Do It Afraid! | A Cloud Of Witness | Paul Hurckman

All day baby, all day. Worst ones done. Let's go! Woo! That's the hardest thing I ever did. It was so cold. I guarantee it was below zero. The 34 Freedom Crew, their positivity, I would say, is infectious. 25 to go. Who can't do 25 more? They're endlessly optimistic, and to be honest, it rubs off on everyone around them. You're a superstar. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Another one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Another one. I think it's very easy to see why they do such great work, and why they raise money for such a good cause. Yay! Number three's in the books. Thank you, Jesus. It got much better later, as far as weather. Maybe the breeze, but were you in the same continent that I was? Yay! I'm with the Great World Race. It's halfway for the whole thing. Woo! Dude, come on. Hey, Jackie! Woo! It was hard, but it was good. Definitely felt the power of community today. We're like over 85% toward our goal of 500,000, so we're grateful, grateful, grateful. Hey, thanks to everybody who prayed. That was really tough. Hey, sometimes the answer to prayer isn't the pain going away. Sometimes it's the honor of experiencing the pain. Behind the gantry, we'll be running 1,200 meters. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Are you kidding me? I won here in Portugal! Oh, my word! Yay! Woo! I'll get you the number. OK. Scooby. All right. Love you. We might go for a million. We're seeing incredible expressions of generosity. Sometimes you just got to keep running and push the pain away. This is weather. We're going to get it done. Five more miles to Miami. Yay! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Amazing effort. Thank you. This is brotherhood. It's so hot. It has been the truest representation of a group of people carving significant space, both before we got here and now,

doing our best to sacrifice on behalf of other people and being a part of letting that change us. Thank you. It was negative 22 degrees. That's below zero when I stepped off the plane in Antarctica, onto the tarmac, with 26.2 miles ahead of me. And I just thought to myself, I'm about as afraid as I've ever been. If it wasn't so cold, I may have peed my pants. But that would have been problematic. And I just thought, we're just going to have to do this afraid. No other choice. No other choice. Before I talk about what in the world that race, or that series of races, has to do with what we're going to talk about the figure in this moment, can I just say how good it is to be back at Northview? I love y'all. Yeah. If we haven't met, my name is Paul Hurtman, and I'm the executive director of Venture, one of y'all's missional partners. And I really am honored that Pastor CJ and Kristen and the leadership team would trust me to come back and to be back. And I really look forward to this. It's a privilege to be a missional partner with what y'all are doing. And it's because of your generosity, and please mark my words, you this year have become our most generous church. And what that means is you are part of impacting people in some of the toughest places on the planet. And so on behalf of our international team, partners, I want to say a sincere and heartfelt thank you. Many of you, if you've given at any time this year, it's not just about obedience. For many of you, it's sacrificial giving,

but that goes directly 100% to some of the toughest places on the planet. And we, our methodology is very specific. We serve at the intersection of unsafe, unreached, and unresourced. The unsafe places we serve, one of the countries, it's the longest ongoing civil war. It's created a genocidal violence that has created mass displacement of humans. In another region where we serve, because of an evil, unjust caste system, up to 90% of the girls are being trafficked in the communities where we serve. Oftentimes, pimps will come and pre-purchase when babies are in utero. And I know in a room like this, that's a complicated conversation, so I'm going to be both respectful of different experiences and also different generations and ages in the room and online and across our campuses. But I think it's important to know that your generosity is changing things. In another place where we serve, the persecution is so heavy that it's illegal to be a Christ follower. In fact, in the last two years, seven of our partners have been killed for their faith, martyrs. We've had over 70 people imprisoned and countless others have experienced the kind of violence. And it's because of that that we serve in unsafe and unreached places, places where less than two out of every hundred people have even heard the good news that God's not mad at you, that He has a plan for you, that you are made in the image of God. And that's true where we serve and it's true right now. Maybe you rolled in here and you have forgotten or have not heard that God's not mad at you. God loves you and has a plan for you to thrive. And then we serve in unresourced, and that simply means we specifically target our efforts and our resources to places where less than one percent of all Christian giving goes. So it's in these incredibly difficult places where the gospel is needed the most, that's where we are. And we work with local heroes that are born and raised in those areas. And because of your generosity, can I just show you what one year looks like? Just this last year we were able to provide 13 million meals to refugees and displaced families. This last year we were able to rescue 600 women and children from the horrors of anti-trafficking and they are given safety and they're given counseling and they're introduced to Jesus. We invest in women's resources and training because where we serve, because of stigmas and oppression against women, they are not told the truth about how God has magnificently made their body. And so we invested in 14,000 women. And because we know this to be true, that the greatest source of transformation for an individual or for a community is the presence of a local church. With every project and every program and every place that we serve,

