Have you ever wondered how we can embody the goodness and love that God has showered us with? Where does the essence of our faith intersect with our response to real-world issues like human sex trafficking? Join us as we unravel these important questions and explore the heart of God's intentions, as well as our role as His partners in this world.
Have you ever wondered how we can embody the goodness and love that God has showered us with? Where does the essence of our faith intersect with our response to real-world issues like human sex trafficking? Join us as we unravel these important questions and explore the heart of God's intentions, as well as our role as His partners in this world.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message. Hey, thank you so much for being here. I know it is not easy to come back to church, or to come to church for the very first time, so thank you so much for being here. If you're watching us online, thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1:It's going to be kind of a special day today. This is the day of the, or the weekend of the year that we talk about Freedom Sunday. This is a special Sunday that's set apart for us to talk about some of the needs in the world, and one that is near and dear to our heart as a church we talk about every year is human sex trafficking. We're also going to thread that into the nine series that we're in the middle of, nine talking about the nine fruit of the spirit. I think we're going to see this come together really well. I want to encourage you. This is one of those messages you really want to open your heart. You want the spirit of God to affect you.
Speaker 1:It's hard to watch, even just start to think about stuff like in that video and not to ask God what the heck Like, aren't you supposed to be good? Why is this happening? And we've got to know. Anytime we're going to talk about this kind of darkness and evil in the world, we've got to know that this world is not really the world that God made. This is a tarnished, messy version of what God made. So I mentioned, you and I are walking through a junkyard and you've never seen a car before and we come up to this old, dead, rusted, not working thing. I'd say this is a car and you'd be like this sucks, this is a car. This doesn't do anything, it doesn't drive, it's not beautiful. There's maybe once you could see there was once beauty in it. There's some that remains, but that would be a misrepresentation of the designer's vision. And as you look around planet Earth, you see the goodness of God still in the Earth, but you also see this strained disease of evil that is within every human heart and expresses itself in hate and violence and war and selfishness, as we've just got to understand. That's where we're talking about.
Speaker 1:And you might ask why doesn't God change it? And the answer, the great news, is he will. In fact, he is Because of Jesus Christ. He's slowly, he's changing it from the inside out. He's starting with human hearts and calling everyone who wants to walk in Him, wants to have Him renew their heart, to walk a relationship with Him. He's calling them hey, come walk with me, because the day is coming.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to take all this trash, all this garbage, all this evil, and I'm just going to scrape it off into the garbage. I'm just going to scrape it off into a. Really it's like a, it's a furnace man, it's a trash compactor. It's hell. And Lord says anyone who still loves all this stuff and wants this stuff instead of wants allegiance with me, I'm just going to scrape it right off. And if that's where they want to go, that's. I'm not going to try to stop them. I'm going to plead with them year after year after year to not go there. But if they love evil and they want that stuff, at the end of the day I'm going to let them win that argument.
Speaker 1:God is going to come back and save the world. Jesus Christ is going to return, the King. He's going to come and he's going to be like okay, that's enough, that's all, that's all there is Now. Scrape all this stuff into the trash. Everybody else, we're going to bring heaven and earth back together. It's going to be a perfect paradise where there's no more strain of evil, there's no more sin, there's no more junkyard, there's no more junker cars. Everything's beautiful and super and improved and filled with the love of God. So that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've been in this 9th series and we're talking about the start of that process where God comes into the human heart through the person of the Holy Spirit, spirit of Jesus, and it begins to transform my desires and what we want. And he says I'm calling you guys to partner with me. Remember we said partnership. We're talking about partnership with God. God likes partners. I want you to partner with me and I want to express the personality love of Jesus Christ to everybody, not just from the sky. I want to do it through you. When you choose to love in my power, I'm going to augment the power of your love and it's going to point directly to me. That's his whole game. That's what he's about.
Speaker 1:And if you remember in the context when we first started this series, we're coming from the book of Galatians and one of the things that Paul is saying the writer, he's telling these people guys, you're getting way too focused. I'm meticulously trying to get every little exact piece of obedience correct, but you're missing the big picture. You're missing that all of those little obedience are about walking in love. And he says the awesome thing about the Spirit of Jesus is, if you just continually give yourself over to him, you're going to find he obeys the law pretty much for you because he causes you to walk in love. And the whole law was always really about just helping you love. That was the whole game, right there.
