Across the World as it is in Heaven May 24th, 2026

so so so well good morning fellowship man what a joy it is to be here with you all this morning as we do gather as a church family across all of our campuses to sing praises to the one who is truly worthy the one who's truly holy as we just sang the one who set apart different other than his love is so much greater than our love jesus christ our lord and for any of you who are relatively new with us whether you're joining us here in the worship center from the chapel and the worship center combined today so glad to have everyone here together this weekend or whether you're joining us online here at home and all across the world i want to introduce myself my name is ben parkinson and i'm one of four we call teaching pastors here at fellowship who have the privilege of coming alongside mark and justin and brandon to lead and teach the church in the team oriented way that we do so if i haven't had a chance to meet you yet maybe i've been on a different campus when you've been here and you have some time after the service please come find me and say hi i would love that that'd be a huge blessing to me this morning and today we are in the second week of the final sermon series of our ministry year before we move into the summer months where we have been preaching through our mission statement this year as a church family and we said on vision sunday we want to see god's kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven more and more of his kingdom spreading across the earth until jesus returns which is why we've been preaching through our mission statement quite honestly this year because we believe that the way that god's gonna grow his kingdom across the earth the way

that we're going to see more of it spreading across the earth is as we and every other church around the world makes disciples followers of jesus who are living by his grace and for his glory here at home and all across the world uh no no matter what politicians are in power in our country no matter what laws they pass no matter how much military might they try to use to get people to obey those laws the reality is jesus said that's not how my kingdom's gonna come he could have done that when he came the first time as the king of the universe he said no i'm gonna make disciples who are gonna make disciples who are gonna make disciples who are gonna become citizens of heaven so that no matter what nation they're living in no matter what politicians are living under no matter what laws they're being forced to endure they're going to be citizens of heaven first and foremost living under god's law of love and in that way the kingdom will spread through every nation all across the world so that's what we've been homing in on in these last three weeks of our ministry year is that idea of making disciples not just here at home but all across the world and last week justin did a great job of kicking off this series out of psalm 67 talking to us about god's glorious purpose his glorious purpose that the whole world might praise him right that's what we read last week lord let the nations praise you let all the nations praise you and we talked about the reality from the very beginning even of god's relationship with his people israel and establishing that relationship with a nation in particular to show the rest of the world who he is what he's like that even in that his purpose was still to reach the world it's part of what he told abraham in the abrahamic covenant in genesis 12 the first conversation he has with abraham about this relationship he's

going to have with him he says i'm going to bless you so that you will be a blessing to the world around you from the very beginning god said i'm going to use my relationship with a particular people to reach the rest of the people god cares for the whole world but if you're like me that begs a couple questions in right man if that was god's design from the beginning if that was his desire from the beginning then why isn't the world flocking to him why isn't the whole world call yahweh their god the way that the people of israel consider him their god and that's the case how far is god willing to go to make that desire that dream that biblical promise a reality on the earth well one of the most famous passages we have in the new testament in john 3 verses 16 to 21 is going to answer some of those questions if you'll turn there with me this morning that's john chapter 3 and we're going to begin in verse 16 and read down through 21 jesus in this conversation with nicodemus this pharisee who came to him in the middle of the night this relationship who was scared to talk to him out in the open with him and he said i'm going to bless you because of what the other religious leaders might think. Jesus, in that conversation with him, says this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever should believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Now, whoever believes in him is not condemned,

but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he's not believed in the name of the only son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Very words of God, amen? Praise the Lord for Jesus and his word to us. For God so loved the world. Whether you're a believer or not this morning, you've probably heard that verse. I mean, we put it on poster boards at NFL games, right? Where people don't even know what it means. We memorize it in Sunday school as kids. In fact, sometimes I would say we hear it so much that we don't really think about how profound those words really are, that God so loved the world. But it's actually pretty amazing when we pause to consider how little the world actually loves God back, isn't it? In fact, if God's glorious purpose is to gather people from all over the world to himself so that we might praise him, then the biggest problem with the world

