God’s Call to Save the World

So we’re going to talk about build in just a second, but let me introduce my family. My name is Sean, I was born in Kansas. I was an atheist and became a Christian, was at the University of Kansas. When I became a Christian, I was actually pre-med until they explained to me that to be pre-med, I needed to take a foreign language and I needed to take a public speaking class. At which that moment I switched to engineering because learning a foreign language or standing in front of people and saying something was way beyond my mind at that moment.

But God has a way of doing things differently. This is my amazing wife. She was born just outside of Moscow. She was the 104th baptism of the Moscow church. Now the Moscow church had 850 people baptized in its first year so it was unbelievable. And she’s here this morning. If she could stand up, my awesome wife Lena. And also in this picture are my daughter Deanna and my son Andrew. And Deanna is here this morning as well with her husband Mark. If they could stand up, please. Deanna and Mark, you guys can come and give them a hug after this 31 years ago, I was invited to go on a mission team. We landed this is the mission team that landed in Kyiv, Ukraine, then went on to St. Petersburg for nine months, and then moved back to Kyiv with my soon-to-be girlfriend, soon-to-be fiance, and soon-to-be wife, Lena. And we led the church there in Kyiv for two years and it grew from 150 to 1600 and became the largest Christian fellowship in the nation of Ukraine, which caused actually lots of problems with the government. And we actually got kicked out and moved to Moscow where we spent the next ten years serving the church in Moscow and also working with Hope Worldwide where we started programs for orphans and the elderly. Actually, for the first event that we did for orphans, we invited Michael Jackson and he came. So that was encouraging for the kids for sure.

And then we moved back to the Ukraine where we continued to lead the church. And this is my favorite picture of the Kyiv church. It’s an amazing fellowship. But five years ago we prayed with my wife and we decided to focus on raising up an eldership and a new lead evangelist and move on to the other countries in Eastern Europe to see if we could help them because Ukraine was doing very well as far as lots of churches being planted. So five years ago we decided to become empty nester.

Well my daughter became an empty nester, we moved out, and with kind of the plan and strategy that we’re going to spend the next several years of our life each year moving to a different country to see if we can help those churches and those nations that had gotten stuck, we didn’t anticipate it, but then COVID happened. But we stayed true to our plan, which might not seem really reasonable to take a team of people to go do cold contact evangelism when the COVID pandemic broke out, you can see how busy the airport is here, how many people are swarming around. I think we were the only two crazy enough. We basically gave away everything we owned except what would fit in one and a half suitcases.

And we set out on our journey to help the churches in Eastern Europe. And these are the countries we as a fellowship globally. If you’re visiting here today, welcome. But you didn’t actually just wander into a neighborhood church. This church has been part of changing the world for years. And one of the parts of the world that we work with is Eastern Europe. And eight of the 16 countries that are still left to be reached with the gospel today. We have 16 countries in our fellowship that we still don’t have a church or fellowship in. Eight of them are in Eastern Europe, which is symbolized by the orange fish here. So we came up with the idea that what if we, me and my wife, move to one of these countries and we spend ten months and also there are eight countries here?

That was when we planted churches all over the world. In the beginning, we planted them with large teams, and there were significant starts like Moscow and Hong Kong, and Paris. But as we dreamed to reach all the nations by the year 2000, as we came up to the final line of reaching all the nations, some of the countries that are much smaller received much smaller teams and much smaller resources because it was difficult to continue to do all of those things the way we did it in the beginning. So many of those churches in Eastern Europe were planted, but then just a couple of years later, there were some challenging times financially. And many of those missionaries went home and basically left these countries with little fellowships of three or four-year-old churches of 20 or 30 people.

And it was very challenging for them. So most of these churches are still between 20 and 70 members and they’re 25, 30 years old. And basically, they don’t have anybody under 35 years old in their churches. And they’re having a very hard time having a dream or a vision to reach their nation. So the idea is that me and my wife would move with a team. We would ask people from all over the world who are willing to come join us for ten months and go turn a country around, prayerfully for eternity, who will give ten months of their lives and come over. And we’re looking for empty nesters that can help the older Christians. We’re looking for high school and college grads that can come over and get one year of just missionary crazy awesome, inspiring experience and then be able to go home but be different for the rest of their so that was the dream that we laid out right before COVID hit. So here we are. We were supposed to go to Budapest.

