Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Almighty God, you welcome you. Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message.
[00:00:34] If you're a guest with us, welcome. You haven't met yet. My name's Tom. I have the privilege of serving the church as the lead pastor on other worship with the guys. And, yeah, just so glad that you're here. My prayer for you is that you would encounter God among us, that his grace would, like, strengthen you and encourage you this morning. There's a difference between being in church and being in Christ.
[00:00:57] Those are two very different things. And at the chance that there's anybody in the room and you're not yet in Christ, my prayer is that you'd see Jesus clearly this morning, like there's nobody like Jesus, his love and his mercy and his grace and his power. I pray that you see him a little bit more clearly this morning, and as a result, you trust Him a little bit more. And it maybe, just maybe, would alter the trajectory of your life and dare even say your eternity.
[00:01:25] We all want to experience every spiritual blessing of being in Christ, enjoying Him and obeying him and operating like him in every single area of life.
[00:01:35] This morning, we're going to continue on in the series that we've been in called who We Are. We pressed pause on our Matthew series that we've been going through Matthew for, like, years. And we pressed pause on Matthew for a reason. Because I felt like God was like, hey, we need to come back kind of to the basics. We need to come back to who we are as a church.
[00:01:50] And in this series, what we've been doing is we've been going through our church's six core values. And they're not just our church's six core values. They're the six core values of our entire family of churches. So this is like the distinctives. These are the things that make us who we are. Okay? And we've been talking about this, and the reason why this is so important is because what we value as people informs what we do.
[00:02:14] The things that you value in life, they have a direct impact and a direct influence on the Things that you actually do. And the flip side of that is true as well. What you and I as people, what we do, it reveals what we actually value.
[00:02:28] Because we can say things like, let's say I value. I say I value quality time with my wife, but I don't actually ever spend time with her. That's more of a value on paper and not necessarily a value in practice. We want to be people who don't just have aspirations of things that we value, but we actually go, no, no, these are the things that we value and these are the things that inform what we do. And whenever you examine your life and you can go, hey, what am I doing? What am I actually giving myself to? That actually is the indicator that actually indicates what it. That you truly value.
[00:02:56] And when we talk about what we value as a family of churches, what restored Temecula values, these are the things that drive every single thing that we give ourselves over to as a church family.
[00:03:08] And so far in this series, we've covered.
[00:03:11] This is our fifth value. This morning we've covered four. We covered gospel. If you missed that one, go back and listen to it. The gospel is the. It's the most important value. It's the sun in our solar system that all the other values kind of orbit around. We've talked about that. We talked about family, how the church is not a building, it's not an event, it's not a business. The church is the family of God. It's people who, because of Jesus, relate to God as Father and then therefore relate to each other as brothers and sisters. It's the truest sense of family there is on the earth. We talked about dependence, how, how we, as people, we. We actually need him like we need God. There's a. There's a. There's a level of dependence and reliance on him. We talked about how those who depend on God, they stay with him, they remain with him, and it affects how we operate. We talked about mission, how the mission of the church is to go and make disciples of Jesus. And how every single one of us, every Christian on the earth is a missionary. It's not just for people who go plant churches who go overseas. No, no, no. If the mission is to go, Jesus gave us the mission. Go and make disciples. That going, that sending, that means you're sharing in the mission of Jesus.
[00:04:18] If you missed any of those messages, I wanna highly encourage you, please go back and listen to those. And here's a big reason why I'm plugging that is because if we're Going to be united in the ways that I believe God desires. For his church to be united, we are going to have to share the same values.
[00:04:36] Okay? And so go back and listen to those. If you missed that today, we're gonna kick off this morning. We're gonna talk about our fifth value, and that is this multiplication.
[00:04:46] So you have the Bible. Go ahead and grab that. You can flip over into the very first page of your Bible. Genesis chapter one. If you don't have a Bible, don't worry about it. Chloe's gonna hook us up this morning. She's gonna have the words on the screen for us. I'll be in the CSB translation as per usual. The Christian standard Bible. If you have a different one, you might wanna utilize the words on the screen. It'll be easier for you.
[00:05:12] Genesis, chapter one. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pray for us quickly and then we'll read the passage together and talk a bit. Let's pray together.
[00:05:34] Oh, Jesus, thank you that you're with us, your spirit, not just with us, but within us.
[00:05:44] I'm just reminded of your desire to communicate with the people that you love and to lead us and to guide us in every single area of our lives that we might flourish.
[00:05:58] And so that's my prayer for each of us this morning.
[00:06:03] Spirit, would you teach us about your ways and about how you're inviting us into life the way it's supposed to be?
