Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Genesis 15:1-6
After these things, the word of the Lord
came to Abram in a vision.
Fear not, Abram, I am your shield.
Your reward shall be very great.
But Abram said, O Lord God,
what will you give me?
For I continue childless, and the heir of
my house is Eliezer of Damascus.
And Abram said, behold,
you've given me no offspring,
and a member of my household
will be my heir.
And behold,
the word of the Lord came to him.
This man shall not be your heir.
Your very own son shall be your ear.
And he brought him outside and said,
look toward heaven
and number the stars,
if you're able to number them.
Then he said to them,
so shall your offspring be.
And he believed the Lord,
and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Revelation 7:9-12
After this
I looked, and behold, a great multitude
that no one could number
from every nation, from all tribes,
and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne,
and before the lamb, clothed
in white robes, with palm branches
in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice.
Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne and to the lamb.
And all the angels were standing
around the throne, and around the elders,
and the four living creatures, and
they fell on their faces before the throne
and worshiped God, saying,
Amen, blessing and glory, and wisdom
and thanksgiving, and honor and power,
and might be to our God forever and ever.
Amen.
Welcome to the weekend
gathering here at Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Zach.
I'm one of the pastors here,
and I'm so glad
that we get to be part of your weekend.
Smart move by you.
You come on Thursday night,
and then no matter what happens on Sunday,
it's not your problem, right?
Very smart.
And hey,
if you're watching this online, it's
because the roads are shut down
and we couldn't be open,
and thanks for watching online,
we'll see you next week,
and you should
have come on Thursday night.
All right,
listen, 2026 is the year of More
Life here at Christ Community Chapel.
That's the theme of our year.
That's the theme of this sermon series
is what we're praying for.
It's what we're expecting.
More life in everything in our families,
in our marriages, and our careers,
and our relationships with God.
We're expecting it
because Jesus told us to.
And John 10:10 Jesus says, I have come
so that they may have life
and life more abundant.
And so we're saying,
hey, if that's what you're about, that's
why we want more life,
but not just for you and for me.
Not just for our families,
not just for our marriages,
our children,
our careers, our relationship with God.
I think we're going to see this weekend
is that God wants more life
for more people, in more places.
He wants more life for everyone
all over the world.
And he wants us to be part of that.
So in fact, if you have a Bible, would
you open it up to Genesis chapter 15?
Put a finger there.
Also open it up to Revelation
chapter seven, we'll be there.
I recognize that's the two extreme
ends of the Bible.
Good luck figuring that out.
If all that sounds way too problematic
for you,
it's going to be on the screen behind me,
so don't worry about it.
When I reference it, it'll be up there.
But to guide our time together
and talking about more life
for more people in more places.
I have four points I'm
going to use as an outline.
Very simple.
They go like this
I want to show you that God has a mission.
It will succeed.
We can miss it.
Why would we want to?
God has a mission. It will succeed.
We can miss it.
Why would we want to?
All right, let's start with the first one.
God has a mission.
I love vision, I love strategy,
I love dreaming big, I love it,
I mean, when somebody says, let's do this.
And even if the this is just
absolutely bonkers, I get excited.
Like I believe that we are hardwired
to want a big idea to
to to collaborate together
in something bigger than ourselves.
I think psychology tells us
that sociology, anthropology,
we are wired for vision I.
In fact,
I think that's one of the problems
with our country these days, is
we just lack some kind of rallying vision,
like I would have loved to have
been around when President Kennedy said,
we're going to put somebody on the moon,
like, I would have been fired up.
I would said, man,
I mean,
I'm really not good at math or science,
so I wouldn't have got to be part of that,
but I would have been fired up about it
because I love vision.
You know, even in business,
there's this idea
that if you want to galvanize people,
if you want to rally people,
you should use what's called a B hag,
a big, hairy, audacious goal,
like a goal so big that
that we have to get started right now.
A goal
so big that if we don't work together,
it isn't going to happen because you're
just something about a dream,
a vision, a bag that excites us well.
And if you resonate with that,
then I'm happy to tell you
that God is a vision kind of God.
God is a dreamer. He. He's a visionary.
God has a bag, a big, hairy,
audacious goal.
In fact,
the Bible is really the story of God
establishing his big hairy,
audacious goal.
