God, I’m Saying YES!

So my family, good morning and welcome at all of our campuses in the triangle. If you have your Bibles this morning, I want you to take them out and open them, not to Nehemiah this morning. I want you to open them to Jonah, which is not far from Nehemiah, but Jonah chapter four. We were taking a one week break from our study of the book of Nehemiah. And that is because this past week, about 500 of us were on our every other year staff retreat in Western North Carolina, where we just took some time to do some rest and renewal and build relationships with each other and just receive from the Holy Spirit. And so I led several of the sessions there for our staff during that time. And so I asked one of our church planters, Spence Shelton, who planted about 10 years ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, planted Mercy Church, asked him if he would come back and he would lead us in the message this weekend. I first met Spence, he was in the mid 2000s. He was a UNC student, one of the first waves of UNC students that had began to come to our church. He started a Friday morning, 6 a.m. leadership group that he was a part of. And in fact, he called it his Thursday night Bible study because it was closer to him from the time he went to bed on Thursday night than was the time he got up on Friday morning. And we read Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology together to think about what God did in that group. Several of those guys out of that Bible study from UNC are either on our staff or have been sent out as church planters over the years. You know, when we say here, Summit, that we are committed to sending out our best, I don't know of a better illustration of that than Spence Shelton. He led our small group ministry here for many years. So much of what we do here as a church has his fingerprints all over it. He's become one of the best preachers in the Southeast. He is a guy that just makes us so very, very proud. We gave him a headhunting license when we sent him out, said take some of our best people. I didn't think he would actually do it.

He did it. He took 35 of our best people. Listen, I don't know if you know this, kinds of people that volunteer to go on church plants are never sideline people. There might be some people I would like to go on a church plant. They're never the ones that volunteer to go. It's always some of our very best people. He took 35 of our best people, which was painful. But this past Easter, they had 3,500 people meeting there at Mercy Church in Charlotte, which is amazing. Yeah. By the way, you businessmen and businesswomen, you show me an investment that in 10 years gets you a hundred X return, and I'll show you an investment that you should just hold on to. And so summit sending for us is painful and it is costly, but it is something that brings great kingdom return. And that's what you're going to see today. I don't mean this to be at all condescending, but if you think of it in terms of, you know, parenting, Mercy Church is kind of like a daughter church, a son church. As a son in the ministry, so to speak. What that means is that Pastor Spence is always competing with us a little bit. You know, as he's kind of grown up, he's always kind of flexing on us, trying to show off. And he's like, look, you may not be as big a summit yet, but he says one thing he has that we don't have. Right before the late Tim Keller passed away, he had reached out to Spence and asked him if he would, Spence would co-author a few Bible studies with him. And Pastor Spence always tells me, he's like, listen, you kind of fake brag about Tim Keller being one of your friends. Everybody knows that's not really true. He said, but while Tim Keller is a fake friend of yours, I'm an actual co-author with him.

And so that is something I'm envious of, but at all of our campuses, would you put your hands together and would you welcome back to our church, Pastor Spence Sheldon. Oh man, thanks, dad. All right. That's so funny. No, it is actually just such a joy, all of our campuses and online, man, such a joy to be with you guys. Pastor JD, his wife, Veronica, are some of the dearest friends for Courtney and I. You guys sent us out and man, they have just been faithful, not only prayer warriors, but counselors along the way, the bumpy road that is Planned Parenthood. planting and launching a church. And in many ways, I just feel like my assignment as I prayed over what to share with you guys was just to share and testify to the faithfulness of God on the other side of saying yes to him, even with your whole life. When it seems really scary saying, God, I'm saying yes. That's, you're going to hear that a lot today. And man, that is just, that's the theme that we're after as we go into Jonah four. So like you said, if you've got your Bible, Jonah chapter four to help us get over and into Jonah is just about 300 years before. Nehemiah, so you've been to Nehemiah. We're gonna back up in history, in Israel's history just a little bit, get over to Jonah. And man, the best way I can describe Jonah, you guys remember, start of this year, there was this thing that was going on on social media that was like, post a picture from 2016, or a series of pictures. Like, remember back in the good old days of 2016? I don't know why that's what it was, you know?

