Greater Things: Greater Love
Podcast Intro [00:00:00]:
Thank you for listening to the Soul City Church podcast. Be sure to follow us on our Facebook and Instagram at soulcitychurch. For more information, visit us on our website, soulcitychurch.com.
Narration [00:00:19]:
The good life. It seems, at some level, all of us say we want it. We want a good home. We want a good car. We want good friends, a good job, a good church, a good life. But have we ever stopped to ask ourselves, is there something more? Is there a higher calling, a bigger purpose to it all, and are we missing it? Have we settled for good things at the sake of greater things? Toward the end of his life, Jesus shared with his followers a vision for what was to come after he was gone. And his words were as challenging as they were surprising. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the father.
Narration [00:01:28]:
And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. You will do greater things. After all the miracles he did, all the healing he provided, all the power he showed, Jesus said, you will do greater things, not by your own power, but by a greater power from the Holy Spirit. You will pray greater prayers and build greater communities. You will give greater hope as you practice greater faith. The stakes couldn't be higher, but the promise couldn't be clearer. You and I weren't created and called to merely good things.
Narration [00:02:11]:
You are created for. You were called to, and you will do greater things.
Jeanne Stevens [00:02:33]:
For the past 13 years in the life of our church, we have seen only God's story after only God's story. We have seen transformation occur in the lives of thousands of people in ways that only God could have orchestrated.
Jarrett Stevens [00:02:48]:
Yeah. That's right. Since the beginning of Soul City, God has been active in moving and speaking and healing and transforming people's lives, but there's also something unique and special about this particular season we're in as a church. You know, after several really hard years, we're seeing God do greater things than he's ever done before
Jeanne Stevens [00:03:16]:
past year, our church grew by 43%. There are literally hundreds of new people showing up at Soul City week after week. It's easy to see because it's often difficult to find a seat on a Sunday. Yep. And we all know that healthy things grow, and our church is growing.
Jarrett Stevens [00:03:35]:
Yeah. But it's not just attendance. We're seeing people like never before wanting to use their gifts, their time, their talent, their treasure to serve on a team, to gather around a table. We see people week after week lining up just to go into our prayer hall as they deepen their dependence on God. This year, actually, we've already baptized more people on a Sunday than we ever have before. We baptized 65 people in 1 weekend, and largest we'd ever done before was 49 people. God is on the move at Soul City, and God's given us a bigger vision for even greater things. That's why we are so excited to announce an audacious and exciting 5 year vision from God for our church.
Jeanne Stevens [00:04:11]:
That's right. We believe that over the next five years, holy spirit encounters will be expected when we gather, and prayer is our first response, not our last resort.
Jarrett Stevens [00:04:22]:
Yeah. We're committed to being a bridge building church. We wanna be known as a good neighbor through our radical hospitality, and that when life gets hard, the house of hope is always the first calling.
Jeanne Stevens [00:04:33]:
We are committed to leading the way in emotional, mental, relational, and physical health as spiritual health, and we are excited to equip church leaders through our transforming leadership center.
Jarrett Stevens [00:04:46]:
Yeah. God's given us a vision to help people pause and and be present to Jesus through our retreats and our camps and our conferences. And we sense God leading us to be bold with generosity and brave in our stewardship as we seek to be debt free.
Jeanne Stevens [00:05:00]:
And one of the most exciting visions we have for the next 5 years is to reach 5,000 people with the transforming love of Jesus at our two churches.
Jarrett Stevens [00:05:11]:
Yeah. This last one is a big one as God is leading us to launch another Soul City Church here in the western suburbs of Chicago, somewhere between Oak Park and Oak Brook. You know, we have a significant number of people in our church that are close to that 290 corridor spreading out to the west, so we wanna make a church that's an easy invite for their friends and neighbors. This new church is not only for the people from Seoul City who live in the western suburbs, but it's for their friends, their coworkers, their neighbors. It's for anyone who needs a thriving and loving church where they can encounter and experience the transforming love of Jesus. And we know one thing, that nothing nothing reaches new people like new churches. It's one of the best ways for folks to say yes to the transforming love of Jesus.
Jeanne Stevens [00:05:54]:
So you may be wondering what's next. We are beginning a whole new faith raising adventure together with 2 goals. Our primary goal is 100% engagement. We wanna see the soul, the city, and the whole world transformed by an only god movement. We believe god wants to do greater things in our church and in each of our lives. Our hope and our prayer is that each person who is a part of our church would be committed to the process of prayerfully discovering the greater things that God has for our church and each and every one of our lives.
