How Can God Use Someone Like Me? | Hector Nieves

- What's up? - What's up? - What's up? - How are y'all feeling? - Here you are, here you are. (laughing) - Let's go. - What's going on? - Let's go and on. - How are we feeling today? - Oh man, I feel fabulist amazing. - Okay, okay. - Like on top of the world. - Okay, you feel it. - I'm feeling great. No bad, no coffee. We are natural Holy Spirit energy. - Activated, hello. - Come on. - Hello. - Hello. - But how are you guys doing today? - That's right. - It is a great day. It's Sunday, it's Pray First, Sunday, 8 K A. The beginning of the official fall. - Yeah, you know. - It is November 1st. - That's right, yeah. - November 1st.

- That's good. - Not the second, it's the first. - The first. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys doing for this season. It's only two months left in the year. - Yeah. Well, you know, we just got to the first. So they might need some time to think about it. - They do. - They might need some time. If you got me some time, I don't understand. But go ahead and write it in the chat. If you guys are excited for fall. - Right? - That's right. - How much y'all got Christmas tree up already? - Oh, I know some of y'all do. Some of y'all really do. Somebody pulled it out the bag yesterday. I actually just saw it on social media. - Yeah, right. - I didn't go say who it was, but you know who it was. You know what I'm saying? - To Christmas, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what's up. But if we didn't get to, you know, if we haven't got to meet yet in person, I haven't gotten the privilege to meet. You got my name is Chantel.

I get the absolute joy to be one of your online hosts today. - Right? And my name is Jevon. And I'm also the other co-host for today. And I have the absolute joy and privilege to be your online host this morning. - That's good. They didn't see your feet, but he was lying. - Come on. - Come on. - Oh my God, go do it. - Oh my God, go do it. That's right. Okay, we're so excited. Like literally so excited. As you can see, the joy of the Lord is in the building. Okay, that we want to know, we just finished this series. I know you guys are maybe even possibly sad. Like I am, but we want to know what was your highlight of the series, right? - Right. - Jevon, what was yours? - So I think it was really just a lacer. Their last sermon, the last sermon was so good. The sacrifice after the sacrifice, only because of the heart posture JJ had presented to us. - Yeah. - It was like, I'm going to do this for the building, but not for the building,

'cause this is only four walls, is to build the kingdom, have people come so they have space to sit, have people for their children to learn more about Jesus and have the room accessible for college students to come and have your own space, really doing that for the pledge, and then preaching a sermon after a sacrifice. It's not to really believe my heart to something I'm not really there for. - Yeah, not just like I sacrifice, and now I'm done. It's like, no, it's a constant, constant movement, constant presence, just like the Lord's presence is constant, so that's what we should be constantly doing. And I thought it was just an amazing message, amazing series. I'm still thinking about the first one when we were talking about Abraham. My goodness, when the Lord, he was talking to him, he like Abraham was in a tent, and the Lord said, "Yo, yo, yo, yo." I need you to come out the tent. I need to talk to you. Look at the stars, right? - They're counting them. - Just they're counting them, right? And then it reminded me of how much the Lord is limitless. And then you gotta stop putting limitations on the Lord, and you have to let the Lord show up. - And do what he's supposed to do anyway.

I don't know, that's for somebody. - That's for somebody. - For real. - That's for somebody. - For real. - Mm-hmm. - But yeah, man, I'm so excited because it's also Pray First Sunday, like you said. - Yes, it's Pray First Sunday. It's where a time we get to intercede for your life and pray for each one of you guys. And just to understand that we are all here walking the same mission and doing the same path in this life together, that it's not supposed to be easy. It comes to the challenges, but that's what makes us stronger. And the first thing to always do is to pray first. - Yeah, so what we're gonna do now, we're actually gonna go into the sanctuary with my good friend Sasha, and she's gonna get us prepared for worship. And we'll see you soon, okay? - Welcome, welcome, welcome in, and happy Sunday. My name is Sasha. If I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet, and it is my joy to serve as our online host as well. Thank you so much Chantel and Jevon for starting out this morning. And we are also expecting of what God is gonna do today and how he's gonna move. And again, it is Pray First Sunday,

and we are a Pray First Church, and we wanna pray for you. So we wanna encourage you to go ahead and submit your prayer requests in the chat, in the journey app, and go ahead and submit it, and also share this message so that we can also pray for others and that they can submit their prayer requests. I also wanna share Revelations 3.20. Here is when Jesus says, "Here I am, "I stand at the door and knock." And it's just a reminder that even though they have a relationship and they know him, they leave him outside, knocking. And even though God isn't of an old authority, and he also is all strength and all power, he doesn't force his way into your heart. He wants you to have a mutual relationship. He wants you to accept them. He wants you to really defend. And we just want to pray before we get into worship. Heavenly Father, we surrender it all to you, Heavenly Father, and we just ask that you lead us today, Lord. Lead this day with your word in the message that you have. May we open up our hearts to worship, Lord, so that we can become closer to you, Heavenly Father, Lord. We love you, and we praise you, and it's a new beautiful name we pray. Amen. Again, we'll see you so wherever you are, and get ready to worship. We'll see you. [MUSIC] Good morning, and welcome home, journey church. Can I remind you that you serve a God who rejoices when you say yes? So can we say yes this morning to our Father, how we love you, Lord? Oh, we worship, Jesus, with joy with time. No man knows no limits, brings the earth up to the heavens.

Can you feel it, sir, and in your heart? So stop your run, and look over. Find your rest here, sons and daughters. There is freedom in the house of God. The door is always open. The altar is wherever you're playing. You're already forgiven. It's never too late, having to sing it when we come home. The Father's waiting to one more. We lift our hands and sing it to the Lord. Can you hear us say, "Well, come home, having to sing it when we come home?" The Father's waiting to one more. We lift our hands and sing it to the Lord. Can you hear us say, "Well, come home." More again, a new creation. Right begins with our salvation. Forever with the Father is our home. The door is always open. The altar is wherever you're playing. You're already forgiven. It's never too late, having to sing it when we come home. The Father's waiting to one more. We lift our hands and sing it to the Lord. Can you hear us say, "Well, come home, having to sing it when we come home?" The Father's waiting to one more. We lift our hands and sing it to the Lord. Can you hear us say, "Well, come home." Oh, He says, "Welcome home, welcome home my son. Welcome home my daughter with open arms." He welcomes you into his presence.

