May 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Please note that today’s service is a bit non-traditional, as a considerable portion of it was dedicated to performing various baptisms, as well as saying goodbye to Pastor Vince Woolsey, who diligently served our church over the past two years. We want to thank him for his dedication and wish him the best up in Washington state with his new church family.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vincent Woolsey (00:00):
They got to stop doing that to me.
They have no idea how hard it is to come up and follow that.
But that was a great job.
Very proud.
I'm very happy.
And I'm going to call Elder Josfat.
We need to.
(00:20):
How many of you knew that we have a Kenyan church plant?
I think most of us by now.
We haven't kept it a secret.
Kenyans knew. But that said, we've been working on this, well, for quite a while now. It was
started from this church, and we've been working on it. They've been worshiped in a few different
(00:43):
places, and they currently worship here. And they've got this tiny little room that we've
put them into worship, but they worship in their context there. And I would dare say that today may
change those dynamics a little bit. But we've announced it amongst the Kenyan believers,
and now we want to announce it to you. We have applied for what they call company status,
(01:08):
which means they've grown enough, they've developed enough, and they've reached this
point where it's time to start spreading those wings and flying a little bit in their own church
setting. And so while they're still looking for a place to be able to do this, you know,
and we assume that they're, we assume they're still welcome here, right church? We're not,
(01:29):
we're not kicking them out. We're here to still help. But that said, this is, if it's approved,
it's not approved yet. A couple more weeks, we'll know for sure. But if it's approved,
that means they've taken the next step to becoming their own church. And that is a praise God moment.
Part of that means that there's some people that have been coming and worshiping with them.
(01:54):
They come here.
They live all around the valley.
But what we would normally do is a membership transfer.
And as most of you know, when you're trying to do this from one nation to another,
sometimes the wires get crossed and we can't find their membership.
And so what we've decided to do is what's called the profession of faith.
(02:15):
And essentially all it's saying is these people are Seventh-day Adventists.
They have been Seventh-day Adventists.
They believe is Seventh-day Adventists.
But they want their membership here now to be part of this group that is potentially going to become a company.
And so we are actually asking these people to come in through profession of faith because we don't have the paperwork.
(02:37):
So there's nothing new for these people other than their members here.
But I'm going to ask Elder Josvat, can we have them please stand so that the church can see who these people are in the Kenyan group?
No, they can just stand where they're at.
All right.
The Kenyan group, may you ask,
(02:59):
right?
That's a small portion of our group that's actually standing.
Um, while you're standing, I just wanted to, I'm going to hand your certificates over to Elder
Josvat, but I did want to ask the church family at large, how many of you want to help me in
(03:24):
welcoming their membership here through the profession of faith? As you can see, there's
quite a stack of people here that have decided to do this. Kenyan church family, this is your church
family, even if you become company status, this will always still be part of your church family
because we are church all around the world. So congratulations to your group. Thank you. God
(03:51):
bless you. And before we go too far into this, I want to call your brother Timothy up because
Timothy is not doing profession of faith. Timothy, if you're, I know I saw you just a moment ago,
if you could come up here for just a minute, you're the only one I'm going to embarrass from
the group and bring up front, but there's a reason for this because you have chosen to be baptized
(04:14):
today. And I have, if you just stand up here between me and Elder Josfat,
Because you're not coming by profession of faith, but because you're coming by baptism,
(04:34):
I have a little test that I, and my church family here knows the test that I do.
I don't change the questions.
It's the same questions.
But do you love Jesus?
Yes.
And is it your desire that Jesus be your Lord and Savior?
Yes.
And is it your desire to be part of this church?
(04:55):
Yes.
Amen.
So with Timothy up here, we're going to have a special prayer for him.
We have a gift for him.
And this gift is just a symbol of the spiritual gift that God gives his people that choose to follow him.
But before I have the prayer, can I ask how many of you want to join me in welcoming Timothy into this church family as well?
(05:17):
Amen.
This is your church family all over the Mesa Valley, all over.
But I do want to have a prayer with you.
Can we do that?
let's pray father in heaven i thank you for timothy i thank you for his decision to follow you
all the days of his life and lord we thank you that he has chosen you as his savior he has chosen to
(05:40):
follow the only one who can save and that is your son jesus christ but father we also know that
the devil is still out there the battle is not over yet and we pray that you would send your
angels to watch over Timothy and his family. We pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit
into Timothy, that you would give him spiritual gifts so that now he can share Jesus in a special
(06:06):
way with the people that he comes into contact with. Lord, we pray that you will bless him,
that you will walk with him, and then that fine day, you will bring Timothy with all of us
into your kingdom, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
And maybe see.
(06:29):
I'll hand this off a little bit.
If it gets loud and noisy, it's my fault.
We have another, I'm going to say KK for last.
And actually, I'm going to put this here.
I have another special person here today.
And she has chosen, she's been baptized in the past.
And I called her last week.
(06:50):
She's actually been attending this church for quite some time.
She's been friends with Alice.
They study together regularly.
They pray together regularly.
And I stopped her.
I said, Jen, you're already part of our church family, but would you like to make this official?
And so we talked about it.
Because she's been baptized before, she would like to join our church through a profession of faith.
(07:12):
And so she asked me, do I have to get up front?
Are you going to embarrass me?
And I said, no, absolutely not.
But I am going to ask.
I warned her ahead of time.
Would you please hold up your hand just so people know who you are?
And, Jen, I'm going to ask you the same questions.
Do you love Jesus?
Is it your desire that Jesus is your Savior?
(07:34):
And is it your desire to be part of his family in eternity?
Okay, she has answered yes to all of those.
How many of you want to join me in welcoming her also into this church family?
And we also have a gift for you.
And I'm going to pray a special prayer for you as well.
Father in heaven, we thank you for Jen and her decision.
(07:55):
Lord, she's been a blessing to this church already.
And we're just thankful that we've now made it official.
She is officially part of this church family.
But Lord, we pray the same for her, that you would send your angels to watch over her,
to keep her safe, to guide her in all her steps and ways.
But we also pray that you would give her the Holy Spirit and gift her with her spiritual gifts
so that as she comes into contact with people, everyone will know that she is one of yours.
(08:21):
And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Last but not least, I want to call Kennedy up here. You
guys didn't know you ran for this long of an interlude. Kennedy, I'll walk halfway over to you.
I'll meet you halfway. Kennedy, I already gave her story when we baptized her, so I don't need to say
an awful lot other than I am extremely proud of you. And the one thing that I am, the one thing
(08:47):
that makes me very sad, we don't have a gift for you yet, but that's okay because we're going to
get a gift and we're going to bring it to your house. Okay. So we'll make sure that you get a
gift for, for being baptized and, and being part of God's family. But KK, I also have to ask you
the same test questions. Are you ready? Did you study? We went over this before. Yes, that's the
(09:13):
right answer. Okay, sorry. That was a pop quiz. I do change the questions once in a while.
Kennedy, do you love Jesus? And do you choose him to be your savior? And do you want to be part of
his family forever and ever? Yes. How many of you want to join me in welcoming Kennedy into this
(09:33):
church family. And I want to have a prayer for Kennedy as well. Father in heaven, we thank you
for Kennedy and her decision this morning. Lord, we know she has been yours already for such a long
time. But today she made that statement through baptism in front of all these people. And Lord,
we are thankful. We do pray that you would send angels to watch over her family as well to keep
(09:57):
them safe in all the ways that they go. And Lord, we pray that you would give your Holy Spirit to
Kennedy. She's already gifted. We heard her gift up on the stage, but we pray that you would bless
her in sharing Jesus wherever she goes. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. You can go sit
down now. Is there anybody else? I have time. Thank you. Um, and welcoming everybody. And we're
(10:28):
going to invite Shiloh to come up for, nope, we're not going to do that, are we?
