Well, good morning. My name is Tim. I'm the pastor here. Welcome to Phoenix Bible Church.
We love it that you guys have joined us this morning, especially if you're new. If this is your first time, I know a visit church can be a little bit of a unique experience, wondering where to go and where to drop off kids. And what we're doing right now and why are we doing what we're doing and when we sing songs and stand up and sit down and read scripture and all of those things. And so we want to get you acquainted with why we do that and what we do today is actually going to be a good day, just sort of step back and talk about that a little bit, where we are as a church and where we're going as a church.
But that wasn't the plan and I'll get to that in a second. I want to celebrate something that Steven mentioned earlier is our men's camping trip. I think we have a photo of that Friday and Saturday the last two days. Our men, a group of men went up to Prescott, Arizona, to camp.
And what you should be picturing right now is not like a bunch of tents altogether and picnic tables and restrooms and steak and just a nice, delicate test of time. What you should be picturing right now is up a mountain on a dirt road that you literally, my son almost flew out of the car driving up because it was so bouncy. And up by thumb butte and Prescott and looking over that mountain, tents all separated out. We almost lost some kids.
Don't tell the moms, right? But we didn't, everybody's safe, right? But we camped hardcore as men and we fished and I did get to bring my son and he got to fish for the first time and we camped out and the tent together was amazing. But here's the highlight of this trip is Friday night.
We had devotionals and worship and all those things. And Friday night, one of our guys is leading a devotional on one of Jesus's parables and pulling truth out of that and it was really impactful. And he got done and just kind of threw it to these crowd of men. And one by one, I think probably eight guys that ended up being talked about their favorite parable from Jesus, what it's meant to them, how it's impacted their life.
And then they went on to give a little mini sermon of how it should impact everybody else's life. And about eight men did this and we were there for a little while around this fire, hearing all these men, college students, two adults, two people with kids and fathers and all these different people were sharing God's truth through the words of Jesus and how it's impacted their life, how it should impact the lives of others. And it was amazing. And I remember the next day I went to one of our guys who helped plan this and I said, hey, was that part of the program for last night?
Like for one guy to give a devotional off a parable of Jesus and then for a bunch of guys, like maybe during the week he had them pick out their favorite parable and talk through it and think about it and pray through it and then share it with everybody else. And I said, no, no, no, no, that was just spontaneous. Just the guys just did that. And let me just tell you, that's a pastor's dream, right?
That we would sit around a campfire and men, boys to older men would sit around and talk about the truth of God's words, specifically the truth of Jesus, how it's impacted their lives and they would begin to challenge other men to have an impact their lives as well and just do that because they could felt compelled to be about the spirit of God in the woods of a bumpy road camping, right? That's a pastor's dream that we would raise up men that would be compelled by the spirit of God to proclaim Jesus and saturate their minds with the words of Jesus and to live this out to encourage and challenge other people to do the same and it just happened, right? And so as much fun as the hiking and the fishing and the running around in the woods was, and that was the highlight, and we prayed at the end, this wouldn't just be a weekend, this would be a catalyst for more weekends and more weeks of our lives or men or saturating themselves with a word of God and then imparting that to others. And so wives, can I just say thank you?
Men, can we say thank you to our wives? Thanks for letting the men go on this trip, for watching the kids and letting this happen. It was a really, really impactful time that I hope we have more of. As we get into today, if you're new with us, just write off the bat as I kind of alluded to.
Today is gonna be a very different kind of morning than we normally do as a church. We are six weeks into a series on the Sermon on the Mount. That's Matthew five through seven, 107 verses of this brilliant extensive teaching by Jesus. We get directly from the King, words about the King and we get directly from Christ, words about Christianity, it's a great series where six weeks into that and today, we came up on a really important topic in the Sermon on the Mount, but also in our culture and that's lust, sex and the Gospel.
In fact, if you were here last week, we set you up for today and we talked about how some of you would be really excited about today because we're talking about sex and church, right? But now some of you would be really nervous and maybe you have to mow your yard today, even though we live in Phoenix and you don't have a yard, right? And you'd be busy today because you don't want to talk about sex and there's things that you've done and things that have been done to you and you don't want to talk about this in church, you don't want to deal with this issue. And so we've settled this stuff, we've been planning this for a while to have my friend Dr.
Steve Tracy come in from Phoenix Seminary, he's a professor, author, counselor who has toured the world and seen the effects of lust and distortions of sex. He has written on that topic and it was gonna be really impactful, we'd already collaborated on that and really excited for him to come. And Thursday, late Thursday, we talked and he has pneumonia and he said, hey, as much as I want to be there, I just, I don't think I'm gonna make it on Sunday, I'm getting better, but not better enough. So please pray for him, his name's Dr.
