City Central Church Podcast
City Central Mission Meeting
I wish I could afford a foreign car like, you know, in the day, like Dotsen back then, you know, or something. He goes, "I'm always underneath this car fixing it. I'm always going in the junkyard, getting parts." And you know, it's like the whole auto industry wants the money and they're getting the money. When all of us could go up there and say, "Well, let me just tell you, like, there's about 25 things that you need to do differently to succeed. First of all, we can't afford cars for $40,000. It's ruining us. We have no money. We can't afford cars for $20,000. Is there any way you could make a car for $10,000? You know, we would have lots to say, wouldn't we, about the subject. I think even our kids could help them understand what kind of gas mileage it might need. Even four and five-year-olds will begin to tell you the truth about why is that big car on the road, Dad? Isn't it true? And I've never -- I've not heard any of this discussion in the Congress and during the bailout. Do you see what I'm saying? It's just the America as a way, the Earth as a way of hiding the truth. But Jesus is different. Jesus always takes us to the place of understanding Him, His heart, and as we function in His ways, with His heart, we begin to experience the same results as the Bible. And so we're saying, Jesus, tonight, we want, we need everything you've got. We need, we want everything you have. We don't want to look back in any way, years down the road and regret in any way that we would shortchange the Holy Spirit. We're willing to pay any price tonight, any price whatsoever, to have you be honored, to have you be lifted up, Jesus, to have you truly receive everything that you want. We want to pray tonight that Jesus is our Lord, and we want to say, Lord and Master Jesus, have we done all things to the best of our ability according to your will, and are you pleased, Commander in Chief? We want Jesus to have all credit, all glory, all things go to Jesus. And so are we strong enough tonight to push this ship off the dock God's way? I want to ask you again tonight, are we willing to do anything, everything, whatever it is tonight, that literally we would not look back and say, man, I, 20 years from now, we'd look back and say, man, it never really turned out like, I mean, it was good, but we never really saw those things we all dreamed of. And then we have a whole stack of words that explain why it didn't turn out that way and why the way that actually isn't any fun to be around was the right way. Let me say this to you, I want to provoke us to pray right now, that a lot of times in the church sick people are told that it's a trial. Isn't it interesting that Jesus never brought that up with one sick person? He healed them all. But so the truth is we don't have any anointing to heal you, but we have words to explain why you need to continue to suffer. Why are you catching that in your spirit? And so this young generation is strong enough to say that it doesn't work that way. God's way is the only way and we don't want the sick coming around, we don't want the things that are happening on this earth to happen without God's power and His love meeting it face to face and countering. And so I'm just asking you again, are we willing group as a group, as one voice to enter the Holy of Holies tonight, to enter the throne room tonight and say, Lord Jesus, we're excited tonight that you would have every part of my heart, every part of my heart, all of my heart, not anything withheld. We know it's not about perfection, we can never get there. But it's about all of our hearts at the age that we're at, being given over to God. So Father, I just let me open us in prayer, God, we tonight agree and band together as one heart, one voice. We band together with one heart and one voice. They were saying, God, this cannot be all that there is. This cannot be all that there is, Lord. We know that there is so much more that you want to do through all of our lives. We know it, Lord. You've shown it to us. You've shown it to us, Lord. Father, we don't want to be dreamers that dream dreams, but ended up with nightmares in reality. Lord, we don't want another prophetic time to just encourage the troops. Lord, we have enough to last a lifetime. We're asking tonight, Father, that your Holy Spirit would crash into the room. As we're praying right now, I just feel that this is, my sense is, you know when you ever be in a real situation, that there's real suffering or trauma or trouble? You might be in an area of the city, you might be in a school, you might be somewhere where there really is trauma and trouble. Have you ever been around someone who's unsaved and they died and went to hell and I've had to do some funerals like that and you seek God before the funeral and he says, hey, I don't, there's nothing to say. Lord, give me something to say, there's nothing to say. And you walk in there and you crack jokes and try to make it fun to lighten the night, but there's nothing to say. And so when you see things like that, you get reality in you. When you see like a traumatic thing done to a child, you get reality in you and you pray differently in your car and the parking lot. Isn't that true? When we see reality, it's a funny thing how whatever we're struggling with, we go to a higher dimension immediately in Christ. And so what we don't want to pray tonight is any sort of prayer that Lord, I would get it or we would get it or Lord help, you know, that kind of a me centered prayer, but we're saying Jesus, we want you to have what you want from us. We want you to be truly lifted up. We want you to truly be elevated. We want you, you know, just Jesus kind of prayers that Jesus would just come, come, come and just Jesus would take over that we'd have his values and his heart. And so Lord, we look over the edge and we see the generation. And there is no plan for this to change. They're going off the cliff. So we tell you tonight we're not going to cry out for the purpose of ourselves getting something. We see the young generation going off the cliff and we have everything to save them. Father, in the sense in my spirit, we've spent too many years having moments like these. Father, I pray tonight that you would cause us to see the cliff and the generation. And then we could birth something so explosive, so wholehearted, so violent in the spirit that it would truly be an empowered wrecking ball of your power and love in the city. So I'm going to count up to three here, and what we're praying for is that Jesus would suddenly come tonight, would suddenly arrive tonight for the sake of that dying generation, for the sake of those that are dying and lost, that Jesus Christ would come and we would be just all would come alive like never before in our lives. I want you to know that we all have problems tonight. I want you to know that we all have anxiety of some sort tonight or a fear of some sort tonight or an inadequacy of some sort tonight. We all have lacking of something tonight. We all have some sort of sin that's challenging us and we're trying to win. We all have a story, but brave men and women sometimes put their story down. And they fight for a greater cause than their own story, than their own story, than their own need. And they say, "I