Speaker 1:And remember, we said when we come to Christ and we trust Him for forgiveness and he gives us a new heart, we stop seeing the Bible as a law book and it becomes a love book. It's not, hey, you must do this to be right with God. No, jesus Christ makes you right with God. He restores the relationship. And now the book is just teaching you how to love. So we go back to it again and again, not to condemn ourselves, because we're not condemned in Christ, but so we can learn how to do this thing called love.
Speaker 1:And today we're talking about goodness, and we're talking about goodness. We can talk about one of the attributes of God. Okay, st Aloysius will tell you about the goodness of God. Meaning God is all good, he's the standard of good, he's the definer of good, he's where goodness comes from. And that's true. But when we talk about the fruit of goodness, the fruit of the Spirit, it's not just that God is good, it's that he wants to express goodness through us. And so Galatians 5-22, the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness.
Speaker 1:Goodness is the desire to do good, expressing itself in active good. It's not just the intention, it's the desire, followed by the follow through to make sure good actually gets done. And you've seen this before. You know what this is like. You've had experiences where you're like, oh my gosh, they were just so good to us there. We went to that restaurant and that waiter just treated us so good. We went on that experience, we went on that vacation, like I can't believe how ever they treated us. It's just so great. Are you even meet somebody and like, wow, they're just all they do. I love being around them because they're just so good. What are they probably doing? They're doing things, whether it's saying things or doing things for you or giving you things or spending time with you that you know they didn't really have. They're doing goodness in your direction and it makes you like. I like this Right Now.
Speaker 1:We all like it when people are good to us. I mean we'll write reviews on them. I have five stars. Hey guys, we're great. We all like that, we're all interested in that.
Speaker 1:One of the problems with us is we're not so good at remembering that we should be doing that with everybody. We're not so good at enlisting the Spirit of God's help. Social media makes it a little bit worse, because social media has got everybody trained that if you posted something or or intentioned something or thought things in someone's direction, that you did anything and according to the New Testament, hey, that's a great desire. But until that produces action, it wasn't yet goodness. It was. It was the desire for goodness, it was the intention for goodness, but it wasn't. Don't fool yourself and think you did good because you said thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.
Speaker 1:Good is actually doing good. That's when we bring the goodness of God into a situation. Come on somebody Uh-oh, he meddling. Now Watch out when we experience good from somebody. Here's what we don't, we don't know. No, that is also. Not only are they putting good into our lives, but God is putting good into our lives through them. It is God expressing His goodness. Through all the goodness in your life, all the goodness that is happening in your and my reality, is because God is saying I just want to be good to Him, I just want to show Him how good I am. And so today, one of the things we're going to do is we're going to pull apart the goodness of God and then we're going to look at how does God want us to bring His goodness to other people? Does that sound like a deal? Okay, now here's.
Speaker 1:This also makes it a little bit more challenging. Some of us, you've just been through tough stuff, and everybody gets tough stuff. But then we have tough stuff after tough stuff after tough stuff, and it can wear down our expectation of good. We stop seeing really God's goodness to us because like, but all I've had is bad again and again and again, and it's kind of like all we start to see. And the problem is, the more you walk in that, the harder it gets to see others and do good in their direction, because you don't expect any good coming your way and you're kind of forgetting that there is good.
Speaker 1:And I just want to express my compassion. Man, that is real stuff and it sucks Like I've been there. Man, I've had year after year where if I wasn't careful, I was like gosh, this just keeps going downhill. I just keep getting sicker and sicker. We still ain't got no money. We still ain't got no friends. What's up? God and you just? It's not that God wasn't being good, I stopped. It was harder to see it, and maybe that's where some of us are right now Precious. It's not that God's not being good to you, but maybe it's understandable. You've been taking some hits and now you're just. You just beat down and all you can see is the ground a little bit.
Speaker 1:I want today to provide a lift. Come on somebody, I know you got hard stuff, but you're going to see the goodness of God right now in the land of the living. Hey, so God's going to challenge us. He's going to teach us to do good. He's going to teach us to see others and do good in their direction. Now, to really understand the goodness of God, we've got to start way in the past, anxious.
