This coming year, 2025, is a year of opportunity for us to watch and partner with Jesus as he is changing the world around us.
Kairos Church
Jesus Changing the World Around Us | Matt Bachtold
Thank you. Now back to you guys. OK, great to be here. What is today, the 29th, right? Yeah, boy, it's been a blur of a weekend. So yesterday was our 28th anniversary, so we had fun getting away and celebrating. Yes, my beautiful wife is downstairs flipping pancakes right now, so you'll see her down there. But we always get together-- I mean, because that married on the 28th of December. So we always take the end of the year and get away for a few days. We've done this for a number of years now. And in the different seasons of life that we've been in. And so we always also take it as a time to reflect on our year, reflect on where we're heading, reflect on the season we're in, what God is saying, just time to get away and hear the Lord and plan and dream. We write down dreams, and sometimes they happen that year. Sometimes it's a few years before the dreams. We feel like the Lord places on our hearts, whether it's to get a better car, or to put money away for college, or to go on a family vacation. Whatever the dream is, I mean, talking practical stuff, not just, whew, you know, fun stuff, like, you know, I've been having-- I want to finish a book down on that list for, I don't know, 10 years now or something like that. But we just keep adding it on and talking about it. I do highly recommend if, end of the year, works good for you, set a day aside. If you're married, get together as a couple. If you're single, get with some friends and dream, and talk to the Lord, and pray, and seek the Lord, what does He have for you for next year? If you set no course, there's nothing to aim towards. It's very important. I don't know if you remember we had a Russian guy came and spoke at our church. I think it was 2014 or 2015 he came and spoke. And I translated for him, if you remember. And he talked about airplanes coming in and aiming toward the runway. And he also used in the Old Testament about where they would build the altars of remembrance. And it was points that you could point and align yourself toward. So no matter what happened in your life, no matter where you were, you could continue to head in that direction, no matter what happened. Because that's what the Lord has told you. And that just kind of stuck with me. It's something that we are always new, but it kind of brought it even closer to the surface. So I recommend taking some time as a couple and writing out what you can, seeking the Lord and getting out what you can for that. If it brings up pain and things you need to talk through, then write that on the list to work out as a couple. Sometime in the future, well, let's work this out. Let's get through this. Let's trust the Lord in this area. Let's believe God for this. I encourage you to do that so that you know the direction that you're heading. When the decisions come to be made, you can go, OK, is this moving us toward this or not? A couple of years ago, we were in three difficult situations. And the entire time that we had our anniversary trip, it was not a fun anniversary trip because it was three difficult situations at our lives, three big areas, not in our marriage, but individually with work and finances and with our kids. And it was like, Lord, what are we going to do? How are we going to get out of this? And so we just spent the majority of January just praying and seeking the Lord because we had centered on our heart that we needed to know the direction. And there was these three things we needed a breakthrough. And by February, things began to fall in place. And by July, all three were solved. Miraculous ways the Lord took care of all three in ways that I could not have imagined. But the Lord is faithful to do that. And the reason we noticed and didn't just ride the waves of life is because we had heard the Lord and we moved in that direction. If you don't know where you're heading, you can't go thank you, Jesus, that you got me there. It's just like happen chance. The bad things are God's will. The good things are God's will. And it's all just kind of floats and instead of, okay, what does the Lord say? What do I stand against? What do I pray against? What do I head in the direction of? Hearing the Lord. So I encourage you to do that. Take the time. Take the time. I know it's work. We've done it for a number of years. It doesn't have to be hard. Anyway, yes to name in. We're gonna go ahead and pray. Father, we come before you this morning and thank you Lord, Jesus, that you brought us through 2024. Man, Lord, thank you for your faithfulness. You've met us in the middle of every challenge, every situation. You were in the middle of every praise. Lord, thank you for the good times, Lord, and the challenging times that