Application

You can have a seat. Good morning. My name is René. I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. So glad that you're here today. You know, yesterday I attended a memorial service for someone I knew and as you'd expect as people filed into the chapel over in Los Altos where the service was held, you could feel a lot of anxiety, a lot of awkwardness, a lot of stress in the group. But then the very first thing the pastor did was he opened up his Bible and he read Psalm 23. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want." They heard about how the Lord leads us to green pastures and still waters. They heard about how the Lord is with us as our shepherd even through the valley of the shadow of death. And you could just sense so much of the anxiety and the stress really leaving the shoulders of the people who were bearing it as they walked in and just ascending up to heaven as they gave their cares and their sorrows to God.

You know, those song lyrics in Psalm 23 are 3,000 years old. For 3,000 years people have been taking those lyrics and putting them to new tunes like the one you are about to hear. And so what I want to invite you to do right now is this. I know you walked in with some anxieties, some stresses, some sorrows. As you listen to these lyrics, make them your prayer and just say, "God, thank you. Thank you for the reminder. You're with me and you take me to those still waters." Will you put your hands together and welcome Trent and Christian and also Allie as they sing for us right now.

The Lord is my shepherd. He makes me lying pastures green. He leads me beside quiet waters and watches over me. And though I will walk in the shadows, his rod and his staff comfort me. And I will recline at the table in the presence of my enemies. Surely, surely goodness and mercy follow me. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord. Close by his side, I will abide in his loving kindness. Surely, surely goodness and mercy follow me. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord. Close by his side, I will abide in his loving kindness. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord. Close by his side, I will abide in his loving kindness. Forever, forever.

Wow, that was beautiful. Thank you so much. Wasn't that lovely? I just hope that stress just rolled off of your shoulders as you gave it to God. And as you take out your message notes that look like this as we continue our series 40 Days in the Word, let me tell you a story about what happened to me this week when the Lord led me to green pastures and still waters.

Just this past Tuesday, I was all registered to go to a seminar for pastors over in San Jose, where a couple of big wood pastors from the South had flown in, and they were doing a workshop for people who were in professional career ministry. And one of the things that they'd advertise the workshop would be about was making time for your family. Because making time for your family can be a real struggle for people in ministry. Ministry can get very, very busy. And so I was very excited about this. I paid for it in advance. I was going to go over there with a couple of people from church and learn about how to make time for my family.

And then I discovered the day before that my 16-year-old son David also had that day off from school because it was Veterans Day. And so now the choice before me was do I go to a seminar on making time for my family, or do I make time for my family, right? So I thought, you know what, I'm going to see what David wants. And I put it to him this way. I said, David, what do you think of this idea? What if we actually took off Tuesday very early in the morning, like before sunrise, and we drove all the way to Yosemite? He does not remember ever being in Yosemite before. He was a baby, but he doesn't remember it. And he's been saying he wants to go there. And I said, we'll go there, we'll ride our bikes all over the place, we will stay there until it is dark and then we'll drive home in the dark. We'll just make a one-day Yosemite trip. And he said, Dad, that would be awesome.

So I went to the seminar. No, so we did this. I played hooky from the seminar, and we went to Yosemite, and it was absolutely spectacular. I want to show you some pictures I just took with my iPhone. There were a lot of very cool things about that day. There were fall colors everywhere. I mean, the leaves were turning beautifully. It was uncrowded, surprisingly. Not busy at all. There was lots of great wildlife all over the park. We had a blast riding our bikes on all kinds of trails for hours and hours. We got up to some of the amazing lookouts. Yeah, I didn't show my wife this picture. But we stayed up there until sunset. The sunset at Glacier Point was just absolutely spectacular. Best of all, in many ways, there was no entry fee because of the holidays. And so this had my two highest aesthetic values. It was beautiful, and it was free. The two things I loved the most.

