Keep Your Passion Alive

Foreign.

So right now, I want to do something. I want to invite our friend Josiah, who's actually from Canada. And Josiah's is a unique gift within the body of Christ, I believe, because he was called to plant a church. And this church was planted in Gatineau. Did I say that right?

That's okay. Okay. Got no.

Got no Canada. Predominantly French speaking. And I'm not going to try to speak French because it's terrible. Kevin was trying to get me to do it. I can't do it.

You should. Okay. Bonjour. I don't understand nothing. Okay.

All right. No, that was good. That was good. But seriously, he has planted a church during COVID And I remember the conversations that we've had, and some of those conversations was this. There was a time in the space where we didn't know what was going to happen because it looked like it dwindled.

His team dwindled down to a small number, and we just prayed. And then because of his team and because God is just faithful, they were able to push through Covid and basically start with 60 people in Gatineau. And then two. We had two years or three years. Almost.

Yes, two and a half years. Almost two and a half years. And basically, how many people did you have on Easter? Yeah, easter, we were 305 people. 305 people.

Can we give God praise for that?

And they've been pushing through. I know that their average service size is around 100, 150. And that's pretty remarkable, the work that God is doing in La Chapelle, especially in Gatineau. So we're wanting Josiah to speak to us today, and he's just going to share a powerful ministry. And before.

Before I let it have this moment, I just wanted to share. I took Josiah's out yesterday, and I'm just going to ask you a question. Sure. Do you prefer wallets or man purses? Man purses.

So, see, I'm not going to judge how the Canadians flow, but, you know, that's how it is. But, you know. But I just want you guys to welcome Josiah as he teaches this morning. Thank you.

I was trying to get him to buy a man purse, but he's not into that yet, as now. I'm so happy to be here this morning. I'm thankful to be able to see the faces of people that support us, pray for us, just so that you know, we love you on behalf of La Chapelle. Get. No, we pray for you guys.

I love your pastors, Pastor Patrick, Pastor Kevin. They're so Fired up about Legacy Church. Honestly, so inspiring. And I'm humbled and honored of your invitation for me to be here and to speak to you guys. Just so that you know, my mother tongue is French, so I'm always a little bit nervous when I speak English.

I have to preach in English. So I was thinking about it and I was like, if. If I say a word in French, you'll just learn some French. So either way, it's a win. All right.

Okay. I'm going to continue on what you said, so. Bonjour. Comment sa va? Oh, what?

That's. I was not expecting that. So you just graduated, you're good, but I'm happy to be here, and I just want you to get to know me a little bit better. Just before I preach, here's a picture of my family that's gonna show on the screen here. So you didn't say that when I went on stage, but it's all right.

So my wife on the far left, and Deborah, so in love with my wife. She's my high school sweetheart, which is not true. I just wish she was. But Kaylia is my oldest daughter, 8 years old. She always cries when I travel.

She's really intense, is highly sensitive, and if I don't send a video or call her every day, she'll let me know. Zoe is. Let's just say people remember Zoe. When some people come in my church and say, hey, you know your daughter, I know they're talking about Zoe. She just knows what she wants and she knows people she don't like.

And Nefa is the artistic one, creative one. She knows all the worship songs. She corrects us all the time. She likes drawing and everything. And Jordan, my last one, two and a half year old, we're trying to potty train him and it's just not working.

He just decides where he wants to pee. If it's on the couch, the bed, on his sister's leg. There's no limit for him. And he doesn't have that much hair anymore because he took scissors and he cut a big hole, so I had to shave his whole head. Yeah.

So now you know my family. You could pray for us.

So I'll just. I'll just pray and we'll dive in right away for today's message. Father, we just want to thank youk for today. Thank youk for just this privilege to encounter family. For me, you guys are family.

And, Lord, thank you for this opportunity to encounter the God of the universe today. We are never going to take that for granted. Lord, please open our heart, touch us on the bottom of our heart, transform us that we would get out of here differently that we came in. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Amen. So I want to start by asking a general question. Why do you think that some of us are capable to press through challenges when they have, let's say, an idea in mind, a project in mind, a business in mind, and other people have a hard time to go through challenges? Do you know? So I believe a lot of us would have a different answer to that question.

