Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub. On today’s program, Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub concludes a message, "Three Critical Confessions," from the series "Mission Critical," and explains why the kingdom of God isn’t just a Sunday thing, but God’s rule in every area of life.

Our mission is to challenge you to respond courageously to God’s word and live fully for Jesus Christ. As we prepare our hearts for Easter, we’re focusing on what it means to be made new in Christ and sent on mission for him. To grow deeper each week, visit PastorJeff.com and sign up for weekly devotional emails delivered straight to your inbox. Now, here’s today’s message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: You think about this. We love reading stories in the book of Acts of the guys that stood up and even when they were beaten, they were going back, saying, "Worthy are we to be beaten for the name of Christ." How awesome is that? We’re like, "That’s pretty cool." But that’s why we’re gathered here today, because of a group of people that weren’t afraid to give their lives for the church so that you and I could know who Christ is today.

Isn’t that awesome? Jesus Christ is Lord. The church is invincible. We’re known as the household of God. We’re known as a reflection of His love. We’re known as the Kingdom Embassy on the earth. That’s the church. You should love Jesus. You should love your church. If you don’t love your church, go find a church you love and love that church. "Well, I’ll never find one that I love." That’s on you.

We’re part of the body. We’re called to love one another and be the visible representation of God’s love on this planet. Notice what else He says. He says in verse 19, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." Again, another super controversial passage. What does it mean to bind and to loose?

Let me give you a third conviction. If our first conviction is that Jesus Christ is Lord and the second is that the church is invincible, let me give you the third: the kingdom is comprehensive. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is comprehensive. If the church is the people of God united spiritually as Christ’s body who gather to advance the kingdom, then what’s the kingdom?

The kingdom is this: the visible manifestation of God’s comprehensive rule in all areas of life. I’ve been heavily persuaded by Dr. Tony Evans’ "Kingdom Agenda," and this is how he would describe it: it’s the visible manifestation of God’s comprehensive rule in all areas of life. Meaning, as a husband and a father and a pastor, I am manifesting the kingdom to what God wants to get done.

It’s so important that we do that because so often in the church, we think the gospel is the end, when the gospel is just the beginning. The gospel is the beginning of the kingdom. Jesus went out and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. I did a study of the Gospels last year, fresh again, like, "Lord, teach me more about what you did." Jesus went out and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. He gave His disciples the authority to go out and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom.

But you know what’s just as prevalent as the proclaiming of the gospel of the kingdom when you study the ministry of Jesus and His apostles? Healing and casting out demons. Do you know why? Because God doesn’t just want to save you, He wants to cleanse you, He wants to heal you, and He wants to free you up for His glory.

That’s why there’s a lot of Christians that are saved, they know the Lord, but they’ve never truly been healed from emotional or physical wounds. They’ve never truly been set free from some of the baggage they had in their past. Friends, I’m here to tell you, God wants you to experience the fullness of who He is through His Holy Spirit. He wants you to be freed up, not just so you can be saved, but you can be the fullness of what you are as a saved human being.

So, out in the world, you’re bringing kingdom influence everywhere you go. Jesus wants you to live that way. Some of us confess the wrong things. We confess what the devil’s telling us and we’ll say things like this, "Yeah, I’m always going to struggle with that. Yeah, my marriage is always going to be like that. Yeah, my relationships are always going to be like that. Yeah, my money situation’s always going to be like that." When you start confessing what the devil’s telling you, you’re going to live like that.

But when you start confessing your true identity: I am chosen, I am holy, I am righteous, I am good, God loves me with an unconditional love and if God is for me, who can be against me? He’s proud of me, and in spite of my sin, He loves me and nothing will ever change that. I start confessing things that way and I confess, "Lord, I want the fullness of your kingdom in my life and I want to be filled with your Spirit in a way that you can use me beyond anything I could ask or think." Guess what He does?

He shows up in power and presence and peace and purpose and purity and joy and all those things that we’re desiring. However much you have of Jesus right now, I’m just here to tell you, there’s more to experience. That’s the visible manifestation of the kingdom. It’s when people meet you that they realize, "This is different. They’re not just talking about God, they’re experiencing God." That’s what God wants for all of us.

