Heart for His Kingdom | Pastors Adam and Rebecca Peterson

Come on, what a good day to be in the house of God. I am so so thrilled that you are here and Pastor Rebecca, I mean we just love you guys so much and if you're looking around going why why all of this? Why the balloons? Why why the doughnuts? Why why the party? It's because when when God has been so good to you You you don't stay silent about it You celebrate it and you give him all the attention and all the credit for everything And so everything that we're doing here today all the celebration it is our birthday But it's really the 13 years of God's faithfulness in our church. Come on. It's good to be here and I Mean at the end of the day who doesn't love a good doughnut, right? Hey, we are in a series called heart for his house before we jump into this series all the way today I want to look into the camera and just show some love to our online family There are so many people that have found our church outside of the Jacksonville, Florida area and we're so grateful for you Listen, obviously we want you to be connected in a church home where you live But we would love to just to be an added value to your life. And so we love you. We're grateful for you We're celebrating you. Thanks for being here Thanks for being a part of the birthday with us and then to all the men and women in the correctional facilities. Come on You are our church family, we're so so grateful for you We just got an email from somebody that said I found you on on the Pando app on God behind bars He said I'm about to get out Jacksonville is my home and I cannot wait to be together in person. Come on. Let's go. Let's go What a good day Let's go 13 years 13 years. Can't believe it So we started our church with 11 people in our living room And we sat around our house in Murray Hill on our beat-up couches with two children that we were trying to hide upstairs as long as we could and we began to Pray and plan and give and just ask God. Hey, what do you have in store for us? And so we began to move over to Eagles view Academy we held our first Sunday gathering August of 2013 and Eagles view Academy a 160 people showed up and we were blown away We were like if we could have 80 people come that'd be amazing and we 160 people came I didn't want to correct you in the first service, but it was actually a hundred and seventy nine people

Excuse and the preaching was so good on that day that 50 of them didn't come back the next Sunday. So yeah And then we were able to move into this amazing building in the summer of 2016 and this building this room that you're sitting in This is a miracle from the Lord and we're so grateful for this space. If you don't know that whole story We don't have time to tell the whole entire story today But this is a gift from God and it's a miracle that we are able to do church on this corner every single week And so we're celebrating today what God has done over the last 13 years. We've had 13 years of Salvations 13 years full of baptisms 13 years of kids growing up in the house of God Amen, and so this morning make no mistake. This is not for us to make a name for ourself This isn't for us to pat ourselves on the back and say hey great job rise church This is for us today to give God all of the glory that he deserves Because what we've seen happen is only because of him and so this morning we're celebrating we're saying thank you God like look what the Lord has done And if this is what he's done in 13 years, God He just can't imagine what you've got in store for us. Let's go. We were driving into church We have three kids and we were driving with just our eight-year-old this morning And you know, she was like it's our birthday and you know She doesn't understand what that means And so she was just we were just talking to her about the church and I said, you know We started with 11 people in our living room. She was like, what does that mean? Because all she knows is just a lot of people and a lot of kids and everything and so just to be able to Kind of walk her through it and and I said isn't that awesome and she was like, yeah, it's kind of cool And so that was great But our other two kids, you know They were two and four when we started the church and and last night at our volunteer team night Our daughter was playing bass guitar. Come on somebody on the worship team And so just to see just the power of God is incredible And so and then for all of you man, like we're just so grateful for you guys You know, God puts a dream in your heart to do something and then just you know, we're gonna start a church Well, you can't have church without people

So so for so many of you you've been with us for years other others of you you're new on the journey But however, you found us we're just so blessed. We love being your pastors We're more excited than we've ever been before and We're ready just to open up God's Word to you today and just kind of share our hearts with you when it comes to this series that we're in because this series is Man, it's kind of like twofold, and we've been kind of unpacking this, but if you're new, a heart for his house simply means this. First and foremost, if you're here today and you don't know Jesus, if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, and we're so glad that you're here, so glad. I mean, we have prayed for you. We don't believe it's an accident that you're here. Man, we believe that God wants a relationship with you, and he's doing everything he can to just let you know how much he loves you. But the moment you say yes to Jesus, the moment you call upon him to come into your life to forgive you of your sins and be the Lord of your life, he comes to live in you. You are now the house of God. And that's a mystery. That doesn't make sense, but that is the reality of what the Bible tells us. And so we wanna have a heart for his house, a heart that, come on, God, you live in me. I wanna have a heart for you. And then collectively, we come together to make up the church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ.