We couldn’t land there because of COVID Then we were going to go to the Ukraine. Couldn’t land there because of COVID The only place we could land was Istanbul, Turkey. 99% Muslim. Eventually, we got to Odessa. They let us in, and we took our masks off for this picture, but God still worked, even though it was all cold contact. We were just out on the streets meeting people in masks. Schools are shut down. We actually didn’t even see the church until the last Sunday we were there. That’s the first time they came out. But God worked powerfully. 18 people became Christians, which is amazing. Then we were supposed to go to Zagreb, but we landed in Moldova. Yes, that’s a country amen. That’s in between Romania and Ukraine. So we landed in Moldova. For the life of us, we couldn’t figure out we wanted to go to Hungary, but we ended up in the Ukraine. Then we wanted to go to Croatia, but we ended up in Moldova. And none of us understood what God was doing until this happened. On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine.

And at that moment, the Odessa Church, where we had just spent a year, the entire church, 200 some people, come across the border into Moldova, where we were set up to be able to take them all in and give them beds and food and take care of them I still get goosebumps telling this story. It’s unbelievable. And we turned the little hotel into a refugee center and provided 11,000 warm beds and 33,000 hot meals to people who were fleeing for their safety. While all this happened, my amazing daughter got married. Very proud of her. And that was actually a marriage of perseverance because, in Moldova, they didn’t want to marry them because they’re not Moldovan, they’re American and Ukrainian. Plus it was very challenging for them to imagine where can we hold a wedding that has Russians, Ukrainians, and Americans today.

Also an impossible task. But they persevered and prayed and prayed and prayed, and actually what happened is they ended up going in with the constitution as their advocate, and they convinced the government to give them a marriage license. And they turned out to be the first non-Moldovan couple in the history of the country to get married in Moldova. So very proud of them. This is actually the revival. So me and my wife, I call this missionary team, call it Revive. Revive 1.0 went to Odessa, revive 2.0 went to Moldova, and Revive 3.0 stayed in Moldova because we didn’t feel like we could leave them with all the issues with the refugees happening. But Revive 4.0, it actually will head off to Romania. But this is the Revive 3.0 team. Amazing group of young people. Incredible. And God worked powerfully through them. In Moldova, Kishov, basically the church in Kishov had three disciples under 35 years old. Now there are 40.

And the church basically had gone from 40 plus to almost 100 members. And God worked powerfully. These are all the baby Christians that God has brought into his kingdom. Very encouraging. So this is the church, September 3, basically eleven months ago, and we stayed there for ten months. This is what the church looked like when we left ten months later. So God has revived the church, which is very encouraging. And if you’re interested in following me or following what’s going on in Revive, or if you ever want to just direct message me and say, hey, I’m thinking I want to go spend ten months overseas. Or I want to help support somebody who’s willing to go for ten months overseas to help one of these countries in Eastern Europe. You can direct message me or follow us.

Just for good news. We also do prayer time almost every week. We pray with people all over the world for peace in Ukraine. And I know many of you continue to pray and it concerns you, but prayer is the strongest way we can influence any situation. So if you ever want to join us for a prayer time, they’re weekly that’s telegram, you could follow us there. And as I said, pray for us. Literally, in four weeks, we will be moving again with our one-and-a-half suitcases and our dog to Romania now, so 4.0 is headed to Romania, and actually, 5.0 applications to go on Revive. 5.0 just opened up last week. So if you would want to consider coming on a Revive, we would love to have you. Amen. Let’s get into the Bible. That’s what we came here for. Amen. But that was a little update. We do love the church here and I did want to lift up the church here because the worship and the way you do your online presence has been a great encouragement to us over there.

We often do karaoke singing with your worship group. It sounds better live, but we try our best. But we really do appreciate all the work you do to not just take care of yourselves here, but to inspire people around the world. It’s very encouraging. Amen. Point number one called to build. Let’s read here one Corinthians, one verse nine. God is faithful and has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. So before we jump into the building, I want to convince us and make sure we understand that we have been called and chosen by God. Says here, God is faithful. God is never too early, he’s never too late. He does not make mistakes. He knows exactly what he’s doing. We don’t always understand what he’s doing, but God is always faithful. The situation you are in right now, today is exactly where God can use you to impact eternity. Amen. And it says here you’ve been called, which another word for that is like summon. It’s like when a king would request your presence. That’s what this word is talking about here.

