Embracing God's Vision: Trust, Leadership, and Faith

The sermon begins with the pastor reflecting on a moment when Pastor Jerry shared a vision of having over a hundred locations for their church. The pastor emphasizes the importance of aligning with God's vision and being passionate about it. He encourages the congregation to embrace the vision God has for their lives and to remain steadfast in their calling, even in the face of challenges. The pastor also discusses the importance of faith and trusting in God's plan, even when doors seem to be closing. He highlights the significance of praising God for both open and closed doors, as God's provision lies in His intended path for us.

The pastor then discusses the value of leadership within the church, emphasizing the evangelistic nature of their leaders. He encourages the congregation to become active participants in the church community, serving in various areas and becoming channels of blessing. The pastor also highlights the importance of creating opportunities for others to join them on their spiritual journey. He shares the church's commitment to evangelism through various outreach activities and events, despite facing criticism for some unconventional methods, such as bringing an elephant named Rosie to the church.

The pastor emphasizes the importance of catching and holding onto the vision that God has for our lives. He shares a personal experience of facing difficulties when starting a new location for the church, but reminds the congregation that God is with them in every season and cares about their future. The pastor also highlights the importance of speaking out one's faith, referencing a verse in Romans that states faith comes by hearing. He shares a personal anecdote about proclaiming his calling to preach while climbing a mountain, demonstrating the power of speaking and believing in what one says.

The pastor reflects on the journey of the church after the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the need for visionary leadership and aligning with God's present work. He encourages the congregation to see beyond the obvious and trust in God's guidance through any challenges. The pastor also discusses the importance of having a clear vision and purpose in life, praising Pastor Jared's leadership and his drive to reach more people. He shares about the church's unique approach to evangelism, creating inviting environments that can touch people's lives and lead them to Jesus.

The pastor concludes by emphasizing the importance of trusting in God's plan and purpose for our lives. He shares his own experience of initially struggling to comprehend the vision of a hundred locations, but ultimately realizing that God is capable of making it happen. He encourages the congregation to hold onto God's promises and not be swayed by other voices or distractions. The pastor also encourages the congregation to use their gifts for God's purpose and to actively seek ways to multiply their impact and become leaders.

Key Takeaways:

- Embracing God's vision for our lives is crucial. When we align with what God is talking about, we become passionate and energized. This passion can sustain us even in challenging times ([12:45]).
- Faith is not just about open doors but also about closed ones. Sometimes, God closes doors to keep us in the position He intended for us. We should praise God for both open and closed doors, trusting in His provision ([24:33]).
- Speaking out our faith is powerful. As stated in Romans, faith comes by hearing. By speaking and hearing the word of God, faith is built up within us. This can be demonstrated by proclaiming our calling and believing in what we say ([38:12]).
- Visionary leadership is essential in the church. Leaders should see beyond the obvious and align with what God is doing in the present moment. They should also have a clear vision and purpose, always seeking growth and improvement ([52:27]).
- Trusting in God's plan and purpose for our lives is vital. Even when we face giants and walls, we should remember that God has us in the palm of His hand and has a higher vision for us. We should hold onto God's promises and not be swayed by other voices or distractions ([1:04:33]).

Bible Reading:
1. Proverbs 29:18: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."
2. Matthew 28:19-20: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."
3. Romans 10:17: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Observation Questions:
1. What does Proverbs 29:18 suggest about the importance of having a vision?
2. In Matthew 28:19-20, what command is given and what promise is made?
3. According to Romans 10:17, how does faith come about?

Interpretation Questions:
1. How does the vision mentioned in Proverbs 29:18 relate to the vision God has for our lives?
2. How does the command and promise in Matthew 28:19-20 apply to the role of leadership within the church and the church's commitment to evangelism?
3. How does the concept of faith coming by hearing, as stated in Romans 10:17, relate to the power of speaking out one's faith?

