Lesson Learned - Saddleback Weekend Service

well everybody welcome to Saddleback Church it's next-gen weekend and that means that we've got our students with us and they're gonna help us lead worship today anybody ready to praise Jesus When all I see is the battle, you see my victory When all I see is the mountain, you see a mountain view And as I walk through the shadows, your love surrounds me There's nothing to fear, for I'll sing with you So when I fight, I fight on my knees With my hands lifted high Oh God, the battle belongs to you And every fear I lay at your feet I'll sing through the night Oh God, the battle belongs to you And if you are for me, who can be against me For Jesus, there's nothing impossible for you When all I see are the ashes, you see a beauty Yes you do Lord When all I see is the cross, God you see the empty tomb So when I fight, I fight on my knees With my hands lifted high Oh God, the battle belongs to you And every fear I lay at your feet I'll sing through the night Oh God, the battle belongs to you An almighty fortress, you go before us Nothing can stand against the power of our God You shine in the shadows, you win every battle Nothing can stand against the power of our God An almighty fortress, you go before us Nothing can stand against the power of our God

You shine in the shadows, you win every battle Nothing can stand against the power of our God An almighty fortress, you go before us Nothing can stand against the power of our God You shine in the shadows, you win every battle Nothing can stand against the power of our God So when I fight, I fight on my knees With my hands lifted high Oh God, the battle belongs to you And every fear I lay at your feet I'll sing through the night Oh God, the battle belongs to you Oh God, the battle belongs to you The battle belongs to you And I'm clean. Sin was stained on me. And shame was running deep. But love was filled on Calvary. Oh, hallelujah, I'm clean. And God, how can it be? I'm ransomed and redeemed. I'm standing in your victory. Oh, hallelujah, I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. I'm as good as new. Oh, hallelujah, I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood, all because of you. Oh, hallelujah, I'm clean. It's not what I have done, but what you've done for me. You painted all upon that tree. Oh, hallelujah, I'm clean. Your love has overcome. And your mercy is supreme. I'm dancing in your victory. Oh, hallelujah, I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. I'm as good as new. Oh, hallelujah, I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood, all because of you. Oh, hallelujah, I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. I'm as good as new. Oh, hallelujah, I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood, all because of you. Oh, hallelujah. Cause you took away my shame. And you nailed it to the cross. You got me running out the grave. Hallelujah, here I come. Cause you took away my shame. And you nailed it to the cross. You got me running out the grave. Hallelujah, here I come.

Cause you took away my shame. And you nailed it to the cross. You got me running out the grave. Hallelujah, here I come. Cause you took away my shame. And you nailed it to the cross. You got me running out the grave. Hallelujah, here I come. Say hallelujah, here I come. Here I come running. You got me running to Jesus. Hallelujah, here I come. Cause I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. I'm as good as new. Oh hallelujah. I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. All because of you. Oh hallelujah. I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. I'm as good as new. Oh hallelujah. I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. All because of you. Oh hallelujah. Now listen. I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. I'm as good as new. Oh hallelujah. I've been washed in the water. Washed in the blood. All because of you. Oh hallelujah. We are good as new. Oh hallelujah. Can we lift our hallelujah again? Say hallelujah. We thank you Lord for your goodness and your faithfulness. Come on let's listen. Our voice today. When I was lost and all alone. Your presence was where I found home. You were there and you're here right now. In every heart and every love. You never left me without hope. You were good and you're good right now. Come on let's sing.