Let's see how we join the King is here. The King is here. Lift your hands. Come and receive us, Savior. With open hearts, we declare. Jesus is our salvation. Look up those hands! And move your feet, this is the celebration. Angels dance as we sing. Jesus is our salvation. He is here. Oh, with your hands. Those hands will receive the Savior. With open hearts, we declare. Jesus is our salvation. So crack your hands. Move your feet. This is the celebration. Oh, with your hands. Dance as we sing. Holy Jesus is our salvation. Jesus is our salvation. Those hands will receive this. Jesus is our salvation. Jesus is our salvation. We lift our hands and we say yes to Lord Can you hear the same world come home? And it is singing when we come home The Father's waiting is no one more We lift our hands and say yes to Lord

Can you hear it? He says welcome home Oh how I love you Jesus Oh you never turn us away Father Say we love you Lord we love you Lord We thank you Thank you Jesus God we thank you today for your faithfulness Lord For your kindness God For your mercy that never runs out for me I thank you today Jesus Let's sing this out together Church ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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Every box is an opportunity to tell them about Jesus Christ. This shoebox will take the gospel to every corner of the world. And it is our prayer that this glorious light of the gospel will flow among the nations. We want every child to hear the gospel. In Jesus' name. Isn't this amazing? It's so important that these children hear that Christ came this earth to them. Keep packing these boxes and continue to pray for these children. We couldn't do this without you. God bless you. God bless you. [MUSIC PLAYING] world that don't really experience Christmas in a way that should be loving heartfelt and the main thing at all Jesus Jesus Center Jesus Center Jesus Center it's just it's so good that we could just come in and see those kids and it's just also good that it's just we have resources for you guys to just tag along yeah that you guys need something to intercede for your life you know watch YouTube videos download the Journey Church app get the resources to pray resources to fast resources to know who Jesus is it's a big part of your life yeah and definitely scan that QR code below if you want to go ahead and you know be a part of doing the shoebox and yeah you could go ahead and get all that information right then as well so also when I think about even just the operation I think about generosity and how Journey Church has given so many opportunities to be able to be generous and to serve and to make Jesus accessible so one of our stories right now is one of our small group leaders her name is Anessa Osborne and she has told us and shared with us that she was experiencing and as a child that she saw her father deal with alcoholism she also saw her father deal with her mother with abuse and it kind of confused her and made her angry made her bitter when she was a child and she didn't understand really what was going on and it didn't feel like a safe place so because she

was carrying that on her life just bitter and angry and not knowing how to deal with those emotions and those frustrations she realized that throughout time that she needed to get back into the relationship that she always had with Jesus but kind of straight away from because she didn't understand so with that being said she went and went to rededicate her life to Christ October 2024 and got water baptized and she came out a completely different person complete different perspective and completely changed through Jesus Christ and with that being said she's been able to do a small group pour back into people be able to show them that the Lord can take your circumstance and make it exactly what the other person needs to be healed so genera generosity journey church you are a part of the things that are happening here and if you want to continue to be a part of what we're doing here in journey church go ahead and scan that QR code below so that you can be a part of what we're doing here and making Jesus accessible to anyone right it's so good and it is pray first Sunday that's right we have someone in this day yeah they're gonna be praying for you walking with you and just be there for you so drop your prayer request in the chat and somebody will be just laying their hands all over for anything that you having yeah be excited get expectant clear out your space get prepared because Sasha is about to go to war right now with you guys over your prayer requests so Sasha go ahead and lead us in prayer bye guys thank you so much Chantel and Chavon thank you so much for introducing again it is praying first Sunday in journey church their first response is prayer not their last resort so go ahead and continue to drop your prayer request on the chat and share with somebody who would like to receive prayer as well and so we're gonna go ahead and lift them up let's invite the Lord into our daily life so right now we want to lift up David Heavenly Father that Lord that you put his your healing your hands on him Heavenly Father and that you can get him through this difficult season Heavenly Father so we want to lift him up Lord we know you have already walk the way for him Heavenly Father you already have the healing path for him Lord so I pray during this time Heavenly Father that you

place your hands on him Lord in the places that he needs healing Heavenly Father not just in the body but in the heart Heavenly Father in his mind Lord that he may continue to seek you Lord during this time of healing Heavenly Father that he may continue to be hungry to feel your presence Lord so I pray that you come for him during this time Lord I pray that you give him your joy and your peace the peace that only you can provide Heavenly Father not the world but your peace Lord a peace that no one can explain Heavenly Father because it's so big and so for feeling Heavenly Father so I pray that you provide that for him and his family Heavenly Father that are in this difficult season Lord that they may feel your presence moving in their families Heavenly Father that they may feel your presence in their hearts Lord I pray that you place a hedge of protection over them Heavenly Father over their family over their home over their finances Heavenly Father in everything that they own Heavenly Father I pray that they surrender it to you and that you place the hedge of protection God that anything that tries to intervene Heavenly Father that you just remove it Lord and that you replace it with your presence Heavenly Father that you replace it with your Holy Spirit God that they can feel you Lord in ways that they haven't experienced you before Heavenly Father and I want to lift up a friend Heavenly Father his name is also David who has, whose cancer has come back heavily farther. I pray that during this time of this season, Lord, during the treatment, during the healing God, that He feels your hand as well, Heavenly Father, that He feels you working in Him, Lord, that you give peace to the family as well during this season, Heavenly Father, and during the treatment, Lord, during the doctor's appointments, Heavenly Father, I pray that you also place the hedge of protection over the hospitals, over the office visits,

