Taking Ground

Sermon Transcript

Well, good morning. Will you help me welcome all of our brave campuses who are worshiping today? So great to have you as Pastor. John here in our service. Just Talked about Psalm 47 1.

Clap your hands, all you people. There's going to be opportunities today for you to celebrate all that the Lord is doing. I'm going to encourage you when you hear something from me or somebody else that's sharing today and encourages you to clap to praise the Lord for all that he's doing in and through you. Today's a little bit different message if you're visiting with us. Normally what I do is I go through a book in the Bible, verse by verse, word by word, and unpack it.

Next week we're beginning a brand new series. I'll give you a hint. It's a New Testament book. Come back. It's going to be a great series.

Today we're doing something different because it's important for us as things are developing in the church, for you as the church to be aware of all that God's doing, since you as the church are the ones that God is working through to accomplish everything that he has. And so today's going to feel and seem just a little bit different. But I know you'll leave here with a greater understanding of what brave church is, what God's doing through us. And every local church is given a specific instruction as to how they're going to lead and accomplish the Great Commission. Different churches do it in different ways.

It's important for you to understand a brave church is your home. How are we doing it? What is God doing here? And there's some very exciting things that I'm looking forward to sharing. So as we get ready to hear from him and from His Word, let's pray together as you prepare your hearts to hear His Word this morning.

Our Father, we give you all the glory because you and you alone are the one who deserves it. We give you all the honor because we humble ourselves before you and we depend upon you and we give you all praise because we are so thankful for all the ways in which you've given to us, specifically through your Son, Jesus Christ and his sinless life, his death on the cross for all of our sins, his resurrection from the dead and his return to this planet soon. We also thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit who indwells all of us who believe, who brings conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment. We pray today, Lord, Lord, that you would have your way through your Word and in our church for all that you're going to do, Lord, because we as a people believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that you are speaking. So our prayer this morning, Lord, is speak, for we are ready to hear.

And so now, for all those who have gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he says and who 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. I recently heard the story of a farmer that inherited a small plot of land. It was a couple acres. It was some rocky soil, and he had a barn that wasn't all that well put together, but to this guy, he felt like he had it all, because even on the rocky soil, he could produce enough potatoes for his family.

The rickety barn took care of his mule. And every night he would sit on the porch, he would smoke his pipe and say, man, it doesn't get any better than this. One day a stranger came and visited him, a wiry, older man, and he said to him, with a map in his hand, do you realize that there is treasure on your property? Have you ever dug deep? And he said, no, I've never dug deep.

And by the way, I have everything I need. You know, treasures for dreamers. I don't need any of that stuff. And so he sent the guy away. And year after year after year after year went by.

And one day during a storm, the barn got knocked down. And so he needed to rebuild his barn. And as he was rebuilding his barn with the shovel in the ground, he heard a thud. He felt something. And as he unpacked it, he realized there was a treasure chest there.

And he opened up the treasure chest, and there were millions of gold coins. And what the story highlights for us is that he never lacked anything. He was just unwilling to plunge the depths and go deeper than what was actually there. And I think we do the same thing spiritually when it comes to our relationship with God. We're very clear here about what the gospel is.

The gospel is not you joining brave church or any other church. The gospel is not about you becoming a better person. That the gospel is not about you. You were once not so, and now you're better. That's not the gospel.

The gospel is not about how you can become more philanthropic. The gospel is not how we can all get along. The gospel is this. It's good news. But in order to understand the good news, you need to understand the bad news, or there's no Good news.

It doesn't matter if there's a cure for cancer, if you don't have cancer. But if you have cancer and there's a cure, it's good news. The Bible makes very clear that this is the message that God is trying to proclaim all throughout the Scriptures. And that is this, that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And sin is not just that we've done some bad things.

Sin is our heredity, that from the time we're conceived, we're conceived in sin. And the problem with that is that God is not only loving, but he's holy and he's righteous and good, and he can't have sin in his presence. And as a matter of fact, he's so holy he must punish sin. So while you're an eternal being that will live forever, either with God or separated from his goodness, you will live forever. But in your sin, you can't experience the goodness of God.

In your sin, God is distant. In your sin, you can't speak to, you can't know Him. And in your sin, you need a Savior. So God the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. He sent Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin, so he didn't have a sin nature, fully God and fully man, who fulfilled the law, who did what we couldn't do, lived sinless, was completely righteous, and then in our place went to the cross and sacrificially took the full wrath of God on the cross.

And what was deserved for you was placed on Christ. And then he was buried in a grave. And three days later, to demonstrate that he was indeed God's one and only son, he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He got up out of the grave, that sin was paid for, and he began to offer life to anyone who recognized that they were dead in their sins and needed hope in a Savior for the forgiveness of sins. Because you have to realize if you don't have the forgiveness of sins, you will die and face a Christless eternity where the wrath of God will remain on you.

Because hell is not a place where God is not and God is absent. Hell is God's hell. God pours out wrath on sin because he's so holy. And what you miss out is the goodness of God. And so the message that we proclaim at Brave is the message of the Word, that God loves you so much, he didn't want you to stay in that condition.

He wanted you to respond to him by faith, by turning from your sins and turning to Christ. And by doing that, you can have life in his name. And many of us here have done that. Many of us here have turned from Christ and turned from our sin and turned to Christ. And yet for many of us who have done that, we get just as complacent as the farmer, don't we?

This is the life. I'm saved. I have enough Jesus one day I'm going to heaven. What else is there? And we get complacent in our walk with God.

If you've come to Christ five minutes ago, right now, or you've been a Christian 50 years, I'm telling you there's a depth to your relationship with Jesus you haven't experienced yet. And he wants you to experience the fullness of Him. And not only individually, but Jesus established the church. He said that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. So as a collective whole, God wants to move, move through us as a body to do his work.

And however good we think God is, which he is, and however much we think God's done, which he has, we haven't even scratched the surface of all that God wants to do. Amen. Says now to him who can do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think, according to his glorious power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in Christ Jesus and in the church forever and ever. So whatever you can imagine God doing that's biblical, he can do it. Amen.

