Go the Extra Mile Pt. 2

May the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, my God and my Savior. Amen. It is good to be at Emanuel. It's good to be back. It's an honor to be back. There's no place I'd rather be at this moment on this weekend than in this house. I'm so thankful to Pastor Nate and Jodi for your decades of friendship cue statement about how we were five years old or whatever. And also for your leadership in this house and in the city. And I'm thankful to be able to say thank you. We are one of your kingdom builder partners. So on behalf of our international partners who have been impacted and affected by your generosity, by your radical generosity, by many of you, your sacrificial generosity, and not just this year, but over the years, for more than a decade, you have shown up with your finances, with your prayers. Some of you have run through 30 for Freedom or the Unreal Challenge, but you all show up. This is the DNA of this house, and it is my honor to say thank you. I also want to say thank you personally. You might not know this, but you were a huge part of my life this last year. So it was about this time last year that somebody approached me with an opportunity to join the Great World Race. Now if you don't know what the Great World Race is, it's the opportunity—I'll do one of these—to run seven marathons on seven different continents in one week. Let me do that for those of you in the back. Seven marathons on seven continents in one week. There's wisdom in the front row. This young lady right here is shaking her head going, that's stupid. And it is. That's wisdom. And because it's stupid, I had to ask questions, and I found out that we would be running with a team to raise money and awareness to fight human trafficking, this global injustice, and try to shine light on it and raise money. And not only did I ask questions, but then I started praying. I talked to my wife and my family. I sought wisdom. One of the first conversations I had was with Pastor Darren, a pastor from this house, and as he always does, he asked questions. He was very engaged. He was shaking his head. I thought it was encouraging. I think he thought I was stupid. By the end of it, Pastor Darren said, Emmanuel's in, just like you always have been. You're in. And he said, we will be one of the seven core sponsors. If you choose to do this, we will do this. We will at least help you rescue 62 girls through our core sponsorship. And so that was one of those moments where I'm like, all right. So I start training. It ends up being about, oh man, over 1,500 miles, over 300 hours of training to try to at some point just show up and see if this mortal coil could do the thing. And so we fly to Cape Town, South Africa in November, just a couple of months ago. And my first marathon was in Cape Town, South Africa.

And you know, it's the first 26. And then we fly to Antarctica, where I got off the plane and I was so scared. It was minus 22 below. Think about that, because y'all were scared to get in your car. And some of you are watching online. Minus 22 for six hours, because oh boy, it's not that fast. And then we got on a plane and we went to Australia, where it was unseasonably warm at 94 degrees. And then we flew to Abu Dhabi, the very continent that you all sponsored in Asia, anchoring the middle, as you always do. And then we flew to Portugal. And then we flew to Colombia, where we ran at two in the morning because it was so blessed hot, is the word I'm going to use. And then we ended up in Miami, where I had the joy of running with my family across the finish line. I ran with my boy, my 17-year-old, the last 13 miles, who was part of the Unreal Challenge. Some of your students were part of that. And I was so thankful. I think there are so many emotions and not enough words to accurately help people who weren't there understand what was going on. But the overwhelming sense is gratefulness. I'm grateful that I was able to finish. I was grateful that I didn't have any long-term injury. Oh, I was thankful that I got a nickname. Okay, so I'm not the best athletically, so I never had like a cool nickname in sports. But all of these marathons were live-streamed on something called Twitch, which I don't really know what that is. It's something between gaming and online. Anyway, there was a fellow named Kahal that was kind of announcing everything over and over and over again. Think of how tough it is to talk. for seven straight marathons. But over this time, he started calling me Galloping Jesus. And he was not perpetuating, I don't think, a false narrative of Euro Jesus. He was from Ireland and there's actually a priest who's called Galloping Jesus there because he's a Jesus dude and he does good work. But you know, it was so catchy that somebody, yeah. So here's the deal. Somebody from another part of the country that was following it sent me this AI and I don't know a lot about AI, but here's the deal. I'm a believer now

because those are definitely just like my arms. That was hurtful for the record. What I was sincerely most thankful for was the amount of funds that were raised and the eyeballs that were on this global issue of trafficking that you all have shown up for. Our initial goal was 444,000 and to date, we've raised well over a million dollars through this, yeah. And you all were a part of this. You've been a part of it. You've been here early and often to the game. Anti-trafficking is one of our four main programs that we do in some of the toughest places on the planet. And we call those tough places the intersection of three uns. The unreached, unsafe, and unresourced. The unsafe are places where there's war, where there's persecution, where there's trafficking. Unreached is places where there's less than 2% gospel witness because we are not philanthropy or a charity. We are gospel-driven and so we are compelled to go to the place where the least amount of people have heard that there's a God that's not mad at them. And maybe, maybe in this moment, online or here in this room or on our campuses, maybe you just need to be reminded God's not mad at you. He knows he's offered this kingdom thing to a group of jacked up humans. And we are in process of becoming less jacked up. It's part of the story.