Well, the good old days, 2016, I can think of two pictures that kind of highlight 2016. The first one's a family picture. My family couldn't travel with me this weekend, and so I wanted to give you one from the good old days, right? So look at that, oh, young little kids, there were still some of my beard that wasn't gray, you know, and it was a beautiful time and everything. But also, I mean, those are the days where like Lightning McQueen and Mater were in our house all the time, right? By God's grace, we missed Bluey, and that is not a part of our lives, and we're thankful for that. But the other picture that I'll show you in a second, man, that represents 2016 for me, we had just planted Mercy Church. Y'all had sent us out, that group of people, like Pastor J.D. said, and we had just planted, and we had planted in, we finally found a place in Charlotte, and it was the Levine Senior Center, which is a Jewish senior citizen activity center, okay? This was, you can plant a church anywhere. Every time I trained church planters, so I'm like, you can put one there, you can put one anywhere. They weren't using it on Sunday mornings, and so they say, yeah, you can rent it.

But the thing is, sometimes it would just smell awful when we go in there, right? Like they would have yoga the night before, and leave all the doors and windows shut, and you just come in there. I know, that's what I had to live with, right? Well, my wife was running with the essential oil crowd at the time, right? Had these things called diffusers that make the smell good, because our home also was filled with little kids that stink all the time. Well, I come in one Sunday, and I like send Courtney a text, and that's the other thing that I think of when I think of 2016. It's this text message right here. It's like, hey, please bring every diffuser you have. This whole place smells like jambalaya and beef stew. Like that's looking back to 2016 for me. Honestly, those days were a total blur, all right? I bring that up because what I think will help you grab the main idea of today, and the main idea of the book of Jonah, is that Jonah, the book is actually Jonah, the author. It's his looking back post. It's his looking back post. Most scholars believe that Jonah actually wrote this book far later in life, where he's looking back now on his own stubbornness. He's looking back on the incredible grace and patience of God.

And he's looking back on God's heart for all peoples of the world. The long and short of it is, Jonah's the kind of unique in the Bible, and it's the only one named after somebody that you don't wanna be like. You know what I mean? You look at Daniel, Ruth, Esther, Isaiah. I mean, you got some great heroes, but not Jonah. Jonah, when God called Jonah into an incredible plan, into a, I've made you for this before the foundations of the world plan, Jonah said, no. He said, no. It was just flat out right. No, I don't wanna do it. When God's plan didn't line up with his plan, even though he was a part of the people of God, even though he knew a lot of things about God, at the end of the day, Jonah said, no. He was like many of us, he was good with God's plan right up until that moment where it conflicted with his plan. And once God's plan started conflicting with his plan, uh-uh, then it wasn't all that good anymore. And that's the honesty I want us after today. I know plenty of us been around church long enough. You know the church lingo. If I say, God is good, you say, all the time, right? If I say all the time, you say, that's right.

You know that and you're able to say it, but I wonder if we actually believe it when the times aren't all that good. God is good in the good times, but is God really good all the time? Is God really good when he asks all of my life for me, when he really calls me to step out into something that I don't think is gonna be good for me? But yet we have this book. If Jonah never has a change of heart, he never writes this book. And the older Jonah is now looking back, he's been warmed in his heart to the grace and love of God. And he's saying, don't be like me. When God calls, say yes. That's the main idea today, guys. When God calls, say yes. Even with 2026, when God calls, say yes. Main idea for today is a prayer of commitment that I'm gonna call you to pray at the end of this message and at the end of our time in worship today. God, I'm saying yes. God, I'm saying yes. For those of you that have been hedging, those of you that have been waiting on that invitation, you didn't even realize it. God, I'm saying yes. That's the takeaway. Now I'll show you through chapter four, how we get there. We're just gonna walk through chapter four

