Preacher: Josh White
Well good morning everyone welcome to respond which church of Phoenix we’d like to have you take these fellowship paths are located somewhere in your island fill those out we’d like to have a record of your attendance today. A warning the next few weeks here are going to be very interesting and so what I want to do is kind of go over what’s going to be happening the next few Sundays it’s a day in normal Sunday at the end of the message I will be sharing with you can of the vision that we have for possibly purchasing that new church property and we’ll get to that later but next Sunday we’re actually going to take a tour of that building and that will be a five thirty P.M. and everyone is invited and so we will do as well there are one show up will meet in the same. Kind of talk about some of the positives in the negatives of maybe making a move like this and they will give you an opportunity to go and look at all the facilities and so that will happen next Sunday on Labor Day into Sunday sure now we’re going to be back to one service we’re not having Sunday school and so we’ll just meet at nine o’clock in the morning one service that’s it and then September tenth is going to be kind of a big day we’re going to have one worship service at nine am no Sunday School and then we’re having a congregational meeting at ten thirty and that is to make of vote on whether we’re going to pursue this other church facility or not and then September seventeenth I will go back to the two services and we’ll have some new Sunday school classes All right so that’s a lot to know I don’t expect you to remember everything but you’ll hear that a few more times than Also it’ll be in the Bulletin and we’ll send out some e-mails but a couple other announcements September thirteenth and fourteenth Wednesday and Thursday we’re going to start our women’s Eve when’s the evening Bible study and then on Thursday morning the fourteenth will start our men’s Bible study small group in the morning here at church again and then also softball is beginning as Matt McFadden here somewhere. Matthew stand up this is the coach so if you have any questions or if you would like to play make sure you talk to Matt. That’s right making any predictions about.
Five hundred OK So when someone knew some and also we just had our jam ministry just started just among mothers and after coming up I think director wants to kind of show a little bit about what happened.
I just want to give you guys an update about our Jamey.
It was Wednesday morning we had sixteen mom show up and with that we had twenty two kids so it was a lot it was a lot of fun we had joined us and gave us a beautiful message about Grace and motherhood and we just had a really fun time with fellowshipping getting to know each other and even know how this new group is going to go. Cited for our next meeting we’re going to do a really fun craft so if you’re a mom and have a kid in your house of any age please come join us we still have room you come see me or sunshine if you have any questions.
And like I said we had twenty two kids it’s a lot but we have a.
Handful of really awesome volunteers are really thankful for but we could still use more so if you are able and if that sounds like something you would like to help us out with please come see me I can give you more details about that and also next week we’re going to do our coffee fundraiser again it’s an iced cold brew really I mean donations only it’s going to help pay for just our group. Next year maybe one of the moms have to pay dues so we can just come and hang out together so we thank you for all your help so far and again if you have any questions please come see me.
Have a great start for our jam ministry and also our I want to start of this last Tuesday night and we had a ton of kids here I think I know the exact number but it was more than twenty two so all we had. What a great time but it’s nice to see both of those ministries up and running right now let’s hope the ushers come forward and we will receive this morning’s offering.
All right let’s turn to the Lord of prayer.
It’s an honor to be here this morning to worship you.
Just acknowledge what we just say we stand before you and we realize that you pay to go.
Shopping your own blood and sacrificing your body on the cross we have freedom and we have hope and we have the joy of our salvation this morning we have come to celebrate that to worship you really share with the world around us this is the hope that the Lord.
We have gathered here together so that we can proclaim this this wonderful message of salvation through death and resurrection and we give it this time so that ministry and message go forward so I pray that you will give at this time of crisis in Ukraine.
Right in front of the police.
Through third grade.
Stand right there and look at me just like Tim is doing right here OK.
You know you just stare.
It’s kind of scary.
All right.
Anyway I have.
Goldfish you guys like you stink.
When you.
Are really good you know when I was your age maybe a bit older.
I experimented with your experiment with food. Yeah I did I think I did was. I try to put them through my mouth like how long I could chew it without swallowing it.
I didn’t take notes so it wasn’t really scientific or anything but. Anyway if I just chewed up.
I’m speaking and you look at me. I know it’s hard but go ahead.
Anyway I try to see a lot to chew food without swallowing let me ask you this question if I just choose my food.
Roy a whole lot and then just spit it out.
Would that do me any good.
You know why because I need nourishment go my body. You know that’s. Same thing with God’s word.
You know you hear God’s word you hear God’s word and want to write your god’s word here church and this service you hear God’s Word we going to church you hear God’s word in Sunday school hopefully you hear God’s word. But if all you’re doing is hearing it.
Do you any good does it.
Same with food you’ve got to swallow. With God’s word you’re going to do it.
Doing is the same thing as swallowing OK. So when you hear God’s word do it right.
It will be with you later OK. All right I want to read a verse we call this for me please if you don’t need it I have my lips on there.
OK it says in James this is in God’s Word the Bible says in James one twenty two be doers of the word and not hearers only OK.
The word thank you. For.