I've witnessed your faithfulness. I've seen you breathe life with it. So I'll pour out my praise again. You're worthy. God you're worthy of all of it. Your promise is never ending. I've got stories I live to tell. So I'll pour out my praise again. You're worthy, God, You're worthy of all of it You left the throne and chose the cross Laid down Your life to rescue us The Savior then, the Savior now He never changes But even death was not the end You conquered hell so I could live Resurrecting then, resurrecting now Resurrecting then, resurrecting now I witnessed Your faithfulness I've seen You breathe life within So I'll pour out my praise again You're worthy, God, You're worthy of all of it Your promises never fail I've got stories I live to tell So I'll pour out my praise again You're worthy, God, You're worthy of all of it You're good and I've witnessed it You're strong and I've witnessed it You're constant and I've witnessed it And I'm confident I'll see it again and again You love and I've witnessed it You heal and I've witnessed it

You say that I've witnessed it And I'm confident I'll see it again and again You're good and I've witnessed it You're strong and I've witnessed it You're constant and I've witnessed it And I'm confident I'll see it again and again You love and I've witnessed it You heal and I've witnessed it You say that I've witnessed it And I'm confident I'll see it again and again I've witnessed Your faithfulness I've seen You breathe life within So I'll pour out my praise again You're worthy, God, You're worthy of all of it Your promises never fail I've got stories I live to tell So I'll pour out my praise again Oh, You're worthy Come on, let's testify of this goodness right now You're good and I've witnessed it You're strong and I've witnessed it You're constant and I've witnessed it And I'm confident I'll see it again and again You love and I've witnessed it You heal and I've witnessed it You say that I've witnessed it And I'm confident I'll see it again and again Jesus, thank you so much for loving us and being with us online Especially as people are joining from all around the world in online groups and extensions We love you so much

Especially, just an amazing ability to worship together through a technology like this And I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen Well, thank you so much for joining us this week online And if you are new with us, we are... Oh, oh, sorry, my son wants to take over This is our room Okay And I want to encourage you, in the app, in the discover section and there's a student and kids section. Have you guys ever checked out that? No. No. No, I'm sorry. They don't actually have phones, too bad. Anyways, in there you can check out resources for your whole family. It's a really cool part of the app I wanna highlight. Well, with that, let's now. Let's see what else is happening in our church family. Hey Saddleback, I'm Charlotte and I'm the pastor of NextGen here. And I'm Luke. I'm in first grade and I'm part of SK. And this weekend we are celebrating something really special. Luke, what is it? NextGen! Woo! Woo! Yeah!

At Saddleback, NextGen is all of our kids and students from babies all the way to our college students. Yeah, and we have SK, which is birth through fifth grade. Mm-hmm, and Saddleback Student Ministries, which is middle school through college age. In total, there are almost 6,000 kids and students across all our campuses. That's a lot of kids! It sure is. And we are so proud of our kids and our students. We often see you guys leading in worship, showing up for prayer, growing in small groups, serving on teams, and the Lord is working powerfully in you and through you. You are the church of the future. And we're the church right now! Yes, you are. And one of the most impactful ways we invest in the generation today is through summer camp. Camp is so fun! It is. Luke, you go to Summer Class, right? Yeah. So what's the best part about Summer Class? We learn about the Bible, hang out with my friends from school, and we eat a lot of yummy snacks. A lot of yummy snacks? Yeah. They're really good?

Yeah. That's awesome! Camp is so much fun, and it's also a huge time in a kid or student's faith journey. For some kids, camp is where they begin a relationship with Jesus for the very first time, or where they meet God in an incredible way that changes the trajectory of their lives. Every year, many are able to go because of scholarships. In fact, about one in five students attend camp with the help of financial support. Yeah, and we want every kid to be able to come. Mm-hmm. And right now, there is an immediate need. As we head into summer, we are looking to raise about $100,000 more to help every kid and student who wants to go to camp get there. So when you give to the Camp Scholarship Fund, you're helping make camp possible for kids and students across all our campuses. So this is where you can come in. That's right. Whether it is fully covering a student, or supporting a family in need, or helping lower the cost overall, your giving creates opportunities for life change. You're helping kids like me and my friends go to camp. So we would love if you would consider giving to the Camp Scholarship Fund today.

