Good morning, Destination. We haven't met before. My name is Josh Meyers, and I'm going to try to like keep my excitement down because you are witnessing a first for Destination this morning if you're here. , we're having a lot of first because we're a brand new church.

, and so we're still learning all of the ways that this whole mission gets fulfilled. But today is a special first because today we finish our first sermon series through a book in the Bible. I'm excited.

We've been in this message series going through the book of Colossians. And I love this book. There's so much wisdom.

There's so many good things that have came out of these messages. And if you if you haven't been here for any of them, it's fine. They all stand alone, but they all kind of work together.

, and the big idea of these messages is that Gosh, I'm so excited I'm squeaking here. So excited I'm squeaking. , the big idea of these messages is that God is in all things.

That through him all things have been made and created. And it's because of him that all of these things hold together. That Jesus is not something just to be put on a priority list.

He is the list itself and he is the map and the destination that we travel to. And so, as we've been looking at Colossians, we've been learning from the Apostle Paul as he trains this brand new church on how to find and follow Jesus. And we've been kind of looking at our core values as a church.

So, here's a quick recap for you. , I'll be sending this out, by the way, in my weekly email. I do like a recap email. So, if you fill out the welcome card, you should be getting an email that kind of recaps all of the messages. It's for you to kind of dive deeper throughout the week.

But, this is what we've looked at in this message series. Week one, we talked about Paul and why he's writing this letter, and we talked about what a value is. Then we went into the probably in my opinion the best part of the book which is talking about the supremacy of Christ which is God in all things through all things and we talked about our core value gospel that Jesus is the hero of everything that we do.

We went on to see how Paul explains that you are to not be of this world, that he's in chains, suffering because of this gospel that he spent some time talking about and how we because of what all these past churches have done need to continue in growing in our hearts and minds. Then we launched into worship. We talked about how God is the center of all things. And then last week we talked about how God is the center of our relationships, of our marriages, of our parenting, and even in our job places. And so if you missed one of these, go back and watch them.

But today we are finishing with our last core value, which is multiplication. And the way that we say or describe this one is that we believe as destination church that we are multiplying believers and churches. So there's a lot of different ways that churches grow. There's a lot of different ways that they get built and change the world. Some are here for just a moment.

Some are here for a season. And some are here for decades. But all churches exist or should exist under one name and that name is Jesus.

And so we call this the big C church. If you ever hear a pastor or somebody refer to the big C church, what they're talking about is that they're a church that's under the name of Jesus. It means that they are a bibleelving church.

That they open the word, that they're talking about Jesus, that they're making disciples, that they're humble, and that we're all on the same team. And so, if there is a church that is doing those things, we as destination are not in competition with them. We are to complement them because we are all on the same team under one coach and that is Jesus. Now, this is important. This is important to know.

Even though an institution, a building has the name church on it, does not necessarily mean that they believe these things. And we have to be careful because there are churches out there that will preach maybe for profit or for political agendas or let's just be honest, some of the churches are not even working for the same boss. Like they're not even opening the word of God. And so, , it's important that we look to see the fruit from these big C churches.

All right, there we go. There we go. Nice and clear. Okay, so , as I was saying, Big C.

Okay, the best example I can give of this is that the reason Destination Church even exists is because we had three big C churches that were willing to sacrifice for us. Their names are Transform Church in Andover, Oak Haven in Ham Lake, and Pursuit Community Church down in Mountains View. We also had help from some other churches like Renovation Church. And all of these churches partnered together to send us things to get everything you see here started because they didn't believe in building their own castle, but they believed in building the kingdom. And that's the question that we need to ask ourselves is are we building a castle or are we building a kingdom.

Okay, so here's a quick story. I grew up going to Forest Lake Beach. Went there a lot as a kid and spent time with my cousins.

That was like our go-to place. And we one time went up to the beach and there were these kids that were building this really cool looking sand castle. You know, they have the moat around it and everything. And we came up and we asked them like, "Hey, can we build can we build with you.

" And they're like, "No, this is our area. " You know, they got all that that kids spunk in them. And we're like, "Okay, well, there's a whole beach here.

Why can't we just go build our own sand castle. And so we went to the other side and started building a sand castle. And then all of a sudden, some kids come up to us. They see us having fun building this castle and they ask, "Can we join along with you.