Application Questions:
1. Reflect on a time when you felt God was giving you a vision for your life. How did you respond and what was the outcome?
2. In the coming week, identify one opportunity where you can fulfill the command in Matthew 28:19-20. How will you go about it?
3. Think of a situation where you felt your faith was wavering. How can you apply Romans 10:17 to strengthen your faith in such situations?
4. Can you identify a closed door in your life that you initially struggled with, but later realized it was God's provision to keep you in the position He intended for you?
5. What is one specific way you can use your gifts for God's purpose and actively seek to multiply your impact within your community this week?

What an amazing God we serve! Dusters will be bringing a bucket, thank you, to collect those.

Well, um, I'm excited today because I get to kick off a series that we're doing. We're going to be teaching over the next three weeks the Higher Vision leadership values.

We took some time a while back as a leadership team. Pastor Jairus got us all together, and we sat down. We started working on our values—what we believe were the core values as part of our leadership team that we could point to and remind ourselves, "Hey, this is what we do and why we do it."

You know, it's important for us to do that. If you took the Bible out of your life today, you would essentially be taking the guardrails off the side of the road, and that's how we end up in a ditch all the time. Amen? Because we're not using the tools that God gave us, and we're not following after the principles.

So, the leadership values are really just about that. They, along with the four pillars of our church, help us demonstrate our DNA as Higher Vision leaders. These are core principles and beliefs that we use to guide ourselves on a day-to-day basis as we're doing ministry here at Higher Vision Church.

That being said, I'm going to ask the team to bring up my first value. The first value—this is not in the order that they were written—these three are categorized together in the area that they kind of coincide with one another.

So, HV leaders are visionary. We have bold vision for the future, and we choose to fail forward. I love the way this is stated here. Let me get back to that.

Let's go to our first verse: Proverbs 29:18 says, "When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild, but whoever obeys the law is joyful." In another version, it says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Amen?

I love the word "vision." This is used here in the context of this; it means to have insight or sight, mental capacity to form a thought or imagine, or even to dream a dream.

Has anybody ever had a dream that was so real, and you're just like, "Wow, I think that was God"? Amen? Hello? I'm getting older; I can't hear as good as I used to. Help me out.

So, the cool thing about vision is if you have one, you have a place to go, right? That's why I think this verse is saying, "Where there's no vision, the people perish." We have to have a target. You have to have something that you're shooting your arrows at.

Although if you don't define and find out what your target is, you're probably just flinging arrows all over the place. Eventually, you're just going to run out of arrows, and we need to hit the target. Amen?

At Higher Vision Church, we encourage the leaders to be forward-thinking, always looking for ways to grow, always looking for ways to reach beyond the status quo, always building and always stretching.

We always encourage one another to go beyond what's easy and push for the thing that takes everything you've got and then some. I appreciate that about Pastor Jared. I appreciate his leadership in this area.

If you get to know him a little better, you're going to realize that he's a guy who's not easily satisfied with just the way things are. You know, he's a man that will walk through this building, and his mind never stops. He's always thinking, "How can we make this better? How can we do this better? How can we reach more people?" It's just how he works.

You may not know this, but we have actually been a multi-site church for about seven years. About seven years ago, we were given a church building in the Santa Paula area. Pastor Jordan is pastoring there now, but I used to be the location pastor there at Santa Paula. We were one church with two locations.

Honestly, when Pastor started sharing this idea of multi-site and started using numbers like a hundred plus, I don't know if any of you were here during the outpouring one time. Dr. Maiden was here; he gave a prophetic word to Pastor Jared and the ministry team, and he threw a number of like 500 out there.

You know, it's like, "Hold on a minute." I remember being at Santa Paula, hearing these numbers, and just almost, you know, I can't really wrap my head around that.

However, having two locations for Pastor Jared was not even scratching the surface. The reality is we didn't really even plan that location; it was something that God was setting us up for. He put it in our hands, and we started the process of figuring out what it was going to look like going forward.

In your own life, there are a lot of opportunities that come your way. There are a lot of things that God will birth on the inside of you, and maybe you've leaned into that. You've taken some steps and started moving towards it, but things just didn't come together the way that you thought they should.

Because we live in a time where we can make popcorn in two minutes, and if you can make popcorn in two minutes, what else do you need? Right? Other than ice cream—you've got to have ice cream.