You can give today through the Saddleback app or at saddleback.com slash scholarship, and be a part of investing in what God is doing in the next generation. Thanks for helping us go to camp. We love you, Saddleback. Bye. Well, hello, everybody. Go ahead and grab a seat. Every time I get the opportunity to speak, I request that I come up after the band because they raise the temperature. It's like, all I gotta do is ride the wave. As long as I just don't mess up what has just happened, I'll be doing okay. We are thrilled that you're here this weekend. This is Next Gen Weekend. You've heard us mention that a few times. It's sort of like family weekend. Families are in church together. And it's kind of a common thing. A lot of churches do it. In fact, I recently heard a story about another church that was doing it, and it was a young family. And on the way to church, the mom, they were gonna go to big church together as a family. And the mom turned back to the back seat and said, hey, do you kids remember

why we have to be quiet in big church? And her five-year-old quickly said, well, because people are sleeping. So here's the thing. We're 45 seconds into the message today, and if the person next to you is already dozing off, just let them be. Just let them be. Take a picture, put it on Instagram, but other than that, just let it be. So since we're all here together tonight, I often think of, when I think of church and kids and teenagers and how the church and kids and teenagers typically functions, I have a picture in my mind that if you grew up going to church at all, it'll be very familiar to you. This is the picture that comes to mind when I think of kids and church, right? Kids go to Sunday school or they go to youth group, and the adults do the teaching. In fact, here at Saddleback Church, I spent about 27 years as one of our youth pastors, and most of my time with students at church was that. The adults. teaching the the kids. And that's okay. There's an important place for that. But today, I'm going to ask us to flip the script a little bit. Because believe it or not, adults, we can learn from kids. We can learn from teenagers. Every teenager in the house said, thank you, Kurt, for finally saying that the adults

might have something to learn from us. And so, the image that I want you to have in your mind just just this weekend is really this image here. We're going to we're going to flip the script. And we're going to be the adults sitting in the chairs and we're going to learn 4 different standalone lessons from 4 different young people in the Bible. So, a way to think of it this weekend, it's going to be a little bit different. The way to think of it isn't one message that's going a certain direction. Think of it almost as 4 different standalone mini sermons. Each with a lesson that we're going to learn from a young person in Scripture. So, let's do that together. We're going to jump right into it. And we're going to take a look. The first person we're going to look at and learn from in Scripture is a young boy. Scholars say he was about 8 years old when this moment in history happened. His name was Eli. And we're going to put... I'm sorry, his name was Samuel. We'll get to Eli in a second. We're going to put a picture of this up on the screen. And the reason I'm putting up there early is I want to explain one thing to us. Is that for each of these moments, each of these lessons we're going to learn, we're going to have a screen grab from our Kids Ministries Heyo Bible Study, Heyo Bible Story videos. You might not know this but every single week, if you have a child all the way up through fifth grade, every Sunday school lesson they hear is rooted in Scripture and it's anchored in a story, a moment in the Bible. And so, if you were to, just out of curiosity, if you were to go to YouTube and search Saddleback Kids, you would see over a hundred Bible story cartoons with millions, millions of views. Some of our animated Bible stories have 20 million views on YouTube. Think of that. Just Saddleback Church making stuff for kids. 20 million people around the world are checking that out. I think it's pretty, pretty awesome. So that's a picture, that's a picture from the Samuel story. Now, every one of these stories, there's a lot to these stories, a lot to these moments. I'm going to just sort of read the portion of Scripture that is sort of the pinnacle of the story with the lesson that we're going to learn. If you're interested, you might want to do a little digging in and

