Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Because of You, Part 1: Because of You

Episode Date: November 28, 2015

Did you know God is using you to set the stage for something amazing? Because of you, countless lives have embarked on a new course. Because of you, good news is reaching people around the globe. Because of you, a broken world is finding a hope it... Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, we're going to do something different that I believe is going to minister to our church and inspire you to continue to make a difference around the world. I want to start with some scripture that will help set the tone for us from 1st Thessalonians chapter 3. Paul really wanted to reach this city because he knew if he could reach this city, he could make a massive difference all over the world because of the trade that would come into the city from the east and from the west. If he can just reach these people, he could spread the gospel all over. So Paul preached there three different times, made an impact, but because of opposition, they actually had to smuggle him out of the city. So he was wondering, did we make a difference?

Did the message of the gospel impact lives? In other words, would it stick? Would they continue to follow Jesus? So he heard really encouraging news, and he wrote them this letter with this little nugget in the letter, 1st Thessalonians chapter 3, verses 8 and 9. He said, it gives us new life to know that you're standing firm in the Lord. It's taking, you're faithful, and this builds our faith. He said, how we thank God for you. Then he says, because of you, could everybody say that allowed? All of our churches, he said, because of you, we have great joy as we enter God's presence. Because of you, we have great joy. And I just want to say to all of our church that because of you, I have great joy the way God is using you. Because of your faithfulness, because of your prayers,

because of the way you serve in life kids, because of the way you serve and switch, because of the way you lead and love people through the host team, because of the way you lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ through life groups, because of the way you faithfully tied, of you, I have great joy and because of you, God is making a difference all over the world. In fact, today I've invited one of my closest friends and one of our staff members to talk to you and bring you an update of how God is using your faithfulness all over the world. I've invited Pastor Bobby Greenwald to share with you and he's been traveling in many different cities to give you a little update of how God is using our church through digital

Now, if you don't know Bobby, Bobby quite honestly is a legend around the world in the technology world. In fact, true story, Bobby built and sold two technology businesses before he ever graduated from college. One of them was involved with the World Wrestling Federation, and it's quite funny, but he did build and sell two legitimate technology companies. On our staff, Bobby is the guy who came up with the idea. of church online, which is now impacting millions of people through churches all over the world.

Bobby came up with the idea of free resources, and Bobby is the guy who came up with the Uversion Bible app. Since Bobby's been on our staff, this is kind of crazy, but he's been named by Fast Company magazine as one of the top 100 most innovative business leaders in the world today. Bobby's received an honorary doctorate. He has met the Pope. He's met Billy Graham, and he's actually getting in really good shape. So would you join me in welcoming my good friend and one of our great team members, Pastor Bobby Greenwald? What I'd like to do today is spend some time highlighting

how our church is living out its mission to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ through what we call digital missions. But before we begin, I want to bring some context to where we are today. Now I'm not talking about where we are geographically, but I'm talking about where we are in history. You see, I believe that we are occupying

an extraordinarily unique time in history. There are more people alive today than ever before, and the population is growing rapidly right here during this time that we're alive. And at the same moment in time, we see this explosion of tools and technology technologies that have the potential to knit this population together like never before. Now, right now today, I'm standing in Singapore.

Some of you are at one of our campuses. Others of you are at network churches, and still even more are at church online, perhaps in the comfort of your home or in a coffee shop and cities all over the world. Yet because of technology, we're sharing this moment together. And I don't believe that it's an accident that we're here at this time. I believe that we're here for a purpose, because God could have chose to place us here at any other moment in time, but he chose to place us here now, and it's for a reason. And the reason I know that is if we look in Scripture and we read in Acts chapter 17, verse 26, you read, from one man, he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth.

and he marked out their appointed times in history. You see, this time, it's been marked out for you and I. It's been appointed by God. He could have placed us here at any point in time, but he chose to place us here now. And he's asked all of us to share him with this world. And when I look at the opportunity that's there with the technology and all that,

but then think about the fact that it's extremely intentional that we're here now, it's here for a purpose, it's not simply an opportunity to share the gospel. It's a huge responsibility for us to leverage this moment in time and relentlessly pursue those who don't know him. The great news is that because of you and your generosity, it's exactly what we see God doing.

He is changing lives all over the world. through digital missions in our church. And today, I'd like to show you how. At Life Church, we say we will do anything short of sin to reach people who don't know Christ. But to reach people that no one's reaching, we're going to have to do things that no one else is doing. That's not actually a new idea.

You see, Paul, the Apostle, did the very same thing. And he writes about it. He basically was describing how he desired so greatly to reach all these different people. It's a very diverse group of people. And he goes to begin really to describe his strategy for doing that. And right there at the end, he begins to tell us why. He says, I become all things to all people

so that by all possible means, I might save some. By all possible means, Paul is relentless in his pursuit of sharing the gospel. And that's exactly why we're willing to do anything short of sin to pursue our mission as a church. One of the areas that that's happening is what we call church online. In 2006, we said, given where we live today and given what it means to go to all the world, what does that mean in the context today where we have tools and technologies like the Internet? And we thought, what if we could use technology to create an environment online that would bring and gather people together to have church and to be a church that existed and met online.

Now for those of you who are part of church online, you understand how this works. But for those of you that aren't, what I'd like to do is take some time to explain it to you. Right now, there are people watching this message at the exact same time that you are via video on a web page. And while they're doing that, they also have the opportunity to participate in a group chat. We can have a conversation, ask questions, have dialogue with people from all over the world. And we also have an opportunity to have a one-on-one private conversation with one of our volunteers, or maybe you want to share something that's going on in your life and have them pray for you. What you need to realize is that in 2006, when we started this, it was a new concept.

In fact, it was pretty controversial. People were asking, what's the theology behind this? Is this legal to do? Can a church actually gather together online and not in person? Is that really a church? We were asking the question, but we also said we're willing to try anything short of sin to reach people that don't know Christ.

And not only did we pioneer this movement as a church with church online, but now we've seen thousands of churches follow our lead, and they are also having church online today. So not only are we directly impacting people through church online, but we're inspiring thousands of other churches to help reach millions of people all over the world.

I live in India and I'm from Hindu background. Till the age of 23, I did not know anything about Jesus. But one day I was watching TV and suddenly a Christian program came and there I got to know about Jesus. I found church online through a Google search. The host welcomed me so compassionate. So I wanted to go church online daily. I started volunteering to serve church online because I want to serve God to help people who are alone and who needs prayer.

I want to bring them to the throne of God. This thing has touched my heart. Yes, because of Jesus Christ, my family is changed and my life is changed. Because of church online, every people of the world know the love of Christ. What you probably don't realize is that where she's from in India, it often ranks as the top country for where people attend Church Online from. And it's a very difficult country to share the gospel. Both India and Pakistan are usually number one and number two above the United States. Now we often say that behind every computer at Church Online is a person.

is a person. But in some cases, behind those computers are multiple people. And that's the story of Ted and how he used church online in his hometown of Philadelphia. Yeah, Leadership Summit, Craig spoke. And during that time, he's talking about church online. I got home and I just started searching for it. And you kind of had that moment of, this can go anywhere. And then we were doing life groups. I said, hey, let's try this. I've been watching this Craig. I really like them. And the way he taught was so different. It was so refreshing, eventually just turned in. We just watched the whole church online. I didn't have to worry about it. Make sure I was hitting all the right targets.

He did all the heavy lifting. It freed us up. You know, me and the other guys were kind of leading the group to 90% of what we do is just being with people. God can't use you greatly until he's crushed you deeply. There's a bunch of people out there that are trying to live life. And, you know, they're banging their head against the wall. So there's this tough exterior.

But if we could build a place, that those kind of guys can come in and be a part of that. Because this is their home, this is where they can really be real, and this is where they can find answers and find God. I mean, you know, whoever finds God finds life. There's nothing else that I want to do and just see people find God. Another one of our values at Life Church is that we are all about the Capital C Church.

We believe the local church is the hope of the world, And we can do infinitely more together than we can apart. You see, we truly believe that God designed the church to be unified, a powerful force in this world. That's why, for the last 10 years, our church has said, if there's a resource, any resource, whatever it is, it's not ours, God, but it's yours. And we want to take anything we possibly can

and make it available to other pastors, other churches all around the world, so that we can help them lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ in their communities. One of those resources our team created is a curriculum based on the Bible app for kids. The Bible for Kids, if you're not familiar,

it's an app that we design for children to help young children engage in the Bible. And millions of people all over the world are already using this, including children right here in Hong Kong who can access it in Chinese or in English. Our team took that content from the Bible Up for Kids turned it into a curriculum that we use in the weekends at Life Church, but we also share that curriculum with churches everywhere. One of those churches that uses that curriculum is Grace Church

in Avondale in Jacksonville, Florida. So we have about 200 people in our congregation. A lot of times 50 of those can be kids, ranging from birth to 12 years old. Being a part-time children's pastor and being a full-time nurse and mom and wife, it's really hard to get everything together that will actually keep my kids' attention and pour into them what I want to pour into them. So one day I was looking at the Bible app and I saw a link at the bottom that pointed me to Life Church.

I clicked on it and I saw that they did like this church online platform and all these other things that were free for churches and somehow I saw a kids tab. So I clicked on the kids tab and all these videos came up. In investigating that, I realized it's not videos. It's a full A to Z children's curriculum. So I started downloading stuff and I realized it was all free. This is what we've been missing.

This is it. I was like, this is so fun. I was so impressed with the videos and I was so impressed with what was being offered that I thought, we're gonna try this. And I tried it and I have not looked back. I've seen a huge difference in the kids since using Life Church's curriculum.

They're more excited about salvation. They're really excited about baptism. They're really excited to come to church and then they're really excited to read their Bible outside of church. If I could say anything to the people of Life Church, it would be thank you so much for providing what you provide for pastors like me and for churches like ours to help us make kids fully devoted followers of Christ. In a follow-up with Tiffany, she wrote something in an email and I just have to read it to you.

She said, this year I'm trying to train our children to tie. They're becoming great tithers, and almost every child brings an offering on Sunday. The kids and I have decided that we really want our children's church offering to go to your children's ministry. It isn't much. We're small, but we can't think of a better place for it to go. If you can reach our kids and help me lead them to salvation so easily, then I know that you can reach many, many more.

You see, because of you, not only are pastors and churches. church leaders being equipped. But because of your generosity, an entire generation is encouraged to become more generous. In fact, now over seven million of these resources have been downloaded from pastors and church leaders from every single country on this earth. What you have to realize is that when one of those resources

is downloaded, it doesn't just benefit one person. It benefits an entire church. an entire community. When I first came into the church, we were losing people left, right and center. It felt like really painful thinking, God, what are you doing? You've called me into a church that's dying.

And at the time that I had to prepare sermons, it was not as much as I would like to have been. I said to the leadership team, we need to try and see if there's some resources out there that we can use. So we just started doing some research, came across Life Church, fitted the bill, it was free, but it was high quality. It was really good and it was similar sort of stuff to how we would preach and teach as well.

The people were starting to get that the church isn't here to serve us. We are the church, we exist to reach the world. And the graduate just started to grow and grow and grow and develop and God's more than blessed us. The vision that God has is bigger than a city, it's global. Because of you, we're able to reach more people. When I look back at the many ways that God has used our church to leverage technology and to work together with the Capitalist Church, there's a couple verses in the Bible that come to mind. It's Ephesians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21. And it reads,

Now to him who is able to do imagerably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power, that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. Perhaps the most tangible example of this verse for me is what we've seen God do with the U-Version Bible app. If you're not familiar with U-Version, it's an app that can be available for free on any smartphone or tablet, and it allows you to read or listen to God. Word and make it a part of your everyday life. Now this began back in July of 2008, we launched the app on the very same day that the App Store launched and it was among the first 200 apps that were available.

