Introduction:
Do It Afraid: (Isaiah 43:18-19)
Isaiah 43:18-19 - "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way..."
God's timing is just as important as His direction.
Ezekiel 37:14b (NIV) - "Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!"
Matthew 6:26 (NIV) - "Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"
When God guides, He will always provide.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:06
In your Bibles, Isaiah 43, 18 through 19, it's gonna come up on the screens as well.
00:06-00:08
I wanna read here what God said.
00:10-00:14
Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past.
00:14-00:17
See, I'm doing a new thing, now it springs up.
00:17-00:19
Do you not perceive it?
00:20-00:21
I am making a way.
00:22-00:22
Let me pray for us.
00:23-00:38
God, this is a Scripture passage that is near and dear, And God, I pray that we would hear from Heaven today as I share my testimony of what You have done and what You are doing.
00:38-00:46
I pray, God, that You would use the words of this testimony we just sang about it, that we will overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
00:46-00:48
Didn't even know we were singing this song this morning.
00:49-00:51
We will overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
00:51-00:52
That has already happened.
00:52-00:56
Jesus shedding His blood on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
00:57-00:58
Each and every one of us here.
00:59-01:02
we will also overcome by the words of our testimony.
01:03-01:05
So God, I pray that that would ring true today.
01:05-01:08
In Jesus' name, I say these things.
01:08-01:08
Amen.
01:09-01:13
So here this morning is not going to be so much of a sermon.
01:14-01:21
This is going to really kind of be a testimony of what God has done in Erica and my life.
01:21-01:37
And yes, I'm going to have the Scripture passages and going to have hopefully some encouragement for you here today, but I've just been wanting to tell this story because this story is crazy of what God has done in my life.
01:38-01:39
And so I want to introduce you.
01:39-01:41
This is my wife, Erica, right over here.
01:42-01:44
Can you stand up or wave or whatever?
01:45-01:45
There she is.
01:46-01:50
So Erica and I, born and raised right here in Pittsburgh.
01:51-01:55
You know, in fact, we've got some family in the room today.
01:55-01:58
And we met at college.
01:59-02:00
Went to Geneva College together.
02:01-02:05
Ever since we met, man, we've been doing ministry together for 25 years.
02:05-02:07
We've been married almost 22 years now.
02:07-02:12
And we've served all of those years together in the local church.
02:13-02:19
Like as pastoral ministry, student ministry, adult ministry within the local church.
02:19-02:26
In the last 13, as Jeff said, man, I've had the opportunity to be the pastor of Northway Christian Community.
02:26-02:27
Love our church.
02:28-02:30
It's still our home church.
02:30-02:37
But it was about 10 years into serving at Northway that something began to change inside of me.
02:37-02:40
Now, my role didn't change at the church.
02:40-02:43
I was still the campus pastor over here.
02:43-02:46
My responsibilities at the church, they didn't change at all.
02:47-02:50
I just knew something was happening inside of me.
02:50-02:51
I like to call it my knower.
02:53-02:56
I just knew in my knower that God was up to something.
02:56-03:00
Maybe some of you have ever had that experience where, man, something's up.
03:00-03:02
I just don't know what it is, right?
03:02-03:03
And I've got to be honest with you.
03:03-03:12
I was a little bit scared to kind of chase down whatever this was inside of me, because I had been there once before, and it didn't go so well.
03:12-04:12
And so this time around, I was a little bit afraid to kind of chase this thing, this gut level reaction of God doing something, because I was good. I had a great position. I was comfortable in my position that I had at Northway. I was a little scared though to chase down maybe this new that I thought God was trying to do inside of me. And I wonder if there's anybody here today who's maybe in that same spot as I was. Maybe you're a little comfortable. Maybe you're secure in your position, but you know God is doing something, right? Maybe for you here today you have a new idea for a business, but man, it just doesn't make logical sense to launch it now in the middle of all the COVID stuff, but you know that that's maybe something inside of you. You know, maybe for you, man, you've been dating her for so long, right? And you know you you want to be with her?