Probably a different one each person in this room. But I know it's a broad question, but one of them, I believe is because of passion. Would you say some of us have passion and some of us lack passion Right around you. You know, people that invented stuff, you're like, man, that person was so passionate. Some of us aren't able to press through challenges because I believe we lack passion.

I'm a basketball fan. Any basketball fans in the room? Okay. A few. That's all right.

Okay. Ncaa, March Madness, all of that. I love it. But I was not sure I was gonna say the team that I'm rooting for. Cause you could get in trouble in Dallas for that, right?

I'm not even sure if I'm safe talking about basketball instead of football or baseball. But Pastor. Pastor's been praying for me, so that's, that's going to be fine. So I love hearing about professional basketball players journey. I love hearing their story.

Recently, a player was breaking down everything that was needed to get to a certain level of efficiency, a certain level of performance, a certain level of consistency during a long period of time. And at the end he said, oh, and just so that, you know, not everybody is willing to do all those things. So he was enumerating a whole bunch of stuff. But he's like, not everyone is willing to do that because there's passionate people and non passionate people. You have passionate basketball players and you have people that's just, you know, it's just a job for them.

And passion is so important because passion helps you achieve things. Passion helps you accomplish your purpose. Passion helps you press through challenges. Passion keeps you focused. Passion increases your willpower.

Passion gets your mind focused in a positive attitude. Passion will give you motivation to continue when it gets difficult. Passion might be a luxury in a professional sport, but I believe that passion is the attitude God is expecting of, of us to have when we serve him. Romans 12:11 says, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord.

A passionate person is a zealous person. Somebody said passion is the energy of the soul. I love that quote. Passion is the energy of the soul. How is your energy today?

What would you say? Do you have passion serving the Lord? Have you lost your zeal? I remember being 23 year old and you might think, you know, I'm 23 because I really look young, but I don't, I don't know. But I was.

When I was 23 year old, I was a small group leader and you know, just men discussing about the Bible and discussing about challenges and you know, program praying for each other. And that was like my first small group. And I remember just walking alongside young men and trying to accompany them and to walk with them through scriptures and disciple them with the, you know, little knowledge I knew of the Bible because I gave my life to Christ when I was 21. So I was just trying to do it. And I remember meeting with this guy, let's just call him Kevin, in a coffee shop and he was really disappointed with decision he has made in the past and he had an addiction and he was ashamed of it and he had dark thoughts as well.

And he was just laying this out on a table and sharing with me and I was listening and I was caring. But honestly, in my heart I didn't really know what to tell him or what to do. And I just started praying in my heart like, holy Spirit, give me a word of encouragement. Like, where's this heading? I want to say something.

And a thought came to mind and a scripture came to mind, which I don't remember today, but I just remember his face when he left the coffee shop. He was smiling, he had hope. Again, you have no clue how that brought joy to my heart. I was literally stepping out of the coffee shop crying. I was like, what?

I was like, it was for me a moment where I was pausing and I was like, how in the world this guy was head down, dark thoughts, I didn't know. I don't have luck. I mean, I just came to Christ two years and this God was using me to impact this boy's life. And I was crying, I was praying. I was like, lord, if this could happen more times, I will be so grateful.

And I was praying, God, please, please let me into full time ministry. I want to be full time doing this. If I could just speak to people and tell them God exists, I would be forever grateful. Because I was a technician working in a hospital. You're probably not going to get this, but I was a Nuclear medicine, technologist.

I was not fabricating bombs or anything, but it's kind of an X ray tech, but you do something else. So I was doing that in a hospital and I was like, God, I want to be full time doing this. But honestly, that was like years back. But then life happened. Do you know what I mean?

Life happens. And for myself, the reality of ministry hit me and I was no longer praying. God, let me, let me be used by you. I want to be full time. I was like, God, can you just bring me back to you?

Can you come earlier? God, I'm done with this. God, I'm discouraged. It's just. Life happens, right?

