Taking the next step in your worship of Jesus aides in your spiritual growth. a

Tim Beal: 00:00 -video playing-

Tim Beal: 00:54 Oh, this made me laugh all day. Hey, how are you doing?

Tim Beal: 01:02 So, so good to have you guys. Thank you so much for coming, for being a part of this with us. Today is going to be a fun, fun day. Today, we're going to poke a little bit fun at ourselves. So if you're, if you're a churchgoing person, a Christian, you've been in church for a while, just get ready to, hopefully, laugh a little bit at ourselves, but then, also I just want to be really upfront with, with where I want to take us today. I want to challenge us, today, to just do this. To take what we know about Jesus one step further. Like, to just, just turn it up just a little bit. So hopefully, it's going to challenge all of us today. Some of you, I don't know where that is. I have no clue, and I don't want to pretend that I do. But some of you, I do. I know what your next step is, and we're going to challenge you to do that today. So, we're just going to go, and see where this lands, and go with that.

Tim Beal: 01:45 Now, we're starting a brand new series today that's called "Dumb Things Christians Say". And if you've grown up in church for any length of time, you realize that some of the things that we say are just really, really weird. If you don't know Jesus and you walk into a church setting, some of the things that we say are just strange. And I didn't know it growing up, because I was born in a baptistery of a church, like, I was born in the choir loft baptistery area. Not really, but figuratively, that'd be weird, and I've been in church my whole life. And I remember hearing these things, man, from like when I was a little bitty kid all the way up to an older guy, I've heard these things. And so, it wasn't weird for me for someone to come up and to pray for traveling mercies. I still don't know what a traveling mercy is. I'd be much happier if you just gave me 20 bucks for gas. Like, how about we just meet in the middle? Right. And I've had people pray for a hedge of protection around me. I was like, "Dude, I don't think a bush is going to help a whole lot right now. Can we pray for something a little more substantial, like a tank of protection? Maybe, like a, I don't know, like a ninja of protection." And growing up in church, we would sing these songs, and some of these old hymns are so beautiful, like, they're rich in history, they're rich in deep theology, and they're so accurate. But if you don't know Jesus, and you walk into some of the words to some of those songs, it's really weird, like some of the things that we would say. I remember as a kid inviting one of my friends who's an atheist, he didn't grow up in church, inviting him to church with me. I think it was about the seventh grade, I remember us walking in, and it was one of those churches where when you worshipped, you had a dude that was doing this the whole time? And he wasn't getting into, like, to the song, he was helping you with where the song was going. So, I don't know what this does, but he would do this a lot. And I remember walking in, and this dude doing the song that we did all the time, where my friend is sitting beside me, and we walk in, and we just start singing about are you washed in the blood of the lamb? And I remember my friend looking at me like, "No, like, that's kind of gross." Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow, or are you washed in the blood of the lamb? I don't know if you old people remember that song. It's a beautiful hymn. It's so true. It's beautiful history. I mean, it's theologically solid, but it's worldly weird. I mean, my friend left. He was scared of petting zoos. He was he was like, "Dude, I don't want no part of sheep. I don't want washed in no lamb blood. I don't know what's happening with that, but that's, that's not for me. ' I think some of the things that we say as Christians are just weird.

Tim Beal: 04:07 I can't tell you how many people will come up, and they're like, "Man, tell me about your, tell me about your journey. Tell me about Jesus." "Tim, my story with Jesus is personal." I don't know how that works. Like, wait a second, it's personal. "Yeah, I can't tell you, dude, it's personal." Alright, knock yourself out. We say some weird things as Christians. Today, what I want to do is this, I want us... again, I want to be really transparent. I want us to look at ourselves, and to walk us through a passage of Scripture, and my desire is for us to take just one step. What would it look like if we just turned it up one notch? What would it look like if we just... one step closer to Jesus. We followed him just one degree harder? We pushed just a little bit out there, and I'm not trying to get you with a megaphone in front of a bar yelling at people going to hell. That's not what I'm trying to do. Actually please don't do that. But I would love for us to just take that next step. And again, some of you, I know what that is, and I'm going to challenge you to it. And, and hopefully, today's going to be a beautiful day. If you've got a bible, jump with me to Second Corinthians. Second Corinthians, Chapter 5.

