Kingdom Come Sunday 2025

All right, well good morning. It is good to be here. It's good also to be with the other campuses that are joining us. Imagine if you would for just a second, you were there the day that God created everything. It was darkness, there was nothing. And he began to call things into existence. He called the planets into existence. And then he said, "I want mountains." And he produces these beautiful mountains, each one spectacular and unique. Some with snow and some in the deserts. And then he says, "We need water." So he produces these oceans and streams that are everywhere. And there's every species of fish that he puts in the waters. It's amazing. And then he says, "We need more color on the earth." So he puts in flowers. And the flowers, if you've ever studied the flowers, they're so intricately made and so in incredibly different, every one of 'em, God creates that. And then he gets to some animals and he says, "Let's create the giraffe." And he is like, "No, more neck. More neck." And he gets a bigger neck. He had this envisioned, but for some reason he made this animal with this huge neck. But in everything God does, he does it with such great detail. That same God in all his detail, created you, created me. He created each one of us for a purpose. He created you to be a part of something that's so much bigger than you, the body of Christ. Those that have gone before us and those that are here today, we're a part of a team that God has created. In Ephesians 2:10, it says this: "For we are God's handiwork." I just wanna stop right there and take a moment to realize that we're not part of God's assembly line. He didn't just produce us en masse, he actually crafted us. We're handwork, the way that you're created. In the things that sometimes you see as flaws and sometimes you see as blessings, God crafted you to be so uniquely you. And then it goes on to say this: "For we are God's hand work created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." God has a plan to redeem the world. He crafted us in it, uniquely who we are, for us to do good things. And he's planned for us to do them in advance when we walk in to what he has. You are world changers. You were created to change your world, resourced by God, given time, talents, and treasures, all for the purpose of changing the world that God puts you in. How do I know this? Because we've been partnered now for 13 years. I've seen you all work in incredible ways, sending over 37 teams down to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, even the Turks in Caicos, down to Key West. You've served with us in some of the hardest areas and God has used you, the body of Christ here to do amazing things. You've partnered with us also in educating kids. Many people have sponsored children in Haiti. You've partnered with us in feeding children. Just in May, you've helped us feed 70,000 meals. How many of y'all were at that, the meal pack in May? Yeah, several of you. Packed meals, you packed meals and we were able to send those to Haiti to feed. You've helped us build schools and build homes and you've helped us encourage pastors and churches all across the Caribbean, all across the island. You've allowed us to run after every man, woman, and child on the island of Hispaniola, which is Haiti and the Dominican Republic. And the reason we're doing that is because we know that if we, there's 22 million people on the island of Hispaniola, if we can reach them with the gospel, that's over half of the Caribbean. It's a tipping point for the gospel in the Caribbean. So thank you for helping us. Thank you for leaning in, going on trips, packing meals, and just praying for Mission of Hope as an organization. Now, I'm not from Buffalo, although my wife who's here with me today, her dad was from Buffalo. She grew up in Fort Erie, just across the Peace Bridge. Her mom's from Canada. And as most of you're thinking, yes, she is a Bills fan. Yeah, apparently when we got married, I didn't realize that I was part of the mafia. But apparently there is this thing I've noticed in them. Airports, when we travel, there's a, I don't know if it's a special handshake, but there's definitely a special look because she always has her Bills hat on and there's this thing that happens when she sees another Bills fan. It's pretty spectacular. I appreciate it not being a Bills fan, but I support her. But yeah, she grew up here and it's a good time, look, we're being honest, to be a Bills fan, right? It's a great team. But I am from southern Indiana, not just Indiana, but the south part, south of Indianapolis. And in southern Indiana, there's a few things you need to know. Tea is only sweet in southern Indiana. If it's tea with no sugar, it's just brown water. And who wants brown water? Nobody. It's where the movie Hoosiers, if you ever watch that basketball classic, it's where Hoosiers came from. That's where the school came out