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One of my favorite passages in the New Testament that I think is important for us to understand, or at least we'll take a look at as we think about our vision as a church is from the first chapter of the book of Acts. Now, um, the book of Acts is uh is a really neat book in the New Testament. It follows the gospels, as in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four books in the New Testament that record the life of Jesus, firsthand accounts, and and uh and those who were writing about what Jesus did while he was here on this earth. Okay. And the following book is the book of Acts, which really could be um expounded and called Acts of the Apostles, the early church leaders. That's why we call it Acts. Or you could maybe even say it's the Acts of the Holy Spirit uh in the word in the life of the apostles, okay? And uh and whenever I talk about mission and vision and all those things, I find myself going to the book of Acts because this is where the original church started. It was founded, um, and we we have that recorded in the book of Acts. And so I want to look at just one verse this morning from the first chapter of Acts that we'll springboard into the conversation about our vision. So Acts chapter 1, verse 8. Okay, if you have a Bible, you can pull that out and look there. If you don't have a Bible, there's actually some Bibles underneath some of the seats here. Feel free to grab one of those. And uh and just know that we did not grab our vision statement or come up with a vision statement uh just from the air, or from even our own opinion, or even just from what we think we should be doing. Uh, the vision of Point Community Church is tied to the scripture and it's tied to Jesus' instruction, and that's part of what we see here in Acts chapter 1, verse 8. Jesus is about to leave. Uh, he has been killed and crucified on a cross. He was put into a grave, and then he was resurrected from that grave. And so we uh are now at a point in history where Jesus is about to leave the scene with his disciples. Uh there waiting, he's talking to them, and they are they're a little bit confused what's going to happen next. They're not real really clear on what Jesus is doing, um, but he gives them this instruction in verse 8 there. And this is what it says this. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Now, how many of you have heard that verse before? Okay? Um, even if you uh have not been in church a lot, you've you may have heard that verse. It's not uh as popular as some other verses that are out there, like John 3.16 or something, but it's a common verse that you hear uh in and around church, because as I said, this was Jesus' instruction, some of his final words to his closest followers, his disciples, before he leaves. And he says to them there, he says something very profound, he says, You will receive what? Power. Why would they need power, right? Well, because they were afraid, and because they were human beings just like you and I are, and their power wasn't gonna be sufficient to accomplish the work that God had for them, right? I see this every day in my own life. I I can try to follow Jesus, I can try to live like Jesus, but I need his strength, I need his power to actually live out his commands, his instructions, his plan for my life. And so he says to them, you will receive power. And how is that power going to come into their life? Well, he says, when the Holy Spirit comes on you, the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is a member of the Godhead. We believe in the Trinity, that there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all equally God, different roles, but all equally God, right? And so we believe, as Christ's followers, that the Holy Spirit is God with us here and now, today. Jesus left and he went back to be with the Father in heaven, but the Holy Spirit is moving and working on the earth now and even inside of, not just outside of, but inside believers. Think about that for a second. God lives inside of people through the power of the Holy Spirit inside of them. He lives inside of them working and convicting of sin, reminding of truth, and empowering us to do what God's asked us to do. Now we could just stop right there this morning, and that would just send us into a worship for the rest of eternity because God didn't have to do that. He didn't have to come into mankind. He didn't have to give us his Holy Spirit as a gift to come in as a deposit that had that says that we are his children and that will never change because we didn't earn the Holy Spirit. God gave us his Holy Spirit. We received the Holy Spirit by faith, right? And now we get to live the life that he's called us to live, not in our own strength, but with his power. With God in us. Awesome thought, right? Are you hearing that this morning? God is in us. If you are a Jesus follower, God is in you. That doesn't mean you are God, okay? Don't get confused. None of us in this room are God, but the Holy Spirit, God, lives inside of us. And that's really, really, really, really important because you cannot do what God's asked you to do apart from God in you. Now, he goes on to say that you will be my witnesses. What's a witness? Can I get a witness? Testify, right? So here's the thing a witness is someone who tells other people what they saw, heard, experienced. So in the court of law, we