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Stand Alone Messages: Taking Ground
March 9, 2025 · 59 min
In today's sermon, Pastor Jeff spoke about the importance of being aware of the ongoing work God is doing through Brave Church, emphasizing that every member plays a role in the Great Commission. He used the story of a complacent farmer as a metaphor for spiritual stagnation, encouraging individuals to deepen their relationship with God and to prepare for what He has in store. The message also highlighted foundational church activities, such as prayer, leadership training, and community outreach, underlining the church's commitment to growth and mission fulfillment. Finally, Pastor Jeff introduced upcoming initiatives, including a capital campaign called "Taking Ground," aimed at expanding ministry efforts and reaching more people for Christ. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
Series BRAVE Church March 9, 2025 · 59 min · BRAVE Church
In today's sermon, Pastor Jeff spoke about the importance of being aware of the ongoing work God is doing through Brave Church, emphasizing that every member plays a role in the Great Commission. He used the story of a complacent farmer as a metaphor for spiritual stagnation, encouraging individuals to deepen their relationship with God and to prepare for what He has in store. The message also highlighted foundational church activities, such as prayer, leadership training, and community outreach, underlining the church's commitment to growth and mission fulfillment. Finally, Pastor Jeff introduced upcoming initiatives, including a capital campaign called "Taking Ground," aimed at expanding ministry efforts and reaching more people for Christ. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub ...more Show the full description Show less In today's sermon, Pastor Jeff spoke about the importance of being aware of the ongoing work God is doing through Brave Church, emphasizing that every member plays a role in the Great Commission. He used the story of a complacent farmer as a metaphor for spiritual stagnation, encouraging individuals to deepen their relationship with God and to prepare for what He has in store. The message also highlighted foundational church activities, such as prayer, leadership training, and community outreach, underlining the church's commitment to growth and mission fulfillment. Finally, Pastor Jeff introduced upcoming initiatives, including a capital campaign called "Taking Ground," aimed at expanding ministry efforts and reaching more people for Christ. 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 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 1,0:11 clap your hands all ye people. There's gonna be opportunities today for you to celebrate all that the Lord is doing. I'm gonna encourage you when you hear something from me or somebody else that's sharing today and0:21 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 by0:33 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 gonna be a great series. Today, we're doing something different because0:44 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 he0:54 has. And so today's gonna 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 a1:05 specific instruction as to how they're gonna 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?1:15 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 word1:24 this morning. Our father, we give you all the glory because you and you alone are the 1 who deserves it. We give you all the honor because we humble ourselves before you and we depend upon you and
1:36 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
1:48 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
1:58 today, 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
2:08 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 and desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he
2:18 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
2:30 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
2:41 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. 1 day a stranger came and visited him, a
2:53 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
3:05 I've never dug deep. And by the way, I I have everything I need. You know, treasures for dreamers. I I don't I don't need any of that stuff. And so he sent the guy away and year after year after year after year went
3:17 by and 1 day during the 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
3:29 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
3:41 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.
3:53 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 good, and now you're better. That's not the
4:04 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
4:14 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, if you have cancer and there's a cure, it's good news. The Bible makes very clear that this is the message that
4:25 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
4:34 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
4:43 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
4:55 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 him, you can't know him. And and in your sin, you need a savior. So God the father sent
5:07 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, live sinless, was
5:19 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
5:31 was buried in a grave. And 3 days later, to demonstrate that he was indeed God's 1 and only son, he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. He got up out of the grave. That sin was paid for. And he began to offer life
5:42 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
5:52 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
6:04 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
6:14 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 to to turn from our sin and
6:25 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. 1 day I'm going to heaven. What else is there?
6:37 And we get complacent in our walk with God. If you've come to Christ 5 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
6:48 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. As a
7:00 collective whole, God wants to 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
7:12 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
7:24 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're poised on the side of the Jordan river,
7:35 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
7:46 doesn't mean God's still not gonna give it all because that land still belongs to Israel and 1 day Jesus Christ will return and give them all the land. But as they're poised on the side of the Jordan river getting ready
7:57 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
8:09 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
8:21 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 it's amazing, but but but we can't do it.
