Next Gen Sunday 2026

We hand the mic to three young adult speakers who challenge us to stop living motivated and start living all in. We call ourselves back to going with the gospel, abiding in Christ as our source, and serving people the way Jesus does. 

• The Great Commission as a command for every believer 
• Bold evangelism rooted in love for people 
• Compassion as empathy plus action 
• Abiding in Christ as the only true vine 
• Resisting false vines like distraction and busyness 
• Treating prayer and Scripture as a relationship – not a task 
• Being the hands and feet of Jesus through service 
• James 4:17 and the weight of ignored good 
• Rehearsing the story of faith in the home 
• Striking the match by surrendering comfort and control 

Transcript

Next Gen Sunday Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Rock Family Sermon of the Week. For more information about our church, please visit therockfamily.tv. Now join us for a message from our special guest speaker.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

But it's next gen Sunday, and Pastor Scott's not here. So we get to turn up a little bit on the mic today. No, actually, I'm super excited because you guys are gonna get a chance to hear from three young adult speakers in this house from the house that are actually serving and actually that we believe wholeheartedly are carrying on the value of being all in. And they're here to charge you with something today. What does all in look like for the Rock Family Worship Center? All right, and so you're gonna hear from three speakers. The first one up is gonna be Bradley Cox. He is a young adult powerhouse speaker, man. He is serving on the young adults team. Y'all, and can I tell you, he is an evangelist through and through. When I tell you, this guy shows up and shows out why with his heart for the Lord, but showing up inside of the city, praying and getting out into the streets. Man, this guy is a powerhouse. And Olivia starter, look, you you guys thought that it was just Caleb. Now the whole family's getting represented today. Olivia also serves with the young adult ministry as well as with Rock Youth. Come on, Rock Youth, can y'all give it up for Olivia? Y'all, I believe she's got a convicting word for each and every one of us to hear. And last but not least, we have our very own, uh also another one of our rock youth leaders, Josh Robinson, sharing the word today. All right. And so look, as I'm getting ready to bring up our first speaker, I need to charge you and help you lean in just a little bit more. Don't, like Pastor Tim said, don't just use this as an opportunity to spectate today. I want you to lean in and see what the Lord's actually saying and doing through these speakers because we believe they're prayed up, they're ready, they're prepared. And church, all that's left is for us to lean in and actually see what is the Lord saying for us. Amen. So as I introduce our first speaker, Bradley Cox, would y'all give a warm Rock Family Worship Center welcome as he takes the stage.

Bradley’s Story And Call To Go

SPEAKER_01 2:32

All right, how are we doing, Rock Family? This is uh this is super surreal being up here. The lights are uh way brighter uh up here. Um but like Pastor Rico said, I am uh Bradley Cox. I get the honor and the privilege of being a part of the young adults ministry here at The Rock. Um, and I lead uh a ministry here that takes place at The Rock called Fireplace. Some of you may have heard of it. We raise up evangelists to take them out all across Huntsville and share the love of Jesus with just about anybody that we can find. So I'm just super stoked and honored to be here today, and I want to honor every pastor that's been involved, um, Rico and Sicily and um Pastor Tim. And so I just want to honor y'all and thank y'all for inviting me up here. Um, but I just want to share a little bit of my story to kind of give some context into what I'm sharing about today. I grew up in the Christian household my whole life. I heard about Jesus. There was I don't remember a Sunday that I ever missed church. Um, I remember being around seven or eight years old and pulling my dad aside and saying, Hey, I want to go all in for Jesus. I want to I want to make the decision to follow Jesus. And I remember getting baptized in some super cold water around that age. Um a couple years go by, we ended up getting hurt by the church. I ran from God for about a year. Um, and then I remember there was one night in 2017 I was at a revival in Bristol, Tennessee, and I radically encountered the presence of God, and it totally altered the course of my life. I remember being in this room full of Pentecostals, amen. In a room with a with a ton of Pentecostals, and I remember this was the first time in my life that I'd ever tangibly experienced the presence of God in a way that I will never forget. And I remember feeling so ignited or all in, and I remember being so marked by the presence of God, and the crazy part is I wasn't even looking for God whenever I found him. How many of you met God whenever you weren't even looking for him? Because that was my story. But I remember having this fire inside of me, and I wanted everyone to experience this Jesus that I had encountered, but I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to communicate the experience that I had with this Jesus. And so I did what I knew to do, and I got a couple buddies who were at this revival with me that met the Lord the same night, and we just hit the streets and we just went out and we learned the basics of evangelism through trial and error, right? And truly learned dependence on the Holy Spirit at such a young age in my walk with the Lord, and so I praise God for that. Um, but that I searched and I searched for a church to be a part of that would that that longed and hungered for evangelism, and just for people that would that would never step foot inside the church. And the more and more that I searched, I realized that there's a problem in America and in the American church that we've become so concerned with with getting people inside the four walls of an auditorium whenever God, I believe, is charging his church to raise us up in the power of the Holy Spirit to go out. Amen. And so I'm so honored to be a part of a church that's passionate about the lost and burns for evangelism here at the rock. And so I want to read out of Matthew chapter 28 some of the most famous words of Jesus regarding evangelism. And it's Matthew chapter 28, starting in 18. This is the Great Commission. This is my favorite. It says, And Jesus came to them saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you. Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Great Commission Is A Command