Can we be a part of what you're doing. " And we knew how it felt to be shut out of that castle area. And so we said, "Of course. " And so over time, we have this whole beach full of kids that are around us as we're building this instead of a moat, we're building like a river system between all of these different castles, right.

And this is what it looks like. This is what it looks like to build a kingdom in a castle. Author Bob G, I want to put it on the screen, says it like this in his book, Everybody Always. Because we build these castles, too. Both on the church side but personally too.

He said this. We actually build castles all the time out of our jobs, our families, and the things that we've purchased. Sometimes we even make them out of each other. Some of these castles are impressive, too. Lots of people admire what we've built over the course of our lives and tell us what great castles we have.

But Jesus told us told his friends that we aren't supposed to spend our lives building castles. He said he wants us to build a kingdom. And there's a big difference between building a castle and building a kingdom. You see, castles have moes and keep creeping people out, but kingdoms have bridges to let everybody in.

Castles have dungeons for everybody who have messed up. And kingdoms have grace. And so we need to ask the question and our leaders are always asking the question are we multiplying in a way that is building the kingdom, building the name of Jesus or building the name of destination and we want to build the name of Jesus.

So today we need to talk about how how does the kingdom get built. And to do that we're going to open up the word of God cuz that's what we do here at Destination. So, , turn your Bibles to page 117.

By the way, if you don't have a Bible, please take that one home. It is our gift to you. We want you to open it, read it. We believe that that book transforms lives. And I want your life to be transformed by the word of God.

But here's the thing. Paul is ending this letter, okay. And he Paul starts a lot of his letters in the New Testament the same and ends kind of the same.

He kind of gives like words of welcome and then kind of ends with the action steps kind of like an email. Okay, you some of us are just like, "Okay, okay, get to the action steps. " , and so this is what Paul is getting to.

He's getting to the action steps. So, I'm going to be starting in chapter 4:E 2. , and Paul starts out, we're going to take this verse by verse and just look at verse two first.

Paul says this, "Devote yourselves to prayer. Be watchful and thankful. So this is for us how we build the kingdom first.

Everything starts with prayer. Everything for the Christian life should start and should continue with prayer. And it's not just the spare tire of our vehicle that we go to when we're in trouble.

It is the very fuel that keeps the car going. And some of us, if we're being honest, have been running on fumes with our prayers sometimes. I know I do this where it's just like I'm reliant on this fuel of past prayers.

But we need to be in prayer always for people, for situations, for friends, for the unchurched, for our community. This is part of my role as your pastor is to be praying for you. This is a part of our church to be praying for each other.

And so we have, as Joshua said, a prayer team. You can, it's the easiest easiest thing to serve in because we should all be praying already. We should all be a part of this prayer team. And so here is my ask to you, destination. Will you build the kingdom by praying for this church.

Okay, we are a brand new church. And as such, there's a big target here because God is going to be doing something and reaching new people here. And there is an enemy that has come to steal, kill, and destroy. And one of the ways we shield ourselves is through prayer. Cuz every great move of God starts with somebody on their knees, somebody praying.

And that we could make the whole message about the importance of prayer. But let's go on and see what else Paul has to say. Verse three, he says, "And pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message so that by the way, always look at when the Bible says so that cuz there's a result for what they're doing here.

So that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. So how the kingdom gets built is it gets built by praying. We need to pray for the kingdom and then we need to proclaim the kingdom. Now Paul addresses a couple of groups of people here as he concludes this letter.

The first thing he says is he says, "I want you to pray for us too. " Well, who's us. Paul is talking about himself.

He's asking for prayer for himself and he's asking prayer for his leaders, which we'll learn about them just in a second here. But this is the importance of us praying for our leaders, too. Praying for those who are upfront and proclaiming God's word. Now, man, I I get to this bullet point every time I I read this, and this is hard for me to say because I I have sometimes this this this thing where I I don't like to tell people that I need prayer.

I'd rather just kind of shoulder it and pretend like I have it together. Anybody else have the problem. Maybe it's just me.

, but it feels weird sometimes to come up to somebody and say, "Hey, would you pray for my message. " Because it may might give this false impression like I'm not confident in the words that God has given me. Like I haven't prayed for it. But nothing could be further from the truth.

I have taken the time. And the reason why I want your prayer is because it's more fuel to what God is going to do here. And so here's my ask destination. Will you pray for me as your pastor.

Will you hold me in prayer as I lead this church. , and here, if you do, is my promise to you. I want to stand up on stage and say these things so that you can hear something that I am promising you as your pastor.