visits, Heavenly Father, that they can feel your presence every time He walks in, Lord, that He can bring the joy, Heavenly Father, even through this tough season, Heavenly Father, that He can still bring the joy, Lord, and reflect Your presence, Heavenly Father, reflect, Jesus Christ, Lord, that they can see the light that you have placed in Him, Heavenly Father, that they can continue to feel Your presence, Lord, through His testimony, Heavenly Father. I pray that you bless the doctors, the staff, anyone who, the representatives, Lord, anyone who is working with Him, Lord, anyone who is involved during His treatment, Heavenly Father, I pray that you bless them, Lord, I pray that you clear their mind, Heavenly Father, I pray that you open up their hearts, Heavenly Father, so that they are able to see from Your lens, Lord, that they are able to see Your beauty through this moment, Heavenly Father, and I pray that you continue to bring Your comfort, Lord, that they can feel Your warmth hugging them, Heavenly Father, that they can feel Your presence wherever they go, God. And Heavenly Father, we want to lift up the Morgan's cousin, Lord, who has been hurt by the church and turned away from Jesus, Lord. We pray that she opened up her heart and tangers her mind, and there is no doubt that it's the Lord.

So, Heavenly Father, we want to lift up the cousin, Lord, only You know their situation, Heavenly Father, only You know what they have gone through, Lord, so I pray, Heavenly Father, that You show Your self, Lord, that You reveal Your self, Heavenly Father to Him, Heavenly Father, wherever they are, Lord, that You meet them, because that is Your promise, that You meet us right where we are, Heavenly Father, so we ask that You keep Your promise this, Lord, You are our true witness, Heavenly Father, You see everything, You see everything, Heavenly Father, so we ask that You open up their eyes, Heavenly Father, that You bring the right community to her, Heavenly Father, that can open up, Lord, that can come to her, Lord, and that She can reflect in Your presence, Heavenly Father, that She can feel Your Spirit, Heavenly Father, to the community that She's gonna be building, Lord, and that She's gonna be able to use this story, in her testimony, Heavenly Father, to help others who have had been hurt by the church, by people around them, Heavenly Father, I pray that You give it the heart of forgiveness, Heavenly Father, because You have forgiven us first, Lord, so I pray that You give it the heart of forgiveness to forgive those who hurt her, Heavenly Father, and that She may be able to release that, Lord, to surrender our Your heavenly Father and forgive, Lord, so that She is making room for You, Heavenly Father, so that She can be room for Your presence, Heavenly Father, as I mentioned earlier before, Heavenly Father,

You are knocking, Heavenly Father, You are knocking at our heart, Heavenly Father, so I just pray that we open that door, Lord, and surrender it all to You, Heavenly Father, that we let You in in every move, in every decision that we make today, Heavenly Father, and moving forward in our lives, Lord, that we continue to surrender to You every single day, that we continue to invite You in all that we do, where there is in the meeting, where there is going to work, dropping the kids at school, where there is meeting someone, going on a date, wherever it may be, Heavenly Father, that we open that door before You even knock, Heavenly Father, that we just let You in, that we have that desire, Heavenly Father, that You remove our desires, our flesh desires, Heavenly Father, and that You bring us Your desire from Your will into our hearts, Heavenly Father, so that we can better serve You, kingdom, Lord, so that we can have a better relationship with You, Heavenly Father, You have given us everything, Lord, You have given us everything, and You continue to give us more and more, so I pray that we continue to be obedient to You, Lord, that we continue to surrender it all to You, Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that You continue to work on each and every single person, Heavenly Father, You hear their cries, You hear their prayers,

reveal yourself to them, Heavenly Father, so that they feel You, Lord, Lord, we love You, and we lift up all these prayers because, Heavenly Father, in Jesus, they may pray. Amen. Thank You so much for joining Your hand. So let's get ready to hear today's work from God. (upbeat music) (congregation laughing) Thank You, Jesus. (congregation laughing) This past week, I was in Seattle, and I heard a preacher say something that, if I'm being honest, I've heard a lot of preacher's preach, but this time it just had hit me different. He said, "Because You were paid for at such a high price, we cannot afford to live cheap, because we are so valuable to God. We cannot afford to live in a way that dishonors the Lord or dishonors us. And as I was on the plain home, I just had kind of stopped thinking about the price that was actually paid for my life. And I opened up my Bible and I read Matthew 26, I saw the nails in his hands and the kind of thorns that were on his head and the wounds that were in his side. And I just said, "God, I know that you love me." Because what kind of God would give up his only son for my salvation so that I could be set free? What kind of God does that? It's our God, it's Jesus Christ. There is no gift that I could ever receive from this world that is greater than the gift of life that I have had in Jesus Christ.

So I just want to invite you to thank him with me in your own way. Father, we thank you God. We can't even comprehend what that cross has to have been like God, but I thank you. I thank you God because I couldn't have done it myself. Because we need the blood of Jesus, because we need it to run flat to make our clean God. So I thank you Jesus. I don't know what it was like God, but I know it was when my Jesus serving you and worshiping you. They give me all I have to you God. You know I don't feel like it even when I'm tired God. I will give it to you because you are worthy God. You are deserving. I'm here God. Here we are. We worship you God. Come on let cry. Here I am to worship. Here I am to worship. Here I am to worship. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're all together loving. All together worthy. All together wonder. All to me. Here I am. Here I am to worship. Here I am to worship. Here I am to worship. Here I am to worship. Here I am to worship. ♪ Oh, under, hold to me ♪ - We thank you today, Jesus. We thank you so much. As we go to take our seats, go out on you high five, your neighbor next to you and tell him welcome home. And let's turn our hearts towards this green to hear from our lead pastors. - Oh, I'm in the journey church. My name is JJ and alongside my wife Liz, we have the honor and privilege of serving the journey church as its lead pastors. And if you didn't know that, that probably means you are a first-time guest. And if you are, we're so glad that you chose to be with us today at any of our journey church locations.

