Faith in Action: Celebrating Our Journey Together

Sorry, I'm just going to interject a few times. This is pretty amazing because I see so many of us, we weren't here like at the very beginning. And I'll talk about that a little bit more later today, but what's amazing is like the first thing we ever did as a church is we looked around and this was like the height of COVID, but things that the Mexican, U .S. border were just kind of crazy. And you hear about it a lot from a political standpoint, but these are real human lives that are made in Imago Dei. They're made in God's image. [00:28:37] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And so we have a responsibility as church to protect Imago Dei, God's image in people. And so I got a phone call. This is a crazy story. I got a phone call from a guy at the first church we started at Impact Nova who worked for a government agency. [00:29:12] (18 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And as he's down there, he's like away from his family, he's away from everything. And he calls me one day and he's crying. And he says, Pastor, I just they don't have Bibles. And I was like, yeah, but do they have food? Do they have clothes? Do they have? And he's like, yes, yes, Pastor, like many people are taking care of their physical needs, but they don't have Bibles. [00:29:33] (23 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And I would say that it is an amazing feat that in three years, even though we still have partners giving to us to help us start this church, that we are using those and stewarding. We are using those funds to now give them a way to advance the mission of God in our neighborhoods, Northern Virginia and the nations. And that's almost, that's about $30 ,000 a year that this church gives away. It's gone. It comes and it goes. [00:37:58] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And we just want to praise God for that. Absolutely. And I want to thank you for your generosity, for your faithfulness, for your big hearts. Like Wes talked about, big hearted living. And last week, I want to praise God for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Why don't you pray for us? And this is going to be a prayer of thanksgiving. Okay? We are going to praise God and we are going to thank him for what he's done and how he has used us, unlikely people, to advance the most amazing good news message on the face of the planet, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how he's used the most unlikely people to do that. Frankie, would you just voice a prayer of thanksgiving? Absolutely. Absolutely. [00:38:29] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And so we want to celebrate what God has done because we don't want to forget his faithfulness, but we don't want to grow complacent in the celebration. So we want to celebrate what God has done because we don't want to forget his celebration of what God has done. So man, I want to just say this, and I wrote some things down that I wanted to share with you since I've been on sabbatical. Listen, I've been thinking a lot about you, about God, about our church, what we're doing here, the mission God has called us to. [00:51:57] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And so this church, you see, that's our wedding. With having the Great Commission read over us at our wedding. I don't often, and we were getting ready to go start a church. We didn't know the name of this church. We didn't know where this church was going to be. We didn't know how God was going to do it. And I had never even read a blog about church planting. Nothing. [00:56:06] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And in that moment, we stood up and we announced to our church that not only was our church going to multiply, but we were going to send out the family who had started the church to multiply the church in the middle of a pandemic. [01:00:11] (18 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


God was on the move. And in the middle of a pandemic, he was getting ready to pursue people's hearts and lives with the best news on the planet. That though we may die here on earth, Jesus lives forever. And anyone who trusts in him can live forever with him in the presence of God. [01:01:18] (23 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


And I'm excited, and I want to encourage you, Impact, with, as we kind of begin our response time, with what Barnabas told the church at Antioch in verse 24. He said, remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. It's okay. All right. [01:43:14] (19 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)