And this story reminds me of where the Israelites were when they were poised on the side of the Jordan river getting ready to cross into the Promised Land. Because God made a promise to Israel a long, long time ago that all the land there belongs to them. And by the way, just as a side note, they never took it all. But that doesn't mean God's still not going to give it all. Because that land still belongs to Israel.

And one day Jesus Christ will return and give him all the land. But as they're poised on the side of the Jordan river, getting ready to cross, God gives them some instruction. Because you see, for 400 years, they've been crying out in slavery. For 400 years, they recognized they weren't living the fullness that God had. And they were crying out for a deliverer.

And God sent Moses. God took him out, took them out of Egypt and brought them to the banks of the Promised Land. And do you remember what happened when he did? Do you remember what happened? Moses sent 12 spies into the land.

Go check it out. Go see about this promised land. God's promised it. And they come back and they say, it's exactly like he said. There's milk, there's honey, it's amazing.

But, but, but we can't do it. There's giants in the land. We saw these people, we saw that people we can't conquer, we can't do it. And what they began to do is form a coup and they got upset with Moses. They were going to stone Moses with stones is what the Bible says.

And because of their disobedience and not going into the promised land, they got a 40 year camping trip in the wilderness. And the only two people that survived that camping trip were Joshua and Caleb. Because they were the two that said, let's take it, it's ours. God responds to the faithfulness of his people that continue to take steps forward. And Brave Church is a group of people that will always continue to take steps forward.

Amen. So as they were on the edge of the Jordan, getting ready to cross, here's the verse for today. Here's the verse for today in Joshua chapter 3 and verse 5. This is what Joshua says to the people. Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.

That's simple. Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do great wonders among you. That's the only instruction he gave them. And in that instruction we have instructions today. Because the land that we're called to take is not a physical land.

The land we're called to take is given to us in the great Commission that we're hunting for souls. We're going after people. Jesus said In Matthew chapter 28, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all. I have commanded you and I'll be with you always to the end of the age.

That's the land we take. It's a metaphoric land. We go after people where everywhere, Everywhere we go and everywhere that God wants to go. We take the gospel so that people can respond to Jesus and be the fullness of all he wants them to be. So we have more worshipers and more people on mission for Jesus.

That's why we exist. That's why Brave Church exists. That's why every local church exists. So I want to give you some instructions this morning of what you may need to do if you're Going to be the fullness of all that God wants us to be as a church for where we're going. And I'll give you three this morning, and the first is this.

When Joshua says, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. First instruction is this, that preparation starts with consecration. Preparation starts with consecration. If you're going to begin, it begins with consecration. So I said this.

Focus on maturation. I felt like a Cajun when I was making this message, by the way. I had a lot of fun with it. Focus on maturity. Preparation begins with consecration.

Consecration is the idea of being set apart. It's being holy. If you've turned from your sin and turned to Jesus, you are not the same as anybody else in the world anymore. Everything's changed. You're a new creation.

Old things have passed. Behold, all things have been made new. Becoming a Christian isn't just, oh, good, I have fire insurance. I can go to heaven. Becoming a Christian is.

The Holy Spirit is inside of me. I'm in love with Jesus. Jesus saved me from my sin. I want to love him more and more. I want to go after him.

So I'm going to set aside the things in my life that don't represent Jesus. I'm putting them off. And I'm also, at the same time, putting on the very things that the scripture tells me to do that Christ wants me to do so that I can be the fullness of him. And that's a process called sanctification, where we continue to take off the old grave clothes and continue to put on the new man in Christ so we can walk in his ways. And no matter how mature you are, you're not even close.

No matter how mature I am, I'm not even close. There's so much more when we press into Jesus that he continues to call us, take that off, put this on. Take that off, put this on. And day by day, as we take steps of faith, the Lord begins to reveal more and more of himself to us. Amen.

If you're gonna experience, and if I'm gonna experience all that the Lord has for us and the ground that he wants us to take, it starts with us individually consecrating ourselves to God. It starts with us as a church posturing ourselves before God. Consecrate and say, lord, this is your world. You gave me life. You gave me all my gifts.

You gave me all my weaknesses. They're yours. Any way that you want to use me in, any way that you want to take anything that I Have. It's all yours. You have lordship over my life, over my family, over my marriage, over my choices, over my children, over my finances.

Everything I have is a gift from you. Take it all any way you want. That's what it means to consecrate yourself. And no matter where you are in your relationship with the Lord, there's always more to consecrate. Did you know that?

I mean, you don't get to a place where I already did that. Well, as you keep growing, there's more and there's more and there's more. So preparation always begins with consecration. If you want to see the Lord do some amazing things in and through our church, it starts with you getting right with God. And notice what he says.

He says, consecrate yourself for tomorrow. The Lord will do. In other words, it's an understood, consecrate yourselves today. Like, get ready now, because it's about ready to happen. Listen, you want to get married?

Prepare today for who you're going to be married to. You're not going to become that person. Become the person now that's worthy of getting married, right? Well, as soon as I make more money, then I'll tithe. No, no, no.

Become the person now that God would use for your generous. So that if God gave you more, you would be even just as generous, if not more generous. You prepare and consecrate today for what he's gonna do tomorrow. Our world says the opposite. Our world says, well, as soon as God brings me my spouse, I'll shape up.

As soon as God gives me that new job with more money, I'll give. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. It doesn't work that way. That's why many people that win the lottery go bankrupt within a couple years. Cause if they weren't generous, then they're not gonna be generous.

If they didn't know how to save, then they don't know how to. Abundance doesn't make you a better, a better Christian. Walking with God and putting off the old and putting on the new does. Amen. So that's what he's calling you to do, to get ready.

And God wants us to continue to grow. Because I believe that God wants to do supernaturally more than all that we could ever think or imagine. Like, well, why do you attend brave church? Well, I like the preaching or I like the worship, or my cadre is good. I get a place to serve.

That's great. But why? Like, what's the benefit? Like, what's the result? I don't really Care.