we invest in church planning. And this, this is not a typo. Last year alone, more than 8,000 churches were started in unreached areas. That, I mean, and these, I'm going to be honest with you, they're not all as nice as Northview, okay? They don't have multiple levels and cushy seats and really nice coffee, but they are full of committed people that are meeting in huts and homes and caves and fields, committed to the inseparable nature of the gospel that invites us to share hope and to meet urgent needs. And now these churches, they start out an average of about 30 people, but let me just tell you, one of those churches was started by a witch doctor who came to faith in Christ, and he began to share his faith. And through sharing his faith over the course of the last decade of working, his community of 700, just this last year, the last two families got baptized, all 700 are Christ followers. And not only that, yeah, you can clap. I mean, that's, but it's a little bit like ShamWow. Wait, there's more. Because the gospel is transformational for communities, and what they are seeing now is home ownership went from zero to 60 percent. Kids going to school went from less than 50 percent to almost 100 percent. They have 90 percent of the families have access to clean water now. They are addressing addiction crisis. And one of the things that they're doing is they are already targeting 81 other communities like theirs. Because free people, free people. Because the gospel is transformation, and it invites us not just to be comfortable, but to be a part of God's work of restoring all people to him. So when I say thank you, let me just tell you what your generosity last year means for this year. Do you know that through your giving this last year, Northview will be responsible for more than 100 girls being rescued? A hundred. That's incredible. And on top of that, Your funding and your generosity will provide another 120 to 200 churches being planted. This is what you're a part of. So if you came into church today and you're like, hey, I'm just gonna kind of go through the motions, know that you are part of a movement that is transforming entire regions. And I am so honored to simply be able to say thank you. I have, I get pictures. Sometimes the stories are really harrowing,

they're difficult, they're hard, and other times they are just the picture of joy. And I have this picture, I carry it in my Bible. For those of you who are younger, this is a piece of paper. And on it, you can do a printer, and you can pick black and white or color, and you can keep it with you. This is one of my favorite pictures. It's one of our anti-trafficking programs. This is a survivor-led program that identified 37 young girls. It was too dangerous to go back to their communities. And so they said, why don't you stay here and pick any vocation that you want, and we're gonna help you get this. So this is 37 women. 11 of them are going to go into hotel and hospitality industry. Six of them are going into business and marketing. Four are going into social work. One of them is finishing up licensing to be a teacher. Another one is in medical school to be a doctor. Four of them are going into full-time church vocation. All of them were baptized this last year. This is one of the churches, and this is what it looks like for the gospel, because they are now gonna go back to their communities, and they're gonna share hope, because free people free people. And for me, I wanna not only say thank you,

but I would give my life to see this happen over and over, and I hope I come back and show another picture and another picture, because this is what transformation looks like, even when it's tough. Which brings me to that race and that video. Before I talk about that race, let me be honest with you, I hate running. No, I don't think you understand, I hate running. I don't believe in runner's high. It's not a thing. Don't perpetuate the lie. I am not the guy that, when I've had a hard day with my kids or work, say, you know what I'm gonna do? Bang out six miles. That's not a thing. But you know what I hate more than I hate running? Girls being trafficked. So sometimes you just do things afraid and do things difficult. When I watch the video that we all saw, and I think about my buddy who invited me, he's like, I think we should do this thing called the Great World Race. And I'm like, sounds awesome. Great World Race, all good words, until I figured out that it was seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, which I didn't even think was possible.