Then I'll step to the side.
So we wanted to honor and give you some gifts, your whole family.
(10:55):
You've meant a lot to our church at Mesa Palms.
And so we're inviting Jovi and Seth and Pastor up here to be with us.
We'll have you come all the way up.
(11:20):
Anyway, we have a plaque, and we're hoping that you open it at the potluck so you can share it with us.
But it is a plaque that I think it's made out of glass, or not maybe glass, with a clock.
And it says, Dear Wolsey Family, we will remember fondly the time you spent with us.
(11:43):
Thank you for your friendship, your leadership in ministry.
And we put down the dates, and hopefully we got it right, September 17, 2022 to May 17, 2025.
And it says, Love, Mesa Palms Church Family.
And we love you guys very much.
(12:04):
Thank you.
Thank you.
We're not done yet.
That was from the church.
The Sabbath school classes all got together.
And we know, Jovi, you have two growing boys.
(12:27):
And so we also know that it is going to take a while for you to get from Phoenix up to Everett.
So in
here, we have all kinds of snacks.
Amen.
And all kinds of little things.
And this is for you, Seth, because we know that rather than saying, Daddy, are we there yet?
(12:49):
That's right.
We have some
things to keep him busy.
Praise God.
Along the way.
So from the Sabbath school classes, we want to say, and personally, we've been there from the beginning, you and I.
Yep.
I hate having to say goodbye a second time.
But God bless you.
And I hope, I know that you will do very, very well in your ministry in Everett.
(13:13):
We hate to see you go.
But we also know God has other plans for you as well.
Amen.
Thank you.
Before you leave, by the way, the pastor probably gets to carry those.
I think there's gold bricks.
Sharon, come back up here.
(13:35):
I know prayer is important.
And I just wanted to offer a prayer from our church to you guys as you follow God's leading.
Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful, beautiful family.
And Lord, be with them.
Be with Pastor Vince, Jovi, Amber, and Seth.
(14:00):
And may you lead and guide wherever you'd have them go.
thank you for this opportunity
that we can share with them
in our church from Mesa Palm
and we will continue to pray for them
in Jesus name
Amen
Amen
Thank you
(14:38):
I'll say more in a minute, but thank you so much.
This church has been such a blessing to my family.
So thank God for you.
and for the snacks.
Thank you, Pastor, and your family.
And thank you, Master Church.
(14:58):
I want to welcome Shaila to read the scripture.
Good morning.
Happy Sabbath.
I had the pleasure of reading the last scripture before the pastor leaves.
(15:25):
We will miss the pastor and his family.
So I am reading the first Corinthians chapter 3 verse 9.
And it says, for we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field and you are God's building.
Amen.
Amen.
(15:55):
There are so many people that I could say hold a special place in my heart here.
She is one of them.
Because when we started asking about baptisms, she about, well, I don't even know how to explain it.
Her exuberance was so much that she didn't even have to say anything because I knew she wanted to.
and she asked me repetitively week after week after week, pastor.
(16:19):
And I know her cousins and sister and family, everyone's been such a blessing.
And I'm looking at the clock.
I'm not going to go into a big thank you speech.
In fact, I guess as my last Sabbath, I should give you the option looking at the clock.
Do you want to go to lunch or do you want one more sermon?
(16:40):
on sermon and lunch okay well there you go those of you who thought you were leaving sorry we've
got we've got your afternoon planned um before i get into that i just want to draw your attention
here do you notice how close we are to the top of that my prayer was that when i stood up here today
(17:09):
that it would be all the way up to the top and we're like one tick away, maybe two.
And my prayer is subliminal messages that after today, before I leave, that that will truly be
finished. Because we started that project a little over 10 months ago. You remember? It wasn't that
(17:32):
long ago. A little over 10 months. We had a church business meeting. We sat right in here and we
talked about the needs of the church. And of course, the big thing that was going on was that
empty lot back there and what building we wanted to put on it. But we also sat down and we talked
about, you know, we've got some needs in this church. And we just made a big list over it. And
(17:53):
we come up with this number here of $154,000 that we needed to raise to fund and accomplish
this building project, phase one. This is just phase one. And so when we started this about
10 months ago, we presented it to the church family. And I'll never forget when we talked about
(18:16):
how long it was going to take us to raise that money. And I don't know what it was that moved me
to say by June 30th next year. And the church was like, yeah, we can do that. And I remember
walking away from that like, that's crazy. Because there weren't that many people at that business
(18:38):
meeting. I mean, it was a good turnout. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, are we really going to
be able to raise those funds? And I remember thinking, this is just insane to even attempt it.
And here we are, about $2,000 away from reaching that goal, 10 months out.
(19:00):
That is a kudos, a tip of my cap to this church family for being faithful.
And, you know, it's been amazing watching how God has worked on this building project
because we've had people, there was a gentleman who is not connected to this church in any
way, form, or fashion, except that he knows the founding church's pastor, or the founding
church pastor, however you phrase it, Pastor Terry Darnell. He knows him down in Texas.
(19:24):
And as he was talking about it, he made a $4,000 donation towards our drive. Praise God. Amen.
Someone else, a member of this church dropped a big chunk of change on it that moved our
red line up. And then someone else did a $40,000 match,
(19:46):
Which, by the way, we need $2,000.
If we give $1,000, the match covers the other $1,000.
That's about $10 apiece.
If you just do $10, that's my appeal.
$10 apiece today, and we'll finish this off.
And I could go in good conscience on up to Everett.
(20:07):
But I have to share a secret with you because people have stepped up.
People have been faithful.
There have been a lot of people who have just faithfully given a little bit each week because that's all they could do.
And there have been other people who give a little bit more because that's what they can do.
I remember somebody come up and asked me, Pastor, I can only afford about $5 every month.
(20:30):
Praise God.
Because that $5 every month helped us get to where we are.
But there were other people who donated their time and their talents.
And I remember one person donated a car.
You know, we got creative with this, and it just all come together to help us reach this goal.
(20:50):
But my secret is, God is the one who really powered this campaign.
God was the one who inspired people to donate.
God was the one who inspired people to give their time, their talents.
God was the one who enabled us to be able to give.
(21:11):
It was God behind all of this who empowered it, who inspired, who blessed,
and to raise this amount of funds almost two months early.
Come on now.
God had his hands all over this, didn't he?
But this was just phase one.
(21:33):
Phase two is still looming in the future of this church.
And I know it's intimidating when you think about phase two,
Because we look at phase two, this was easy potatoes.
Phase two is a whole building.
It's architects, that's contractors, that's all the things that go with it.
(21:56):
That's arguing about, you know, how it's going to look and what color the carpet's going to be.
And I'm not going to be part of that conversation.
I'm going to leave that to you guys.
But phase two, when I think about phase two, you know, something tempts me to get worried
(22:17):
and say, you know what?
I wonder if they're going to be able to finish phase two.
I wonder if they're, or if, you know, well, the pastor left, so we're just going to let
it go.
It's not going to happen.
And Alan has a check for $2.5 million.
(22:38):
Someone just
came to me.
Thank you.
Stay here.
I need a witness.
Alan just told me that someone came up and informed him that we indeed collected what we needed to finish that today.
(23:01):
It's anonymous, but we collected it.
It is finished.
Come with me, please.
I say this because you need to stand here.
You've, as a head elder and the one who's going to be heading this up,
we're just going to move that up to the top.
There.
(23:23):
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you.
Does God have this under control?
God's got this, doesn't he?
God's all over this.
And thank you.
That was the best illustration I could have come up with.
I was trying to think, man, we're still 2,000 short.
How do I go into this?