Tim Beal: 05:09 Second Corinthians, Chapter 5. If you're new to the Bible, don't really know where you at, start in the left and, what looks like a dictionary, start working your way, I'm sorry to the right, to the dictionary, work your way to the left a little bit you get to First Corinthians? You went too far. You get to Third Corinthians? That's not the Bible, so put that up, grab something else. Second Corinthians 5. We're going to start in Verse 17, and this is what we'll do. We're just going to read a little bit of this letter, and we're going to unpack it as we go. Because what we're looking at is a letter that was written by a man named Paul to a church in a place called Corinth. And it was written to them a long time ago, and, honestly, it was written them for the same reason that we're going to discuss it today. It was to encourage them to do what I want to encourage us to do today. And so, he wrote this in Second Corinthians 5, starting Verse 17. Paul starts with this, he says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ." Now if you came a couple of months ago, I got to speak on this passage and this one verse, and I looked up "anyone" in the Greek and translated it to English, so we would know what it actually said, and it still means anyone. "If anyone, anyone.." Let that sit for a second, "anyone is in Christ. If any of us is in Christ." Now, what it means to be in Christ is that moment where you and God have had a conversation, where you trusted God with your life, where you gave your life to Jesus, where you ask God to forgive you, where were you asked him into your heart. There's so many different ways that we word it and phrase it, but it, basically, means that there is a moment in your life where you and God had a conversation where you stopped trying to do it all on your own, and you trusted God with your life. That's what it means to be in Christ.

Tim Beal: 06:44 And it could have happened here. Maybe it was at youth camp. Maybe it was in youth programming. Maybe it was at a "yes" table, when we had a special guest. Maybe it was at a barbecue at your parents house. In Christ is the moment that you stopped trying to do it on your own, and you trusted your life with God. So if anyone, so sit on that. "If anyone any of us is in Christ..." Paul says, "The new creation has come. The old is gone. The new is here." Let's let that set, because that's a beautiful thing to think about for just a second. If anyone, if any of us, is in Christ, we've made that decision to follow God with our life, Paul is saying that this new creation has come, that God has rebuilt us into something brand new. From the moment we are in Christ, we become something totally brand new, that the old is gone. So all those things that used to define you, all those labels, all the stuff that you used to think was really who you were, but it was just part of your past, it was part of your history, all of that is gone. And behold, the new you has come. It's Tim 2.0. In Christ, the old is gone, and God creates something brand new. Now, that that should be a little exciting to somebody, because that's kind of cool to think that all the old is gone, and now God has given me something new.

Tim Beal: 08:04 Verse 18. It says, "All of this is from God." Now this is an important thing for us to hang on for just a second. All of this new that God gives us has nothing to do with you. And I know, some of you are really, like, you're really good people. You never cussed in your life, and you don't flip people off, and you get excited and worship, you get some of this going. And every now and then, you even close your eyes, and you all get the little church sway, and you're... none of this is because of you. All of this new creation, this new life that God's given you, this new person that you are, the old it's been removed and pushed back, the new that's there, has nothing at all to do with you. And, I say this every time I speak, and I'm going to say it every time I get an opportunity to speak, God's love for you has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with him. Because his love is not dependent on you. It's because of who he is. Because his love isn't conditional, it's not based on your performance. It's based on your position, and you're a child of God, and His love for you has no end. You can't out-sin his grace. You cannot out-sin his forgiveness. You can't out-sin his love. He doesn't hate you. He doesn't wish that you were better. He doesn't wish you were more like your brother. None of those things are true. He loves you deeply, madly and so much more than you can ever possibly understand. And it... Yeah. And it's all because of who He is. All of it. So this new you that comes out, and the old it's gone that's pushed away, and the new you that's here, has nothing to do with you, but Paul is saying, "All of that is from God. It's because of God." And then he goes on to say this, "Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."

Tim Beal: 09:52 Now this is huge, because this is basically our next step. So, once we give our life to Jesus, once we become in Christ, once that happens, we have this new life, the old life is gone. What Paul is telling them in exactly the same thing that this word is telling us today. Our job, our ministry, is the Ministry of Reconciliation, which that's a weird word, so if you've never used that word in a sentence before, don't sweat it. I hadn't before today either. Reconciliation is where something is brought back to its right harmony. So, it's basically taking a friendship and bringing it back to how it's supposed to be. It's taken something that's broken and restoring it. It's kind of like for you car guys, it's buying an old, dilapidated car and rebuilding it back to its former beauty. It's taken something that's old and broken, and making it new. And what this is saying is all of this is from God, who reconciled us. Who made our relationship with God right again, through Jesus. And then, He gave us the Ministry of Reconciliation. Your job, the Ministry of us, for us, is to go out and share this reconciliation, what it means to be made right with God with the rest of the world, and we're not supposed to reconcile the rest of the world, because that's God's job. Our ministry is just to tell people. God does the changing.

Tim Beal: 11:10 He goes on to say, and I love this, in 19, that God was, that God was reconciling the world to Himself and Christ, not counting people's sins against themselves. And He has committed to us this message of reconciliation. He's gifted this ministry of reconciliation on us. I like to think that God is smart. Don't you? I like to think that God knows what He's doing, that He's not just bored, and it's not, like, him and a group of angels, and they sit up in heaven, and, sometimes, they're looking at God, and they just have nothing to do because they've been up there for millions of years, and they're looking at God going, "Hey, I bet you can't make a weenie dog." And God's like, "Really?" And then, a weenie dog is there. I like to think that that doesn't happen. I like to think that God builds and designs, and He makes things with intentionality. And when He makes things, that there's a plan behind it that we may not see, but that everything He does is for a reason, and it's intentional.

Tim Beal: 12:12 I don't know if you caught it in this, but what Paul is saying Verses 18 and 19 is you telling the world about Jesus, this world of reconciliation, this is God's plan for you. This is His plan for the world to know who He is, for the world to know who Christ is, and this reconciliation process, for the world to understand what it takes to be made right with God, to have the old taken away and to have the new put in place, for the world to understand what that looks like, what that even means to see that it's up to us. We're his plan A for that. And he has no backup plan. So many people are like, "Tim, man, you don't understand, though, my faith is personal, like, my story with Jesus is personal." And, I get that, and I don't want to argue that, because honestly I think it's true. Your journey with Jesus is very personal, but it was never meant to be private. Your journey with Jesus is very personal, but it was never meant to be kept in. And you get that, right now, and this is just my opinion, I think the world is as screwed up as it is, because too many of us are keeping something very personal private. And you realize that right now we're one generation away from this world not knowing who Jesus is. Because if our generation keeps it private, and we don't tell people what God is doing in our lives, then when our generation dies off, Christianity dies off with it. And that was never the plan. And God knows and has enough faith and has enough... he has enough wisdom in you, and enough encouragement from you, as messed up as you think you are, it's not about you. Remember, it's all from God? You're his plan for this world to understand what it means to be reconciled, what it means to know who Jesus is, what it means to know what it means to go from this old life to a new life. You are God's plan. This is why you are in the jobs that you're in. This is why you're in the families that you're in. This is why you live in the house that you do, on the block that you do, with the people around you. That this is why when you go to Starbucks, every single time that you go, at the exact same time, that this is why that Barista is the exact same Barista that comes up. It's not so you can get a discount on coffee. It's because your God's plan for showing that person what reconciliation looks like.

Tim Beal: 14:41 And even bigger than that... Verse 20. Verse 20 says we are, therefore, Christ's ambassadors. Let that sit on you for just a second. We are, therefore, Christ's ambassadors, and some of you probably are hearing that and you're going, "Whoa, back the truck up, Tim, because we aren't nothing, and that's what the church is supposed to be doing. I mean you're the paid Christian in the room, like, you're the, you're the one who... this is what you do for a living. So, this is your job to be his ambassador. It's the church's job about to teach reconciliation. It's the church's place to go out and to..." No, that, that's not what it says. It doesn't say that the church is supposed to do this. It says that, "We, that anyone, who is in Christ." It's our job to go out and to tell them who Jesus is, and even more so, Paul calls us an ambassador. Which you get would an ambassador does, right? An ambassador is the one who goes in front that represents something else. We go in place of. Do you realize that God believes in you enough that he sent you into your work as an ambassador to show them what he looks like? That's scary and pretty cool, at the same time. Students, God believes in you enough that He sent you into your school as an ambassador. To show your school what He looks like. And Paul takes it a step further, "As we are, therefore, Christ ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God."

Tim Beal: 16:12 Now, as I was I was reading this, and I was studying, I'm thinking man this is pretty scary, like, I'm going to be an ambassador. I'm God's representative when I go out into the real world, like, that's... God, do you know what you're doing here? Like, you remember who you're sending out, right? Like, this.... I know you said anyone, but, surely, there's, like, an asterisk, and it's an anyone with a clause, like, anyone except Tim. You get that, like, God you know what you're doing? And this is Paul encouraging a group to go out and tell them what it means to be reconciled, to tell them about this relationship you have with Jesus. And I don't know if you've had conversation with friends who tell you about the relationships, and sometimes they tell you about, maybe, a new boyfriend or new girlfriend, and the more they talk to, the more they talk, they haven't really said anything about her, it's all been about them? And you're like, "Dude I don't think you're dating anybody. I think you made her up." I don't know if you have. I have lots of friends like that. They're telling me stuff, and I'm like, "Dude, you don't have a girlfriend, come on, because I never hear anything about her." All I hear is about them. You get that when we talk about a relationship with God, it's not all about us. Honestly, none of it's about us. It's about a God who loves us in spite of us.

Tim Beal: 17:22 So, when we go out and we share what it means to be reconciled with the rest of the world, when we share that, and we tell people what that looks like to the rest of the world, we're not telling them about us. We're telling them about what God has done in spite of us, remember? Because the old has been removed, and now it's the new, and God is... and our job is to not bring up our past and to talk about all these things. Our job is just to go out and tell people who Jesus is, and what it means to be loved, what it feels like to be accepted and forgiven, and to be free from sin. What it means... what it feels like where Paul says here that God doesn't count our peoples sin against us, that in Christ, we're free from all of that.

Tim Beal: 18:00 Now, one of the easiest ways to do this, to go out and to show people something very personal in your life, to make it not be private, but to make it public, is baptism. And baptism has always been, since the very creation of baptism, it's design was for you to go out and to publicly declare what's something that's very personal, but not private, and make it very public. And baptism is beautiful. It's where you go out and you stand, basically when you're in the water, this is you testifying to everybody and you're saying, "Man, I believe who God is. I believe that He really was a person. I believe, I believe in God." And then, when you get lowered underneath the water, that's you telling everyone, "Man, I believe that God was killed, that He was buried, and that my sin was buried with Him." And then, when you get raised back up, when you get raised back up, it's you saying, "I believe that God is alive, and I believe that He's real. I believe that He conquered death. I believe that my sins stayed in that tomb, but that Jesus, because of who he is and because He's all powerful, God himself, that He conquered death, and that He's alive, and that He's real, and He beat my sin." And baptism is a symbol that represents that. And, it has always been designed for that, and in fact, if you go back to the early church, baptism is where people started getting persecuted. And think this through for a minute, because you had a very polytheistic system, so you had people worshipping many gods. So, for you to stand up in your village and just say, "Hey, I believe in Jesus." They would look at you and say, "Dude, that's awesome, because there's about 850 other gods, and now, there's 851. Sweet action." And it wasn't a big deal to anyone, but cities were built around water sources, and if you're going to get baptized, water is pretty important because baptism happens after salvation, and baptism always has happened through immersion, because if you're going to be buried, immersion is pretty important. And so, they would go out to the water source that the city would be built around, and the people would stand before their friends, and before their family, and before their town, and they would stand and publicly declare in front of everyone, "Man I believe in who God is. He's not a god. He is The God, and I believe that He was killed, and I believe that when He died, my sin died with Him, and I believe that He is the God that came back to life. That no other God, nobody else has ever done before, and I believe that that's where my salvation is found." And that's where, historically, persecution started, because that's what sets your god apart from the other 850 other gods.

Tim Beal: 20:31 Some of you, some of you get this, man, and baptism was easy. You've done that. Some of you, though, you've committed your life to Jesus, or you've trusted God with your life, you've had that conversation, and "in Christ" has happened for you, and you've never been baptized. I want to challenge you for something today. We don't have a baptism class. I'm not going to sign you up for something in two weeks. I'm going to stop here in just a minute, and I'm going to encourage you to get up and to go into the lobby right now, and there's going to be people that are going to talk to you, and rather than waiting for baptism to happen, I'm going to encourage you to just be obedient today, and to go in to be baptized, and to do that public declaration of faith. To show something that's very private, that's not personal, and make it public, so that we can celebrate that with you.

Tim Beal: 21:08 And here, in just a minute, I'm going to ask you to stand and go into the lobby, and to talk to some people, and to get baptized today. And, I can see it on some of your faces, you're like, "Dude, I would love to but I didn't know. I didn't bring a change of clothes." Man, that stinks, because I got swim trunks and t-shirts out there waiting on you. Some of you are like, "Tim, like, this, this doesn't happen on accident, like, this took a lot of work. Like, I spent a lot of time washing my hair. I can't get up. I'll get a cold. if I got wet hair." It's Arizona. Your hair is going to dry in like two minutes. "I didn't bring a towel." I got towels. "But Tim, I'm not a Christian." Now see, that's a good excuse, so you know what we did? I've got people sitting out there at the table, so when you stand up, because of this is like working up in you right now, when you stand up and you go out there, there's people that are sitting at tables that want to tell you who Jesus is and make sure that this makes sense, because we're not going to just throw you in a tank and get you wet, we're going to let you symbolically reenact what Jesus did in being alive, buried, and then brought back to life. And they're going to make sure you understand that. So once they talk you through that, then they're going to give you a towel, a pair of trunks, and a T-shirt, and then, you're going to get baptized. So that's it even today. And I get it. "Tim, I invited my friend, man. What am I going to do if I get up, and I got my friend right here. How's that going to work?" Your friend is going to see that you really love Jesus, and we're going to cheer, and we're going to celebrate what God's doing in your life.

Tim Beal: 22:32 So, I don't know what you're waiting on, but I don't know what your plans are for after lunch, but before lunch, right now, if that's you, I just want you to get up and go into the lobby. And if that's you, right now, just get up and go. And we've had people do it all day today. And I want to celebrate this with you. I just want you to get up, right now, and go, and at all of our campuses. We've had people stand up all day long and declare this is who Jesus is, and I want the world to know, and if this is you, I don't know, this is it. I don't know if you have kids, maybe. Maybe you have kids in programming right now, and you're like, "Tim, I can't go because what about my kids?" We got people back there with extra goldfish. They're going to give them some goldfish and a hug, and this is way more important. So that's, that's not a good excuse, either, so get up and go.

Tim Beal: 23:38 Man, God is good. Now, while they're doing this, I just want you to know something, as we finish this... I'm still going here. Some of you are sitting there, and you're like, "Ah, nuts, I missed my chance." No you didn't, because you can get up and go at any moment, and it's not going to offend me, and I'm not going to single you out, and at any moment over these next few minutes you finally get the courage to say, "You know what, I'm going to make something private not personal anymore, and I don't care what my people around me think." Get up and go, and that's fine, and that's perfectly acceptable. For the rest of us, though, for the rest of us, so you understand that feeling that you just had where we just got to cheer these people on. I don't know about you, but it kind of gave me the chills a little bit, and I got a little, like, that gets you just a little bit, you realize that's what happens in a heaven when we do what the Bible tells us to do and we become an ambassador for Christ, and we go out into the world, and we tell this world what God is doing in our life. That's what's happening right now for us. When we do what this book says, that's what Heaven does for us, as they get to their feet, and they cheer, and they applaud, and they scream for us. And I can't help but think that angels had that same feeling that you just felt, encouraging our friends to go out and do this just now.

