Say Yes To the Greatest Journey of Your Life
To spread the reach of Journey Church, blessing verses are shared.
James Greer
Oct 22, 2017 28m
In this sermon Pastor Greer uses blessing verses to encourage the congregation to help grow their church. He suggests to look to God for inspiration on what to give to help the church reach and save more people. He talks about the freedom that comes from trusting in God to provide. Video recorded at Pineville, Louisiana.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
James Greer: 00:01 People on Facebook and TV, I mean do you realize we almost have as many people or more people watching on Facebook than we usually do in the sanctuary, Amen? I'll tell ya, I don't know about y'all, but that side over there knew those secular songs. I knew the part about hold on to your faith and whatever that was. I don't know. Anyway, it was fun. I know everybody here can you have that much fun. Hey, I want to go through what Say Yes is about, but mainly what Say Yes is about is that it's about a movement of God. That was just a few weeks ago and God moved in a great way and people got saved and joined and lives changed. Amen? So everything we do right, it kind of falls around reaching people for the Lord. Now look early on if you do, if you have one of these, I wish you'd go ahead and put your name on it right now before the end of the service. Because at the end of the service I'm asking you to pray about it and bring it up front like all these that are there and all those that are over there and put them in the back.
James Greer: 00:54 But right now I want to talk, walk you through Say Yes. Man, did y'all see me riding in that limo? Hey, it was worth the campaign just to get them to drive me around anyway. Say Yes. Say Yes to what? To bringing people far from God close to God one step at a time. Say Yes. It's really about saying yes to God and bringing us closer to Him and stretching our faith. In 2006, well yeah, we rebirthed Lee Heights. In 2009, we moved from there to over here. Now there's Lee Heights right there. Yes. Okay. That's where we were, and at that time when we started, there was about 12 people and one man, well a couple of them, but mainly there was about 11 women and one guy. You remember John Griffin? Not everybody can handle [inaudible], but he did. But anyway, that's where we went. We went a long way from there and God started blessing us.
James Greer: 01:48 We started growing and if you can't see it, that's Michael Floyd and Josh in the back playing. And so, what happened is we were about to outgrow that facility and we traded. We came over here. That was a biggest step of faith that we'd ever made up to this point. Matter of fact, when we were over there, when we all came here, all our offerings together wouldn't pay the note. So that's how much God had blessed us.
James Greer: 02:10 But, I want to give you some things that God has done in the last five years. We've seen 553 people accept Christ. Woo! Yea, 527 saved. Do you realize that's more than a hundred people baptized a year? I'm gonna tell you, in the 30 years that I've been in the ministry. for 25 or 26 years, it was my goal to see 100 people saved. And now, all of a sudden we're averaging 100 people baptized a year. Now what you got to be careful of when you see this, you say okay, great somebody else got baptized. No, what you do is if you're not careful, we'll take the supernatural and we'll start taking it as natural and then we'll lose the supernatural. When not many people get saved, it's a great move of God. Then we had 2,175 people join in the last five years. Say, that's a city, Amen? That's unbelievable.
James Greer: 03:02 And on top of that, they just came out the fastest growing churches in America. Average growth of 19 percent. The top was 38 percent. We didn't even know how fast we're growing or not growing till Josh put the numbers together. We average 38 percent. Let me tell you how great that is. That means in America, the top 100 churches, average 18, and God has blessed us with 38 percent. That's an unbelievable growth. Because, you know what? Our story is I mess up, you mess up, we all mess up.
James Greer: 03:33 One of the reasons I believe God's blessed this way is because we accept people as mess ups and hope God turns their mess up into a miracle. Right? This is kind of what's going on now. We have three services [inaudible] of about 988. You know why we got to go through this? Because if you don't know where you've come from and if you don't know where you're at and you don't know where you're going, that's called lost and that doesn't matter if it's your home, your business, whatever. So we want you to know where we've come from, from about 12 to where we're at averaging about 988 to where we're going. Then recently a few weeks back, do y'all realize between social media, the TV and church, we reached close to 100,000 people? That's a lot of people.
James Greer: 04:20 We have 22 ministries, 300 volunteers, about 14 small groups with 200 people in there, and we're blessed because we're getting to see people saved every single Sunday. Now this is what is happening. At 38% when we're averaging 988, if we started right now and went one year, we'd outgrow our facilities, which is a great thing. Amen? And so what would happen with that is the sanctuary only would hold about 1,300. There would be unbelievable traffic and congestion, and the lobby would be packed. So what we decided is we had to create more space. There was a couple of ways we could have done it. We could have tried to put a larger sanctuary, but that would have cost about three times as much and take three times longer. But instead we decided to have a campus in Alexandria for another reason. I believe we can reach people further and faster in the Alexandria Campus than we can anywhere else.
James Greer: 05:12 And what I understand, what I need you to understand about the Alexandria Campus is, we're not leaving here. Amen? I will still preach here every Sunday. Brother Darrell will be the home Pastor over there. They'll have live worship, but when the message comes, they'll stream live. And so it’s going to be an exciting time that we go there, and you know, I think we can reach people further and faster than anything we do. Now, the exciting thing this morning is I was going to give you the location, but the newspaper beat us to it. Amen? Anyway, the location going to be [unintelligible]. Act like you didn't know it. Amen? Yay! That makes me feel better anyway.
James Greer: 05:46 So when y'all found out before we got to announce it, I'm sorry, but anyway, they jumped the gun on us. But anyway, that's gonna be a great location. In fact we've had over 1,600 people through our doors from Alexandria already. Every dot is a person. When we did the demographics, we found out there's 47,190 people and only 30 percent of the people went to church. But we just had a round table and that's when some of the local pastors come together. We had three of them from Alexandria, some from here and some from out of town, and I was telling him about the demographics. There was 47,190 people and only 30 percent go to church, and they said no, no. Two of them raised their hands up. Nope. We just did a study, they said, within 10 minutes of Alexandria where they're at, there's 100,000 people and 80 percent of them don't go to church.