The King of the Universe is requesting an audience with you. He wants to speak with you personally. He has summoned you, he wants to meet you, and he’s summoning you to call you into fellowship with his son. Now, let’s clarify the word fellowship. Sometimes we say, let’s take a fellowship break. I don’t know if you’ve heard that phrase before, but usually, when someone says that, you stand up, you hug a couple of people, you say hello, then you sit back down. But the word fellowship actually has a much deeper, stronger meaning. Fellowship means that the two of you are like you’re in it together. It’s like a complete partnership, cooperation. It’d be like three or four of us sit down and we decide to do something together. We have the same motive, we have the same desire, we have the same passion, the same desire. We’re all in that’s fellowship. He’s called us into fellowship with his son. So how Jesus views his life and how he lived, that’s how we view our lives and how we want to live. Amen.

Equal partners with him. So we’ve been summoned into this fellowship. So, a couple of examples to help us land this idea. When you guys were talking about football, I assumed you were talking about this, but as he went on about dolphins, I realized it was a different type of football. But surely you know who this is by now. He is a football player, Messi. So, okay, the illustration here. If you’ve been summoned into fellowship, right, if you were in fellowship with Messi, like if you woke up in the morning, you met with him in the morning, you were all day long with him. You eat what he eats, you run when he runs, you kick the ball. When he kicks the ball, he’s explaining why he kicks, why he moves, why he does it, and he’s explaining everything every day, all day long, for 365 days, you’re in fellowship with him, and your whole dream is just to do what he’s doing and learn what he’s doing. Now, at the end of the year, most likely, you’re not going to be as good as Messi at football, right? But you’ll be a much better football player than you are today. Can I get an amen on that? Okay, if you’re not into sports, let’s take Einstein. What if you were in fellowship with Einstein?

What if, literally, for 365 days a year, you lived with Einstein, and from morning to evening, you were just working on problems and talking about physics and mathematics, and you’re thinking, oh, my gosh, that would be a disaster. But if you did that, for 365 days. You’re not going to be as smart as Einstein and you don’t understand physics as well as him, but you will definitely know more than you do today. You would be a completely different person today because you’re in fellowship with him. So if you’re in fellowship with this guy, if literally you wake up in the morning and your first thought is, what is he thinking? What is he doing? What would he do in my place? Now I go into the kitchen, now I go here, now I go there. Now I’m going to go to work. Now I’m going to go to school. And you’re just thinking, okay, I’m in fellowship with Jesus. I’m doing what he would do. We’re doing this together. I’m not alone. He’s not alone until I lay my head down on my pillow.

I’m in fellowship with Jesus. Now, you’re never going to be as good as Jesus, and you’re not going to get it always, right? But you’ll be better. You’ll be more like him every year because you’re in fellowship. Amen. Out of the 7 billion people on this planet, out of the millions living in South Florida, he summoned you. He called you, come follow me and have fellowship with me. Why did he do this? He did this because he wants us to build the church. Let’s look at this. Let’s read together. This is an interaction between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus says, who do you say I am, Simon? Peter answered, you are the Messiah, which literally means Savior, right? It means Savior, the son of the living God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever’s lost on earth will be lost from heaven.

Okay, this is an amazing verse because this is the first time Jesus kind of comes out and says, I am actually the Messiah. I am actually here to save the world. He’s looking at those twelve people and said, I’m actually here to save you. But not just them, everybody living in the world at that moment. But not just then. But we’re sitting here 2000 years later also wanting to know, how are we saved? So, Jesus, this is awesome. You’re the Messiah, this is awesome. You’re the savior. How’s that going to work? How is he without a TikTok and Instagram account 2000 years ago going to reach the world? How is he going to change the world? What’s the plan? And Jesus lays it out in the very next word. He says I will build my church. Jesus’church is Jesus’s plan to save the world. There is no plan B. That is plan A. There is no other way people can get saved except through the church Jesus is building. Jesus’ church is what saved them back then and what continues to save us generations later. It’s his church now, church, there are different things that pop into your mind when you hear the word church. The church is actually the people who decide to follow Jesus, right? If I decide to follow Jesus, I become part of his church. It actually means group.