and I'm gonna give you three reasons as we go through it, why we don't say yes. What's keeping us back, all right? And we're gonna put those before the Lord at the end of our time. So we'll start in verse one of chapter four. You ready? All right, sorry, that's something we do at our church. I say, you ready? And the people say, yes, verbally, so that the guy preaching knows that they are ready. And it's, I'm eager to receive the word of God. That's the idea, but just so you know, if you're not, I have the mic, so it's coming like it or not. All right, you ready? Let's go, here we go. Verse one, Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. All right, kind of a strange starting verse. And since we're hopping into Jonah, we haven't been like studying, you know, the first three chapters. Let me give you the brief rundown. Chapter one, God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh and preach. And Jonah says, nope, going the other way. All right, hops on a boat, goes the other way. End of chapter one, there's a big storm that God appoints. And then the sailors throw Jonah overboard at Jonah's request, and a fish swallows Jonah that God appoints. That's chapter one.

Chapter two, Jonah's in the belly of this smelly fish. He repents. And at the end of chapter two, you get this beautiful prayer, and then the fish spits Jonah out onto dry land. Chapter three, Jonah now goes to Nineveh, and he goes and preaches as he's supposed to. And chapter three ends with, man, it's amazing. Revival breaks out after a pretty bad sermon. But despite being a pretty bad sermon, it was a sermon he was told to preach, revival breaks out in Nineveh, and that makes Jonah furious. And just to make sure you understand, like this is Jonah's reaction to revival. I wanna make sure you get it. This is one of those, I went ahead. I know we have a multi-generational church here at The Summit Family, so I took the time to translate from the Hebrew, this verse one into each generation's dialect, okay? So if you are a boomer like Pastor JD, here's what that's translated. Jonah was fed up and wanted to speak to the manager, okay? If those of you Gen Xers, Jonah can't believe that the bad guys get a participation trophy, all right? Those of you millennials like me, Jonah was triggered and spiraling. And then to our young brothers and sisters, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Jonah began to crash out, all right?

That's what's going on here. All right, now we're in the headspace. We understand, everybody understands what's going on. Watch verse two, now he tells us why. He prayed to the Lord. Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled to Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord responds, is it right for you to be angry? I mean, look at that. It's better for me to die than to live. That's how angry he is. I mean, God sent Jonah with a message that Jonah wanted to be true. In fact, I'm gonna read you Jonah's entire sermon he preached in Nineveh. Ready, here it goes. In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished. Full sermon text, right there, that's it. Like, can you imagine? I learned to preach from Pastor JD. Can you imagine if I got up here, he invites me back, you know, says all these nice things, and I get up and I just say, in 40 days, Raleigh-Durham will be demolished,

and then walk off the stage, you know, and throw some Chick-fil-A at me from somewhere, you know, he's not gonna be happy. Man, this thing, man, this is not exactly the Sermon on the Mount, but Jonah wanted this to be true. He wanted Nineveh to be demolished. The Ninevites, y'all gotta understand, they were evil, some of the vilest scumbags on planet Earth, and they had attacked his people, killed his people. And he knew, here's the problem, he wanted Nineveh to be demolished, but he knew 40 days, oh, it's too much time, because he knew how gracious and powerful God is. Remember last week, I listened to Pastor JD's sermon from last week, where he talked from Nehemiah about how God can do in just a moment what we can't even do in a lifetime, right? He knew 40, Jonah knew 40 days, way too much time. He knew the character of God. Jonah said no initially to ever coming to do this, because he believed that his plan was better than God's plan. He did not like God's plan. That's why we say no to God. We are not convinced his way is better than our way, and so we say no to him. Jonah knew the character of God, and that insight into his character made him angry and defiant, not submissive. Maybe that's you.