Speaker 1:We have views of God today that ancients would not have shared, maybe not even understood in the world of the Bible, if we would have come to them and said hey, you know, in 21st century America or wherever you're tuning in from, a lot of people think about God as kind of like. He's just kind of like this cosmic teddy bear, he's kind of like Santa Claus and you know, he just kind of is on your side all the time and he just he'll just do stuff for you maybe, but you don't really need it, you don't need any go between you, don't need to reach to him or find him Like he's just kind of there. Anxious people's, on the other hand, would have said no, there's an automatic gap between God and people. Whatever God it is, you got to bring him something, you got to do something to get back in his good graces or it's good graces you got to provide a sacrifice, and so that's why it's so awesome and the Old Testament, when God begins to speak to the prophet Micah, and this is what he says with what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves, a year old. Will the Lord be pleased? With thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, for the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul. He's going through. He's like man. Do I just need riches to give God everything? Do I need to provide such a sacrifice that he's saying okay, I'll be in relationship with you?
Speaker 1:He has shown you immortal. He's shown you immortal. He's shown you mortal, saying you who are not God, you who are not eternal, you who are temporary. You are kind of like you know, you're yesterday's grass mown and thrown. That's how fast you are in light of eternity, like it's boom dude, it's over, it starts and it's over. He says. He's shown you, oh mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. He's shown you, oh mortal, what is good.
Speaker 1:We need to learn about the goodness of God, not just in the way that we experience it, but in a way that we can share it, and we need to start with the idea that baby. God has shown you the goodness of God. He already has shown you. How are you going to learn how to do good? Look at God, because God is doing good in your direction. And it starts with mercy. See, this is mercy, god's like. No, you don't need a thousand rams. You don't need to sacrifice your firstborn. There is a distance that needs to be crossed, but I'm going to go ahead and meet that distance. I'm going to fill in the gap. God says I'm going to pay the price. There is a price. Yes, it's not just Santa Claus in the sky. There's a price for you to be reconnected with me. There is a price, but, dear heart, you can't pay it. But you, being close to me, jesus says, is so worth it. I'm willing to come just to get you near me. And so this is how we have to understand. He says God has shown you what is good.
Speaker 1:Psalm 23.6,. It's not in your notes, but some of you know it. Psalm 23, very famous Psalm. This is what verse 6 says Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Goodness and mercy, those two go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:If we want to know about God's goodness, we have to understand God's mercy. See, all the goodness of God that is happening to you and me is God's mercy. It is undeserved. It is accessed because Jesus Christ has made it possible for the Father not to look at your sin, but rather to regard your sin and my sin as already having been paid for through the blood of his Son. It is not deserved.
Speaker 1:And so you and I have all kinds of things. I don't know if you've thought about this, but let's just think about all the things, all the ways that God is not just he's not just giving you stuff because you live here. You don't just get stuff because you're on plant. Well, you know, everybody gets this, so they get this. No, in the Bible it's personal. God is giving it to you and he's giving it to you all the time, your basic needs, if they're mad, if you've got food, shelter, water. You don't just have those.
Speaker 1:God is like I want to show you my goodness, I want you to have it. Do you have beautiful things? Do you have a beautiful sister, a beautiful daughter? Do you have a beautiful home? Do you have a beautiful, whatever item in your house? That is God saying I just want to show you my goodness. Here's some beauty that you didn't deserve. Here it is. I'll just give you this. How would you like this? What about? Have you got, like, some pretty powerful intellect? Can you think better than some? Like even, can you think better than anybody Gosses? You didn't. I didn't have to give that to you. I just wanted you to have some of my goodness. Like I wanted you to be able to solve some things and figure some things out, and I just wanted you to have there's jobs I wanted you to be able to do and hold down. So I just gave you all of this intelligence.
Speaker 1:What about some of the tech that you enjoy, some things that just make your life so much easier than it would have been 50 years ago, 100 years ago? Like, you just zoom, you're just right through it, and some of you even get like me. When certain technological things come in front of you, there's a little bit of who-hoo, dopamine hit. You're like yes, I like this, you know about that. Yeah, all that is. That's not just randomly there, that's not Steve Jobs' or Bill Gates' fault. That is God saying. I just want to be good to you. I just want you to know that. I know you like that and I can do it. So I'm putting you in the generation that's alive when that kind of thing is coming out.
Speaker 1:What about this? Have you ever gotten sick? And then maybe you got some antibiotics or you had to go to the hospital and they did something that they could not have done even 20 years ago, but you could do it. Maybe it was a really fast and easy surgery. That man, that wouldn't have happened before. Or you went and you got this pill over at the Meyer and it was like that was gone in two days and that might have been there for months in generations past. All that medical advancement you know that's God's goodness to you, right, that's not arbitrary. God is like, as you pull up to the drive-through to get your prescription, god's like watch this, boom, I'm gonna be good to you. And suddenly all this stuff that's going wrong in your body there's really the result of human sin is now going right because of God's goodness and affection and love.
