Asking for Nations | Rick Atchley | September 13, 2026

His heart beats for every generation. His mercy extends to every nation. And for the next five years, we're going to ask God to make reality the desires of his heart. We're going to ask for nations and generations. The vision is new, but the dream is as old as Abraham. This is who God has always been. God has always been a refuge. So we will give refuge to asylum seekers in our midst. God is ever our liberator. So we seek freedom for all in the chains of sin and the bondage of addiction. Jesus picked up the servant's house. So we will serve kids and students in our community. Jesus lives as our intercessor. So we pray for and support students at Livingstone International University. Jesus said to go and make disciples. So we will seek to baptize daily, launch new campuses locally, plant new churches nationally and reach the unreached globally. But don't be mistaken. Change won't just be out there. It will happen in each of us. This is more than what God wants us to do. It is who he wants us to become. See, we believe God is using this vision

to change how we see his world. We don't just see a third world tribe. We see a community in need of God's word. We don't see a young adult. We see a kingdom worker. We don't see a new church program. We see a powerful nine-week experience. We don't see an older couple. We see a marriage that has stood the test of time and a wealth of knowledge to pass on. We do not see a foster system. We see children worthy of attention because they are cherished and loved by God. We don't just see increase the diversity. We see a church reflects the multi-ethnic family of heaven. We don't see a list of goals. We see heaven coming to earth by the Holy Spirit's power. So for the next five years, we will pray to the God who already wants these things. We will cry out to the God who's heartbeats for the young and holy, the near and the far. We will ask God for nations and generations. - Welcome to the Hills. I'm Preacher Rick and I want to greet our online family and everyone in person in one of our soon-to-be five campuses. And if you are a guest, you picked a magnificent day to visit us 'cause you're about to find out what we're about and what we think matters.

This is Vision Recast Sunday and Vision Matters. I'm reminded of the story of the old couple. They were sitting on their couch. Actually, she was sitting on the couch and he was laying on the couch with his head in her lap and she was tenderly stroking his forehead. She took his glasses off and she said no. She said, "You know, without your glasses, "you look like that fine-looking fella "I fell in love with over 50 years ago." And he smiled and said, "You know, without my glasses, "you still look pretty good too." Vision really matters, okay? In fact, the problem with most churches is not that they need a better slogan. They need a greater vision. Now, every church has the same mission. To make and grow followers of Jesus. That was given by Jesus himself. To go and make disciples. So I don't care if you're a big church or a small church. If you're a rural church or an urban church, I don't care if you're a high church or low church or charismatic church or non-adom church. I don't care. The mission of every church is to make and grow followers of Jesus, but vision is the unique way. A particular church is gonna pursue that mission. And how they're gonna measure the effectiveness of that pursuit.

So our unique congregational vision that was launched in January of 2022 is called Ask for Nations and Generations. Well, we have seven goals for nations and seven goals for generations. And this was a five-year vision. That means that today and next week will be the final update I will give you of our current vision. But first, I want to establish the theological foundation for these goals. So let's go on a quick ride through the Bible. You see, God's redemptive agenda from the beginning has focused on the nations. He chose a man named Abram, and of this man whose name he would change, he would say later, "Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him." So God's plan was to use this man and his seed to bless all the nations. Now, this is important. When you see the word nation in the Bible, don't think a landmass with borders. Think a people group with their own language and their own culture. The word nation in the Greek is literally ethna, and it's where we get the word ethnic or ethnicity. Now, this is why in the Bible, you could have more than one nation inside one country, because a nation is a people group with their own language and their own culture. And when you read the Bible from start to finish, it's obvious God has a heart for the nations. Now, this was obvious if you read the spirit-inspired worship music that we find in the Bible. It's in a book called Psalms. In this past summer, in my daily Bible time, I decided to read through the Psalms again. I picked two or three Psalms a day. And I was struck again at God's heart for all the nations, like Psalm 22. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations will die down before him for dominion belongs to the Lord,