And so we serve at the intersection of those three things, unsafe, unreached, and unresourced. We target places where there's less than 1% of all Christian giving goes. It's why it's the toughest places on the planet and yet God is doing incredible things. Please know in this moment where we're at, God is doing incredible things on the globe in some of the toughest areas. And it's my honor to be able to come and share what God is doing in these places. And so this is what it looks like. We partner with local leaders, born and raised in those areas, and we do four main programs that you saw in the video. We do anti-trafficking, refugee care, women's health programs, and then church planting. And this is what it looks like when a group of us, we decide that we're gonna live out this idiom that Pastor Nate talked about last week of going the extra mile. That is not just a theme for right now, it's a word for this year, and it's steeped in a biblical principle that this is what we're called to do. This is what it looks like in just one year. We were able to provide 13.1 million refugee meals last year. 13.1, that's 28,000 people, yeah. That's a celebration because that's what God is doing.

And in this moment, we need to muster up the joy to recognize that the gospel is good and the gospel is moving forward regardless of what our immediate circumstances say. We were able to rescue over 600 girls last year, providing safety and sharing the hope of the gospel. One of the greatest catalysts to oppression and injustice is the unfair treatment of women in many parts of the world. And so with that, we address women's health and wholeness, we just had a women's health camp where we go into places and we undo untrue stigmas about women's bodies and we help them with basic health and medical needs. And we were able to train and provide for more than 14,000 women in just one year. And because, yeah, and because, because it's our core conviction that the gospel, all of it, the whole thing, all the words here, not part, not a few, not what some people co-opt, not what some people weaponize, but this whole beautiful thing is the greatest source of transformation for your life and for a whole community. This is why we gather. Because of that, with every project and every program and every place where we go, we include church planting and discipleship. And last year, our partners planted over 8,000 churches.

8,000. Now, to be fair, they're not as nice or as big. The seating's not as comfortable. The coffee's not as hot. They are meeting in caves and homes and fields. They are meeting undercover because they're afraid of what their government may do, but they are relentless. and they are living out for us what it means to go the extra mile. This is why I love this go the extra mile. I love the idiom, because it's anchored in Jesus's teaching that says, hey, when a whole bunch of people are doing this, wait, I'm gonna tell you a different story, and then I'm gonna invite you to live a different way that gives hope to the person sitting next to you, to the person in your home, at your school, or at your office, to your neighbor, to this city, to the world. We are invited to something different, and it might not be easy. I see it with our partners in these places. It's not always easy. Coming to Jesus, easy. We raise our hand, we say, I'm jacked up, we say, you are the answer, I want you. That's easy, the rest of it, less easy. And I see this in this moment we have, and I see it in our partners, and I see it in scripture,

so I am not surprised, but scripture reminds us that when we go the extra mile, when we step into this journey, we're spit out on the other side changed. And our lives are different, and our families, and our communities, and our soul is different. And this, this is what I want in this moment, this is what I want this year with our Emmanuel family of churches, and this is what I want for you individually. It's not gonna be easy. I learned that, I'm gonna say the hard way, but I can really point to probably the 36 toughest hours of my entire life that happened on the Great World Race. It was the first three marathons, again, stupid sentence, first three marathons. So we show up in Cape Town, and we're supposed to go to Antarctica and start in Antarctica. It's what, when I started training 10 months ago, I'm like, I am focusing on Antarctica. Even if I can't do anything else, I get to say I ran in Antarctica. Well, less than, less than 12 hours before we were supposed to fly the next day to go to Antarctica, we get this email, and it says, hey, too dangerous to fly in Antarctica, so we're gonna squeeze in a marathon in Cape Town real quick. Can you think about that? We're gonna squeeze in a marathon before we go.

