Longing To Make An Impact? Lean Into Serving With Humility

Ross Sawyers: [00:01:02] Dear Father, thank you for the opportunity we've had this morning to, just be a part of people proclaiming their faith in Jesus through their baptism. Father, thank you for the opportunity to pray. So grateful, God, for our students at 121 that lead us so well so many times, and so grateful for them leading us today. And then, Father, we're grateful for your word, and the strength and the impact and the transformation that comes from being in it. So I pray as we crack open your word and then listen to the story today of what you've been doing all over the world. I pray, God, you would meet each of us, where you desire to move us to another place, of conforming to you, and of being a part of the mission that you've called us to. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Ross Sawyers: [00:02:13] Well, this summer, we've had groups of people all over the world on mission, across the US, and then locally as well. This morning, what we'd like to do is spend some time tethering ourselves to God's Word while listening to reports from what God's been doing through 121 mission efforts this summer, all through the Book of Acts, what we see happening is people going out, seeing God work and then coming back and reporting to the church what it is that God is doing, and that's what we'd like to do in these moments together.

Ross Sawyers: [00:02:52] One question I'd like to try to answer that I don't know if you woke up thinking about it or not, but whether you did, I'm going to answer the question, whether you did or not. Sometimes people wonder, why do we do missions? Why do we do things all the way across the world, across the US? Why do we do that? We have so much need that is right here, in our very midst, so why would we spend the money? Why would we do the trips? Why would we send missionaries? Why would we do that? And this is a stab at it this morning for me, my guess is most of us do not have all of our family within about a 5 to 15-minute radius of us, the bulk of us have family across the state, across the US, some have family across the ponds in different parts of the world. And we would never, I would hope that we would never say, you know what because the family is not within about 15 minutes of us, we're not going to love them, serve them, attempt to be with them, try to have them be with us. Most of us would not do that with family. And the way God speaks of us as Christians is that we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are one big global family, and he's divided us up into local bodies. He uses a metaphor of the body of Christ, and he's divided us up into local gatherings. But we're all part of one big family, and part of being a family means that we support each other, we encourage each other, we love each other well, and we try to help each other reach more people to be a part of God's family, which is the family he's adopted us into. That's one way to think about why we're about global mission.

Ross Sawyers: [00:04:50] More than that, though, we look at what God says from the very outset, and God has a heart that is a global heart. It's not just a localized heart, it's a globalized heart. In Psalm 67 it says, "God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us. 2That Your way may be known on the earth, your salvation among all nations. 3Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You. 4Let the nations be glad and sing for joy." That word nations, is a word for ethnicities, let every ethnicity praise you, God. And then God has given us a way to do that.

Ross Sawyers: [00:05:35] And when Jesus was crucified on the cross and then raised from the dead, one of the last things he said to his disciples, which goes to us today, is to, "Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus said to go and make disciples of all the nations, not just those within about 15 minutes of us, but of all the nations. And the way we do that is to be on mission, serving, meeting multiple kinds of needs, and then also speaking the reason for why we do it. We're motivated by the love of Jesus Christ. And what will bring a holistic change in somebody is when they come into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Will they even listen to us when they're starving or have injustices done to them? Probably not. So we get in there and serve and meet really practical needs in people's lives and let them know we love you so much that we want to meet both the physical needs, but we want you to know that the greatest need that you have and that I have is a spiritual need, and that's for Jesus Christ, and that changes everything.

Ross Sawyers: [00:06:58] So we've been thinking these last two weeks about how we can serve. It's a quick pause before we move in two more weeks from now in a study of the book of Mark, that will do for the bulk of the fall, in looking at who Jesus is. And I believe that's vitally important in a day when people will say they know who Jesus is, but then you start hearing them talk about him and you're thinking, I don't know. Let's see what God says here about who Jesus is, and then see if that matches up to what we're saying. So we want to anchor ourselves to God's Word so that we can really know who Jesus is.

Ross Sawyers: [00:07:34] Last week we talked about serving in the body of Christ. I did localize it and said we'd come back this week and talk beyond the localization of the body, "But God has placed each person in the body just as he desired." First Corinthians 12:18. Wherever it is that God has you in the local gathering that he gathers, he is giving you a gift, a spiritual gift, to serve in the body where he's placed you. And I would just simply say today that if God's placed you in this body or wherever it is he's placed you, that if you're not using that gift, that would be disobedience to God. Did you hear yesterday, Caleb Dressel, part of the 4 by 100, won the first gold medal for the US, 4 by 100 relay, in swimming? I mentioned his name last week as one who's a follower of Christ. His relay won yesterday, and this is what he said in part of his interview afterwards. All four guys standing next to each other, he looked at each of them and he said, we won today because each man did his part. The cool thing is, that you and I don't have to be elite athletes to do our part in the body of Christ. God actually specializes in taking the non-elite, and the weak, putting us all together, and building a body of strength, that's every person doing their part. What is your part in the local body at 121? You want to jump in on that. Most of our serving, though, is as we go, and then there are other on-purpose opportunities, and that's what I want us to think about from a serving idea as we move through our time this morning.