Steve Tracy and pray for him that he would continue to heal up. But we worked it out, I think he's gonna come on October 29th, so just a few weeks away and so you're still gonna get to hear that sermon, I do think it's gonna be helpful for all the reasons we just talked about. But then we were left with on Thursday evening, what do we do today? We can shuffle the sermon schedule, we're gonna do that so we can come on the 29th.
But what do we do today? And for a pastor on Thursday evening who's getting ready to take his son on a camping trip, Friday and Saturday, that's what you call an obstacle in ministry. Like what do we do with this Sunday? And so I started thinking and praying and started talking to other leaders who were thinking and praying and we just decided, hey, let's do something we don't normally get to do.
Let's talk about a significant moment in the life of our church right now, what's going on and something practical that we need to let you guys know about and maybe God opened up this door and it's not an obstacle, it's an opportunity to talk about something significant in the life of our church and lay it before God and lay it before you in process and just throw it out there and say, hey, let's pray together for this and let's talk candidly about this. And that thing is our location. So this is our location currently. We've been looking for a new location and I'm gonna tell you more about that as we go.
But I wanna set it up with this that in God's providence, this week marks three years of Phoenix Bible Church. So Thursday, man. Thursday will officially be our three year anniversary. And we literally just talked about this two weeks ago, somebody was like, hey, we're gonna do the whole cake and celebrate three years.
And I was like, I don't think so. I don't know that every year we should be like, hey, we're still here. Wow, I think let's wait till five years. Like I think we're here, God has this here and it's amazing and it is an amazing thing, but let's wait till five years.
But this came up and just started thinking through what providence of God that he would bring, what I think is an obstacle and make it into an opportunity to sort of see, pull back three years, what has God done? What is he doing and what is he about to do and how does that intersect our location? So that's what we're gonna do today. And so some of you are brand new and you're like, man, this is a lot like her.
What am I walking into? And let me just say, we wanna lay this before you too. That we wanna invite you not just to belong here, but to build here because that's what God is doing. He's building his church.
And that's an exciting, phenomenal, amazing thing. So you're gonna get a peek into what that looks like this morning. So just to give you some context, especially if you are new, a little over three years ago, we were not here. We weren't in this place.
I didn't know this place existed. In fact, my wife and family, we had just moved to Phoenix that had just started. We were leading that and it had to close. The main church was having some issues and problems that affected us.
They had to close us and lay me off. And I had to stand up three months into a church, just moved here, no family and friends previous in Phoenix. And I had to stand up and say, hey, I'm so sad to tell you this, this church is about to close. And then personally, I had to deal with what that meant for my life.
We started talking to family and friends. We're from Texas originally, our whole lives. And as we talked to family and friends, they were here three months. No relational equity.
Just got laid off, my wife found out she was pregnant in that few weeks span with our third child. And we just said, hey, what are we gonna do? And we talked to a lot of people who were like, hey, just call it a day. I mean, that stinks.
Stuff happens, move back to Texas, get a job at a church, and just do that. And we wrestled with that. Honestly, we thought, because that seemed like a really stable thing to do, right? We wrestled with that.
But then we also wrestled with God led us here. We firmly believed that. And we believed God didn't lead us here to tap us out in three months. And so we started wrestling with this idea of planting a new church.
And that's kind of how I'm wired and how God has gifted me. And so I just thought, maybe this is exactly why God brought us here. Instead of asking, why God did you do this to us, which we did? Asking God, maybe did you bring us here for such a time as this?
Because you knew in your sovereignty that we could be your instruments and your tools to help redeem the situation and plant a new church where people would come to know Jesus and take a really sad situation and bring salvation stories out of that sad situation and a new church out of that situation. And so one night, some of you guys will put this, not my best moment. I'm late on the floor in the fetal position and just asking God why and just really whining honestly about what is he doing in this moment? And my wife just stopped me and she said, hey, what would you do if finances and stability weren't a factor?
And I said, why plant a church? And she said, let's do that. My newly pregnant wife with her third child, right? Really, the person who should be up here sharing this is my wife, amen?
A woman of faith, encouraged. And so we sat down on a journey, honestly, if she said no, we wouldn't be here right now. That's not a good idea if my wife wasn't in this. And so she was, and we sat down on a journey with no building, no money, no name, no relational equity.
