Release The Cure | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson

praise the lord everyone if you would stand with me i give honor to our worship team and thankful for just uh god-given talent that we are able to enjoy leading us into the presence of the lord aren't you thankful for anointed worship team at first apostolic doesn't that just make it easy to worship amen i want to tell you of course you see that our uh senior pastor and his wife uh and along with brother nolan and sister flannery carpenter are our kids quest pastor they their seats are are empty uh this evening pastor sister carpenter in georgia and brother nolan sister flannery are in illinois and please pray for a very safe return for them they'll all be back here on sunday and we're looking forward to our weekend i want a second what uh brother hammond said about first episode church of cleveland we are so proud of that cleveland campus i can't tell you enough i got to preach there i don't know about a month or two ago and they are just they are years beyond where the average church would be that's only a couple years old if you can be there on saturday at six o'clock matter of fact brother fallon pastor fallon he made a special invitation he said invite i want everybody to be there but i especially want to invite the trendsetters he said it would mean the world to me if there were some trendsetters they would be there in that service i know that they have trendsetters there and i can only imagine as a young pastor a pastor uh in their 20s a pastor a young pastor would probably appreciate uh if at a special service if some trendsetters would come and maybe just kind of rub shoulders with their trendsetters there mean the world to them to have you in cleveland on saturday i also want to congratulate brother tyler r wood for the tyler what a testimony was that not an awesome testimony of the faith of a young man who just believes that god is able congratulations tyler and uh one of your one of your school teachers came through and said it needs to be announced that he is a graduate of the academy and he is a graduate of apple soccer's academy and we claim him and we are proud of him for many reasons but we we love chick-fil-a so brother tyler you're right in the will of the lord you're ministering right where we what we're living amen love love some chick-fil-a well turn with me in your bibles to second kings chapter seven in verse number eight uh give honor to my wife tonight she's a she's a lady of of many talents and one of my favorite talents that she has is she is she is a songwriter and if you if you are at i'll make another plug if you are at the service in cleveland on saturday she has written a song just for their dedication um that we're gonna be singing there and uh she uh she's saying it to me today and it's an awesome song i can't wait to sing it so i'll be there i give her honor for so many things she's a great administrator she's a great pastor's wife and and god has blessed her she's blessed her with the the spirit of david the songwriter and i love love you found appreciate you second kings chapter 7 verse 8 says this and when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp they went into one tent and did eat and drink and carry fence silver in gold enragement and went and hid it and came again and entered into another tent and carried fence also and went and hid it then they said one to another we do not well this day is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace today's apostolic i'm gonna kind of teach i'm probably gonna preach before it's over but today's apostolic falls into one of three groups you've got the person who remains quiet about their faith and considers it a personal matter number two you've got those who celebrate their faith but they only do it in the circle of believers but then you have the third type and that's the person who exercises their faith by discipling other people i don't know about you but i want to be the third type i want to be the kind that not only has faith but shares my faith and believes that my faith is worth sharing i i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of teach gonna kind of preach on on a subject today this simply is it's time to release the cure release the cure now i don't i don't see that it's any accident that while i was studying today and preparing for this message that a news alert popped up on my phone that simply said the vaccine distribution plan the vaccine distribution plan apparently our local our local health department has a plan to get the vaccine distributed whether we believe in it or not that's up to you and that's your personal belief but i do believe there is something that needs to be implemented into this world and there needs to be something that's given to this world distributed to this world it's called the gospel of jesus christ amen if you believe that why don't you put your bible down let's lift up both hands to heaven father we love you lord we're so glad to be a part of your kingdom to be in your church i i'm thankful lord god that i saw sister casebolt and i saw brother mark come in tonight i'm thankful lord god that you brought them back to the house of the lord with health in their bodies father i'm so thankful lord that you're you're building the church back up that every service lord we we hear and see more and more that are able to come back into the house of god lord i pray lord for those that are mourning lord won't you comfort them those that are sick won't you heal their bodies oh god because your church has a mission and your church has a responsibility and lord we need the strength of the holy ghost to do the work that you set before us won't you anoint this word in jesus name we pray and somebody said amen amen you may be seated in jesus name i want to i want to read an article to you it's um it's quite disturbing it's called weird but true weird but true it goes like this it says adering cobra tripping boa bonging whatever you call it it's definitely not good for you a paper that scientists published last month in a scientific journal substance abuse cites at least two incidents of people allowing snakes to bite them in order to get a high researcher said a 52 year old man allowed a snake to bite him twice on his left forearm over 15 days he had been abusing substances for 34 years including alcohol cannabis and opioids those drugs no longer provided the kick he sought so he went for