I mean, as long as services still go on, I just want to attend a service. You're missing the whole mark. We're here for one reason and one reason alone to proclaim the gospel to the nations. We're here for one reason and one reason only, to expand the scope of the kingdom of God so that when Jesus Christ individually says, well done, good and faithful servant, and lines up brave church somewhere in heaven someday and says, hey, all of y'all that were part of brave, come here, I got something to show you. Well done.

Turn around and see the millions of lives that were touched by the Gospel because of your faithfulness. That's what it's all about. Amen. And so what the Bible says is that we're to go do that very work of God. Our mission statement aligns with that is to assemble a spirit filled army to fight for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our lifetime.

That's why we exist. The fulfillment of the Great Commission is to reach every person that's going to respond by faith and grow every person up so that Jesus Christ can return. And we want to do everything in our power to see that happen. Amen. So you have to prepare today.

You can't just ride the coattails of other Christians that come to church. You have to get right with God. Now for some of you, it means quit playing religious games. Just because you go to brave doesn't mean you're saved. Just because your mom and dad are saved doesn't mean you're saved.

At some point in time, if you're not in love with Jesus, you're not saved. So repent of your sin, trust Jesus and grow with them. Others of you that know Jesus, it's time to take further steps of faith for where you're at. Because if we consecrate ourselves today, tomorrow we'll see the Lord doing amazing things among us. Amen.

And notice what the second part of this is. Consecrate yourselves today. So preparation starts with consecration. But notice this anticipation when you think something's about ready to happen. Anticipation builds motivation.

Anticipation builds motivation. When you're about ready to get married, you get married the next day. You're more motivated. The closer it gets. You are.

When you anticipate something you're looking forward to, you're more motivated. So increase your expectation. Increase your expectation. Many of us come to church like, well, what do you want God to do for you? It's interesting.

When Jesus went and talked to the sick and he saw a man laying on a mat, he's like, what do you want me to do? Well, you would think the obvious answer is to heal the guy. But why did Jesus ask? Because Jesus wanted the guy to be able to tell him, this is what I want you to do. And most of us don't tell Jesus what we need from him or want from him.

We just complain that he hasn't done anything. Friends, the Christian faith is not a passive faith. It's an active faith. The church is not on the defensive, where we hunker down and say, this is all we believe, this is all that we believe, and the world doesn't believe us and we hate the world and we love God. No, the Christians are on the offensive.

We are taking the gospel to the nations whether you want it or not. Because we love our God so much. And we know if you knew him, you would love him too. Amen. That's who we are.

And so anticipation builds motivation. So what are we anticipating? What do you want to see God do in our church? And that's what I want to talk to you about. And when you have that, here's what I would say if the first one is get right and get right right now.

Second one I would say is get ready. Get ready. As a Christian, your best days are always ahead of you. Always ahead. Even during trial and tribulation, they're ahead.

Even in prosperity, they're ahead. No matter how good or bad it gets on this earth, your best days are always ahead because in the coming kingdom, it's perfect. Amen. Thank you for two people clapping on that.

And here's what I say. There's no place like the local church. If the local church is running the way it's supposed to run, there's no vehicle on the planet that has the potential of changing lives like a local church does. Politics can't change lives. Politics can make our lives a little easier or can align more with biblical principles.

And that's all great. The church has a way of changing people from the inside out. The church can proclaim a message that can take away people's sin and let them experience the love of God and complete forgiveness. The church can transform people. So where should your level of intensity go with everything you have?

To the church, to the church? I'm going to tell you, get ready, because our best days are ahead. Jesus said he would build the church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. I want to tell you this. There are all sorts of different pastors in all sorts of different denominations that are doing a phenomenal job of opening up the Word and training people in the Word and preaching the gospel.

There are churches that are worshiping churches. There are churches that are doing it. I celebrate any church that is aligned with the word of God and what they are doing, even if they nuance different things, different ways than we do. We love you. But every church has a nuance because of the people that God brings and who the leadership is and how they're called, based upon gifting, to utilize the resources God has to continue to grow his kingdom.

So I want to let you know how God's doing that here so that you can know what you're a part of. You know, the past 14 and a half years have been full. And here's what I would say about those years. God has been so faithful. So faithful.

Some of those years have gone like this. Other times, during days of those years, they felt like years where the pain has been immense. And every time, God's been a part of it. And God's good and he's faithful. When Kim and I moved out here, we only knew one couple.

Neither were really walking with the Lord. One was unsaved, and the other had just come to Christ because of the things going on in her life. And that's all we knew. That was our lunch team. I remember when we met in an apartment building.

We had 19 chairs, and we couldn't fill the 19 chairs to get people to come to what we were going to do. I remember we moved to Cherry Creek High School, and it was just empty as crickets in their auditorium when we would have service. And there was really nobody coming to visit our church every single week. I remember. But God's been faithful.

I remember when we needed to raise $1.73 million in six days to buy our what is now Brave Academy, which was our first building. And God gave us $1.93 million in six days. Miracle of miracles. And we celebrated that. Amen.

I remember when we were given a building up in Broomfield and we prayed over it, and they said, if you'll take this 13,000 square feet and turn it into a church, we'll give it to you. And so we put up a screen and they built it all out, and we started church up there. And now that congregation is in Westminster with 1500 people that come every single week. And the only reason they don't have more is because we got to get them some more chairs and some more parking. That's it.

And God's doing amazing things up there in Colorado Springs. God's doing amazing things there. Over 250 people now coming there, and they're totally alive and they're wanting to grow. And we realize we got to get them in a different location and get them a different space, and God's going to do some of the same things there. But God has always been faithful.

He's never changed. And by the way, there's no perfect church. Brave's not a perfect church. That's never been our goal. We've never tried to be.

We've never claimed that we are and we never will be. But we serve a perfect one who leads his church, and that's Jesus Christ. Amen.

So 14 and a half years in, I have the privilege of serving with a plurality of incredible men and women everywhere. I don't know if you know this or not, but on staff, between our church and school, we have over 90 employees that call Brave church their home. Isn't that incredible? I mean, we have. Come on, man, give God some praise for that.