(23:44):
Ten months in, and God has helped us finish this.
And so when I think about phase two and I start looking at the daunting task of what lies before you, I think about that.
I look at this as my evidence.
But 1 Corinthians chapter 3, because of the time, I'm not going to read the whole thing
(24:06):
going into it, but I'm going to summarize it for you.
And just, I'm going to assign this as your evening reading homework.
Okay, so go home and read 1 Corinthians 3.
We're going to touch on specific verses.
But basically, what Paul is addressing is there's divisions in the church because this
is the way it starts out.
There's divisions in the church and Paul's kind of correcting them because there are people
(24:28):
are saying, well, I'm a follower of Paul, and other people are saying, I'm a follower of Apollos,
and you look at other places, other people are talking about Peter, and
have you ever related to a specific preacher? Have you ever had that one preacher, a lot of
(24:48):
people it's Joel Osteen, some people it's Doug Batchelor, some people it's Sean Boonstra,
whomever it may be, that just when they speak, they connect you to God in a special way.
Well, these people were taking it to extremes because this is the one who's right. No,
this is the one. And they become followers of men is what's happening. And so that's what Paul is
(25:13):
addressing when he says this. But when you get down to verse five, it says, who then is Paul and
who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. You know, people donated their money,
(25:35):
people donated their time, people donated their talents, but God was the one who was behind this
building project the whole time. And that's what Paul is saying here in the church. He planted the
Corinthian church. He laid down the foundation. But Apollos, people heard Apollos. He's this
eloquent speaker. He's really good at what he does. And they're like, I follow Apollos. And Paul said,
(25:57):
you don't need to follow specific people. Keep your eyes on Christ. Focus on God. God's the one
that really made this church plant in Corinth happen. And so Paul's addressing them is that
You guys are focused on the wrong thing.
Look at verse 7.
So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
(26:25):
Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
For we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field.
You are God's building.
Paul's approaching all this division, all this distraction.
(26:50):
And he says, yes, I planted this church.
Other people came and watered it.
In other words, they followed him in leadership.
His time with Corinth was done, and others came in to follow,
to lead the church to the next step.
And then they leave, and someone else comes in and leads them to the next step.
And it just keeps moving the church forward.
(27:11):
In fact, by this time, we're probably looking at a man named Crispus would be the leader,
probably the pastor at that time.
You know, here it was Pastor Darnell, then it was Pastor Salisbury, and Ralph Robinson
came in, and then I came in.
You know, in other words, to put it in the context, this is what's going on in Corinth,
and people are getting divided over this.
Which pastor was the best pastor that we had along the way?
(27:33):
And Paul's saying, stop, because it's not about the pastors.
It's about God.
It's about God.
God is the one who makes the church grow.
God is the true leader of the church.
People get distracted by other people.
They start worrying about what's going to happen next.
(27:55):
They start looking and seeing what's going on in the world and what's going to happen to us.
And people start getting nervous and start getting fretful.
Paul's saying, don't worry about all that.
Is the building project finally going to get finished?
Don't get distracted by that.
(28:18):
Because Paul is saying here, Pastor Vince, why are you worried?
Pastor Vince, why are you so concerned that something bad is going to happen when you leave?
God's got this.
God has brought this along.
for the last two and a half, almost three years.
(28:41):
God is the true leader of this church.
None of the rest of this is as important
as that God has a plan,
and it's God's perfect plan.
He knows who the next pastor is.
He knows where the money's going to come from
to build that building out back.
And when I realized that,
(29:03):
I can comfortably move on to my next assignment
because I know God's got this church.
We're still going to be friends.
We're still going to talk.
We're still going to communicate.
I'm still going to love you as I always have.
But I know that God's got this church
in the palm of his hands.
(29:25):
It's not about Vince.
It's about God.
155,000 in less than a year.
God's got this.
I can let go and let God.
And so I remember some of the conversations I've had with people,
and I know these conversations will continue.
(29:47):
How big of a building?
How many rooms?
What size are the rooms?
What color are we going to paint it?
What kind of building materials?
And building materials are important.
Building materials are important.
Here in the desert, you know that about as well as anybody else
because you don't build with the same stuff here.
When we moved here from the Midwest and we started looking around
(30:08):
and I was like, what in the world?
All the houses look the same.
There's a beige and a brown and a kind of a beige-ish gray or whatever it is,
but that's it.
You really don't see any other colors.
They all look the same.
Back where I live, man, they were built in all kinds of brick, you name it.
(30:29):
Wood, signing, aluminum, I've seen it all.
But in Arizona, you can't tell the difference between the neighborhoods.
And I remember when I first got here, I was doing door-to-door sales for Christian books
and knocking on doors.
We call it call porter or literature evangelism.
And I remember going and knocking on doors, and I get into these neighborhoods,
(30:52):
and at first I thought all the houses look the same, everybody's going to be the same.
And I get there, and they're like, everybody's broke.
And I'm like, wow.
And it sounds a little bit superficial maybe that a man of God would be concerned,
but that was our only income.
And I'm like, I've got to be able to support my family.
So I called up my supervisor.
(31:12):
You guys probably, some of you remember Jason Carlson.
He was the guy who was my supervisor at the time.
And I called him up.
I said, Jason, I need your help.
What do you need?
How do I tell the difference between the different neighborhoods?
I said, I plan to go to everybody, but, you know, I got to mix this up a little bit.
(31:32):
I got to have some good days mixed in because we need to eat on Thursday just as much as we need to eat on Tuesday, you know.
And so I've got to be able to mix this up.
How do you tell the difference between the neighborhoods?
And he said, well, you can't tell by looking on the outside.
It's Arizona.
They all look the same on the outside.
He said, you can't tell until you look on the inside.
(31:57):
And I don't know if he realized what he was saying.
Maybe he did.
You know, he was pretty smart that way.
But he didn't let on.
But tell me if you get this.
You can't tell from the outside a family's value.
(32:21):
A family's value is determined on what's on the inside.
Whether he intended that or not, that stuck with me ever since.
It's what's on the inside that makes a difference.
As this church moves forward, as you start phase two of God's building project,
(32:43):
I would challenge you
to remember something.
For we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field.
You are God's building.
It's not about the upgrades on this building.
Those are nice.
(33:03):
They needed to happen absolutely, and we praise God that it's accomplished.
The building back there needs to happen as well.
Let me just go down on record as saying you need the space.
You need a new kitchen.
You need a larger fellowship hall.
You need classrooms.
You need storage.
You need this to happen.
But it's not about that because you are God's church, the people, the inside of the building.
(33:35):
In fact, verse 16 puts it this way.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?
It's about what God is doing in you, the church.
as opposed to what God is doing to the building.
(33:59):
They're important.
I'm not kicking any of this to the curb,
but the priority has to be what God is doing inside you.
It has to be, there's going to be conversations
continuing of these building projects,
of these future plans, outreach efforts,
ministries to serve your communities.
(34:21):
But first and foremost, you are God's building project.
And it's interesting when you look at materials to build a building.
And then you look around the church with the concept that you are the church, that you're the building project.
Some of us come out stretching the wrapper a little bit.
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Some of us are a little more wrinkly than others.
Some of us are shorter.
Some of us are taller.
Some of us are different colors.
Some of us are, the list goes on.
We're all different.
Yet God uses each one of you to build his church because you're perfect for his plan.
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You are perfect for God's plan.
God wants you in his building project.
In fact, as we look at God working on us and building us as his project, you remember that Ezekiel said that God is writing his laws on our hearts, on the inside.
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See, the packaging doesn't matter.
It's what on the inside where God finds the value for his building project.
That's where God is looking.
What's on the inside?
And the wonderful thing about God is that it's not about discarding what doesn't fit.
God is changing and transforming what doesn't fit to make it fit.