we kind of use that language, you're a witness, or maybe if you're driving down the road and you see a uh a crime or you see a wreck or you see something happen and you're a witness to it, right? And you've got that information and you tell somebody what happened, you witness, you share that. Well, Jesus says to his disciples, go and be my witnesses. And what were they supposed to witness about? They were supposed to tell others about Jesus, about who he was, what he had done. They had been sitting front and center in his life, watching him for three years heal people, right? To multiply a small amount of food to feed 5,000 and then 4,000. And we see these stories of all these things that God did, and these guys were first hand, they had a front row seat, first hand accounts of watching Jesus' life, how he lived, how he loved people, how he ministered. And he says, Go and tell them, go witness about me, and not just what he did, but what ultimately why he came. He came to bring life, to redeem, to restore. That's what he says when he stands up in the temple and he reads a part of the scroll from Isaiah, and he says, The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me to preach good news. Yeah, to release the captives, to preach good news to the poor and the broken. You see, Jesus came to bring life, and ultimately he came to bring salvation. Not just life now, but life forever. That's what Jesus came to do. And so these disciples, they get to go and to share that truth. But remember, they couldn't do that without the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. Now remember that, because we're going to come back to this at the end today. And he noticed he says, You'll be my witnesses. You're going to tell other people about me in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Some versions say, some translations say uttermost parts. The idea is that the whole globe needs to hear about Jesus. Every tribe, every tongue, every people group on the planet needs to hear about the good news of Jesus. That's what he tells us in this passage. That's his instructions to his disciples. I think that if that was Jesus' instructions to his disciples, then that we should apply that today still. I think that's a good idea. What do you think? That we should still be involved in that mission that he gave them to witness, to go and to tell others who he is and what he has done. Now, again, if you try to do this on your own, you're not going to make it very far. They had a community amongst themselves that did it. They also had the power of the Holy Spirit in them working this thing out. And so when we talk about our vision statements, I want you to have that Acts 1.8 in your brain because, like I said, we didn't just come up with a vision statement from the air, but we looked at Scripture and we said, What did Jesus say the church should be doing? We should do the same thing. Right? So here's the vision statement for Point Community Church. And this is the cool thing. It's not just our vision statement, it's a vision statement of a collection of churches in our city, and a growing collection at that, of churches that are saying we want to collaborate and work together to see Jesus made known in our entire city. And so here's what the vision statement says it says this that every man, woman, and child beginning in South Austin and extending around the world has the opportunity to experience the life-changing reality of Jesus because they hear the gospel from our lips and they see it through our lives.

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Now that's a lot, so we're gonna break that apart a little bit. That help? So here we go. First thing we know you notice about the vision statement that every man, woman, and child, I want you to know that this vision statement that God has given us and has called us to is a statement about gospel saturation. Now, when you think about something being saturated, what comes to mind? A sponge. I think about that, right? I think about because I have six kids, I think about cleaning up a mess and you know, like putting a towel down and cleaning up and seeing it soak up the water, right? Actually, I'm usually the one that makes the mess in our house, okay? But here's the thing, I think about something being saturated, right? Something being full of water and then wringing that out, right? Seeing that that moisture come out of it. So here's the thing. When we say that we want to see every man, woman, and child, we want to see every man, one child, we're saying we want to saturate the city with the good news about Jesus. We want every person. Now notice what this is, this is really cool because we're using the word every, and then man, woman, and child, we're talking about cross-generations. We're talking about cross ethnicities, we're talking about cross uh socioeconomics. We're saying that every person in our city needs to know about Jesus. This is why I love being a part of Point Community Church. When you look across the room, you see the diversity of this group of people. And there is no reason on this planet why a group of people should gather together that is as diverse as this group is, and we we need to continue to grow in diversity. But there's no reason why we should be in the same room together, except for the fact that we all have the same ultimate need. And his name is Jesus. And we all worship the