reading the full encounter on your own. But in 1 Samuel 3, 9 it says this. So Eli, who was a priest in the temple, Eli told Samuel, go and lie down. And if he calls you, say, he's talking about God, if God calls you, I want you to say, speak Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and laid down in his place. The Lord came and stood there calling as he did at other times. Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, speak for your servant is listening. See, what had been happening was Samuel was being raised by Eli. Samuel's mom had prayed and said, God, if you bless me with a son, I'll dedicate him to you. And so when she had Samuel, she took Samuel to the to the temple and said to the priest, I'm going to let you raise him in this setting. And Samuel is in bed one night, and he keeps hearing who he thinks is Eli calling his name. And so he goes into Eli's room. Hey, Eli, are you calling me? No, it wasn't me. After he did it a second time, Eli suddenly realized, oh, I think God's trying to get Samuel's attention. So he says to Samuel, here's what I want you to do. Go back to bed. If you hear it again, say, speak, your servant is listening. So Samuel does that. He hears Samuel, Samuel, speak, your servant is listening. And the Lord gives Samuel a very, very important message to relay to Eli. And he does that. And so here's the lesson that we can learn from this moment in Scripture. The lesson is simply this. Sometimes I need to listen up. Men and women, if we're followers of Jesus, we should be men and women who, we're always paying attention, and if God wants to say something, I'm gonna hear what he has to say, except for this. Our lives are so busy. I'm not sure about you, but I have a hard time just in the middle of my daily life kind of trying to figure out what God might be nudging me or whispering to me. I'm busy, the world is loud, I'm distracted.

And maybe you and I could learn from this eight-year-old boy maybe we should figure out how do we listen up to the voice of God? Now, after every lesson tonight, I'm gonna share a very basic practice. Here's one thing you can do to practice putting the lesson into your life so it becomes more natural. Here's how we practice listening up, is we simply do this, we find time daily to dial it down. Just dial down the noise, just slow it down. Now, notice I said find time, we have to find time. Time won't find you. Time's not gonna find you to listen to God. You gotta find the time. When I was a brand new Christian, my pastor gave a message on spending time with God, and his tip was simply this, you have to find the same place and the same time every day. Just the same place and the same time, your favorite chair every morning at 6 a.m., your patio every afternoon after work, like find the same, you gotta find the time, you gotta set aside, you gotta make the time. Wouldn't it be wonderful if once a day, once a day for 10, 15, 20 minutes, the loudest voice in your life wasn't your deadlines, your stresses, your worries? What if the loudest voice wasn't your friendships,

your relationships? What if the loudest voice wasn't your children? What if the loudest voice wasn't social media? What if daily we just said, I'm gonna dial it down and I'm gonna like Samuel, I'm gonna set time, and I'm gonna say, God, if you have something to say to me, say it, because I'm listening. That's a lesson that we can learn from an eight-year-old boy in scripture. Here's another lesson that we can learn, and this lesson is from somebody who you've probably heard of if you grew up going to church. Now, Samuel was eight years old. Esther, Bible scholars believe Esther was in her older teens, 18, 19, 20, when this moment happened. And the background is this, is that Esther, she had been hand-selected, taken from her village, her family. She was Jewish, and the king of Persia had hand-picked Esther to be the queen. He had the power to do that, and he looked at all the women and said, she's the young woman I want to be my queen, and she didn't have a say in the matter, she became the queen. And the king, he had a right-hand man, and the right-hand man, his name was Haman, he absolutely despised Esther's uncle, okay? So Esther has an uncle who's also Jewish.

She doesn't tell the king that she's Jewish. She decides not to let that out. The right-hand man, Haman, hates Mordecai, her uncle, so much that he convinces the king to sign a decree that in one year, all the Jewish people, every Jewish person, would be killed. And the king said, well, Haman, I trust you, you're a great right-hand man, I've given you authority, if you say that's what needs to happen, and he signs the decree. And then Mordecai, Esther's uncle, hears about this, and this is the moment that we find ourselves in right here in Esther chapter four. This is Mordecai speaking to Esther. He says this, for if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance from the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And then he says this, and who knows, but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. So what he's saying is, hey, maybe God allowed you to be queen for this moment. You're the wife of the king. Tell him, and he'll intervene. And she decides to take that risk. And I'll explain why it's a risk in a minute. She takes the risk, and the king says, I'll do it. She lets the king know, I'm Jewish, and the law you've signed is gonna kill me,

