Christ Fellowship Church | Miami

Better than Last Part 4: Connect to Mission

Did you know the word “Christian” comes from a Greek word that means “little Christ”? In fact, the Bible calls followers of Jesus His “ambassadors” and says we have been entrusted with a special mission. What is this mission and how can we accomplish it? We invite you to listen in as we learn what it means to be ambassadors for Christ and the high expectations God has for this role.

Duration:: 54m
Broadcast on:: 26 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

- Hey guys, thanks for tuning in today. You know, this message that you're about to hear, I pray that it not only inspires you, but it encourages you to follow Jesus even more. In fact, there are probably people in your life who need to hear this timely word. Chances are you're thinking about them right now. Share this message with them. And if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit subscribe. I also wanna thank all those who support us. We wouldn't have any ministry outside these four walls if it weren't for our friends who come alongside us in prayer and support us financially. There are thousands who are benefited by this ministry because of your giving, and we thank you. To continue, or to even start supporting our mission to help others and their families follow Jesus, you can give by visiting cfmymy.org/give. Enjoy this sermon. - How great, thou artie, man. (audience applauding) Hey, let's pray, let's pray together. Father, we are so grateful. And Father, we sing to a great God. And Father, we acknowledge as a people of your pasture, Lord, how great you are, Lord. And Father, as we open up your word today across all of our campuses, Father, give us our eyes to see the truth in your word. And Father, convict us when we're not obeying your word, Lord. God, we love you, we thank you. It's an impression that my Jesus, I pray, and all God's people say, amen. Hey, let's go ahead and praise God one more time on all campuses. (audience applauding) - Okay, well, good morning, Christ fellowship. My name is Omar, and I have the great privilege and honor of serving as a lead pastor here at CF. And today we are in our fourth week of a series entitled, Better Than Last, How I Walk with Christ this year can be better than last year. And so today, we're gonna be looking at Second Corinthians chapter five. We have a lot to cover. So I'm gonna dump right into it. So if wherever you find yourself, you can follow along with me on the screen, all right? Listen to what God's word says. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, Christ in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and notice and entrusting to us the Watchers family. - Message of reconciliation. - Yeah, the message of reconciliation, right? Nigel is on point, all right? God entrusted to each of us a message of salvation. That is God's word. You can go and take a seat at everybody on campuses. And church, let me start off by sharing this with you. You know, the second week that I became a lead pastor here at CF almost six years ago, crazy, right? You know, I share with you an illustration that was so powerful then and I think is so powerful today. And folks, there's a story about the movie 1917. How many of you seen the movie, yeah? Yeah, a good portion of us, yeah? We've seen the movie and, you know, if you haven't seen, let me just give you a quick overview of what takes place because the film centers are on the true story from the First World War and it's about when 1600 men were about to advance the battle lines thinking that the Germans were retreating behind those enemy lines. But folks, what they did not know was that it was a trap because the Germans were not retreating in fear. Rather, they were stationed and they were ready with heavy artillery to overwhelm all these soldiers that were gonna cross that line. And so in a sense, they were facing certain death. And so at that point, the general selects two young men and folks he entrusts to them a message. A message of salvation to take to those men who were facing certain death and including until 1600 men was one of these two young men's brothers. In fact, take a look at this clip. You have a brother in the second battalion. Yes, sir. They're walking into a trap. Your orders are to deliver a message calling off tomorrow morning's attack. If you fail, it will be a massacre. Let's talk about this for a minute. Why? We've got orders to cross here. That is the German front line. If we're not clever about this, no one will get to your brother. I will. There's only one way this ends. (dramatic music) Last man standing. ♪ I'm going there ♪ ♪ To see my brother ♪ Who needs to keep moving? Come on! ♪ I'm going there ♪ ♪ No more to love ♪ They can't possibly make it that way, man. You bloody insane. (dramatic music) If you don't get there in time, we will lose 1,600 men. Your brother among them. Good luck. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) Pretty powerful, right? And folks, what I love about that story is that these two young men were entrusted with a message, with a message of salvation that if they were able to deliver this message to those 1,600 men, folks able to save them from certain death. And folks, let me just bring that over to our teaching for today because folks, what an example of what our God does with each and every one of his people. And by that, I mean that just like that general, right? And trusted those two young men with a message of salvation, right? And they had urgency, right, in delivering this message, just like that. And here's the main idea for today as we open up God's word. Listen, if you are a believer in Christ, if you call yourself part of the people of God, you have been entrusted with a message as well. And folks, it's not a message that's going to save so much lives physically, but it's a message that will save their life eternally. And what's sad is that for so many people, people who claim to be believers, people