I remember we couldn't fill 14 chairs, and we got 90 people that are serving in the church. That's a big deal. Every employee at Brave Academy is a member of Brave Church, facilitating what God does. We have incredible elders. We have supervising elders whose job is to oversee the church, to mentor me, to counsel me, to be there for me, but also in the event of a situation that gets out of hand, to be there and love the church and protect the church and take care of the church.

And in the event I can't continue my role as pastor, they would be there to help make sure that the church continues. They have incredible stewarding elders. We installed two more this last week that go over our budgets and our finances and our annual audit that we do and works with all of our lawyers and attorneys and 501c3 corporations and making sure we've dotted every I and crossed every T. Then we have shepherding elders, myriads of them, on every campus that come alongside under our campus pastor that help pray for and shepherd our people. Do a lot of premarital counseling, weddings and funerals, and all the different things that happen.

Great, great men that serve in that capacity. I mean, I'm blessed to be the pastor of this church. I mean, 100% blessed. Kim and I both feel that way. So let me tell you some of the things that are happening.

Some of them you already know, some of them you won't. You'll get to hear from some people to tell you about them. You know, I believe that you're never more Satisfied than when you know your gift that the Lord's given you and you get to utilize it in the church. Whatever God's, whatever gifts God gave you, they're primarily for the church. And so we have what we call core.

CORE exists to help you discover your unique God given abilities and gifting so you can serve the local church with a divine purpose and great joy. In our first steps classes, we help you walk through this. So you know, this is who I made. This is where I may enjoy serving and I want to serve. Serving is not a burden.

If you serve with the gifts that God gave you. It's not. If you serve in an area where you don't have a gift, it's a little harder. But if you're serving in an area that you're created for, there's great joy that comes with it. And what we call our core is champions of real people serving.

That's where we get the name core. And we want to help you discover and deploy your gifts so you can use them for the glory of Christ. Would you do me a favor? If you serve anywhere in Brave and as a school, Brave Academy, Pastor Jeff Ministries, anywhere, would you just stand to your feet so we can, we can recognize you?

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, you may be seated. You know, for those who didn't stand, here's what I'd say. There's a place for you. Because God didn't create you just to watch.

God created you to participate. So if you see all those people standing up and you're like, oh man, they got it. They don't. And not for where we're going. Because there's not a ministry in our church that would say we have too many people and we're too crowded and we don't need anybody else.

And for where we're going, we're going to need every single person here involved in the mission that God has. And then we also have cadres that exist. And cadres exist to help you to gather in community with other believers. Do you know you need other believers in your life to grow your faith? Do you know I, as your pastor, need other people in my life to grow my faith.

I don't grow without other Christian people. You need it too. They also are there to strengthen and grow your relationship with Jesus Christ through the word and prayer. Right? And they're to encourage you to go and take your next steps of faith.

So very simply, you gather, grow and go. That's it. This last year, we formed some different cadres that meet on Wednesday Night. It's been being built up. But some of you can't make it here on Wednesday night.

Some of you can't come back to church during the week. Get it? So we're expanding what we're doing because we want you to connect in community, in your homes or in restaurants or in coffee shops or in different places where you can gather and you can grow and you can go in your faith. And then I'll tell you what's most important to me as a pastor is our prayer ministry. It's foundational to me because it was foundational to Jesus.

Did you know that? And so as a prayer ministry, we do 20. We start the year with 21 days of prayer and fasting. We start the fall with 21 days of prayer. But there's all sorts of things that are going on every single month.

We gather what we call first Tuesday, the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30 to 8. Who here has been in a first Tuesday? Give God praise if you've been here on a first Tuesday.

We continue to do that. We meet weekly 6:30am on all of our campuses on Thursday morning every single week. So you can pray with the pastors, you can pray with our staff. We're here for you. It's incredible.

And then we're working on ways for you guys to pray daily so that online we'll have a prayer wall where you can post prayer requests, where people from all over the country can post prayer requests. We'll have prayer teams that are praying for those prayer requests. Because I think the more fervent in prayer a church is, the more wonderful things we see God do among that church. And the secret to everything we've done here is no secret at all. It's that we are a praying church.

We don't talk about prayer, we pray. Amen. And so that's only going to continue to grow and expand. Let me tell you some other things that are going on too. It's been really interesting for me as we got out here.

You know, we were said from day one we're going to be a church planting church. I think we planted about nine churches. But one thing that happened has happened for us over time. Everything we do. You got to understand, this church is not my vision.

It's not my creation. It was Jesus vision. It's Jesus creation and he's still the head of his church. So when we talk about where we're going to go and the strategy we have, here's what we're talking about. We have an idea where we're going and we're going to trust God to take us there.

That's what it means. And if it's not working or he's not doing something, it doesn't mean we did something wrong. It means that's not what God's blessing. So figure out what he's blessing. Over the time we've been here, had no intention of being campus led, but campuses have been what God sprung up.

As a matter of fact, when we went through three different pastors in the Westminster campus, which was Broomfield at the time, I remember going up, talking to 66 people and saying, hey, no ego, no pride, no nothing. Is this the time we need to get your own elders, give you the building, just make your own church? And 100% of the people said, no, we love your teaching and preaching. Just get us a pastor so that we can grow this thing and be taken care of. So we had Pastor Justin Hart that we sent there and everything began to expand and grow.

And God has been blessing campuses for us. And so that's what we're going to continue to do. And we want to reach more people. So now we have a Colorado Springs campus. But do you know what our largest campus is?

It's our online campus. By far, by far, we have thousands of people online. One of the things we're going to do for you, we have an online campus host. In the coming weeks, we're going to introduce to you so that you can really be invested more in the ministry of brave, through core, through Cadres, through all the stuff we do. If you live in the Denver area and you're online, we invite you to come.

Okay? But if you're gonna be online, we got ways for you to serve in the church through our online campus platform. We learned how to do this during 2020. Now we know how to do it, and we want to service you way better if you're online. So that's what God's doing.