It's just hard. I remember I was 23 year old, just coffee shop, regular stuff. And then life is so hard. I'm just trying to say that our passion goes through up and down and it's normal and we're human beings. But if we don't take care of our lack of passion, if we're not intentional and ask God to rekindle the flame, if we're not intentional to gain our zeal back and ask God to do something, your lack of passion becomes apathy.

And before you know it, you're no longer serving God and you're no longer in communion with God. In other words, your lack of passion is symptomatic of your spiritual condition deteriorating. My prayer, my hope is that you keep your passion alive. That's the title of my message today. Keep your passion alive.

Do not be thoughtful in zeal, be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. We're going to be in Philippians 1:12 26 today. And I chose the ESV version and Paul. The Apostle Paul is giving an account to the Church of Philippi of his imprisonment in Rome.

And we're going to be reading from Philippians 1:12:26. So I hear people still have like Bibles, paper Bibles. Yeah, that still exists in Dallas. That's crazy. You guys are awesome.

Philippians 1:12 26. Read this together. I want you to know, brothers, that what that was, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.

The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the Gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but at full courage. Now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or death. By death.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. Isn't that an amazing part of Scripture? Isn't that an amazing account of Paul's imprisonment? As I was praying for today, that was the scripture that came to my heart.

And I'm like, God, that's amazing. Incredible. That's a passionate man right there, don't you think? And there's a lot we could unpack from that text, but we're just going to see three principles today. And the first one is to reignite your passion.

The first one is seek to serve other people's needs instead of seeking to be more comfortable. Do we like comfort? Hands up who lights comfort? It should be 100%. You better rise your head or else it doesn't work.

Paul says, my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary to your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. Paul was in prison awaiting his trial without the possible outcome being released or being executed. And even though Paul was convinced by the prayer of everybody that he would be released, he never ruled out the possibility of being executed.

But for Paul, dying meant joining Christ, being in Christ's presence. Which means no more worrying, no more stress, no more church conflict, no more suffering, only peace and joy. But when he thinks about what he would prefer and what he judges necessary to do for the well being of others, he chooses the well being of others. Isn't that crazy? What a man of God.

I mean, we love comfort. I love a comfortable bed. Thank you, Pastor Patrick, for jewelry, hotel. It's incredible. I love more leg space in a plane.

Thank you, Susan, for the plane. Thank you. I didn't even know there was like areas in the plane where you can have more leg space that. She told me that this morning because I had more leg space. I was like, that's incredible.

I love being in a comfortable relationship. No arguments. No, I love it. I love more time on my schedule. I.

I love being on the beach. Any beach. People here. Yes.

If I get an opportunity to be more comfortable, I'll be really tempted to take it. But Paul had been embodying Jesus Christ's selfless lifestyle. And by doing that, his love for the people began to grow. His compassion for the people began to grow. His concern for the well being of the people, not only physical but spiritual, began to grow, and his passion began to grow.

You cannot grow in love for a person and do not grow in passion. My wife and I left Montreal in June 2019 for Gatineau. So Gatineau is 2 1/2 hours from Montreal. Okay. But it's a completely different city.

It's a big suburb, 300,000 people. And we had to leave somewhat some type of comfort. I mean, we were in a great neighborhood. You could walk, you know, grab your bread and do your groceries and buy your fruits. You could walk to daycare.

We could walk to the office space of La Chapelle, which is an incredible office space. We could walk to good restaurants nearby. And then we moved to Gatna. None of that. I love playing basketball.

I love to think that I'm good. I'm actually trying to dunk in the next four years. That's a serious project. I actually explained it to Patrick, but pray for me for that. There's many leagues you could get in in Montreal, but I was looking through it in Gatineau.

Hard to find. My wife and I left friends, left family. I mean, there's still two and a half hours. We could still drive and see him time to time. But when you're in full time ministry and there's those hard moments and you have all those crazy kids with you and you don't have your friends and family to babysit, it's hard, it's comfort that you're leaving behind.

We left a team who is constantly cheering for us, encouraging us, crowd who knew us, loved us. And none of that when we went to Gatineau, I mean, if you go. And our team in Montreal, it's like, yeah, go ahead. Everybody's pumped. And I.