But as great as all this was, the best part, my favorite part, was when my 16-year-old son, more than once during the day, hugged me, put his head on my shoulder, and said, "Dad, this is the most awesome day ever. I love you so much." Now, you know, I'm so sad that I missed that seminar. I'm making time for my family. Not really. Now, I'm glad... Did I make the right choice? Do you think I made the right choice? All right. No, wait. Hold your applause, because I do not bring that up to imply that I'm always making the right choice in this area. There are many, many times in my life when, honestly, I have done the equivalent of going to a seminar and making time for my family and then not made time for my family. I don't always practice what I preach.

But you know why I think I did it this past Tuesday? Honestly, you know why? Because I knew what I was going to preach on today. So grab those message notes, and we're going to talk about application, how to live out what I am learning. And I want to start with this. The number one criticism of Christians. The biggest reason that people tell me, "This is why I'm not a Christian. This is why I don't buy it. This is why I don't get it." The biggest reason I hear is this hypocrisy. Do you hear this, too? Christians are hypocrites. Christians don't live like Jesus said they should live. People love Jesus, but they don't like it when we who claim to be followers of Jesus don't actually follow Jesus Christ, and they notice.

Now, I know you're thinking, "But we're all fallen, but everybody makes mistakes." True. However, it would be equivalent to clergy malpractice if I did not preach a message on this toward the end of this series, 40 days on the Word. In this series, we have memorized verses. We have learned six different Bible study methods. We've been in all kinds of different small groups. We've learned about hermeneutics. We've learned about archaeological support for the Bible. But it doesn't mean a thing if we don't live out what we are learning. And so this morning, I want to look at some keys to living out what I learned. Why do we not live out what we learn? What is the big obstacle for us?

I got lots of great ideas from my friend Kurt Harlow, one of the pastors at Bayside. And the first point that he makes is actually not about anything that you do. It's about your mindset. If you want to live out what you are learning, if you don't want to be a hypocrite, if you want to keep going in your application of Scripture, you've got to start with a grace mindset. Start with a grace mindset. Don't start with a sense of obligation. "I've got to be a better person." Now, what do I mean by this? Check this out. Universities have discovered in recent research on altruistic donations some amazing facts. They were trying to figure out who can be expected to donate organs, right? And at first they assumed that most donors would be relatives of people who needed organs, right? Doesn't that make sense? I mean, if I have a sister who needs a kidney transplant, I'm more likely to want to give a kidney to my sister, right?

And then they found out that in the last few years, there's been a cascade of giving from people who are not related in any way to anybody needing organs. In fact, they're donating organs to people they don't even know. And so they did this research on altruistic giving. Why? What is motivating these people to give if they don't know anybody who needs an organ? And they found out this. All these people had a common motive. They were all recipients of an amazing act of kindness from somebody else that they had not known. And they all said that somebody did something of incredible, undeserved kindness to them so they want to be outrageously generous themselves.

And they listed many people in this article. One of the people was a man who lives in Spokane. He's a Walmart restocker. And he said when his wife was ill, somebody donated blood. And he said, "My wife's better now, so I decided I'm going to give something to somebody who needs it." And he heard about a man who needs a kidney there in Spokane. He's never met him, but he's now giving out of a feeling of gratitude for what was given to him. Not out of a sense of obligation. You know what? That right there is a grace mindset. Check this amazing verse out. If you really see what this verse is saying, 1 Peter 1:13, it says, "Therefore, prepare your minds for action." Okay, this is a verse about acting out your faith. Be self-controlled. And then it says, "How do you prepare your minds for action?" Set your hope fully on the what? On the what? The grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

I want you to take a pen or a pencil and circle the word "grace," the most important word in your Bible. Because grace is the undeserved gift of God through Jesus Christ. Grace means you are totally forgiven, no condemnation anymore for you in Christ. You are totally loved. Grace means you have a purpose. Grace means you have an eternal destiny. Grace means God will take you to heaven. Grace means that God has a purpose for your life, and none of it you earned, none of it you worked for, none of it you even deserved. God lavished the riches of grace on you for one reason only, because He chose to love you infinitely.

