The Locker Room | Eat Clean, Train Dirty | Chad Bruegman

Birdman has a great message for us today. [Music] You got to dance to the darkness, see through the fire, praise when it don't make sense. Sometimes you've got to stare down the giant, word you're coming by. [Music] Sometimes you've got a shout on the mountain, louder in the valley, trust in many's gonna get you there. Sometimes you've got a wealth of the one, I'm waiting with the answer. Worship with your hands in the air, I'll praise you anywhere. Praise to the praise, praise in the fire, praise to the praise, praise in the fire, as He. [Music] Sometimes you've got to pray to the praise, cry out to heaven. [Music] Sometimes you've got to stare down the giant, word you're coming by. Worship with your hands in the air, I'll praise you anywhere. Praise to the praise, praise in the fire, as praise to the praise in the fire, as He. [Music] This thing that happened. [Music] Here we go. [Music] We go on our blessings day in countless reasons why they won't raise you anyway. Every promise could be good this every single each and every breath. How praise you anywhere. We go on our blessings day in countless reasons why they won't raise you anywhere. Every promise could be good this every single each and every breath. How praise you anywhere. Praise to the praise, praise in the fire, as He. [Music] Good job. Y'all sound great this morning.

Let's keep singing. Let's talk this year. [Music] This is the day you made. This is where I believe that you are more than a man. This is where I believe that you are more than a man. I believe that you are more than a man. I believe that you are more than a man. Praise to the Lord. Praise to the Lord. ♪ Oh, you're the Lord with the joy of the Lord in our faith ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Come, what a man ♪ ♪ You are the Lord ♪ ♪ We're the Lord of the joy of the Lord in our faith ♪ ♪ You promise you are strong tonight ♪ ♪ And I'm standing in your presence high ♪ ♪ Everything I need ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ There's more to be ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ (audience applauds) ♪ The Lord is my shepherd ♪

♪ And he is everything I am ♪ ♪ So I will not worry ♪ ♪ I will not fear the end ♪ ♪ He said that he loves me ♪ ♪ He said that he's with me ♪ ♪ I walk through the valley ♪ ♪ Shadow and death instill you ♪ ♪ He has good hands ♪ ♪ He has good hands ♪ ♪ For me ♪ ♪ So I will take home ♪ ♪ In deserts and gardens ♪ ♪ He has good hands ♪ ♪ He has good hands ♪ ♪ For me ♪ ♪ If I'm on my father ♪ ♪ I'm on my father's ♪ ♪ Good, good hands ♪ ♪ No weapon formed against me ♪ ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ ♪ And the Lord is my savior ♪ ♪ So I should have held my character ♪ ♪ And why would I question ♪ ♪ The writing the staff that comes ♪ He quiets the storm inside of me So I could be better Then walking with him, when I believe He has good plans He has good plans for me So I will take heart in deserts and gardens

He has good plans He has good plans for me If I know my father, I've known my father as He has good plans He has good plans for me So I will take heart in deserts and gardens He has good plans He has good plans for me If I know my father, I've known my father as He has good plans Oh, oh, oh We submit to your plans We submit to your plans So me, your goodness And mercy will fall after me So feel well and I'll find me 'Cause I'll be dwelling in the house of God So me, your goodness And mercy will fall after me So feel well and I'll find me 'Cause I'll be dwelling in the house of God So me, your goodness And mercy will fall after me So feel well and I'll find me 'Cause I'll be dwelling in the house of God So me, your goodness And mercy will fall after me So feel well and I'll find me 'Cause I'll be dwelling in the house of God He has good plans

He has good plans for me So I will take part in dancers and guardians He has good plans He has good plans for me If I know my father, I've known my father as Good friends Good friends Good friends If I know my father, I've known my father as Good friends Good friends Good friends If I know my father, I've known my father as Good friends Good friends Good friends Good friends Awesome, great, this morning Thank you so much for singing with us You all go ahead and take a seat Hey, listen, we've got Chad Bergman, our senior pastor here this morning And he's got a great message for us, but before we get into that Would you guys bow your heads and pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, we're so grateful We're so grateful for you and the good plans you have for us I know sometimes we think that our plans Are the plans that we should follow, but we know yours are better And so I pray that whatever we've got going on this week I know we can come in here with worries and anxieties I pray that you quiet our minds and prepare our hearts for this message