same beautiful, glorious, redeeming Savior, Jesus. And it brings us together. It brings us together, regardless of your background, regardless of how money's in your how much money's in your bank account, regardless of what the color of your skin is, regardless of what language you speak, it's all about Jesus. And we want every person in our city to know that. We want every person in our city to know that there is life in Christ. And so it's about gospel saturation. It means from the young to the old, from the rich to the poor, everything in between. We want people to know Jesus. But also notice every man, woman, and child beginning in South Austin and extending around the world. This vision statement has a geographic implication. It's geographic in nature. When Jesus said in Acts 1, 1.8, go be my witnesses, he said, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Right? Notice where he started. He said, In your backyard, right where you live. That's where you start sharing the good news about Jesus. Now, in uh a few weeks, um, in March, uh, I guess a little farther further in a few weeks, but but not too long from now, we're gonna take a mission trip to Mexico. Down to Yucatán, we're gonna get on a plane, we're gonna fly in, it's gonna be a couple, two and a half hours, we're gonna um unload there, we're gonna get all of our stuff, we're gonna hopefully jump in some vans, drive down the coast of the Yucatan, and then go four hours out into the Mayan zone, and we're gonna spend a week loving and serving people in Mexico. It's gonna be awesome. I love that. I'm so excited about it. We'll help a church there, we'll be doing some construction projects, we'll get up and we'll get to share the gospel with little children and old people. We're gonna get to do some unique work in Mexico, and we're excited about that. But here's the thing mission doesn't start in another country, it starts where we live. So if I went to Mexico and I shared people, shared Jesus with the people in Mexico, but I was not sharing Jesus with the people who live across the street from me, I'm not being faithful to what Jesus had told me to do. Are you with me? I'll be honest, it's easier to collect as a group, fly to Mexico. I know it sounds like that's complicated, but hey, listen, we live in America. You can get money, you can get on a plane, you can fly, you can go down there, and you can actually tell people about Jesus. And it's awesome because we are fulfilling his instructions in doing that. But I want you to know that Jesus also put you on your street, on your block, in your specific house for a reason. Because there are people around you who need Jesus. And he put you there to tell them. Anybody uncomfortable yet? You see, I remind myself this morning, it's geographic. It starts in our backyard, starts in where we live, but it doesn't stay where we live, it moves out to the nations. And I've been so privileged and honored to get to travel to China and to Indonesia and to Kazakhstan and to Mexico and to other places on the globe and say, you need to know about Jesus. He's awesome, he's life. And I look forward to the day when I get to heaven and we see people from all nations, all tribes and all tongues that gather and worship Jesus. It's going to be a glorious, amazing experience to see all of us together. But I also want you to know that I want to get to heaven and say, Jesus, I loved where I lived really well. I made sure that people around me knew Jesus. That they had the opportunity to hear the good news. You know, when I go to places like Indonesia, I found people that were there, a number of them, who had never heard about Jesus before. They'd never heard the gospel. They never heard the things that we talk about every week in this room. They never heard that they don't have to work their way to get some God's approval so they can get some sort of eternal life or some sort of attain some sort of status. They've never heard that. I mean, multiple times while we were there, both with Buddhist, uh, with uh Hindus and with Muslims, I heard things like this. Um, yeah, I've heard the name of Jesus, but I I don't know who he is and what he did. And I want you to understand this morning that it's not their fault if they don't know about Jesus, it's ours. Are you hearing me? We can't blame God when He's told us to go and we're not going. And so, as a country, as a nation, who've been given this gospel, this good news to Stuart, we've got to take it to the whole world. And I want to be a part of that, and we won't believe Point Community Church is to be a part of that. So it starts in our world. The next thing you'll notice is has the opportunity to experience life-changing reality of Jesus Christ. We already talked about that, because they hear the gospel from our lips and they see it through our lives. It's it's declared and it's demonstrated. See, the gospel, the word, the word gospel, the good news, it's something that has to be spoken, it has to be told, it has to be shared, right? And we do share it with our lives. Hopefully, when people look at your life in your workplace, they're like, I see something different in them. When they see you at school, or they see you in your workplace, or they see you in your neighborhood, or they see you at the grocery store, they see something in your life that demonstrates something different. Something that's not like everyone else is