Ross Sawyers: [00:09:24] I want us to begin, we have several people that are going to share with you. We have trips that are not shared today because we just had time for so many. And I want to start with Mike Mobley. We also did this in a way that you might meet some of our staff, as well as one of our elders who helps oversee the body at 121. Mike Mobley has been on our staff for a bit, he was here for quite a while and then he went and planted a church with Corey Johnson in Austin, and then came back a couple of years ago. Mike has probably, I've really kind of made it hard for him this morning, but he could be one of the most joyful human beings on the planet. And he just brings a life to our staff, he does so much operationally behind the scenes for us to be able to function well using his giftings. But he and his family were on mission this summer, so, Mike, if you'll tell us a little bit about Honduras.

Mike Mobley: [00:10:20] So this better be joyful is what you're saying. So no pressure, that's great. Yeah, so good morning. Yeah, my family and I, we got to go to Honduras this month. We got back a couple of weeks ago. We actually sent two teams to Honduras this year, one team in June, led by Jamie Payne and Michelle Trejo. Our team, led by Brian Prasher, and I think there'll be some pictures on the screen, too. Both teams actually went to the same spot, we served in the same area in the city called La Paz, and it was at a school called Nico. And what the Nico school does is they provide academic development, emotional development, physical development, and most of all, spiritual development for the kids there in the area. They also give them a snack during the day, and for some, that's their only meal of the day. Because just culturally in that area of Honduras, the way the families are made up is each family typically doesn't have a mother or a father, and then the kids will get up to about sixth grade or so, and that's kind of like a cap for a lot of families. They get to the sixth grade if they get that far, and then they go back to their families to help make a living and help provide for their own families. So the school's trying to give them development across the board and then also teach them to think further than sixth grade, right? Like, going towards middle school, high school, college, and opportunities after that. So the June team, they taught VBS, and they taught some classes during the week, they had a field day for one of the days. They also passed out hygiene kits that a lot of you made here, for them to send, so thank you so much for that. And then they delivered groceries when they did some home visits. So both of our teams, we got the chance to go into people's homes of families that were involved in Nico, just to get to know them, to be a guest in their home. They welcomed us in, and it was great, and just relationally to try to build those relationships long term.

Mike Mobley: [00:12:19] When we were there, we had some teachers on our team. So we kind of took over the school for a week to give the teachers a break and taught the classes there. We did some yard work when we were there, and kind of moved hundreds of pounds of debris to get ready for a playground that they installed when we were there, we got to see that, which is awesome. And then we brought about 13 or so checked bags full of clothes and school supplies that many of you donated, so thank you for that. The school director said she was overwhelmed, but in a good way, like, not the bad overwhelmed. Because that would have been awkward for all of us. But no, she just said out of both of our teams, they just feel like they haven't been served that much. And that the impact, she believes, will go on for years for the kids and the teachers and the families.

Mike Mobley: [00:13:11] One of the staff members there, his name was [inadudible], he's the only guy on staff at the school. So I think when he saw Brian and I, he was he was happy there were some guys on the trip. We got to know him well, and when he was younger, he actually volunteered at Nico and just helped out with some random projects, but then he became a believer. He turned into an adult, and then he felt the call to teach and had some opportunities outside of La Paz to teach, which is pretty rare, but he chose to go back to Nico and pour his life into the same school he served at before, which is awesome. It just says a lot about him and the people there.

Mike Mobley: [00:13:49] You know, it was the first time our family served together out of the country. So we have a ten-year-old and an 11-year-old, and so it had its challenges at times, but it stretched us in ways where we drew closer to the Lord, and our kids get to use their abilities, you know, to help even other children out there who don't even speak the same language. It really drew us into the Lord, into each other in ways that I mean, we've never experienced to date. So if you get a chance with your families to do something like this, I mean, I would do everything you can for that opportunity.

Mike Mobley: [00:14:21] And then lastly, on our team, but also the team in June, everyone just had a posture of open hands. And I think that's just great, I've been trying to take that back here to the States to just keep that daily posture of, okay, God, my hands are open, what do you want me to do today? And so I think it's just been a good encouragement for all of us just to think, are your hands open and are you just open to, okay, God, what's my next step of obedience today?