who are part of the people of God, listen, communicating this message is not a priority in their life. In fact, for so many people in the church, they think, well, that's just for the pastors. Oh, that's just for the leaders of the church or those people who are really passionate, right? And they're able to evangelize. It's for those people, but oh man, that's not for me. I love God and I come to church all the time and I serve whenever I can. I mean, I'm in a small group, I do all these things. And I love God, don't get me wrong, but honestly, oh more, that's just not for me. And there's so many people that even though they've been entrusted this message, it's not an urgency in their life. There's no priority in their life. You may be sitting here, but oh more, I don't want that to be me. If God hasn't trusted a message to me, what is that message and how can I communicate it? Well, folks, we're gonna find out today, okay? From second Corinthians chapter five, all right? Shavira, Bibles on all campuses. Go ahead and turn to second Corinthians chapter five. And today, church, I have two important thoughts for us about that message. Christ's fellowship at all campuses. Are you ready to dive into God's word? Yeah? All right, always tapped in, write this out as point number one across all of our campuses. Here we go. The first thing we need to remember is that God entrusted you, you, with the message of the gospel. Now, listen to what God's word says in that passage. Again, it says, therefore it's anyone that's in Christ, he's a new creation. The oldest pass away, behold, the new has come, and all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses, not counting their sin against them, but entrusting to us the, what, message of reconciliation. Now, stop right there for just a moment, and slip into the scene. Because here the apostle Paul's reminding us that for those of us, again, who are believers in Christ, that we put our faith in God, that we've been reconciled with God, that we have a relationship with the Lord, that we are part of the people of God. Listen, God not only then reconciled you to himself, but now he entrusted you with the message of reconciliation, which we call the gospel message. The word gospel simply means the good news, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Evangelion, right, in the Greek, right? So the word gospel simply means the good news. And that is what God has entrusted to you student, to you young adult, to you adult, to you grandparent, to every single one of us. Now, as we get into this teaching, I want something a little fun, that I've never done here at Christ's fellowship, but I think it's gonna be very, very impactful for us, all right? When you walked in, you should have all received a little white hand. Now, can you all wave it at all campuses downtown? Doral, yeah, everybody wave it, yeah, come on, downtown. Doral, West Kendall, Redland, everyone's waving it. If you don't have a flyer, don't worry. Guest services could come down and give it to you, just raise your hand or come and give it to you with a little pencil. If not, you can always open just your iPhone app or whatever, and you can type it in if you don't have it, but I would like you to write it out 'cause it's really healthy for you to do this. So here's what I wanna do for just a few moments. If someone at work or at school, your friends, whoever, they say, "Hey, I see you go to church all the time. I see you go to church." Man, I've always heard this thing about the gospel. What is the gospel? The question is, how would you respond? And so here's what I wanted us to do. Without opening your phone, don't be opening up right now, your Safari. I don't know what the Android people use, I don't have an Android. Yeah, you know, don't be opening up Google Chrome, whatever it is, you know. Don't cheat, this is healthy for you, right? It's a pop quiz, right? And listen, I'm not gonna ask you to stand up or read it aloud, relax, all right, relax, all right. Nobody's gonna ask me to do that. But it's so good for yourself. I'm gonna give you about a minute or so, and in that handout that you have, there's a question, what is the gospel? And so, whatever comes to mind, when somebody would ask me, what is the gospel, just write it down, all right. No cheating, this is healthy for you, okay. I want you, it's something for yourself, and you'll see why I'm asking you to do this, right? So go ahead, play the music a little bit, take about a minute, it's healthy for you to write it down. Especially if you think you're a mature believer you need to do this, do this, okay. I'm gonna show you why, all right. So take some time, don't cheat, don't cheat, write it out. (gentle music) Whatever comes to mind, just write it out. (gentle music) Don't be peeking to your neighbors, it's yourself, you or buy yourself at work, you're buying yourself at school, what's the gospel? Just write it down, a few sentences. (gentle music) What is the gospel? (gentle music) Okay. (gentle music) About 50 more seconds, just write it out. No peeking, no peeking. All right. Well I'm gonna ask people to stand up and share with the gospel list. So I'm gonna select, I'm just kidding, just kidding, just kidding, just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. No, but I want you to just write that down, right? I think it's important for you, I'll show you why. Let me just, let me start going into so we can answer that question, what is the gospel? And they will compare it to how you did, all right? Well we see it from the very beginning, we're in scripture. We see that even though God created Adam and Eve and humanity to have a relationship with us, to be in communion with God. What we see is at the moment that humanity sinned and the moment that each of us sinned and all of us are sinners, right, the Bible shows us that at that moment, we were separated from God relationally. In fact, God's word says in Isaiah, 59 it says, but your iniquities or your sins have made a what? A separation between you and your God, right? And so the reality is because God's a holy righteous God with no sin and we are sinful people, sinners, right? We're gonna be in the presence of God. And so if you walked in today and you're not a believer in Christ and you feel distance from God, you know what that is? It's because of our sin. Our sin separates us from God relationally. And not only that, the Bible also warns us that the consequences and the wages of sin is death. So not only because of our sin, okay, in our daily life, we are separated from God. There's this relational break between us and God. The Bible warns that after you die, you will spend eternity apart from God. That's called eternal death. And so the truth of the matter is that for every human being, right, because we are sinners, we are destined not only to be separated from God relationally, but when you die, when we die apart from Christ, we will spend eternity apart from God. And so that is the bad news, right? That humanity faces, we all know that we've sinned before God. But folks, the gospel message is the answer to that bad news. The gospel message answer is God's answer towards sin problem. You see, the gospel is how God saves people from their sins through the death and resurrection of Christ. Now, the whole Bible really reveals to us how God saves us, right? The whole story really shows us the entirety of the gospel. But there's two passages that so succinctly put it of the essence of the message of the gospel, right? There's two places, one found in Luke chapter 24 and the other is found in 1 Corinthians 15. One of them is Jesus speaking and the other is the apostle Paul restating what Jesus told him. And so I'm gonna show you how these two passages that reveal the gospel elements to us, right, are actually very, very similar, okay? Listen to what it says. Listen to what Jesus told the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, okay? Listen carefully to what it says, to what he said. Jesus said, "Thus it is written that the Christ "should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, "and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin "should be proclaimed in his names to all nations, "beginning from Jerusalem, "to all nations beginning from Jerusalem." And notice you are witnesses of these things. So notice Jesus tells us to the disciples there on the road to Emmaus, this is the message, this is the message that you're gonna proclaim to all the world. And then listen to what the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. Listen to what it says and notice it, listen carefully. This is now, I would remind you brothers of the gospel, the gospel message that I preach to you, which you received in which you stand and which by you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, preach to you unless you believe in vain, and here's the message, notice. For I delivered to you as a first and points what I also received, here's the message. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, which is Peter, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. And so here's what I wanna show you. These two passages have striking similarities to outline the gospel message, okay? And in fact, let me show you. So for example, the key gospel elements, the first thing that we see is that Jesus is the Christ. Now, Christ is not Jesus' middle name, right? The word Christ is actually means the anointed one. In other words, he is the one anointed by God to save humanity, right? So Jesus is a Christ and both passages stress us, right? In Luke 24, Jesus says that the Christ, and in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says the Christ, right? So notice, Jesus is the Christ who died and resurrected. Again, the next slide? That died and resurrected on the third day. He died and resurrected on the third day. Notice, Jesus said in the road to Emmaus that Jesus, that the Christ had to suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. And then in 1 Corinthians says that he died, was buried and was and raised on the third day. Then why did he die and resurrected for our sins? Notice, Jesus said for the forgives of sin. And then in 1 Corinthians, Paul says for our sins. Then notice, this was confirmed by prophecy. Both passages stress this. Notice, in Jesus says, this is what it was written in the Old Testament prophesied that of Christ. And notice, 1 Corinthians, Paul says in accordance with the scriptures and he repeats it twice in accordance with the scriptures. Key element. It also says confirmed by eyewitnesses. Jesus told the disciples, you are witnesses of these things. And then notice, Paul says he appeared to see if it's Peter. Then to the 12th and to more than 500. In fact, the passage actually continues to everybody that he appeared to. And then last but not least, I'm going to move this table really quick. Notice that response is repentance and faith. In other words, there has to be a change of mind, of view of sin and faith has to be taking place, right? And look what you just said. That he died and resurrected, right? For the repentance, for the sins that will be preached in his name to all nations. And listen to what Paul says. He says, you received and what? And believed. And so what I want to show you are that these are the key gospel elements found in both of these important scriptures, right? Jesus is a Christ, anointed one by God. He died and resurrected on the third day. Four hours since he died, four hours since. This was confirmed by Old Testament prophecy and the witnesses who saw him being resurrected. And the way to obtain forgiveness of sin is through what? It's through faith, repentance and faith, amen? And so this is the outline of the key elements of the gospel message. And so the question I want to pose for you is this. How did your explanation of the gospel compared to all these, to what we just read? For some of us, we got a lot of it right. That's great. For some of us, we just got maybe a few parts right. Like you said the word cross or sin, you know, there was just certain aspects of it that were there. For others, we said things like God loves you and God has a plan for your life and God will never leave you or forsake you. And we made statements like that. For other people, so there was no gospel elements in the gospel, in that description. For other people, we just started saying, really our story or testimony. Oh, I came to Christ fellowship and I really loved it and I started walking with the Lord and it changed my life and my marriage got better and this is happening in my life and all these different things. But here's the thing, a lot of people I've seen when they're asked what the gospel is, those state the gospel but say their story and their testimony. Folks, here's what I want you to understand. The gospel message, right, is how God saves people from their sins through the death and resurrection of Christ. Your testimony is your story of how the gospel changed your life. Amen. So folks, we cannot get those two things up. The gospel message is the gospel message and your story is your story, right? Your story is the testimony. And folks, here's why it's important because knowing this because just when you talk to people by just saying God loves you or saying God has a plan for your life or God has and will never leave you for sake, you listen, all those things are true. All those things are true, but that is not the message of the gospel. In fact, going back to the beginning, those two men were called runners. They runners in the wars, they were run with messages and there were moments that runners had the wrong message. In fact, they were called errand runners or misinformed runners. And so what happened would be they didn't get the message right and they ended up causing more harm than good and the battlefields because they were not communicating the proper message. And so listen, for us as the people of God, we need to be crystal clear on what the message of the gospel is, amen? Because listen, that message of the gospel, Jesus the Christ appointed by God came down to this earth, right, He died and resurrected on the third day for our sins, confirmed by prophecy, confirmed by our witnesses so that those who put their faith in Him will be forgiven of their sins. Listen, that message is the message that has the power to save, can I get an amen to that? And folks, this is why the Apostle Paul says this, it says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel. "For it is the power of God for salvation "for everyone who believes." And folks, isn't this message of the gospel? Even though it's the only message that could save a soul, that could save a life, isn't carefully, oftentimes it's gonna seem foolish to most people. In fact, God's word says for the word of the cross is why? It's folly, it's foolishness to those who are perishing apart from God, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God to save the men. And folks, here's the thing, the message of the gospel is foolish to everyone, right? Until God opens up that person's heart, works in their heart, and folks, that's the message that they need. You know, in fact, when we look at the early church, there was a moment where the Apostle Paul was preaching this gospel, right? To a crowd in the city of Philippi, and most people thought it was foolishness, but there was one woman that God was working in her heart. Her name is Lydia, and listen to what it says. It says, "As Paul was preaching the word, "the Lord opened her heart to pay attention "to what was said by Paul." You see, here's what I want you to understand. This message may seem foolish to the vast majority of the world, but listen carefully, for those of us, for those people that God is working in their heart, that God is convicting them of their sin, that there is a desire in them that, man, I need God in my life, I need to get right with God, I don't want to be apart from God, I have done these things in my life that I'm, listen, when that person feels that way, what they need to hear the most is the message of the gospel, that there's a God who loves and who gave their son, to die for them, to die for their sins, to pay the price for their sins, resurrect the third day, so that just by putting your faith in what he did for you, the cross, you would be forgiven of your sins and have everlasting life. It may seem foolish to most, but when God is working in their heart, make no mistake about it, that's exactly what their soul needs to hear. Can I get an amendment to that? (congregation applauding) And folks, it's now that we've been entrusted with this message, that you've been entrusted, that I've been entrusted, write this down as big number two. Now God commands us to share that message of the gospel. Now going back to Second Corinthians, isn't what it says, is this now he entrusting to us the message of reconciliation, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. Now the word there for appeal in the Greek, in the original Greek, is the word that means to come alongside physically. So the idea that when Jesus was here on earth, he would come alongside people and share the good news of what he would do for them, right? But now that he's asserted to heaven, right now he didn't trust it to us to make as an appeal to come alongside people, right? And to bring the message of the gospel, amen? In fact, this is such an important part of your walk with Christ and my walk with Christ, that is part of our discipleship process at our church. You know, our church, we have an discipleship process, which I always tell you, it's not perfect, it's not the only process, right? Every church adopts your own process. This is a process we feel confident that if you're doing these four things, you're well in your way to growing and you walk with the Lord. And we talked about this whole series, right? Connect to God the first week, connect to others, which it means small groups and being gospel community. Last week I taught on connecting ministry with the importance of serving in the ministry team, which by the way almost 500 people signed up to serve last week, let's praise God for that, amen? (congregation applauding) And last but not least, right, is connect to the mission. God's entrusted to us, to you, to me, a message and we ought to be on mission with that message. And so here at Christ's fellowship, we usually hear the ways that we do it as a church. First of all, we do it globally. And as you saw earlier in the message, right, globally, we have global campuses. So we have, we just don't send money out to random mission organizations. We actually went from what you give to the work of God. We plant churches where there's no churches. So we have our global campuses. We send global mission trips. So we take, now we send people from here to abroad, right, with this message and helps those campuses. Those churches now reach the loss in that community. So globally, that's one of our, that's our main strategy. Locally, what we see here is that we have our local campuses and we have local outreaches through each campus. So each campus, right, owns their local community and they do outreaches in those specific areas. We have Kari for Miami, which is our nation of a Christ fellowship, the nonprofit of Christ fellowship that focuses on serving the under-resource and hurting and the Christmas offering you all gave towards that. And that's kind of what we help those specialized people in those type of needs. And we also have Christ's fellowship academy because we have a mission field as well, which is children and families. And so our hope, right, is that we continue to expand Christ's fellowship academies across all of our campuses. We're expanding a middle school here at Palmetto Bay. We're looking to start now in the fall and downtown and so we're taking steps now to continue to expand Christ's fellowship academy. But folks, here's what I want you to understand. All of these global mission trips, all of these campus outreaches that we do in the communities, all the things that we do for care for care for Miami, everything we do with our children and CFA. Listen, we do whatever, we love doing all these things in many needs, but make no mistake about it. The primary reason we do all these things is to take the message of the gospel to people who are lost and need Jesus Christ. Can I get an amen to that? (congregation applauds) And so everything we do, our church, right centers around that. And so as a church, that's what we do, but today I wanna focus on us personally because each and every one of us, in our own personal lives, we have a responsibility to get this message across. And so for the rest of my sermon, I'm just gonna focus on personally how you and I, as children of God, could do that in our life, all right? And so I'm gonna go from, we're gonna get very practical, from very indirect ways to the most direct way, all right? So it's a process. So the first way we can do that, write this out center A, is through gospel signs, a gospel sign. And in my definition, a gospel sign is any sign that points people to a place where they can hear the message of the gospel, okay? You know, a great example is our yard signs. Many of you have these in your home. I have it as well. And these are yard signs that you can put in your home, in your home, and for most of us, some of us may think that these things are just insignificant. Like, ah, this is just nonsense, these, this is insignificant, this doesn't really matter. But the truth of the matter is that you don't know the people that God is working in and how God uses these signs to point people to the place where the gospel is preached. In fact, just every single way you have people that come to a church because of these signs. In fact, just this past week, just this past week, I'm gonna give you a story. This past week, Pastor Sammy Flores, who is our pastor over connections and guest services at CF, that we love Pastor Sammy. And Pastor Sammy, as he was following up with the first time guest, okay, listen to how they got to Christ fellows, listen to what he says, what he shared with us. He said, this past week I followed up with the first time guest and I asked her how she heard about her church. And she said she was praying for a church and as God God showed me where we should go. And she proceeded to tell me that she travels the same route to and from taking her children to school. And after her prayer, she sees a CF yard sign that she had never seen before. And she realized, oh my goodness, that's where we're gonna go to Christ fellowship. And as she approached the church, she had chills and she was overwhelmed when she realized, oh yes, we found a church. And folks, while she was here, get this. She signed up to get baptized. She joined a rooted small group on her first day. Yeah, and she took a yard sign and planted her, planted it in her own yard. Pretty amazing, right? (audience applauding) And so here's what I wanna show you. These yard signs, listen, you don't know what God is doing, the heart of a person that's just simply walking by your home. Another option, right? Another thing that we have here, CF, is our bumper magnets, right? I have one in my car, my wife has another car. We also have our yard sign in our home. And here's the thing, these bumper magnets put in your car and you don't know the people who are behind you on your way to work, on your way to school. You don't know if that person just got terrible news about their health. You don't know if their marriage is falling apart. You don't know the discouragement they're going through. You don't understand the loneliness they're going through. You're there driving, singing worship music, but you don't know the people that are behind you looking at this sign. And God could even use something like that to say, hey, go here, go here the message of the gospel here, right? And so the truth of the matter is, is these are very useful, right? Because listen, you don't know who God has appointed and God has beginning to work and God could use something as silly as a yard sign and a bumper magnet, right? Wherever we go, and then notice they sanctify us, right? We drive a little better, right? But we don't know, but we don't know, right? What God's going to use also, right? I haven't got to take it since I started putting my bumper magnet just yet. (congregation laughing) But here's the idea, I'm just messing. I'm just messing. But here's, well, I haven't got to take it. But here's what I want to help you understand. The idea though also when you put that yard sign, right, in your home or in your car, is that the idea is that your neighbors, they see that yard sign, your friends, maybe your coworkers, they see it, oh wow, okay, they go to Christ's fellowship. And so these signs are an easy way to start letting people know, hey, I'm a believer in Christ, right? I go to a church called Christ's fellowship, but they already know, okay, wow, they're a believer in Christ. And the idea is that as they already start knowing, figuring, okay, wow, they're a believer in Christ, that that would eventually lead, write this out to letter B, to a gospel conversation. And folks, a gospel conversation, okay, is in my view, right, any attempt, okay, any attempt to bring Christ and the gospel into a conversation. Any attempt to bring that into, to bring God into the conversation, right? It was a meaningless conversation before, but now you took a turn and you introduced God into the conversation, right? So any attempt where you're trying, right, to bring God in Christ and the gospel into the conversation, in my view, it's a gospel conversation, right? And so there's different ways, and I'm gonna go with you from the most, the different degrees of a gospel conversation. One of them are the invite cards, right? And these invite cards, again, with, you know, with their times and locations, in my opinion, these cards are the most powerful tool to begin a gospel conversation. Because, you know, when you meet somebody randomly at the store, you know, the cashier, the waiter, the rest, from whoever, whoever you meet, just random people, right? You have that in your wallet. The moment you even say, "Hey, by the way, "do you go to church anywhere?" You even ask that question. To them, it's like, "Oh, okay, "we're talking about church now," right? And so it could be a little like, "Oh, okay," right? But here's the thing, when you say, "Hey, listen, do you go to church anywhere?" No, I don't go to church, "Oh, awesome." Well, listen, I have, man, I go to church called Christ Fellowship, and man, I want to invite you to come and listen to God's Word, and we would love to have you. It was a great church, kid's ministry, and you can just, you know, just talk a little bit about it. And oftentimes you say, "Hey, what air do you live?" "Oh, West Kendall, we'll look. "We have a West Kendall campus, "oh, Doral campus, we're reling, you know, "whatever, downtown." And what's cool about it is, here's why I think it's a powerful tool. Because the moment you bring out this little invite card, automatically the focus goes to the card. And it almost like diffuses a little bit of the conversation, right, that you're inviting them. And folks, every time that I give a little invite card out to somebody, folks, it's always so well received. Oh, thank you so much, I'm gonna check it out. Thank you for inviting me. And I've never gotten a bad response. Really, people are just really just very open. Oh, thank you, appreciate it. In fact, this past week, I was with a student director, we went to go off lunch, and I invited the cashier to, you know, I asked him, "Why have you got a church in you? "I would love to have you." And I saw her, she took it. She looked at it, and she took it to the back, and their co-worker, she wanted to see it, they opened it up, they looked at it, they looked at the time of locations. And listen, you don't know what God's gonna do with one of these cards. Maybe that cashier that I invited will never come to church and hear the gospel. But with me, that person is the one. You don't know what God's gonna do with one of these cards. And so for me, man, these invite cards are an easy way to bring a gospel conversation. Just invite, just do what you can to bring God into the conversation. And who knows, they could come. We have many people, a good portion of our people have come because they just received an invite card. So these are great tools. Another one is called Invest and Invite. Invest and Invite. And this is not for just people who usually, sporadically, these are people who usually consistently. Maybe it's a security guard at school, maybe it's that teacher, maybe it's that co-workers, it's right next to you, maybe it's your neighbor, whoever it is, maybe it's somebody, that Starbucks person that you see all the time. Those people that you routinely see, listen, God wants you to invest. I just strike up a little friendship with them. And as you develop your friendship, you get to know them and you get to know more about them, which eventually God willing you can bring God into the conversation. I'm gonna give you an example. Every Friday night, I've told you this before, for us it's pizza night, so I always go and buy pizza at a specific place here in US One. And to bring you home, we have it. And every single time I go to the same place on Friday night, there's a guy who's always there to hand me the pizza. And his name is Karan. And over the years, we've developed friendship, like he's told me about things that he's struggled with, he told me that he got in a bad situation, he got a health issue. Another time that I just spoke to him briefly, he's like, yeah, I'm getting my pilot's license and he's flying out throughout Florida, he's doing the hours and all these different things. And folks, he knows, listen, every time that I come in, when we have a quick little conversation, folks, I've invited him to church, I've talked to him about the Lord, I've had little gospel conversations and you don't know what God's gonna do, right? The moment you just are intentional with the people God's put in your life. God's put people in your life for a specific reason. If there's somebody in your life and you see consistently, right? Maybe God's putting that person for a reason, for you just to have gospel conversations with them. But this is where there's an invite, just a random invite or an investment invite. Listen, there is power in the moment you bring out the card and you don't know what God's gonna do down the road. In fact, just so you can see the power of the simple random invite card. Take a look at this video. - My name is John. - And I'm Ariana. - We know each other since we're like 17, 18 years old and we actually happen to be high school sweethearts and we reunited after 27 years and the 27 long years. So it's been a true blessing to have her back in my life. - Once John and I reconnected, we wanted to look and start going to a church in the Doral area. We were, you know, looking and looking and there's a bunch of churches. - We wanted to find a church that was the right fit, that we can both attend together, that we can both serve in our community. - That was really, really important to us. - We were just, you know, going back and forth, back and forth until one day. - I went to work that one day. I remember like it was yesterday. My office is completely empty because after COVID, they sent everyone home. So we're pretty much 100% remote working from home. I go into the office, you know, a couple of times a week, you know, to change things up a little bit. I walk into the break room to hit up my lunch and there it was. Like it was intentionally left there for me. I found an invite card from Christ Fellowship. He calls me during his lunch hour and he tells me, you know, that he found this invite card, you know, from the church. And I was like, does it have like a little palm tree logo? And he said, yes. And I go, you're not going to believe this. - She actually had been looking online and found Christ Fellowship on website and she was going to send me, but it was kind of late at night. So she held off and sending me the text message. She's like, oh my gosh, when I send her the text, you're not going to believe this. I'm looking at the same exact church. And I sent him, you know, what I had, you know, the screenshot from the night before. I sent it to him and I said, is it this one? And he sends it, he sends me back, you know, picture of the invite card and he goes, yes, that's it. - I don't know who left that invite card there, but it was definitely left there for me. - Pastor Jose, you know, greeted us at the door. - That big smile. - Way to big smile. - Idiot smile. - He was so welcoming and we just feel at home. From the first moment we stepped into, you know, the DeRao campus, we just felt, you know, this is our church. - Yeah. I think Christ Fellowship has really impacted our lives. You know, we knew that as we've been reunited after 27 years that, you know, we definitely wanted a Christ-centered relationship. We immediately, you know, got plugged in in a small couples group and we started to attend that Wednesday night. We've met some incredible individuals in that group, you know, and they're, we feel like we've known them forever. We just really created an impact on our lives, for sure. Invite cards are very powerful. You know, you never know who is in spiritual need. Everyone has, you know, their own struggles. Everyone has their own battles. By simply sharing that invite card, you know, by them stepping foot into a church that they never been to before and hearing God's word, it can really truly change someone's life, so. - Do not be hesitant. Inviting someone to church. Do not be hesitant on leaving an invite card. It can make a big impact on someone's life. - Big difference. - And a big difference. - Amen. (audience applauding) - And folks, again, you don't know what God's gonna use. When you're obedient, just have a little conversation with someone. And listen, there's gonna be moments, all right? That's not just an invite card. It's not just an investment invite, but there's some moments, there's moments where God's gonna open the door for the gospel. In fact, write this down as number three. There's gonna be moments that we can actually share the gospel. Whether it's a dad, a mom, a neighbor, a cousin, an uncle, a classmate, an old friend, listen. The people in our lives, listen there, they're on their way to an eternity apart from Christ. And God has entrusted us a message. And so listen, our responsibility is to do what we can to open up the conversation. And you'll know the moment that God's gonna lead. God's gonna open the heart. And then God is gonna give you the grace to share. Even if you don't share it perfectly, then God's gonna be with you. It's gonna lead you as you share what Christ has done for us, that had resurrected for our sins, for the forgiveness of sin, amen. And listen, if God's working in their heart, that's exactly what they need to hear, amen? Let's be faithful that when God gives the opportunity to share the message of the gospel, don't be ashamed of the gospel. It is a power to save for those who God has appointed, amen? And so let me end with this, you know, the reason I think it's important is because when you share the gospel, it actually is very healthy for your walk with Christ. In fact, whenever you start sharing the gospel and having gospel conversations of any kind, there's something that happens in your heart that you draw closer to the Lord. You know, I just think about a few weeks ago, you know, I was here on this stage and, you know, I'm preaching here to thousands of people, you know, and I don't know, I love what I do and God, you know, works in my heart and it's the greatest honor of my life. But that's the other Sunday, after