Our Place

This message was delivered on Sunday, April 25th to the Passion Church congregation.

Today I am going to talk to you about “us” corporately. However, I want you to know that everything I say about us corporately if you will stop and think about it the same is true for you personally. If you are going to reach your promised potential and destiny you must also live out what we are going to share today.

Gen. 11:31-32
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205years, and he died in Haran.

Gen. 12:1
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

Gen. 12:4-5
So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Hebrews 11:8
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

Our Promise:
Abraham had received a promise. We have received a promise. You have to come to that conclusion or we are finished, stymied, done. We will stop at the level of your belief for this body. I realize that I have a part in this because as the leader I have to keep dreaming, but if I am the only one that keeps dreaming and believing for more the truth is our journey will come to an end! We all have to know that God has more for us. That is essential because it is going to take all of us to get there. You have to know in your knower that you are part of something here that is not just another church or just another worship gathering. We are here because we have received a promise from God! We are on a journey together. We are marching towards building God’s House His Way! We are on a journey to establishing a different kind of church that isn’t caught up in positions, titles, religious trends or religious games. We are about encountering God, becoming equipped to walk out what we experience in His presence and engaging our culture so that they can see Him. That is the journey we are on. Our promise is that we will have a church that is growing, powerful, grounded, and influential.

Abraham’s father started the journey to the promise, but settled before reaching the promise. We view settling as a bad thing. It can be and will be if we become comfortable here. He stopped half way. I don’t want to get half way to what God has for us and stop and never take another step. By the way . . . half way is more comfortable than all the way because you can pat yourself on the back and say we had faith or we wouldn’t have come this far. It is comfortable because we can applaud the sacrifice it took to get us this far. However, half way isn’t all the way. Mediocre is half way up the mountain. There are benefits to half way but there also forfeits. Half way forfeits the promise. Half way forfeits the fruit of the land. Half way forfeits the blessing. So I believe that half way is simply a short (and necessary) stop on the way to our promise.

It is necessary for two reasons. The first is that it is at half way that some things die. In order for us to reach our promised place there are some things that have to die while we are here. Our attachment to our way, our traditions, our agendas, our past, our fear! There are even people that will have to drop off. It is called pruning. There are some people that can go half way that can’t go all the way because if they aren’t for you they are against you and they will stop our journey. So this is just a short stop until those things are dead. I want to recognize where we are and I don’t want you to become comfortable here. We have to keep our eyes on the promise.

The second reason the halfway stop is necessary is so that we can prepare.

Our Preparation:
I want you to go back and notice what happens at the stopping point. He follows his father half way to the promise. They stop. He keeps focused on his ultimate destination. Then verse 4 & 5.

So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

He leaves and takes all the possessions they had accumulated there. I think that I thought that Abraham was wealthy after he arrived in the Promised Land. However, according to this he actually laid up provision and made preparations before he got to the promise. So while he was half way he didn’t relax or grow stagnant or get comfortable he rolled up his sleeves and worked, and prepared, and left the half way point provisioned.

Our problem is that too many times we want to put it all on God. You made the promise so we just sit and wait. Our destiny and our ability to reach our promised end is determined by our willingness and faithfulness to prepare now! It is our preparation that qualifies us to posses our promise! We are tomorrow what we prepare to be today!

David is the perfect example. We all want to have giant killing days. However, few of us are willing to go out and practice with the sling when our only target is a tree. It was his tree hitting ability, bear hitting ability, and lion hitting ability that qualified him to hit the giant.

If we fail to prepare we will fail to possess. We can’t wait until we get there and then prepare. In fact, God only inhabits prepared places! I understand that preparation is boring at times. Preparation isn’t usually glamorous. It certainly isn’t always fun! But you must understand that it is the days that we are here worshipping, serving, and giving that is the launching pad to our promise. He won’t bless us with much until He determines that we can handle a little. God won’t waste the promise on people who aren’t prepared to handle it! I think that is where most churches miss it. How many churches in this community started out with a promise/dream/vision like what we have? Probably all of them. How many of them came up short or stopped half way. They sit around waiting on their breakout day, but never actually prepare to be able to handle it!

What that means for us is this. We must prepare now.

