Vision Sunday | Pastor Micah Berteau | For The Kingdom

And today I'm wearing a tie. The guy right there was helping me this morning. It's one of our surf team members. He's like, "Oh, look, look at you." I said, "Man, I don't own many ties, but I got one on today." "Sir, I love, I love a vision Sunday because, yes, we get into some things. We're gonna celebrate what God has done. We're also gonna look ahead to what he's about to do and all of the good things that that God's hand has been a part of, but also believing for the big things. But what we've got to understand is that it's not just any kind of Sunday. This vision Sunday is something that I believe, personally convicted to believe that every believer needs to be a part of. Here's why, I do think that we pray for things and pray for God to do things, what, in our personal lives. But very rarely do we celebrate what God is doing in our midst, because we would rather him just do it in our life. But we've got to stop for a second, and if you read the Bible and the more you read the Bible, you realize the book is not about me and you. First off, the book is about Jesus. Showed us the man, Jesus, the died on the cross, rose again. Then we realize that when we accept him into our heart, it kind of becomes about us in one part, in one way. What are you going to do with the message of the gospel that you just said yes to? It's an impact life that you're called to live, which is this, our life is live for others, not just ourselves. So we have to be very careful to not become what I call a consumer Christian. But I don't want to be a consumer, I would rather be a contributor. Man, I want to be a part, I want to be in on what God is doing. Let me talk about it like this. I'm sure a lot of you have your favorite team, and I'm sure some of people are even watching some. Shout out, who's your favorite team? Shout out, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was like, yeah, okay, someone said Seahawks, there's an escort, just get them security, like, just... So, okay, here's the deal. You all have your favorite teams, and I love this, because like, let's say you won a big game, let's say it's even playoffs, and you won a big game, and here's what, and your team won, and here's what you, you know how you talk? Hey, hey, hey, we won. Excuse me, a week? You ate 3,000 calories while watching them play. What did you do to contribute? You yelled at the TV that the quarterback should have thrown it, and the ref should have called... And I love the ownership that you have, and then I'll be out, I'll be like, having lunch or something like that.

Oh, that's my... Yeah, man, I love your church, and I was like, oh, oh, my church? Oh, so you want to claim a team that'll do nothing for you, and say we won, but you don't want to say our house, my church. I think it's time to shift the narrative, because the team doesn't care about you, but the church is going to stand with you when your marriage is rough and when your kids need prayer. We're going to be with you every step of the way, so some might say, this is my house, this is my church. Be happy, be proud of the church that you're a part of. Yes, is it God's house? Yes, at the end of the day, it's God's house, but you're proud to be a part of God's house. You're proud to be a part of the mission that God has in the earth, because if not, you'll be a bystander to now come the end of the days in these last hours that we're living in, and you're going to be nothing but a spectator and miss the pouring out of God's spirit. Man, I want to be on the inside. I don't know about you. I want to be a part of what God's doing. I want to be the reason that there's a bridge built from certain people to other people that they can walk across that bridge and find Jesus, because of the thing that you did, a way that you served, the way that you gave, because your life was laid down for something bigger than you. That's the encouragement today. It's not get stuck today, not to get caught up today. And while I've been asking God, and I'm waiting for God to do something for me, know what what God's doing around you. This is where this word vision comes from. Look at Proverbs 29, 18. Proverbs 29, 18, specifically in the King James version, because you emailed me and you told me your favorite version is the King James version. So we go read it from the King James version where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, someone say keepeth, keepeth the law. Come on, let's throw back, let's go right there. Keepeth the law happy is he. What I want to tell you and encourage you today is to realize that vision is God's idea for your life and for this house and for the church. It doesn't mean they die. It means they drift. But the actual language means they cast off restraint. There is no direction in life. What I say like this, the visionless veer, they veer off. You're like a ship at the water that has no engine. So you go wherever the wind and the waves move you.

Right now, you're not just lost at sea. You might just be lost at life. You're going wherever your emotions take you and the ups and the downs. And you're right in the roller coaster. And God said, hey, I need you to get a God-sized vision for your life. And you need to attach yourself to a God-sized church that has a vision, a part of it, that believes for people, stands in the gap for people. And I believe that that's what we're doing. And you're gonna see a little bit of that today. But here's what it says in the message version of Proverbs 29, 18. If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves. But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. I thought that was a beautiful way to put it. We are called to see what God's doing and attend to what he's revealing. That means this, you should care about the house of God. If Christ gave his life for it, we need to lay ours down too for it. You should care about the church reaching people. You should care about this church going after the lost and doing what we got to do to restore families and raise children and have the youth ministry and build the building. You should care because this is God's heartbeat