That’s what the word actually means. It’s a group of people who decide to follow Jesus. Now, if Jesus is going around saving people and I decide to follow Him and I’m learning from Him, then I will walk around and continue to help people be saved just as Jesus did. You guys are following me, right? This is a simple idea, but it’s incredibly profound because this is God’s plan to save the world. Amen. Now, for some of us, these are the images that pop into our heads when we think of the word church. It’s either a building or it’s a place you go or in my situation, a place my parents would drag me on Sunday. But sometimes we can even use the wrong way of communicating about church. Like, for instance, we can say something like, so where is a church? Well, the church is I don’t know, it’s sitting here right now. This morning, the church woke up, brushed his teeth, ate a banana, jumped in a car, and drove down here to be with another church because it’s just a group. It’s just people. When does church start and when does church stop? That’s a weird idea.

Church, I don’t know. The church is going to be church all day long because church just you’re just being church. You’re just being like, Jesus, I may miss church this week. How do you do that? You’re going to miss yourself or you’re going to like, how does that work? Right? We have to view this the right way. This is a beautiful picture of the church. It’s just people following Jesus, trying to do what he would do. Amen. And there has never been an organization I love what Joe shared today. There’s never been an organization as powerful or influential or as impactful as the church of Christ. There is none. There is no company, there’s no government, there’s no nation. There’s nobody that stands close to the influence or significance of the church of Jesus Christ, as the people following Jesus Christ. There is no role in this nation today. There is no role. There’s no position in this nation today as significant as a disciple of Jesus Christ. There isn’t. You can’t name it to me because the roles will impact a certain amount of influence in the next four or 510. We’re impacting eternity. You’re changing eternity. Amen.

Church, this is Jesus’s church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Amen. Now, I used to think of this verse I used to think, okay, gates of Hades, they’re not going to overcome us. They’re not going to come in and attack us. We can be strong enough to protect ourselves against the gates of Hades. But then I thought, okay, wait a minute. Gates don’t attack gates. Stand still. Gates are protecting something. Yeah, this whole world is Satan’s dominion. But the gates of Hades can’t stop the church. The church can go in through the gates and snatch people out and escape without being harmed. Amen. We’ve been given this power that even the gates of Hades can’t stop us. Amen. I appreciated being invaded in my life. Several years ago I was an atheist at the University of Kansas. A guy reached out to me at a tennis tournament. I was a professional tennis player. And he reached out to me at a game of tennis. He said, hey Sean, do you believe in God? I was like, no, I don’t believe in God. He’s like, why not? I said I believe in evolution.

I’m too smart for God. God is for people who have nothing better to do with their lives. And he said, did you know there was a guy who prayed and the sun stopped for 24 hours and that there’s a hole in the spacetime continuum of 24 hours that no one can explain? And he showed me some articles which to this day I still can’t find. So maybe he made it up. But it worked on me, okay? That kind of freaked me out. I went home, I came back the next day. I said I think I believe in God. What do I need to do? And he said, Pray with me. Tell God you’re sorry. Tell God you love him and you’ll be saved. I was like, and that’s it? He’s like, yeah, you’ll be saved. You’ll go to heaven. I was like, wait a minute. I was in a bar last night and after about my 8th beer, I think I told everybody in there I love him. So I could say I love God now, but what does that mean a week from now? I mean, surely if there’s a God and his son died on the cross, there’s got to be something more to it than that. And we actually argued. And then I said, thank you for helping me believe in God, but I don’t think you have it right. So I got in my car, drove home from the tennis tournament, stopped at Walgreens, and bought a Bible. The best medicine at Walgreens is the Bible amen. I don’t know if they still sell it there, but I bought a Bible there, went home, and decided I have to figure this out.