And we said, what if? What if God could do something new and redeem the situation? And so we got a name, Phoenix Bible Church, and we got a place to meet other people begin to say, like how did you get Phoenix Bible Church? How was that name just sitting out there?
So when you dropped the ball, we picked it up, right? And God got to save that name for us, right? And it described what we want to be about. We want to be about preaching God's word and living out God's word.
And so things started to come together. We raised money and people started to come and say, hey, we don't know what this is going to look like, but we want to see, and God provided a vision for the church as well to say, even in the early stages, we don't know all of this what it's going to look like. But we want to see a church where the love of Jesus moves. And we still say that today, where Jesus was moved by his love for us to come down to earth, the incarnation, to become flesh, to enter into humanity.
He was moved by his love to live, die, resurrect, so that we could be in relationship with him. And then when his love enters our lives, it moves us, just like it moves him. So it moves us to radical devotion to God. It moves us to a radical dependency on God and a declaration and a demonstration to everyone we know about who God is.
And we thought, what if God could raise up a church like that? And what if God could do that in the center of Phoenix where we could engage culture, not exit culture, inform a holy huddle, not immerse in culture and just evolve with the times, right? But engage it with truth and love and uphold truth and not sacrifice one ounce of God's truth, but engage the culture right in the heart of the city and love people well with the love of Jesus. And what if God could raise up a church like that?
That's our beginning. And this week is three years of, listen, seeing that happen, of seeing that happen. Some of you have been here since the beginning. Some of you have joined in with us over the last three years and you've been able to see and participate in that happening.
You've been able to serve and love and give and proclaim Jesus with us. I said this at the very beginning as well, that my wife is amazing, but if she was the only member of Phoenix Bible Church, we're in trouble, right? We need some other people to join us in this. A lot of you guys have partnered together with us and with one another, and it's been amazing to see.
And I just want to roll through just some of what's happened, just this year. Some of how God has done this through our church. One is we went on our first mission trip this spring to Rocky Point, Mexico. We sent a team to do that.
We are supporting our own missionary family. Sent out from PBC to Honduras, who is living like Jesus there and being ministers of Jesus in Honduras. And we get to support them financially. I just talked to Chris Wagner.
He's the dad, the husband in that, and just to see how they're doing. And you're going to get to hear from them soon. Actually, they're going to come back here for like a furlough sometime away. And so you're going to hear what in person what God's been doing through them.
But you guys have been a part of that. We sent out our first intern, dissiminary, in Louisville, Kentucky. He's getting trained up right now to go do who knows what, for God in the future and be a part of ministry that way. And he started here.
We had our first membership class in the spring. We planted a new community group in Central Phoenix. We have given this year $2,500 to church planting across America through the church network we're a part of. We gave away our entire Easter offering on Easter.
We just said, hey, we want all the money that comes in today. We want to give that away completely, not take anything for the church or operationally. We want to give that away. So you guys gave and we were able to partner with an organization to send, I believe, nine kids to a Christian camp to hear about Jesus for the first time.
Some of them, some of them refugee kids. We got to hear about Jesus, have their lives changed by Jesus because you guys gave on Easter. And we did that again. We liked giving our entire offering away, apparently, because we did that again.
Recently, after Harvey, Hurricane Harvey, we decided, hey, on that Sunday, let's give our entire offering away again and not think about what that's going to do to our budget. Let's just be generous. Like the heart of God is generous. Let's give.
And so you guys gave $2,600 to local churches on the ground. And Houston, and only that, we said, hey, we want to be the hands and feet of Jesus in Houston. So January, we're thinking we're going to plan a trip to health rebuild in Houston because it's a long process. And 16 of you guys have signed up to do that.
And so that's happening in the life of our church right now. And then on Easter as well, we baptized four people celebrating new life in Jesus. And in two weeks, October 15, we're going to baptize three more people celebrating new life in Jesus. And one of them is a girl named Sarah.
Sarah is a girl. Some of you guys know who's from Italy. And the way Sarah came here is absolutely ridiculous. I met a guy named Colin in Austin, Texas, who is from Scotland.
Colin was trying to come following me here. It's a crazy story. Colin was trying to come to America to be an intern with our church at the time in Austin. That didn't really work out with his visa.
And so he ended up instead of going back to Scotland, he went to Italy. And he interned with a church in Italy. And there in Italy, he met a girl named Sarah. And a girl named Sarah began to prepare to move to Phoenix, Arizona to go to Phoenix College.
And she talked to Colin, who I met one time, who was trying to come to Austin, Texas, but it didn't even work out. She talked to Colin. And he talked to her. And then they talked about, hey, there's a guy named Tim in Phoenix.