Ross Sawyers: [00:14:54] If you'll turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 20, I want to tether us to God's Word. And I want us to think today, just like Mike shared, about how do we serve like Jesus, and that's what I want us to think as we hear these different stories. We want to look for context when we're reading, and in Matthew 20, Jesus is telling a parable. and I learned yesterday I played pickleball with our young adults, our 20-somethings, and it was a great time with them. But one guy said after he did something, because as you've obviously figured out by now, there's a good chance if I'm with you in something, there's an outside shot that you'll be part of a story on Sunday. That makes people nervous, and they don't want to do things with me, I get that. but some people like it. And yesterday he said, hey, am I going to make story time? And I thought story time, is that what you think I'm doing up here? And he said, well, maybe it's a parable or something.

Ross Sawyers: [00:15:52] Well, there actually is a parable in Matthew 20, that Jesus is telling. So for story time, Jesus has them gathered around him and he's telling them, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. He said it's like a landowner who hired some people for the day, and as he hired them, he needed more workers, and throughout the day, different people came on to work. And finally, there were some that came in the last hour of the day. When they were finished working, they were all paid, and the landowner paid every one of them the same amount. Now you can hear the cries of unfair, I worked all day, and he only worked an hour. But Jesus is saying, look, this is what the kingdom is like. And aren't we glad today that God brings rescue at the last hour of people's lives? Some at the front hour, some in the middle of the day, some at the end. But Jesus tells that story about the kingdom. It kind of turns things upside down, most of what Jesus would say.

Ross Sawyers: [00:16:52] And then he tells them that it won't be too long before he's going to be crucified, and on the third day, he will rise again, which takes us to the passage on serving in Matthew 20:20. And the way I would think about this, if this is all in order of how it was written, this is like, are you ever talking to somebody, and you're thinking, I think they're listening, but based on what they just said, I don't think they actually heard what I said? And that's what's happening here, I believe. Jesus is telling what's happening in the kingdom, about his crucifixion, and resurrection. Then in verse 20, "Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him." It's believed that James and John, that's who the two are here, that are being referred to, that they're cousins, of Jesus. "And He said to her, “What do you wish?” She said to Him, “Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.” I think today we would call this helicopter parenting, it's when the mom or dad shows up for their son or daughter's interview to try and ensure that they're going to get the job. And so that's happening here, and the mom's trying to take advantage of some family connections. "But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to Him, “We are able.”.

Ross Sawyers: [00:18:21] Now the cup is referring to as a cup of suffering. Are James and John able to have that same cup of suffering and death that I'm about to have? And, you know, they said we're able. "He said to them, “My cup you shall drink; but to sit on My right and on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father.” So they're kind of grappling for position, it's kind of like they didn't hear what he's saying and the magnitude of what he's saying. Instead, it's, hey, when you kind of establish your kingdom, I want to make sure I'm in the best position possible. And so the mom's trying to work it for them. In Mark 10, we don't see her in the mix. but we see some other details. "Hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers." And most probably think the reason they're mad is because they were trying to take advantage of their family advantage that they had for that kind of position. They really probably wanted the same spots and were just a little agitated that they were getting beat to it, and that family was being used.

Ross Sawyers: [00:19:38] "But Jesus called them to himself, and he said..." Now here's Jesus with a little story time for his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26“It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Jesus does a reversal here, it's not the person at the top of the pile that's great. It's not the CEO that's great, it's not the leader of the division that's great, it's the person at the bottom that's great. He flips it. This doesn't mean that a person that leads an organization, that a CEO, they can be the servant. But it's a matter of the position that God has given us, how are we behaving in that spot? And Jesus says, what makes you great no matter where you are, is being a servant, that's what makes you great. And Jesus said that he did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. He said, this is why I came, I came to serve you, and the person who will be the greatest will be the servant. We want to serve like Jesus because that's what Jesus came to do.

Ross Sawyers: [00:21:28] We also had a group go to Uganda this summer, and Collin Hiles has just come on to our staff in the last couple of months. He's on our life group staff leading our men, so we're excited that he's on board in that role. He and his wife led the trip to Uganda, and we have a quick video of what they did there, and then Collin will share.

Collin Hiles: [00:22:21] Well, thank you. So, me and my wife had the pleasure of leading the Uganda mission trip for the past two years. This is a student mission trip where we were able to take ten 121 high school students that are juniors and seniors over to Uganda to partner with an organization called Edify. And Edify, how they operate as they provide loan capital and Christ-centered education to work with schools to help them grow and raise up Christ-centered leaders in those schools. So they partner with about 12,000 schools throughout the country of Uganda. And our students had the opportunity to help Edify put on a three-day leadership camp where we had 200 students from all over the country come and spend some time in worship as you saw, but also in Bible study and kind of discipleship leadership groups. And the cool part about it is our 121 students, our high school students, were the ones that were leading those lessons. There were about two-hour lessons every day, and it was a 121 high school student that took that on. And they would have a group of 25 to 30 Ugandan students that are their age or older, and it was a great opportunity for our students to kind of step out and lead, challenge themselves, and kind of get out of their comfort zone. And our students going into the trip expressed kind of a lot of nerves, understandably, about having to do that for every single day and lead those around them. But it was just an incredible opportunity for the Lord to work in them. And Acts 1:8 talks about Jesus telling the disciples that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them, and then they will go be witnesses throughout. And our students have said that through that trip that they felt the Holy Spirit on them, and they felt that God was speaking through them, and it was just an absolutely incredible experience.