I opened up Matthew chapter one. Surely the answer is in Matthew chapter one. Somebody’s a father. Somebody’s a father. Somebody’s a father. I read chapter one close. I thought I have no idea what to do. But I prayed. A 15-second, very sincere prayer, god, if you’re out there, help me find you. And two days later, at the University of Kansas in freezing temperatures, a guy stops me and asked me to take off my headset. And he invited me to church. Amen. And thanks to him inviting me, I’m now standing in Broward County on my way to move to Romania because he stopped me. And I asked him later, this is at the Reach Conference. I asked him later. I said, So what were you thinking when you invited me? He said, Actually, that day when I woke up, I decided I was going to invite five people to church, and I had already invited four, and it was freezing, and I thought I should go home. But then I thought, no, I should go ahead and invite the fifth person. So he went outside in the freezing temperature after lunch and said, okay, I’m going to find my fifth guy. Him. He sees the guy walking, and he walks up to him and kind of chickens out, and the guy walks by.

Then he says, okay, no next guy. And the next guy was me. So I’m kind of fired up he chickened out on the guy before. Okay, I feel bad for that guy. Hopefully, he made it. But I’m super fired up that he stopped me. And now I’m standing here. Amen. Church. I’ll give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Now, if you’re visiting, absolutely talk to somebody about what I’m about to say. But the Bible makes it very clear what those two keys are that he gave to Peter. That Peter then stood up in front of thousands and preached it. And he said, if you want to be saved, you have to become a Christian. You have to decide to change your mind and live like Jesus. And when you make that decision, you can be baptized for the forgiveness of all your sins, and you’ll receive the Holy Spirit. Those are the two keys. Nothing gets in without those two keys. Nothing. Nobody.

And then it says for all generations to come. It didn’t change 200 years ago, and it’s not going to change 300 years from now, no matter what tech gets invented there are two keys to repenting, which means deciding to follow Jesus as we’ve already talked about. And when you make that decision, Jesus forgives through baptism, and we receive God’s Spirit, which is amazing, but if it’s not bound on earth, it’s lost from heaven. Whatever gets into Jesus’ group on Earth will be in Jesus’ group in Heaven. Whatever decides not to be in Jesus’ group on earth will not be in heaven. Jesus gave Peter the keys. Peter passed them on to us all. I don’t know if all but the keys to the kingdom of heaven are sitting in this room right now. Now, we can’t force people out there to take the keys or use them, but we should give them a chance.

They need a chance to take the keys. Amen. Church. This is the Titanic. If you watch the movie, when people were getting on the Titanic, there were lots of different categories of people getting on the boat. There’s, like, first class and premier class and extra class, and getting on planes are the same ways. Now, there are, like, 15 different classes. You got to wait until your zone is called. But here it’s from first class all the way down to basically no class. And you get on the boat with a lot of pompous or you’re kind of embarrassed, but you’re getting on the boat. Now, getting off the boat, when it sank, there were rescue boats, and the rescue boats brought the survivors to America. And in the States, there were two boards put up. Saved and lost. Just two. And everybody’s name as boats were coming in, everyone’s name was put on one of the two lists saved or lost. Now, getting on the boat, there are lots of categories. Getting off the boat, there are two.

Your life right now is probably filled with lots of categories. Am I single? Am I married? Do I have a diploma? Do I not have a do I have a good job? Do I not have a good job? Do I travel? Do I not travel? Is my passport American, Russian, or Ukrainian? What color is my skin? These are all the things that everyone’s worried about. But God looks at all those things we get worried about, and he’s not looking at those lists. He’s got two lists saved and lost. What unifies this group is that we’re not focused on all that stuff I said before. I’m not saying they’re not significant in any way. I’m saying they’re not as significant. Saved and lost. That’s what Jesus’ group fights for. Amen. Church this is kind of funny. This is how to invite your friends and family. Church come with me if you want to live. Great summary, right? We’re not out building a social club. We’re just not out trying to do good. We are literally passing the keys that determine where people spend eternity. Amen. Now we have to do this together. And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. We can’t do this alone. I loved what Joe shared.