[00:06:15] And I pray that you'd give us faith to follow you and trust you in ever increasing ways.
[00:06:21] Help us see more and more the beauty of Jesus, Holy Spirit, that's our prayer. So, Father, we honor you, Jesus, we love you, Spirit, we need you. Have your way among us. We pray. And all God's people said together. Amen.
[00:06:35] Okay, so I'm gonna read Genesis chapter one, verses 26 to 31. Okay, let's go.
[00:06:42] This is the creation account. This is the sixth day of creation. So God's been creating a bunch of stuff. And then we get to verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, according they will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.
[00:07:03] So God created man in his own image.
[00:07:07] He created him in the image of God.
[00:07:10] He created them male and female, verse 28.
[00:07:15] God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
[00:07:24] Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every Creature that crawls on the earth.
[00:07:29] God also said, look, I've given you every seed bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed.
[00:07:38] This will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth, everything having the breath of life in it.
[00:07:49] I have given every green plant for food. And it was so, verse 31. God saw all that he had made and it was very good indeed.
[00:07:59] Evening came, then morning. The sixth day.
[00:08:01] Okay, so there's a lot here, but what I wanna do for the whole morning, this morning is I wanna talk about two things. I wanna talk about what biblical multiplication is and I wanna talk about what that means for us, okay? It's one of the things that we value like tremendously. Okay, so let's talk about it, what biblical multiplication is. Now if you've read the Bible at all, you know, there's lots of commands in the Bible. There's lots of examples of God giving instructions or giving guidance or giving direction for people to do or not do certain things. There's lots of commands in the Bible. Now in the passage that we just read, we see the very first command that God ever gives a human being. Did you catch what it was?
[00:08:41] Be fruitful and multiply.
[00:08:43] Okay? That's the very first command that God ever gives anybody, okay? The fact that it's first means something.
[00:08:52] It has something to do with its importance. The very first command means it's very important. Okay? So I want you to kind of picture the scene that we just read here. If you need to like animate it in your mind like a Bible project video, do that. If you need to, like storyboard it or, you know, whatever, Like, I want you to use your brain for just a second and picture this with me. I want you to picture Adam and Eve, right?
[00:09:11] Picture the scene. They're in the garden, right? God's created them and there's no sin.
[00:09:17] Like, there's nothing wrong. There's no conflict, there's no brokenness, there's no sin. It's like peace, it's shalom, it's wholeness, right? There's no death because there's no sin.
[00:09:27] Sounds real nice.
[00:09:30] And you have these people and they have this perfect, unbroken, flawless relationship with their Maker, with their God and with each other.
[00:09:42] Now it might sound like a fairy tale, but like, I just, I want you to imagine what that would feel like.
[00:09:48] Like no relational brokenness, Nothing keeping you from. Like, you ever be praying and you feel like God. There's like. I can't. Like, there's like a blockage between. Like, I wish I could experience God more or in deeper ways or hear from him more clearly or articulate. Like, there's none of that.
[00:10:04] And you have these two people and get this youth. Buckle up. They're naked.
[00:10:10] Ooh, they're naked. Okay, but listen, listen. There's no shame.
[00:10:17] There's no perversion.
[00:10:20] They're naked. There's no shame. There's no perversion. There's certainly attraction here, but it's pure.
[00:10:25] We know from Genesis 2, God makes Eve, and Adam is stoked out of his mind.
[00:10:31] He's like, yes, finally. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. This woman. Yes.
[00:10:36] So you have this beautiful relationship between these two people.
[00:10:40] They're naked. There's no shame. There's no perversion. It's pure. There's attraction. It's awesome, right? And God gives them that first command, which is what?
[00:10:49] Great. Be fruitful and multiply.
[00:10:52] Okay? So hear me when I talk about biblical multiplication. When we talk about biblical multiplication, we're talking about reproducing note takers. That's my first point. Multiplication means reproducing.
[00:11:05] It means reproduction. Okay?
[00:11:08] So God tells Adam and Eve to reproduce, but before they do, something terrible happens. Something awful happens. You guys know the story, right? Satan comes along in the form of the serpent. He tempts Adam and Eve, right? And they sin, right? They disobey God's good guidance.
[00:11:29] I don't want to spend too much time. This is like a whole nother sermon. But it's important to address this.
[00:11:36] God's guidance is always for our good.
[00:11:41] Like, it's always for our good.
[00:11:43] R.C. sproul says it this way. He says God's commands are the gateway to joy.
[00:11:50] We think that, like, when God gives commands, that he's, like, holding out on us.