To watch that, the gratefulness of being able to step foot on all seven continents, the gratefulness to be able to still walk on stage after that, the gratefulness for the memories, the funds that were raised. Maybe the greatest thing is I got a nickname. Now, I'm not a great athlete, you know, like CJ, I've heard. So I didn't get a nickname in high school, not around athletics. But during this, all of the marathons were streamed online all over the world. And the announcer started calling me Galloping Jesus. I think it was because I looked so good while I was running, you saw. I don't think he was perpetuating a false concept of Euro Jesus, for those of you who are frustrated about that. He was from Ireland, is from Ireland, and there's a priest that loves to run who has the moniker of Galloping Jesus. So he properly allowed me to appropriate that term, and it caught on, and people were texting me Galloping Jesus this whole time, and then somebody who was watching it streamed from a faraway place sent this image to me. And I was like, man, I used to have this complicated relationship with AI, but now I know it's true. Look at these arms, these are my arms. Obviously, it wasn't all easy and fun. Those marathons, the difficulty happened like immediately.

So we all, when you say yes to this, at least when I did nine months earlier, I'm like, man, I'm gonna run a marathon in Antarctica. I don't know what I can do with the other six, but if I can just get that done, I've got my party story for life, right? And so we are all in Cape Town. There was 60 of us that were running. The team that I was with, there was four of us running for venture and anti-trafficking, and yes, you did see one of my team members did all seven on one leg. She's a cancer survivor. So don't worry, I'm not gonna invite you to do a marathon, but if I did, don't self-select out because old girl did it on one leg and she is powerful. Anyway, back to, we're getting ready to run. on Antarctica. We're all in Cape Town, and it's 10 at night, and we get a message, it's too dangerous to land in Antarctica, which should have been a clue. So what we're going to do is we're going to squeeze in a marathon in Cape Town tomorrow morning. That's a dumb sentence. If you ever make a decision where you're faced with the sentence, we're going to squeeze in a marathon, just leave those friends, okay? So I had to quickly repack, go to bed, get up at five in the morning, and squeeze in that marathon in Cape Town. And we had three hours after the marathon to shower, change, and get on the plane, because we get to go to Antarctica and do our second marathon the same day. Yay! So we land in Antarctica. I think I had about 20 minutes sleep between the two marathons, and I step out on the tarmac, and it was so scary. I'm from Minnesota. I thought I was built for this. I was not. But we figured out how to get another marathon done in Antarctica, and when we're done, I was crabby. I was tired. I was just like, get me on the plane. I want to get to Cape Town to take a shower, and then we get a long flight to Australia where I can get some sleep. And so we get on the plane, and we get to Cape Town, and they said, ooh,