We need each other. We need to come together and spur each other on toward love and good deeds. That’s what we do. Encourage one another daily. We need encouragement. Now, I’m going to do an experiment. Hang in there with me. If. You could stand up, but don’t move. Just stand up, but don’t walk around. Please stand up, everybody. Awesome. Now I just need you to hug the people next to you and say, God loves you. Can you do that? Hug the people around you. God loves you. Okay? And then you can sit down after you’ve hugged the people around you, then go ahead and be seated after you’ve hugged the people around you. See, I just spurred you on in a very simple way toward love and doing something good. It’s incredible because God loves you. If you don’t hear me say anything today, please hear me say, God loves you. God loves you. And that’s why he brings you into his church, into his fellowship, where basically he’s commanded everybody in here to love you. I mean, John 13 says, Love one another way that I love you. So basically, you walk in here, and there are 400 people that have been commanded by Jesus to love you the way Jesus loves you.

We walk into this fellowship, and we’re loved, we’re encouraged, we’re supported, we’re forgiven, we’re family, but we have to do this together. Amen. Church. You know the power of encouragement. This is Dennis. He was the first Ukrainian evangelist ever appointed at the age of 22. Now, several months later, he came down with cancer, and the doctor said he had a couple of months to live, and his cancer got worse, and he was bedridden, and people would come over to encourage him. And his mother, who was basically married to a colonel in the KGB who actually helped us with the Ukrainian mafia, but that’s a different story. But she was an atheist and never come to church, never was interested in anything spiritual or the Bible. And she sat down next to Dennis as Dennis finally fell asleep.

And there was a stack of letters by Dennis’s bed from brothers and sisters who wrote him notes of encouragement, which was mentioned today also, but not just a few words, but literally, people wrote pages of what Dennis has meant to them and how he’s encouraged them and how he’s helped them. And mom, sitting next to Dennis, kind of bored because Dennis fell asleep, decided to read through all the letters. She read through all the letters. A couple of hours of just reading all the ways, reading the different verses and the impact and the change. And then Dennis wakes up and looks at Mom, and Mom has tears in her eyes and says, Mom, what’s wrong? She said I’ve read what all the brothers and sisters in the church have written to you. And he said, what do you think? And she said I want to study the Bible. I think I believe in God. I want to become a Christian.

That stack of encouragement literally turned an atheist upside down. In 2 hours, she studied the Bible and made the decision to become a Christian. The brothers literally had to hold Dennis up as he baptized his mom. And Dennis shared at the baptism, you know, Mom, I’ve been praying every day since I’ve become a Christian that no matter what it would take, you would become a Christian. And he said I have peace. Encouragement is so important. Joe shared about the sadness of people walking away. Sometimes people walk away and there’s nothing you can do about it. It happened to Jesus. But do we have daily encouragement in our lives? Do you have people you encourage every day? Because the Bible says this is done daily. It’s not done by Sunday, it’s not done Wednesday or Sunday, it’s not done at Christmas and Easter. It’s daily. Do you have people encouraging you daily? And do you daily encourage somebody? This is so important. Amen. Church we need to persevere so that when you’ve done, we need to persevere so that when you’ve done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.

We have to persevere. I appreciate 42 years, right? I’m 30-something. I used to think as a baby Christian, when I get older, this is going to get easier. It’s not true. You have to persevere. You have to persevere and not give up. When I landed over there in the former Soviet Union, at that time when I got to St. Petersburg, we were basically mugged. The first week all my stuff was stolen. By the way, we later studied the Bible with the guy who stole all my stuff. And he confessed to that. So it’s actually quite random. I was like, Jesus forgives you, I’m going to have to work on it. But no, I forgive. The Mafia beat up my roommate and threatened the church. So proud of my wife for the way she has fought for her family. Her mom became a Christian, her grandma became a Christian, her sister became a Christian, and her sister’s husband became a Christian. Basically, everybody in the family has become Christian. But it takes perseverance. Amen. We’re living out of one and a half suitcases, moving to a country that none of us have a right to be in and we don’t know how long we can stay. And we’re going into a hurting church that’s looking for hope. It’s going to take perseverance. Your life is going to take perseverance.