[00:11:54] But like all the commands in the Bible, they really are just like, hey, do you want to flourish as a human being?
[00:12:00] Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Here's these things. Like, if you want to flourish, you and the people around you to flourish, here's what you can do. God's command's like the gateway to joy. His guidance is always for our good. And we see that from the very beginning. And the same thing's true for you and me today and the life that you're living now.
[00:12:22] Okay, so you guys know the story. Sin enters the earth through Adam and Eve's rebellion, essentially. And because of that, now death is introduced into the world.
[00:12:32] Death is a byproduct of sin. The wages of sin is death. The Bible says, right?
[00:12:36] So I want you to just track with me for a second. I want you to consider something.
[00:12:41] Consider for just a moment the effect that now sin and death entered into God's creation. Imagine or not imagine, but consider for a second the effect that that has on that first command, be fruitful and multiply.
[00:12:56] Now, whatever fruit that Adam and Eve bear, whatever children they produce, will eventually die. Now, okay, so I want you to see something. From the very beginning of scripture, there has been an enemy set on destroying God's people.
[00:13:24] You need to know.
[00:13:25] You need to know that there really is still an enemy who's still set on destroying God's people.
[00:13:32] Because if your worldview doesn't include a very real spiritual evil that is hell bent on really harming you and destroying your life, you're going to face evil and not know what to do with it. Or you're going to miscategorize evil and say that it's like them, it's a person instead of. No, no, no. There's powers and principalities at work that are trying to destroy your life and they use any means they can to do so.
[00:13:58] It's a biblical worldview. You gotta know this really. Satan wants to destroy your life and his main strategy is the same. It's to tempt you to reject God's guidance and God's commands. Believing the lie that God's commands and his guidance are not good, that they don't actually lead to joy. No, but they do.
[00:14:17] Okay, So I want you to consider something with me because it's deep, but it's important for you to see it. Think about how sinister Satan was with Adam and Eve.
[00:14:27] Here's what I'm getting at. If you want to wipe something out, you can come up with all kinds of strategies. But if you really want to take something out, if you want to wipe something out, just keep it from reproducing.
[00:14:39] You see what Satan's up to here?
[00:14:43] I mean, think about it.
[00:14:45] There's probably not a person in this room who hasn't been negatively affected by cancer, whether in your own life or somebody that you love.
[00:14:52] And what cancer is, is it's these dangerous cells essentially, that as they multiply in the body, they take over the body, they harm the body, right? And ultimately can destroy the body.
[00:15:03] So if you want to get rid of cancer, right, if you wanna wipe out cancer, what do you have to do?
[00:15:09] You have to keep Those cancer cells from reproducing. Because if you can keep the cancer cells from reproducing over time, if you wanna wipe something out, just keep it from reproducing, right?
[00:15:19] I mean, I actually read this study fairly recently that was kinda wild.
[00:15:25] And it was talking. They studied men.
[00:15:28] They studied men in America, in Europe, in Australia, and in New Zealand.
[00:15:37] And what they did was they studied the sperm cells that men produce, the tiny little cells that men provide that are necessary to conceive a baby, right? And they found that just in the last 40 years, the last 40 years, there's been a 50% drop in the amount of those imperative critical cells needed to reproduce life.
[00:16:01] And so you have these researchers now that they don't have an answer. They don't know why it's happening, but it is happening. And they've been studying this for a little while. So these researchers, they're scrambling to try to figure it out. Now you might be like, okay, what's the big deal? No, that's a huge deal.
[00:16:14] The reason why that's such a huge deal is because if you want to wipe out the human race, just keep people from reproducing.
[00:16:21] My next point for you this morning is this. Multiplication is critical.
[00:16:26] It's not just like, oh, that's a cool idea.
[00:16:29] No, no, no, it's absolutely critical. Because if you want something to die off, just keep it from reproducing.
[00:16:36] Now hear me. Here's why this matters for us. Because the same rule applies to the church, the people of God, followers of Jesus, his disciples.
[00:16:48] If the church doesn't reproduce, it dies. Multiplication is critical, friends.
[00:16:53] And I don't use that word lightly.
[00:16:56] Critical. The word, what it means is, it means absolutely necessary for the success, survival, or completion of something.
[00:17:06] Multiplication is critical. It's absolutely necessary.
[00:17:10] Okay? So I want you to see again, God's commands are so good. Always. Do you see why the first command, be fruitful and multiply is so important?
[00:17:20] It's so important. Especially. Hear me, Especially in a fallen world where sin leads to death.