and he rules over the nations. Psalm 45 says, "I will perpetuate your memory through all generations. Therefore, the nations will praise you forever and ever." Psalm 47, clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with the cries of joy. For the Lord most high is awesome, the great King over all the earth. Psalm 86, "All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord. They will bring glory to your name." So if you grew up as a Hebrew boy or girl, you would have gone to synagogue or you would have gone to the temple and you would have spent all your life singing songs about how much God cares for the nation. Now this is important because Israel is not God's favorite nation. Israel was God's chosen nation to fulfill his redemptive plan announced through Abraham to reach all the nations, through the one that was to come. But Israel sang a better theology than she lived. Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations, but she rejected that mission. But it didn't change or alter or deter God's plan. So the prophets start talking about someone who's coming. A Messiah who is going to restore God's redemptive agenda. And the book of Isaiah ends with this promise. "I'm about to come and gather the people of all nations and they will come and see my glory." And so the coming of Jesus was God keeping his promise that he made to Abraham. Matthew interprets it this way in his gospel. In his name, the nations will put their hope. And so do not reduce the gospel to simply a call for individuals to get saved. Now that happens, but that happens in pursuit of a much greater vision. From the start to the end, the Bible is telling this one consistent story. It is the story of God's pursuit of a global multi-ethnic family. The good news is not that Jesus has come to give you the life you've always wanted.

The good news is that Jesus has come to give God the world that he has always wanted. And so what were Jesus' last orders to his church? He says, "All authority and heaven and earth has been given to me. I'm in charge, and these are my instructions. You go and make disciples a ta'ethna of every ethnic group. Wherever there's a people with a culture and a language, you go and compel them to follow me." And your being in Christ means your inclusion into this redeemed, multi-colored and multi-cultured family that God has always had in mind. God out of scheme for His dream. And God is going to get what He wants. Remember the Bible is just telling you one big story. And so we get to the end of the Bible, and what happens. We get a look at where history is headed. John had this vision. I looked in there before me. It was a great multitude that no one could count. From every nation and tribe and people and language. Standing before the throne and for the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. So where is history headed? History is headed for people from every tribe and every language and every ethnicity stand before the throne and praise God

for the salvation that the Lamb has brought to their people. So what drives our vision as a church to ask for nations? Well, we want to give the world a preview of coming attractions. We want to be a church that gives the world a glimpse of where history is headed. So we ask for nations. And we've been doing that for five years. Let me give you our final update of our ask for nations and generations vision with regard to the nations. We had seven goals. And our first goal was to see 1,825 people surrender to Christ and be baptized. Jesus said, "Go make disciples of all nations." And the very next thing He said is, "Baptize them." Baptism is absolutely mission-centric. It's initiation into the way of Jesus. Why did we pick 1,825? That's one a day. The Bible says of the first church people were added daily and that God gave me a burden. Let's see that happen again. Let's see at least one person a day for five years make a decision to surrender to Christ and be baptized. We've never done that before. And the first year of our vision we did not average one person a day. But we have every year since. We still have over a hundred days left. But I'm thrilled to tell you right now as of the first 1716 days we've seen 2,274 people surrender to Christ and be baptized. Baptism is a birth into a new life of being with Jesus and becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus did. So we ask every week we ask for people to come and be baptized.

We're going to have another baptism Sunday on October the 18th. So if you want to know more you just touch your phone to that code in front of you and there's a registration page. There's also a question and answer sheet. If you have questions about being baptized some of you have questions about your kids. So we have a digital guide for families and we have a book we've written to help families talk about baptism. And you can get this at the kids center. You say, "But pastor we've reached the goal." Yes. But there are so many people still to reach. And so we're going to keep asking. Our second goal was to become a multi-ethnic church. There's no biblical justification for being a mono-ethnic church in a multi-ethnic context like ours. Most churches are. Most churches in America are mono-ethnic even though they live in multi-ethnic communities. And that diminishes the witness of the reconciling power of the cross. We want to be multi-ethnic because we believe it is obedience to God. We also think it's expedience for the mission because if you have been in the Metroplex very long you know God has placed us in a beautifully colorful and diverse community. And we want our church to look like our mission field. What is multi-ethnic is defined as any church where no more than 80% of one ethnicity is the population. When we started our vision we were not a multi-ethnic church. hard to discern. They're never completely accurate. But to our best of our ability, where we think we are, is of still about 78% white, with

