Ekklesia — Vision Casting for 2025

So good to be in the house of the Lord today. I give honor and glory to the Lord God. I honor all of you today for being here. For those that have joined us online for our guest, we are honored that you have come. Thank you so much for making CAC your worship place today. We invite you to become part of what the Lord's doing. Amen. If you feel like you have to, you can be seated. If you want to stand, that's fine. I'll be here all day.

Oh, wow. 2025, huh? Anybody remember 2024? Anybody? Boy, it's like it was long time ago. So, let me be the first at 12:47 to tell you welcome and happy new year. Amen. We begin this year. I want you to know that I am grateful and thankful for what the Lord has done and is doing at CAC. Can somebody say, "Thank you, Jesus." Come on. Thank you, Jesus. We continue to grow numerically. We continue to mature spiritually. We continue to move forward in the kingdom. God is blessing.

God is keeping. Amen. The last 12 months, 2000, I mean was like so five minutes ago, right? in the year of 2024. Yeah. Yeah. Can y'all help me? You ready for this? But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. We talked about that all year last year. Every month, a topic and a theme. We seek after God in so many ways. time that we spend with family and friends, time that we communicate and connect one with another.

We serve the Lord. We seek him with our talents and our investments that we make into the things of God. We determine in our lives to search every day and to look for him and to find that in everyday activities we can find the hand of God. And as we follow him, the Lord blesses us and keeps us. Come on, somebody understand something. You don't have to be flat of your face screaming out to God to worship God only. Come on. If you'll be kind to your family.

Yes. Amen. Amen. Pray for your children. Come on. The Lord honors that. If you'll just love one another and get close and be willing to open up to him. Come on. He has to God has to be in every aspect of your life. It can't simply be a Sunday or a Wednesday. But we learn that in all things we can love the Lord, serve the Lord and every day we have to bathe that day with Jesus. Somebody say in Jesus name. Every department over this past 12 months has grown, showed an incredible growth and maturity.

Our Wednesday evening midweek university participation is just astounding. It's holding at an 85% give or take. That's just amazing that Midweek University draws such a group of people hungry to learn. Classes and sessions on Sunday designed with biblical principles and study. Wednesday is designed with an emphasis on life subjects and topics. All right. So, I commend all of our department leaders. I commend all of you, all of the musicians and singers and Sunday school teachers and and and parking lot attenders and coffee maker uppers and coffee pour outers and anything at all that you're involved with at CAC.

I applaud you and I thank you for your investment in God's kingdom. Come on, somebody. Aren't you glad you're not the only one sitting here today? But God is making the church. I commend all of our department leaders. You pour so many hours, so many efforts and energies into the kingdom. Uh I will be the first to say not all are successful, but all are helpful. We learn and we grow. Is that right? We've had people baptized in the name of Jesus this last year. We've had folk receive the gift of the Holy Ghost with speaking in other tongues.

Come on. Just we started out this year so far. Come on. God is moving and growing us. Training in the kingdom instruction how to be a better dad or a better mom. How to to pray for your children. How to cook noodles. We've learned all kinds of things. Hopefully, we're getting better at our finances and our budgeting. Amen. Because y'all thought I was done. because we are better tithers and offering givers. Come on. You keep God out of your checkbook and you're gonna fail miserably. And I declare that from the word of the Lord.

But if you'll put God number one in your checkbook telling you, you won't rob God. Will a man rob God? Ain't gonna happen. Some of you can look at me crossways because I'm getting in your business. I'm here to tell you, you are facing the giants. You are because you have closed up your your pocketbook. I'm gonna tell you that. All right. It is not the amount, it is the attitude. All right. All right. Now, I'm gonna move forward because I got to talk about this today.

I give a big thank you to everyone. Would you give yourself a hand clap just of appreciation? Thank you. Come on, everybody. Everybody clap your hands. It's okay. Everybody clap your hands. All right. I knew that'd draw it in. We are moving forward into a new year. Again, I am once again I'm interested and I'm determined to do the best I can as a pastor and for this church to do the best we can to serve our generation and the generations to come. Amen. are worship services in person or online.