8:33 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 gonna stone Moses with stones
8:45 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 2 people that survived that camping trip were Joshua and
8:56 Caleb, because they were the 2 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
9:08 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.
9:20 Here's the verse for today in Joshua chapter 3 in verse 5, this is what Joshua says to the people. Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, the Lord will do wonders
9:32 among you. That's simple. Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, the Lord will do great wonders among you. That's the only instruction he gave him. And in that instruction,
9:44 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.
9:55 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 the holy spirit, teaching
10:04 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 metaphorically, and we go after people where? Everywhere. Everywhere we go and everywhere that God
10:15 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
10:27 Church exists. That's why every local church exists. So I wanna give you some instructions this morning of what you may need to do if you're gonna be the fullness of all that God wants us to be as a church for where
10:38 we're we're going. And I'll give you 3 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
10:49 with consecration. Preparation starts with consecration. If you're gonna 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
11:00 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
11:11 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
11:21 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 wanna love him more and more, I wanna go after him. So I'm gonna set aside the things in
11:32 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
11:44 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
11:55 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
12:06 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
12:18 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
12:30 world. You gave me life. You gave me all my gifts. You gave me all my weaknesses. They're yours. Any way that you wanna use me in any way that you want to take
12:41 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
12:53 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
13:04 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 consec preparation always begins with consecration. If you wanna see the Lord do some
13:14 amazing things and into 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
13:23 today. Like get ready now because it's about ready to happen. Listen, you wanna get married? Prepare today for who you're gonna be married to. You're not gonna become that person. Become the person
13:35 now that's worthy of getting married. Right? Well, as soon as I make more money, then I'll tithe. 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
13:47 generous, if not more generous. You you prepare and consecrate today for what he's gonna do tomorrow. Our world says the opposite. Our world said, well, as soon as God brings me my spouse, I'll shape up. Soon as God
13:58 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. Because if they weren't generous then
14:09 they're not gonna be generous. If they didn't know how to save them, don't know how to you you don't just abundance doesn't make you a better, a better Christian. Walking with God and putting off the old and putting on
14:20 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.
14:32 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
14:44 really care. I mean, as long as services still go on, I just wanna attend a service. You're missing the whole mark. We're here for 1 reason and 1 reason alone to proclaim the gospel to the nations. We're here for 1
14:55 reason and 1 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
15:06 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
15:17 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
15:29 commission in our lifetime. That's why we exist. The fulfillment of the great commission is to reach every person that's gonna respond by faith and grow every person up so that Jesus Christ can return. And we wanna do
15:39 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
15:50 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
15:59 saved. So repent of your sin, trust Jesus and grow with him. 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
16:11 Lord doing amazing things among us. Amen? 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
16:21 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
16:32 anticipate something you're looking forward to, you're more motivated. So increase your expectation. Increase your expectation. Many of us that come to church like, well, what do you want God to do for you? It's
16:42 interesting when Jesus went and talked to the sick and he saw a man laying on a mat, he's like, what do want me to do? Well, you would think the obvious answer is to heal the guy. But why did Jesus ask? Because Jesus
16:51 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
17:01 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
17:11 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.
17:22 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 wanna talk to you about. And when you have that, here's what I
17:34 would say. If the first 1 is get right and get right right now, second 1 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
17:46 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.
17:58 Thank you for 2 people clapping on that. And here's what I say, there's no place like the local church. If the
18:10 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
18:22 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
18:34 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?
18:46 To the church? I'm gonna 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 wanna tell you this. There are all sorts of
18:55 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.