22% identifying primarily as Hispanic, of the 22% over half identify as Hispanic and the next two largest groups identify as multiracial and as black. The nations are around us and are becoming a part of us. 18 different languages are spoken in our church. And there are households in our church with direct ties to 83 different countries. The nations are healed. And one thing the survey made clear is that the younger the person, the more likely that age group is diverse. From 0 to 10, we asked all the way from 80 to 90, the older the age group, the less diversity, the younger we get, the more diverse we are. And I'm thrilled to tell you that because that is going to be the church of the future. The church of the future is not going to reach generations if it turns its back on nations. And so we want to be that church. Our third goal was to be a church of at least five campuses. We launched our vision five years ago. We were a church of three campuses, North Richard Hill's color and West Fort Worth. In 2024, we launched our fourth campus in Dallas. We were leasing space in what was then the Skillman Church of Christ. But this past spring, we came into ownership of that entire property and building. Now, the worship center had not been used in over 10 years. So we had to remodel it and we reopened it recently. You need to go and see it. It is a beautiful facility and people are coming. They've already had 54 baptisms this year at our Dallas campus. And more good news. Today at our West Fort Worth campus, we are commissioning the over 200 people who've agreed to move and help us begin our fifth campus later this year in Weatheford. They're going to meet at Weatheford Christian School and Jeremy Glover, who's been the campus minister at West Fort Worth, is going to move to Weatheford and be the leader there. They will start meeting next week at that school.

And their official launch will be on December the sixth. So tell your friends in Weatheford, in Brock and all towns west that the hills is coming. And think about it. This means our church now will have a tangible presence in three counties, Dallas, Tarrant and Parker. And in each place, we're going to be making and growing followers of Jesus. Our fourth goal was to engage members as advocates for 25 asylum seeking families or individuals in our community. I needed to find this. And the solemn seeking family or individual is a person that our government has welcomed into our country legally. They're here because our government has a concern that in their current country, their lives are in peril. It could be because of their race, because of their politics, or because of their religion. Most of these asylum seekers are persecuted Christians, but not all of them. But all of them need to be shown the love of Christ when they come to our country and navigate difficult challenges, such as language barriers, cultural adaptation, and just waiting for a work permit, even though our country says you can come, it's often over two years before they can get a work permit to support their families. And so someone needs to come beside them and advocate for them and bless them. And we do this through a Christ-centered partnership with an organization called Dash. In fact, in these last five years, 475 people in our church have helped or served or volunteered at Dash in some capacity. We make up 20% of all of their volunteers. We are currently serving five asylum-seeking families that make up 13 people. But our goal was to help 25 over five years. Well, to date, our church is advocating for 31 family units representing 66 people. I want to give a couple of shout-outs every spring we have reduced a serve day. dash residents and just did a lot of work to make where they live a much nicer place to live.

So thank you for that. And then a shout out to Hills teens who last summer went over one evening and had a party and game night for teens and kids who live in those apartments and showed them some love. You know what Jesus said, "When you put clothes on a naked person or feed a hungry person or when you welcome a stranger, what you did for them, you did for me." This is what you did for them, you did for me ministry. And I'm grateful to all of you who have been a part of it. Our fifth goal, and this is the one I've probably personally invested in the most, was to help launch into support 15 new multi-ethnic church plans. Now you can do the math, five-year goal, 15, our goal was to help start three new churches somewhere in our country every year. But every year in November we have a harvest offering. And we asked for a lot of money, last year over $3 million, to fund church planning and mission work. And every year since we've launched our vision, you've given more money than we asked for. So we have extra monies to do good things with. So instead of three a year, we have averaged four. We have seen 20 new churches planted in the five years of our vision. Now before I share the four that we're planting this year, I've got to go and tell about one and we helped start last year that we all love. In January in Washington Heights, New York City, Manny and Marlene Dominguez launched brave church. And of course we're very connected to Manny and Marlene love them very much. So they started in January, they meet in a school building there. They're averaging about 350 people a week. And they've seen since they're launched, 66 people surrendered to Christ and be baptized. This is baptism Sunday they had in August. And I want to tell you about one of these couples, Asvalo and Mary, they had never gone to church before. They were new to the whole church thing.