Maybe you're considering something God is calling you to, give you a very routine example, doesn't mean it's easy, just means it's common for us. Maybe God's calling you to forgive somebody who's hurt you. And you know the character of God. You may not know the address of this scripture reference, but Ephesians 4, you know it's true. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you. You know the gospel that God has forgiven you of so much. and he calls you to extend that forgiveness to others. And man, maybe a friend has looked at you and said, hey, I know you're wrestling with this, with forgiving this person. Have you considered praying about it? And you're like, I don't want to pray about it. Right? Cause I know what God's going to say and I don't like it. That person doesn't deserve my forgiveness. They haven't apologized. Come on, God, you know, where's that Old Testament wrath I always hear about? You know, I don't want to forgive. So Jonah runs. That's chapter one and chapter four, even though he does what God told him to do, you can tell that he's doing so reluctantly. Basically, the only reason he went and did what God told him to do is he didn't want to wind up back in another fish.

So he's like, all right, I'll do it. Maybe you're there. Maybe the biggest hurdle to saying yes to God is you just disagree with what his word says about how to live your life. You're just in a disagreement, which is actually understandable and an important self-awareness moment to encourage you. Every Christian to some degree or another deals with that. There's a war between spirit and flesh that goes on. You read the end of Romans 7, you're gonna see the apostle Paul lay that out very clearly, that which I want to do, I don't do, that which I don't want to do, that I do. There's a war that goes on. We have something called sin nature in us. It doesn't like God's way, but just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it is wrong. Just because God's way doesn't line up with how you feel it should be doesn't mean that God's way is wrong. Man, I think about just even down to my own, that the food that I eat, spinach every time feels wrong. Every time feels wrong. Mint chocolate chip feels right. Every single time.

You tell me which one is right, right? I mean, think about it, guys. Forgiveness for me, a little bit more serious, feels like injustice. It just, it feels like they're getting let off the hook. They deserve punishment. I feel Jonah here. Yet, which one is right? Which one will actually set me free from my anger? Is vengeance gonna do that? No, it's not gonna do that. Guys, we're not, I want to make sure you understand how real this is. I mean, I've talked with even people here in your own church who come from people groups that are oppressed, violently oppressed, men, women, and children that are being systematically killed and tortured and to say, man, do you feel vengeance or are you feeling forgiveness towards, willing to forgive your oppressor? I mean, that's the kind of thing Jonah's dealing with here. That's very much real life. It doesn't, just because it doesn't feel right in our hearts all the time, in our flesh. Man, don't underestimate the compassion and grace of God. Heart check, what if the person you consider the vilest on earth, what if you hear God has saved them? The person who all the voices in your algorithm are shouting against, reinforcing your hate, what if God pierced through and said, I love them?

That oppressor, that, I mean, I take it to home near us. We found out in December, there was a kid that, man, he just had been a teenager who ISIS got to and he was planning an attack on Christians at Christmas. And thankfully the FBI got to him before he got to, we don't know, we know we knew some people in our church, just somewhere around us, you know what I mean? And I'm like, man, my first instinct is good, get him. And then the Lord, there's a couple of questions just in those conversations where you're with the Lord this day, which I would encourage you to be. It's like, the Lord said, does he deserve salvation? And I had this quick, easy, no. And then he said, do you? I don't, and neither do you church, but man, God loves sinners. Man, God loves sinners. So God asked Jonah, is it right for you to be angry? If my grace stretches that far, can you handle it? Is it possible that God's grace could stretch to someone or some area of your life in such a way that it would make you bitter towards God? Think of the older brother in Luke 15. If you don't know that story, I'd encourage you to go read it. The older brother sees the father extend love to a younger brother who's run away. And the older brother gets bitter by it because he has forgotten that he was with the love of the father the whole time.

