Faith | Hope | Love

[Pastor Brian Loveless]

Today we’ve sort of designated as Judgment House Sunday and by that we mean we are beginning in earnest now to get ready for October.  Two sets of dates, two weekends in October, if you want to jot this down: October 20th - 22nd and then October 27th - 29^th. We will be doing a production called Judgment House. This entire campus will be transformed into an eight scene walk through drama that really vividly depicts a story of life, death, and eternity.

We'll have thousands of people, ultimately, walking this campus and going through this dramatic depiction of those things. They'll end in a counseling room where we're able to clarify and re-clarify the gospel and thus far in the years that we've done this production we've had over a thousand people make professions of faith in Christ!  It's a powerful, powerful thing. 

I think the twin benefit is it not only leads people to Christ, a lot of churches all year long will befriended people with the intent of “I'm going to share Jesus with them and if I can't win them to Christ just yet, I'm going to invite them to judgement house.” A lot of our neighbors come to this production and they know that we put this on.  The other benefit is, frankly, it brings our church together like crazy when we have a need for so many people, hundreds of people, to be able to pull this off so everybody can have a role in this whether it's security..

Well Ron's going to get to that here in just a minute so I'm going to steal his thunder completely. We're going to show you just a little promotional video for Judgment House and then Ron Adams, who's done a marvelous job with us through the years, as well as a brand new leader in this, Keith Fletcher, are going to come and say a few words to you so watch this [promo video starts at 2:07]:

[Associate Pastor Ron Adams]

All right, does it make you want to get ready to do it now?  And just seeing those videos and watching them this week and seeing which ones to pick out it just makes me ready to do it again.  I’m looking forward to it.  Like we said, we're going to be starting on here pretty soon. For those that are in the cast, we will be starting up in July.  It's going to be a long process but we always have a good time doing it. Before Keith comes up here I'm going to give you some statistics from years past and then I'm going to introduce the coordinators for each part of Judgment House.

The last time we did judgment house, in 2015, we had 2,870 people come through our church with 518 salvations.  The national average for Judgement House is 7%.  That is 18% of the people that came through last Judgment House received Christ as Savior. 

In six years, the cumulative totals (and this is really exciting) six years of Judgment House we've had 16,142 people come through Judgment House with 2,034 receiving Christ.  Yeah again the national average is 7% and we're at 13% for the six years! Wo what we have done here in Grand Prairie at Calvary Baptist Church we have made a name for, not only our church, and for the city of Grand Prairie, but for our Lord and Savior!  We've got churches that are calling now, wanting to know when it starts, and when we're going to be doing it. The word is out there they know we're doing it and they can't wait to come. 

The prayer request that I'm going to ask of our church is start praying for those souls that are going to be coming.  Start now.  Start praying for those churches, and for the people that are coming, that their hearts will be prepared when they come through judgement house this year.

Keith will come here in just a second, he's going to describe the script and all the different opportunities that can take place during judgment house, but I'm going to give you the coordinators.  When you get your sign-up sheet and you see what area you want to do, you'll know which coordinator you need to go to see about an opening or if you can volunteer to help with them. 

So those are the different areas, those are the different coordinators that you want to speak with if you're interested in taking part in judgement house this year. Now I want to introduce this gentleman right here because I got to thinking last year, you know Keith has worked for Fox Sports Southwest and he's been a director and a producer behind the scenes of all of the programs that happens on that TV station.  I was thinking “man, what talents that we could use for judgement house.”  So he's going to co-direct Judgment House with me going forward and so if you need to speak with someone you can speak with either me or Keith and hopefully we can give you the information that you need. He going to come and describe the script and some of the other volunteer opportunities that we have. 

[CO-PRODUCER KEITH FLETCHER]
Thank you. Y'all ready for a little Christmas in October?  The scene one is going to open up with a Christmas Eve service has just let out and a church reception hall (for lack of a better term and to be sure it'll still be the Williams building) but the church service has just let out and we meet our three central characters:

Alice, an older teenager who lost her father a few years back kind of went all in on religion and God in prayer and after her father's death is kind of “meh”, she's done with that.

Next we meet Clyde.  Clyde is, well he's been around awhile and has a past and he's not proud of, he's kind of past those days, but church and church people it's not a place for him.  Heaven’s not a place for him and he's at a point where it's like he's okay with it.  You know, “I made my bed I got to sleep in it, its fine.  That's the way the cookie crumbles.” and we'll see how things go for him.

Next is Betty, a member of the church and she's one of those who knows everyone and talks about them and is one of those little church hens who just has done you know “yadda yadda”.   The Judgment House veterans don't see a very good path for Betty in it.  You know?  We'll see how things go!

I want to make a plea to those who haven't exactly got involved in a ministry effort. The Guatemala trip is like a bucket list thing, maybe someday, its not your budget this year, probably next year, you're in good company. If going door-to-door and handing out Bibles isn't your thing, not that this church does this or has, not there's anything wrong with that... I realize there's a baby step process in ministering to other people - this is your golden ticket!

