would
happen in our communities if 30,000 people that came to church today on a NewSpring campus
left and injected our communities with a whole bunch of hope, with a whole bunch of belief
for people. Not only that, turned that into love for them.
You know what drives me crazy is the world and sin is out-loving people that are far
from God way more than the church. Way more than the church. It's easy to take your problems
to the bar. It's not easy to take them to church. We don't want you here. Jesus used
to go to sinners and now we raise our kids not to talk to them.
Right? That's what a good Christian kid is, is somebody that avoids those bad people,
those bad people. I just wonder what it would look like. The story in John chapter 13, it
blows my mind. Jesus had just finished the most ... Now when I say Jesus, this is the
singular most powerful, most honorable, most glorious human being that's ever walked the
earth. At the beginning of John 13 He is on His hands and knees wiping the nasty, dirty
mud and dirt out from under the toenails of his disciples. He's washing there' feet.
Almost threw up just saying that. Much less being there and doing that. I don't like feet.
I'm a guy. My feet are disgusting. There's nothing good about feet whatsoever. Jesus
is washing His disciples' feet. This is what He says to us. He says, "By this all people
will know that you're my disciples." By the way you win arguments in the comments section
on Facebook. Oh, that's not what He said. He said, by the way that you boss people around
at your job. That's not what He said either. He said, "People everywhere will know that
you're my disciple by the way you love people." I just wonder what it would look like. If
30,000 people left church today and did something completely irrational in the name of love
for somebody far from God, I bet you there wouldn't be enough seats on our campuses next
week to fill it with the sinners that want some of what we have.
Let me tell you a story. There's a dad who's on staff at our church and he raised four
kids. He's got four sons and they're all awesome, but there was a season in life when they weren't
all awesome. His son, his oldest son was telling me a story one day and I don't want to say
names because he'd kill me if I was telling this story, but when he was in high school
he just had this moment where he just, he was kind of an idiot in high school honestly.
He kind of went high school on everybody and then he had this really bad mess up.
His dad goes boss on him. He says, "Get in the truck." He's grown up int he south, he's
like,"Oh God. I don't know if this is like I'm about to be dumped in the woods. I'm about
to lose my leg or something like this. My dad is just about to go crazy on me." He gets
in the truck and they're driving through Anderson and the kid's in the car like, "Oh God. Should
have worn a cup. I don't know what's about to happen."
They pull into Target. They go inside Target and they're walking around. He's like, "Oh
my God. He's going to execute me in public. This is even more embarrassing." They walk
to the video game section and he had been wanting this Xbox, so he takes him over to
the Xbox. He's thinking he's about to buy this and then just blow it up right in front
of me. He takes him, he buys it for him, he walks out to the car and he says, "I want
you to enjoy this." His son is like, "What? I'm not sure Dad actually
heard the right version of the story of what happened. I don't know how this got back to
him." He looks at him, he says, "Son, this is the gospel. Completely undeserving, but
yet you get it anyway. That's grace." That's why the message of Christianity is better
than every other message out there. In a moment when he as a father had every right to just
blow his son up, he gave the one thing that would absolutely change not his son's behavior,
but his heart. He gave him grace. He loved him.
Now you know what his son does? He works on staff at a church across the world serving
people and helping people because in that moment when he had every right to be blown
up, you know what he got? He got grace. It changed his heart forever. Some of you, you're
in here today and you have racked up an entire rap sheet of things that you absolutely should
be punished for. I want you to hear me. Jesus offers nothing but grace for you and for me.
That's what we've got to go extend to people in our communities. That's what we've got
to go extend to the people that are hurting that we've been praying for. It's not shame.