I think he planted a church Phoenix Bible Church. You should at least check that out. So Italy, Scotland, Austin, Phoenix. You're tracking with me?
She shows up here on a Sunday, tells me that story. That's about a year and a half ago. In two weeks, we're going to baptize Sarah Solomon and celebrate new life in Jesus with her. And so, can I just tell you, what we started this church for has happened.
There's people that are loving Jesus, living like him, and leading others to him, because this church exists, because you served, because you gave, because you believed, and you're believing with us now that God could do something amazing in the city of Phoenix. And so can I just say, say thank you. Thank you for partnering with us. Thank you for the sacrifices that you have made over the last three years.
Some of you, the last six weeks, it all matters. It all leads to stuff like Sarah getting in this baptism tank, two weeks from now, celebrating, proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Right now, she's with my wife in kids' ministry, celebrating, proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You need to know that's not normal, right?
Those kinds of circles that we can just see that connect the dots. That's not normal, that God is doing something and you've been a significant part of that. Can I just say thank you? Thank you for being a part of this.
And we want to remember that, right? It can be easy to forget. Maybe some of you have really good memories, better than mine, you're like, 10, you forgot about this and this and this and I probably did. But we need to take time to remember what we can of what God has done.
I came across Psalm 103 this week. It says this, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Verse two says, bless the Lord and my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
The implication there is that we easily forget, don't we? And maybe even some of you today, who've been following Jesus for a long time or a short time and you easily forget, what are you doing in, through me and around me? Are you doing anything? Is anything different in this church in my life because I've been following you and you easily forget, and Psalm 103 reminds us, don't forget.
And so we take today as not an obstacle, but an opportunity to remember, to celebrate all that God has done over the last three years, but to also look forward and say God's not done yet. There are so many people in Phoenix who still need the love of Jesus to move in and through you to them, right? Barna, a research group who does research as own churches in Christianity, did a study in 2016 that determined that Phoenix was in the bottom 10, the bottom 10 of the most Bible-minded cities in the country. And so Bible-minded cities, meaning that the Bible isn't something that's just believed in, but it informs and it affects our decisions, our lifestyle.
And they did all these research activities and found that the Phoenix is number 92 in the whole country of the least Bible-minded cities. It's in the bottom 10 of that, as far as the Bible actually determining how we live our lives. It also found that we're the 12th least church city in America. You can look this up, just Google Barna research.
The 12th least church city, the number 92 Bible-minded city. And you see, here's what I'm convinced of is that people in Phoenix know a lot about the Bible. They know a lot about church. In fact, some of you are maybe thinking, there's a lot of churches in them.
I'm not sure that these stats are accurate. And I would say there are some churches and people know about the Bible and they know about church and they know how to speak the language, but what I'm convinced of as I've been here over the last three and a half years is that a lot of people know about Jesus and about the Bible and about church, but it hasn't informed and affected their hearts and lives. And that's why we're here is because there's a need for that, that people need Jesus, that they're like whitewashed tombs as we've been talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. They're decorated nice on the outside, but they're dying on the inside.
Then in Phoenix, we just think about the landscape of Phoenix, we have some of the best resorts in all of America. We have some of the best golf courses and strip malls and restaurants on every corner in subdivisions and neighborhoods and amazing pools because it's really hot here. Right, things look nice and decorated on the outside. And we distract ourselves and we have consumerism here that is just at the tip of our fingers, but on the inside, people need Jesus.
And so as we look at, why is the church here? What are we remembering and celebrating and looking forward to? There's a need for the gospel of Jesus Christ in Phoenix. And you guys are helping fulfill that need.
That's Phoenix as a whole just to bring it down to this area. If you don't know much about this area, right behind us are some of the most marginalized and poor people of our entire city, right behind us. Right across from us are some of the most wealthy, young professionals, even neighborhoods. If you go over to Third Street, Lola Coffee, and Peter Jungle, yes.
All those places, some of the most wealthy neighborhoods and some of the most wealthy people. And then you have across the street as well, all these new developments and high rises and businesses and restaurants. The city is pumping money into downtown Phoenix because they want it to grow and flourish. And you have this unique context that we are in the middle of, where you have poor, marginalized, needy people, and then you have wealthy people who think they don't have any needs.
But inside, they're dying just like everybody else. And God has placed us here in the midst of that need. That's what you walked into even this morning. And that brings us to our location.
