← River Valley Church
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Amen. Amen. Amen. Isn't that incredible news? And, you know, I've been thinking and reflecting on what's gone on in our country over the last few weeks, and it was so encouraging and powerful. Pastor Rob, what you said. And as I've been reflecting on it, honestly, at times I felt overwhelmed. And it reminds me of a time I was in college and I went on a mission trip to Mexico, and I went to a very poor part of Mexico, and we were working in, like, very deep poverty. And I saw pain and suffering and injustice. And I remember looking at that. And as a young college student, I felt overwhelmed. I thought, how am I supposed to make a difference in the world? You know, how is my little drop of impact in the ocean of injustice supposed to make a difference? And I remember crying out to God about that and wrestling and saying, God, how could you create a world that's so messed up? And really wrestling and crying out. And it was a season of wrestling with God. And God ended up giving me a revelation. Truth that I understood in my mind, but now I understood it in my heart. And that truth is this. God is far from indifferent to our suffering. He sent the most precious thing he had in Jesus to enter into our mess. And that he showed us a way out. And that all evil, all pain, all suffering is the result of one thing, and that's sin. And there's only one solution to sin, and that is Jesus and the cross. Jesus is the only hope for our world. And that's why I'm so grateful for this church. Church. That's why I'm so grateful for Pastor Rob's visionary leadership. Because under this church's leadership, we are preaching the gospel all over the city and all over the world. And Jesus is the only half. Yes. Jesus is the only answer for this world. Now, I have to say, Pastor Rob, you must be doing something right, because you and Becca have raised two strong boys that love Jesus. And it's been a privilege for me to be able to get to know Connor over the last few years and more recently, Logan as well. And I should. That reminds me, I should mention I need to give a shout out to the Crosstown campus. No offense to the people here at Apple Valley and the other campuses, but we all know that Crosstown is the best. Also happens to be where my family attends. So, you know. But we are so grateful to be part of what God is doing. Speaking of my family, here's a picture of them. I have four children and one wife, which is the right way to do it, in case you're wondering. And I have to say, we live a very crazy missional life. Our life is unusual. And if it wasn't for my wife Jennifer, and the strength that God has given her, the fact that she is all in that she actually pushes me to. To do more than I would do on my own, I have to credit her because I couldn't do this life if it wasn't for a wife that God has given me like her. So I just wanted say that publicly to everyone. Now, God has called me to lead a missions organization called Steiger International. Now, Steiger is this global mission organization that mobilizes followers of Jesus to reach young people who would not walk into a church. Now, this is a global problem, but it's also a personal one. You know, I'm sure there are people in this room who can think of people very close to you who are not coming to church this weekend. And so we wanna make sure that you come away not only inspired, but equipped. I have a book, Pastor Rob mentioned it called Not Beyond Reach. How to Share Jesus with the Young, the Deconstructed, and the Non Religious. So make sure you pick up a copy. It's also a small group video series. But I particularly want to mention the Not Beyond Reach community that we have for parents and grandparents. If you're a parent or grandparents and your young adult children are not following Jesus, then we have a community for you which offers encouragement and prayer. But more than anything else, hope that no one is beyond reach. So make sure you talk to our team in the lobby to get connected into that. Now, our primary strategy as a mission is to raise up young missional leaders with the wild childlike faith to fuel evangelism and discipleship movements in cities all over the world. And what they do is they are relationally present in secular places where secular young people are. So they're in nightclubs, music venues, cafes, LGBTQ and activist spaces, and they're befriending sinners and sharing the love of Jesus, the truth of the cross, in a way that connects. And then they're forming discipleship communities that serve as a bridge from secular youth culture to the church. Now, Steiger's currently active in over 250 cities around the world, including here in Minneapolis. And certainly we know that we need to be engaging our city. And what I want to, I'm excited to share with you is that you can have, you can join the action. You can be part of this. We're actually, our Steiger Minneapolis team is Doing a creative evangelism outreach on October 31, and it's gonna be hosted at the city campus. So after this message, if you're like, I gotta do something, here's a chance. And we're gonna be using creative tools to spark spiritual conversations that allow us to share Jesus on the cross. And it's on Halloween weekend, which, by the way, is an amazing time to have spiritual conversations. So check that out. The other way that you can get involved in the action, and this is particularly for young adults, is we have a global team going to south by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Now, south by Southwest is this music, tech and art festival that draws hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. And we go there, we live amongst that whole scene, and we go out and we share the gospel. And it's a powerful experience of learning how to live missionally in a secular context and then taking that home. So this is a global team that we're offering young adults, and it's gonna happen next March. Now, you might be hearing this word steiger, and going. It's kind of a weird word. Like, what does that mean? Well, steiger is a Dutch word, and it refers to the location in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where my parents started a ministry to reach young people of that city that wouldn't walk into a church. Now, if