in the world and the hours we're living in. But we get so caught up in us, we miss what he's revealing. And here's my goal for you today is that last line. When you attend to what he reveals, it says those people are most blessed. If you want to ask me what my heart for you is, then you would end up right there in that last line. Most blessed. Man, when you ask me why I do what I do and love the ministry that I have and I get to spend it with you every single Sunday and we pray and we believe and we contend, even if I never meet you or know your family or know your story, I don't need to, to pray for you. What I want for you is this, to end up most blessed. From not knowing Christ to knowing Christ, that's most blessed. From having a broken family to a restored family, most blessed. And let God do that, let God piece that together. But what do you do? What do I have to do? Attend to what God reveals. I've just never cared about the church. Start care. God cares. And when you align with God, again, there's a promise attached to that lifestyle. Don't drift anymore.

Get a vision. Get a church with a vision. And that's why you come here. Vision definition. Now I love this vision. I was reading a vision book by a great pastor and he had this definition for vision. And if you really like it, it's actually my definition. It's this, a clear mental picture of what could be fueled by the conviction of what should be. Beautiful. A clear mental picture of what could be fueled by the conviction of what should be. That means this, every single person, you should be able to close your eyes and see what has God spoken over me. Where are you taking me? I don't know exactly the steps. I don't know the direction. I don't know the way, but I know in general, God, I know you're taking me somewhere beautiful. And the same with the church. I know what could be. I can close my eyes and I can see the vision of this house. But the second part is even more important. Where's your fuel? You ran out of fuel. You're running on empty. You're fueled by the conviction of what should be. That I have a conviction in my soul

that I'm not okay dying here, staying here, stopping here. The same with this church. It's gone to a great place from church plant, which is basically nothing to where it is now. Amazing, but that doesn't mean God's done. That doesn't mean we give up now. That doesn't mean we throw in the towel. I'm, thank God for a good eight years. No, what about the next 30? I wonder what God could do in the next 30 years. Thank you, God, for the first eight. I can't wait to see what you do in the next eight. I'm expected. I'm living on the edge and I'm living it for my life. I have vision for my life. I have expectation for my life. I also have it for the house of God. And vision is so important because it births these four things. I'm doing a little teaching before, and we'll get there. We're gonna celebrate a lot today. I want to teach a little bit first. Vision births four things. Passion, motivation, direction, and purpose. I give you passion, motivation, direction, purpose. Now, looking at a snapshot of this, if you've lost anywhere, if you lost passion for something, what do you say? I just lost passion for it. I actually wanna recorrect you.

You haven't lost passion for it. You lost vision for it. In the place there is no vision, you're dead spiritually in that area. It's not that you become passionate, you become visionless. It's not that you lost passion to go live weights. Hello? You lost vision to go live those weights. You lost the benefit, you lost the discipline, you lost the things that are behind it. I'm afraid that we're just chalking it up to face value. And if we looked a little bit deeper, be like, no, no, no, God's not failing at giving you direction. You're not subscribing to his vision. Because if you subscribe to his vision, sometimes you won't even know where you're going, but where he's taking you when you don't know where you're going is better than you thinking you know where you're going and doing it yourself. You might as well just walk confused with God then bold with yourself. Because I'm just grabbing his hand like a kid, like, hey, wherever you want to go. And that's why you want to find a church that has these four things, passion. You got motivation to reach people in this house. There's direction, we know who we are.

We're going to love God. We're going to build people. We're going to change the world. And we have a purpose. This is who we are. And you want to find that why, because in every part of it, that means there's a vision here. And I don't know for some of you, and if you don't have this in your life, maybe you have three or four. But like, man, I'm good at all of these, but I don't feel the purpose of life. Get a vision, but don't get it for yourself. Get it from God. How do I do that? Pray again. Ask God again. Get back on your knees. Put the phone down. Put the distractions away and pray and watch God give you a clear vision. It is important for us to be fired up, excited, expected, living on the edge about what God is doing in the house of God. 'Cause we have been so caught up in building our own kingdoms. We've lost the fact that we need to build His. One of my favorite Bible characters before I get into celebrating what God has done this year is Nehemiah.