They've been living together but not married for over 20 years. They sit under Manny's preaching and they come under the conviction, this is not God's design. God wants us to commit to each other in the covenant of marriage. So at the first of August they go and they get married and two weeks later they go and they get baptized. This is why we plant churches. So let me share with you the four churches that your generosity is helping us start this year. One's already begun. Ricky and Rosie Harris launched last February in Las Vegas, sovereign city church. This story is amazing. They started on a Sunday with one service. By the second Sunday they had to go to two services. They are now in three services and they're averaging 1,200 people a week at their church. In January, Taylor and Daley Hunt are going to launch city hope church in Denver. This will be our second church we've started in Denver. Today, Andy and Deborah Vitale are launching Glory City Church in South Florida. Now Andy and Deborah are Haitian immigrants and there is a huge immigrant population in South Florida and we believe God has raised them up to reach the nations in that part of our country. They are launching today and also today in Charleston, South Carolina, Will and Hannah Kendrick are launching Soma City Church, a cool story we got just recently. So Erin was from St. Croix in the Caribbean. She participated in Voodoo and witchcraft. She moved to Charleston. She needed community. She met someone who was a part of the core team of the new church. Said, "You need to talk to our pastor." So she started a meeting with Will.

They started talking about Jesus and she found a people that accepted her. So last August, Will has the core team have a practice service. We're going to walk you through what we're going to do when we launch. We're going to have greeting and we're going to have music and we're going to have preaching. He had bought a big horse trough and said, "Every Sunday we're going to ask people to get baptized and this is what we're going to do when that happens." Erin's out there listening and she starts crying and she mouths to, "Will, can I get baptized?" And so at the practice service they had their first baptism at Soma City Church. She renounced all of her dynamic religions and she has accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord These churches will reach the nations in their cities and generations not yet born will come to know Jesus because there was a church in their city. Go six, to support the LIU community through prayer and by sending 20 members to teach, equip and encourage. And some of you are saying, what is LIU? This goes back to our vision back in 2005, Livingstone International University. We got the dream to help begin a Christian liberal arts university in East Africa, specifically in Bali, Uganda. This has been a journey and it has not been an easy journey, but it's been worth it. COVID was really, really hard, but it did not shut down this dream. The school now has 60 acres. They've got some classrooms. They've got 11 degree cans. They've graduated 700 students. This fall, they had their largest incoming class ever,

150 students. They think they're gonna be 502 years. And if you've been and I have, all you have to do is meet the students and you will fall in love with this dream. They are dedicated. They are faithful and they are so grateful for a chance to get an education that can literally change the trajectory of their entire family. Now, to be legitimate in Africa, you need buildings. We've got some dorms. We've got some classrooms. Our first administration building and classroom phases going up, that's phase one, it's almost done. We've got plans for wing two and wing three, but we need about a million and a half dollars. So I'm gonna be bold. So people are listing me right now and you've got the capacity to write a big check. And you need to pray and ask God is asking you to help us finish this building. And then others of us can do it. My wife and I do. We're a part of the Fletcher Scholars Program for $3,000 a year, for three years. We can help a highly qualified, underfunded student get a college education. Later this fall, Chris Shelby,

