This week we discussed the three critical confessions that God desires every person to make. Understanding and living these confessions changes a believer by faith. You see, a confession is made by faith through agreement with the Word of God. When your lips confess what the inerrant Word of God reveals your life begins to change by faith. These three clear confessions will help the believer towards wholeness and help them grow in their intimacy with Christ.
In addition to the teaching this week Pastor Jeff shared the vision of where BRAVE Church is heading and some of the marvelous ways God is at work among us. May we continue to thank God for His goodness and kindness towards all of us.
Sermon Transcript
. And Lord, we pray today that we would hear you clearly. Lord, that you'd be helpful to me, because Lord, we believe that every time that your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that you speak. So our prayer this morning is, Lord speak for we are ready to hear. So for all those who are gathered here today who desire to hear the Lord speak directly to you, who will believe what God says and you will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word Amen. Amen.
Amen.
When a space shuttle or a rocket ship is going to take off and you get down to about 10 seconds, you hear T-minus 10, and then T-minus nine. And when that begins to happen, what you begin to see is the rocket engines get lit and fuel begins to get dispersed, and fire begins to come out of that rocket. And you recognize, if you've ever been to Cape Canaveral, you got to stay miles back because there's so much power that's about ready to launch that space shuttle or rocket into orbit. And as I was thinking about our church this week, I was thinking, God is about ready to unleash some very new things that we've never ever experienced before, some super exciting things that God has done, which is why this series, Mission Critical has been so important to us.
But as I was thinking about that, I realized, every time I've watched a rocket take off, I've always been on the outside looking in. I've never gotten to go into space. I have a friend I played football with in college, he's a NASA astronaut, he's been on the space station twice. He knows what it's like. I don't know what it's like, but I do know what it's like to plant a church. And I do know what it's like to see others plant a church. And I do know what it's like to see God start something with just a little bit of a vision and be on the inside as he takes it somewhere that it's never been before.
And friends, I'm here to tell you that God's about ready to take BRAVE Church to a place that you couldn't even dream or imagine because of his glorious power that's at work within us. In this series, we've been talking about how Jesus wants you. We've been talking about what it looks like to be his disciple. What it looks like to be empowered by his Holy Spirit. And today we're going to talk about three critical confessions that every believer needs to have in order for God to use them. No matter what generation you're a part of, no matter who you are, no matter your gender, or your economic background, or your socioeconomic status, God wants you to make these three confessions.
And today we'll conclude our series. Next week for those of you like me, like to be in a book and go through word by word and verse by verse, we'll be in the book of Hebrews next week. We're going to start that book. We're so excited about that, powerful book, never preached it before, can't wait to do that. But today we want to talk about what it looks like to make these three critical confessions. Now, just so you know, when people hear the word confession, here's what they think, "Sin. I got to be sorry for my sin. I have to lament my sin." But that's not what a confession is.
A confession means that you say with your mouth exactly what the word of God says until by faith you believe it. And there's three critical confessions that we need to make as believers in Christ in order for God to do in and through us everything that God would want us to accomplish for his kingdom name. And so to take a look at that this morning, I want to take you to a familiar passage with Jesus and his disciples found in Matthew 16:13-20, Matthew 16:13-20. I'd like to read that aloud while you're looking at it where you're at and then unpack what three confessions that you need to make.
It says, "Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea of Philippi, he was asking his disciples, 'Who do people say that the son of man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist and others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.' He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the son of the living God.' And Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you Simon Barjona because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.'
'I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.' Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ." And hearing this short little interaction with Jesus and his disciples, we see three confessions, critical confessions that every single believer must make. Now, get the picture here, Jesus is traveling a few miles North of Galilee, he goes into the town of Caesarea of Philippi. We may not know a lot about that town, but Caesarea was named after the Emperor Caesar and King Herod Philip, so you have Caesarea of Philippi.
It was named after the emperor and the king. The height of all pagan worship took place there. If there was any place in the world where there was some sort of pagan deity being worshiped, it would've been in Caesarea of Philippi. It was a place that Jesus took his disciples to see what the world was saying about who God was. And in the middle of that, here's what he asks, Jesus being the greatest teacher of all time uses questions, he says, "Who do People say that I am? And as disciples begin to answer... And that's not a very threatening question, is it? If I were to ask you, who do people say that Jesus is? Well, some people say this and some people say that.
They said, "Well, some people say that you're John the Baptist. Some people say that you're Elijah, still others Jeremiah, even one of the prophets, we hear to a lot of things about you, Jesus. A lot of people see that you're a prophet or a good teacher." What would people say in Denver? If I ask you who do people say that Jesus is, what would they say? Well, some say he's a good man. Some say he's a good teacher. Some say he was a revolutionary. Some might even say that, he didn't exist. People just make it up, it's just a myth and a story. But then Jesus took the question from the general to the more specific and he asked this question, "But who do you say that I am?"
Friends, I'm here to tell you that your response to Jesus' question this morning to that answer is the most significant decision you'll ever make in your entire life. Who do you say that Jesus Christ is? Now, that's different than saying, what do your parents think, or what do your grandparents think, or what your teacher think, or your coach, or your pastor, that's what do you say? And notice he doesn't say, what do you think, he said, who do you say that I am? In other words, there needed to be something that came out of the mouth. And notice what Peter says. Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
Let me tell you the first and most important confession that every believer needs to make is this, Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. If you get nothing else right in your life, if the world looks on and says, what a loser, and you've failed in relationships, and you failed in marriage, and you failed as a parent, and you failed in your job, and you failed financially, and you failed in every other way, if you get this one right, you're a big winner. If on the other hand, your life is going phenomenal for you, and you have a great marriage, and great kids, and a great life, and great finances, and you get to take great vacations, and everybody in the world sings your praise, and you get this confession wrong, you're the biggest loser that's ever lived.
Jesus Christ is Lord. Here in Inglewood, we put it on the wall, four words. We keep it real simple here. In Westminster, you'll see it up there eventually, because there's nothing else that's more foundational than understanding the fact that Jesus Christ is the Lord. And what does it mean to make that confession? The Bible says that we're saved by grace through faith. God gives us the grace to show us that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, but by faith, we believe when we confess it and we say it. Romans 10:9-10 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus' Lord and you believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Do you remember Jesus Christ died in the cross and rose from the dead, he appeared to 10 of his disciples. Judas Iscariot had already hung himself and 10 were in the room, and he came and appeared to them and said, "Peace be with you." And there was one disciple who wasn't there, his name was Thomas. And all those 10 ran out and said, "Thomas, we've seen the Lord." And what did Thomas say? "Ha, ha, ha, no way you did. People don't rise from the dead. I know he died and unless I see his hands in his scar, I will not believe it." About a week later, all 11 of them were together and Jesus came through the wall again, looked at Thomas and said, "Peace be with you."