and my family, and our friends, the entire population is gonna be killed. And so he changes the decree, and Esther, by speaking up, saves an entire race of people. The lesson that we learn in this moment is that sometimes I need to step up. Sometimes I need to step up. Samuel reminds us that sometimes we need to listen up. Esther's story reminds us that sometimes we need to step up. Esther very easily could have said, hey, look, life is good, I'm living in the palace, this isn't my issue, this isn't my concern, who am I? She could have said, I'm not willing to risk it, and by risk it, in this setting, it would have been risking her life. The law back then was that you were not allowed to summon the king. The king had to summon you. And so if you asked to speak to the king, even if you're the queen, and the king took offense to that, he could have you killed. So it would have been very natural and completely understandable if Esther said, hey, look, I'm not stepping up, he could kill me. And if he kills me, he's gonna kill you guys anyway, like, no thanks. Sometimes we have to step up. You see, for Esther, what God was asking her to do, it collided with convenience, it collided with her lifestyle,

it collided with her comfort. She was just living life. It was all good until what God wanted her to do collided with that reality. If it hasn't happened for you, it will. There will come a moment where your comfort, your ease, your preferences, are gonna be in a collision course with something that God's asking you to do, specifically him asking you to step up on behalf of somebody else. And that's what we need to practice. Sometimes we need to step up. How we practice this is we practice it by looking for opportunities to promote, protect, and provide for others. Promote, protect, and provide for others. It's basically stepping up for people who can't. Stepping up for people who can't. Looking out for people who are more vulnerable. Being an advocate for people in our actions, in our words. What I mean by promoting people is it's you speaking up and cheering on people that you work with when they're not in the room. It's you sticking up when people are being gossiped about at school and you saying, wait a second, he's actually a really great guy. You're promoting him. Providing, protecting. What Esther did was Esther took her influence,

she took her position, she took what God had given her and where he had placed her, and she leveraged that for the benefit of an entire nation. God's gonna call us at some point. He's gonna ask us to step up. So Samuel teaches us that sometimes I need to listen up. Esther teaches us that sometimes I need to step up. This next lesson, I'm just gonna preface it out of the gate. This is one of the strangest, confusing moments, I believe, in scripture. So I don't have all the answers to how this went down and why it went down like it did, but there is a lesson to be learned in it. And I'm calling this a lesson we learned from some rowdy teenage guys. Some rowdy teenage guys in the Old Testament. I wanna read this passage of scripture. You'll see the screenshot. Here's the thing. After I read this passage of scripture, you're gonna think, wait a second, our kids ministry made a cartoon about that story? We didn't. They would never make a cartoon about this story. And you'll be thankful when you hear it. So I had to ask them, can you draw a custom version of the story just for consistency's sake? I think it would be awesome someday for some adults to make like felt boards from old Sunday school of all the weird stories of the Bible

that they don't teach you in Sunday school. This would definitely be one of them. Here's what happens. It says this in the book of 2 Kings. From there, Elisha. who's a prophet. From there, Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of town and jeered at him. Get out of here, Baldi, they said. Get out of here, Baldi. He turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the boys. Yeah, I read that right. Two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42. How many teenage guys were teasing Elisha? 42 of them got mauled. We don't know how many of them ran, but there was a big crowd. No wonder Elisha's scared, right? He's getting accosted by a mob of teenagers. Two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the boys, and then I just love the nonchalant ending. And he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there, he returned to Samaria. I'm just gonna own. I'm just gonna own it. This is an interesting moment. Here's the lesson. Here's the lesson.