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Okay, so all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus, right? Who then commissions you and I to be the church, which is to go. And I believe that there is a lie that we've believed in the church today, whether you've consciously believed it, or you subconsciously believe it, or you may not even realize that you've come into agreement with this lie that says fulfilling the great commission is not possible. And I'm here to tell you today that it is possible. And you may not have this Billy Graham type ministry, or you may not be a missionary that's overseas in some third world country, but I'm here to tell you that it doesn't matter if you're a nurse or you're a business owner or you're a lawyer or whatever your calling is, the commission is still the same and it's still to go. Matthew 24, the disciples asked, When will the end come and what will be the sign of your coming? Matthew 24, 10. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. You see, I think that we read this in America and we think, oh, this only applies to the evangelist or the missionary that's overseas. Right? I think it's so easy to adopt this mindset, which then causes us to neglect the coworker that we see every single day that doesn't even know that we're a Christian. Right? Or it causes us to neglect the person that's in our class or on our college campus that we know that has a rough home life, but I don't want to encourage them or I don't want to speak life into them. When we adopt this mindset, it causes us to neglect the people that are in our own city. Or what about the homeless man that's on the side of the street asking for money? We refuse to act on these things because we've treated the Great Commission as only the great suggestion. And I believe that God has charged me this morning to call the church into a deeper level of boldness and evangelism. So what does it mean to be all in? Well, 1 John 4 21 says, anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. So if we're going to be all in for Jesus, then we have to be all in for his people. How can we claim to love our brother or sister if we withhold the news that could alter this person's eternity from death to life? Are we as passionate about God as we say we are if we're not passionate about his people? What does this revelation cause us to do? I believe that this revelation causes us to become, to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Why? Because people's eternity is on the line, and I believe that we will take an account for people that are in our circle that will die and spend eternity away from Jesus because we were too afraid to say something. And I believe to burn with love for Jesus means that we will burn with love for others. So there's a question that I keep asking myself, and I keep thinking anytime, anytime before we ever hit the streets or before we ever share the gospel with anybody, I just think about it and I go, who is benefiting from my love for Jesus? Or am I just keeping them all to myself?

Compassion Means Action

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Because I believe that empathy feels. Right? You can have empathy for that homeless person that you drive past every single day on the way to work, the one sitting on the curb with a sign. Right? We can have we can feel empathetic towards that person, or we can have compassion. What does compassion look like? Compassion is when you pull the car over and you sit on the curb and just listen to his story, right? Because empathy separate from action is just meaningless. And if you've ever come to fireplace on a on a Saturday night, you'll hear a common theme that we always say is that love without action is only just a good intention. Right? I can tell you that I love you, but if I don't show you that I love you, do I really love you? And so I'm almost done. I know I'm running over. When I truly think, when I think about what it means to be all in, I'm reminded of the scripture in John 14, 15, where it says, If you love me, you will keep my commands. And so what has he commanded us to do? He's commanded you to go into your workplace, to go to your family reunion, to go to your dinner table, to go onto your college campus, to go where God has given you authority and granted you territory. That is the commission. It is to go. Go in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so, my question for you today is this in what area of my life have I bought in to the great suggestion when God is calling me to a different level where he says, Hey, no, this is not just a suggestion, this is a command. I'm calling you into the Great Commission. And then Olivia, you can you can come up. I told her I'd give her a cue for whenever she was ready, so there you go. So I ask you, are you all in on the Great Commission? Or are you all in on the idea of the Great Commission? And if you're not all in, then what's holding you back? Is it fear of man? I want you to just think about that. What that is in your life. What causes you, what holds you back from going all in on the Great Commission?