I come with my kids and my wife in Gatineau, and I'm having those little meetings as we're starting, trying to figure out church and everything. And it's like, okay, nobody know me. Everybody's observing me. I see people, you know, they're suspicious of me, and I'm like, you know, trying to pour out energy. I'm like, where are the people that are like, yeah, go to science.

Go. Like, none of that. And I was like, wow. I didn't even know that it left that kind of comfort.

I would never choose if it was for my own choosing, to go to Ghana, that would never be a city that I would go. I would live there. But God called us there. And I'm not saying that so you can pity me. I'm saying that because I realized how over time, I've become more attached to the people of my city, more loving for the people of my city.

Fired up about serving God in my city. And that have a direct correlation with me trying to live sacrificially. Living sacrificially actually frees your passion, but the opposite is also true. Living for yourself kills it. Kills it.

You can't be living for yourself. You can't be aiming for comfort and expect to be fired up for God. Forget it. Living sacrificially is actually being a Christian. It's actually walking and being discipled by Christ every day.

Both of them are inseparable. Living sacrificially is actually proof that you are still available to be used by God. Every time you accept to leave comfort aside to serve God, it's you renewing your commitment to serve him. So my question for you this morning is, are you still available? What sacrifice God is asking you to make in order to seek other people's welfare, to make him known?

Is your love of people is growing or your love of comfort is growing? What is God asking you to leave behind? I remember, like I told you, my wife and I, our family, we moved to Gatineau by ourselves. But I remember at least 10 people. And we're talking about leaders.

We're talking about passionate people. Told me, hey, Josiah, just let me know when you're planting. We are with you. We'll plant with you. We're praying for you.

And I was like, wow. I mean, I don't even know the city yet. People are, like, so excited when I say Gatineau. People are like, no way.

All of Them. And I was just thinking through that, and I'm like, man, we love the idea of God impacting our city, impacting our neighborhood, impacting our family. We love the idea of the Holy Spirit working in our midst. But the sacrifice part we don't like.

And some of them, they were really honest. They were like, yeah, but, you know, we had to move our family and we have to, like, change, you know, city and everything. And like, yeah, it is a big deal. I mean, you have to be convicted. I mean, it is a calling.

But that's also part of our life. That's also part of what God is asking of us.

It's part of it. Sacrifice. But for us, it's been an incredible journey. Like you said, we were like 60 ish and 305 at Easter, but we've been baptizing dozens of people. We saw family get reunited just this last Easter.

There's a gentleman, a volunteer in our church, and he was saying, my dad hasn't been to Church for 25 years and he's in conflict with my aunt. But I've been inviting everybody to Easter and they all want to come. So they had to resolve their conflict on Saturday.

I'm like, you're serious? They actually took the phone. Like, 25 years conflict. They haven't been. No, they really want.

I'm like, this is a God thing. God's doing something. People stop going to church. Coming back to church. We have people with no religious background.

There's this lady that came at Easter and we're like, hi, how are you doing? And, you know, we're always trying to. Our slogan is a church for people that don't go to church. We're always looking for people that never been to church and say, hi, you know what? Hi, how you been?

And I always ask, hey, who invited you? I want to know. I came by myself. I'm like, you came by yourself? Yeah, yeah, I heard about you somewhere.

And I'm like, oh, great. Have you been to church before? Is that you? No, I've never been to church. I'm like, in my head, I'm like, what are you doing here?

But God brought her here. God is attracting people to himself and he's obviously using the church.

Seeing people's lives transformed by Jesus is always worth all the discomfort of the world to me.

I remember the times when it was tough and I was like, man, you know, just having honest conversations with my wife, it's hard, you know, I can't talk to my friends anymore. Like, as often I Can't and, you know, just honest conversations. But later on, I'm like, we're so privileged to be part of God's kingdom and being used to see people's lives transform. And I want to remind this to you this morning. Seeing people's lives transform is worth all the discomfort of the world.

Second point this morning, seize the opportunity to share the gospel in the midst of your trial. Now, this is kind of challenging for me, and I'm assuming challenging for you, too, while in prison, Paul, like, do you believe the Bible? Sometimes you read something, you're like, what? Paul in prison was still looking and seizing the opportunity to talk about Jesus to the Roman soldier. What type of man and his imprisonment has encouraged other Christians to talk about Jesus more openly?