It just means the world that you decided to come to church. And I'm telling you, God is gonna do something special in your life today 'cause we are kicking off a brand new series today called The Disciples. Well, we are gonna take a page out of The Disciples' lives and see what it's like to follow Jesus studying each and every one of them over the next six weeks. But before we get into that message, I just wanna encourage you and I wanna say thank you because over the last six weeks, we just finished a series called Can You See It? Which was about vision and making a difference in the city and the community through six major vision projects. And attached to that was a three-year financial pledge and a vision offering that we did last Sunday. And it was never about a money goal. I wanted to be clear about that. It was never about hitting a certain number. The only number that I ever had in my mind was 100% participation. I just wanted to see everybody who called Journey Home, make a gift above and beyond tied to impacting more people in our city over the next three years. And last week, we were at 49% of people who made a pledge at our church. And this week, we're at 60% of people who made a pledge. And I'm just so grateful for you. Some of those numbers were $1,000, $50, $10,000.

Some larger, what matters to us and what matters to God is putting your faith on the line so that other people can hear the gospel. And at Journey Church, we're all about making Jesus accessible to anyone. I just want to say thank you because you're gifted. Exactly that. And if you have not pledged yet, we want to get to 100%. If you have not pledged yet, would you grab a pledge card? Pray about grabbing a pledge card on your way out and filling it out and making a pledge to help us get closer to that goal. I think together we can make a real difference. Well, I told you we were starting a brand new series today. And we've got somebody who I just needed to kick off this series, 'cause we're gonna get deep into the Word of God. And he's one of the smartest Bible people I know. I love Pastor Hector a lot. Our campus pastor at East Orlando, he is fire, he is passionate, he is energetic, and he is knowledgeable. And he's gonna be blessing you today with the Word of God as we kick off this series at all of our locations. We stand on our feet, put our hands together. and one of my close friends, Pastor Hector Nieves. (congregation cheering) - Come on, journey charged! Nice to see you again! I miss you!

Amen, amen, come on! We got a new section over here and see it. How you doing, y'all? (congregation cheering) Amen, amen, praise the Lord. Praise God, praise God. Hey, while we're standing, can we also give a standing ovation to all of our locations who are watching us right now? Come on, my home, journey East Orlando, journey consuming, what's going on? (congregation cheering) Journey online, and of course, all those who are currently incarcerated, watching us all over the country. (congregation cheering) We love you, amen, amen. Well, we're gonna remain standing because I'm old school, we're gonna read God's word in just a moment. But if you are a first time guest, and this is your first time, and you're looking at me and saying, "That is not Pastor JJ, he is too brown." (congregation cheering) If we haven't had the privilege of meeting, my name is Hector, and alongside my beautiful wife, Gigi, we have the privilege, and we have the honor of serving journey church as the East Orlando pastors, meeting at university high school. Such an honor to be your pastor.

I love it, I miss you all already, amen. And can we give honor where honor is due to the angels of the house? Our pastors, Pastor JJ, and Pastor Liz. (congregation cheering) Amen. We got such incredible pastors. Thank you so much for all that you do. We love you, we miss you, and we cannot wait to see you next week. Can we give it up one last time for our pastors? (congregation cheering) Praise God. Well, like Pastor JJ said, I have the honor and privilege of kicking off the series called Disciples. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna read our anchor text, which is gonna set the tone for the next six weeks. And like I said, I'm old school. So we're gonna stand for the reading of God's word. And what I wanna do is after I'm done reading God's word, I'm gonna say this, this is the word of God for the people of God. And everyone's gonna say, thanks be to God. And then you can have your seats, is that cool? Amen. We stand for the reading of God's word. Why? Because this isn't my words that are coming out of my mouth.

These are God's words. This is the word of God that transcends all time, all cultures, and all religions. This is God's word that has the power to transform and to change each and every one of your lives. (congregation applauding) And because of that, we're gonna stand by faith, believing that you're gonna be transformed. Amen? Amen. So we're gonna find our text in 1 Corinthians chapter one. You can turn your Bibles or turn on your Bibles, or you can turn to the screens. We're gonna have it. 1 Corinthians chapter one. And we're gonna be reading verses 26 through 29. Amen? Hear the word of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, that's all you. Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God, someone say chose. The foolish things of the world to shame the wise. Someone say it again, God chose. The weak things of the world to shame the strong. Thirdly, God chose. God chose.

The lowly things of this world and the despised things. And the things that are not to nullify the things that are for what? So that no one, someone say no one, may boast before him. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated in God's presence. Who's excited for the word of God in this series? (audience cheering) Amen. I want that same energy after I ask you this question. Are you ready? I'm ready. Amen. Has anybody in this room ever wondered or asked? How can God use someone like me? How can God use someone like me? I remember because I asked that same question recently after my daughter, she came up to me. they have these great occupations. And so these great occupations are people who work for NASA. I'm like, that's pretty dope. They send rocket ships to space. That's pretty cool. And so she comes up to me and she asks me this simple question, "Dad, what do you do?" I said, "Honey, what do you mean? "I got a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old. "This is my 7-year-old."

And I said, "Well, I'm a pastor." And she goes, "Dad, what do you really do for work?" I'm like, "Girl, I put food on the table. "I take you to Disney parks. "What are you asking me, what do I do for work?" I preach the word of God. I know Greek and I know the Hebrew. I interpret 2,000 year-old documents in their original language. Tell me if your friend's fathers do that. Wow, amen. My daughter looks at me and she chuckles. I say, "Why are you laughing?" And she goes, "Dad, that's so mid." For those of you who don't understand the modern vernacular of our day, mid simply means unimpressive, basic, and original. My favorite word, original. And I just looked at her and I said, "Mid." You calling me mid? I'm about to show you the middle of my chancleta right now. You better stop. You better stop with that mid. Y'all, low key, I got offended. I got mid. Get here, so mid. I'm sorry, my Puerto Rican's starting to come out. I'm so mad. Mid. But you know what? You know what I realized?