There is no role to small. Preacher said its all hands on deck. A lot of us get involved as many of you.... we need you! Don't think that we got it covered. There are a lot of bases that needed to be covered. For some of you, I know that this can seem like an awfully small church sometimes. It can seem very connected and you're kind of on the outside.  Can I tell you that I've been there? I married into this church in 2005 to a third generation member.  My Mother in law, my brother in law, know everyone.  It took

so long, five or six years after starting here, to kind of feel connected to anyone until six years ago, three judgment houses ago, preacher asked me to be a tour guide. Reluctantly I said “if you need help yeah that’s fine.  If I’m taking someone’s spot and they went back in that's fine too.”  I did it and I got to meet everyone. I finally made put names to faces, remembered names. 

What it did was, it changed how I came to church and how I interacted at church. It changed why I came to church, really.  To be honest it affected my excuses for not coming to church.  Slowly it brought me closer to God! It changed my life. I realized, (are you sitting down?) all that time before, what I was getting out of the church was exactly what I was putting in to church. (Facepalm) Moses smell the roses! It's like this, you know, Wow!  So I'm just telling you if you're looking for the opportunity to get involved, this is your golden ticket to get to know everyone here. You're going to spend a lot of hours with them. You're not going to do anything you don't want to do.  Ushers, I I guess that's my cue to send people down, and we're going to have these little sign-up sheets. Put your interests and what you what you would like to do, and there's some options. You won't do anything you don't want to do. We need you to get involved. The numbers don't lie. Actually they do because that's just the numbers of people who commit to Christ here. that doesn't account for those who go back to their churches, into their hometowns, and do that the next week, or the next, or maybe six months down the line.  You got to get involved.  It's going to be rewarding in many, many, many ways. It's going to be fun. 

Christmas in October!  Thanks guys!  

Leslie and Lauren are two sisters that are looking to Jesus and reaching out to those in need, and as a result they have revolutionized their world. After a life-changing experience at camp, these girls decided to get serious about changing the lives of those around them; specifically the homeless lives. So they got an idea to create a ministry in their church called “H2O: Hope to Others.”

Basically, people from the church can pay $3 for a paper bag filled with food, water, and a Gospel tract that they keep in their car. So when they come across a homeless person they have some way to help them out in a practical manner. The project has provided these not-really-shy but not-really-outgoing girls with many opportunities to trust God and step outside of their comfort zones.

But it gets better. Since they’ve started, they’ve been featured on Oregon’s largest newspaper, have had calls from other churches wanting to start their own H2O program, and they have even started a website for people all around the world to catch the vision and passion. They have revolutionized their world.

In this last chapter you will be see how God loved the people of the city of Nineveh so much that he went to such great lengths to bring a revolution to the city when His messenger was resisting His will. And not only that, but how He is on a mission to bring a revolution to your world as well.

It’s in this chapter that God lowers Himself to actually engage in an argument with Jonah about His plan and desire to bring a revolution to the city of Nineveh. It was a silly argument to say the least, but God took him on nonetheless. And when you read it through, you can’t help but groan a little bit for Jonah. Like, “Jonah, dude, why are you being so selfish? What’s with all the whining?”

Before we start judging him again, though, here’s a few reasons why Jonah was living in self-pity and with a self-absorbed lifestyle. He was not accepting God’s will. He had forgotten how God had been merciful to Him. And he did not love God or his neighbor as well as he should have. So yeah, Jonah failed on several lower levels which led to this emotional breakdown.

But we are just as self-absorbed, self-pitying, argumentative, and disobedient as Jonah, aren’t we? Of course, we don’t like to admit it. But God has an incredible compassion for the people of the world, and thankfully, that involves us. So once again we see that Jonah’s story is our story. But this is the last chapter of his. The final phase of his story. And it’s about creating a revolution.

We’ve said the city of Nineveh represents the world, and it does. But we’re going to narrow it down now. Because what it really represents is not just THE world. It represents YOUR world. Where you live day to day. Your school. Your job. Your family. Your friends. Those are the people you are called to reach right now. We’re not talking about when you’re older, when you’re wiser, when you’re smarter, or when you’ve graduated. We’re talking about right now, you are called to reach YOUR WORLD.

And the whole, “I’m too young to do something spectacular.” is a flat-out lie. Throughout history teenagers have reached their worlds, and they’ve started revolutions, just like Leslie and Lauren. They created a movement in people that all pointed back to Jesus Christ. Teenagers throughout history have done heroic things and many of them have gone unnoticed, and unappreciated, but that makes them all the more honorable.

Even in the Bible we have many stories of young teenaged people making big differences. People like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel, Joseph, Mary, and Ruth. These are all teenagers who did amazing things for God to revolutionize THEIR WORLD. It seems like God prefers to use the young, the incapable, the weak, and the simple to do amazing things.

As a Christian. (young, old, or in between) you are called to abandon your own personal comfort and to bring a Christian revolution to your own world.

But why? If you’re like me, you want to know the why. Not in any sort of disrespectful way. People just want to know why they are supposed to do things. I’ve always asked why, and it’s always driven my mom crazy. “James, take the trash out.” “Why, it’s only half full?” If she was in a good mood I would get an answer, “Because there is meat rotting in it, that’s why.” And if not I got the answer that we’ve all heard before. “Because I said so, that’s why!”

It makes me happy that God doesn’t leave us in the dark. He knows what He is asking is hard. It’s sacrificial. And sometimes God answers our why questions with, “Because I’m God, and I said so, that’s why.” But sometimes He answers our questions. And He has answered this question for us, “Why do I need to sacrifice my personal comfort to bring a revolution to my world?” In my next three posts, the last three of this series, I’ll share with you the why and the how of revolutionizing your world.