Collin Hiles: [00:24:14] I want to take a moment. If you have a 121 student, I just want to brag on them, they are doing some awesome, awesome things and God is doing an incredible work in them. When we were at camp every day, we had lessons lined up for the day. But our students really took the initiative and had the resolve of you know what, before we start the lesson for today, we want to make it very clear what the Gospel is to the students that came to these camps, whether they were believers that are very strong in their faith, or were new to it, they wanted to start every day by telling them about the love of Jesus and the beauty of the Gospel, and God just, he magnified that so much more.

Collin Hiles: [00:24:56] We had 200 students at the camp, like I said, ranging in different kinds of beliefs and kinds of faiths, and of the 200, we had 46 students who accepted and gave their lives to Christ. And so, yeah, absolutely. And the cool part about the trip is we talked about I am who God says I am was a theme as we talked about kind of the attributes of God and what God says about us. But I just want you to know we serve such an incredible God who is not only a loving father, but he is a look-and-see God, where he is doing work within us, and he's doing work across the nations. And that's not enough for him, he invites us to come look and see all the incredible things that he's doing and allows us to take part in transforming lives through him. And so our students got a fantastic opportunity for that, and we praise God for that. Thank you.

Ross Sawyers: [00:26:02] So who is it that we're to serve, if we're going to serve like Jesus, then who are the people that we serve? In John chapter 13 we see another moment near Jesus' death, and this is what he's doing at the end of his life. In John 13, starting in verse 3, "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God." By the way, this is a great verse about identity. We hear so much about identity today and what we find right here is that Jesus knew who he was, he knew where he had come from, and he knew where he was going. And when we know who we are and where we've come from, and we know where we're going, that gives us confidence in the in-between to live out the mission that God has given us, it flows from understanding who we are. And Jesus knew who he was, "He got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself." Verse 5, "Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded." Now, by way of custom, in this era, a way of hospitality would be as soon as someone showed up at a house or at a gathering, they would wash their feet. It would be the servant, who was the lowliest of the servants, that would have the task of washing the feet of those who came. And it's logical that would be an act of hospitality in a culture where they were on dusty and dirty streets, and when they would arrive, that would be a logical thing, that you would wash their feet. And here we have, it seems, that they must have arrived, and nobody did it, that tells us something about kind of what's happening here. And Jesus takes this moment to teach them about serving, and he washes all of their feet. Now, if I'm going to think about the question today, who has God called me to serve, as I'm going in and on purpose kind of things, who is that? Well, Jesus is serving his disciples, all 12 of them, in this moment, and he knows that Judas Iscariot is going to betray him. He knows that, and still he serves him by washing his feet and doing the lowliest of tasks for him. Years ago, when we were having this brief pause talking about serving at 121, one of the guys in our church came to us and said, I want to know what is the job that nobody wants to do? What's the dirtiest job in the church? And I want that one. That was one of my highlight moments in the history of our church, of just a servant heart, and saying, this is how I want to serve. I believe that's what Jesus was doing. It was one of those moments where this was not for someone of Jesus's stature, yet he did it because this was his heart.

Ross Sawyers: [00:29:17] He does a few other things here and has an encounter with Peter. And then we get to verse 12, and it says, "When He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again..." So he's done, he's done it, he served them, and now he teaches them, "He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13“You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14“If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet." He's making it really clear to them, he didn't just do this and hope they would understand that they were also to do it. He did it, and then he said, you call me Lord and teacher, you're correct, and this is what your Lord and teacher does. He washes the feet of his disciples, “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you." To serve like Jesus is to do the menial, lowest kinds of tasks to serve people, and it's to serve people we don't probably really care for. He served someone who was going to betray him.

Ross Sawyers: [00:30:52] Jesus is beyond us, he was able to love in a way we're not able to, that we continue to grow into. But let me give you an example. My hunch is there is at least one political candidate that you don't like, there's probably more than one. My question for you and for me today is will we take the posture of Jesus, and would we be willing to serve that person by washing their feet and doing the lowliest things to serve them? That's what Jesus did here. Could we, at a minimum, serve our country and our politicians by praying for them that God would capture their hearts, and where they might be deceived, that God would open their eyes and their hearts to be able to see as he sees and to lead as he would lead. That's one way we can serve. Jesus served the unlikely ones in his life. But to serve like Jesus, we do the same. Jesus said earlier in the sermon on the Mount, he said, what credit is that to you, if you serve and love somebody that you love? That's easy. But what about someone you don't? The way you love them is to serve them; that's the way of Jesus.