will sacrifice the rest of my life for a greater thing than myself." And so that's the kind of explosion we need tonight in this room. And so we're going to pray and pray and pray until we feel the way is ready to go. Are you ready to pray right there? Let's go. One strong man. So the Cardinals won today. He's a Christian. He used the anointing to win the game. Now, you know, the reason I brought that up, we'll get to the work here, but many of us know that the Seahawks got a raw deal this year. Can I get a hand away from at least a couple of sports? You know, our guys, our guys, most everybody knows is about the Seahawks is the whole team is saved. And they really are a radical group of intercessors and so they were, wouldn't that be crazy? But literally out of our division that we were so lacking, the Cardinals go to the Super Bowl. I think that's interesting. I really do. And I think it's just amazing that it was a Christian guy. Who won the other game? Do we even know? Pittsburgh did. So you see, you and I, no, no, we need to go here. We need to go here. We need to deal with this. This is going to be hard. I know. Back to them time with our memories were very, very difficult memory, very difficult time. When the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seahawks that Sunday and the referees, the referees, we all know it. We know what they did. Wave your hand. If you're still with me on the referees, we all know what happened. It was a conspiracy. We agree. That's right. So all that, we've been carrying this year after year after year, carrying, I've been carrying, you've been carrying it. You come to church, you try to cheer yourself up, you sing, but at the end of that singing, there's just, there's my heart. Just, there's nothing there. And then the Cardinals. And so now I feel like I'm part of the Cardinals, you know, and we're going to take back the ground against the Steelers. And so in some kind of way, praise God, thank God for that. Are you guys in a good mood tonight? Praise the Lord. We have a wild night ahead. Now, it's important to know, now catch this tonight, as we're moving forward into what is city central. Turn your neighbor right now and say, "Well, what is city central?" Yeah, we need to understand this. But turn your neighbor and at least say hello tonight and bless them. Would you offer your neighbor some gum or something, a mint, anything? It's been a long night of them singing next to you. Praise the Lord, look how many people are here tonight. Now we're going to need to get a bigger room. But fortunately at the convention center, you just have to go down the hall. So we will be moving as a church, but it'd be only like 50 yards or so, okay? So thank God. We don't have to have it. Aaron, should we have it turn off the light song? Every time we move to another, a goodbye service. Can you imagine? Oh, wow. All right, the plan. When we think of city central, you should think of a missionary, missionary center in an American city. City central is a missionary center. And it has one focus and only one focus. You want to check this out? And we'll get this all typed out to you. I was going to do it, but I'm not an administrator that way. I just try to hear what the Lord said, like it's so exciting, I want to type it. Thank God for people like that. But the bottom line to us is that we would live this way with an explosive, desirous desire for revelation of Jesus. That above everything else, what city central is, is anyone that's involved, anyone that's close to us, they would have an explosion to know God, literally an explosion in their spirit like, I want to know, if I want to know, if I want to know them, and that would be over everything else, it wouldn't be, if we want to see this happening, we want to see this program, we want to see this plan, we want to see this thing built. But over everything, at all times, it'd be a group of people that said, we're exploding to know God, we're exploding to worship God, we're exploding to know God. And above everything else, that's what it would be. And so if you describe, what is it all about? It's about a group of people that are just trying their hardest to explode, desirous of revelation of Christ. We come together, we want to know him, we want to know him, we want to know him. The highest priority is a pursuit of Jesus. If you want to join us, pursue Jesus. How do you get into the club? I don't know if there's a club, it's called Pursuit, and it's explosive. You must explode in your pursuit. I can't make you explode. You can't make me explode, so inside of your own being comes the desire to explode. I no longer will pray you into explosion, you won't pray me into an explosion. But you want the explosion, yes, I'll have a dark day, a dark month, a dark year, we'll all have trouble on the earth, but in the heart of hearts, I want to see Jesus. And that's part and center, if there was a banner to know him, if there was a company lined with a business card, it's to know Jesus. If there was a program we sold, it was Jesus. If there was a family gathering, and there was a plot to the gathering, it'd be Jesus. If there was a reason that we went out on the streets, it was Jesus. If we ever did a crusade or a conference, it would be Jesus. If you ever wanted to know why we became, we became, it would be Jesus. It wouldn't be freedom. It wouldn't be, that's part of the story. It's Jesus. When anyone talked about their own accomplishments, they were slapped and it was said, "It's Jesus." When anybody wanted to strut and say, "Well, I know all this and you don't know this," say, "Try out Jesus. None of us know anything." The people came and asked any of us, "How did all this happen?" We say, "Jesus." What's, where's the pamphlets? We got one. It's Jesus. It's Jesus. It's the Bible. Our textbook's the Word of God. Our choir book is the Word of God. Our praise book is the Word of God. Our community gathering group is the Word of God. Are you catching this? It's Jesus. It doesn't matter how we rearrange the furniture, have you ever been to a dysfunctional family's house? And if you ever rearrange the furniture and say, "Well, let's clean it up. Let's get over here." They will become dysfunctional even in the cleanliness of the situation. Within hours, they will make it dirty again. You cannot get the dirt out there, but you can't get the dysfunction out of the house. Isn't it true? So we will not be a ministry that rearranges the furniture. Our situation is Jesus. We, it's like year to year, "Wow, this program, this year, this caused this year." No, it's Jesus. We're addicted to Jesus. Everything's solved by Jesus. Are you catching this? This is City Central's mission. I want to say it again, explosive and desirous of revelation, full pursuit of Jesus right now. Now within this, there's kind of three segments of, of population. Are you prepared for this? Number one, we're going to have a group of people that are in full-time mission work in this city. Full art part-time are an intern. And so these cats are going to be somehow they've arranged by raising support. They've arranged by whatever creative means they have. And they're full-time on the staff of the missionaries. So you can't come on staff and say, "Well, I want to do this. I want to reach out to cats and dogs." And I love that