We have a chance to draw closer to you without any distraction So we thank you and we love you Father, Amen Hey, let's do this, let's also welcome everyone at our most city campus We love you over there, most city, downtown at our western campus Everybody watching with us online, glad you have technology But we're excited for when you can be back with us live in person always All of the men that got behind bars in our Rams unit. We love you, gentlemen. (audience applauding) Love you, love you, love you. This weekend is a unique one, as we're in week four of our series that we've titled "The Locker Room" because almost 30 years ago, when Patrick and Lisa Kelly started this church, they started with really five pillars or fundamentals of what they hoped this church would look like. And one of them, very practical one, was everybody works. Everybody does their part. Everybody participates. And so once or twice a year, we have an everybody works campaign and that happens to be this weekend. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about that. Through this message, we're gonna talk about the biblical principle about this everybody works idea. But on a practical level, I just wanna start,

how many of you got these at every campus on your way in? If you did put 'em up, come on, let me see. Let me see what we got here. Okay, if you happen to not get one or you've already ripped it up, 'cause you don't work, (laughs) you can get one on the way out, maybe if the Holy Spirit speaks or something. But at every campus on your way out, we're gonna have people at different places in the lobbies and at West End at the coffee shop that are going to take these from you if you feel so compelled to sign up and say, you know what, I think it's time for me to get a little bit more involved in the game, a little bit more involved in the care of the locker room around here so that we can be the church that we believe we're supposed to be. Or if you're not quite ready, but you, for the first time, maybe have some questions, there'll be people at every campus that will answer any questions that you have. And before we jump into the message, I just wanna do this since it's in everybody works weekend. At every campus, you're gonna see a bunch of people with a lot of black shirts or red shirts. And they have lanyards on. And a bunch of them are really smiling and nice

and they're saying hello to you. A bunch of them are out there with their orange vests on so you don't hit 'em and they're teaching you to park with a little bit of grace and kindness sensibility. There's people that are making God's one ordained drug for you coffee. I think some of the greatest heroes of the church are the ones that sign up to get involved in kids ministry. Jesus said when the disciples were like, get all the little obnoxious kids away from 'em. He's doing big boy work. He's too important for that and Jesus rebuked them. He was indignant, it said. And he said, no, no, no, let the little children come to me and he would place them on his knee and he would pray a prayer of blessing over them. And then he would follow it up by saying, hey, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you've actually gotta learn from these little ones. You gotta become like them again. And so I think some of the finest work our volunteers do around here is when you sign up to help with the kids ministry. And so I've just been praying all week, God, I never wanna manipulate, I never wanna throw things in people's faces, that's not my MO, but I'm just praying through the power of your word and the power of your Holy Spirit that we as a church at all of our campuses would walk out of the doors today

with a renewed conviction that everybody works, that the more we all participate, the less we all have to do in terms of expending of our energy because we know our energy is limited and we know it has to go to a lot of noble and holy things in this lifetime. And so this is what today's about, I'm gonna do this real quick before we start. I know we probably just prayed at all of your campuses, but we're gonna be Catholic today. We're gonna pray again three minutes later, okay? I just really believe in for God's blessing on this message. And so Heavenly Father, I pray in these next few minutes out of your kindness and out of your goodness that you have shown us over and over. I just pray through your holy and your written word mixed with my human imperfect words, God, that you would make our church just a little bit healthier. You would make our church just a little bit stronger, God. I am asking this in your mercy and in your kindness. And so God speak in these next few minutes and we pray this in the matchless name of Jesus. And everyone said, amen. So if you're visiting with us, we're in a series. This is week four of a six week series we've titled The Locker Room. Couple reasons. One, I love football, I told you that. And I really, really, really love Jesus.

And so I said, if we got a chance to combine those, I'm just gonna take my liberties. It's a football season, as we all know. Is it Houston Dallas today? Texas rivalry. Who's got Houston at every campus? (audience cheering) Okay, who's got Dallas? (audience cheering) All right, I am neutral here. I'm Switzerland, I'm pro 49ers. I'm 49ers, man. I'll celebrate with whichever team wins. I'll be happy and sad for both of you guys. We can accidentally, because of the size of the churches in America in 2026, because of the amenities that come with the churches, because of the incredible amount of provision that God has given us in this very prosperous nation, our churches, the buildings, the lights, the camera, the action, the talks, the music, all of the things that we offer, it can start to look and feel like a football game, right? Like we even have parking attendance, helping you get in and out. We've got large crowds, we've got, over here at Richmond, we've got stadium seating, and what we wanted to re-up on is this idea that look, none of those things are at all bad or dishonoring to God, but we have to keep them in their proper place, right?