So as we begin to pray like God, what are you doing and where are you taking us? It became very obvious, plant more campuses, plant more campuses, plant more campuses. So about three years ago, we got with some consultants, talked about what we were gonna do, and they come back with all their ideas. And one of their ideas was, like, a lot of churches our size, they said, hey, you need to build out your worship center, you need to get some other buildings. It's not going to be big enough for you.

And so they put together this plan and proposal, then they gave it back to us and it was Beautiful. Just so you know. Had a whole new kid's wing to the south of here. Had a ginormous lobby, so you didn't have to walk through 17 doors or only one door back there to get into church. I mean, it was incredible.

And then it also had two different rooms. One was 500 seat capacity, one was a thousand seat capacity. It had room for children, had room for our media. I mean, if you would have seen it from the road and I'll show it to you this fall, you would have said, wow. So they gave us the price tag.

And then they said, don't worry about the price tag because it's going to take you about three different capital campaigns to get there. But the price tag's $88 million. And I remember thinking at the time, you know, our church is generous, maybe we could get there. But I was trying to think, if I was in Westminster, would I want to give to a building in Inglewood? I wouldn't.

If I was in Colorado Springs, would I want to? I wouldn't. And then what's the big deal of getting 1,000 more seats here if it takes us 10 years to get a thousand more seats? Have we really advanced the kingdom? No.

And then you pray and you're like, God, if you gave me $88 million, would I take that and build a building? Never. I would never do that. I don't think that's a good use of resources. So as cool as that looked, we kind of came back together and said, yeah, I don't want to do that.

And all of our elders were like, yeah, that's not it. I said, well, maybe we just can build a lobby out here because that would be good and give the rest away. And that was like 15 to 20 million. And again, I went back and said, well, if God gave us 15 to 20 million, I wouldn't build a lobby. I'd go do ministry.

And so where we've resolved as an elder team is what we're going to spend our money on is, yeah, we're going to do some different things in here that we have some resources for. Some new chairs and carpet. We're going to get Westminster some extra chairs and parking. We're going to help Colorado Springs get a different building, but we're not going to put a bunch of money into buildings. We want to put a bunch of money into the kingdom.

Amen.

And there's nothing wrong with a building because everybody's like, I don't like buildings. You would not stay outside for church today. I know It's, I mean, the building is good, but it's not the end all, be all. It facilitates ministry. And having met with the Cherry Hills city council and planning and zoning teams, it would probably take us 15 years to get the building approved just to raise the money to go do it anyway.

So it's a waste of time, right? So at the end of the day, we're gonna, we're gonna plant campuses. That's what we're gonna do. And so we've been praying about where are we gonna be strategic, where's the Lord gonna take us? We have some ideas.

This fall, I'm gonna preach a four week series on it. We're putting together a mission proposal so that you'll know where every dollar you give is going to go, because that's so important for us as a church to be able to do that. But I want to let you know, God's doing some amazing things. And I would be remiss to tell you this, Pastor Adolfo that runs Iglesia Brave, how many know? We started Iglesia Brave a few years ago, right?

It was a ministry, it was doing good. Had about 50 people. Since Pastor Adolfo took over, they're now going over 250 people on a fairly regular basis. And, and, and over 70% of the people that go there are brand new believers because they lead them all to Christ all the time. I mean, it's amazing what God's doing in Iglesia braid.

And so we're, we're praying through, okay, is this going to be a campus? If it's a campus model, how do we expand it? Is this going to be Pastor Adolfo that just grows it? We're just in discussions about what's the Lord doing here. But I want to tell you something.

With AI software, I'm not only bilingual, I'm multilingual. To put the messages in Spanish for Iglesia Brave doesn't take much work. So I want to show you today a 45 second clip of me speaking six different languages. Okay? One is English.

And then we're going to show you in about five different languages what that looked like from last week's message. So if you'd roll that, let people see Isaiah 42, verse 8. He says, I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not share my glory with another. Give my praise to idols.

I'm worthy, I'm fulfilling, I'm everything that you want. Quit looking to other things.

It's kind of cool, right? My grandfather was born in Nuremberg. I would love to have a Schwarzenthraub in Nuremberg doing a campus or something. Does this mean we're going all over the world? I don't know.

God gets to do whatever he wants to do. Our job's to consecrate ourselves and be ready for what he might have. Amen. We don't know. Our vision would be we plant campuses around Denver.

We'd have a K through 8 school in every single one of those campuses. And then we'd have a massive high school here. That's classical Christian education with great sports and great academics. That sends out kids that are the next generation of brave warriors. That's what we want to do.

But as God opens up campuses around the country, we're open to whatever he wants to do. I don't know what he's going to do. When we. I got asked the question, so did my wife from day one. We started the church.

When are you going to start a school for kids? And the answer was, I don't have any plans. I don't know how to do that. We're never going to do that in 2020. When I saw what was going on in the public school and took a deeper look under the hood, I'm like, I can't stand up here and tell you that public school is bad if we don't have another alternative.

Homeschool is a great option. There's other great options. And listen, kudos to every single brave member that teaches in the public school to be a light in a very, very, very dark place. We love you. That's awesome.

And parents, you get to choose where you're going to send your kids. But we wanted to have an option so you could do that. We're in year number two. We started K5 last year. We added the high school.

We started K5 two years ago. We added the high school this year. Now we're not only doing that, but we're adding K through 3 in Westminster this next year. And if you have 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th graders in Westminster and you want them to come here, we're working out transportation systems so you can come here while we're building the culture there so we can grow it faster. The only thing we're missing from having a massive high school in the greater Denver area is about 50 to $100 million.

So if some of you want to write a check, that's awesome. And then we'll just accelerate that because we have plenty of teachers and plenty of coaches and plenty of people that want to do it. And by God's, grace. We believe it. And just so you know, just so you know, I remember when I was praying that we could fill 19 seats.

And I remember when we bought the building next door and all our elders said, don't get the risers in the back, you won't ever need them. And I remember we started filling the risers in the back. And I look around at what's going here and we will not be able to fit everybody in Inglewood. We're gonna have to expand. It's just, you have to.