and dominated in a big Indiana sport. And it's also where mamas tell their larger sons, they're just big boned. Okay, well, at least that's what my mom always told me 'cause I was never a small kid. But one thing I did love to do every year was go to the pool. And much like many pools here, this pool, my sister and I would go to every summer, almost every day. There was the deep end, there was the shallow end, and on the deep end they had a high dive and a low dive. Now like I said, I was bigger boned, so I always stuck to the low dive. I had my guys, we would hang out the low dive and we found that if we could do the best cannon ball, we could throw enough water outta the pool and we could splash girls and they would look our way. It was a great game we played. And so we perfected the cannonball. But I'll never forget the day, sitting in the low end of the pool, watching these kids go off the high dive. Now, if you've ever been to this pool, many of you have, you'd know those kids. They're the ones, they probably did some dive class, but they would get up there and they'd do this perfect little jump and hit right in the water or they'd do a back flip. But every now and then, disaster would happen. Somebody from up on that high dive would miss and they would belly flop. Now, for me, as a big boned child, I had much more belly than the average person to flop. So I was terrified to go up there. But I'll never forget that one day I was in the shallow end watching all these kids go off the high dive. My guys were at the low dive, something came over me, it was the day, I'm going to the high dive. So I walked by and I saw my guys over there and I'm like, "Yeah guys, it's my day." I'm gonna walk right by. And you know, they're giving me this look like, "No way. He is not doing it." And I don't know if you've done this, but when I got in that line, I'll never forget, my heart rate went from like pretty calm to like I could feel my heart racing. And every step I took, I wasn't not even in the ladder yet, but every step I took, my heart went faster. And then, I got to the point of no return, the ladder. Once you start to climb that ladder, you don't want to be that guy that gets to the top and goes down the ladder. That is bad news. So you get to there, and I remember climbing up, and again, I'm in southern Indiana. So I got to the top and I remember looking up and it felt like I could see downtown Chicago. I mean it was so high and the pool was so small. But I walked out to the end of that diving board, wrapped my toes around, it counted to three, and I jumped. And as I jumped, I remember the air just feeling it was going by me, my hair was sticking up. And I hit the water, silence. And as I'm swimming under the water over the ladder, I'm picturing what's gonna happen. I'm gonna come out. People all around the pool are gonna be just standing. You know, just, a few people probably have some tens. Like that was incredible. Perfect. I get to the ladder, nothing, nobody, but I conquered my fear, and for that day, I wore that high dive out. And from then on when I went to the pool, I walked right past that low dive going to the high dive. 'cause I'd experienced it and I wasn't afraid of it anymore. But I've come to realize that God in his master plan is bringing each of us to points in our lives, jumping points if you will, that if we'll trust him and we jump, he'll use us and our gifts in ways that we never could have imagined. He will make us world changers. If we get to that edge where we go, "God, I'll trust you. I'll take a step of faith." My wife and I saw this so amazingly illustrated in 1996. We just got married, actually here, just on the other side of the border here. Flew outta Buffalo for honeymoon, came back and two weeks later we went to a missions trip to Haiti. Now I'd been going to Haiti since I was five years old with my parents. They had taken us on many mission trips. We were standing on a piece of property and Vanessa and I just, we were so thankful to have this youth group with us, newlywed. And this young man came running up to us and he said, "My baby's sick. Will you come to my house?" My degree in Christian education, her degree in education, but we knew we had to go 'cause the desperation on this young man's face. So we went down to the village where they were at. And this house was about the size of a bathroom. It had enough room for a bed and mom and dad to stay on this side and for Vanessa and I to stay on the other side, praying for this little girl named Girlene, 18 month old. She's laying in the middle of these sheets. There's a ring around the sheets 'cause she sweats so much from a fever that she has. And we realize that her breathing is slowing, so we had to do something more. So a friend of ours had a pickup truck and we got in the pickup truck. It was an old military truck. He drove, Vanessa sat in the middle, the father holding his little girl sat on