James Greer: 06:31 So what we want to do is we want to go from Jerusalem to Judea. The Bible in Acts 1:8 says, when the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall be my witness in Jerusalem, Judea and the other most parts of the world. This is our Jerusalem. That was Acts 1:8. But if you didn't know it, at Acts 8:1 it said there came great persecution on the church and it scattered the people and they went to Judea and Sumeria, the very same places that Jesus told them to go, that they didn't go. So what that tells you is you're going to go. It's just a matter of how we go. We want to go through the power and presence of God, not the persecution. Amen? And so we're going to be there, but we're going to have the same DNA. We're going to have the same sermons, the same greeters, the same love, the same structure, the same strategy, same words, same invitation and one of our goals is we believe that we accept everybody where they're at, no matter what they look like, no matter where they come from and we let the Holy Spirit do the changing and not us.
James Greer: 07:26 And we'll have that same DNA there. So we said, well, that's good. We know where it came from. We know where we're at and we know where we're going. How will we get there? Will it cost money? It's going to cost about $1.2 Million. We've already purchased a facility for $925,000. It's going to take about $250,000 to update it. and about $100,000 to support it. Well, through that, what we did, we called an outside company called In Joy, and they took our figures and they said, listen, if you took the average of income (the average of the people that come in), y'all should be able to raise about $500,000. That's a lot to me. Amen?
James Greer: 08:03 But God said that we can do that and we're going to talk to you about the way it's structured. Every single person can be a part of it because you can pray about it. You can be a part of it. That's why I said it's so important. Like right here, you bring this and after a while, you fill it out and it says, first of all, I commit every day at 1:20 to pray. You got the little card, the prayer card, in the front of the bulletin, and it says a minute a day. Pray at 1:20, and it talks about that all God's promises are yes and amen. And so what we want to do is you take that and you pray. Set your phone every day at 1:20, and you pray the card and you ask God what he'd have, you to do and you pray for the ministry, and intentionally pray what God would have you to do. Then next, you have a devotion book right here; it's only a couple pages a week that you study.
James Greer: 09:01 Now, on my copy of my devotion book, I put Joshua 1:8. Because, Joshua 1:8 says he commands you if you'll meditate on His word day and night, He'll cause you to be a success. Try to take one verse out of the whole page and you just think about it all that day so you can do that. After that, we're gonna encourage you to come for the next four Sundays, and then we're going to have a fast. A simple fast. The first one on a Wednesday, 10/25. Fast from negative talking, complaining and grumbling. Some people in our church will not be able to talk that day.
James Greer: 09:29 I mean, you do not realize how hard it is not to complain and gripe all day long. What I'm going to do is I'm going to challenge my family. Every time somebody gripes or says something, we got to put a dollar up or the kids ten cents or whatever it is. You know, we go out to eat and the food is late and it's cold. I'm going to say isn't it great Mama that we have the money to pay for it. I'm going to practice ahead of time. But what we want you to do is that Wednesday we want you to go all day, and every time you gripe, every time you complain, put up a dollar and you can bring it to church that Sunday.
James Greer: 09:29 And then, oh my, 11/1; Jessica, no social media. You're going to go into withdrawals. But you know, I never believed how much I'll look at it. I was looking at it a while ago when I first came to the service and somebody text me and said, "Hey guess what? There's something wrong with your online media."
James Greer: 09:29 And then they texted me back and said, "Oh, they got it going." Amen.
James Greer: 09:29 I don't realize about every five minutes I'm taking my phone out and looking at it. I got to go all day with no social media that Wednesday and so do you. Isn't that going to be great? And then on 11/8, we're going to go to no TV all day. I've got an idea. No social media and no TV - let's talk. I mean I can be in my house with my grandkids, in the same room and they text me. So we're going to try and say, hey, I love you. How are you doing? How was your day? Fine.
James Greer: 10:54 So we practice that day, and then last on the 13th, we're going to fast. We're not going to have lunch that day. We're gonna all do fine. Amen? But when you fast for whatever you fast for, it's to remind you every time you go to do it or think you're going to do it, every time you grab your phone, instead you pray for the ministry. You pray to God. You pray that God will meet a need in your life. Instead you let that remind you of how bad you need God and how much you love God and how you want God to work in your life. Amen? And then at the end of the service, we're just gonna say hey, I'm willing to do that and you'll get an opportunity to turn it in, okay?
James Greer: 11:25 There's other things in there. On the 19th we're going to be praying about you asking God what he'd have you to give. What's so cool is I got to talk to about 100 people little earlier on as we went through it. And out of that 100 people, almost 10 or 12 percent of them have already made a commitment. But they knew it early on and they felt God was talking to them in a different way.
James Greer: 11:46 Did ya'll see the boat out front? No? That bass boat? Well, what happened was Robert Fuller had known for a while and that God has been impressing upon his heart. He said, listen, I'm going to sell my bass boat and I'm going to give it to the campaign. Amen? Well if that's not enough, then I don't know if Randy is here or not. But anyway, he went on a bike ride him and Brantley and Randy Wiggins. And on the way back he felt like God was speaking to him to sell his trike. And I thought God was speaking to me to buy it. No, not really. But God was speaking to him to sell it and he's going to put it in the campaign. He didn't know it, but when he got back Brother Darrell had already talked to me. He said, you know what? I love to ride my bike, but I've never really made a sacrifice for God. He said, I want to put my bike in the campaign. And so God may call you to do something else. But listen, this is not about a financial campaign. It's about as much as a spiritual campaign, because when you get spiritually right, you never have to worry about finances. And wouldn't you know it, Darrell did it, then Randy did it, then Robert did it - my bike's out there too for sale if anyone wants it.
James Greer: 12:50 This is set up where every single person can be a part of it. So it’s a two-year goal. We want you to pray about what God would have you to do and also want you to ask Him. There's that wonderful verse every day at 2 Corinthians 1:20, for all God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ and with a resounding "yes", and through Christ our "Amen." When you say amen, that just really means yes and everybody said Amen. So you get a whole month of saying Amen to God, and then remember you can't out give God. And then remember that certain dates will be will be preaching on and sermons and then the public commitment on the 19th of November. And then I love this, because this is Michael Floyd and that's the lady that owned the Economy [unintelligible] and they signed the papers and I said, "Man, we're off to our journey."
James Greer: 13:37 So God has really blessed us in a supernatural way and we want you to be a part of the way God has blessed us.