We have been at this school over the last two and a half years, ASU Prep. God provided it in an amazing way. Just like we've seen obstacle turn into opportunity, this was one of those, right? We were desperately looking for a morning location, calling, cold calling, pounding the pavement, going to every place possible that you would think, like, I think a church could be there.
I think that could be a church. Like we did that and we found nothing. We called ASU Prep literally on the phone. The guy at the time, one of the principals just said, hey, when do you need this by?
I mean, we're just redoing this stage actually right now. I think it'll be ready by January 11th. Is that okay? I was like, yes, that is fantastic.
Thank you. We're starting a new series today. That works really well for us, right? And so this place has been a blessing, right?
I've just talked about people who have been baptized in this place. People's lives have been changed. We've built friendships and community and been changed by the way of God in this place. And it's been a blessing.
We've been able to bless it. We've done breakfast, lunch, served this school in multiple ways. But over the last few months, this place has become a little bit of a burden. We've shared that openly and honest with you guys.
They've been taking away some of our storage as a church. And at the same time, doubling our rent. So taking things away, but asking for way more money, which doesn't usually work out in the math. And so we set it before you guys a few months ago, hey, here's some problems that we're having.
We're searching for a new location. We want to do our best to work it out with the school and be a blessing to them and be salt and light to them. But we're going to search for what's next. And that may take six months.
It may take five years. We don't know. But we're going to start that process. So we begin to start that process.
And again, an obstacle of this place with lack of storage and sometimes crickets. I don't know if you ever hear the crickets. They're awful. Right?
Crickets during a sermon. It doesn't really work well. But a lot of other things lie to being out for three months at a time. And just these obstacles turned into an opportunity to say, hey, we always want to set up shop and Phoenix and plant roots and Phoenix.
Well, now we just have more of a reason to do that, more motivation to do that. So we started looking and we've been looking. And today I'm letting you know that God has provided a unique opportunity that we are looking into. It's not by any means settled at all.
But listen, that's exactly what we want to do. It's just be transparent. I don't have a bunch of slides to show you. I don't have a marketing campaign.
I don't have brochures to hand out today. The guy canceled on Thursday. So we don't have any of that. And as I talked to other leaders and we prayed through this, we said, yeah, but what if we just lay this before the people of God and said, hey, would you pray with us?
And here's the process that we're going through. I don't know if you've experienced that as a church or any church you've ever been to. Today, you're going to experience that. You're going to get to see people behind the curtain of what's going on and what God is doing as we move forward as a church with a location.
So I want to tell you a little bit about this process that we are in together. There is a building on Washington and First Street, just a few streets over from where we are right now. There's a car till coffee right now, right there, if you've ever been to that. It's right across the street where the Phoenix Suns play, if you've ever been to a game.
So there's a lot going on right in that corner. And God has provided a potential opportunity at Washington and First Street. I office there currently in that building and have built a lot of relationships with some of those people, even the owners who happen to be Christians. And as we were having obstacles with ASU prep, God provided an opportunity through them.
I started talking to one of the partners of that building who is a Christian. And he just said, hey, what if we had a church in this building? And what would that look like? In fact, we have this lower level that we're going to renovate and build the suit.
And what if you guys, you probably wouldn't want to do this. But what if we partnered and did that together? And then we started to talk about, there's a fries, the first full service grocery store in downtown Phoenix coming in right at that corner, right in front of where the Phoenix Suns play. And the last, I believe, five to six years, you have Cityscape where you can go ice skating in the winter in Phoenix.
It's an amazing thing. Right there. You've got urban outfitter. Right there.
Cartel coffee. You have multiple restaurants. Continue to come in that area. And we'd be right there on the corner.
And so just started to talk to other leaders and pray through that and went back to them and say, hey, what would that look like? Now what would that look like to renovate this space to make it look like a church? And how much could we use it? And how much would you guys use it?
And so we're having those conversations literally the other day. We just walked around and pictured. What would that look like? We're going to do that more this week and meet with their architect and just drop some basic sketches of what would this look like?
And how much would it cost? But as we've had these conversations, the blessing in all of this is I'm talking to the owner of a building in the midst of all that downtown who's a Christian who's saying, what would it look like to have a church in this building? Again, you need to know that's not normal. As I've talked to pastor, friends of mine, in this city and other cities, they said, we would love to do something like that.
That would never happen. In a downtown area of a major city, them asking for a church to come into that. And literally one of the guys said, like we've got the grocery store, we've got cityscape, all these things. The city's pumping money in here.
By 2020, we expect for there to be 100,000 people within a one mile radius of that street corner. But that's all happening. And one of the partners said, you know what we just need. What we don't have is a church.