He said, "Thomas, reach out, touch my hands and touch my side and stop doubting and believe." And what did he do? He made a confession. You know what he said? My Lord and my God. Confession means I'm saying what the word of God reveals by faith, I'm believing it. So there's confession of sin. Bible says in 1 John 1:8-10, "If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." That means this, all of us are sinners. Even you Christians, born again, we still sin, "If we say we're without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sin," what's confessing our sin?
It doesn't mean like, "Oh, I feel so much shame. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, I should have never done that. Oh, I struggle with that." No, if we confess our sin, it means we're saying what the word of God says about that sin, and we're agreeing with God that that is sin. If we confess our sin, God's faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanses from all unrighteousness. It means confession of sin is I am agreeing with God that it's sin, and I'm agreeing with God that it's wrong. And I'm agreeing with God, I can't change myself. Some people in the Christian world say stuff like this, "Yeah, I'm struggling with that."
A lot of guys in the church say, struggle with pornography. A lot of girls in our church struggle with an eating disorder. A lot of people in church struggle with their finances. Do you know as long as you call it a struggle, you're going to continue to struggle because you're not confessing anything. You're not agreeing with God that what you're doing is wrong. You're not yielding to him for him to make a difference. But when men get before to the Lord and say, "Lord, in my mind, I'm an adulterer. In my mind, I'm a pornographer. In my behavior, I'm a moral. Lord, and I can't change that, and I need your help. And I want to yield everything to you. And you change who I am." There's healing for that.
When women say, "Lord, it's not just an eating disorder, it's a biblical identity. And I don't see myself the way you see me and I'm not receiving your love. And I know it's sins. So Lord change who I am and I'll yield myself to you so you can change me." Guess what God does, he changes you. You got financial problems, "Lord, I don't know what to do, but if you can lead me to the right teaching, help me get the right person, I confess to you, I spend way more than I make and I'm always in debt and it feels awful. I'm confessing to you that it's wrong. Help." God can change that.
See, confession means, I'm saying what the word of God says. The most important confession you'll ever make is that Jesus Christ is Lord. Salvation is not just an idea that, "Yeah, I think he's God. My parents talked about him being God, I guess I believe that." No. Confession comes when you say that he's the Lord. And I have good news for you this morning, God says in John 3:16, that he loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him would not perish, but have eternal life. Believe. Well, what does it mean to believe? It means to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. It means you say, "Lord, I believe that. I believe you are the Lord." That's what it means.
In everywhere that we look, in the word, faith is believing and confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord. Notice how Jesus Christ responds to him. Peter tells Jesus he knows who his dad is. He said, "You're the Christ son of the living God." He goes, "I know your dad." Notice how Jesus responds, Jesus says, "Blessed are you Simon Barjona, or Simon's son of Jonah, or Simon's son of John, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven. Jesus says, "I know your dad too, his name's John or Jonah. I know your dad. The only way you know my dad is if my dad revealed to you who he was."
The only way you can ever have a relationship with God is if God the father reveals who the son is. It's by grace through faith. And God's desire is that all people would know his son. And what Jesus is rejoicing over is the fact that Peter heard the father say, "This is my son." He's the son of God. He is God in flesh. He's the Lord. And Peter is the one who speaks it out. Subsequently, all the other disciples are going to speak out that Jesus Christ is Lord. Church history tells us that all of them, but the Apostle John went to their death for the Lord, and John was exiled while he wrote the Book of Revelation.
These guys all believed that he was the Lord. When you believe that Jesus is the Lord, he's the king of kings. He's the Lord of Lords, he's the ruler of al and you're submitted to him, your life will change forever. Do you have that confession of your faith? I have good news for you this morning. It's not about coming to BRAVE Church, you can come to BRAVE Church for the rest of your life and still not have a relationship with God. You can join a small group for the rest of your life, still not have a relationship with God. You can do a lot of good things and be philanthropic and not have a relationship with God.
Having a relationship with God is understanding that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes through the father except through him. And here's the question Jesus would have for you, do you believe this? Then speak it, Jesus Christ is my Lord. Most important confession that you'll ever make. Notice what he says then, he goes on to say this, "I also say," let me tell you something else, "I also say that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." Potentially, this is the most controversial passage in the entire New Testament. There's about as many understandings of this as there are biblical scholars.
People will say things like this, "Is he building the church on Peter? Is he saying Peter's got a specific ministry that he's going to use? Or is it Peter's testimony that Jesus is the Christ that he's going to build the church on? Or is Peter really just a little stone, but Jesus is the rock, and Jesus is the foundation of the church?" To which I would say, yes, they're all true, because of Peter's confession of faith, God is going to do something special through Peter. We see Acts one to 12, Peter is the guy that God is using to build the church.
Now, I don't believe in apostolic succession, I don't believe Peter was the first Pope, but most evangelicals say, "Well, that's not true because it's too much like Roman Catholicism." No, it's too much like the Bible not to believe it. God did something special with Peter. But guess what he used, he used Peter's testimony that Jesus was the Christ. And guess who Jesus built his church upon? Himself with the apostles and the prophets. They're all true. And we argue over which one's right and which pastor should I believe and we missed the whole point of the passage.
It's the back half that he's trying to get us to see. I tell you, you're Peter, you're the rock, son of John. He tells him, "Man, you're Rocky Johnson." All right, "And upon this rock, I build my church." As soon as Peter makes a confession that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus begins to tell him about a community that he's going to build, that he's going to give his entire ministry to called the church. And notice what he says about this church, "And the gates of Hades will not overpower it." Here's the second confession every Christian needs to make. Not only is Jesus Christ Lord, but the church is invincible. The church is invincible.
The church is unstoppable, the church is uncontrollable. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Now, I got to pause here and just tell you this, as your pastor, and I've said this before from this pulpit, so this is nothing new, but some of you may need to repent like I have, because a number of years ago, if you'd have met me 15, 16 years ago, I would've told you I love Jesus. And I was preaching in stadiums and camps and prisons and everywhere else telling people about Jesus, but deep down in my heart, I had this feeling like, I love Jesus and I love the word of God, and I love people seeing people get saved, but I don't really like the church, I'm not a big fan of the church.