SPEAKER_04 12:16

Hi,

Olivia On Abiding In The Vine

SPEAKER_04 12:17

everybody. Like he said, my name is Olivia. My family and I have been a part of this house for over 16 years. I've served in multiple capacities at the church, like he was saying before, kids, youth, worship, the creative team. So standing up here today is such an honor. Thank you guys for trusting me with the mic this morning. I'm gonna jump right into the text I'm gonna be reading from today. It's in John 15, and it reads this way I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Now these words were spoken by Jesus to the disciples prior to his betrayal and subsequent death. And what Jesus was doing here was he was warning the disciples of the hardships they were about to face as consequence of his crucifixion. And we've been talking about it all this past series. In this life as believers, we're all promised different forms of suffering, whether it's temptation, persecution, loss. But the beautiful part is, in tandem with this, is that God calls us and invites us to posture ourselves for our benefit. What does this look like? It looks like peace and security in all circumstances and ultimately for his glory, which is to produce fruit that allows us to become more like Christ and allows others to see his likeness in us. And this all comes from a place of abiding, which is what we're gonna talk about today. So, what is abiding? Abiding means to remain, stay, or to dwell. Now, I don't know about you guys, but these synonyms for abide are probably kind of opposite from the fast-paced lives a lot of us are living. Um, has anybody here like ever sat down on their computer to like do work on their phone or on their computer, and you have one task that you need to get done, right? And you're locked in, you're working on said task, whatever it is, and then some notification pops up to like check the weather, and it's like, I'm I'm sitting by a window, but I might as well just see if it's 73 degrees outside. And then and then you go and you check your email for the 15th time today, and you know there's nothing you care about new that's in your inbox, but you might as well go check it again. And then you're on social media somehow and you're looking at this reel that it's like, how did I even get here? And you're completely derailed from the original thing you set out to do. And if that much derailment can come from one notification when we're sitting sedentary at a desk looking at a glass screen, how much more so can the responsibilities and demands and cares of this life pull us from being all in on abiding? So that brings me to my first point that to be all in on abiding means to remain connected to him as the source of life for life. You see, Jesus is the true vine, he's the only thing to which we can remain connected, that from we can produce things of eternal value. He was perfectly God, perfectly man, placed in situations where he was tempted yet sinned not. He always remained faithful to the Father. Even to the point of death, he chose the Father's will over his own. He chose to abide, and he serves as the perfect example of how to do so. What does this look like? It's two things. One, it's complete dependence on him in every situation, and two, it's meditating on his word, keeping his word at the forefront of our minds so it leads and guides everything that we say, think, and do. Really, from the beginning, we see that all God wanted was to be in relationship and abide with each and every one of us in this room. But despite this reality, as humans, we seem to have this proclivity to abide in false vines and things that seem to produce a form of fruit in us, but it's not the real thing. We see this from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, where Eve chose to eat from the tree that God said not to, and was separated from God. And the children of Israel, the people of Israel, they chose idol worship and disobedience to God rather than faithfulness to him, and just this continuous pattern of people choosing to take authority and ultimately do things in their own strength rather than be faithful and abide in God. So the question I asked you today is what keeps you from being all in on abiding? What are you abiding in that's not the true source? Is it social media? Is it another person? Is it school? Is it work? What is it for you? My next point to be all