It’s His authority. Jesus said all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go. He delegated His authority to the apostles. He’s delegated His authority to every single believer in His church. He’s structured authority so that there’s authority that can be used. We can bind and loose. What does that mean? It means we can permit things or we can prohibit things. We can allow things or forbid things. We can withhold the kingdom or we can extend the kingdom.

What’s that mean? It means I can offer the kingdom of God to anybody free of charge because of the authority that Jesus has given to me. He saved me, so I’m just telling you He can save you too. We can share the gospel. I can also say if you’re living in consistent, habitual sin, you won’t experience the fullness of God. He’s not going to extend His freedom in your life while you’re living in a habitual pattern of sin. But you don’t have to stay there. God wants to free you.

I view myself as kind of an expectant evangelical. Meaning, I don’t just want to see people freed, I want to see bondages broken. I want to see emotions healed. I want to see habitual sin habits stopped. I want to see relationships reconciled and I want to see freedom experienced. Because when you experience the freedom of Christ with all the joy and hope, it’s amazing.

I always think about our church because of the way we’re named. I’m like, "Man, I want this place to be the land of the free and the home of the brave." That’s who we are. That’s how people should see us. Not because we speak it, but because we own it. We’re living with freedom, we’re living with hope, we’re living with joy, and we know that has nothing to do with me, that has everything to do with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s my confession.

The church is invincible. The kingdom’s comprehensive. It means everywhere you go, God wants to use you. Isn’t that a good thing? I think it’s important that we say those things out loud today, don’t you? Can we out loud and loudly say these three confessions? I’ll say it, then you repeat it. Jesus is Lord. The church is invincible. The kingdom is comprehensive. It’s awesome. Can we give God praise for who He is?

Today, I want to share a couple things. For those of you that are visiting, tune in and listen, but I think from time to time it’s important that I share some things as a pastor for what God’s doing. Because if we really believe those three confessions, we need to be aware of how God’s moving us and what He’s doing. You need to understand Brave. We’re not a motorboat, we’re more of a sailboat.

We like to put up our sail and tell God, "You blow on us through your Holy Spirit. You take this course wherever you want in the timing you want, in the way you want," versus telling God, "This is my desire, you’ve got to bless this." It’s a much better way to live. I think it’s special because there are very few times that you get to see something from the beginning. We’re about ready to launch a new season in the history of our church. You’re going to get to see it and experience it from the beginning.

When my wife and I moved out here, I remember being in Peoria, Illinois. We were at a church service there and they probably had about 400 people at the time. They had screens up in this hotel room, and we were standing there worshipping and had goosebumps thinking, "Hey, one day we’re going to be at a place somewhere in Denver. We don’t know anybody there yet. We’re going to have screens and we’re going to sing worship and we’re going to preach. People are going to come somehow." God’s blessed it.

But at the time, I was just believing everything by faith. Everything that I’m about to tell you, I’m believing by faith. Some of the things are closer to being realized than others. A couple things I’m going to tell you, it’s more of this is just my heart, and I have no idea if this is ever going to come to pass. But I just want to tell you about some things that God’s doing at Brave Church that are so special. The first one is this: it’s prayer. It’s prayer ministry.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Jeff Schwarzentraub with Pastor Jeff Ministries, and today’s message, "Three Critical Confessions," is explaining why the kingdom of God isn’t just a Sunday thing, but God’s rule in every area of life. We’ll get back to Pastor Jeff in just a moment, but first, generous listeners like you make this ministry possible.

When you give this month to help share teaching like you’re hearing today with more folks around the world, we’ll send you Pastor Jeff’s booklet, "Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission." It’s a powerful, scripture-saturated guide to help you understand what truly changes when you surrender your life to Christ: your identity, your focus, and your purpose.

This resource pairs perfectly with the messages you’re hearing, calling you to step boldly into the mission God has for you. Request your copy today when you give to Pastor Jeff Ministries. Just go to PastorJeff.com. Now for the conclusion of today’s message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: After about an hour of this boredom, somebody said, "Oh, we’re running out of time. I guess somebody should pray." They prayed and I thought, "I’m never going back to that." That’s not a prayer meeting, that’s a talk meeting. We pray. Come listen to the Lord, come let Him guide us in what we’re doing. Come tell the Lord that we’re needy and that He’s worthy and that we’re dependent upon Him. Let’s call out to Him.

Prayer ministry is the primary ministry of everything good that happens at Brave. That will never change because that’s what God wants for us. So, on Tuesday night, I encourage you to come out, especially this week because of all the things that we’re launching. Come pray, come seek the Lord. The things that He’s doing are not things we told God we need Him to do; they’re things God’s been directing us for a season and for a long time to do. God’s doing a great thing.

I also just want to thank God for what He’s shown us. We’ve changed our elder and leadership structure over the last year. We’ve gone from having three elders to now having 13, with more coming. Just so you know, in Westminster, you will have your own elders in Westminster. There’s no doubt about it. We’re vetting them right now. God’s doing some incredible things. We have great men up there that are doing that. It’s just been healthy.

It’s the best plurality we’ve ever had. We have shepherding elders shepherding that are praying for and pastoring and protecting our flock and providing for them. We have stewarding elders that have been working with me on all the finances and are praying their socks off and saying, "Here’s what we can and can’t do." Then you met my friend Cal, who’s a pastor, who’s a supervising elder over me, saying, "Jeff, here’s how you can seek the Lord better and here’s how you can expand vision."

Because we have people in different categories, it’s just the greatest health I’ve experienced in our leadership culture since we started, and there’s more room for people to join. It’s exciting. Let's talk a little bit about buildings. The reason we need to talk about buildings is sometimes people, when they talk about buildings, ask, "Why do we need to talk about buildings? We don’t even need a building."

I remember we bought this building. I had several people at Cherry Creek High School ask, "Why do we need a building? We’ll never fill that thing." Our whole congregation met here and here and couldn’t fill it. We still did two services. The reason we did two services, I said, is it’s not about us, it’s about who we’re reaching. Westminster, listen to me. You’re about ready to move into a bigger building.

One of the challenges that you’re going to face is this: you’re wanting everybody to come. I know you do. There’s going to be a lot more people that are going to show up than have ever showed up before. But there’s this thing that’ll go off in your heart after about three weeks or six months: "Where did all these people come from? How come they’re leading and I’ve been here for four years and I’m not leading? It used to be so much better when we were just small with just us, instead of all these people coming in."

Why are we doing this? Because people are lost and need Jesus and we need to set them free. We’re going to do everything we can, not just to fill a building, because we’re not about Brave Church. Brave Church doesn’t exist for Brave Church. Brave Church exists to expand the kingdom, to see people saved and freed up and sent out in the world and multiplied. That’s what we’re going to do.

So, when you’re looking around at all those seats, just be thinking, "Who can I be sharing the gospel with and who can I be praying for that’s going to come?" You’re going to see God do some amazing things in this season. The same thing’s going to happen to us when we move next door at Denver First Church. I wish I had time to tell you all the different stories and on first Tuesday, maybe I’ll share a couple more.

I can just share what happened yesterday. I’ve been wanting to close these deals for like a year. Here we are a week away. Yesterday, I’m up at Westminster meeting with their pastor, Pastor Dan, whom I love, and three of their elders that I’ve learned to love. We’ve been working on this whole deal. As we’ve been working it out, it’s been taking longer because we’ve been trying to figure out how we can help you.

"What does it look like for you to help us? Let’s not make this a business deal, let’s make it a kingdom deal." Just to let you know, as we were going through this thing, we were talking about, "We’ll take your debt off. How about do we take the building? Do we worship center? Do you get in the gym?" One day when I was praying, it just occurred to me: if they went from their gym and built a new worship center and now, several years later, they had to go back into their gym, that would just be demoralizing.

I want this church to thrive. I’m like, "God, what do you want to do for them?" God put it on my heart to call the landlord that we had at Broomfield and said, "Ask him if you can use that building." I called him and I said, "Is that still available for church?" He’s like, "Well, I think we sold two of those rooms, but do you want it?" I’m like, "Yeah, but not for us, for somebody else." He goes, "I’ll get back to you in 15 minutes." He said, "If you want it, you can have it."