This is not the gathering. We learned that word in week one, the ecclesia. It means when believers come together to be equipped, as I talked about in week one, to suit up so that we can, what, go out. The football field, the football game is, as I say, Monday through Saturday until we meet again. It's out there in the real world where it's messy, and there's a whole bunch of good, and there's a whole bunch of beautiful, but there's also, as we know, a whole bunch of broken, and so we said we want to ask really three questions of what it looks like to have a healthy and a strong locker room, and the three questions are this. Number one, what is the purpose of the gathering? What's the purpose of this? Why do we keep showing up? Because if we do, we want to maximize it. If we do, we want to do it as honoring to God as we can, but there's no use in having a purpose if you don't then have a plan, right? So the second question is, what's the plan for the gathering? What's the plan for us as the church as we come week after week to the locker room to get equipped and prepared to go out and spend another week on the football field? And then the third question, and this is what we're going to highlight today is, then what's a healthy gathering look like? What's a healthy church experience look like? So we're going to do that and to start today

to make some sense of where I'm going biblically, we're going to talk scientifically again. We're going to go back two months, and we're going to just do a quick exercise in terms of that series we did in intersection. If you guys were here, we did a series called Intersection where we were bridging the gap between God and this amazing part of his creation, our human bodies, and what they tell us about how amazing and intricate God is as a designer and as a creator. And we talked about a lot of functions in the human body, and so real quick, I'm just going to give you a quiz, okay? Put on your thinking caps. Don't be afraid to guess if you don't know this. If you're a nutritionist or a physiologist, you better get this or you're fired, okay? So here's the quiz. I am going to talk, I'm going to give you the definition real quick of one of the systems, one of the many systems in the human body, and this system is amazing when you study it. It is incredible, but especially as you get older, this system can also become incredibly frustrating, all right? So you guys ready? Here's the definition and then you have to guess what system in the human body this is. Blank is the continuous set of life-sustaining chemical reactions inside the body that converts food into energy and building blocks for what, for growth. All right, every campus real quick,

you got your answer locked in? Okay, then I want you, sorry, introverts, I'm sorry, but I want you to look at your neighbor and I want you to give them your answer, all right? Every campus, go, what's your answer? (laughter) Okay, we're going to stop this because it should be one word. I don't know what else is being talked about. You guys ready for the answer? I'm going to read it again, but I'm going to fill in the blank. Here we go. Tell me if you got it right. Make some noise if you got it right. Metabolism is the continuous set of life-sustaining chemical reactions inside the body that does what? It converts food, so we're going to talk about food today, that converts food into energy, which then are our building blocks for growth. Now, we're going to get off this and we're going to get into scripture because today is not about nutrition, it's not about our physical bodies, but this preaches right here. There's really two divisions, there's two processes in the metabolic system that it's divided into. The first one is this. It's the catabolism is what it's called, right? The catabolic part of our metabolism, and here's what catabolism does.

It breaks down complex food molecules into smaller parts, Release energy. In other words, food being broken down in our body and then the vitamins, the minerals, the nutrients being sent into the bloodstream to do what? To release energy. In other words, food is simply a means to a greater end. It's to give you energy, right? In the nutrition world, we simply say calories in, calories out. You put calories in, why? So that you can expend them with energy to do what we've been created in this life to do. The second half of it is this. Once you've broken the fewed fuels into smaller points to release energy, then the anabolic part of it kicks in, anabolism, which is this. Then it uses that energy to, here's the word, to build and to what? To repair, cells, tissues, and organs. Now, you're all, I promise, this is going to preach, OK? So stick with me. I've titled the message this week in our locker room series, eat clean, train dirty. Eat clean, train dirty. I have figured a few crossfit Jim bros would be like, let's go. But I didn't hear anything, at least not at Richmond. This phrase became popular when hashtags became popular in the social media world. And it really started, I think, with the inception of this

exercise approach called crossfit. And they would show everyone that they're exercising. Because, did you really even exercise if you don't show the world on social media that you did, right? And then they'd put hashtags, eat clean, train dirty. So I've titled the message that because this will preach. Let's go back to football for a minute. If you're coming into the locker room as a team at half time, do you want to know what one of the worst signs is that you didn't do good in the first half? A bunch of clean uniforms. Do you know how the cleanest uniform on the football field? The kicker, sorry kicker. Somewhat true, but no. It's the one who stays on the sideline the whole game. It's the one who doesn't have an opportunity to get out there in the game, and hit, and take some hits, and score, and get scored on, and win, and take some losses. It's the one who stays on the sidelines, which is why we have this series called Everybody Works, because we believe not just that the church in order to function needs everybody to participate, but we believe that there is something divine that happens for you in your participation. We believe that there's something beautiful that happens for you when you participate. If I say eat clean, train dirty, here's what I'm really trying to say. Clean body is what we want. And then we want to leave this church

and get dirty clothes, and then come back and eat clean again. And then go out into this messy world, and get our clothes dirty, taking hits, giving hits, taking some wins, taking some losses, and then we come back and what, we refuel, and then the metabolic system of the church starts to break that down as we refuel, and release it again for another week of energy. Now, there's an ancient proverb, and this won't come up on your screens, 'cause I added it to my notes this morning, but in Proverbs chapter 14, verse four, we get in Proverbs wisdom, right? It's the book of wisdom, and King Solomon wrote this. He said, "Where there are no oxen, "you get a clean manger, or a clean barn, "but it's with many oxen where you get a fruitful harvest." Here's what he's saying, "Do you want a clean barn, "do you want a clean manger, "or do you want a fruitful one with harvest?" 'Cause you don't get both. Do you want a clean, tidy, mess-free church, where all we do is work so hard for you to make sure you're as comfortable as possible, to make sure this thing plays out as clean as possible, to make sure we get it as right and as perfect as possible? Do we want a church where all of the people the church is telling God doesn't like maybe, sometimes our God is against because of how they're behaving or acting?

Do we want to be the church where those people don't feel welcome when they come just as they are? Because here's what we'll get for that church. We'll get a really clean, nice, tidy, tidy little barn or locker room, but you know what, we won't have a harvest. Jesus said this, "The harvest is plentiful, y'all, "but the workers, the oxen are few." So he says, "Pray to the Lord of the harvest," that he would send out more workers, that he would put more oxen out in the field, but you just got to know this, church is going to get a little messy then. And I'm not just talking about the gathering, I'm talking about how we go out there and take hits and give hits, take wins and take losses. So I want us to start with this. What is one of the chief metaphors that Jesus uses to talk about us, the church? One is, I'll tell you first, one is he's the bridegroom and we together are the bride, right? But the one that gets used the most in the New Testament is this. We are called the body of Christ, right? That's why I love using physical illustrations and metaphors about our physical bodies to talk about the church because the parallels are perfect. We are, as 1 Corinthians 12, 12 says, we are what?

One body, all of us and some two, some billion people on planet earth that are gathering today, we are one body but we are what? Many different parts, many different systems within that body with many different functions, with many different ways that we get to contribute and that we get to serve. Just to double down on that idea, Romans 12, four and five says, for just as each of us has one body, talking about the physical, with many members and these members do not all have the same function, now listen to this 'cause he goes to the church. He says, so in Christ we, everybody say we. So in Christ we, though many, we got many at this church, what do we do? We form one body and then listen to this and each member belongs to all the others. Now the reason everybody works was a pillar for almost the 34 years of this church's history is because each member according to God's way of doing things according to the scriptures belongs to each other. Whether you wanna be or not, we are intertwined as believers. This is a communal story that God told from the beginning to the end. It's not a story of your faith and then you isolate. You get your beliefs and then you isolate

and stay safe and do everything in life to simply just have a clean major but with no growth, with no productivity, with no harvest. So let's do this. What are the two main pillars of a healthy body? There's really three but we're gonna talk about two today. It's really simple. It's food, what you eat and then it's movement or exercise, right? Calories in, calories out. The third pillar which is another series which we'll have is rest, sleep. What you eat, how much you move and how well you sleep are very simple. The ultimate pillars to the human body. And so I wanna start by talking about not our physical bodies again but our spiritual bodies, the body of Christ, in the body of Christ, in the locker room, what's our diet look like? Where does our food come from? What's the source and I'm gonna give you the clicheed answer but I'm gonna give you the absolute right answer and it is simply this. What does eating clean look like for us? It is this, it is a constant non-stop endless relentless diet of Jesus. Not something we eat so that we can get bored with eventually and move on to something that tastes a little different or tastes a little bit better. I pray for our church that we would have

an ever increasing sensitive palate to the person of Jesus Christ. That this church would be centered around and constantly fixated on, keeping our eyes focused on one person and one person only, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's talk about why He's our food. In John 635, listen to what he said, "Then Jesus declared, I am what? "I am the bread," man, I love bread. Their bread back then in the ancient world was so much healthier than the bread that we eat now. There was no preservatives, there were no additives. So he says, "I am the bread of life." Listen to this, whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. So when I'm talking about this part of the church, which is eating clean, I'm talking about being a church that just constantly comes to honor to lift up the name of Jesus. When I'm talking about our diet, she's simply the person of Jesus, I'm talking about being not just people who have converted to Jesus in terms of Christianity, but people who wanna be followers of Jesus. I don't wanna church just full of converts, praise God for conversion, praise God for salvation. But that's just the first step in something that is so much more dynamic and beautiful, which is becoming a follower.