James Greer: 13:45 With that being said, did y'all see some people when you came in and they had top hats on? That was symbolic of hey we want to go over the top for Jesus Christ. Did you see Darrell walk up here with a dog at Church? That dog has spots on it, and we want every single person to find their spot in the ministry and in going forward with God. And so there's all kinds of things. Did y 'all see the limo out front? I love that just where I could ride in the limo, but it was a type of stretching your faith for God. And that's what we want this do. We want it to be a spiritual journey for you to go on like you've never gone on before in your life. That's why, number one, we don't want to stop the momentum of God. We don't want to stop it.
James Greer: 14:27 In fact, we want to join in it. Ephesians 3:20 says, now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that work in us. Where's the power work? In us. God wants you to know he wants to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you could ask or think and he wants to do it in you and through you. What I want to do is bring everybody on the journey. I don't want to go on a journey by myself; I want everybody at Journey Church to go together and that's why the power works within us. That's why God has blessed us from 12 to 900 and something already. It is a movement of God. When God moves, He wants us to move.
James Greer: 15:06 Going over the top is going to stretch our faith. Most of you know the story about Peter in Matthew 14:26, it says, when the disciples saw Him, Jesus walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying is it a ghost? And they cried out with fear and immediately, Jesus spoke unto them saying, be of good cheer. It is I; don't be afraid. One of the things I want you to know right now, today, whatever's going on in your life, you don't need to be afraid. You don't need to be afraid of what's gonna happen tomorrow. You don't need to be afraid with what's gonna happen in the ministry. You don't need to be afraid of what's gonna happen on this campus. God didn't give you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. So whatever it is you came in afraid of, just let it go right now.
James Greer: 15:46 And then Peter answered and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on water. Y'all know what he did. He stepped out of the boat, and he walked on water. Now that's pretty well stretching your faith. Amen? Has anybody in here walked on water? Has anybody in here tried? Y'all haven't even tried? There you go brother. I tried, me and you at least. So far I hadn't done it, but at least I tried. Amen? And so what God wants to do, he said Lord if it is you, command me to come. This is what I want you to do with that this morning.
James Greer: 16:17 First of all, I don't want you to be afraid of blank - whatever it is going on in your life. Second of all, Lord if it's you, tell me what you'd have me to do Lord where I could experience a power and a presence. Stretch my faith like never before. So you're not going to make me walk on water, but He can stretch your faith in a new and powerful way. In fact, we're gonna look at how to stretch your faith. We're going to look at how Jesus told Peter to launch out into deep water. He's telling Peter, I want you to experience life like you've never experienced it before.
James Greer: 16:46 Launching out into the deep will allow you to understand something really important that you better understand from this day forward. It's never what God wants from you. It's always what God wants for you. Too many people come to church and they come in: God needs me. God needs my money. God needs my talent. God doesn't need you. He doesn't need anything you have and you need everything He's got. Amen? So God wants to show us, it's not what I want from you, but it's what I want for you. And Luke 5:3 is a wonderful illustration of what God wants to do in my life and in your life. When He (Jesus) got into the boat, which Simon, which was Simon's He asked him to put it out a little from the land and He sat down and He taught the multitudes from the boat. Stop. If you want to experience God like you never have, if you want your faith stretched like it's never been, the very first thing you gotta do is you got to get Jesus Christ in the boat with you or in your body, in your business, in your home, in your marriage, and in your parenting.
James Greer: 17:48 So the step number one is get Jesus in the boat with you. Amen? And that's what they were doing. They said, hey, let Him get into the boat with me, and what was he doing? He was teaching them, but Jesus wasn't only teaching them how to multiply what they didn't have. He was teaching them a lesson like they had never had before. He was gonna take Peter on a journey of a lifetime. He was going to take Peter on a journey with Jesus that he had never forget. And the journey that Peter got to go on with Jesus is the same journey I want Journey Church to go on with Jesus. Amen? Verse Four: When he had stopped speaking (I love this), He said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let your nets for down for a catch. Sometimes the best thing you could do is Christian is just shut up and start doing what God said. Amen?
James Greer: 18:21 So many people know what He wants them to do, but they don't do it so they miss the blessings. See, unless you launch out into the deep with your faith, unless you do something that you haven't done before, you won't experience the depths and the power of your faith. See, Peter knew what Jesus wanted him to do. He said, I want you to go out and I want you to let your net down so that you can have a catch. And see what I want you to know (and I'll prove it to you in a minute), see, when you ask God what you want him to do and he tells you to do it, your mind will try to talk you out of it. God has such a great sense of humor. I knew I was going to be preaching on this and this great truth I'm trying to teach the church is simply ask God what He'd have you to do and when He lays it on your heart, just go ahead and do it before your mind talks you out of it.
James Greer: 19:15 God did that to me a couple times this week. God laid upon my heart what to do and I'll let my mind talk me out of it. And now I know that God has such a sense of humor that when I'm going to preach something, He seems like He wants me to experience it first. So I don't want you to do that. I want you to simply ask God, what would you have me to do? And then do it.
James Greer: 19:35 Jeremiah 17:9 says, the heart is deceitfully wicked above all things, desperately wicked, who can know it, but he answers the question. I, the Lord search the heart. God knows your heart. I test the mind. Why does he test it? Because your mind tries to talk you out of what I told your heart and give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doing. In other words, God said you're going to have the fruit according to your doing when you do what I've laid upon your heart to do it. And then He says in verse five, but Simon answered and said, Master, we've tolled all night long and we caught nothing.
James Greer: 20:09 Y'all ready? Some of y'all have been working day and night and still coming up with zero. Some of you say well I'm working hard. I'm trying to be a better parent. I'm coming to church. I'm just work and work and work and I still come up with nothing. So that's what Peter had done. That's what Simon had done. He said, not only me, but I had my partners out there with me Jesus and they knew how to fish. They were fishermen, and that's how they made their living. He said, we have worked and worked all night long Jesus and we've caught nothing. They were trying to say Jesus told them to do one thing and he was trying to talk him out of doing what Jesus told him to do Who was? His own mind.