04:13-04:17
It's not that you don't want to, but man, you're a little bit afraid to pop the question, but you know you're supposed to.
04:18-04:19
You just can't commit.
04:20-04:27
Maybe for some of you, you've been wondering about surrendering your life to Jesus like we saw folks do here today.
04:27-04:35
You've been thinking about it, but there's just something holding you back, because maybe you're worried about what your buddies are going to think of you.
04:36-04:46
Maybe for some of us in the room, you know it's time for you to start sharing your faith in your platform, but there's just something, maybe the fallout at your company or something.
04:47-04:51
If you go public with your faith, man, people are gonna start treating you a little bit different.
04:51-04:58
I don't know what it is for you, but maybe you know something in your knower and you're just being hesitant about it.
04:58-05:11
See, friends, I believe that there are gonna be times in our lives when God begins to mess us up on the inside because he's waiting for us to kind of take a step into what it is that He's calling us to do.
05:11-05:20
And it's gonna keep messing us up until we do, but I have to warn us, because some of us, we step too early, right?
05:20-05:21
This is where we get into trouble.
05:22-05:25
And I'm speaking from experience here, right?
05:25-05:30
See, this is where we move into the new before God tells us to, right?
05:30-05:41
So we have this holy discontent inside of us, and so we get a little antsy, We get a little impatient, and so we grab on to the next thing that comes along, the new girl.
05:42-05:43
That's got to be the one.
05:43-05:43
Right?
05:44-05:46
The new job, the new opportunity.
05:46-05:48
Oh, that new house, that new position.
05:48-05:52
I'll grab it because we think that's what it is that will fulfill us.
05:52-05:53
Right?
05:53-05:56
I don't know what it is for you, but here's the thing.
05:56-05:57
We have to be careful.
05:58-06:05
I've learned from my past failures on this one, and then from really wise counsel of some great mentors in my life.
06:05-06:07
This principle, this is really important.
06:07-06:07
Check this out.
06:08-06:12
God's timing is just as important as His direction.
06:13-06:16
Some of us, we have the direction, but we're waiting on the timing.
06:17-06:21
Some of us have gotten in trouble because we have the direction, we just had the wrong timing.
06:21-06:23
So we've got to be careful here.
06:23-06:27
So I learned my lesson this time around, and I was not going to initiate.
06:27-06:31
I knew something was happening, but I was not going to initiate anything.
06:31-06:31
I was going to wait.
06:32-06:37
I was about two years into this internal dialogue with inside of me.
06:38-06:47
I was waiting on God's timing when the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, they traded their tight end to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
06:48-06:49
His name is Vance McDonald.
06:50-06:53
Some of you who are Steelers fans, you know who Vance is, right?
06:54-07:00
And after one of the seasons, after he got traded, he started with his family to attend Northway.
07:00-07:11
And after one of the services, He came up and he said, "Man, can we grab a cup of coffee?" And I'm like, "Sweet, man, let's grab some coffee." And we had a few hour conversation.
07:11-07:16
And it was there that he told me that the Steelers did not have a chaplain.
07:16-07:24
And I really didn't know what that was, but he explained to me what that person did and why they didn't have that chaplain.
07:25-07:31
They have a long history of having chaplains, but in that particular time, they didn't have a chaplain.
07:31-07:37
And so he and I got to know each other in that off season and then came that next season around.
07:37-07:45
And if you know anything about that next season in 2019, that Vance, man, he had his best year in the NFL.
07:46-07:49
He and Ben Roethlisberger connected for more touchdowns.
07:49-07:54
You remember this one if you're a Steelers fan, the stiff arm heard around the world, right?
07:55-07:57
It was incredible, absolutely, right?
07:57-07:59
It's like what Vance became famous for.
07:59-08:12
But all that time now, because I had been spending conversation with him, getting to know his family, it wasn't so much Vanamul to me, it was Vance as a young dad, trying to figure out life.
08:13-08:17
He's a young husband, and man, the NFL is hard on those families.
08:18-08:27
And so yes, I mean, he's the Steelers' tight end, and I'm a huge fan to the Steelers, but to me, he's a young guy who wants to be discipled.