The same people sitting in the same seats week after week, doing absolutely nothing, just complaining about their pastor. They just say, " I love Jesus, but I don't love the church." That would've been my heart. Now I didn't go around talking like that out loud, but if you were close enough to me to press me on it, I would've told you the reasons I didn't. And as I begin to pray and read through the scriptures, God showed me, "Jeff, I died for the church, I rose for the church, I'm building my church and I'm coming back for the church. You can either sit around and complain about the church or you can get involved in the church."
I repented and came out to Denver and planted a church. Let me tell you why this is important. You can't love Jesus and hate the church. Jesus said, "I will build," whose church? "My church." Whose church is it? Jesus church. Now, I know how we talk in circles. Like I go to Pastor Jeff's church or I go to Pastor Joe's church or whatever. We're bringing clarity. But let me just ask you this question, this is not rhetorical, whose church is BRAVE Church is?
Jesus.
Yeah, you guys are getting really good at that Jesus answer. It is. It's not my church, it's not the elder's church, it's not the pastor's church. It's not the staff's church. It's not your church, it's the Lord's church. And unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain who do. And some of us need to repent. And here's what you need to repent of. Some of us think that the church is the pastor and when we leave a church, we talk bad about that pastor, and we talk bad about that denomination or we talk bad about that group of people. Don't ever do that. And if you have, repent of it, and where you need to, make amends for it.
I'm just telling you on the authority of God's word, you'll be free from that. BRAVE Church is not the church, we are a local assembly of the church. We are one of many churches around the world. Does God love this church? Yes, he died for it. He purchased this church with his own blood. He rose from the dead, he wants you to love his church. And he wants us to know this morning, the church is invincible, the church is unstoppable. He says this, "I will build my church." Have you ever noticed? Sometimes you're in a church and it's like one of the churches in the Book of Revelation where you walk in and there's like 30 people and it feels dead and the boiling pot of coffee is the most alive thing in the church?
And then afterwards, you meet one of the saints that goes there and you're like, "Nope, the Lord's still here, this guy gets it. Or the Lord's still here, she still gets it." The church isn't going away, the church isn't dying. The church will be here when Jesus Christ returns for his church.
Amen.
Jesus promised he would build his church. And what else? The gates of Hades will not overpower it. And then there's all this debate, is that offensive or defensive? because gates are defensive positioning and overpowering is offensive? Who cares? Here's what it means. The church is taking the kingdom out into the world and it's unstoppable. Death and hell can't stop what the church is doing. And even when the devil is being offensive in his means of getting to us, he can't stop what we do. Now, let me ask you this, if the devil, death and hell can't stop what we do, who can stop us? If God is for us, who can be against us?
That means there ain't no government, no politician, no teacher, no school, nothing in the world that can stop the church of Jesus Christ. And that needs to be our confession. That's always been my confession since repenting and believing that, but I tell you, the last year and a half, that confession's just gotten much stronger. Nothing can stop the church, nothing will silence the church. You say, what's the church? The church is the true people of God, people who are born again, the true people of God United together spiritually as Christ's body. The true people of God united together spiritually as Christ's body who gather for the purpose of advancing his kingdom.
BRAVE Church does not exist for BRAVE Church. We're not trying to grow BRAVE Church so we have a bigger church. We're trying to advance the kingdom of God. And to the extent that we grow, it's so that more people experience salvation and more people experience freedom, and more people experience hope, and more people are unleashed to take the kingdom out to the world. That's what it means. God loves his church and the church is unstoppable. Even when we have leadership in the church that says, "Oh, we'll just listen to whatever you say in the world. We'll stop it." You still can't stop the church. Jesus Christ is doing something in and through the church and it's the only vehicle he promises to bless.
It doesn't mean that God won't bless you if you work for a parachurch ministry or he won't bless you if you're out preaching, he blesses all true works of him. But the group that he's looking to assemble and put together is the body of Christ. And guess what? With all your strengths and all your weaknesses, Jesus Christ wants you to be part of the visible representation of the body of Christ. And you can't experience the fullness of Christ without it. And God can't get done all his work without you all working together and being who God wants you to be. Which means to say, "I'm a Christian, but I'm not part of a local church," is to say, "I'm not the fullness of what God wants me to be." Period.
Because the church is what God promises to bless, the church is what Jesus Christ is building. And when you hear people talk negative about the church, your conviction should be "No, no, no. I'm not listening to that." The church of Jesus Christ is invincible, it's unstoppable. And there ain't nothing that's going to keep it from being control. You think about this. We love reading stories in the book of Acts with guys that stood up and even when they were beaten, they were going back saying, "Oh, worthy are we to be beaten for the name of Christ? How awesome is that?" And we're like, "That's pretty cool, but that's why we're gathered here today because of a group of people that weren't afraid to give their lives for the church so that you and I could know who Christ is today. Isn't that awesome?
Jesus Christ is Lord. The church is invincible. We're known as the household of God. We're known as a reflection of his love. We're known as the kingdom, embassy on the earth. That's the church. You should love Jesus, you should love your church. If you don't love your church, go find a church you love and love that church. Well, I'll never find one that I love. That's on you. We're part of the body. We're called to love one another and be the visible representation of God's love on this planet. And then notice what else he says. He says in verse 19, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
Again, another super controversial passage. What does it mean to bind and to loose? Let me give you a third conviction. Our first conviction is that Jesus Christ Lord, and the second is that church is invincible. Let me give you the third. The kingdom is comprehensive. The kingdom of Jesus Christ comprehensive. If the church is the people of God united spiritually as Christ's body who gather to advance the kingdom, then what's the kingdom? The kingdom is this. The kingdom is the visible manifestation of God's comprehensive rule in all areas of life. I've been heavily persuaded by Dr. Tony Evans, Kingdom Agenda. And this is how he would describe it. It's the visible manifestation of God's comprehensive rule in all areas of life.
Meaning as a husband and a father and a pastor, I am manifesting the kingdom to what God wants to get done. It's so important that we do that, because so often in the church, we think the gospel is the end when the gospel is just the beginning. The gospel is the beginning of the kingdom. Jesus went out and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. I did a study on the was last year, fresh again, like, "Lord, teach me more about what you did." And Jesus went out and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. He gave his disciples the authority to go out and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. But you know what's Jesus's prevalent as the proclaiming of the gospel of the kingdom, when you study the ministry of Jesus and his apostles, healing and casting out demons.