And it's probably a deeper lesson than what we have time to unpack tonight. This is just kind of the surface level of it. The lesson is simply this. Sometimes I need to shush up. Sometimes I need... Now, I so badly wanted to say, I can't. When I was growing up, think of the worst cuss word. Well, don't think of the worst cuss word. We're in church. But whatever that word, that shut up in my house, that was it. Like, I was not allowed to say shut up. I had to say shush up, or we had to say this isn't the time, or we had to say please hold your thought. Like, we had to say a lot of things. We could, but sometimes, sometimes, my friends, we need to shut up. We need to just shush. And the reality is this. Our words are very powerful. Now, you hear that story and you go, okay, a bunch of teenagers are teasing the guy, a bald guy, and they get mauled by... I'm just gonna say this. As somebody who has at least one thing

in common with Elisha, I'm here to say I think the punishment totally fit the crime. I'm just gonna go on the record like, those punks had it coming, man. They had it coming. Now, the reality is this. It wasn't just, they were teasing him for being bald, but they were also mocking one of God's spokespeople. So there's a consequence when you start messing with God's people. The lesson for us tonight is simply that we just need to shush up. Not everything we think needs to be said needs to be said. You don't have to say what pops in your mind. You don't have to get the last word in in an argument with your spouse. Mom and dad, you don't have to say exactly what you wanna say right now to your teenager. It's okay to hold it. It's okay not to say it at all. Teenagers, it's okay not to say back what you wanna say to your mom and dad. It's okay not to make sure you have the last word in the meeting at work. It's okay not to post what you wanna post on Instagram. It's okay not to comment and reply what you wanna comment and reply.

Maybe, maybe the lesson we can learn from these teenagers is that our words have consequences for us, for the people who we say them to, and sometimes we just need to shush, just shush. Now, as I was preparing this message and I was looking at these four lessons to be learned, this is the one that just jumped off the page for me. When I think about my life, the times I've gotten in the most trouble, the time I've hurt people the most, the times I've had to say I'm sorry more than any other is around the words I use. My weapon of choice, sarcasm. I love sarcasm. I think sarcasm, it's like a spiritual gift for me. I just, man, I, golly, I've never met something sarcastic I don't wanna say. And if I think it, I wanna say it, because if I don't say it right now, it's gonna lose its punch, and half of the time it's funny, and you know what? Half of the time it's funny with a kick. And there's consequences. attached to that. I mean, if I was there, I would have joined those teenagers. In fact, I'll make fun of your hair tomorrow. Your full head of wavy, thick hair. Psh, gross. Shampoo and blow dryers, come on. Sometimes, what if we just held it? We just shushed. Now, how do we practice? Like, how do we practice? This is, I'm telling you, as I'm writing this, I'm just, oh, that's me. Oh, that's me. I got to learn this. I got to learn this. Here's how we practice it. And this is hard, because words come out so quick. We've all heard the analogy, you can't, words are like toothpaste, when you squeeze out of the tube, you can't put it in.

Another way to think about it is like, words are like arrows, sharp, and once you shoot it, you can't, you can't call it back. So, it's hard to do this, but here's how I would encourage us to practice is this. Pause, pray, just a brief, and then if you decide to proceed, you proceed with caution. Pause, pray, and proceed with caution. When I'm getting it right, when I'm being intentional with my words, I'll ask myself, when I decide to proceed, here's your questions I try to ask myself. Four questions. Is it true? Is it necessary? Just because it's true, doesn't mean you have to say it. Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? There are times that you have to say something that's not going to be received with as kindness. You have to say hard truth sometimes, but can you say what you have to say in kindness? Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? And very important, Kurt, very important, is it the right time? Is it the right time? Here's what I've learned. Is the right thing said at the wrong time, is the wrong thing. The right thing said at the wrong time is actually the wrong, it's the wrong thing. And so let's be people, let's be a church, let's be men and women, let's be husbands, wives, parents, friends, children who learn the powerful lesson, a harsh lesson, that sometimes we need to shush up, and let's be people who pause, pray, and proceed with caution. And then a fourth lesson comes from one of the most famous moments in Jesus' ministry. It's a miracle that Jesus performs, and he performs it because there's a young boy in the crowd. It says this in John, sometime after this Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee, that is the Sea of Tiberias, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs that he had been performing by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover festival was near. When Jesus looked up and saw the great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? Now he asked this only to test him because he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, it would take more than a half year's wages to buy bread for each one to have even a bite. Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many? Jesus said, have the people sit down. There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down. About 5,000 men were there. 5,000 men plus women and children, so let's just say that's an easy 10,000 people. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted, and he did the same with the fish. Here's a lesson that we learned from this little boy. Sometimes I need to offer up. Samuel teaches us that sometimes I need to listen up. Esther teaches