And then fulfilling it throughout
human history.
You can actually find that
big goal in Genesis 15.
Let me read it to you and see
if you notice what I'm talking about.
Genesis 15 verse one says this.
After these things, the word of the Lord
came to Abraham in a vision.
Fear not Abraham, I
am your shield,
and your reward shall be very great.
But Abraham said, O Lord God,
what will you give me?
For I continue childless, and the heir of
my house is Eliezer of Damascus.
And Abraham said, behold,
you have given me no offspring,
and a member of my household
will be my heir.
And behold,
the word of the Lord came to him.
This man shall not be your ear.
Your very own son shall be your heir.
And he brought him outside and said,
look toward heaven and number the stars.
If you are able to number them.
Then he said to him,
so shall your offspring be.
And he believed the Lord,
and he counted to ten as righteousness.
The story of the Bible is the story of God
coming to an elderly,
childless man named Abraham, a man
who had been married for a long time.
He and his wife,
Sarah, had been married so long
and were so old they had long since
given up the dream of having children.
And God speaks to Abraham
and he says, not only am
I going to give you a son,
but your family is going to grow.
So large that you can't even number them.
They're going to be like
the stars in the sky.
In fact, in Genesis 12, God will say,
not only is your family
going to be big, but through your family.
I'm going to bless
all the families of the earth.
In other words, what God is saying is
that I'm going to do something incredible
and that something is going to affect
every single family on earth.
It's going to change
all the peoples of the earth.
God is thinking global.
God is thinking big.
God is being a big, hairy, audacious God.
After all, he's saying this dream
to a childless elderly man.
He's talking about global
and Abraham doesn't even know
what's ten miles in any given direction.
God has a mission,
and God's mission is more life
for more people in more places.
You see, God is an exciting, action
oriented, visionary kind of God.
Is that what you think
of when you think of God?
Is it that maybe the
first thing we're learning in 2026,
a year of more life, is that it?
One key to experiencing
more life is we're going to have to change
our understanding of God.
We're going to have to break
out of the mold that we have put God in.
We're
gonna have to let God speak for himself.
And if when you think of God,
you don't think of bags,
when you think of God, if you don't think
of dreaming a vision of global,
then you're not thinking big enough.
God has a mission.
But let me show you something even cooler.
Here's the second point it will succeed.
You know the thing about big, hairy,
audacious goals?
If you buy the leadership books,
the business books that talk to you about
setting these goals, what they'll say is
it doesn't even matter if they succeed.
Like if you set a goal big enough,
then even if you get halfway there
or three quarters of the way there,
then then you still have experienced
something really incredible.
So when you set an impossible goal,
you kind of do it with a wink
like, hey, don't worry about it.
We'll give it our best shot.
It's going to be great.
Like here at KCC,
we use the iOS operating system.
Some of you may be familiar with it.
We set quarterly targets
and our goal is to achieve
about 80% of our quarterly targets
every quarter.
If we only complete 60%,
we probably didn't work hard enough.
But if we complete a 100%,
we didn't dream big enough.
We want some goals that are so big
that maybe we never get there.
But even by trying,
we see something incredible happen.
Maybe your organization is like that,
so it could be tempting then to think
when God sets a bag that he doesn't
really intend to get there.
Then when he takes Abraham out,
he says, look at all the stars in the sky.
He's being metaphorical that when he says
in Genesis 12 that through your family,
I'm going to bless
all the families of the earth.
He just means, hey,
if we if we aim high enough, then
even if we get half the families,
that will be incredible.
But that isn't what he means.
Let me put it this way.
Have you ever seen a movie
that starts with the end?
Like maybe it starts the opening scene?
Is this kind of average looking guy,
and he's got a beautiful girlfriend
and there's a voiceover
and he's like, hey,
you're probably wondering
how I got this girlfriend.
And you're thinking,
I was wondering that you're kind of ugly.
And he goes, this is the story.
And then they go all the way back
to the beginning.
And the movie
takes a lot of twists and turns,
but you're interested because somehow
it results in a pretty average looking guy
ending up with her.
The Bible is that kind of story.
God tells you the end
so that you'll know it's coming.
Look at revelation seven.
I want you to see the connection.