I don't know about you, but my tendency when I go through rough times to focus on my problems, focus on my trial, focus on me, start complaining, start victimizing myself, feeling sorry for myself, looking for encouragement, looking for a tap on the shoulder, looking for someone to tell me God still exists. But Paul never saw himself changed to his circumstances. He always saw himself chained to Christ, which made him a man focused on the mission. He says it explicitly in Ephesians. He says, I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

Instead of seeing himself like people saw himself a prisoner of Rome, he saw himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ. He doesn't say that explicitly in Philippians, but. But he's living this out in Philippians. What does it mean to be chained to your circumstance instead of being chained to Christ? It means that you're defined by your circumstances instead of being defined by your Savior.

It means you are more devoted to your trial than you are devoted to Christ. It means you give too much importance, too much attention to what you're going through and missing out the opportunity God has set before you. It means you are no longer focused on the mission, but focused on your trials. And that brings despair and discouragement. And trust me, despair and discouragement has a way of sucking passion out of you.

Would you say that you were chained to your circumstance or chained to Christ when we came to Gatineau in June 2019? In August 2019. So that's like two months. Okay, so that's a new city. You know, unpacking.

We still have boxes. Two months later, we're casting Vision on Facebook. You know, just saying, hey, you know, we're here. We want to plant a church, la chapel, blah, blah, blah. Would you come to a barbecue on Sunday at our house?

And then we see, like, 30 people. Ish show up, which we don't know. All okay. Just strangers. And we're like casting vision.

Hey, you know, this is what. And people like.

And then by the grace of God, in September 2019, we were having vision nights, which is a church service on Friday nights once every month. Once was in a basement of a volunteer and then in a community center and then a hotel reception place. And then we were just. We never had like a same spot. And then March 2020, what happens?

Oh, everybody remember. That's good.

And our pre launching phase was for us. And you'll get me on this because you understand why it's weird, but it's like going through, like going through pregnancy with complications. Now, I'm not a woman. I've never gone through pregnancy. I know, but I've known people that went through pregnancy with complications.

What happens when you're always in the hospital checking on your unborn baby? It kind of takes away the excitement of having a baby. It brings stress and worry. And the only question that's in your mind is, I hope my baby is going to survive. I hope he's going to be normal.

This is how we felt church planting. I thought it was exciting. All those complications came through. Covid lost my core group, half of my core group. I've lost momentum.

I honestly didn't know what to say to the people because I told them before we were going to plant in September 2020. That didn't happen. I was asking myself all types of questions, I suppose. How am I supposed to mobilize people now? How am I supposed to build a core team now?

How am I supposed to cast vision? How am I supposed to preach and teach? How am I supposed to find a venue? How am I supposed to do all that by myself? Started doubting my calling, started doubting my ability.

And I remember someone from our core team, David, he called me up, hey, Charles, we need to help people. We need to. And I'm like, man, I need to be helped. You know what I mean? He's like, we need to help people.

You know, I have connections with food banks, and we could just go into that poor neighborhood and knock on doors and drop, you know, baskets of food and go, hey, here you go. You know, we want to help you out with difficult times. I'm like, yeah, yeah, let's. You know what? Let's do this.

He had like a hundred boxes. We were like three. We're just knocking on doors, putting food. You know, people were happy and everything, but that one lady came to her knees, started crying. And she was like, oh, hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus. Literally. And this does not happen in Gatineau, okay? This is not the Bible belt, okay? People don't, you know, expressly talk about Jesus.

Oh, thank you. I've been praying. I've been, you know, shooting. Sorry, she didn't say Jesus. She said God.

So I've been shooting the prayer to the God of the universe. And then we had an opportunity after to talk about Jesus to that lady. And you don't straight up talk about straight up walk into a spiritual conversation with people in Gatineau. This just doesn't happen. It was just God opening my eyes to opportunities that were set before me.

In the midst of my trial, he's like, man, there's still people that want to hear about me. Are you willing to seize the opportunity to share the gospel in the midst of your trial? I remember we had our services online, probably here too. And after our online service, there was this guy that would say, hey, here's the link. Go into that Zoom meeting after the service online and join your community.

