Vision to Double Our Church and Reach Spartanburg

And one of the most dangerous things any church can do is become focused on maintaining something rather than growing the kingdom of God. This is true. See, churches are either growing or they're dying. There's not really like an either there's not a third option. There's no like, hey, we're maintaining. You're either like reaching people or you're slowly dying. And sometimes churches allow themselves to die off to this point that they can't ever recover. And so I've always been like, I never wanna be the pastor that allows our church to just gently drift off to heaven. [00:47:45] (33 seconds)  #GrowDontMaintain

But here's what I am just consumed by. This is what just like keeps me awake at night. It's the way reason I keep back reading Matthew 25, I just read this passage over and over again. I've been meditating over it for thirty years. Every time I look at it, I see something new. And the reason I keep coming back to it is because what I want more than anything else is to hear Jesus say when I look ahead him in the face, well done, good and faithful servant. That's what I want, and I want you to hear it too. None of us can do this by ourselves, but together we can do something far more than we can imagine. [01:00:25] (40 seconds)  #PursueWellDone

But the parable doesn't stop there. Right? The ones who actually hear the words we want to hear, well done, good and faithful servant, what do they do? Well, they double it, don't they? Both of the servants, the one with five and the one with two. So here's the principle, double it, don't bury it. Whatever God puts in your hands, whatever kind of leadership he puts in your hands, whatever kind of like influence he has, whatever whatever kind of time, use it for God's glory to return back to the Lord what he's given you with interest. [00:46:02] (34 seconds)  #DoubleDontBury

I wanna be someone who's constantly saying, how do we go out to the lost and those who need Jesus? How do we reach people? Because Jesus is worth it. That's it. It's not because of me. It is like, this is actually a lot harder. It'd be easier for me as a pastor to just be like, hey. Let's just kinda preach some sermons and hang out with some nice people that are all saved and just kinda do that whole thing. That'd be easy. But that would be sinful. Why? Because Jesus loves people. And this week, we remember that Jesus went to the cross for people. [00:48:17] (38 seconds)  #ReachTheLost

That was like one of things I when I first read this, I was like, okay. Never bury the talent. Always always try to try to use it for the glory of God. Whatever he's put in my hands, I'm gonna use it. I'm never gonna bury it. I think a lot of us can, like, just kinda get around that. Right? Like, never bury what God has put in your hands. Use it for his glory. Because the master says, at least you could have, like, even, like, gotten interest off of it from a banker. I want you to use it, so don't bury it. [00:45:34] (28 seconds)  #NeverBuryYourGift

Which is challenging because a lot of us, like, don't like to think that way. We think like, hey. I prayed and then I just wait for heaven. But that's not the language here that God is using about what he wants his followers to do until he comes back. He wants us to return and a a reward off of his investment. That's what he wants us to do. And so when I read this as a young man, I was just like, I wanna make sure that I never bury my talent. [00:45:07] (27 seconds)  #FaithInAction

you know, I found this to be incredibly loving, awesome, wonderful church. But I also know this to be about to be true about a lot of churches when they are big and successful and we've had some kind of like favor on us and we have buildings and whatever, like, I have all those things. It gets very scary to think about doing anything new and different. It just is. And what I found is that the bigger a church is or the bigger a ministry is or bigger a business is is that risk becomes something you become very allergic to. You start not wanting to chance anything. You become a lot like the servant that buried it because we don't wanna lose it. But like, when we have this thing, let's not lose it. [00:47:03] (41 seconds)  #RiskForTheKingdom

talents and doubles them and he hears the same answer from the master. Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful if it all puts you in charge of much. Enter into my joy. And the last guy shows up and he brings the talent. And I get it. When I was a kid, always thought it was like a coin, but no, this is actually quite a bit of money. Maybe just a big old chest of gold and puts it at the master's feet and says, hey, master, I returned it all to you. I didn't lose a single penny. [00:43:39] (25 seconds)  #ReturnedInFull