Ross Sawyers: [00:32:27] We had a group go to the Dominican Republic and Jake and Aubrie Lamar going to share with us with their family, Bryson and Lawson. Jake serves as one of our elders at 121, he does a great job in giving oversight to our church, and I'm excited about what God did with them in their time at the D.R..

Jake Lamar: [00:32:47] Thanks, Ross. Good morning. We've been going through the discovery Bible study method, and so we're going to kind of take our trip kind of through that. So I'll summarize it, we'll talk about where we saw God, and then how we can apply it. So the trip that we got to go to the D.R., there were five families from 121 and kids from 5 to 14. And we got down there and kind of broke the trip up into three different parts. The first part would be kind of the 121 community part of it, where we did devotionals in the morning, and got to spend time just really diving into God's Word, and went through the discovery Bible study method, talking about Jesus's miracles. And it was really, really cool to see the insight from the kid's perspective, and from adults, and be able to pour into them that way.

Jake Lamar: [00:33:32] We also got to serve in the schools with Edify. So that was the partner that we went with and build those relationships with the Dominican Republic staff that's there from Edify. And then also the kids, we put on a camp for them, and did a carnival, and really just enjoyed getting to know them and building relationships with the kids and translators and everything that way. And then we had intentional family time, to really process what we were seeing and what we were learning. And so Aubrie's going to talk about where we saw God.

Aubrie Lamar: [00:34:06] Yeah. So every night in our devotional, we would talk about as a group where we saw God. So, boys, do you guys want to share where you saw God?

Bryson Lamar: [00:34:12] I saw God in the kids when we were just playing with them, and I could see that they could understand what the teachers were saying to them.

Lawson Lamar: [00:34:25] I saw God in the ocean, just of God's creation.

Aubrie Lamar: [00:34:30] Yeah. So, you know, obviously there was a lot there. But I think, you know, every night, you know, my main takeaway was the relationships. You know, it's cool as you go and you're building a relationship and you're really trying to find, like, what's that one common thing that we have alike that we can really build this relationship off of? And, you know, what's cool about being a follower of Christ is wherever we're sent off to is like when we find like-minded believers, we already have something in common. And that was so fruitful in us getting to love on and serve and figuratively wash the feet of the D.R. staff because we were able to be in fast community with them and build relationships with them just based on our common ground there.

Aubrie Lamar: [00:35:10] But I think, you know, a couple of other stories that come to mind is there was a sweet gentleman by the name of Eduardo that worked in the home that we got to stay in, and frankly, the only thing that he really had in common with several of us was the fact that he spoke Spanish and thank goodness Elvis Gallegos did as well, that came in really handy throughout our trip. But just by getting to be in a home with him regularly during, you know, meal times and things like that, we got to know his story. And really, that unpacked over a week into a really beautiful conversation where we found out he was seeking more from his relationship with the Lord, and he's about to become a father again. And getting to see, you know, all of our dads that were there, just loving their families well and really getting to just kind of figure out what that's going to look like for him or frankly, the relationships that our kids got to build. You know, we're launching our children into a culture, that the language is different and you just don't know what that looks like and how they're going to build relationships. But we've done this two years in a row now where, you know, you just send them off to play and you realize that play and joy don't have a language, right? Play and joy are just organic and don't need that, and so that was really cool seeing them, you know, whether it was a boy that liked baseball, or we had a dancing culture, our kids loved to dance, and so that was super special. You know, I think it just reminds me that the Holy Spirit doesn't need a translator, and when you're actively seeking a relationship through what the Lord has done in your life, you know that really goes before us, which is really neat.

Aubrie Lamar: [00:36:41] I think that also applies to the application part of our trip. Part of what we got to do each night was go through a study of when helping hurts, and so we would gather as a larger group and we would watch a video together, and then we would break off into adults and kids so that the adults were going deeper into what it looks like to have a poverty elimination mindset through a Gospel first lens. But then the kiddos were also getting to learn about it. And so Bryson's going to show you an activity that they did. Do you want to explain that to them?

Bryson Lamar: [00:37:15] So we talked about the four main parts of poverty, and it's being poor mentally, being poor spiritually, being poor physically, and being poor socially.

Aubrie Lamar: [00:37:30] And I think what this underlines is that, you know, we oftentimes think that being poor is really a lack of something, it's typically a lack of something material. But, you know, when we're when we're poor socially or spiritually, really that's not as obvious, and so we have to be in relationship. And so what a gift it is for all of us, you know, from 7 to 38 to get to learn that together.