isn't really that we don't know that, Jesus says. It's not really an issue of information. Jesus tells us here that deep down the problem is we don't really wanna know that. Jesus says that deep down the problem is that we're drawn to the darkness more than we are to the light. That's what verses 19 through 20 says. He says in Nicodemus, he says, and this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and doesn't come to the light lest his works should be exposed. And that can sound like a pretty harsh statement by Jesus, that people love the darkness rather than the light. Some of us are tempted to view the world around us as not believing in Christ just because they haven't had the chance or they haven't heard. And if they only had the chance, surely they would believe in him. Surely they would appreciate the love that God has for them. They just need to hear. But what God tells us about our own broken hearts in this passage is it's not just a matter of the information.

It's a matter of trust. It's a matter of submission to believe that his ways are better than our ways, that his word is more loving than our desires, that he knows better than us what he made us for, how he created us in his image and where life is really found. Now I'm saying that, I'm not saying there aren't people across the world who've never heard about Jesus or heard the good news who need to hear it. There absolutely are. That's why our missions team has the strategy they have and why we pull a lot of our resources toward unreached people groups across the earth because people who have not heard need to hear the good news. But what I'm saying from this passage is the reason why we need to go out and share the good news with the world, the reason why someone needs to go and tell the world about Jesus is because left to ourselves, we don't gravitate towards a relationship with God. Our broken hearts tend to lean towards the darkness of the world and not the light, Jesus says. People aren't just gonna stumble into faith in God on their own. Now ever since Cain was tempted to kill his brother Abel out of the fear

and the insecurity and the jealousy that he felt, ever since God begged the world to listen to him through Noah over and over and over again before the flood came, ever since the Tower of Babel where God had to separate peoples into different groups, scatter them across the earth, confuse their language, creating the nations that we are trying to reach today through missions with the good news of Jesus Christ. Now God gives mankind chance after chance after chance and time after time. What we show God is those made in his image as a human race, Jesus says, that we prefer the darkness to the light. We prefer the short-term pleasure that's in promises to the true joy of obedience and righteousness that God promises. Left to ourselves, we don't drift toward the worship of the one true God. We drift toward the worship of our man-made gods that we create in our image or of our man-made. made religions, or of the worship of ourselves, or of atheism, or anything but submitting our lives to him. And the proof, Jesus says, that this is true, is that we hate the light. When he's talking about the light in this passage, he's talking about himself, isn't he, right? He came and said, I am the light of the world. So what Jesus is saying is the judgment, if you wanna know whether what Jesus is saying is true or not, right, he's saying just look

at what they did to the light when the light showed up on the earth. Before Jesus came into the earth, mankind could justify our evil deeds, our evil works, the ways that we oppressed others, took advantage of others in our power, or in our greed, or in our hatred, or in our anger, that any time that we felt like someone was a little bit below us, or a little bit desperate, or a little bit needy, we can exploit that need, and so we oppress, and we take advantage of, and we do those things we do, and we benefit from that, and so Jesus says we're living that way. It was easy before the light showed up just to look around the world and say, well, yeah, I mean, maybe things aren't perfect, or maybe I'm not doing everything I should, but that's just mankind, right? That's just human beings. It's a dog-eat-dog world. It's survival of the fittest. It just, it is what it is. Yet when the light shows up, Jesus says, and all of a sudden begins to walk on the earth among us, showing us in human form who God created us to be in his image, people who are willing to love one another, to actually love and exalt the weak and the needy, to care for the widow and the orphan,

to not exploit them and take advantage of their neediness, but to come alongside and care and love and honor them, and even lay down our lives for them. Jesus said when the light showed up, the reason why people hated me is because all of a sudden their deeds were exposed for what they really were. It's not just humans being humans. It's not just the way it is. It's not just what you have to do to survive. No, we're choosing to do something that benefits us at the expense of someone else, and that's obvious. It's plain to him. It's plain to the world. So what he says, he says the reason why they hate us is because they know their evil works when the light shows up are being exposed, right? Jesus says if you're doing the right thing, you run to the light. You want people to see what you're doing, that your works are being done through God, that you're doing what is a blessing to everyone. My reason why people run from the light is because they want to hide because they know what they're doing isn't best, and he said that's what we experienced when Jesus showed up. They didn't love it. They didn't love him.

