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Mission Critical: Three Critical Confessions
January 30, 2022 · 1 hr 1 min
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. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
Series BRAVE Church January 30, 2022 · 1 hr 1 min · BRAVE Church
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. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub ...more Show the full description Show less 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. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
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0:00 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 this0:10 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 what0:22 he shows you. Will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word, amen. Amen. When a space shuttle or rocket ship is gonna take off, and you get down to about 10 seconds, you0:33 hear T minus 10, and then T minus 9, 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 of0:45 that rocket and you recognize, if you've been to Cape Canaveral, you gotta 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 about0:57 our church this week, I was thinking, God is about ready to unleash some very new things that we've never experienced before. Some super exciting things that God has done, which is why this series mission critical has1:07 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 played1:17 football with in college, it'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 to1:27
1:38 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. Amen? In this series, we've been talking about how Jesus
1:50 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 gonna talk about 3 critical confessions that every believer needs to
2:02 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 3
2:14 confessions. And today we'll conclude our series. Next week for those of you that 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 gonna
2:24 start that book, we're so excited about that. Powerful book, never preached through it before, can't wait to do that, but today we wanna talk about what it looks like to make these 3 critical confessions. Now, just so
2:34 you know, when people hear the word confession, here's what they think, Sin, I gotta 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
2:45 exactly what the word of God says, until by faith you believe it. And there's 3 critical confessions that we need to make as believers in Christ in order for God to do in and through us everything that
2:57 God would want us to accomplish for his kingdom name. And so to take a look at that this morning, I wanna take you to a familiar passage with Jesus and his disciples found in Matthew chapter 16 verses 13 to 20. Matthew
3:09 chapter 16 verses 13 to 20, I'd like to read that aloud while you're looking at it, where you're at and then unpack what 3 confessions that you need to make. It says now, when Jesus came into the district of
3:20 Caesarea 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 1 of the prophets.
3:33 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 Bar Jonah because
3:45 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
3:56 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
4:07 1 that he was the Christ. And here in this short little interaction with Jesus and his disciples, we see 3 confessions, critical confessions that every single believer must make.
4:19 Now get the picture here. Jesus traveling a few miles north of Galilee. He goes into the town of Caesarea Philippi. We don't, may not know a lot about that town, but Caesarea, Caesarea was
4:31 named after the emperor Caesar, and King Herod Philip, so you have Caesarea Philippi. It was named after the emperor and the king. The height of all pagan worship took place there. If there was any
4:43 place in the world where there was some sort of pagan deity being worshipped, it would have been in Caesarea Philippi. It was a place Jesus took his disciples to see what the world was saying about who God was and in the
4:55 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 his disciples begin to answer and that's not a very threatening question, is it?
5:06 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
5:18 others Jeremiah, even 1 of the prophets. We're hearing a lot of things about you Jesus. 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
5:30 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 you know, he didn't exist. People just make it up. It's just
5:42 a myth in a story. But then Jesus took the question from the general to the more specific and he's asked this question, but who do you say that I am? Friends, I'm here to tell you that your response to Jesus' question
5:53 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
6:03 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
6:14 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
6:26 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
6:37 life, if the world looks on and says, what a loser, and you failed in relationships, and you failed in marriage, and you failed as a parent, and you failed in your job, and you
6:49 failed financially, and you failed in every other way, if you get this 1 right, you're a big winner. If on the other hand, your life is going phenomenal for you, and you
7:01 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
7:13 that's ever lived. Jesus Christ is Lord. Here in Englewood, put it on the wall, 4 words, we keep it real simple here. In Westminster, you'll see it up there
7:25 eventually Cause there's nothing else that's more foundational than understanding the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. And what does it mean to make that confession? The Bible says that we're saved by grace
7:36 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 chapter
7:48 10 verses 9 and 10 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. I mean, you remember after Jesus Christ died on the cross and
8:00 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
8:12 1 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? No way you did. People don't rise from the dead. I know he died
8:24 and unless I see his hands and 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,
8:36 Thomas reach out, touch my hands and touch my side and stop doubting and believing. What did he do? He made a confession. You know what he said? My Lord and my God.