We had no idea what to expect. We could never imagine what God was getting ready to do because just in the first weekend, we saw 83,000 people install that app on their iPhone. Now if you fast forward to today, what's incredible is that God's done immajorably more than we ever could imagine. Just this week, we've now passed over 200 million mobile devices that have installed the Bible Act. That's millions of people that are making God's Word a part of their everyday life. You know what happens when you make God's Word a part of your everyday life? It changes you.

That's exactly what we see happen with Scott, who lives just not too far from where I'm standing right here in Toronto. Scott began to make the Bible a part of his everyday life, and it transformed him. I was the son of a Baptist minister. We were in a small town, and pretty much the whole town knew that I was the pastor's kid and was looking at me to do pastor's kid types of stuff.

And I really grew to resent that. So by the time I was 16, I had pretty much packed it in, and it was basically a slow downhill spiral from there. I started to really experiment with drugs and alcohol, and my appetite for drugs grew out of control. I started to realize that at one point that it was a dead-end street, and I got to a point where I was really hopeless. I had a smartphone at the time,

and I was looking at apps I could download, and I found this app called the Bible app. I thought to myself, you know, I've always wanted to read through the Bible. It's an important book. You know, it seemed like something you should do. So I started a reading plan, and for the first little while, it was an academic thing. But then about halfway through, I think I got into the Psalms,

and it changed somehow. I felt like when I read it, it was speaking to me instead of me just reading the pages of a book. I remember laying in my bed and just telling Jesus I wanted him to be the Lord of my life. It was crazy. I felt like I felt it physically happened. I felt myself get saved. And the next morning I woke up and I was walking around and I remember just looking around it.

And the whole world, it was like it was made of diamonds. Everything sparkled. That was the beginning of a whole new life for me. I thought that I was going to be reading a book. But as it turns out, it's not just recorded history. It's not just a bunch of stories that teach you how to be moral. It's something that gets inside you and changes you from the inside out. Scott is just one amazing example of millions of people whose lives are being changed

has the reading and listening to God's Word every day. That's millions of people who are hearing God's voice. because of you. It's a majorably more than we could ever have imagined. 200 million mobile devices, billions upon billions of minutes that are spent, reading, listening, watching, discussing, sharing God's Word using the Bible app. Now it's hard for me to comprehend what these huge numbers mean. I can't get my mind wrapped around. So what I like to do is slow everything down

and take a look at what happens in an average second in the Bible app. In this second, one new person installed the Bible app for the very first time. 106 different people that already had the app installed tapped on the icon to open it. In this very same second, 191 different people that already had the app open switched to a different chapter of Bible text, while 53 other people began listening to the Bible read to them. 19 people highlighted a passage of scripture. Three people bookmarked a passage of scripture and four people shared a verse with their friends on social media. One person created an image of a Bible verse using the Bible app.

Well, one person started a new daily reading plan and eight other people. They completed their part of their daily reading plan for today. And approximately 94,000 other people were in the middle of doing one of those things I just mentioned, but they started the second before this or the second before that. Now Life Church, if you doubt that what you're a part of is making a difference, if that doubt crosses your mind, even for a second, I want you to recognize what God has already done because of you in that very same second. So amazing to think about this.

Everything that Bobby just explained happens every second of the day for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And all of this happens because of your generosity. And what's crazy to think is that's just one category of how God is using Life Church. That's called Digital Missions. We also have relief and restoration impacting people's lives all over the world. We also have campus development where we're launching new campus. in cities around the United States. In fact, just to update you a little bit on campus development,

we've got amazing news, our Wichita campus, meeting in a school, we'll be moving into a brand new facility just next month, paid for in cash, by the generosity of all of our churches. You can clap if you want to, because that is exciting news. We will be breaking ground, breaking ground in Overland Park, Kansas,

to launch that new campus. new campus very, very soon. And as well, I know many of you have been praying for our Albany, New York campus, which is on fire making a massive difference. We'll be breaking ground for a new building for the Albany, New York campus here very, very soon. And again, that'll be paid for in cash, because you're amazingly generous. Not only do we have those different projects going, but there are one, two, three, four, five, six other campus projects that I'm not allowed to tell you about, but they are amazing in the way that God is using the church. Six more projects that will be coming up incredibly soon.

