wow wow wow happy Sunday church
come on anybody glad to be in God’s house today the psalmist says that one day in the
house of the Lord is better than a thousand elsewhere I’d rather be in the the house of the Lord he was saying that
anywhere else in the world and you know great things happen in God’s house that really don’t happen anywhere else and I
always like to remind people when you come to church don’t forget like this stuff doesn’t happen at Walmart Kmart it
doesn’t happen at school it doesn’t happen um at the at the library there’s stuff that happens here that doesn’t happen
anywhere else lives are changed hearts are changed marriages are mended
come on strength is given people leave different than they came
so we welcome all of you we’re so glad that you’re here today and I want to I want to welcome anyone who’s been away from church and is here today uh we
started a couple of months ago I asked our church to pray with me for people who are displaced and people who have
not been to church in the last few years who at one time we’re attending a church but because of all the events that have gone on have gotten out of the habit of
it or their Church closed down or whatever it might be and so I’m meeting people uh in the last few weeks both at
church and away from church that um that that applies to and so I want to just I’m going to hopefully welcome you every week I want to welcome you back home I
want to welcome you to our church I want to welcome you and say we are so glad if you are here today and you haven’t been coming to church I hope you know
that we celebrate you being with us and we believe you’re an answer to prayer so there you go God bless you
and I would just say to all guests you picked a great day to be here a great day to be here you will have a window into the heart of our church today
probably like no other uh one weekend of the year I want to tell you though next Sunday I’m going to be finishing our series on good Pharma and
it’ll be the eighth week that’s a long series eighth week and I’m really excited about it you don’t want to miss it but welcome to the giving
party today welcome to the giving party
and I’m going to ask you if you would right now to say my hearts open and my mind is ready is ready have your way
today God have your way today in our hearts in our lives and in the life of our
church in Jesus name and you may be seated
now normally at this point in our service I would greet everyone at the specific locations
that you’re at but today I want to take a minute I want to talk about each of our location so I’m going to expand a little bit uh it’s dawned on me that
when we Name Out locations many most people have not been to the other locations most people wonder what it’s like so I thought that today we would
just celebrate what God is doing in the different rooms of one house that we call Champion Center I want to begin by
saying that my wife Sheila and I came here from the Midwest to the Northwest 37 years ago God called us to this
community and we came to a little Community called PE alop and when people said what is that again how do you say it I would always say
well just you know ju just think of the word of the word gallop
and put a little smeeze on it ala like that and then you got it so you
know we came here and we we started and we were 26 years old and God has been so good and blessed us and we want to keep
on celebrating God’s goodness and we want to keep on celebrating the the the people who have who God Called Here
alongside us so I want to begin with our Tacoma Loc and uh we we have a great pick of our Tacoma location I want to tell you a
little bit about this area Tacoma is a port city it’s an industrial Urban style
older Northwest City with lots of bedroom communities like Pew alop and others um that are connected to it and
Tacoma as far as Champion Center is our broadcast location it’s a I’m standing in in a beautiful
wooden dome which is our it it is our um central location we call it and from
this location Champion Center has become known as one of the most influential churches in the Northwest and even the
nation and we pray over Tacoma
we speak the blessing of God over Tacoma uh Tacoma means the city of Destiny and
we believe that God has had a plan and we are fortunate enough to be a part of
that plan for this great City here in the unchurch Northwest
I want to move to our bellw location as I welcome everybody at Belleview today and I want to show you a picture of our
bellw location bellw is it is the high Tech retail center of the East Side
uh with more than 150,000 jobs and a beautiful Skyline in the city
in other words 150,000 people work in Downtown Belleview and it is a Vibrant
Community it it is an international City meaning it has amazing vast
potential to reach people all over the world because they come here from all
over the world and if you’re not aware of that Belle is as much of a Melting Pot as you can imagine internationally
we pray over Belleview God wants his church to rise up and be strong in bellw
and there’s a lot of Believers in Belle who are displaced right now there’s churches in the on the east side that
have closed down some of the larger churches that are no longer even there and so many people have no church home
and we’re just praying for the unchurch to be stirred to come back to church unite together for the cause of the