And it started taking it for granted. Speaking of that, it continues into this next set of verses where God gives Jonah this beautiful little object lesson. Look at verse five, Jonah left the city. So he preached, revival breaks out. He's like, I'm out of here, goes east. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. He's like, please be demolished. Please be, you know, it's not happening. Then the Lord appointed, verse six, the Lord appointed. Now I'm pausing right there. So you catch that phrase, he appointed. It's the same word. He appointed a storm. He appointed a fish, chapter one. And now he's using that same. Again, remember Jonah's looking back, writing this, Jonah's catching the story underneath the story, right? He's now aware of what happened underneath what happened. And I'm saying that so that you'll catch the little things in your life, the things you call coincidences, good fortune, maybe difficulties. God is appointing, scheduling things in your life in advance in order to bring about his purposes in your life. And the chief purpose of all those is to bring you back to himself. God has appointed today. Right here, right now for you and I as well. Look at verse 6.

Then the Lord appointed a plant. And it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head and to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. When dawn came the next day, God appointed, again, see the thread? God appointed a worm that attacked the plant and it withered. And as the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much he almost fainted and here he goes again. He wanted to die. Now, a quick aside to those of you that are asking the question around, does God appoint pain and suffering? It's a good question. Here's what I know. He's not the author of evil. James tells me he'll never tempt you. Deuteronomy 32 tells me he is in his nature perfectly righteous and just and true. All his ways are just. He cannot author evil and at the same time, Hebrews 12 tells me that he disciplines those he loves. So here's what I'd say. If you're in a season of suffering, it might be God's discipline. It might be warfare or it may just be the effect of the fallen world. In my experience, godly friends around me help discern when

I'm right there in the heat of it. But regardless, what he's trying to do is not to get us to run further from himself, but to get us to turn and begin running towards him. That's what God's trying to do with Jonah. I'll give you a personal story how this worked out for me, man. The way that God saved me brought me to saving faith. I was 14 years old and I was out at a one of my parents had a birthday party they had to go to. It was like a 40th birthday party for a friend and saw the kids came with and we're all playing basketball, right? And I'm one of the oldest and I'm a child of the 90s. So Michael Jordan, you know, king of the court at the time and I'm a Tar Heel. He's a Tar Heel, right? So every time I dunk, you dunk with your tongue out, right? Because as you dunk, you want to be like Mike, right? So anyways, I'm weaving through the lane and I just cocked one back and yam it on these kids. Okay, and my front four teeth got caught in the basketball net. I know that's how I felt. Okay. Now I recognize most of you gasp, but there's a handful of you that were like, there's no way he can jump that high. The goal is at 8 feet, but that's not important for the rest of the story. All right, so I need you to move past that. Anyways, I, so I land on my feet because I'm athletic and

then I, you know, everything else that happened was a blur. So it turns out, I'll spray a lot of details. At the end of the day, I'm in the recovery room at the, where the OR, I had emergency surgery. I had broken my top jaw in half, right? So they had to like put these mega braces on my mouth to get everything back into place. And the doctor comes in afterwards and he looks at me and here was his, here's the surgeon's summary of the events of the day. He says, you're a lucky boy. I was like, I don't know. You have walked into the wrong room, man. This feels like the most unlucky thing that has ever happened to anybody, except I can't say anything. So I'm just like, haha, you know, because I'm, anyways, what, but then he says, listen, usually when this happens, and I just, has this ever happened in the history of civilization? Has it ever, ever happened? Like usually when this happens, what happens is people snap their neck right there on the net and they either are paralyzed for life or they die right there. He said, you're walking out with some braces. I'm like, man, for a 14 year old, you guys who have 14 year old sons or no 14 year olds or are 14 right now. It's like, man, we, 14 year old boys feel immortal, right? Like they're just, you know, we're just strong and everything else. It's like, man, the idea that they're, the idea of mortality

hit me for the very first time. Well, fast forward three months and I'm at a camp that some friends have invited me to go to, a Christian camp down at the beach. Clayton King is a friend of the Summit family here. It was preaching and he asked this question. He says, if you died tonight, do you know that you'd be with the Lord? And I was like, I didn't know and I'd never thought about death before. And I realized that God had appointed some wild stuff in my life to bring me to a place where I could open my eyes and see the grace and love and sovereign goodness of God to send Christ to the cross for me. And it was that night that God saved me. That y'all, what God is trying to do with Jonah here through this series of things that he is appointing is trying to draw Jonah's heart and mind back to himself. But Jonah's just too stubborn. This is at least the third time in four. Jonah's wanted to die. He's not happy with the Lord and keep going. Read the rest of verse eight. He said, it's better for me to die than to live. And God said, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? Yes, it is right. He replied, I'm angry enough to die. I love God's question. Is it right for you to be angry?