When your imagination is captured by that man, that will get you motivated. You'll be like those recipients of organ donations or blood donations, who just say, "Man, I just want to give to others because so much has been given to me." You see, the enemy of action under this point is living by emotion instead of by the truth of God's grace. Would you agree with that? Because emotion says, "I'm not good enough." Emotion says, "I'm so worried about what other people think about me." Emotion says, "If I don't do this perfectly, then God won't bless me." Emotions will keep you on a roller coaster of fluctuating motivation. But the solid rock truth of God's grace that you know is true, whether you feel it or not, will keep the motor running.

When you know that God said to you, "I so love George. I so love Irene. I so love Suzanne. I so love Adrian. I so love Clay, that I gave my only begotten Son so that they would be forgiven." Man, when you own that, it gives you motivation that absolutely will never stop. And so really, the key question is this, "Where is my hope placed?" Now, don't turn the page over. I know this is the last fill-in on the bottom of page one, but just stay there for just a second because flip your focus back again to that verse from 1 Peter. Peter says, "You prepare for action by setting your heart and your hope fully on what?" On grace. So where is your hope really set?

Now, just think about this. On your performance, on your goals, on your ideas, on your reputation, on what other people think about you because you do good things, on the outcome of last Tuesday's election, on your successes. If you do that, then you are going to be let down. And you'll feel like quitting because you feel like just a failure. Instead, you see, this is so important for application, isn't it? Because when you try to apply what Jesus told us to do, there will be failure because nobody's perfect. But if you go, "That's it. I failed. So I'm not going to try anymore," your hope is not set fully on grace. If you go, "No, it's fully on the fact that God loves me infinitely no matter how I perform," that will motivate you to keep on going. That's why it's the foundation for all application.

And only then can you move on to our final three points. Flip the page over, point two, focus on me, not them. I need to focus on me, not other people when it comes to application. What am I talking about? Let me give you kind of a bird's eye view of what I experience when I preach up here. Did you know this? When I am preaching here, I actually watch you. I notice you and I notice your reaction to what I'm saying. And it is fascinating to watch how people are reacting to the things that we do up here. Like when I talk about the verses that say, "Speak more kindly." Use only encouraging words. I always see the wives do this to their husbands. Kind of purse their lips. "He's talking to you, dear." And on the other hand, when I talk about materialism, you know how happiness is not found in shopping for more stuff. I see husbands kind of doing this. "Honey, are you listening?" You know, kind of like this.

Or, or, I see husbands staring straight ahead motionless without twitching a muscle because they know that it will not be well with them if they act like this applies to their wives, right? It cracks me up. It's hilarious to me, actually, and I apologize if you've done this to me, but it's very funny when people come up to me after a sermon and they go, "Great sermon, Pastor, thank you. I'm texting my husband because he really needs to hear this. I'm so glad you see how my sermon applies to other people," right? It's so much easier for us to see how the Bible applies to somebody else because you know how they should be acting. You know what they should be doing. You know who they should be dating or whatever.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible, favorite all-time stories, is when the risen Christ asks Peter to follow him, and he says, "This will mean you're going to die, and it will not be easy. There will be bad times involved in following me, but follow me." And then this is classic John 21:20. "Then Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved," that's John, "was following them, and when Peter saw him, he asked, 'Well, Lord, what about him? I love this story.' And then Jesus answered, 'If I want him to remain alive till I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.' I love that." Well, Jesus, what about him? You ever felt that way? I felt that way. And Jesus says to me the same thing he says to Peter.

When I look at somebody and I say, "Lord, how come I have to go through this, and they don't have to go through this? How come my life isn't as easy as their life seems to be? Lord, what about them?" And Jesus says, "You know what? My deal with that guy is different than my deal with you. To his own master, he stands or falls. You follow me." Because you don't know the story behind that person's life. You don't know what's going on in their hearts. You don't know my timeline with them. You might be able to see a lot of things that they need to change, but you don't know my plan for changing their lives. You follow me." This is why Jesus said, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" Plank eye, right?