Tim Beal: 24:41 And, I don't know what your next step is. Maybe, it's taking a bible to work, and setting it on your desk, and that way, when people walk by your desk, they associate that book with you. Maybe, it's inviting a friend to church. Maybe it's finding somebody and inviting them to the harvest festival, because they got like 40 kids. Man, bring them to that, and let us love on them. Maybe, you're in a small group, and maybe it's time you start leading a small group. Maybe, you don't go to a small group, maybe it's time you start going. Maybe, you need to just put a sticker on the back of your car. Can't tell you how many first time guests have came to this church, because they saw somebody with a Cornerstone sticker on the back of their car. If you drive horrible, please don't put a Cornerstone sticker on the back of your car. If you salute people when you drive, you know what I mean, I have a different church that you can put their sticker on your car, just because that's funny. And if you're still sitting there, and you're like, "But Tim, hold on. I feel like you're passing the buck to us, like, this is still your job, like, you are.... this is the church's position. The church should be the one doing this, not just us."

Tim Beal: 25:48 I want to share this with you, and hopefully, this lands, and I had to ride it out, because when Jesus worked on me, we skipped math day, and I want to make sure that I get this right. If someone were to come up to you, and stay with me, I promise there's a point in this. If someone were to come up to you, and they were to say, "Hey, in seven years, it's your responsibility to make sure that this village that we just discovered deep in the rainforest, we want to make sure that this village is fed, and you have seven years to prepare for it, and it's 100% your responsibility. We're going to give you two options." You with me? So, some weird person, I don't know why they picked you, but they did, and they came up to you said, "Hey, we found a village. It's going to start in seven years, and it's up to you to prepare food for, for them. What are you going to do?" And, they gave you two options. One of them was, we're going to give you two adult elephants, and at the end of seven years, you can take that breeding pair of elephants, and you can prepare that. I guess it tastes like chicken, like everything else does. And that can feed the village, or we'll give you two little, tiny, fluffy bunnies. And, at the end of seven years, you can take your little, fluffy bunny and that can feed the village, because I'm guessing it tastes like chicken, too. Who would say, "Man, elephants are huge. Give me an elephant. I want to feed my village." Anybody, with elephants right now? I know some of you... a couple? How many of you would say rabbits? Okay. About half of you, your village is going to die, because you are way too cool to play the game, and that's all right. The village is dead, and it's all your fault.

Tim Beal: 27:20 Female elephants can't have babies until they're 14 years old, and gestation for an elephant is 22 months. So ladies, let that soak for a minute, because you all get upset at 9, and you're about to... like, your head spinning around, and you're about to kill folks, 22 months before a female gives birth to an elephant. They very rarely have twins, almost all elephants are born just one at a time, but it does happen, but not very often. Baby elephants at the end of three, at the end of seven years, would probably be about 4500 pounds. The adult elephant would be right around 9 to 10,000 pounds. At the end of seven years, if everything goes well, best case scenario, you have three baby elephants at around 4500 pounds apiece, and then your two adult elephants. So, at the end of seven years, you're going to have about 31,500 pounds of food. That is a whole lot of chicken nuggets. Some of you right now are thinking, "Dang it, I thought this was a trick question." Rabbits, on the other hand, average right at ten pounds when they're adults. They only live about seven years, but a female rabbit is fertile at six months. And a female rabbit can spit out babies immediately after she gives birth, so she can immediately get pregnant again when she has her last baby, and gestation for a rabbit is about 28 days. So realistically, a rabbit can get pregnant every month at six months, and can give birth. They usually have between 1 and 14 babies, but just to be argumentative, we're gonna say that they have six, and only half of them are females. So, we're giving you a pair of breeding rabbits, who are fertile at six months, they start having babies, three of those are females, and they start reproducing. At the end of seven years, you have about 95 billion female rabbits. With the average weight being about ten pounds, you have 950 billion pounds of rabbit meat just in their females.