preaching, I was at Milo's market and, you know, I was just by myself and I, you know, I took a little bit of my career, you know, they go to church anyway, just had a little conversation. And, you know, she took, she was very, very polite, very nice. Let me tell you something, as I walked away, I felt like, I felt like I did what God wanted me to do at that moment, you know? And I just felt like, I just felt like, this is a special feeling that I have when I preach here, but that's a special feeling too. And you have those little conversations, your heart starts pounding a little bit and it feels awesome and you feel like you did what God wanted you to do. And you know what, sometimes when I walk away, there's been many times, it's not perfect, there's been many times that I walk away from a conversation and I didn't bring the gospel, I didn't have a gospel conversation, I bring God in a conversation. And you know what, I feel convicted. I feel convicted when I walk away. But I don't feel convicted, I don't carefully 'cause I'm a pastor. I feel convicted 'cause I'm a child of God. Feel convicted 'cause I'm a follower of Christ. And so my hope and my prayer is that God will start putting a burden on you in your heart that you'll show me who to talk to, show me how to have a little quick conversation. Show me, open the door to share the gospel because that's what we've been entrusted, amen. You'll see the more you have gospel conversations, you'll walk with Christ, he's gonna continue to develop because you're doing now what he did, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, amen. And maybe you're here right now. And the reality is, I know today is a little different, but maybe you came into one of our campuses and the reality is that the message of the gospel is actually what you need to hear because you came in and you were burdened with, sin, you feel far from God, you feel distant from God, you feel discouraged. And there's something in you that says, you know what, I need God in my life. I need a Lord in my life. Well, listen, it's very simple. We went over it today, that God loves you so much, even though we were sinners, that God loves you so much that he sent Jesus his son, the anointed one of God, the appointed one by God, to die for your sins, to resurrect for new life, confirmed by the entire New Testament, confirmed by eyewitnesses, to those who put their faith in the Lord. Listen, we'll be forgiven of your sins. You want forgiveness of sin, you wanna know God, you wanna have a relationship with God. It's so simple, only comes by faith in what Jesus has done for you. The question is, will you put your faith in Christ today? Let's bow our heads for prayer. Father, we love you and we thank you for the reminder of this beautiful message of the gospel, may seem foolish to most, but it is a power to save to those that God is calling unto himself. With all heads bowed and all high schools, I wanna speak to those of us today here. Will you feel that you're far from God, you need God, you're tired of this facade, you're tired of all this, you need God in your life, you want a relationship with God? Well, listen, I'm gonna, in a few moments, I'm gonna lead you to pray to a Lord. So you can give your life to Christ, put your faith in Christ, before I do that though. If you feel today, you know, man, I'm ready to receive the Lord, I'm ready to start my walk with Christ. Listen, in a few moments, I'm gonna ask you to, with no one looking around and all eyes close, I'm gonna ask you to slip up your hand, with no one looking around. As an affirmation to your own heart, that yes, I'm ready. In that first service, many people raise their hand, I'm sure in this service there's people as well. And so with no one looking around, with all the skills, if you feel today, yes, I'm ready to start a relationship with the Lord. If that's you, slip up your hand. And right now, at all campuses, I see all three of, I see all of you. Amen, anybody else, I see you, I see you on the right, anybody else. I see you all the way in the back, at all campuses right now. Downtown, at West Kendall, Doral, Redlin. Gonna slip up your hand, I see you right in the front, anybody else. I see both of you there, anybody else. I see you in the balcony, anybody else. Amen, praise God, praise God. You can put your hand down. Just if you feel today's the day that you are starting a relationship with the Lord, I'm gonna lead you to the prayer. And when you pray, listen, you don't pray to me, I'm only a man, I cannot save you. You pray to the God who loves you and gave his son on the cross for you. And when you pray, no, that the words you're praying is not what saves you. It's what we saw in those two passages. It's your faith. It's the faith behind the words. That's what saves you. That's what gives you forgiveness of sin. So pray this quietly to yourself and pray this to God. Father, today I realize how far away I am from you, Lord. And my sin separates me from you. So I confess all of my sin and I ask you for forgiveness of sin. I put my trust in the death and resurrection of your son. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. Thank you, Lord, for forgiving me of my sin. Lord, thank you for bringing me now close to you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for loving me. This is an impression of my Jesus, I pray. And all God's people say. Amen. Hey, can you encourage all those who pray that prayer amen on campuses? And then if you pray that prayer, it's the best decision of your life will never be the same. And so on the way out of all campuses, stop on the next step booth. Well, just so we can connect with you for just a short moment, get you on your way, give your brand new Bible, and we'll get you with the next steps, right? I'm gonna call the campus pastor to the front Christ. So I shall be back next week and let's pick up all the stuff on the way out of all campuses, right? Love you all. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]