James Greer: 20:43 But then he says, nevertheless, that's so fantastic. God told you to do something, and your mind and your emotions don't do it, but you say nevertheless at your word I will let down the nets. Nevertheless, I'm going to do what Jesus told me to do. That's all we're asking Journey Church to do. I want you to learn, some of you for the first time, to ask God what he would have you to do, and don't let your mind talk you out of it; simply just do what He says to do. That's stretching your faith. Now see the lesson is not only for Simon, it was for all his partners and everybody that was in the boat.
James Greer: 21:29 The Say Yes Campaign is not just for Brother James, not for just the staff, but it's for the whole Journey Church. See it's designed where every single person can be a part in some way. Verse Six: And when they had done this, when they had done what? When they did what he told them, they caught a great number of fish and their nets began to break. See, it's one thing to know what Jesus said and another thing to do what He said. And they didn't start getting blessed until after they did what He told them to do. And what you got to learn more than anything else is what I'm trying to teach you and what God's trying to teach me. When He tells me to do something, just go do it, and the Holy Spirit will tell you.
James Greer: 21:58 See, some of you have never stopped long enough to listen what the Holy Spirit says because you're so hard out there working and tolling, and you're coming up with nothing and God's trying to tell you a different way to do it. See if you keep fishing, so to speak, you keep working, you keep parenting, you keep trying to do the marriage and you keep trying to handle your finances the same way that you've done, and you're coming up with sad, empty results, it's probably time to change. In fact, do you know what it's called when you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and you get the same wrong results and you do it anyway? That's called stupid. So some of us need to go from stupid to supernatural starting today. Amen?
James Greer: 22:47 Listen, in Verse Seven He says and he signaled to their partners. Simon said look Jesus spoke to me, man. I'm really into fish and I'm telling you, I would much rather catch the fish than watch people catch the fish. Amen? I'd rather be there in the story than hear the story. And when Peter said, listen, God is blessing me. Listen, I don't want the blessings for myself. I want my partners to come in, and that's the same thing at Journey Church. It's not for one person, it's for every single person. When you see later on people getting saved over in Alexandria and people getting saved here, you'll want to say, man, I'm a part of that.
James Greer: 23:20 The other boats came to help them. They came and filled, both their boats and they slowly began to sink. See Simon was getting
to experience the supernatural in blessings and God like never before and he wanted his partners to experience it. And when Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, I'm a sinful man O Lord.
James Greer: 23:41 Verse Nine said for he and all who were with him were astonished. What were they astonished at? They were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken. They were astonished that they had tried to do it on their own day and night. They were astonished. They had let down the net. They were astonished that they were supposed to be professional fishermen and they couldn't do it and Jesus spoke one word to them and they had more fish than they'd ever had in their entire life. And they began to be astonished, and I'm going to tell you, that's what God wants you to. You can stay on the bank, you can be saved, you can be unfulfilled. You can push out into the deep and you can begin to enjoy the power of God. You can be astonished, amazed, and even awestruck at what God wants to do in your life.
James Greer: 24:20 Verse Ten: And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon and Jesus said to Simon, don't be afraid from now on, you're going to catch for men. That is simple because what Jesus has taught us to do at Journey Church, He's taught us number one, don't be afraid at whatever God's called us to do. Number two, our ultimate goal is to catch people. Our ultimate goal is the same thing that Jesus calls them to do, and He filled the boat up, and what I want to do is I want to fill the place here. I want to fill the place in Alexandria. I want it to be running over that we've got to fall on Jesus' feet, Jesus' feet and we say man we are awestruck at what God is doing. And that is what God wants us to do and you all should want to be a part of it. Amen? They brought their boats and forsook them and followed Him.
James Greer: 25:02 One of the most exciting things you'll ever do in your entire life is simply follow what Jesus has you to do. This is what I want to close with. Number one, I want you to make sure you've got Jesus Christ in the boat with you. First of all, when I say in the boat I mean in your life. There's a time for sure that you've invited Jesus Christ in your heart for savior. Then I want to make sure that you invited him into your business or to your marriage or to your home. Then I want you to look at the places where you've been doing the same thing over and over and over and you have been getting the same results.
James Greer: 25:38 Then I want you to close with surrendering to God. Surrender whatever He tells you to do. Surrender whatever he tells you to stop doing because see, that's when Peter and Simon and his partners got to experience something that most people never experienced. At Journey Church, we're getting to experience things that most people never get to experience. We're getting to experience a movement of God that's once in a lifetime. I've never seen in 30 years, and I don't think I'll ever see it again. I've talked about it. I've heard about it. I've even flown to places where it was because I wanted to be a part of it so bad. But see what I want to do is I want to keep the movement of God going, but I want every single one of us to be a part of it.
James Greer: 26:20 After a while, in a minute, you can take out your card like this and you can go over it. But it's way more than that because what I want God to do is begin to speak to your heart and make sure He's in your life. Make sure He's in your marriage. Make sure He's in your business. Make sure that the things you've been doing over and over again and not getting the right results, that today you say, I'm ready to change.
James Greer: 26:43 You want to commit at 1:20 every day to set your clock and just pray. You want to intensely pray and ask God, what would you have me to do? What's so cool? God will tell you. You know what? I found out sometimes when I ask God what to do and He tells me what to do is bigger than I thought we could do. He's done that with our church. He did that in my life. He's doing that in this campaign. He's already laid on me what He wants me to do. It's way more than just giving my bike. He wants to make sure that I give. You know why? Because when I get to give to God, I'm not simply given the Journey Church. Journey Church has given me an opportunity to give back to the God I love. So all you have to do is ask Him.
James Greer: 27:26 I want us to commit to going through your devotion. It's only two pages a week. I want you to commit to trying to be here the next four Sundays, and I want you to commit to trying to fast every Wednesday following what God's called us to do. So as you stand, I'm going to pray with you and I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to give you a couple of things, like these are all out here on both sides and the commitment cards and you can bring those down. You can come and join the church. You can come and follow through in baptism. You can do whatever God's called you to do.