Jarrett Stevens [00:06:32]:
Yeah. And our secondary goal is to raise $15,000,000 over the next 2 years. Now this 15 dollars represents what we're calling a one fund initiative to make the mission happen and move the mission forward. That simply means that we are This one fund will cover our West Loop church operating budget for 2 years, West Loop church capital improvements, our new church start up expenses, and our new church operating budget for 2 years.
Jeanne Stevens [00:07:05]:
We believe that God is calling us to greater things, that he's calling you to greater things, to pray bigger prayers, to to do the impossible and to be a part of him doing it. We long to see every person at Soul City Church praying the same prayer. God, what is the greater thing that you wanna do in me and through me?
Jarrett Stevens [00:07:32]:
We wanna see and experience more and more of the transformation that only God can bring to our lives, our church, our city, and the world. And the only way we're actually gonna gonna see this big vision become a reality is by each of us partnering with God and partnering with each other as we all step out in faith and experience greater things. How fun is that? Oh, man. This is so exciting. My name is Jared. I'm one of the lead pastors here.
Jeanne Stevens [00:08:04]:
And I'm Jeannie. I'm the other one.
Jarrett Stevens [00:08:05]:
And we're the people from the video that you just saw. That's us. That's us. And, we're so, so, so glad that you are here. I just want to say it. We said it in our last gathering, and we really mean it. I don't think it's an accident that you are here. Whether you were here with us in person or whether you're worshiping with us online, as so many people do all across the country and around the world, it is no accident that you are here on this Sunday, as we step into an exciting new season for our church.
Jarrett Stevens [00:08:31]:
So we just want to say thank you for carving out this time to be here, and our hope is that you would definitely hear from God. That God would speak to you and you'd hear him, and that your life would be changed by you being here this weekend.
Jeanne Stevens [00:08:41]:
That's right. And we're so excited to be kicking off this brand new teaching series, and really kicking off this brand new season here at Soul City Church. You know, around a year or so ago, we started to get this sense, we started to get this vision from God for our church, to step into a season greater than anything we had ever prayed for or anything we had ever imagined. A vision for who our church would be and what our church could do over the next 5 years. And and, obviously, you just heard about it in that video, and ultimately, it all comes from from the promise of Jesus to every Jesus follower when Jesus said, whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these. And that's exactly that is exactly what we sense God leading us into as a church. Greater things. Greater things.
Jeanne Stevens [00:09:46]:
And over the next few weeks, coming out of that promise of Jesus, we are asking every single person in this church to pray the exact same prayer. God, what is it? What is it? What is the greater thing you wanna do in me and through me? And we believe that by all of us praying that prayer together, if we faithfully and fearlessly pray that prayer together, we believe that every single one of us, we're gonna hear from God and God is going to lead us in the greater thing that he wants to do in us and through us. Yeah.
Jarrett Stevens [00:10:16]:
And we're already we're already seeing God do greater things than we even thought or imagined already in our church. And really, one of the biggest ways we've seen this recently was last weekend. Who here was at our Easter gatherings last weekend at some point? Let's hear some noise, make some noise for Easter. Holy cow. Wow. That was something. Do you know that, 4,523 people joined us over Easter weekend Come. Last week, and that is by far way more folks than we've ever had at any point in our church.
Jarrett Stevens [00:10:46]:
Way more than we even prayed or hoped would come, to our good Friday services, our our gatherings here in the building and those online, and it was so cool to be here. For those of you who are here, all the kids were all here in their little Easter fits and they all look so cute. You did too. You looked cute too. All of you looked cute too, but they looked extra cute. I think about all the folks, over 300 people were gathered in additional seating outside of this room. First of all, if that was you, we're so sorry and thank you for being so patient that to see that many folks wanting to hear this transforming message of Jesus's love. To all of the hundreds and hundreds of folks that said yes to Jesus last weekend.
Jarrett Stevens [00:11:27]:
That said yes to a life and a relationship with him. To the 100 of volunteers who served all weekend long. Can we just bless and honor every volunteer in this church who gave up significant time so that we can experience what we experienced last weekend? So basically, summing it all up, Easter was bananas. That's really the only way to say it. Easter was bananas around here. You know, one of the craziest things to come out of Easter that was unexpected for me happened to me personally and it's something that I woke up with on on Tuesday morning. I woke up Tuesday morning with a severely pinched nerve in my back and shoulder. That's never happened to me before.