See, here's the enemy of action under this point. Comparing. Comparing myself to others. Comparing is a trap because there will always be someone better than you, and there will always be somebody worse than you, right? Lord, look at the big wicked world. Everybody's doing it, so what's the big deal if I do this? Or, "Lord, there's a lot of people that are way worse jerks than me, so why should I change? You know, I can be a little jerk. There's other way worse jerks." No, think about you, not them. Do some sober self-reflection. Have rigorous honesty about yourself.

So if you want to apply the word of God, start with a grace mindset, and then you focus on me, not them, and then point three is very important. Apply it immediately. Something that my friend I mentioned at Bayside, Kurt Harlow, says that I totally relate to. He says, "This is true of him. It's true of me, too. I am horrible at names." Anybody else here have trouble remembering names? Please don't make me feel alone. Good. About half of you. That's good. I often--do you ever do this? I often call my kids one conglomerate name. Do you do this? Johnna Bethe David--you know, and just 'cause you can't remember their actual name in a moment. Sometimes I even include the cat's name. Johnna Bethe David Nonny Kitty, one of the beings I pay for. Get over here, right? And consequently, I love it when people wear name tags. I absolutely love it.

I wish all people at all times wore giant name tags everywhere we went. Do you not wish that? And what I really--my favorite thing is when people wear name tags and they forget they have it on. And they're amazed at my recall of their name. How you doing, George? Pastor, you remembered my name? I don't know how you do that with the church being so big. Well, I can't believe that the pastor remembered my name. The Lord is working mindily through twin legs. Well, I--you just have a very memorable name. You know, you can't break it to them at that moment that they're wearing a name tag.

But it's not just me, and it's not just about names. It's--like, for example, I blame this-- I blame my bad memory and the fact that computers mean you can look everything up in a second. And so you don't have to develop a memory, and that gets me every time. Like, when my wife asks me to do an errand on the way home from work-- I don't know if you guys ever do this, but my wife tells me to pick something up. And I vaguely sort of remember, but I'm not sure what she wanted me to do, and so I don't do it, and I walk in the door, and she says, "Did you do that thing?" And I fake it, hoping that she's going to give me a hint as to what she asked me to do. Yes, I did that errand on this day. What would you like me to do with that thing I picked up for you? Our son. I'd like you to bring him into the house. Thank you very much. Ha-ha! I'll be right back, you know?

But the most amazing thing to me about forgetting is how quickly we forget what we read in the Word of God, right? This is me. I'm just talking about me here. I will be in church, and I'll hear a sermon, and I'm completely into it. And this happens often enough. I'm a note-taker. Anybody else here real note-takers? I mean, my whole--the whole outline will be full of words, and then I run out of space on the outline, and I'm starting to write on the bulletin, and I'm thinking, "This is good stuff. I'm going to apply this tomorrow!" Thirty seconds after church ends, I'm on my way to Carpo's for a burger, and I'm vaguely going, "That was a pretty good sermon about something in the Bible, probably." And those are the weekends I preach, so that's what's sad.

But look at this verse in James 1. We saw this earlier in this series. James says, "Anyone who listens to the Word but doesn't do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." Does anybody here know what James is talking about? When you--in the morning, anybody ever do this in the morning, you glance at your face in the mirror, and you're half asleep, but you think, "You know, it looks--it looks fine." You know, I looked in the mirror, and then you go, "Hours later!" You look in the rear-view mirror when you're driving home and, like, a cable-width jet-black hair is curling out of your left nostril, and you're going, "How did I miss that?"

Well, you didn't gaze intently enough into the mirror, apparently, and that's what James is talking about here. He says, "The Bible's like a mirror. You need to spend some time, you know, looking at it, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do." He's saying this. Let me tell you something. The secret to remembering is doing. The secret to remembering is doing, like the whole name thing. You know what they tell you? The great way to memorize names is they say, "When somebody tells you their name, what you do is use it three times in the next sentence when you talk to them, and you're more likely to remember their names." So let's try this with my name right now. Ready? Say "Schlepfer" on the count of three, three times. One, two, three. Schlepfer, Schlepfer, Schlepfer. Good. I hope you'll remember that right now. Bless you.