If we're doing the right things and if we care about the loss, and if we care about growing people up to glorify God, there won't be enough space here for everybody. Amen. And so that's what God is doing. And I want you to be aware of that, because we're gonna start a capital campaign in the fall. It's called Taking Ground.

And that capital campaign will be a three year capital campaign for us to raise the resources to do all these things. And we're gonna ask everybody to participate. As a matter of fact, I told our staff, and we've told them before we hire them, if you don't tithe here, you can't stay on staff because you don't have the spiritual muscle to be on staff. Tithing is a position of your heart. It's not a have to, it's I get to.

And where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So I'm not going to ask our church to do something we're not going to do. Amen. We're all going to be a part of this and we're going to trust God. And it's not going to be equal amounts that we give, but it's going to be equal sacrifice that we do.

And by doing that, we're going to consecrate ourselves and see the Lord do great things. So today what I wanted to do is I wanted to introduce you to a few people that can share with you a little bit about what's going on. And first, I'm going to bring up Jake Clay. Jake Clay is the head of all of our school. Can you welcome him up?

Can you give him a hand?

Jake came to us last year. Jake loves Jesus, Jake loves the school and is doing a great job. And just so you know, you can tell him too, how many teachers are coming back next year, what our attrition rate looks like and all that. All of them. Amen.

That's pretty awesome. That never happens. So tell us a little bit About Brave Academy. Yeah. Good morning.

My name is Jake Clay. I am the head of education for Brave Academy. And I recall sitting up in that seat praying, God, use me, I want to serve. Plug me in. Where do I need to go?

And he did. I didn't realize the journey would lead me to here, but I feel like this is so fitting for taking ground right now because I'm going to tackle a giant right now. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please get your children out of public.

As a former district level administrator, I know it's. I am hopeful, I am very hopeful for what this next administration is going to bring, for what's going to happen with the department, Department of Education. But we can't bank our hope in that. We put our hope in Christ. And I know that what you have seen is they have changed.

They have taken academics and they've replaced it with agendas. And I won't even tell you what they have in store for the future generations which may completely remove the classroom teacher altogether. I would love to tell you more about that. I don't have limited time here today, but join me through Thursday over at the Academy at 5:30pm and I will tell you this and a whole lot more, but I want to tell you also a message of hope. What Brave Academy is doing, Christ centered, spirit filled.

What happens in those classrooms is phenomenal. The phenomenal teachers, leaders, staff that we have there, it is incredible to be part of this and humbling to see every single day what is going on within those classrooms for these students. Because I will tell you the whole reason why these teachers, why every single one of in my over two decades of experience have never had a school in which every single teacher has wanted to come back. But they do because they love these kids. And I see it and I see their heart.

I see how they interact with these kids. They want them to have the ability, they want to have the intellect and the virtue so that way they can fully do everything that God has in store for them once they leave our school.

And I look around this room, you know somebody who has kids, you probably have kids yourself. Sign up for a tour today. We'll be out in the lobby, we'll have a table out there sign up for a tour today. And I look forward to seeing you on Thursday at 5:30 over at Brave Academy. Thank you.

You know, sometimes I get beat up when we say things about the public school. I want to tell you this. My experience has been when I see a person graduate from the public high school, it's a rare case when that student is sold out to Jesus. It's just rare. Not that it doesn't happen and you as parents get to choose, but if you're going to indoctrinate your kids with everything that this world is saying, don't be surprised when they grow up and follow the world instead of following Jesus.

I just believe that with my whole heart. That's why we have another option. Thank you to all of you who have supported that mission financially with your prayers. And can we give praise to God for the teachers that we have and what they're doing at Brave Academy. Love them.

So a lot of people will say, well, brave, that's good, that's brave. That's your church. What about the world? Thanks for asking. Because our mission is to assemble a spirit filled army to fight for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our lifetime, which means we want to partner with people on the front lines that are doing things in other places and in other regions beyond what we can be.

And about eight years ago, my good friend Dale Hanson and I were in South Africa. Met a friend named Paul Simpson, became a kindred with him. Paul runs a ministry called Issachar Ministries and he has planted over 350 churches in South Africa and all up the East African coast into the Middle east as far as Miramar. And I want to bring him up and share with him what we're doing with him and how you can get involved doing it.

Thanks, brother. Morning, Brave Church. How are you doing? Good. It's great to be, it's great to be back with you.

Just want to read a scripture. Romans 10, verse 13 says, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Hallelujah. But how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him in whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? And friends, I want to thank you this morning for your partnership in sending men and women to some of the darkest places on the earth today. Brave Church has partnered with Issachar for a number of years and we're excited about the way forward for that we get to partner with people in some of the darkest places on the earth today. Do you know 42% of the world's population have no way of hearing about the gospel?

This incredible message that you hear week after week that I get to hear this good news that saved us 42% or three and a half billion people around the world today have no access to that whatsoever. They live in places. They live in families and cities and villages where there are no believers, where nobody there has ever heard the name of Jesus before. It's not like they've heard and have rejected Jesus like they've got something better to do they've never, ever heard. And God promises that he wants every single one of those people to be saved.

That's what the word of God says. Hallelujah.

Let me put that in perspective. Three and a half billion people. It's like the city of Denver, the Denver Metro area times 1100. Can you imagine 1100 Denver areas? Those people have never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel or it's 10 United States of America.

You live in a great nation with a bunch of people, but if you Times that by 10, that comes close to what is out there in people who've never had the opportunity to hear the gospel. And because of that, Jesus wants us to go. Because of that, Jesus wants us to partner together in whatever way we can to take the good news to those who have never heard it before. God has been so gracious to us over the last years, we've managed to break into some of these nations, nations you see on the news for all the wrong reasons. And yet God is at work in those places.

Just in the last six months, God has really established. I work in North Africa and the Middle east and opened some incredible doors to countries that you only see on the news for bad reasons, like Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Sudan. These doors are open for us to go and support our brothers and sisters who are going into these places. Hallelujah. Praise God.