God is using your church. We love to say that we will lead the way with irrational generosity because we truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive. And so to all of you who are tithing, you're returning 10% of what God blesses you. with back to God through the local church, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you so much. If you're not yet worshipping and honoring God with the tithe, this is a great time to start to say, God, I believe as you have blessed me, I want to be a blessing in worship you and further the kingdom through the local church. It's a great time to start. As the year end approaches, I would just also ask you, would all of you consider and pray about making a special, very

generous end of the year offering. As God has blessed you, we want to offer back to him. It's an act of worship saying, God, thank you for what you've done in my life, continue to do a work in our church and through our church. And just simply pray. If you'll notice that our church, we're not doing like fundraisers, you know, three-year sign on the dotted lines. There's no high pressure, anything like that. All I'm doing is simply saying, if you believe in what God is doing, would you pray and say, God, what would you have me? What would you? you have us do? And consider making a generous end of the year offering because God is doing so much in the church. And we believe this is only the beginning. At our church, we'll do anything

short of sin to reach people who do not know Christ. To reach people no one's reaching, we will do things that no one is doing. And I thank God because of you. Lives are being impacted all over the world because God has called us to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. And all of our churches, would you join me in praying? Father, we thank you so much that every second of every day you are impacting lives. And God, we thank you that our church gets to play a significant role in leading people to know your son, Jesus. As you reflect in prayer at all of our churches, as God is using you, I know if you're like me, I want to be used even more.

Today, a very simple question to ask you is, do you want God to stir you up to be even more generous, even more effective, using your gifts and your resources to make a difference in this world? I hope every hand goes up at all of our churches. If you say, yes, God, use me, use what I have, use my gifts, use my resources to lead people to know your son, Jesus. Would you lift your hands high right now? All of our churches, lifting your hands high right now. your hands and saying yes. Father, I thank you so much for a church full of people that recognize that everything we have is a gift from you, that life is temporary and you have called us, God, to make an eternal investment in this world, God, to use what you've given us to impact eternity.

Father, I thank you that there are those people today that will start serving in the church, using their gifts to make a difference. God, I thank you that you'll stir up our prayers and our faith to believe for those who do not know you. God, I thank you. There are those who will start to tithe for the very first time and others who will hear from you and make a generous end of the year gift to say, God, in this way, we worship you. God, thank you for all the ways that you're using people to lead others to know your son, Jesus. As you keep praying today, we talked a little bit about generosity. We will lead the way with irrational generosity. Why do we believe so much in generosity because we serve the most generous God that we could ever, ever imagine.

For God so loved the world. What did he do? He gave, he gave, he gave, he gave his one and only son Jesus, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but would have eternal life. And all of our church says there are those of you that you're sitting in the church or watching online in countries around the world and you recognize that you need something. more in life. When you think about your standing with God, you may recognize, I don't have a relationship with God. I need a relationship with God. If you're like me, you may think, well, I need to try harder, do better, stop doing bad stuff. But the reality is that we cannot work our way to God. We simply receive the free gift that God gave his sinless son, Jesus, as the perfect

sacrifice so we could be made right with God. And all of our church is those who would say, yes, I need this. I need his forgiveness. Today by faith, I want to surrender my life to God. Because people are praying for you, because people reached out to you, because God sent his son, Jesus for you. Today is the day of your salvation. And all of our churches, if you say, yes, I need that grace. Yes, I turn from my sins. Yes, I surrender to Jesus. I give my life to him. That's your prayer today. Would you lift your hands high right now and say, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you. Lift your hands and say, yes, I give my life to you at church online. You click right below me,

and I would invite all of you to pray with those around you. Simply pray aloud, pray Heavenly Father, forgive me for all my sins. Make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit so I could serve you and follow you for the rest of my life. Thank you for new life. I give you mine.

In Jesus' name I pray, Life Church, would you worship big and welcome those born into God's family.