So we had to get up at five in the morning, repack everything, re-get our different gear, and we do the first marathon in Cape Town, and then we end up, had about three hours after that run to quickly shower, change, get our gear, get on the plane, and fly to Antarctica, only to start that marathon at midnight. So I had to do two in one day, also stupid. And I got out, and it was, I had a visceral fear. It was beautiful and desolate, and I didn't know how I was gonna do it, and it was so, so cold for six hours in this weather, but somehow we finished, and we get on the plane, and I can't wait to get back to Cape Town where I can take a shower before we go to Australia, but travel, if you've ever had jacked up travel, I had it because here's what they said, hey, no time for a shower. So 60 of us, after that second marathon, got on a plane for a 14-hour flight to Australia without a shower. Now this plane turns into a mobile hockey locker room, okay? We get off the plane in Australia, and they go, hey, it's unseasonably warm, which is a terrible sentence unless you're on vacation, because when you're running your third marathon, it was so hot. By the time we got done, I'm like, hey, only four to go, but it was during those first three that there was a phrase that kept going through my head,

to run and not grow weary. Now, this is my third time on stage, and if I don't know that run and not grow weary is a Bible verse, then I'm not doing my job. So I know it's a Bible verse, I know it's in Isaiah, and I know it's not for marathoners, but you know what, I was tired, and so I co-opted for the next four marathons to be thinking about what it means to run and not grow weary because part of what we were doing was raising awareness and funds to rescue girls and plant the hope of the gospel. And so I close out in Miami with my son and my family, and we celebrate, and this verse kept going. And so I have been meditating on not only the verse, but the whole chapter in Isaiah 40, 31. Isaiah's a revolutionary, beautiful poet that was reminding people in Israel who were in captivity that this isn't the end, that the God of the universe sees you and is going to help you and is here for you. He says, it will not be easy, but these words, this one stanza, five lines, has a pathway for the Israelites in captivity in Babylon, for our partners who are planting churches in unreached areas and rescuing girls and feeding refugees, for us in this moment in our community and for you. For you who are navigating medical diagnoses or finances, you are having spiritual questions, or you are concerned about how to parent, whatever it is,

this text is for us in this moment as we endeavor over this next year to go the. extra mile, what can that look like? And in doing so, what kind of a harvest can we reap? And so in Isaiah 40, 31, five lines, one stanza. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, and they shall walk and not faint. The word of God for the people of God. Five lines, one stanza. I can't break it all down, but if we just start with those first, there's two words that jump out at me. That first line says, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. And there's that word wait sitting right there. And this word wait is, it's not a passive word. It's not like a sit there with your hands in your pocket and just kind of go, well, I hope this thing works out. I hope my kids suddenly start behaving. I hope the medical diagnosis works out. I hope we hit peace around here. I hope God will show me what I'm supposed to do after college. I hope my marriage, it's not that at all. In fact, another translation will say, those who wait on the Lord. The Hebrew is kava, and kava is Q-A-V-A. And kava is more of a picture.

It's a picture of holding a rope in tension. And what Israel is receiving from Isaiah, this revolutionary poet says, yes, it's tough. You are in captivity, but hold on. Because there are promises if you don't let go. And what I love about it is, sometimes we think white knuckling it as a Christ follower means we must be doing something wrong. But what if it means you're doing exactly right? What if holding on is holy? What if holding on for your community is holy? What if holding on for your kids is holy? What if just holding on for your marriage is holy? What if holding on and waiting for the next step for your vocation, or what you should do with your finances, or what you should do with your retirement, or how you should lead in this moment as a church, what if holding on is the holy thing? And in it, God will promise the next thing, renewal. So kava is anchoring to everything about this text. If we understand it, we can understand the text. I see it in our partners. Our partners kava all the time. They're like expert kava-ers. I don't know if that's Hebrew, but we're just, they kava. Three months ago, in one of those 8,000 church plants was anchored by three families, and these three families would not relent. The village leadership said, you can't be Christian,

you can't be Christian, you can't be Christian. Okay, you're not listening, and they literally tore down all three homes. They decimated them, not like spray paint. They tore it down, and they put them in a barn outside of the village, and they had them under house arrest in the barn, and they kavad. They would not relent. They would not recant. They kavad. And I think about this with everything I'm going through. I'm still going to my home. But they kavad, and just two weeks ago, we received word that we found land, and we found a donor, and we are gonna build three brand new houses so that this church, not just three houses, but this church can stand strong because they kavad. And you don't know if you're kavad, you don't know where you're at, but your answer may be coming. Though, we had, we did Christmas programs at the end of the year, and our partners did 400 different Christmas programs, and these Christmas programs were in cities. These Christmas programs were in caves. Thousands of people came to Christ. But as a part of it, eight pastors were put in prison

simply for sharing the gospel. Six of them had to stay 37 days. Those six people were in stockades, literal like, I only think of Revolutionary War or like the Salem witch trials, wooden stockades for 27 days. But they kavad. They kavad, and then just last week, they were let out, and they are with their congregations, they are with their people, they are with their church because they will not cease kavad. And I say that not to kind of compare and go, you don't have what it takes. What I'm saying is the gospel is true for the Israelites, and it's true for people in Nepal, and it's also true for us here, for our city and for our family. If we kavad, holding on is holy. It's so holy. You're gonna make it. Because then it says that if you kavad, you're gonna renew your strength. And if kavad is central to understanding this text, this poetry, then renewal is central to understanding the gospel. Renewal is like the gospel brand from the beginning. In the beginning, the original creation narrative goes something like this,