not enough time to shower. All of you just go right to the other plane. Now 60 of us have done two marathons, no shower, and we get on this plane. This is now a mobile hockey locker room. Our bodies are like science projects, like human petri dishes. Things are happening that shouldn't happen, and we have to all do this for 10 hours on the plane. By the time we get to Australia, we take off, or we get off, and they're like, hey, it's unseasonably warm here. And that's great if you're vacationing in Australia. It's terrible if you're doing your third marathon in 36 hours, and you have now 110 degree temperature swing. But we figure out how to get the third one done, and for the sake of time, I won't continue on, but this is how seven straight marathons went. One of them, I forgot my shoes on the plane and had to put on a brand new pair of shoes. That was not a great day, but this is what it looked like, and by the time we got done to have the community surround us and double what we were trying to raise, raise over a million dollars to rescue girls and share the hope of the gospel was so moving. I would do anything for that, and I think about that, and it's not just because rescuing girls from trafficking is just good. It represents the heart of the gospel. The gospel invites us to become free ourselves. It frees us and doesn't stop there. Then it invites us to be a part of freeing other people. It invites us to be a part of freeing people physically and spiritually. It invites us into a life that will often invite us to be a little bit more sacrificial and have to do things that are a little bit more difficult on behalf of other people. And that brings us to the figure that we're going to look at. We are in this series called the Great Cloud of Witnesses, 52 weeks where we're looking at 52 central characters in scripture that will help us better understand this grand meta-narrative that leads to Jesus and also to help us for when we're individually diving into the word ourselves to go, oh, this is what it means to look at this, and then finally for us to get better at finding ourself in this story, because I believe deeply that the God of the universe talks to us through this scripture specifically where you are at. So the character we're going to look at is one of my favorites. I mean, I was hooked in middle school and high school. She's a powerful woman. She's the heroine of the story, but she's also complicated. She's fully human. She has hesitation. She has anxiety. She's kind of a reluctant leader, and she's very afraid. But in the midst of all of that, God still uses her, and she literally frees an entire group of people from extinction. And she pushes the narrative of all of scripture through her courage. And in it, I have found not only inspiration, but also instruction when I'm going through difficult

times, when I'm facing things that I'm afraid or hesitant or reluctant. And so we're going to look at the character Esther, a Persian Jew who becomes a queen. We're going to look at just eight verses, what I would call kind of the core conversation that helps us understand the entire book. And while you're looking in Esther 4, verses 9 through 17, very quickly, there are four main characters or players in the story. In the first couple of pages, we see the king, King Ahasuerus, and I'm sure I just butchered that. We'll just call him King from now on. King is frustrated with the queen Vashti, so he vanquishes her and sets up a series of pageants to find the new queen. Now, I'm not advocating for this, right? CJ often tells us just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean the Bible condones it. But now here's this new queen, Esther. Originally she's Hadassah, now she's Esther. And Esther then hears from her cousin, who actually kind of acts like a father figure or uncle because he adopts her. And her Mordecai has found out that there's a plan to eradicate the Jews by a man named Haman, who is the king's advisor. So let me do this all again. King, frustrated with the queen, gets rid of the queen, gets a new queen, her name's Esther. Her cousin unearths a plan to kill all the Jews by Haman. And Mordecai's like, Esther, you are positioned to do something about this. And Esther's like, I don't know. It's a pretty good gig just hanging out in the palace. This is my interpretation. And there's this back and forth and spoiler alert. She finds the courage, even though she's afraid, to go to the king and her people are saved

and Haman is killed on the very apparatus that he wanted to kill the Jews with. And so there's this fantastical story that we'll just look at eight verses. And in these eight verses, we will potentially find some answers to some of the things that you may be going through right now. Starting with verse nine, it says that Hothak, and that's an advisor to Esther. Hothak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, all the king's officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, the king has but one law, that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But 30 days has passed since I was called to go to the king. Verse 12, then Esther's words were reported to Mordecai and he says back to her, do not think that because you are in the king's house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position

for such a time as this. And then Esther responds, I think about this like a text back and forth, right? They're a bit contentious. Esther's like, okay, fine. Esther replies to Mordecai, go gather together all the Jews who are in Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as well. And when this is done, I will go to the king even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther's instructions. The word of God for the people of God. This is a fantastical story if you ask me. It's got everything. It's got royalty, it's got kings, it's got queens, it's got military intrigue. It's got plots to unlive people. That's what we have to say now because Facebook won't, you know, if you say die, then you get canceled. But he has a plan to kill all of the Jews. But Esther is faced with a proposition that if she takes a courageous step that she gets to save things and she's afraid. But somehow through the process, she goes from being kind of a coward to being courageous.