you know anything about Amsterdam, pretty much all young people don't wanna walk into church, because you know why? They see these big, beautiful cathedrals that are closed on Sunday. They see this art, beautiful Christian art. It's all from the past. That's how they view God. Just a dead, empty tradition of the past, not relevant to my life. And so my dad was with a small group of people, went to the clubs and the bars late at night, and they befriended people, and then they shared the gospel with them. And then they wrote the names of everyone that they met, and they went out into the forest and they prayed all night over these names. And they would say, God, we need a breakthrough. We need to see people in this city know the true Jesus. They have a false idea of who you are. Now, this was in the 80s, and it was in the height of the punk rock movement. And looking around at this room, I can tell there's a lot of former punk rockers here. So you get it. I understand. And my dad saw how much influence music and art had on these people. And so he was praying and he felt like God said, I want you to start a punk band. Which is what every good missionary does. And so he Started this punk band and. And the whole idea was to lift up the message of the cross outside the church. Paul said in 1st Corinthians 2:1 through 5 that he preached Christ and him crucified so that people would not be convinced by human wisdom, but by God's power. And that's what the people of Amsterdam needed. Not religious words, but God's power. And the power is in the message of the cross. And so they were preaching the cross in all these places, and suddenly all these people were responding, like, what do we do with all these people? And so what they did is they had a Bible study on a big red houseboat. I have a picture of it right here. So if you've ever been to Amsterdam, there's the central train station, and behind that is a river, and there's all these piers that jet out. And so there's this houseboat that they invited people to come to for this Bible study. And the address of that houseboat was Pier 14. And the Dutch word for pier is Steiger. So they just named their houseboat their. Their Bible study, which eventually became a church. They just named it, the address Steiger 14. And it became this dynamic church reaching young people of Amsterdam that normally would have nothing to do with Christianity. And that was the environment I grew up in as a little kid. Yeah, that's me in the bottom right corner with my little brother. And what happened is that this band that my dad started started to go to other places. They went to Poland, to Russia, to eventually to all over the world preaching the gospel, working with local churches. And it fueled this missions movement called Steiger that I grew up in. My dad would take me and my little brother on tour with him. We'd be in, like, some tough nightclub in Eastern Europe at an hour. The kids should not be up. And he would bring us on stage and. And he would say, these are my sons. I love them. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them. Everything that I have is theirs. And if someone tried to hurt them, I would protect them with my life. And then he would say, and that is how God feels about you. And he would equate a father's love for his children with God's love for them. And in that environment, I saw tough people with tears in their eyes praying to receive Jesus. And when you experience something like that as a kid, it ruins you. I mean, it ruins you in the best possible way. Because you see that if following Jesus, it's not about religious words and activity, but that he's Real. And that he has the power to change lives. And I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in religious words. I want God's power. What our country needs today is a supernatural move of God. And that's what I'm praying for. And he wants us to play a part. I believe that each of us has a role to play. God has a plan for your life. Not to just survive, not to just live for yourself, but that he wants you to use this vapor of time that you have on this planet to make an eternal difference. And that that's what this world so desperately needs. So how do we experience that life? How do we experience this life today? I wanna look at the book of Nehemiah. So if you have your Bible, pull it out to the book of Nehemiah. And we're gonna go chapter one, and I'm gonna read the first four verses and we're gonna look at how Nehemiah responds to the problems of his day and how we can respond in a similar way. So we're gonna look at Nehemiah. Chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. I'll read it now. The words of Nehemiah, son of Hakaliah. In the month of Kislev in the 20th year, while I was in the citadel of Susa Hananiah one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men. And I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, those who survived the exile are back in the province, are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept for some days. I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Okay, so what's the context here? So Nehemiah is part of a group of Jewish exiles in the Persian empire. So he's been taken away and he's part of the Jewish empire. But the truth is, he's got it pretty good. He's got a good gig. You know, he's comfortable, pretty secure. You know, his life is not bad. And in that context, his brother and some friends from Jerusalem come to him and tell him about the state of Jerusalem. The walls are destroyed, the city is vulnerable. The people are in disgrace. And when Nehemiah hears this, you know, he could have easily said, ah, that's too bad, and then kind of moved on. But that's not his response. His response, he's moved to tears. And so the first thing that we need to learn from this passage is that like Nehemiah, we need God to open our eyes to the state of the world. You know, one of the challenges in the American culture, and I feel it, is that we are so, so busy, we're so over scheduled, we're so distracted that we can grow numb to the pain and suffering all around us, right? We can even grow numb to people very near to us, and it's not right. You know, in our country, we've experienced a pretty significant cultural shift in the last generation or two. We've gone from this