kingdom and I am so grateful for all of you in biew who Champion the kingdom of God
at that location next I want to go to our Dupont location and we’ll show you a picture of our Dupont location
uh dupon is known as a military community and in and around Fort Lewis dupan is a
growing city again people come to the military from around the the the nation
and many end up living here and to our joy many end up staying here because of
our church and that’s been a really cool thing over I’ve got people in the front row saying and that’s what we did like
it’s over the years to just watch that that as we pray whoever’s supposed to be in this house that they would they would find their way here and then people come
from different parts of the country and they they end up in military service they come to Champion Center and then they’re like we’re not supposed to leave
even though we’re done with our our military time but Dupont is is right there it’s a growing city and we are
currently leasing space but we we were given property
in Dupont to build a new building and so right now just as part of this day let me just tell you that right now we are
in the permit and the fundraising process of having our own location no more leasing at some point we will have
our own building hopefully just in the next less than 5 years so be it God in Jesus name amen
just to mention this before I go on all three of these locations on the west side are currently
receiving new facility upgrades and makeovers in our church kids and our youth ministry in church kids and youth
ministry our goal is to have the best for our kids and our youth the best we
can possibly have we love our children we believe right now maybe more than
ever before that our children need us and that they need us to stand up for
them that they need us to be here against the deception and the lies of the enemy
Satan has come to steal and to kill and destroy this generation and the young people but we know that God has a plan for their
life and for their future
and so most of what is happening right now you will see in the month of December installation will be happening
because of Legacy offerings at the locations here on the West Side our children’s ministry will there will be
it has been being built offsite even out of state and it will be coming in on
trucks and transported in and some of you who are in construction and workers you will be asked to help and we will be
installing in the month of December at our locations New makeover updated upgraded best kind
of stuff for our children who attend our church
now let’s move to the east side of the state the beautiful area of yakal county is home to 26 60,000 people and it is
one of the you listen to the diversity in this as I change communities military and Tacoma bellev now we’re in yakal
it’s one of the nation’s highest producers of apples it is known as a producer of lot of the
fresh of the lots of lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and um a lot of the yakal family really has related to my message
on on seating your future seed time and harvest but here’s an update for you we
recently sold our yakal location which was in the downtown area older building
there and we sold it and we are in the process of building a new campus location in the West Valley area of
yakal and this past week we broke ground for the new building and I want you to
see a picture
oh come on celebrate the vision the vision the vision
thank you Lord thank you Jesus
so we pray over yakal we pray over Belleview we pray over dupon we we pray over Tacoma
we pray over the people of West Valley in Jesus name for a great harvest that
is coming in the days and the months and the years ahead we pray for resources to
come we pray for provision to come we pray that givers would give we pray that God would provide everything that we
need so that the church can continue to move forward in all of the these cities and all of these communities does
anybody agree with me in prayer we are in agreement
we’re celebrating so far this year just January to October at all of our locations 575
salvations 318 baptisms
I’ve had people out in public who stopped me this has happened a few times but it just happened this past Friday
and somebody asked me how’s the church doing and I think a lot of people are empathetic
toward what’s happened in the church World beginning in 2020 and they ask with a real heart for for and a
hope for the church and it’s always good to be able to say you know what we couldn’t we couldn’t be doing any better
considering all the circumstances God has been so good to us a Champion Center God has been so good to us
the strength of our house has become so evident in the time of trial in the time of testing the character of our house
has become so obvious in in the in the uh opposition and in the time of adversity you know the Bible says if you
faint in the day of adversity your strength is weak our house has showed strength our house has been strong our
house has been like the house Jesus talked about built on the Rock and the storm comes and the wind blows and the
house Stands Strong and not to overlook I want to mention
our online location it reaches people in places where we don’t have a physical presence and is available to people who
want to look in the window of our church before walking in the doors of our church and we have people right now from around the world that are watching from