an incredible poetic architect, artist, engineer, God creates. this space for all of us to thrive. And then because humans, you know, are going to human, they end up making choices that create broken relationship between us and God, us and each other, and whole communities are broken. But the rest of it, the rest of it, you get past, you know, the second chapter in Genesis, and everything else is renewal. Everything else is God pursuing, reminding, screaming, whispering. Kava, hold on, because you will be renewed. And then we get to this third line, and it says, they shall mount up with wings like eagles. Now, to understand Hebrew poetry, it's not so much like the poetry that we often were accustomed to in middle school and high school where there's lots of rhymy words. I mean, there's a place for Dr. Seuss in Chance the Rapper. I heard he just did a gospel song, so I think I can mention him. Lecrae, there you go. Not so much the rhymy, nothing wrong with rhymy, more poetry focused on structure. And so the middle of a stanza, the middle of a poem, the middle of a chapter, in some cases, the middle of a whole book in the Bible, that middle is really important because it kind of anchors. And what I love is it says that you'll rise up like eagles. So everything before and after is anchored in God is the center. In this moment, in your family, God can be the center. In this church, God is the center. In our community, God is the center. In the places we serve, God will not relent, and he is the center. And so this is what it says. It's like, you're going to rise up like eagles. And the listeners, the Israelites, will be like, oh, I get that. I get that because the last time we talked about eagles was way back in Exodus when once again the Israelites were not enslaved to Babylon, but enslaved to Egypt. And God came and he was represented like an eagle for comfort and to rescue. And so they're like, okay, we get this. So this word eagle is a reminder. Hey, God's done some good stuff. And I think it's like a Christian meme, won't he? You know, it's like, won't he do it again? I can't really pull that off. I'm not going to have like a cool hat or anything. Maybe JC can do that. But this idea of it's a reminder and then a promise that he's going to do it again, but it's also an invitation. And the invitation, because it says you're going to rise up like eagles. So now what he's saying is not just God's going to do it, but you're invited to be a part of it. While you're in your jacked upness, while we are in process as families, as single people, as people that live in this part of the city or that part of the city, while we

are people trying to figure stuff out, we are invited to be a part of it. This is why I love kingdom builders. This is why I love kingdom builders on this weekend in this moment, because we are invited to participate in what he's doing in the world while we're figuring out the jacked upness. We get to do this. The Bible reminds us that this too will pass. The Bible reminds us that, hey, what he did before, he will do again. And while he's doing it, we're invited to be a part of it. That's what we get to do. And so then we get to that last line. That line that by now you've probably aligned in agreement with me that run and not grow weary has very little to do with marathons, the great world race, or Fulios who try to put on spandex and run on multiple continents. It actually is something for every single one of us. It was for the Israelites in this text, and it is for us in this season. That word run is in the Hebrew, it's rats. And rats is not about speed or even movement. It's about purposeful pursuit in a spiritual journey. So the promise, the promise is that we can all have purposeful pursuit. And I love that. I need purposeful pursuit in the midst of places where sometimes I feel stuck. I feel stymied. I feel stagnant. I'm not quite sure what to do next. I want to do something, but I feel stuck. And this promises you will have purposeful pursuit. This is the great kingdom exchange. And what I love about this is it doesn't really have anything to do with going faster. It has everything to do with going further. Okay. And what I mean by this, okay, so on the race, I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not that fast. And there was 36 fellas that tried to do the great world race and 28 accomplished it. And of those, nope, 26. And of those 26, I was a whopping 21. Like I am slow. Okay. But I finished and I take heart in the idea that not everybody has to approach life by crushing it. And I know that there are some here, man, you crush it and God bless you that you crush it. Sometimes you're annoying, but man, you crush it and you should. God loves you. But for the rest… The rest of us, man, we get to have purposeful pursuit at a sustainable pace, trusting that what God did before, he will do in the future. In the meantime, we are holding on because the promise is this, that if we run, we will not grow weary. Yagia, weariness. It's not that you won't get tired.