[00:17:29] God's commands are always for our benefit. They're the gateway to joy.
[00:17:34] Now, in light of that, I want you to see something else. This is powerful. Okay? Do you realize what this says about the leadership then? That Jesus provides his guidance? Do you realize what that actually then provides?
[00:17:48] I want you to consider something else this morning. I want you to consider every single. I don't know, think of world history. Think of, like every leader who's ever been really successful at leadership.
[00:17:57] Who's galvanized people or had an authority over lots of people or whatever authority figure in world history. Consider every leader and I want you to think, I want you to genuinely do this with me. Like find me one who's better at leadership than Jesus.
[00:18:13] Like genuinely find me a leader in world history who's a better leader than Jesus. Cause I would argue Jesus is the greatest leader in the history of the world, okay? He blows away everybody else.
[00:18:26] And one of the things that makes Jesus such a profound leader, makes him so different, like utterly different than the vast majority of leaders that have gone before him and come after him, is that the goal of his leadership, get this, is the joy of his disciples.
[00:18:40] It's a self sacrificing, self denying love for those for whom he's providing leadership over. That's a totally different form of leadership. The world says that leaders are people who are lording over others, who are kind of giving them directions and calling the shots so that they can have a better experience.
[00:18:58] That's most of world leadership versus the alternative, that Jesus models the joy of his disciples. And not like a superficial joy.
[00:19:12] And get this, not just like a circumstantial joy where your joy goes up and down depending on what's happening around you, the circumstances that you find yourself in. No, no, no. Like a higher joy, like a transcendent joy. Like a joy that, dare I say, is eternal, that you can experience now, that's unwavering and it's not swayed by circumstance and it's deep and it's meaningful and it's powerful.
[00:19:40] Not only that, but I want you to look at the fruit of Jesus leadership. Because my theory that I not theory, my claim is that Jesus is the greatest leader ever.
[00:19:48] And we got to this place because I'm talking to you about his commands. The first command, be fruitful and multiply.
[00:19:53] Jesus is the greatest leader ever. Now I want you to look at this.
[00:19:57] What other organization is still going to and advancing and growing 2,000 years later?
[00:20:06] Only the church.
[00:20:08] I can't find another organization or mission or movement that is still going after 2,000 years. What that tells me is Jesus is a really good leader. He knows what he's doing.
[00:20:20] He's the greatest leader ever.
[00:20:24] Now the reason I'm presenting this to you is because I want you to.
[00:20:29] I want you to consider Jesus strategy, okay? I want you to consider his strategy.
[00:20:36] If you read the New Testament, you see Jesus ministering to all sorts of people, right? You see him doing all sorts of things.
[00:20:42] You see him doing miracles. And what happens Is people get word of the miracle and then what do they do? They flock to Jesus. They're like, he just opened the eyes of the blind. He just rose that little girl from the dead. Like he's doing these spectacular miracles and people are flocking to him. The crowds are coming, right? His teaching was brilliant. No one had ever heard anything like that. Frankly, nothing has been as good since. But you have this powerful truth that he's proclaiming and the ways that he's able to articulate it and help connect the dots for the people and contextualize it. So just this world class, historically effective teaching about what God's ways are like and what God himself is like, and then modeling that. So that goes to say, like, he's ministering in all of these ways. And what happens is people start to crowd him. They start to flock to him. And they did it for many reasons.
[00:21:35] But despite the crowds always coming to Jesus, Jesus spent the vast majority of his time with 12 disciples.
[00:21:51] The crowds are coming. They see they want a piece of Jesus. They want his touching, his healing power, they want his wisdom, they want his insight, they want his teaching, they want his ministry. And yet Jesus doesn't go, oh, look at all these thousands and thousands of people. I'm gonna now spend the majority of my time with these thousand. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. He spent the vast majority of his time with 12 disciples.
[00:22:13] And you read about it in, you read about it in the New Testament. You read about it in the gospel accounts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all over the place, all over again. You read, read things like Jesus withdrew from the crowd.
[00:22:22] You read things like Jesus left the crowd. It's like all over the place. And you're like, that's wild.
[00:22:29] Wouldn't you think, like, dude, this movement's starting to get going, like, press into the crowd more, right? Let me just read you one example from Matthew, chapter 8, verse 18.
[00:22:38] This is wild to me. This is so countercultural even to our day. When Jesus saw a what large crowd. In the Greek, that means a big, large crowd. Okay?
[00:22:50] When Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave the order to go to the other side of the sea.
[00:23:04] In other words, he literally leaves the crowd.