Someone who wants to do our best to walk as Jesus walked, to emulate Jesus as John said in his book, to follow him, do what he did. And so what do we do as a healthy church? We focus on his way he lived, and the information that we've been given about that. We go over it, and over it, and over it. How did this man live? Why did he live that way? Why did he do the things he did? Why did he abstain from the things that he abstained from? And then not just how he lived, but then how he taught. The Bible says repeatedly in the gospels, is this man kept teaching as one who had such an authority that people in the masses just kept wanting to be around him to hear him teach. It was different, so we focus on his teachings, that's our food, we focus on his lifestyle, that's our food, we focus on his death. This is interesting, what did Jesus give us as one of the two chief sacraments in the church? He told us to do this physically because it will do something profound for us spiritually. It's this sacrament called communion. And what's he talk about, what's the imagery he uses? Food, he says, whenever you break this bread, he says eat of it in remembrance of me. Remember my broken body. Whenever you drink from this cup, I want you to remember my shed blood

and the new covenant implications that come with my shed blood. So we talk about the death of Jesus. We talk about the cross of Jesus. Because it's his broken body and it's his shed blood that starts to put nutrients, vitamins, minerals, protein, complex carbs, spiritually, macronutrients into our soul and into our spirit. It's not just something nice to do to sing about it. No, every time we sing about the blood of Jesus, every time we sing about the cross of Jesus, every time we sing or preach about the resurrection of Jesus, we are putting these nutrients called grace, mercy, hope, life, perseverance, joy, and a million other things. Jesus is our food. We eat clean because he first made us what, clean. So it's as simple as that. And if Jesus is our food, then I would say this is the chef. This is from Genesis to Revelation. One story written over a thousand and a half years on three different continents by 40 different authors to tell one story, which is Jesus Christ and Christ crucified, who then three days later rose from the dead, conquering sin and conquering death and anyone and everyone who will call upon the name of the Lord, everyone who will repent and then believe shall have eternal life with God in his presence where there will be for an eternity, no more death, no more crying, no more pain. That is the mission of the church.

(audience clapping) - You can clap now, let's clap. That's good news. So Jesus is our food, but then the question is it's calories in and calories out, right? What do we do with that? How do we metabolize our growth in Jesus as we're following Jesus, as we're trying to be disciples of Jesus being empowered by his Holy Spirit, living in us to do that? What does it mean to metabolize Jesus, the bread of life? What causes the bread of life to then release that energy so that we can use it to go and to be fruitful and to be workers of the harvest? What's that look like? And here's a big idea today, the metabolic system, not of the human body, but the metabolic system of the body of Christ is this, we metabolize the truth of Jesus, what we eat, by how we love and by how we serve. The body has all kinds of different systems, all kinds of different purposes, all kinds of dynamic facets to the human body, same with the body of Christ, but the metabolic system is when you grow in Jesus, when you are feeding off of Jesus, when you are constantly in the truth, when you are constantly reading the truth, when you are praying the truth, when you are singing the truth, listen to me,

if we are a church that just gets good at doing that over and over and over, but then it doesn't manifest into how we go into the football field, how we go into the world and love people. And I'm not just saying love our own, that's the easy part, we gotta love each other, we're called to that, but then we gotta go out and love the people we really, really, really don't wanna love. Those aren't my words, remember what Jesus said? Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. I think in 2026 it would say, debate your enemies. I don't want to get on my own little soapbox here. I'm gonna jump on it for a minute. All right. Is anyone else just a bit disheartened right now by how much talk and debate and arguing that we are putting out in the ether? We now have these phones which has allowed us this global conversation, something we never had growing up. Everybody knows everything about everybody's thoughts, and sometimes I go on social media and I go to pastors, pastors I love pastors I respect, and I'm like we're talking so much about proving our faith, debating our faith, using all these very creative and beautiful ways to tell everyone that what we have is true, and listen there's nothing wrong with that unless our actions aren't outweighing our words. And man, the church when it started, like they had the faith of a little child, and their actions so outweighed their rhetoric, their actions so outweighed their words that when they did bring words in, all of a sudden people were attracted because they met us practically where we needed to be met. You want someone's ears to be open to the gospel of Jesus Christ, how about we do what Jesus did time and time again that the gospel is preceded with signs and wonders? And I know what you're thinking, well I can't heal the way Jesus did. I can't feed 5,000 with one meal like Jesus did. Every time Jesus taught it was met with signs and wonders, and so people leaned in and said I believe you, I want to follow you, none of us are ever going to be able to do the supernatural work that Jesus himself did, but remember the bridegroom Jesus is one person, the bride is two point something billion people all making one body. Do you know how great of a