They hung him on a cross because they didn't like what he was showing them about themselves in their own hearts, which is why in order for God to accomplish his glorious purpose of seeing people from every tongue, every tribe, every nation, in order for us to see the world praise him like we talked about last week, God had to make a glorious provision, didn't he? He had to provide a way. He had to make a way for that dream, that promise to become true. For mankind, he had to make a glorious provision that was stronger than our love of the darkness. He had to show us his love, how much he loves us in a way that we could truly behold the beauty of it, not escape it, which is where we probably get the most famous verse in the scriptures all across the world. Look again at 3.16 through 17. He says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, he says, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jesus goes on to say, he didn't send me into the world to condemn the world.

The world is already living under the condemnation of the misery of their lives, walking away from God, disobeying God. They're already living in condemnation because their lives are miserable walking away from God. He didn't send me here to pour more on top of that. He sent me here to save the world from that, to rescue them from ignoring the will and the word of God, from ignoring the love of God, from not believing that he's real and not believing that he loves them as much as he does. I'm gonna come on the earth and I'm gonna do something that's gonna be so shockingly loving they can't escape how much God loves them. He looked down on our confused and rebellious world, on the fear we feel when we think about submitting to his truth and his rule in our lives. And instead of letting us sit in our condemnation and judgment that was justifiable, he made a way. He made a way for Psalm 67 that we talked about last week to be true, to come to fruition. He provided a way for us to be restored to a right relationship with him. And when I look at kind of why he did that and what he did to accomplish that, these verses really helped me see it in a way that's meaningful and impactful. To me, when I look at this passage, say, why did God do that?

We've talked about it already, but I'll highlight it again. Again, he did it out of love for the world. His motivation was love, right? God loves the world, even though we continue to reject him every day, even though the world was already condemned, Jesus says, in their disbelief of him, he still loves us so much. Every person made in his image from every nation, every tribe, every tongue that he made away. And notice in our passage here, God didn't start loving the world because we turned to him first somehow, or because we did something to get his attention, to earn his compassion out of our good deeds and our good works. No, Jesus says here that when the world was already under condemnation, already condemning itself to misery by not believing in the love of God for them, when the world was already living in that misery and that darkness, instead of the beauty of his loving light, that's when he sent his son into the world out of love. And he says, not to condemn it, but to save it out of love for us. Incidentally, church, I would say this is one of the many reasons that we as a church are willing to go

to any people group God asks us to, anywhere in the world. There's no place for any church, there's no place for any follower of Jesus, right? That's what a Christian is, that's what a disciple is, someone who says, I wanna follow Jesus's way, follow Jesus's will for my life, follow in his footsteps. There's no place for anyone saying that's who I wanna be to then look at God and said, yeah, Lord, I'll go share your love with anyone except them. There's no place for that in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no them that you can exclude from what God is saying here about his love for the world. Notice Jesus doesn't say, for God loved most of the world, that he gave his only son. Notice he doesn't say for God so loved some of the world that he gave his only son. No, it's just God loved the world, he loved all of the world. And because of that, there's no people group, there's no country, there's no race that we're allowed to hate or even be apathetic towards, quite honestly, as true followers of Jesus Christ and yet call ourselves Christians. No, God so loved the world that he made a way for everyone to understand his love for them