Not do you feel angry, but is it right? This little dialogue happened in verse four when Jonah was mad about Nineveh's awakening. Now, again, with the plant, clearly you are angry. Is it right? Man, when our feelings don't align with God's plan, God is the one who's always right. But God in his grace, I want you to see it. You know, he didn't, when Jonah crashes out, God doesn't backslap him into hell. Instead, he's gracious with him, gives him a lesson, met him where he is, and he'll do the same for you. Meet you right where you are. Man, I wonder what God is using and has appointed in your life right now that he intends to be as a means of showing grace to you, as a means of revealing his character and his goodness. And have you been seeing it as a frustration in your life? I'm not undermining or trying to make light of the difficulty that might be in front of you right now, the severity of it. I'm saying, have you missed that it might also be a way that God's trying to show you more of his grace? Look at verse 10. The Lord said, you cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and you did not grow. It appeared in a night, perished in a night. I want to show you another reason why we say no to God right here. We say no to God because we forget his mercy towards us.

We say no to God because we just forget his mercy, guys. We do it all the time. We struggle to say yes in the present because we forget how much mercy he has shown us in the past. We struggle to be generous in the present because we forget how generous our God was towards us. We struggle to forgive because we forget how much we have been forgiven when he went up on the cross. How much we have been forgiven and we forget it. So we struggle to forgive. We struggle to take steps of obedience to step out into this. It's one of the reasons I feel like we don't say yes to God. It's like, I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if God's going to be there when I take that step. And we forget that he's the one that's been there every single step. We forget so easily. I also, one of the things I do in addition to pastoring Mercy Church, I'm a high school basketball coach, right? I love it. It is just the arena. Maybe it's I'm trying to redeem that dunk still. I don't know what it is, but I love it. And, but one of the things that we say that I say and every coach says it, this is one of the most common coach sayings,

but what you have to say to a player, especially when you got a shooter who's having an off night, you gotta say, hey, be a goldfish. Be a goldfish. Because the goldfish has like no memory. You know what I mean? Like they'll turn around, it's very short term memories. That's the general understood thing. Be a goldfish. Don't think about your last shot. Just go take the next one, right? The problem is with Christians, we tend to do that in our life with Christ. Be a goldfish is great for sports, but it's terrible for walking with the Lord. Because in walking with the Lord, wait, all scripture, remember, remember, remember, remember. I was trying to think as I was sitting there this morning, getting ready to preach to you guys, I was like, what is the other animal that would be good? Be an elephant is the best thing I can come up with, okay? So be an elephant, remembering the grace of God, because elephants never forget. Remembering the grace of God and how much courage that will instill. Because in those moments where the enemy wants to use fear, man, one of his favorite weapons is to get you to forget that God has been so faithful along the way. Leads us right to the last book,

last verse in the book of Jonah. Verse 11, so may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals. God's like, you got all worked up over a plant and you didn't even have anything to do with it. But look, none of us filled with something far more valuable than plants. It's filled with people. And the whole don't know their right from their left, what he's saying there, if you don't know your right from your left, you're confused or blind or both. It's God's way of saying they are morally and spiritually confused, they are lost. And the result of that lostness has been generations of evil, generations of evil. And what do they deserve? They deserve the wrath of God, but God's not looking at them like Jonah does or we do, Jonah condemns them. And God says, they're made in my image. They're made in my image, I made them. Bigger picture, Jonah, is it not right for me to care over my creation, over people made in my image, bound for eternity? Eternity's separated from me unless I step in. This is the last reason I'm gonna give you today that we don't say yes to God.