Nehemiah, it's a crazy story, because he had the audacity talking about vision. We're talking about vision, right? He has the crazy idea. Hey, guys, hey, guys, guys, guys. You know the city of God? What if crazy we rebuild the entire city? Like go rebuild it from the ground up. Rebuild the city. Thank God he had vision. And typically when you have vision, the first person to say the vision out loud looks crazy, because God's vision is bigger than your ability. Hear what I'm saying to you today. God's vision is bigger than your ability, because if He gave you a vision, you could accomplish you would need Him to keep walking with Him along the way. So He gives you a vision that's bigger than you to say, "Hey, I believe big in you. "I want to see great things in you, "but you're going to need me to get there." Big vision. I want to build the city of God. And by the way, rebuild the house, that city of God is a great thing. But how many know? There were some people that didn't think it was a great thing. If you read the book of Nehemiah, there was a lot of helpers,

but there was also a lot of haters. And some of you can play more about the resistance than you do the grace. Ooh, you've been given a lot of grace, and you're talking about the three people that are resistors. Oh, they just talk really loud. Just remember this. Nehemiah's up in heaven right now, thinking to himself, "You know what? "The haters never had a book written about them." Hell me, Jesus. The haters can talk loud, but I'm telling you, it's people that are filled with vision that change the world. Who cares what it's gonna... And what I do know is this, I must be doing something right if there's resistance around every corner. Because if the enemy liked what I was doing, he would make it easier. I'd just go, but I wanna tell you today, yeah, there's gonna be some resistance, but I'm telling you the vision of God is worth it. That's why it's faith. It's risk. I'm putting everything on the line. Come on, for this house, for this church, we're believing bigger. We're believing granted. I want to reach more people.

I want to be on what I have in kids ministry that can fit a thousand kids, so we know we can take care of your kids every Sunday morning on a scale that I know that this house is meant to reach. It's not about being bigger. It's about being obedient. Stop chalking it up to all which is another... No, not everything is the next bigger thing. We're trying to be the next obedient thing in this house. So what I'm saying is lock into that. Now, God has done some amazing things because last year when we present vision, what we do, you can't just say vision and then not celebrate what God did. No, we're gonna stop for a second. We're gonna celebrate what God did. Why don't you turn attention to the screens I believe what God has spoken over my life. His word will not return for it. This year will reveal his faithfulness. This year will produce fruit. This year will be filled with miracles. And it's time to embody his power. Come on, he's going to happen. God's gonna make it. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Look at what the Lord has done right now. Would be a good time for you to put your hands together

and actually genuinely thank God. Come on, he's moving right in front of us. Thank you, God. Praise God, huh? Praise God, all right. God is doing that. Let me try to price this right this thing and get out of the way, but still point. This number alone of salvation, it's like the number of the town you grew up in. You know what I'm saying? Small town. That's unbelievable. Now, this is all three campuses. Modesto, there's Argon. This is also right here in Fort Worth that we have seen over 7,000 people say yes to Jesus. Come on, we are plundering hell, populating heaven for the glory of God. That's unbelievable. Some of them are in the room right now. Some of you, your family is in the room right now and you account for that number. First time visitors, I thought that was really cool. Over 2,000 first time visitors between all of our campuses, 616 baptisms. Come on, that doesn't even count the 70 that are getting baptized today. Come on, that's a big time, amen.

And complete a growth track. That's basically our way to join the church and we have close to 1,000. So we got one next week and then one in December. Come on, we need about 30. Well, 30, I was gonna say 39. That is not the number that would get it to 1,000. Somebody that has math skills in here, 59, right? Is it 59? I've stowed long enough to do it. Yeah, y'all are shaking your head like you're stupid, but yeah, it's 59. It's 59. I knew that the whole time. It's 59. And that would be amazing. I don't know, I mean, it's, it's fine. You'd be like, maybe you're sitting there just having, you know, like we're gonna have fun with this 'cause we're gonna celebrate with God's joke. You're like, hmm, I don't like numbers. Well, there's this really cool book in the Bible called numbers. You go, love it. (laughs) This year, we also launched a brand new campus. The House, Argyle, shout out to our House, Argyle family. We love y'all so much. A little detail on the House, Argyle. So last year, a lot of the things we were asking,

we're like, hey, we're gonna start this campus. And with Argyle, it was from an elementary school, which means that there's no building. There's no, we don't have anything, but now we have trailers and we had to get equipment and you have to get sound equipment and you gotta get a board and you have to buy everything. 'Cause you have to load in and load out every single Sunday morning. It's not easy and it's very costly. I mean, maybe at minimum to start a campus like that, maybe you don't know, it's cost around half a million dollars. But we believe that we're called to reach people in every region of everywhere that we step foot. And so we're like, you know what? This is the next area that we're going to for the glory of God. Last year's year end offering more than covered that. Debt free, didn't have to take a dime out. They are thriving, running around 300 people in Argyle and seeing God save people every Sunday. Come on, that's our family. That's a part of it. So praise God for launching of a campus. That's a big deal. Of course, this year's that girl. Oh my ladies, y'all, y'all attended that girl. I just believe that there's a special annoying thing on my wife's life to do this. We had Christine Kane, that was the one with Christine Kane.