We wanna have a heart for God's house as a church. So it's this twofold thing of when God does it in you, he's gonna do it in us. When he does it in us, it'll help you. And I forgot to shout out Overflow. I just remembered, there are people that are sitting out in the lobby right now. What's up, Overflow? I hope y'all are more engaged than the people in this room are right now. We're about to do a trade. Our theme verses for this series, first one is the Old Testament, second one is New Testament. I rejoice with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. How many of you know it's always a good idea to get around the people of God, to get in the presence of God, to say, God, we are here for you and you alone. And then Jesus came along, and this is what he said about his church. I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And for 13 years, for 13 years, I feel like hell has tried to discourage us any way that it can. I feel like the enemy has tried to get us to quit and stop. There's been a lot of Mondays that I've quit and said, I don't know if I wanna do this anymore,

but I'm grateful for the faithfulness of God and the goodness of God. And if Jesus said he was gonna build one thing, one thing, I wanna give my life to that one thing. I wanna be all in on that one thing. And so we're so grateful that you're here this morning. We wanna preach on this topic today. We wanna have a heart for his kingdom. Can I get a better amen? A heart for his kingdom. Jesus said this, when you pray, pray, my kingdom come, and my will be done. Not my kingdom, not your kingdom, his kingdom. On earth, as it is in heaven, that we literally get to call heaven down to come to this earth. And we wanna align our lives and give our lives to his kingdom, because his kingdom is better than ours. So we got two thoughts for you today. The first one is this. We wanna have a heart to allow Jesus first to be the king of our lives. If you could kind of get a glimpse into heaven right now, and we really do get a good picture of what heaven looks like. If you read throughout the book of Revelation, you will see that right now in heaven, Jesus is on his throne and all of heaven is giving all of the worship, all of the honor, all of their attention, all of their focus.

Everything is directed to the throne of God. No one's distracted, nobody's looking at what they're doing in their life, everybody is focused on giving all of their worship, all of their honor, all of their glory to God. We have a little girl, her name, our youngest, we were just talking about, her name is Emmy, and she's eight, and if I, she's wild, and if I need to get her attention, I gotta grab her little cheeks by the face that have to say, Emmy Noel, I need you to look at mommy. Emmy, I need you to focus on what mommy's saying right now, listen to me first, before you do anything else, stop being distracted, I need you to listen to me. Matthew 6, 33 says, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Jesus is saying here, hey, he's just grabbing us by the face and saying, I need you to focus on me first. I need you to seek me first. I need you to look to me first. I need you to give me all of your focus and all of your attention first. Before you do anything else, before you get distracted by anything else, I need you to seek me first, because he wants to be the king of your life, and he's a far greater king than you could ever be of your own life, and he wants to be king,

but you've gotta seek him first if you want him to be the king of your life, because I want you to look at this thought. What we seek will show what we value. What you seek most in your life shows what you value the most in your life, and so it doesn't mean that nothing else in your life matters. It just means that he matters most. he's the king of your life and so i'm not just asking god to be involved in the things in my life i'm saying god i want you to be first in everything in my life and everything else is going to be aligned after that i want you to be first so maybe you're looking for a job right now it's not hey god would you be a part of this process it's like no god what do you want for me what do you have for me in my life colossians 3 says since you have been raised with christ set your heart on things above where christ is seated at the right hand of god set your mind on things above not on earthly things he's saying set your heart on the kingdom of god can i give you the rebecca version stop worrying about your kingdom and start focusing on his kingdom stop focusing so much on your kingdom and on your world and what's going on around you and start focusing on the kingdom of god because it can be really easy for me to really lock in to my little world to my family to my circle of friends even just to my church to what's going on in my life and there is a greater kingdom there is a bigger kingdom outside of that and all of those things matter my kids matter my family matters but they are not my king my kids are not my king they think they are sometimes but they are not my marriage is not my king you are my king baby and that's how you will refer to me yes my career is not my king my job is not my king my church is not my king jesus is my king and when he's the king of everything else in my life my prayer is going to be god i want your kingdom to come in my life i want your will to be done in my life i want you to be the king of my marriage i want you to be the king of my home i want you to be the king of my finances i want you to be the king of everything in my life and that is how we will make jesus the king of our life so so when we say seek him first like we literally mean seek him first like like give him the first part of your day