Y'all, I just don't think we know God as well as we think we do. I don't think we know him as well as, I mean, look at Jonah. Jonah was not only a part of the people of God, he was a prophet. If anyone knew God, it should be him. And certainly we know from that little tantrum he threw at the start of the chapter, certainly he knew facts about God. He knew facts about his character, but he doesn't seem to know God deeply enough to grieve over sin and rejoice over a sinner's salvation. When someone sins against you, does it anger you only or does it grieve you? The story of the Bible, here's the thing, y'all, it's a story of sinners finding salvation from God, but through the ministry of other sinners. It's through the ministry of other sinners who have been saved by grace. That's the church. That's the church. I don't know, you come here maybe kind of new and you're like, is this the museum for stuffy people? I'm like, no, you've come to the wrong place. This is a bunch of sinners saved by grace and there's room for one more, room for one more. Hear me, there's room for entire people groups also in the kingdom of God. There's a message to us here that even Nineveh

is not too far gone for the grace of God. That's the heart of God for the peoples of planet earth. There's a reason Psalm 67 to the church has prayed and sent out like it's so common to send out with a blessing from Psalm 67. And here's how verse one goes. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us. And we want to stop right there. That would be awesome. Thank you, amen. Out to the sunshine I go today. But that's not where it stops. Verse two, so that. And I wonder if you catch that so that involves you. May God be gracious to us, the people of God, and bless us. May he make his face to shine upon us. You're a part of that if you're in Christ. So that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, God. Let all the peoples praise you. Not just the people singular, the church, not just in the Old Testament case, Psalm 67, the people of Israel, all peoples of the earth. How's that gonna happen? Of course, Matthew 28, Jesus' last words to the church, go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

Pantata ethne, it says in Greek, all peoples baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is our calling. We are the spiritual descendants of the ones that were standing on the hillside, as Jesus said that. We're the ones who are saying your plan is better than my plan, so I'm saying yes. We're the ones who are choosing to remember his mercy. Before he ever calls me to say yes to him, he said yes to me, and he said yes to you. We're the ones that are looking more into the character of God, kneeling before the King of Kings. God, I'm saying yes. God, I'm saying yes. I'm saying yes to receiving your forgiveness. Some of you have been wrestling with God. You've been trying to decide, am I actually going to give my life to Christ? Am I gonna receive salvation and forgiveness? Because I know that means surrender. God, I'm saying yes. Here in 2026, maybe it's saying yes to his way in your work life, in your dating life, in your marriage, in your parenting. Maybe it's saying, yes, God, I'm treating my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit. Yes, I'm saying yes to walking with you in the hard stuff.

And one I must emphasize, I'm saying yes to reaching the lost with the good news of the gospel. For some of you, that means taking the gospel to where it is not known, to the nations. You got, am I called is the question. All of us are called. The question is how, not if. There's not a person in this room that can escape the great commission of Matthew 28, 19. I'll share with you a story that really encouraged me. I wanna give it to you. I love reading, particularly missionary biographies because they just have a way of inspiring me. And I came across a guy named C.T. Studd. And I was like, that name is awesome. I need to look into this one, right? Anyway, C.T. Studd, late 1800s. He was a very famous cricket superstar over in England. Okay, we're talking Tom Brady, Taylor Swift, all that kind of like, you know, A status. Well, this missionary named Hudson Taylor comes along recruiting people to go on the mission field to China. And Stud goes, man, I think God's calling me. And so he feels God's call to go. He announces that he's gonna leave. And I'm telling you, he was such a big deal that the Queen of England herself came and asked him to stay and not go, we'll send others. But no, he said, I gotta go.