Listen carefully. There's a reason we call them worship services because we are in service to the kings. Not just another phrase. The way that the online presence we have the community about us. Come on. Projects, ministries, reaching into the community around us, into the world. Come on. This is the year 2025. We are going to focus as the church. Everybody say the church. Look at somebody close and say, "Are you in the church?" Are you in the church? That's what God is interested in for our generation this year.

The theme for us every month as we calm everyone back down. Thank you, brother Sam. I saw him out there. The church, it's called the ecclesia. Everybody say it. Eklesia. Ecclesia. You learned a new word today. Ecclesia. In New Testament, it would been written in Greek. That's where this word appears. New testamenty. It means by definition called out, assembly, one place to another. Elesia. This year we're going to focus on the church becoming the church. For those of you that are Old Testament folk, we're going to talk about that all year long.

And that I'm more interested in. But for the sake of today, the abal, everybody sayal. That's the Old Testament Hebrew word that simply means assembly. Listen carefully. Called by a certain sound. When God would speak, God would say, "Moses, talked to the people." In the Bible, you can read in your Old Testament, he would declare, "Elders, come. I need to talk to you. We need to have a kahaba." When he did that, there would be a sounding of the trump. And the trump would declare across the camp.

And they understood, "It's time to go meet for a certain purpose." Listen carefully. I am convinced that the day in which we live, we're going to connect every day with the purpose and the plan of God for us. Why? Because without the church in this world, there is no hope for this world. We are the called out ones. As part of our mission, we believe that God is drawing us into a place of growth and maturity that we have not seen here to. Why? Because there is a hunger and a desire that is coming into the next generation to want to know God and to serve God and to trust God and to understand God.

Listen to me carefully. I don't cast a stone at anyone, but previous generations have brought us to this place, and I am thankful for that. But I'm convinced my great-g grandandmother would have a terrible time with Facebook. All right. Her Facebook was this. You need to know Jesus. You need to get in his word. You need to get That's how Facebook work. But here we are in a new day, a new generation. We've got to understand that the church has got multiple faceted ways to reach the community.

like for my wife to come and help me right now. Lauren, would you come and help me, please? All of you have noticed here at the front our leadership committee this year, we decided to to make a concerted, focused effort on all of us to know the word of God. The Bible tells us in the scriptures that the people were destroyed for what? Lack of what? They didn't know. The enemy ran over them because they didn't understand the principles of the word. They didn't understand the concepts of what God could and wanted to do in the church.

Amen. That's Old Testament stuff, but it came into the New Testament. We can read at the end almost of every letter that the author of the book would simply say, "Hey, pray for me. Help me." Because so and so, you he was with us, but he backed away. They were with us, but they backed away. Why? Because decisions and choices were made. And I'm convinced it was because they didn't know that at the end of it all, well done is what we're looking for. Amen. Amen.

So, church leadership, we assembled a team got together and they assembled a daily journal for all of you, for the church. Listen carefully to pastor, please. I bought these books out of my fund for you. I paid for these. You want to know how much? I'll tell you. Thank you for asking. $17 a book. That's yours. If you lose it or you need a second one, you're buying it. It's called I gave you the first stones. You threw them down and broke them. Now the second ones, bring them.

That's right. Every new convert that comes, we're going to teach and train them on how. Listen what I'm telling you. I believe in this vision. This is just part of it. Now, if you're an adult in this room, I want you to come. My wife and Lauren, they're going to help you. Please, if you want one of these journals, I want you to come. As you come, get out of your chair. Come fast you can. Come on. Come on. Fast. You can get up here. I want to make sure all the adults get one.

Now, all you young folk, come on. Now, if you're going to take it and throw it on your coffee table, forget about it. Then pray harder before you come. Come on, everybody can get one. If we run out, we'll have some more printed and you'll pay for those. Yes, ma'am. Hey, I even have in my notes for the message today. Pause right here so that y'all can come and get these. Come on. We We'll I think we'll have enough. It's okay. All right. Now, you teenagers, you got them.