I don't want to go Bible nerd on you,
but I want you to see the connection
between revelation seven and Genesis 15.
Here's what it says.
After this I looked, and behold,
a great multitude
that no one could number.
You see the connection
God takes Abraham out and he says,
look at the stars.
If you can even count them,
you're going to have okay,
I look at it, see a multitude
no one could number.
Listen from every nation,
from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne
and before the lamb, clothed in white
robes with palm branches in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice.
Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne, and to the lamb.
And all the angels
were standing around the throne,
and around the elders
and the four living creatures,
and they fell on their faces before the
throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen.
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving, and honor
and power,
and might be to our God forever and ever.
Amen. Do you see what that is?
Revelation seven.
The book of Revelation
about the end of all things, tells us
that human history exists
between two points.
The promise God makes to Abraham,
and the promise completed
and the end of all things.
The revelation passage says that I look.
Can I see a multitude
that no one can number?
And it's from all the nations,
every tribe, every tongue, every people.
Let me explain that to you.
So you and I think of ourselves
as Americans.
That's it.
Like my my dad is German,
my mom is English.
But I don't think of myself
as German English.
I just think of myself as an American.
But around the world,
that's not how it works.
Like if you go to Africa,
they won't say, oh, I'm from Ghana.
They will say, I'm from this people.
I'm from this tribe.
What, what?
The Bible is telling us is that in heaven
there will be someone from every people
group, not every country, every people
group, every language, every tribe.
Now, there are two reasons why
that's significant.
Here's the first one.
When God made this promise to Abraham,
Abraham had no idea he's
going to shock you.
He had no idea where Hudson, Ohio was.
The fact that you are hearing the gospel
tonight on a Thursday
night, is God keeping
the promise that he made to Abraham.
But here's the second thing.
Let me just give you an example.
One people group in the world
are the mock Ronnie Bowker and people
they are in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
There are 10 to 15 million people
in this people group.
There are at present
not a single Christian among them.
The Bible does not exist in their language
and there is no church around them.
Meaning, as we sit here right
now, 10 to 15 million
people have no access
to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But here's what revelation seven is saying
that when you're in
heaven, you're singing praises to Jesus.
Someone's going to bump into you and
it won't bother you because it's heaven.
You'll say, oh, you bumped into me.
And I'll say, oh, where are you from?
And you'll say, Northeast Ohio notes.
Never heard of it.
You'll say, that's a little hard
to believe, but okay, where are you from?
And he will say, I am a macaroni
bowl Quran from Afghanistan,
because someone from that people group
is going to be in heaven.
You see, it
isn't just that God has a mission
to get more life
to more people in more places.
Is it is it?
The Bible tells us
he will not fail, which means when we join
God in his mission, we give our lives
to something that will succeed.
Do you know what this means?
By the way, if you're here this evening
and you're like,
dude, I'm not even a Christian,
this is all a little much for me,
that's fine. Here's
your only takeaway for this evening.
You are part of God's plan.
He wants more life for you.
God is always looking for
who isn't here, always looking for who
he can bring any promises to fill a heaven
with every kind of person.
God isn't setting a goal
and settling for 70%.
God will succeed
in his mission, which means
that the local
church should
be a place of joining him in his mission,
which means the local church
should be the most
exciting place on the planet.
But is it?
Why don't we have this view of God?
Why are we excited
to join him in his mission to reach people
all over the world, including our friends
and family and neighbors?
Well, if you wonder that it's
my third point, God has a mission.
It will succeed.
But we can miss it.
Jesus tells a story in Luke 14
that I think is appropriate.
Here. Let me read it to you. Here's
what he says.
But he said to him, He is Jesus.
He said to him, A man once
gave a great banquet and invited many,
and at the time for the banquet
he sent his servant to say
to those who had been invited, come, for
everything is now ready.
But they all alike began to make excuses.
The first said to him, I have bought
a field, and I must go out and see it.
Please have me excused
and another said, I have bought five
yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them.
Please have me excused.
And another said, I have married a wife,
and therefore I cannot come.
So the servant came
and reported these things to his master.
And then the master of the house
became angry, and said to his servant,
go out quickly to the streets,
in the lanes of the city,
and bring in the poor, and the crippled,
and the blind, and the lame.