living, that's counterculture. Because our life and our identity is not tied to how much money we have or how well things are going in this life, it's tied to Jesus. So they see a difference in us, right? That's what we pray for, that's what we hope. But here's the thing if we stop at actions and we don't tell them we're not being faithful to what Jesus said. He didn't say go witness with just your lifestyle. He said go witness with your words. Now, before we go farther on this, I gotta say, there is an appropriate place and an appropriate time to do this, right? Um, so you you've got to be careful. I'm not saying you should just walk into some random place and just start yelling, hey, does everybody in here know Jesus? Okay? That probably isn't gonna help you. I I don't know many times that that's actually worked. Okay? We wanna be good missionaries. And all of us are missionaries. We all are sent by God to tell others about Jesus. But being a good missionary means you've got to learn how to love people and to serve people and to earn the right to be heard and to speak their language and to know how to share the good news about Jesus. Because everyone around us, even though they put on good facades and they act like they've got everything together, and maybe they look like they've got a beautiful family and they've got a great job and they've got a nice house and they've got all this stuff. Let me tell you, below the surface of that, everyone is searching for life. There are. And we have to bring that good news to them. And so we we have to proclaim that. We have to actually tell them. Hopefully, our lives cause people to ask the question, why? And when they do, we get to share the good news about Jesus with them. But notice, kind of piggybacking on that, because they hear the gospel from our lips and they see it through our lives, as Point Community Church, I want you to hear me say this, as the pastor of Point Community Church, we hope that you would go out and because of what God's doing in your life personally, you would be interested and even willing to invite people to come and to be a part of what we do on Sundays or come to your life group to come participate with something that we're gathering for as Point Community Church, okay? We hope that would happen. Hopefully you're you're willing to invite people to connect here. But I want you to know that witnessing goes beyond inviting people to church. Are you with me? Okay. Witnessing doesn't mean I just simply invite someone to church so that the pastor can tell them about Jesus. Witnessing says, I'm gonna personally own this. This vision statement says from our lips, our lives, that we personally are gonna tell people about Jesus. Now, now here's the thing. I have been at times throughout my life probably a little harsh with people, and I understand that everybody's at a different place in their life. And I realize that some of you have never ever actually opened your mouth and told someone about Jesus. And so my me saying this today, like standing up here saying that you need to tell someone about Jesus, it's like freaking you out. Right? I mean, if you feel the Holy Spirit's in you and you're convicted at all, you're like butterflies in your stomach, mouths getting dry. Like I gotta wait, I gotta talk to some talk to somebody. I gotta tell somebody about Jesus. Not first off, it's not you have to, it's you get to. Okay? And secondly, remember that Holy Spirit piece? Remember the Holy Spirit comes into you. He gives you strength, he gives you courage. One of the unique things about the early church that we see in the book of Acts is that these apostles who are really bold, like they're really, really bold. And we're like, wow, man, they have such boldness. But notice what happens. If you look at the pattern, every time they would go out and declare the message of the gospel, they did it after they had prayed and they'd asked God for boldness. And then as soon as they finished, they went back and what did they do? They asked God for more boldness. You know why? Because even though they had been in the life of Jesus and had a firsthand account of what Jesus had done, they still struggled with fear. Just like you and I do. You with me? Anybody else struggle with fear? Can I tell you that there's some ways for me? It's easy for me to stand up here on a platform on Sunday morning and to say to you guys, believe in Jesus, and then to go home and to be fearful of what my neighbors might think about me if I tell them about Jesus. There's a spiritual battle going on, isn't there? Because the evil one doesn't want people to hear about Jesus. In fact, he wants to distort the gospel, he wants to distort the message, he wants people to believe that Christians are all about just doing this religious thing and it's just not really relevant to their life. Or that you've just got to work to earn God's approval and to earn God your salvation. And so they just say, I don't want a part of that. Or they they look at the church and they see its many flaws because we say it every week, we're not a perfect family, we've got issues, right? And they look at that and they say, Well, I'm gonna discredit Jesus, or I'm gonna discount Jesus because of what I see in the church. But the truth is that we have to personally take responsibility, and this is a word on this personal responsibility, personal responsibility, and really owning