Your Me Father we thank you for this day thank you for these young people who are pray that they will be young people who do what you say not just listen or hear what you say your name.
Now I am the leader remember and you like yeah oh yeah I remember that now OK good.
That’s a big group again.
They’re multiplying you know.
Well.
I think the Road trips are better today than they were twenty or thirty years ago I mean would you agree for those of you who like to take vacations and take road trips you know when I was a kid to grow up in Spokane Washington and in all my years that I was there we took one road trip. We had vacations where we go kind of close to home but we only took one road trip we went down to Disneyland and so this was back in one thousand nine hundred four and I know some of you weren’t even born in one thousand nine hundred four but kind of giving away my age here and so from Spokane Washington down to to Disneyland we also want to Knott’s Berry Farm we had a great trip and I remember as a kid from Washington state the thing I was looking forward to the most was seeing palm trees and now I step outside and you can see I’m you know anytime a white but I want to one of the clearest memories I have of this trip and this is this was quite a long time ago we were driving around in the San Francisco area and we had some relatives that live there on the Larsons I had never met them before that and I’ve never seen them sense but we’re driving around my dad’s in the front seat of my mom is in the passenger seat and she had this thing called Mag And she it was unfolded and she was doing this and and we’re coming to this busy intersection I mean you’re actually all of the intersections are busy because you know San Francisco is a lot more crowded than Spokane Washington and we’re coming up to an intersection and my dad is telling my mom I need to know do I turn left or do I turn right and she’s like you know I’m trying to find I’m trying to find it and eventually before he committed to going to the right lane or the left lane he said I turn left here right and she said right.
What do you think of all meant by that is.
Well my dad thought she meant you know turn to the right and so my day. Had turned to the right and we got lost you know what she should have said or she meant to say was You are correct and in that car there was a little bit of tension after that you know and so I always remember that it was one of those lessons I learned of someone ask you for directions in a car don’t say right say correction or turn left or correct but you know these days that situation probably wouldn’t happen because we don’t pull out maps anymore we have little ladies in a little box on top of your dashboard and they tell you where to go and and they’re correcting in and telling you where to go so I really appreciate G.P.S. another thing about technology today. Thing I really appreciate is not only like if you have a phone you don’t even need the G.P.S. you can use your phone it will tell you where you’re supposed to go but also maybe some of your familiar with this if you look on Google Earth on Google Maps on your phone because the phones in their G.P.S. are being picked up by satellites it’ll actually tell you how busy the traffic is on the road that you’re on and so if you know that you’re supposed to go somewhere and you look at the map and you see that red line is because the satellites are picking up all the cell phones that are traveling in this one pretty slow and so not only will you know how to get where you’re supposed to go but you will be emotionally prepared to handle the traffic and so technology is just it’s wonderful and and with this kind of technology at our disposal I think we would all be absolutely foolish to not use it right and so I think most of us do. Well in life we all want to know where we’re supposed to go we want to know what God’s will is for our life and we need someone or something to show us the right way and right now we’re in a series talking about the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit’s role in our life and this is something we’re going to be talking about today the role of. The Holy Spirit in guiding us in certain areas of our life two weeks ago we talked about the purifying work of the Holy Spirit that God’s will for our lives is for us to be holy and so when God places the Holy Spirit within us we are cleanse from all unrighteousness and we are pure in God’s sight and then also throughout our entire lives it’s a process of us being transformed into a crisis image and so we have to keep in step with the Holy Spirit allow the Holy Spirit to continue to to work on us in this way but today we’re going to talk about the role of the Holy Spirit in that the Holy Spirit guides us and I’ll share with you three ways in which the Holy Spirit guides us or at least the three ways that will talk about this morning the Holy Spirit guides us into truth. The Holy Spirit also guides us into having the right desires and emotions and the Holy Spirit also guides us into ministry opportunities let’s start off by talking about the truth the Holy Spirit was given to us in part to tell us about the truth and by talking about giving us the truth I mean for us to have a correct understanding of God and His will and the truth is that are in God’s word and so right before Jesus ascended He told the disciples I am sending the Holy Spirit and in John fourteen twenty six he says but the helper the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. And so this is the role of the Holy Spirit are one of the roles of the Holy Spirit and so if you ever have one of those off ha moments where you think you know the Bible’s talks about this some more it oh I remember this is where it is or I remember hearing this in a sermon or a Sunday school class that is the work of the Holy Spirit to teach us and to confirm to us what we’ve heard God’s Word say a really good passage that teaches about this in first Corinthians. So like all of you are turn over your Bibles to first Corinthians Chapter two.
Verse twenty and chapter two and will begin in verse eleven.
First Corinthians chapter two verse a lot and this is where Paul is talking about how people with the Holy Spirit in them are able to understand the things that are from God First Corinthians two eleven.
Says For we know a person’s thoughts for who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him.
So Also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned the spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him but we have the mind of Christ.
You know this book The God is given to us is God’s way of communicating to us and then there we will find lots of lessons on history but this is not primarily a history book this is a spiritual book and it teaches us spiritual truths and so here in First Corinthians two it says that without the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer there are not fully able or so if someone doesn’t have those who are not fully able to understand the spiritual truths because they are spiritually discerned or spiritually dead you know the first time I read that it reminded me of something that happened to me when I was back in junior high and I know I shared. Before and it’s a great story and it made an impact on my life I’ll probably share it again but I remember I was some of these are ninth grade I can remember what it was I was in junior high at Evergreen junior high school in Spokane Washington and on my street there was another student who went there her name was Jeannie and she lived a few houses down from me and she is she is of a different religion OK I’ll just I’ll just say that and so I knew she was spiritual warrior you know religious and she knew I was religious and so every now and then we would get into these these debates these very friendly. Spiritual debates and biblical debates and I remember talking to her because they believe that her religion believes that there’s another way to be saved other than through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our faith and that they were taught that you have to earn your salvation and I remember thinking that’s not what the Bible teaches and so one day I think it was probably in Sunday school we’re looking through a passage and I saw a verse that said and I can remember exactly which one it was at that time but it says very clearly that you are saved only by faith and not by works and I remember I underlined that verse in my Bible and I said next time I see Jeannie I’m going to show this to her so next time we’re walking home and I said we got to my house and Jean we’re here I have a Bible verse I’m going to show you so I went in I grabbed my Bible and I showed it to her and part of me wanted to prove her that I was right she was wrong here as part of my motivation but I was also concerned for her salvation and so I said Jamie this is what the Bible says you can’t earn your way to heaven it’s only by faith and I remember she read that and she said no that’s not what it means.
And I was so frustrated with her in my mind it was crystal clear and it is sort of like you know the the arithmetic where you are tell someone if you have two apples and your friend brings you to apples how many apples do you have four out of this is very easy to understand and here she is not being able to understand this. And she walked home and I was really frustrated with her and I thought she’s just trying to be disagreeable you know she’s just trying to to not admit that she was wrong and this is what the Bible teaches and then I read this and I realized there’s a really good chance that she couldn’t grasp that concept because she’s living under a deception and the Holy Spirit does not live within her and so this is one thing that the Holy Spirit does for us the Holy Spirit leads us and guides us into truth.
And how can a spiritually dead person understand a spiritual truth and they can’t without the Holy Spirit and so this is why God has given us the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth and today when we say truth we’re talking about truth that has been revealed to us not new information that no one has ever heard and this is a wonderful power that is at work in our lives and so we should take advantage of it and so how can we take advantage of this illuminating work of the Holy Spirit I think partly it’s some of it’s fairly obvious if God has given us His Word and the Holy Spirit to help us understand it then we need to be people of the word and so whenever you hear anyone say something like this is what God says don’t take them at their word and I’m talking even about myself anyone that you read in a book anyone that you hear on the radio if someone says this is what God’s truth is you need to study that for yourself don’t take anyone else’s words God has given us the resources that we need to understand what truth is and that is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit and so not only does the Holy Spirit guide us into truth the Holy Spirit also Point number two will also guide us towards correct desires and emotions. I want you to churn over to go lation chapter five.
Glaciers chapter five. This morning in Adam’s Sunday school class we. We’re going through Galatians and when we actually looked at this this passage are interesting how it works sometimes.
But we’re talking about how the Holy Spirit can guide us towards correct desires and emotions a lot of times we think that our Christianity or being a Christian it just comes down to understanding and following the moral commands of God but the Holy Spirit can do so much more for us the Holy Spirit can fill our minds and our hearts with the kinds of desires and emotions that will bring us to live a godly life but the glacier is Chapter five beginning in verse sixteen.
Five sixteen.
It says but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit but the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do now the word here for Desire is the Greek word which refers to a strong human emotion and the desire this is not talking about some kind of an intellectual decision and so it says don’t give in to the desires of the flesh given to the desires of the Holy Spirit and so one of the worst pieces of advice that we can give or follow is this your problem maybe you receive this advice or given it but when we’re trying to make a decision about something that’s really important and significant in our life sometimes we’ll hear the advice given to us well just just follow your heart go with what your heart instead is and wait a second the lation says that we have two sets of desires one can be of the flesh and one can be of the Spirit and so if we are following just the desires of our heart it can lead us away from God sometimes the desires of our heart and unnecessarily send. But they can lead to instant selfish gratification and the spirit in the flesh as it says here they contradict each other fleshly desires they usually lead to self gratification instant gratification and the Spirit desires to lead us towards maturity and to glorify Jesus Christ and so when your heart in your mind are swirling with emotions about about a certain decision that you’re supposed to make or a certain subject or you’re trying to make a decision or maybe even sometimes about a about another person and the kind of relationship you’re going to have with them realize that there are two ways for us to go. We have fleshly desires which could potentially lead us away from God But then this also says that we can have desires of the Spirit and the Spirit can give us the right desires and emotions that will lead us to glorify God Well how do we take advantage of this this kind of leading guiding of the Holy Spirit.
Obviously with the Word of God and some of you have probably noticed if you ever spent time with in God’s word and you’re just reading it and all of a sudden you just find yourself wanting to how that kind of holiness that you read about in the Word of God in your life sometimes that’s what happens I know the way I think that we can apply this for lives is whenever you’re about to make a decision we should simply pray God give me the right desires I want to make the right choice what’s the best decision in this in this circumstance or put within my heart in my mind the desires of the Spirit and if we pray that I believe that God will honor that and so this is another way that the Holy Spirit guides us and so next time you’re about to make a really big decision not a small decision like what you’re going to have for lunch but a big decision pray to God and say God I want my actions to be in alignment with your words so please give me the right desires Well hopefully you’ve experienced both of these in your life and hopefully everyone here is had one of those aha moment. All of a sudden your understanding of the truth of God’s Word for the first time those are very exciting and hopefully all of us have realized there’s different times where we say you know that I want to do what God’s will is for my life and you feel God really empowering us with the right desires and emotions Well there’s one other way at least one other way that we’ll talk about this morning that the Holy Spirit guides us in our lives and that is that the Holy Spirit from time to time will guide us towards ministry opportunities that there are opportunities out there in fact in. Tennis is that we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do and so there is all these opportunities out there for us to do and if we are yielding and submitting ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s role in our life sometimes God will lead us to these opportunities I want to I want to say go over to the Book of Acts and look at a couple of these examples I’ll go over to accept the thirteen.
Acts Chapter thirteen.
And here’s a little context on this passage this is after Jesus came to assault on the road to Damascus and said that he had set an aside to be an instrument to go to the Gentile nations and proclaim the grace of God to them and so saw was getting ready for this and he was up and entire says and actually in Antioch and here in Acts thirteen two this is where we see the Holy Spirit get a hold of this group of people and say this is what I’m going to have you do this is an opportunity in the Holy Spirit guided them towards this opportunity so Acts thirteen beginning in verse one.
Says now there were in the Church of Antioch prophets and teachers Barnabas Simeon who is called Niger Lucy S. of Sirene may in a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch and Saul while they were worshipping the Lord in fasting the Holy Spirit said set apart for me Barnabas and solve for the work to which I have called them but after fasting in prayer they lay their hands on their. And sent them off oh being sent out by the Holy Spirit they went down to Solutia and from there they sailed their Cyprus when they arrived at Selma’s they proclaim the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews and they had John to assist them. So as we read this Whose idea was it for Paul and Barnabas to go on this mission trip it was God’s this is what God wanted to do and he was going to use someone who was going to be led by the Spirit of God And so through the Holy Spirit he had Paul and Barnabas go off and do this now how it says this is an interesting thing in verse two it says that the Holy Spirit said so the part of me Barnabas and so what how did that happen while at this time on the sign gifts I believe the sign gifts have ceased today but back then obviously God was using and speaking to your individuals and so there was probably a prophet who said God said this is what you’re supposed to do again I think the Bible tells us in first Corinthians thirteen that the sign gifts have ceased mainly because we have everything that we need to know here so here’s kind of a warning if someone walks up to you and says God told me that you’re supposed to do this. Back away slowly from them or really be very cautious that that someone’s not just trying to pull your leg or something another example of the Holy Spirit leading in this kind of way a let’s stay in X. go to X. twenty.
X. Chapter twenty beginning in verse twenty two.
So another time when we see the Holy Spirit guiding Saul or guiding Paul. Acts Chapter twenty. Beginning in verse twenty two.
This is another time when the Holy Spirit is leading them. Paul says verse twenty two and now behold I am going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment in. Selections await me but I do not account my life of any value or is precious to myself if only I may finish the course and ministry that I have received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God Paul says I am going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit Paul was convinced that this is exactly what the Spirit of God was leading him to do and so he submitted He says that’s what I will do there’s probably no audible voice but the strong sense among many people that this is where the Holy Spirit is leading them to do if that is ever happened to you or you realize in this situation I feel like God is leading me to do something those of those events they don’t happen very often they’re kind of few and far between but you have kind of a a mixture of emotions you’re both scared and excited at the same time and that’s kind of when you get the goosebumps and you’re saying is God really asking me to do this and you kind of take that step of faith you know I’ve experienced something like that in my life a few times those kind of extraordinary experiences one of the first times is when I was in college I graduated with my associates degree and I moved back to Spokane or to Seattle I was going to try to become a firefighter and I remember that summer I was trying to figure out God you know what am I supposed to do what would you want me to do with my life and I just felt like God was showing me I want you to become a pastor and I remember in that moment when I finally gave in there was all this joy and peace and it was a very exciting and scary moment but I really felt like the Lord was leading me to do that the Holy Spirit was leading me and now it’s been nineteen years so I hopefully that’s that’s been the case another time when I felt the Holy Spirit leading me was back in one nine hundred ninety eight person and I we had just gotten married and we had a few different options in terms of what we’re going to do for ministry and we’re saying more what should we do we want to serve you and the three options were to go to Africa to become a missionary over there the second option. Was and maybe some of you already knew this but the second option was to come to Phoenix Arizona and plant a church and the church plant was going to be based off a group of people that have left a church called Grace Bible Church of Phoenix and they were starting a new church and this was well before I knew anyone in Phoenix and I remember I heard about the scenario and I thought wait a second why would I move to a city and start a church that broke off from a church and they’re probably not going to be very happy that I’m there and so I said no I’m not going to do that and the third option was the option that we took it was to become the associate pastor at that time of grace Bible Church a Grace Bible Fellowship in Jenison Michigan and I felt like that’s what I was supposed to do and I was there for eight years and I feel like that’s exactly where I was supposed to be. And another time when I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to something different was back in two thousand and six when Grace Bible Church of Phoenix said Why don’t you come down and lead us not that split off from us but I said I remember when Chris and I were here actually was eleven years ago I think even kind of in this time and I remember being here and oh lord you know what are we supposed to do and I just remember there was just this excitement and this passion and just this vision of why there’s all these opportunities here and I really felt like this was where we were supposed to be you know those moments there are few and far between but if you give yourself over to God and you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you he will lead you towards ministry opportunities and ministry opportunities usually come from the convergence of a need and your passion or your spiritual gifts there are needs out there everywhere and if God has given you a gift that can fill that need then he will lead you if you’re willing to be led to do something like that well I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that but when it happens it’s both Like I said it’s scary and it’s really exciting because usually it takes taking a step of faith. Well right now for the rest of the sermon what I want to do is I want to talk about a potential opportunity that we might have as a church and we’re trying to figure out if this is the Lord’s leading of us or if this is something that we’re we’re supposed to pursue or not so again for the rest this morning what I would do want to share with everyone this opportunity of them the potential of purchasing this church on twelfth Street.
I want you to turn your sermon notes over if you have them if you’ve been using them we’re going to talk about the three main reasons why the board and I feel that we should make this church that our number one option and I encourage you to take notes I can have some stuff up here on slides but also write down questions when I ness or we’re going to have a time of questions and answers right now we will next Sunday night at five thirty at the church and will definite have some questions and answers other times but the first thing I want to say before we get into this portion of the service is I’m just I have just been talking about the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives and what I am not saying right now is that I’m confident that God is leading us in this direction OK but I am confident that we as a church need to find that out so that’s what we’re trying to do. Usually you don’t know if God led you in a certain direction until later and you can look back and you can say yes there is evidence this is what I was supposed to do or you know we missed an opportunity but right now we are looking forward in trying to discern if this is something that God is is opening for us opening up for us to do so let’s spend the rest of this morning talking about that and again I’ve talked about the the main events that are coming up over these next next four weeks next week is the tour on a Labor Day we’re only going to have more… service and I don’t clock and no Sunday school but then on September tenth we will have our one combined worship service at nine and then at ten thirty we’re going to have our congregational meeting and we will vote as a church whether we want to pursue this and that Sunday we will take pledges. And I’ll explain that a little bit more coming up but when we compare the two options you want to go to the first slide when we compare the two options Well first let me tell you the three reasons why we as a board voted unanimously to make this or number one option is because of time money and ministry opportunity so that’s what I’m going to share with you at this time but only comparing the two options when I say option number one I’m talking about the church on a street and Option number two is what we have been thinking about doing for the last two or three years and that is trying to purchase our neighbor’s house and renovate and remodel that and so I want to kind of compare these two options and share with you how I and the board came to that decision where we unanimously said we want to go for option number one or make the church on trial street or number one option and this comes from the I guess the concept of time if we were to pursue option number two and as I’m talking about Option number two the house next door I understand I’m not saying that this is a bad option and ultimately this might be the only option we have because we might not be able to get to church Wall Street but I was really looking at these two options we realize if we were to go in that direction it would take several months after we purchased it before we would be able to renovate it and eventually use the facility in option number one is we basically move in it’s almost in turn key condition right now and so from that perspective of time like present tense time option number one would be a lot faster going back to Option number two if we were to take possession of that building and we would renovate it and we prepare it so that we can use it that would take several months another thing that we realized is if that worked and we got possession of our neighbor’s house and we renovated and were using it and we continue to grow then that really doesn’t solve any of our big issues like for instance we’re still going to be in the sanctuary the size and so that could possibly lead to another step in the future which would be. A larger sanctuary in the back of our property and so when we’re looking at Option number two we’re realizing this might be and again we might end up going down this road and if we do you know what we’ll do it at the right time but this could be several years of projects and if that’s what we have to do that’s what we have to do and I would be wonderful but we’re looking at these two options it was basically potentially several years of expanding and even fund raising or let’s just do it one time and be done and so when we looked at those two possibilities we said no we need to pursue this this if this works this would be wonderful So that’s why we chose from the time perspective to make the church on trial street our first option. Now from a ministry perspective and as I talk about this side of the equation we have to understand that we can fulfill our mission as a church anywhere it’s not like we will be more effective at twelve street than we are Union hills our current location is great it’s not like we were wanting to leave this current location but there are a few things I want to share with you that kind of get me excited and the board excited about the new location and the first is our youth and children’s opportunities so this morning we’re back idea she stood up here and talked about our jam ministry all these kids are want to ministry started we had more kids than we’ve ever had before and it was great we have a great youth and children’s ministry we have our use group we have a camp ministry and so when we’re looking at our church one of our strengths is our youth and children’s programs you just saw I think I counted seventeen little kids up here this morning and more on the way and so that’s a strength of ours right now I don’t know if you’ve seen the church on trial street if you looked on Google Earth but you know what’s right behind it in elementary school and it’s right in the middle of a neighborhood where people can literally walk to the church and so I look at that and I gets excited and. Almost scared from from one standpoint being so close to an elementary school and not visible in that neighborhood. Are all want to ministry and our vacation bible school ministry could just take off and explode and they’re already pretty strong right now and so from that perspective I think our youth and children’s ministry is something that we’re already stronger right now could potentially have a lot more kids and so that’s kind of an exciting thing another thing another own thing that we kind of like is the whole idea about going back to one worship service we went to to worship services and we’re going to go back in September seventeenth kind of as a means to an end but I think all of us would prefer to be in one worship service and that sanctuary holds at least another hundred people and so we would go back to one source and I’m not saying that if we were to purchase a building and we went to one service if we outgrew it I’m not saying that we would never try to services again but from a perspective of us being together as a church family I think all of us would prefer that and so that’s another ministry perspective that makes us think that maybe the church Wall Street would be a really good option and then also the third one and this is something that I was thinking about if all of us voted to move and we went there all of us would have this a new mentality all of us would be thinking in this is what I would hope all of us would be we would say we’re moving there to minister and to make an impact in that neighborhood.
We’re not in a right where we are but I think that we’re comfortable we’re comfortable with who we are but when you have to make a change like that it can really kind of shake things up and then it’s exciting for me to think if we were to move then everyone who goes with us and we say we’re going to go to this new community all of us will be thinking we are going in I am an ambassador of Jesus Christ in this neighborhood to the people to God might bring to us and so I think that could really rejuvenating energize us if we were to do something like that so that’s. From a ministry perspective now before we get into the last perspective which all of you are wondering about that’s the finances we look at time and ministry and it’s wonderful for us to say yes there are some opportunities at the Charles twelve Street location now that we don’t have opportunities here but this is worth trying but if we can’t afford it then it’s not even worth looking at so let’s talk about it from a money standpoint all right now let’s talk about Option number two. This is what option number two would look like. If we were to purchase the house and I and I’m using the number three hundred fifty thousand because a couple years ago when we were talking to Mr Cole that’s what he said he wanted in order for us to purchase it so I don’t know if you would be more or less right now well let’s just use that number and again I don’t want any no one to take pictures of these slides OK because I don’t want anyone to say you said this is how much everything is going to cost with these are best guesses OK these are estimates but I think they’re going to be fairly close so if we were to purchase the house at three hundred fifty and if you’ve seen the house you realize that there’s a lot of renovation that needs to be done I’ve talked to a couple different people and they said it could potentially cost up to at least two hundred thousand dollars and then we’d have to renovate the parking lot that’s another seventy five thousand dollars I got a quote from an asphalt company and then our current debt on this building it’s just I rounded it to two hundred thousand I think we owe two hundred five thousand on our current property so if you add all those up you come to a total debt of eight hundred twenty five thousand our mortgage payment would increase to five thousand six hundred five dollars and right now our current mortgage payment is one thousand nine hundred thirty so I’m just going to use two thousand as an example so it would be an additional three thousand six hundred seventy five dollars more per month now we wouldn’t do anything we’re not going to do anything without fundraising So let’s say if we were able to raise two hundred thousand dollars for this project I think that’s reasonable for us a church our size to do that we’re looking at a total debt of six twenty five. Which means a new monthly mortgage payment of four thousand two hundred ninety nine which is two thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars more per month all right now is that possible now I’m going to talk about this from the perspective of us being many many families and people contributing at the same time Mike Thompson who is our church treasure and he gave me some on the giving statistics on our church he said in the year two thousand and sixteen we had ninety five individuals or families who gave at least once to our ministry All right so that’s that’s a that’s a big it’s a pretty big number now but then he also said that we have about fifty regular givers about fifty families that give on a consistent basis and obviously if we do any of these projects hopefully we’ll have more consistent givers people really buy into what we’re trying to do if you take fifty families and you divide the twenty three hundred by those fifty families it comes out to about forty five dollars more per month per fifty family and some of you say forty five that’s that’s nothing I could do that I could do much more than adding some You’re saying Well forty five dollars that might be pretty hard on but I give that as a perspective we’re looking at these big numbers but if you break it down to each individual individual and family this is kind of what we’re dealing with and the idea of us doing a project like this is not for all of us to give the same amount but to sacrifice all of us to say this is what we feel God is leading us to do and so we want to do this and so I use this figure to make it realistic from an individual’s perspective and how many of us if we were forced to could find another forty five dollars in our monthly budget you know most of us couldn’t so that’s kind of what we’re looking at so that’s option number two now let’s look at option number one and a warning is the the numbers are going to be a little bit bigger OK Obviously.