[00:23:12] Now, please don't misunderstand. Jesus is an anti crowd.
[00:23:16] He did quite a bit of ministry to the crowds, powerfully, meaningfully, intentionally.
[00:23:22] It's not that he's anti crowd, so please don't hear me say that.
[00:23:27] But it was clearly not his main strategy. Was, was clearly not his main strategy. Oftentimes Jesus moved away from the crowds, and instead he chose to minister to a few note takers. My next point, Jesus prioritized the few over the crowds.
[00:23:47] I want you to track with me because I'm taking you somewhere. Jesus prioritized the few over the crowds. Okay?
[00:23:55] Now, that's not what we see with most leaders, both past and even present. That's not what we see with most leaders. Most leaders, even in the church, they actually do the opposite. They move away from the few to seek the crowds.
[00:24:14] That's not what Jesus does.
[00:24:19] Jesus primary strategy wasn't the crowds. Hear me. It was the 12.
[00:24:26] His prime. Look at me. His primary strategy. It wasn't the thousands of people, it was the 12.
[00:24:37] Man, this is like a while back now.
[00:24:41] I did ancestry DNA.
[00:24:44] You guys know what ancestry DNA is? Or like 23andMe. Anybody else done that? Where you spit in the tube and you send it in the mail?
[00:24:51] Yeah. If you're not familiar with what it is, you basically, I mean, AI is gonna have my DNA, guys. I think I'm in trouble.
[00:24:58] But either way, you spit in a tube, you mail it in, and they basically use your saliva, your spit to check out your DNA. And they can use that to then determine your ancestry. Like what your bio. They can trace your biology. They can trace your biological origins. In other words, where you come from, the people groups that you come from.
[00:25:19] And I remember what's cool about it actually, is that it's gotten more and more refined over time. I just checked it for the first time. Like, I logged back into my account after several years, and I hadn't looked at it for a while. And it was like, oh, it's more accurate. They're showing me different things. And I was like, oh, man. Okay, so I'm like a big chunk from Scotland. I'm a big chunk from Northern Ireland. I have ancestors there. I have ancestors Germanic, Europe.
[00:25:40] And it's just kind of cool. Cause you can see, like, that's where my ancestors are from. Right? That's where I come from, my biology. Right. My biological origins.
[00:25:49] Listen, you want to know something wild?
[00:25:52] Yeah.
[00:25:53] Thanks, Ry.
[00:25:56] If you're a Christian, get this. If you're a Christian, your spiritual ancestry DNA is directly related to one of those original 12 disciples.
[00:26:13] That's crazy.
[00:26:16] Like, your faith in Jesus is directly. You could try. You could trace your spiritual family line, if you will, if you're a Christian, back to one of those 12 disciples now. And just for the sake of kind of like, let's keep it. Let's throw the Apostle Paul in there as well.
[00:26:35] Okay.
[00:26:36] Arguably the greatest church planner of all time. Most effective ministry or missionary of all time, probably. Okay, so let's just say 13 people, okay? If you're a Christian, Jesus mission made its way to you 2,000 years later via 13 people.
[00:26:58] That's bonkers to me.
[00:27:04] Why?
[00:27:05] Like, how is that even possible? Here's why. Because Jesus strategy was the few in favor of the crowds.
[00:27:14] You might be like, doesn't make any sense. My next point for you is this. Jesus strategy was multiplication, not addition.
[00:27:22] Jesus strategy for the mission of bringing the gospel to people that God might transform them through the good news of who God is and what he's done and what's available to them in Jesus. His strategy for that was multiplying with a few over generations instead of adding with the crowds. Are you tracking with this concept? Cause it's life changing. It'll absolutely transform your life. It'll transform your business, it'll transform every area. It's a biblical principle that when applied is mind boggling. Okay.
[00:27:51] Jesus strategy was multiplication, not addition. His strategy was to reproduce.
[00:27:58] Okay?
[00:27:59] And that multiplication strategy, it continued on with each successive disciple. Look at 2 Timothy. 2, 2 lot of twos there. 2nd Timothy, chapter 2, verse 2. This is the apostle Paul. He's writing to a man that he discipled, Timothy, right? His son in the faith. It says Timothy. Check this out. Look what it says.
[00:28:23] He's writing to Timothy. What you, Timothy, heard from me, Paul. He's talking about what you heard from me as he's talking about the Gospel of Jesus. Okay? What you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses. Look at this. Commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others.
[00:28:40] Also in one verse we see four generations of reproduction. Do you see it? Can you identify it?
[00:28:50] Check it out.