us that sometimes I need to step up. The rowdy teenagers teach us that sometimes I need to shush up. This little boy, in his willingness to share what he had, reminds us and teaches us that sometimes I need to offer up. This little guy could have easily said, said, 10,000 people and Omni only wants smart enough to bring lunch? Like, this is mine. Now, you know, it was fish and bread. I sometimes think if that was in and out, there's no way. He's not sharing it if it's in and out, but bread and fish, I kind of get it. But he sees what's going on and he's willing to offer up what he has to help the situation out. It's a lesson we can all benefit from. Here's how we practice it. We practice it by simply saying this, paying attention to what God's up to and then ask ourselves, what do I have that can help? We practice offering up by paying attention. What's God doing in the world? What's God up to in our community? What's happening at my school? What's happening at work? What's God up to? Where's God doing something? And what do I have that can help? What can I offer up to help the situation? If you want to know, okay, I'm up for that, where do I start? Here's a great place to start. Right here at Saddleback Church in our Next Gen Ministries. You need to hear that God is up to something in our children's, our junior high, our high school and our college ministries here at Saddleback Church. In fact, out of all the departments in our whole church where the most growth, numeric like attendance growth is happening, is in our Next Gen.

Your kids, our elementary kids, our junior highers, they're outpacing the adults in church attendance and bringing their friends. It's growing faster than any other area in our church. God's up to something. Every week, every weekend at Saddleback Church, thousands of students show up. Every Tuesday, Wednesday night, thousands of kids and teenagers are in small groups right here on campus, in homes spread out all throughout Orange County. Every week, hundreds of students and kids are using their spiritual gifts and their talents to serve others in the church, in the communities. Every week, God is doing something special here at Saddleback Church. And one of the most amazing things that God does in the lives of our students every single year is summer camp. We heard about during church news. But every year, thousands of kids and teenagers go to summer camp. And every year at summer camp, I mentioned before that I was one of the youth pastors for 27 years. That means I went to 27 summer camps. Maybe that's why. Youth ministry, it makes you old and keeps you young at the same time. I can't quite figure it out. But I've gone to 27 summer camps. And I will say this, every single year, thousands of kids and students go, thousands of lives are changed. We've seen people say yes to Jesus. We've seen people say yes to a calling in the ministry. We've seen kids and students say, I'm going to go home and ask my mom and dad to forgive me of this. We've heard students and kids say, I'm going to go home and forgive my mom and dad of this. Lives get changed at summer camp. I don't want you to just take my word for it.

I want to spend just a minute and let you hear from a few of our students who have gone to camp themselves. Let's check this out. Hello, my name is Eva Mesquita. Hi, my name is Tilly. Hi, I'm Hannah. My name is Sam. And throughout the four years of going to HSM, I felt really connected to the Lord. And then when college hit, a lot of my good friends left for college. And I didn't really know what community was going to look like heading into college. And that's really what CM Retreat really helped me with. My summer at camp was probably the most impactful experience that I've had with my relationship with God. Camp has been such an amazing time to just get off, get away from my phone. And you're just in such an environment where you're surrounded by God's presence. And I just love the worship and just like the friendly competition at rec and just being able to grow deeper in your faith. Last year at camp, we were all encouraged to read our Bibles more. And I feel like that really impacted me because now like every day in the morning, I wake up and then the first thing I do is I do my Bible plan and I always learn something new about that. I feel like the pivoting point was the late night conversations that I had with my leaders. It was really a great time. I was unpacking a lot of decisions that I need to be making. And for me, that was deciding whether to stay here for college or fly across the country to play baseball in Connecticut. And I think that the Lord really spoke to me. during CM retreat, and now I'm on an incredible path, and I love it here. Soccer was definitely my whole identity,