Drew Ritchie and Sarah Brooks. Now you talk about a dream team. They're gonna go to LIU. And yes, I have put Sarah in charge. (audience laughs) And this will bring to 20, the number of Hills members who have visited LIU to equip, encourage students and faculty. Now here's the truth. Most of you will never visit LIU. But a lot of you can give. And all of you can pray. And if you wanna learn more, just take your phone and tap that code. And you can learn more about how you can help LIU. Because LIU is transforming nations and generations. Our last goal is to reach the unreached by launching and supporting five church planning movements and by supporting Bible translation efforts in five new languages. What do I mean by unreached? The unreached live in countries that are less than 2% Christian, but that even doesn't quite explain it. They're in countries that are hostile to Christianity. So you can't just visit a church or buy a Bible or listen to Christian programming. 42% of the world is unreached. And almost all live in what is called the 1040 window across North Africa,

the Middle East, India, and China. 42% of the unreached people of the world are unreached and this is where they live. And yet, only 3% of Christian workers sent to the mission field go here. And less than 2% of all money spent on missions goes here. It's hard and it's dangerous. And so when we got this vision from God, we felt God saying, go here, go to the unreached. Now, we haven't forgotten the rest of the world. We have mission works on every continent around the world except Antarctica. But for five years, we have specifically focused on making a difference here. We've got 29 mission workers, our church supports. We can't tell you their names. We can't tell you where they live, where they live is hard and risky and awesome. currently supporting six church planning movements in the Middle East, in North Africa, in Central Asia, in Indonesia, in India, and China. These movements have tangible, measurable impact that we know about in 66 different countries that are unreached, and we praise God for what He's doing there. And because of your generosity, again, our goal was to help five Bible translation efforts, but we had more money, and so we are now able to say we are supporting seven Bible translation projects in Africa, Central Asia, and to Solomon Islands. I want to show you a picture of a man carrying a stack of books and a group of people waiting desperately for those books. These are the Bandalinda people. They're a good example of what I'm talking about. They are a people group of 200,000, they have their own language, their own vocabulary.

They are in the Central African Republic, so they are a nation inside a country, but they have no Bible. What do they do now? It looks just like this, and we help get up to them. So for the first time in the history of this people group, they are able to read the words of Jesus in their own language. We've been asking for the nations. And when we do, we know we're asking God for the world. He's always wanted, and we're asking for the world He will one day have. And that takes me back to the Psalms. I told you reading the Psalms this summer just reminded me how much God longs for the nations. And I realized that on the very first day. In Psalm 2, God is speaking to the Messiah. He says, ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. Our vision is to give Jesus His rightful inheritance, the nations. And so how is your vision? Where do you see yourself in this great story? God is writing. May 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress and the whole nation, and he threw out this audacious go. Let's put a man on the moon this decade. The next year he's at NASA, turning a facility, and a janitor, a guy in a hall with a broom, and he says, what do you do here? And the man said, Mr. President, I am helping put a man on the moon. He knew that he had a role to play in the big mission, and he felt a part of it. Does you understand, Church, that when you engage our mission, when you get a part of our vision, you are giving Jesus His inheritance. When you serve in teen life life, when you advocate for an asylum-faking family, when

you show up at Academy 4 and you tutor a fourth grader, when you send gift cards and notes of encouragement to church planners, when you show up every Sunday and teach three heroes or lead a student life group on Wednesday nights, when you serve on a home team and somebody asks you, what are you doing? You say, I am giving Jesus His inheritance. Because I'm at a church that is asking for the nations, and you know who's getting it? Our young people. The next generation is getting it. So this past summer some of our teens went to Dominican Republic for a mission trip, and said, I mean, I got a request from one of our teens to help her race funds to go, and we were glad to send something, and she was so kind to send us back a really sweet thank you note, but what I loved the most and the reason I kept it was because at the very bottom she wrote, "Make heaven crowded." The Bible tells the story of a God who is pursuing a global, multi-ethnic family, and And so, Hill's church, let's ask, let's envision, and let's make heaven crowded. And so, God, I pray in Jesus' name, and I begin with thanksgiving. Everyone listening to this prayer is a part of a nation. In ethnicity, a people group, and you sent somebody to reach us. And now you've asked us, God, to join the mission. Would you increase our burden for the nations, especially for the nations that aren't just like ours? And would you increase, God, our commitment to find a way that we can be a part of the mission? Right here at the Hill's church, what can I do? So that Jesus receives His inheritance, and God send us more. We want heaven to be crowded. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.