different circumstances that are not near our church or near a location this is their Church location uh people in
the military that are around the country or are are in another Nation even um so
welcome to all of them we’re so glad that you are part of our church family from wherever you are today
now I want to right now repeat an illustration that I did last week I didn’t have the time to elaborate like I
wanted to do so the volunteers are going to start bringing the baskets out while
I read this scripture to you and this is to emphasize the principle and the promise of our tithe and our offering
and I want to I want to read to you while you watch this all happen behind us I want to read to you what it says it
says bring the whole tithe into the store house that there may be food in my house
test me in this says the Lord Almighty go ahead and put me to the test he said see if I will not throw open floodgates
of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to
store it so on this side over here is what we see as What God Says to bring to
him and over on this side is what he says we can keep okay he says when you
basically when you leave when you leave hang on when you leave work you have a job yeah where’s your job Tacoma Screw
Products Tacoma what Screw Products Screw Products how old are you I’m 18 okay he just got his paycheck this is
what this represents Envision that he came did you drop off your tithe yet I did you did cuz you’re you’re a church
kid you know you know all about this yeah so so now you go ahead and you get to take this home and you get to save
some of it right yeah Mom and Dad hear me I’m teaching them right now uh you get to save some and you get to but you
know what I really want to do this a little different um than than how you guys are doing it today like um I want to here I’ll start with I’ll start with
you you embarrassed don’t get embarrassed you’re just too pretty to be embarrassed it really looks more like
this right here um like I just want to I want to like get it out of the baskets
because the baskets is hiding a lot of this over here it’s not in a basket and so
I just want to get it all out come on has God been good good to you
come on has God been good to you
God been good has God been good tell your neighbor God
is so good God is so
so good
what you doing that’s like overflowing doesn’t really fit on the table
so every time you get in your car remember it’s the blessing of the Lord in your life
when you pay off the bill so you can go to college or you pay for your tuition remember it’s the blessing of the Lord
in your life remember when you make a down payment on your little new dream house remember it’s the blessing
of the Lord in your life anybody blessed today
come on anybody blessed today and what I’m trying to say to you is
that the Habit leads to the Harvest The Habit leads to the Harvest there the
God always Prov divides and takes care a lot of people strain at giving they stress out about oh my goodness that’s a
lot you want me to bring my tithe I actually tell people and maybe you need to hear this today start with a percentage if it’s really hard in your
mind or you got to rearrange your budget just start somewhere start with percentage based giving and do it habitually
and start bringing to God what is called first fruit first fruit is what the Bible calls it
bring to God what is first and honor him don’t just like don’t just like throw a little you know couple quarters God’s
way stop it don’t treat God like that don’t treat him like that treat him with honor treat him with respect and
whatever portion start with a percentage based amount with the intent that you will grow to at least the tithe which is
what he tells us to bring to his house first fruit and then what I’m telling you is he made you a promise
and he’s promised you that he will provide for you he is Jehovah gy the Lord God our provider and he will
provide come on you want to thank the Lord again for his Blessing now I want to jump over 2 Corinthians 9
and6 reads like this and it says remember this whoever SS sparingly will also reap sparingly whoever SWS
generously will also reap generously somebody say don’t hold back don’t hold back seed your future seed your future
sparingly versus generously all right each of you should give what you decide in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a
cheerful Giver so here’s how this works is that today basically you’re like man I am so blessed it’s offering time so
you know what God’s been so good to me I think I just want to do this right here I just want to bring some of what and I
I I want to bring an offering I already brought my tithe but oh that’s fun
that’s what that looks like it’s like now it’s offering time whatever the whatever God speaks however God leads
you this is just this is like discretionary opportunity and he says to you God loves a cheer ful Giver God’s able to bless
you abundantly so that in all things at all times having all you need you will abound in every good work we will abound
our church will go from one location to five locations we will see 500 and I
think it was 514 people come to the Lord in 9 months time and give their heart to
the Lord we will abound in every good work we will have we will have good classrooms for our children we will have