James Greer: 27:56 Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you that you're in the boat here at Journey Church. You're with us. I feel your power and your presence in a supernatural way. God help us just to listen to you. Help us so surrendered you. Help us not to keep doing the same things over and over and over and coming up empty handed. Speak to our hearts right now. What is it that you would have us to change? What is it you would have us to do? [Unintelligible] to join the church and you know today's the day that God would have you to come and join the church. Some of you have never been biblically publicly baptized. Like the man older than me this Sunday. He just dropped in prayed. He said, "Listen, I was baptized when I was a child and I'm a late in life and I want to be publicly baptized. I know what I'm doing now."
James Greer: 28:40 Maybe that's you. Maybe you came and you're heavy laden and God said come unto me all that are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. So whatever it is God's called you to do, I pray that you would answer his call this morning. It's in Christ's name I pray. Amen.
Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.
James Greer: 00:54 But right now I want to talk, walk you through Say Yes. Man, did y'all see me riding in that limo? Hey, it was worth the campaign just to get them to drive me around anyway. Say Yes. Say Yes to what? To bringing people far from God close to God one step at a time. Say Yes. It's really about saying yes to God and bringing us closer to Him and stretching our faith. In 2006, well yeah, we rebirthed Lee Heights. In 2009, we moved from there to over here. Now there's Lee Heights right there. Yes. Okay. That's where we were, and at that time when we started, there was about 12 people and one man, well a couple of them, but mainly there was about 11 women and one guy. You remember John Griffin? Not everybody can handle [inaudible], but he did. But anyway, that's where we went. We went a long way from there and God started blessing us.
James Greer: 01:48 We started growing and if you can't see it, that's Michael Floyd and Josh in the back playing. And so, what happened is we were about to outgrow that facility and we traded. We came over here. That was a biggest step of faith that we'd ever made up to this point. Matter of fact, when we were over there, when we all came here, all our offerings together wouldn't pay the note. So that's how much God had blessed us.
James Greer: 02:10 But, I want to give you some things that God has done in the last five years. We've seen 553 people accept Christ. Woo! Yea, 527 saved. Do you realize that's more than a hundred people baptized a year? I'm gonna tell you, in the 30 years that I've been in the ministry. for 25 or 26 years, it was my goal to see 100 people saved. And now, all of a sudden we're averaging 100 people baptized a year. Now what you got to be careful of when you see this, you say okay, great somebody else got baptized. No, what you do is if you're not careful, we'll take the supernatural and we'll start taking it as natural and then we'll lose the supernatural. When not many people get saved, it's a great move of God. Then we had 2,175 people join in the last five years. Say, that's a city, Amen? That's unbelievable.
James Greer: 03:02 And on top of that, they just came out the fastest growing churches in America. Average growth of 19 percent. The top was 38 percent. We didn't even know how fast we're growing or not growing till Josh put the numbers together. We average 38 percent. Let me tell you how great that is. That means in America, the top 100 churches, average 18, and God has blessed us with 38 percent. That's an unbelievable growth. Because, you know what? Our story is I mess up, you mess up, we all mess up.
James Greer: 03:33 One of the reasons I believe God's blessed this way is because we accept people as mess ups and hope God turns their mess up into a miracle. Right? This is kind of what's going on now. We have three services [inaudible] of about 988. You know why we got to go through this? Because if you don't know where you've come from and if you don't know where you're at and you don't know where you're going, that's called lost and that doesn't matter if it's your home, your business, whatever. So we want you to know where we've come from, from about 12 to where we're at averaging about 988 to where we're going. Then recently a few weeks back, do y'all realize between social media, the TV and church, we reached close to 100,000 people? That's a lot of people.
James Greer: 04:20 We have 22 ministries, 300 volunteers, about 14 small groups with 200 people in there, and we're blessed because we're getting to see people saved every single Sunday. Now this is what is happening. At 38% when we're averaging 988, if we started right now and went one year, we'd outgrow our facilities, which is a great thing. Amen? And so what would happen with that is the sanctuary only would hold about 1,300. There would be unbelievable traffic and congestion, and the lobby would be packed. So what we decided is we had to create more space. There was a couple of ways we could have done it. We could have tried to put a larger sanctuary, but that would have cost about three times as much and take three times longer. But instead we decided to have a campus in Alexandria for another reason. I believe we can reach people further and faster in the Alexandria Campus than we can anywhere else.
James Greer: 05:12 And what I understand, what I need you to understand about the Alexandria Campus is, we're not leaving here. Amen? I will still preach here every Sunday. Brother Darrell will be the home Pastor over there. They'll have live worship, but when the message comes, they'll stream live. And so it’s going to be an exciting time that we go there, and you know, I think we can reach people further and faster than anything we do. Now, the exciting thing this morning is I was going to give you the location, but the newspaper beat us to it. Amen? Anyway, the location going to be [unintelligible]. Act like you didn't know it. Amen? Yay! That makes me feel better anyway.
James Greer: 05:46 So when y'all found out before we got to announce it, I'm sorry, but anyway, they jumped the gun on us. But anyway, that's gonna be a great location. In fact we've had over 1,600 people through our doors from Alexandria already. Every dot is a person. When we did the demographics, we found out there's 47,190 people and only 30 percent of the people went to church. But we just had a round table and that's when some of the local pastors come together. We had three of them from Alexandria, some from here and some from out of town, and I was telling him about the demographics. There was 47,190 people and only 30 percent go to church, and they said no, no. Two of them raised their hands up. Nope. We just did a study, they said, within 10 minutes of Alexandria where they're at, there's 100,000 people and 80 percent of them don't go to church.
James Greer: 06:31 So what we want to do is we want to go from Jerusalem to Judea. The Bible in Acts 1:8 says, when the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall be my witness in Jerusalem, Judea and the other most parts of the world. This is our Jerusalem. That was Acts 1:8. But if you didn't know it, at Acts 8:1 it said there came great persecution on the church and it scattered the people and they went to Judea and Sumeria, the very same places that Jesus told them to go, that they didn't go. So what that tells you is you're going to go. It's just a matter of how we go. We want to go through the power and presence of God, not the persecution. Amen? And so we're going to be there, but we're going to have the same DNA. We're going to have the same sermons, the same greeters, the same love, the same structure, the same strategy, same words, same invitation and one of our goals is we believe that we accept everybody where they're at, no matter what they look like, no matter where they come from and we let the Holy Spirit do the changing and not us.
James Greer: 07:26 And we'll have that same DNA there. So we said, well, that's good. We know where it came from. We know where we're at and we know where we're going. How will we get there? Will it cost money? It's going to cost about $1.2 Million. We've already purchased a facility for $925,000. It's going to take about $250,000 to update it. and about $100,000 to support it. Well, through that, what we did, we called an outside company called In Joy, and they took our figures and they said, listen, if you took the average of income (the average of the people that come in), y'all should be able to raise about $500,000. That's a lot to me. Amen?
James Greer: 08:03 But God said that we can do that and we're going to talk to you about the way it's structured. Every single person can be a part of it because you can pray about it. You can be a part of it. That's why I said it's so important. Like right here, you bring this and after a while, you fill it out and it says, first of all, I commit every day at 1:20 to pray. You got the little card, the prayer card, in the front of the bulletin, and it says a minute a day. Pray at 1:20, and it talks about that all God's promises are yes and amen. And so what we want to do is you take that and you pray. Set your phone every day at 1:20, and you pray the card and you ask God what he'd have, you to do and you pray for the ministry, and intentionally pray what God would have you to do. Then next, you have a devotion book right here; it's only a couple pages a week that you study.
James Greer: 09:01 Now, on my copy of my devotion book, I put Joshua 1:8. Because, Joshua 1:8 says he commands you if you'll meditate on His word day and night, He'll cause you to be a success. Try to take one verse out of the whole page and you just think about it all that day so you can do that. After that, we're gonna encourage you to come for the next four Sundays, and then we're going to have a fast. A simple fast. The first one on a Wednesday, 10/25. Fast from negative talking, complaining and grumbling. Some people in our church will not be able to talk that day.
James Greer: 09:29 I mean, you do not realize how hard it is not to complain and gripe all day long. What I'm going to do is I'm going to challenge my family. Every time somebody gripes or says something, we got to put a dollar up or the kids ten cents or whatever it is. You know, we go out to eat and the food is late and it's cold. I'm going to say isn't it great Mama that we have the money to pay for it. I'm going to practice ahead of time. But what we want you to do is that Wednesday we want you to go all day, and every time you gripe, every time you complain, put up a dollar and you can bring it to church that Sunday.
James Greer: 09:29 And then, oh my, 11/1; Jessica, no social media. You're going to go into withdrawals. But you know, I never believed how much I'll look at it. I was looking at it a while ago when I first came to the service and somebody text me and said, "Hey guess what? There's something wrong with your online media."
James Greer: 09:29 And then they texted me back and said, "Oh, they got it going." Amen.
James Greer: 09:29 I don't realize about every five minutes I'm taking my phone out and looking at it. I got to go all day with no social media that Wednesday and so do you. Isn't that going to be great? And then on 11/8, we're going to go to no TV all day. I've got an idea. No social media and no TV - let's talk. I mean I can be in my house with my grandkids, in the same room and they text me. So we're going to try and say, hey, I love you. How are you doing? How was your day? Fine.
James Greer: 10:54 So we practice that day, and then last on the 13th, we're going to fast. We're not going to have lunch that day. We're gonna all do fine. Amen? But when you fast for whatever you fast for, it's to remind you every time you go to do it or think you're going to do it, every time you grab your phone, instead you pray for the ministry. You pray to God. You pray that God will meet a need in your life. Instead you let that remind you of how bad you need God and how much you love God and how you want God to work in your life. Amen? And then at the end of the service, we're just gonna say hey, I'm willing to do that and you'll get an opportunity to turn it in, okay?
James Greer: 11:25 There's other things in there. On the 19th we're going to be praying about you asking God what he'd have you to give. What's so cool is I got to talk to about 100 people little earlier on as we went through it. And out of that 100 people, almost 10 or 12 percent of them have already made a commitment. But they knew it early on and they felt God was talking to them in a different way.
James Greer: 11:46 Did ya'll see the boat out front? No? That bass boat? Well, what happened was Robert Fuller had known for a while and that God has been impressing upon his heart. He said, listen, I'm going to sell my bass boat and I'm going to give it to the campaign. Amen? Well if that's not enough, then I don't know if Randy is here or not. But anyway, he went on a bike ride him and Brantley and Randy Wiggins. And on the way back he felt like God was speaking to him to sell his trike. And I thought God was speaking to me to buy it. No, not really. But God was speaking to him to sell it and he's going to put it in the campaign. He didn't know it, but when he got back Brother Darrell had already talked to me. He said, you know what? I love to ride my bike, but I've never really made a sacrifice for God. He said, I want to put my bike in the campaign. And so God may call you to do something else. But listen, this is not about a financial campaign. It's about as much as a spiritual campaign, because when you get spiritually right, you never have to worry about finances. And wouldn't you know it, Darrell did it, then Randy did it, then Robert did it - my bike's out there too for sale if anyone wants it.
James Greer: 12:50 This is set up where every single person can be a part of it. So it’s a two-year goal. We want you to pray about what God would have you to do and also want you to ask Him. There's that wonderful verse every day at 2 Corinthians 1:20, for all God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ and with a resounding "yes", and through Christ our "Amen." When you say amen, that just really means yes and everybody said Amen. So you get a whole month of saying Amen to God, and then remember you can't out give God. And then remember that certain dates will be will be preaching on and sermons and then the public commitment on the 19th of November. And then I love this, because this is Michael Floyd and that's the lady that owned the Economy [unintelligible] and they signed the papers and I said, "Man, we're off to our journey."
James Greer: 13:37 So God has really blessed us in a supernatural way and we want you to be a part of the way God has blessed us.
James Greer: 13:45 With that being said, did y'all see some people when you came in and they had top hats on? That was symbolic of hey we want to go over the top for Jesus Christ. Did you see Darrell walk up here with a dog at Church? That dog has spots on it, and we want every single person to find their spot in the ministry and in going forward with God. And so there's all kinds of things. Did y 'all see the limo out front? I love that just where I could ride in the limo, but it was a type of stretching your faith for God. And that's what we want this do. We want it to be a spiritual journey for you to go on like you've never gone on before in your life. That's why, number one, we don't want to stop the momentum of God. We don't want to stop it.
James Greer: 14:27 In fact, we want to join in it. Ephesians 3:20 says, now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that work in us. Where's the power work? In us. God wants you to know he wants to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you could ask or think and he wants to do it in you and through you. What I want to do is bring everybody on the journey. I don't want to go on a journey by myself; I want everybody at Journey Church to go together and that's why the power works within us. That's why God has blessed us from 12 to 900 and something already. It is a movement of God. When God moves, He wants us to move.
James Greer: 15:06 Going over the top is going to stretch our faith. Most of you know the story about Peter in Matthew 14:26, it says, when the disciples saw Him, Jesus walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying is it a ghost? And they cried out with fear and immediately, Jesus spoke unto them saying, be of good cheer. It is I; don't be afraid. One of the things I want you to know right now, today, whatever's going on in your life, you don't need to be afraid. You don't need to be afraid of what's gonna happen tomorrow. You don't need to be afraid with what's gonna happen in the ministry. You don't need to be afraid of what's gonna happen on this campus. God didn't give you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. So whatever it is you came in afraid of, just let it go right now.
James Greer: 15:46 And then Peter answered and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on water. Y'all know what he did. He stepped out of the boat, and he walked on water. Now that's pretty well stretching your faith. Amen? Has anybody in here walked on water? Has anybody in here tried? Y'all haven't even tried? There you go brother. I tried, me and you at least. So far I hadn't done it, but at least I tried. Amen? And so what God wants to do, he said Lord if it is you, command me to come. This is what I want you to do with that this morning.
James Greer: 16:17 First of all, I don't want you to be afraid of blank - whatever it is going on in your life. Second of all, Lord if it's you, tell me what you'd have me to do Lord where I could experience a power and a presence. Stretch my faith like never before. So you're not going to make me walk on water, but He can stretch your faith in a new and powerful way. In fact, we're gonna look at how to stretch your faith. We're going to look at how Jesus told Peter to launch out into deep water. He's telling Peter, I want you to experience life like you've never experienced it before.
James Greer: 16:46 Launching out into the deep will allow you to understand something really important that you better understand from this day forward. It's never what God wants from you. It's always what God wants for you. Too many people come to church and they come in: God needs me. God needs my money. God needs my talent. God doesn't need you. He doesn't need anything you have and you need everything He's got. Amen? So God wants to show us, it's not what I want from you, but it's what I want for you. And Luke 5:3 is a wonderful illustration of what God wants to do in my life and in your life. When He (Jesus) got into the boat, which Simon, which was Simon's He asked him to put it out a little from the land and He sat down and He taught the multitudes from the boat. Stop. If you want to experience God like you never have, if you want your faith stretched like it's never been, the very first thing you gotta do is you got to get Jesus Christ in the boat with you or in your body, in your business, in your home, in your marriage, and in your parenting.
James Greer: 17:48 So the step number one is get Jesus in the boat with you. Amen? And that's what they were doing. They said, hey, let Him get into the boat with me, and what was he doing? He was teaching them, but Jesus wasn't only teaching them how to multiply what they didn't have. He was teaching them a lesson like they had never had before. He was gonna take Peter on a journey of a lifetime. He was going to take Peter on a journey with Jesus that he had never forget. And the journey that Peter got to go on with Jesus is the same journey I want Journey Church to go on with Jesus. Amen? Verse Four: When he had stopped speaking (I love this), He said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let your nets for down for a catch. Sometimes the best thing you could do is Christian is just shut up and start doing what God said. Amen?
James Greer: 18:21 So many people know what He wants them to do, but they don't do it so they miss the blessings. See, unless you launch out into the deep with your faith, unless you do something that you haven't done before, you won't experience the depths and the power of your faith. See, Peter knew what Jesus wanted him to do. He said, I want you to go out and I want you to let your net down so that you can have a catch. And see what I want you to know (and I'll prove it to you in a minute), see, when you ask God what you want him to do and he tells you to do it, your mind will try to talk you out of it. God has such a great sense of humor. I knew I was going to be preaching on this and this great truth I'm trying to teach the church is simply ask God what He'd have you to do and when He lays it on your heart, just go ahead and do it before your mind talks you out of it.
James Greer: 19:15 God did that to me a couple times this week. God laid upon my heart what to do and I'll let my mind talk me out of it. And now I know that God has such a sense of humor that when I'm going to preach something, He seems like He wants me to experience it first. So I don't want you to do that. I want you to simply ask God, what would you have me to do? And then do it.
James Greer: 19:35 Jeremiah 17:9 says, the heart is deceitfully wicked above all things, desperately wicked, who can know it, but he answers the question. I, the Lord search the heart. God knows your heart. I test the mind. Why does he test it? Because your mind tries to talk you out of what I told your heart and give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doing. In other words, God said you're going to have the fruit according to your doing when you do what I've laid upon your heart to do it. And then He says in verse five, but Simon answered and said, Master, we've tolled all night long and we caught nothing.
James Greer: 20:09 Y'all ready? Some of y'all have been working day and night and still coming up with zero. Some of you say well I'm working hard. I'm trying to be a better parent. I'm coming to church. I'm just work and work and work and I still come up with nothing. So that's what Peter had done. That's what Simon had done. He said, not only me, but I had my partners out there with me Jesus and they knew how to fish. They were fishermen, and that's how they made their living. He said, we have worked and worked all night long Jesus and we've caught nothing. They were trying to say Jesus told them to do one thing and he was trying to talk him out of doing what Jesus told him to do Who was? His own mind.
James Greer: 20:43 But then he says, nevertheless, that's so fantastic. God told you to do something, and your mind and your emotions don't do it, but you say nevertheless at your word I will let down the nets. Nevertheless, I'm going to do what Jesus told me to do. That's all we're asking Journey Church to do. I want you to learn, some of you for the first time, to ask God what he would have you to do, and don't let your mind talk you out of it; simply just do what He says to do. That's stretching your faith. Now see the lesson is not only for Simon, it was for all his partners and everybody that was in the boat.