Speaker 1:What about when you've had an opportunity? You were like, oh man, I gotta do this. I'm a little bit afraid to do it, but you're like all right, I'm gonna go. And you had this courage and you went. That courage is God being good to you? Because there are other people that didn't have that courage and God's like I'm just gonna tap them right over, they're gonna get it, I'm gonna let them have it, I'm gonna give them that courage. Are you were strong enough, or you had the patience. It might've taken somebody else out, but you got through it because God was like, oh man, I don't know if they're gonna make it boom, they made it because God is good. It's like I just wanna show him my goodness.
Speaker 1:Or you went through a really difficult transitional season in life and things were changing and you were like, oh, I don't know how to handle these changes, but you know, god was right there getting you through it. God's there, showing you his goodness. Doesn't have to, doesn't have to give you anything, doesn't owe you an allowance, but he's looking at you and he's thinking about you and he's like I just wanna show him my goodness, so I'm gonna go ahead and do it. Or your spiritual growth or your personal growth have you grown? Yeah, that wasn't just given. God was like I'm gonna choose them and I'm gonna show them this level of goodness so they can progress.
Speaker 1:We ain't even talking about salvation stuff yet. We're not even talking about. If you've got a relationship with Jesus Christ, we haven't gotten there yet. And if I say, well, you know God's given you salvation, it might be unclear what we mean, because some of us, you're so used to that idea that it's you don't even think about what that means anymore. Okay, what that means is judgment was required to bring you and I back to God, not just humankind. You and I.
Speaker 1:Somebody had to pay a penalty, a penalty that was righteous, because of who God is, because of his character. He can't just be like evil doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you betrayed me. No, there has to be an answer for it, just like you want an answer for injustice in the world. Just like you saw in that video. You're like who's gonna do something about this? That thing in you that wants something done is the righteousness of God. Saying this is unfair. God has that same thing.
Speaker 1:Times God, and anytime anyone sins against him, he's like this is wrong and someone has to do something about it. But we can't do nothing about it. You can't be religious enough, you can't go to enough Bible studies, you can't get baptized enough, you can't wash that stuff off. But God can do something about it. And why does he decide to do about it? Because he's like check this out, I'm gonna do my goodness in your direction, even though it costs the life of my son. Even though your enemies persecute you, I'm gonna overcome them, god says. Even though you're without comfort, I'm gonna give you comfort through the person of the Holy Spirit. Even though generations went by on planet Earth without access to the Word of God, I'm gonna make it available right on your dog, on phone, every day, all day, long times, like 30 versions, cause I'm good to you and he wants to teach us that.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ, check this out, dude. He's a model, he is, he's an inspiration, he is. But you know what? We were watching the Barbie movie the other night, and Barbie's also a model and inspiration, I guess, to some people. But baby Jesus ain't Barbie. He's not just model, he's not just inspiration, he is substitute. He is substitute. Let me tell you what that means. That means you are drowning in the river and Jesus doesn't just come like, pull up alongside you and be like let me show you how to swim. He doesn't even just like I'll just be with you while you're drowning. He doesn't do that. He says I'm gonna jump in and it's gonna cast you out of the river and I'm going to drown. That's it. I'm going to drown. Jesus decides I'm going to drown, so you don't drown. That's the goodness of the substitutes. Are we hearing that? That's his affection and his love toward you.
Speaker 1:I wanna read you this. It's really a hymn. It's from a charity least edition, as I might have said that wrong. She's dead now. I don't think she minds, but I want you to hear about the goodness of God. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong, a perfect plea. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within upward, I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin Because the sinless Savior died. My sinful soul is counted free For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me. That's the goodness of God. That was intentional.
Speaker 1:That is not the stipend you get we're used to in this day and age. I just get a stipend. Man, this is gonna give you something, this is gonna have. It's gonna show up in your bank account. That is not how God rolls. He doesn't just give you a stipend. Everything he gives you it's costs him. It's because he's good and because he loves you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm in the lady movies here, so we're gonna go to the notebook. Some of you know about the notebook, spoiler alert. Okay, at the end, this couple that you've been watching the whole movie. Okay, this couple's old now and she's lost most of her memory, she's got Alzheimer's and he's just there every day with her. He's there, her friend, taking care of her, loving her, but she doesn't really know. I mean, she maybe has a glimmer of understanding at a couple points in the movie, but she doesn't really know. He's there loving her. Now, to her he could just be some guy, man, just some orderly, just some dude who's there for some reason taking care of stuff, but to him he's like you have my whole heart. I am being faithful to you when you don't even know. I'm being faithful to you.