how many of you have ever had a car that was out of alignment how many of your cars out of alignment right now yeah and you just kind of have to the steering wheel has to be a little little tilted right as you drive and you can do that for a short time you can do that for a little while you eventually need to probably get that fixed because it could cause more damage to your car that's our lives at times and if i were to put a microphone in front of your hand or even sit down and just drink a couple coffee with you if i asked you is your if i asked you is your life in alignment right now and one of the first questions i asked you was what's the first thing you do with your day like what's the first thing you do when you wake up and some of you would say man first thing i do when i wake up i open this book up man what first thing i do is i pray to god first thing i do is i put on some worship and i would say incredible keep doing that but if a lot of us were honest first thing we're doing is scrolling first thing we're doing is checking our email first thing we're doing is looking at the news reading about our favorite sports team shopping on amazon so we can get delivered same day oh i know and in so doing we would never say this out loud but we are saying it with our lives our lives god you do not come first there are other things that are more important than you may it never be to make him the king of our lives means he comes first in everything so i'm going to bring you first into my morning but i'm not just going to check a box off the list and go i did it i'm going to bring you first into every other area of my life i'm going to bring you first into the car ride i'm going to bring you first into the work week i'm going to bring you first into the office hours i'm going to bring you first into everything that happens in my life god because i want you to be the highest priority because if i try to do life without you i'm probably going to make a mess of things so we want to put him first but then we want to give him the complete rule of our lives here's a thought i came across i didn't i didn't come up with this i found this on the internet and i thought it was so good says this you cannot have a heart for the kingdom if you are not first surrendered to the king so if my heart isn't in submission to jesus as my king then i'm never going to have a heart for his kingdom and i'm going to miss the mark i'm probably going to be more focused on myself and here's what we need to understand when it comes to surrender in the kingdom of god you ready surrender is not losing that's right see if you were in a battle with like sometimes we get into a disagreement and

One of us has to like, you know, we use the word compromise right now. Compromise just means that somebody doesn't get their way, right? There is no compromise sometimes. And I could look at it as, well, I lost, I didn't get my way. Or I could look at it and go, hey, it's all right, she's my wife, I love her. When it comes to the things of God, when you surrender to God, you're not going, I lost and God won. You're going, no, God, your way is better than my way. And I'm not losing, I'm actually winning. Because your way leads to life, my way leads to death. So my little one, we're using her, we have to pay our kids every time we use them in an illustration, but she's not in here, so don't tell her. Yeah. And so my little one, she loves to wrestle me. She loves to wrestle and she's eight, you know, so I can beat her up. Like, it's awesome. You know what I'm talking about, dad's like, you can't, you can pretend like, oh, you're winning, you're winning. And then I start, you know. And the best thing I like to do is weigh her down and just start tickling her. And she'll just, and then I'll say to her, I say, every time I go, do you surrender? She'll say, I surrender. And then I say, say dad's the champion. And she'll say, dad's the champion. And then I let her go and she runs away and she goes, I don't surrender, dad's not the champion. And we just do that over and over. And that's how Christians operate. You make a mess of your life. You find yourself back in a pit, broken, hopeless. And you look to God and you go, okay, God, I surrender. You're the champion. You're the king. I need to come back to you, God. And you live that way for a few days, a few weeks, a few months. And then something happens. I don't know. I've just, I've just seen it play out time and time again in people's lives where you run away and you go, I don't surrender. You're not the king anymore. I'm going to go do what I want to do. I'm just telling you that doesn't work. You've tried it. You've lived that way. It doesn't work. And what God is inviting you and I into is complete and total surrender of our lives to wake up and go, your kingdom is better than mine. And I want to live my life where you are first and foremost, the highest priority to where whatever you say to do, I'm going to do. If you tell me to go, I'm going to go. If you tell me to serve, I'm going to serve. If you tell me to give, I'm going to give. If you tell me to trust, I'm going to trust. If you tell me to forgive somebody, I'm going to forgive them. Guess what? The king has declared all of those things over your life. So God, may we live in full submission to you because it's better to do what you're calling us to do than doing our own thing.