False Vines And Busy Faith

SPEAKER_04 16:40

in on abiding secures oneself from falling away. Now, if you're anything like me, I love a good to-do list. I'm a type A person, I love a good to-do list. And I found that the best and the worst part of a to-do list for a type A person is that you can carry over any task you want to the next day. And of course, I put my Devo at the top of my to-do list because it's like a something, it's something I have to complete. But I've learned over time that practices like these have a little bit of potential to kind of confuse us. Because when we treat abiding like a task that's optional rather than an integral part of our relationship with the Lord, this can put us in a compromised position to where we are more susceptible to lose our faith over time as we keep putting it off day after day after day. How can we expect to withstand the trials in our everyday lives to serve well without remaining in close fellowship with the one who gives us fruits to overcome the trials and serve well in the first place? So, so we do not fall out of a pattern of abiding or a lifestyle of abiding. I think it's vital to understand, and this is my last point, to recognize the true source from which all our needs and all our desires are fulfilled. I know personally I'm a college student, so shout out to all the college students. I see you, I feel you, but I'm just trying to find the balance between work and school and all the extracurriculars and everything. And whether you're more busy than me or less busy than me, I think all of us in here can generally identify as just busy people. And I know for me, sometimes I justify my lack of abiding, my lack of prayer, my lack of worship with my own busyness. And that part, apart from you can do nothing, doesn't literally mean that you'll be physically unable to do all the things on your to-do list, whether it's an actual to-do list or just stuff in your head, but rather that the activities and serving you engage in would be fruitless without life-giving connection. So we need to get to the point where everything, where we understand that everything we yearn to ultimately get out of the things we do resides in him, that the love you're looking for in a bad relationship ultimately resides in him. The joy that you're looking and satisfaction to you're looking for to get out of just your job or monetary gain ultimately resides in him, and the peace that you're looking for through whatever coping mechanism that you're using today ultimately resides in keeping fellowship with him. And I think truly recognizing that may help us to retain connection to the true vine. So I leave you with this question on this morning. It's what do you look to gain from the things you do that isn't inherently produced by simply abiding in him?

SPEAKER_02 19:18

My God, my God, my God. That was uh

Josh On Church Service

SPEAKER_02 19:21

that was killer. That was two killers up here. And then me, I should not be allowed to talk to this many people at once. By law, it should be like 88 people. Like, that's it. Um I'm I'm Josh Robinson. Um hey, shout out Tyler. Uh that's that's the real one. Uh, my full capacity here at The Rock is uh I go here. Um and I serve in you sometimes, and that that's it. Uh but I'm happy to be here today. Uh before we get started, I gotta give honor where honor is due. Uh, Pastor Scott, Pastor Britt, they're not with us this morning. I just want to say, where's a camera so I can write down the barrel? Thank you guys so much for allowing this to happen today. This is such a great opportunity. Uh, Pastor, Pastor Tim, Pastor Sisley, Pastor Rico, thank you so much for having this vision and inviting us into it. Um, thank you guys so much. You have no idea how much behind the scenes stuff uh they've helped us with. It wasn't like they were like, hey, in two weeks you're gonna preach. See you there. No, they uh they no, they worked with us and went through our sermons and gave us notes and and and everything. So I just want to say thank you so much to you guys. Yeah, can we give it up for them? All right. I am shaking like a leaf today, so you know it's gonna be good. I got that Pentecostal. We're gonna use the whole, hey, we're using the whole stage today. We're using the whole stage today, but I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here today. Uh today I'm gonna be talking about what it means to be all in on the church. Okay? Uh now I need to take, I need a 30 real quick. I need a 30 because I think some of y'all probably heard what it means to be all in on the rock family worship center. And I absolutely want you to be all on all in on this place. It's a great house, it's amazing. Uh, but but what I said was I said the big old fat capital C church, the bride of Christ, ladies and gentlemen, the hands and feet of Jesus, which is an interesting phrase, uh, what it means to be all in on the church, because I think if we think about it from you know the the rock, this house, you're kind of in the middle of how broad and specific the church is. The the church is every believer across the world. You know, it's it's it's all of us. You got to think about it like that, but also I'm talking about specific, I'm talking about you in that seat right there, the person that's sitting in your seat. I'm talking about you. When you accepted Christ in your heart, you were grafted into the church and into the bride of Christ. And what came with that is freedom from sin, freedom from shame, but also came a demand that you have to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And like I said, that's a weird term. I was fortunate enough. Shout out, my parents are here, that's awesome. They raised me uh correctly in church. Yeah, you love to see it, you love to see it. But I was raised in church uh with this phrase, with this term, the hands and feet of Jesus. Uh And it just gets thrown around a lot, and I think A, it's lost a little bit of its potency of what it's supposed to mean, and B, it becomes very ambiguous. You throw this blanket of being the hands and feet of Jesus over like the church house, like, yeah, the church is doing good things and it's and it's amazing, but we can kind of hide behind the structure that the church gives. And when we walk out of these rooms, we kind of wipe our hands and we say, All right, I was the hands and feet of Jesus today. And you walk by, like Bradley was saying, you walk by that homeless person, you walk by all these people, and you don't ever step out to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those around you. Um I want to look in John 13, verses 13 through 17. I think this is really Jesus kind of showing us what it truly is to be his hands and feet. And this this is him, he's he's with his disciples, kind of in their their some of their last moments, and he finds it so important to wash their feet, to serve them, and to show them that no one is exempt from this. No one you don't ever graduate out of service to one another, service to the saints. And it says this you call me teacher and lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is no greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Service. I think that's what it means to be all in on the church, is to constantly be walking around with this kingdom mindset of I am of service to everybody. Um, if I could be so honest and so vulnerable, um this is something that God's been working with me on for the last several months. I when I got to praying about this, when they said, Hey, Josh, uh, here's the prompt for for what you're gonna preach, I got to praying about it. And uh I said, God, like what you know, what's the message? What are we what are we going with? And almost immediately I