and come into a relationship with him. And so we go across the world to do the same anywhere he wants us to go to anybody he wants us to go to. And how did he make a way? How did he do it? Well, he did it through something called incarnation. Incarnation. He sent his son into the world. Some of us might be wondering what does that word mean, incarnation? It's a word that means, in the original language, to enter into something, to take on flesh, right? That's what Jesus did. He came from heaven to earth as equal with God and he took on human flesh, Philippians 2 says. He entered into humanity. He took on the humility of it, the weight of it, the limitations of it, even though he was equal to God. He became one of us. The only perfect one of us, mind you. But he knows in every way, shape, and form what it means to be human. In that way, Jesus was really the truest missionary the world has ever seen. He left his home country of heaven with all of its comforts and all of its culture and all of its language and all that he had there and he left it behind to come to a place where he had to learn the culture for 33 years, learn the language as a child growing up,

just like all of us did, to enter into our suffering, to enter into our culture, to take on, to move into our neighborhood, if you will, and adapt to those things in an unfamiliar place compared to where he was from, a place with different values than heaven where he was from, a place with a different culture than heaven where he was from. Different expectations in the midst of that, different everything. He walked among us so he could show us what the love of God looks like in human flesh, in person. Jesus shows there's a difference between just yelling the truth of God from the clouds of heaven from afar and actually showing up and displaying it to you hand to hand, face to face, right next to those that you're meant to love on. I remember getting to see a picture of this play out in real time of space history when I was blessed to go on a mission trip with a group of fairly crazy believers that I knew in Memphis. One of them who led these trips, Supe Campbell, he would look for opportunities across the nation when things would happen that were an open door to the gospel in places where you couldn't normally go. Unfortunately, a lot of times that only happens when some kind of catastrophic tragedy

strikes in these places, right? So in the wake of the tsunami that hit over in Indonesia in 2004, Supes said, man, I think there's an opportunity for the gospel there. And you have to know, back in 2004, there's one of those militant areas against Christianity, highest areas to persecute those proclaiming faith in Jesus Christ of anywhere in the world. And yet in the chaos of that tsunami coming through and wiping out in devastation, a huge part of the island of Sumatra up in the north end, he said, man, I have a contact there. I think we need to go. And so sure enough, we got on a plane and spent 31 hours getting over there to them. And what was interesting to me, what was overwhelming to me that relates to our passage today is that when we got there, Supe was so good at this. Whenever we went anywhere around the world with him, he would always find the elders of the town or the city or the leaders first and sit down with them and have a conversation and say, hey, man, we're here in the name of Jesus Christ just to help you in any way you need help. What can we do for you? What would help you the most? And what was interesting, I watched him do this approach a number of times

is to watch the leaders, especially in this situation over there, to watch those leaders up there in northern Sumatra look at him and say, you know what's fascinating is lots of people are here to help. UNICEF is here to help, man, people from all over the world throwing resources at us to help. There's tons of bottled water and food and resources and blankets all over, tarmacs everywhere. Everyone's here trying to tell us what we need in order to kind of be restored. They're trying to come in and take over and kind of tell us what we need. You're the first person that just asks us what we'd like. First person that asks us what we think would be helpful. And not only that, but the thing that really hit me like a ton of bricks was when he said, and really the thing that we're really wrestling with, because we spent four or five days there with him, is he said, what we're really trying to struggle with is why a group of Christians who we've been taught to hate for thousands of years would come halfway across the world to ask us how they can help when our own religious leaders just down the road haven't come down to ask us that yet. It's that incarnation, right? It's that showing up in person. It's that entering into someone's struggle

and saying, I'm here out of love, how can I help you? How can I love you? That made such a huge difference. It's much more powerful for them to hear us talk about who Jesus was to us after they had seen us enter into or take on their suffering than just to hear about it from across the ocean from afar. No, God's way of displaying his love and providing a way for the world was to actually show up and live it out among us, which is why the heartbeat of Global Missions is what it is, to go. Not just talk about it, not just yell it, not just send it in an email, but to go. To show people, real human hands, the love that God has for them. Not only was God's move to reach the world love, and it only was his method sending his son to the world to take on flesh and bone, but his commitment to his purpose was total. It was complete. He wouldn't give up on gathering people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, no matter what the cost, even to the point of the life of his own son. See, when John 3.16 says that God gave his only son, that phrase is a lot more shocking than I think we give it credit for, because it's so familiar to those of us