kind of ministry, but that's not what we do here. We're about young people. And so we'll find you a place down the street of those cats and dogs, in your main society. There you go. You're totally taken care of, but we do young people here. Do you see what I'm saying? And so this group is committed and dedicated to that, and they've raised support, whatever they've done to get there. Are you following this? The second group of people that's part of City Central is basically they are full-time in heart pursuit, but they have another job. They're full-time in heart pursuit of Jesus, but they have another job in the day. So they don't have the luxury of being full-time in the mission. They have the luxury of working in a bank, or as a lawyer, or as a doctor, or as a janitor, or as a school teacher, or whatever it is. They do that, but their heart is exactly the same as the guy in the center. There is no difference at the meeting. They have the same word for, you know, they're just moving in power together. When with the person, that's full-time, we'll have the luxury of more time. The person who has a job will have the luxury of less time, but there's a tie ball game in heart. Are you catching that? And so the goal isn't to become full-time in the -- everybody has a different call on the planet. So not the punchline in the time isn't, "Hey, join the mission, join the mission, join the mission. Here we go." But those of us that go, "I've always wanted to do that. It's what the cry on my life is. Here's your deal. If that's your deal. It's a voluntary situation. Are you following me?" So it's not a first-class, second-class deal. It's just a vocational calling scenario. Are you following that? And so then what is this third thing? This meeting on Sunday night is called our family gathering. And so every Sunday night, we meet at 6.30, it's a family gathering, and everybody comes. You bring anyone and everyone that you want to come, and you join in on the fun because you're obviously here because you like what's happening. You may be in another church. You might be up the street at another mission. You might be just coming into town from Seattle. You might be living right down the street and you saw the glory. It doesn't really matter, but you're coming to the family gathering. You might not know Christ. You might be sick. You might be great. It doesn't really matter, but you're coming to the family gathering. But there's a fire in the gathering. And so the fire continues to rage on, and so you're either like the fire or you don't like the fire. It's just the way it is. As I go into a YWAM base, they have a family gathering, is wild. They're excited. So they don't water down and become different. They're just the same dudes. Are you following that? And so we have that going on. Now for those of us though that have that full-time pursuit of Jesus, are you following this? And they are working another job, or they want to be full-time in the mission, we would have meetings then where we could plan things to do outside of this time. And so it's fully known that if you're part of the family, that's not what you're called to hallelujah. But we're going on, not because we're better, but we're called to, just like you're called to teach at that school, or you're called to live in Seattle, you're called to continue the work in Olympia, whatever it is, we're called to this, but we're a family. Because I'm not the president of the United States, doesn't mean I cannot celebrate President Barack Obama coming to office this week. Do you see what I'm saying? Well, I'm not into politics. Wait a minute. I'm going to celebrate that first African-American man getting in the office. This is going to be an amazing historic week. But it doesn't mean that I've got to get caught up in politics, but I can love it. I go, man, what are those politicians? They're always having a party, and I wasn't, you know what I'm saying? So it's one heart. How are we doing tonight? We're understanding this. Now there's times then where the people that have that full-time heart pursuit, or again those that are full-time in the mission, will have family gatherings. Let me give you an example. We might meet on a Sunday at noon and have lunch together, the families, the kids, and then we'd have a time of whatever the work is that we need to get done, the teams that need to get done. Whatever that is, it's not a meeting where you're coming and learning something, it's a meeting where we're planning, we're doing, we're accomplishing whatever the mission is that God has laid on our hearts. Are you seeing that? What I'm saying? Okay? And so it's a family. Everything you do is a family. If you come here, it's a family, but if you're part of that, it's part of a family. And it's about young people. Praise the Lord. Amen? It's about young people. It's about young people. Praise God. Hallelujah. God is good, is he not? And so within that, we have certain things, and we'll talk about that this week as I explain this. We have certain urgent priorities. We have urgent priorities, the first priority, now we know it's pursuing Jesus, but one of the first beneath that is college students. We need to bring together a team of men and women that would be part of the mission that we're just absolutely building an actual school, a real school, with real housing, you know, getting an entire hotel, whatever it would take in this city so that we are bringing in hundreds and hundreds of college students from across the country into Tacoma to be trained. And they're not just trained, but they're trained practically by doing missionary work in the city with the established teams doing what they're doing. And so all of a sudden, Fosse High School gains 20 college students. All of a sudden, Wilson High School gains 20 college students. All of a sudden, we say, "We have enough. Hey, youth for Christ. We've got 80 college students into town. What do you have for us?" Tacoma Rescue Mission. We've got an extra 20 college students. What do you have for us this summer? And so our school is populating the city everywhere you go, there is college students into coma wreaking havoc because we're going to go out and get them. And we're going to be establishing an event that we do on the West Coast and beyond that's going to be drawing students to these events and bringing those students to greater revelation of the Lord. But the Lord says, "Are we serious about college students?" Now college students are an engine, pretty much this church is built on the backs of college students. Everything that happened here was college students that Kristi and I found at the locals college, PLU. Are you seeing this? That's the secret. You're not going to have junior high workers because a lot of us have jobs. So as much as I say, Jason Lee is amazing. There's 80 kids in need of discipleship. If Frank works at Frank's donuts, he can't come because he's baking donuts that morning. It's not a sin. But we do need somebody to come, are you following the plan? And so we can be in 15 high schools, 15 junior high, but we're going to need three or four hundred full time radicals going on. So that's a focus of the mission. That's a focus of the mission. There'll be lots of expressions of what they'll be up to, praise God, amen? Who knows what they'll be