a clean facility we will have chairs when we need it amen he who supplies seed to the sewer and bread for your
food will also Supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the Harvest of your righteousness you will be enriched in every way so that you can
be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in Thanksgiving to God so what happens
is that is that we we we are you saw me illustrate we go from here oh I have I
have some extra or I have the ability to do a little bit more I’m gonna I’m gonna do it Bo we put and then God’s like I like that so much so here’s what I’m
going to do I’m going to I’m going to open up this door for you I’m going to answer that
prayer for you I’m going to bless you financially and or with things that
money cannot buy but I’m going to bless you back
somebody say don’t hold back hold back seed your future see your future amen
now um I’m going to just for those of you who were helping me I had a team that was going to help me I’m going to skip this okay I I’m I’m talking too
much uh but I want to go to a story today of a young couple in our church and their
name is is Ricky and Christina Ricky is an Army Ranger he is stationed
at Fort Lewis and Christina is on the Champion Center Church kids
team she is for those of you parents who might would know she Christina is Tracy
finder on the church kids show that’s that’s Christina
and some of y’all are like we have a church kids show yeah we do there’s a lot of good stuff going on at Champion Center and every week we have this and
we have kids watch it from home and so forth on the church kids show so last year leading up to the Legacy offering
so 20 22 Ricky and Christina wrote on the Legacy prayer wall that’s out in the lobbies of our of our locations and they
wrote that they were believing God for a healthy baby and for for healing in mental health struggles
and anxiety being one of them that’s that’s what they wrote like that’s it that’s they wrote we got a picture of it
or they got a picture of it actually and passed it on to us and on March 30th 2023 just a few months ago
at 39 weeks pregnant at 1:00 a.m. in the morning Christina suffered a placent abrupt
and severe hemorrhaging 911 was called and upon arrival the Medics found no
fetal movement and no fetal sound Christina was transferred to the hospital
Ricky thought that he had lost the baby and that he was losing his wife
and he was praying the entire drive to the hospital for a miracle he was asking God to save
his wife to save his baby and after they arrived at the hospital the doctors were a they did find a
heartbeat however the heart rate was constantly dropping
the baby was in severe distress and doctors have said to this day that
with the blood loss the the baby should have medically been gone within minutes
Christina was at that point at the hospital not in labor and after a few hours of doctors trying
to figure out the next steps they told Christina and Ricky that the
baby was not doing well and that the baby has has to be born and
so they were I think with her condition just trying to figure out whether or not they go forward in one way or another
but they they did not in they did not induce labor and I just want to tell that part because
as that conversation ended the miracle began and that is that she immediately suddenly
went into active labor and within five minutes a little baby boy was born
so when death was at the door God commanded life and I wanted you to see a picture at the
dedication of their little little boy his name is Asa
his name is Asa which means healer ASA is completely healthy
parents say he’s the happiest and easiest baby that we’ve had so far and they are they’re grateful for the
miracle I I’m sharing this with you and I I’m just wanting to go back to a simple day when they made a decision
to write something on the wall right good I I I want to make sure that I remind
you of that opportunity at every giving season because the Bible tells us listen carefully be anxious
do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer
and petition if you wonder why we write on the wall you wonder why why
it seems simplistic it seems to many people unnecessary especially doing it in a public place
this is why we do it because the word petition
literally means write down literally means in in the original Creek
Philippians 4 and 6 with prayer and by writing it down
with Thanksgiving in your heart present your request to God and today we
are thankful that a little boy named ASA made it through a really difficult time
to the glory of God and it’s going to be a great story that can forever be celebrated
and I would invite you today right down like if you haven’t done it
if you need doors to be open in your life if you need a financial turnaround in your life if you’re carrying a baby
right now and you have like that desire that they had you’re trying to open up a business and it doesn’t seem like it’s
the convenient or right time economically or otherwi you’re praying that God would open up a door so that
you could get your education you don’t know how you would afford it like you’re a high schooler and you’re asking God
for direction in your life and what is it that he has for you what’s his will for your life all all I’m giving you is
an opportunity I I’m just saying this is a great time to petition God and to present to him the things that are in