caused us to draw closer to you, Father, to go deeper in you, Lord. Thank you, Father, for all that you're doing in our lives, Lord. We know that you're faithful, that you take everything and turn it into good for your kingdom. Father, thank you, Lord, for it. We pray over 2025 and we pray, Lord, Jesus, let your will be done in our lives, Lord. Let us be aware of every Kairos moment, every Kairos opportunity and let us walk in them, Father, and see the good things that you have among us, Lord. Bless this word, Lord. Let it just confirm and settle things in people's hearts. Holy Spirit, preach the sermon that you desire as you desire to preach it. Thank you, Lord, Jesus. You're the one that places it in people's hearts. We bless you for your presence this morning and we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen, amen. Okay, we're in Matthew chapter five. I wanna read one verse and then I wanna talk like I did last week. I wanna read two verses, actually. Jesus is talking in verse 13. He says, "You are the salt of the earth, "but if the salt has lost its taste, "how shall it be saltiness be restored? "It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out "and trampled under people's feet. "You are the light of the world. "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." I wanna speak to you this morning. In continuation of what I talked about last week, last week, if you remember, I had my plastic baby, Jesus. I already put him away in a box so that he wouldn't get broken, but I had this plastic Jesus that I have and I wanted to remind you last week, and again this week, that Jesus is not plastic. So in the middle of your lives, when you are facing issues, when you are facing challenges, Jesus said in the world, you're gonna have tribulation. So when you face this tribulation, understand that you aren't in relationship with a piece of plastic. You're in relationship with God Almighty. And that God Almighty loves you and is full of power and might. Knows all things is never surprised by the challenges that come up you, come up before you because he is not in time, he is out of time and able to see into. And he has arranged chyros moments for his glory to be revealed in your heart, in your mind and in your life by bringing either you through or through. He brings the victory, he brings you through. Like it says in the King James version of the Old Testament, it came to pass. Everything is a season and an opportunity to grow in your knowledge of God, grow in your understanding of his love and his power and his might, to grow closer in your intimacy with the Father. So these things that come into our lives are basically doors of opportunity to get to know Jesus better. And either we refuse to walk through because of fear or whatever, or we knock and it gets opened, or we open up and walk through. No matter how we handle it, the best thing is to go through the door of opportunity and experience God in a new, fresh and more powerful way. Jesus is alive and well. Last week what I talked about is how he brings disruptions in our lives, kind of the word choice that I use at that time 'cause it's kind of a hard word that kind of hits you. Jesus likes to disrupt things. He brings disruptions, but they're good disruptions. For example, there's a cycle of sin and death in your life that you were born with and it comes in to seek, kill and destroy everything good in your life. And it works and it's a cycle and it tries to get you and I'm sure you've experienced this before where Satan tempts you and you give in to the temptation and then he hits you with condemnation of wow, how bad you are that you did that. So he gets you to do it and then beats you up for doing it. That cycle, you know, and then you begin to get better and then he hits you with this pride of, oh wow, look how good you're doing. You're not falling at all. Look how holy you are. If only people could be like you and then he hits you and tempts you again and you fall and it's this terrible cycle that he creates. It's the cycle of sin and death. It's sin and it brings death in your life in whatever area it is, whether it's death in relationships, death in your finances, death in your soul and your heart, death in your spirit. Whatever the death is, it brings, the sin brings death and Satan likes to do that. Well, Jesus gets it there and disrupts that cycle. Jesus isn't afraid of that cycle. Jesus gets right in the middle of it and says whoa, here. We're not doing this anymore. We're gonna diverge out of this and we're gonna teach you how to walk in holiness so that your life identity isn't in Jacob, that just is in this sin cycle, but your life identity is in Israel, the one who walked with God, who wrestled and walked with God. The one who overcame. In the world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. So in me, you can walk in this