doing? We don't really care. We're going to take the first steps. So let me give you a little bit more here and then we'll bring some application and commit this time through some communion, praise God. Hallelujah. Give me a hallelujah if you're excited. So I am going to get to the Word and we are going to have something out of the Word. This is not out of the Word, but this is explanation of what's happening. We've had 50 days of prayer. Now what do we need to do? Now the Lord is very serious with us. Say serious. And say he's serious and he's serious about his work being done. So do you ever do this as a parent when you're trying to test one of your kids? You're trying to say when they get little, but I wonder how they said they want to do this. When your kids get older, maybe it's like I'm going to do the house. I'm going to start really helping with the house. So you know Wednesday morning how it is, mom, you could have cleaned it, but you didn't. Can you purposely where the key was there, the kids get older and come in at 3.15? No. Thank you so much for attacking the house. I'll be back at 6. Could you please also take the meat out of the freezer? Could you also please boil some water and put some noodles in it? And when you come in at 6, if the kids are like, the only thing to do is the parent is to do it the next night. The only thing to do is the parent is to do it the next night. The only thing to do is now we're doing yard work and inside work. Only one of us is going to win. It'll be me. You will come to a point where you will thank God if all you have to do is come home and clean the house, because we will move to cleaning the neighbors' houses. We will move towards taking the roof off and scrubbing with the toothbrush and putting it back on. We will count the gravel pieces in the driveway and color code mark them. We will work until we have making up jobs. We will go into the big green garbage can and hose it out with a hose. We will find a way until you start thanking God and smiling for work. Now, modern day parenting is not like that. Oh, you're sad. Johnny's sad. Let's pray for Johnny. I just cringe. I'd like to give Johnny a job. Give him up to the garbages. He'll get over that real quick. You ever met a kid that can't sweep? I meet him all the time. Just handling the broom like it's handling a Ferrari. I mean, just start working in the kitchen. Thank God. Are you hearing what I'm saying? In other words, so God's the ultimate daddy, isn't he? And so he knows where you and I say yes, but he sees like he's got x-ray vision into the heart. So he knows where Pastor Brian says, hey, God, amen, I'm so in. Are you, you're in, huh? Oh, right. All right. I know you're in, Brian. I'm proud of you. He's mad at me. He's pumped because I got to tweak your day a little bit. Oh, sorry, you're weak. You're here. And you know, you go through, are you catching it? You said yes, don't you, man. You say yes. I love these altar call guys. There you go, traipsing down there on your knees and the Lord records it. You don't even remember you did it. We've all done it, right? Somebody comes up and writes a song about giving your guts away. And I just give my guts to you, my life, my future, I give you. And then I slip a line in, and I give my health to you, what I just say, I feel in feverish. And you know, and the Lord has a way, that's very, very careful, don't sing every line. Sing the ones you want to sing. And I crawl to the cross with joy on my face, careful. On the way to the cross, there's not a lot of fun, there's not a lot of joy. So if you are going to be tested until you have joy to go to the cross, you're cleaning your house, the neighbor's house and the house down below. And on Saturday, you're using a fine comb on the yard to get the dandelions out. Why are you with me? And so God has an extreme way to get His way. And as soon as our flesh comes in contact with His extreme way in America, usually all hell break out, I can't believe that. Why would God ask that? Look to your neighbor and don't look at me. You guys are good looking. But look to your neighbor and just say, you know what he's talking about? You don't know what he's talking about, all right? You know, don't look at me like I'm making something up. Would you just wave a glory hand just even if it's not your denominational bent? It really isn't mine. I've never done this before but I'm just doing it anyway, all right. Say Brian's laughing. He's setting us up. I know how he uses humor. He's a dangerous man when he's smiling, thank God for the, can't get away with anything around this house, can I? It's like you were too good of friends now, it's over, I just, oh no, I don't, well I know you too, I'm looking at you too. Are you having fun tonight? God has a way of getting us to that place and one of the things that I've noticed about my life and maybe even this is true of your life is when God speaks and it doesn't totally make sense to me, I usually have an opinion about it. Now here's the biggest one and I feel like it's when things are not my personality, that's when I really flip out. So you know, God like Scottie Kessley, one of the most intense men in the, you know he's such a coach and he comes, we all need to have disciples. That was in '01 and 2000, a lot of us weren't here then, but he had a class called the Big 10, discipleship 101 at PLU. And he was emphatic. If you're never in a class with Scottie, he's emphatic about everything. He doesn't know how to be non-inphatic, he just, what Bible do you have? You should have an NIV, it's a study Bible. And you should get, the guys will laugh and know it. And you just look, you just scream, oh no, my leather bound, Scottie's so frivolous, I better get a paperback thin bound one because I'm a weeder dog because I got a thick one and you're just scared when you're in Scottie's class, you're afraid. How many of us wave a hand if you know what Scottie's class is like, you're afraid, you're scared, you just want to get along, you just want to get out on time, you want to grin. Grinn when you're supposed to grin, sad when you're supposed to, sad when you're supposed to hit the door when you're supposed to hit the door, are you following what I'm saying? And he gives you homework and he's so fearful that he can get you to sing the Bible song through Gilligan's Island theme song. Isn't it true? You're singing the whole Bible song in front of total strangers, but the only reason you're doing it is not because of God, but because of Scottie in a great way, but we've been told the disciple and then we go, man, I don't have any disciples. Well, the church didn't have a program for that. I never went and got him. And so what happens is we go, well, that really isn't my personality gift pack when the Bible says, make disciples of all nations. And so, are you catching this? Do you remember that they were talking about a feast and having feasts, and Jesus said, hey, go throw a feast with sinners. This is the kind of feast I throw, big party for all the unsafe people in my pad. Jesus always isn't ego, oh, that's great. But if Jesus literally talked to you and I, can you imagine what he would say? Especially in America. Thank you, God. So God has a plan for us this week. Can you say thank you, God? Look at your neighbor and see if he's smiling or if