If you remember, we absolutely, it was insane. Packed out the venue, that was down the street. God's doing mighty things in that girl. I'm sure there's gonna be a lot more of those too. I love my city and the children's hospital toy drive. Just a couple big outreaches that we did. We're gonna talk about outreach in a second. I'm excited about that. Shout out to our Modesto campus as well. We've launched in the last two weeks youth and young adult ministry over there. So that's amazing. And we hired campus pastors for Modesto and Argyle this year. So as you know Argyle, have you been out there? It's Pastor Chase Tremere, praise God for him stepping in. He's the right man for the job. And then we sent our very own to Modesto. He felt called. He met with me last year. Pastor Brian is over in Modesto. So everybody watching online, Modesto, we love you. And you have Pastor Brian out there. So he's preaching out there. Pastor Chase, preaching up. And then sometimes we come together and we stream. but these are just some really amazing things where God answered our prayer of our church. It's always, always a thing to celebrate is releasing worship from our church. We release a house worship album.

You have better have downloaded it. That's all I'm telling you. (audience applauding) You better have downloaded it on LimeWire. You know what I'm saying? I did Napster last time, LimeWire. Now I'm really making you well rounded in all the ways that I stole music. Here we go. House worship new album, just three or four weeks old, it already has over 300,000 streams. So the music that we're listening to is not just music, it is worship music that brings down heaven and the world is starting to hear when we get to worship with every single Sunday. Can I just say this in general? Just that's about, I've always had a worship, like I had a worship upbringing. So I've always felt like I was really going to use our worship team. God was really just going to use this ministry. I still feel like about this church, this ministry, the whole thing, it's like one of the better secrets, if you will. Like we're not overly exposed, but you guys are coming, but I do know God is just like little ways, God keeps using, here's a worship album. Oh, by the way, it's going to end up on every Spotify list of every worship artist that's ever existed at a high, and it's like, we didn't even ask for that.

God's starting to show us, hey, there's a plan for this house, there's a future for this house, and it's bigger than you might think. I don't know about you, I'm starting to see that right here in front of me because this is also what we were told. They told us this like two weeks ago, we got an email and I was like, oh, that's cool. It wasn't even the goal, but they told us that we're the 15th fastest-growing church in America. Come on, how cool is that? I didn't even know that. I was like, oh, sweet. (laughs) Like, do I do anything? What do I do with that? Now, are the salvation numbers like way more exciting for me? Yes, are the baptism numbers, way more exciting? Yes, but I was like, you know what? Throw it in there, it's not important, but it might do one thing. It might get us to realize that what you're a part of is bigger than the service you attend. Because sometimes we attend one service and we think that's the entirety of the church that you attend. Guys, we have three campuses. Four, if you include online. And this is going around the world in a powerful way.

And I'm telling you, lock in. God's just getting started. Here's the outreach. I love this part. I wanna talk about some of the outreach. Isn't all of it, these are just some of the main things that this year you're giving allowed us to do. Did you know that we have a prison ministry? We have a connection with God behind bars and a relationship with them. And we seed into this ministry and these inmates get iPads and they have these free time and they watch, they watch our sermons. Now they do some other sermons too. But this is our, you know, analytics on inmates watching our sermons. We've had 730,000 views on our sermons in the prison across America. (audience applauding) About 19,000 subscribers and praise God that right there sitting in their cell, they're able to receive Jesus. 1,612 inmates have received Jesus. I think that's a beautiful thing. So if you didn't know, we have a prison ministry and we're looking at even more and more ways to, you know, make it more robust and really lean into that. Now this other $25,000, we do this every single year at minimum we give away $25,000.

We just put that number up there because we've already given away $25,000. But we want you to know if there's another church that has a building project, we actually seed into it. Because why would I teach you, you go where you sow, but we don't do that as a church. So what I want you to know is, do we want our own building project? Yeah. I mean, I don't want the project. I'd rather it just be paid off. But there's other pastors out there just contending and believing. And honestly, some of their churches might be even better off financially than they might bring in more money. That's what I'm saying, than we do. But I just don't subscribe to that. I subscribe to the belief that we should all be for the kingdom of God, capital C church. If you're going to build a church, man, I'm in on that. Go reach more people, capital C. And the other part of the money is we send it to church plants. What I do know is this, I'm a church planner and church planning is crazy difficult. Number one rule of church planning is I always have to teach church players this, just because you open the church doesn't mean people come. I always have to remind them, I'm like, I love your faith. But man, you're going to have to go out there

and you're going to have to walk with people. there's a lot of people that called this place home. I wasn't expecting you when you guys just keep showing up and making things fun and complicated all at the same time. And I love it, it's amazing. It's beautiful and it also allows us to do this, seed into other church plants. So that's just, so you know, I don't know if you knew this about yourself, that you seed into other church plants because we wanna see the kingdom of God expand. The last part of this is absolutely mind-blowing. Now, the number I'm gonna share with you is not the number, it's not the money's spent. It's the value of the goods, we have food drives. Modesto has an entire food pantry, top to bottom. I would love to have that here one day. We are not able to have that at this building. We don't have the space, we don't have all that kind of stuff. We'll get there, but we do do food drives here. But I want you to know, between all the food drives that we've done at every single campus, we've given out over $5.4 million worth of groceries to people. Oh, come on. That, to me, is so thrilling. Man, I love you for that. Now I get it, like behind the scenes, we're pulling triggers, we're saying yes, and we're leaning very heavily into that.