that, it really begins in prayer. It really begins in me praying and asking God, God, help me to be a faithful witness to the people around me. God help me to want people to know you. So much so that I get over myself, that I get over my fear of people and what they think about me, and I actually tell them the good news. So that they could spend eternity with God instead of eternity separated from Him. Gospel saturation, geographic focus, gospel proclamation, and personal responsibility. You guys know there's 1.8 million people in the Greater Austin area. Every year, 50,000 people are moving to Greater Austin. And currently in our city, there are about four churches for every 10,000 people who live in Greater Austin. The national average in the United States is 11 churches for every 10,000 people. Are you hearing that? We are way behind, and it's only getting worse. So how do we actually help? How do we actually go about this in accomplishing some of the vision? Well, let me just give you three ways that we purposely and intentionally strategically are working in our city, okay? Again, if you're a guest this morning, this is just a chance to get to know a little bit of what's going on behind the scenes in Point Community Church, all right? A little different message than normal. But I think this is really, really important for you to get this. We believe that we need to go hard after the goal of gospel saturation to see at least 10% of that 1.8 million connected in a healthy, vibrant church that we are a part of and collectively working with, so that we can then really aggressively see the other 90% of people, the other 90% of the 1.8 million, hear Jesus because every person owns their street, owns where they live. They really say we're gonna be a faithful witness on our block or in our apartment complex, in our part of the city, in our neighborhood. So, three things. The first one is this. Our first strategic focus is multiplying disciples. Now, when Jesus said in Matthew 28, 19, which is very similar to the Acts verse, he says, go into all the world and make disciples. Now, he did not say just go and make converts. As in, to just get people to say they believe in Jesus, to say they believe in him. He said, actually go and make disciples. And we know he clarifies that by saying, baptizing them. That's a pretty big deal. And if you've never been baptized, but you say you follow Jesus, you need to get baptized. Okay? You need to follow in his way. That is not your salvation, but it is an act of obedience to what Christ has called us to do. It's saying, I'm identifying myself with Jesus and his family, the church. Okay? But secondly, not only baptism, but he says to teach them to observe all the things that I've commanded you. Discipleship is messy. It's easy to stand up in a room and say, hey, if you want to go to heaven, put your trust in Jesus. Okay? In some ways you could say that's an easy thing. If you want to go to heaven, trust in Jesus. All right. Prayer prayer, boom, you're in. You got your ticket to go to heaven. Discipleship, which is what Jesus called us to, means that we actually give our trust and control and lives and surrender them to Jesus and begin to follow Him in everything we do. We don't earn our salvation through our performance, but we do live more and more like Jesus over the course of our life. And we do that through growing together to follow his example. So we want to be a people who make disciples. That's why we say all the time that you can get disciple to some degree when you come on Sundays and you sit here and we talk about the Bible and we talk about this conversation. But I want you to know that discipleship happens best in the context of community. And to have real community, you have to get into smaller groups where you're literally having a conversation and not just listening to somebody talk about Jesus. Does that make sense? So you have to have a conversation. Then we call that life group. And then out of life group, we've got smaller groups of people that meet, men and women, who meet and talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus. And we want every person to experience that because you can't live out the ways of Jesus on your own. I can't do it. So we multiply disciples. The second thing we do is multiply churches. You're like, what does that mean? Okay? The second strategic effort that we are a part of as Point Community Church is to multiply churches. We want to plant, start, establish more churches in our city. As I said a while ago, the numbers are clear that we need more churches in our city. And so some of you are aware, but we helped plant a church in Round Rock called Redemption City Church in Round Rock, and they're meeting at Round Rock High School. It's growing. We've given them money, we've given them coaching, we've given them resources, and we tried to help them get established in Round Rock, and we are thankful for them, and they're doing a great job. Okay, so we were a part of that. You were a part of that through your giving and through your prayer and through the focus of reaching people in our city, every man, woman, and child. We also currently have a collective of five churches. We're collaborating together to identify a church planter and plant another church in the city within the next year. Okay? We are getting very, very close to solidifying who that planter is. And I'm excited about that. That we're gonna have another planter that we're gonna get behind him and we're gonna give him somewhere in the ballpark of $150,000 between all of the churches combined, some of those resources coming from Point and some of those other churches, and some coaching and some structure and some encouragement and help them to achieve what they feel called to do, which is to plant a city, plant a church in Austin. Okay? That's gonna happen. We're excited about that. We're looking forward to see what God's gonna do in that. I also want you to know that as a pastor of Point Community Church, that God has given me an opportunity to help serve church planters. And so some of you guys might find this boring, but I want you to know that because with the elders' leadership and direction and oversight, they've given me the permission to spend 20% of my weekly work schedule helping other churches in our city. So let me give you some numbers on that because I work between 50 and 55 hours a week, sometimes more, but then Jadie gets on to me. So that's good. If I go over. No, but uh seriously, we about 50-55 hours a week of work, and I give 10 to 12 hours a week to helping other church leaders in our city that are not connected to point directly. Why? That's silly. Aren't we like in a competition with other churches? No, Satan would like that. We're supposed to help each other. We're on the same team. It's there's only one church in Austin, and it's Jesus' church, not my church, not your church, Jesus' church. And so we do that. We help other pastors and we help them. In fact, every month I get a call from one or two church planners who says, I'm coming to Austin. What do I need to do? Because they get on the ground here and they realize pretty fast that in Austin, it is uh it's not it's not like where they came from. It's it you may see a need for more churches, but I'll be honest with you. Coming here is a learning curve. It is hard soil. That's the way we talk about a lot. It's hard soil. People are resistant to the church, they're resistant to Jesus. They've been sold a bill of goods, they think they don't need God, they think they don't need the gospel. But I want you to know that even though this area where we live right here, in the last 12 years, 30 churches were planted that no longer exist today. In the last 12 years. In and out. Since we've been on the ground in the last two years here in South Austin, we've seen another dozen or so churches come in, and all of them are still going. And we celebrate that. And one of the things we're doing, I mean, you guys remember at Christmas, we were able to give to a church plant that's meeting at Casurik Elementary over here. Why would we do that? Because we are on the same team. We want to help people, we want to help them grow. And now God has given me an opportunity to step into a role as the executive director of Planter, which is a collection where in the city, people coming to the city, we want to help church planners get the resources and the relationships and all that they need to help plant. And so now helping to lead a board of men who are trying to create ministries to help our city have more church planners succeed and actually establish healthy local expressions of the church so that more people can know Jesus ultimately. Not so we can just plant more churches, so that people will know Jesus. You see a theme here? This is what we're about. And the next thing that I want to mention, our last kind of prong, is to multiply gospel influence. So we do that by partnering with like-minded ministries. Uh, every month, right back there behind this curtain, there's 20 or so pastors from different churches in our city who come together and we have lunch together and we pray together and we talk about how we can help this greater Austin area know Jesus. Particularly the south part of the city is where those guys come from. And so we pray together, we work together, we ask, what do you need? How can we help each other? And it's awesome. And I love it. We partner with them because we're all on the same team. And we also, um, some of you came on Wednesday night this past week with ADRN, Austin Disaster Relief Network. It's another ministry we partner with, and we've helped to mobilize people to go and to share the gospel in times of hardship. Because you guys know there's there's natural disasters that happen and things that go on, and when when those moments come, that's an opportunity for the church to step up and to be the hands and feet of Christ and to serve others. And so we get to be a part of that, and we're so thankful that God's invited us to do that. So thankful that that there were roughly 75 new people who joined the team in South Austin. And in fact, we've even got the leader of the South Austin team that's a part of our church, Hutch Ut back here, who is leading ADRN's south part of the city, the sector, as they call it. That's awesome. That's part of what you are doing, we are doing as a church that God has enabled us to do, He has called us to do, and we humbly are thankful for that. Also, South Austin Pregnancy Resource Center. I could go on and on, but you guys remember the diapers at Christmas and being able to give them? They have seen more people come to faith than maybe any organization that I know of, parrotchurch organization, in the last year in our city. Why? Because they are there when women have