So, you know, we're not into waiting. Today's society is not into waiting. We think that, "Hey, God said something to me, and tomorrow I'm going to wake up, and I'm going to be there." The reality is that's not how God's kingdom works; it's not how life works. This is not a reality.

So, two locations weren't good enough for Pastor Jared. He had a different idea. As he began to meditate on that idea and think about what that looked like, he began to share bits and pieces of that with the team. Sometimes it might be at a staff meeting, or maybe it was with the men's prayer group on Tuesday morning. He was just kind of dripping that out, you know, here and there.

But the reality is that what he was doing by speaking that is he was keeping it alive.

See, I'm not real good with plants. When I go to the nursery and buy plants, I pray over them and hope they make it home before they die. When I pick plants up, they're like, "Oh no, not you, man." They give up before they even make it to my house.

The plants struggle with my farming process, we'll say. The lack of water is mostly, I guess, probably the real problem. But I did recently put a sprinkler system into my house, though. I put a timer on there, so I got some happy plants now. They're all doing good. I'm learning; it's a process.

So, Pastor Jared kept sharing this concept and this idea, and the more he talked about it, the more the team began to catch the vision. You know, and that's kind of how it works, guys.

God's been speaking to some of you—some of you very recently—but some of you, God spoke something to you maybe years ago, like way back there somewhere. I'm walking in a word today right now that God spoke into my life 20 and 30 years ago.

What's really important about that, about understanding that when God puts something, when He shares something with you, He stirs you about something, it's really important that we write it down. At the very least, you need to make a mental note, but I encourage you to write it down, journal that.

Because going forward, moving forward, you need to be able to remind yourself of what God said. You're going to find yourself in situations sometimes when you're in a valley, or maybe a door has just been slammed in your face, and maybe you thought, "This was finally, I'm there."

You know, finally, I'm there. This happened to us when we started stepping out in faith and believing that God was going to give us a location at Canyon Country. We took some bold steps forward; we started meeting in a high school, and we really didn't get a good start with it. Then COVID hit, and we were shut down when we first started our Canyon Country location.

That was kind of a really tough time. I think, you know, all of us—there's probably no one that did not go through just tragedy. So many loved ones lost, so many family members, so many people hurt, and lives destroyed in that season of time.

But I want to tell you something today: man, God is with you. It doesn't matter what season you're in; it doesn't matter how deep the ditch is, how low you feel like you've gotten. There's a God in heaven that cares about you. He's concerned about what your future looks and feels like. He's positioning you so that you can step into it.

You need to keep reminding yourself of what God has said. We need to remind ourselves about what God has said.

Look, I've had a lot of opportunities to give up on ministry throughout the years. I've been saved about 40 years now—42 years—and I've had a lot of opportunities to give up. I've had a lot of opportunities to say, "It's not worth it," or "It's not happening."

In life, you're going to run up against things that sometimes look and feel like, "Oh man, it's finally going to happen." And then, all of a sudden, the door slams. Amen?

Well, that's kind of what happened to us after coming out of COVID. Pastor just started back up again about these multi-sites and what he felt like God had called Higher Vision Church to do. He just kept talking about it; he kept sharing it, kept speaking it out loud.

Before you knew it, the team was talking about it, I was talking about it, I was praying about it. I was encouraging the team, "Guys, we've got to get ready. God's moving us into a different season."

Church can't look the way that it used to. Not like whatever, but he's saying, "We're not going to have church anymore; it's just not going to look the way it looks right now."

Because we're going to have to do it differently. You can't run one, two, or three locations the same way that it takes to run more. You have to start thinking about things differently.

So today, what I want to encourage you in is that Higher Vision leaders are visionary. Be a visionary. Put your glasses on that God's given you and look through that lens.

Don't be like the children of Israel. Remember the story in the Bible where the 12 spies went to look at the promised land that God had promised them? They had been in captivity, enslaved for 500 years, and now God was telling them, "I have a place for you. It's a promise. I want you to go take a look at it and then come back and tell me what you think."