The Sin Of Not Doing Good

SPEAKER_02 23:58

felt in my spirit God saying, You know that thing we've been working on for a while? It's that, uh, which is great. It's like he had a plan and all. Um, and it's it's it's fantastic. And I gotta tell you a story. About eight or nine months ago, God had to deal with me on something because I was in the the story, it's gonna sound fake because it's so the details are so vague, but I was somewhere at something, and some person walked in the room. Okay, and I'll I'll tell you why I can't remember the details because the conviction that was placed on my heart was so thick, it's the only thing I could remember. But I was like I said, I was somewhere at something, and some person walked in, and in my heart, they walked in the room and I said, ugh, they're here. And it's a thing I've said about many, many people many, many times before. It's not, it's not supposed to be funny. Uh, many times before. This is the serious part. Um, but I truly, I felt the Holy Spirit in that moment put his thumb on my heart, and this is what he said to me. He said, That's not how I love people. That's not how I love people. And if my prayers are gonna be, God break my heart for what breaks yours, I really gotta put some some work into it. The sanctification process is not done yet. So we're sitting here, and I you know, I'm just I'm I'm dealing with that. So over the last several months, God has just begun to like till up just different things hidden deep down inside to really teach me how to love like he loves, to reach out the way that he reaches out. And I want to go to um as an example, because it's very, I'm being very kind of uh ambiguous about how to love people. You know, it's I can just say go love people, and you don't really know what that means. Uh so I want to give you something concrete, and if you really wanted something concrete, I have good news and news you're not gonna like. Uh, because we find ourselves in James 4, I'm shaken. We find ourselves in James 4, 17, uh, and it says this. James, my favorite book of the Bible. Uh it says this to whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin. It's I almost didn't want to use this verse because I think it gets really convicting at the end, and I was like, I don't want people to feel bad. I'm the fun, goofy guy. Um and then I was just reminded, I was like, let's not ever back off of the weight that God wants to put. It's very important that when we leave this room, we're not just saying, you know, oh hey, I was at church today or whatever, and I did, you know, Thanksgiving blessing, or you know, I was at Manna House and I did it. It's when you step out and you see right to do that, we do it in faith. And you might be sitting in this room today saying, but Josh, I don't, like I'm I'm not like Bradley. Like I can't go out and preach, or like, you got Josh, you don't know my past. Like I cannot be a spokesperson for the church, and I'm here to tell you, yes, you are. By the power of Christ, you are absolutely meant to step out in faith. Push the kingdom forward. Push the kingdom forward. So I'm gonna close, I'm gonna close with this. I I just have a question for for each and every person in this room, and I don't I don't want you to answer this question right now. I I want it to be something that you write down and something that you meditate on for a week, for a month, for a year, and and just let God illuminate this inside of you. And that question is God, is there any good that I'm seeing to be done in failing to do it? Pastor Rico.