unexpected pregnancies and they get to tell them about Jesus. They get to love them, they get to serve them, they get to care for them, and they get to tell them about the hope that's in Christ. And so we support them and we're part of that. We financially support them, and you're gonna hear more about them in the future, and we're thankful. We have people who actually go serve as volunteers there. So why am I telling you all this? Because we believe God's given us a vision, but we don't want to just talk about it as a vision. We actually have ways to accomplish the vision, to be busy doing God's work until he takes us home because life is a vapor, and you can give yourself the things that are not gonna last, or you can give yourself to the things that are gonna matter in eternity. And these are just some of the things that we say were gonna matter when Jesus comes back. Because I want to be able to stand with you and say, Point Community Church and all the churches of Austin, we give you, King Jesus, the work and the effort, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the finance, all the stuff that we have. We give this to you. We we bless you, we honor you because you gave us life and we stewarded to the best of our ability what you gave us for the time you gave it to us to help people know Jesus in our city. And you know, my prayer is that Jesus is able to say, Well done. Well done. That's what I'm praying for, that's what I'm wanting for point community, that's what our elders want for point community church, what our staff, and I know many of you want that, to be a part of what's gonna last, to be a part of a church that's committed to the things of eternity. And we're not the only church committed to these things. We're not. There's other churches in our city that are committed to these things too, and that's what's awesome. But we're this is who we are, this is what we're about. So I said on the front end that we needed God's help. Not just that we need God's help, we need we need God in every way to actually see this to become reality. That every man, woman, and child in our city would actually know Jesus. And that we'd be able to take the gospel from South Austin to the nations. And there's some exciting things that are coming on the horizon. There's things about future facility plans that are here that we've got a team of men that are working on. Uh many of you know we need more kids space because we're growing and healthy things grow. That's good, right? I'm part, I'm glad I'm a part of a team that's winning and moving in the right direction. And we're excited about sharing some of those things in the coming days. And there's things that are gonna happen in terms of um where we're where we're going as a church to continue to plant churches and to continue to extend the influence into the sea for the gospel. And I want to invite you to be a part of that. But I want you to hear this verse this morning. This is gonna be our theme verse for the month of February. Okay? So I'm gonna challenge you. How many of you can memorize a scripture? Every hand, right? Even your kids, you can memorize this scripture. Great scripture to memorize, okay? Way to go, Gonzo. Every man, woman, and child in this room can memorize this scripture. Start working on it with my kids this week. Some of you may already know it. Verse 20 in chapter 3 of Ephesians. Ephesians is a book that Paul wrote, and he wrote it about the church and who the I what's the identity of the church, what is the church all about, okay? And he says this at the end of a prayer that he's just prayed over them. I wish we had more time to even talk about it. It's awesome. Says this. Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. That's the Holy Spirit, that's God in us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Those two verses. Ephesians 3, chapter, chapter 3, verse 20 and 21. Can you memorize that? Okay, with this month, we're gonna memorize this. And we're gonna memorize this because we need God to do above and beyond what we even what we ask or think. He can do that. You see, the problem is that when I look at the vision statement that I just gave you guys this morning, and I think about the strategies of multiplying disciples and multiplying churches and multiplying gospel influence, a lot of times the way I say it is, now to me who is able. And I can tell you, we are gonna fail if that's if it's up to us. But the beautiful thing is that it's up to God in us. It's up to God to use and work and move in us and through us to help people know Jesus, to help people experience life in Christ. And so notice what it says, just a couple of key words. Now to him. It's not us, it's him who is able. God can do all things. You ask my kids, we worked through uh catechism with them. It was just simply a way to kind of teach them some basics about the faith. And one of the things, the questions is can God do everything? And it's yes, yes, he can. He can do all his holy will. God can. Do we believe that this morning? Do we believe that God will accomplish his purposes? He will. And he can do not only that, but he can do above and beyond all that we ask. We have to ask. We need to come to him and we need to ask him to move in our city. We need to come and ask him to move in our workplaces, to move in our neighborhoods, to move in our kids' schools, to move in our lives, to move, not just to