That's close to 40,000 people. This year, by the way, not lifetime. This year, close to, and we're not done. We got Thanksgiving and Christmas, too. We coming up, we gon' feed, we gon' do whatever we can do. 40,000 people that have groceries in their house because of the generosity of our church. Friends, when we say we wanna be the hands and feet of Jesus, may you be reminded that you go to a church that is continually going after people in unique and special and powerful ways. Thank you, thank you. (audience applauds) I think, I just think that's one of the most special things I can share today, if I'm gonna be honest. Over $5 million. Now, again, did we spend some of that? We did, did we spend all of that? No, a lot of that is value of the goods. But yes, we did lean into that. Can I just, okay, these next two parts. Before we get into celebrating, also, what is about to happen? Two quick things. I'm gonna get a little nerdy. Can I show you when you give where the money goes? I wanna show you this graph. I wanna break this down. And you can kind of start to read it yourself. And you've got operations, ministries, outreach,

missions, and personnel. So as you can start to read that. Now, maybe some churches do this, maybe they don't. I just kind of like being transparent. I don't know why I like it, but I just, I am. You could ask me while I'm walking out. I'll probably just tell you things because I do believe that we're in this together. I'm a giver to this church. I'm the pastor of this church, but I'm also a giver to this church as well. And everything that I'm sharing, I'm thinking to myself, I don't wanna know that too. I don't, I'd wanna hear that too. So this is a pipe right now. So here's what's not being shown because we don't have it until December 31st. And I didn't wanna provide inaccurate analytics. But there will be a slide that'll probably cut pretty hard into the red of called savings. We don't have that up there yet because we usually wait 'til the end of a fiscal year, and we're trying to get all that kind of stuff. So we don't have the exact number of savings, but there will be a pretty significant part of it that will go to savings. We try to do around 10% a year into savings because why? We're believing for something. We always wanna be on the verge

and ready for what God is about to do. So this is where the money goes. Operations is always gonna live in that room. So you see personnel is a little bit, probably higher than it was last year, but still under 50% and still healthy. But I do want you to know it's been the year of getting what we're calling it internally, getting the right people on the bus. Sometimes you need to, okay, well, the church is doing this, the church is moving over here, there's more people over here, there's okay. And what you have to do is you have to staff accordingly. We also have to, we fully staffed Argyle as well. So Argyle is a church plant that is fully staffed. And the Modesto, of course, is a massive, it's 200,000 square feet of building. They run over 2,000 every weekend in Modesto, your campus that you're a part of. And we have to staff that as well. So we felt like this was the year to get the right people on the bus. And I am so thankful. Can we just give it a one time for our staff? We, I love our staff. They are helping run this entire thing. And with that said, if you've ever wanted to know how we're governed, that's what this next, I told you two slides, that's the first one. And this is how we are governed.

We are elder governed, pastor led, staff ran. Elder governed, pastor led, it's a board of elders that we have. Now, legally, that's just ministry if you're out of church. Can we just really like probably just before I jump into us? Let's just be honest for a second. Even as a pastor, I'm like out here in these streets and I feel like it's every other day or week. and the news is coming out. And it just was never supposed to be like that. I just want to make a public degradation. I just-- I like one woman. Her name is Lindsey. Like-- I just feel like it's not that hard. I think she's the best thing I've ever had in my life. And we're going to be married forever. And I thought that I like kids, that I have four kids, but I like my wife. You know what I'm saying? But there's a reality here that, hey, what is the awkwardness? And sometimes I come into church even with giving moments. And people are kind of-- they'll give me the projection of their broken belief in the church because they watched a YouTube last night or a podcast that you probably shouldn't have dove too deep into. And I just want to encourage you, don't paint with such a broad brush that you start to load the place that is actually helping people. We're going after-- we're feeding people. And what I want to tell you is that none of us are perfect,