19:06 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
19:17 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 wanted to let you know how
19:27 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
19:39 faithful. Some of those years have gone like this. Others of the other times during days of those years, they felt like years where the pain has been immense. And
19:51 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 1 couple, neither were really walking with the Lord. 1 1 was unsaved and the other had just come to Christ
20:02 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 a apartment building, we had 19 chairs and we couldn't fill the 19 chairs to get people to come to
20:13 what we were gonna 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
20:23 single week. I remember, but God's been faithful. I remember when we needed to raise 1730000.00 dollars in 6 days to buy our what is now Brave Academy, which was our first building, and God gave us
20:34 1930000.00 dollars in 6 days. Miracle of miracles, and we celebrated that. Amen? I remember when we were given a building up in Broomfield
20:46 and we prayed over it, and they said, if you'll take this 13000 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
20:56 that that congregation is in Westminster with 1500 people that come every single week. And the only reason they don't have more cause we gotta get them some more chairs and some more parking. That's it. And God's doing
21:06 amazing things up there. In Colorado Springs, God's doing amazing things there. Over 250 people now coming there, and they're totally aligned and they're wanting to grow. And we realize we gotta get them in a different
21:17 location and get them a different space, and God's gonna 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.
21:29 Don't 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 1 who leads his church and that's Jesus Christ. Amen?
21:43 14 and a half years in, I have the privilege of serving with with a plurality of incredible men and women everywhere. Don't know if you know this or not, but on staff, between our church and school, we have over 90
21:51 employees that call Brave Church their home. Isn't that incredible? I mean, we had come on, man. Give me some give God some praise for that. I remember we couldn't fill 14
22:03 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
22:15 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
22:26 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 2 more this
22:37 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 5 0 1 c 3 corporations and making sure we've dotted every I and crossed every
22:48 t. And 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 and weddings and funerals
22:59 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 percent blessed. Kim and I both feel that way. So let me
23:11 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
23:20 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
23:31 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
23:42 made, this is where I may enjoy serving and I wanna 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.
23:53 But if you're serving 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
24:05 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
24:16 to your feet so we can we can recognize you? Thank you. Thank you.
24:29 Alright. 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 see all those people
24:41 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
24:49 anybody else. And for where we're going, we're gonna 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
25:01 other believers. 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
25:10 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,
25:21 grow and go. That's it. This last year, we we formed some 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
25:31 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
25:40 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
25:52 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
26:01 first Tuesday. And the first Tuesday of every month from 6 30 to 8. Who here has been in a a first Tuesday? Give God praise if you've been here in a first Tuesday. We
26:14 continue to do that. We meet weekly 6 30 AM 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
26:25 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
26:33 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.
26:43 It's that we are a praying church. We don't talk about prayer. We pray. Amen? And so that's only gonna continue to grow and expand. Let me tell you some other things that are going on too. It's been really
26:55 interesting for me as we got out here. You know, we were said from day 1, we're gonna be a church planting church. I think we planted about 9 churches. But 1 thing that happened has happened for us over time, everything
27:05 we do, you gotta 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 gonna go and the
27:13 strategy we have, here's what we're talking about. We have an idea where we're going and we're gonna 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
27:21 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 got sprung up. As a
27:31 matter of fact, when we went through 3 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
27:43 time we need to get your own elders, give you the building, just make your own church? And 100 percent of the people said, no, we love your teaching and preaching. Just get us a pastor so that we can grow this thing and
27:53 be taken care of. And 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 gonna continue to do. And we wanna reach
28:05 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. 1 of the things we're gonna do for you, we
28:15 have an online campus host in the coming weeks. We're gonna introduce to you so that you can really be invested more in the ministry of brave through core, through Cod race, through all the stuff we do. If you live in
28:25 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 20 20. Now we
28:36 know how to do it and we wanna 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
28:46 campuses, plant more campuses, plant more campuses. So about 3 years ago, we got with some consultants, talked about what we were gonna do, and they come back with all their ideas. And 1 of their ideas was like a lot of