Do you know why? Because God doesn't just want to save you, he wants to cleanse you, he wants to heal you, he wants to free you up for his glory. That's why there's a lot of Christians, they're saved, they know the Lord, but they've never truly been healed from emotional or physical wounds. They've never truly been set free for some of the baggage they had in their past. Friends, I'm here to tell you, God wants you to experience the fullness of who he is through his Holy Spirit. He wants you to be freed up, not just so you can be safe, but you can be the fullness of what you are as a saved human being, so out in the world, you're bringing kingdom influence everywhere you go.
And Jesus wants you to live that way. Some of us confess the wrong things. We confess what the a devil's telling us, and we'll say things like this, "Yeah. I'm always going to struggle with that. Yeah, my marriage is always going to be like that. Yeah, my relationships are always going to be like that. Yeah, my money situation's always going to be like that." And when you start confessing what the devil's telling you, you're going to live like that. But when you start confessing your true identity, I am chosen, I am holy, I am righteous, I am good, God loves me with an unconditional love. And if God is for me, who can be against me? He's proud of me. And in spite of my sin, he loves me and nothing will ever change that. And I start confessing things that way, and I confess, "Lord, I want the fullness of your kingdom in my life. And I want to be filled with your spirit in a way that you can use me beyond anything I could ask or think," guess what he does?
He shows up in power, and presence, and peace, and purpose, and purity, and joy, and all those things that we're desiring. However much you have of Jesus right now, I'm just here to tell you, there's more to experience. That's the visible manifestation of the kingdom. It's when people meet you that you realize, this is different, they're not just talking about God, they're experiencing God. And that's what God wants for all of us. It's his authority. And Jesus said, "All authority and heaven, an earth has been given to me, therefore go." He delegated authority to the apostles, he's delegated his authority to every single believer in his church. He's structured authority, so that there's authority that can be used and we can bind and loose. What does that mean?
That means we can permit things or we can prohibit things. We can allow things or forbid things. We can withhold the kingdom or we can extend the kingdom. You say, well, what does that mean? It means I can offer the kingdom of God to anybody free of charge because of the authority that Jesus has given to me. He saved me, so I'm just telling you, he can save you too. We can share the gospel. I can also say, if you're living in consistent habitual sin, you won't experience the fullness of God. He's not going to extend his freedom in your life while you're living in a habitual pattern of sin. But you don't have to stay there, God wants to free you.
I view myself as kind of expectant evangelical, meaning I don't just want to see people freed, I want to see bondages broken. I want to see emotions healed, I want to see habitual sin habits stopped. I want to see relationships reconciled, and I want to see freedom experienced. Because when you experience the freedom of Christ with all the joy and hope, it's amazing. I always think about our church just because the way we're named, I'm like, "Man, I want this place to be the land of the free and the home of the brave." That's who we are. That's how people should see us. Not because we speak it, but because we own it.
We're living with freedom, we're living with hope, we're living with joy, and we know that has nothing to do with me, that has everything to do with my Lord and savior Jesus Christ. He's my confession. The church is invincible, the kingdom's comprehensive. It means everywhere you go, God wants to use you. Isn't that good things? I think it's important that we say those things out loud today, don't you? Can we out loud and loudly say these three confessions? I'll say it then you repeat it. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord.
The church is invincible.
The church is invincible.
The kingdom is comprehensive.
The kingdom is comprehensible.
It's awesome. It's awesome. Can we give God praise for who he is. Now, today I want to share a couple things, and for those of you that are visiting, tune in, listen, but I think from time to time, it's important that I share some things as a pastor for what God's doing because if we really believe those three convictions, we need to be aware of how God's moving us, and what he's doing. And you to understand, at BRAVE, we're not a motorboat, we're more of a sailboat. We like to put up our sail and tell God, "You blow on us through your Holy Spirit. You take this course wherever you want, in the timing you want, and the way you want." Versus telling God, "This is my desire, you got to bless this."
It's a much better way to live. And I think it's special because there's very few times that you get to see something from the beginning. We're about ready to launch a new season in the history of our church, you're going to get to see it and experience it from the beginning. When my wife and I moved out here, I remember being in Peoria, Illinois and we were at a church service there and they probably had about 400 people at the time I guess or something like that. They had screens up in this hotel room and we were standing there worshiping and had goosebumps thinking, "Hey, one day, we're going to be at a place somewhere out in Denver. We don't know anybody there yet, and we're going to have screens and we're going to sing worship and we're going to preach. And people are going to come like somehow."
God's blessed. He's blessed it. But at the time, I was just believing everything by faith. Everything that I'm about to tell you, I'm believing by faith. Some of the things are closer to being realized than others. A couple of things I'm going to tell you, it's more of this is just my heart and I have no idea if this is ever going to pass or not come to pass. But I just want to tell you about some things that God's doing at BRAVE Church that are so special. And the first one is, it's prayer. It's prayer ministry. Every first Tuesday, I believe is the most important meeting of the month, I say it and I don't just say it because I'm a pastor, I'm told to say that I tell you because I believe it.
Having been to Brooklyn Tabernacle out in Brooklyn, New York, I've been very persuaded by their ministry to watch 3,000 people gather every single Tuesday night and pray in a way that's fervent. And I remember what it was like when we started our prayer meetings here. Some people come in and ask me questions now. And by the way, we have churches coming every single week from different locations throughout our city and around the state that want to see how we pray, because they want to do it in their church. How cool is that? So that we're spurring on prayer other churches. And for those of you who've never been to a first Tuesday, I know what you're thinking.
I went to a prayer meeting once I got invited by a guy and I went to a prayer meeting and everybody pulled out yellow tablets and they said, "Do you have any prayer requests?" And they wrote them down. Do you have any pre requests? Wrote them down. After about an hour of this boredom, somebody said, "Well, oh, we're running out of time, I guess somebody should pray." And they prayed and I thought, "I'm never going back to that. That's not a prayer meeting, that's a talk meeting." Pray, come listen to the Lord, come let him guide us in what we're doing. Come tell the Lord that we're needy and that he's worthy, and that we're dependent upon him. Let's call out to him.
Prayer ministry is the primary ministry of everything good that happens at BRAVE, and that will never, ever change because that's what God wants for us. So on Tuesday night, I encourage you to come out, especially this week because of all the things that we're launching, come pray, come seek the Lord. The things that he's doing are not things we told God we need him to do, the things God's been directing us for a season and for a long time to do. God's doing a great thing. I always want to thank God for what he's shown us. We've changed our elder and leadership structure over the last year. We've gone from having three elders to now having 13, with more coming.
And just so you know, in Westminster, you will have your own elders in Westminster. There's no doubt about it. We're vetting them right now. God's doing some incredible things. We have great men up there that are doing that. And it's just been healthy. It's the best plurality we've ever had, but we have shepherding elders shepherding, that are praying for, and pastoring, and protecting our flock, and providing for them. And we have stewarding elders that have been working with me on all the finances and are praying their socks off and saying, "Here's what we can and can't do." And then you met my friend Cal, who's a pastor, who's a supervising elder over me saying, "Hey Jeff, here's how you can seek the Lord better. And here's how you can expand vision."
And because we have people in different categories, it's just the greatest health I've experienced in our leadership culture since we started and there's more room for people to join. It's exciting. Let's talk a little bit about buildings. The reason we need to about buildings is sometimes people when they talk about building, "Why do we even talk about buildings? We don't even need a building. We don't need a building." I remember we bought this building, I had several people. We were at Cherry Creek High, "Why do we need a building? We'll never fill that thing." Our whole congregation met here and here and couldn't fill it. And we still did two services.
And the reason we did two services is said, "It's not about us, it's about who we're reaching." Westminster listen to me, you're about ready to move into a bigger building. And one of the challenges that you're going to face is this. You're wanting everybody to come. I know you do. And there's going to be a lot more people that are going to show up than have ever shown up before. But there's this thing that'll go off in your heart after about three weeks or six months, "Where did all these people come from? And how come they're leading and I've been here for four years and I'm not leading? And it used to be so much better when we were just small with just us instead of all these people coming in, why are we doing this?"
Because people are lost in need Jesus and we need to set them free. And we're going to do everything we can, not just to fill a building because we're not about BRAVE Church, BRAVE Church doesn't exist for BRAVE Church. BRAVE Church exist to expand the kingdom, to see people saved and freed up and sent out in the world and multiplied. And that's what we're going to do. So when you're looking around at all those seats, just be thinking, "Who can I be sharing the gospel with, and who can I be praying for that's going to come?" And you're going to see God do some amazing things in this season.
And the same thing's going to happen to us when we move next door at Denver First Church, and I'll talk about that in a second. I wish I had time to tell you all the different stories, in the first Tuesday maybe I'll share a couple more. I can just share what happened yesterday. I've been wanting to close these deals for like, I don't know, like a year. Here we are a week away, yesterday I'm up at Westminster meeting with their pastor, Pastor Dan, who I love and three of their elders that I've grown to love. And we've been working on this whole deal. And as we've been working it out, it's been taking longer because we've been trying to figure out, "Hey, how can we help you? And what does it look like for you to help us? And let's not make this a business deal, let's make it a kingdom deal."
And just to let you know, as we were going through this thing, we were talking about, "Hey, we'll take your debt off. And now, how about do we take the building? Do we worship center? Do you get in the gym? How are we going to do this?" And one day when I was praying, it just occurred to me, I'm like, "If they went from their gym and built a new worship center and now several years later they had to go back into their gym, that would just be demoralizing." I'm like, "God wants this church to thrive." And I'm like, "God, what do you want to do for them?"
And God put it on my heart to call the landlord that we had at Broomfield and he said, "Ask him if you can use that building." And I called him and I said, "Hey, is that still available for church?" He's like, "Well, I think we sold two of those rooms, but do you want it?" I'm like, "Yeah, but not for us, for somebody else." He goes, "I'll get back to you in 15 minutes." And he said, "If you want it, you can have it." So we told them, "Hey listen, why don't you come into this building that we put a million dollars into, we'll leave all of our equipment, we'll leave all of our screens, we'll leave all of our chairs and you guys can have a place to meet. That'll be part of the deal too."
So just you know, before you clap, just so you know, next week, we met yesterday, our attorney was on the phone with their attorney. We're on this call and I don't know if you know much about attorneys, but sometimes attorneys don't always see eye to eye on things. And it was like a love fest yesterday. I love our attorney, he's been great, but their attorney got along and they're all talking and are talking is, "Hey, the things you disagree on, here's what they're saying." Within five minutes, everybody agreed on every point. Then our guy that's brokering the deal for us called Broomfield, the guy that's doing this building and said, "Hey, here's what they wanted to change."
And within five minutes the guy got back and said, "Done." And he told me, "Jeff, that never happens, like ever." He goes, "God's all over this." So as of Tuesday, we will be signing contracts. We will own the building in Westminster and Westminster next Sunday we'll be meeting in our former Broomfield campus and we will be meeting in their new building by the grace of God. And that just got done. Amen. What's even more beautiful about this is the love that we've had with these guys as we've seen God do the work, and praying with a whole different church, and rooting for them, and cheering for them. And we'll remain friends as God does that.
And I'm telling you as, when you walk into that place, you're going to love it if you haven't been there. I know there were about 100 plus of you last night that were up there. I got to see a little picture and my heart was just thrilled. I'm like, "I remember what that was like." And next week it's going to blow you away when you see what happens in Westminster and it's just the start of something great. And I can tell you this, I remember when we planted the campus up north and we bought 300 chairs for this room and there are people telling me, "You don't even have anybody going to the church. Why are you buying 300 chairs?"
Here's my answer now, "Because we got about 700 people that need a bigger room right now. That's why we only bought 300, now we need a couple thousand." You guys are doing great things. So what about with us meeting here? We've been on my heart for a long time that this will be the brave block that this whole thing would be ministry headquarters for everything to do with BRAVE, for BRAVE Media, BRAVE Global, BRAVE Church and what we're doing. And I've been in conversation with Denver First Church of the Nazarene and Pastor Darren for about the last year here now, just trying to figure out what they needed to do and how they needed to do.
Just so you know, we've negotiated all the contracts. Those are done. We're going to be sending it to them here this week. They take a little time to look at it. So you know, 100% of their leadership is behind what we're doing for them to sell to us. But they have to vote on it as a church. The vote will probably take place in late February or early March. Once that's voted on, we will flip flop buildings. Part of the beauty of that is I'm not getting on all the money parts, but they're going to help carry back some of the lease for us and we're going to let them be here so that we can take some time to raise money and they can meet in our worship center and it's going to be good for them as they get ready to launch and find a building for where they want to be.