1. Service – we have to develop a culture of service rather than consumerism now. The mindset has to change from what I can get out of church to what I can give to church and to others. Now is not the time to just come and sit (unless you are healing and I have already told you that you are more than welcome to sit until you heal). Some of you have had plenty of time to heal and rest. We need all hands on deck. Our service must rise now to a level of excellence. We can’t wait until we get to our promise and then try to do things better. No, we operate in excellence now. Now is the time to find your sweet spot. Find your gifted area and get busy! Prayer Team has to excel. Nursery Team has to grow and excel. Kids Team, Tech, Worship, Youth, Young Adult, Greeter, Usher, and the preacher all have to excel if we want to get to our promise! We must be a part of this for the right reasons! Why do you attend church? (Friends – clique, status – social club, what you can get – buffet). We have to get our motives right so that we can serve and so that we can gather other folks to join us on the journey.

2. Worship – we must learn to worship during the preparation time or when we get to the promise it is just a show. It is easy to worship in the Promised Land. Real worship happens here on the down days, on the less exciting days, on the hard days. I need you to come to the preparing place and worship your guts out. I need you to worship here like you would if this was the promised place. Our worship must transcend where we are to where we will be.

3. Giving – we must begin giving now. We can’t wait and find our promise and then try to gather provision. We must do it now so that when the door opens we can run through it on a moment’s notice. Abraham’s promise motivated him to action. His promise motivated him to movement and to sacrifice. Our promise must do the same for us. More requires more! If there is no sacrifice along the way then we will take our Promised Land for granted.

I don’t take this building for granted cause I sacrificed to get in here – ask my knees and back if I sacrificed. In order for us to get to our promise, I am asking all of us to sacrifice.

And so this morning we are going to begin a 1 year faith journey. I am asking you to live by faith. Let me explain. You are being handed a card. On this card you will see a place for a pledge. We have to put our money where our faith is. I am asking you to go home and pray over the next 2 weeks and ask God to stretch your faith. In fact, if what you write down on the card as a pledge is something you can give without God’s help then the amount isn’t big enough! On May 16th, I am asking you to return this card with a faith pledge written down on the card. What’s a faith pledge? It isn’t your tithe. In fact, hear me now and hear me clearly, if you have to choose between paying tithe and honoring this pledge pay your tithe because that insures your blessing. This pledge says this . . . God if you will provide this amount of money then I will give it. If you don’t provide it then I am off the hook. The kicker is you have to be honest with yourself. Because I know a lot of times we do this and then when God sends the money we forget what we said. We aren’t going to bug you about this. We will remind you occasionally during offering and we will choose a specific Sunday each month to highlight it. I would also like to hear your stories of how God provided this additional amount so that we can celebrate together.
The key is that we must lay up provision for our promise. Our service will enable us to man all of the ministries so that others can come in and be a part. Our worship will tear down walls and open doors. Our finances will enable us to work towards finding our place. Along with that I want you to make a commitment to pray! We need a door to open. We need a divine intervention and we need divine timing to find Our Place!

Our Place:
So the question must be asked, “Where are we going?” Where is Our Place? Norman. We are moving the church to Norman because part of our vision is that everyone would find the pleasure of rooting for a real football team . . . I am kidding. No, the truth is I feel like Abraham. Can you imagine backing a U-Haul up to your house packing all of your belongings, getting all of the power, utilities, phones shut off, putting your family in the front seat and then just start driving to . . . only God knows where? That is what Abraham did and that is what I am telling you we have to be ready to do.

Danny Ray called me on Monday and said, “I just called to tell you that the train has left the station . . . the move has started, now you just have to discern where it is going and get on board.”

We don’t know where we are going we just know we can’t stay here forever. I believe it was the favor and provision of God that we are in this building. It was and is a miracle. If you don’t know our history come and talk to me and I will share that story with you. However, what was a blessing can become a curse and I believe this building, due to its size, limited parking, and certainly its appearance on the outside is beginning to affect us. Did you know that you can only fill a building to 70% of its seating capacity? And that doesn’t take into consideration the size of the lobby. We have 185 chairs in this room (70% is 129). We averaged 194 last year in attendance. Can we still grow here? Some and we need to, but we are getting very close to hitting the cap and to the place where we start working against ourselves. On Easter we had 258 people in this building. It was sardine city.
We have to find our place.

I can tell you this I believe that part of our promise and our place is that we are to have influence and impact in this community. I believe we are called and must remain positioned on this major thoroughfare. Now you know why we need a divine intervention! That is why part of this process is that we must ramp up the prayer. I am calling you as people of prayer to begin to bombard heaven for Passion. You can’t only pray about this body on Sunday. I need you to pray for supernatural favor, discernment, wisdom, connections, and entry into unexpected places! I want you to pray for protection for the leadership.

I need you to pray for me. I want you to pray for my ego. I don’t want to make decisions and choices based on some need to prove my manhood by what we accomplish. I sincerely am committed to making a name for HIM, but I have been around enough to know that if you are not careful that can change and change rapidly.