But I love that because that's the truth about the Word of God, too. When you practice it immediately, that's when you really remember what you learned. That's why the enemy of action in this point is postponement. And I mean just slight postponement. I'll do it tomorrow. The best application happens when I say, "I'm not going to delay. I'm going to do this right now." So let me just give you a little point of application right now. A major way you can do something is the food drive. It ends in a couple of weeks. There's an insert in the bulletin with some great information on it. Take this, put it up somewhere at your house. But here's the immediate point of application for you. There are envelopes. Some of you were handed by ushers when you came in. There's also more envelopes at the information desk. What I want you to do, here's a point of application, is to take one of those food drive envelopes and put it somewhere where you will see it for the next two weeks and pray about how you can contribute to the food drive this year.

Because there's roughly 300 verses in the Bible about helping the poor. That's great to know. But God doesn't want us to count them. He wants us to do them. And it's so motivating. I was down at Second Harvest Food Bank last week, and I asked Aide Colleen, she's their director of community projects, what inspires her to do what she does? And she told me about a little boy, and I want you to listen to the story she tells in this quick video. Watch this.

Well, we had a little boy who ended up going to the Bayview Senior Center, and he was walking home from school one day and noticed that there was a food distribution. So he walked in, not knowing if he was eligible to get the food or not, and he asked if he could get some food. And he explained that his mom was a single mom, she was working all day, and they worked tight with money and didn't have a lot of food. So the volunteers there explained that the food was for everybody, and he was welcome to have some. So what he ended up doing was doing about three trips going from the senior center to his home with bags of groceries. And he was so excited because he knew that when Mom came home, she was actually going to have food to cook. She was going to have food to cook with.

Does that not inspire you? I mean, that story itself made me double up on what I had been planning on giving to the food drive. And that's a great segue into our final point, which is I need to realize that action inspires action, right? Action inspires other people to action. Look at this great verse, 2 Corinthians 9:2. Paul says to these Corinthians, "For I know about your eagerness to help, and I've been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you and Achaia were ready to give." He's talking about a collection for the poor. "And your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action." In other words, not only was this church a generous church, but their generosity inspired other churches to generosity, and it became part of the DNA of the early church.

And in some ways, many ways, we've seen this happening right here in Santa Cruz County, with the food drive, with Serve the Bay. Candidly TLC sort of led the charge, and now so many other of the great local churches have gotten involved and started to improve the reputation, really, of the church here in Santa Cruz County, and that's what it's all about. And the thing is, listen, it does not have to be some giant Herculean effort. One baby step can inspire so many people. I remember, well, the two brothers last year who sold ornaments they made to raise money for the food drive and the 2020 Vision campaign, and they inspired more people than anybody else I know.

You see, the enemy of action here is underestimating my influence. Underestimate. All of us constantly underestimate the influence that we could have. I want to tell you something about your influence that blew my mind. A week ago, some of us here in the church were having a conversation with a local elected official. I won't tell you who it was because I didn't get permission to share the story and say this person's name. But for quite a while, it was a great person, but for quite a while, this person's referred to himself as not a churchgoer, been cynical about Christianity, and he told our staff, "I have to tell you something." He said, "What Twin Lakes Church has done in leading other churches to the food drive, to the Serve the Bay projects," he says, "I've got to tell you something. It has completely changed my opinion of Christianity." He said, "I've completely done a 180," and then listen to this.

He said, "What I don't think churches understand is this. People like me don't want to be preached at, but when we see you doing things like this," listen to this, he said, "When we see you doing things like that, a thought enters our minds, and it's if that's true, then maybe everything else they believe is true too." You see, it becomes an opportunity for amazing witness when we actually put our faith into action. So the question I've got for you is this. Ask yourself what concrete steps in my life would inspire my spouse, my friends, my kids, and so on, because action inspires action.