who spent any time in the Bible. But think about what kind of love that is. Think about how far that love is willing to go. I mean, if you're asking me as a human parent, would I die for my wife and kids? I would say, absolutely. Absolutely, I would do that. I would hope I would, right? I mean, you never know until you're actually there, but I would hope. In my heart, I think, I'm 100% there here, but in the moment, I'm praying, God, please give me the strength to do that, right? For my extended family, I'm almost sure I would. I would do that, right? I mean, you love them so much. You would do it, you would trade. For some of my closest friends, I would put them on that list. But the further away you get from people that you're committed to in your life, the further you get away from people who you love and have a God-ordained relationship with. The idea of truly laying down your life for them, man, it kind of gets more and more confusing, doesn't it? Would I really do that at that moment? Like, you hear stories about people doing that and we're kind of awestruck by it. Would I really do that? But then to think about what God did,

to think about sitting down with one of my daughters and saying, hey, I know that you have eternal life and I know that you're gonna go to be with God forever and I know that even if you die, you live. And so there's this person over here who's condemned to die and I so want them to know how much I love them and how much we love them as a family. Would you be willing to sacrifice your own life so that they can experience that kind of love? I would not have that conversation with my daughter. And I don't mean that to say I don't believe in Jesus or I don't love God or I wouldn't try to follow his footsteps or any of that. What I'm saying is, I think God know the reason why he did what he did in sending his son to die on a cross for our sins is to continually highlight to us how other than his love is than ours. How over the top, when we look at the cross, we're not meant to say, yeah, I could do that. We're meant to say, I would never do that. And yet he did. And here's the thing, then take it a step further, to think you're having that conversation with your child about someone who deserves to die. It's not just like they're accidentally, they got caught up in some kind of tragedy and they don't deserve it. No, someone who justifiably is condemned to die for what they've done.

And then if the crime they committed was against you and your family, I mean, right, we offended God and yet that's what he sent his son to die for, to make peace between us and him. When we were the ones that committed these crimes that offended him and our relationship with him. No, the cross is meant to show us a love that we could never understand apart from him coming and showing us what light really looks like, what love really looks like, the beauty of his love. I'll say this, that's why we don't come here in this place every Sunday and worship each other. That's why we come and we sing praises to one God and one God only, the only one who would send his son to die for those while we were yet sinners, while we're yet enemies of God. That's why we sing his praises for here and forevermore. Because that love is overwhelming. His commitment to having every tongue, every tribe, every nation in a relationship with him was otherworldly. It was complete in a way that we can't even fathom. And then notice in verse 16, not only is God's love incarnational, not only is it complete, but it's eternal. It's eternal. The promise that he gives the world through Jesus Christ is eternal life and acceptance with God forever.

He says that they should not perish, but have not just life, eternal life. I love it, God doesn't love us grudgingly, all right? He actually wants to live with you and I forever in relationship, he wants to be with us for all eternity. There's no point in the future where God's thinking about his relationship with you and thinking, man, I can't wait till that's gonna be over a thousand years from now. He's like, I'm gonna be with him forever and I can't wait, I can't wait. Have you ever been around someone who does something loving for you, but they do it kind of grudgingly? They do it, but the whole time they do it, they're kind of complaining about it. Or they want you to know how hard it is for them to love you the way they're loving you or sacrificing for you. There comes a point if they're complaining enough about it, you're kind of like, hey, honestly, don't help. Like, it's fine. That's not God. Somehow that's how we picture him, right? Sometimes in our relationship with him, we picture him as this guy up there who's like, man, the world's so messed up and jacked up, I guess I gotta help it. I'll send my son down there to die on a cross, but you better appreciate it, right?