She goes from being fearful to actually stepping in and faithfully carrying out. And I love this because even though she's afraid, God still uses her. And I think sometimes in a fantastic story like this, what ends up happening is we read it a little bit like we would watch Star Wars or some others, the Bourne series or the Mission Impossible. And we kind of just go, oh, that's cool. That's fantastic. But that's not me because I'm not royalty. I'm not this, I'm not that. And the reality is if we look at this, I think what we can find is all of us face difficult decisions. And just like Esther had to take steps to go from being so fearful that she was paralyzed to something else, we also, and maybe in this moment are faced with things, things like medical diagnosis or things with our family or things in our marriage or anything like that where, hey, there are steps for us to go from feeling like we can't do anything to stepping into what God wants for us. And in this, we see Esther kind of her steps. And luckily in the Hebrew, it translates into four Cs. So Esther was really big on alliteration. Here's what she, she recognizes crisis, she seeks counsel, she engages community

and she takes courage. These are kind of these four steps where, hey, there's crisis and then there's counseling and there's getting community and then there's taking the step. And we can follow this not only for Esther, but also for our own life. If we start with this idea of. crisis, she recognizes, man, she is in crisis. And in verse 11, it says this. She says, if I go before the king and he doesn't like it, he can kill me. That's a huge crisis. That's life or death crisis. But if she risks going, then maybe she saves her people. And so she's stuck in this tension of what do I do? And again, I look at this, I'm like, hey, most of us, it doesn't feel that consequential. You know, the decisions that we're facing, the moment that we have. And yet, at the same time, when you look at this idea of crisis, we all have decisions that we're making that, hey, whatever we decide, it matters. Eric Erickson is a voice of modern psychology and he uses the phrase crisis like this. An inevitable turning point in your story. So it's not just the big, it's not even good or bad, it's just an inevitable turning point. And as I speak right now, many of you are in crisis moments. If you are graduating from high school,

that is an inevitable turning point in the story. If you're graduating from college, an inevitable turning point in the story. If you are getting married and you have to choose between two dresses, very dramatic, an inevitable turning point in the story. You got a medical diagnosis. What you do is an inevitable turning point. Business is going well and you got a windfall of money. What you do with that money is an inevitable turning point in the story. Or if things are really tight financially, how you choose is an inevitable turning point in the story. And so while we look at what Esther did in this inevitable turning point, what is the crisis that you are facing? Parenting, marriage, mental health, medical. Simply a choice of do I sell my house, do I quit the job, do I take the thing, do I have the conversation, do I share the hope of the gospel? Esther is faced with this kind of a crisis, this life or death, and it's a bit of an existential question that we all kind of have to answer. Are we willing to give up some of what we have so that others can thrive? Esther had to give up the safety and security of living in the palace, kind of under the radar, undetected, everything's good for her. And yet God is inviting her to be a part

of something bigger and better. And so she has to answer, would I be willing to give this up for other people? We have to answer that as well. It's at the heart, one of the things we say at Venture is moving from comfortable to less comfortable on behalf of other people. That kind of goes against common logic. For us to willingly move from being comfortable so that other people may have an opportunity, it's why I ran the race. I hate running. And it wasn't just uncomfortable for me, it was uncomfortable for my family. We had to adjust our calendar, we had to address our weaknesses, but this is what we see. And it's not just because the long-haired guy from Minneapolis is talking about, this is a deeply biblical concept. In Philippians 2.6, the writer talks about Jesus and says, Jesus was fully God, but did not, and this is my interpretation, did not consider staying up there the most important thing and willingly came down to help us, to rescue us, to speak to our pain and our brokenness. And in that same way, we're invited sometimes to step away from what is most comfortable for us, to step into something else on behalf of other people, and then the promises on the other side,