Amen. These are redwood trees. They grow really tall, even taller than the Statue of Liberty. They also live 2000 3000 years. Now, when you look at a tree this tall, you must think, wow, the roots must go really deep to hold up this tree for 2000 years. But actually, the roots of this tree are only 6ft deep. Let that register like this is as deep as they go to hold up a tree 300ft tall. Now don’t google it just yet. You can check with me later. But the reason it works is because the roots go sideways and the trees hold on to each other. That’s how they stay standing for 3000 years. They hold on to each other. So we have roots that we plug into Jesus and we do that every day. We go deeper and deeper and we get fed from Jesus, but then we hold on to each other because the storms are coming. Perseverance is going to be necessary to make it to the end. So you hold on to each other. Amen. Church, we need each other. Let’s close here with this. But my righteous one will live by faith and I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

You know, shrinking back actually means lowering the sails. We are not those who lower our sails. We don’t shrink back. We don’t step back. We belong to those who stand firm and are saved. Amen. So we don’t want to lower our sails. Now if you get in a storm and you’re in a sailboat, you lower your sails because the storm can knock you over, right? But when the storm’s over, you got to raise your sails back up. But what’s happened is when you go through a spiritual storm, sometimes you just want to leave the sails. No, no, no, I already tried. No, no, that doesn’t work. Oh, I gave my heart once, but I got hurt, so I’m done, I’m out. And you lower your sails and you think, well, there’s another storm coming, so I’ll just leave the sails down. Jesus is not happy with that. Jesus wants us to get our sails back up. Broward County needs you to get your sails back up. Amen. Church. I had a really, really bad day. When we planted the church in Kyiv, there were 500 people at the first service. And after that 28 people became Christians in the first week, 77 the first month.

And I shared my faith with probably 700 people. But I didn’t find anybody at church who came that I invited. I really wanted to study the Bible with somebody, but nobody came that I invited. Not day one, not day two, not day six. And then Sunday service, 500 people, 500 visitors in the hall, and I can’t find anybody that I invited. And I thought there must be something wrong with me. Ever felt that way, like I’m no good, god’s against me. This isn’t good. Okay, but I’m not going to give up Monday I’m going to go out and I’m going to still try. Because we had decided as a church, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we’re just going to study the Bible people every day. And then Sunday people would become Christians, which would be awesome. So I decided Monday on the day off, I’m going to still go out and share my faith. So I went out Monday, all day long, and shared. And Monday night, I showed up, and nobody showed up again. And I remember being incredibly discouraged, walking back to the metro.

Everyone else is staying there and studying the Bible with people. They’re all very busy. I sit down in the metro, completely discouraged, sitting there for five, six minutes, and I look up, and there’s this group of people by the door of the metro. And sometimes you don’t hear a voice, but you’re thinking, you should go talk to them. There’s that little voice in there that’s very annoying sometimes. And I’m like, what are you talking about? I just invited seven. I’m sitting here. I’m mourning now. This is my time to be selfish and feel bad for me. So I ignored that little voice. The door opened. They didn’t leave. They stayed. The door closed. And I keep looking at them, Shawn, you should go talk to him. I’m like, You’ve lost your mind. I’m not talking to anybody like, I’m done for today. Then doors open. Closed. They didn’t get out. Doors open and closed. They didn’t get out. And I thought, okay, let’s make a deal. If they don’t go out on the next stop, I’ll go talk to them. But if they go out, leave me alone. Doors opened. I was literally praying to leave.

Doors closed. And they stayed. I thought oh, okay, fine. So I get up, walk over. I say I’d like to invite you guys to come to a Bible study tomorrow night. Would you be interested? A couple of them said, yeah, I’d be interested. I was like, yeah, right. Sure, whatever. And I hand them the invitation, went back, sat down, and I thought, Nah. So that was my invitation, my spirituality and my boldness, and my love for all the lost people of the world. That was my golden, disastrous, lowest point, worst spiritual, raw obedience. I just did this to get the voice out of my head. But later I went back, and actually, two of those people came to church. A girl and a guy from that little group of four or five people came, and the guy was a rugby player, and he actually loved this study. And he said, hey. I said, do you want to study the Bible? He said, yeah, let’s do it. And I was like, when? Let’s do it tomorrow. He said, okay, yeah, study tomorrow. He said, how about 06:00 A.m.? I was like, really? Like the one guy who’s willing to study. It’s got to be 06:00 A.m.