Teenagers, you get one. Okay. How many we got? We got enough. Beautiful. Now you older than teenage or younger than teenagers. Come on. We want you to have one as well if you can. The teenagers come. Did the teenagers all get one? He's not a teenager yet. Come on. We just want to make Now we're We've got some more coming. Okay. But this is all that the printer could get printed in a day or two. Or he can have this one. You can have mine. Go.

Thank you. Y'all got them. Now, there are some that are not here today. That's fine. We'll have some for them later. Tell them. Shame on y'all for not being here. Don't say that. Um, is it? Did you get one? Bring it here. Come here. Thank you. I'll give it back to you, man. Go sit down. Just so I know whose it is. Put your name in the front cover of this book. Listen to me. This is our This is our disciplehip journal for 2025. What I have noticed, what Brother Sam and Brother Dan, what we have noticed as part of this church is the culture of notetakers.

It is incredible to me to stand back there and look out over the crowd during a message or a teaching series. And so many of you have your head down with pen and paper in hand, playing tic-tac-toe, I don't know. But there's an interest and a desire in many of you to want to know things about God. Does anybody here know the whole Bible? No. Then you have room to grow. Somebody say, "Amen." Elbow your neighbor and say, "You can learn." Call them old dogs if you want to.

We can learn new tricks. Your goals this week. Take time to fill out the goals. Don't do it now. Come on. I rebuke it. Don't be drawing in this thing right now. You can peruse it. I'll give you a few minutes. Our vision statement, our mission statement is in there. We have departmental things. We have reading resources that you can buy on your own and you can grow. We also have this is what I want to show you the blessed journey. It's on page 7 8 9 10 whatever that is.

You'll see it's called the blessed journey. This is step by step how if you will use this and apply it to your life, God can help you to be blessed. If you'll turn that page, we've got the app. We've got QR codes. We've got Chattanooga information. January page number something. It's got the date at the top of the book. You see it? Today for knowing is January five, 2025. Notice what's on this page with lines. The journey Sunday school, that's the class that you sat through in your time.

You've got a place now. Who taught it? Notes that pertain to you, scriptures that you want to know more about. The second page, Sunday the 5th, is about the sermon title. Who preached it and the way God spoke to you. You got that? Notice the next one. Wednesday, January the 8th. Who taught it and what they taught. You see how this works? And every week there's another page for you to take your notes. You're welcome. Listen to me carefully. The reason that we're do we are trying to develop a culture of learners.

God, do not let CAC die because we don't know the promises in this word. Don't let us die because we stop believing in the power of a risen savior. Let us take every note. God, hey, listen to me. Look up here real quick. Pastor wants to tell you something. This is how God works. He will speak to you and through you. Write it down. Write it down. [name redacted], I gift this to you again. You better have it out, too. Listen to pastor. We We believe in this vision so much.

This time next year, listen to me. This time next year, every message on Sunday and every Wednesday night Bible study that is taught in this sanctuary, all three of us, I will take the month of January, I will preach every Sunday and every Wednesday this month. Our topic of discussion and our topic of messages is going to be 100% surrounded by the tabernacle. The tabernacle, pastor, that's old. You better believe it is. And it's everything you stand for today is established there. Amen. I fear that so many don't understand the value of showbread.

I fear so many don't understand the value of an altar of incense. We're going to talk through those things. Listen to me. I'm going to take the first part of this and establish what the tabernacle was for. Brother Gibson comes second. He's going to talk about that opening, bringing in the offering. I'm going to come back and talk about the altar. Brother Sam's going to come back talk about the labor of water. Every month though, we're going to spend Sundays and Wednesdays talking about the tabernacle.