8:48 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 one:eight through
8:59 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. Amen? If we say we're without sin, we
9:11 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
9:23 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
9:34 faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us 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
9:45 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, struggle with pornography. A lot of gals in our church struggle with an
9:57 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 gonna continue to struggle, because you're not confessing anything. You're not
10:09 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 the Lord and say, Lord, in my mind, I'm an adulterer. In my mind, I'm a pornographer. In
10:20 my behavior, I'm a moral. Lord and I can't change that and I need your help and I wanna yield everything to you and you change who I am. There's healing for that. When women say, Lord, it's not just
10:32 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 sin, so Lord, change who I am and I'll yield myself to you so you can change me.
10:44 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 and help me get the right person, I confess to you, I spend way more than I
10:53 make and I'm always in debt and it feels awful, but I'm confessing you that'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
11:05 that Jesus Christ is Lord. Right? 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.
11:17 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
11:29 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
11:39 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
11:51 Christ responds to him. Peter tells Jesus he knows who his dad is. He said, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. He goes, I know your dad. He knows how Jesus responds. Jesus says, blessed are you
12:03 Simon Bar Jonah or Simon son of Jonah or Simon 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
12:15 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
12:26 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
12:38 son. He's the son of God. He is God in flesh. He's the Lord and Peter is the 1 who speaks it out. Subsequently, all the other disciples are gonna speak out that Jesus Christ
12:50 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
13:02 believe that Jesus is the Lord, he's the King of Kings, he's the Lord of Lords, he's the ruler of all and you're submitted to Him, your life will change forever. Do you have that confession of your faith? I have good
13:13 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,
13:21 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,
13:31 and the life, and that no 1 comes to the Father except through him. And here's the question Jesus would have for you. Do you believe this? Then speak it. Jesus
13:43 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.
13:54 I also say that you are Peter and upon this rock, will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Potentially, is the most controversial passage in the entire New Testament. There's about as many trans
14:06 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 gonna use
14:19 or is it Peter's testimony that Jesus is the Christ that he's gonna 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
14:30 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 1
14:42 to 12, Peter is the guy that God is using to build the church. Now, 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
14:54 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
15:06 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 miss the whole point of the passage. It's the back half
15:18 that he's trying to get us to see. I tell you, you're Peter, you're the rock, son of John. Tell him, man, you're Rocky Johnson, alright? And upon this rock,
15:30 I will 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 gonna build, that he's
15:42 gonna 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
15:53 make. Not only is Jesus Christ Lord, but the church is invincible. The church is invincible. The church is unstoppable. The church is
16:05 uncontrollable. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Now I gotta pause here and just tell you this, as your pastor, I've said this before from this pulpit,
16:17 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 have told you I love Jesus and I was preaching in stadiums and camps
16:28 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, I don't really like the
16:39 church. 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. You say, I love Jesus, but I don't love
16:51 the church. That would have 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 have told you the reasons I didn't. And as I began to pray and
17:01 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
17:13 the church or you can get involved in the church. I repented and came out to Denver and planted a church. Okay. Let me tell
17:25 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
17:36 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
17:48 question, this is not rhetorical. Whose church is brave churches? Jesus. Yeah, you guys are getting really good at that Jesus answer. It is. It's not my church, it's not the elders church, it's not the pastor's
18:00 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
18:12 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
18:24 people. Don't ever do that, and if you have repent of it and where you need to make amends for it. I mean, I'm just telling you on the authority of God's word, you'll be free from that, right? Brave Church is not the
18:35 church. We are a local assembly of the church. We are 1 of many churches around the world, right? Does God love this church? Yes, he died for it. He purchased this church with his own blood.
18:47 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
18:59 my church. Have you ever noticed sometimes you're in a church and it's like 1 of the churches in the book of Revelation where you walk in and there's like 30 people and it feels dead and the cup of, you know, the boiling
19:09 pot of coffee is the most alive thing in the church and then afterwards you meet 1 of the saints that goes there and like, nope, the Lord's still here, this guy gets it or the Lord's still here, she still gets it.
19:21 The church isn't going away, the church isn't dying, the church will be here when Jesus Christ returns for his church, okay? Jesus promised he would build
19:33 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 and because gates are defensive positioning and you know, overpowering's offensive.
19:46 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
19:58 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
20:10 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
20:21 Christ, amen? And that needs to be our confession. That's always been my confession since repenting and believing that, but I tell you in the last year and a half, that
20:33 confession has 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
20:45 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
20:57 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
21:09 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.
21:21 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
21:31 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 it won't bless you if you're out preaching, he blesses all true works of him, but the group
21:43 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
21:55 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
22:05 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
22:17 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 gonna keep it from being controlled, amen? Amen. You
22:28 think about this, I mean we love reading stories in the book of acts with guys that stood up and even when they were beaten, were going back saying, oh, worthy are we to be beaten for the name of Christ. How awesome is
22:38 that? And we're like, that's pretty cool. Mean, 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
22:50 who Christ is today. Right, ain't that awesome? Jesus Christ is Lord. The church is invincible. We're known as the household of God. We're known
23:02 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
23:14 love your church, go find a church you love and love that church. Well, I never find 1 that I love. That's on you. We're part of the body. We're called to love 1 another
23:26 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
23:36 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.
23:49 For our first conviction is that Jesus Christ is Lord and the second is that church is invincible. Let me give you the third. The kingdom is comprehensive. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is
24:00 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
24:10 comprehensive rule in all areas of life. I've been heavily persuaded by Doctor. Tony Evans' kingdom agenda, and this is how he would describe it. It's the visible manifestation of God's comprehensive rule in all
24:22 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
24:33 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 gospels last
24:45 year, fresh again, 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
24:54 what's just as 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?
25:06 Because God doesn't just wanna 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 that are saved, know the Lord, but
25:17 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
25:28 of who he is through his Holy Spirit. He wants you to be freed up not just so you can be saved, 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
25:39 everywhere you go and Jesus wants you to live that way. Some of us confess the wrong things. We confess what the devil's telling us and we'll say things like this, yeah, I'm always gonna struggle with that.
25:51 Yeah, my marriage is always gonna be like that. Yeah, my relationships are always gonna be like that. Yeah, my money situation is always gonna be like that and when you start confessing what the devil's telling you,
26:00 you're gonna 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
26:12 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
26:23 kingdom in my life and I wanna 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
26:35 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
26:47 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 in heaven and
26:59 earth has been given to me. Therefore go. He delegated his authority to the apostles. He delegated his authority to every single believer. In his church. He structured authority so that there's authority that can be used
27:10 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,
27:21 what's 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.
27:33 I can also say if you're living in consistent habitual sin, you won't experience the fullness of God. He's not gonna extend his freedom in your life while you're living in a habitual pattern of sin.
27:46 But you don't have to stay there. God wants to free you. I mean, I view myself as kind of a expectant evangelical. Meaning, I don't just wanna see people freed, I wanna see bondages broken.
27:58 I wanna see emotions healed. I wanna see habitual sin habits stopped. I wanna see relationships reconciled and I wanna see freedom experienced. Because when you experience the freedom of Christ with all the joy and
28:10 hope, it's amazing. Mean, 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. Right, that's who we are. That's how
28:21 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, has everything to do with my Lord
28:33 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
28:45 important that we say those things out loud today, don't you? Can we out loud and loudly say these 3 confessions? Yes. I'll say it, then you repeat it. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
28:56 The church is invincible. The church is invincible. The kingdom is comprehensive. The kingdom is comprehensive. It's awesome. Yes. It's awesome. Can we give God praise for who he is?
29:12 Now today I wanna share a couple of 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
29:21 really believe those 3 convictions, we need to be aware of how God's moving us and what he's doing. And you need to understand it Brave, we're not a motorboat, we're more of a sailboat. We like to put up our sail and
29:33 tell God, you blow on us through your Holy Spirit, you take this course wherever you want, in the timing you want, in the way you want versus telling God, this is my desire, you gotta bless this. It's a much better way
29:43 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 gonna get to see it and
29:54 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
30:03 like that. They had screens up in this hotel room and we were standing there worshiping and had goosebumps thinking, hey, 1 day, we're gonna be at a place somewhere out in Denver. We don't know anybody there yet and
30:13 we're gonna have screens and we're gonna sing worship we're gonna preach and people are gonna come like somehow and God's blessed it. He's blessed it.