disruption that changes the cycle of your life. Creates a new cycle of holiness, greater and greater and greater freedom and holiness. That's the theme that he has for you. That's the theme for 2025. That's the opportunities that exist for 2025 are disruptions of the sin and death cycle that has kept in your life up into this point. So this is what Jesus desires to do, this is what we talked about last week. The second one we talked about was Jesus disrupting the cycles of poverty and powerlessness in our lives. Never having enough are mindset that believes that there is not enough because it looks at our inability, our inadequacies, which we have. But it doesn't look at them in a positive way, in a humble way, it looks at them as a prideful way so that we do not admit those inadequacies in those poverty but we double down in them and it causes us to walk in a powerless way that we have no answer to the situation, we just kind of go deeper into it. It's a spiral down. (humming) ♪ What do you get ♪ ♪ Another day older and deeper in debt ♪ ♪ Na na na na na na na na ♪ I think I messed up the song ♪ ♪ Oh my soul to the company store ♪ You know that old song. And that's one of those cycles. That was a legitimate system cycle to keep people in poverty, but this is a poverty of the soul, poverty of the heart that keeps us down there and feels so that we feel powerless to break out of it. Jesus just rubs that so that you have a testimony of His goodness. Man, look what Jesus can do. I was full of fear. He set me free. I was full of sadness. He set me free. The cycle of my family was depression. He set me free. Do you understand what I mean? Jesus disrupts that. The third thing that we see is that Jesus loves to disrupt the cycle of fear and control. Fear and control, perfect love casts out all fear. So Jesus does this by bringing love into your life, but there's this cycle of fear that I fear what's going to happen, therefore I clamp down in eye control, whatever that way is. I fear losing you, so I hold on to you tighter. I fear being broke, so I clamp down on my money and I don't give. I fear being not having love, so I'm very careful who I show any kind of friendliness or love towards. Do you understand? But it's a downward cycle because it has the opposite effect. It doesn't liberate you. We are liberated when we are free and generosity is the liberty of the heart to give. Generosity is a freedom. It isn't a bondage, it isn't like this worked-up attitude. Generosity is a freedom I trust, I believe. So you can be rich and poor, the same way you could be poor and rich. You can be poor and generous, or you can be rich and stingy. You can also be rich in giving, there you go. Walk in the freedom, wherever you find yourself, your bank account. Jesus wants you in the freedom, wherever your bank of love is in your heart. You can walk in the freedom of it. Instead of the fear, I've got to clamp down, because I'm not getting the love I want, so I've got to clamp down and tighten up and control more. Instead of getting with Jesus and having him fill you with this unlimited supply of love so that you break through and you work through the issues. Jesus disrupts the cycles, and he does that because, man, he loves ya. This is what I talked about last week. I don't wanna re-preach it, but I wanted to give you that definition before I touch on a couple new things, 'cause last week I really focused on internally, what Jesus is doing inside of you. But Jesus just doesn't do it inside of you. He blesses you so that you can be a blessing. There's an internal and an external to everything. When God blessed Abram, he said to him, "I'm gonna bless you so that you will be a blessing." We're given the Holy Spirit so that it pours out of us. We're made salty so that the world tastes our saltiness. We're put a light in us so that we shine. We're given Kairos opportunities, not just so that we get the breakthrough in our own lives, but so that we can help others have breakthrough and bring the breakthrough-ness of Jesus into the world around us. And that's what's fun. It isn't just fun to have your own testimony. It's fun to see how God uses you to bring that Kairos moment of victory to somebody else. So much fun. Jesus loves giving gifts. Jesus isn't plastic. John 3 16, "For God so loved the world that he gave." In Acts 1, 5, and 8, he told them to stay in the Jerusalem so that they would receive. Again, he is giving them the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, "For God is able to make all grace abound to you so that at all times, having all that you need, you will abound, and that is the wrong verse." I always get those two mixed up. I'm here quoting it, it's the other one. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he were rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become mediocre." No, actually the word there is rich. He's giving you, he came down so that he could give you all that you need in this life. To be able to walk. Not just disrupting the works of the enemy in your life, but through you disrupting the works of the enemy and everyone else's life around you. Stopping cycles, generational curses, ha ha, no power. Social problems, ha ha ha, no problem. Like karate, I do karate karate if I knew how to do it. I would so impress you if I started breaking boards and stuff with Tae Kondo, would it? I'll hold that for another day. So we carry the disruption of Jesus with us, waiting for those Kairos moments just to allow Jesus to disrupt and bring breakthrough. Come on, when you're dealing with your kids and the option, the thing that's stirring up in your heart is not a godly thing, it's maybe a frustration or an anger and you go to the Lord and you say, okay, Lord, I want your heart and the Lord's heart comes down and you come in and you minister to the child discipline from the heart of the Lord and you disrupt the cycle in the kid's heart. Now that may be a tap across the high knee, but it's done out of love out of the heart of the Father and setting a boundary and not out of anger and frustration, which won't. Okay, whatever that is. Do you understand what I mean? This is very practical and gets down very to the deep of how we walk out our lives and the opportunity, when I say 2025 is a year and 2029, but 2025 is a year of opportunity. What I'm saying is, as you are walking, I am believing that the Lord is going to reveal to you even more areas in your own life, where he is going to disrupt the cycles that have plagued you for years and kept you bound up and he's gonna set you free, you're gonna see these where like ideas, mindsets are gonna come in and go, you know, you've always thought this way but this is the way it actually is and you'll go, really Lord, he'll go, yes. And you'll go, wow. And the verses will pop in your mind of what the truth is. I can remember when it was about this time of year when I understood that I had a spirit of rejection that attacked me. I was 23, 24. And that most of my life was in this cycle of rejection and this demonic spirit would just sit on my shoulder and whisper in my ear right at the key moments to just throw my life off of what God had for me. And I remember it hit me because I walked into a service the Lord had been ministering to my heart over a number of months and I walked into a church service. It was at the December-ish or January-ish of whatever that year was all those years ago. And I walked in the doors and my two best friends were walking. I was not married at this time. My two best friends were walking and this little voice says to me, you just watched, they don't really like you. They're gonna totally ignore you and they walked like right in front of me, both of them were talking and said nothing to me. And then the voice just kept hitting. See, they don't really like you. See, it's all just fake. See, it's only because you're in America. All these things just, and I remember I left that room and I went into a room and I was by myself in my prayer closet and I was like, God, I want this voice broken off my life. I don't wanna be led by whatever this is. I wanna be led by you. I want the truth spoken over me. I don't wanna live alone, my entire, it was like it clicked. And I went through some, I went through some deliverance. I went through some what Mary Leonard is going to be doing of us like soul therapy in my 20s and I got a bunch of verses and things began to come clear. The verse that really stood out to me is I have always loved you. Missed up two verses there. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain. The verses stood out to me was Hebrews 13.5. I will never leave you nor forsake you. And that verse just became gold to me. I realized if God never leaves me and God never forsakes me, then I can never be forsaken by anybody. I can never be rejected. If you reject me, it doesn't make a difference because God hasn't rejected me. So I'm never alone. It was this revelation that hit me and it broke the cycle. And it's been years walking out of the cycle, out of the wobble till I'm walking straight, make your path straight, but the Lord moves in that direction. What does He have for you for 2025? The opportunities to get free. And then now that you're free in these areas, He also has opportunities to pour out His love to others. Jesus loves giving gifts. He loves giving gifts through you. Ephesians 2.10 says you are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prearranged in advance for you to do. So He's like, hey, you wanna have some fun today? Here's a bag of grace. I'm gonna give you, you just hold onto that in your heart and I'll tell you when to pour it out. Hey, you wanna have some fun today? I'm gonna fill your heart with love and I'm gonna give you a few people to love on today. Hey, you wanna have some fun today? I'm gonna fill your heart with joy and you're just gonna be bubbly and you're just gonna set people free. You're just gonna carry joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength. You're gonna carry the joy and my strength into the situations and just diffuse a bunch of situations around you because you're carrying it. This is what Jesus does. He does this all the time, guys. Maybe you haven't noticed Him doing it in your life, He does. And if you're like, oh, that never happens in my life, that's either a lying devil sitting on your shoulder or you're not saved. And if you're saved, then it's a lying devil sitting on your shoulder, so tell it to shut up. God has not given you a spirit of condemnation, but a spirit that builds you up and calls you and spurs you on into greater levels of Jesus Christ. Amen. Mark 16, 17 and 18 says these signs shall follow those that believe, meaning that He's gonna give gifts through you as you go. Things are gonna happen. Even in Psalms 23, it says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. That's the wake that I leave behind me as I go. Goodness and mercy. Because Jesus is in my heart. And if He's in my heart, He bubbles over out of me. One of these gifts, let me go over them real fast so then we can get downstairs and have some pancakes. You guys can't, 'cause I know you're hungry, I can see it in your eyes. He gives that, like I said, last week, the gift of salvation, which breaks the cycle of sin and sin and death in not only your life, but in their life as well. And usually He does this through us, through mercy and forgiveness. Mercy and forgiveness. Mercy meets people where they are. Forgiveness covers their sin and gives them an opportunity to come before Jesus and get right. It doesn't make them right, but it gets rid of all of the chains and the stumbling blocks out of their way so that they can get before Jesus and deal with their hearts. I would hate to get to Jesus and have Him say, "Man, I so wanted to do so many things to you, "but you held on to so much stuff "that you hindered 50,000 people "from getting closer to me." I'd rather Him get up there to Him say, "You know, way to go, Matt, "when I convicted you, you repented, "you kept your heart soft before me, "you kept your ears open to me, "and through that I was able to lead 100,000, "minister to 100,000 people." And I'd be like, "100,000 people, "I don't think I interacted with." He said, "You won't believe." Remember when you walked in the bank that one day and you were singing at Him? You didn't see the lady, but she was sitting over here. She heard the words, it reminded of her child. It brought her into my presence. Do you remember how you dealt with this situation where you brought mercy and forgiveness into it? Do you remember, you understand what I mean? This is bringing, these are the opportunities that are all around us. We just have to hear the Lord. Mercy and forgiveness. Jesus meets us where we are, right? Jesus met me where I was. I don't know about you, how you got saved. I got saved because I got invited to church and I went reluctantly and Jesus met me. Actually, He met me through my aunt who invited me to church, but He met me. It wasn't me. I made a decision for Christ. No, no, no, no, no, no. I finally gave up running. He'd been chasing me for years. So why don't we meet people where they are? Well, I don't know. The only way I'm gonna deal with that person is if they change. The only way I'm gonna deal with that person is they just do that or they do this or they do that. Oh, I would go there, but man, they just, they're mouths. They're just, they cuss up a storm and I just can't be around that. Well, good thing, the Holy Spirit can be around you, right? Okay, am I getting too close? I'm sorry. My apologies, pseudo. Build bridges to people this year. Really, build bridges to people. Jesus wants to love on people. You don't know who He's gonna love on. You don't know how. Well, I wanna be effective, Lord. Well, you know what? Jesus spent three and a half years healing and preaching and saw the church of 120. Now, there were a lot of other people touched, but the core was 120 that we're willing to get away and seek His face. So it's not about numbers. It's not about what you deem as effectiveness because some of the seeds that you're gonna plant won't be fruitful for years. How many kids come back? How many adults go, yeah, my Sunday school teacher, she taught me this, you know, and it stuck with me my entire life. Well, I'm sure they didn't go back and tell their Sunday school teacher every year. You know, thank you for being faithful when I was eight. Do you know what I mean? It's just that you're not going to. You have to trust the Lord that when you were pouring out Jesus, He will take care of the effectiveness of Him pouring out. Jesus is very generous. He's very giving. He went around doing good, it says in the book of Acts. So you have some fun, go around, be super generous, be extravagant in your giving of Jesus and not worry about the effectiveness of it. All is done here, sorry. The second thing about that Jesus does is power. He gives out power, He loves to bless, He breaks those cycles of poverty and powerlessness and He does this externally by allowing us to be blessings and to give grace. When we bless others, you know how He says bless your enemy, curse not? When we bless, we're breaking a cycle. If you don't think that happens, look at the Romeo and Joliet or the Hat Fills in the McCoy's, some of the infamous cycles of, or the Palestinians in the Israelis right now. Just a cycle of doing, just keeping it going. Killing and revenge and then revenge killing and revenge killing and revengeing the revenge of the revenge. Blessing brings in that end of the cycle and Jesus can do that through us. That's why He says bless. There is grace, it is sufficient. I have seen Jesus do masterful things and break cycles. Jesus is not powerless externally. I encourage you to bring Jesus and believe with others for the ending of cycles of powerlessness. How does that happen? Well, you hear somebody's terrible story and you're like, you know, let me pray for you. And then seek the Lord, Lord, what do you wanna do in this? And then pray with them over this faith. You know, I'm gonna pray with you and trust for this to end, this cycle to end, for favor to be found, for something to happen, for hearts to change, so that the cycle would end. I could preach all day on this, sorry. Last one, Jesus brings love. He breaks a cycle of fear and control. And I think with the external of that, is He brings that reconciliation and restitution. He brings that in the world around us through us. And you see people's lives changed by our willingness to reach out to those we disagree with, those that we are enemies with, those that we have problems with, and build bridges and bring reconciliation. Inviting people to know Jesus. I'll give you one example, and then we'll close. There's a man named Darryl Davis. He's a blues musician. And at one of his concerts, he had a member of the Ku Klux Klan attending, and he ended up getting in a conversation with the guy. He ended up pursuing friendship with the man. And through the process over a number of years, he has directly led 40 to 60 different guys out of the Ku Klux Klan. He's African American. Indirectly, it's been over 200. You can guesstimate that have happened indirectly. Now, does he have every right to hate those guys that have nothing to do with them? Does he have every reason and right to do that, yeah? Does he have every right just not to have a conversation? I'm just not gonna go there with you. But Jesus sometimes places on our hearts to cross bridges and create reconciliation that breaks out the fear in other people's hearts. You know, racism a lot of time is fear-based. Break the fear in the heart to realize, oh, we're just the same, humans. Let's talk through these differences, get past it and get over it. And then it brings that restitution. It ends the cycles. We can be instruments of bringing Jesus in and bringing about change, reconciliation and restitution in our families, in our communities, at our workplaces. 2025 is the year of opportunities. Kairos moments that Jesus wants to do thing in you and around you. Now, will this just happen? Some of it's just gonna happen by happen chance. It works a lot better, though, if you kind of figure out where you're heading, what the Jesus has for you and you're heading that direction and you stay faithful to it and you pray and you seek the Lord and you remind yourself and you get that team around you to cheer you on and spur you on to good works. But it's available to you. It's available to you. Amen. Let me pray over you this morning. Jesus, I don't want us to be overwhelmed by what you have for us, Lord, because you're not overwhelmed, Lord. I know, Lord, this year is gonna be such a fun year of watching you do miracles in our midst, both in us and around us, Lord. And so, Father, I just pray, Lord, that you would begin to place on each individual's hearts who desires to walk with you this year in this, that you would place on their hearts visions and ideas of some of the things you wanna be doing, Lord, so that they could begin to ask you about it and seek you about it and pray about it and align themselves with your heart in that way, Lord. Reveal who you are, Lord Jesus. Let us see that your arm is not too short, Lord, like it says in Isaiah 53. You are strong, Lord Jesus. Come and build your kingdom. Come and build your kingdom, Lord. Come and build your kingdom, Father. I thank you, Father, for it. And I pray in the name of Jesus, amen and amen.