Jarrett Stevens [00:12:05]:
I'm at an age now where I get pinched nerves, and it was no joke. I'm not kidding. Jesus may have risen from the grave, but I was not getting out of bed on Tuesday, like it was painful. It was so painful. So I called a chiropractor and said, look, I got this pain. I don't know what it is. Didn't know it was a pinched nerve at the time. I said, what can you do? So well, we can get you in this afternoon.
Jarrett Stevens [00:12:24]:
We'll give you like a quick 30 minute massage, and then an adjustment, and so let's see if that helps. And I'm like, I don't care. Whatever it takes to get this pain to go away. Now, when I say the word massage, what are some of the images that come to mind for you? And I I I know there's I know this church. A lot of y'all have gotten massages. What are some of the images that come to mind? Maybe a dimly lit room. Right? Some candles, maybe some new age pan flute music playing out of some speaker somewhere you don't know where, or the smell of eucalyptus in the diffuser. Right? Maybe a nice warm robe.
Jarrett Stevens [00:13:01]:
Yeah. I had none of that when I went in Tuesday afternoon. The lights were all the way on, every one of them. She had the news on the radio and she talked the entire time. This was not what I thought I was going to get. And at one point, she was working on a particular point in my pack, and I literally sat up and yelled, okay. Okay. Stop.
Jarrett Stevens [00:13:19]:
That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. I don't know if you're supposed to cry in massages, but I did. I did because it was so painful. It's not what I that's not what I had in mind for a massage. Right? That's because we have standards for these things. We have we know what to expect.
Jarrett Stevens [00:13:36]:
We value self care. We know that it's a good thing to take care of ourselves. That's why we get facials. That's why we do our nails. That's why when our 18 year old son gets a haircut, he pays extra for a hot shave. He's 18. How much facial hair is getting shaved off? But every time he does it, and I pay for it. We know how to Look, the health and wellness industry alone is worth over $5,000,000,000,000 every year.
Jarrett Stevens [00:14:09]:
We like to take care of ourselves. We really care about ourselves. In fact, never before in human history have we dedicated more means and more meaning to focusing on ourselves. And there's no judgment here. We we just live in a treat yourself kind of culture. However it is that you need to take care of yourself, you're going to take care of yourself. You don't treat yourself to whatever that may be. And again, I have zero judgment.
Jarrett Stevens [00:14:34]:
I have no judgments about that. You are the only you you're ever going to get. So you better take care of yourself. But with so much time and so much energy and so much attention given to ourselves from taking care of ourselves, treating ourselves, motivating ourselves, prioritizing ourselves. It's really easy to get really stuck on you. It's so easy to get so stuck on me, And the question I want each of us to consider, I think is really important especially as we launch this teaching series but this new season for our church. I want you to think for the next couple moments, what is in your life? What what moves you to move beyond you? It's so easy to just only think about ourselves, but what is it in your life that moves you to move beyond yourself? What in your life is leading you to think of the lives of others? What gets you to go beyond yourself? To not only think of your own needs, but to also think of and take care of the needs of others. Because let's be honest, I'll just be honest about me.
Jarrett Stevens [00:15:44]:
I'll go first. If left to myself, I am inevitably only going to think about myself. So what is it that moves you beyond you in your life?
Jeanne Stevens [00:15:55]:
And I think that's such a great framing question for us, and and it's so important for what we are walking into together as a church over these next few weeks and really over these next few years because we're asking God to lead us beyond ourselves. That that's what this whole thing is about, for God to lead us beyond ourselves, to lead us to something bigger, to lead us to something greater. And we believe that the only way that we get to that vision, the only way that that's accomplished, the only way that that can happen is if we let love lead. Love has to be central to move beyond ourselves. And I think a lot of us think, like, well, I'll move beyond myself when I get some more money. Right? I'll start thinking about more people and and meeting their needs when I get some more money, and and and then I'll be able to take care of the needs of others. But it'll never money will never move you like love moves you. I I think also many of us, we think, you know what it is, I just there's so much going on in my life, so much emotionally, mentally, relationally, physically.