nominal Christian nation where we have these shared values and most people had a positive view of the church, to now we're in a post Christian culture. And a lot of the values that we hold, you know, we have held have been eroded and many people are walking away from the church. You know, but it's interesting though, because while many people are now skeptical of institutional religion, a lot of people are really hungry for something transcendent. They're hungry for something spiritual. And there's actually more openness in many ways today than ever before. To give you an example, that happened to me this weekend. It was wild. My daughter had a soccer game and we drove to this field, this random suburban field, and my youngest son was playing in the park before the game started. And this guy who had some kids playing at the park as well, this Indian guy, walked up to me and I found out later he had a gospel tract in his hand. And he goes, can you help me understand this? And I was like, well, what is it? And he was like, what am I reading here? And he said, what does it mean to be born again? I was like, it's like the Ethiopian eunuch. You know, it's a wild experience. And so we exchange contact information, but it's an example of how hungry people are in a world that's falling apart. People are hungry for answers. They're looking. And we just need to be bold in our proclamation and we need to understand the culture that is shaping how they see the world. One of the major influences that's shaping the culture today is something that we call the global youth culture. So think youth and young adults all over the planet that are influenced by similar voices, right? They're playing the same music, listening to the same music, they're following same social media influencers playing the same video games. This is global culture where they're sharing a lot of the same values and some of it is superficial. Fashion trends, music tastes, whatever. But a lot of it is deeper. Their moral views their lifestyles. And so you have this global culture that is shaping how people see the world. To illustrate it, take a look at these guys right here on the screen. And based on how they look, could you guess where in the world they're from? You know, you can, you know, guess in your head. You'll probably be surprised to find out that they're from Saudi Arabia and that this was a picture I took in December at a music festival in Saudi Arabia called Soundstorm that was headlined by the rapper Eminem, which is mind blowing when you consider Saudi Arabia as this conservative Muslim country, home to Mecca, very unreached. And the global youth culture is influencing that place and it's creating unbelievable opportunities for the gospel. So this global youth culture is shaped by things like pop culture and music. It's shaped by things like video games, where the average 21 year old male has spent 10,000 hours playing video games. It's shaped by pornography, which is so common, so pervasive, it's, it's distorting our brains, it's rewiring our brains. All of these things are coming together to shape a global youth culture. Now the religion of the global youth culture is something called secular humanism. And what that means is this. God has been pushed aside and I'm at the center, and there's no outside authority that can tell me how to live my life. It's the era of my truth. And all identity, purpose and morality is self constructed. I define those things. And so when you look at all that we got going on in our culture, all the confusion, it's a logical outworking of a worldview that says, I decide. There's no one that can tell me who I am. I decide. If you pay attention, you see this message everywhere. For example, here's an Instagram post by a guy called Jay Shetty, very popular self help guru. And he says, the rules are fake. Do what you want, listen to how you feel, and make decisions that honor your soul. That's secular humanism. Or here's a poster at a Starbucks, it says, don't you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can't be exactly who you are. Quoting Lady Gaga, that is secular humanism. And it sounds so good, it sounds like freedom, but the truth is the consequences are devastating. It's like it says in Proverbs 14. There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. I mean, it's like poison wrapped in bubble gum. It's destroying people and it makes sense if you think about it. Because if you're the source of truth, you're going to be confused. If there are no rules, you're gonna be sexually broken. If it's all about you, you're gonna be lonely. And if there's no anchor to hold onto in the inevitable storms of life, you're gonna be anxious and depressed, confused, sexually broken, lonely, anxious. This is the cry of generation, and it's devastating. A while back, a non Christian friend of mine from high school posted on social media that his son, who was about the same age as my oldest son, was diagnosed with brain cancer. And when I read that, I mean, honestly, it shook me. I couldn't imagine the fear and the pain and the anger that a little boy could get a terrible disease like this. And then I began to read some of the comments on his posts. He was getting things like this, positive vibes, sending healing vibes his way, sending you all positive vibrations and much love. And then eventually he responded saying, thank you everyone for your supportive words of concerns and positive energy you have expressed. For my son Peter, I couldn't help but think about how hopeless that is. You see, the secular world doesn't have any transcendent hope, just positive energy. And it's devastating. And these are our friends, our co workers, our neighbors. Closer than that, these are our sons and daughters. And the saddest thing about all, the saddest thing of all of this is that we have the ultimate answers to this, to the cry of a generation. But many are not looking to the church for answer. Think about it. Jesus brings truth to the confused. He brings healing to the sexually broken. He brings the ultimate relationship with the Creator and with the church. And he brings peace that transcends understanding. We have the ultimate answers to the cry of a generation, but they're not looking to the church. And when we hear this, we need to respond. Like Nehemiah 1:4 