Listen, believe me, I want to. The people in my life? I definitely don't want to give
them grace. I want to take them out in the yard and break them. I want to break your
neck. I love you for so long. You're still acting stupid. I'm not happy with you. Grace
is not easy, but it's also the only thing that will change somebody forever. The third
thing that we've got to get better at, we've got to do as a community, if we do nothing
else, we've got to pray. We've got to party. Look at how this story
ends. Mark 9, he brings his son to Jesus. The disciples can't do it. Jesus challenges
his belief and then He says this, "Then the spirit screamed and he threw the boy into
another violent convulsion. Then he left him. The boy appeared to be dead. A murmur ran
through the crowd and people said, 'He's dead. He's dead'" maybe you're here today and the
murmur is going through the crowd about your marriage. It's dead. It's dead. Murmur's going
through the crowd about your relationship with your kids. It's dead. There's no coming
back. People are talking about it. The murmur's
making its way through the crowd and doubt is seeping in, doubt's starting to come in
about it. Look what Jesus does. He took him by the hand, He helped him to his feet and
everybody's in awe. He stood up and afterward when Jesus was alone in the house with His
disciples they asked him, "Hey, why couldn't we do that? Why couldn't we cast out that
evil spirit?" Jesus said, "That kind can only be cast out by prayer."
I want you to hear me say this, I would be a fool to tell you that if you work harder
God will save your friends. If you just do more and love more and serve more, then God
will save your kids. It will be all great and awesome. There is an end to our effort
when it comes to our friends and family meeting Jesus. You are not responsible for the salvation
of your friends and family. That is God's job. That is absolutely God's job.
Jesus tells the story and He wants us to know, prayer is you getting to the point where you
say, "I've done all I can do. I need you to help." I want you to grab your card that you
had. There's a card sitting on your seat and it has a today I'm praying for ... It says
I'm praying for blank. I want you to grab it and I want you to grab a pen. Moms, I know
you have 30 pens in your pocketbooks, so if nobody has a pen around you, if you'll just
pass them around. I want you to start thinking about people
that you've been praying for for years. Maybe it's your brother, maybe it's your sister,
maybe it's your mom. Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your aunt, your uncle. I want you
to start thinking about them. Start getting their name's in your head, okay? While you
do I want to tell you a story. When I used to live in Anderson, this was back in the
day when I first got married, back in the day. I've been married for three years. Sorry.
When we first got married we were going to work out and some of you that live here in
Anderson you know what I'm talking about. There's a Gold's Gym over on the west side
of Anderson and we were going to wok out there every day. We were super disciplined. We were
going at 5:00AM, me and my wife. There was only one guy who was stupid enough to be at
the gym that early. He comes to the 9:15 service. He's actually just sitting right there. His
name is Leeland [inaudible 38:18]. Leeland is a beast. I would get to the gym at 5:00AM
and Leeland is just a sweaty mess. He's been there for an hour and he's getting ready to
leave. One day and if you're a stupid guy like me,
you're going to level with this story, I walk in the gym and I don't know if it was that
I just ate the right food the night before or that I was just like, I don't know what
it was, but I was jacked. I'm thinking, you know what? I'm bench maxing today. That's
what I'm doing. I'm maxing on the bench. Now this is 5:00AM, there's nobody in the gym
but me and my wife and she's in the girl's section so even if I did scream she couldn't
hear me anyway. I get on the bench, I do my warm up and I'm
like, I'm standing in the mirror like ... Man, you dog, like all these stupid guys have done
at the gym. Some of you guys, you're with me. You're like, "Oh yeah, dude. Been there,
done that. Idiot." I put 225 on the bar. I'm like, wham. Locked it out. I was like, "Dude,
you're the strongest man alive. You're a beast, son."
I put five pounds on each side. I'm like, "Two thirty five. I'm a machine." Lock it
out. I'm like, "Dude, no, seriously. I'd kill anybody right now." I put five more pounds,
245. Now let me tell you, I've never in my life smelled 245 pounds on a bench press.
This was so ambitious. Some of you guys are like, "Two forty five, yeah. It's nothing
to me." Two forty five is a lot for me, okay? That would have been a lot of weight. I still
to this day have never benched 245. I put on there and I'm by myself in the gym. It's
5:00AM and I'm laying on the bench like ahh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to do whatever
I can to get jacked up. I get the bar and it doesn't matter how much
excitement I had in my spirit, that thing was not going further than right there. If
you've been there and you've bench pressed you know what I'm talking about. You've got
like three seconds to make a very quick, rational decision about what you're going to do. I
didn't think quickly enough so this thing just slams down on my belly. All right? It
didn't hurt that bad. Some of you are like ... It's not that bad.
I'm like okay, well what now? Right? What do I do now? I start like rolling it down
my stomach. It's sitting on my waist. I'm like, "Help. Help." Then I remembered that
I didn't have the clips on so I just went boom, boom and did that kind of thing. I started
thinking about that stupid story and about how it's so stupid. I didn't have anybody
to lift that weight off me. I want to tell you, you know what church is? It's a whole
bunch of people that are here to help you lift the burden off of you.
It's a whole bunch of people walking around going, "Hey, you know what? Let me help you
out with that burden you've got." I want you to right now, write the name of somebody on
that sheet of paper. I want you to write their name down. Write down somebody's name that
you've been praying for. I want you to do this. That person that you asked their middle
name earlier, I want you to give them that card and I want you to take theirs from them.
Come on, do it right now. Get their card from them. You give them yours.
Come on, do it, hand them that card. Because here's what we're going to do this week. You're
not going to carry your own burden this week. You're going to carry somebody else's. Some
of you have been prang for these people for ten, fifteen, twenty years. Somebody else
is going to carry it this week. You carry theirs. Let me tell you, I don't ever want
this to be the church or I don't ever want to be the guy that just stands on stage and
says, "This is you guys. This is your problem. You all have to go do something with this."
With that, I want you to write those two names down.
Those are my brothers. That's my blood, that's my family. I have been praying for them since
the day I met Jesus. Going on eight, nine, ten years now. I'm tired of carrying this
burden by myself. My mom, my dad, we have spent hours and hours and hours praying until
our knees hurt and just begging God until we were hoarse to save them. Change them.
Please God, they're running their loves into the ground. Help please.
I don't want to carry this burden by myself any more. Here, somebody take this card this
morning. Will you take that? Will you pray for them this week please? I want us to pray
our church. Our church is nothing if we're not unified you all. Our burdens will crush
us. So church, let's be the church that carries somebody else's burden. Just for a week. Next
week you can go back to putting all the weight of the world on your own shoulders and just
try to do that as long as you want to. For this week, we're going to pray for each other's
burdens. You guys stand on your feet. I'm going to
pray for us. Everybody just right where you stand, bow your head and close your eyes.
I want you to think about these names on the card. You might not know the situation they're
in. You might not know who they are or what they've got going on, but I want everybody
to hear me. There's people in here today that you're begging for somebody to write your
name on their card. You're lost, you know it, you're far from God, your life is falling
apart and you need to give your life to Jesus today.
With every head bowed and every eye closed, I got a text message before I came on stage.
There's somebody in Boiling Springs today you wrote a note saying you already have your
suicide date planned out. I want you to hear me, today is the place that God brought you
to so you could give that burden to somebody else. Please, do not leave here today trying
to carry that burden. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in Boiling
Springs that want to carry that for you. Please. If you're in here today or whatever campus
you're on and you want to give your life to Jesus or you need to pray with somebody about
a burden that you're carrying, I just want you to step out of your aisle and head out
the back. There's going to be volunteers there and staff that want to pray with you, that
want to help you take this burden off your back. Maybe you're stuck and you need to talk
to somebody about a next step or how can I grow? How can I get unstuck? What do I need
to do? There are people that want to talk to you
and help you and pray for you. Amen. There's people moving all over the place here in Anderson.
Don't leave here today with a burden that you've got no business carrying. Amen. Everybody
else I want you to look up here. You've got this card. Put this somewhere this week where
you're going to remember. Put it on your dashboard, put it in your mirror, put it in your wallet,
put it somewhere and every single day this week let's just be filled to the brim with
hope, with belief and let's pray for these people. Let's expect God to do something great
in their lives. Pray for somebody else. Take your eyes off
yourself and your own situation for just a week and let's beg God to do something great
in other people's lives. Let's pray Jesus, we believe in You. All our chips are in, cashed
in on You Jesus and Your ability to save. We can't carry our burdens by ourselves. We're
not strong enough, we can't do it. We come here today God to share our burdens.
We want to get other people to help us carry, but we know that ultimately You're the only
one that can change a heart. You're the only one that can change a life so we just are
asking for miracles this week, Jesus with the faith that this church is showing by praying
for people, by expecting for them, Jesus. We are believing for miracles. God, thank
you so much for this church. Thank you so much for thousands of people that believe
in You and that believe in Your power. Help us to take Your grace and Your love and Your
peace to the world. All God's people said, Amen. You all have a great Memorial Day tomorrow.
Enjoy the water. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.