Like, that's kind of how we view him sometimes. And yet, what does this passage say? I've said it before, I'll say it again because I'm preaching the actual passage itself. It doesn't say, for God so loathed the world he gave his only son. For God so hated, so God was so put out by the world he gave his only son. No, God so loved the world. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's how incredible his love is for you and for me, and he wants it to last forever, forever. By the way, I have to pause here for a minute and just say, listen, I know we're talking about God's heart for the world, and now we're talking about going all over the world to share this good news with people, but if you're here this morning, and you've never received the love of God for you in your life, you're a part of the world that he loves. And you can begin that relationship today. Listen, all it takes is simply sitting there in your seat, where you are right now, and just saying in your heart of hearts, God, I want to confess to you that I believe that your son is who he said he is. He wasn't just another human being. He was the very son of God. And that he left heaven and came to earth to die, not for his own sins, because he didn't have it. He was God, he was perfect, but he died on that cross

to pay for my sins so that I could be forgiven. That's why he did that. And God, I want to confess to you today, that's the reason why I believe I have eternal life with you. That's the reason why I believe I have a relationship with you. Because what Jesus did on the cross for me, that's why. And here's all the things that I've been doing that I know aren't best for me, aren't best for the people around me, that you don't love, and I'm sorry about that, and I want you to show me how to begin to walk in the light and not in the darkness. That's all you have to say this morning to him, and you can begin that relationship with Jesus Christ. If you want help talking through that, I'd love to talk through that with you. We have pastors and elders at The Connection. center out these doors across the plaza. We would love to talk to you. You can scan the QR code, right, if you're watching online on the screen or on the bulletin that we have there. And as you're filling out the ways to be connected to our church, you can put in there, I want to talk to someone about starting a relationship with Jesus Christ. We will follow up with you. I'd hate to miss the opportunity here in a sermon about God's love for the world to not remind you, if you're in here, never done that, you're a part of the world. You're a part of the world he loves. You're a part of the world he's done this for. And he wants you to have a relationship with him as well. But not only can you begin that joy of recognizing your salvation today, if you've never done that before, but for those of us who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ, for those of us who do believe that God loves us that much and that we're saved, he gives us a glorious opportunity to join him in what he's doing in the last verse, verse 21.

Look at it with me. He says, but whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. God's calling each and every one of us who've already placed our faith in Jesus to let the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells those who believe move us to do similar kinds of works out of the same kind of love in incarnational ways with the commitment of extreme sacrifices at times, just like Christ did. So the world may be in awe of our God. To be a part of gathering people from every tongue, every tribe, every nation to the worship of our God. His glorious purpose is that the world might praise him. He's provided a way for the world to do that through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ. But then he turns around and gives us the glorious opportunity on the earth to help him point people to Jesus by also doing sacrificial, incarnational, loving works that clearly he says come from God in the name of Jesus Christ, that point to the cross and say, because he's done that for me, I want to do this for you. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing to bring this good news to you. We have the joy of entering into that. And we can do that in a number of different ways. Like we talked about with you last week, our missions team has a great strategy. That's a three-prong strategy, right? It's not just to go. We're going to talk about that next week, the joy of going and the short-term trips we're sending. And we're going to pray for those trips. And we're going to talk about how you can go too, even on a longer-term stint if you want to go, or even maybe you feel called to mission field full-time. We're going to talk about all that next week and the go aspect of our mission strategy. But we also told you last week, it has three words in it, because although we are called to go, some of us can't go. Some of us don't feel called to go in that same way, but we said last week, well, we can all pray, right? And we talked about Ingram's story and the beauty of that. And this week we want to highlight the reality that the third word that we rally our mission strategy around is that we also can all give so that others can go. We can't all go, but we can all give to help people go, right? We can pray and we can give so that some can go. And so this week, as we're talking about what Jesus Christ gave for us, how he gave his life for us on the cross, how he gave everything and sacrificed everything for us, we thought this is a good week to talk about the idea of giving so that others can go giving so that the world may hear. Jesus gave everything so that we could know the love of God. Are we willing to give in the same way, sacrifice so that others can hear the good news of Jesus Christ? It's no small thing, I want you to hear this, to give the money God's blessed you with away