Speaker 1:God's love for you and I is not a stipend, it is not something that's just happening. God is saying you have my whole heart. I am doing this because of my passionate love for you, not because I have to. I'm here and you don't even get it, and I'm still here doing it because of the love of God that is in Christ. Are we hearing this? So in some of our….
Speaker 1:We have to reflect a little bit more. If we want to walk in the goodness of God, if we want to express the goodness of God, we just have to think about the goodness of God. We can just pop out of bed, dude, and be like, oh my word, the goodness of God is here again. I woke up. Look at all this stuff around me. I don't deserve it. And that'll start to breed confidence in us. So when things start to go south, we're like baby, you don't even know. You don't even know devil, my God is good. Okay, yeah, this will be hard for a minute, but my God is good. You can't stop him. My God is just going to keep on rolling it right over, like he has every day of my dog gone life and all the years of all my ancestors. God was there, being faithful and good. Watch him do it again.
Speaker 1:But you know you do have a spiritual enemy that's going to show up at the same time. He's going to say God ain't got no plan for you. God doesn't love you. You're pretty disqualified with all the stuff you've done. You think he's still keeping you around. You're just getting the leftovers. Man, you're getting other people's blessing. You're just like around, you go to that fierce church, that's God's blessing other people and you're just like getting hit by a little of it. No, that's a lie from hell. God is out to show you his goodness and we got to wake up saying it. Man, you ain't the black sheep, you're the God's beloved that he's taken care of, even when you don't know it. And see if we can learn this. We can actually learn to have fun. We can actually learn to enjoy sharing the goodness of God with other people.
Speaker 1:Some of you, you have a little bit of this Like you love to serve people. People come over to your home, maybe they come to your apartment, and you're like you want, you want, hey, can I get you a drink? And you get them a little bit of food and you're just taking care of your, propping them up. Or you bring people gifts and you're like woohoo, and you love that. You are good to be good to them. And what you don't maybe think about enough is I'm not only getting to be good to them, I'm getting to express the goodness of God to them. God wanted to be good to them and he's using me.
Speaker 1:That's the fruit of goodness and we can have more if we'll seek it, if we'll ask and if we'll. Here it is, do it. So you're still a choice. It's not automatic. We can have more of it if we want, or we can have less of it if we want, or we can just not pay attention at all. But it's there. The goodness of God is there. He wants us to use it, the Spirit of God. So God is good to us, the Spirit of God will lead us to do good, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives goodness, and check this out. It's important to remember what goodness that the people God puts you around you don't have to think that they deserve goodness to do goodness to them, and honestly, they very much might not.
Speaker 1:Some of, I think some of the lowest times, some of the times I felt least deserving, are the most memorable times when people did good to Kenzie and I, number. One time we had this old nasty bungalow house that was like a thousand years old and the furnace was nasty, okay, and then one night just black smoke, kind of like in the Christmas store, just starts bubbling up. Only, it's not funny like in the Christmas store. We're like we don't know what to do. Man, I was like, are we gonna die tonight? Is this house gonna burn down around us? And so we just go see Pastor Don. He was our pastor at the time. He was like why don't you guys come on in, put us up, put our baby up? Who knows how long we were there. But he had kids of his own. They had grandkids staying there. He didn't care, he did good to us.
Speaker 1:What about the times when somebody was listening to you and, honestly, you were kind of half right and yet they just listened to you. Just go on and on and on and on? What about the time you were rejected by some people and other people like, well, they have a point, but I accept you and I'm gonna do this with you and I'm gonna be around you. Some of those are the most memorable because they didn't necessarily deserve it. But you decided slash. God decided to be good to them through you. Come on somebody. That's mercy right there. If we're gonna get this down, though, another really important thing we gotta do yes, we gotta bounce out of bed and think about all the goodness of God, but we also, at the same time have to decide. Somebody say decide. We have to decide to get ourselves off our minds, because here's what I. Here's what's probably true to you. It's definitely true to me.