And the servant said, sir,
what you commanded has been done.
And still there is room.
And the master said to the servant,
go out to the highways and the hedges,
and compel people to come
in, that my house may be filled.
For I tell you, none of those men
who were invited shall taste my banquet.
Jesus says, the kingdom of God.
The mission of God is like this.
God is throwing a party.
And if you're too busy,
he'll just do it without you.
Isn't it funny that in this
story he says, I invited
all the people you'd expect to be there?
They can't make it.
So go out and get the poor,
the crippled, and the lame.
Did you know that Christianity
is exploding in South America,
exploding in Asia, exploding in Africa,
and dying in America?
Because, you see, God is throwing a party.
And if we're busy,
he'll just do it without us.
You know, you read the story.
If you're an introvert, you're like,
I don't get it.
These are great excuses. I don't.
One guy throws his wife under the bus
like, look, man, I would come.
You know how she is,
right?
But the party goes on.
Listen, if you and I
feel as though God is not
dynamic, God is not active.
God is not visionary.
It's because we are not at the party.
In fact, 20 years of ministry.
Let me give you a four step cycle
for why American churches
are missing out on participating
in the mission of God.
It goes like this.
I've seen it a million times.
It goes like this.
Number one, God gets small.
You see, if we don't immerse ourselves
in Scripture,
acquaint ourselves
with a God who is active and powerful
and promise making and promise keeping,
he becomes something less than that.
And all of a sudden,
if you don't have a really big God,
you stop showing up to church
expecting anything to happen.
You just kind of show up and go through
the motions.
God is small, and when God is small,
here's the second stop.
When God is small, I get big.
I have my own plans,
my own dreams, my own bags, my own vision.
And so when I show up at church,
not only do
I not expect anything to happen,
but I'm like,
just stay out of the way of those things.
Church becomes about me.
So the church is no longer a battleship
on the mission of God.
It's a cruise ship.
A place where Christians expect the music
they like and the chairs they like
and the food they like, and we just decide
which church we go to based on
where the preaching is good
or the music is good, or our friends go.
Because after all, God is small
and we are big.
And the result of that third step is
if God is small and I'm big,
then we start to fight
because I come looking for my preferences.
But my preferences
aren't your preferences.
I don't like the music you like.
I don't like the chairs you like.
That's why in any given town in America,
there are 50 churches.
Sometimes it's theological differences,
mostly
there's a group of people who fought
with each other and started a new one.
Because when God gets small and I get big,
who are you to not give me what I want?
And then here's the force
that makes sense.
If God is small and I am big
and we are fighting, they don't come.
Why would our friends and family
and neighbors
want anything to do with that?
And then churches die.
You know,
I was a church planner in Cleveland.
My wife and I long time ago
moved to the city to start a church,
and we started one,
and we never really had a lease.
It was kind of like we weren't squatting,
but whatever.
One step above that is,
I hope there's a statute of limitations.
And so we'd occasionally go to
other churches to, to visit their property
to try to figure out, hey, could we
ever use this in a pinch if we needed it?
And we visited one church and lovely
lady showed us around.
She was great,
but I hadn't seen a nursery.
So I said to her, hey,
do you have a nursery?
And she said, I think we do.
And we go down to the basement
and she opens the door and there's a room
with like Noah's Ark wallpaper,
and it's full of storage.
And I said to her, well,
what would you do this weekend
if a family with young kids came?
And she said, oh, we haven't had a family
with young kids in three years.
That church is on Cedar Road.
It's a doctor's office now.
Because you see, when God gets small
and we get big and we start fighting
and they stop coming,
God takes the party somewhere else.
And I know you think, well,
that would never happen to this place.
Look how big it is.
You ever driven through Akron?
Some pretty big mausoleums.
I mean, old churches.
Testimonies to the fact
that God will say,
if you guys want to fight,
if you guys want to make things
about your comfort,
we'll just take the party somewhere else.
God has a mission.
It will succeed. But you and I,
we can mess it.
So fourth point, here it is.
Why would we want to?
You know, have in my mind
this week, 30 years from now,
two Christians of my generation
sitting in rocking chairs and one
Christian says to the other, you know,
I read the Bible for 30 years
and I see all these incredible stories,
and I just wanted so badly
to see something like that in my lifetime.