move people that are far from God, but to move the church to actually engage in the mission. We need to ask him to help us do that. And this week I'm gonna sit in a room with a bunch of church leaders from across Greater Austin and talk about an initiative that's coming to mobilize the church in Austin in 2015 and 16. It's gonna be amazing. Can't wait to tell you more about it. And this Tuesday, we're gonna sit and to talk about and pray about what God is doing, what he is stirring up. But you can do ask or think. What you could even think up in your brain, God can do better. God's even greater. He's even more powerful than we can even begin to imagine. According to the power that works in us, in us, the church, the people of God, in us, to him be the glory. It's not for us, it's for him. It's not about us, because that's too small. Our glory is fleeting. It's about Jesus. It's about God's glory. In the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. I love that verse. So, practically speaking, a little bit different conclusion this morning, okay? I told you this already has been a little bit different than normal. I'm gonna ask you to get your cell phone. Wake up a little bit, stir around, grab your cell phone, okay? Some of y'all are uh really spiritual and you don't bring your cell phone to church, right? Grab your cell phone, and I want you to do two things. First, we're gonna have a text message group this month, and every morning at 8 a.m., you'll just get a text from us that just says, pray for this today. Okay? Just a simple reminder, something small, something specific to what's going on. And we're just asking us to join together to pray. Okay? So uh the there's a slide that's here. It says text coming, coming there, come on, there it is. Text beyond, the word beyond to 25827. Okay, do that real quick. Text beyond to 25827, unless you have a limited number of texts and you don't want to be in the group. That's okay. We we're not trying to force you. But if you uh text beyond to 25827, you'll get a confirmation that you're now part of a group, and every day you'll get a text message just to remind you to pray, to pray with us. Second thing I want you to do is this. Those of you that know how to do this, some of you may need some tutoring in this. If you will set an alarm in your phone, so go to your alarm settings, and I want you to set an alarm for every day at 3.20 p.m. You're like 3.20, what's up with that? Ephesians 3.20, okay? Every afternoon, 3.20, I don't know what you're normally doing. Maybe you're taking your afternoon nap, maybe you're perusing Facebook in the middle of your break. I don't know what you're doing at 3.20 afternoon. But at 3.20 in the afternoons, if you would just stop and pray with us over the thing that we send out that morning and pray that God would do something amazing in our midst, that he would do above and beyond what we are asking, that he would give us wisdom, he would give us leadership, that he would give us courage, that he would help us. And so we're gonna pray via the text message, getting that reminder, and then the 320 at setting alarm, and just put maybe even entitling it beyond, if you have the ability to do that in your phone. But but let's every afternoon at 320 stop and let's pray Ephesians 320, 21. Okay? Can you do that? Okay, simple, uh helpful things. We're also gonna be sending out some daily devotionals uh just in the mornings to remind you guys of things that are going on and talking about prayer. And just the month of February, we want to be very intentional as we start year two of Point Community Church that we are not just coming up with stuff randomly to do, but we're actually listening to God and obeying Him. And the other thing that I want to ask this morning is if you're a regular attender at Point Community Church, if you if you believe in Jesus and you're with us, you're a member of Point Community Church, we just ask that you please keep praying, keep serving faithfully, keep giving of your time, talent, and treasures, not so that we can be a great church, but so that Jesus can be known in our city. Okay? And we just really pray that God would use us. But if you're not a member of Point Community Church, and you're just maybe you're here, but you're curious about how to become a member, how to link arms, and member really means family member. We mean like you've really said, we're we're with you. We're not just gonna attend, but we actually want to get in the trenches, we want to get involved, we want to be more connected, we want to be more invested. If that's you, then next Sunday night, uh, next door in the little small building, we hold our membership lab. And from 5 to 7:30, we serve free uh dinner and we have child care, okay? And we will talk about what it means to be a member at Point Community Church. You don't have to sign anything in blood, okay? It's really a chance for you to ask any questions you have about the church, how we are structured, what we're doing, why we're doing it. You've already heard a lot of it this morning. And and to join and link arms with us in the work that God's called us to do. I believe that what God's called us to do is majorly significant. And that God is gonna work in and through his church as we seek him, as we spend time really walking together, serving others for his sake. So we're gonna do something to close out our time this morning, okay?