And I was laughing because I'm like, I have no community. But anyways. But it was like Montreal and Gatineau, and Montreal had a community already established. With Gatineau, we're in a pre launching phase. Join the community, Gatineau, blah, blah, blah.

And I was clicking on Zoom meeting and waiting and waiting, and 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, nobody shows up, and then the next Sunday, nobody shows up. Nobody shows up until one person show up. And I'm super excited. I'm like, hi, how you doing? Yes.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The next day, the person doesn't show up because it's awkward to be, you know, with someone you don't know. Plus, he's a pastor on Zoom. It's awkward. So we were averaging at least three people on a Sunday in that Zoom link.

And I was like, is it worth it? And just God just reminded me, hey, are you willing to do that for the one? I'm like, God, no. But, you know, change my heart.

Can we be honest in church?

But. And honestly, there was that. That lady afterwards, she told me, if it wasn't for those Zooms, I don't know if she would have been there, like, alive again. And it was so helpful for her to go through her struggles. And I was like, wow, I never saw that coming.

If we would seize the opportunity to serve God in the midst of her trial. I just want to encourage you, if you're going through something, you're going through a trial, well, God will use that for his glory. Don't let your hardship stop you from answering God's call. Don't let your trial paralyze you from doing what God wants you to do in your life. Don't let your trials limit you from serving God.

Opposition will come, obstacles will come, struggles will come. But it doesn't mean that there's no opportunity to talk about Jesus. It just means that we ought to be more creative. You don't need a big opportunity to make a big impact. You just need to seize the opportunity that God puts in front of you.

Amen. I was waiting for you guys to say amen. I love this quote of John Wesley. He says, do all the good you can. You probably heard this before, by all the means you can, in all the places you can, but whenever you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you can.

And I would add, in the midst of your trial, and my third point today and my last one, and we're going to wrap up. The team's going to come shortly.

Pursue Jesus Christ with your life. I think, like, I think if I would choose something to say all my life, you know, it comes down to a few words. I think it would be something like this. Pursue Jesus Christ with your life. Paul was obviously consumed by Christ.

When you read the text, he says, for me to live is Christ. That's an amazing statement. I mean, to be honest, like, if we get people that say that in our church would probably go like, is he weird? Or.

But for him, living is Christ for him. He wanted his mind to be like Christ. He wanted his character to be like Christ. He wanted his decision to be imbued of Jesus Christ. His goals were for the glory of Jesus Christ.

His ambition was to promote Christ. He's like, I wish. I'm not gonna be ashamed if I, you know, get in front of the emperor in a trial. And I feel like I just. I want to honor Christ.

And this is gonna be a moment for me to preach. And I'm like, you know, I'm reading this and I'm like, I'm probably gonna be fearful. And, you know, and this is his trial. Like, he's in prison because he's been preaching about Jesus Christ, but the only thing that's in his mind is, how can I get. Can I preach more?

And when they're going to hear me, I'm going to talk about Jesus Christ. His life is for Jesus Christ. He wanted his legacy to speak about Jesus Christ. You cannot keep Your passion alive. If you are not seeking Jesus Christ with your life, if you're not pursuing Jesus Christ with your life, if you're not consumed by Jesus Christ, you will be consumed by something else.

And this, that something else is not life giving. It's not passion given, it's not loving giving.

You will be consumed by television, sports, politics, consumed by your sin.

But if you pursue Jesus Christ with your life, that will make a whole difference for yourself and how God is going to use you.

Let me put it that way. Jesus wasn't only relevant to Paul on Sundays. Amen. Jesus wasn't only relevant to Paul when he was going through struggles and needed a handout. Jesus wasn't only relevant to Paul to have a good conscience about himself.

Hey, I'm a good Christian. I got good morals, I got good principle. Paul was the real deal. He's like, renew my mind. I can imagine Paul's prayer, renew my mind.

Take this sin away from me. Lord, you see how I love comfort. I don't want that. I want to be sacrificial. Lord, please.