I will never waste your invite. I will never waste your invite. If you bring somebody here, if you're here today because you're invited, I'm I'm just so happy that you're here and I hope you find and follow Jesus here.

And I I want you to know that this Sunday experience is never going to be one of those where something doesn't point to the hope of the gospel. Number two, I will always pray for you. This is why these welcome cards are so important because I got a list and I check it twice. I don't know if you're naughty.

I don't know if you're nice, but I'm praying for you. And so that's why these are so important. I do I have a list of everybody who's came through those doors. And some of them I haven't really even talked to for a long period of time yet, but I'm praying for you.

And then when when I meet you or when I see you again, I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's the person I prayed for on Tuesday and and Wednesday and and I'm praying for you as your leader. " the second is or the third is that I will love whoever walks into those doors. Even if I haven't met them yet, I won't water down this message. I will always speak truth. I'm never going to be lazy about preparing this message.

I'm going to take the time, the prayer, the consideration that God's word so so willingly deserves. And lastly, again, I will point everything to Jesus. Okay, this is my prayer as you or my promise to you as your pastor.

But let me just say, oh man, I'm being real vulnerable this morning. Another one. The biggest fear that I had in starting Destination Church was that I was going to have to do a lot of this stuff alone because, you know, I I want to shoulder it and I want to carry it.

But I in this church am so blessed and you are so blessed by so many leaders that do so many things. So I just want to take just a second here to recognize some of them. I'm going to have them stand as I say I I want you to meet our team leaders. First one is Jeremy.

He leads our setup team. Leiddon is Leiddon in here. Leiddon who leads our cafe.

Mike her husband who is our security. They're like all in the back. Felicia Enns, who's not in here, or sorry, , no, I'm on Lynn.

Lynn, where is Lynn. Lynn is our, , welcome team leader. And then we have Wes, who is on announcements. Can you just give Oh, yeah. And then Phil in the back on production.

Can you give all of these people a round of applause. , you guys can take a seat. These are people who are making all of this that you're walking into happen or not happen. And then this I'm just kidding.

And then this is our leadership team. These are the people who are in the room making some of the big decisions. So up here is my wife. I put graphic design, so social media, and pastor's wife because I thought that would cover all of the many hats that she wears, including keeping me in check. So, pray for her a lot.

, we have Joshua, who you met this morning. He's our operations director director. He's like the king of logistics around here. , his wife Esther is our worship leader. , and then we have Doug Briggs, our newest addition to the team, as our disciplehip pastor.

We have Felicia Ends back teaching the kiddos right now as we speak. And then Laura Watson who is our connections coordinator. She's in charge of all of the events.

And you've probably gotten a text from her if you visited and shared your information. And so these are some of the people that you can be praying for. Can we just give it up for all of those leaders one more time. But here's the thing about all of those leaders is they're not special, okay.

Neither am I. We are all in charge of building this church together. All of us play a very important role. And just because I took some time to recognize the leaders does not mean that we are off the hook.

Verse 5 says this. Paul says this, "Be wise in the way you act. " Now he's talking to everybody else. He was asking for prayer for himself and his leaders.

Now he's saying, "Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversations be full of grace, seasoned with salt. " Here's that word again. So that you may know how to answer everyone.

So the third way that we build this kingdom and not our castle is for all of us to present and proclaim the kingdom. So you all of us in this room myself included hold a special responsibility if we say that we are a Jesus believing person to share that love of Jesus with others. Now, this gets really intimidating because we think we have to have this answer or be this perfect person. So, I'll let you in on a little secret.

Okay, ready. , you know those little like car stickers that everybody has that has like their church name on it and they stick it on the back of their car and you can see what church they're going to. You guys shake your heads so you know what I'm talking about.

, let me tell you a little secret. I don't like them. And just Okay, this is me.

This is not your pastor talking. I don't like them. No, let me tell you why.

, because if I make a mistake, if I maybe go a little bit over the speed limit or if I maybe take a turn the wrong way or do something, I am so, maybe it's just me, I'm so in my head that I'm being judged by every other car with my sticker, okay. They're like, "Oh, those losers at Destination Church don't know how to drive. " you know, and I I I get in this in this mode where I just I feel like if I put this sticker on, , I I can't make a mistake or what if I'm a bad driver. What if I just make a really jerk move, right.

, and and I was kind of thinking about that one day as I was actually contemplating, should destination church get these car stickers and I'm like, will I will I put these car stickers on. , and then God just really convicted me because I thought about people who walk into this church who maybe don't know Jesus like I did and thinking these thoughts like instead of what I'm what if I'm a bad driver, what if I'm a bad Christian. Or what if I'm too far gone.

What if I'm too much of a jur. What if I I don't think that I measure up like I should be in this room with all of these other Christians when outside of Sundays I'm I'm not the same person. You see, presenting the kingdom doesn't mean perfect. It means presence. And that's what Paul is saying here.

He's saying make the most of every opportunity. He doesn't say have the answer in every opportunity. He says, "Let your conversations be understanding, full of grace, and seasoned with salt.

" This means that we as a church do not have to just wait until somebody has it figured out to invite them in to be a part of destination. Sometimes I'll hear invites and and people will try to invite people who are already going to different churches. And then you might hear them talk about another friend or co-orker that they're connected to and they'll say something along the lines of, "Well, I'm not going to invite them because they're not a church person.

" Well, that sounds like the perfect person to invite to to experience what God has done. You see, our job as a church and as people that are doing this is not to clean people up and then introduce them to Jesus. Throughout all of the gospels, Jesus came to these messy people, these infected people even at times that were really contagious and Jesus healed them.

So our job is not to clean somebody up and then bring them to church. Our job is to bring them here and then Jesus does the cleaning. And so all we do, all we do in this is be understanding. Present God in a way where people want to know what's going on here.

Can I tell you what's going on here. Can we celebrate for a second this morning, destination. We've had 14 people come to Jesus since we started this trip. Not only that, not only that, but six people are going to get baptized so far at our first baptism service.

And you guys are doing that. You guys are making that possible. How you're making it possible is by doing these things. I see it in our church.

I see it in all of you. That you're living out loud for Jesus. That you're not you're unashamed to talk about some of these things that you're present here.

That you're showing up and that you're consistent. By the way, if you're here this morning and you're just kind of popping in every once in a while, I want to just encourage you this morning. Your presence matters in a new church for sure because we can feel it when the room is here and it's full and that you're here like we know like the spirit knows that you are here and that you are worshiping and that you're a part of of what's going on here.

And when you're consistent with that, it encourages the people sitting next to you, even if you don't know their name. We're we're sharing this by sharing our stories, our testimonies. And by the way, the easiest way the easiest way to proclaim the kingdom is to go on social media, say shameless plug, or go on Google and just leave a review. Just tell people how much you like going to that church wherever it is and serve and inviting and all of these things and even loving when it's difficult.

We're all still getting to know each other and and how we talk and communicate and even through the generosity which I'll talk about a little bit next week that this church has displayed. Guys, you are awesome. Okay, let me just encourage you for a second.

This church is so awesome and the ways that we're building God's kingdom is amazing and it's so good because God's plan is for God's people to build the kingdom. That's how he builds the kingdom is through God's people. And that is the fourth thing is on how we build the kingdom is by people who love Jesus.

Now take a look at the next couple of sections of scripture. We're not going to really dive into them, but you'll kind of glance down the page and you'll see that Paul starts to name all of these different people. I wish we had hours upon hours so I could tell you what all of their missionary journeys are looking like right now. All of them are coming from different places, from different stories, from different testimonies, just like all of us. And all of them are building the kingdom in this way.

And this is what I want you to see by that is that Paul does not work alone. Paul, the Apostle Paul, who was chosen by Jesus to build the church, is not doing it alone. He has all of these other people building the kingdom.

And so all of you by being present here, by doing those things, by serving even are building the kingdom. So, one more big round of applause and thank you to everybody at Destination Church who's serving. Can we just give it up for that. It's a huge sacrifice.

Some people are here at 7 in the morning loading out trailers. They're moving furniture. They're making all of this possible so that people can find and follow Jesus. And so, , we do this inside of these walls, but we also do it outside. I'm really excited to start in the next coming months talking about how we multiply churches and believers by supporting missions work.

So, we take a chunk of our budget and we put it towards these three things. Supporting, partnering, and planting. And what I mean by that is we want to support local families, families in our church, families in our community that are in need.

There's a lot of people without food right now, a lot of people that are struggling. And we want to put a portion of our finances aside because God has blessed us so we can be a blessing to others. Not only in families, but in partnerships with other Jesusloving ministries who are spreading the gospel through things like helping orphans or helping victims of sex trafficking or things like that, which I'll talk about missions partners in the future. But the third way is by planting.