08:28-08:35
And so what happened is that at the end of that season, Vance came to me and he said, Kent, I really need to be discipled.
08:35-08:36
Would you disciple me?
08:37-08:38
And I'm like, fire up, man.
08:39-08:40
But here's my standard.
08:40-08:41
It's way up here.
08:41-08:43
Do not blow me off because you're some stealer.
08:44-08:45
And he said, okay, I'm in.
08:46-08:48
And so we started a discipleship journey.
08:48-08:51
Some of you in here, you know what we're talking about with discipleship journey.
08:51-08:55
It's a high bar of discipleship and time commitment.
08:55-08:57
And he brought some people along with him.
08:57-09:11
and we started on this journey, and it was in this journey that he would explain and he would drop this, and he would say, "Man, I wish that we could just do this "in the Steeler's locker room." And every time that he said that, something would jump in my knower.
09:12-09:18
It was like, I don't know if I was just maybe like excited or like, seriously, like that's what the chaplain does?
09:18-09:19
Like, oh my goodness.
09:19-09:20
But he would drop it.
09:20-09:30
I would go home to Erica and say, "I think I wanna maybe pursue the possibility "of becoming the chaplain, but I'm too nervous, what are my motives, I'm not sure, you know?
09:30-09:35
And I never got up the courage to actually talk to Vance about it, right?
09:35-09:50
But I would come home to Eric and I'd say, "Maybe this is what the new is that God's trying to do." And so eventually I got up the courage and I said to Vance, "Man, do you think that this is something that I could do?" And he says, "I'm not sure, man, but why don't we do this?
09:50-10:00
Why don't I just introduce you to Coach Tomlin?" And I was like, "All right, now you've got to understand, I grew up Beaver County, all right, and so I have been in Pittsburgh my whole life.
10:00-10:06
I'm a huge Steelers fan, so if I get to have a lunch with Coach Mike Tomlin, are you kidding me?
10:06-10:07
I'm in, bro.
10:07-10:08
Either way, this is gonna be awesome, right?
10:09-10:10
So I'm loving this.
10:10-10:15
So I go to lunch with Vance and Mike Tomlin, and he starts talking about the chaplain position.
10:15-10:27
At the end of that great conversation of just hanging out, Coach Tomlin invites me to come down to the facility to hang out at the practices, and then to speak at their mini camp chapel.
10:28-10:31
And so, man, think about this, huge Steelers fan my whole life.
10:31-10:35
I get to go down to the facility, watch these guys practice.
10:35-10:37
I'm like a kid in a candy store, man.
10:37-10:40
I'm loving it on the sidelines, chopping it up with these guys.
10:41-10:45
I got to see all real six Super Bowl trophies.
10:46-10:47
Amazing to me.
10:47-10:48
I got a picture of them.
10:48-10:51
I didn't know if I was allowed to do it, but I did it anyway in the facility.
10:51-10:53
I was so excited, right?
10:53-10:56
And then came the opportunity for me to speak at chapel.
10:56-10:59
And man, I gave it everything that I had.
10:59-11:01
I preached on Jesus, man.
11:01-11:02
I loved it.
11:02-11:07
And I left that day with Coach Tomlin telling me he would be in touch.
11:08-11:15
And a day went by, two days went by, 10 days went by, and I didn't hear anything.
11:16-11:17
And man, you know what?
11:17-11:20
At that point, I began to think, I blew it.
11:20-11:22
I had one shot and I blew it.
11:23-11:31
I apparently was not the guy, so I settled back into that confusion in my know, or something is going on, but I just don't know what it is.
11:32-11:33
So let me ask you a question.
11:33-11:34
Have you ever been there?
11:35-11:49
Like, not to the Steelers facility, but like in that situation, that circumstance in your life where you actually got up the courage to step out, but there's that weight before your foot lands.
11:50-11:56
It's that entrepreneur in the room that takes the risk, you shoot your shot, but you're not sure if it's gonna hit.
11:57-11:59
Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.
11:59-12:04
It's like jumping off the high dive when you were a little kid and they still allowed that at pools, right?
12:05-12:11
And you jump off the high dive and you're in midair and you start questioning your decision-making abilities.
12:12-12:12
(congregation laughing)
12:12-12:17
And you haven't hit the water yet, but you're there and you're scared out of your mind.
12:17-12:18
You know what I'm talking about, right?
12:19-12:21
Some of you are there right now.
12:22-12:30
And this is where the enemy of our souls loves to have a field day with followers of Jesus who shoot their shot in faith.
12:30-12:33
And this is where we have an opportunity.
12:33-12:38
Are we going to listen to God our Father and His voice mid-jump?
12:39-12:43
Or are we going to listen to the enemy of our soul mid-jump?
12:43-13:16
See, when you take your shot, when you make that move, When you make that sales pitch, when you jump and you have to wait, in that waiting, are you gonna listen to the voice of God in your life who tells you that you are already enough, that you are loved, no matter what happens, you're loved, you're mine, I died for you, I sent Jesus for you, you are enough, or mid-jump, are you going to listen to the lies and the whisper of the enemy like I did, saying that you're not good enough to get this position?
13:17-13:19
Who do you think you possibly are, man?
13:19-13:21
You're obviously not wanted in this place.
13:22-13:28
I mean, you're joking to think that something this good might happen to somebody like you.
13:28-13:29
Is anybody there?
13:30-13:34
Right, the confusion that I felt, man, it was mounting to a boiling point, man.
13:34-13:39
Three years now, I had been waiting for whatever's going on inside of me.
13:39-13:43
I was confused on the inside, but performing on the outside.
13:43-13:45
Anybody ever been there before, right?
13:46-13:48
And I'm going, God, what are you doing, man?
13:48-13:49
Come on.
13:50-13:51
I'm not hearing back.
13:51-13:52
It's been three years.
13:52-13:54
Why are you not speaking to me?
13:54-13:55
What's happening?
13:56-13:57
Have you ever been there?
13:58-13:59
You can talk back to me.
13:59-14:01
Don't just nod your head, right?
14:01-14:03
You can talk back to me like, come on, God.
14:03-14:06
We've been in this COVID thing for so long.
14:06-14:07
Where are you, man?
14:07-14:08
Why don't you just step in?
14:10-14:21
Like some of us, God, we have been in this racism thing for so long, why don't you just come on, man, and bring unity somehow, some way, come on, man, we've all been there some way, somehow.
14:22-14:23
God, where are you?
14:23-14:41
And while I was waiting to hear back, it's not like my job at Northway, man, I was still pastor, I still had to do my thing, I still had to do the work, and so I had to travel out to the West Coast to do some training for discipleship experience that we were starting at Northway.
14:41-14:48
And in that training, the facilitators, they sent us out on a guided prayer experience, is what they called it.
14:48-14:53
And so they basically gave us a program that had a bunch of passages on it.
14:53-15:05
And in those passages, we were supposed to read them, and then we were supposed to prayer journal, like literally write out our prayers to God based off of those passages in that program.
15:05-15:13
And so, I open up the program, and right at the top was Isaiah 43, 18 and 19, which is what I opened up with today.
15:14-15:20
So I opened up my Bible to read God's Word, and it said, "See, I'm doing a new thing." And immediately I got mad.
15:22-15:27
And then we were instructed to write in our prayer journal, so here's what I wrote.
15:27-15:30
I want to be vulnerable with you, alright?
15:30-15:32
This is exactly what I wrote in my prayer journal.
15:32-15:37
God, I'm trying to discern the new that you're doing in my life, man.
15:37-15:38
Is it at Northway?
15:38-15:39
Is it with the Steelers?
15:39-15:40
Is it with both of them?
15:40-15:42
Is it something else completely different?
15:43-15:47
Either way, God, you can kind of, you know, notice my bite in my journal.
15:48-15:49
Either way, God, I need clarity.
15:51-15:51
So here's what I'm gonna do.
15:52-15:55
I'm gonna lay it all down at your feet because I'm anxious.
15:55-15:57
Is there anybody here who might be anxious?
15:57-16:12
I'm anxious to know what you want for me and my family, and my church family, you may have something else completely different in mind, but I can sense that you've been up to something new for a long time in my life.
16:12-16:13
So come on, man.
16:14-16:14
That's what I wrote.
16:15-16:21
I put the pen down, and the next passage in the prayer experience was Ezekiel 37.
16:21-16:37
And if you've never read this passage, this is essentially, without going into all of it this morning, Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones, and essentially it's God downloading a vision to Ezekiel with a really powerful lesson in it.
16:38-16:39
And here is the lesson, alright?
16:39-16:40
Check this out.
16:41-16:52
Ezekiel, God saying to Ezekiel, "Say exactly what I tell you to say." And Ezekiel then says it, and boom, a supernatural move of God took place.
16:52-16:57
Next kind of scene, you get this idea that Ezekiel, This is God.
16:58-17:00
Ezekiel, do exactly what I tell you to do.
17:01-17:04
So he said, "Say this," and a supernatural move of God.
17:05-17:12
Do this, and then Ezekiel did it, and a supernatural move of God took place.
17:12-17:15
And then this section of Scripture ends with this verse.
17:15-17:15
Look at this.
17:16-17:21
"Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and that I have done what I said.
17:21-17:30
Yes, the Lord has spoken." And friends, I don't know how to fully explain this to you in the moment, but I could tell that God was speaking to me right there.
17:30-17:45
So I picked up my pen and I started to write these words, "God speak, your servant is listening." And I closed my eyes to really focus in on God's voice, and I tell you the truth, I heard God say.
17:45-17:52
Now listen, it wasn't like an audible voice, like, "Thus saith the Lord to Kent Chevalier." It wasn't like that.
17:53-17:57
It was all of a sudden in my knower, like boom, something dropped.
17:58-18:03
A thought dropped into my heart and I knew that God was speaking.
18:04-18:07
And here's what that voice said, "Kent, just settle down.
18:08-18:09
"Do what I say to do.
18:10-18:14
"When I tell you to do it, nothing more, nothing less.
18:15-18:22
"That way you know it's me." So with my heart beating fast, man, I wrote that down as quickly as I possibly could in my prayer journal.
18:22-18:27
And at that very moment, I knew that I was on the brink of God breaking through.
18:27-18:30
Three years of waiting for Him.
18:31-18:35
So in my prayer to God, I said this, and I closed out my journal entry with this.
18:35-18:38
I have a great thing going on with Northway, God.
18:38-18:42
I'm just wondering what you're doing with the Steelers chaplain role.
18:42-18:46
Because if I'm initiating that, I lay it down.
18:47-18:48
I don't want to initiate it.
18:49-18:50
So I wait for you.
18:51-18:53
Prayer experience was done, they're calling us back in.
18:54-19:06
I begin to gather up my things, and at that very moment, I kid you not, 10.24 a.m., because I wrote it down in my prayer journal, California time, Coach Tomlin texted me.
19:07-19:15
And he said, "Can you grab lunch in the next few days "to talk about the position?" And man, my hands, I was trying to hold my phone, and I'm shaking like this.
19:15-19:21
And I called Erica, and I said, "I think I'm about to become the chaplain to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
19:21-19:22
Now here's the funny thing.
19:23-19:26
I hadn't been offered the position yet, right?
19:26-19:30
But I just knew something was happening, right?
19:30-19:38
And so I go and I have lunch with Coach Tomlin that week and he offers me the position to become the chaplain to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
19:38-19:39
Man, are you kidding me?
19:40-19:41
I get to do this?
19:41-19:43
Pinch me, bro, this is incredible.
19:43-19:50
He said this, "I'm looking for a local Pittsburgh couple who will be able to be the pastors to this team.
19:51-20:02
I'm looking for a guy who can lead Bible studies for players, can lead Bible studies for coaches, who can lead chapels before the games and to be in relationship with these guys.
20:02-20:15
I'm looking for his wife to be able to do the same thing for the coach's wives, lead a Bible study for them and lead a Bible study for the players' wives and girlfriends, and then I want them to do like a couples ministry, small group couples ministry.
20:16-20:21
And I was loving everything that I was hearing coming out of Coach Tomlin's mouth.
20:21-20:22
Man, are you kidding me?
20:22-20:23
I get to do this?
20:24-20:25
Oh my goodness, this is crazy.
20:26-20:29
Until he said these next words.
20:30-20:42
"This position is not hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers, "and I would like for you to consider "joining the staff of Athletes in Action." And as soon as he said those words, I knew what that meant.
20:43-20:51
I mean, I've known people who have served in Athletes in Action, which is a missions organization of crew, Campus Crusade for Christ.
20:52-21:02
I knew that every one of those people had to raise every dollar of their salary, of their benefits, of their ministry budget.
21:03-21:05
I knew people who worked that.
21:05-21:17
And so, in my mind, as Coach Tomlin's still talking, in my mind, I'm going, "Nope, nope." and I'm shutting it down in my mind, and I'm going and I'm having a conversation with God on the side.
21:18-21:21
Coach Tomlin's talking, but I'm talking to God, and I'm like, "God, are you kidding me?
21:22-21:25
"I got three daughters, man, teenage girls, man.
21:25-21:27
"I'm staring college right in the face.
21:27-21:30
"I got three weddings coming around the corner, hopefully.
21:30-21:40
"There is no way that you want me to step away "from a secure income at Northway, "a great position at Northway, "to become a full-time missionary?
21:40-21:41
"Are you kidding me, God?
21:41-21:43
There's got to be another way.
21:44-21:52
And very quickly, my internal reaction revealed where I was actually placing my trust for all of these years.
21:53-21:55
See, my trust was not fully in God.
21:55-21:58
See, my trust was in a paycheck.
21:59-22:02
My trust had been in a position.
22:03-22:06
My trust had been in me providing for my family.
22:07-22:26
And to say that out loud to all of you now, I'm really embarrassed to say that, however, I don't think I'm the only one." So the meeting ended with me agreeing that I would continue down the process of the search for the chaplain role, but in the back of my mind, man, I was done.
22:26-22:27
There's no way this is going to happen.
22:28-22:35
I came home to tell Erica and we both pretty much shut it down very quickly in our minds, but we didn't shut down the process.
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We agreed, even, to fast and to pray to see if this is really something that God was up to in our lives.
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And during that few weeks of time that we were fasting and praying, we would go out on our back patio.
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In the summer months, this is the place where we go out to pray and kind of have our quiet time outside.
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And one day, Erica noticed that the fern on our back patio began to move.
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Crazy.
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So she goes over and she noticed that there was baby birds, like eggs that were in there.
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They eventually hatched during this few weeks of time.
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We begin to see the mama bird and the daddy bird come and feed these little ones.
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And all of a sudden you can see what God's doing.
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He's reminding us of the passage.
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And maybe you need to be reminded of this today out of our story.
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Look at this.
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Jesus said, "Look at the birds of the air.
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They don't sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
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Are you not much more valuable than birds?
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And as we prayed and as we walked down this process, see, God began to take us to school on what it is that we were really trusting in this life.
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And he began to shift our hearts to practice what we have been preaching for 25 years, To follow Jesus no matter what the cost.
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To follow this principle that we have learned along the way.
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Look at this, when God guides, He will always provide.
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Like do you believe that?
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Do I believe that?
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Do we believe that God can do that for us?
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So together we thought that God was being so obvious to us and we decided to put our feet and our family where our mouth had been all of these years.
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And we took the step.
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Now listen, we took the step with fear, fighting our faith.
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And we agreed that together we would do it afraid.
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Because we were afraid, let's be honest.
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We were afraid to do it.
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So here's what we did.
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We flew out to Colorado to meet with some of the other chaplains of Athletes in Action, where I then signed on the dotted line to become a full-time missionary.
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Are you kidding me?
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And this happened to coincide with Campus Crusade for Christ, their national, international conference where all of their 8,000 plus missionaries came together at Colorado State University for like training and worship and all kinds of incredible speakers from across the world would come in and we signed the papers, man, we did it, we stepped out, but to be honest, we were freaking out.
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Some of you have been there.
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Even though we knew that God was calling us to do this and He was being so obvious to us, Erica will tell you, I'll tell you man, that we were confident but we had questions.
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We were so aware that God was with us, but man, we were stressed out and scared.
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So the way that Erica kind of deals with that kind of thing, everybody has the way that they deal with stress and clear their head.
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And so Erica, she went for a run.
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So she went in the middle of Colorado State University somewhere, and she, you know, along the side of the road, she's basically running and having a conversation with God.
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And she, basically something like this, "God, I know we're supposed to do this, "but man, I don't wanna be that fleece person, "but I'm gonna be.
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"And so can you just give me a clear message "that this is you, that this is not just us doing this, "but this is you, that you're in this.
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"Give me that confidence.
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Can you give me that sign, so to speak?
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And so we came back and we went then to the final teaching session, the worship session.
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Now get this picture.
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8,000 plus missionaries worshipping together in the Coliseum of Colorado State University.
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There's a round stage in the middle of the basketball court.
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We're on one side and on the other side during the worship time, imagine that there's a painter who's painting while we're all singing.
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But we can't see what's going on.
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We're on the other side of this round stage and we see Him frivolously painting while we're singing in all of this.
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And as the worship begins to conclude, the singing portion, the camera pans back, and what do you think the painter had painted?
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Take a look.
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Baby birds in a nest, from the grapes of the vine." So much packed in that image.
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Now here's the crazy thing.
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Erica and I, we're like bawling at this point.
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We're like, "Oh, we're supposed to do this.
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We know. We have to do this now.
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This is our sign, right?" And so obviously, I want to take a picture of this, but here's the crazy part of this story, right?
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So, this painter who painted this, he was known for painting faces.
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Portraits of people.
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brought him in specifically because that's his ministry in California.
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He comes up to and builds relationship with people who happen to be homeless and he paints a portrait of how God sees them and he gives them that portrait.
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So everybody knows this guy and his ministry, so they expected that he was going to come and paint a portrait of some sorts.
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You think probably Jesus, the face of Jesus, the portrait of Jesus.
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But as they brought him up onto the stage, they interviewed him, and basically the question on everybody's mind is, "Dude, why did you not paint a portrait?" And here's what he said, "I don't know.
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I got up really early this morning to pray, and God told me that I needed to paint this." And Eric is like, "That was because of me.
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That was because..." All this, and I'm looking, I'm like, "Yes, it was because of you.
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We were a mess, right?
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But we left that day knowing that man, God is on our side.
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But here's the thing, we were still freaking out.
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We were afraid, but we were in faith.
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Those two things do not have to not exist together in the same room, you know what I'm saying?
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See, faith doesn't exclude fear.
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It just means that because you've got faith in the God who's behind you and in front of and beside you, that man, you can take that fear on, and He will be there every step of the way.
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Now listen, as I close here today, I share this story with you.
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This is not about us.
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I even prayed that with the elders in the back.
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Please hear me.
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I wonder if in the church today, and I happen to be at harvest today, I wonder if there's someone here today who has grown comfortable, who has really started to trust or has been trusting in a paycheck or a position or a person instead of God.
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You know in your knower that God's been calling you to do something, to step out into something, but you're hesitating.
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You're stalling, you're making up excuses.
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You've walked away from that dream that's in your gut.
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You've squashed down that idea because people have told you it's just too risky.
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It doesn't make logical sense, but you know in your knower that you're supposed to do something because God has put it into your knower.
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So I believe Jeff brought me here today to encourage you to do it afraid, to do it afraid.
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Man, you have been dating her for too long.
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It is time to pop the question, man.
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Commit, let's go.
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It is time for you to pitch that idea to that boss, to those investors, man.
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Do it afraid.
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It is time for you to start sharing your faith with your neighbors and your coworkers.