And it's going to be great for us because we're going to have a lot more seats. If you don't know that seat's about 3,000 over there, this seat's about just less than 1,400, I think. You say, "Well, why are we getting all these new seats?" Because there's about a million people in our city that need Jesus. That's why. And so what we're going to do is we're not buying a building so we can say, "Hey, we're a big church now." We're buying a building so that we can advance the kingdom of God through the church with the gospel of Jesus Christ with these three main confessions.
So let me tell you a couple things that we're looking to do. One is Easter. Last year we were at Bandimere Speedway. We had about 9,000 people show up about 500 people gave their lives to Christ, about 300 were baptized. We've been praying through that. We're about 99% certain. That means we're not certain, that we're going to be doing Easter Bandimere again this year. Here's what that means. April 17th could be 75 degrees and sunny, it could be a blizzard. That's a prayer request. Last year we prayed and it snowed three weeks before and two weeks after and the day we had Easter was phenomenal. We're praying for that.
If you won't be able to make to Bandimere, you probably wouldn't be able to make it to church anyway so we're going to trust the Lord with that. This year, we're going to have a lot more chairs. Last year, we had 9,000 people, this year we're going to expect double that. And we're going to see many people come to Christ and set free and heal. The goal would be, and this has not been decided, this has not been agreed upon, this is Jeff talking, not God. I would love to see us be in our new building the week after Easter. That's another prayer request. Because I think if we can have that would be a huge momentum boost for us to invite people back and have space to do that.
Secondly is this, one of the things that we've been challenged when it's been two different campuses is I know it's felt for some of you people in Broomfield, "Oh, there's BRAVE Church and then there's us." Those days are over. There's BRAVE Church. There's BRAVE Church elders, there's BRAVE Church leadership. One of the things that we're going to do this summer is High Five. This summer when we do High Five here, the week before Father's Day, which is June 13th through the 17th if I'm correct, we're doing High Five here, there may be 1,000 kids that come this year.
But here's the other thing, if you've been to the Westminster campus, it's massive. The week after Father's Day, we're doing High Five in Westminster as well. You say, "Well, why are we doing that? Because we want more people to come. Life Fellowship has about 30 kids in their kids ministry, last year they did a VBS, had 100 kids show up. We got well over 100 kids in our student ministry. I think we can have a massive amount of kids show up and their parents find a church that they can be linked to. And it's going to be awesome. It means this, we're calling everybody to step up and do what we're doing. We're calling everybody to give up their best. It's going to be an awesome some time.
So the 13th through the 17th, we'll do High Five here, the 20th through the 24th, we'll do it in Westminster. I don't even think that's on the website, I'm just talking out of my head a little bit. And then I'm saying this, when it comes to evangelism, some of you love evangelism. You look forward to just meeting people and saying, "Man, I just can't wait to tell people about Jesus and I look forward to it." Some of you your life verse is this last verse that we didn't read yet in Matthew 16:20, "Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ."
And some of you're like, "I like that one." But why did you just tell them that at that time? Do you know why? Because he hadn't died on the cross and rose from the dead. And everybody wants all the blessings of Jesus without having to repent that he died for your sins. Nobody wants the dead Messiah that rose, they just want all the blessings of God. Jesus is like, "Hey, don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody." But once he died in rose, he's like, "Now tell everybody." And in Mark 16:8, the two women run away scared. But sharing the gospel is not just sharing it with your mouth, it's sharing it through your gifts.
Some of you share the gospel through being an encourager. Some of you share the gospel through the integrity you have at work and at home. Some of you share the gospel just through your kindness towards others. There's all sorts of ways that you're living out the gospel. Now, I used to be in sales and they would tell us that the best salesmen and the worst salesmen had the exact same number, it's just that the best salesmen talk to more people. And they would say, "Hey, for every 10 people you talk to, three people will meet with you and you'll sell to one person." And those numbers were true across the board from the top agents to the bottom agents. They said, "If you want to sell more, talk to more people."
So I just started to think about this, I don't know what the numbers are in the kingdom, God can let you lead everybody. You meet the Christ, there's no magic formula for the gospel, but think about this. Tally you this number in your head for me if you would. Think about this week, how many times did you eat out for dinner where you had somebody that was a waiter or a waitress or a drive-through? How many times did you go get gas and go talk to somebody? How many times were you at a store and a checkout line or at a store where you bumped into someone? What's the number of people that you just saw or just said hello to? Was it six? Was it 10? Multiply that number by four, it's number of weeks in a month.
So if you had six, that'd be 24 people. If you just ask God to give you the courage to talk to one of them and you did that every single month, and every single month, you talked to people about how much you love Jesus and what he's doing in your life and how much you love your church, imagine if every person did that just one time a month. And for every time we did that 10 times. So if we do it over the course of the year, that's 12 times, three people came and one of those persons said, "BRAVE Church is now my home. I'm met the Lord here and I love it here and I'm being freed up here and now I'm going out to serve the Lord."
If we did that, we would double in size. And here's what we'd be saying at the end of 2022, "How are we going to get more seats?" We go buy another building. That's what he's talking about. It's not on your shoulder to go reach the world, it's on your shoulders to be obedient in this sphere of influence that you're in to love Jesus and to love your church. By the way, it's attractive to talk about how much you love your church. Do you ever listen to people like, "Yeah, I hate my pastor, the church is boring, the music's bad. Do you want to come? It doesn't work very well. And then for those of you that would say, "I'm still needing to learn how to do this. How do I do this?"
We have the Alpha Course starting on February 9th and I encourage you to go out and get information. There's ways that you can bring people here and you can sit with them at tables and learn how the gospel works and how you share it. And I've watched through all the videos and it stirs my heart because I love evangelism. And if you want to learn how to grow and share your faith, that's a great place to get plugged in, you can ask questions on your way out. Couple other things that are super exciting for me, when COVID started, we started an online campus because we had to. And we spent 13 weeks online and then I said, "That's ridiculous, we're coming back to church."
However, I've always wanted to have an online campus. Do you know why? Because sometimes people are sick, sometimes people are elderly and they can't make it. Sometimes people live too far away to get here. I want to tell you something about our online campus. Most churches when they've gone back to church, their online campus shrunk, ours has continued to grow. It's hard to know how many people are watching, we can see how many hits there are. There's one link to a certain city, we can see that, but we don't know how many people are watching. Is it one person or is it 20? We don't know. So people say, "Hey, use the number about 2.7 to multiply, and that's about average."
If that's true, we're averaging well over 5,000 people a week that are watching BRAVE Church online, Isn't that awesome? I'm getting stories from people who live in Archbold, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas, and Central Illinois, and they're gathering with groups of people that love the Lord and they're saying, "How do we get more of this?" And just so you know, we want to accelerate our campuses and we want to help you grow in Christ. And if that's something God's doing, we want to get all behind that. And just so you know, it's not just people they're sitting at home, they're not really dialed in like us. That's just not true. I saw our campus giving and our online giving.
And when I talk about online giving, I'm not talking about those of you that come in-person and give online, I'm talking about people the campuses that are home and they give online, Do you know how much money we raised from our campus last year, our online campus? Just shy of a million dollars. Isn't that awesome? Can we give God for praise for that? We're literally growing all over the world and God is using that to reach more and more people. BRAVE Media. Now, when we started out here, we got on the radio and then now we're on three or four times a day. God's used that as a catalyst for what we're doing, but for me, I know you think I speak for a long time, but do you know when I get done preaching, there's like half the stuff I wanted to tell you I didn't get to?
We just built an awesome podcasting studio, we have some ideas starting next week. Every Monday morning I wake up and I'm like, "There's seven things I should have shared about that I didn't." Now, I got the opportunity for those that want to hear more. We want to do kind of Pastor Jeff Podcast as well for people that have questions, may involve interviews for different things, but God's doing some really cool things there with some writing projects that I want to do. After preaching through Genesis and Revelation last year, I'm working with an editor to try to finish books on both of those so that we can have that.
BRAVE Global. When Kent Shaw moved out here and Jon Gaus joined, it was really a church planting network. It's still going to house all the church planting we ever want to do because we believe in the local church because the church is invincible. We love the church, but what we realize is way more than that, it's way more than just church planting for all those that are listening online or here that say, "I want to plant a church someday," we have a pathway to launch you and we want to do that. But we've learned that BRAVE Global is really a world-class training organization that specializes in mobilizing men for courageous kingdom advancement. We have an internship that meets every Wednesday night with some of the brightest young men I get to be around.
It's one of my favorite things I get to do every Wednesday night, pouring these guys for two hours. We talked about the Holy Spirit for two hours and 15 minutes the other night and I went home with goosebumps. We have training, we're training elders of other churches. We're training executive pastors of other churches. We're coaching. For some of you that heard our message on the Holy Spirit last week and you're like, "Hey, I want to know how to be rooted in the word and experienced the fullness of the spirit," we're putting together training for word and spirit ministry and how it is you can function in your gifting. There's all sorts of things that are going to come out of BRAVE Global.
And by the way, as we invert the pyramid, the reason the church is invincible is because we're not controlling it. You can either control or you can have growth. We're saying to you, if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, we want to come alongside of you and disciple you so that you're free to be the fullness of everything God wants you to be. And friends, that's not just an addition model, that's a multiplication model, which means there's things that I'm not even going to tell you about that five years from now, we're going to be doing that they were no idea of mine, they were an idea of the Holy Spirits that he put on your heart. It's exciting. God's doing amazing things.
I just want to tell you because some people ask, Well, what can I do? How do I do this?" I'm just going to be real simple. I'm not getting into all the financials today, but I'll tell you this. Here's what I ask you to do, I ask you to pray to God, "How can I give you my best time, Lord?" God's not looking for your leftover time and your scraps of time, he's looking for your intensity of time. You say, "Well, how can you give the best of your time? How can you give the best of gifts?" Every gift you have was not given to you for you to use, it was given to you to steward to the body of Christ, to advance this kingdom. How do you use your gifts the best?
And then financially, how do you give your best gifts? What does it look like? Now for those of you who are hearing me say, "Oh, here we go. Church stuff, Pastor Jeff making us come to church, making us serve, making us give our money," I'm not even talking to you. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking about you that have made those three confessions that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the church is invincible, and the kingdom of God is comprehensive and I want to give God my best. That's who I'm talking to. So when it comes to that, how do you give your best time? I don't know what that looks like for you, God does. How do you serve your best with your gifts? I don't know, God does.
What does it look like for you to give a generous gift to the church? I don't know. God does. You say, "Pastor Jeff, how much is all this going to cost?" A lot. Some of you may need to think about writing checks for seven figures, eight to the left of the decimal if you want, I'm not kidding. Some of you would say, "If I could write a check for $10, that would be a lot for me." Fantastic. God knows what generosity looks like for you. But I'm here to tell you, you can't out-give God. I want to tell you a story. I got asked to preach at Beacon, which is one of the churches that we launched last September.
Pastor CB Barthlow is a good friend of mine and he invited me to come in and it was their anniversary. And the year ago, they couldn't do it because of COVID. So I came in. And I was getting ready to preach, we were worshiping, I was there with my wife and my family and it was awesome because it was an entirely different group of people, entirely different worship set, style. And we were both like tearing up. It was like, "This is awesome." And I don't know about what you think, but when I'm over there getting ready to preach, I'm going through my notes, I'm thinking about what the Holy Spirit's going to say, I'm asking God, what do you want me to say differently this time around?" All these different things.
And I'm just worshiping and I'm looking at my wife while I'm singing and she's got that look in her eye because we know each other well enough that she's thinking, "This is awesome." I'm like, "This is totally awesome." And she's saying, "Remember when we were like this." I'm like, "I totally remember when we were like this." And we're having this moment. And as I'm worshiping, the Lord puts on my heart to give a sizable financial gift to Beacon. The biggest gift I gave all last year. And I wish I could tell you every time I heard the Lord, I'd be like, "Sure." That's not what happened. As the Lord showed me that, I'm like, "Lord, I'm here to preach, not give money."
And then I started thinking, "Well, maybe if they give me an honorarium, I'll just give that back." And then as I started thinking about this, because how many know the Lord doesn't change his mind? And I knew he wasn't going to change his mind, but then I started telling the Lord, because maybe he didn't understand that both of my older kids needed braces and that we were going to be buying two buildings and maybe the money needed to go there, and all this stuff. And when I didn't hear him change, then I said this, "Well, Lord, I'll have to check with my wife after this service."