Rico On All In Not Hype

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Now, church, I need you to give it up like you ain't never gave it up before for all three of our speakers. Come on. They absolutely crushed that. Come on. Come on. So proud of y'all. That's just a little bit of what we got inside of this house, y'all. Can I tell you there's more? There's more of you guys, some of you guys under the sound of my voice right now carry that same exact power and weight, and we're just waiting on you, church, to wake up. We're just waiting on you to get it. So, look, just one more time. Can we just give it up for them? Just one more time. Come on. So proud of them. They uh they they spoke exactly on everything that I told them to say. Um, we rearranged all of their sermons. I basically was their pastor Christian in the house. Um, for those of you guys are the first-time guests, Pastor Christian was formerly uh known as our teaching pastor. I've now stepped into that role. Um, so super thankful, Reese. I'll talk to you next week, buddy. Um, so no, no, no, no. Just kidding, just kidding. If you guys didn't hear it earlier, my name is Pastor Rico. I have the honor and the pleasure of serving as the youth pastor here in the house. And uh I get to have a little time to share with you guys and bring this whole picture in today. Uh, and I'm honored. So um, if you guys don't mind, I hope you guys don't feel like this is the time to unbuckle the seatbelt, because we we're still going. All right. So can we lean in just a little bit longer, church? Can we do that? All right, so you guys have heard amazing points today in these messages. We've been hearing on what all in looks like, on a heart for evangelism, right? Caring for the lost, acting on opportunity from the Lord. The question being, will we be ready to go, church? Then you hear about all in in abiding, in remaining in the Lord, being intentional with your time spent with him, not letting the busyness of your life dictate your life. And then you hear Josh bring it in and put it all together that we are to be all in on the mission of not just our church, but the church. Amen. And so all of these are great points, all of these are great things to say. And as you sit inside of your seat right now, my question to you is this will this just be another couple of messages that you hear today and say, Wow, yeah, I'm really stirred, I'm really motivated, I'm I'm really excited to hear what God's doing inside of the house. But then you walk out of these double doors and nothing actually causes you to change. Nothing actually causes you to move further than just an exciting moment that you're feeling right now. Maybe some of you are actually hearing these messages today and your heart's just beating out of your chest, and you're just like, I can't wait to go. And so, my question for you today is gonna be are we gonna take responsibility and invite the Lord as a church to say, This time, I want to be for real. This time, I want to be all in, which actually leads me to my first point of today. Is today a day that you say I'm gonna be all in, or are you just motivated right now? And the the real point that I'm trying to make here is being all in isn't actually a motivational statement, it's the prerequisite to being consumed by the fire of God. Now I'm gonna take a second and explain what that means because uh I need us to understand why this actually matters. It's not just a statement put into some fancy words just so that way we can sound like we know what we're talking about. What this really means for the church is each and every one of you guys sitting in their seats today. You have unique gifts that the Lord has placed on your life, you have a unique calling that the Lord has placed on your life. Amen. And so there are certain things that what we're saying about we're waiting on you to wake up. No, no, we're being so serious about that because, church, there's work to be done. There's work to be done in this very city. Come on, I can't tell you how many times I walk past people in this very city and we say we're in Alabama, we're in the Bible Bell. Everybody knows the word. No, they do not. There are some people that still need to be developed and formed and shown what it looks like to be a true believer in Christ, because I feel like all too often we throw out that blanket statement. Oh, yeah, I'm a Christian. Define it then. What does that mean? What does that say? Are you actually all in church or are you just motivated? Maybe, maybe we've forgotten. Maybe we've forgotten things. Maybe we've actually gotten busy, like Olivia said. I think sometimes through our busyness, we can forget the daily disciplines that we have as a believer. Like, we forget to return to the first love that we had in the Father. Like, remember? Remember, youth, when you were when you were so moved by the Lord in that service, and you just couldn't wait to get back into your word again? You woke up early, you read the chapters, you got in Proverbs, you got in John, wherever you started reading, you you were excited. Remember, church, when you were showing up to prayer at 6 o'clock? Because you were moved by the Lord, because you knew that there was a mandate on your life. Remember when you showed up to serve out of the overflow to obey God, not just out of the overflow of feeling like I need to accept this planning center request? Remember, church, these things come out not out of fake excitement, but out of overflow of actually being intentional with the Lord. And I love that Bradley mentioned talking about the Great Commission. But church, I'm here to tell you you can't do the Great Commission without the Great Commandment. And I think all too often we see throughout history that we've forgotten the practices and the basics of the faith. We've forgotten what it looks like to be all in. And so maybe, maybe the practices of the faith, maybe the the things of actually returning to pray, actually getting in your word, actually abiding, maybe those things have um have become uh become mundane. Maybe they become boring, maybe they're not exciting, maybe they're not fresh, maybe they're not the thing that's like it right now. And can I tell you, we sound a lot like the Israelites during the time of Moses in Exodus, where all too quickly they forget that God calls them out of Egypt and he does miraculous things, y'all. I mean, you know the story, right? I'm talking about being led by a pillar of fire, splitting the sea, turning the water into blood. Like these are amazing, miraculous things. And yet, not too long, they begin to grumble and complain, right? And so Moses, the spokesperson on behalf of the Lord, is sharing everything that God is trying to form and build and develop in his people. And so let me let me let me give you some context to what I'm about to read. We're