That's ridiculous, right? And he's coming to us and saying, would you guys consider this? Is this something you would think about? I'm like, yes, right?
Yes, that's amazing. And so just so you know, again, that's not normal. But God has provided this opportunity. That's a little bit about what it is.
That's what I can tell you now. I don't have a lot more details than that, except for this week even, we're continuing to work through this. I don't know what's gonna happen. And we're probably gonna be here for at least another year while we figure all that out.
Things have to be renovated, construction takes a while. But we're gonna move towards this. And we're gonna lay this before you today to say, hey, let's pray together. At the risk of in three months, this is nothing, right?
But we wanna involve you in this. And we're gonna pursue the next thing after that and believe God that he has something for this church, for us to not just celebrate and remember a cute story of a church making it three years, but to build a legacy of a church making it 30 years and a hundred years, that's still around when we're not. And that people's kids who are getting baptized in 20 years, that we don't even know yet. That's what we're trying to build.
And we're believing God for that with you. We wanna pray with you for this opportunity. So that's what we're gonna take a few minutes to do now, is to pray. God, what would you have for us?
We're gonna do it under this banner of this statement that we're gonna have on the screen for you, that we want this opportunity, that we thought was an obstacle. We want this opportunity to be, not just a location, because some of you I know right now are thinking, okay, is this a building campaign? Is this just about locations? And you come to tune down a long time ago, it's not, right?
This is an opportunity to see the mission of Jesus go forth in unity and power for the glory of God in the good of Phoenix, to see the mission of Jesus go forth in unity and power for the glory of God in the good of Phoenix. And so we're just gonna pray through each part of that line. And so I'm gonna invite Bradley, one of our worship leaders up, and he's gonna start that. He's gonna read scripture along those lines, and he's gonna pray, kick off a time of prayer.
And so here's what's gonna happen, stay focused on this, because I know some of you are new. I'd love for you to group up and pray together with some other people, some people in your community group, your spouse, your family, your friend who brought you. I'd love for you to turn, I know we're in rows, and listen guys, I've been around for a long time. I need you to lead the way in this, and not say I want to talk where to pray with people.
You lead the way in this, and then our new people, especially those who are introverted or sweating right now, you can pray by yourself if you would like to, right? But you could also step out in faith with us, and just listen to other people pray, just lean in on that, right? That won't be abnormal, nobody's gonna be like, who are you, right? That's not gonna happen.
So just everybody pray in their own way, Bradley's gonna read, and he's gonna pray, and then we're just gonna invite you to start praying, and then I'll come back up, and we'll transition to the next thing. So would you pray with us? Oh, hey church. If you just make it awkward noise right away, it just relieves the awkwardness for the rest of the time.
So just maybe try that. If you're nervous about praying with other people, I'm gonna read Romans 10, 14 through 15, which is how then will they call on him who they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him, whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? And if you've ever seen my feet, that's a miracle for them to be called beautiful. Cooper, I think you've seen them.
So that's one thing that I love about this church, is that we're not worried about the functionality of doing PDC better, but we're worried about the logistics of expanding the kingdom of God and becoming more gospel-centered. So I'm just gonna pray for that right now, and then I'm gonna invite you guys to pray either individually or preferably with one another. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for all the resources and the fortitude that you've given us spiritually emotionally, materially, and I pray that you would give us the sight to focus that on your divine purpose, which you set out before the dawn of time, for Phoenix Bible Church. I pray that we would not worry about the logistics of church or the functionality of space, although those things are important, I just pray that you would endow us with just the central obsession with seeing your name make great with the gospel going forth in truth and in love in our city.
Lord, we acknowledge that anything materially, anything intrinsic, even the faith with which we believe you is not something we've inherited or endowed with on our own, but it's a gift, it's a token of your grace, that even the faith with which we believe you is a reflection of your grace that you've given us that faith, only you can give that. So we pray that you would increase ours as a church individually, and that you would give us a mission, mind to go forth and to see your gospel known in downtown Phoenix. Establish that in our hearts this morning individually and collectively as we live out this thing called community, and we just seek to further your kingdom. We love you so much in a Jesus name I pray.