he's just checking on him, where's he at? Checking on him. See if he's breathing. Is he all right? He's getting a little tense in here. He's getting a little tense in here. If anyone's not smiling, would you say, I'll pray for you after the service, you'll be all right. I'm going to, I'm going to pray for you. Now I'm setting you up. There's no big deal. Hey, you saw Bruce dance. That's a big deal. This is easy. That was a movie to see. But this week, what we want to do is meet as a mission or as someone who's in a full pursuit of God and has another job. So both of those classes of both of those segments, okay, so meeting as a mission, so it's not necessarily just, if you're a friend and family that come here, we want you back here next day, because we're going to love on you and get wild with you, but you pray for us this week. Are you with me? But we want to, we want to have a time and literally the picture that we had was we'd all come to this point in the 50 days of prayer, but now we had to go across what we saw in this picture was a rope bridge and this has been confirmed by so many people this week. But the Lord wants to run across the rope bridge and the rope bridge is firm. It's not going to bust or anything, but literally you can only run and when you run on a rope bridge, Evan was telling me because I guess he's done this with his brothers, the more people that run on it, the wilder the bridge gets. I mean, it starts going left to right, up and down, just banging around and you're going to flip right off if you're not careful and literally the picture was I was just slapping you on the back and you, I said, "Hey, run!" Are you catching this? So we want to meet for five days of unleashing and we're going to meet and the hilltop, Darren's got directions. He'll tell us in the service of this building that's had a great place. We're going to meet. There'll be childcare that we're all going to participate in. So when you come in, you might have to do childcare at least one time this week, but you won't be told before you. It's just too hard. It's a mission. It's a mission. You're the kids tonight. So six thirty to eight thirty and what we're asking is that you commit to three nights of attendance. If you want to be part of the mission, three nights and what we're going to do each night is Monday night we're going to go into this first stage of event planning for the stadium bowl and we're going to join as a community. We're going to get the word of the Lord and we're going to divide up the work. So really you're going to get provoked. We're going to pray and we're going to plan every night. And then Friday we're going to feast. And so we're going to say it with me. We're going to provoke, pray, plan. And so every night it's not like, "It's not like that's what you did, Lord, I just pray your glory come." Let's come. Enough for now. "Lord, fill me the Holy Spirit, you're ready filled. Give me six more tongues." No, you just work on the one you got, it's scary enough, all right? Just whatever. But we're going, are you seeing that? It's time. And we're really launching forward and every night we're going to go after the plan. So it won't be at the end. Okay, well those are some, that's some good praying. It's dividing up the work and running for it. Because we're going to become doers in this next season a little bit more than before. How does that sit with you? We're not going to be in the Marriott. That was the nice days of, 50 days of prayer. But we want to go right in the heart of the city, meet together and pray. So we're going to pray right now about your commitment to that right now before the Lord. Lord, we lift up praise to you and ask that you would speak to that commitment, Lord, in Jesus' name. And what you're asking us individually to do, pray right now, you bring that clear word right now. In Jesus' name, we just thank you for that right now. Amen. Okay, turn with me to Joshua 5, we'll have a brief word and closing some amazing communion. So at the end of the night, we're going to explain to you kind of a little more details practically, but it's just a thing in the spirit, are we going to meet five days every week? Absolutely not. But on the front end, there's an unleashing that has to happen. And it's not going to happen any other way, but by us being violently against American Christianity, violently gathering, violently pressing into God, and violently being a community and fellowshipping together, having no walls between each other and just running after God to see these young people unleash. Oh, thank you, Lord. We find in Joshua 5 that there's a circumcision that happens at Gilgal. We know that this is the generation that was walking into the promised land and getting ready to take down Jericho. We see in chapter 6 that that's the time that Jericho was going to be crushed. In verse 1, it says, "Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan, all the Canaanite kings along the coast, heard out of the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites, had dried up the Jordan before Israel, until we had crossed over their hearts melted, say melted. And they no longer had courage to face the Israelites. So God sovereignly did something to cause the enemy to melt. And at that time, the Lord said to Joshua, "And when you think at that point, that's why tonight we kind of had a camp high moment, we came in here, it was awesome. I love that stuff. It gets me crazy, Bruce dancing, so you just want to go on and on. Don't you? I just, personally, that's my love language. I love silly and fun and wild. But isn't it interesting that at this point they're entering the promised land. Stay with me. This is such a key revelation of the way of God. And they entered in. This is the generation that you think, man, they had put up with the dead generation. The dead generation had died. They'd buried them. Wouldn't you think at this point they're finally in the promised land that'd be like, "Well, finally, guys, hooray!" You know, just in two days, Jericho's going down, we're going to rip through this place. The Messiah's coming out of this place, the King named David. We got the word of the Lord, the fire cloud, the pillar. No more manna. You know, these birds over here are pretty tasty, and chickens are good, too, and it all tastes like chicken, whatever it was, they have... You know, look at these blueberries. Look at these raspberries. Hey, honey, we could have a salad tonight. Look at this cool water coming out of this river. Man, I'm going to jump in that thing. Hey, where are the kids? Let's jump in. Just think of the family tense. Can you imagine then Joshua coming back in and calling the men out? I mean, just the moment. I mean, in the ways of God. That was incredible. He says, "At that time the Lord said to Joshua, 'Make flint knives,' turn to your neighbor and say, 'Uh-oh.'" And circumcise the Israelites again. Say again. You may never have noticed that in the text. It's as if the first time...I'm even going to leave that theologically alone right now. So Joshua made what kind of knives, men? Men? What was that, men? Say it like you're looking forward to it. And circumcise the Israelites. Now this is why he did so, so God goes out of his way to see I need to show you why I'm going to do this, which is so nice, isn't