Jeanne Stevens [00:17:08]:
When I get healthier, when I become a healthier person, then I can start to think of the needs of others. And all of those things are important, and they are all about transformation. But those things will not move you like love moves you.
Jarrett Stevens [00:17:23]:
Yeah.
Jeanne Stevens [00:17:24]:
Love. Love is the only thing. It is the greater thing that actually moves us beyond ourselves. And that's actually what is at the center of this season for our church, and and ultimately, it's at the center of Jesus' mission in this world. And that is why we are so passionate about every single one of us going on this journey together because we believe that over these coming weeks years, that what we are going to walk through, it has the potential if you let love lead you. It has the potential to transform your life like never before.
Jarrett Stevens [00:18:05]:
Yeah. That's the reason why we are starting this teaching series by looking at a greater love than anything that this world actually has to offer. What would happen if, as Jenny said, we let a greater love be our guide in our lives? Because really that's what's at the center of of all of it. Not just this church or the season, but this is a center of like a relationship with God. If you if you've missed love, then you've missed the whole point. That is what it is all about. And there are so many passages we could go to to illustrate that, to highlight that, to underline that, but I want us to just go to a couple verses at a very important moment in the life and ministry of Jesus, and they're found in John 15. So if you're here in this room, there should be a Bible either on your armrest or under the seat in front of you, or under your seat.
Jarrett Stevens [00:18:48]:
You can turn to page 8 76. So just go ahead and grab a Soul City Bible. Looks just like this. You can turn to page 876. That will get you to John 15. If you're with us online, you can open up a tab or maybe it's easier for you on an app. Do whatever you need to do. Just get to John 15.
Jarrett Stevens [00:19:04]:
Now, let me give you some context into this passage. Where we're at in this passage is, we're coming towards sort of the end of Jesus's time here on earth, and these are some of his final instructions to his followers before he goes. Now, for those of you who are parents, and you've ever left your kids with their grandparents, or you've left them with the sitter, you usually have some instructions before you leave. Yes? Hannah and Aaron washed our dogs a couple weeks ago while we're on vacation. It was a 5 page document I think Just to take care of our emotionally needy dogs. Those of you some of you are like house like you're like plant people, you have like a 100 page binder on just how to water your plants. You get this idea. The instructions that you leave before you go matter.
Jarrett Stevens [00:19:46]:
And this is what Jesus said before he left this earth. John 15, let's start in verse 12. He says this, my command is this. This is so important. My command is this, love each other. Love each other as I have loved you. And I want us to all everyone in this room and online, you can type in the comments. We're going to shout out these next two words.
Jarrett Stevens [00:20:05]:
I'll read it and then we're going to shout them out. My command is this, love each other as I have loved you. What?
Jeanne Stevens [00:20:10]:
Greater love.
Jarrett Stevens [00:20:11]:
Has no one than this. There's no greater love than being willing to lay down one's life for a friend, and I love this. Jesus says, you're my friends. You're not just my followers, you're my friends. If you get this, if you do this, if you make this central to your life and your mission to love one another. Now there's so much going on in this passage, but it all comes back to it. All revolves around the simple and revolutionary idea, and the idea is the only thing that helps us get past us and that's love. Jesus says, if you want to know how it works with me, if you want to know how it works in my kingdom, if you want to know my way here on earth, it is simply this.
Jarrett Stevens [00:20:53]:
Love each other. That's it. You should love others. How you've seen me treat you, that's how you treat others. That same exact way. And then he tells them that this is how you know the litmus test of love, And for those of us who say we have people in our lives that we love, this is the litmus test of love that you would be willing to lay down your life, your rights, your needs, your priorities for others. Whoever you're willing to do that for, that's who you really love. That you would lay down your life for them.
Jarrett Stevens [00:21:27]:
Now, I can imagine the disciples, you know, they're they're trying to take this all in and write this all down and Jesus is saying, lay down your life for others like, oh, that's so good Jesus. That'll preach. That will preach. Lay down your life. People are going to love that. You've talked a lot about death lately and so that's going to be that's going to be so good Jesus. And they couldn't they couldn't conceive what Jesus was doing again and again and again, is that he was literally telling them what he was about to do. Because that's exactly what he did through his sacrificial death on the cross.
Jarrett Stevens [00:21:56]:
He demonstrated how much he loves by laying down his life for you and for me. Just days after he said this to them, he did exactly what he said through his death. He showed us what love looks like when love leads, when love moves you beyond you, And it's exactly what he invites you and me to do as well.