you're actually gonna be more fulfilled, John 10.10, because he wants to give you life and life to the full by inviting you into what he is doing. And man, I see this in our partners, our partners who literally risk their life to give food to other people. I see it in the survivors who willingly choose to go back into the brothels while pimps are literally punching them to rescue these girls and take the girls out. The decision to move from comfortable to less comfortable, to do things that are afraid because somewhere inside of you, you know that the God of the universe is inviting you to more. And so we look at this crisis and the next thing she does is she seeks counsel. Because Esther's like thinking about this, but man, it's such a tough decision. I think some of us, we start knowing we've gotta do something, but we don't maybe have the guts to do it or we need input into how to do it or what's at stake. And so she seeks counsel and that counsel comes in the way of Mordecai. And Mordecai is not the nicest. Well, he certainly doesn't candy coat this because she's like, I don't think I can do this. And Mordecai says in verse 13, don't think that because you're in the king's house

that you alone of all Jews will escape. For you, if you remain silent at this time. Belief in deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you've come to the royal position for such a time as this. This is, in my opinion, heavy handed. Hey, you can do it, but you're gonna die. You can just keep status quo. You can keep doing what you're doing, but you will die. And again, as we sit here in the greater Indianapolis, Carmel, Metroplex, whatever y'all call this. There are some things that are pretty comfortable and nice being around here. The invitation is, if you keep doing this, you might miss something so much better. Speaking of like a spiritual obedience, that when God in his goodness is inviting us to do more and we just ignore it, we step into a bit of kind of apathy, a bit of lethargy, an existence that falls short of life and life to the full. I love the quote that talks about change because I feel like this is what Mordecai is getting to. Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. And I know for some of us it's early, so I'm gonna do that one again. That change happens when, hey, what you're doing eventually is going to build up to a place

where you are gonna have a law of lessening returns. It's just not gonna work for you anymore. The pain stays the same. It's greater than the pain of change. And I believe we feel this in our spiritual journey. Over time, you know, initially we're excited and then we settle back into what is comfortable until all of a sudden we are so agitated. This is not what I signed up for. And the reason is because the God of the universe is whispering and inviting you to more. And this was what Mordecai is saying. Hey, don't, you can stay the same. It ain't gonna end up well for you. I have a buddy who was a basketball player in college. He was D2. That's one division higher than CJ. And he was literally and figuratively the big man on campus. And one day he woke up and his arm was swollen to three times the size, which would be about my arms now. So he's got this swollen arm and because he's a college male student, he ignored it for three days. And finally, when he went to the doctor, the doctor said he had something, I wanna say it's called thrombosis. There's a lot of smart people in the room with a lot of diagnosis, so don't judge me. It has something to do with blood being, not going where it's supposed to go or pinched off.

Anyway, whenever he'd raise his hand, it would pinch off the blood. And the thing that he loved, basketball, was actually slowly killing him. He ended up having to give up basketball, the thing that he loved so much because it was slowly killing him. Today, he is literally one of the greatest pastors, second greatest pastor behind CJ. He is just one of the greatest pastors impacting thousands of people. He didn't know it at the time, the very thing that he thought was giving him so much life and value was the very thing that was keeping him from the better thing. And I don't know what's keeping you. I don't know if it's the relationship. I don't know if it's the anger. I don't know if it's the behavior pattern. I don't know if it's the job, the money. I don't know and I'm not here to judge. What I am here to say is God's word speaks to us and we are invited to continue to take steps that actually might scare us, but on the other side will give us life. And I'm just wondering, who is your Mordecai? I love that Pastor CJ talks about HUD. I think HUD McWilliams, first of all, because it's fun to say HUD. I've never had a friend named HUD,

but HUD McWilliams as his therapist and you might be like, I can't, I don't have a therapist, but we do have a community of wise people. And some of you aren't wise, but some of you are. You know, we've got a community of wise people. It's why we talk about groups so much because there are people who have gone through already what you are going through now in your marriage, as a teenager, deciding about things like college, deciding about things like relationship, trying to figure out what to do with this big pot of money or this small pot of money, deciding what it looks like for you to respond to God's voice that is inviting you to live life and life to the full. And you're in this room. I wanna encourage you, first of all, if you don't have somebody that's speaking life into you, kind of that wise person, begin to pray for it. And then secondly, if you are that wise person, oftentimes found by looking in the mirror and seeing a little bit silvery or shiny forehead, would you take time to invest in other people? Who's your Mordecai? And then she is almost ready to do the thing, but she does. One last thing that I think is so important, and that is that she engages community. And it says, she says,