serpents the man couldn't say what type of snake bit him but he said the high was better than that from the painkiller pentazo sign i'm probably saying that way wrong but if you know what it is if you're in the medical field you probably know it's one of the strongest painkillers there are in another case the article says a man let an indian cobra bite him on his left foot the man said that the snake venom caused a sense of well-being until he blacked out let me tell you something this world is in a crazy place this world has found themselves seeking for something they cannot obtain on their own in the void that they're trying to feel oh apostolic pentecostal church that i get the privilege to preach in front of tonight i just want i just want to cut to the chase we have something that they must have the holy ghost the power that we have in our sunday evening worship service when we walk out of this building we have a greater high than any serpent than any snake than any venom could give a person i'm talking beyond drugs and alcohol a lot of times we say the holy ghost is greater than drugs and alcohol i promise you it's greater far greater and it's even greater than a snake venom our high lasts a whole lot longer it doesn't leave marks on your body can i get an amen it doesn't cause you to forget where you were or who you were with it won't deteriorate your body and it sure won't put you in an early grave however it will rejuvenate your soul it will cause revelation to enter into your mind it will put the power of god inside of a mortal man it'll give you divine authority to walk right to talk right to live right to act right brother tyler will give you the power to give right the power of the holy ghost has been given to the church to do all those things but the reason that jesus said you should be filled with power is because he was looking for witnesses he said i'll send you out to do great miracles signs and wonders there's going to be great signs they're going to follow up your people are going to know that your people are the name of jesus people are going to understand exactly who you are but it's not about the great things that happen in your ministry it's about being a witness for the gospel somebody said amen you see we've been taught by our society to just accept certain things we've been taught by our society to accept the fact that that we have to pay two or three times the worth of our new home in interest now follow me because obviously i'm going somewhere with this but but i want you to think about when you go into that loan office and you sign that mortgage and you sign those papers and they they start putting paper after paper and and i you you might you might be a little bit more gold than i am but i don't read all those papers when you when you're down the 47th paper that you got to sign an initial in these seven places and you're passing it on over to your wife so she can sign and she can initial those seven places on those 47 pages brother aaron i i didn't read everything that was on those pages because our culture has just made us to think it's it's okay to pay twice as much for that home over the next 30 years matter of fact we understand that's why god spoke to our pastor and our first lady so strongly when he got up here time after time and told us the importance of building by faith towards the the employees because he understood he he understood and god spoke with him and god spoke to bishop billy mccool and god has spoken to many pastors of churches across this country and it's so much better to get the money up front man if i i did some calculating i got on on a loan calculator a mortgage calculator today and i just thought to myself i'm just gonna check out and see what would it cost let's just a good round number of 13 million dollars what what would it cost the church over the next 30 years if we were making payments monthly on 13 million dollars we're looking at 78 000 a month we're not talking about heating and air we're not talking about utility costs we're not talking about keeping keeping up the campus and making sure that everything's fixed and we got the right sound and lights and we got the right no no we're talking just for the mortgage payment with interest it would have been 78 000 a month if we would have to sign papers and got a check from a bank we would have ended up paying 26.5 million dollars but we we live in the present moment generation enjoy now and pay later i'll say it again enjoy now and pay later listen we've got this mentality of i'll sign it now but send me the payment book next month it's kind of it's kind of sad but it's true but the first two vehicles the first two cars that i purchased i paid full price for because i was young and i didn't know any better but you know how they you know how he got me to pay full price for the tower the the salesman asked me what can you afford to pay a month you've been there and i got my checkbook out i thought well i can afford 325 a month we'll get you a car for 325 a month well absolutely they did and we could we could extend that over how many years you want to extend that over we could brother schilling we could bring that payment down we could just extend that car loan over some more years i feel i've got an amen corner right here and i like it but i was young i didn't realize society just made me accept the fact that it's okay take it now and pay later that's what society gets in and we we can start talking about uh we could go into detail how how television and sitcoms and god forbid soap operas i know we don't watch those have allowed ideas to come into our minds that we would have never contemplated but because society has has kind of pushed them in we just take them for how we see them there's a popular belief there's a there's a popular theory that scientists have the cure for cancer it's a theory but it's starting to make the news now and and they're talking about how doctors and and the pharmaceutical companies are kind of hand in hand and they're you know if we give too much cure for the disease there won't be pharmaceuticals the pharmacies are going to be put out of business in certain pharmaceuticals we put out a big business and doctors you're not going to be making all those trips to the doctors and so they're they're kind of pushing things aside we've heard in the news there could very well be a cure already for this colvin 19 but what what because of political reasons we're we're holding