and no pastors are perfect, and I'm not either. I'm no exception. But I do want you to know how we're ran, that I can't just wake up on a random Tuesday and decide to flip the whole thing upside down. Now, there's a board of elders that we go through. And we talk about things. I have pastors, your pastor has, a pastor in his life as well. And then it says, "Pastor led." You're like, OK, then what is your-- they have released me. The board of elders, and I think it's a beautiful thing, since we launched this church, to dream for the church, to have vision for you and your families, the ministries that we're starting, for example. And not just even the ministries we're starting, but where we're going, sermon series. They allow me to pastor you in that way. And I think that's really beautiful. And then the pace of our church. How we get in contact with you and how we know what you need. Well, that comes from the staff, that's staff. So anyways, if you ever wanted to know that, that's a couple nerdy things. Let me transition into the future vision and move pretty quick so I can get you out of here in the next few minutes. 'Cause I know I gotta do this one more time, but I hope that you lean into what God's about to do because I really want you to be a part of this.

Here's what's coming up in 2027. Come on, let's start looking at it. We got that girl because all the women, you are just pounding down the door of that girl. I'm telling you, that thing is gonna turn into a conference eventually. It was crazy this year. I think it's gonna be even more beautiful next year. Men were my men at. We're finally getting a men's ministry. Come on, man up, men's ministry. The earlier services barked at me, but y'all just clapped. It's okay. That was a, I'll take a golf clap earlier. I don't know, I don't know. We'll see. You have to meet the men in the early service. Apparently they're a little more undignified. Man up, men's ministry. We're bringing back revival nights as well. Starting in January. Big time revival nights in January. Stay tuned for that. And then a brand new, really official. We've done the little things here and there, but it's gonna be official. A marriage ministry called Becoming. And so we're gonna make sure that all the marriages in our church, you are on the right path,

getting healthier and stronger. Let's go to campus vision. We have three campuses and the new campus, you could say we're gonna launch a new campus. We're not always gonna force a campus launch, but we really believe in the online community. We haven't really officially launched the online. So thank you everybody that's watching online. For the first time we're bringing everybody together. Modesto used to have their own stream because it used to be my parents church and then they gave it to me in 2021 and everything's been signed over. But now for the first time, I believe today that we're unifying everything, even the stream, to start to watch everything from one place. So we're really gonna lean into an online campus. But let's talk, can I just stop for a second and just breathe right here about the campuses. 'Cause this is the heartbeat of vision Sunday for me today, are these campuses. You have Modesto, you got right here in Fort Worth and you got Argo. So I get it when we started Argo. No, everyone was like, yeah, I get it, Argo. When I try to explain Modesto to some of you know, maybe here, you're kinda like, first off, where's that at? And second off, like, oh, how many no? It's only by the grace of God.

You can have campuses in Texas and California. And they be thriving and healthy. Because I know, and I've heard from a lot of people, hey, Basil, those two states aren't the same. You know, it's gonna have to do different things to reach people in two different states and Texas is very different, California is different. I'm sitting over here like, are we that small-minded to think that the gospel doesn't need to be preached in certain places? Man, I haven't met a state in America that doesn't need Jesus. I pray we don't launch less campuses. that don't have many churches. So I thank God for our Modesto campus. And this is one of those things. Modesto is in Northern California. And let me just tell you this, it's a fantastic premier church. It's actually a building that I'm jealous of. I would love to have that thing over here. I would love for them to have that. They have it 25 acres, 2,000 seat auditorium. It's amazing, but I believe that we're going to have our own right here in Fort Worth as well. Now let me get into this. Now that I've talked about the campuses and we're unifying, we're all together in on this thing. It's pretty, I gotta let you behind the veil of. There is no lack of search or tribe

when it comes to us talking about when I'm very open with you, I'm like, "Hey, we need a bigger building." All this kind of stuff. All you have to do is drive into our parking lot. To realize this is not enough space. We're working, did you know that when we took this church and we bought it back in 2021, they said there previously 20 years, there were two other churches. And some of you actually, the people came and they're like, "Oh, I remember when it was that, I remember it was that church." They told me, and maybe a better analytics, they told me neither one of those churches, because the A.G. church or the Baptist church, for all the way back dating to the 90s, never really grew past 300 or 400 people. So when we stepped in, we stepped into this church after COVID, and we bought this place from downtown. And then when we got here, we're like, "All right, we launched with around 500." And I was like, "This great, this amazing, nothing wrong." I mean, that's fantastic, are you kidding me? I'm a church planter. I was like, "Let's go." And so that's where it stayed. And then slowly but surely, and then 2023 came. Around 2023, God just decided to touch the ministry. And now there's over 2,500 a weekend.