That maybe being mid isn't the problem. Maybe we spent so much time trying to get more clicks and trying to get more likes and trying to get more views. We have been overfed and oversaturated to pursue the extraordinary, but can I tell you that maybe in the pursuit of the extraordinary, we have forgotten that God can use ordinary, that God still has the power, that God still has the authority, that God still has everything He needs to choose and to use the mid and the ordinary. Listen to me, maybe instead of chasing likes, you ought to chase your kids and let them know how much you still love them. It sounds ordinary, but it makes a difference. Maybe you're a business owner here today and your business hasn't gotten to the Fortune 500. It's not even in the Fortune -500. It's not even a Fortune 5. It's nowhere where you imagine, but can I tell you that the five employees that are still employed by you can still go home, can still have a job, can still have food on the table. Your business may not be big, but it's ordinary and it's making a big difference. What if God does some of His greatest work through ordinary people doing ordinary things and showing His extraordinary love? Amen?

Well, that's what we're going to be exploring in these next six weeks titled "The Disciples." Because let me tell you, these disciples are not the Bible's version of the Avengers. They're not superheroes. They're not powerful. When Jesus found them, He found them where He found them. Ordinary, mid, unimpressive, flawed, and sometimes foolish. There's a time where even Jesus said, "How long do I have to remain with you?" Yeah, yeah, the lamb carrying gentle Jesus. He ain't Mr. Rogers. He's the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's the king of kings and Lord of lords. That's the Jesus that looked at all the disciples and said, "How long will you not get it? How long will you not get it?" But those foolish, unimpressive, unimaginable, mid-disciples are the ones that Jesus chose, are the ones that Jesus formed, and the ones that Jesus sent out into the world, that for the last 2,000 years, we have still been here. We're still going out there. What God can do with ordinary people, in fact, that's the thesis statement for the entire series. In fact, if you have notes, if you write notes, which you should, go ahead and take this down. God doesn't need extraordinary people to do extraordinary things. Praise God. He chooses ordinary people, forms them through Jesus and works through them for His glory.

Come on, somebody tap your neighbor and say, "God chooses." Write it on the chat. "God chooses." Now, that's an interesting word, "chooses," because we're going to park right there for just a moment. We're going to go back to the text. And remember when you read the text, what are the three things that you repeatedly said? "Chose." You know that the Apostle Paul, "I'm a geek out." This is my Bible nerd going on right now, okay? You may not geek out, but I don't care. I'm doing it. So Paul could have used any other Greek word for the word "choose." But instead, he chose a specific word. You know what that word is? It's called eklego mia, eklego mia, say it, say it with your chest, eklego mia. Eklego mia, I love that. That's where we actually get our English word "election" from, which is what we're about to do Tuesday. Come on, somebody. Election eklego mia. You know why that word is so important? Why Paul chose that word on purpose? This is why he chose that word on purpose, because the idea of that word is not that God randomly chose you, or that God didn't have any other choices. And so instead, he looked at Freddy and said, "Freddy, I just got you. I'm going to eklego mia you." There is no other choice. You're it. Sorry, Freddy.

The best. He is the best. Instead, what eklego mia means, that God intentionally, intentionally chose you. With every mistake that you made in your life, God still said, "There's nothing else better but you." In fact, you know how ridiculous this word is? This word is so ridiculous that the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-creative, that all-knowing God, the one who created the heavens and the earth, the one who placed every single thing in the universe, decided to eklego mia that for you. In fact, let's not even look further from the universe. If I was God, and I wanted to pick something that would carry my message the right way, carry my message with glory, carry my message with power, you know what I would have chosen? Check this out. What's that? The sun. You pass signs. Come on. You pass signs. This is our sun. Our sun is 4.6 billion years old. The sun has so much power that it's going to take 5 billion years for the sun to rent out of power. To put it in perspective, because it looks like y'all know the science behind the sun. This is not wowing you. Here's the wow factor. Are you ready? In one second, the sun has enough power in one second to power all of human civilization. In one second, just one second of raw sun power can power the human race for 680,000 years. Wow.

But you know what's interesting is that when God started the human story, God didn't reach for the sun. You know what He reached for? You know what He eklego mia for? This is your human story. Instead of the sun, God reached out for dirt. The Hebrew word in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 where He formed Adam from the dust of the ground. The Hebrew word is adama. Adama means from the ground. Adam and adama are a play on words. In other words, if I were to translate it for you, the Lord God Yahweh formed the ground from the dirt. Why? Why would God in His infinite wisdom decide to choose this over the sun to carry His glory and to carry His message? Y'all want to know why? Here's why. Because dirt has the capacity. Dirt, you look at the sun and you already said wow, you look at dirt and you were quiet. Because God, in his infinite wisdom, decided that dirt was the greatest thing that he could put his treasure, he could put his gospel, he could put his good news in. And if you give it up for the Lord. But if you give that enough time, if you give that enough time, you know what else, dirt produces, check this out. Dirt produces 2.1 million square miles

of the Amazon jungle. This is called the lungs of the earth. That's what dirt does. That's what dirt can do and that's what dirt has the capacity of doing. And you know what? I came all the way from East Orlando to tell somebody in this room who feels like their life is dirty, who feels like their life is filthy, who feels like their marriage is in the mud. I come to tell you today that God still specializes in growing great things out of dirt, that God takes something mid, that God takes something ordinary and He could still do something extraordinary. I need five people in the room to testify that when the devil throws your past at you, when the devil throws mud at you, you want to look the devil in the face and say, thank you because the more dirt you throw at me, the more I'm gonna grow, the more I'm fertile. The more I'm fertile, the more I got, the more potential I have. Devil, keep throwing it, and I'm gonna keep growing. Can we give God some praise this morning? (congregation cheering) Hallelujah. Can we give God some glory for the dirt?

The next time the devil looks you in the face, you tell him, keep throwing it. Keep throwing it, I'm made out of this stuff. I was made to receive whatever it is that you've got. That's why God picked dirt. Because we all ordinarily, with all of our flaws, still can carry the glory of God. Still can carry the glory of God. In fact, the same Greek word eklego mia was used by Jesus Himself when He chose His disciples. Did you know that? Eklego mia, Luke, when the Gospel of Luke talks about how before Jesus selected His disciples, He prayed all night. He prayed all night for His disciples, and then He, eklego mia, chose all 12 of them, including Judas. You wanna know why I get excited about this? Because God doesn't make mistakes in choosing you. - That's right, that's so great, come on, that's right. - Jesus didn't make a mistake when He chose Judas. Jesus didn't make a mistake when He chose the 12. And Jesus didn't make the mistake of choosing these two brothers that I get to present to you this morning. If we can go ahead and show the two brothers that I wanna talk to you about this morning. (congregation laughing) Oh! Anybody know who that is?

That's so funny that you say that because the first person you said is Mario. (congregation laughing) Now, when you think of the disciples, whose name pops up first? Peter, hey, you see that? See, the comparison isn't far off. The comparison isn't far off. Because the two disciples I wanna talk to you about today is Peter and his brother Andrew. Yeah, you say Andrew, Luigi. (congregation laughing) Peter gets all of the attention and then there's Andrew. But you know what's interesting? There would be no Peter if Andrew didn't introduce Peter to Jesus first. (congregation laughing) Did you know that? Did you know that Andrew is the first disciple to declare Jesus as Messiah? Andrew is the first one to bring his brother to Christ. And in every single mention that you find Andrew, Andrew is always bringing someone to Jesus. You remember the Five Loaves in Two Fish episode? It's in all the gospels, all four of the gospels. his lunch. But in John, John says that it was actually Andrew who identified the problem. He brought the boy and he said, "This boy has what you need to feed the 5,000." And we treat Andrew like Luigi, which is the title of my message and then I can send you home.

Title, title of the message is simply this, different players, same purpose. Different players, same purpose. If you play Luigi or Mario, you're still going to face Bowser, no matter how different they are. Peter and Andrew, two different people, but they had the same purpose and that was to bring the gospel to the world. And so in the remaining moments that we have together, I want to show you kind of the similarities that Peter and Andrew have and also the differences. And then we're going to go from there. We have three lessons. Sound good? Amen. Amen. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to see how they're very similar. And so the first thing that we want to go over is that they had the same father. Yeah, I know. Pastor JJ said the most knowledgeable Bible. Yeah, there you go. Had the same father, obviously. Some translations call him Jonah, but he is, but some other translations called their father John. The next thing is that they had the same roots. They were both born in the same town of Bethsaida. And then later on in life, they grew up in this, in this village, this small village town called Capernaum. Now, the other thing that you need to know about Peter and Andrew is that they had the same job. You know what they did? Fishing. They were fishermen.

How blue collar can you be? These are the most ordinary blue collar men that you could imagine. And another thing about them is that they went to the same church. They went to John the Baptist's church. They both followed John. Andrew was a little bit more into what John was teaching. And Peter kind of went to church and kind of didn't. But then when Andrew would drag him, then he would go to church. So they went to church. They worked. They were normal, normal guys, right? The other thing that's very similar is that they had a similar calling. Follow me. They received it at the same time. They dropped their nets and they went to follow Jesus. And the last thing that's very similar is that they had the same credentials, which were none. They had nothing. There were a couple of regular guys who went to high school and went into the workforce right after. They didn't go to school, didn't do anything extraordinary. They were just normal every day for century Jews, fishermen trying to make a living. But here's where they differ. And the difference is very, very stark. So where they differ, there you go. They differ in the name. You have Peter, who's mentioned three times with three different names. His Hebrew name, his Aramaic name, and his Greek name. His Hebrew name is Shimon or Simon. His Aramaic name is Kaifas, which means stone.

And his Greek name is Petros or Peter, which means rock. That's pretty cool, right? Your name gets mentioned three different ways. You must be important, Mario. Awesome. And then you got Andrew. We don't even get a Hebrew. We don't even get an Aramaic name. We just get Andres. But look what his name means, bravery, courage, strong man. That's going to be important later. Another thing that's vastly different. How many times Peter has mentioned 155 times throughout the New Testament? He's the second most mentioned name in all the Old Testament next to Jesus. It's crazy, right? Look at Andrew. How many times? All of them in the gospels, one time in the book of Acts. Goodbye. That's it. Goodbye. You remember that? Millennials? Yeah, yeah. That's a free one. Visibility. Peter, we know him as the outspoken one. The spotlight is on Peter. He's the man who will cut somebody's ears. He will literally cut him somebody if you get him mad.

He's Luigi, he's just there. But every time Andrew is mentioned, he's mentioned bringing someone to Christ. Always. And then their role, Peter speaks, Peter asks, Peter takes risks, represents the group. Andrew's always bringing somebody. Now what are the two lessons that we can learn from this, from these two's lives? Number one, what we learn from Peter is that Peter shows us God can work with our personality while he's developing our character. And that's gonna be one of my first points. But the second one, I love. You know why? Because you know what Andrew shows us? Andrew shows us that we don't have to be the most visible person to make a lasting difference in somebody's life. (audience applauding) We don't have to be any, we don't have to be out there to make a difference. And so in the 11 minutes that I have left, I'm gonna go through three practical ways on how we can live their lives out in our everyday, ordinary, mid-life. You ready for it? So the first one, God calls you before you're ready. God can call you before you're ready.