Our next section of prayer, as we prayed for the mission of Jesus to go forth, you can stay right in the group that you're in, I'm just gonna give you the next topic, but we wanna see that go forth in unity and in a power. We wanna see go forth in unity that we are locked arms, loving one another that we are praying against the enemy and our flesh and our selfishness that would divide us, and we are asking God to unite us as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. That the mission of Jesus doesn't go forth through an organization or an institution, it goes forth through the people of God who are unified, and it's through that that you see power, it's through that you see fruit. And so we wanna pray for that, we wanna pray for unity, we wanna pray for power as we see this mission of Jesus go forth, so I'm gonna invite one of our leaders, Graham Saunders up, and he's gonna read a verse and pray along those lines, and then we'll invite you to pray and continue to pray with us.
Ephesians, we're gonna be reading Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, it says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We wanna take some time to pray for unity, it's important that in this, it has a church we are unified, together as a people and that we are unified in the word of Christ and in his mission for his people. Let's pray together and then we'll go ahead in our groups and pray for unity. Lord, I thank you for your grace and for your love that you have so willingly lavished upon us.
I thank you for your provision for Phoenix Bible Church, and I thank you just for blessing us and I thank you for growing your church. I pray for unity in the church God that we would be unified together, that we would hold fast to your truth and that we would seek to glorify you in everything, to honor you in everything, that we would never compromise that truth, that would be unified in it. And I also pray just for your power, what I pray for your will to be done in this church, and I pray against any divisiveness, any pity things that we assume in this will cling to, I pray that we could put those aside and be unified. Let's take some time to pray for that.
Well, as we transition to the last part of that statement, we're saying that we want to see this opportunity, whatever it is, it is an opportunity to see the mission of Jesus go forth in unity and power for the glory of God and the good of Phoenix. We're gonna pray for the glory of God to come, and that Phoenix, people in Phoenix who don't even know that the glory of God is good for them, that the glory of God would come to them specifically. Those who don't know Jesus, those who are connected to a church, that the glory of God would be shown and put on display through Phoenix Bible Church, through whatever our next step is, whatever location God provides, that the glory of God is the banner over all of that. Amen.
So let's take some time to pray for that, and pray that the glory of God would meet the good of Phoenix, and we'd get to be intersecting all of that. So take a few minutes to pray for that. I'm actually gonna invite up Brad Hart, one of our leaders to read and pray along those lines as well. Ephesians 3, 20 through 21.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church, and Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Father, you are good and righteous and holy, and through our sin and our filled view, sent your son who knew no sin to bear our sin, save us. And we are so thankful for your love and your grace.
And God, we know that you have created and sustained all things, and we are here this morning, we have breath in our lungs because you have ordained it. And God, we are here together in this church as a body because you have ordained it. God, whatever the purpose of Phoenix Bible Church is in this city that we are trusting you in that, and Father, I pray that you would rise people up in the city, in this church, to live out your will and to live out what you've called us to. And we are a body, we all have our unique talents and our giftings that you've given us.
Father, I pray that we would seek you out, we would be fervent in our prayer, in our devotion, in our time with you, now that we would draw closer to you, we would be able as a church to reach those who are lost because we know that God, there is joy in heaven for those that come to know you, those that are lost, that we're lost and are now found, those sinners that are now brought to repentance. And so Father, as a church, I pray that God, you would use us in that, and we would put our trust in our hope in you. We love you and thank you since you've seen me pray that it takes some time to pray through the net. Well, hey, as we get ready to close this portion down, thank you for praying.
Thank you for listening and just being in tune with the heart of God today, hopefully, and just seeing, just like we are as leaders, what are you doing God and what do you have for us and celebrating what he's done and looking forward to what he's going to do. I know as a church plant, a new church, that's all that means, but as a pastor who's done that over the last three years, you get a lot of interactions with people, some pastors, some just people, some non-Christians, who are like, you're doing what? Why would you do that? You get all kinds of responses, but some of the responses across the board, honestly, from Christians and non-Christians, because of the story that I laid out before you guys, of how we came here, our beginnings, and what we're even doing now in downtown Phoenix in a school.
Sometimes when I lay all those things before people, they say like, you think this can work? They say things like, have you ever thought about moving out further where more people live in the suburbs? Because you could just kind of do like step one, step two, step three there, and you'd be fine, and build a church and that would be fine. And people say a lot of different things like that, and what they're kind of saying is like, they wonder in their heart and their faith, they wonder like, can God do something here with this, with what Phoenix Bible Church is?
And I always try to respond graciously in those moments, and humbly, because honestly, I have those questions myself, like, what are you gonna do? What have you been doing? And what's this gonna be like in 30 years? And so we have those conversations, but they're usually around the practical, right?
They're usually around demographics. They're usually around highways, and signage, and exposure, and different things like that, or just really practical things. And it's in those moments where you kind of step back and you have to look at God's Word, and you're like, do I really believe this, right? And do I really have faith in Jesus?