[00:28:51] Paul's writing what you, Timothy heard from me, Paul. That's two.
[00:28:57] In the presence of many witnesses, commit to other faithful men.
[00:29:01] So from Paul to Timothy to other faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
[00:29:07] Do you see it?
[00:29:08] That's four generations of reproduction. Four generations of multiplication. Okay?
[00:29:14] So I want you to see that Jesus strategy didn't stop with Jesus, it kept going.
[00:29:20] We see it here with Paul and it continues on each generation of disciple of Jesus after another.
[00:29:26] And in fact, Jesus says this in Luke chapter 6, verse 40.
[00:29:31] Look at what Jesus says.
[00:29:33] He says a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.
[00:29:43] Do you see the picture? This is a multiplication picture here. This is not an addition. Picture here.
[00:29:48] Jesus prioritized the few over the crowds because his strategy was multiplication, not addition.
[00:29:57] And hear me, his disciples do likewise because he did, and we want to be like him.
[00:30:07] Last week, we talked about how Jesus gave the church its mission. Do you guys remember what it is?
[00:30:15] Go and make disciples of Jesus. All people groups, right? Go and make disciples.
[00:30:21] It's a literal call to multiplication. Because again, if disciples of Jesus make disciples of Jesus, there's a multiplication story happening there, right? So my fifth point for you is this. Disciples of Jesus reproduce other disciples of Jesus.
[00:30:37] It's a multiplying story. It's not an addition story.
[00:30:42] And so a more thorough and complete understanding of the mission of the church is this. It's go and make disciple making disciples.
[00:30:50] You with me? Because if the expectation. If a disciple of Jesus reproduces other disciples of Jesus, that it's a disciple making disciple that we're trying to make. That's a tongue twister, isn't it?
[00:31:01] Are you seeing this, though? Nod at me if you are. If you're not, shake your head so I can keep explaining it.
[00:31:07] Okay, Cool. Great.
[00:31:09] All right. The mission is incomplete, friends. Without reproduction.
[00:31:14] Hear me. The mission of God is incomplete without reproduction. Incomplete without multiplication.
[00:31:20] Jeff Van der Staelt says this quote, this is powerful.
[00:31:25] He says, I think multiplication is at the very heart of who we are.
[00:31:32] Jesus says, make disciples and teach them to teach others as well.
[00:31:36] Healthy disciples make more disciples.
[00:31:39] Healthy leaders raise up more leaders.
[00:31:43] Healthy churches plant more churches.
[00:31:46] And if you don't have multiplication at the end of what you do, you won't actually do what you're supposed to do.
[00:31:53] Most church, oh, this is fire. Most churches have settled with additional.
[00:31:59] And a lot of churches have become orphanages.
[00:32:02] They know how to have babies, and they have a couple of dads and moms for all the babies, but not nearly enough to care for them well. And they don't send them off to start new families. So it's a perpetual orphanage that they've created.
[00:32:18] I think a church committed to multiplication will have great leaders ultimately because they will have to train them up to raise their own family someday.
[00:32:27] You don't have to be a superstar to plant that kind of church. You can be a normal person, and hopefully it builds up around normal people. And you have a church made up of a bunch of normal people who have spectacular lives because of Jesus.
[00:32:44] His point is that without multiplication, the mission of the church isn't being accomplished.
[00:32:57] So think about this.
[00:32:58] If several years into your discipleship to Jesus, you're still like, you're still, like, refusing to live in community with other Christians, kind of doing the Lone Ranger thing. Like, that's a serious problem.
[00:33:14] And when I say, like, living in community with other Christians, I don't mean, like, superficial, like, cool, we both like to go to the beach or whatever. Like, I'm not talking about the superficial thing. I'm talking about, like, deep, meaningful relationships where there's not affinity that's keeping you together.
[00:33:30] It's not even just necessarily shared experience. It's like the Gospel of Jesus that's like the glue that keeps your relationship together.
[00:33:36] Not just that you look the same or you act the same or you think the same, but like the Gospel of Jesus. Like, that's what I mean by deep. Meaning you're known. Like, people actually know you. They know the things that are spectacular about you and they know the things that are less than spectacular about you.
[00:33:53] If you've been following Jesus for several years and you're still refusing to live in that kind of community with other people, there's a serious problem. If several years into your discipleship to Jesus, you're still refusing to forgive, that's a serious problem. It needs attention. If you've been following Jesus for several years and you're still refusing to serve not just yourself, serious problem. If you've been following Jesus for several years and you're still refusing to get this sacrificially give financially to the mission of God stuff costs money.
[00:34:29] If that's you, there's a serious breakdown there. There's a serious problem there.
[00:34:34] Listen, if a disciple of Jesus isn't growing and maturing and eventually leading and influencing others to grow and mature in those same way, there's a massive breakdown in their own spiritual reproduction.
[00:34:54] Disciples of Jesus reproduce other disciples of Jesus.
[00:35:00] Because, friend, if you want something to die off, just keep it from reproducing.
[00:35:09] Satan's original strategy against you and me.
[00:35:15] The stats for the American church, there's some really encouraging stuff, especially with Gen Z and Gen Alpha and what God's doing in that generation, but they're still very alarming.
[00:35:28] When you look at the stats for the American church last year, 4,000 Christian churches closed last year just in the United States of America.
[00:35:41] Like, think about that.
[00:35:43] That's 11 churches a day.
[00:35:52] I'm convinced it's because the American church has been content with the crowds.
[00:35:57] I'm convinced that we've become content with addition. Let's just gather a bunch of people.
[00:36:02] Let's just gather a bunch of people.
[00:36:04] Let's pursue the strategy of addition. While we abandon Jesus strategy of multiplic, we become content with addition. But Jesus doesn't call us to addition.
[00:36:15] He calls us to multiplication. He calls us to reproduce.
[00:36:20] The mission is to go and make disciple, making disciples. And if that doesn't happen, the church will die. Because if you want something to die off, you just keep it from reproducing.
[00:36:32] But I'm genuinely filled with hope. And the reason I'm genuinely filled with hope is because I've seen what God. Not personally, but I study history. I see. Look at all that God has done. The fact that you and I are in this room right now, 2,000 years after Jesus brought the gospel of the Kingdom, is a mind blowing miracle. Remember we talked about your spiritual ancestor DNA. As a result, you are from the lineage of three people.
[00:36:55] That's wild.
[00:36:57] So if you wouldn't mind, will you just allow me to dream with you for just a little bit?
[00:37:03] Will you humor me for just a little bit? Okay.
[00:37:06] Jesus, public ministry. Does anybody know how long his public ministry lasted?
[00:37:10] I'm giving you the answer.
[00:37:13] Three years. Okay, so Jesus, 33 years on the earth, God in the flesh in the form of Jesus, like 33 years. Only three of that was his public ministry. The rest of it's hidden. Okay, some of you, God's got big stuff for you, but you're in a hidden season right now. Trust him, it's gonna be good. Okay, three years.
[00:37:31] In that three years, he spent the vast majority of his time with 12 people. Okay? And we know from the, from the scriptures there was more than just the 12, but the vast majority of his time with the 12. We know that there was the 72, right, that he sent out in pairs.
[00:37:48] Right? We know that on the day of Pentecost, So this is after the crucifixion.
[00:37:54] They're waiting right in the upper room. And do you guys remember how many disciples were in that upper room?
[00:38:00] 120. Okay, so you have the 120. Those are the people that like, even though the story looks over, even though the Messiah looks dead, he's appearing to them and he's telling them, wait, I'm gonna pour my spirit on you. There's 120 of them. So after the thousands in the crowd now we've kind of dwindled down to like 120. Okay, so we know those 120. We get a safe bet that those were committed disciples of Jesus.
[00:38:25] Okay, so let's just. There's the 500 who saw him resurrected and eyewitnesses and stuff, let's set that aside. Let's just. Let's just, for the sake of math, go with the 120 for just a second, okay?
[00:38:37] These aren't people that he just ministered to. These are like his disciples, actual disciples. 120, okay?
[00:38:43] So if his public ministry is three years, and as a result of that three years, you got 120 disciples. You math wizards in the room. How many disciples per year did Jesus on average make?
[00:38:58] 40.
[00:39:01] So God in the flesh, the greatest leader of all time, he only made 40 disciples a year for three years?
[00:39:16] Okay, here's the question I have for you.
[00:39:19] What if we, you and I, regular, normal people in Temecula, California, what if we actually give ourselves to Jesus? Mission of multiplication, right? Conservatively, Jesus made 40 disciple making disciples per year. What if you. Let's just for fun, you and me too, but you.
[00:39:40] What if you just made one?
[00:39:42] Like, if you just made one disciple making disciple each year. Jesus made 40. But he's God. Okay, 40, but let's just say one. One per year. Say, I don't know, for 20 years. Some of you got way more than 20 years left.
[00:39:58] But let's just take conservative 20 years. Okay? What would that look like?
[00:40:05] I did the numbers. Chloe, will you put the first slide up for me? Can you guys see the numbers? Are they too small?