I wish somebody was as excited as I was. First Corinthians chapter one, verse 26, "Brothers and sisters think of what you were "when you were called." That may not sound like anything until I ask you this question. Do you remember where you were when God called you? I could tell you where I was, not in church. I could tell you what I was doing, not the Bible. I was sitting in the middle of an advising session with one of my students at UCF, and God used that UCF student to tell me that I'm in disobedience in my advising session. Some of y'all remember when God called you, you were in club rockeses. Come on, Hector BC, I know club rockeses. You were in club rockeses bumping and grinding, and all of a sudden you heard, instead of hearing Gasolina, you heard the Lord say, get up. Yo, some of you were in your car, high as a kite, and you heard the Lord's voice through your highness, telling you, get up and walk. I called you, I chose you, you have a mission, you have a plan for your life, get up and go. (congregation applauding) See what you need to understand about calling, because this is where a lot of our frustrations come in. God wants, listen to me now, because this is where we,

and I wanna drive this point home. You know that when God calls you, he doesn't send you to a place, he sends you to himself first. You know that? Did you know that? God wants to shape you before he sends you. That is God's formula of calling. God never calls you to do X. God calls you to himself first. Why? Because before he sends you somewhere else, you gotta look like him. He loves you too much to leave you just like you are. But he's powerful enough to call you in the middle of your, in the middle of your withdrawal. He's powerful enough to call you in the middle of your ratchetness. He's powerful and loving and gracious enough. In fact, if you're taking notes, I wrote it like this. God's calling is a who before a do. Calling is a who before a do. Before Peter went out into the book of Acts, chapter two and preached to a whole bunch of people and 3,000 people in one sermon gave their life to Christ. Before we got that version of Peter, Jesus had to deal with the ear-cutting Peter. He had to deal with the Peter that he had to rebuke and call him, get behind me, Satan. He had to deal with Peter, which John MacArthur calls,

a foot-shaped mouth type of an apostle. 'Cause he put his foot in his mouth all the time. But you know what's amazing about that? The similarities between me, my calling and your calling is that we weren't ready for it and God called you anyway. I remember coming to Journey Church for the first time. Arrogant, my master's degree, I know Greek, I know Hebrew, I know how to read this thing back and forth in different languages, I learned all of that stuff. And I thought for sure, going to Journey Church, they're gonna give me a job like that. 'Cause Journey Church needs me. That brother put me to preach. On a night what we used to call first Thursdays. If y'all old school journey church, you know what I'm talking about. That used to be our encounter night. Every first Thursday we would meet. And not only did he put me to preach, but he ordained me that night too. Talk about humility, right? So afterwards I get a text message from Pastor J.J. and Pastor J.J. lovingly he said, "Hey, can we, hey man, can we meet?" And I said, "Sure. Can we meet on a Tuesday?" I said, "Yeah." And he goes, "Hey man, hey man, cool." That's good right? That's good right? So we get to Tuesday, we meet, and he sits down with me and he goes, "Hey man, sermon was fire, sermon was fire." But your delivery was not accessible.

Anybody would have walked out of here and said, "Well, I'm just going to go to another church." But praise be to God that that's not what I decided to do because of what he said. This is what he said afterwards. Before I walked away to look for another church, this is what your pastor told me. I'm not trying to extinguish your fire. I want to help build a trench so the fire can cook. I want to speak to somebody in this room who feels like they're being put in a box. I want to speak to that person who's been told, take it easy, chill out, relax. They're not attacking you. This is what's actually happening. Instead of looking at that feedback as a cage, why don't you look at that as a trench? Why is that? Because look what Jesus, Jesus didn't remove Peter's fire. He gave it direction. Jesus didn't remove Peter's fire. He gave it direction. That's my first point. God can use you. God can call you before you're ready. The second one, God can use you. God can use you to build someone. God can use you to build someone. Look at Hebrews chapter 13 verse 16. Don't neglect to do what is good and to share for God is pleased with such sacrifice. You know what the author of the Hebrews is saying? Actually, you know what the author of the Hebrews is asking? Are you still frustrated with the platforms that you're building and they're not growing? You've read all the self-help books. You've read, you've listened to all the podcasts and yet your platform is still not growing.

You want to know why? This is going to hurt. I love you but I'm going back to East Orlando, so I'm going to say it. You ready? Maybe God is calling you to build platforms, just not yours. Maybe God is not calling you to grow yours but to grow someone else's. Congratulations, you are Andrew. Do you know what Andrew did in his ministry and I'm going to go through this real quickly? Andrew built his brother's platform. Again, if there was no Peter or if there was no Andrew, there would be no Peter and vice versa. There would be no Acts chapter 2 if Andrew hadn't introduced Peter to Jesus. Do you know another platform that he built? Remember the boy's lunch? 5,000 people got fed because Andrew decided to build that boy's platform. How many others are going to be blessed by your ministry and you don't even preach a word? It's not another one, what I love. Andrew is the first apostle to bring Greeks to Jesus. Did you know that? Andrew, the first one to bring Gentiles to Jesus and then this is not even in the notes. There's a guy by the name of Gregory of Tours. He lived around 400 years after Jesus and he wrote about Andrew and he said Andrew was the first to bring the gospel to Russia. Andrew, I want to say it like this and then I'm going to close. Your greatest purpose may begin with the person beside you. Your greatest calling and achievement in life is not what you achieve visibly outside, but it could be the other person that benefited from your platform. And the last thing I wanna talk about before we close,

God can use you after you fall, after you fall. 'Cause I feel in my spirit that there is somebody in this room who's giving the church one last chance. And it's because you think you've failed so hard. Can I reintroduce you to Peter? The man who looked at Jesus and said, I will die for you? The man who looked at Jesus and said, I'll go to the cross for you to turn it around. And when it came to it, he denied Jesus three times. Not just denied him, but the Bible says, this is why details are important. He denied even knowing who he was. A man who saw the potential in you, called you out, walked with you for three years, loved on you when nobody else could understand you and you denied even knowing him three times. And then cussed, Bible says he said it with a curse. There's somebody in this room today who is feeling just like Peter. You failed beyond comprehension. You don't even think God can forgive you. You don't even think that God can give you a second chance. But can I read to you Mark chapter 16 verse seven and everyone standing on their feet? Can I read to you Mark chapter 16 verse seven? Look what it says, but go and this is the angels telling the women at the tomb.