So I said, okay, yeah, let’s do that. So we met in the morning, and we studied, and I actually ended up going on to the next city before he became a Christian. But he became a Christian a little later, and one of the girls became a Christian. But I circled back to see, okay, who’s still in our church today, that kind of met that he then reached out or then they became a Christian or they became a Christian. Like, what happened from this day, that it was just raw obedience with no spirituality. Watch this. It’s Igor and Yana. That’s who is on the metro, even on a bad day, God can do anything. I want to encourage you. Sometimes we feel like we’re not good enough, or I just got to keep being better and better. God can just use us. You never know when you’re going to bump into a guy who’s an atheist on his way to Wall Street and he ends up in Romania because you just decided to say hello.

You just never know. Amen. Church. We belong to those who have faith and are saved as we prepare to take Communion, which hopefully you have your little cuppy thing. Cup thing. We’ll be opening that in just 1 second, but I would like to fast forward just for a second before you take your Communion. There’s a day coming, and we don’t know when, but there’s a day coming when you’re probably going to be on I 95 stuck in traffic, as it was mentioned today at 05:00. And all of a sudden you’re going to hear this incredible noise and it’s going to be like a trumpet call, and it’s going to get louder and louder and you’re thinking, something’s wrong with your stereo. And you pull over because you realize it’s coming from outside and it’s getting louder and louder, and you pull over, you get out of your car and you realize the highway is like a parking lot and everybody’s come outside to look up at the sky. Where is this noise coming from?

And all of a sudden, the heavens are going to rip open like curtains and this incredible flood of angels is going to come through the opening of this sky. Thousands and thousands and millions and millions of angels taking a position on the horizon. All chanting, holy, holy, holy. And the chanting is getting louder as more and more angels, holy, holy. And you’re standing there thinking, oh, my gosh, it’s a good day to be a disciple today. Amen. And until the final, all the angels have taken their final place in the heavens. And the wings stop and the chanting stops and you could hear a pin drop. And at that moment, a man riding on a horse, the silhouette of a king, comes through the opening and he announces, I’m the alpha, the omega, the first and the last. And at that moment, your legs give out and you just fall on your knees. The angels fall to their knees. Everybody on this planet, the atheists, the Muslims, the Buddhists, everyone falls on their knees. And you fall on your knees with your face on the ground and you’re thinking, okay, what happens next in a revelation? Okay, what’s going on? Okay, what’s next? And at that moment, you’re going to start to float up and you’re going to get 5 or 10ft off the ground, and you’re thinking, oh, my gosh, I’ve always wanted to fly.

This is awesome. And then there’s going to be this bitter moment because you’re going to look down and you’re going to see these people who aren’t going up. Imagine the look on their face that they just didn’t have time or they gave up, and that’s going to be sad. But you’re going to get above the palm trees and you’re going to get up higher, and you’re going to start seeing each other rising up. Bro, check me out, sister, I guess we won’t have a date this weekend, but it’s okay. Amen. We’re good. And you’re floating up and you’re floating up in the Broward County. Starts to see the Miami group and starts to see the Palm Beach group, and we go up in there and we Tampa. We start to see Tampa. You see Florida, you see Cuba, and you see the Bahamas. That would have been nice to be in the Bahamas. Amen. But this is even better where we’re going. Then you get up and you see New York and you see La. And you get up higher and you’re seeing Eastern Europe. Can you pray for Eastern Europe? Amen. And the whole fellowship starts and it’s starting and it’s happening, and you’re like, wow, this is unbelievable. And then all of a sudden you’re like, okay, where are we going?

And you look up and you see Jesus for the first time. You’ve pictured Him a thousand different ways, but you never knew what he looked like. And now you’re just fixated. You don’t see the fellowship. You don’t see all the you just see Jesus. And you’re going to be pulled in until you’re standing right in front of Christ and he’s going to look you in the eye and he’s going to say, I’m so proud of you that you didn’t give up. And he’s going to hug you and it’s going to feel like a thousand arms wrapped around you. And he’s going to say, welcome home. Amen. Church. When we take Communion right now, we take it knowing that we’re headed for a better eternity. Church, you’ve been called. It’s time to build. It’s time to persevere. It’s time to put the sails up. It’s time to grab ahold of each other, encourage one another, and let’s change Broward County. Let’s pray for communion. Amen.