Tim Beal: 29:12 You get that I'm the elephant. The church is the elephant. We have huge resources. We have buildings. We have, we have a really big presence, and we can go out, and we can go places that you can't go, because of our size. But when it comes to this world knowing who Jesus is, we're going to have such a small thumbprint, because we can't go places because of our size. For this world to be made different, we have to stop being the church and expecting the church to do something, and please, listen, we have to stop expecting this to change the world, and we have to go out and be rabbits, because rabbits can go places elephants can't, because they can fit. I show up at your house, you all are calling the cops. You start telling your family about Jesus, and lives are changed. You can get into school systems that I can't. You can get into workplaces that I can't. You can get into the libraries that I can't. You can get into jobs that I can't. You can spread out so far. And if we, as a body of Christ, would stop taking something personal and keeping it private, and we would start publicly telling people what it means to be reconciled, that God loves us, and it's not because of us it's because of Him. And we would stop putting all this pressure on us to be the one who makes the change, because we don't change people. God does. And our job isn't to change people, it's just to tell them. And if we would go out and do this, you realize that this world would be a better place? Our jobs would be different. Our families would be different. Our home lives would be different. As an elephant, we're going to have such a small impact on this world, in comparison to rabbits.

Tim Beal: 30:54 My challenge is simple. I don't know what your next step is, I just know this. What would it look like if you just went one step? Man, just turned it up just one notch. Man, you took your faith in Jesus just one degree, just one more turn. You took one more step towards following Jesus, and maybe that's inviting somebody to church. I don't know, we mention though... Honestly, I think God's doing something in your mind right now that's telling you what that next step looks like, and He's doing that because He believes in you enough. He's putting that thought in your mind, and He brought you here today to be encouraged to go out and to do that. And it's still not too late for some of you, the ones who are still mentally going, "Man, I should have gone and got baptized." Yeah, you can still go. It's still good.

Tim Beal: 31:41 I'm going to pray for us, and then, your friends are going to get baptized outside, and your family is going to get baptized outside, and we're going to worship, because what's happening today is unbelievable, it's unlike anything that I've seen. And we're going to celebrate that, and we're going to worship in here what's happening out there. And this is what I need from you, as we're doing that, on these screens, on each side, man, they're going to throw up what's, what's happening out there, so you're going to get to see people being baptized. And, I can't help but think of anything more encouraging for those people, who are scared to death right now outside, to hear this roar come from this room. To encourage them of what they're doing, and to, not to, not to celebrate them, but to celebrate what God is doing through them. So I'm going to pray. We're going to worship while they worship, and as a family, we're going to worship together, so pray with me.

Tim Beal: 32:24 God, I thank you for today. And Jesus, I thank you for what you've done. God, all day long you have brought people up, and you have seen them outside, and God, all day long, we have watched people take something very personal and make it public. God, I thank you so much, so much, Jesus, for still believing in us, for still changing lives, and for still doing this today. God, would you use us today? Give us crea..., give us creative minds, God, to step out of this place and to not wait, to not put it off, but God, to right now, think of things that we can do to push our faith just one more step. Maybe, it's inviting somebody, whatever that looks like, God, would you just impress that in our minds, so that right now we can we can walk out of this place and make that happen? God, I thank you for trusting in us enough that this is it, that you don't have a backup plan, that you believe in us enough, that this world is going to hear who you are through us, and you're going to use us to do that. So God, I thank you for that. But God, honestly I got to ask for forgiveness, because I'm super-lazy, and I'm not very good at it most of the time. So God, would you forgive me for the times that I'm not a good ambassador? And, would you help me to be better at showing people and telling people what it means to be reconciled and brought back to a new life, and not focused on my past or on me, but focused on the God that changed me? And Jesus, for our friends and family right now that are about to be baptized, would you just solidify a moment in their life and make this a day that they never forget? And God, when they doubt you, when they doubt their faith, whatever that looks like in their world, God, would this be a day in their life that reminds them for the rest of their life, that you're real, and that you love them, and that nothing will ever separate your love? So God, use us today, and work us today, for Your glory? And God, would you make this valley different, because of who you are through us? Jesus, thank you for trusting us with this, and if there's anyone in this room, God, that's still wrestling with the thought, would you let the reality and the simplicity of You love us regardless of who we are, because of who you are... would you let that truth just soak in right now? Jesus, help us to love people like you. In your name, Amen. Amen.

Tim Beal: 34:31 We're going to worship, and there's people out there that need to hear encouragement, and I'm just going to encourage you to not just worship here, but worship with them out there.



Recorded in Chandler, Arizona.