This story is intense, isn't it? I mean, this is what Jesus is telling Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, all those folks following him as he's getting ready to go to the cross. He's saying, hey, guys, I want you to pay attention cause I'm gonna go away. And he tells this story. Apparently, he tells the story a couple different times. There's a version of it in Luke chapter 19. And so it seems that Jesus told this story more than once because it was so important. Now in the story, [00:41:13] (32 seconds)  #ParableWorthRepeating

And when it comes to reaching the world, saturating Spartanburg, The Carolinas, and the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, it means a lot of things. It means gospel proclamation. It means, like, doing discipleship. It means a lot of other things. But ultimately, at its core, it means changing people's lives, like ordinary people. People you live next to, people that you know, ultimately means that there will be life change. People will come to know Jesus Christ, and it means that we need to constantly be thinking that way. So this is what we've decided [00:48:56] (33 seconds)  #LifeChangeThroughGospel

And this is really the primary reason. This is this is why. If you wanna ask why we're talking about vision, is because Jesus loves people. Full stop. Jesus loves people. That's why we wanna talk about mission because Jesus loves people and we love people. Don't miss that out of everything else we've talked about. The reason why we have vision is not to build big buildings or to have a big church. It's because we love people and we want them to have a place to know that Jesus loves them and a place where they can have family and a place where they can grow in their faith. And we feel compelled that that's something that's really important. You've experienced it in your life. We wanna provide that to everybody because we really love people. [00:37:25] (48 seconds)  #JesusLovesPeople

Try to double it. And I've tried to live my life that way. Every ministry job I've ever had, I've always been like, okay, I'm not gonna bury it. I'm gonna try to double it. And even if God calls me away or calls me home between the time that I hear this and then try to get there, I'm just gonna try to be faithful because what I want more than anything else is to hear the Lord say, well done, good and faithful servant. Now for a church like ours, and I and I came here, [00:46:36] (27 seconds)  #FaithfulUntilHeReturns

the first man comes and says, hey, you gave me five talents. I've doubled it. Here it is. And he hears incredible praise. He hears, well done, good and faithful servants. Enter into my joy. Yeah. You've been faithful for little, I will put you in charge of much. So there's this person who's been faithful, he hears well done good and faithful servant. Same thing happens with the second guy. He's not been given as much money, but he does the same thing. He takes the two [00:43:08] (31 seconds)  #FaithfulStewardship

to present to you. It's not just me. It's sometimes been like asking our council, wise leaders. Our lead team actually, like, was the ones that put the last crafting. So it's like our lead ministers like like Joshua and others, like Kellen, Justin, Mallory, like that whole crew. They kind of, like, helped me, workshop this final, like, statements. Came out of this passage of scripture. Came out of a burden that I had, but it's like, what does it look like for us to actually, like share this with our church in a way that's very clear and compelling. And so this is what our team has put forward that we wanna share with you today. [00:49:29] (37 seconds)  #LeadTeamCollab

the money that was given to him, those five talents, and immediately sets off to work. He doesn't waste any time. He goes and invests. He does whatever he does and ends up like doubling it. The second guy does the same, But the last guy, he buries it and doesn't do anything with it at all. He just hides it, puts you know, puts a treasure map, puts an x on the spot, and just leaves it till the master returns. So when the master comes back, [00:42:41] (27 seconds)  #InvestWithUrgency

I just read it to you, but I'm just gonna recap it. There's a master who goes away on a journey, and you can kind of read between the lines. Jesus is talking about himself. He's about to go away. And he leaves behind to three of his servants different amounts of money to take care of. Now, the word used here is the word talent and you can make a lot of puns or extrapolations to different things that, you know, you might receive, like whether like a talent to sing or leadership talent or something else. But, regardless, [00:41:45] (31 seconds)  #EntrustedResponsibility

in this book, the word talent is about a sum of money. So a talent was about a year's worth of salary. So think about how much you make in a year. That's about how much this was. Now one person, he gets 5. So 5 years worth of salary, another person two, so two years worth of salary, another person got an entire year's worth of salary. So even one talent is an incredible amount of money. Right? Now the first guy takes [00:42:16] (25 seconds)  #TalentsAreValuable