it? All those who came out of Egypt, all the men of military age died in the desert on the way after leaving Egypt. So what a sober moment to go. My dad died and my mom. Red to wait till they died. And this is a picture of what happens, this principle, in generation after generation. It's a picture of the vision, of the pursuit of God, of harvest, of evangelism, of radical living, and how that older generation had it, and it's like at a certain age around 30, when the dream dies, the mantle passed. And so this young generation said we had to wait until they died. It's important to note that that in the ways of God, when you get to about 30 in this nation, the dream starts to die. And you begin to explain things to people. Start to move to other churches that people leave that I've done weddings at and poured my guts into, and never even said goodbye. I go, I train them to get my blessing. It's not that I want to be weird, I just know how it works. You scorn this, but the dream had died. And then every five years, a different church, a different pastor, you meet them at a conference in their 50s, and you just can't believe what life has done. So what a horrible moment this must have been for the men. That God forced them to look back. It's a difficult thing to look back. Most of us, Kristi and I, we've been through so many horrible things along our journey. That there's things that we don't even like to talk about, seasons of suffering and illness that we don't talk about. And God, in this case, said, "I know you don't want to look back, but this is so deep in every heart of every person on the earth that you have the same disease as that generation that died out there, I need you to look back," because every young generation thinks they carry revival, "Oh, yeah, where are the wild ones?" And it's not that I disrespect that I love that. It's just that this bug, this virus is deep. God had an invasion plan. He'd stacked all the chips in Joshua's hand, and Messiah's coming out of this invasion. It's got to go good this time. Satan is so strong in these tribes, they sacrifice their children, they do witchcraft for centuries, and this is going to be a war. They're not going to go down easy. And so he gathered the men, he said, "I want you to think about your dad, your mom, they're not here." And what it must have been a sermon, wasn't it? Joshua, the young leader, not Moses, before he ever had a victory except for going through the Jordan, his first act, "You think about it if you were him. You know how people are, Jesus said he wouldn't trust himself to anyone because their hearts shift like sand. One day they're my fan the next day, there's hate, that's why you don't trust yourself to any man. You trust people in their heart, you love that, but ultimately to fear man is death. Think about Joshua, you're kidding me. I got to see my army. If you go to Israel and you look at where he circumcised him, it literally is an eyesight from the hill. They were down the bottom of this hill and up above that hill, the kings could see them. You mean in the presence of my enemies? David had the revelation later that in the presence of his enemies there'd come a feasting table. What kind of table is this? Joshua, when you say you're the Joshua generation, you're signing up for everything they went through. Let's look at the text. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not. That's a picture of rebellion, a stick with me. This is going to transform your life. You can get this in your spirit. You see, the fathers knew they were circumcised, but the fathers never circumcised their sons. And so it was all left for Joshua to circumcise an entire generation that had never been raised up, that is an assignment. They didn't have any respect for authority. They were filled with anger. You've got to go through this knife. I hope you're finding yourself tonight in the story. When Joshua stood against them, not through any other way but this knife, are we going to that city at Gilgal? These relights had moved about in the desert 40 years, and so all the men were of military age when they left Egypt had died since they had not obeyed the Lord. Look back and see why they died. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land that had so only promised their fathers to give us a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones that Joshua circumcised. The ones of revival came forward. The act of the promised land is an act of the application of salvation. Crossing the Red Sea was salvation. The Jordan was the promises of life in Christ, and they had to invade. Now comes your part in the story. It has not been easy tonight to come before you and tell you the truth. In America, everything is done to water down the truth. If you say the truth, you're persecuted, but my King deserves the truth. In truth, this church was born for the youth. When I birthed it because God had given Christia a dream, I was walking in an old house, and out the back door I went to a field that quickly filled with college students. And there was a platform, and there was no one to speak to them. And so, because of that, we said, "Lord, I bet you would even give us a dream." All as we knew was mom was gone every Christmas in bed, every birthday, month after month. We looked back. We knew nothing but sorrow. Sometimes I'd come to the bedroom door. After long seasons, and Christie would be sobbing so hard, I was afraid to come in. Out of the ashes, he said, "There's a generation coming." I shared that dream like Joseph. I didn't know all the rules of church and religion I was a businessman, forced into starting a church, and the dream was hated. It's unconscionable to hate young people being saved. And so, I made new friends. Some of the early men, Justin Elson and Ben, came. They were such great men, and that one day the Lord gave a word that we were to go to a schaland with two men. The Lord said a youth movement was coming, but we had to completely set ourselves apart. So we shared it with the church. Stay with me. We talked about flat beds, schools, live by a college, live by a high school. Come on, disciple someone, come on. Do you remember that? That word came in O1, it's O9. So tonight, we see the ship push off from the dock, ready to sail, but it's covered in barnacles because it waited at the dock far too long. We look back tonight that we had never repeat what we have learned in all these years. How many beautiful prophetic words, how many beautiful Bible studies, the Lord singing over us, save the youth. I ran headlong into Y-Wands' heart, and I got very ill through that mission of sounding the alarm, and I had come back here. I feel hated most in this city. I live that way. My wife lives that way. We want this city. We want the young people. You see, when God took us as a church, and you're not here those days, you're excused, but just learn what we learned. He took us to a jewelry store, and he picked out a wedding ring. He said, "I have created you for young people. There'll be things like schools and urban ministries and celebrations for them. You're trained, you're ready." You all have a story. Do you remember that? Truth is we left that jewelry store, and our ambitions took us to many different stores to try out their wares. It's true. I hope somebody besides Kristi and