Jake Lamar: [00:37:53] And some other applications part of it is just our family rhythms and things that we are going to put into place going forward. And one of those is, is like any trips that we take on, we're looking for opportunities to serve, try and find either a food pantry or something and say, hey, how can we get involved in the community that we're going to, whether it's a 121 sponsored deal or not? And so I encourage you all to just jump out there and get involved with young kids or whatever, don't think something's holding you back. Our missions' teams do a great job of providing different types of trips, but really praying through and saying, God, where can you use us? How can we be a part of what you're doing? He's working everywhere, and we want to do that. And it gives your family an opportunity, something to look forward to and pray towards. And so, I mean, we were, you know, daily praying, Lord, we don't know what the D.R. is going to look like for us, but whatever you have for us, let our hearts and our minds be ready for that. And so it was just a great daily reminder for us to be able to pray with, you know, as a family with our boys, looking forward to it. So thank you.

Ross Sawyers: [00:39:03] One of the things I really wanted you all to see and Jake and Aubrie, that I think it's a cool vision for families is their vision is to do some kind of family mission trip every year. And I thought that was a really cool vision for a family. And for many of you, you still have that opportunity to do it, and to plant some kind of vision like that for your family. What I also would say today is, if you're a grandparent, you could do this with your adult children and your grandchildren. As a parent of adult children, you could do this with adult children. There are so many ways that you could do family combinations of missions together, that I think is just a beautiful way to serve.

Ross Sawyers: [00:39:43] Well, what should be our attitude behind serving? Paul writes in Philippians chapter 2 and gives us a good picture of what actually is the right attitude behind it. So if we want to serve like Jesus, it's what he said he came to do. And then we want to serve those the same kind of people Jesus would serve, and we want to be willing to do the lowest of things to serve, and so what's the attitude behind it? Verse 3, chapter 2 of Philippians, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." So the attitude we're to have is to die to selfishness, and instead have humility of mind, and the way we humble ourselves is to regard another person as more important than myself. That is the spirit and the attitude behind serving, a humility that says you're more important than I am. And I think Paul kind of appeals to our base nature in saying, do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others. He knows that we will, by our very nature, look out for ourselves. And he says, don't just look out for yourself. I know you're going to do that. With the same intensity that you would look out for yourself, look out for everybody else. That's the spirit behind the service. And then he anchors that to Jesus, and in verse 5, "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." So the idea of not looking out for ourselves regarding one another as more important than us is tied into Jesus Christ Himself, who laid aside his privileges to come and walk among us, to live the life of a servant, and ultimately to give his life on a brutal cross for us; then God exalted him. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. God exalts him so that every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. We serve with the hope that people will bow to Jesus as their Lord and as their Savior.

Ross Sawyers: [00:42:52] We didn't just find ourselves across the world, we found ourselves in another part of the US this summer. Jhejuda Ehrbar serves on our staff, on our mission staff, and his primary responsibility is the neighborhood all around our church. And we felt very strongly about ministering to people right where we are. and Jhejuda is doing a phenomenal job of reaching into the community where we are. And he had an opportunity to go somewhere else this summer, a little bit of video on where they were.

Jermaine Arphul: [00:43:23] So we're out here on Coney Island, and we had five students just get baptized right there. Incredible testimony, and an incredible opportunity to do it in front of all the people, all different types of people to hear us witnessing to the power of God.

Jhejuda Ehrbar: [00:43:41] So like Ross said, my name is Jhejuda, and this year me, and my wife had the privilege to go to New York. It wasn't on a calendar, it wasn't something we were planning on doing, but the opportunity came up and we jumped on it. All I knew about New York before going was the Taylor Swift song and Home Alone movies. And as we kind of got closer, we started hearing that it was a dark place, that it was hard to share the Gospel there, that it wasn't receptive. So that's really kind of what we walked into, at least assuming that all that was true. We were there to partner with the borough church, Zach has been here, he's the lead pastor of that church, just to be a refreshment to them, to love them, and to serve shoulder to shoulder with them.

Jhejuda Ehrbar: [00:44:21] We did a basketball tournament at Sunset Park in Brooklyn. We did a church service at Coney Island, we helped set up for that, and there are baptisms there. And then we also did some stuff and just fellowship with their student program. One of the biggest things that I think impacted me was, one, the flexibility of our students, and just a willingness to go wherever and to do whatever to serve and to love others. And then some of them just shared the Gospel in the most random places, wherever they could. We shared it with our Uber driver who was Muslim. We shared it at a restaurant with some of the restaurant owners. One of our students shared in the hotel lobby with the people there. And then one of them even shared in the water at Coney Island with some other person who was swimming, so he caught him in the middle of that. The sweet part is how God actually created all those opportunities for us, that we didn't plan. A lot of the stuff that was planned, obviously we did, but a lot of the sweet moments we never planned, God just orchestrated those on his own.