So he recruits some others. And actually during the time of saying yes was when his father died. His father's very wealthy and he inherited $4 million. He's engaged. His fiance had said, I'll go with you, but we gotta do this God's way. And she looked at him and she said, if we're gonna go, you gotta remember what did the Lord tell the rich young ruler to do? And C.T. Stud said, sell all. So he gave his entire fortune away, last of it to the Salvation Army so that they could start their marriage and their mission clear with the Lord. He went on to plant churches and establish mission training hubs across China, India, Africa. And as he neared death, here's what he wrote in his journal and I wanna offer to you. He said, as I believe I'm now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in and they are these, that God called me to China and I went. In spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones, that I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act, that I deliberately at the call of God went alone on the baby liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth, not only for the Sudan

or not for the Sudan only, but for the whole un-evangelized world. My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it. God, I'm saying yes. Listen, I told you, I feel like my assignment here is just to encourage some of you who have a yes right in front of you and to say God is faithful as you say yes. He is faithful and that's where joy is when you trust him there. That's where grace multiplies and abounds when you say yes. I want you to catch the legacy of yes that you are a part of here, Summit family. You know, you got celebrated a couple of weeks ago, your largest attendance ever at Easter, some right at 30,000 people that came to an Easter service here. But you know that through the yes of a bunch of people that were in seats like yours, those small little launch teams, like the one that went out with us, a group of people saying yes, guys like Andrew Hopper that went to Greensboro with a team and they said, yes, we'll go to Greensboro. Ethan Welch who said yes and they went to Wilmington. Trevor Atwood, yes, we'll go to Nashville. Logan Dagley, yes, we'll go to Brooklyn. Jonathan Linker, yes, we'll go to Charleston. Mike McKee, yes, we'll go to Atlanta.

Billy Lowe, yes, we'll go to Atlanta. All these different, there's a whole lot of them that I'm just forgetting right here in the moment and teams that have gone with them to say yes. You guys had 30,000 people here, record attendance. There were 45,000 people that worshiped at a Summit Cent church plant this past Easter, a couple of days ago. Do you catch it? God, I'm saying yes. Yeah, you can celebrate that. God, I'm saying yes. And I say it now for you. One of our sayings at our church, not just saying, one of our like core ministry values, we expect God to change your life today. And we mean it every day, but definitely when the saints gather. You've got a yes sitting in front of you. Man, don't delay it. Maybe your yes is to go to the mission field. You've been praying about it, thinking about it. You've talked to enough people. It's like, I just need to put my yes on the table before the Lord, before I go any further. God, I'm saying yes. Maybe it's a call into ministry, vocational ministry of some kind. Senior year of college, junior year of college, and you're considering jumping on board in something,

or I don't know what it is. Maybe it's going overseas. Because for all the guys that I named and for the plants that are here stateside, there are hundreds more that have gone overseas and are seeing awakenings happen over there. Maybe you need to say yes to God's call overseas. Maybe it's foster and adoption care that we just prayed over some. And as we prayed over them, what you know is the two of you in your home have been talking about, man, maybe this is our next step. Today's the day we just say, God, we're saying yes to whatever you have. I don't know what the Lord is calling you to. Maybe it's forgiveness of somebody. I don't know. But I know when he calls, there is joy in saying yes. He really is faithful. So here's what we're gonna do. All of our campuses, we're gonna take this time and we're just gonna open up the altar and come and pray and put our yes on the table, as it were, before the Lord. I think there's something powerful about coming and actually kneeling in a posture before the Lord and saying, God, my yes is yours for this thing that you have for me. Our worship teams are kind of gonna lead and help guide this moment.

So here's what I wanna do, all of our campuses, I want you to go ahead and stand right now where you're at. And you bow your head, I want you in a posture of prayer. And then you come as the Lord leads you. Maybe you need to have your palms open before him to say, God, whatever this is, I'm saying yes. But for some of you, you need to come down to the altar. God, I'm saying yes. You pray, you respond as the Lord leads you and then our teams will lead us from here. You pray as God leads.