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It's time to do it afraid.
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It is time to have that awkward conversation, the difficult conversation about the sin of racism in your neighborhood or in your office.
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It's time to do it afraid.
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See, I believe in the church today that God is asking and looking for men and women who will step out in bold faith.
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And as I've been praying for you, 'Cause I've known for a while now that I'm gonna be coming to Harvest today.
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As I've been praying for the people of Harvest since Jeff invited me to come, I believe in this group of people that there are some new things that God is calling His church to do.
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You didn't come to church today, you are the church today.
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So Pastor Jeff, as a collective body, I believe elders, staff, families of Harvest, that God's got something new for you to do and you gotta do it afraid.
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See, when we read the passage at the beginning, it says, "Forget the former things." Listen, he didn't say that those former things were bad.
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Not at all.
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He just said, "I'm doing a new thing." Right?
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Can you not perceive it?
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I'm asking, I am making a way in the wilderness in the waiting.
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And I don't know what that is for each and every one of you here today, but here's what I do know is this, He is making a way for you.
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He will provide for you.
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His presence will go before you.
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His hand will be upon you.
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And the question that I want to leave you all with and myself with today is this, will we follow Jesus' example and do it afraid?
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Think about Jesus, right?
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Think about Him.
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When Jesus saw the path to the cross, You realize that He was afraid.
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And He asked His Father, He said, "Man, is there any other way that this could pass from Me?" And when God said no, Jesus said, "Okay, I'll do it afraid.
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Not My will, but Yours be done." And knowing the joy that stepped before Him, He endured the pain and the torture of the cross.
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He died, and three days later, He rose from the grave.
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And friends, you know what I believe?
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God is still raising people today.
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And I believe that God is calling someone here today to join Jesus and to step out in that bold, radical kind of trust, that kind of faith, and to do it afraid.
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Why?
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Because God wants to uniquely use you to resurrect someone's life.
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God wants to use you to resurrect someone's marriage.
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God wants to use you to resurrect someone's confidence in God because it has been completely broken by the church of America today.
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And what we see on Twitter and social media, it's been completely eradicated.
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So somebody's going to use the realness of somebody in this room to show somebody that you know what, it doesn't have to be like that.
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I see Jesus with skin on in this room.
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Real people who love Jesus who can make a difference.
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God's going to use you to transform someone's life by introducing them to Jesus.
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He's going to use you to uniquely do your part to make God famous in your circle of influence.
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But here's the thing.
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God's not going to give you a strategic plan to do it.
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He's going to give you enough light to take the next step.
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See, this is how God works, because He wants our faith.
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He doesn't want our strategic plan.
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See Erica and I, we jumped, and we're still mid-jump.
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We're trusting God for everything in our life.
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And it's scary, but you also know something?
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It's amazing to watch like God do His thing.
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Our faith is being stretched in ways that we didn't know that we needed to be stretched.
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Our faith has been brought alive in ways, and man, I've been professionally following Jesus for 25 some years, and I had parts of my faith that were dead that God has brought alive because I was confident enough in Him, not in me, to take that step.
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And so I'm watching as God, time and time again, God is showing Himself faithful to us amidst the scary jump.
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I don't know what it is for you, but you know it in your knower that God's calling you to do it.
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So I believe that Jeff brought me here today to simply encourage you to trust God, to follow Jesus, and to do it afraid.
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Let me pray for us as the band is going to come, and we're going to continue to worship.
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So God, this morning, I thank You for harvest.
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I thank You for what it is that You are doing in each and every person's life who is here today, and even online.
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God, I pray that You would give us the courage to take a step in the face of fear.
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God, I pray that You would give us the confidence to trust in Your promises, not in ourselves.
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I ask these things in Jesus' name, and everybody said, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Isaiah 43:18-19
What is one thing that God revealed to you personally during the sermon?
How are you going to obey what God revealed to you?
What is an example of something you’ve done afraid?
“God’s timing is just as important as His direction.” What does this statement mean to your and your current circumstances?
Breakout
Pray for one another.