And then I thought, "No, I'm done. I know Kim's going to agree if I heard the Lord. And so Lord, I'm going to do what you asked me to do." And so I got up and preached, came down off and we had a great time of fellowship. And on the way home, I told my wife, I said, "This is what the Lord told me we needed to give." She's like, "Do it." So we sat down on my computer, we gave the gift online, totally excited about it. And every time I give, I give expectantly, because I'm always wondering, "God, what are you going to do?" And I don't give so that he gives me stuff, I just give because I know I'm going to see him move in some way.
And for those of you that have never tithed before, those of you that have never given, this should be an encouragement to you, you cannot out-give God. When I went into ministry, I thought I could because I didn't want to be in ministry and I was a youth pastor and I made $1,000 a month and I said, "Lord, I'm going to tithe, I'm going to give you 100 bucks a month. But when I run out of money, I'm done with the ministry." It's been 30 years y'all. So that day I gave that gift and I was waiting to see what the Lord was going to do. About three months later, I got a text from somebody on our staff that counts money and they told me about somebody that gave a dollar amount.
I saw we had a big offering that week. Somebody gave a check exactly 10 times the amount I had given to Beacon. And I was like, "Man, that guy that's awesome." And at the time, I had heard a story about a guy that we could possibly hire, which I was super excited about, but it didn't click in my mind that the money was to go to him, it clicked in my mind, that's extra building money. Great. God's doing great things. And I was talking to our director of staff, I had finished the service here, I was down in Louisiana that week, it was on a Monday night and he said, "Hey, listen, we've already interviewed, you got to make decisions because these people have to decide if they're moving here or not."
And I'm like, "Just give me one more night, I'll let you know in the morning." And the next morning I got up and prayed, I'm like, "Lord, what do we do? I want to be financially responsible, I want to do the right thing, what's the right thing?" And I heard the Lord speak to my heart, I've never heard the Lord's voice out loud out here, I hear it down here. I know when he's speaking to me. And here's what he said, he said, "Jeff, I just gave you 10 times the amount of seed you sow, what you put into Beacon. If you don't sow that seed, I'm not giving you any more money." I couldn't get this guy on the phone quick enough, "Hey, you're coming to BRAVE."
How many of you remember last summer, I had a friend of mine, Luis Peralta speak for me from Mexico City, Pastors Church? Remember Luis? I heard a couple months ago some things were changing in Luis and Sylvia's life that they were looking to transition, that the church that they had planted was going to be taken over by another pastor. And the plant that they had planted had another pastor. He was in a season of transition seeking the Lord and what he would have him do. And you know it's been on my heart from the time that we started the church that we would reach Spanish-speaking people with the gospel? Friends, let me introduce to you who's coming forward, our new pastor of our Spanish-speaking ministry, Luis Peralta. Luis, would you come forward?
Let me tell you why this is cool. I've got to know... Come on up here, man. Don't be scared. I've got to know Luis Peralta for the last 10 years or so, and we've talked about you potentially coming out here. I'm like, "Why can't we get a guy like that?" Apparently, we have a lot of Spanish speaking people that come to our church and will tell me, "Pastor Jeff, you just speak too fast, I can't understand what you're saying." And about 30% of our demographic in Denver is Hispanic. Many of you speak Spanish. I don't, I could try, but I won't bore you with my, I know agracia BRAVE. I know that much. But if you were to ask me, "Hey, what date is it going to start? And where's it going to be? And what night's it going to be?"
Here's my answer, we don't know just yet, but we know God's doing something really special. And wouldn't it be cool to have a man of God like Luis that's able to preach the gospel in his native tongue of Spanish to a group of people that can come to know Jesus with different style of worship, with different everything, but be part of BRAVE Church? Isn't that awesome? And so why don't you using your native tongue just invite people to come be a part of what you're doing.
Amen. [foreign language 00:57:07]Amen. Amen.
Amen. I'll translate it.
Okay, please.
Luis said he is really glad to be here. We're going to see a lot of people coming to know Christ and he can't wait for you to be part of the ministry.
Amen. You got it right. Thanks brother. Love you.
Love you. And Luis is going to help us as well, he's an elder stature, elder qualified man, he's going to help us here at BRAVE Church as well, but that's just some really new, exciting stuff that's going to happen. We've also been wanting to help with groups. For a number of years, we've been trying to find somebody that can help us philosophically as well as theologically with what we can do. God brought us somebody, his name is Drew Land. He lives in Texas. He's been a ministry for a long time. This is a picture of his family, his wife, Megan and his kids will be joining us in June. Drew will be coming here every month for about a whole week just getting this... but he's going to be overseeing our group ministry, our adult ministry, all those different things.
Just so you know who he is, if you remember Pastor Paul Simpson from South Africa, who's one of our guys that we planted in South Africa? Drew was the one that discipled him. He's a man of God. He's a lot of fun, he's a people magnet. You can't handle, but want to spend more and more time with him. And God is just bringing us some great people. These will not be our last hires, we are in a hiring phase. Broomfield, you need to understand, sorry. Westminster, you need to understand that we are looking to staff out what's going up there as well. We are very committed to that.
And I'm telling you all this today because I think there comes a time where you got to hear it as a congregation, not just on a first Tuesday, God is doing amazing things. He's doing some things in and through our body that we can't even understand. And I remember being here when we just had handfuls of people. I remember wondering, "Is there anybody that's ever going to come?" Some of you when we move into our new building, you'll start asking the question, you'll say, "Hey, why do we need this? And why do you need that?" But here's my thing. If you will pray and say, "Lord, how do I use my time the best for you? And Lord, how do I use my best gifts for you? And Lord, what does it look like for me and my family to steward our best resources to you?
You're going to get to be part of something that's going to blow you away, blow you away. I believe that BRAVE Church's positioned to impact our city, our state, our nation and our world in a way that very few churches are going to be able to do that. And here's why, it's because of y'all. It's because you have the heart and the passion for those three confessions, that Jesus Christ is Lord, that the church is invincible, and that the kingdom of God is comprehensive, and he wants to work through each and every one of us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Amen. Can we give God some praise? Would you stand with me.
Lord, we just love you and we bless you and we praise you for all you're going to do. Lord, there are so many different things that you're going to birth out of what we're doing that we don't even know yet. So Lord, we're asking you to guide us, but we're not demanding, we're not telling you when you need to do things or what timeframe it is or how it looks. Lord, what we want is the most glory for your great name. So Lord, as we sing this song about the gospel, confirm in our hearts who we are in Christ and use us mightily to advance your kingdom through the church with the gospel. In Jesus name. Amen and Amen. Can we praise God service this morning?