James Greer: 21:29 The Say Yes Campaign is not just for Brother James, not for just the staff, but it's for the whole Journey Church. See it's designed where every single person can be a part in some way. Verse Six: And when they had done this, when they had done what? When they did what he told them, they caught a great number of fish and their nets began to break. See, it's one thing to know what Jesus said and another thing to do what He said. And they didn't start getting blessed until after they did what He told them to do. And what you got to learn more than anything else is what I'm trying to teach you and what God's trying to teach me. When He tells me to do something, just go do it, and the Holy Spirit will tell you.
James Greer: 21:58 See, some of you have never stopped long enough to listen what the Holy Spirit says because you're so hard out there working and tolling, and you're coming up with nothing and God's trying to tell you a different way to do it. See if you keep fishing, so to speak, you keep working, you keep parenting, you keep trying to do the marriage and you keep trying to handle your finances the same way that you've done, and you're coming up with sad, empty results, it's probably time to change. In fact, do you know what it's called when you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and you get the same wrong results and you do it anyway? That's called stupid. So some of us need to go from stupid to supernatural starting today. Amen?
James Greer: 22:47 Listen, in Verse Seven He says and he signaled to their partners. Simon said look Jesus spoke to me, man. I'm really into fish and I'm telling you, I would much rather catch the fish than watch people catch the fish. Amen? I'd rather be there in the story than hear the story. And when Peter said, listen, God is blessing me. Listen, I don't want the blessings for myself. I want my partners to come in, and that's the same thing at Journey Church. It's not for one person, it's for every single person. When you see later on people getting saved over in Alexandria and people getting saved here, you'll want to say, man, I'm a part of that.
James Greer: 23:20 The other boats came to help them. They came and filled, both their boats and they slowly began to sink. See Simon was getting
to experience the supernatural in blessings and God like never before and he wanted his partners to experience it. And when Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, I'm a sinful man O Lord.
James Greer: 23:41 Verse Nine said for he and all who were with him were astonished. What were they astonished at? They were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken. They were astonished that they had tried to do it on their own day and night. They were astonished. They had let down the net. They were astonished that they were supposed to be professional fishermen and they couldn't do it and Jesus spoke one word to them and they had more fish than they'd ever had in their entire life. And they began to be astonished, and I'm going to tell you, that's what God wants you to. You can stay on the bank, you can be saved, you can be unfulfilled. You can push out into the deep and you can begin to enjoy the power of God. You can be astonished, amazed, and even awestruck at what God wants to do in your life.
James Greer: 24:20 Verse Ten: And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon and Jesus said to Simon, don't be afraid from now on, you're going to catch for men. That is simple because what Jesus has taught us to do at Journey Church, He's taught us number one, don't be afraid at whatever God's called us to do. Number two, our ultimate goal is to catch people. Our ultimate goal is the same thing that Jesus calls them to do, and He filled the boat up, and what I want to do is I want to fill the place here. I want to fill the place in Alexandria. I want it to be running over that we've got to fall on Jesus' feet, Jesus' feet and we say man we are awestruck at what God is doing. And that is what God wants us to do and you all should want to be a part of it. Amen? They brought their boats and forsook them and followed Him.
James Greer: 25:02 One of the most exciting things you'll ever do in your entire life is simply follow what Jesus has you to do. This is what I want to close with. Number one, I want you to make sure you've got Jesus Christ in the boat with you. First of all, when I say in the boat I mean in your life. There's a time for sure that you've invited Jesus Christ in your heart for savior. Then I want to make sure that you invited him into your business or to your marriage or to your home. Then I want you to look at the places where you've been doing the same thing over and over and over and you have been getting the same results.
James Greer: 25:38 Then I want you to close with surrendering to God. Surrender whatever He tells you to do. Surrender whatever he tells you to stop doing because see, that's when Peter and Simon and his partners got to experience something that most people never experienced. At Journey Church, we're getting to experience things that most people never get to experience. We're getting to experience a movement of God that's once in a lifetime. I've never seen in 30 years, and I don't think I'll ever see it again. I've talked about it. I've heard about it. I've even flown to places where it was because I wanted to be a part of it so bad. But see what I want to do is I want to keep the movement of God going, but I want every single one of us to be a part of it.
James Greer: 26:20 After a while, in a minute, you can take out your card like this and you can go over it. But it's way more than that because what I want God to do is begin to speak to your heart and make sure He's in your life. Make sure He's in your marriage. Make sure He's in your business. Make sure that the things you've been doing over and over again and not getting the right results, that today you say, I'm ready to change.
James Greer: 26:43 You want to commit at 1:20 every day to set your clock and just pray. You want to intensely pray and ask God, what would you have me to do? What's so cool? God will tell you. You know what? I found out sometimes when I ask God what to do and He tells me what to do is bigger than I thought we could do. He's done that with our church. He did that in my life. He's doing that in this campaign. He's already laid on me what He wants me to do. It's way more than just giving my bike. He wants to make sure that I give. You know why? Because when I get to give to God, I'm not simply given the Journey Church. Journey Church has given me an opportunity to give back to the God I love. So all you have to do is ask Him.
James Greer: 27:26 I want us to commit to going through your devotion. It's only two pages a week. I want you to commit to trying to be here the next four Sundays, and I want you to commit to trying to fast every Wednesday following what God's called us to do. So as you stand, I'm going to pray with you and I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to give you a couple of things, like these are all out here on both sides and the commitment cards and you can bring those down. You can come and join the church. You can come and follow through in baptism. You can do whatever God's called you to do.
James Greer: 27:56 Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you that you're in the boat here at Journey Church. You're with us. I feel your power and your presence in a supernatural way. God help us just to listen to you. Help us so surrendered you. Help us not to keep doing the same things over and over and over and coming up empty handed. Speak to our hearts right now. What is it that you would have us to change? What is it you would have us to do? [Unintelligible] to join the church and you know today's the day that God would have you to come and join the church. Some of you have never been biblically publicly baptized. Like the man older than me this Sunday. He just dropped in prayed. He said, "Listen, I was baptized when I was a child and I'm a late in life and I want to be publicly baptized. I know what I'm doing now."
James Greer: 28:40 Maybe that's you. Maybe you came and you're heavy laden and God said come unto me all that are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. So whatever it is God's called you to do, I pray that you would answer his call this morning. It's in Christ's name I pray. Amen.
Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.
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