the passenger side. I stood in the back and we raced 30 miles north to a clinic. We got out of the car and ran up to the door trying to get in with urgency because the little girl wasn't doing well. Someone from behind yelled, "The clinic's closed." And this is the moment that God put us on our high dive, our jumping point. Because as we turned to go back to that car, we heard, "Uh," and we looked over and baby Girlene died in her daddy's arms. Now, we have a 30 mile drive back, married a couple weeks, no kids yet, obviously, with the driver, my wife and a father holding his dead baby. In that moment, one of the things we realized is it doesn't matter where you're from, everybody has hope, dreams, and they want opportunity for their kiddos and everybody grieves when they lose them, and he lost his. As we drove into that house, mom came running out, was on the porch with this look of hope on her face. And when she saw her child and the father, she fainted in the yard. They began to grieve. We began to grieve with them. And we begin to ask a simple question, why'd this happen? Why the little girl have to starve to death? We found out, mom and dad gave everything they had to a voodoo priest. And in the process, instead of giving her medicine or food, she starved to death. And we got back on a plane going back to Indiana where we were living at the time. And God asked us a simple question, "Will you move to Haiti and work to change it for me? Will you move to Haiti and run after every man, woman, and child?" As we stood on the platform of that high dive, my first response was "Not a chance." I'm not doing this. God, I've been in Haiti. But Vanessa was right there with me. And over a two week period, God was relentless to ask us that same question and we decided to go. I'm so thankful that in 1996 we jumped. I'm so thankful we did because now for 27 years, we've seen other people walk up to that high dive with us and make the jump. Some feeding children, some people moving to Haiti, some people supporting what's going on there. Staff in Haiti, they've all said yes, it's thousands of yeses that God's done, but we've seen God's hand move for 27 years. And here's one of the greatest lessons we've learned that God is always sending the right people to the right place at the right time. He's always sending the right people to the right place at the right time. When we allow God to use us and what he's blessed us with, lives are changed for him. To put it another way, you are the right person, uniquely gifted. God made you for this, for this moment, to be in this area. God created you specifically as you, specifically for you to do something great for him. We saw this so beautifully illustrated in 2009. 2009 we'd been in Haiti just over 10 years. God was moving. We'd just built a small clinic and things were good. So I got a call one day from a group from Canada and they said, "Hey, we've been praying and we feel like we need to give you an ambulance." I said, "Wow, that's great. We don't need an ambulance. I'd rather you steward the resources and give it to somebody that's gonna use it 'cause we're not doing any runs. We have a small clinic, it doesn't have an ER, we don't go out." They said, "Okay." Thought, okay, easy phone call. I stewarded that well. About a week later, they called me back and they said, "Hey, we've been praying about this ambulance. We really feel like God wants us to give you this ambulance." I said, "Okay, they're not getting what I'm trying to put down here." So I said, "You can ship the ambulance if you really feel like we need it, but here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna pay for taxes, you're gonna pay for shipping, and when it gets here, we're gonna park it in our yard. We're not putting license plates or tags on it, nothing. It's just gonna sit in our yard." I thought for sure. They're like, no, they won't do it. He said, "Perfect, we'll send it next week." I went, "Okay." well, so sure enough, we got this ambulance here. It arrives in Haiti. That's the yard we set it in. We didn't put plates on it, we didn't put any tags on it, nothing. It was just sitting there. Two months later, still 2009, get a phone call from an EMT. He says, "Hey, I've been praying. My wife and I feel like we're supposed to move to Haiti." And I said, "Well, we have an ambulance but we don't do hospital runs, we don't go out." I said, so EMTs, they love action, they love to get after it. They love to just work with people. And so I said, "Hey, if you want to come down, you can come down and you can work and do just the first aid in our clinic." Thinking not a chance an EMT's gonna come do first aid. He goes, "We're in." Okay, so 2009 in the fall, we have this ambulance and we have a EMT in his family in Haiti. But because God is always sending the right people to the right place at the right time, what I didn't know, but God did know and he was putting people on jumping points to be faithful, even in my saying no is that in 2010 in January, the biggest earthquake to ever rock Haiti would happen. Over a million and a half people would lose their homes. 300,000 people dead instantly. And that ambulance was one of two functioning ambulances on an island and that EMT was one of few that was qualified to go. And he ran that ambulance for six months straight, picking up people, saving lives. Thousands of people heard the gospel and lives were saved. And might I mention still while it had no plates and was still very illegal on the road, but God used it because he's always sending the right people to the right place at the right time. Amen. So today, today in scripture, we're gonna look at two different scriptures. These are two different jumping points. One person comes to a jumping point and says yes, and in faith the other person walks away sad. The first is this, John 6:1-14. This is Jesus feeding the 5,000. You all know this story well. It says: "Sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee and a great crowd of people follow him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Jesus went up on the hillside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover festival was near. When Jesus looked up and saw the crowd coming toward him." I want to just pause it right there. One of the things that I think is interesting about the scripture, this is not the point of the scripture, but it's interesting, is that Jesus looked up and he saw the crowd. Sometimes we miss what God's doing because we don't look up, we don't stop and look around. We don't take in the need that's right there by us, and when we do, we can see it. And just like Jesus here, he looked up and he saw the great crowd coming towards him and he said to Philip, now get what he says to Philip. He says, "'Where shall we buy bread for the people to eat?' He asked this only to test him for he already had in his mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him. 'It would take more than a half a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite.'" Philip didn't go, where are we gonna get bread? He went to, how are we gonna do it? So that's an interesting point. Another of his disciples, "Andrew, Simon Peter's little brother spoke up and said, 'Here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. How far will that go among so many?' Jesus said, 'Have the people sit down.' There was plenty of grass in the place and they sat down. About 5,000 men were there. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to disciples, 'Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.' So they gathered them and filled 12 baskets with the pieces of five barley loaves and the leftover by those who had eaten. After the people saw the sign, Jesus performed, they began to say, 'Surely this is a prophet who has come into the world.'" Now, incredible story, but here's how I see this story going. I love the little boy that has the bread. I can picture him in the morning. He's there with his mom, his mom's packing his lunch and we know that he's not rich because he's eating barley bread, that was a poorer person's food. So she's put bread in here, she's put some fish in there. She's like, "Okay, little guy, have a good day." He walks out, he's walked along, probably heard of this guy named Jesus, sees this big crowd and outta nowhere a guy that he doesn't know says, "Hey, can I have your lunch?" Story over if it was me. I was a big boned child, nobody's getting my lunch. I'm not giving it up. But for some reason this little guy, he didn't know at the time, was standing at the end of a high dive. It was a jumping point. He gave that little bag of food to the disciples. And can you imagine his point of view? He sat down and he looked up and he saw Jesus take that, break bread and feed 5,000. Can you imagine the story that happened as he got home? "Hey mom, I was out today." "How was your lunch?" "Well, I gave it to a guy I didn't know, but I watched Jesus, this guy turn it to feed 5,000 and then there's plenty left over and I got to eat." He got to tell his mom that. Can you imagine his grandchildren sitting on his knee? "I gotta tell you about Jesus. I gotta tell you about the time I just gave him a bag of food and I watched him feed 5,000 people." Amazing. He said, yes. But then now, let's look at Luke 18:18-25. This is the rich young ruler. "A certain ruler ask him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. 'No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother.' 'All these I've kept since I was a boy,' he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, 'You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.' When he heard this, he became very sad because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God? Indeed, it's easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'" Let's be clear, this is not about his wealth. Jesus talking to him, he listed off all these things and he is like, "Yeah, I've been in church, I've done it. I've checked the boxes." But this is about his heart. This is about who he surrendered to. This is about him making Jesus Lord. And can you picture Rich Young, I call him Rich Young, rich, young ruler, and he's there and he says no. And the Bible says he walks away sad. But that's not the end of the story. That's what we don't know. But what the problem is, what could have happened had he came to that same point and jumped. What would've looked different? How much more would God have blessed him or his businesses? Or how many kids would've been fed? How many orphans would've been taken care of? How many widows, how many homes for the homeless? There's so many things that we don't know because he wasn't willing to surrender. He wasn't willing to take the step. But let's not miss this, God had the right person in the right place at the right time, he just wasn't willing. Three important considerations. If we want to be ready when God brings us to our jumping points, and he is bringing us to him all the time, if we wanna be in the right place at the right time, the first question is this, will I say yes? Will I say yes? Will I look up, see the need and be willing to take a risk to say yes to what God has asked me to do? The little boy in the story, he gave up his lunch. He didn't know the outcome of that, but he watched Jesus turn a hillside into a buffet. Rich, young ruler said, no. He walked away sad. I'll never forget when Vanessa and I just moved to Haiti, there was a lady named Madam Chief, and we went to this garbage dump and it was about the size of this stage was the garbage dump, trash piled everywhere, bags blowing through with the wind. But in the corner there was this lean-to that was just all trash, just heaped up. Probably about that tall. She was a small lady. She could crawl through this door and that was her house. And as we were standing there, she came out of her house, trash heap. Three kids came out and I said, "Oh, Madam Chief, are these your kids? And she said, "No." She goes, "These aren't my kids. They were walking down the mountain here and they were homeless and orphaned. And I thought, God bless me with a house. I need to take 'em in." Vanessa and I were blown away. Here's a lady that had nothing, nothing. She had trash that she had put on top of each other, but she saw three kids and she thought, if God bless me with that, I can take care of these kids. I can't imagine what that jumping point looks like, but she jumped and we got to watch, front row seat, of what God did for the next 20 years in those kids' lives. God took those kids in a church like you all, came down and built her a house. She had a beautiful home. They went to our schools and graduated. And now they're leading different parts of different ministries in Haiti. All because one lady who had nothing but a trash heap, jumped. She said, "Yes." Madam Chief challenges me. The question that I think we have to ask today is: Are we willing to be the person that God works through? It's a decision to surrender, but if we're ready, God will show us our jumping points. You know, one thing I've never heard is somebody say, "I gave too much. I gave too much of me to Jesus. I gave too much to God," because God's always there. It's like going off that high dive. You're like, "Wow, that was exciting. That was crazy. I can't wait to do it again." So the next time ask that question, "God, what do you want me to do?" Second is this: Obedience is not always logical. Obedience to what God's asking you to do, the jump is not always logical. Trust me, as a big boned child, jumping off of that was not logical. There was a small pool and I was a big boy. But when God brings us to jumping points, many times they won't be logical. He's asking us to be obedient to his leadings. There was nothing logical about the ark. Never rained before, but yet they build this big ship. Nothing logical about walking up to the Red Sea when it had never parted and yet they walked across on dry land. There was nothing logical about Jesus telling 5,000 men to sit down on a piece of grass, but he knew that little boy was coming and he could raise that bread and break bread and provide for all of 'em. You see, notice here that when Jesus was feeding the 5,000, he asked Philip a 'where' question, but Philip responded with a 'how' answer. The problem was defined. The people needed to eat. Jesus was going to solve it. But Philip, after watching Jesus do miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle, still was trying to figure out how. How many times have we've been faced with an opportunity? We've stood at a jumping point, it changed someone's life, but we got stuck on the how. Hebrews 11 tells us that faith is the confidence in what we hope for, the assurance in what we do not see. I wanna challenge you when God brings you to that point that don't reason it out by saying, "I don't know how that could ever happen," but walk in faith. If it's clearly God, say yes, because you'll be thankful you did. You'll see God move and do immeasurably more than you could possibly ever imagine. And third is this, jumping points come in all sizes. It may be as big as moving to another country like we did, like the couple did that was on the screen. It may be as big as adopting a child or fostering a child, life altering things, or moving to another neighborhood. That could be a jumping point. But it could be as small as saying hi to your neighbor, buying them coffee, mowing their yard. They come in all sizes. It's an act that is catalytic to changing a life. Now the the size of the the jumping point doesn't matter, but have you ever heard of Mordecai Ham? Mordecai Ham was an evangelist, shared his faith. One day he shared his faith with a guy named Billy Graham. Seemed like a small act at the time, but it changed the world. You see, jumping points, they come in all sizes. 1972, there was a young woman that went to Haiti to lead a hundred voice choir. She was a choir director from southern Indiana, fell in love with the country. And in 1975, my mom, that young lady, took me back. We went to Haiti for the first time when I was five years old. She came to a jumping point in 1972 where she had a 2-year-old child, called to a country that she had never been, but yet she went. And because my mom said yes to that one trip, I watched my parents lead for 20 years going in and out of Haiti, serving the people of Haiti. And this past year because of their yes and thousands of other people that stood on that platform and said yes to something to help Mission of Hope, 752 people came to faith for the first time. Over half a million lives were impacted. 78,467 children were given a meal every day. 10,477 kids were impacted through education. 737 women were impacted through women's empowerment. 5,054 people were served through medical care, and that list could go on and on and on because my mom said yes. She went against what she knew the how of and she took one small leap to go on a mission's trip. So today, the question is this. Amen. The question is this, what's God asking you to do? What's your jumping point? It may be going on a missions trip. I know they're gonna do five just to Mission of Hope this next year. There's trips going everywhere. It may be serving local, it may be supporting a ministry right out here. Over 70 ministries are out there. We're one of 'em and incredible ministries from serving locally, regionally, and internationally. Maybe it's serving with them, it may be volunteering here at the church, getting engaged. That may be your yes or it may be just serving your neighbor. But today, there's so many opportunities to say yes. For Mission of Hope, we're currently at another jumping point. One I hoped we would never get to again, but right now in Haiti, there's over 6 million people that are in food insecurity. Meaning because of gangs pushing people out, they're there and they're days away from starvation. We're getting calls from pastors and moms saying, "Our kids are dying." 1.5 million people have been displaced, refugees in their own country. One in six kids have been displaced. And so we have to, as an organization, we feel like we have to lean in. Our waiting list went from 80,000 kids to feed every day to 500,000 in the last six months. So we have these cards in the back. It's team Hope. If God lays it on your heart, if that's your jumping point today, we'd love to have you come back and grab one of these. To feed a child for a month, it's $10 a family, $50 a month, and to take a whole container to Haiti for 270,000 people, it's 25,000. We have those in the back. We'd love to show 'em to you. But we're one of so many ministries that are here today. So many ministries that I believe when you look around, God has created the team that he wants us to jump in. And I invite you today, to go back there and just pray over it. Look up and say, "God, what do you want me to do?" Last thing is this: There's no doubt in my mind when God crafted this group right here, he crafted you perfectly how you are. That he made you so that you would be a part of changing the world for him. You are uniquely made, crafted and God has called you to be a part of reaching every man, woman, and child for him. Let's do that as we say yes and we take those jumps. Let's pray. God thank you that you called us, that you called us, Lord, you crafted us, Jesus, that we are your creation. And Lord, I just pray today that we'll walk outta here fully with our eyes wide open, listening for what you would ask us to say yes to. And that Lord, we would respond in faithfulness to faithfully take the jump, Lord, and go first head in to being impactful for you in all we do. We love you Jesus, and we ask for your blessing on this day. Amen.