You know what they don't say? They don't tell the women, go and preach the gospel. Go and wait in the room. The Holy Spirit, go because the disciples made mistakes and Peter made mistakes and I can't even use them anymore. So I'm gonna use the women, go. What does that say? What is the first Easter message? Go and tell the disciples and who? And who? There is somebody in this room that you need to hear this right now. You may have messed up. You may have failed beyond measure. You may have come in all dirty and filthy, but can I tell you that God hasn't stopped calling your name? God hasn't stopped calling your name. God hasn't forgotten who you are. God hasn't forgotten who you're called to. God hasn't stopped thinking about you. God hasn't stopped calling you. God hasn't forgotten about you. You know how I know? The Bible says that when we forsake Him, He does not forsake you. That when we are faithless, God is faithful. I dare somebody in this room to testify and say, I'm Him, I'm Her. That's me. I wanna close out by saying this, your worst moment doesn't have to be your last chapter.

Your worst moment doesn't have to be your last chapter. God has been pursuing you all along. There is nothing, the book of Romans says there is nothing that you can do to separate yourself from the love of God, nothing that you can do. So I'm gonna do two callings today. The first calling and we're all gonna pray together is for the one who feels like their life is mid, unimpressive, ordinary, their job is ordinary, the way that your parent is ordinary, your marriage feels ordinary. I wanna talk to you today. And if you're asking the question, can God even still use me? Yes, yes. So if that is you, I wanna pray that prayer. I want you to walk away with your head held up high saying, "Yes, God can still use even a mid person like me." Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for that person right now. I pray for that marriage who feels like they're mid. I pray for that relationship who feels like they're mid. I pray for that person who looks at their job as mid, unimpressive, ordinary, unoriginal. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that your Holy Spirit right now, right now begins to rebuke the lies of the enemy, telling them that they are ordinary. Let me tell you, you ought to look the devil in the face God still called me. God still chose me. God still desires me. God still sets me free. I pray in the name of Jesus that every single day of their life they may look at themselves and say, "Yes, God could even use someone like me in Jesus' name." Come on, if you believe that

firm part, give God an amen. Over at East, give God an amen. Over at Kissimmee. Give God an amen online and on the pando app. Give God praise. The last people are the people that are like Peter. You either knew Christ and walked away from the church or you know Christ. You did not know Christ at all and you did not know how much He loves you and you found out today. So if you want to make that decision for Jesus, every head bowed, every eye closed. Bible says, "If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness." If that is you on the count of three, I want you to lift your hands and say, "Jesus, I'm answering the call. I'm answering your name on the count of three." One, two, three. Right now, I see that hand. I see that hand. I see that hand. I see that hand. I see all those hands in the back. I see that hand. I see that hand. All over journey. Come on. Make some noise for those hands who gave their life to Jesus. Praise God. We're going to do a simple prayer. All of you, join with me. Let's do this together. Father, I thank you for choosing me. Thank you, Jesus, for choosing me, for persevering when you could have quit. But you had me in your mind. So I give you my life. I give you my all. I trade my righteousness for your righteousness now and forever. In Jesus' name, come on. Make some noise. If you are one of those who gave your life to Jesus, go ahead. What a powerful message. I'm definitely going to have to reflect on that. Right now, if you made the decision to follow Jesus Christ, go ahead and scan that QR code because we want to celebrate you. We want to walk with you and guide you to this new relationship that you're going to have with Jesus Christ. So go ahead and scan that QR code. And now we're going to head back to the studio with Chantal and Javon that can give us their feedback on today's sermon. Thank you so much, Sasha. You saw Sasha. She got hit with the spirit. You saw that? Hold on. Hold on. Come in and see right now. You guys felt watching that service because I know it was it was impactful. It was powerful. It was fire. Just like the like Pastor JJ said, it is fire. What you got from my friend? What you got from me? Man, so many things, but man, imagine I just kept saying, man, I'm just kidding guys, I'm not going to do you like that. But I took away so much that God will call you before you've been ready. He's going to be, and he's going to bring you to him first, before he brings you to where you got to go. You can't go to where you're supposed to be if you don't have the Lord up inside. You've got to look like Christ before you could do Christ's work. Okay. Well, what you got? Oh, man. Well, it's the well part, but the sermon is so good. It was

literally the sun and the dirt. The sun got all this life formula take what? 5 billion years just for it to just die out. Yeah. And then God made us out of dirt. It's dirt using sun. He used made dirt dirt and literally grows us with dirt. And then he says the double credit though, dirt out of it. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep on going. Keep on going. Come on. Come on. Dang. I felt that. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I hope you guys really received the word of God today because that was the Lord speaking. Okay. Amen. Amen. So guys, whoo, I'm on fire. No pun intended. So guys, we're so happy that you joined us today. We're so happy that you are here in the house of the Lord today, but a couple of things that we got to leave you with. Remember the Journey Church app. You want to say connected? Go ahead and download that Journey Church app whether you're, you know, Apple, whether you're android, regardless of how you do it. Oh, Rainbow Babies. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh, but what up do they do to say connected? Also, YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe. Click that bell. Dang. Dang. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And just keep looking at the resources we got on there. We got the aftertall coming today and then it should be posted on YouTube. if you guys wanna partner up with us in generosity, please go ahead and do so. And if you didn't get to do your pledge, remember you could go ahead and still do it. You could be a part of what we're doing here in general at Journey Church Online, not for just making you accessible, but making it accessible for the generations. - Yes, amen. - Amen. - All right, y'all. Well, we had the best time today. I hope you had a good time, okay? And God bless you guys, and we gonna see you when we see you. - Yes, see y'all later. [MUSIC PLAYING]