I want to think about others. I want to be able to do what you want me to do. I can imagine Paul going, thinking about his life before and going, oh, man, if I can take this back. And he's always thinking about Jesus, pursuing Jesus. He wanted to talk like Jesus, walk like Jesus, think like Jesus.

That was his pursuit. And I'm thinking, and that's my prayer and my hope is that, is that our pursuit? Is that a real pursuit? Are we pursuing this? Are we letting Jesus in all the spheres of our lives?

That's another way to put it. Are you letting Jesus in your marriage? Are you letting Jesus in your relationships? Are you letting Jesus in your schedule? Are you letting Jesus in your vacation, in your future projects, your parenting, in your worldview, in your heart, in your passions, the good one and the bad ones?

Are you letting Jesus in? Are you pursuing him with your life?

Keep your passion alive is keeping. It's taking care of your spiritual condition. And I'm gonna end with this short testimony and then we'll pray and we'll worship together. I was in Indonesia a month ago. I had an opportunity with Pastor David to go for a mission trip and just, you know, exploring, you know, missions and how La Chapelle can be more open to missions and, you know, different countries and all of that.

That was kind of a just, how can I say this observing type of, you know, mission trip. And that's a country, 80% people are Muslim and they talk Bahasa which a language we didn't know. So when we would have conversation with people, we have a translator, and some of them could speak English a little bit. And there's laws over there. Like, if you say something in regards of the Prophet Muhammad, you could be in prison for that.

So we were careful so we could have conversation with people, because people are open to spiritual conversation, but you would have to be careful. So we were asking questions to people. And then at a certain point with Miri that we've met, I was able to share my testimony. And, like, he used to be a junkie and his friend died from overdose and everything. And as we are talking about Jesus, he's like, this is so weird that you guys are talking about Jesus.

And like, why? Because you're not the first person to talk to me about Jesus. And we started to kind of press on this and we're like, hey, maybe God trying to talk to you today. Maybe, you know, you ought to give your life to Jesus today. I don't know.

So we had a conversation, and he was on his chair and he got up and he was going like this.

Like, you could see that something was happening in his heart. And he sat down, he's like, it's too much. He was going like this. And he's like, hey, could we pray for you? And we prayed for him, and I think he wasn't ready to make that step.

But he invited us to his house, you know, giving food and everything. And it was Ramadan that was starting, and he had to go to mosque at nighttime. But he was saying, I'm probably not going to go to mosque tonight. And you could see, like, the spiritual battle in his heart. And I was just explaining that story to someone last night, Sunday at Easter.

And she was. And she was like, that's crazy. That's. We're in a small world. And I'm like, no, we have a big God.

How in the world this man has been touched by our conversation? I'm a foreigner for him. I don't talk the language. He's Muslim. There's a whole bunch of laws.

I just have this conversation and something is happening in his heart. And I was like, man, if we can capture the fact that God is so big that he can use us anywhere, but he's looking for people who are willing to say yes. But that yes comes with commitment, dedication, sacrifice, but it comes with life transforming lives. Are you willing to say yes? Going to invite you to stand up and close your eyes and put your hands like this, just as a gesture as surrender and just have a moment with the Lord, you and the Lord and I'll just pray over you and we'll go ahead and worship.

What is that one thing God is asking you today? What is that may maybe obstacle that is limiting you to serve God. Maybe it's just start talking to your neighbor. Maybe it's a mission trip all those trip all those mission all those opportunities. Maybe God has been talking to you for so long.

What is that one thing that's in between you and God? That's that's one step. God wants to ignite fire in your heart passion for him, passion for his mission. God, we just want to thank you that we don't have to fabricate this on our own. That you can ignite fire in our hearts for you and for your kingdom and for the things of heaven.

We thank you. Give us fresh eyes. Give us eyes renewed about your passion. You've endured suffering on a cross for us. You've bear the weight of sin on the cross for us.

Just give us fresh eyes. Because when we realize what we did, we sure can't be living unchanged.

Speak to our hearts. You know everyone here specifically and personally. And I pray that you would ignite passion. You would consume anything that is not from you. If it's an idol, an excuse, just anything that is not from you.

And that you would give us passion for you. And I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship together.