your heart and and to be bold enough to come to him with faith in your heart
faith enough to write it out that’s good that’s great one of the stories that blessed us this year was from a woman
named Maria who had tried to grow in her profession but after failing twice at working on
her master’s degree she felt stuck where she was until God spoke to her to change her financial habits
to specifically to start with a saving plan and increase her giving
she said she was sacrificially putting aside for legacy offering and that year she was able to give more than she ever
had to Legacy offering she told us that even though she was constantly battling fear she stayed the
course believing that God was getting ready to bless her I think we have a picture of Maria
she is holding okay she’s not holding I I had the WR picture but there’s a picture of her
holding her master’s degree she did get her master’s degree and then she went from teaching to being the principal of
a school and her salary doubled
all within a few months and she gave glory to God for that again
Pastor Kevin what are you doing I’m trying to just
remind you that when God ask us to give he’s not trying to get something from us
he’s trying to get something to us good he’s trying to get something to us
somebody said well you know why does God have to dictate our lives I’m just going to be one of those honest
pastor pastors I’m not going to I’m not going to try to make you feel better God does want to be first he really does he doesn’t play second
fiddle so all of Salvation is about making him the Lord and leader of your life
uno number one and that goes through your whole life
with your with your time with your talent and with your treasure we maintain
and we continually demonstrate even when we would be pulled away nope I’m going
to keep God first but he doesn’t just want to be first he wants to be first
and he wants to bless you I said he wants to bless you he wants to Resource you
look at this verse the world of the generous gets larger and larger and the world of the stingy gets smaller
and smaller here here I’m going I’m going to show you two more verses here’s where you I’m wanting it to sink in today and then
we’re going to have fun we’re going to get the offering going it’s going to be great but the principle that I’m wanting to you to have or what understanding is
that I want you to know the principle is first and the promise comes after it or you could think of it the Habit leads to
the Harvest you got that principle leads to promise habit leads to harvest
so if you’re not in the habit of tithing we’re doing a giving Challenge and we’re
inviting you to bring your first today ever in confidence and faith and let God know God I’m just stepping out being
obedient if you are a tither today as we give in our churches at all of our locations enters into this we’re inviting you to bring the biggest
best offering you have perhaps that you have ever been able to give and that’s what today is really all about on a
personal level and here here’s how it works this is all over the Bible the principle is Jesus
words give give the promises and it shall be
given unto you and look how he elaborates he just loves to bless us a
good measure press down shaken together
running over will be poured into your lap for with the measure you use
principle it will be measured to you again principle
lead to promise this is not a gimmick
good we don’t buy Miracles so good we don’t push God into a corner and now I heard that preacher say so God
I’m going to you know some sort of manipulation I need this paid by Wednesday of this week like I don’t mind you praying it
but I just want you to understand that God knows our heart and if you’re like paying to play that’s
not the way we do this we do it in sincerity of honoring the Lord first and if that’s in our heart we’re just
encouraging one another follow through with the action this is not a gimmick this is not like don’t don’t even allow
yourself to believe that if the en enemy wants you to you to think that way well pastor Kevin just no I’ve been here 37
years preaching the go gospel people come people go valleys mountaintops Hard
Times difficult times I’m not leaving because somebody thinks something about me I’m here to stay just to declare
the word of the Lord and to see people who began to walk in it experience the
promises of God over your life and over our church here’s another one here’s the
principle those who go out weeping
carrying seed to S principle
those who go out weeping I could go I won’t elaborate on the Weeping part they’re not really sad I won’t go into
it I could get it’s a fun bible study but those who go out in other words with earnestness and sincerity of heart
to invest and to sew the seed will return
this is the promise with songs of Joy now I’m a King James version guy and
this is NIV so I got to tell you what the King James version said will doubtless come again
with songs of Joy wow carrying their Harvest
with them oh good do you think do you think God would put verses like this in the Bible to just play with us
like our emotions no no no no no he puts it there to remind us principle
leads to promise principle leads to Habit leads to harvest
obedience leads to blessing and I just love will return with songs
of Joy carrying carrying the blessing of the Lord with them