stuff back and we're keeping stuff back we got to make people look good and people look bad we got we got to try to make this party look this way and this party looked that way and i don't want to get political but the fact is this society feeds it to us and sad enough we just accept it and just let it go in and come out we've been taught just to accept our disease and learn to manage our pain you're not going to hear the word cure very often in the doctor's office there's a new term they're using now it's called managing your condition man you've heard it we got to help you manage your condition we're not going to try to find a cure for what's causing your ailment we're just going to we're going to help you find a way to manage your condition that's all going to play into this bible story that i want to focus on in in second kings chapter six the great army of syria has surrounded samaria and they're there to starve them out the samaritans who have lived behind walls who thought they were protected behind walls didn't take into account that they did all their farming outside of the walls and they got their water source on the outside of the wall and so without lifting even one weapon syria has camped all the way around this great city of samaria and they won't let them come out and starvation has begun to set in starvation that causes you to value things that aren't valuable and to no longer value the things that are valuable we can think about esau when we think about starvation you know a lot of times we view east although esau was so ignorant went out hunting one day come back hungry and any and he sold his birthright for a bowl of beans and i don't really believe that's really what happened i believe that he was out maybe for weeks at a time with hardly anything but maybe some berries or something off a tree to eat he was famished he was starving and when he smelled and the beans now listen beans don't smell good to me i usually don't eat the beans when i go to restaurants but something that had no value became so valuable because of starvation the bible talks about in in in second kings chapter six says the great famine besieged under syria and it says until a donkey's head was sold for four score pieces of silver that's that's 80 pieces of silver in the fourth part of a cab of doves dung which is about the size of a chickpea was sold for five pieces of silver things that had no worth all of a sudden became very valuable and then we hear about two mothers who come together and are so hungry are so in a starved state that they make an agreement and say we'll boil my baby today and eat my baby today and we'll boil your baby tomorrow and we'll eat your baby tomorrow like i said things of value no longer have value and things that have no value all of a sudden have so much value and the starvation has caused these people to mentally lose their minds and so the story picks up in chapter 7 the second kings we were introduced to four lepers sitting at the gate of samaria and these lepers i i guess we could kind of compare them to uh maybe our aids victims of today but but but even far worse because pieces and parts of their body would just begin to fall off their their skin would deteriorate would crack and open sores and and anything that protruded from their body fingers nose ears would begin to fall off their toes would begin to fall off and they had no sense of feeling so they didn't have any clue they they could put their hand on a on a rock near the fire and would not even realize that their skin was smoltering because they had no sense of feeling it was a horrible disease and they felt it was disease that was so contagious that they would alienate these people they would keep these people segregated from society they would treat them differently than they would treat everybody else when they saw them coming they would they would move to the other side of the road when they saw them coming they would have to utter the words unclean unclean they would have to wear garments that were torn they would have to cover their upper lip with a certain type of material everything about these people it was it was a people that were forlorn it was a people that were depressed it was a people that were lonely it was a people they were all alone in the world but there were four that sat at the gate of samaria and they finally asked themselves the question they said we've got two choices they said why sit we here in the gate until we die we we've got two choices it's either sure death or it's possible death and they said if we're gonna die either way we might as well take the better choice we might as well at least try and so the story i i don't have time just to go into the story in depth but the idea is this they got up they got up and as they walked from the gate of samaria into the camp of the syrians and i don't know what that looked like i gotta imagine it look more like stumbled and as they limped into the camp of syria i gotta believe in their minds they were waiting at any moment for arrows to pierce their side they're waiting any moment for a spear to be launched in their direction they're waiting for any moment for a horse and a rider to come come galloping in their direction as they pulled themselves and limped and held on to one another trying to get into any type of hope but the bible says as they walked into the syrian camp they said god had been at work and god had caused the syrian army i just believe that god has a has a sense of humor sometimes and brother andy i just believe that god turned up the subs a little bit and i believe that that what might have been four men walking and dragging themselves into the camp when when god turned on the heavenly sound system it made them to think that there were chariots rumbling and there were horses and riders running and there was an army that was coming to take the syrians captive and so they begin to think and the bible says that they went to an array and they went into panic and they started telling one another they must have hired the egyptian armies this uh the samaritans must have hired the egyptian armies to come and fight against us and the bible says they brought nothing with them they just got up and ran for their lives and so these four these four pitiful men as they drag themselves into the syrian camp they find a ghost town they see meat that's roasting on open fires and mind you they have not eaten they're starving but they see this meat