Speaker 1:I wake up every day and I have an I want list. It's ready, man, I whip that thing out. I want Lord, I got some things I want, and all day I'm spending looking for the things that I want, and the problem is, the more I look at this list, the more I can't see anybody else's list, and so I just need to like Lord, you know about the list Not that I don't talk to you about it, but instead of talking so much about it, why don't we talk about the things on other people's lists or the things on your list that you want to use me for on this planet? We need to get ourselves off our mind, and so maybe just one application is to start asking the Lord every day. Lord, today, how do you want me to express the goodness of God to people? How do you want me to do it? Would you just show me Now you got to be ready, because if you start praying that, you're going to start to think.
Speaker 1:This is what so many of us think. You're going to think I can't do anything unless I can do everything that I would want to do. You're like well, this is what I'd like to do for him, but I can't, so I'm just going to keep going. Here's what I'd love to do, but that's not for now. I don't have that kind of money right now. I'm not going to do it. I don't listen to that junk. Jesus is the great multiplier. Jesus can start with five loaves and two fish and end up with 12 baskets. That's how awesome Jesus is. Just give him your five loaves and be like I don't know, but can you use this? Yes, I can. Let's use what you got instead of mourning what you don't got. I know it's not good grammar, but it's still good preaching. Come on, somebody. We have to give it time to develop.
Speaker 1:Listen to this Psalm 27-13. I've prayed this so often. It's been a great source of strength to me. You might have prayed it too if you've known this Psalm for a while. If you haven't, here it is. You're going to love it. It's going to be helpful.
Speaker 1:I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. That means I'm going through. Things are hard and I'm like. I know the enemies are against me. I know they're all chasing me down to take my life and yet I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of God. This is a bad day, but I will see a good day in the land of living. How many times when I was sick, when I was dealing with someone you're just going to die, dude? I'd be like Satan. I'm not waiting for heaven, I'm going to enjoy my life now. I will see the goodness of God today in the land of the living. God ain't waiting everything for heaven. There's stuff coming now. That's so true.
Speaker 1:But as you start to get older and you start to walk a little longer with Jesus, you start to hear that differently and you start to hear wow, I'll bet you I'm not the only person praying that. I bet you there's other people around the world who are in really hard, difficult situations and they're saying oh God, I got almost nothing left With every last mustard seed of faith I've got. I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. They're praying and God's like therefore, I will send you, I will send you to show them the goodness of God in the land of the living. Do you want to participate? Because God wants to answer their prayer. But remember, god's a partner. He wants to partner. He knows disease is taking over this entire junkyard. He's saying I want to do good but I want to use you. I want you to be part of the answer to that prayer.
Speaker 1:You may not know this, but over the years this church has given over $30,000 to this organization just to free sex trafficking victims through international justice mission. This is the first one. This is kind of like the heart one, the deep one, and we do this because it sucks and it's happening on our planet and we can do something about it. We call it the Christmas offering, but it really goes past Christmas. Between November and January we say, hey, man, people are going to be generous anyway. Why don't we be generous in these kinds of directions? And so today I want to introduce to you the Send the Rain offering. Send the rain. We're going to talk more about what that means in the coming weeks, but it starts with this premise Psalm 2713. We just read it. I will see the goodness of the Lord and the land of the living. But that's not just me. I have a responsibility to help others who are praying that prayer to see it answered. I need to help any way I can, some girl, some little boy that's praying that right now. If we can do something, what would be to us if we don't? And so the next three months we're going to try to raise $35,000 by January 31st and here are the different ways we're going to break that down.
Speaker 1:So, sexual violence and slavery this is through international justice mission. I mean, if those of you who follow them, they do so much dope stuff. They plan and they prep and they get ready, they find out, they work with local authorities, they found out where are these kids and then they go in, they get subpoenas or they get warrants and they arrest these people and then they bring these kids sometimes these men and women. They bring them into recovery places where they're just going to be at home for a while, where they're going to get reacclimated into life. And you can follow them on their prayer chain on the Echo Prayer app. Don't tell you hey, we're about to go do this. Pray for us while we do this. It is awesome, so we're going to give to that again.
Speaker 1:There's also a church planting initiative in Thailand. We've supported these folks over the years. Not quite the same situation, but in Thailand you can check this out online it's the Thailand initiative. We work with friends and partners over there who they're planting churches and they're going to places where they're sex workers there's prostitutes and they're trying to give them secondary skills so that they can eventually get out of that life they hate and take care of their kids. But they also plant churches.
Speaker 1:I mean, wouldn't that? It's not just like stir you up, that there can be places that aren't there right now, that are like this place, places where people can come and then come out of sin and come out of dark, or come out of darkness and come into the light of knowing Christ. We can do it. We just have to decide to do it. We can't just intend to do it. We're going to give practicals help to those in Israel. You know, during the attacks on Israel it wasn't just slaughter but there were medical devices and vehicles and all kinds of stuff that was destroyed on purpose, and so we're going to partner with Samaritan's Purse they do a dope job and they're going to reprove ambulances and trauma kits and food and all kinds of stuff for people that are just like their whole world was just destroyed. You might not know this, but even right here at church there's financial need all the time. People don't mention it, but they'll come and they'll be like, hey, man, I'm in trouble, can you guys do anything? And one of the ways that we can be brothers and sisters. We set aside this every year for you so that we can be helpful, because we know life is going to happen and someday it's going to happen to you and me, and other days it's going to happen to somebody else and we want to do what we can do to prepare for that.
Speaker 1:Over the past few years we decided to revamp the way we're approaching our teenage ministry. So whereas we used to just do youth group in an occasional retreat, we've realized that the retreats are where it's at. I can remember it as still a teenager, where other people paid for me to go on a retreat and I went, dude, and I encountered Jesus Christ like I never had before and there was time to soak in His Word and just think and contemplate at a really key stage in life. And I don't know who they were, but I bet you I'm going to give them high fives in heaven. I'm like, dude, you did this, thank you. Well, our teens should get the chance to do this. So we're trying to do three retreats every year. We want to send them. Hey, go away, get with some awesome leader adults and we're to pay for it at a dope time, not just sitting around a tent with some sticks over a campfire. No, I mean, it's a powerful, fun, awesome teeny thing to do in countering Jesus. That's what we want to do. By the way, fierce teens, just as a reminder, tonight is Friendsgiving. You should go, it's going to be awesome At 6 pm.
Speaker 1:Strengthening the church that's the next priority. You know, there's just always more stuff. There's always things that we If you think this is a place that's doing good, would you say that the good is being sent out into the world because of what you all decide to do here. Well, that's what we want to keep going. And so there's always stuff breaking or there's new tech that arrives, there's stuff we have to fix in order to fulfill the mission. So we'll take a little piece of that and help us do that.
Speaker 1:But, point being, by January 31st, we want to raise $35,000 to do good and whatever else comes our way. Stuff just comes up and the Lord's like, do good with that. And so we try to be faithful. But here's the warning Some people won't do anything if they can't do everything. Don't let that throw you.
Speaker 1:Man, pray for the next month, two and a half months. I know you're going to be thinking about presence. You're going to be thinking about maybe trips or whatever. Ask the Holy Spirit, or how do you want me to do good? I'm only here for a little while and I don't have everything, but I have a little and maybe I could do good with it. You're still here. You got some time left on the clock, but there's no time to waste.
Speaker 1:My friends, fierce church guests, family we have a calling. We have an obligation we're supposed to do on this planet. There's a lot you're supposed to do. I'm sure you've got it in your life. There's probably not a ton of things that you're supposed to do on this planet. One of them is do good all the good you can, in as many ways as possible, as much as you can.
Speaker 1:Let's pray for us and let's pray for that person, or two, or a thousand that are praying right now. They're saying Lord, help me not give up. Help me believe that I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. Let's pray right now, father. I pray for each and every person listening right now. I pray that they would let this in. I pray that our hearts would be soft. I pray that we would be touched. I pray that we wouldn't be hardened and callous just because of all the stuff we see in the world, all the priorities that we've got. Lord, help us to live for heaven and heaven's citizens, your children that you love, that are in darkness right now. God, would you lay on everybody's heart, maybe not even just giving, maybe some joining, maybe some growing up and doing amazing things, charging hell with a bucket of water in order to see everyone free Phyllis. This holiday season, as we go into Thanksgiving, may it be characterized with something else, something that is not commercial, that is not even just family, but that is about a kingdom agenda and the glory of God, doing good in Jesus' name, and it's in that awesome name we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you so much for joining us today. If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation. Check out Fierce Church. We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person. Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit Fierce Church for more information.
Speaker 1:If you enjoy this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or whatever. You would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Let's begin for listening.