Jhejuda Ehrbar: [00:45:20] And we have a picture of a man, we were at Bryant Park, it's near a big library in New York, and he was drawing this picture. A couple of our students went up and talked to him, and then eventually, I did as well. So it's a picture of a broken-hearted man, and the way he described it to me was darkness consistently looming over him and following him everywhere, and those eyes are the eyes of people around him who are consistently judging him and condemning him. He shared with me that he was supposed to meet with another Christian believer there at the park that canceled on him, so I told him that's why we were there. But one of the sweetest things that came out of that was really being able to share with him, because he told us that our eyes were different, he could see a difference in our team's eyes than from everyone else he encountered in New York. Jesus says that he has compassion over a crowd, in Matthew 9:36, because they were helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And I would just encourage you guys today, he felt that compassion because he saw me. And we need to get out and see these people so that we can have that compassion. We want to have a heart and a compassion like Jesus does to serve and love others. Thank you all.

Ross Sawyers: [00:46:38] You've heard different ones of the team talk about the Gospel and sharing the Gospel with them. So we serve and we share the Gospel. When we talk about sharing the Gospel, we're talking about good news, we have good news to offer. In Mark 10:45, which was in Hindi, right after the video from India to start this space of our time, Mark 10:45 was there. Most of us probably couldn't read it, when it was there. What we can do is read it in English, and it says, "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." We've been focused on talking about how he came to serve, and we want to serve like Jesus. The ultimate way that Jesus served was in giving his life as a ransom for those who would then respond to him in faith. A ransom is something that, you know, that is paid so that someone can be released. And all of us are enslaved in bondage, trapped in our sin. We're trapped by Satan who's deceived and lied and stolen our ability to see what is good and right. We are trapped by the world that has shaped us into its thinking, and we desperately need somebody to rescue us from it.

Ross Sawyers: [00:48:01] If you watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday, there were some things that were amazing, and it was also incredibly dark. And you might have watched YouTube videos over the weekend talking about different parts of it. But a French missionary, I think was the most helpful to me that someone sent a text to me today. And that missionary said, "You might have seen different things in that opening ceremony. He said, but remember that France is 5 to 10% Christian, and to talk about faith in the public square is incredibly difficult and rare." This missionary has been there for 20 years, and he said, I know about two handfuls of Christians. He said what you saw was a representation of Franc, that's what they were trying to do, they were very clear; young, old, every kind of possibility of relationship, they celebrated it. It's dark because people are trapped in their sin and in the darkness of Satan. Our battle is not against people who participated in the vile things that happened in that ceremony. Our battle is not against politicians today. The scripture says that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the ruler of darkness and the demonic and everything that sits behind it, that's where our battle is today. And we can get in on that. And we can either keep getting mad about everything that we see, and I think it's okay, it should make us mad, but it ought to be an anger that drives us to pray. And, as Jhejuda said, to have a compassion for the brokenness of someone that would be celebrating such darkness. Because I guarantee you, if they knew anything different, it's not what they would be doing. The scripture says that our minds are dulled, our ears can't hear, our eyes are blinded, our hearts are seared, and we can't understand it. That was all of us at one point, and God in his mercy paid a ransom price for us, and took our sin and our darkness and all our entrapments on himself, so that if we believe that we can be set free and that we can have a freedom.

Ross Sawyers: [00:50:51] One of the coolest things to me yesterday, being with our young adults, I just started looking at different ones. I know several of their stories now and had a great conversation with one young lady and just heard how God rescued her just a few months ago. But God is in the business of rescuing people from darkness, and as I look across the room and when I meet people, and I realize, oh, wow, somebody's been praying for them for the last 10, 15, 20 years, and nobody ever thought they would show up in church, and nobody ever thought their heart would be changed, and nobody ever thought they would be the ones serving today and teaching today and leading people to Jesus today. And this is like how we look out there today and say, I don't know how that could ever change or happen. It happens all the time. And what God has called us to do is to be a people who will pray. So could we, every time we see these things, that it could be a call for us to pray that God will change that person? And whenever we see people that are in darkness, how can we serve them with humility so that they might see that Christians are not just people yelling at them on Facebook? But it starts by us believing in Jesus, that he paid a ransom to set us free, and that puts a new song in our hearts, and it puts a different look in our eyes like that man saw on Coney Island. That's Jesus, you can't perform for that, you can't work for that, that is just Jesus. Do you know that Jesus? And if so, that's what motivates us to love and to serve.

Ross Sawyers: [00:52:49] Well, the last two to wrap us up are Elvis Gallegos, he's our mission pastor, and he oversees all that's going on locally, globally, and in the US. He has done a great job. Kevin Brooks is with him; Kevin is one of the leaders for our serve week that's coming up. And I want us to have moved from the globe to the US to local, and they're going to share with you a way that every person in the room and online can be a part of serving the way we talked about serving like Jesus today.