30:27 But at the time, I was just believing everything by faith. Everything that I'm about tell you, I'm believing by faith. Some of the things are closer to being realized than others. A couple of things I'm gonna tell you,
30:36 it's more of this is just my heart and I have no idea if this is ever gonna pass or not, come to pass, but I just wanna tell you about some things that God's doing at Brave Church that are so special and the first 1 is
30:45 this, it's prayer. It's prayer ministry. Every first Tuesday, I believe is the most important meeting of the month. I say it, I don't just say it because I'm a pastor and I'm told to say that, I tell you because I
30:54 believe it. Having been to Brooklyn Tabernacle out in Brooklyn, New York, been very persuaded by their ministry to watch 3000 people gather every single Tuesday night and pray in a way that's fervent.
31:06 And I remember what it was like when we started our prayer meetings here. So 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
31:15 and around the state that wanna see how we pray, cause they wanna do it in their church. How cool is that? Yes. So that we're spurring on prayer in other churches. And for those of you who've never been to a first
31:25 Tuesday, I know what you're thinking. I went to a prayer meeting once, I got invited by a guy, I went to a prayer meeting, everybody pulled out yellow tablets and they said, do you have any prayer requests? And they
31:33 wrote them down. Do you have any prayer 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
31:42 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
31:54 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
32:05 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
32:14 told God we need him to do. They're things God's been directing us for a season and for a long time to do. God's doing a great thing. I also just wanna thank God and for what he's shown us. We've changed our
32:26 elder and leadership structure over the last year. We've gone from having 3 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
32:37 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
32:46 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
32:56 saying, here's what 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
33:05 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
33:15 about buildings. The reason we need to talk about buildings is sometimes people when they talk about building Why don't talk about buildings? We don't even need a building. We don't need a building. I remember we bought
33:25 this building. I had several people. We were at Cherry Creek High School. 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 2 services.
33:37 And the reason we did 2 services, I 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 1 of the challenges that you're gonna face is
33:49 this, you're wanting everybody to come. I know you do and there's gonna be a lot more people that are gonna show up than have ever shown up before. But there's this thing that'll go off in your heart after about 3 weeks
33:58 or 6 months, where all these people come from and how come they're leading? I've been here for 4 years and I'm not leading and it used to be so much better when we were just small with just us without all, instead of all
34:09 these people coming in. Why are we doing this? Because people are lost and need Jesus and we need to set them free. And
34:21 we're gonna 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 can exist to expand the kingdom, to see people saved and freed
34:29 up and sent out in the world and multiplied, and that's what we're gonna do. So when you're looking around all those seats, just be thinking, who can I be sharing the gospel with and who can I be praying for that's gonna
34:38 come? And you're gonna see God do some amazing things in this season. And the same thing's gonna 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
34:48 you all the different stories in the first Tuesday, maybe I'll share a couple more. I can just share what happened yesterday. I mean, I've been wanting to close these deals for like, I don't know, like a year. Here we
35:00 are a week away. Yesterday, I'm up at Westminster meeting with their pastor, pastor Dan, who I love and 3 of their elders that I've learned to love, and we've been working on this whole deal, and as we've been working it
35:09 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
35:20 just to let you know, mean, 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? I mean, how are
35:27 we gonna do this? And 1 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
35:36 just be demoralizing. I'm like, God wants this church to thrive and I'm like, God, what do you wanna do for them? And God put it on my heart to call the landlord that we had at Broomfield and said, ask him if you can use
35:45 that building, and I called him and I said, hey, is that still available for church? He's like, well, think we sold 2 of those rooms, but do you want it? I'm like, yeah, but not for us, for somebody else. He goes, I'll
35:56 get back to you in 15 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 1000000 dollars into? We'll leave all of our equipment. We'll leave all
36:07 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 so you know, before you clap, just so you know, next week, I mean we met yesterday, our
36:17 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,
36:26 like I love our attorney, he's been great, but their attorney got along and they're all talking and our talking is, hey, the things you disagree on, here's what they're saying. Okay, within 5 minutes, everybody agreed on
36:36 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 5 minutes, the guy got back and said done and
36:47 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 will be meeting in our
36:59 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
37:11 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 doesShow more
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