And the first number you see up there is the number eight hundred thousand dollars and I have no idea how much our church can sell for but I’m using that from Earl show. Who we’ve already talked to your he sells churches that’s pretty much all he does and he gave us kind of an estimate of how much we can possibly sell our building for and I’m not going to hold him to that yet because he’s doing an evaluation on our property but I’m using the very lowest number that he gave me OK so I’m being very conservative with eight hundred Hopefully it’s more it’s probably not really more than a million but let’s say we sold our building for eight hundred thousand you have to subtract what we currently zero plus realtors fees all those different things we could have potentially about five hundred twenty five thousand dollars to put down if we did fund raising and we were able to come up with about two hundred thousand dollars then we’re looking at seven hundred twenty five down on we made an offer at one point sixty five million the church was asking two point two million they came down and so Steve McDonald is going to talk a little bit about that number one point sixty five million so if you take that away from one point sixty five million you have a nine hundred thousand dollar mortgage and you look at the new mortgage amount being four thousand eight hundred thirty one dollars say wait a second the property next door that would be more expensive there’s a unique situation with this the church on twelfth Street they own that building outright and they’re going to sell or financing and so what they’re going to do is a thirty year amortized mortgage at five percent which really reduces those first five years dramatically and so our new mortgage payment on that new building would only be two thousand eight hundred thirty one dollars more that’s just for the mortgage obviously there’s other things are going to be more expensive so I want to I want to talk about that and I sharing this with you just so you can see how realistic this is two factors that I want to include in that price if you’re looking at that price that cost two thousand eight hundred thirty one there is one thing about this location that could help us in this regard if you’ve seen the pictures you notice there’s four different buildings and one of them is a really beautiful. Four bedroom three bath house it’s a parsonage if we had to it is an option for us to rent it out to somebody and if we made fifteen hundred dollars a month on that that’s going to reduce the twenty thirty one down to about thirteen hundred I’m doing the math correct in my head so that even reduces it down even more Something else I want to talk about with the board decided to do up at the retreat and this is when we really started getting excited about this being a very realistic possibility we’re going to be taking pledges for this project so on September tenth we’re going to vote yes or no but we’re also going to take pledges that we’re going to take pledges in two different ways one is a one time gift if you say yes I want to do this and when our Church sells if we vote to put it on the market we’re going to take a one time gift for the down payment and also there are some things that we’re probably going to need when we move in there. It’s in great condition but we have to buy a couple different items and we’ll talk about that next Sunday night at the church but also use you went to church goes to a building campaign people don’t have an extra fifty thousand dollars in their checking account that they’re just going to give some ministry it’s usually looking out on a monthly basis if I’m going to support this project I’m going to have to come up with money on a monthly basis and so we’re going to take a three year pledge for anyone who wants to be a part of this to save for the next three years I will give over and above what I’m currently giving to support this and so at the board retreat we need to figure out not only is this a good option and we said yes it’s a good option but the board said are we going to do this or we can actually get behind this and support it and so what I’m going to do is going to share with you two things I’m going to share with you what the board has decided we are able to do as far as that number is concerned and I shared with the board what my family is prepared to do if we move forward in this direction and I’m not going to ask anyone else to decide to share publicly how much you would give to a project like this but I feel like if I’m up here and if I’m leading us you have to know. But I’m very serious about this opportunity and so I shared with the board that if we’re going to do this my family would give one time a one time gift of five thousand dollars and every month for the next three years we will give an additional five hundred dollars a month that’s what we will do as a family and that’s that is a sacrifice for us OK And then what we did is as a board we had everyone do that anonymously and the numbers that we came up with is this from just the board and we’re talking there’s eight board members and two staff members Mike McFadden myself so ten families so twenty percent of the congregation came up with a one time gift of thirty two thousand dollars but more importantly because this is where these families are out the families of the board decided that we would give an additional two thousand five hundred twenty five dollars every month for this project.
But look at the math.
We’re almost there right now from ten families I share this with you to hopefully encourage you and make you realize that if we all get on board with this this is entirely possible if God is opening up the doors this is worth the sacrifice and so I hope you’re encouraged I hope you realize from a financial perspective yeah this is a step of faith but this is not a gigantic foolish leap this is a step of faith that all of us can completely do if we really feel God is leading us in this direction. Right now I want to have Steve McDonald who is one of our board members come up and talk about where we are at regarding the real estate transaction and how this is all going to work.