works we can do if we just all come together and take our resource and take what God has given us and we just push it all in and we use that resource to be a sign and a wonder to people in front of us that desperately need practical help because here's what happens, heart start opening when you start loving and serving people well. Ears start getting bigger when you start loving and serving people well. And this was Jesus' M.O. and I want it to be R.M.O. So I'm not going to read it for time's sake, but Jesus said he was asked, there was a big debate going on and some Jewish leader came up and asked him what's the greatest command and we know what he says, hero Israel, your God is one. Therefore love your God with what? All your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. This is one of the reasons we come to the locker room is to re-up on why we do what we do and who we do it for. This is why I get up here and sweat through my shirts and walk around and point and spit on the front few rows and plead with you guys. I'm like a coach in the locker room going, come on, let's go. Let's go. We already know we can win. We've already been told we win. Now let's go out and play like it. Let's play with some security. Let's play with some passion. Let's have some fun out there. Why play the game if you quit having fun? I tell that to my kids who are in youth sports. I tell almost before every practice, hey, if you don't have fun today at practice, what's the point of playing? Hey, if you don't have fun in the game, win or lose, what's the point of playing? And then I tell them what you parents don't want to tell your kids, I go, you're not doing pro anyways. Look at your dad. Look at your mom. We didn't genetically give you. You're going to play with some kids that might go pro, but you ain't. So just go have fun. And I'm sorry, son. I'm sorry, daughter, but this is what God gave us, right? Like it is what it is, but go have fun. Play the game with some intensity. Give it your all. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. I want to be a church when we come here that we walk out every week, just a little bit more excited to go back out into the world. We go a little more lighter. We play a little freer. We play with the joy of the Lord, which is our strength to play the game of life for the glory of Jesus. So our food is Jesus and the metabolic system is then how we love not just each other, but how we love the world. Jesus said to his disciples, "The world will know me by the way you love each other." Wow, that's convicting. "The world will know me and the reality of me by the way you love each other." The second greatest commandment is this, right? We know it. Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Jesus makes very clear in the Gospels who our neighbor is.

It's not who's just in your cultist act, right? And he gives this beautiful parable when the person asked him, "Who's my neighbor then, right?" You can go back and read it this week. It's the parable of the good Samaritan. It's an incredible thing. He shows an enemy helping an enemy and providing for an enemy and taking care of this hurt enemy who was on the side of the road when the priests walked past and the Levite, the super spiritual leaders of the day, they walked past that enemy of theirs who was from a Gentile persuasion, right? Because we would be ceremonially unclean if we go touch them. So we can't do that because we're going to honor God by ignoring the guy on the side of the road who's bleeding out. And then who comes? The enemy of Israel, the Samaritan comes. God's doing something when he chooses a Samaritan to be the one who gets it right. He's trying to bring conviction to the church, to the people of God. And he says, "It's actually your enemy, the one you talk so bad about and podcast so bad about, and the one you remind how you're so much better than them because you're God's chosen and they're not, right?" It was actually the Samaritan that went and did God's work and said, "Put it on my tab."

It was them that expended the right kind of calories. There's a moment in Scripture and I'll just give you one more example. That love and service is our exercise. We eat clean, then we train dirty. Listen to what Jesus says. I'll give you some quick context so this passage makes sense. James's mom was being a good mama bear and she went to Jesus to advocate for her sons, James and John. They were two disciples. They were called the sons of thunder, pretty cool name. And she goes, "Jesus, quick favor." And he says, "Yes, yes, woman." And that was a nice way to say things to women back then. Don't do that anymore. But he said, "Yes, woman." She goes, "I'd like to ask if my two sons "could sit on your right hand and your left hand in heaven." And Jesus very kindly says, "Mom, I get it. "You're a mama bear. "You're advocating for your boys. "But number one, that's not for me to decide. "And number two, that's already been decided." And without saying it, he's like, "And it won't be James and John." Love them, love them, committed to them. One of my 12, but it won't be them. And then the other disciples hear that that conversation was taking place

and here's where we pick up. When the 10 heard about this conversation, they were indignant with the two brothers. Another gospel that records this moment says, and they started fighting amongst themselves as to who is the greatest of the 12. To which I say, "What's wrong with us humans?" Jesus called them together when he saw them getting indignant and arguing about this. And he said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles, "gentiles here representing non-believers, "the world system, right? "He's trying to teach them the kingdom of God." He says, "You know in the world system "the rulers of the Gentiles, "the people in charge, lorded over them. "And their high officials, ready for this word today, "exercise, authority over them." Jesus says this, "I want you to hear these three words, "four words, not so with you." Jesus is going, "This is not how we play the game." Out there, instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Listen to this, just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to what? Give, to serve and to give, to serve and to give, to serve and to give, right? And give his life as a ransom for many. My son, my oldest son is 20 years old.