that's roasting on open fires they they see probably water pots filled with fresh clean cool water they see ten flaps as as the ten flaps are open and they look inside and there's there's beds that are unmade and it looks as if somebody has been sleeping but but they're left that they're left unmade and and they look and they see a silver and gold coins on tables look like somebody had been counting their wealth and they left their silver in gold they saw beautiful they saw beautiful syrian garments laid over over different places in the tent and they began to wonder how is it that nobody is here but but but these lepers they're used to struggling to survive and so the very first thing they do is they start scooping up the gold and the silver and they're thinking themselves celebrate we've hit the jackpot and the bible says they they grabbed all the silver and the gold in the first tent they came to and they they they grabbed and they gathered all the syrian garments the beautiful cloth syrian garments and the bible says they found a place and they hid them and then they went from one tent to the next ten and they began to gather gold and silver they began to gather the garments there here they are probably eating until they're sick they're drinking water until they are bloated and finally in verse number nine they said one to another we do not well this day is a day of celebration and we hold our peace you see these four lepers they knew that it was not right to hoard the revelation that they had received the memories of those starving mothers came back to their minds and the memories of screaming children came back to their minds the memories of families are trying to eat the flesh off of a donkey's head and i don't even know what that looks like they remembered hearing the hopelessness they remember hearing of death and the fear and the agony that was going on inside the walls and they said wait a minute it's not right that we have the revelation that there's no enemy in the camp we've got the revelation that there's food and there's water we've got the revelation that there's wealth beyond imagination it's not right that we keep it to ourselves and i want you to think about this i'm about to preach in just a moment but i want you to think about this because if you think about it they might have been able to justify the fact that nobody ever cared for them when they were hurting and nobody ever invited them into their homes when they felt hopeless when they were starving and they had to find their own food nobody ever wrapped up their wounds and and bandaged when they were losing fingers and and when they were bloody and had scabs on their hands nobody ever came to help them when they were in need and if you think about it they might of could have justified the fact that hey baby how does it feel to be a leper how does it feel to be hungry and alone how does it feel to be depressed and and feel like there's no hope in life well that's how i've been feeling all my life ever since i've been a leper that's how i've been feeling but that's not what they did and we as the apostolic church of maryville i realize that seemingly we might be able to justify a reason why we might not share the good news with a cruel world y'all know where i'm going with this i had to ask myself the very same question i have to ask you when i ask those first three questions what type of apostolic are you are you somebody who feels like you've got to hide what you know are you somebody that celebrates it with like-minded faith or are you somebody that says i can't keep it to myself i know too much i've been revealed too much i've got too much of the word of god inside of me just to sit quietly and hide it in a tent but i wonder today if there might be people in this place who might raise their hand if they could and say but brother eriksen you don't know what this world has done to me you don't know what they call me in the workplace you don't know what they call me in the school when i'm at college you don't know what they call me some of you kids in the volleyball team in the basketball team i hear what they say about you i hear you walk in and i hear people say here comes the skirts i hear it i i hear people in the stand saying oh here come them guys and pants i hear it i see it ladies i i've been i've been walking in the mall and walking a few steps behind my wife or or with the youth group and i've watched people turn around and make some sly remark i see it you've seen it we've all seen it we've all felt that feeling that the leper feels but let me tell you something it's a trick of the enemy to make us feel like what we have is not worthy to be shared the gospel that's been handed to us the teaching the training the discipline that's been given to us the knowledge that we have the understanding that we have the word of god that's been hidden inside us it's the enemy's plan to make us feel like we aren't cool enough young people to share what's been given to us come on some of your middle age some of you some of you trendsetters come on it's the feeling of the leper that i don't know if i could go back into the city they might reject me when i start walking towards them even though even though i have good news they might reject me and i've got news for you they did reject them they didn't believe them they thought it was a trick they said i guarantee they're just sitting in an ambushment they're waiting for us to come out of these walls so they can take and the lepers are like no no no no you don't understand we've been eating we've been drinking water we all their stuff is exactly how they left it and the people wouldn't listen and i realized tonight that if every person that we witness to and every person we try to disciple if they would just walk and follow us into church discipline people would be easy if every person we invited to partake in a bible study said yes and came with a bible and we're excited to be there my god we'd all be given bible studies but the fact of the matter is just because we get rejected is no excuse not to keep on going back into the city and saying no no no listen i promise you i've got a revelation you need to hear about there's a name that if you're baptized in that name you take on that name that you get adopted into the body of christ that the blood of jesus the blood of the one that you call out when you go down in the water gets applied to your life come on now i i knew this was gonna be a little touchy i knew it was gonna be a little hard but listen we have got to and i'm preaching to myself just like i'm preaching to you today listen if i point at you i got one finger point at you and i've got three points back in me listen i understand it's difficult to be in this world but not be of this world i realize that everything in your mind when you walk into a group of people and you look well he has a corner office or or he's in the high-rise office he's got windows in his office or or he's a plant manager uh you know she lives in a really nice house you know she's a doctor she's a she's a rn or she's up high in medical field she wouldn't want what i have she wouldn't be interested in what i have and i want to say a thousand times oh my god if we could ever open up the windows of heaven and realize what god sees when he sees people and sees these marriages so messed up family members that hate on one another husbands that don't want to come home to their wives i'm talking about people that you might work with i'm talking about people you might go to college with i'm taught all people that they would never admit it to you that they're hurting but they're hurting so bad and maybe you look like and i look like a leper to them when we're coming because we don't dress like them because the lepers don't dress like anybody else and we don't have the same lifestyle they have because lepers don't have the same lifestyle that anybody else has and they're looking at us in question and they know when we go to church and and listen we we blow people's minds when they when they hear where we go to church you understand i'm saying brother ham brother hammond has some friends that in in the community that he plays basketball with and man they've got they've got this perception of us that's way off they see us they see us coming to this church and they think that man that church is filled with a bunch of millionaires well the millionaires please stand up i want to see who you are they they can't really explain us they can't it's kind of like they're looking in from a window but they're not about to step in the door and they see they they see what's happening here they come by and pastors of nominal churches will come by on a wednesday night and be like i couldn't get seven cars in our parking lot their parking lots packed with cars they can't explain it they they don't understand what's going but that that's how it's always been because the four lepers were never understood but when they brought the message back into the city they brought something with them that nobody else could bring with them everybody else was starving everybody else was dying everybody else was giving up on life but these four lepers they got up and said we can't die where we sit we gotta get up and do something with the knowledge we have that if we sit here we'll die we got to get over our little hurt feelings and we got to get over our insecurities and that's my biggest prayer let me let me preach to myself insecurities i look i try to look at myself have a kind of an outer body experience you know kind of look at myself from from without and i'm like chad why in the world do you struggle with those insecurities why a little bit but it's like with all of us everybody has some kind of insecurity i don't care how good looking they are i don't care what they drive i don't care where they live i don't care who they're married to everybody has some insecurity to them but we got to get over it because when it comes to bringing this gospel to this world uh i don't want to get ahead of myself but but listen there is a man with a viper hanging from his wrist and he's not making fun of you he's crying out tell me how you look so perfect he's saying i'm desperate stop looking godly and tell me how to be godly he's saying release the cure i need a cure i'm hopeless i'm desperate i have no hope in life i've tried everything please tell me how can i get well and that's what matthew 28 19 the great commission that's where jesus preaches to his disciples he says go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you and lo i am with you always even until the end of the world and jesus said amen jesus said that was good y'all catch that he was preaching he's like amen this is not just a great commission this is a commandment to every disciple to go make disciples he said i want you to teach them i want you to teach them to observe the same things that i taught you i want you to go everywhere you can find a goal teaching them and baptizing them and listen i'm not preaching against inviting people to church please invite everybody you come in contact with the church but he didn't say go and invite them to the synagogue he said go and disciple them bring the gospel to them and when they've made a decision to be baptized baptize them we we get so caught up in in proving that this is a oneness scripture we get caught we get so caught up that we forget what jesus was even trying to get across and he was trying to tell them i need my disciples to be disciple makers jesus was saying my kingdom's going to fail miserably if i've taught you all these last three and a half years everything that i've taught you and if you just go back home and peter you go back to fishing and andrew you go back to fishing and if you all just go back to doing what you've been doing i've wasted my time and my kingdom will never ever succeed but he said i need you to teach them the same things that i taught you he said teach baptize tell them about one god tell me it's not a mystery it's not a mystery that there's one god it's a mystery that a god would decide to become flesh that's the mystery that's what the angels couldn't even understand tell them about the holy ghost tell them it's not it's not the third person of the trinity tell them the holy ghost is the spirit of god that's moving in the world and in the church today he said tell them tell them about baptism for the remission of sins tell them the baptism is not about joining your small group baptism is about the remission of sins it's about getting your sins forgiven and getting your sins remitted getting your sins to where they're cast as far as the east is from the west john 4 and 35 when we start preaching about releasing the cure i begin to think about this verse it says say not ye there are yet four months and then cometh the harvest behold i say unto you lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white already to harvest jesus is telling his disciples stop talking about it and just go and do it i'm so sick of talking about programs well if we could get this program started get that program started let me tell you something this this whole connect group small group thing has changed my paradigm i know i preached about it last sunday morning by but i keep on studying i keep on i keep on reading everything that i read in the bible now everything in the new testament oh my goodness it all points to these care groups it all points these connect groups it all points to the people of god coming together and building each other up bible talks about if you're alone and you fall you ain't got nobody to help you back up saying make sure you have somebody that you can rely on make sure that you're in a group make sure that there's other people around you that can help build you up and build up your faith oh listen listen this is called preaching the announcements i like it it's called preaching the announcements instead of me get up here and go on please church would you sign up for a connect group oh no no because i'm not going to beg you number one to do anything if you don't see if you don't see the need to make disciples we're just wasting our time up here making announcements i'm preaching the announcements because i'm saying to you today that you being in a care group you being in a connect group could not only change your life it could change the life of all the people in that connect group with you you don't believe me yet it's impossible for a salesman to be successful at selling if he doesn't believe in his product i didn't say that a salesman couldn't sell if he didn't believe i'm talking about he can't be successful i didn't ask him to make this personal reference but i'm going to make it i'm sorry brother amber but there was a time back when i remember when brother amber was selling selling was selling cars for the dealership toyota dealership and brother amber broke every record of sales there were i don't know in one month he sold he sold like over it averaged out to be over a car a day i mean they said where the amber's at they sent on cruises they were put they were throwing every kind of bonus you could imagine at him do you think he sold those cars because he didn't believe in toyota oh no you know what kind of car he drove a toyota because if he would have if he would have come rolling in there and a ford i've been sending some mixed messages for the tyler you better not bring any other chicken sandwich into chick-fil-a he said i would die first if we believe in our product and i believe we do we got to fight against the feeling of insecurities and inferiority complexes that we have god help me to make disciples help me to realize that the whole point of you coming to earth was not only to save people from their sin but you came to set up a kingdom and in setting up a kingdom you needed the people in your kingdom to bring more people into the kingdom because jesus was not going to be satisfied with his 12 he was not going to be satisfied even with the 3 000 or the 5 000 that would follow him but he was looking to build a spiritual kingdom that all men would be saved all nations would be saved man woman boy and girl every race every kindred every tongue he wanted all people to be saved i want you to stand your feet but i want to preach application because anybody can talk about releasing the cure but i want to give an opportunity for the church for us to actually think big and beyond i like with brother hammond he already quoted the verse that god is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask and or think and imagine we can't even we can't even come up with what god wants to do in blunt county i want to bring this home because in 2019 and we got a 2020 census i know it's about to be released but it's not ready yet they're they're doing all the counting they're figuring it all out but in 2019 blount county recorded a population of 133 088 people the apostolic church in blount county makes up less than half of one percent of that population so what are we going to do about it if we think that we can build a 13 million dollar campus and that we're going to win our county because we build a beautiful campus y'all we are we we're kidding ourselves if we hope that they're just gonna come in the door and if you're here tonight and this is the first time you're here and you walked in here because you you drove by and you're like oh my goodness look at that church i want to go check it out if you're here because of that please stick around because you're going to love what you experienced in this church and thank you for coming in the doors but church family we cannot be we can't be that ignorant to think that a building is going to grow the church i think i think every single minister that got up in this pulpit during our dedication said the same thing did you all realize that they all said the same thing they said first episode church you have done an incredible job you have built they compared to solomon's temple they all these accolades and that was so that was so precious and i thank god for all the compliments but every single one of them said the same thing they said i i hope that you didn't put all your energy into building this building and you think that now we've arrived and we've done we're gonna do we can't sit back and pat ourselves on the back and say how we bill we build us a multi-million dollar building and it's debt-free our next generations aren't going to have to pay interest on something that we build we can't be patting ourselves on the back and talking about you know now all this money can go to missions and thank god that it can we can't sit back and pat ourselves on the back and talk about our christian school and talk about our our successful daycare and pat ourselves on the back and sit back because our music department and our youth department and our children's department because programs and properties are not how you determine the success of the kingdom of god discipled believers is how you determine success i got news for you it's not even the number of people that are here tonight because unless you're discipled and what disciple means is that you have made a decision to follow after christ and you've made a decision to obey his word and not only obey his word but to share it with other people you understand a lot of times we're looking and the ushers are so good about sending us sends our pastoral staff the attendance for each service and as much as i want to be like man this is awesome we had 604 people here this morning or 617 or whatever it is that's not success success is how many have been discipled discipline is a bible study chart discipline is bringing someone to a connect group and studying about the book of acts discipline is praying with a friend that you brought to church in the altar this is what disciples do when they're discipling people discipling listen to this one discipline is loving someone's soul so much that you're willing to be inconvenienced in order to see their life changed man listen i know my wife and i have done it we've taken people out to eat we've taken new converts out to eat when we were so tired we wanted to go home been to three services on a sunday and sunday night that new convert shows up but you know what it's worth being inconvenienced a little bit when you know that you're about to affect somebody's soul when you're about to disciple somebody and share something with them they've never seen before share something with them a revelation with them that they they've read their bible they've been a good denominal saint and they've read their bible through and through and through but until you started discipline them they never saw what you reveal to them so i say this over 133 000 people in our community how will they ever know the gospel unless we go we got a lot of young people that are feeling the call to world missions dear god there's a missions field about a hundred yards from here there's a high school with over a thousand students in it i don't know if one of them has been baptized in jesus name i don't know maybe they have maybe somebody goes here maybe somebody here goes the william blood high dear god i know i know the man in africa and and the woman in asia and the man in south america brother devon i know i know they need the holy ghost i know they need to see revelation i know they need to be a disciple but there's a thousand students over here that unless we go unless we're like those four lepers that i'm sick and tired we've we've got the silver we got this gold hidden we got these garments that are they look so nice and they're so soft and we've never worn anything like this before we've got them hidden and we've filled our bellies until we're sick we've drank until we're bloated but how can we have such a gospel and not go back and share it with everybody we know come on i want you to lift up your hands right now and i pray that conviction will move through this place i pray that the same conviction i felt when i was studying for this message i pray that same conviction will fall upon every saint of god in this place today i'm not condemning anybody for not being a disciple maker because i know that this place is filled with disciple makers i know this place has all kinds of bible study teachers we have all kinds of connect groups that are already beginning and i know and i know but listen every single one of us can take the next step in our disciple making there's not one person in this room that can't study your bible and share with what people that you work with and go to school with what god has put into your mind and into your heart i'm calling for ministers i'm calling for saints of god to come into the ministry and just believe that every person every believer has been called to bring this good news back into our city come on i want you to pray this prayer i want you to say lord help me release the cure lord help me lord i know i know with that man who's addicted i know what he needs i know what he desires i know the very thing that will fill the hole in his soul i wish there were apostolics who would just cry out to god right now and say god i want to be a disciple maker god i want to make the difference in somebody's life god i want people standing next to me when we're walking through pearly gates i want people who are following after me to say i wouldn't be here if i wasn't discipled come on somebody come on i want the holy ghost just to move in this place and i'm willing to be patient to let it fall i don't want to get in a hurry because we can preach about winning souls and making disciples and teaching bible studies and we can walk out of this place and go to dairy queen and forget everything we've heard but if right now if we can make a commitment to god and say god i will be the one god if you can use anything lord you can use me lord god if you can use a donkey to open up its mouth and speak if you could cause a donkey to bring revelation to a dead prophet to a false prophet my god you can use me to bring your word into this community come on this place i believe we can fill this altar with apostolics who see the need to bring the truth into a city that's dying into a city that's starving into a city that's taken the life of their own children come on somebody our world is in a horrible state our country is in a horrible state we are dealing with a perverse generation and the bible says work out your own salvation and when it says that it's talking about you've got to take the salvation that you've been discipled and been taught from the word of god and you've got to go in and you've got to make disciples with what you've been taught come on saints of god come on let it be let there be a prayer let there be that to be something that rises up in this place that god would hear the cry of people saying god put somebody on my heart put somebody in my mind if it's a co-worker if it's a cousin maybe it's a second cousin that lives maybe another town over god put a soul on my heart lord i want you to use me to reach into that life i want you to use me lord i want to teach a bible study lord i've been in this thing all my life surely i could pick up a bible study chart surely i could read off a chart and i could teach the word of god lord give me the wisdom give me the zeal that i can learn how to teach a bible study lord i pray lord that every person in this room that wants to win souls it wants to reach people i pray they'll get involved in a connect group that they can bring their co-workers to they can bring their next-door neighbors to they can bring classmates from college too they can bring people from high school that don't know god and they can bring them into a hyphen group and say i promise you if you rub shoulders with these people your life will be forever changed i pray that there could be a travail that would go up for our community for 133 000 people who have never heard the gospel of jesus christ who have no idea that the fullness of the godhead was in the man christ jesus who have no idea that the very bible they read commands them to be baptized in the name of jesus god give us a burden god give us a bird every school bus filled with children that drive us by us god i pray that you would convict us god i pray that you put something inside of us that says god i want you to touch every one of those children every one of those little dirty faces that have their faces pressed up against the window god you have a purpose for their life god you have a purpose for their life every high school teenager i see walking home from school from from william hi lord you have a purpose for every single one of their lives god i pray for the church and god i pray for myself tonight lord god that you would bring to remembrance every time lord god i'm in the community god that you would help me to think and help me to remember these four these four leprous men when they finally came to themselves and realized we aren't doing right sitting here with the gospel hidden we're not doing right we've got a revelation that could save our city we do not well we do not well sitting on top of our revelation and hiding it in the sand but god help me lord god to share your gospel lord every time lord quicken my heart prick my heart oh god lord every waiter every waitress oh god that gives me the opportunity lord to talk into them speak into their life lord god every clerk every clerk at every store every person checking me out at a grocery store lord at the checkout line lord i'm believing in jesus name god that you'll quicken my heart and quicken to my mind we do not well release the cure release the cure release the cure release the cure release the cure come on first episodic i want you to respond i believe god speak in the hearts right now release the cure release the cure release the cure you've got the cure you've got the cure you've got what they need come on somebody say i've got what they need i've got what they need i've got what they need i've got what they need i've got what they need i'm sick and tired of hearing the screaming i'm sick and tired of hearing the crying i'm sick and tired of seeing depression and oppression god i've got what they need health to show oh i feel the holy ghost in this place i feel the saints of god are responding i feel like the disciples are responding come on somebody i feel you responding to the word everything that's been put inside of you every bible study you've been taught every time you've been to a wednesday night bible study every time you've been to a sunday morning service in a sunday night service come on it's going to come flowing back you're going to receive power you're going to receive power the holy ghost after the holy ghost has come upon you to be witnesses in jerusalem in samaria judea to the uttermost parts of the earth you're going to be given power to be witnesses saith the lord so and i'm bright enough to realize that there's not one sermon that's going to turn anybody into disciple maker i wish i wish it was that easy i wish it was easy enough to wear one message could also we'd have 500 guests on sunday i wish it was that easy but we put into we've put into place these these small groups because this is where it all takes place matter of fact in each of the small groups starting next week there's going to be an empty seat placed in the small group on purpose and every one of you care group leaders i don't want anybody sitting that seat don't let anybody sit in that seat if somebody says that see if you need that seat go get another seat i don't care if you got to bring in a lawn chair from your back patio whatever you have to do bring in another seat and that's going to be the seat that you're going to pray over and you're just going to pray and say god next week we want the seat filled next week we're just believing that somebody in this group is going to find somebody to disciple and they're going to bring them to small group next week and this seat this seat right here we're gonna invite them and say hey come on welcome to our group we've got a seat for you right here and you know what next to that seat there's gonna be another empty seat because then we're going to pray over that see we're going to say god you answered our prayer and you brought somebody to our group to fill the seat but now we have this seat right here and i just believe everything inside of me listen we got to think big 133 000. come on we can reach this community come on we could reach this community come on we might have half of one percent right now i believe in about five years we could have one percent of this community i believe he i believe easily we could have we could have risen seating we could have 300 people packed into this place i i believe we could do it i believe we could have multiple start having multiple services where all of a sudden we had 1.5 of the community and then soon after that we had 2 in the community and then who knows a revival breaks out and all of a sudden we have 4 of the community you think that's impossible day of pentecost how many people got the holy ghost in one day how many came in the church in one day listen what they could do small but the church has got to get out of a building and we got to understand that the fields are white and ready to don't wait it's not four months until the harvest do it now let's go do it now in jesus name let's pray father we love you lord i'm so thankful for the greatest people in the world that come out on a wednesday night in a midweek but i believe we have so many disciple makers in this room right now god oh the sky's the limit of what you're going to do in blount county the sky is the limit what you're going to do in severe county the skies are living what you're going to do in cleveland tennessee lord god when your people leave a building and they realize that they are the church when they're at work and they are the church when they're at school and they are the church when they're in the mall and they're in church when they are in walmart god i just believe lord god that you're gonna lay souls upon our hearts and people are gonna be one because the lord we are gonna release the cure come on if you believe that put your hands together let's just love the lord and give him