It really is really is my joy to be able to tell you about these things. But you know what's even better? Come and have a look one day for yourself. There's a team coming out in a few weeks, and then at the end of the year, another team coming. And Brave has been doing this for a number of years.

Come and see what God is doing in the nations, not just here in Denver, but all over the world. Guys, thank you so much for your partnership. God bless you. Thanks, Paul. Love it.

Thank you to Paul. I know we're like he said, we're taking a mission trip here in just a little bit. One this fall, I'm getting to go to Tanzania, or as he would say, Tanzania, to train 55 local pastors and ministry leaders from 11 different countries here at the end of May. So I'm excited about that. And we're going to continue our partnership but we're also praying for other Pauls around the world, on different continents that we can partner with to take the gospel to the lost.

And we want you to be a part of that. So if missions beats in your heart, we have ways for you to sign up. We have a QR code at the end. Get involved and allow the Lord to use you. And what you'll find is when we go do short term mission trips, it blesses you even more than the people that you're going to because you get to see God at work in many different contexts.

So we're thankful for that. One thing we've been praying about is we've been praying about campuses. You start thinking about brick and mortar, you start thinking about buildings, you start thinking about cost. How much is that gonna cost? How many participate in our 21 days of prayer and fasting?

Okay, One of the ways I was praying during the 21 days of prayer and fasting was, lord, how do we get more people? How do we reach more people for less money? God put Matthew 25 on my heart, which says this. I was in prison and you visited me. And I began to think, because we have a number of people that serve time in the Department of Corrections that attend Brave now and started thinking, how do we get into prisons and what do we do?

And I began to pray fervently. About that long story I don't have time to tell you about. During 21 days of prayer, a couple men on our team, on our staff team, ended up running in to somebody that said, you need to meet this guy who introduced us to another guy. And I had lunch with this guy down in Colorado Springs about three weeks ago, and we were sitting at lunch. Former prisoner has been doing prison ministry for a number of years.

And we're sitting at lunch. We're there for like a half an hour. My heart's beating out of my chest and I'm like, Howie, why are you not part of Brave right now? So we can take Brave behind bars. And I was with our executive pastor.

He goes, well, there is a process. I'm like, well, what's the process? And so we started, like, let's finish the process today. And so we did, and we hired Pastor Howie Close, who's now our pastor of prison ministries. And so would you welcome up Pastor Howie?

You're going to want to hear a lot more of his story than he's going to be able to share today, but give him your attention. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Brave Church. My name is Howie, obviously, and Just want to share a little bit of my story with you. I was born in Orlando, Florida, two days before Roe v.

Wade was passed. And because of the circumstances surrounding my conception and birthday, I grew up most of my young life believing that I was a mistake and that I did not have a right to exist and probably should just die at any moment. And that sounds kind of extreme, but that's just the reality I was living with. And because of how I felt about myself, that caused me to act out in ultra violent ways towards other people. And so my whole young life was marked with violence.

And by the time I was 17, I was pretty accomplished semi pro kickboxer. And I just fought. Everything I did was fighting. I came out here in 1990 from Orlando to visit my mom. I was here less than two months and I instigated a fight in Dartmouth park over on South Federal with six Japanese exchange students.

And I was white and poor and from the south and they were rich and not white. And Colorado had just passed their brand new hate crime legislation. And so I was the first person to be tried and convicted of the hate crime in Colorado. And for a 92nd street fight when I was 17 years old, my victims had cuts and bruises, not even a broken bone. I just want to say here that I did wrong and I deserve to be punished.

I'm not mitigating what I did, but for that 92nd street fight when I was a teenager, I got 75 years. I was supposed to die in prison when I turned 18 in the Denver County Jail. And when I turned 18, they put me in general population. And a guy older than me and bigger than me wanted to take advantage of me. And I hurt that man really badly.

And because of that scuffle, they put me in segregation. The whole, the inmates called the hole in the old Denver County Jail here the dark side. And when they put me in that space, I found an old, beat up, torn up, tattered Bible underneath the toilet. And I started reading it out of sheer boredom because I had nothing else to do in there. And for the four months that I was in that space, all I did was read that Bible and I came out different.

And I wouldn't know until later on and I would start to tell people the light found me on the dark side.

I promptly got my 75 year sentence and went to prison. Just because you find Jesus, it doesn't mean all of your life is fixed instantly, right? And so I got to prison and I started to engage with the church and I started to become a leader. In the church there. And fast forward 20 years and 5 months.

The Supreme Court cut my time, and I was able to get out on parole. And for the last 14 years, I've been doing work in those same prisons. I'm the first offender in the state's history to ever carry keys to the prisons I grew up in. Amen.

So what the Lord has done with me in that ministry over the last 14 years has. Has been. Has been crazy and unexpected. And then I get a call from these amazing people, and I get to experience this just the last few weeks. And I told Pastor Jeff, like, it feels like this place.

Like, I don't want to be like. Like on an ego trip or anything, but I feel like the Lord built this place just for me. And, like, my. My soul resonates with this place because you are a storming church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against Brave Church.

And I am super excited to be on staff here and my family to be able to be a part of this and just be praying with us. We're going to do some amazing, crazy, great work over the. Over the upcoming months and years. And, yeah, we're going to do prison ministry at Brave Church, and it's going to be cool. Amen.

Thank you.

So when we talk about prison ministry, we're not just talking about dropping a screen, which we're talking about doing. We're not just talking about having worship, which we're talking about doing. We're talking about making disciples in the prison. Our campus pastors will be prisoners. Our cadre pastors will be prisoners.

Our core pastors will be prisoners. And we're going to disciple the prisons. There's 19 Department of Corrections facilities in Denver or in Colorado. We'd love to be in all of them. And there's also federal prisons that have already started calling Pastor Howie, saying, would you come to us so it knows no bounds where God could take this.

And so again, I'm calling you to pray, calling you to participate, being a part of all that God wants to do with what we're doing.

So you're going to have an opportunity if you want to be able to go into prisons and serve. You're going to have opportunities when people get out of prisons to help facilitate and get them involved in a local church, Brave Church, because they all get dumped down at the same place when they get out and they need help and they need people to come along. So we want to do that. That's God opening doors. Now, you may ask this if we're going to put campuses all over the city.