when it said, When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. Because you see, the extent to which your heart is broken is the extent to which you will do something about it until your heart is broken. You're not gonna sacrifice. You're not gonna get uncomfortable, you're not gonna lay aside your needs for the sake of another. I need God to break my heart. I don't know about you, but my natural drift is towards apathy and selfishness. And I know it's not right. I need God's broken heart for the lost. But here's the problem. You cannot manufacture a broken heart. It's not like a workout program. Okay? Starting on Monday, I'm gonna start loving people, right? It doesn't work that way. I can't change my heart. Only God can do that. But you know what I can do? I can repent. I can say, God, I'm sorry, my heart is cold. I don't care like I should. And I know it's not right. I've even grown numb to people in my own family. And I'm sorry. God forgive me. Change my heart. If you pray that, watch out, it's dangerous. Because God will begin to change your heart and you will really see people and you will not be able to remain passive anymore because a broken heart compels you to act. And a broken heart will also break down the walls of. Of division. You know, in our political climate, it's easy to fall in the us versus them mindset, right? Where those people are the enemy, but those people are not the enemy. Those people are the ones that Jesus loves so much that he died for them. And we are in a battle, but we are not in a battle against those people. We are in a battle against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm. It's a battle for the souls of a generation who have been deceived and spiritually blinded. 2nd Corinthians 4. 4 says, the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. They're blind. They're deceived. It's a spiritual battle. If you're blind and I point at that wall, you. You can't see it. You need your eyes open. That's why a persuasive argument or really cool program is not enough. It's a spiritual battle. That's why prayer is not a warmup for the real work. It is the work. We can't do it without getting on our knees. So like Nehemiah, we need to pray like never before because we are in a spiritual battle. Nehemiah 1:4 goes on to say, for some days I mourned, in fact, fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven. Some biblical scholars estimated that he prayed for four months before he approached the king. So you gotta ask yourself, why would he pray so long and so intensely? Well, I believe it's because when Nehemiah saw the problem, he know that he knew he did not have enough. He didn't have enough strategic brilliance, financial resources, he didn't have enough. And so we too need to recognize that this problem that we are facing, the mission that God has called us to, is not hard. It's not difficult. It's impossible. It's impossible. No financial resources, no human strategy is going to be enough. But while it may be humanly impossible, we have access to the God of the impossible. For the one that holds the universe together with his power, we have access. And so it's not until we get on our knees and cry out to the God of the impossible and say, lord, have mercy on our country. Have mercy on my family. It's not until we get our knees in desperate prayer that we will see the breakthrough that we seek. I don't know about you, but I look around at the brokenness of our world and I can be overwhelmed. We need God to move. Our human efforts and wisdom are not enough. All we have is five loaves and two fish. It's so woefully inadequate. But when we give him all that we have and he does something supernatural and he begins to feed the multitudes, that's what we need. We need a supernatural move of God. And the only hope for this world, for our country, our city, or our kids, is if we experience a supernatural move of God. And here's the amazing thing God loves to demonstrate and his power through ordinary people like me and like you. God wants to use you to make a difference in the world, but it starts with a broken heart. Broken hearts change the world. Broken hearts birthed in repentance that drives us to our knees in desperate prayer is the foundation for impact. And I believe that God wants to use not just a few special Christians. He wants to use all of us. That's what this world needs. And so I want to give you an opportunity to respond. If you're like me, your heart drifts towards selfishness. I wake up in the morning, I think of myself and apathy. I'm apathetic. I don't care. And you know it's not right. Maybe you need to say, God, my heart is cold for the lost. I've been so distracted and so busy. I've even grown numb to people in my own family. And I know it's not right. Forgive me. Change my heart. So as a physical response to an inward conviction of the Holy Spirit, after I close in prayer, you're going to have the opportunity to get out of your seat, come to the front and kneel in an act of humble repentance and say, God, I want your heart for the lost. Those people are not the enemy. Those people are the ones that you love so much that you died for them on the cross. Lord, give me your broken heart for the. The lost. So if the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, don't miss this chance to respond. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you. I thank you, Lord, that you loved us so much that when you saw the brokenness and the mess of this world, you didn't leave us like that. You sent Jesus the most precious thing. You had to enter into our world to show us a way out. Lord, I pray that you would give us your broken heart for people. I pray that we would see people as you see people, Lord. And I pray that that brokenness would stir us to action. It would stir us to boldness. Because what people need is you, Jesus, thank you for this church. Thank you for the heart of this church that so desires to be a powerful tool in your kingdom. And I pray that this would just be the beginning. That in a world that is so broken and so upside down, you would raise a bold warriors of love and truth. Lord, you said the harvest is plentiful where the workers are few. Well, look at this place. Here we are. Lord, send us, use us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen.