It's so good to see everybody. And I am excited this morning. I don't know, maybe excited is not the word.
I am... I don't even know what word to use. Let's just say I am. Let's just leave it there.
To get into the series that we're going to get into today, and it's probably going to carry us sometime into March,
is where the series is going to carry us. And the name of the series is very simple.
It's called Forerunner, Vision, and Lifestyle.
Today, I'm just going to give a very soft introduction, but I might be a little slow with speaking today,
not because I don't have enough notes. I got plenty of notes.
By the way, didn't my wife do wonderful today? Can I just... I mean, seriously.
I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm married to that woman. Come on, somebody.
That's right. That's right, man. Hey, it's okay to brag about your spouse. It really is, honestly.
Yes, it's okay to brag about your children sometimes, too. Just sometimes.
But I want to do like an introductory, give a little bit of the history on and so forth.
But the reason why I might seem very slow, kind of hesitant today,
because what I'm going to start talking about for these next few Sundays,
is something that is very, very, very dear to my heart.
It's very dear to my wife, Tanya, her heart.
It is something that we have been living with, living like.
It is something that we've been carrying in us, probably from the first...
And the end of our first year of marriage, that then kind of...
It was somewhere in between the end of our first year into the second year of our marriage,
is where the Lord really began to deposit this in us and really began to speak this to us,
and we began to carry it.
And it's very dear to us, because this is something that I know, that I know, that I know,
that God has entrusted us to carry, to teach, to show, to impart on and so forth.
You fill in the blank.
So this is something that's very dear to me.
I mean, this is where...
I'm going to be sharing a large portion of my heart during these series,
just because this is just something that's very dear to us.
So if I cry, that's alright. You know that it's dear to me.
But forerunner vision and lifestyle is a way that my wife and I have lived for probably close to a decade now.
We've been married a little over 10 years.
So close to about a decade now, we've been living this type of lifestyle.
We've been teaching this. We've been imparting this.
We've been carrying it, because God clearly told us some years ago.
He said, I am choosing to partner with you on this vision.
That's what the Lord told us.
It's not that we were so somebody good or we were...
It's just the Lord graciously chose to partner with us in on this.
And so these next few Sundays, I'll be teaching on that.
I'll be going into the depth of the points of the vision on and so forth.
But I want to bring about some clarity.
Because when we start talking about vision, it can bring about a confusion.
So I just want to right out of the gate.
I want to say something and let this sear your brain, let this sear your mind.
When I'm talking about forerunner vision, because we're going to be...
We're introducing this to our house.
We're going to begin to implement this in our house here.
We're going to begin to teach it, impart it, practice it, put it into practice on and so forth.
But when I say we are teaching a vision, what we are teaching or I should say
what I'm going to be teaching for the next few Sundays does not listen.
It does not replace the vision of word of life that God has already given.
I don't want to stir any confusion in a people of like,
oh, okay, so whatever Pastor Vern and Mary carried, we just scratch that.
We go recycle it. No, no, no, no, no.
What Pastor Vern and Mary have heard from the Lord since God commanded them to plant this church back in 2004 remains.
Us teaching forerunner vision and lifestyle, imparting it, practicing it out and so forth is not a replacement vision.
It's actually in addition to what God is already doing here.
It is a complimentary thing that we are introducing to this body because I believe, I do believe this will produce some things of God,
both in you as individuals and us as a corporate house.
The reason why I say it with confidence and I believe that is because first and foremost, I saw it work in my life.
I can't teach you something or I can't impart something or I can't show you or preach on something if I haven't seen it work in my life.
Because then that just makes me a hypocrite and how to want to be a hypocrite.
So again, we are not replacing the word of life vision.
The word of life vision, I mean, if you don't have one of these, I highly encourage you to get one.
They're free. Out in the foyer, when you walk out to the left, you'll see a little like shelf of booklets.
I think there's only like four that can fit in that shelf.
If we don't have any more by the end of today, I'll make sure that our usher team or whoever restocks that.
Abby, you can always restock that too, right?
Where's Abby?
Where's Abby? I'm missing her.
Can you always restock that too?
Yeah, we have plenty of people that can restock that.
Highly encourage you.
Thank you, Kevin. You can restock that.
I appreciate that, Kevin.
That's your job.
Okay. Did you guys hear that?
So if it's not restocked, who do we go to?
Kevin Murray, to be more exact.
You just signed yourself up for something, brother.
It is not a replacement. It is an addition.
It is a complimentary thing to what God has already established in this house.
Pastor Vern, again, on page 44 of the vision book.
Let me open it up here real quick.
Because I want to just show you just how much.
And I wish I had Pastor Vern with me here this morning.
Because we could go back and tell you when him and I first sat down.
We weren't even on staff. We didn't even know that we were going to be a part of the church.
And I shared some things about what God has entrusted my wife and I to walk in.
And these are Pastor Vern's words.
Now I quote, he said, that's hand and glove.
With what God has had us do here at Word of Life.
That's what I quote him. He said, it's hand and glove.
Means that it complements.
Your hands sometimes get chilly when it's negative 15 degrees.
So you put a glove on.
You hear me? Somebody said, hallelujah, praise the Lord.
In the vision book, if you hear some pages, if you want to write them down,
I'll just say them real quick, but we have a context here.
Pastor Vern does such a really good job of breaking down what vision is.
I mean, honestly, I've sat around many men and women of God that talked about vision.
I have. I've been privileged to sit around many women of God with, you know,
we like to measure people that they're anointed by the size of their ministry.
Did you see that? They have a thousand people. They must be anointed.
I just want to give you a little bit of a news flash.
I've been around some men and women of God.
Well, some men and women that have churches that are a thousand people
and they're not very anointed. I'm just going to be honest with you.
You can't measure the anointing of the God of how many people are sitting in chairs.
I'm just going to be honest with you.
Just going to be honest with you.
You can find it all through Scripture.
Now, I'm all about let's fill the seats. Let's get thousand people.
I'm all about that. Let's go for it.
But in my mind and in my heart and knowing the Scripture and knowing the Lord,
God does not measure. Oh, they got a thousand people.
They're probably very anointed. Nope.
I've been around those people.
But back to my point.
I've sat around men and women of God that have talked about vision
and I've been blessed by it.
But I can definitely say top two on my list
when it comes to talking about vision is Pastor Vernon Mary.
The way that he describes vision in this book,
I'm like, my God, this is gold.
This is gold. And we have access to it here at church.
We have literally access to gold right here at church.
And some of you are thinking, why are you talking about Pastor Vernon so much
when he's not here? Are you trying to know?
I'm not trying to do anything. I'm honoring our pastor.
But I'm also trying to tell you, we got gold in our church
and we're not taking advantage of it.
That's what I'm really trying to tell you.
We got a man and a woman of God that have laid down their lives
and because they laid down their lives, God would trust them
with the riches of heaven.
And some of us are like, oh, our pastors are so cool.
Yes, they're cool, but there's gold in what they teach
and what they show and how they live.
Did you hear me this morning? Awesome.
So if you want to know about vision, read it,
because I'm not even going to get into deep teaching on vision
and all that today, but Pastor really breaks it down nicely here.
But here's something that I've always measured vision to
or I should say this way of how committed an individual is
to a vision, whether it's a vision that God has given you
for your business, whether it's a vision that God has
given you for your family, whether it's a vision that God
is asking you to come under because you have something
to offer to like a church, so to say.
Here's the way that I've always measured it from my own life.
To the degree that I commit myself to a vision,
to that degree my lifestyle will become that way.
Does that make sense? Let me say that again.
If I truly believe that the vision that we walk in here
at Word of Life is a vision given by God,
the vision should actually become my lifestyle.
You see, you can talk all day long how you're
committed to the things of God. You can.
Remember I say this a lot. It's easy to be a Christian
on a Sunday. Friends, it's easy to be a Christian
on a Sunday. Let me say that again.
It is easy to be a Christian on a Sunday.
Just show up, put on a tie, shine your shoes, smile at
people, make sure there's a mint in your mouth.
You're good. You're good.
Lift your hands during worship once in a while.
Clap when the guy up here, the Ukrainian guy
running around saying clap and you clap.
You're good. You've done it, man.
It's easy to be a Christian on a Sunday.
But I've measured by myself to the level that my life
begins to be around the things of God.
Let's say vision in this example.
Vision when my lifestyle becomes that.
That's when I know that I'm actually committed to something.
And I watch people.
As your pastor, I watch you not to find some kind of fault
in you, not to find something like,
I watch you because I've had a lot of you come up to me
and they're like, we're so committed to this church.
We're like, we're gonna like, yeah, man.
Cool. Thank you.
I appreciate the words of exhortation.
I appreciate the support.
But the greatest support that I could get
is not you telling me how committed you are,
but me actually seeing, wow,
their lifestyle is changing
because they're committed to the things of God.
So when I teach on forerunner vision,
I cannot not say that it's also a lifestyle.
Now each of us, we can't measure ourselves to each other.
We just can't do that.
You'll literally go into a ditch.
You can't measure yourself and say, oh,
I can't commit myself to the degree that Pastor Igor
and Pastor Vern and Mary and Pastor Tanya commit themselves.
I work. I run a business.
Of course you can't.
Of course you can't commit yourself to the measure that we do
because God has called us to be in this position.
That's why it's dangerous for us to measure ourselves
to each other.
Because to each of us, a measure is given
and the commitment of God has asked of us.
Does that make sense?
So you can't come down on yourself and say,
well, I don't do enough.
It's never enough.
Seriously.
People ask me, well, how much do I pray until it's enough?
I say it's never enough.
There is never, friends, when it comes to the seeker place
and it comes to being with God alone,
there is never enough.
Because people are like, well, when do I leave?
Like when do I, like maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe three?
Is that going to be enough for God? It's never enough.
But it's not about the enough.
It's about how often you do it.
It's how committed you are to it.
It's how your life revolves around it.
You hear me this morning?
So to be committed to a vision
is to actually begin to build your life around it.
And I just want to quickly read here
what Pastor Vern wrote in our vision book.
This is on page 44.
Now, what I'm saying here, I did not pull from this.
I only read it and I'm like, see, it's hand and glove, Pastor.
This is what he wrote.
He said, people don't lay down their lives for a program,
but they will if God has asked them to do something.
This one point is usually the difference
between success and failure.
When God asks us to do something,
there is always a cost on our part.
This goes off to what I just said.
If we believe that this vision, word of life vision,
is from God, friends, it's going to cost you something.
It's going to be inconvenient at times.
It's going to be hard at times.
It's going to be hands to the plow and no looking back.
I said hands to the plow and not looking back.
Can I just quickly warn you?
And I feel the Lord on this.
Can I quickly warn you?
Don't put your hands to the plow if you're not ready to work.
I love how my wife said it this morning.
She said, not only are you making yourself look like a fool,
but you're making God look like a fool.
Because you said, well, God told me I need to do this.
And then you put your hands to the plow
and you've recognized, wow, it's not easy to plow these fields.
And then you kind of do one of these and you kind of turn back.
I fear for those people.
So I want to warn you.
Before you put your hands to the plow,
make sure that you know, that you know, that you know
that it's God.
And if it is, hallelujah, I will cheer you on.
And even if you turn around and you go back,
I'll cheer you on. I will cheer you on just in a very different way.
It will be like, don't go to hell, brother.
I'm cheering you on.
You still with me?
Praise God.
So forerunner vision is a lifestyle.
And this is something that my wife and I have been living.
This is something that we've been teaching.
And we even have some friends here.
We have some friends in the back that have been with us
since the beginning, that's Ruvim and Nati.
Can we just quickly just honor some people here?
We have Oscar and Natasha that are here as well.
Just some dear friends that are...
and I know there's even some watching online
that were literally with us and they can attest
that this is a lifestyle that my wife and I have been living.
And that's not why I brought them in here tonight.
I did invite them. I said, guys, you should come to church.
Church is fun. So they're like, okay, we'll come.
So, but it is a lifestyle that we've been living.
And I want...
I want our house to begin to, as individuals,
I want us to begin to build our life around Christ
and not fit Christ into our busy schedule.
Amen?
So let me just share some points just to show you how
forerunner vision is literally hand and glove
with what God has placed into word of life.
I'm gonna go to page 60 here.
Now, again, friends, I just...
I want you to know something that, again,
we've been carrying these things.
So I'm talking to you about not something recent
that God has given us.
I'm talking to you about something that we've been
entrusted with for almost a decade.
And then reading the vision book
and meeting Pastor Vernon Mary, it's like, oh, my goodness.
This is so good. We're not the only weird ones.
Something that we have ever since forerunners
even came about, and I'll give some of the history
of it today, but ever since forerunners came about,
we knew in our hearts, we knew as clear as day
that what God has given us, this lifestyle, this vision,
God has given it to us for now and for the end time church.
That's literally the way that we felt the Lord deposited.
We knew that when we begin to establish forerunners,
when we begin to live this lifestyle,
we knew that God, you are giving it to us now.
It is for now, yet at the same time, it is for the end times.
Now I want to quickly read what God has spoken in this house.
Listen to this. This is in the vision book,
page 60, starting at letter A.
I'm just going to read it, and then you guys
can read everything else.
It says, this is what the Lord is speaking to this house.
He says, you are a last day's church.
That's what God spoke to this house.
He said, you are a last day's church.
That doesn't mean that we don't have the things for now,
because we as a house, we have things from God now
for the current events, but he's trying to tell us something.
And I love, because Pastor Verne explains that
in the vision book, and I'm not going to read all of it.
I'm just giving you a little bit of a teaser,
that you get it, you read it,
you take some notes, and you begin to get familiar
with the vision of this house.
And as soon as you begin to be familiar with the vision
of this house, you're going to be like, oh man,
I got to change this, I got to change that,
I got to reprioritize this in my life,
because if I believe this is a vision from God,
there's some things that I got to change.
And not all of it has to be at once.
I'm just going to be honest with you.
Not all of it has to be at once.
Baby steps, small pieces to the puzzle.
The other thing...
Oh, let me quickly mention this,
and I just want to give a little bit of a teaser,
because when Pastor Vernon Mary, when they come back,
him and I might touch base a little bit on this.
Forerunners is think of it this way.
Actually, don't think of it this way.
Let me back up here.
Don't think of it this way,
because some of you are going to go there right away.
Forerunners is not a home group.
When I begin to teach and talk about forerunners
and how it looks like right away in people's minds,
it's going to be like,
oh, that's just like a home group.
It's not a home group.
And you're saying,
well, why are you so hard against a home group?
Because I feel like the title of home group
has been so mistreated in the church.
We began to treat it as
let's just get together and drink a cup of tea.
Let's just drink together and read the Bible
and just feel good about ourselves.
You know what I mean?
We went to church on a Wednesday instead of just a Sunday.
You know what I mean?
It's like, not a forerunners.
It might look.
Some of you would be like,
oh, it kind of looks like a home group.
It's not just a home group.
It's more than just a home group.
But the way that forerunners was established
and was established in our home
is where it was established.
And we had meetings in our home.
And I'll get into the history here a little bit of it.
But when the Lord was speaking to us
and he said, this vision, this lifestyle
is for now and it's for the end times.
There is actually a prophecy and Pastor Vern
will talk about this a little bit more.
But there's a prophecy, if I'm not mistaken,
came from the mouth of Pastor Vern.
And he can quote me or he can correct me on this.
That actually talks about end time revival
around coffee tables.
Has anybody heard that before?
Felicia, you know your mom and dad well.
Did it come from Pastor Vern?
It did come from Pastor Vern.
And it was like in the early 2000s, right?
It was along.
It was like back in Nam as...
back in Nam.
It's when phones weren't around yet, Jim, by the way.
Yeah, phones weren't around at that time.
Yeah, that was dialogue.
You know, and all that.
So there is a prophetic word that I'll have Pastor Vern
talk a little bit more about.
But it talks about end time revivals around coffee tables.
And that's probably the more descriptive way
that I could explain to you in a nutshell
of what Forerunners is.
The other thing that we always stood on in Forerunners
and what we taught and we walked in
was the attitude, the heart posture
of a bride of Christ church.
That was literally our attitude.
When we would get together at our house
or at different houses that would host it,
our attitude was we are coming as a bride of Christ.
And we desire to walk in a bridal identity.
Do you know there's a difference of just being a church
and actually being a bridal identity church?
Walking in a bridal identity,
if you go to churches that walk in bridal identity,
they look different.
They look different.
Literally, they look different.
So we've always walked with that.
It's been our heart posture, it's been our attitude,
it's been our approach of Lord, we are your bride.
And we desire to be without spot.
We desire to be without blemish.
We desire to be without defect.
So Holy Spirit, search our hearts,
convict us, and if you find anything in us
that is evil or unclean, rid us of it.
That was our attitude.
That was literally our attitude
when we would get together at our home
or in other homes that would host it.
Now listen to this.
This is in the vision book.
And by the way, that attitude
and that heart posture came out of Proverbs 31,
starting at verse 10, all the way to verse 31,
which talks about the virtuous wife.
And someday in the future, I'll teach on that as well.
Not right now.
But someday in the future, I'll teach on
the bride of Christ, the bridal identity.
Which literally all comes out of Proverbs 31,
starting at verse 10 to verse 31.
But listen to this.
So again, like I said, our attitude was always,
we are the bride of Christ's church.
Now in pages, let's go to page 61
of our vision book.
I said, let's go and nobody's even flipping.
Oh, wow!
Look at that!
Vanessa!
You are wonderful.
I'm not a blessed person.
Thank you so much.
Look at this.
Page 61 at the top there.
Let her see.
It says, you are a bride church.
Do you see what I mean that
what God has entrusted us with
the forerunner vision and lifestyle
is literally...
And I'm only giving you just a few friends.
I'm just giving you a few.
It's literally hand and glove.
It's not a replacement vision.
It's not all.
This vision failed.
So we have to bring in a new...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This is simply a vision that's
complimenting and adding to
the fire that's already here.
We're just...
Think of it this way.
Think of it this way.
We're just some dry logs
that just came in
and we threw ourselves on the fire.
And I said dry logs.
You know why?
Because a dry log is a dead log.
You didn't hear me.
We did not come in as wet logs.
We came in as some dead logs
and we threw ourselves on the fire
so that the fire of God
would burn even brighter here.
Now I encourage you
that you become a dead log
and throw yourself on the fire.
Now that's going to sound really bad
if somebody takes that out of context, by the way.
They're going to say,
what is that pastor preaching in Word of Life?
He's saying, yeah,
I'm not even going to go there.
We...
So yeah, it's wild.
Let me read actually page 48
of the vision book.
So again, God speaks to Word of Life
and he says you are a bright church.
And ironically,
he told us,
my wife and I
and the people that were with us,
we had a team of people.
Our attitude was
you are the bride of Christ
and you walk with that attitude
and you learn that attitude.
You learn what it means
to be a bride of Christ.
Here in...
This is page 48 down
at letter C again.
Look at that, C.
It stands for Christian.
C.
Sorry, guys.
Sometimes the things I think
should stay there
and I speak them out.
So I apologize.
So here,
page 48, letter C.
It says, Word of Life
is called to be a bright church.
This is back in 2025.
See?
I was just testing you.
I was just testing you.
Good job.
So the Lord spoke to this house.
Pastor Vernon Mary came here
with their family
and they established the church in 2004.
Was it spring of 2004?
Spring of 2004.
See, my memory is good.
They established it in spring of 2004.
2005, not 2025,
2005, God speaks to them
and says you are to be a bright church.
And there's a lot that I think
we can teach
and go deeper there,
but again, in due time.
So yeah, I'm trying to show you all these points.
Honestly, there's so many more.
Once I start teaching on this
and if you actually read your vision books,
you'll understand,
oh my goodness, they are so similar.
And we didn't even know each other.
I didn't meet...
My wife and I did not meet
Pastor Vernon Mary until 2003.
It's the first time we met him.
And we've been walking with this
for about...
Did I say 2003?
Maybe we should wrap up church early today.
All right.
Father, I just...
Let me just pray.
Father, we just thank you, Lord.
We thank you for this time.