OK So the first thing to understand is that nothing has been decided in this is a done deal and now we need a vote of confidence on the back side of this comes down to we on the tenth are going to ask you to vote to say yes or no and we prayed as a board and we said God make it clear to us if it’s no. MAKE IT know so that we can spend our time finding the next direction if it’s yes let’s make it yes that we can we can pour everything we have into this so there has not been a decision made yet but the way real estate works is we can’t come to you and ask you to approve something when we don’t have a price yet so we’ve been going on a sleep for real estate a very small amount of back and forth with the seller to figure out a price and that’s where the one point six two five million comes up we realize that as that’s a big numbers there you know that’s when we don’t take that lightly when we go from a mortgage amount of two hundred thousand dollars to a purchase price of anything that has a point as part of the description of it which we do we take that very seriously and so we went back and forth with the seller and we have a signed contract at that one point six two five million that is one hundred percent contingent first and foremost on us as a church voting yes or no on that amount the Church votes no we have no liability we have no money no skin in the game at this point we can walk away from this and he can put it back on the market and everything is back to normal for them and for us so I want to make sure that if that’s perfectly clear we have some steps in this if we say yes on the tenth then we have a clock that starts that is a six month the technical term is contingency where it is pending and they have in fact already has kind of a sign of good faith put it as as pending now so anybody who’s looking for a church pulls that up and says pending Well I’m going to go on to the next one so that it is it’s still out there people can still see it but it shows us as pending but we have six months then to try and sell our building and we’re taking steps now so that if we do say yes we can put that on the market as quick as possible and I’ll tell you as someone who works in that business that is a big unknown for us is how long are we going to take to sell this building and what are we going to sell it for so that’s where we need a lot of prayer and in addition to are we going to do this if we. Do this or bring us a buyer that has a whole lot of cash and really love this building house because because that’s what we need we don’t need somebody that’s going to come in and get give a seller financing like we’re getting we we we can’t do that so we’re going to pay this guy so. When I will tell you one that he is giving us an interest rate that is better than we could get from any mortgage company mortgage companies don’t like churches were a lot of risk for them and so when he gives us an interest rate of five percent for the next five years that’s that’s a great deal for us so we have this contingency once we get a contract on our church we start what we call the due diligence period and that is two months for us to get title information to do our inspections to do any of those kinds of things. We’ve put down five thousand and earnest money that says we’re serious about this here is some money that says you know if you want to show somebody you’re serious you give them some money really any point up until that due diligence is done we can say we don’t like this we’re out and we get our five thousand dollars back we can say there are too many pieces of gravel in front of that church we want out and contractually we can get out and we can pull our money back so we really have almost no financial risk in this at this point when our due diligence is done that should mean that our church is sold and we’re ready to close on that and we close on that church so if there was a best case scenario for how to do a real estate deal in a church this is textbook for that you know we have a buyer who is genuinely I’m sorry a seller who is genuinely just a good guy who wants to sell this church that he has a lot of owner pride in to a church is going to can continue on the ministry there and he’s been very receptive to a couple of questions and some things we’ve thrown at him so that’s the long in the short of it there will be questions I’m sure about this and we’ll address them next week anything I’m just I don’t think so OK if we’re not.
Well this is a. You think thinking about this is a it’s amazing you know four weeks ago this opportunity we didn’t even know about this and here we are talking about this it’s very exciting and. If the Lord is leading us in this direction in several months from now we’ll be able to look back and say Yeah he was but we want to see if that’s the case and so again just kind of to reiterate next week at five thirty we’ll be taking a tour of the facility we encourage all of you to come bring your questions and we’re going to see the building we’ve had two groups go through it already the staff went through the first time just to see if they would even work and the staff looked around and we went wow this place is pretty neat and then the board went through a week later we said yeah we need to really consider this this is an opportunity that we don’t want to pass up if God’s going to make it happen so next week we’ll tour at five thirty again Labor Day we’re adding one serviceman to talk on Sunday school and September tenth we’ll have a worship service at nine congregational meeting at ten thirty and we will vote and take pledges and so this is something that for you all to do to think about this to be praying about this and for you to consider if you want to be supportive of this how much would you be willing to give over and above your current giving on a monthly basis for three years or a one time gift and again. This is not saying. That you have you have to make this out and this is this is an area of our faith where we say Lord this is what I’m trusting in you for and you can see God work in your life in this way and I know I have in my my life and I’m excited for this again but let’s keep praying and pray that this is an opportunity that God is really presenting to us that I hope that we will be united and together we will accept this and if it’s not then God like Steve said will close the door really quick so we won’t waste any more time going down that road but no matter what happens or where we will meet in a year from now or twenty years from now some things are never going to change and that is our commitment to be followers Jesus Christ and to churn to God’s word so that we can base our life on him let’s close in prayer and let’s pray for. God’s guidance continued guidance in this in this matter dear lord we love you and we thank you for the way that you guide us in our lives you’ve given us the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth to give us the crowd desires and emotions as we go through life and Lord you give us ministry opportunities and in right now we’re asking you is this something that we should be doing as a church is this is this what’s in the the best interest of Grace Bible Church of Phoenix not only for this this current day but also in ten or twenty years from now on Lord as far as our human minds are concerned the board in the staff feel it is the Lord we really are turning to you to open the doors and see if this is the case or we want to serve you no matter where it is and so help us to be people of your word and people of grace and people who are really willing to follow you wherever you might lead us we pray this in Christ me in it. And I mean the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to be with us.