Not Coming Down Celebration | Pastor Matthew Johnson

"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." - Pastor Matthew Johnson

There are moments in the life of a church that deserve more than a passing acknowledgment. They deserve a pause. A full stop. A deliberate look backward before moving forward. On Sunday, Pastor Matthew Johnson led The Tree Church through exactly that kind of moment - a celebration of God's faithfulness, an honest reckoning with the present, and a clear-eyed challenge toward the future.

The message was rooted in the book of Joshua. But it was also unmistakably the story of The Tree Church.

Pastor Matthew opened by noting one of the things he loves most about scripture - that it captures critically important moments in the lives of individuals, families, and entire nations. It records both their successes and their failures. And in doing so, it gives God's people a precedent.

A precedent to pause.

He drew the congregation to Joshua 23, where an aging Joshua gathers all of Israel together for one final address. Joshua's life was drawing to a close. The promised land had largely been conquered. And before he passed leadership to the next generation, he wanted his people to do something specific - to look back at what God had done, to assess where they stood in the present, and to prepare themselves honestly for what was still ahead.

Pastor Matthew made clear that this is precisely what The Tree Church was doing that Sunday morning.

Before opening the text fully, Pastor Matthew walked the congregation through the larger arc of Israel's history - the kind of backstory that gives Joshua's words their full weight.

God had called Abraham out of his homeland and made him a promise - that his descendants would become a great nation and that through them the entire world would be blessed. That promise carried a cost. Four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. A family transformed into a nation under the most brutal of circumstances. Then Moses. Then the plagues. Then the parting of the Red Sea, water from a rock, manna from heaven, and miracle after miracle as God led his people toward the land he had promised.

And yet when the nation of Israel first stood at the edge of that promised land, they hesitated. Moses had sent in twelve spies - one from each tribe - to assess what they were walking into. Joshua and Caleb came back ready to go. The other ten came back afraid. The land was everything God said it would be, they admitted, but the people were large, the cities were fortified, and they did not believe they could win.

That unbelief cost an entire generation the promised land. God allowed every man over the age of twenty to wander the wilderness for forty years until that generation died off. Only Joshua and Caleb, the two who had trusted God's promise, lived to see the other side.

Pastor Matthew did not tell this story as a distant history lesson. He told it because Joshua carried it with him into every address he ever gave. The man knew from personal experience what obedience produced and what disobedience cost.

Returning to Joshua 23:3, Pastor Matthew read Joshua's opening words to the gathered nation - "You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you." And then he turned that same lens onto The Tree Church.

The numbers alone were striking. In 2010, the church went through a difficult leadership transition. When Pastor Matthew became lead pastor in 2011, attendance sat around 375 people. Fifteen years later, average weekly attendance has grown to approximately 2,500. Last Easter, 4,665 people came through the doors of both campuses, with well over a hundred giving their hearts to Christ in a single weekend. In the church's history, more than 1,500 people have been baptized. Each week, around 600 children and youth are being discipled. Over a thousand adults attend connect groups every single week.

And then there was the building itself. Pastor Matthew recalled the moment years ago when the church had outgrown its old space and he had personally looked at every available property in Lancaster without finding an answer. Then a realtor called with a simple question - had he ever considered the Roses building? The conversation was almost comical. There was a business there. But the realtor noticed there were never any cars in the parking lot. A call was made. And to everyone's surprise, the current owners said they were planning to list the property the following year and were happy to share the packet early. The church received a ten-month head start, given by God, to arrange everything needed to secure the space.

Eight years later, that building was not only finished but had been joined by a youth center and a brand new campus in Logan, Ohio. A year before that Sunday's service, there was no church in Logan. Last Easter, over a thousand people came through those doors, with forty to fifty giving their hearts to Christ.

Pastor Matthew paused. He got emotional. He thanked every person who two years ago heard the vision and said yes - who gave sacrificially to invest in communities they might never visit and a generation they might never meet. He spoke on behalf of those communities. He meant every word.

But celebration was only part of the message.

In Joshua 23:4-5, Joshua told the people that even as they celebrated, there was still land to be taken. He had already allotted it to the tribes - spoken over it in complete confidence that God would deliver it - but the enemy still occupied it. The work was not finished. And Joshua's charge to them was to be strong, to cling to God, and to keep every command he had given.

Pastor Matthew applied this directly. There are communities God has called The Tree Church to reach that are still waiting. There are campuses yet to be planted. There is still a need to build facilities that will expand the church's ministry to families with children who have special needs - a ministry that Pastor Matthew described as requiring multi-million dollar facilities and that he wants to eventually grow to serve youth, young adults, and adults as well. Men's and women's ministries need to be rebuilt. A ministry to support those walking through addiction and recovery is on the horizon.

Not Coming Down, the initiative launched two years ago, has not ended. The vision has not changed. Sunday was a pause to reflect - to get mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready for the next season.

Then Pastor Matthew said something that took courage to say out loud.

He acknowledged the tension. Many people in The Tree Church responded to the Not Coming Down vision and said yes. They gave. They served. They made sacrifices. And they experienced God's faithfulness in return - things about faith and provision and true ministry that they never would have learned otherwise.

But many people said no. Commitments were not made. Some that were made were not honored. And Pastor Matthew said plainly that as a church, they had to own that. Elements of disobedience existed alongside faithfulness. Both things were true at the same time.

He was not angry. He was grieved. Because he knew what those people had missed - not as a punishment, but as a loss. God had wanted to teach them. To bless them. To use them. And that window had passed.

But grace was also present in that grief. Because God always welcomes repentance. And today was a new opportunity for every person in that room to say yes.

Joshua's final challenge to Israel in Joshua 24:14-15 was not a soft invitation. It was a demand for honesty. Fear the Lord. Serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. And if you are not willing to do that - then declare it. Name it. Stop deceiving yourself.

Pastor Matthew walked through what that self-deception looks like in modern life. Faith placed in a job. Faith placed in a bank account or investment portfolio. Faith placed in the economy, in personal ability, in government, in family. None of these are God. And Joshua's point - and Pastor Matthew's point - was that if those are the things a person actually trusts, they should at least be honest enough to admit it rather than going through the motions of following a God they are not actually trusting.

Then Joshua made his own declaration. As for me and my house, they would serve the Lord. Not in words only - but demonstrated through action and obedience.

Pastor Matthew extended the same challenge to every person in the room. The question was not abstract. It was practical and immediate. Are you serving? Are you connected in a group? Are you giving? Because The Tree Church needs every member to take one more step forward. Not a dramatic leap - just one more step.

Joshua closed his address by writing the covenant in the book of the law and setting up a large stone as a witness. Every time the people passed that stone, it would remind them of the agreement they had made. It would stand for or against them depending on whether they had been faithful to their word.

Pastor Matthew asked the Lancaster campus to do something similar. On the way out, a board bearing the words Not Coming Down has stood on the wall for two years. That Sunday, every person willing to commit to serving, connecting, and giving was invited to take a marker and initial the board. The Logan campus had the same opportunity available in their space.

It was not a formal contract. But it was a witness. A reminder of what was promised and to whom.

Pastor Matthew closed in prayer, thanking Jesus for every person, every talent, every dollar of provision, and every stirred heart that had made the last fifteen years possible. And he asked for the same faithfulness going forward - in Lancaster, in Logan, and in every community God calls The Tree Church to serve next.

The vision has not changed. The calling has not shrunk. And the God who has been faithful to every promise he has ever made is not finished yet.

The Tree Church is a multi-campus church serving the communities of Lancaster and Logan, Ohio.

If you are looking for a church in Lancaster, Ohio, Sunday services are held at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at our Lancaster Campus. Whether you are new to faith or simply looking for a church home, you are welcome here.

The Tree Church also has a growing campus in Logan, Ohio, with services at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM every Sunday at our Logan Campus. If you are searching for a church in Logan, come and see what God is doing in your community.