So, we told them, "Why don’t you come into this building that we put a million dollars into? We’ll leave all of our equipment, we’ll leave all of our screens, we’ll leave all of our chairs, and you guys can have a place to meet. That’ll be part of the deal, too." Next week, we met yesterday, our attorney was on the phone with their attorney. I don’t know if you know much about attorneys, but sometimes attorneys don’t always see eye to eye on things.

It was like a love fest yesterday. I love our attorney, he’s been great. But their attorney got along and they’re all talking and the things you disagree on, here’s what they’re saying. Within five minutes, everybody agreed on every point. Then our guy that’s brokering the deal for us called Broomfield, the guy that’s doing this building, and said, "Here’s what they wanted to change." Within five minutes, the guy got back and said, "Done."

He told me, "Jeff, that never happens, like ever." He goes, "God’s all over this." So, as of Tuesday, we will be signing contracts. We will own the building in Westminster and Westminster next Sunday will be meeting in our former Broomfield campus and we will be meeting in their new building by the grace of God. That just got done. What’s even more beautiful about this is the love that we’ve had with these guys as we’ve seen God do the work and praying with a whole different church and rooting for them and cheering for them.

We’ll remain friends as God does that. I’m telling you, when you walk into that place, you’re going to love it if you haven’t been there. I know there were about 100 plus of you last night that were up there. I got to see a little picture and my heart was just thrilled. I remember what that was like, and next week it’s going to blow you away when you see what happens in Westminster. It’s just the start of something great.

I remember when we planted the campus up north and we bought 300 chairs for this room. People were telling me, "You don’t even have anybody going to the church, why are you buying 300 chairs?" Here’s my answer now: because we’ve got about 700 people that need a bigger room right now. That’s why we only bought 300; now we need a couple thousand. God’s doing great things.

So, what about with us meeting here? It’s been on my heart for a long time that this would be the Brave block, that this whole thing would be ministry headquarters for everything to do with Brave: for Brave Media, Brave Global, Brave Church, and what we’re doing. I’ve been in conversation with Denver First Church of the Nazarene and Pastor Darren for about the last year now, just trying to figure out what they needed to do and how they needed to do it.

Just so you know, we’ve negotiated all the contracts; those are done. We’re going to be sending it to them here this week. They take a little time to look at it. Just so you know, 100% of their leadership is behind what we’re doing for them to sell to us, but they have to vote on it as a church. The vote will probably take place in late February or early March. Once that’s voted on, we will flip-flop buildings.

Part of the beauty of that is they’re going to help carry back some of the lease for us and we’re going to let them be here so that we can take some time to raise money and they can meet in our worship center and it’s going to be good for them as they get ready to launch and find a building for where they want to be. It’s going to be great for us because we’re going to have a lot more seats.

That seats about 3,000 over there. This seats about just less than 1,400. "Why are we getting all these new seats?" Because there’s about a million people in our city that need Jesus. That’s why. We’re not buying a building so we can say, "Hey, we’re a big church now." We’re buying a building so that we can advance the kingdom of God through the church with the gospel of Jesus Christ with these three main confessions.

Let me tell you a couple things that we’re looking to do. One is Easter. Last year, we were at Bandimere Speedway. We had about 9,000 people show up. About 500 people gave their lives to Christ and about 300 were baptized. We’ve been praying through that. We’re about 99% certain — that means we’re not certain — that we’re going to be doing Easter at Bandimere again this year. April 17th could be 75 degrees and sunny; it could be a blizzard. That’s a prayer request.

Last year, we prayed and it snowed three weeks before and two weeks after, and the day we had Easter was phenomenal. We’re praying for that. If you won’t be able to make it to Bandimere, you probably wouldn’t be able to make it to church anyway, so we’re going to trust the Lord with that. This year, we’re going to have a lot more chairs. Last year, we had 9,000 people; this year, we’re going to expect double that.

We’re going to see many people come to Christ and set free and healed. The goal would be, and this has not been decided or agreed upon — this is Jeff talking, not God — I would love to see us be in our new building the week after Easter. That’s another prayer request. I think if we can have that, that would be a huge momentum boost for us to invite people back and have space to do that.

Secondly is this: one of the things that we’ve been challenged by with two different campuses is I know it’s felt for some of you people in Broomfield like there’s Brave Church and then there’s us. Those days are over. There’s Brave Church. There are Brave Church elders. There’s Brave Church leadership. One of the things that we’re going to do this summer is High Five.

This summer, when we do High Five here the week before Father’s Day, which is June 13th through the 17th, we’re doing High Five here. There may be a thousand kids that come this year. But here’s the other thing: if you’ve been to the Westminster campus, it’s massive. The week after Father’s Day, we’re doing High Five in Westminster as well. We want more people to come.

Life Fellowship has about 30 kids in their kids ministry. Last year, they did a VBS and had 100 kids show up. We’ve got well over 100 kids in our student ministry. I think we can have a massive amount of kids show up and their parents find a church they can be linked to, and it’s going to be awesome. It means we’re calling everybody to step up and do what we’re doing. We’re calling everybody to give of their best. It’s going to be an awesome time.

Then I’m saying this when it comes to evangelism: some of you love evangelism. You look forward to just meeting people and saying, "Man, I just can’t wait to tell people about Jesus." Some of you, your life verse is this last verse that we didn’t read yet in Matthew chapter 16 verse 20: "Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ." And some of you are like, "I like that one." But why did Jesus tell them that at that time?

Because He hadn’t died on the cross and rose from the dead. Everybody wants all the blessings of Jesus without having to repent that He died for your sins. Nobody wants the dead Messiah that rose; they just want all the blessings of God. Jesus is like, "Hey, don’t tell anybody, but once he died and rose, he’s like, now tell everybody!" In Mark 16:8, the two women run away scared.

Sharing the gospel is not just sharing it with your mouth; it’s sharing it through your gifts. Some of you share the gospel through being an encourager. Some of you share the gospel through the integrity you have at work and at home. Some of you share the gospel just through your kindness towards others. There’s all sorts of ways that you’re living out the gospel.

I used to be in sales and they would tell us that the best salesmen and the worst salesmen had the exact same numbers; it’s just that the best salesmen talked to more people. They would say for every 10 people you talk to, three people will meet with you and you’ll sell one person. Those numbers were kind of true across the board from the top agents to the bottom agents. They said if you want to sell more, talk to more people.

So I just started thinking about this. I don’t know what the numbers are in the kingdom. God can let you lead everybody you meet to Christ; there’s no magic formula for the gospel. But think about this: tally this number in your head for me. Think about this week. How many times did you eat out for dinner where you had somebody that was a waiter or waitress, or a drive-thru?

How many times did you go get gas and go talk to somebody? How many times were you at a store in a checkout line or at a store where you bumped into somebody? What’s the number of people that you just saw or just said hello to? Was it six? Was it ten? Multiply that number by four, the number of weeks in a month. So if you had six, that’d be 24 people.

If you just would talk to, ask God to give you the courage to talk to one of them, and you did that every single month and every single month you talked to people about how much you love Jesus and what He’s doing in your life and how much you love your church. Imagine if every person did that just once a month, and for every time we did that ten times, so if we do it over the course of a year, that’s 12 times, three people came and one of those persons said, "Brave Church is now my home. I met the Lord here and I love it here and I’m being freed up here and now I’m going out to serve the Lord."

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub with the message "Three Critical Confessions" from the series "Mission Critical," explaining why the kingdom of God isn’t just a Sunday thing, but God’s rule in every area of life. Thanks for joining us for today’s program. Before you go, a quick reminder: when you give a gift of support today, we’ll thank you by sending a copy of Pastor Jeff’s powerful booklet, "Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission."

This isn’t just a devotional; it’s a scripture-rich guide to help you understand who you are in Christ, why that changes everything, and how to step boldly into the mission God’s given you. So request your copy today at PastorJeff.com when you give to help others experience the transforming power of God’s word. That’s PastorJeff.com. We’ll see you next time.