So my son just turned 18 recently, and I don't know if you knew this or not, but this past Tuesday we had an election, a Florida election. Most of you are like, that's news to me. And he was so excited because he was like, this is the first time I get to vote. And I told him, I said, I'll be honest, man, sometimes I don't go and do this initial primary one, but if you're excited and you're jazzed, then let's go. So we got in the car and we drove and we voted. He got the sticker, man. He was pumped. He was like, dad, I did it. And then I was like, yeah, and then we get to do it again in November, you know, and really get to see if people get in and all the things. And one of his guys didn't do a good, but whatever, it's good. When it comes to your life, it's not you and Jesus getting a vote for how things go. It's not you like, well, Jesus like, I'm going to vote that we go this direction and you vote where you think things should go. He gets the final vote. He gets the final say. All authority is his. We get to make him the elected official of our lives. Why? Because the last person that was running things in your lives made a mess of things. You. He's a better king. Can I get an amen? He's a better king. He's a better king and he deserves it. And it is time that we put him back on the rightful place of the throne of our hearts, that we live with reverence and all and honor to him. You come first. You lead my life. And I promise you this, you'll never regret it. You'll never regret it. Thought number two is this. We want to have a heart to advance God's kingdom. So here's a question I want to ask all of us this morning, myself included. How is my life advancing the kingdom of God? How am I leveraging my life to advance the kingdom of God? And you can only answer that question for yourself. And God's not calling all of us to be pastors. He's not calling all of you to lead your church. But he has put a God-given purpose on your life to build the kingdom of God, to advance the kingdom of God, to leverage your life to help build his kingdom, to help usher in his kingdom on this earth. 2 Corinthians 5 20 says, we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us and we speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. So an ambassador is a diplomat to another country. If there is a U.S. ambassador, they are sent by the United States to go into rooms where Americans are not at and not there, and they are representing the kingdom of America. They are representing the United States of America in spaces where we don't ever get to go. This is who we are. We are Christ's ambassadors. We are representing a kingdom that is not our home, a kingdom that is not of this world. And God said, I am sending you to represent my kingdom while you are here on this earth. And I'm actually inviting you to help

build that kingdom and to help usher in all of heaven onto this earth while we are here. You have a purpose on your life to usher in the kingdom of God, but the question is, are we doing it? Are we giving our life to a greater purpose other than just ourselves? Because advancing God's kingdom is not just about preaching from a platform. It's about using your life to represent Christ well. Matthew 5.16 says, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works. And here's the purpose, so that they can give glory to your Father who is in heaven, so they can advance the kingdom of God, so that their life can point not to themselves. Because again, I'm not trying to build my own kingdom. I don't need people to look at me. I need them to see Jesus. And I want my life to give him glory and to further advance his kingdom on this earth. And so a challenge for us all this morning, am I investing in the church? Am I connecting in the church the very thing that Jesus gave his life for? Because God's kingdom will be advanced through the church. You just get to decide if you're going to be a part of it. You get to decide if you're going to jump in and say, I want my life to be used to further advance the kingdom of God. I want to give. I want to serve. I want to invite. I want to be connected to the church of Jesus. And if we want to advance God's kingdom, we have got to be around kingdom people. We are better together. And you are not meant to do life alone. And you need kingdom people around you. We need to rally together with one another so that we can advance the kingdom of God. This week we are launching our next semester of Rise Groups. Come on. And it's going to be a great semester. We've got so many groups launching on every single night of the week. Groups are live. You can begin to start to register to save your seat. You can register on the app, however you choose to get registered. Next Sunday we'll be able to help you out more with that. But year after year, we stand up here and it's usually me telling you, here's why you need to get in a group. Like, you don't want to do life alone. Our church is big. This is how our church feels small. This is how you find community. This is how you make friends. And all of that is true. None of that has changed. But I don't know that that's enough of a reason for you to get off work at six o'clock and come to a small group. But if I can remind you this morning that this world is dark. Our city is dark. Our little corner of the west side is dark. And we need every single one of us pushing back against the darkness with the light of Jesus. And we need to do it with people. You're not meant to try to do it alone. The Jags are going to kick off their next season coming up. Come on. Yes. Apparently, apparently it's Super Bowl year. In Jesus name. That's what

has been said. And so they're going to, they're going to kick off their first season. He's the God of the impossible, babe. He is the God of miracles. Let it be. Let it be so, Jesus. And so they're going to kick off their season. And they're going to have their first game against the enemy. Who's the enemy? It's the Browns week one. It's the Browns week one. And that's the enemy. And it would be crazy if the Jags just sent out one player on the field. Like, go. Defeat the enemy. You can do it. Go, go, go throw the ball. Go do the touchdown. She doesn't know what she's talking about. All the things. Just go. All on your own. Like, that'd be crazy, right? We're not trying to send you out against the darkness all on your own. Come on. You need people in your corner. You need iron sharpening iron. You need a group of people that are gonna say, hey, we're not fighting against the darkness of our city all on our own. We are doing it together. And together we're gonna advance the kingdom of God. Together we're gonna fight back and we're gonna continue to reach the west side of Jacksonville with the gospel and the light of Jesus. But you cannot and you should not do it alone. Get in a group. Find a tribe. Find a team that you can get out there and fight with one another. When we preach together, we don't typically show each other our notes. We just make sure we're not using the same verses and stuff. So I did not know you were using a jaguar illustration.