We're asking you that you would help us
this morning, Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Amen.
Yeah, 2023.
Did I say 2003?
All right.
Well, maybe.
Anywho, so there's a lot of similarities
between forerunner vision
and word of life vision here.
Something that forerunner vision
really falls down to, I should say,
the three main points of the vision
come do three things.
And that is, we call them banners.
That's just what we used to call them.
We just call them banners.
And you might say,
well, why did you call them banners?
Because a banner is something
that you hold over yourself.
It's something like, think of it this way.
If you're an American,
you hold an American flag over you.
If you're a Ukrainian in Ukraine,
listen, in Ukraine,
you hold your flag over you.
In America, you keep your flag
where it needs to be.
Did you hear what I said?
You're like, hold on a second.
Yeah, I said that.
In America, you wave your flag
because it represents who you are.
It describes, he's an American.
See, now that I'm a citizen, I can do that.
So a banner is something
you simply hold over yourself.
So we would call these three main points.
We would just call them banners.
And one of them was Luke 7.
It's Luke chapter 7 verse 35 to verse 50.
And in a nutshell,
I'm gonna literally break these down
as the series go and I'll be teaching on them.
But in a nutshell, what Luke 7
starting at verse 36 to verse 50,
what it talks about there,
it talks about a sinner woman.
It talks about a prostitute
that came to wash the feet of Jesus.
What the Lord spoke and showed us
is that is something,
first of all, let me say this,
that is something that is very foreign
to the church in our day and age.
And that is ministering onto the Lord.
It's very foreign to the church.
Because people are always expecting
God to minister to them,
which is right.
It's biblical.
We should have that approach and that attitude.
But did you know that we as the saints of God
actually have, and not even just saints,
I'll just say a people.
Let me just put it that way.
Because some of you are like,
well, I'm not a saint,
so that probably doesn't make me...
Let me just say a people.
We as a people of God
have a privilege to minister onto Jesus.
We have that privilege.
And Luke 7 literally breaks it down for us.
And I'm going to be teaching on that.
The other one is John 3,
chapter 3, verse 27 to verse 30.
And there in that place,
we find John the Baptist talking about Jesus.
We find John the Baptist being approached
by the Pharisees,
and they're saying,
who are you?
And all this, that whole story.
But John 3, verse 27 to 30,
teaches us and shows us
what it means and how it looks like
to be friends of the bridegroom.
Through, listen, listen,
through breaking of bread.
Through coming together
and breaking of bread.
And becoming friends of the bridegroom.
Becoming friends of Jesus.
You know, there's not many friends of Jesus.
Did you guys know that?
Did you guys know that?
There's not many friends of Jesus
in our day and age.
That's pretty, I'm sorry,
that's a pretty hard,
like I say it and I'm like,
oh man, I just got wrenching when I say it.
But that's the truth.
That's the truth.
To be a friend of Jesus
is a price that very few are willing to pay.
To be a friend of Jesus
is a price that very few are willing to pay.
And those that have paid it
won't even see their full reward
until they get to heaven.
Let me say that again.
Those that have paid the price
to be a friend of the bridegroom
won't even see their full reward
until they get to heaven.
The fourth, or I'm sorry,
the third point is that of Ephesians 4
which talks about the five-fold ministry.
And in a nutshell,
it's the edifying of the body,
it's building, it's maturing the saints.
In forerunner vision and lifestyle,
we are after my life.
My life, what I'm after when it comes to people
is I desire for people to mature
in the things of the Lord.
That's my desire.
That's my desire.
That's my wife's desire.
We desire to mature in the things of the Lord.
To get past the petty things.
There is...
I'm just gonna preach to the choir here.
It's obvious.
There is so much immaturity
in the body of Christ.
There is so much immaturity
in the body of Christ.
Now, are you ready for this?
Gossip is a form of immaturity.
Strife is a form of immaturity.
Do you know why?
Because out of those things,
the reason why people gossip,
the reason why people do these things
is literally if you really boil it down,
it's insecurities.
They're offended.
When you begin to mature,
the insecurities begin to all of a sudden
not bother you anymore.
Do you know when you're mature
or maturing in Christ?
Is when the things that used to bother you
where you were insecure about,
all of a sudden you don't even pay attention to them anymore.
That's a form of you actually maturing
in the things of God.
So the third point of forerunner vision
in lifestyle is maturing the saints.
It's building the saints.
It's recognizing that everybody
who believes in Jesus
is born again,
is filled with the Holy Ghost.
They actually fall into one of the five.
Did you know that?
Each of us here fall into one of the five,
of the five-fold.
Some of us might even operate in two of them.
Amen.
Apostle,
prophet,
evangelist,
pastor, teacher.
Let me give you the best way to learn this.
Apostle is the thumb,
because if we didn't have a thumb on our hand,
you'd be messed up, bro.
I'm just kidding, we can pray for you.
A prophet is the pointer finger
because prophets always point.
That's how I just remember this.
An evangelist usually stands out out of the bunch.
That's why we got our middle finger as the evangelist.
A pastor is the ring finger
because we'll usually pastors marry.
And a teacher is the pinky
because we always seem like
all teachers are nobody.
I'm just telling you that's how I remembered it.
I don't think that teachers are nobody.
I think teachers are needed, but the way that we view them
is like, ah, he's just a teacher.
No, no, we need those guys. We need them.
So each of us literally can
operate in one, if not more,
of the five-fold. Each of us.
Let me give you a little bit of a sneak peek.
I'm going ahead of the series here.
Did you know that each of you
in some way or another
are actually leaders?
Did you know that?
In some way or another
you are actually leading people.
You're saying, well Igor,
I'm retired, man. I just
sit at home. Are you married?
Well, yeah. Well, then you're leading your wife.
Do you have kids?
Well, yeah. Well, then you're leading your kids.
But my kids, they've moved on.
They're grown up. They're married.
They have their own kids. Do you know that
your kids might move on, get married, move out
and all this stuff, but they're still looking
at you and they still recognize you as mom and dad.
You're still leading them to somewhere
or another. Each of us
have a sphere of influence.
We do. Some of us have greater
because God has found trust in us
to have a greater realm of influence.
Some of us have less.
We don't compare each other to one another.
We simply walk in the measure that
God, I said, that God
has entrusted us in walking.
So those are the three
real main points
of full runners.
And I want to just briefly because
we're going to go past the noon here. So let me give you
like 10 minutes and I'll give you
a brief history of four runners.
Are you guys okay with that? Yeah?
But like 10 minutes I'll give you that brief history of four runners.
So like I said, Tanya and I, we got
married in 2015.
Sometime at the end of 2015,
the Lord
met me in our kitchen. That's another
story for another time. Things started
to happen. Early
2016,
my father-in-law, Tanya's dad, graduated
to heaven. He went to heaven.
And I thank God, I thank God
that he met us before
my father-in-law passed away.
Because when my father-in-law
passed away, nobody was expecting it.
Like my wife already said, she was very
close with her. We're in the second
year of our marriage and this happens as a husband.
I'm like, ah, what do I
do? You know what I mean? It's like, you just can't do
nothing. You just sit there and you cry sometimes
with her. You sit there and you pray. You just
you do what you best know how to
do. So
2016 is roughly
around that time. In 2016
we began to just unofficially
begin to live a lifestyle
when I say unofficially
is like we didn't know that forerunners was
a thing. We just began to live a life
of prayer, fasting.
We began to live a life of ministering
on to the Lord. And honestly
nobody taught us that. Nobody taught
us how to minister on
to God. We just did what we
knew how to do. And God would show
up. The Lord would show
up. So we would randomly
even in our apartment, we randomly
would have people come over. I mean, do you guys
remember that? We would randomly come over to
our apartment. And there was three things
that always were there.
And that was prayer
and worship, ministering on to the Lord.
There was
the breaking of bread, of getting around
tables and fellow shipping. And
there was always a time of ministry to one
another. Which is Ephesians
4. Edifying, maturing
helping
people grow. Those three things were
just there and they were natural.
We didn't necessarily even strive for them.
We just would have people over at
our house. It'd be fun. We'd eat
some food. We'd laugh.
Sometimes when it was unofficial,
sometimes we would end the night with prayer and worship.
Sometimes we just had really great
conversations and people went home and they felt blessed.
It
wasn't until
2017, you can quote me here,
or correct me here, 2017
we bought our first home.
Right? 2017 we bought
our first home. My wife, Tanya,
was very, very pregnant
with our first son, Benjamin. Very pregnant.
I mean, like, we literally bought the house
and like a month later, Benjamin was born.
It wasn't until in our new hope house,
our first home that we bought
is that where forerunners really began
to grab traction and things began to really
happen. Now I'm giving you a nutshell
of the history here. Here's
so you know. So we have, we're in our house
2017, about
early 2018, Benjamin is still
under, he was under six months
I think. He was still a baby. He was under,
let's just give myself some more grace.
He was under a year old.
Okay? So
mothers, if you're listening to me, I want you to hear
something here.
My wife had a child that was
under one years old
and we would have people
over at our house a minimum
listen, a minimum
of four days out of the week
and you know what?
We would feed them, we would
minister to them, we would worship
with them, we would pray with them, we would pour into them.
Minimum four days a week
people would be over at our house
and the three components would always
be there. When people would come over
we would talk, we would break bread,
we would pray, somebody would
start weeping. Here's
a little joke that I'll tell you that we had
at Four Runners. My wife would go to
Costco regularly and she would buy
bulks of the tissues,
bulks of them. Because
we would go through tissues, you're like, why?
Because when the Lord sometimes touches you, you got snot
coming out of your nose.
We would
buy bulks of these tissues.
Now I'm just sharing with you this history.
I'm not saying this is exactly how things are going to look
as we go forward. I'm just sharing with you history
just to bring about
why this is so dear to us.
It was about
2018.
Benjamin was already about almost two years
old, right? And you were very pregnant with
Noah. Very pregnant with our second son
Noah. I'm sorry?
Was it 19?
Oh, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.
It was around 18. Let me
step back. It was around 18 before
Four Runners became official. It was around
2018 that we would
randomly organize
these prayer nights at our house.
And we'd have
no joke. We'd have people coming from all over
the Midwest. We had people coming from South Dakota,
from North Dakota, from Nebraska.
I think we even had some people coming from Iowa.
I don't even know these people.
But because they heard
that there's a prayer and something at so-and-so's
house, they would show up. We would have
anywhere from 40 to 70 people
on the weekends.
And half of the... in my house, now again,
my house was not big. It was not
big. It was just a 2,000
square foot house. The living room was not
that large. We sat like sardines.
But we didn't care.
We didn't care.
We just wanted Jesus.
And again,
when these... we used to call them
Jesus nights, if you remember. We used to call
them Jesus nights. And people would come.
And I have these people I don't even know.
They're coming into my house.
I don't know them. They're coming into
my home.
By the grace of God. This is a testimony
that I walk with. By the grace of God
for those, I don't know, how many years,
four or five years that we were doing it?
For those four or five years,
nothing was ever stolen
from my house. That's God.
I said,
that's God.
I ran a business.
I had an office with some personal
things. By the way, years down
the road, the office became the place where
deliverance would happen.
We'd be in a living room and we'd be praying
and all of a sudden the manifestation comes
and people that were on the team at that time, we would
look at each other and we'd be like, yeah, go to the
office, man. And we would drag that person
in the office and we'd cast out devils in the office.
Yeah. It's a testimony of
God. Nothing was ever stolen.
Did we have some
carpet ruined? Yeah, we did, but that's
okay. It's part of the cost. Do we
have some things broken? Yeah, little things
here and there. Do we have a lot of water
bottles left over that we had to clean up? Yes, we
did. That's all part of paying
the cost. That's all part of the sacrifice.
You're doing this not for yourself.
You're doing this for the Lord.
If we believe that this
vision is from the Lord. It was
about 2018 is when
Four Runners became official. I'm really
trying to skim through here. Give me like
five more minutes. It was
about 2018 when Four Runners
became official. And I remember
I heard from the Lord, because everybody
kept on asking us, because this started happening more
and more, and people kept on asking us. They
said, well, is this going to become
like an official thing? Are we going to gather here
regularly? We should totally do that.
Come on, not realizing
the logistics of things. Friends,
I'm talking about literally, I'm not bragging.
I'm just, I'm testifying of the faithfulness
of God. Every time people
came, 40 to 70
people, do you know from
whose wallet the money came for to pay for
the food? It was ours.
Pizza gets expensive.
We're talking about your drop
on 150 bucks
a few times a week.
I'm not bragging. I'm not.
I'm simply showing you
the faithfulness of God.
Our business at that time
began to increase, and all of a sudden I'm like, cool.
Have them come over five days a week.
We can afford it. This is awesome.
God
showed provision, not because
it's just like Tanya
mentioned today, and just like Amanda Hill said.
He'll give you the provision when you begin to go
there. We just began to win there, and
all of a sudden our business began to be
blossoming more and more. More
and more people needed windows.
It was great. It was fun.
2018
forerunners became official.
I remember that night
the Lord spoke to me. We were in prayer. There was like
15 people, and I just felt like
I need to talk to my wife
before I say it to them, because we had about
15 people that were regulars. They were
literally there every time.
There was around about 15 people.
I remember that night
when the Lord spoke to me, everybody went home.
By the way, people stayed at our house.
We have a saying in our
Slavic community, it's a minimum
of four hours when you spend time with us.
You're like, whoa, dude,
what do you guys talk about? The Lord.
The Lord.
That's what we talk about.
We don't talk about, yeah, we might laugh
about, you know, this happened at work, or did
you hear that? And there's laughs.
But I can easily say 90%,
if not more, about our conversations
revolved around the Lord.
So we just have a joke. We say every time
you get together with Igor and Tanya, it's a
minimum of four hours. And some of you that
have spent some time with us, and I'm willing to
spend time with more of you just to let you guys know,
some of you that have spent time with us, you can
say amen to that.
And I don't hear the people saying amen to that.
Come on, guys.
I'm leaning on some of you
here.
So when the Lord said that
that night, again, Benjamin
was about two years old, Tanya
was very pregnant with Noah.
We laid down in bed, and I turned to
my wife, and I'm like, if my wife agrees,
it has to be God, because she's very
pregnant. We had a toddler.
And I turned to my wife that night, and I
remember I told her, I said, hey, I said,
so in the sky, I said, I think, I'm like,
I think we need to make this thing official, where
it becomes a regular on a weekly basis.
Do you know what her response was?
She said, yeah, let's do it.
I was like, whoa, hold on a second.
Then I began to second guess.
Very easy.
It was like, yeah, let's do it. And from
that moment, we began to make this official
where it was a weekly thing. People would come
to our house. It used to be on Saturdays,
then it was on Sundays. And friends, I'm
telling you, what we saw, again,
time is against me. What we saw
God do in Forerunners
was incredible. I haven't even seen
some of that stuff in churches.
I haven't seen some of that stuff
in churches. Do you know why?
Very simple answer for you,
because people came hungry for Jesus.
It wasn't because Igor
had some awesome sermon, or
somebody on the piano played some awesome
song. It was simple.
People that would gather in homes,
you're sitting like sardines.
There are 70 of you.
You smell sweat. You're like,
man, somebody just ripped one.
But you're like, I don't care.
I don't care. I want
Jesus. And God
would show up.
I'm saying God would
show up. I'll say it now.
I never said it before, but I'll say it
now. Friends, half the times, because God
entrusted us with it to steward
these things. I'll say it now. Half the
times, I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't
know what I was doing. In those
moments, you'd hear me praying. Tongue is
a little bit louder.
I don't know what I'm doing right now.
But God
honored the hunger.
God honored
the hunger. We were just a bunch of...
By the way, we were in our early 20s
when we were doing this.
We were in our early 20s when we started
doing this.
And then from there, when this started
happening, people started showing up to the church.
God was showing up. People were hungry.
We saw signs,
miracles, wonders. We saw
deliverances. We saw salvations.
We saw salvations.
I said, we saw
salvations.
We saw people have
questions answered that used to
just literally condemn them.
Like, well, why is God? And in those
times of sitting around the table
and talking about the Lord,
people would actually receive
answers of like
light bulb going off in their head.
That's why we pray in tongues.
Yes.
That's why we do so and so.
Yes.
We saw what
forerunners produced, even just
aside from the church that we were attending
and pasturing at that time, which was my father's church.
But to us,
it's such a dear thing and we know
that I know
that I know
that this is for now
and for the end-time church.
I'm going to share one more thing and then we'll close out
in prayer. There was a time
where forerunners went from 40 to
70 people and it literally
dwindled down to just four of us.
And this was around the time when God actually
began to call my wife and I out
into what we call a season
of consecration. He began to hide us.
And literally, it's not
that we were doing something wrong.
It was the Lord's working.
People just stopped
showing up. It was just like, what is going on?
Cricket, cricket, cricket.
And it even came
to the point of where it was
just for about a year, year and a half, actually two years.
I'm sorry, it was about two years.
Where it was literally just my wife and I.
It was just my wife and I.
And there was even nights
depending who attended to the kids that night.
It was just either me
or it was just Tanya.
And I've learned something. I've learned something.
It's in those moments
when the dust settles, when the
people leave, the attention of other people
leave, it's just you and you
alone. That is where you're actually
tested. Is this vision
from God or did you just fathom
something in your mind?
It's easy for us in a church
like this to agree
yeah man, this is a vision
of God, man. Come on, we feel
each other's energy. We feel the
stirring and the brewing of the Holy Spirit.
But what about when you
go home and it's just you?
Nobody else is watching.
Nobody else is paying attention
to how you're worshiping,
to what you're doing, but it's simply
God looking from heaven
and he's saying, do you
actually believe this
vision is from God?
Do you believe it's from me?
It's in those
moments where I learned are
actually far more important
though the moments with all the people
is great, but it's right here
in the moments where it's just you
and your wife is where the character
is built. And you stand
your ground and you say, God, I
know that I know
that I know that what you've given
me is for now and for
the age, excuse me,
for the days to come.
For the days to come. There
is something that God spoke to us
when things began to dwindle down. It was just
four of us. And my good friend Timothy
and his wife, Tanya, they can attest to this
because they were the ones that were with us.
Because at that time we already sold our house,
we were looking for another home, so we were living
with my mother-in-law at that time
and our friends, Timothy
and Tanya, they opened up their house
and they said, hey guys, just come do
forerunners at our house. And we were
it was a far drive.
It was a far drive, minimum
once a week. We'd go down there
and we did what we felt God asked us
to do. Minister unto him
become friends of the bridegroom
and edify one another.
And in those moments, and I want to
share just with you real quick and then we'll pray
it was in those moments
where it was just the four of us. I felt
the Lord say something to me that ran
through me and even now as I'm saying it, I'm like
wow, he said this.
He said, what you're doing now
is far more important
than you even realize.
He said, what you're doing now,
what you're learning to do now,
what you're doing,
what you're practicing, what you're
maturing in, he said, what you're
doing now is actually far more
important than you even realize.
Friends, I am
convinced.
I am convinced
that the end time revival
will look a lot different than what we think
it's going to look like.
I'm going to end it there. Let's pray.
And then we'll carry on to next week.
Father, we thank you.
Lord, we bless you.
We exalt you, God.
We are grateful. We are
grateful for your word. We are
grateful for the
moving of your spirit, for the brewing
of your spirit. Father, we are
grateful. We are grateful
that you would unveil our eyes to
see, that you would open up
our eyes to see that the flakes
on our eyes would fall off, God.
And we would see clearly like the
Apostle Paul. Father, we love
you. We bless you.
And we thank you. We thank you,
Lord, that you love us today.
We thank you that you are
merciful and that your mercy
renews today for us, God.
So, Lord, as I
bless our people today, Lord, as I
bless your people, God, I pray that
you be with them as they leave
the doors of this church.
Would you stir in their hearts,
God? Would you have them
measure themselves of how
committed they are to the
vision and the things of you,
Lord? Holy Spirit, measure
them. Show them that
they would measure themselves
of how much they are
actually committed to what you
are asking of them
and of this house. And we
pray all of these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.