Jeanne Stevens [00:22:22]:
And you know, I can't I can't help but think about the story of this church. I can't help but think about the journey of Soul City over the last 13, 14 years because this church is literally written with the language of love. There are so many stories, so many people that were moved to move beyond themselves. This past week, I actually went down, some, like memory lane. I I went down the the history of Soul City Church. And you know, I remember I remember when I sat in a Starbucks on Chicago Avenue in July of 2010, and an amazing family put this very key inside of my hand, and they said we feel compelled by God to take the 22,000 square foot warehouse on the corner of Adams and Racine and to give it to Soul City Church rent free for 2 years. Wow. Do you know what we instantly did? Within a week, we instantly gathered up all the people that we knew and we held a worship service.
Jeanne Stevens [00:23:30]:
I think we knew about 46 people because I counted that earlier this week. And we turned that warehouse into a place of worship. That's people being moved by love. Yeah.
Jarrett Stevens [00:23:44]:
I
Jeanne Stevens [00:23:44]:
think back to 2012 when we were literally just 2 years old as a church and we were able to scrape together enough money to then buy that building from that family. And there were a bunch of angel investors in our church, and they saw how God was moving in and through this church very similar to what Easter felt like this last weekend. And they said, you're gonna run out of room. And so we're going to buy the land right next to Soul City Church so that you can eventually expand Soul City. And they held that land for 3 years until we were able to start to begin to build the transformation center, which is the very building that every single one of you are sitting in right now. That's being moved by love. That's being moved by love. Do you know that the campaign the campaign to build this building was called for the love? Love is what built this space.
Jeanne Stevens [00:24:44]:
And the love of those people, those people that many of you, you'll never meet them. Yeah. You'll never know their name, but they prepared a place for you. So that you could literally be sitting here right now. I'll I'll never forget. I'll never forget weeks before we were scheduled to start construction on on this transformation center. We didn't have enough money. We just didn't have enough money.
Jeanne Stevens [00:25:12]:
Our our bank that was giving us the construction loan told us you need at least 1.5 more $1,000,000 in the bank for you to begin construction on this loan, and we didn't have it. And I had turned over every stone. I had looked every place. Couch kitchen. I had asked every person that I knew to ask and we didn't haven't. And a bunch of people said, you know, maybe maybe what we need to do is we just we just maybe we should pause for a little while. Like, let's just pause. Let's let's wait.
Jeanne Stevens [00:25:45]:
You know? And and maybe there's something, you know, that god's gonna do in the coming months. And for those of you that don't know me very well, I'm not very good at waiting. And and I just knew, I knew that God had promised that we were to begin. And so we had run out of options and I wasn't sure what to do, and so I I reached out to a few members of our stewardship team and said, hey, I I wanna let you know about a situation that we're we're navigating through and and that we're walking through and and so, you know, can you join me on this call? And so, a handful of us got on this call and and before I could start the meeting, I had a whole agenda that I was gonna walk through. 1 of the people on the phone call said, hey, I just wanna let you know about something. Someone stepped up anonymously and just gave a $1,000,000 to Soul City Church. And tears started streaming down my face. Another person on the call said, well, I know we still need 1.5.
Jeanne Stevens [00:26:56]:
We just got the 1,000,000. You know, here's how much I can do. Another person on the call said, well, you know what? Here's how much I can do. And then the the other person said, well, you know what? I can just finish it all up in a matter of minutes. The whole gap was closed. And do you know what we did that next week? I said bring on the construction workers.
Jarrett Stevens [00:27:18]:
Let's go.
Jeanne Stevens [00:27:19]:
And I got myself into a digger.
Narration [00:27:21]:
Yes.
Jeanne Stevens [00:27:21]:
And I dug that first hole. And I want you to know, those stories are real. Yeah. That actually happened. I lived that. This church lived that. And this is what love looks like. Yeah.
Jeanne Stevens [00:27:50]:
This is what love looks like. This is what it looks like to let love take the lead. Yeah. To let love lead in your life. Every one of those people, they let love lead. They trusted God like never before. They let love lead them as they were praying. They let love lead them as they chose to take unbelievable risks.
Jeanne Stevens [00:28:16]:
They let love lead them as they laid down sacrifices like never before. And this church is built on the love of God leading us.