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God changes us all.
Verse 10, according to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder,
I have laid the foundation and another builds on it.
but let each one take heed on how he builds it.
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It's important how you build your lives in God's building project because you are part of God's
perfect plan. Paul goes on to advise us on how we should build. And I'm just going to read a few
verses here, starting in verse 11. Listen to what he says. For no other foundation can anyone lay
than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
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Now, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it,
because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of which sword it is.
If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
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If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Your building materials matter.
First, it's important because of the foundation.
The foundation is Jesus Christ.
Christ on the cross.
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I love that we've had this cross up here ever since I got here, and I keep referring to it.
It's been in the same spot pretty much.
And I always know when I talk about the cross, I look right over here because this is the reminder of our foundation.
Without this, none of the rest of the building project matters.
This is the foundation.
This is everything for God's building project.
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Everything starts with Christ on the cross, his sacrifice for us because it was God's love for us that he sent his son to die for us.
That's his heart.
That's his inside.
That's what he's trying to transform our insides to be,
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to love in the same context that he loves.
That's the heart that we need to have inside us.
Because without this, Matthew 7 says,
if you're building on anything besides Christ on the cross,
you're building on sand, a beach that's getting ready to get washed away by the storms and the winds.
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The foundation is important, and the only foundation that will support God's building project is Jesus.
But the building materials are important, too, because, I mean, think seriously about whether you're going to use steel, wood, stucco, brick.
Kind of reminds me of Three Little Pigs.
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You remember the story of Three Little Pigs?
I mean, we're not that old.
I know my audience right here remembers.
Three Little Pigs, what happens?
There's three different pigs, and they build three different houses.
what they build the houses out of hay sticks and bricks it even rhymes hay sticks and bricks
right or straw some will say straw but it's three different and the wolf comes along the big bad
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wolf he's huffing and puffing what does he do at the first house yeah the building material wasn't
there was it uh second house what happens he huffs and he puffs and
it goes away right he blows it away but he gets to the third house
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what happens at the third house he huffs and he puffs
he blows himself away right
actually i have not heard that version before but i like that
he blows himself away man there's a lot of sermons in that one
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in the Bible, in this Bible, it says that it will be revealed by fire. The fire will test
each one's work. And in the Bible, when it talks about fire, it's talking about trials.
It's talking about things that hit you and hit you hard, that leave your life changed and maybe
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not changed in a way that you liked so much. And it constantly talks about fire, trial by fire.
And this is no different. This is what Paul's referring to is trial by fire. How you build
your house. Did you use the foundation of Jesus Christ on the cross? And did you use good building
materials to build it up? Because these trials by fire is like the big bad wolf coming along,
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huffing and puffing, trying to blow your house down.
Is your house going to stand?
What you build with matters.
Just for reference, I'm not going to, well, I am.
2 Peter 1, 5 through 8 lists out our building materials.
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2 Peter 1, 5 through 8.
But also for this reason, giving all diligence.
Add to your faith virtue.
Notice the building they're adding.
To virtue, knowledge.
To knowledge, self-control.
To self-control, perseverance.
To perseverance, godliness.
To godliness, brotherly kindness.
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And to brotherly kindness, love.
There's your list of building materials to build your spiritual house.
You build it on the foundation.
And then look at this.
2 Peter 1, 5 through 8.
If you don't have those in your life,
Time to go to the hardware store and start stocking up on your building materials.
But Peter is helping us understand what it takes to build this house that's going to stand forever,
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the kind of building materials that God uses in his building project.
And there's one more thing, and this by far is most important to remember when you're starting your building project.
1 Corinthians 3, 18.
Let no one deceive himself.
If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
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For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written,
he catches the wise in their own craftiness.
And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile.
Therefore, let no one boast in men for all things are yours,
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come.
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All are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's.
Paul brings it full circle.
There's so many things that we can get caught up in this world.
So many distractions, politics, religions.
Focus on God.
Focus on God.
That's where the rubber hits the road.
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That's where your foundation is.
That's where your building holds and stands fast.
And it's because it's by God's plan.
you notice he says men's wisdom is terrible it's terrible our wisdom we think we're smart
and then we stand next to god and god's plan june 30th this year i thought this is a terrible plan
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it's not gonna work we're gonna have to extend this out but god's plan in god's plan he was
laughing at me because he said no you're gonna be done by may 17th
God's got this.
God is your foundation.
Christ is your foundation.
Choose your building materials wisely.
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There's a story told of a couple who won the lottery back in Missouri.
This is where I'm from.
This is back when I was in sales and I was delivering bread.
And I remember this couple wins the lottery back when a million dollars was a lot of money.
And they started a building project, building their dream home.
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And they picked a place out in the woods.
It's rural Missouri.
They picked a place out in the woods, and it's up on the side of this hill.
And they built this house.
It's a nice two-story house, and everything was just gorgeous.
They paid the architect a great amount of money to design this house just the way they wanted it.
And they get the best construction crew out there and the best contractors and the best everything
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because they've won the lottery.
They can afford to do this.
And every day they go out there, they go to look at this place.
It's so secluded.
It's quiet.
They imagine the days.
In fact, on this house in the plans, there was a deck in the back that overlooked a lake.
And the house was built just right.
But the sun went down over that lake every night.
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And they just envisioned themselves.
They envisioned themselves every night sitting there on that deck, sipping their southern iced teas, the sweet tea,
sipping their southern iced teas, watching that sunset together every night for the rest of their lives.
And so they couldn't help themselves but to drive out day after day after day, checking how far along is it?
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How far have we come? Can we see the kitchen yet? Can we see this?
And just so excited to see this coming together.
And one day they got a call from the foreman.
And he said, I need you to come.
I have something important we need to talk about.
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And the tone of his voice made them nervous.
What's happened to our dream house?
And so they drive down this gravel road out in the middle of nowhere and they come up to the construction site.
And they pull up and they sit there and they kind of take a breath before we go and talk to this guy.
And the foreman looks up.
He's looking over plans.
He looks up, waves them over.
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They come over and he's still staring down at these plans and he's shaking his head.
They said, yes, we have a little problem.
The couple just groaned, oh, no.
What is it?
Because they poured every last dollar that they had won in the lottery into this house.
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They couldn't afford to go back and make changes.
Well, the foreman continued.
Nobody noticed this until today.
But the architect that designed this house forgot to make plans for a staircase.
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You can't get upstairs.
There's no plan for stairs in this blueprint.
There is no way to get upstairs in this house.
You are the temple of God.
You are God's building project.
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The good news is that God is the one who drew up the designs for this building project.
God doesn't make mistakes.
His plans are perfect.
He included a way to get upstairs in his building project.
Not only is Jesus the first floor, not only is he the foundation for this building project,
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Jesus is also the staircase to get upstairs.
As long as you place your faith in God's plan,
you have a way upstairs.
When I'm tempted to worry about this church,
when I'm tempted to,
are they going to keep moving forward?
Is something bad going to happen to this church?
Is it going to take 10 years to get the new pastor?
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Things like that run through my mind.
I remember it's God's plan for this church.
And his plan is perfect.
God has a plan.
God's got this.
And if you follow his perfect plan, you will find your way upstairs.
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And you will see his son face to face.
When I first got here, the first sermon that I preached, I asked you a question.
Anybody remember what that question was?
It's only almost three years.
I asked, do you believe in prayer?
As I leave, I ask you the same question.
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Do you believe in prayer?
Prayer is the key to following God's perfect plan.
Continue to pray.
He will pick up all the loose ends and tie them up.
He will bring your new pastor. He will see your building project through. He will take care of
all the things that you need him to take care of. Most importantly, he will see his building project
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through until the day that Jesus Christ comes. And we will see each other again then.
In anticipation of Jesus coming again, I want to call Seth up because for a closing song,
He's
going to lead us in a song.
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Feel free if you know the words to sing with him.
But if you don't, I think he does a pretty good job on his own.
They got to stop doing that to me.
They have no idea how hard it is to come up and follow that.
But that was a great job.
Very proud.
I'm very happy.
And I'm going to call Elder Josfat.
We need to.
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How many of you knew that we have a Kenyan church plant?
I think most of us by now.
We haven't kept it a secret.
Kenyans knew. But that said, we've been working on this, well, for quite a while now. It was
started from this church, and we've been working on it. They've been worshiped in a few different
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places, and they currently worship here. And they've got this tiny little room that we've
put them into worship, but they worship in their context there. And I would dare say that today may
change those dynamics a little bit. But we've announced it amongst the Kenyan believers,
and now we want to announce it to you. We have applied for what they call company status,
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which means they've grown enough, they've developed enough, and they've reached this
point where it's time to start spreading those wings and flying a little bit in their own church
setting. And so while they're still looking for a place to be able to do this, you know,
and we assume that they're, we assume they're still welcome here, right church? We're not,
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we're not kicking them out. We're here to still help. But that said, this is, if it's approved,
it's not approved yet. A couple more weeks, we'll know for sure. But if it's approved,
that means they've taken the next step to becoming their own church. And that is a praise God moment.
Part of that means that there's some people that have been coming and worshiping with them.
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They come here.
They live all around the valley.
But what we would normally do is a membership transfer.
And as most of you know, when you're trying to do this from one nation to another,
sometimes the wires get crossed and we can't find their membership.
And so what we've decided to do is what's called the profession of faith.
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And essentially all it's saying is these people are Seventh-day Adventists.
They have been Seventh-day Adventists.
They believe is Seventh-day Adventists.
But they want their membership here now to be part of this group that is potentially going to become a company.
And so we are actually asking these people to come in through profession of faith because we don't have the paperwork.
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So there's nothing new for these people other than their members here.
But I'm going to ask Elder Josvat, can we have them please stand so that the church can see who these people are in the Kenyan group?
No, they can just stand where they're at.
All right.
The Kenyan group, may you ask,
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right?
That's a small portion of our group that's actually standing.
Um, while you're standing, I just wanted to, I'm going to hand your certificates over to Elder
Josvat, but I did want to ask the church family at large, how many of you want to help me in
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welcoming their membership here through the profession of faith? As you can see, there's
quite a stack of people here that have decided to do this. Kenyan church family, this is your church
family, even if you become company status, this will always still be part of your church family
because we are church all around the world. So congratulations to your group. Thank you. God
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bless you. And before we go too far into this, I want to call your brother Timothy up because
Timothy is not doing profession of faith. Timothy, if you're, I know I saw you just a moment ago,
if you could come up here for just a minute, you're the only one I'm going to embarrass from
the group and bring up front, but there's a reason for this because you have chosen to be baptized
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today. And I have, if you just stand up here between me and Elder Josfat,
Because you're not coming by profession of faith, but because you're coming by baptism,
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I have a little test that I, and my church family here knows the test that I do.
I don't change the questions.
It's the same questions.
But do you love Jesus?
Yes.
And is it your desire that Jesus be your Lord and Savior?
Yes.
And is it your desire to be part of this church?
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Yes.
Amen.
So with Timothy up here, we're going to have a special prayer for him.
We have a gift for him.
And this gift is just a symbol of the spiritual gift that God gives his people that choose to follow him.
But before I have the prayer, can I ask how many of you want to join me in welcoming Timothy into this church family as well?
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Amen.
This is your church family all over the Mesa Valley, all over.
But I do want to have a prayer with you.
Can we do that?
let's pray father in heaven i thank you for timothy i thank you for his decision to follow you
all the days of his life and lord we thank you that he has chosen you as his savior he has chosen to
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follow the only one who can save and that is your son jesus christ but father we also know that
the devil is still out there the battle is not over yet and we pray that you would send your
angels to watch over Timothy and his family. We pray that you would pour out your Holy Spirit
into Timothy, that you would give him spiritual gifts so that now he can share Jesus in a special
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way with the people that he comes into contact with. Lord, we pray that you will bless him,
that you will walk with him, and then that fine day, you will bring Timothy with all of us
into your kingdom, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
And maybe see.
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I'll hand this off a little bit.
If it gets loud and noisy, it's my fault.
We have another, I'm going to say KK for last.
And actually, I'm going to put this here.
I have another special person here today.
And she has chosen, she's been baptized in the past.
And I called her last week.
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She's actually been attending this church for quite some time.
She's been friends with Alice.
They study together regularly.
They pray together regularly.
And I stopped her.
I said, Jen, you're already part of our church family, but would you like to make this official?
And so we talked about it.
Because she's been baptized before, she would like to join our church through a profession of faith.
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And so she asked me, do I have to get up front?
Are you going to embarrass me?
And I said, no, absolutely not.
But I am going to ask.
I warned her ahead of time.
Would you please hold up your hand just so people know who you are?
And, Jen, I'm going to ask you the same questions.
Do you love Jesus?
Is it your desire that Jesus is your Savior?
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And is it your desire to be part of his family in eternity?
Okay, she has answered yes to all of those.
How many of you want to join me in welcoming her also into this church family?
And we also have a gift for you.
And I'm going to pray a special prayer for you as well.
Father in heaven, we thank you for Jen and her decision.
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Lord, she's been a blessing to this church already.
And we're just thankful that we've now made it official.
She is officially part of this church family.
But Lord, we pray the same for her, that you would send your angels to watch over her,
to keep her safe, to guide her in all her steps and ways.
But we also pray that you would give her the Holy Spirit and gift her with her spiritual gifts
so that as she comes into contact with people, everyone will know that she is one of yours.
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And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Last but not least, I want to call Kennedy up here. You
guys didn't know you ran for this long of an interlude. Kennedy, I'll walk halfway over to you.
I'll meet you halfway. Kennedy, I already gave her story when we baptized her, so I don't need to say
an awful lot other than I am extremely proud of you. And the one thing that I am, the one thing
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that makes me very sad, we don't have a gift for you yet, but that's okay because we're going to
get a gift and we're going to bring it to your house. Okay. So we'll make sure that you get a
gift for, for being baptized and, and being part of God's family. But KK, I also have to ask you
the same test questions. Are you ready? Did you study? We went over this before. Yes, that's the
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right answer. Okay, sorry. That was a pop quiz. I do change the questions once in a while.
Kennedy, do you love Jesus? And do you choose him to be your savior? And do you want to be part of
his family forever and ever? Yes. How many of you want to join me in welcoming Kennedy into this
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church family. And I want to have a prayer for Kennedy as well. Father in heaven, we thank you
for Kennedy and her decision this morning. Lord, we know she has been yours already for such a long
time. But today she made that statement through baptism in front of all these people. And Lord,
we are thankful. We do pray that you would send angels to watch over her family as well to keep
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them safe in all the ways that they go. And Lord, we pray that you would give your Holy Spirit to
Kennedy. She's already gifted. We heard her gift up on the stage, but we pray that you would bless
her in sharing Jesus wherever she goes. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. You can go sit
down now. Is there anybody else? I have time. Thank you. Um, and welcoming everybody. And we're
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going to invite Shiloh to come up for, nope, we're not going to do that, are we?
Then I'll step to the side.
So we wanted to honor and give you some gifts, your whole family.
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You've meant a lot to our church at Mesa Palms.
And so we're inviting Jovi and Seth and Pastor up here to be with us.
We'll have you come all the way up.
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Anyway, we have a plaque, and we're hoping that you open it at the potluck so you can share it with us.
But it is a plaque that I think it's made out of glass, or not maybe glass, with a clock.
And it says, Dear Wolsey Family, we will remember fondly the time you spent with us.
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Thank you for your friendship, your leadership in ministry.
And we put down the dates, and hopefully we got it right, September 17, 2022 to May 17, 2025.
And it says, Love, Mesa Palms Church Family.
And we love you guys very much.
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Thank you.
Thank you.
We're not done yet.
That was from the church.
The Sabbath school classes all got together.
And we know, Jovi, you have two growing boys.
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And so we also know that it is going to take a while for you to get from Phoenix up to Everett.
So in
here, we have all kinds of snacks.
Amen.
And all kinds of little things.
And this is for you, Seth, because we know that rather than saying, Daddy, are we there yet?
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That's right.
We have some
things to keep him busy.
Praise God.
Along the way.
So from the Sabbath school classes, we want to say, and personally, we've been there from the beginning, you and I.
Yep.
I hate having to say goodbye a second time.
But God bless you.
And I hope, I know that you will do very, very well in your ministry in Everett.
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We hate to see you go.
But we also know God has other plans for you as well.
Amen.
Thank you.
Before you leave, by the way, the pastor probably gets to carry those.
I think there's gold bricks.
Sharon, come back up here.
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I know prayer is important.
And I just wanted to offer a prayer from our church to you guys as you follow God's leading.
Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful, beautiful family.
And Lord, be with them.
Be with Pastor Vince, Jovi, Amber, and Seth.
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And may you lead and guide wherever you'd have them go.
thank you for this opportunity
that we can share with them
in our church from Mesa Palm
and we will continue to pray for them
in Jesus name
Amen
Amen
Thank you
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I'll say more in a minute, but thank you so much.
This church has been such a blessing to my family.
So thank God for you.
and for the snacks.
Thank you, Pastor, and your family.
And thank you, Master Church.
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I want to welcome Shaila to read the scripture.
Good morning.
Happy Sabbath.
I had the pleasure of reading the last scripture before the pastor leaves.
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We will miss the pastor and his family.
So I am reading the first Corinthians chapter 3 verse 9.
And it says, for we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field and you are God's building.
Amen.
Amen.
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There are so many people that I could say hold a special place in my heart here.
She is one of them.
Because when we started asking about baptisms, she about, well, I don't even know how to explain it.
Her exuberance was so much that she didn't even have to say anything because I knew she wanted to.
and she asked me repetitively week after week after week, pastor.
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And I know her cousins and sister and family, everyone's been such a blessing.
And I'm looking at the clock.
I'm not going to go into a big thank you speech.
In fact, I guess as my last Sabbath, I should give you the option looking at the clock.
Do you want to go to lunch or do you want one more sermon?
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on sermon and lunch okay well there you go those of you who thought you were leaving sorry we've
got we've got your afternoon planned um before i get into that i just want to draw your attention
here do you notice how close we are to the top of that my prayer was that when i stood up here today
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that it would be all the way up to the top and we're like one tick away, maybe two.
And my prayer is subliminal messages that after today, before I leave, that that will truly be
finished. Because we started that project a little over 10 months ago. You remember? It wasn't that
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long ago. A little over 10 months. We had a church business meeting. We sat right in here and we
talked about the needs of the church. And of course, the big thing that was going on was that
empty lot back there and what building we wanted to put on it. But we also sat down and we talked
about, you know, we've got some needs in this church. And we just made a big list over it. And
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we come up with this number here of $154,000 that we needed to raise to fund and accomplish
this building project, phase one. This is just phase one. And so when we started this about
10 months ago, we presented it to the church family. And I'll never forget when we talked about
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how long it was going to take us to raise that money. And I don't know what it was that moved me
to say by June 30th next year. And the church was like, yeah, we can do that. And I remember
walking away from that like, that's crazy. Because there weren't that many people at that business
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meeting. I mean, it was a good turnout. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, are we really going to
be able to raise those funds? And I remember thinking, this is just insane to even attempt it.
And here we are, about $2,000 away from reaching that goal, 10 months out.
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That is a kudos, a tip of my cap to this church family for being faithful.
And, you know, it's been amazing watching how God has worked on this building project
because we've had people, there was a gentleman who is not connected to this church in any
way, form, or fashion, except that he knows the founding church's pastor, or the founding
church pastor, however you phrase it, Pastor Terry Darnell. He knows him down in Texas.
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And as he was talking about it, he made a $4,000 donation towards our drive. Praise God. Amen.
Someone else, a member of this church dropped a big chunk of change on it that moved our
red line up. And then someone else did a $40,000 match,
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Which, by the way, we need $2,000.
If we give $1,000, the match covers the other $1,000.
That's about $10 apiece.
If you just do $10, that's my appeal.
$10 apiece today, and we'll finish this off.
And I could go in good conscience on up to Everett.
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But I have to share a secret with you because people have stepped up.
People have been faithful.
There have been a lot of people who have just faithfully given a little bit each week because that's all they could do.
And there have been other people who give a little bit more because that's what they can do.
I remember somebody come up and asked me, Pastor, I can only afford about $5 every month.
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Praise God.
Because that $5 every month helped us get to where we are.
But there were other people who donated their time and their talents.
And I remember one person donated a car.
You know, we got creative with this, and it just all come together to help us reach this goal.
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But my secret is, God is the one who really powered this campaign.
God was the one who inspired people to donate.
God was the one who inspired people to give their time, their talents.
God was the one who enabled us to be able to give.
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It was God behind all of this who empowered it, who inspired, who blessed,
and to raise this amount of funds almost two months early.
Come on now.
God had his hands all over this, didn't he?
But this was just phase one.
(21:33):
Phase two is still looming in the future of this church.
And I know it's intimidating when you think about phase two,
Because we look at phase two, this was easy potatoes.
Phase two is a whole building.
It's architects, that's contractors, that's all the things that go with it.
(21:56):
That's arguing about, you know, how it's going to look and what color the carpet's going to be.
And I'm not going to be part of that conversation.
I'm going to leave that to you guys.
But phase two, when I think about phase two, you know, something tempts me to get worried
(22:17):
and say, you know what?
I wonder if they're going to be able to finish phase two.
I wonder if they're, or if, you know, well, the pastor left, so we're just going to let
it go.
It's not going to happen.
And Alan has a check for $2.5 million.
(22:38):
Someone just
came to me.
Thank you.
Stay here.
I need a witness.
Alan just told me that someone came up and informed him that we indeed collected what we needed to finish that today.
(23:01):
It's anonymous, but we collected it.
It is finished.
Come with me, please.
I say this because you need to stand here.
You've, as a head elder and the one who's going to be heading this up,
we're just going to move that up to the top.
There.
(23:23):
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you.
Does God have this under control?
God's got this, doesn't he?
God's all over this.
And thank you.
That was the best illustration I could have come up with.
I was trying to think, man, we're still 2,000 short.
How do I go into this?
(23:44):
Ten months in, and God has helped us finish this.
And so when I think about phase two and I start looking at the daunting task of what lies before you, I think about that.
I look at this as my evidence.
But 1 Corinthians chapter 3, because of the time, I'm not going to read the whole thing
(24:06):
going into it, but I'm going to summarize it for you.
And just, I'm going to assign this as your evening reading homework.
Okay, so go home and read 1 Corinthians 3.
We're going to touch on specific verses.
But basically, what Paul is addressing is there's divisions in the church because this
is the way it starts out.