And do I really believe God called this here and those things that happened at the beginning, that do we really believe that, collectively? Do we really believe this? God's Word? Or do we just look at strategies and logistics and step-by-steps of what a typical church needs?
And honestly, it's those times where God moves in such a beautiful way, in a powerful way, is when you go back to Scripture, and we say, you know what, there is a gap, and that's really what people are saying? There's a gap, right? There's a gap of what seems normal, and doable, and stable, and all of those things, and logical, and then there's over here, like, there's a people who need Jesus, and there's a people in an area who doesn't have a lot of churches, and there's a need, the 12th-Least Church city in the country, the 92th, a 92nd, rather, least Bible-minded city in the country, and then a downtown where you have this disparity between the poor and the wealthy, and they don't cross the street, and God has placed us in the center of that, and you have all this, and then you have logic, right? And you have what's reasonable, and then you have all this need, and you know what the gap is in there, is faith.
The gap is faith, that if we just did everything, according to logic, and strategy, and practical, we wouldn't need faith. We wouldn't need to be the people of God, depending upon God, and His spirit to move, and crying out for Him to do that today in our prayers, and proclaiming Him every week, and going out of this place every week. We wouldn't need that if we didn't have to rely upon faith. We would just be an organization, an entity, and that's not what we are.
We are the Church of God, the people of God, sent on mission by God to lean on faith, and see the gap closed from what's logical and reasonable, and what's needed, and where the gospel is needed, and see that converts, and see the people of God say, I'm gonna sacrifice and lean in on that. And so that's where we are, right? We don't think of just what's practical, and logical, and just maneuver around, and just make decisions off that. And in this moment, that's not what we're doing.
We're saying we wanna have faith. God, you can grow a church here, and you have grown a church here, and you're providing opportunities that are unheard of, and abnormal, and that's faith. And so I don't know a lot of things, but I know this is a dark place, and we just talked about in the Sermon on the Mount that we are light, and I think as a church, we should have faith to not just look at the practicals, but look at the need for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we should have faith, and we should lean in on that, and we should say, hey, there's some darkness, and we're kind of supposed to be the light, let's mobilize that and go into the darkness, and let's just do that, and let's figure out the practicals along the way, but let's see, we are light, let's go into the darkness, that's what we are supposed to do, that's what we're called to do, and that's what I'm inviting you into is our next steps as a church. My prayer is that today, you would be able to look back on October 1st, when the dude canceled for the sex sermon, right?
That you would be able to look back on that day and say, hey, it was my first Sunday, and I didn't know any of these people, and I didn't know what we were talking about, I didn't know all the background, I never done anything like that before, never prayed across the aisle, and the church on Sunday morning, the people that would have been here, you could say I've been here since the very beginning, we never really did anything like that, you could say that Sunday, we're the guy canceled, and we did this thing, we talked about three years as a church in our location, and how that would be a banner for the glory of God, and a tool for the glory of God, for the future and a legacy of Phoenix Bible Church, that you could say, I was there for that day, and God had just changed the church, and provided a location, but he changed my life, and he invited me into what he was doing, on a deeper level with my family, with my kids, with my neighbors, with my friends, that would be your story, and that would come out of today, because we have faith, that God would move. Would you continue to pray with me for this? Even after this week, we may have some more details, and just be patient with us, and pray with us that God would move through this, and that he would grow his church in the city of Phoenix, and then, let's continue to pray for that together. Next week, we're gonna be back in a terminal amount, and we're gonna talk about marriage and divorce, so buckle up your seatbelt for that, and come back next week, excited to dig into that with you, let's pray together, Father in Heaven, we thank you for this morning, we thank you that these men and women aren't here by accident, they have been brought here by your Holy Spirit, they've been motivated to come here, and maybe they didn't realize that this morning when they woke up, but you had a plan for them, and God, I do pray, I wouldn't just be about a church location, or next steps for an organization, but it would be about their life, that they would begin to pray and seek you in their own life, about what does it look like to be sent out on the mission of Jesus in unity and power, for the glory of God and the good of Phoenix, themselves, their neighbors, their friends, their coworkers, God, that you would do a work in them this morning, and then we could say in five years, in 10 years, that we were there, and God changed some things in our hearts, in our minds, and it was transformative, and that more people were gonna know about the love of Jesus, and live like Jesus, and lead others to Jesus, because you have moved through these men and women on October 1st, 2017.
We pray that would happen. In the name of Jesus, we pray, amen.