By the end of this year, you will be so versed and understanding the purpose in the tabernacle. Pastor, that's Old Testament. You better believe it. Listen to me. I am convinced that when God established with his people, if you'll do it my way, you will be blessed from this generation and every generation forward. We're going to focus on that. You hear me? At the end of it all though, this time next year, we're going to take the collaboration of my notes and my messages with brother Gibson's and brother Hodms, and we're going to put those together.

Listen, we're going to put a book together, and from the CAC library, we're going to print a book with all of our notes on the tabernacle, and we're going to make that available for purchase for anybody outside of our church that wants to know more about the tabernacle. Listen to me. You think that's foolish? Let me tell you something. The day when an EMP explodes and your iPad dies, if you don't have a written word, it pastor, why do you have a library? I tell you why.

Because when the power shuts off, I can still grab a book and I can get in the Talmud. I can get in the dictionary. I can get in the Bible that's in Hebrew and I can still look at the word of God and I am not going to be held accountable for forgetting it. Amen. Y'all understand, I'm opening my heart today in this vision casting. I want y'all to understand if you'll know the word, if you'll hide it in your heart, what? You will not sin against God.

Hallelujah. Anybody connected right now, lift your hand, Lord. Come on, Lord. I'm on the journey. I'm on the journey. Come on, lift your hand. I'm in the journey. I'm coming to you, Lord. I want I've been in church so long, but right now, I am coming closer. Come on. Anybody else? Lord, help me to understand it. Give me clarity of mind every week. Lord, with your hands up the scriptures I will take you to right now in this first service on Sundays. The book of Exodus chapter 25.

The book of Exodus chapter 25 verse number one. Write that down. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they may bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart, ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them. Listen to it. gold, silver, brass, and blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, goat's hair, ram's skins dyed red, badger skins, and shidum wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for sweet incense, onx stones, and stones to be set in the epod and in the breastplate.

And let them, listen to verse eight, let them b make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them, according to all that I shue ye after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. Understanding that Moses was God's leader among the people of God. Moses was the one that would be the person to teach and instruct and to show the people how to be God's people. But transgressions and sins and disobedience and humanity drew a line between God and his creation because sin will separate you from God.

Somebody say that's right. But God speaks to his called leader and he says to him, "Build me a sanctuary and in that sanctuary I will give you everything that you need to accommodate my presence with you." God, notice this. The Bible tells us in the book of Exodus that God told Moses to tell the people to bring and he waited on them to bring. Pastor, why are you focusing on this? I'm telling you, if you will bring to God, God will take what you bring and make something of it.

God will anoint you. God will bless you. God will provide for you. God will move in your life. The pattern that God gives begins with us submitting and bringing to God. Bringing to God. When Moses began to express this and to explain this to the people, the Bible said that the people began to move and began to respond and begin to act according to what God's word had happened. You speak to the people. You ask them to search their hearts and decide how much they want to be involved in the building of the presence of God in their midst.

Everybody brought materials. Listen, it was not a demand. You search your heart and you bring it. Gold, silver, brass, blue, scarlet, purple, fine linen, goats hair, rams skin, badger skin, woods, oil, spices, precious stones. Where in the world did they get all of this stuff? I can tell you what history declares, but one thing is for certain. In my mind, I'm sitting here thinking, what is going on? How are they bringing so much gold and so much silver and so much brass? How are they coming up with these things?

And then the Lord again begins to reveal to me in 2025, if the church will, God will. And if you have in your heart, Lord, I'm going to give you my best and I'm bringing this as an offering to you and I'm submitting it to you. The Lord will provide you something else to bring. That is the principle of the tithe. You bring your 10% not 10 cent percent to the kingdom and you willingly give it to God. God says I see you but now I want to know your offering because you decide the value of the offering.

Stay with me somebody stay with me. Every item needed God provided it. There was no waste, no frivolous use. It was God saying here's the blueprint man. You take it and you build it. God gave wisdom to those who needed it in order to know how to use the gold, how to use the silver. One of my I'm not going to give away all this info, but I've been studying this. Do you realize historians declare that in the the tabernacle in the wilderness, this portable building, that there would have been five tons of silver used, just silver.