There's divisions in the church and Paul's kind of correcting them because there are people
(24:28):
are saying, well, I'm a follower of Paul, and other people are saying, I'm a follower of Apollos,
and you look at other places, other people are talking about Peter, and
have you ever related to a specific preacher? Have you ever had that one preacher, a lot of
(24:48):
people it's Joel Osteen, some people it's Doug Batchelor, some people it's Sean Boonstra,
whomever it may be, that just when they speak, they connect you to God in a special way.
Well, these people were taking it to extremes because this is the one who's right. No,
this is the one. And they become followers of men is what's happening. And so that's what Paul is
(25:13):
addressing when he says this. But when you get down to verse five, it says, who then is Paul and
who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. You know, people donated their money,
(25:35):
people donated their time, people donated their talents, but God was the one who was behind this
building project the whole time. And that's what Paul is saying here in the church. He planted the
Corinthian church. He laid down the foundation. But Apollos, people heard Apollos. He's this
eloquent speaker. He's really good at what he does. And they're like, I follow Apollos. And Paul said,
(25:57):
you don't need to follow specific people. Keep your eyes on Christ. Focus on God. God's the one
that really made this church plant in Corinth happen. And so Paul's addressing them is that
You guys are focused on the wrong thing.
Look at verse 7.
So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
(26:25):
Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
For we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field.
You are God's building.
Paul's approaching all this division, all this distraction.
(26:50):
And he says, yes, I planted this church.
Other people came and watered it.
In other words, they followed him in leadership.
His time with Corinth was done, and others came in to follow,
to lead the church to the next step.
And then they leave, and someone else comes in and leads them to the next step.
And it just keeps moving the church forward.
(27:11):
In fact, by this time, we're probably looking at a man named Crispus would be the leader,
probably the pastor at that time.
You know, here it was Pastor Darnell, then it was Pastor Salisbury, and Ralph Robinson
came in, and then I came in.
You know, in other words, to put it in the context, this is what's going on in Corinth,
and people are getting divided over this.
Which pastor was the best pastor that we had along the way?
(27:33):
And Paul's saying, stop, because it's not about the pastors.
It's about God.
It's about God.
God is the one who makes the church grow.
God is the true leader of the church.
People get distracted by other people.
They start worrying about what's going to happen next.
(27:55):
They start looking and seeing what's going on in the world and what's going to happen to us.
And people start getting nervous and start getting fretful.
Paul's saying, don't worry about all that.
Is the building project finally going to get finished?
Don't get distracted by that.
(28:18):
Because Paul is saying here, Pastor Vince, why are you worried?
Pastor Vince, why are you so concerned that something bad is going to happen when you leave?
God's got this.
God has brought this along.
for the last two and a half, almost three years.
(28:41):
God is the true leader of this church.
None of the rest of this is as important
as that God has a plan,
and it's God's perfect plan.
He knows who the next pastor is.
He knows where the money's going to come from
to build that building out back.
And when I realized that,
(29:03):
I can comfortably move on to my next assignment
because I know God's got this church.
We're still going to be friends.
We're still going to talk.
We're still going to communicate.
I'm still going to love you as I always have.
But I know that God's got this church
in the palm of his hands.
(29:25):
It's not about Vince.
It's about God.
155,000 in less than a year.
God's got this.
I can let go and let God.
And so I remember some of the conversations I've had with people,
and I know these conversations will continue.
(29:47):
How big of a building?
How many rooms?
What size are the rooms?
What color are we going to paint it?
What kind of building materials?
And building materials are important.
Building materials are important.
Here in the desert, you know that about as well as anybody else
because you don't build with the same stuff here.
When we moved here from the Midwest and we started looking around
(30:08):
and I was like, what in the world?
All the houses look the same.
There's a beige and a brown and a kind of a beige-ish gray or whatever it is,
but that's it.
You really don't see any other colors.
They all look the same.
Back where I live, man, they were built in all kinds of brick, you name it.
(30:29):
Wood, signing, aluminum, I've seen it all.
But in Arizona, you can't tell the difference between the neighborhoods.
And I remember when I first got here, I was doing door-to-door sales for Christian books
and knocking on doors.
We call it call porter or literature evangelism.
And I remember going and knocking on doors, and I get into these neighborhoods,
(30:52):
and at first I thought all the houses look the same, everybody's going to be the same.
And I get there, and they're like, everybody's broke.
And I'm like, wow.
And it sounds a little bit superficial maybe that a man of God would be concerned,
but that was our only income.
And I'm like, I've got to be able to support my family.
So I called up my supervisor.
(31:12):
You guys probably, some of you remember Jason Carlson.
He was the guy who was my supervisor at the time.
And I called him up.
I said, Jason, I need your help.
What do you need?
How do I tell the difference between the different neighborhoods?
I said, I plan to go to everybody, but, you know, I got to mix this up a little bit.
(31:32):
I got to have some good days mixed in because we need to eat on Thursday just as much as we need to eat on Tuesday, you know.
And so I've got to be able to mix this up.
How do you tell the difference between the neighborhoods?
And he said, well, you can't tell by looking on the outside.
It's Arizona.
They all look the same on the outside.
He said, you can't tell until you look on the inside.
(31:57):
And I don't know if he realized what he was saying.
Maybe he did.
You know, he was pretty smart that way.
But he didn't let on.
But tell me if you get this.
You can't tell from the outside a family's value.
(32:21):
A family's value is determined on what's on the inside.
Whether he intended that or not, that stuck with me ever since.
It's what's on the inside that makes a difference.
As this church moves forward, as you start phase two of God's building project,
(32:43):
I would challenge you
to remember something.
For we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field.
You are God's building.
It's not about the upgrades on this building.
Those are nice.
(33:03):
They needed to happen absolutely, and we praise God that it's accomplished.
The building back there needs to happen as well.
Let me just go down on record as saying you need the space.
You need a new kitchen.
You need a larger fellowship hall.
You need classrooms.
You need storage.
You need this to happen.
But it's not about that because you are God's church, the people, the inside of the building.
(33:35):
In fact, verse 16 puts it this way.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?
It's about what God is doing in you, the church.
as opposed to what God is doing to the building.
(33:59):
They're important.
I'm not kicking any of this to the curb,
but the priority has to be what God is doing inside you.
It has to be, there's going to be conversations
continuing of these building projects,
of these future plans, outreach efforts,
ministries to serve your communities.
(34:21):
But first and foremost, you are God's building project.
And it's interesting when you look at materials to build a building.
And then you look around the church with the concept that you are the church, that you're the building project.
Some of us come out stretching the wrapper a little bit.
(34:45):
Some of us are a little more wrinkly than others.
Some of us are shorter.
Some of us are taller.
Some of us are different colors.
Some of us are, the list goes on.
We're all different.
Yet God uses each one of you to build his church because you're perfect for his plan.
(35:09):
You are perfect for God's plan.
God wants you in his building project.
In fact, as we look at God working on us and building us as his project, you remember that Ezekiel said that God is writing his laws on our hearts, on the inside.
(35:32):
See, the packaging doesn't matter.
It's what on the inside where God finds the value for his building project.
That's where God is looking.
What's on the inside?
And the wonderful thing about God is that it's not about discarding what doesn't fit.
God is changing and transforming what doesn't fit to make it fit.
(35:57):
God changes us all.
Verse 10, according to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder,
I have laid the foundation and another builds on it.
but let each one take heed on how he builds it.
(36:21):
It's important how you build your lives in God's building project because you are part of God's
perfect plan. Paul goes on to advise us on how we should build. And I'm just going to read a few
verses here, starting in verse 11. Listen to what he says. For no other foundation can anyone lay
than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
(36:41):
Now, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it,
because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of which sword it is.
If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
(37:04):
If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Your building materials matter.
First, it's important because of the foundation.
The foundation is Jesus Christ.
Christ on the cross.
(37:26):
I love that we've had this cross up here ever since I got here, and I keep referring to it.