I know what I'm talking about tonight, look back. Our ideas, our thoughts, our agendas. Mine as well. I'm not immune from any of this, so I lead it all. God says, "Look back." Kristi and I have been in such a place of tormented wailing and travail and prayer. For the simplicity of God's saying, "I can give you the plan easily, but all I wanted in my day was people's hearts, and it will take everything in our hearts to unrelentingly pursue Jesus to reach this young generation. This week we had a dream. This week we had a dream that changed my life." Kristi saw three doors in the dream, and we'd gone through both, not us, but this person had, and they had received a good anointing. But the third door was represented, the glory required for the mission. Persons were standing out the door, pounding their fist on the ground, filled with anger. "God, why won't you open the door?" I said, "I asked you to love." I asked you to love. I asked you to be nothing like my son, and it was all the things that Jesus asked. You know how he asked, and the heart said, "It's not my personality." So he never walked through the door. I already have a death sentence on my life, so I'm not really afraid anymore of a scowl. My King deserves. We have made an idol of calling, words, and "I" and "we" prayers, "look back." They've gotten us nowhere. We cannot go any further with murmuring. And so I close tonight. Shall we remove the barnacle? You know, it was a very painful thing if I might tell you a personal heart story that you may not realize when I went to YWAM, and I spoke in Thailand about Gilgal, that God would take all those before the movement through Gilgal. How do you tell missionaries whose daughters have been raped to go to Gilgal? Yet it's important that the values in the training and preparation in the wildernesses, that creep in, be left behind, for they will only destroy the mission in Canaan. These young people have been raised around gripers, moans, whiners. Have they not? "Cloud of fire," my word. I just love to see a fire in the air. I love to see water turn to blood, a river, my word. I love to see a bunch of voodoo dudes, snakes, get sucked up by a cane that turned into... I mean, I'm telling you, glory. I'd love to come into the wilderness and be thirsty, and a stone made me a river. I like to watch a battle where an old man stood on a hill, and two young men got the story. If we'd serve him, we went. God showed the principles of love. I would love to have been there. Are you seeing this? They were around whiners, the kids, victims, victims. Everything in life, they were victims. Everything in life was about them. It was blamed on everyone, was it not? Moses isn't the only one that hears. God wanted to give him the law and have become the glory nation, a calf is built. Well, these were the little buddies in the Sunday school story, watching mom and dad naked by the calf, the career, the American pursuit. I said, "Well, maybe we should do that, too." Look back. The only thing that matters, and so God had Joshua cut something from them, and it took time to heal. There was a pain. I close with this. Peter had to realize he'd betrayed God to become the apostle. I used to preach on Peter as a goofball guy until I betrayed God, and now I find him the greatest of comforts. When God calls a man, he means business. When we say no, we betray the king, but this is a time of reinstatement, but I don't want the easy reinstatement, I want to look back and see what I was capable of. Are you with me tonight? We're going to have a time of prayer right now, just by a showing of hands. How many of you understand what I've said tonight? We cannot birth a mission because we have the answer, the edge, the zeal. My story will be, I told the guys before the service, when it all turns out, like he said, and they ask us how. May we say, we betrayed him for eight years. We fought him, and then he loved us. He moved us in the convention center, he gave us the nicest place. He said, just pray, we barely had to because it snowed so hard. He brought us all back together, we didn't even have any small groups of classes, and then we became when he said, that's all I know, that's all I remember. What about the, I ask someone else, he saved me. You will never learn grace, my friend. People always want me to teach on grace, but grace is just a concept until you see your failure, and then you see him making you breakfast on the beach saying, feed my sheep. Are you gone are the days that you handled it better? It's a tired, tired desert story. Are you with me? We must have the Bible humility, to have the Bible results. We must have the cross if we want a resurrection. We must have the thorns if we hold the character. We must have his sorrow if we're going to carry his burden. We must have a revelation of our failure if we're ever going to carry his grace. We're so hard on one another because we do not see how far short we've come of the glory of God. This is beyond freedom. Are you watching the movie tonight and seeing what I'm seeing? Someone once told me, tell me how to love. You have to fail many times. And then when you think all is failed and you are done, he'll come in the door. And he'll wrap his arms around you and he'll put his robe on you and he'll put his crown on you and he'll sing over you. And for the first time in your life you'll hear the sound and he'll say, I love you. And he'll say, this is how I learned to love. I don't have to do nothing but learn to love. That's why I just don't know that you're going to learn love by soaking endlessly. You'll know him but when I failed Christy the first ten years trying with my heart to serve her and her suffering and I tried every day and I was never able to relate to her until he put his thorn. And upon me I look back at all my speeches and alone I said, father forgive me, I knew not how to love. Are you ready to do it his way? We have this comparison thing, I'm out of ideas, I hate it, I don't know how to kill. I love you all the same but I don't have enough hands, will you not love one another? Look back and see the conversations that you've had in your house. Look back at your fits, God I need your circumcision tonight. I hope you're understanding what I'm saying tonight. I was going to show you a video tonight I won't do it, maybe this week. It was a video of child trafficking, it is so shocking that it moves you past prayer into wailing. I don't want to plan. I want to be with 200 people that are wailing, not looking for some sort of play or plan or position, they're groaning, they're dying God, please. I don't want to live for this American dream, it's failing, I need the barnacles, our victimization and self-pity and that's it. You my friend, don't wear the clothes of a victim well, I'd be myself tonight. Take them off, take them off, you'll die in those clothes like the generation that died in the wilderness because that's how they died. My king, I still try to get rid of my watch, but this plague, it's still here. I wish we all just stayed in your presence. For days, tonight we are at Gilgal. And although Jericho awaits and I am so sorry, I really am, I really am, that we're late for every suicide that happened on our watch. I'm so sorry. You look back for every situation, I'm sorry. And I invite you tonight, heart, your heart is leaning in to hear the sound of heaven tonight. Lean in my dear friend, don't miss it with your doubt, don't be an exception to the night. The warning ends and life goes on and the ways every generation comes and goes. Lord, we take the knife to all the fruit of the victim. I don't want to even mention it all. I think we're wise enough to know the fruit of a victim. We want more ministry, more prayer, more something, until we are so spiritually fat in America that we are like Wally the movie. We speak in tongues and it's like a frightening thing. We need to be exercised. But to run two nights in a row to prayer is overwhelming in this nation. I pray for mercy, King. I pray for mercy, King. You see, I love you so much, I've come to tell the truth. I'm going to have the ushers pass out communion now. Stay with me as we stay bound before the Lord and let the Lord search your heart. Take off the victim that we would sail, christening the beautiful ship of the Lord. Marco awaits, the plan will be as silly as it was then. Thank you, Jesus. Would you go ahead and just if you feel led to just pray in English out loud right now and just trading in that garment and realizing that you were created for a great purpose, to save the lost? Whatever your role in that is, it's irrelevant tonight. It's a heart beating for Jesus, wanting what he wants, that's your only goal tonight. I want to be, Lord, I know I'm here to save the lost. The harvest is rich. I don't want to sit here anymore. I want to have this place overcome weeks and weeks and weeks of overcoming times of young people being saved and set free and discipled. Go ahead and pray out loud about the victim that it would be dispersed tonight. Go ahead and pray with his louderers with all the energy that you'd have into this issue. It isn't a demonic issue tonight. It isn't a demonic issue. You have to have the moment that Peter had. Maybe not everyone but the moment where you and the King meet on that beach and breakfast is being made and he says, "Feed my sheep three times." You see, Jesus was plotting, prodding Peter. He made him look back. Isn't that amazing? He reinstated him by making him look back. Three denials, three reinstatement statements. And then there was that wonderful breakfast with the King of the universe. Lord, I don't want to skip to the breakfast like we do in America and miss the lifelong lesson. I pray now we'd have the lesson. Every way that we have known that we are, and it doesn't, I want to get out of this. It's my gift or whatever that is. You can certainly love, you can certainly train someone, you can certainly give an hour a week, you can certainly pray whatever it is, but we are pumped and excited and youthful about young people being saved even at our family meeting. Now in the mission we're toll heartedly crazy, but here we are always filled with joy, always ready to interrupt ourselves for the young people to come and take over our hearts with love. Let's cry out that we would understand the moment and just tell Lord we need you to reinstate us because I missed no more victimization. Go ahead and just cry out, just unto the Lord, let the volume rise in the room as we pray. As we get ready to take the cup there's a refining principle that we want to write on our hearts. Amen. Thank you Jesus tonight. We don't want kids to be saved to join our ministry. That's a clarifying statement for all of us, not that our thing would grow because that's called selfish ambition. Say it with me, that's a very ugly word, but it's reality on earth, selfish ambition. But we want kids to be saved to join the kingdom of God. And you see the value of this young generation that God has built them for is holiness. It's a Nazarite holiness. And so we can have nothing to do with the old system, the old church system that is really a glorified version of self-promotion and a gen-dyed building our thing. But we are like the gospel dudes in the Bible that just want salvation, that just want impartation and discipleship or love. We are going to be a transient ministry that's always going to be coming and going with young people, coming in, getting set free, whatever, trained up, go, go. Go move back to Minneapolis. Move back to Kansas. Move back to California. Do it there. Go to Australia. Whatever it is, we're not gathering here to have a megachurch of all this junk. We are kingdom people. Let's tell the Lord that Gilgal tonight. Let's look back and you know that maybe that generation that died was when are we getting in the promised land? Maybe they should have said, "God, we have the law. We'll just obey. We'll go nuts. We'll take the land. We know the Messiah is coming. We're going to prepare the land," you know, but they never saw it. Abortion has been destroying the generations because it's near the end. And I want to have a cry from this house. From our guts that we leave at Gilgal. See, he'll give us the plan for Jericho and then there comes the weird look on your face. Here comes you missing meetings, so many meetings. How can I have an American dream in these meetings? You can't. You can't. We're a missionary outpost. We're going to try a new thing because the old thing wasn't working. We got forced into it. That's our story, right? Whose idea was it? None of ours. Are you catching this? I want you to know I've been accused of having an agenda, control, ambition, all these things. And I do want you to know I have an agenda. So when people accuse me of having an agenda, would you please agree with them? He has a serious agenda, alright? And I'm very controlling when it comes to the glory of God. I want you to know that I will preach like this when I feel that God's glory needs to be cared to. And so yeah, I do. I have a guarding of whatever God puts in my spirit, I get tenacious and guarded because I have to. So yes, tell them I am definitely get very defensive about the glory of God. Are you with me? And it's okay if you have an agenda and don't want things to get all twisted and mixed up. Hallelujah. Are you with me? We're not in this to please people. We're here to set the captives free. So Lord, let's just pray this out loud just for the fun of I know that praying out loud is in the catch me out. But we're doing this tonight just for God, not for ourselves. We want heaven to hear a bunch of truth, not our kingdom, not our kingdom, but your kingdom come. Your will be done. You know the rest of it. Go for it. On earth. Amen. Amen, let's do that again. You're your kingdom come, your kingdom come. That's what we want. We have an agenda. We have an agenda. Let's say it again. This is our agenda. Your kingdom come. Lord, we surrender building. That's why we're going to be a missionary deal. It's going to be very hard to track all the numbers after the service. I pray our Sunday night gatherings would grow with friends that would spur us on and just come in and get dumped on wildlife. I pray you would just attract the most insane, fiery, wild people to this service, and it would grow and grow and grow until they're just an absolute freak show of wildness. I pray we'd continue to worship with songs and slides and one guy on a banjo, whatever it takes, God. I pray that it's just that intense to know Jesus Christ and not to be entertained at all in Jesus' name. Thank you, Father. [BLANK_AUDIO]