Rehearsing Faith For Generations

SPEAKER_03 35:05

gonna go into Deuteronomy. Man, when's the last time you flipped to Deuteronomy in your book? We're gonna go to Deuteronomy and we're gonna talk about the Shema. We're gonna talk about the command that the Lord gave to his people because he's forming his people during this time, and I believe that we can actually glean something from this today. So if you want to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6, I'm gonna be reading out of verses four through nine, and it says this hear, O Israel, or I would say today, hear, O church, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And actually, I found out in the NOT that it's written right here in verse 7 to repeat them again and again to your children. Why would the Lord be so careful to give specific instruction like that to his people? I think oftentimes he knows, he knew before he even gave the command that we would get busy and that we would forget. He knew, it's almost like he knew into the future how often and how quickly we could often drift away from these basic practices. And you know the cool part about actually what what it says here in verse 8 about binding them on as a sign on their hands, this is what uh uh old look the Judeal law said for the Israelites to do. They would legit wrap around this commandment on their arm, and it would be on their least dominant hand. So if you're saying you're right-handed today, you would put it on your left hand. And it would be to show that anything that you put your hands on, anything that you put your hands to work towards, how dependent you needed to be on the Lord. And it says that they would tie and bind these things as frontlets between their eyes to remind them that He is God and to never forget. In the scripture on the doorpost, every time you're walking under the scripture, you're walking and remembering that you're under the banner of the Lord. And the Lord says to repeat these things, to repeat them, to rehearse them, because he knew that every time that we don't rehearse these things, well, let me just say it like this maybe you are good at rehearsing, maybe you are good at teaching, maybe you are good at reminding your children, but uh, can I tell you if you don't live, if you don't live these things, it's not gonna be effective effective. If you don't live these things in your home, in your own personal life, you can rehearse tell all day long, and it's not gonna be effective. This is why I love what we do with huddle around here. And some of you guys are wondering, like, what is huddle? What is huddle? We're waiting on y'all to finish our next up so you can find out about it. But every morning, every Sunday morning, we get here at 9.10. We are out there in that lobby and we're rehearsing, we're rallying, we're gathering together, and we're we're rehearsing the values of the house, believing for the impossible. Come on, like we're going over these things every week. And to some people, they might be like, when are they gonna come up with something new? Can I tell you, church? We're rehearsing. We're rehearsing, we're practicing the vision that the Lord has placed on this house. And we're setting that up as a model, we're doing that intentionally because I believe that as a family, you have a mandate to carry when you go back home. It's not just, oh, it was a great message today on Sunday. No, when's the last time you sat and talked about these things with your children? When you reminded them, no, the Lord did something today inside the service. I want to see what he's saying about our family. So I'm wrapping all this up and I'm saying we want to make sure that we're all in because we know naturally, church, we have a tendency to drift. Every time the Israelites drift, the same common denominator, they forget to rehearse the story. What's the charge in the room today? If you're in the room today and you're older, the charge is to rehearse the story. Talk about the faithfulness of God. If you're younger in the room, this is what your charge is to get the story, to actually understand the story, to see what went before you and what's ahead of you. It's actually to listen to the story. And the most important part, you have to believe the story. You gotta believe it. If we don't share the story, church, we're three generations away from our families forgetting completely the goodness and faithfulness of God. Look over at 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5 through 7. It says this I'm reminded, this is Paul writing to Timothy, I'm reminded of your sincere faith. And shout out to Pastor Christian for this one. He helped me out with this. A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying out of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, come on, church, but of power and love and self-control. This is why we need to tell the story. This is why we rehearse the word. This is why we rehearse the values, what's happening in the church. Parents, if you don't rehearse these things, we're just this close to generations missing the true point of everything that we're doing. We wonder now why Gen Z is getting so curious about the things for the Lord. We wonder why things are starting to shift and things are starting to happen in our nation. I'm telling you, church, we have a role, we have a position. We're to rehearse. And so let me talk specifically right now to the next gen and to the youth because that's what we're celebrating here today, right? Celebrating our graduates. But I want to talk to the youth real quick. While it's helpful to have a family that practices the foundation of the faith with you and train you in the way of the word, you have a responsibility of stewarding a faith of your own. You can't just lean on mommy and daddy's faith all your life. You have a mandate on your own life that the Lord wants you to use your faith and do some miraculous things through you. And while you may not feel right now like you have all the power and all the strength, that's all the reason why you're more qualified. Because you would lean on the strength of the Lord in your weakness. Your faith is not supposed to be dependent or reliant on anybody but God. And so today, what we're doing and what I have here, it's uh