I am so turned on right now. This is a... I really practiced it really hard too. You, it's not bad. It's not bad. So on an NFL roster, there's 53 players that get to dress on a Sunday. Maybe more, they've got some new rules and stuff. But on the team that don't dress, there's practice squad players that could get caught up and they practice, they get ready. They help the starters get better. There's coaches, there's trainers. And every single one of them is important. I hope that you know that about yourself. I hope you know the value that God has placed in your life. And I get it. We stand up here every semester and we yell to you, get in a group. And some of you do and many of you don't. And I know the mentality for some of you is this. I don't need it. I don't need to go to that. And I would say you actually need it more than you realize. And if your mentality is only this, I don't need it, well, now you've lost sight of the kingdom. Because the kingdom of God says, what do I actually have to bring to somebody else that's in that group? The kingdom of God doesn't focus on,

I, I, I don't need this. The kingdom of God says, what God could you do through me that actually could be a blessing to somebody else? The kingdom of God is not about you. It's about him. And if you say, I'm not gonna do that, well, what you're saying is, God, I don't want to invest in your kingdom and kingdom people to help push it forward. There are people that are gonna show up to these small groups that are hurting and broken and walking through hell on earth. Thank you, God, that you could take a mess like me to actually bring some encouragement to them in the hardest season that they've ever walked through. That's how we operate as a church. You're having a bad day? Let me lift your arms up. Let me point you to Jesus. Let me remind you how much God loves you. Oh, the devil's lying to you? He's lying to me too. Oh, your marriage is struggling? I've been there. You're having trouble with your kids? Been there. Work's tough? Been there. Let's encourage one another. If you want to call Rise Church home,

you just need to know this. We are advancing the kingdom of God together. Hey, listen, we'll do it with or without you. We'd just rather do it with you. Isaiah 6.1, band, y'all can come join us on the stage. This is Isaiah getting a sneak peek into heaven. And he says this, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He got to see the Lord. And this is what he saw. You ready? He was sitting on a lofty throne. Why was he sitting on a throne? You know the answer. It's because he's the king. It's because he's the king. Isaiah didn't see anybody else sitting on the throne. Only Jesus. And it says this, that the train of his robe filled the temple. Two things. Isaiah said, in the year that King Uzziah died, King Jesus was still alive. So earthly kings are gonna come and go. We are all gonna come and go one day. But King Jesus, he will live forever. In the year King Uzziah died, king of heaven. Heaven was still alive and he was sitting on the throne and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Historians kind of agree and disagree that kingdoms back in the day when they would go to war with one another, that the king that defeated the other king would cut off a piece of his royal robe and sew it onto his own robe to signify to other people, look at the other kingdoms that I've defeated. They would want you to know how victorious of a king they are. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, Isaiah says that King Jesus has a robe and his robe fills the temple. How many of you know that's a long robe? And the length of that robe signifies that our King Jesus is the victorious king, that he is undefeated, that there is none like him. And so, to come along to that king means I'm saying in my life, I want to live for your kingdom, the victorious kingdom, the undefeated kingdom. I want to leverage the one life that you've given me for your kingdom. And this is what Luke says, it says, he will be great and he will be called the son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the, say it with me, will give him the throne. Why has God given him the throne? Because he's the king. This is what it says, and his kingdom will never end. Please hear me when I say this, every single one of you will breathe your last breath, and when you do, you will stand before that king. He will be on his throne, and you, in that moment, will give an account for how you lived your life. I pray that wakes you up a little bit. You will give an account for how you have lived your life to the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And how foolish it would be, in that moment, if we look at King Jesus and we go, oh, I'm so sorry, I lived my entire life for myself. I am so sorry, I lived my entire life for my own kingdom. I'm so sorry I did not advance what you were doing.

I didn't get around other kingdom people, I didn't play a role in my church, I didn't share Jesus with people, I just kind of did my own thing, I watched my sports, I did this, I did that. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to stand before him one day, and I pray with everything on the inside of me, I know I wasn't perfect, but I pray that he looks at me and he goes, well done, good and faithful servant, you lived your life for my kingdom. I don't know in heaven if this is going to be the case, but I think we are going to get a glimpse, we're going to be there for eternity, so there's going to be plenty of time, and I think we might get an opportunity to see people's lives that we've impacted, directly or indirectly. See, when you give to our church, a lot of your money goes outside of this place. We'll never know whose lives are getting impacted because of that giving, but in heaven, wouldn't it be so cool if God's like, hey, you gave when those KFC buckets were being passed. And let me show you somebody's life that was impacted by that. I don't know. I want to live my life, my one life, for his kingdom, and I promise you this, if our church can rally around that, the gates of hell are going to get pushed back in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.