We're going to put campuses all over the nation. Where are we going to find these people? Like, I want you to know they're already coming to us. And one day, they're going to be coming from all around the country and fighting for positions to be part of what we used to call our internship. We don't even have a name for it anymore, but we have pathways to help develop leaders here.

And Pastor Justin Hart, who helped us start our campus up in Westminster, is taking that and led it last year. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what we're doing?

Every time I hear Howie's testimony, I get testimony, remorse. You know, I'm like, ah, if I would have done cocaine, my story would be so much cooler. You know, brother, it is such a blessing to get to know you and hear about what God did in your life. What. What's so cool, Brave Church is that God really is raising up leaders right here.

We have a ton of people on staff that started, came, and just got their life wrecked by the gospel. And now we're actually pastoring and ministering to people in this congregation. I came here because the people, the stock at Brave Church wanted to make disciples, not just have people sit in seats. So since I've been here, I've just been so passionate about seeing people raised up for the gospel and sent out for the kingdom. And Pastor Jeff has just been behind that and hammering on that since I have known him.

And I. I just. I love it. I'm so grateful for it. So what we're doing and what I've been working on with Pastor Jeff and some of the other pastors is just hammering out a bunch of solid curriculum so that we can ra these up, really more elders, more pastors, and more key ministry leaders so that we can send them.

And I don't know if you're hearing this, guys, but between schools and campuses and prisons, our pastor has a massive vision. And because of that, we're going to need a massive leadership team to establish what God is doing through the kingdom, not just here, but really all over the world. So if you guys would be praying for us Monday, we're actually kicking off another session with about 40 guys who are jumping in and saying, God, do something with my life. Use me in a unique way. And I'm praying that God would use our campuses and the people here at Brave Church to just start a wave of the faithful men and women from Brave Church who would be able to send literally all over the world to transform the world around us.

Amen. Let's give God some praise for that promise. I'll wrap this up really fast. One other thing. Our ministry that used to be called Brave Media is now being called Pastor Jeff Ministries.

Pastor Jeff Ministries is where our radio ministry goes around the world. You need to know that we're on 400 plus stations, including XM Radio. We're on every single day. We're getting letters from all around the country of people that are tuning into our preaching. There's an app called Pray.com.

we have over 82,000 people who have signed up for my preaching. To be part on that app, which they said is very unheard of, is not the norm for what God is doing. We believe as the message of Brave goes around the country, all it's going to do is raise up other leaders that want to be part of what Christ is doing all around our country and all around our world. And we're trusting God for great things. Now this fall, we are going to start a capital campaign.

It's a three year capital campaign. It means give generously. You say, well, how do I do that? Start now. Consecrate yourselves today.

Start small. If you're faithful with little, you'll be faithful with much. Let me give you his last point here before we close and that is this. That if we're going to consecrate ourselves today because the Lord's going to do great and mighty work among us and we're going to see his wonders. Participation requires activation and so accept the invitation.

You can sit here and be like that. Sounds good. I'm glad I go to this church. A lot of people are going to do a lot of great things. No, no.

You're here so you can do great things. You're here so that you can be involved. God created you for great things for him. Now our taking ground capital campaign. You see the logo behind me?

You may have seen our logo before that guide on flag. And just so you know, because I don't think I've ever shared what it is. A guide on flag is a triangular cut flag out of a rectangle. It's called a swallow tail and it's used in the military. Let me tell you what it's for.

It's used to symbolize the identity of a specific unit in leadership. It marks the commander's presence. Every time the commander comes that's given the charge, they fly that flag. It rallies the troops and honors the unit's history. It's always carried by a bearer.

And it fosters discipline in a spree esprit de corps, serving the visible standard for action and unity in the battle ceremony or ceremony. So for us, God on flag's been our logo for Brave. Now here's what you need to be reminded of when you see that guidon flag. There's five stripes on that flag and they're red. That reminds us of the blood of Jesus and that by his stripes we are healed.

That's what our guidon flag is about. The brave. The five stripes remind us that we are bold, resolute, authentic, virtuous and engaged. It promotes teamwork in our mission, symbolizes our unity and identity in Christ. It unites our body of believers.

And here's what it signals. It signals the commanding presence of our head officer, the Lord Jesus Christ, everywhere we go. Amen.

So as we talk about taking ground, that's what's coming. This was to whet your appetite so that when you started hearing about taking ground and you're like, what's that? I don't even know what it is. It won't even start until this fall. But I wanted to let you know God is building things so fast and so quickly that I didn't want us to start prison ministry and more schools and more campuses where you were saying, why are we doing this?

And what's going on? This is what we're going to do until Jesus gets back. So even on our website, you'll see a taking ground way to give. If you want to start giving, you can do that. But I'm not even asking you for.

I'm asking you to do things. Pray and obey. That's it. How would the Lord have you participate and just obey what he tells you to do? It's that simple, right?

It's not a big ask. It's just, lord, I want to be obedient to you. What do you want me to do? It's that simple. But I believe as a church that we have the potential as a church, if we do the things that God requires of us and stay humble and seek him, he will do so many amazing things among us that this is just scratching the surface of what those things are.

And that one day there'll be millions and millions of people that are walking with Jesus because of the faithful remnant that's here in Denver, Colorado. I believe that with my whole heart. Amen. Amen.

I'm very excited about what the Lord's doing in his church. I'm very excited that we get to do it together. And I'm very excited for how the Lord's going to call you to participate. Would you stand with me as we close today? Father in heaven, we give you praise, glory, and honor.

Lord, I know it's a little bit different day to not stand here and just proclaim your word, but, Lord, I think it's important that we heard what you're doing, and we give you praise and thanks for all that you've done, Lord. You've been faithful, faithful, faithful. And, Lord, you're giving us an incredible opportunity to go and take ground for the kingdom. We love you, we bless you, we honor you. We give you all the praise in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen and amen. Could we give praise to our God for all he's doing?