Gold is much heavier. Oh, you pull that back. I got to have that for next time. The plan of God was this. I want you to be a people that will be my people. That's Old Testament. I want you to be a people that I can say I'm your God and you are my people. In the midst of that, God begin to bless. If you transition into the New Testament, we find the ecclesia is involved because what the baptism in Jesus' name and what the name of Jesus did and what the infilling of the Holy Ghost did in the New Testament, the dawning of that new testate or and this is how we're doing it now is what God established was a group of people that were steeped in their traditions and in their mannerisms and how they did things.

And God said, "I am going to change that because I am going to call you from that and I'm going to bring you to this place where I need you." 2025, we are still the church. Somebody say the church. Our job now is more important than ever before. Our city needs Jesus. Jesus is the answer. Write that down. As senior pastor of this church, this assembly, it is my responsibility to seek the kingdom of God and to find the face of God as the Lord leads and directs us.

But as it was established in the first assembly, the first meeting place, the first place, God gives wisdom to the ones that need it and understanding to those who can make the mission of their work to have purpose. I don't know how to do a lot of things, but I know how to trust God. I've had many of you throughout the years that have asked me questions about simple things. How do you do a roof? How do you do a pitch line? How do you do this?

How do you change a tire? How do you know about an alternator? How do you do airplanes? What do you know? And all these little things, tidbits of information come back in my brain, and I'm say, "Well, this is how I do it." Why? Because I don't know how to do these things, but I know one thing I can learn. And I recognize the fact that there'll come a day when my learner will be broke. But I trust that the Lord will give me my peace of mind and my clarity of mind at this age because guys, the church now needs wisdom.

God is helping us through that. I'm inviting right now to this podium, Brother Sam Hodm. Brother Sam Hodm is our executive pastor. He's going to lead us down a couple more steps and then brother Sam is going to turn it over to brother Dan Gibson who is our administrative pastor. He is going to continue explaining some of the things that we are doing here at CAC and then I'll come back. I ain't done. I was searching for mic number seven, which we normally keep right here.

It wasn't there. It's okay. And you guys have a graphic for me there. The blessed journey in in your notebooks. There is something to do with this here.

No, allow me to say this and our time is running out. I'm so sorry. January the 29th is our annual business meeting. It's a Wednesday night. I need you here. If you call CAC, you're home. I need you here. Tell you what we're going to talk about. We got a lot of business to do, a lot of discussion about finances, offering, giving, all those things. We'll bring the reports, but we're also I will give then the upgrade or the update on where we are with our building.

Uh it's already been mentioned by both brother Sam and brother Dan that God is transitioning us and I'm ready for it. I'm ready for it. But there's so many things that we have to do to get there. the physical work, the mental work, the emotional work, the financial work, all of that stuff has to connect itself. Not sure what you guys were expecting today in the vision casting up and down, jumping around or whatever. I simply wanted to make sure today that our church understands the vision.

We believe in you. We believe we believe that God brought you into the kingdom for such a time as this. And I believe that every single one of you can invest in the kingdom and God will bless you and multiply and give it back to you. I've been told since I was a little bitty boy, you cannot outgive God. That's time, talent, treasure, testimony. You can't outgive him. Something cool is about to happen. We had [name redacted] baptized a little while ago. Since then, her brother has said, "You know what?

I'm ready for that." So, they're going to get him ready. That's a cool thing. What does Does he need my clothes to Oh, he's okay. Well, this is going to be good, but for y'all, but anyway, listen to pastor real quick while we transition one more time. It is 1:45 for us clock watchers. Anybody bored yet? I am so thrilled about the possibility of this year. If we do indeed continue down the route, the route that we are on presently this time next year, we will be worshiping in our own facility with room to grow with room to grow.