Elvis Gallegos: [00:53:23] Thank you, Ross. And really, just to wrap up on the global piece, thank you guys for the incredible support that you did for helping our students. Over 50 students were on trips this summer. I think we had about eight trips that went out. The Czech Republic trip went out this summer, as well as Guinea, who are back today, and India is still out there. But you guys, just your encouragement, your prayer, your financial support, in just everything that our students do is just incredible. And I know we're just focusing on the summer trips, but we've had other seasons where we have other opportunities. And just to let you know, it's not the six days or seven days or ten days that we're in country, it's the time that we lead up to where we prepare our hearts to go. Our trip leaders do an incredible job of trying to lead our teams and saying, it's about your love for the Lord growing in this time. And through that, your love for people will grow, then we come alongside our partnerships, and we make disciples of all nations, and that's the process, it's not just the task at hand in the country. So thank you guys for being a big part of that.

Elvis Gallegos: [00:54:30] As we shift to Serve Week, we are celebrating our 25th year anniversary this September, September 9th through the 16th, and we want to do that by building off the last few years that we've had Serve Day. Kevin Brooks is leading. Kevin has been a part of the big event, which has been 25,000 people that he's led in serving. So you can just imagine the structure and organization as great ideas that he's brought to the team. Brian Bachman is continuing to lead that, he's led it the last few years, and he's a part of it this year. Joe [inaudible] as well, who does a lot of the community engagement teams and special projects and skillful teams that are out there. Because we'll be doing stuff for GCISD, as well as other districts and working with Grapevine, he'll share a little bit about that for this year.

Kevin Brooks: [00:55:21] Yeah. Thanks, Elvis. So like he said, 25th year anniversary. The goal, and the prayer, is to have 2500 people go out into the community to serve. So what that looks like, last year, we had 1300 people go out and serve. So this year we're doing 2500, and it is going to be big. So you have to sign up, so go ahead, and pull your phone out right now and take a picture of the QR code on the back of the seat in front of you. I'm used to people doing other things while I talk, I have two toddlers, so go ahead and, pull out your phone and start doing it now. We are serving so many job sites, we have people who are going to be at every campus in GCISD, as well as a few campuses in Keller ISD. As part of the new church plan over there, we're trying to infiltrate that community. So, it's going to be a great time. We also have people serving at Grape Fest from Monday through Sunday. it is going to be the 9th through 15th that we serve, and we finish it off on the 16th, the actual 25th anniversary, with a 7:30 worship service here. So please sign up.

Kevin Brooks: [00:56:27] One difference this year from last, if you served last year, we will be placing you at a job site. So that is because of these numbers that we are trying to hit. We want to make sure that we are efficient, and we hold up our promise to all the partners that we are serving this year. So there are a lot of opportunities, so bring a friend, it's a great opportunity to bring someone into 121 and serve alongside of them as well. We have a lot of awesome opportunities, and it doesn't matter what life phase you are in, if you have little ones, or if you can barely move, that is perfectly fine. We have a place for you. so please sign up. Also, if you're interested in being a site captain, we have a meeting today at 12:30 upstairs, right after this service, we will have lunch for you. So don't worry about not eating anything, we will have you covered. So, please come upstairs if you're interested in that. I think that that is all.

Elvis Gallegos: [00:57:23] And just quickly, last year, I think we had over 25,000 meals that we packed and shipped, I went to Bangladesh, and over 750 food boxes that went to local communities here, from building an outdoor classroom, to our schools, to clearing a lot of brush, you guys have made an incredible impact locally that strengthened our partnerships. So we want to continue to encourage you to be a big part of that and sign up. And so before I pray and wrap us up, let me also just invite you to, today, we do have a connections lunch. So if you want to know more about 121 and life groups and ways to get connected inside the body or Serve Week, we'll be up there along with the Site Captain Lunch. So thank you guys so much. Let me pray for us and we'll get you out of here.

Elvis Gallegos: [00:58:09] Heavenly Father, we're just grateful, God, for your presence this morning. God, thank you for allowing us to dwell in your word. You continue to lead us and we're grateful for that. You give us great love and mercy and grace daily, God, and we just ask for wisdom as we navigate these remaining few months into Serve Week, that we continue to just, live out the task that you've given us here on Earth, give us great clarity to move forward with just decisions and conversations. God, will you be present in every conversation possible that you can be? Let us be present in the moment. Let us just be eyes and ears to be open to local and global opportunities you may have for us. Let us be like Paul and his love for the Philippians, and he says that when he thinks of him, there's great joy because of the partnership and the Gospel. We're just grateful for that, we just thank you, Father. Let our hearts be open and let our hearts be available to just be compassionate and just grateful each and every day. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Thank you, guys. Have a good day.


Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.