It's been in the same spot pretty much.
And I always know when I talk about the cross, I look right over here because this is the reminder of our foundation.
Without this, none of the rest of the building project matters.
This is the foundation.
This is everything for God's building project.
(37:49):
Everything starts with Christ on the cross, his sacrifice for us because it was God's love for us that he sent his son to die for us.
That's his heart.
That's his inside.
That's what he's trying to transform our insides to be,
(38:09):
to love in the same context that he loves.
That's the heart that we need to have inside us.
Because without this, Matthew 7 says,
if you're building on anything besides Christ on the cross,
you're building on sand, a beach that's getting ready to get washed away by the storms and the winds.
(38:30):
The foundation is important, and the only foundation that will support God's building project is Jesus.
But the building materials are important, too, because, I mean, think seriously about whether you're going to use steel, wood, stucco, brick.
Kind of reminds me of Three Little Pigs.
(38:50):
You remember the story of Three Little Pigs?
I mean, we're not that old.
I know my audience right here remembers.
Three Little Pigs, what happens?
There's three different pigs, and they build three different houses.
what they build the houses out of hay sticks and bricks it even rhymes hay sticks and bricks
right or straw some will say straw but it's three different and the wolf comes along the big bad
(39:13):
wolf he's huffing and puffing what does he do at the first house yeah the building material wasn't
there was it uh second house what happens he huffs and he puffs and
it goes away right he blows it away but he gets to the third house
(39:33):
what happens at the third house he huffs and he puffs
he blows himself away right
actually i have not heard that version before but i like that
he blows himself away man there's a lot of sermons in that one
(39:56):
in the Bible, in this Bible, it says that it will be revealed by fire. The fire will test
each one's work. And in the Bible, when it talks about fire, it's talking about trials.
It's talking about things that hit you and hit you hard, that leave your life changed and maybe
(40:16):
not changed in a way that you liked so much. And it constantly talks about fire, trial by fire.
And this is no different. This is what Paul's referring to is trial by fire. How you build
your house. Did you use the foundation of Jesus Christ on the cross? And did you use good building
materials to build it up? Because these trials by fire is like the big bad wolf coming along,
(40:38):
huffing and puffing, trying to blow your house down.
Is your house going to stand?
What you build with matters.
Just for reference, I'm not going to, well, I am.
2 Peter 1, 5 through 8 lists out our building materials.
(41:00):
2 Peter 1, 5 through 8.
But also for this reason, giving all diligence.
Add to your faith virtue.
Notice the building they're adding.
To virtue, knowledge.
To knowledge, self-control.
To self-control, perseverance.
To perseverance, godliness.
To godliness, brotherly kindness.
(41:21):
And to brotherly kindness, love.
There's your list of building materials to build your spiritual house.
You build it on the foundation.
And then look at this.
2 Peter 1, 5 through 8.
If you don't have those in your life,
Time to go to the hardware store and start stocking up on your building materials.
But Peter is helping us understand what it takes to build this house that's going to stand forever,
(41:46):
the kind of building materials that God uses in his building project.
And there's one more thing, and this by far is most important to remember when you're starting your building project.
1 Corinthians 3, 18.
Let no one deceive himself.
If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
(42:08):
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written,
he catches the wise in their own craftiness.
And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile.
Therefore, let no one boast in men for all things are yours,
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come.
(42:29):
All are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's.
Paul brings it full circle.
There's so many things that we can get caught up in this world.
So many distractions, politics, religions.
Focus on God.
Focus on God.
That's where the rubber hits the road.
(42:51):
That's where your foundation is.
That's where your building holds and stands fast.
And it's because it's by God's plan.
you notice he says men's wisdom is terrible it's terrible our wisdom we think we're smart
and then we stand next to god and god's plan june 30th this year i thought this is a terrible plan
(43:15):
it's not gonna work we're gonna have to extend this out but god's plan in god's plan he was
laughing at me because he said no you're gonna be done by may 17th
God's got this.
God is your foundation.
Christ is your foundation.
Choose your building materials wisely.
(43:35):
There's a story told of a couple who won the lottery back in Missouri.
This is where I'm from.
This is back when I was in sales and I was delivering bread.
And I remember this couple wins the lottery back when a million dollars was a lot of money.
And they started a building project, building their dream home.
(43:57):
And they picked a place out in the woods.
It's rural Missouri.
They picked a place out in the woods, and it's up on the side of this hill.
And they built this house.
It's a nice two-story house, and everything was just gorgeous.
They paid the architect a great amount of money to design this house just the way they wanted it.
And they get the best construction crew out there and the best contractors and the best everything
(44:20):
because they've won the lottery.
They can afford to do this.
And every day they go out there, they go to look at this place.
It's so secluded.
It's quiet.
They imagine the days.
In fact, on this house in the plans, there was a deck in the back that overlooked a lake.
And the house was built just right.
But the sun went down over that lake every night.
(44:44):
And they just envisioned themselves.
They envisioned themselves every night sitting there on that deck, sipping their southern iced teas, the sweet tea,
sipping their southern iced teas, watching that sunset together every night for the rest of their lives.
And so they couldn't help themselves but to drive out day after day after day, checking how far along is it?
(45:09):
How far have we come? Can we see the kitchen yet? Can we see this?
And just so excited to see this coming together.
And one day they got a call from the foreman.
And he said, I need you to come.
I have something important we need to talk about.
(45:31):
And the tone of his voice made them nervous.
What's happened to our dream house?
And so they drive down this gravel road out in the middle of nowhere and they come up to the construction site.
And they pull up and they sit there and they kind of take a breath before we go and talk to this guy.
And the foreman looks up.
He's looking over plans.
He looks up, waves them over.
(45:54):
They come over and he's still staring down at these plans and he's shaking his head.
They said, yes, we have a little problem.
The couple just groaned, oh, no.
What is it?
Because they poured every last dollar that they had won in the lottery into this house.
(46:15):
They couldn't afford to go back and make changes.
Well, the foreman continued.
Nobody noticed this until today.
But the architect that designed this house forgot to make plans for a staircase.
(46:45):
You can't get upstairs.
There's no plan for stairs in this blueprint.
There is no way to get upstairs in this house.
You are the temple of God.
You are God's building project.
(47:07):
The good news is that God is the one who drew up the designs for this building project.
God doesn't make mistakes.
His plans are perfect.
He included a way to get upstairs in his building project.
Not only is Jesus the first floor, not only is he the foundation for this building project,
(47:32):
Jesus is also the staircase to get upstairs.
As long as you place your faith in God's plan,
you have a way upstairs.
When I'm tempted to worry about this church,
when I'm tempted to,
are they going to keep moving forward?
Is something bad going to happen to this church?
Is it going to take 10 years to get the new pastor?
(47:56):
Things like that run through my mind.
I remember it's God's plan for this church.
And his plan is perfect.
God has a plan.
God's got this.
And if you follow his perfect plan, you will find your way upstairs.
(48:20):
And you will see his son face to face.
When I first got here, the first sermon that I preached, I asked you a question.
Anybody remember what that question was?
It's only almost three years.
I asked, do you believe in prayer?
As I leave, I ask you the same question.
(48:42):
Do you believe in prayer?
Prayer is the key to following God's perfect plan.
Continue to pray.
He will pick up all the loose ends and tie them up.
He will bring your new pastor. He will see your building project through. He will take care of
all the things that you need him to take care of. Most importantly, he will see his building project
(49:09):
through until the day that Jesus Christ comes. And we will see each other again then.
In anticipation of Jesus coming again, I want to call Seth up because for a closing song,
He's
going to lead us in a song.
(49:30):
Feel free if you know the words to sing with him.
But if you don't, I think he does a pretty good job on his own.
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