We are a church plant and we believe that we will plant a church in the future that we will continue to multiply God's kingdom beyond East Bethl. And so all of these things are already starting to happen. We're already putting away parts of our budget so that we can support things like this.

And ready last week, I lied. We got a round of applause one more time. Last week we got 107 pounds of food that we donated to the East Bethle Food Shop.

And there's some more out there right now. We're going there this week to give them our food and to support them financially. And we are just so excited to do so.

Here's what I want you to see in all of this. The kingdom gets built when ordinary people like us pray, proclaim, and present the name of Jesus together. And so, if you're in here today and you feel like, man, I'm just I kind of feel like that ordinary person and I I really haven't done much in the context of the church. Or maybe you feel guilty.

Or maybe you're just not sure about Jesus altogether. Maybe you're just here today and you're just kind of questioning like why do I want to even do all those things. What's the motivation for doing all those things.

I want to just invite you open up your Bibles one more time. Just flip one page back and look at Colossians chapter 1. I want you to go down, follow the numbers to where it's verse 21. Verse 21 of chapter 1 of Colossians.

And it says this, "Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies in your minds because of the evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through the death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith established and firm and do not move from the hell the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you have heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I Paul have became a servant.

This is why this is the why we plant we planted this church. This is the why we continue to multiply. We started this church so that you so that people could find and follow Jesus. And that's what Paul is saying here. Once you were alienated from God.

Once there was a time when you maybe didn't know or didn't understand Christ and Christ loved you enough to die for you a death on a cross. And then Paul is saying if you continue, so if you not only find Jesus, but you follow Jesus, if you continue in your faith and establish it and firm it and don't move from the hope held from the gospel, this hope that he's proclaimed, then you are going to see God move in these ways, that 14 is going to become way more. And those those people are going to go out and they're going to build the kingdom and they're going to multiply and more people will find hope and more people will find transformation and more people will be followers of Jesus.

And this is what gets me excited as your pastor is that we get to be a ground zero location for new people to find Jesus for the first time and have their lives transformed and follow Jesus. And so if you're here today, and this applies to everyone in this room, if you are here today and you're still don't know if Jesus is for you, let me just say we started this church for you. We started this church so that you could find Jesus. And for everybody else who's like, I I'm I I feel like I believe that I've saved.

I I've said the salvation prayer. Well, you're not done. If you have breath in your lungs, God's not done with you. And if you continue in your faith, establish it and firm it, and don't move from that hope, that's what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

And so we do this multiplication thing. We pray, we proclaim, we present, we do all of those things because of what Jesus has done for us. And so again, if you don't know Jesus, now is your time.

We started this church for you. And if you know Jesus, here's a challenge. What are you waiting for. It's time to build. It's time to build the kingdom.

And so I want to invite the worship team up. I want to invite you just to have a moment with God. Just bow your heads, close your eyes just for a second here just to take some time with God. Because maybe you've heard this message and you're like, "Oh man. God, I I I feel like I I want to do all of these things, but I just feel like I'm so busy or so wrapped up or I got all these things going on.

" Or maybe you feel like me with a car sticker and you just feel like you're not good enough or or smart enough or that you are not Christian enough. And so whatever you're wrestling with this morning, I just want to encourage you that at one time you were alienated in this way in your minds. But now there is an opportunity for Christ to come into your life and into your heart.

So I want to give an invitation this morning to those of you who maybe haven't found Jesus, maybe haven't made Jesus Lord of your life. If you're here today and you want to say yes to Jesus and you want to say, "I want to I want to find Jesus. I want to know what it means to believe and follow Jesus.

" If that's you, would you just raise your hand so I know who I'm praying for. And if you're here today and you would say, "Man, I I am a believer, but I have all these excuses. " I just want to I just want to encourage you to rest in God's presence this week to just know that while you build the kingdom, God's going to be building you. God's going to be building your heart and your mind stronger and stronger. But for all of those people who said yes, I just want to pray a prayer and I just want you to kind of repeat this in in your heart as I pray it.

God, I confess that I need you. God, that I've fallen short and that I need you to save me. So God, I trust you.

I believe in you and I make you Lord of my life in Jesus name. Hey, can we stand up and celebrate because 14 15 16 17 people to Jesus for destination church. Let's celebrate with that joy together.