PASTOR JOHN STICKL:

All right. Everybody, welcome to Valley Creek. We're so glad you're here with us today, wherever you are, whatever's going on in your life, whatever campus you're at, whether you are in Denton, Flower Mound, Gainesville, Louisville or online somewhere in the world, can we just welcome each other together for a moment? We are one church that meets at multiple campuses, that carries the hope of Jesus to thousands of locations, and every once in a while, we gather worship leaders from across all of our campuses, we bring them to the Flower Mound campus, our broadcast campus, and we stream the entire experience to remind ourselves that we are a part of something so much bigger than ourselves, that we are one church, and we sometimes just want to worship with one voice, with one song, at the exact same time, declaring the name of Jesus together in the spirit of unity because we are one people on mission for Jesus.

And if you're new, and this is all new to you, and you're seeking God, hey, I'm so glad that you're here with us today, there is no pressure to do anything. My encouragement for you is over the next few minutes, just receive that which is being spoken and sung into the air, may you have an experience and an encounter with the love of God, but if you're here, and you're a disciple of Jesus, and you say, this is my church, then let me just remind you why we're here. We're here to worship Jesus. We're here to lift up the name of Jesus. We're here to experience and encounter the person of Jesus. We're not here for ourselves, we're not here for anything else, we're here for Jesus. And it can be so easy to come into this place and bring in all of our stuff, our distractions, our discouragement, our tiredness, our weariness, our burdens, our stress, our anxiety, but sometimes we just have to stop and say, nope, today, I'm here for Jesus.

So, here's what I want to invite you to do, you just lift out your hands, and will you just see all the things that you carried in here with you today, the anxiety, the stress, the tiredness, the weariness, the things that you're wrestling with, the things that you're concerned about, your struggle to focus, your struggle to be present, the storms, the situations, the circumstances of your life, can you just see them all in your hands, and can you just lay them at the foot of Jesus? Can you just lay them at the foot of the cross and say, "Jesus, today, by faith, I give these to you. I know you care about them, and you're aware of them, and they're really important to me, or they're really distracting to me, but right now, just lay them at the foot of the cross."

And for the next hour, I choose to be here for you. And then, maybe lift your hands straight up as a sign of saying, "I'm no longer holding those things, I'm now present with Jesus because Jesus is present with me. I'm now here to worship Jesus because Jesus is in this room. I'm now here to sing a new song to Jesus because Jesus is worthy of my voice. I'm now here to lift up the name of Jesus because Jesus is worthy of my mind, of my heart, of my body, of my soul. So, Jesus, we are here for you. Jesus, we're here to worship you. Jesus, we're here to lift up your name, to experience you, to encounter you, to declare that you are the King of kings and the Lord of lords, we are here to worship Jesus."

PASTOR BEN MORENO:

May you have the power along with all of God's people to grasp how wide, how long, how high and how deep is the love of Christ. The love that surpasses all knowledge and that you would be filled to the full measure of the fullness of God. You know, there's a reason why we take time at the beginning of each service, every time that we gather together to worship and to sing praises to God. It's because the most natural response when you've been touched by the grace of God, when someone's been touched by the grace of Jesus, the most natural response is to worship. When you've been touched and changed by his grace, you can't help but worship Jesus.

And so, if you're new with us, this is what we do. This is who we are. We are worshipers. It was over 15 years ago when God put it on our hearts to become a worshiping church, to value God's presence above everything else. To value God's presence with us, within us and before us. You know, the Bible says that he's seeking those who will worship in spirit and in truth. He's seeking spirit-filled worshipers who will worship him with passion and will worship him with everything that we have. And so, guess what? We are unapologetically a worshiping church. And we will continue to value God's presence every time that we meet together. We're going to value his presence in him with us.

And so, I just want to tell you, every song that we sung this morning is one of our very own. We wrote it here in the house. And I got some really exciting news to tell you. We just released a project that came out this weekend called, "House Sessions" Majesty," and this is what it looks like right here. And it's really cool. I just want to put this on your radar. It's available to stream everywhere that you can stream. But it's also available for the whole experience, for you to watch the whole experience on YouTube. And that's going to be a really cool way to engage with it, one of the things that I love to do as a family, I love to put things like this up on my TV in the living room and let it just feel the atmosphere. It changes the atmosphere of the space. If you've been tracking us with us, we have what's called the Peace Track that we made. And that's kind of like a speak over that you can play to your family at night, or on the drive or when you're working out and just speaks over you.

This is like the sing over version of that. It's about an hour's worth of acoustic worship with some fresh new songs that you can engage Jesus with. So, I just want to encourage, put that on your radar for you. But hey, it is great to worship together, isn't it, church? Hey, before you're seated, we're going to do two minutes of kindness. So, for the next two minutes, take a moment just to engage with others around you. Walk across the aisle, meet somebody new. And for the next two minutes, show kindness to the people around you.

PASTOR JOHN STICKL:

We are a worshipping church. That's who we are. That's who we want to be. That's what's in our heart. Because Jesus is worthy of it. Jesus is worthy of our song, and our life, and our time, and our attention, and our affection and our devotion.

He's worthy of our focus, and our energy and our life. And we want to be people that make Jesus the one thing, the main thing, the only thing, the everything. We want to lift up his name. We want to honor him. We want to seek him. We want to experience him. We want to encounter him. We want to know him more. We want to declare his praises because he's called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. And we now are a worshiping people in every way, shape and form. And we're learning how to do that in all kinds of ways. And one of the ways we do that is just by writing new songs. And there's two reasons we write new songs. One is because the Bible declares and commands us to sing a new song to the Lord. Sing a new song to the Lord. Why? Because the more I experience and encounter how deep, how wide, how long and how high the love of God is, the more revelation of him I have, the more new things I have to sing about him.

So, I can't sing the old songs because I have new revelation. So, I will sing a new song to the Lord. But then we also write new songs because we want to resource you so that you can be a worshiper, not just in this room, but in your life. So, that you can be a worshiper in your house, and in your room, and in the secret place, and in your car, and in the, and when you go for walks, and in your school, and in your business and everywhere you go. We don't want to just worship one hour a week when we gather. We want to be a people who worship God 168 hours a week all through our life in every way, shape and form. So, I want to encourage you. I want to invite you. I want to inspire you. And in the best way I can, I want to challenge you and almost honestly even plead with you to become a worshiper out there because it will change our worship in here. Our corporate worship will never go further than our private worship. Our gathered worship will never have an encounter deeper than our secret place worship.

And so, if we will become worshipers in the secret place, in the quiet place, in our own life, and use these resources to just fill our mind, and our heart, and our home, and our family and just to become aware of the presence of God, then when I'm a worshiper out there, I bring the spirit of worship into here. And it doesn't take me three songs and half the message to become aware of Jesus. I come in at zero as a worshiper because I've been worshiping all week long. And so, now I can't help, but with the gathered people go to a whole another level. Why? Because we all bring in the spirit of worship and this heart for Jesus into this time, into this place. I agree with what pastor Ben said. We will never apologize for being a worshiping church and we're wrestling through how do we go deeper in this time and this place together. And I believe one of those things is by going deeper in our secret places on our own, and coming in with this passion, and this purity, and this anticipation and expectancy to meet with God.

We're a worshiping people and we've been in a collection of talks this fall. We've spent a lot of time just talking about movement, mission and we're about to get to maturity. We've talked about moving with Jesus for a few weeks and then we had a response week to respond to that. And then we talked about mission for a few weeks and last week was our response weekend to kind of respond to what God has been saying. And today, we're supposed to start maturity. But before we go on to maturity, I think there's one more thing that I want to talk about on mission before we move on. Because I told you, this isn't a series this fall. It's just a collection of things that I feel like are really important on the heart of God for our church. And what I simply want to do before we move on from mission to maturity next week is just acknowledge that a worshiping church will be a missional church. A worshiping people will be a missional people. A missional church will be a worshiping church and a missional people will be a worshiping people.

Worship and mission go hand in hand because they are both the response to God's grace in our lives. Psalm 96 says, "Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord and praise his name. Proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations. His marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. He is to be feared above all gods." Sing to the Lord a new song. Worship and declare his praises among the nations. Mission. When the grace of God touches your life, the natural and normal response is to be a worshiper and a person who lives on mission. Worship and mission are the natural responses to God's grace in your life. Because when God's grace comes into your life, you can't help but sing a new song and you can't help declare his glory among the nations.

In fact, when there is not worship and there is not mission flowing out of our life, we have to question whether or not we're currently experiencing the grace of God. In fact, this is why I love what Peter says. He says, "If anyone does not have them," let's call it the spirit of worship and the spirit of mission, "He is nearsighted and blind and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins." In other words, when I forget what the grace of God has done in my life, I become nearsighted and blind. I become very focused on my life and what's here in front of me, my situation and my circumstance. But when I remember the grace of God, I can't help but sing a new song to the Lord and I can't help declare among the nations the glory of God. In fact, if you think about it, think about people in your life that you know who is the most passionate worshiper and the most passionate missional person?

It's probably somebody who has recently just got saved or somebody who has worked out their salvation with fear and trembling. Why? Because the person who has just recently got saved met Jesus. They can't help but worship and they can't help declare his glory to everyone they've seen. Why? Because the grace of God has touched their life and they haven't forgotten it. And the person who has worked out their salvation with fear and trembling has had their faith tested and wrestled all the way through and come back to this sense of the grace of God is alive in my life, so I can't help but worship and I can't help but tell other people about who he is and what he has done. The question is, is have you forgotten? Have you forgotten how much grace you have received, how much grace you are receiving and how much grace you will receive? Have you forgotten how much you have been forgiven, how much you're being forgiven and how much you will be forgiven? Have you forgotten how much you have been loved, how much you are loved and how much you will be loved? Because he who has been forgiven much loves much.

When I'm aware of the grace of God in my life, I love much. I love who and what much? I love God much. And I love others much. I start to worship God and I start to love both my neighbor and the nations. I mean, do you remember the story of the woman at the well? Here is this broken woman. She's been married five times. She's living with a sixth man. Her life is a mess. And she has this conversation with Jesus and they talk through her pain, her brokenness, her past, her doubts, her skepticism, her theology. And by the end of the conversation, Jesus fills her with springs of living water. Grace touches her life. And in that conversation, here's what Jesus says. He says, "A time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."

The Father is seeking worshipers who will worship him with spirit and truth. The Father is on mission for worshipers. Worship and mission go together. Worship and spirit and truth. What does that mean? Worship is a whole lot more than a song we sing. It's a heart we surrender. I think sometimes we have diluted worship down to a song we sing for 20 minutes in church on a Sunday. But worship is so much more than the song we sing. It's a heart we surrender and a surrendered heart will always have a song to sing. So, song and worship is a song, is a part of our worship, but it's so much more than that. It's this surrendered heart. But if I don't have a surrendered heart, it will be really hard to have a song to sing. The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit. God offers us or invites us to offer our lives as a living sacrifice.

This is our act of worship that is holy, and pleasing to God to turn the attention, and the affection, and the devotion of our lives, and submit and surrender all of who we are to him. To worship in spirit, what does that mean in spirit? Well, you can't worship in the flesh. You can't worship in your own strength. You can't worship the way you want when you want, how you want, like you want. No. To worship in the spirit means I'm a new creation. I've been raised to new life. I've been filled with the spirit. I've been born again, born from above. The spirit of God now resides within me, which means worship comes from the inside to the outside. It's not from the outside to the inside. No, no, no. This is not a I claim to know God, but by my actions, I deny him. This is not a form of godliness, but no power within. No. The spirit of God is now inside of me. And as I walk, and submit, and surrender to him, worship flows out of my life in spirit and in truth.

What does that mean? Truth just means to represent things as they actually are. So, to worship God in truth means I'm honest, and authentic and vulnerable. I'm cut to the heart and humble before him working out my salvation with fear and trembling. I have no duplicity. I don't say one thing and do another. I don't hide things in the dark and pretend that they're not there. I don't try to deny the things that are inside me. No, I actually bring them out. Even the most broken, dark parts of me, I bring them out, and I present them, and offer them to the Lord in a way of saying, "God, I know you already know these things are in there. So, in truth, I submit and surrender this to you and ask you for your grace." To worship in truth is to worship according to God and who he has revealed himself to be, that he is the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God. Slow to anger and abounding in love.

It's to respond that he is literally the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the ancient of days, the first and the last, the bread of life, the living water, the way, the truth and the life, the resurrection and the life. That Jesus is his grace and truth, the word of God, like to worship him for who he is, who he has told us to be. That's what it means to worship in spirit and truth. And that's what the Father is seeking. And if that's what the Father is seeking, then that's who I want to be. I want to be one who worships in spirit and in truth. And once I become one who worships in spirit and truth, now I want to go and find for the Father that which he is seeking. He's on mission for worshipers in spirit and truth. So, I want to be a worshiper who then goes on mission to find others to worship him in spirit and in truth. Worship and mission go together is what I'm trying to tell you. In fact, where there is worship, there doesn't have to be any mission. And where there is mission, it's because there is no worship.

JOHN STICKL: You say, why? Why? Because when I'm worshiping, there is no mission that's needed. The attention and the affection and the focus of my heart is turned to Jesus. The Father has what he wants, worshipers in spirit and in truth. So, where there is mission, it's because there's no worship. It's because the person's heart is turned to idols, to the things of this world, to themselves. In fact, do you realize there's no mission in heaven? Why is there no mission in heaven? Because there's worship in spirit and truth in heaven. Every being in heaven worships in spirit and in truth. So, there doesn't have to be any mission. Heaven is an environment and an atmosphere where there doesn't need to be any mission because there is worship. And people who go to heaven are people who want to worship in spirit and truth because that's what happens there. So, for a lot of people, heaven would actually be hell. Because if I don't see Jesus as glorious, and beautiful and marvelous, that he's not majestic to me, why would I want to go and be around that?

This is why God doesn't force people to go to heaven. He gives them the choice. Do you want to come into this atmosphere? Do you want to come into this environment? Jesus has made the way for anyone and everyone who wants to come. But you have to understand what that kind of place is. And it's not just endless singing of songs. No, it's worth surrendered lives where God's kingdom has come, and his will is done, and every heart, and every voice, and every body, and every spirit is submitted and surrendered to the lordship of Jesus because he is the king of kings and the Lord of lords. In fact, if you think about it, when Jesus came, it says that Jesus came to glorify the Father and to seek and save that which was lost. So, he came to glorify the Father, worship, and to seek and save that which was lost. Lost, not terrible people, but people that were outside of their purpose and their destiny. So, he wants to restore them back to what they were created to do, to worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

So, Jesus came to worship and to be on mission. Worship and mission go hand in hand. They go together. When we're a worshiping people, we will be a missional people. And when we're a missional people, we will be a worshiping people. Why? Because the Father is seeking worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. And when I become a worshiper in spirit and in truth, I go and seek that which is on the Father's heart, those who are not worshiping him in spirit and in truth, which is why we keep using this definition of mission of using all of my life. My worship, my heart, my song, my voice, my resources, my time, my energy, my words, my actions to help other people discover and experience the availability of the kingdom of God through the person and the work of Jesus, that they can become worshipers in spirit and truth because that's who God has created all humans to be. Are you with me on this? Worship and mission go hand in hand.

And so, if we're a worshiping church, we're a missional church. I mean, 15 years ago, Pastor Kevin Evans, the founding pastor of this church, moved to China on mission. At 50 years old, he surrendered everything he had, sold his house, his resources, pulled his kids out of school, moved to China to go learn another language to be around a different people because he had a heart for the mission of God. It's convicting, isn't it? Or sometimes we find it too inconvenient to just invite somebody to church, or to post on social media or to join a serve team. I mean, could you imagine being 50 years old? But that's the heart of worship and that's the heart of mission. And in that moment, he planted a seed in the DNA of our church that we were going to be a missional people. And for the past 15 years, that seed has been growing. And as that seed has been growing, we've been focused on our vision to be a movement of hope for the city and beyond.

For the last 15 years, we've been focused on movement. We've been focused on next steps, and growing as disciples and becoming a worshiping people. And we've been focused on the city. We've been focused on serving the city, seeking the peace and the prosperity of the city, raising up the next generation, developing leaders, making disciples of those around us. But as we've matured over these years, over these last couple years, the beyond has begun to grow out of us. We've been very focused on the movement and the city, but naturally and effortlessly, all on its own, like a seed in the ground as we've matured, there's branches coming off of our tree with the fruit of beyond on it. And this is always God's order. It starts in your life, goes to your city and then goes to the nations. In fact, the resurrected Jesus says, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, your city, all of Judea and Samaria, your region and to the ends of the earth."