In a place that never had over 300. Do I care about the numbers? I don't, but I care about you. Does that make sense? But I care about you and your experience and the kids and the next gen and where we're going and what we're doing. So because of that, I'm like, man, why would I not want a place where we can spread our wings? Why would we not want a place for more people? I'm hearing stories of people that would rather watch online than driving a parking lot. I always have to remind them, you go to a Cowboys game and walk a mile and you had to pay $1,000 to park in that spot. You better come to church. (audience laughs) You can park free around here. You might get a ticket, but it's free until you get the ticket. (laughs) But the reality is like, we're doing everything we can with this building. I don't believe that we're pitching to you. Hey, 200 people, let's build a 1,500 square, or 1,500 seat auditorium to 200 people. I'm doing it to a church that is grown. We're grown now. We're not a toddler anymore. We're of that size to say,

hey, guys, we need something. I want to serve you better. Man, I believe in the next generation. I want a place to put our kids. And so between what we hear in our guy, we're looking anywhere and everywhere. It went from buildings. We probably put, we probably put in 10 different offers on 10 different buildings. 'Cause some of you are like, what do you build this building? I said, we already tried. And we just ask God, whatever you would have for us, unlock that door. Well, God has a really good lock on a lot of doors right now. They all locked. And so what do we do? So okay, let's pivot to land. It's not my favorite 'cause you have to, it takes three years and you go, but I got faith. We can build it. We can raise the money, okay, let me let's go. Let's build a $20 billion building for the glory of God. Let's do it. But we can't seem to find the right land, but that's right now. And then I tell you, there's something in my spirit that tells me we are so close.

'Cause I'll tell you this about your pastor. I'm not gonna force anything. I'm going to wait for the right thing. You're the board here, the pastor's here. We are not into force, we're into grace. What that means is we want God to grace us into something, not us, force us into something. So I want you to know that today, we're knocking on every door, but we're not kicking the door down. We're waiting on God to breathe on it, and I believe it's gonna be obvious when it happens. I don't even care where it is. I believe all y'all will drive. (audience applauding) But this is a little bit, so do I have a big announcement? No, but let me just tell you, can I just be really real? I'm going to need you to pray. That's not a light ask. I need you to pray. Like, we need some breakthrough and some, got to do. God, I'm going to pray for this. I'm going to ask for this. And when we get to this place of time to give, because this month, here's the theme for this much, it's called for the kingdom. It's not for the project. Look at the, we don't, I don't have a project. We're going to have one, sure, maybe, but for the glory of God, I believe that this year was a purifying in the way that we do year-end offerings. We usually give towards an initiative. I actually just wanted to reframe it and say, do you have a heart for the kingdom? But the kingdom of God that has been produced through this house, Matthew 633, seek the kingdom of God above all else. Live righteously and He will give you everything you need. What's that? Seek first the kingdom of God. We're going to do that together. Just as a reminder,

put this in your, your notes, whatever, just to remember Sunday, November 22nd, is our forward the kingdom offering. Now some of your, you know, you're like, all right, November 22nd, that's the Sunday on this. Cool. Or what if we made it a holy moment? What if we made it a moment where God looks down, He's so pleased with you being able to do what you did and go how God, I want to build your house. So here's, here's your homework. You got three-part homework. Pray, here, obey. Your pastor is not asking an amount from you. Your pastor is asking a prayer from you. All I'm asking to do is pray. Would you do that? It's two weeks from today. Pray. What blocks this set up, it'll be a holy moment. I believe it's, can I just say it like this? I believe it's one of the most consequential offerings we will ever take. Here's why, because there's not a certain initiative or project that might drive some people, but it will be used for that project in the future. Here's what that is. You know what that is? It's not an offering by actuality. It's an offering by faith. That's what's going to make this pure and holy and strong and beautiful. So we open our hands to that. And here's, God woke me up at 3.30 a.m. the other morning and that doesn't happen because I tried to go back to sleep and he went labioso, me. And I just felt this statement in my spirit. It's our turn. So when you pray, can you pray with this in mind? God, we're a church that pleases you. We're a house that honors you. We'll keep feeding. We'll keep loving. We'll keep building the region wherever we end up. But God, may it be our turn this year. I've fueled in my bones something about 2027. And I don't know about you. I want some people to agree. Because when you say amen, that's saying, hey, I'm with you. Put an amen on. Hey, God, I'm, and that's what we're going to do. God, I pray. It's our turn to see the faith and put this step, put that statement for your family. It's our turn for this breakthrough, for this, for my, the thing that I've been praying over my kids, it's their turn. It's their turn for that door to open. Two questions God's going to ask everybody on judgment day. What did you do with my son, Jesus? Did you receive him? Was he just an idea or was he a reality? And number two, what did you do with what I gave you? We're going to get asked these two things. So why not be better stewards with his son, Jesus? Now, come on, work out your salvation, walk with him closely. And the second thing, what are we going to do with what? That's the parable of the times. I'm over here hoarding and collecting and being stingy when the Bible actually says, complete and opposite, steward will, give it back, watch what God's going to do. I just feel like there's going to be an incense like the alabaster jar broken at the feet