for something that doesn't seem to benefit you on the surface. From our early perspective, in very real ways, we're being honest with each other, money is life. I didn't think you'd hear that today in church, right? Hey, what did the pastor talk about? He said money's life. It was crazy. I don't know. No, but really, I mean, the reality is in our culture, from an earthly perspective, money is how we feed ourselves the food that sustains our life. Money is how we provide the shelter over our heads that keeps us safe. Money is how we have heat in the middle of winter so we don't freeze to death. In a lot of ways, yes, money is our life. The reason why I think it's okay to talk about that, we need to talk about that in a healthy way, is because you can't really appreciate the sacrifice you're being asked to make or the way it relates to the gospel when you're asked to give up some of your money so that others can have life unless you acknowledge that reality. The reality is, yes, when you give some of your money away to someone else in a way that doesn't personally benefit you, there's a real sacrifice to that. You are giving up some of what gives you life on the earth so that someone else can have it. It's a very Christ-like thing to do. It's a very gospel-oriented thing to do. And in the midst of it, it's also an incredible act of faith to do that. Because really, in order to do that, what you're saying is, I'm I'm trusting you, God. I'm trusting that everything I have has come from you in the first place. 100% of it, not just 10% of it. All of it comes from you. You've given all of it to me. And so what I'm saying is I give a portion of it back to you is I believe in the same way you gave me 100% of what I have, you can give me whatever I need to keep living here on the earth until you wanna bring me home. But what I believe about that is you're not just giving it to me to be a bucket, to fill it up and use it on myself, you're also giving it to me to be a funnel, to redistribute it to others around the world

for your purposes. And so I'm trusting you. It's an act of worship when we come in here. That's what we talk about as an act of worship. That's how we do it when we gather for worship, right? As a church family. I hope you're not just giving here to our church just to help us keep the lights on. That's not why you should give. You should come and give as an act of worship to God and then say, and God, I trust you to work through the elders to do whatever you wanna do here for our local church family. But I'm here to give it to you because I'm saying to you, I believe you gave it to me and I'm gonna give a portion of it back to you in worship, in dependence, in faith, believing that you're gonna do incredible things with it. It's part of why you gave it to me in the first place was to give away to others and you can replenish it. You can give me back what I need. It's an act of faith. It's an act of worship. What I want you to know is that here at Fellowship, when you do that, when you engage in worship, when you worship God in that way, you are participating in sharing the good news of the gospel all around the world. Because we here at Fellowship give a percentage of every dollar you give to the purpose of local and global missions through our church budget.

When you give here, you are giving to the cause of Christ around the world. And when I say that, I'm not saying therefore, don't worry about giving to the person that sends you a letter asking for support for their mission trip. Still do that, okay? I mean, when someone reaches out to you and says, hey, I'm gonna go on this part of the world to go share the good news of Jesus with them, I'd love for you to partner with me in that. You may not be able to go, but I can go, but you can give to help me go, respond to that letter, okay, even though a lot of your money here still goes out to missions all over the world. You can call our missions team or send them an email at missions at fellowshipar.com and say, hey, I know there are people going from our church. I can't go, but I'd love to give. Is there anyone who has a specific need that I can give to to help them go? Have that conversation. If you wanna have that conversation, it's a great thing to do. But what I want you to know here is that even when you're just giving faithfully on a Sunday morning and it's an act of worship back to God, you are participating in the Great Commission around the world. Because last year alone,

your giving here allowed us to give away, we'll put on the screen here, over two and a half million dollars to missions, locally and globally. We were able to give away that much to see the good news of Jesus spread around the world, here at home and all across the world. And you can see 1.4 of that went to causes all across the world to spread the good news of Jesus all across the world. And in the next slide, we wanna show you where we're doing that. We're doing that outside of Central Arkansas, right? We're doing that in other parts of North America, Latin America, Europe. Man, the money you give here goes to share the good news in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East. And you can see there below the line, man, when you give here at Fellowship, you are supporting people going on mission trips. Part of your giving, part of our missions budget is to help scholarship and help people go. So when we say you can't go, but you can go.