It goes city, region, ends of the earth. And if you think about our church for the last 15 years, we started in our city in Flower Mound. We were very focused on serving the city. And then, we went to Judea and Samaria, to our campuses, to Gainesville, and Denton, and Louisville and online. And we brought the hope of Jesus to the region. And now, it's starting to come out of our lives to the ends of the earth. In other words, God has called us to love both our neighbor and the nations. To both love our neighbor and our nations. Why? Because Jesus loves both our neighbor and the nations. He loves your neighbor who is right there, neighbor, nearby, the person right there, but Jesus also loves the nations. And we haven't talked a lot about this over the years in our church. Why? Because we've been focused on the movement in the city, but now we need to start awakening to the nations. Jesus loves the nations. Why? Because it says that the nations are literally going to be his inheritance.

One of his names is that he is the desire of all nations. What the nations want more than anything else is Jesus, even though they don't know it. The scripture says that he will be exalted among the nations. That he is calling every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every people group unto himself. He has determined the exact times and places where people would live, and set the very boundaries and borders of nations. God loves both your neighbor and the nations. And he has called you to disciple them both. In fact, this is why Jesus says, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations." Make disciples, learners, students, followers. People who have submitted and surrendered to the lordship of Jesus. Worshippers who will worship in spirit and truth of all nations. All nations. The word nations there is the word ethnos. It means people groups. And if you have been here for the last bunch of years. We spent a lot of time talking about how nations actually means the groupings of people in life. The areas of life you go every single day.

If you remember this hope carrier graphic. The kingdom of God is a movement of hope. And God wants his kingdom to flow through the church to the areas of life, the ethnos, the nations if you will, that you go every single day. The kingdom of God and the church are not the same thing. The church is a part of the kingdom, but the kingdom is the rule and reign of God. Wherever God's will is done, his kingdom has just come. The church is the missional people of God sent to the world. And God wants to see his kingdom come in family, and education, and healthcare, and business, and government, and arts and media, and sports and technology through the church. Through the sent people of God. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Go destroy the works of darkness, scripture tells us. Those works of darkness are primarily not meant to be destroyed in the church. They're meant to be destroyed in the areas of life. That Jesus says you're salt, light and leaven. You bring taste to a flavorless world. You bring light to pitch black darkness. You're like leaven or yeast that when it gets sprinkled in, causes all things to rise.

You're a hope carrier. A disciple of Jesus living on mission to change your world. The world where you go every single day. And you radiate hope and hope leads. And so, when you walk into that space with the kingdom of heaven within you, the kingdom of heaven is released through you and around you. And all of a sudden, you've just changed the entire atmosphere and you become the de facto leader in that space. Because Jesus tells us in the very first thing to humanity, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it using all its vast resources in the service of God and man. Be fruitful. Live a life of productive beauty and multiply. Reproduce the life of God in you in the world around you. And subdue things. Bring order to chaos, and hope to despair, and peace to where there are storms. And fill the earth or the area of life, you go every day with the knowledge of the glory of the goodness of God. And then, use your resources to accomplish God's purposes in the lives of men.

Just think of who we have in this church. Family, moms, dads, sons, daughters, grandmas, grandpas, brothers, sisters. Education, we have teachers, and administrators, and principals and coaches. Healthcare, we have doctors, and nurses and therapists. And technicians, business, we have CEOs, and vice presidents, and entrepreneurs, and baristas, and mechanics and salespeople. Government, we have mayors, and city councilmen, and civil service men and women. Arts and media, we have professional newscasters, and professional social media influencers and artistic people that make beautiful, amazing things. Sports, we have coaches, and professional athletes, and trainers and student athletes. Tech, we have really smart people. And then, we're all here together as the church. Discipling nations, ethnoses, the people, the areas of life you go every single day. Okay. So, you're called a disciple, the area of life you go every single day. But that word nation doesn't just mean area of life. It also means nation. Nations of this world.

So, let me show you this. The kingdom of God is a movement of hope and wants to flow through the church to the nations of the world. And the same thing I just told you that you're salt, light, and leaven. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. And subdue it. That you radiate hope. That hope leads. That you're called to destroy the works of darkness. In other words, Jesus says that you are called to disciple both the areas of life and the nations of this world. You're called to love both your neighbor and the nations. And so, one more. Let me show you this. The kingdom of God. Is a movement of hope for the city areas of life and beyond nations of this world. And that is only possible when we're a worshiping people. It's only possible when I worship in spirit and truth because only then will I have a heart to find what the Father is seeking. The people of this world to worship him in spirit and in truth.

This is what it looks like to be a movement of hope for the city and beyond. To be a movement of hope for the city, our neighbor, and beyond the nations. To disciple both the areas of life and the nations of this world. And we've had this really simple strategy of just raising up generations of hope carriers. Disciples of Jesus living on mission to change their world, wherever that world is, may take them, areas of life or the nations of this world. And we do that really so simple. Five simple things. It's all we do. You're like we are the simplest church I know of. Yes, we only do five things. Weekend experiences. This right here. Whenever we have a weekend experience, there's three things we do in it. We meet with God, we teach the word and we minister to each other. That's why we will always worship. We will always preach the scriptures because we don't care what man has to say. We want to know what God has to say. And we minister to each other.

Two minutes of kindness is what the Bible actually defines church to actually include. The body building and strengthening. The body. And then, we do circles. Three or more people who get together, discuss the weekend message, engage the scriptures and pray. This is where we grow as disciples. Shape off the rough spots. Form and shape each other into the image and likeness of Jesus. We do serve teams, where we use our gifts to build and strengthen this body, where we learn to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, follow him. God does something in us as he does something through us. Then we do spiritual practices, where we do the things that Jesus did so we can do the things that Jesus did, where we arrange and rearrange our life around the lifestyle of Jesus, so we can actually walk out the life of Jesus. And then, there's this last one that we haven't talked a lot about. Transformative experiences. These are experiences that literally have a beginning, middle and end. And shape you in such a way that when they're done, you've been transformed.

This would be like Moses at the burning bush. That is a transformative experience. This would be like Paul on the road to Damascus, where he gets knocked down by the grace of God and he was forever changed. This would be like Timothy being circumcised as a young adult to go on mission. That's a transformative experience. This would be like Joshua hanging out with Moses in the tent of meeting for years being trained. Okay. So, for us, transformative experiences are things like kid's leadership experience, student leadership experience, VC college and mission trips. Mission trips are actually a transformative experience. Now, when I say mission trip, have you been in church? You have a bad thought of what that is. So, just let that go for a second. A mission trip is not a one-week vacation. It's a six-month transformative experience, where you become very heightenly aware to the spiritual realities of this world.

Where you can become very engaged in your journey with God. Where you learn to pray differently and worship differently. Where you become very awakened to the spiritual battle that rages around you every single day. And when you're done, it leaves you transformed. It is a marked experience. And we don't just go because we think it would be fun to go, we actually have this premise of why I go on mission trips because it sounds fun. It would be an adventure. I've always wanted to go there. Maybe not. My friends are going. That's a little bit of a deeper premise. That's good. You have some good friends. But that's not really why we go on mission. It would be good for me. I think a lot of times we think, man, I just feel far from God and this would be good for me. It would kind of wake me up to some things and all that. That's good. That's important. But that's not really the reason to go. And sometimes we think, oh, it would be good for my kid, or my wife, or this person. They need to go.

A little deeper, I'd love to do something good for others. Like, we have this innate sense of desire for seeing the good of humanity because that's in us, part of the image and likeness of God. But that's not why we go. Below that dotted line is the premise of why we do mission trips. Because I'm a disciple of Jesus and he has asked me to disciple the areas of life and the nations of this world. He's asked me to love my neighbor and to love the nations. But the deepest reason is because I want to see the glory of God fill the earth. I want to see the glory of God. Fill the earth. The way the waters cover the sea. I want to find what the Father is looking for, worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. And I want to give my life to that. And it's not saying I need to go on every trip all the time. It's just saying, man, I'm open and available to becoming the kind of person that loves both my neighbor and the nations because I'm a worshiper.

And missions exist where worship does not. And if you look around this world, there is a lot of worship that does not exist. So, there is a big need for mission. And so, quietly behind the scenes for the last few years, the beyond has been growing in our church. We haven't brought a lot of attention to it. We've just been quietly doing it. And so, I am pleased to share with you this quick video that will show you our 2026 mission trips to the beyond.

Now, I don't know how you see that video. I don't know if that inspires you, overwhelms you. Some of you, you're like, "I've been waiting for 15 years for this. It's finally here." Some of you are like, "I thought we're about the city." We are. A movement of hope for the [city] and [beyond].

Yes. Yes. To love our neighbor and the nations. To disciple both the areas of life and the nations of this world. It is really hard to work it backwards. It's really hard to go to the nations and then get excited about your own household. But if you will start by allowing the kingdom within me to flow out of me in my home, in my life, in my city, in the areas of life I go every single day, then I keep lifting my head eventually to the nations. This is why we've done it in this order.

And our hope is, is that every person at some point will go on a mission trip. I hope every student goes on a student mission trip before they graduate students. I hope every young adult goes on a student mission trip before they graduate being a young adult. I don't know where that line is, but I hope every adult goes on a mission trip before they graduate this age. Why? Because when you go on a mission trip, there is an awakening, there is an alignment, there is an awareness and there's an activation that takes place in your life. You become awakened to the things of God. You become aligned to the very move of God. You become aware to the spiritual realm around you and to God's presence in your life. And then, you become activated to actually truly live as a hope carrier everywhere you go 168 hours a week.

And if you can't go because of health, or age or extenuating circumstances, I understand that. My encouragement would be find somebody that is going and partner up with them so you get the same experience. Because it's a six-month transformative experience, not a one-week trip. And when we're talking about these trips, these aren't like go on vacation, see some sites and take some pictures. No, like we have a student trip that just went to Peru that went to a village in the mountains that no one else was willing to go to, to just come and bring the hope of Jesus. We had a team that just got back from Uganda just in the last few weeks. And they were able to sit with a group of pastors and train pastors on the four core truths. God is good, Jesus has forgiven me, I am loved and everything is possible. As a way of teaching the children that are in the pastors they oversee, which represent more than 500,000 kids.

Under the authority of those pastors, who were weeping broken because they said at church, "All we do is take a ball. Throw it outside and say to the kids, leave us alone while we meet with God." Now, they're broken and open to teaching their kids the core truths. We have a group going to India in the next few weeks and they're going to be doing a pastor's conference with our partner, Pastor Koshy in India, to hundreds of pastors bringing them together to teach them and encourage them the three circles in a different way and facing your giants. All the things we take for granted and do every single day. That's what it looks like in the beyond. To love our neighbor and the nations because we have a spirit of worship in our heart t6hat says I want to find the very thing that the Father is looking for, both my neighbor and the nations.

Like this is why Roman says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how then can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without somebody preaching to them and how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." Can I just tell you something? You have beautiful feet. You have beautiful feet because you've been sent by Jesus to both your neighbor and the nations. You've been sent to be a hope carrier and disciple the area of life and the nations of this world. And I'm hoping, and praying, and believing that God is stirring and moving something inside of us. Because we can't say we're a worshiping people if we don't go on mission. And we can't say we're a missional people if we don't worship.

The grace of God touches our lives in such a way that we can't help but sing a new song to the Lord, not just with my voice but with my heart and my life. And then, I can't help but declare that glory to the nations of this world so they might see and experience, they might discover and experience the availability of the kingdom of God through the person and the work of Jesus. You see, my prayer for us is that we would have a heart, that we would have a heart for the neighbor in our life and the nations of this world. And so, I didn't want to jump on into maturity without stopping and saying to worship is to live on mission and to live on mission is to worship. That's who we want to be. This is not entertainment, or events, or buildings or programs.

This is moving with God to find that which he longs for. To bring things that are lost back to being found so they can live out their purpose. Declaring the praises of him who called them out of the darkness into his wonderful light. So, will you close your eyes with me? I honestly am not totally sure how to close today because it was a day of just awareness and inspiration more than anything else. So, maybe in your own way, can I just ask you, like do you have a heart that worships and a heart that's for the mission of God?

If not, it just means you've forgotten how much grace you have received. So, as we just worship to this last song, maybe can you just ask the Holy Spirit to flood your heart with his grace. To remind you of who Jesus is and what he has done that you might have a heart for your neighbor and the nations. A heart to disciple the areas of life and the nations of this world. A heart to sing a new song to the Lord and to declare his glory among the nations. Jesus, give us your heart. Jesus, give us your heart. Jesus give me your heart for my neighbor and the nations that you love.