Every parent said amen. It's that we won't be so exhausted that we give up because we're holding on together. It says they that wait, so not you that wait, they, all of us, holding on together as a community, as the Emmanuel family of churches, holding on. And when we do this, we get this great kingdom exchange, purposeful pursuit without giving up. We get to rise up like God in the work that he's invited us to do. And we get to be renewed. So going the extra mile doesn't invite you to an easy life, but it invites us to a very purposeful existence. And then we take this and we jump the final verse in Galatians, which is in the second half of the Bible. Galatians 6, nine says that if you don't grow weary in doing good, we will reap a harvest at the appropriate time. You are going to reap a harvest. It's promised if you kava. If you hold on in this moment, you will reap a harvest. It's there. It's right there. It is a promise. And I don't know what your harvest is, but what I can tell you is in the places we serve, harvest is starting to look amazing. It's starting to look amazing, especially in the areas where we are church planting, where now all of a sudden these churches

are now rescuing girls. They're creating stability so girls won't be trafficked. They are caring for one another who don't have enough food. This is what's happening is that over, I think this is the third time in the last several years that I've been invited to be here. And every time I will tell a story about Hannah or Sarmilla or some of these individuals who are doing incredible things and their transformation is mind-blowing. But what we've seen over the last year or two is that whole communities are now being transformed. It's going from person to person to whole communities. And it's happening as we double down and invest in the local church that these communities are becoming little God centers. They are rising up like eagles and seeing needs and responding. And we're seeing amazing things. And today, what we gather to do while we pray for our communities and we pray for our families and we pray for what's happening here is we actually touch heaven by responding to and participating in what God is doing all around the world in amazing ways. Like what's happening with the Harshan people, watch this. What's happening with the Harshan people, watch this. What's happening with the Harshan people, watch this. What's happening with the Harshan people, watch this.

What's happening with the Harshan people, watch this. What's happening with the Harshan people, watch this. There used to be a lot of crowd, so I heard the good news. Along with the good news, there was a demand for drugs. Especially in the Harijan family, the Dalit family. There was a lot of talk about the liberation of drugs. And gradually the number of people started increasing. The number of our believers also started increasing. There is a village in which there are 150 Haridwaris. Out of that, there are about 700 believers. There are not one or two houses, but there are about 700 believers. As of now, 98% of the households have toilets. Earlier there were no houses, but now there are about 60% houses. 98% of the children go to school. Earlier, we used to pray that the entire village should be a model for us. By working hard, by raising awareness, we should become a model. In the village of 81-82, there are two types of people. Women and Dalits. We are a nation of awareness. We are Dalits. I am a believer. Many people know God. God knows me too. I have a hope. If we don't grow weary, at the appropriate time we will reap a harvest. That last photo was the last two families that came to Christ. 100%. 100%. This is the power of the gospel. In the book that we read, what we anchor, this thing, this gospel,

started with one life being transformed. Now 700 people are Christ followers, but it doesn't stop there. I feel like it's one of those late night commercials. It doesn't stop there. You've got hygiene. You've got kids going to school. You've got home ownership. You've got businesses being started. You have the addicted being set free. Then you have this vision for 81 more communities. This story isn't in a snapshot. That witch doctor, what a great way to start. This is an incredible Jesus story. That was 10 years ago he came to faith. This is a journey. The extra mile doesn't have start and stops. It's a long journey. It's not lost on me that those 10 years are the 10 years that we've been in partnership, that you've been investing, that you've been part of this. This is our story in this moment. This is what it looks like to invest in what God is doing in other parts of the world. They are ready. They want to start those 81 churches. I was talking with Pastor Darren and Pastor Nate. They're like, we could do this. We could fund this in one moment because it's crazy, but one church plant costs $750. That cares for the leadership. It helps with theological training, with soul care. It helps with all of it. It ignites a community of people that are meeting needs, that are rescuing girls,

or creating stability so girls don't have to be sold. If your heart breaks for anti-trafficking, if you want to feed people in need, all of these things are wrapped up in the gospel that invites us to become worshiping communities. These communities and these worshiping communities are transforming, and their hearts are to do it more. In this moment, literally, we could fund 100 churches. We could say, we'll take all of that. These churches wait for it. Once they're planted, they actually end up reproducing a second church within a calendar year. It's like a BOGO. It's a Jesus BOGO. As we step into this moment where we are at and going, hey, what does it look like for me to invest alongside of my brothers and sisters in a place that I've never seen, but that I know is difficult? This is our moment. This is us saying, as a church, as we've always been, Emmanuel, what it looks like for us to go the extra mile. On behalf of our international partners, it's my honor to say thank you. And it's also my honor, in alignment with the global church, to pray that the Lord would bless you and keep you. That his face would shine upon you. lift up your countenance that he would fill you with peace, that you would not grow weary in doing good, that you would kava, kava for your family, kava for your community, and kava with our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world to live out this good gospel for his kingdom come and his will to be done.