of Jesus with this offering. I don't know what it is, but here's why. Why do I say all that? Here's our goal. To make an eternal impact. That's it. To make an eternal impact. Amen. Can you just give God some praise right now? Can we thank God for what he's done in our house? Can we thank God for what he's about to do with our house? Amen. Can you stand your feet? Can you stand your feet? Can I end with some testimonies? I'm on. You ever grew up in a church that had open mic? I don't know. There was moments in my youth group when I was so young, I opened my testimony night and then you got some kid going up there like who just got saved and it's like cussing and I'm like, you know what? He still needs to work on. But I was grateful. The house Argo, the house Modesto, the house Fort Worth, did you know that miracles are happening at every campus? And I want you to hear about it right now. The house I'm gonna start with the House of Argo. So since joining the house, Okay, the Argyle campus, we recently had an opportunity to come alongside families at Argyle South Elementary School. That's where we meet up in Argyle. And they asked us, would you help with some of the students that maybe can't afford school supplies? And I wanna just let you know that the house, Argyle, and the house as a whole fulfilled 100% of the back to school needs that were presented to us. Not some, every single child got everything they needed. I love that. House Argyle, still, a family who moved here from Africa. They were able to walk to church each Sunday now with their toddler, because now they live in that neighborhood. They had no friends being brand new to the country. And I found a home at the house, so much so that they joined an age group. And now have a community, come on from Argyle to Africa, to the nations.

We gonna reach, we gonna reach some people. All right, the house of Modesto. In Modesto, on April 20th, we're doing a prayer night. It says, I received a miraculous healing of my digestive system, struggled with chronic digestive issues for 12 years, with the last 10 years being very severe. In an instant, God completely healed, not only my body, but also my heart from the trauma that had contributed to those problems. God is a healer in Jesus' name. (congregation applauding) I love it. I love it. Also in Modesto, a member of our church was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And had begun preparing the next steps in treatment. As many people gathered to pray and believe for a miracle, the individual later returned for a follow-up appointment to the doctor's amazement. Oh, that cancer was gone. Come on, give 'em praise for stage four cancer. Be healed. Two more. (congregation applauding) Two more. And that's from right here, the house forward, right here. There's a couple that have been believing for a house for a couple of years. They were having difficulty qualifying. They were trying to save money for a down payment.

Tithing came up in the conversation. Their thought was, if I quit tithing for a while, we can save that money for a down payment. They decided to keep tithing, not only 10%, but to increase their gift and believe and trust God to provide crazy Christians. Come on. Well, God provided over and above within a year, they were able to purchase a home even more than what they expected it to be. It had been fully remodeled and updated. They attributed the blessing to trusting God with their finances to God be the glory. (congregation applauding) When you do things God's way, you'll get God's results. One more. From right here forward, a young woman's mom was sick for several months. She wasn't a believer, but her daughter kept inviting her to church. Her mom attended one Sunday when she was scheduled to sing and through her daughter's obedience, a door was open for a mom to accept Jesus. As her savior. And then sometime later, her mom went back for tests and to the daughter's surprise, her chronic illness was gone. So right here at the house, she experienced God as savior and God as healer. Come on, that's the house that we're in.

That's the house of God. Come on, somebody thank God that there's a miracle coming. There's a miracle in the house. There's a miracle in the house. Put a praise on it. Put an amen on it. Thank you God. Can you bow your hands? God, I thank you for, I feel the faith in the room. I thank you for what you're doing in our church. Our heart is for your house. We do love the place that you planted us in. May we be people that contribute, not just consume, breakthrough in the name of Jesus, miracles and signs and wonders is what we believe for. We stand on that word that you've given us. Also one last thing, if there's anyone in here that before you go, you need to pray a salvation prayer, a sinner's prayer. When I get to three, would you lift your hands? If that's you, with hands already going up, ready? One, two, three, if that's you, would you lift your hands and say, I need to pray this sinner's prayer. Would you pray it after me? Say, Jesus, save me. Forgive me of all my sins. I wanna be redeemed by your hands. Thank you for loving me. And Jesus, now. Come on, one big amen.

Come on, put your hands together and thank God one more time. Come on, he's a worthy God. Come on, he's a good God. Come on, he's a gracious God. Before you run out, put the declaration on the screen. Let's read it together. I believe what God has spoken over my life. His word will not return void. This year will reveal his faithfulness. This year will produce fruit. This year will be filled with miracles. In his timing and by his power, come on. And God, I believe in happy visions Sunday. I'll see you next Sunday and the best is yet to come.