Man, every Sunday we come in here and brother Dan, brother Sam and I, we talk about, man, we're almost out of parking spaces or wow, we've got elbow, you know, it's it's with systems in place that we're trying to accomplish. We're trying to move it forward. My desire, listen carefully, I've had many pastor friends of mine that have churches and they're growing and they're thriving and I'm like, I don't know that I want a one church of a thousand. I think the Lord's called me to have 10 of a hundred because we can multiply in certain.

Y'all know that Redbank needs a church. Anybody know that Hixon needs a church? Anybody know Collegedale needs a church? May know downtown inner cities needs a church. Anybody know Harrison needs a church? How many areas y'all want me to speak? Come on. In the city of Chattanooga, we need so many more houses of worship teaching and preaching this apostolic message. And I believe God is going to honor us through that. That's why you are growing where you are. Y'all go ahead. You won't interrupt. They're going to baptize over there.

Would you stand with me, please, church? Would you lift your hands to the Lord right now? Would you begin to pray right now? Lord, help me, Jesus, to know and to understand my place, my position, my my investment in the kingdom. Lord, help me this year to be found doing. Come on, lift your voice to the Lord. Lift your hands. To be found doing what I'm supposed to do this year, Lord, I want to be faithful to you. I want to be faithful in my church attendance, in my Bible study.

I want to be faithful, Lord, in my giving, in my witness, and my testimony. Lord, I'm thankful for the church. I'm thankful for the church. Come on, somebody. Believe in it right now. Love the Lord for it. Jesus, breathe into us, Lord, new life, God, an understanding, Lord, of apostolic truth and doctrine. In the name of Jesus, we love you for it and we thank you in advance, Jesus. We bless your name for it, God. We exalt you in this place. Come on, lift your hand to the Lord.

Lift your voice to the Lord. Lift your voice to the Lord. In the name of Jesus, pour out of your spirit, Lord, in this place. One more time. In the name of Jesus, we believe you for it, Lord. We believe you for it, Lord. Somebody say, in Jesus name. In Jesus name. Now listen to me carefully. I I know some of you guys have been wondering and dreading January because January is our month of commitment. So this is what I'm going to ask us to do.

If you will Monday through Friday this week, I want you to fast your entertainment and your social media. Turn it off. Turn it off for a week. Would you do that this week? Listen to me. You will not hear the voice of God if you're listening to the voice of the enemy. Shut it down. Do what you got to do midnight tonight. Go on your Facebook page, your Ugalaka page, whatever it is, and simply put in there, "I'm gone. Be back maybe." Listen to me. You can find out still what's going on in the world.

Somebody else will tell you. Would you do that? You decide what entertainment is. mindless amusement. You decide. Shut it off. God, I'm going to focus on you for this week. Come on, parents. You're going to say, "How do I get my children?" Good. Get the Bible out for them. Throw a puzzle down in front of them. Play a game with them. My wife and I are good at Monopoly. We just get up and move tears. Okay. Get up, move. Tyler, you do the same, right? I mean, there's two of us, right?

How do you play? The hardest one we're still trying to figure out is charades anyway. Did he get baptized? Somebody rejoice right now. Come on. God's going to fill him with the Holy Ghost. Come on. God's going to fill him with the Holy Ghost. Oh, come on. In the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Come on, church. Believe for it right now, Lord. Fill him with the Holy Ghost and power. anoint him right now, Jesus, in your name, great God, we pray. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh yes. Yes. Also this year, they're going to keep praying. They're not bothering me one bit. Also this year to incorporate the Old Testament laws and blessings of God, we are going to incorporate it into our as we learn about the tabernacle, as we learn about the priesthood and the ministry. Listen to pastor. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, "Speak unto Aaron unto the son, saying, on this wise, you shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. They shall put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them. The Lord bless you this week and keep you. Shake hands, be friendly, love on one another. We'll see y'all. Come on. Don't forget tomorrow night prayer, Tuesday night, Wednesday night. Come on. You need something to do Thursday, Friday, call me. I love y'all. Go with God and have a good week in the Lord.