And as you think about that, I want to introduce you to somebody whose action has really inspired me over the last year or so. It's been my great privilege to get to know a man named Pat Gelsinger a little bit better. Pat is CEO of VMware, which is a big company over in the Silicon Valley. They basically are the leaders in cloud computing and a lot of other remote server things that are too complicated for me to understand. Pat, in his career, has been executive vice president at Intel. He's been chief technology officer at Intel. He was in charge of or involved with every 86 chip ever, up to and including the Pentium chip, and that means basically if you've ever used a computer, you have used chip architecture that this man has been involved with.

And yet, somewhat unusually for a Silicon Valley CEO, he's very outspoken about his Christian faith, and he has a great vision for how Christians can unite in the bay and put their faith into action. And I really want to see if you'll catch this vision too. So would you please join me in welcoming Pat Gelsinger, as Pat shares with us right now.

Thank you, René. Great to be here with you today. And just an honor to speak a little bit to Twin Lakes Church. Let me tell you a little bit about my testimony a bit. I was born and raised in the ultra-conservative area in Pennsylvania, Amish, Mennonite, Pennsylvania Dutch. A farming family we were in. My dad was eighth of nine kids. So he never had his own farm. So as I was growing up, it became obvious I wasn't going to be a farmer, because what's a farmer without a farm. So I started to look into different things and got into technology. I ended up skipping my last year of high school, got my associate's degree. So I graduated from high school and with my tech degree the same year.

And Intel came recruiting, one of the few years they ever recruited on the East Coast for technicians. And they interviewed me and invited me to California. And I was 18 years old, never been on an airplane, and they invited me to California. And I was like, "Well, of course I'm going to go." It took me two nanoseconds to say, "Yes, I'm going to visit California." But I mean, I have no plans of coming out here. I mean, you folk are crazy out here in California. Right? You know, it's earthquakes, it's going to fall into the ocean, and Santa Cruz, woo-hoo, you know, all that crazy stuff.

So I took the interview, came out here and decided to take the job, because they made it easy for me to work and go to school. And, you know, as I came here, I had gone to church every Sunday. You know, I had two good reasons, right? You know, one is if I didn't, Dad would whip me. And second, right, I would want to impress the mothers and the grandmothers of the girls I was interested in. So church had a lot of good reason, right? So, and I thought I was a Christian. I had been baptized with full knowledge of what I was doing when I was six days old. I came to church, met my, what would be my future wife, Linda, that first Sunday that we were here.

And after a couple of months, the, you know, the young adults group sort of adopted me into it. It became very obvious that I was a Christian, at best case, for a few hours Sunday morning, and not the rest of the week. And in February of 1980, the sermon topic was Revelation 3:15–16. "I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other. But since you are neither cold nor hot but lukewarm, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth." And that Sunday, I made the commitment to be hot for God.

Now, just a couple of months later, after being hot for God, you know, I feel this incredible pressure from God, you know, just this calling from God to go into full-time ministry. And I tell God, "I do not want to be like René Sheffler." "No way!" Right? I'm loving this technology stuff. I'm doing great. I'm getting promotions, accolades. You know, this isn't what I was designed to do, God. The first time I touched a computer, that was it. So I wrestled with God for months. And after finally, you know, two, three, four months of wrestling with God, I finally said, "Okay, I'm going to lay a fleece before God. And if this happens, I will go into full-time ministry." And as soon as I did that, it was like the scales falling from my eyes, and God said, "The workplace is your ministry." And this verse, Colossians 3:23, became my life verse at that point. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart. It's working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

And at that point, I became a full-time workplace minister. Now, how many of you are full-time ministers? Okay, let's try this again. I became a full-time workplace minister. We're called to, right, it is the Lord Christ you are serving. We are called to a full-time school place, home place, marketplace, workplace ministry. So, how many of you are full-time ministers? They're getting it, René. This is good. This is good. So I became a full-time workplace minister. And today, I have a church of 17,500 people at the M-Ware. I am the senior pastor of that church. Now, I said that one time, and we go to Menlo Park, right, Presbyterian Church, and John Orkburg, the senior pastor, was in the front row. And he says, "You know, Pat, if I paid my members as much as you pay yours, I'd get more showing up, too." We are called to full-time ministry in whatever capacity and that circle of influence that we have.

Now, my career at Intel has just went tremendously. It became, as René said, first CTO was running over half of the company. Linda and I were in the Bay Area for 10 years, moved to Oregon for 20 years with Intel. And when we left, Linda said, "We are never coming back to this crazy place called the Bay Area." I was asked to go and become president for EMC in Boston. So we moved back there for three years. My family was so excited. The black sheep from the West Coast is finally coming back. And then I was offered to become CEO of Yemware. A great job. You know, a $6 billion company this year, innovative and disruptive. But as we were coming back, when we left the Bay Area, Linda said, "Never are we coming back." Just a little theological tip for you, never say never to God.

But as we were coming back, it's like, "Why the Bay Area, God? What are you calling us to, not just a job, but what's a greater calling?" And if you could bring the next slide up. You know, the Bay Area is this tremendous place on Earth, a unique place on Earth, right? This geographic diversity that we have. You know, about almost 10 million people in this area. Over 50% of people do not speak English as their native language. This is the richest place on Earth. The highest per capita income on the globe is the Bay Area. It is influential. People want to be here because of the startups, you know, this incredible world influence that we have. Amazingly, it is one of the lowest philanthropic areas in the world, in the nation today. It is also one of the least churched areas in the nation today.

So you and I live amongst rich, influential, miserly pagans. That is our neighbors. That is our mission field, rich, influential, miserly pagans. And amazingly, of all the major metropolitan areas in the United States, this area has never experienced revival. All other cities have except the Bay Area. So as we come back to the Bay Area, it felt very much that God was calling us to do something more. Not just a job, but a calling to be here. And from that, we have begun to network together amongst the Christian leadership. And over the last year and a half, with René and other leaders like Francis Chan and John Orkberg, Chip Ingram, nationally recognized leaders, but also powerful business leaders, we have begun to form what we call TBC, Transforming the Bay with Christ, with the objective to catalyze a gospel movement in the Bay Area, to bring about revival in the Bay.

We set out that we want to do three things as our objective. And the first of those is to simply bring the leadership into relationship with each other as a group across the Bay, but also René, network with all of the other leaders here in the Bay Area, in the Santa Cruz area, the business leaders, the community leaders, the other pastors in the areas, and come together in partnership. We've already seen amazing things happen just as we get to know each other and work together shoulder to shoulder to be reaching out as opposed to focusing inward. Secondly, we said we want to serve. And for this, I'm just so delighted to hear what TLC is already doing in this regard.

But when we think about the church, in our world today, the Christian church in the Bay Area is seen as one of two things. You are either a leftover of evolutionary thought and crutch that is no longer required by a high intellectual capacity set of people like we are, or you're a tool of the political right. And in either case, I have no need for you. Matthew 5:16 says, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven." Not your superior intellect, not your superior religious theology, your good deeds. By that, we want to make the church appealing, right, involved and influential in our communities around us.

The third said, we want to just plant churches. We want to grow the churches in the Bay Area and simply lead to multiplication. Of the 10 million or so people here, three or four percent are involved in church at all. At 10 percent, we become influential in the communities that we're in. And from that, we've set a set of "bee hags," as we call them, big, wholly audacious goals that we're off to do. We set a plan of a thousand new churches over the next decade or so, plus triple church attendance, double the church attendance of all the churches in the Bay Area today. So squish together, we're going to bring more in here, but plant a thousand new churches, new campuses, bring new life from those startup churches.

Have every church involved in schools, businesses, and community leaders involved to start influencing shoulder to shoulder all the areas that we're in. And ultimately, we said, let's bring about revival to the people that we're with, to those rich, influential, and wisely pagans in our neighbors. Let's bring about revival in our land, in our lifetime. Thank you very much.

You see why I wanted you to meet Pat? His vision has really inspired me, and it's interesting how the Lord is working on so many hearts kind of in the same direction. Let's unite as churches, let's demonstrate our faith through acts of service, and I hope it inspires you to do that in your own sphere of influence, and maybe you'd even like to join us in transforming the Bay. Right now, we're having breakfast together every few months over in the Silicon Valley and just praying about this, just saying, "God, how can we reach the Valley in a better way?" Through faith in action. That is what it's all about.

And Pat, if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you back for just a second here. We got like 60 seconds, and I just want to ask you this, because probably, I know that there's a lot of people who work over in the Silicon Valley or work in other industries here in the Santa Cruz County, and they're going, "Well, that's well and good for a CEO to say, 'I'm going to be outspoken about my faith.'" You can do whatever you want. You're the CEO. But listen, I'm just working on a project at this giant company. If I'm that outspoken about my faith, I don't know. I'm afraid that it would not go over well. How do you respond to that?

Well, you're certainly, right, you know, 2 Timothy says, you know, "You will be persecuted." So know that those moments will come, right? And then just be a great employee in the setting that you're in. But the single rule that I would give every one of you is there's a magic phrase, right, to use when you're in the workplace. If somebody goes to the personal level and tells you about a personal need, just say, "May I pray for you?" And you know, just in that. They've gone to the personal level. You do too. And then come back to them. How is your sick daughter? Is she doing okay? How is -- and that phrase opens up so much opportunity to witness and share and be involved in other people's lives. You know, I've said that probably 10,000 times to people, right, over the years. Never once has an atheist, an agnostic, right, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an Islam said, "No, you can't pray for me." Never once in all that time. Even all those scientists working on all those chips.

That's right. Never once do they possibly -- have they possibly said that. And of course, persecution will come. And we can talk about some of those things. You know, people have questions, you know, happy to give some of those stories as well. That's awesome. Thanks. Let's thank Pat again. Great job. Thank you. Great to have you here.

Listen, let's land the plane here with this. There's one last foundational step when it comes to applying, to living out what you're learning as a Christian that I really need to talk about, even though I really almost didn't want to talk about this, because it involves a word that's not a very popular word right now. But this is really the first step. You know what it is? It's the word "repent." Now, when you hear that word "repent," what comes to your mind? Probably some big-haired TV evangelist screaming, "Repent!" Somebody once said, "This word is often spoken in anger and received in shame." But the word "repent" is a great Bible word. All it means is God has a direction reversal plan for your life. That when you're going in the wrong direction, God says, "You know what? Just turn toward me," and you'll receive times of refreshing.

I love this last verse in your notes. It says, "Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." Acts 3:19. This is why this is basic when we're talking about living out what you learn. Because if you don't start with, "Lord, I am powerless to overcome sin," powerless to overcome my selfish attitudes, powerless to really fully live out what I'm learning, and I want to turn my life over to you, my higher power, Lord Jesus Christ, if you don't start with that, you will fruitlessly be trying to live out what you learn in your own power, and that just doesn't work.

So where is God asking you to turn around and toward Him this morning? Would you all bow your heads with me? Let's all pray to God, and let's repent together. With your heads bowed, repenting is really the simplest thing in the world because it's not about trying harder. It's just about running into God's arms and letting Him lift you up and praying something like this, "Lord Jesus, thank you that you have a direction reversal plan for me. Forgive me, change my heart from the inside out, set my feet on the solid rock of your truth. I want to make a difference with my life, and I want it to spring from a heart filled with your love, not just a sense of obligation. And Lord, help us all as a church to apply Your Word by Your power, but immediately, and not just go away and forget about it. In Jesus' name, amen.