"'Go gather all the Jews who are in Susa and fast for me. "'Don't eat or drink for three days, night or day, "'and my attendants will fast as you do. "'And when this is done, I will go to the king, "'even though it's against the law, "'and if I perish, I perish.'" She's recognizing the full weight of the decision. But she said, I wanna do it with a group of people. I love that Pastor CJ often, as early as last week, said, there are things that happen only in prayer and reading the Bible. That this house, that Northview believes, that there are things that only happen when we do this. And I would add to that, there are things that only happen when we all pray together. Like corporate prayer moves things. And I'm wondering, who's got your back? Who is with you as you gather community? Who is with you because the thing that you are facing, you might not be able to do on your own? I love art. I'm not an art aficionado, but I like art. I know what moves me. One of my favorite American historic characters is a young lady by the name of Ruby Bridges, who at six years old was credited with desegregating the entire American education system. Pretty big deal. And that courageous moment where she first walks into the school, an all-white school,

was captured by an artist named Norman Rockwell. Now, we are multi-generational, so let me help you out, Norman Rockwell. To some, you just got the warm fuzzies. And to the rest of you, you're like, I don't know what you're talking about. He was an artist that would paint the Saturday Evening Post, which again, then I have to explain that. So why don't I just stop, look at the photo, or the picture. This is Ruby, and I love this picture. There is a kind of defiance, like I'm gonna do what I have been made to do. And I literally, this is the picture I had as I'm praying for you, that whatever you're going through, that you would know you can walk into that because God has called you and he will equip you. He will let you see the crisis and give you counsel and surround you with people. And this is why I love this, because it's not just Ruby. It is four marshals, federal marshals around her. You know why? Because six-year-olds can't desegregate an entire country's education system. She did what she could do. She walked in amongst the cacophony of angry and confused voices, but she didn't go alone. And this is her great cloud of witnesses. And I wonder where yours are. And if you have them, get your phone out

and text them and say thanks. And if you don't, this is why we do groups here. It's not because it fits nicely into three Gs. It's because it's deeply biblical to be in community. Kristen was quoted last week as saying, hey, you can tell everybody something, but do you have a couple of somebodies that you tell everything to? Who can you be transparent, honest? Who knows your stuffing can help understand and walk you through things? Because if we have that, then we have a greater chance, just like Esther, of going from crisis to counsel to community, and then finally, to just take courage, to take that step. And she says, if I perish, I perish. This is what's on the line, but also what's on the line is the livelihood of other people and life to the full. And I love the idea of courage. Do you know that the average human is 200% more fearful than they are faithful? And the good news about that is that means we have a lot of room to practice, okay? It means that you are in good company if there are things that you're just gonna have to do afraid every once in a while. It's a phrase that we use at Venture quite a bit, is do it afraid. I don't think she penned this, but one of our team members, she's an Enneagram Six.

And if you don't know Enneagram, it's just like an ancient personality profile. And for those of you who know Enneagram, now you're mad at me, because I didn't do it justice, so I can't win. But the bottom line is, in Enneagram Six, they see the world and they recognize risk all over. And so because they recognize risk, there are times when they're fearful. And she's like, even though I recognize the risk, I can still do it afraid. And this is really at the heart, not only of this text, but of biblical courage. Biblical courage is defined as trusting God in the face of fear. And it's characterized by obedience, moral fortitude, and acting to protect others. I love this. If you're afraid, you are exhibit A for being ready to do it afraid and to be. be biblically courageous because it's defined as, hey, even though you're afraid, you're gonna trust God, marked by obedience. And I love this because obedience over our own comfort. Moral fortitude, there is a system that the kingdom runs that invites us to understand and to do the right thing. And then it says, and acting to protect others. So this kind of courage is not just encouraging you to jump out of a plane or to buy the stock. And those are good things to be courageous about.