Jarrett Stevens [00:28:27]:
Yeah.
Jeanne Stevens [00:28:27]:
And that's what greater things is all about.
Jarrett Stevens [00:28:31]:
Yeah. And that and that is our biggest prayer. That's our biggest hope for each and every one of us. Those of us who are here physically, those of us who are part of this church online, is that you would actually step into this great faith adventure that we're walking into with God and that you would let love lead. You would let love lead. Listen, it's so easy to be led by fear. Taking it like I'm speaking for a friend. So easy to be led by scarcity.
Jeanne Stevens [00:29:03]:
Yep.
Jarrett Stevens [00:29:05]:
It's so easy to be led by stress.
Narration [00:29:07]:
Yeah.
Jarrett Stevens [00:29:08]:
Selfishness. But our hope and our prayer for you, for you, for you is that you would be moved by the unmovable, unshakable, unconditional love of God, and that you would let love lead your life. Yeah. That you would get just how loved you are by God. That God loves you more than you will ever know. Far more than any of us ever deserve. And that when you get that, just how loved you are by God, you would get that that's the invitation to extend others. That's what Jesus was talking about.
Jarrett Stevens [00:29:42]:
Yeah. It all comes down to that. Love others as I have loved you. Let love lead. To lay down your self preservation, to lay down your self protection, to lay down your self promotion and just let love lead. So I want to ask you, I want you to really seriously consider, how are you going to let love lead this week? How are you going to let love lead in your life this week? What would that look like for you to actually do? Again, it's so easy to let stress lead us. So easy to let fear and scarcity. If I'm being honest, the thing that so often leads me is the thing that makes the most sense.
Jarrett Stevens [00:30:24]:
If I can see it and I can do it, then that must be it. And I let that lead me. And I wonder how much I've missed in my life of the things, the greater things of God, because I let that lead me versus God's love. What would it look like to let love lead you this week? In big ways, in small ways, in the moment and for the future. When each of us commits to to that, to letting love lead, I'm telling you something gets unleashed. And I feel so sad when I think about the American church because they've lost this idea. They've made it about so many other things and it all comes back. It's so simple to just letting love lead your life.
Jarrett Stevens [00:31:09]:
And when that is unleashed, I'm telling you that is unstoppable. Yeah. That is unstoppable. Unleashed love is an unstoppable force in this world. More powerful than anything else. It is an unstoppable force. And so how will you Mhmm. Let love lead this week?
Jeanne Stevens [00:31:28]:
And that's it. That that's what we are inviting every single one of us to walk into because we believe that that God is calling each and every one of us to let love lead, and and that that's how we're going to see what the greater things are that he wants to do in us and through us. You know, there there's so much division in our city, so much hatred in our world, so much brokenness and despair, so much overwhelming depression and anxiety and loneliness. And I I will tell you, when love leads, when love leads, when we are moved to move beyond ourselves, god's people sharing god's love with the people that God loves. That is what transforms the world.
Jarrett Stevens [00:32:24]:
Yes. Yes.
Jeanne Stevens [00:32:26]:
That is what transforms the world. And, you know, yesterday, Jared and I, it was so beautiful out. We we went on a a long prayer walk
Jarrett Stevens [00:32:35]:
Extended walk.
Jeanne Stevens [00:32:36]:
Around our neighborhood because we we knew that that we would be standing here. Checked in with one another, like, you ready? You ready for this? And, you know, as we were praying, we just felt so compelled that today, one of the things that we most wanted you to hear from our heart as your pastors, we are all in. We are all in on this vision. We are all in on this prayer. We are praying this same prayer right alongside of you, and we know we know that this is the greatest faith journey that Soul City has ever stepped into. It's audacious, causes us to shake a little bit in our boots. And I don't know how many of you have ever been on a faith journey like this. I just wanna let you know, for those of you that haven't, it's not like a country club.
Jeanne Stevens [00:33:41]:
K? Doesn't feel like a country club. It sometimes feels a little bit more like a battleground, and this is gonna stretch us as a church. Kinds of stories we will tell one day about this season. Yeah. We couldn't help but imagine the kinds of stories we will tell one day about this season. The stories that I just told you. About how god moved many years ago, that that one day we will be telling stories about this season. Yeah.