His name is Jude. He's my workout buddy. And he's in this phase that the fitness people called bulking. My son is bulking right now. Here's what that means if you're not into that world. That means that my son, a 20 year old, who currently lives at home with us, eats about four to 6,000 calories a day. Whether he's hungry or not, right? The ultimate goal is in putting that much calories in, you have so much more energy to expend calories out. So when he's in the gym, he's lifting as heavy as he can. Every single time he goes to the gym, the purpose is he wants to build muscle. Now, in bulking season, you have to be okay with this. You're also gonna build some fat. This is the first time I've seen my son with chubby cheeks. And I've had that many times in my life and I let him know all the time. I love your fat face right now, Jude. I love it, I'm so. (audience laughs) But he's doing that with the intention of eventually when he starts to put on some mass because of his growth and strength, then he'll start having a different caloric approach and he'll start doing what's called cutting. Now, I said we're here to eat clean and train dirty. I wanna give us this illustration. Think if you were really good

or we as a church were just really good, Our manger is clean, man, right? And we just kept eating protein after protein after protein 'cause protein was, when you rip the muscle in the gym, you then feed it and then you rest it, right? And protein's such an important part of that process. What if my son just kept eating four to 6,000 calories a day without protein, but then constantly forgot to pick these up and go to the gym? We know what happens. He puts on a bunch of weight that bogs him down, that slows him down, that makes things tougher, that makes things slower. He got one half of it right. Man, he was eating so much and he was eating so good and he was putting in so much protein, but then he never went to the gym and started ripping the muscles. Man, I should have brought two shirts today. I'm gonna start sweating through this thing, right? Like, here's what happens. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8, chapter one, says we know that we all possess knowledge, but knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Knowledge in the church, if we're just coming to get knowledge for the sake of knowledge, do you know what that makes for? Christians that put on all the wrong kinds of weight, that slows us down, that makes us less agile,

that makes us less mobile, that makes it harder to walk in the fullness of your purpose. Now listen, we gotta interpret this one line correctly with other scripture. Paul is not saying this, knowledge bad. There's hundreds of verses in the Bible, Old and New Testament, that affirms the pursuit of knowledge. We as believers should have a conviction about being lifelong learners, don't you think? Knowledge is not in and of itself bad, but knowledge here me is simply a means to a greater end. Do you understand that? And the greater end is to take that knowledge, calories, calories and knowledge, and turn it into wisdom, because wisdom is simply knowledge applied to life, action. Taking the knowledge of God, taking the truth of God, taking the good news of Jesus and saying, now let me go and move as that breaks down, that food, the food, the bread of life breaks down in my body, in my soul, in my spirit. Now let that release me to go and build and to repair. Love and service is the metabolic engine. You can lift all the weights in the world, non-stop. And then end the night, I've done this, I did this for my whole 20s. I would lift and I would run so hard because I loved it, and then I would finish the night with Taco Bell, when I was single, with a mountain dew, a large mountain dew, and then every other night I'd go to Dairy Queen and get a large blizzard.

And then I'm complaining about why I'm not getting the gains that I'm working so hard to get in the gym. It works both ways, right? Some of the best people that serve and love people on planet earth, that I even know don't even have a faith in God at all. They're great with the calories out, they're great with the action. I'm convicted by some of those friends of mine, but it's not burst out of the truth. It's not burst out, so it's knowledge puffs up, right? But love builds up. I don't care to have the church that knows more about the Bible or Jesus than any other church. It's not a competition, y'all, because knowledge is simply food to be released for energy, to go into all the world and make more and more and more disciples because it's God's will that none should perish. About 10 years ago, I was still at my church in Denver, Colorado, and we got a phone call from another church that was started in Topeka, Kansas. And they gave us a heads up or a warning that they were gonna be outside of our church all weekend. And this church you may have heard of 'em is called Westboro Baptist. And they would go around and they would do this. Small little church, but huge national platform because of how crazy their antics were. And they would go to, this is the worst to me, they would go to soldiers' funerals

and picket the soldiers' funerals because they believed our capitulation in the United States of homosexuality was God's judgment and that's why soldiers had funerals. Like, can you believe that? It's like, that's wicked. That is a wicked thought about God. And that was their big thing and they went to funerals and they picket it at other big events and then they would picket it larger churches in different states. And at the time we had the first or second biggest church in Colorado, so they just used us as their poster child and they called us, they wanted us to know they were coming because they wanted to pick a fight. And I got our team together and I got our volunteers together. And the campus pastor called me the night before freaking out. And I told him, here's our marching orders, here's exactly what we're going to do. When they get here, we are going to tell our church, nobody debates with them, nobody argues with them, nobody gets in a fight with them. And I told our campus pastor about an hour into them being here, I want you to order them pizza and I want you to go to the store and get a bunch of cases of water and I want you to get a bunch of ice and I want you to fill our coolers with them and I want you to bring them pizza and water. And he was younger at the time, he had just started being a campus pastor and I could hear the silence on the other end of the phone like, you know who these guys are, right? Like we got to do something about this, we got to tell them how wrong they are, right? And I said, no, no, no, no. And I got this again from King Solomon, the book of wisdom, he said this, right?

If your enemy is hungry, feed them. If your enemy is thirsty, give them a cup of cold water. And in doing so, you will keep burning coals on their head, judgment, conviction. This is the kingdom of God, y'all. This is why Jesus says, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. This is where the church gets messy. This is where a harvest can start to happen. But you don't get a clean barn, you don't get a clean church, you get messy uniform. Like if we don't do this, who will? If we don't treat our adversaries and enemies, so we've been told differently, who will? Why are we so scared to just do our part in that we are going to be known for how well we help the world get a little bit better? More than telling the world everything wrong with them. See, I want to tell them everything can be right with them because a man who was God became a human, got up on a cross and said, you can't make yourselves better, clearly look around world, but I can in me and through me. And then we are as the church to proclaim that to people, but the power of our proclamation is only as good, not as our knowledge, not as calories in, but then what we do with that knowledge, calories out. And I want to be a church that is a sign and a wonder to the Houston metro area and any further that God would allow us to serve. I want us to be known for how we give, how we take care of people. I want us to be known again for the group of people that fed more people, like the early church, they were known for feeding people without any expectation of anything in return. And it was attractive. And the book of Acts said God kept adding more and more people to their numbers every day, but it's counterintuitive, right? Like what if we were a church that just said, listen, if we're going to have hard talks about what God's against, let's do that here. Paul said judgment begins with the house of God.

Let's have those talks here to make sure we're eating clean. And then let's go out there and let's serve the least among us. And Jesus says, when you do that for them, it's like you're doing it for me. We can speak the gospel with authority if we follow it with signs and wonders. If we follow it by serving people, taking care of people, changing their situation, feeding people, Jesus could feed the masses with a miracle. We can feed the masses because the bride is 2.7 billion people on planet earth. And I want us to get back to that. And I want us to be secure in that. God needs no defense. Most city, West End, it's quiet here at Richmond. I don't know how we're doing over there. Maybe it should be quiet. Let me free you up. Acts 19 says, there is nothing under heaven with which God needs for man. Nothing. God needs no defense. The cross is all of the defense. It's there. The resurrection. It's there. Now he says, go into the world, proclaim that good news, and then let signs and wonders accompany it. Think if we were people as we leave the locker room every week that said, God, just show me the person. Show me the people. God, give me the right heart to the people that drive me the most nuts. God, give me a heart. Give me your heart for the people that are living fundamentally opposed to how I believe we're supposed to live.

And instead of every day it worked, constantly being in judgment of them and frustration of them. and trust you to convict them. (audience applauding) I can do that. I get excited about that. You know what I don't get excited about? Having to out-argue and debate everyone for the glory of Jesus. It never works. I've tried. They leave frustrated. I leave frustrated. But man, to do what Jesus said and says, "Get out of tell," to his disciples. And I'm about to wash your feet and then I want you to go and do that for the rest of the world. Do as I've done for you. So we eat clean and we train dirty. A big part of that is our ability to take care of this locker room. To take care of each other. So when we come here so that we get ready to be sent out, we can do this as efficiently and simply as possible. And the way we do that is simple. Everybody works. We have a lot of things to do here. To make this not just an incredible place for us to gather, but every time a visitor,

every time a non-believer comes through our doors, that they just fill and see something different about us. And it will be the way we take care of them and the way that we serve them. And we cannot do without you. So on your way out today, like I said in the lobbies, you're gonna have people that are there to answer your questions. Most city Whitney and Pastor Chad will be out there. Amber and Autumn at West End and Makayli, they're gonna be in the coffee shop on your way out and you can talk to them about anything. But I have so much faith for our future. I have so much faith in you guys. I have so much belief that we are gonna more and more year after year be more and more known as a church. One of the churches in the Houston metro area that is known for our actions as much or more than our words. Amen. (audience applauds) So now may the Lord bless every single one of you. May he keep you in the grip of his grace. May he cause his face to shine upon every one of you. God, would you turn your countenance towards us this week? God, I pray that you would be so radically gracious to each of us and we would walk out of the doors of our campus with a peace that passes understanding that guards our hearts and guards our minds in Christ Jesus we pray this and everyone said.