But I never did.
And then the other Christian
saying that that Christian really
I saw
all kinds of incredible things
that God did.
Which future do you want?
Who do we want to be?
You see, if we want more life,
God says, great, I'm all about more life.
But if more life means you and I
and not them, God says you're not invited.
More life for more people, in more places.
God's eyes are always on who isn't here.
So you say, well, if I don't want
to miss the mission of God,
how do we make sure as a church
that we don't miss the party?
Pretty easy.
You reverse those four steps.
Number one,
we commit ourselves to making sure
God stays big.
We read the Bible.
We sing the Bible.
We pray the Bible. We know the stories.
We worship a God who changes the world.
We say, God, you stay big.
Here's what happens when God stays big.
I get small,
see if I show up to worship
a God who is amazing, I become acquainted
with the fact that I'm not that amazing.
And that's okay.
And all of a sudden
I don't care if the music is my favorite
or the chairs are my favorite, or
or whether we got the best boba tea
or or whatever is going on.
What I care about
is that God is being made
much of and people are coming to know him.
Do you know,
can I just tell you,
one of the more privileges
of being a pastor is
I know more people than you do
who go to church here,
and it would blow your mind.
We have people here at this church
whose jobs would amaze you,
and they're taking out the garbage
they're serving you Thursday night dinner.
It would shock you to know who they were.
You know how you get that?
God is big
and I am small.
And when I'm small, guess what?
We don't fight
because I didn't come expecting
my preferences to be met.
It's not about me.
And so all of a sudden,
I can think about you
and you can think about me.
And we begin to love each other.
We begin to serve alongside each other.
And you know what happens?
God gets big,
I get small, we work together,
and all of a sudden they go,
what's going on there?
They start showing up.
I want to be part of the party.
I want to see God move, don't you?
I want more life
for more people, in more places.
And not just the mock
Ronnie Barker and people,
but your friends,
your family, your neighbors.
And that's who God is.
And that's what God is about.
Let me let me kind of conclude
with this thought.
You know, the best relationships
I've ever had in my life
are the relationships
where I'm partnering with someone
to do something bigger than us.
That's what I think.
Marriage is so great, but my wife and I
are working together to raise
five incredible children
to serve the church.
We're teammates. Right?
I think about back to playing sports
in the locker room and and the atmosphere
that is built.
I love the people I work with.
We come in every day
trying to figure out how to help.
You know that God loves you
and grow in that knowledge,
and there's just something powerful
about a relationship where you're pulling
in the same direction.
What I'm telling you is that's the
relationship God wants with you.
He wants you to partner with him.
And getting more life
to more people in more places.
Don't you want that?
I know I do.
I know I do.
And if you
if you're not sure, consider this.
How many people had to want that
for the gospel to be preached
in Hudson, Ohio?
How many people had to die
so the Bible could be translated
into English?
How many people had to give their lives
to getting the gospel to this continent?
How many men and women have sacrificed and
and given
so that this building could be built
so that you could hear the gospel?
You know who's behind all of that?
Not men and women.
If they were here,
they would tell you, don't talk about me.
Don't focus about me.
It's a God who is never content with who's
here, who's always looking for who isn't.
And here's what I believe in 2026
God will blow the roof off this place
if we will join him in not looking
in the mirror, but looking to the horizon.
Who isn't here?
Who should be?
How do we get to be part of that?
More life for more people
in more places in 2026?
Let me pray for us. Father God,
thank you for your incredible back
you that you spoke to
a childless elderly man.
Talk about impossible.
Thank you for the promise of revelation
seven.
You are outside of time and space.
You know there's already a throne room
filled with people of every tribe
and every tongue and every nation.
Thank you for the opportunity
to partner with you through global
missions, through church planning,
through inviting our friends
and neighbors
to church to partner with you in the space
between the promise to Abraham
and the fulfillment of revelation seven.
God, we want to
be part of what you're doing.
We want you to be big.
We want to be small.
We want to work together
to reach who isn't here.
God in 2026, you know, last four years,
God, we we baptized 912 people.
It's been incredible.
We want to baptize 912 this year.
We believe that's who you are.
Help us
to be part of the party
in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.