Jeanne Stevens [00:34:15]:
We'll be telling stories about how god spoke, how god spoke to some of you like you had never heard god speak to you, how God brought healing in your life over something that you thought could never be healed, how God unleashed a vision for you, for for your family, for for your life in a way that that you had never even comprehended. How God led you to perhaps the greatest sacrifice of your life, and yet now your life is overflowing with abundance and you don't know how to make it all make sense. And and you're here. You're here for this season, and it is our hope and our prayer that that you also would go all in with God, that you would go all in with what god wants to do in and through you. And, you know, as we were walking and as we were praying, we just both had this sense that we are about to see some epic proportion of miracles in this church like never before. Many of you know Peter in our our prayer hall. And and over the last few months, every time I see him in the hallway, he he just always says to me the exact same thing. I'm like, hey, Peter.
Jeanne Stevens [00:35:39]:
How's it going? He's like, be ready. I'm like, what am I ready for? What am I get I'm like, Peter, it's so good to see you. He's like, be ready. You know, I'm like, almost kinda nervous. Right? Yeah. And I believe I believe that God is about to unleash a movement in this church. Yeah. And, friends, I want us to be ready for it.
Jeanne Stevens [00:36:04]:
Yeah. I want us to be ready for it. And I'm so glad that you're here and so glad that we get to walk through this season of greater things together.
Jarrett Stevens [00:36:13]:
Yeah. You know, I was thinking, kind of coming out of this time together, what would be sort of a next step? And I I think Kelly did such a great job when she talked about the vision guide, but she specifically talked about this commitment card. And not asking to pull it out or fill out or anything like that. I just think this to me represents, kind of like, it catalyzes, like am I really willing to go all in with God? What would that look like God? Are you really going to speak to me God? Am I really going to actually believe that you will? If I ask you to believe that you will, will I commit to doing whatever it is that you asked me to do? I think this is just a great way to sort of put us in that posture. To just consider God, what might it what might it be? And and we've said this to our team. We say this to you. You're gonna hear us say this a lot. This is not about a number.
Jarrett Stevens [00:36:57]:
This is about you just doing whatever it is that God invites you to do. That's it. Whatever it is. We trust God and we trust you. So whoever you ask God to speak and believe that he will, would you just commit to whatever it is that God invites you to do? And I know that when we all commit to that, I believe when 100% of us, whatever ever that looks like for you, commits to praying that prayer. What's the greater thing you want to do in me and through me? And then trust God to do it. I believe we'll look back on that financial number of $15,000,000 in our one fund and just go, oh, that was way too small. Look at what God has done way greater far beyond anything we could have possibly imagined.
Jarrett Stevens [00:37:41]:
I just I believe that's the posture we're going to walk into and through this next season. And so, I would love to pray with you and for you just to acknowledge and honor the good things that God is already up to in your life, and the greater things we want to see God do. So if you're able in this room, if you'd be able to stand, right now. If you're in any of our additional seating, if you'd be willing to stand, and if you're new around here, we said this last week at Easter. We say this all the time. We like to take a posture when we pray. We open our hands up. I love when our we see our kids pray.
Jarrett Stevens [00:38:08]:
They open their hands up. They've been raised in this church. They This is the thing we do, and we just says we believe this says more. Right? Like God, whatever I have is yours and whatever you've got for me, I want it God. So if you'd be willing to even just trust God enough in this moment to open up your hands, I'd love to pray over each and every one of us. And God, that is the question we're asking. That's the prayer we're praying. What's the greater thing God you want to do? God, I confess that far too often my vision is far too small.
Jarrett Stevens [00:38:36]:
God, I I I try and pray for what I believe I can manage. God, I I want to see the unmanageable. I want to see the impossible happen, not just in our life and our family, but each and every person who's connected and gathered here today. God, we pray that you would do unbelievable, undeniable things in and through their lives. God, I pray for the person who might be feeling some fear right now or who might be feeling maybe a little scared or skeptical. I pray that you would just soften their heart with the goodness of who you are and all that you have already done. That they would actually just take a second in their heart to check the receipts right now. You've been faithful.
Jarrett Stevens [00:39:16]:
You've been good. You've kept every promise. You carried us through. You were with us when we didn't even know you were there. God, you have done all that you said you would do. You are all of who you say you are. So, God, help us to trust you and to believe and to step into the season with a greater faith to live our lives with a greater love than maybe we've never experienced before. We pray all of this in your name because we love you And we know that you love us.
Jarrett Stevens [00:39:48]:
Amen.