This is what God is doing in your life and my life many times. In that season, that moment when you don't feel like things are moving, when it feels like the doors are closed, this is what God is really doing. He's asking you a question. He wants to know how you think about your current situation and what do you see when you look through the lens of God's kingdom.

There were 12 guys that went; they all went into this land. They all saw the same thing, but there were two guys that came back out of that place. The Bible makes a reference to one of those men—Caleb was his name. The other guy was Joshua.

Joshua and Caleb were the only two guys that came back from that journey and didn't see what everyone else saw. I want to ask you today: are you seeing what everyone else has seen? The obvious that the news is running every single moment of the day? Or are you seeing what the Kingdom of Heaven is saying?

Are you in tune with what God's doing right now, this moment, right now, wherever you are in your walk with life? I want you to know God is with you. He cares about you. He's not taken by surprise. He knows exactly what you're facing; He knows exactly what you're dealing with, and He has you in the palm of His hand. Amen?

So, we find ourselves in this situation; we find ourselves in this season many times in life where God is asking us a question. These two guys refused to see what everybody else saw.

These other guys came back, and they were like, "Man, there's giants in the land. There are giant walls around cities." That's where we get the story of Jericho. When God says, "Walls are not a problem. All I need you to do is get your groove on hiking around the city seven times. I'll deal with the wall."

God is telling you today He has you in the palm of His hand. He's got you, and He's got Higher Vision Church.

What I love about Pastor Jared and his leadership is that in this continued position of, "No, this is what God's called us to do," even when we found ourselves in the same tragedy as everyone else and dealing with some of the same loss and suffering.

Man, we did more funerals during that season than I pray to God we never have to do that again. Out of the midst of that, we just kept declaring God's word. We knew that God had called us to plant in Canyon Country, and we had the word that Pastor Jared had in his heart carrying the vision of a hundred plus campuses.

We just kept talking about it; we just kept praying about it. Pastor Jared literally went and did a 40-mile hike around the Canyon Country area. Many of you remember that. He was posting it, you know, when he'd go out and do that, and was believing God that God was going to open the door and bring that word to pass.

I'm going to tell you something: in life, we have a lot of opportunities to miss our purpose and God's plan for our life because there are a lot of voices that aren't speaking what God's speaking.

There are a lot of believers that aren't speaking what God's speaking. Don't take anything that doesn't align with God's purpose and plan for your life. Start building on that.

You need to build on the promise of God. You need to build on the word of God. You need to know that your God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond what you could hope for, what you could imagine, or what you could even dream. Amen?

When I was a location pastor sitting over in Santa Paula, and Pastor Jared was talking about a hundred locations, I couldn't even figure out how to grow one. I couldn't wrap my head around that, but I never stopped speaking what the vision and what the mission was.

The more I would say it, the more God would bring that to life on the inside until finally, I was just like, "I get it. I get it. We can do this. I don't know how we're going to do it, but we can do this. God's going to do this thing."

So, we just kept believing God; we kept trusting Him. Many of you know we now have a building in Canyon Country. We have a location in Canyon Country. What you may not know is that we were about to pull the trigger on a very expensive purchase in the Canyon Country area.

A couple of weeks before COVID broke out, the anchor tenant in the shopping center said, "Yeah, we decided we don't want to share a parking lot with a church." So, the deal was off the table.

At first glance, we were kind of disappointed. I mean, we were all excited about what we were getting ready to do, and we felt like God's hand was on that.

How many of you feel like sometimes God is—you’re right on the threshold, man. It's about to break. I'm about to step into that thing I've been waiting so long for. I'm about to say, "Anybody else here, or am I all by myself today?"

Many times, though, that door closes. Can I tell you something? If the door's closed, you and I need to learn how to praise God for the doors that are open, and we need to learn how to praise God for the doors that are closed.

I want to encourage you. The Bible says that the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord. That tells me He's the only one that can lead me in the path that I can go. There is an enemy out there; he would like to destroy me.

But the reality is, in Colossians 2, he was stripped of his power; he was stripped of his authority. He doesn't have that much power over your life. He only has what you and I are willing to yield over to him.