They might have deep meaning, but biblically we're talking about obedience within a system to help other people. Taking the step, even when we're afraid. It was 12 years ago, my wife and I were having a conversation. And if you are a spouse, even how I framed that, you know that this conversation was of importance and had been going on for a while. And my wife really wanted us to consider foster care. And she started getting, in my opinion, pretty heavy handed. She's like, Jesus encourages us to do this. There's a lot of pain and brokenness in our city. And then she started saying, you're the biblical justice guy. And I'm like, hey, can you slow your roll? I'm just getting into my job. It's starting to go well. I already have two kids. I got a boy and a girl. Everything seems balanced. We had left a season where we had two miscarriages. And I don't mean to be flippant. It's how I process things. I was like, we have two alive, two that didn't make it, one boy, one girl, job, finally, everything is good. And she's like, but would you just take one class with me? She became the Mordecai in that moment. She kept pushing a little bit.

And so I took just one class. She's like, it's a one hour and they're gonna have cookies. Okay, I took one class. And then last week for Mother's Day, we took this picture. And this is now my family. After 12 years, we have since, after we got licensed three days later, they called and they said, there's a newborn. Can you pick her up? And I said, that works faster than the other way. And even though I am a passionate advocate of foster care and reunification of families of origin, it doesn't always work that way. And I'm also a passionate advocate of caring for anybody who God puts into your home. And this is my family. And this is the product of taking one step of doing it afraid. And I'm here to tell you, it's not easy. Five kids are harder than two kids. That's math. That's like parent math, okay? But it's rich and it's brutal and it's beautiful. And it took taking one step. Had I known the whole thing, I may have never done it, but just taking a step to do it afraid. So the invitation is not so much for you to run a marathon or to jump into foster care.

It's not for you to desegregate your schools or stop a genocide. It's really about, do you trust that God's word's talking to you, that he sees right where you're at, what's going on in your medical situation and your finances as a family. He sees that behavior that you've kept hidden that you're so fearful or ashamed about. And he's like, no, I just want you to live life to the full. And I have a plan for you if you will take a step. And that step is, hey, let's first, let's just look. Hey, there is a consequential decision to what's going on in my life. You can find wisdom and you can find support and you can just take the step, the step towards something fuller and freer. You can swap out the way it was to the way it's gonna be. You can be invited to this rich life and we can do it afraid. I mean, if Ruby can walk into the school and Esther can walk into the palace and I can sign up for that stupid race, we can all do something. I'm gonna ask you to bow your head. Northview, across all of our campuses, I think the most courageous thing that we can do is to first ask ourselves, do I have a relationship with Jesus? The whole narrative, the whole reason we're doing this series is because it all leads to the truth

that Jesus came to put your life in order. And the promise is if we let him put it in order and we call on his name, we get salvation, we get the blueprint, we get the start. And I don't wanna miss a moment for a courageous decision in this room and across the campuses. If you are not a Christ follower, either you've never started. or maybe you've fallen away and you wanna say, I wanna take that courageous step. What's more courageous than raising your hand and saying, I wanna follow Christ today? So on the count of three, if that's you, I would just love to pray with you. I'm not gonna make you stand up or point you out, I just, we are all as a community going to pray together with you. But if you are sensing, I wanna follow Christ, I want to recommit to following Christ, would you just raise your hand? One, two, three. Yep, yeah, that's great. All across, not just here, but across the campuses, people are seeing hands that are raised. So we're gonna pray really quickly. I don't like that actually, scratch that, not really quickly, we're gonna pray because it's consequential and beautiful and momentous. Dear God, repeat after me, dear God. Come on, everybody, dear God.

I invite you into my life. Change my brokenness, forgive my sin and lead me forward. Surround me with your people and your plan for my life. Amen.