28:56 churches our size, they said, hey, you need to build out your worship center. You need to get some other buildings. It's not gonna be big enough for you. And so they put together this plan and proposal, then they gave it
29:05 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, you didn't have to walk through 17 doors or only 1 door back there to get into church. I mean, it
29:14 was incredible. And then it also had 2 different rooms. 1 was 500 seat capacity. 1 was 1000 seat capacity. It had room for children, had room for our media, incredible. I mean, if would have seen it from the road and
29:25 I'll show it to you this fall, you'd have said, wow. So they gave us the price tag and they said, don't worry about the price tag because it's gonna take you about 3 different capital campaigns to get there, but the
29:34 price tag is 88000000 dollars. 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 wanna give to a building in
29:44 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 1000 more seats here if it takes us 10 years to get 1000 more seats? Have we really advanced the
29:53 kingdom? I'm like, no. And then you prayed, like, God, if you gave me 88000000 dollars, would I take that and build a building? Never. I would never do that. I I don't think that's a good use of resources. So as cool as
30:03 that looked, we kinda came back together and said, yeah, don't I don't wanna do that. And all of our elders were like, yeah, that's that's not it. And I said, well, maybe we just can build a lobby out here because that
30:11 would be good and and give the rest away. That was like 15 to 20000000. And again, went back and said, well, if God gave us 15 to 20000000, I wouldn't build a lobby. I'd go do ministry. And so where we've resolved as an
30:21 elder team is what we're gonna spend our money on is, yeah, we're gonna do some different things in here that we have some resources for us, some new chairs and carpet. We're gonna get Westminster some extra chairs and
30:30 parking. We're gonna help Colorado Springs get a different building, but we're not gonna put a bunch of money into buildings. We wanna put a bunch of money into the kingdom. Amen? And
30:42 there's nothing wrong with a building because everybody's like, don't like buildings. You would not stay outside for church today. I know it. Right? I mean, the building is good, but it's not the end all be all. It
30:51 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
31:01 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
31:10 some ideas. This fall, I'm gonna preach a 4 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
31:22 able to do that. But I wanna 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
31:35 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
31:47 70 percent 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 Glacier Bay. And so we're we're praying through, okay, is this
31:58 gonna be a campus? If it's a campus model, how do we expand it? Is this gonna be pastor Rodolfo that just grows it? We're just in discussions about what's the Lord doing here. But I wanna tell you something. With AI
32:07 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 wanna show you today a 45 second clip of me speaking
32:19 6 different languages. Okay? 1 is English and then we're gonna show you in about 5 different languages what that looked like from last week's message. So if you roll that, let people see. In Isaiah 42 verse 8, he
32:31 says, I am the lord. That is my name. I will not share my glory with another and give my praise to idols. I'm worthy. I'm fulfilling. I'm everything that you want. Quit looking to other things.
33:40 It's kind of cool. Right? My grandfather was born in Nuremberg. I would love to have a Schwarzentraub 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
33:51 whatever he wants to do. Our job is 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 1
34:02 of those campuses, and then we'd have a massive high school here. It'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
34:14 we wanna 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 1 we
34:26 started the church, when are you gonna 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 gonna do that. In 20 20, when I saw what was going on in the public
34:34 school and took a deeper look under the hood, I'm like, I can't stand up here and tell you that public school's bad if we don't have another alternative. Homeschool is a great option. There's other great options. And
34:42 listen, kudos to every single brave 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
34:54 parents, you get to choose where you're gonna send your kids, but we wanted to have an option so you could do that. We we're in year number 2. We started k through 5 last year. We added the high we started k through 5 2
35:04 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 fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth graders in Westminster
35:14 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
35:22 school in the greater Denver area is about 50 to 100000000 dollars. So if somebody wanna write a check, that's awesome. And then we'll just accelerate that because we have plenty of teachers and plenty of coaches and
35:32 plenty of people that wanna 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
35:42 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. We will not be able to fit
35:50 everybody in Englewood. 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
35:59 space here for everybody. Amen? And so that's what God is doing. And I want you to be aware of that because our we're gonna start a capital campaign in the fall. It's called taking ground, and that capital campaign will
36:11 be a 3 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
36:20 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
36:31 heart be also. So I'm not gonna ask our church to do something we're not gonna do. Amen? We're all gonna be a part of this and we're gonna trust God, and it's not gonna be equal amounts that we give, but it's gonna be
36:41 equal sacrifice that we do. And by doing that, we're gonna consecrate ourselves and see the Lord do great things. So today, I wanted to do is I wanted to introduce you to a few people that can share with you a little bit
36:51 about what's going on. And first, I'm gonna 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 lastShow more
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