When you stand on the word of God, which is unfailing, unshaken, it cannot be moved. When you stand on the word of God and you establish yourself on that word, and you just keep saying what God is saying. Amen?

Do you know that's what the word prophecy means? It means to say it again. Well, you can't say it again if you've never heard it in the first place. Amen?

Well, how do I hear it in the first place? You listen to the one who's speaking the word. God might give you an impression; you may feel like God is saying something particularly about a certain thing.

Then you take a step of faith, and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to try this. I'm just going to say what I think God is saying right now. I'm going to trust you in this, God."

You start to declare that thing, and I'm going to tell you something happens when your faith—the measure of faith that God has put on the inside of you—when you allow that to begin to birth on the inside of you with the idea, with the dream, with the vision that God's given you.

There's something very powerful that happens. The Bible says that death and life are in the power of your tongue, which means if God's put a promise before you, when you talk about it, you need to say what God's saying. You need to speak it.

It doesn't matter how far you are. You know, when I got saved, there wasn't even one single verse in the Bible that I felt like I could be. I was so far away from God; I didn't feel like there was a verse in the entire Bible that I could be.

You know what I did? I opened it up; I started reading it. I would see verses in the word, and I would just go, "Holy cow, man, I am a long way from that place."

But you know what I did? I just said, "But it doesn't matter because it doesn't matter what I am; it only matters who He is." The word says I'm reading His word. The word said He lives on the inside of me.

If He lives on the inside of me, then that trash can't live here with Him. He's not having none of that; He can't live in that house. He would take care of it. Amen?

I just begin to speak the word over my life. "God, it doesn't matter if I mess up on the way to church today. It doesn't matter if me and my spouse got in a fight on the way here. It doesn't matter because you are Lord over my life, and I'm going to say what you say about me, not what I think about myself."

You begin to speak those words, and there's a transformation that will begin to come over your life. You'll start believing things that you didn't used to believe. You'll start believing that whom the Son has made free is actually free indeed.

You'll start believing that a transformation through the power and the process of giving yourself into Christ's hands is not just something that would be great if it happened; it's a reality that takes place in your life. It's something that God wants to do through you and I in the process of working out our salvation. Amen?

It's by the grace of God; it's not of any works. It's who He is living through you and I. What a good God! You ought to give God a shout of praise; that's pretty good news right there! [Applause]

As we begin to kind of process this, there was one weekend—I don't remember the date, and I don't remember if it was Saturday night or Sunday—but I remember Pastor Jared was preaching, sharing a word. Right on this platform, right here in front of God and everybody, he said these words, and I could not believe what I heard come out of his mouth.

It's one thing when you're talking to your spouse or you're talking to your brother or your sister or maybe your neighbor across the street. You know, you're kicking ideas around. But it's an entirely different thing when the man who's leading the congregation, leading the church, gets on the platform and says out loud, "I believe God's called us to have a hundred plus locations."

I remember that day when he said those words, just going, "Oh my God, there ain't no coming back from this, man." I mean, he didn't say it; he spoke it. He said it, and we can't take it back.

Then the other side of me got so excited. I was like, "Man, it's on now! It's on, man! I mean, it's on! God's really going to do this thing."

When you start talking about the thing that God is talking about, you're going to get passionate about it, number one. Secondly, you're going to love what you do. You're not going to get burned out.

You get tired; I get tired. I can fix tired. You know what I do when I get tired? I take a nap or I take a vacation. That's not the same thing as being burnt out.

Okay? I've never been burned out; I don't even know what that means. I don't comprehend that, and I'm not planning on it. You can try to talk me into it; I ain't going there.

I don't believe in being burnt out. I would do what I do for free. I would do it for free. I am so thankful—thank you, Pastor Jared—for my paycheck. I am so thankful that I get paid to do what I do, but I would do it for free.

I did it for free for years. I do it because I love God, and I love His people, and I'm passionate about what we're doing for the Kingdom of God.

It's my heart today that you will catch the vision that God has for your life—those things that He's been dropping in there, those things that He's been passing by—little moments, little glimpses, little pictures here and there.

Don't let those go, man. You need to hang on to those. You need to wake up in the morning; you need to declare those things. When you're driving down the road, you need to speak those things out. Your kids ought to think you're crazy.

I guarantee you my kids think I'm crazy. I'm talking to myself all the time. Let me tell you why. There's a verse in the Bible in Romans that says faith comes by hearing. It's in Hebrews; it's in chapter 11.

If we encourage you to read your Bible here, by the way, in Hebrews chapter 11, it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? The word.

It's important that you're not just hearing noise, but you're hearing the word of God. When you're hearing the word of God, what's happening? Faith, man! Faith is building up on the inside of you.

So, if you want to get excited about that thing that God put in front of you, and you want to see it happen, you need to start talking about it. You know, you talk about the things you're passionate about. Amen?

If you don't feel like you're bold enough to go there with somebody else, you've got to get in your closet or in the shower or out in the backyard or wherever you've got to go.

When I first got saved, I'd climb a mountain up in the back of my house, and I'd go up there. I knew I was called to preach from the very beginning. I'd climb up on that mountain, and I was going after every rabbit, every squirrel. I mean, if it was breathing air, man, that's my next convert right there.

You just begin to say it, and before you know it, you're believing what you're speaking. Then God—see, God can take that, and He can just blow that out of the water. He can do the abundant, take it beyond what you could ever imagine.

In Romans 10, it says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. If you're writing notes, you need to fix that.

Here's the amazing thing about God: these ideas were His in the first place. So, that's why it's important also for us to turn an ear to God, to lean into God, and pay attention when we feel like God might be speaking to us.

We need to take note of that and give that time to prove out. You know, we're so used to living in the world today where we can go to the microwave, and in two minutes, we've got a bag of popcorn. I mean, life doesn't get better than that, right? Popcorn in two minutes.

Well, it does if you have a gallon of ice cream; it gets way better. But the reality is that's how our minds work nowadays. You know, we get a promise from God, and we think, "Well, I'm going to wake up tomorrow; I'm going to be the next richest man on the planet," or "I'm going to be the next Billy Graham."

The reality is your faith is a process that you and I are walking out. Along that journey, there are times when God is slamming doors to keep us in position so that we don't cross the threshold of something He never intended for you and I to put our hands on.

I've got a few of those that I put my shoulder to, and I pushed open. Maybe you do too. You might be living in that place right now today. You might be on the other side of a door that God was trying to close, and you were just, "By God, I'm getting on the other side of that because I think this is what God wants for me."

You push your way to the other side of that threshold, and the problem with that is that there's no provision there. You own it; you can figure it out.

Now, it's better to praise God for the slam doors and praise Him for the open doors. Amen?

My next point that I want to touch on: HV leaders are evangelistic, and I'm running out of time; I got to get moving.

Matthew 28:19-20 says, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

It's in this going and sending out that we start to understand the idea and concept of evangelism. HV leaders are evangelistic. We bring people in, and we build people up.

You've heard us many times say, "Hey man, get in a circle, or go to Growth Track, get on a team, serve someplace." The reason why is that once you put your hand to something, you start to take ownership for it.

It becomes a part of how God's going to begin to channel blessing through. He's going to begin to use that as an avenue of connection point, not only with His kingdom but with the rest of your church family.

God is going to use those other individuals when you wake up some days, and you know the days I wake up I don't want to go to church—that was this morning, to be honest with you.

Last night, man, I'm glad you guys are here. There’s mourning, and you weren't here last night. For those of you that were, I'm sorry; that's all I can say.

I've been fighting a cold off for a couple of days, and last night about two hours before the message, man, I was just like, "Oh." I was looking around; there wasn't anybody to hand it off to. I was like, "Man, you're just going to do this."

And I did it all right.

But the reality is that it's this idea of sending people out. The purpose behind that is so that you and I can begin to create opportunities to take some people with us on this journey. Amen?

I love what Higher Vision does. We're an event-driven church, and what that means is we invest a lot of money in outreaches. We invest a lot of money in things that we do, sometimes outside and also inside.

We just finished up VBS; that's something that we fully are committed to. We don't charge for VBS; we take that out of the missions budget, and we do that free of charge.

We want to do it free of charge because we want to create an avenue for people to be able to invite kids to come and maybe be exposed to the gospel for the first time in their lives.

When we do an event outdoors, we've caught some flack over the years for some of the things that we've done. One of my favorites that we ever did was Rosie the elephant. I loved Rosie!

Rosie was cool, and you might be sitting here today wondering, "Why in the world would you guys spend money to bring an elephant here?" Because there were people that came to know Jesus on that weekend that would have never put their foot on church property.

But they came to see an elephant, and when they came to see an elephant, they met Jesus. That's why we do events; that's why we do the things that we do.

We create opportunities for you to be able to evangelize because not everybody's a preacher; not everybody's a teacher; not everybody feels like they're called to evangelism.

You know, "I'm going to pack up and travel the world and preach to God." That's not maybe your call, but we want to create opportunities that make sure that you have the opportunity to invite that neighbor back.

Maybe you've invited someone three, four, five times, and it's been no, no, no, no. But you talk about Rosie. I had people come that wouldn't come to church, and when I told them we were going to have an elephant, they were like, "We'll be there."

I think it was like, "I don't think they're going to bring an elephant." You know, "Why would a church bring an elephant to church?" You know, and we did. There was a long line to see her; it was pretty cool, right?

I mean, we had a bunch of people here. We do that because we want to create an environment so you can evangelize and reach people and invite them to the church who otherwise don't want to come sit in a Sunday morning service.

Amen? You might be here this morning wondering how you got here. Thank God that you are!

The other thing, too, is that it doesn't have to be an event. It could be someone recently signed up to be baptized, and because she was getting baptized, she wanted to make a moment out of that.

So, she invited several friends and people from their business, and they invited them to come to see her and experience that moment of her getting baptized.

Well, I had the pleasure of actually speaking to somebody right after the first service this morning who was one of those people that got invited. They gave their life to Jesus that day; they came back and got baptized, I think, the week or two after that.

There were several people that got baptized from that one invite that that lady brought a group of people in here. God moved in their life, and she, on that day, was being an evangelist.

She took an opportunity and created a pathway to touch somebody's life. All you need to do is share your story; tell somebody what God's done in your life. Amen?

I'm going to go to my last point: HV leaders are multipliers. We multiply leaders. Our job is not to do our job.

I can see some of you looking at each other going, "What do you think? What do you mean my job is not to do my job?" Now, the younger generation, they all slid up to the front of their seat and went, "I want to hear more about this. I like this; this is the kind of job I've been looking for."

Let me clarify that statement: HV leaders are multipliers. We multiply leaders, and our job is not to do our job.

Here's how we say it here in leadership: you have to hold on to the things that only you can do. There is a specific gifting, a specific call; you have an anointing on your life for certain things.

I'm not talking about just what you do ministry-wise; it's what you do day-to-day. It's the thing that you're gifted at, and God will take that thing and He will use it.

You know how I got my job at Higher Vision Church? I used to be a contractor. I was a general contractor for 20-some years before I moved here. I got brought on, hired in church to build the kids' facility—the project over there. That's how I got hired; that was the door that got opened that got me on the team here at Higher Vision Church.

You have to take the thing that God has gifted you in, and you have to just go to God and say, "God, how can you use this?"

Well, first of all, what you have to do is make it available. You have to be willing to say, "God, you gave this to me; I want to give it back."

You just look for opportunities to take that gift. Maybe it's leading a circle; maybe it's just joining and being part of another circle. Maybe it's just a coffee or having lunch with somebody.

But using your gift, using your influence, what God's given you, taking that and going out and duplicating it. Because there are certain things that you're probably doing right now that you're just doing it out of necessity, and you're not passionate about it.

You're just doing it out of necessity, and because you're not passionate about it, everybody knows it. The problem is there's probably somebody sitting right next to you who could just take that to the next level.

Sometimes it's insecurity; sometimes it could be a number of things that keep us from just going out and understanding this principle of if God's opening the door and He's giving me a position, He's given me a place, I need to begin to multiply myself.

I need to begin to raise people up; I need to begin to pour into people. I need to take things that someone else could be doing. Only the thing that only I can do is what I should be hanging on to. Everything else I should be trying to hand that off.

Because see, there's somebody who's gifted and empowered to do that; they just need to know that the seat on the bus is open. That takes an invite sometimes from you and I to go to people and say, "Hey man, there's a seat on the bus for you."

As I'm closing the service out today, I'm going to invite the worship team to come up, and we'll close the service out.

As we're winding things down here, I want to encourage you today that it really doesn't matter what field you're in. It really doesn't matter what your gift or your talent is; God can use you.

You just have to begin to call on Him to give you the creative mindset to begin to look for ways where you could do that, and you have to be willing to say yes. Amen?

You have to be willing to say, "You know what? I can do this." There are many of you watching online right now; you're listening to me this morning, and maybe you're sitting there and you're thinking, "Man, that's me. I could do that. I can multiply; I can lead; I could be one of those leaders."

Maybe you just need permission today. Permission granted! If you're at Higher Vision Church sitting in one of these chairs as an executive pastor here, I give you permission. Jump on the team, man! Find that place.

Because once you do that, you're going to see God begin to unlock things in your life. There are promises; there’s purpose that you can only fulfill when you engage with your call and you start walking hand in hand with God in His purpose and His plan.

Nothing else is going to fill that place.

1. "Your faith is a process that you and I are walking out and along that Journey there's times when God is slamming doors to keep us in position so that we don't cross the threshold of something he never intended for you and I had to put our hands on."

2. "When God puts something when he shares something with you he stirs you about something it's really important that we write it down at the very least you need to make a mental note but but I encourage you write it down Journal that because going forward moving forward you need to be able to remind yourself of what God Said you're going to find yourself in situations sometimes when you're in a valley or or maybe a door has just been slammed in your face and maybe you thought this was finally I'm there you know finally I'm there."

3. "I want to tell you something today man God is with you and it doesn't matter what season you're in it doesn't matter how deep the ditch is how how low you feel like you've gotten there's a God in heaven that cares about you he's concerned about what your future looks and feels like he's positioning you so that you can step into it and and you need to keep reminding yourself of what God has said."

4. "It's this idea of sending people out and the purpose behind that is so that you and I can begin to create opportunities to take some people with us on this journey."

5. "I'm going to tell you something happens when you cut when your faith the measure of faith that God has put on the inside of you when you allow that to begin to birth on the inside of you with the idea with the dream with the vision that God's given you there's something very powerful that happens the Bible says that death and life are in the power of your tongue which means if God's put a promise before you when you talk about it you need to say what God's saying you need to speak it."

6. "Are you seeing what everyone else has seen today, the obvious that the news is running every single moment of the day, or are you seeing what the Kingdom of Heaven is saying? Are you in tune with what God's doing right now, this moment, right now, wherever you are in your walk with life?"

7. "In your own life, there's a lot of opportunities that come your way, there's a lot of things that God will birth on the inside of you and maybe you've leaned into that, you've taken some steps and started moving towards it, but things just didn't come together the way that you thought they should."

8. "We always encourage one another to go beyond what's easy and push for the ex push for the thing that takes everything you got and then some and um I appreciate that about Pastor Jared I appreciate his leadership in this area if you get to know him a little better you're going to realize that he's a guy who's not easily satisfied with just the way things are."

9. "In life we have a lot of opportunities to miss our purpose and God's plan for our life because there's a lot of voices that aren't speaking what God's speaking."

10. "You have to take the thing that God has gifted you in and you have to just go to God and say God how can you use this...you have to make your gift available...you just look for opportunity to take that gift and maybe it's leading a circle maybe it's just joining and being on part of another Circle maybe it's just a coffee or having lunch with somebody but using your gift using your influence what God's given you taking that and going out and duplicating it."