and I ended up tearing my ACL. During this time, I really doubted God, and I questioned what his plan was, and throughout camp, I was able to really see that, and see the bigger picture, and why I had gone through all of that hardship. At camp, I had two leaders. They're like my favorite leaders, because I feel like I can tell them anything. If I had any questions, they would explain to me in a way that I understood. They would teach us how to do a quiet time, and listen to God's voice, which I haven't really done before. When I was listening to God's voice, I heard many things that I never knew God was trying to tell me. That's how my leaders were always impacting me. And I would definitely recommend going to camp, because you find so many of those people who just want the same fire for God that you do, and these are gonna be the people who will lift you up when you need it. Yeah. Yes. Yes! Yes. Like I mentioned before the video, every summer, thousands of kids and students go to camp. Unfortunately, hundreds of kids and students

don't get to go to camp, just because it's financially not realistic from mom and dad. It's just a financial sacrifice that they can't make. And I'm gonna make an ask tonight. I'm gonna ask us as a church to look at what God's doing and ask, what do I have that can help? This is a stack of over 500 pieces of paper. Every year, we get over 500 scholarship requests filled out over this many families who are saying, I'd love for my son, my daughter to go to camp. I just need a little extra. I just need some help. I'm asking you as somebody who invested 27 years of his life. I'm asking you as somebody who has raised two kids here at Saddleback Church. Would you be willing to make sure that every child, every junior higher, every high schooler, every college student that wants to go to summer camp has that chance? You can sponsor an entire cost for one student. You can chip in and it's gonna help. But we want every single student, every single student, every single child to go to camp. If you wanna know, well, okay, I'm in. How do I do that? There's a QR code right here and that's gonna stay up there for a little while. You can click on that. It'll take you straight to a place on your phone

and you can just punch in $10, $100, 1,000, whatever you wanna punch in. Whatever you go, okay, this is what I have. I see what God's doing and I wanna offer it up. I wanna offer it up. It's an easy way to contribute to what God is doing right here in the lives of not just the future of our church, but our church in the next generation. Can you imagine how much different our communities could be? How much different our jobs could be? Our schools could be? How much different our relationships could be? How much different our families could be? Can you imagine how much different our church could be? Can you imagine how much different the next generation could be? If Saddleback Church became a church that was committed to practicing to listen up, to practicing to step up. We became a church that was gonna practice shushing up and we became a church that was gonna practice offering up. And when we do that, like we see over and over in scripture, like I've seen every single year at summer camp, lives get changed. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for the power and the truth of your word. These moments in scripture, we call them Bible stories because that's the best way to describe them,

but they're not stories. They're historical moments where you showed up and God, time and time again in scripture, you showed up and you moved through young people and the world was changed. Father, we wanna continue to be a church that values and cheers on and supports the next generation. Jesus, we love you. And we thank you for loving us. In your name we pray, amen. What a great Worship Together weekend. I wanna encourage you right now, you can scan the QR code on the screen or in the app, you can take your next step. Maybe it's to share a prayer request or to give to the scholarship fund, the Camp Scholarship Fund Pastor Kurt was talking about, which I know is such an important thing that our church does. And even for those part of our online community, even if you can't be part of that or your kids can't be part of it, your students, we're so grateful when you contribute to make others able to be part of that. You could also sign up for Activate and in the Discover section of the app, there's a way you can subscribe to the Saddleback Kids YouTube channel, which is a really great YouTube channel that you should be sharing with your entire family.

Dad, can we wrap this up? You promised me McDonald's. And you promised me ice cream. My bad, apparently I made some promises. Anyway, see you guys right here next week.