The Match That Must Be Struck

SPEAKER_03 42:40

dang, sis, I already forgot. It's a match cloche, cloche. I don't know how you how what you call this, but it's a display of matches. We'll do that. There we go. Good save. It's a display, and uh each one of our graduates are gonna get an opportunity to receive this today. And I wanted this to serve as a reminder of what our life looks like as the church. See, the matches that are in here, while there is a big bundle of them, are not just meant to sit in here, look pretty, and look like a display. The actual purpose of this is to hold them until you're ready to use them. And when you strike a match, can I tell you the match was never intended to stay intact forever? The only way a match actually fulfills its true purpose is by being struck. We just finished the It Is Well series, right, Church? And so we know we've we've talked plenty about hardships and circumstances in our lives. And so a match needs to be struck in order to ignite. In the same way you don't become all flame by avoiding surrender, pressure, or sacrifice. The fire on this match only comes when you're willing to be. All in. That's why it's not written all flame, all in. You can't read it that way. Because if you actually try and pretend to be all flame and you're not really all in, all too quickly, somebody's gonna get close to you and they're gonna realize that ain't true light. That ain't true burn. A match can either stay in the box with unused potential or step into the movement that it was made for. So, church, my my my point to you today is your calling was never meant to stay hidden, comfortable, or contained. In youth, maybe you're saying in a in a in a couple of years, maybe you're saying you want to be up here sharing this word, doing with Olivia and what Bradley and what Josh got a chance to do. Maybe you're saying, I want to do great things for the Lord. Can I tell you I wholeheartedly believe that you can? But it begins right where you are. It begins right where you're sitting. Are you all in now or are you just motivated to do good things for God? That applies to all of us, church. It doesn't happen when you get a mic, an opportunity. It happens now. How are you stewarding your life now? Are you willing to burn now? And before I end today, can I look at all of us? Because we're getting ready to celebrate and go all in on our graduates. But can I look at all of us today and say, Are you willing to burn? Are you willing to be all in because it's gonna cost you something? It's actually gonna cost you everything, if I can be really honest with you. But are you tired of sitting on the fringes? Are you tired of sitting on the outside saying, Man, that looks great, but I don't know if I can really do that? Through the power and the strength of God and the Holy Spirit, He will give it to you. But you have to be first willing to respond. So, church, today, as we get ready to celebrate our graduates, I want you to think on this. I want you to think, what does it look like to be all in, not just motivated, and allow the Lord to consume your life with his everlasting flame.

Closing And Ways To Connect

SPEAKER_00 46:12

We hope and pray this message was encouraging and impactful. Join us live on our website or Facebook on Sundays at 9 and 11 a.m. You can stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram at The Rock Family. Have a Jesus filled week.