[00:40:11] Okay. Okay, so I want you to see this. There's how many years?
[00:40:15] And you have new disciples. So after one year, right?
[00:40:19] You got you and the other person. So total disciples, it's you and them, that's two. But they got one new one. You see that? That's after one year.
[00:40:26] Some people, some people, even leadership, even leaders in the church will say that's a failure.
[00:40:32] You're not even close. Okay, there's 8 billion people on the earth. You got one, okay? Year two. Now you got two new disciples, but four disciples total. Because you and the person that you disciple now you got next year. Okay? Now we got four. You guys see the logic here, right?
[00:40:48] Look what happens to the numbers over time, though.
[00:40:53] Year 10, just that year alone, 512 new disciples, with over a thousand. We go to the next slide. Let's go to year 11 through 20.
[00:41:06] Look at those numbers, right?
[00:41:11] Look at. Okay, this is insane.
[00:41:14] So just little old you, Jesus did 40 a year.
[00:41:21] Just little you with just one one a year.
[00:41:25] After 20 years, look at the impact over a million people.
[00:41:37] Do you realize the seed that you are on the earth?
[00:41:43] Do you see, like, the potential of just you?
[00:41:48] It's off the charts.
[00:41:50] God's spirit at work in each one of us, friend. Your uniqueness. You don't have to be a Bible scholar. You don't have to like, go to Bible school. You don't even have to like, have scripture fully memorized. You just have a relationship with Jesus and guess what? He'll guide you and he'll show you and he'll teach you and he'll. And you're with a community of people. So I want you to see if just you spend the next 20 years making one disciple making disciple each year. Look at the potential impact. That's insane.
[00:42:16] What if it was 0.1% or sorry, not percent. 0.1 person per year. Like, you're still at like a lot of people.
[00:42:25] Massive impact. Okay, now I want to have a little more fun.
[00:42:31] Restored Temecula is made up of, as of this week, 224 members.
[00:42:38] Okay?
[00:42:39] Members are different than attenders. If you're a guest with us, so glad that you're here. Like, you're welcome and wanted at everything that we do.
[00:42:48] If you want to explore membership, we'd love to talk to you about that. Your next step, if you're not a member, is either Alpha, where you can explore more about Jesus, or an intro to Gospel community. Our community is made up of what we call Gospel communities. They're groups of 20ish or so, adults in their household, their kids and stuff, following Jesus together in meaningful ways.
[00:43:07] So our church is made up of 224 members.
[00:43:10] Okay, let's say that just the members of this little church in Southern California. Let's say we just each make one disciple making disciple each year over the course of the next 20 years. What would that look like? Will you go to the next one?
[00:43:28] Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
[00:43:30] Like, just one year.
[00:43:35] I mean, it's bananas.
[00:43:38] After 10 years, you got just that. 10th year is almost 115,000 people.
[00:43:49] We go to the next one. Let's see what 20 years looks like.
[00:43:57] 234 million people.
[00:44:02] That's wild.
[00:44:10] Listen, these numbers can be fun. It's like, oh, cool, that'd be awesome, right? Like, but think about this. These aren't just numbers on a screen.
[00:44:18] These are like real people with names and faces and like life experience. And like, that's just not like a number that's like transformed lives.
[00:44:33] Like, I think about my life before Jesus.
[00:44:35] Good God, like, none of you would want to be friends with me, like at all.
[00:44:40] But his kindness and his grace and his power and his love and his friendship, it, like, get this, it has the power to transform people, even weirdos like me. Like, this is like hundreds of millions of transformed lives.
[00:44:56] This isn't about building a brand or like growing an organization.
[00:45:01] It's about real people enjoying Jesus, obeying Jesus and operating like Jesus. Hear me. For the glory of God and the good of the whole world.
[00:45:16] These are people who have an eternal soul that apart from Jesus, like eternal damnation, like, their souls are infinitely valuable. According to Jesus, they were worth his blood.
[00:45:35] I want you to, like, imagine what the impact on society would look like.
[00:45:42] It'd be incredible.
[00:45:44] A lot of people in the room, both professionally and practically homeschooling teachers, many of you involved in education in meaningful ways.
[00:45:52] Let's just camp out in that arena for a second. Can you imagine what the societal impact would be of 238 or 35 million Christians, more Christians on the earth? Like, what effect might that have on educating the next generation?
[00:46:11] What effect might that have on business and the financial markets? What effect might that have on just day to day living politics, like every area of life? I think the societal impact would be, dare I say, spectacular.
[00:46:27] Consider the implications.
[00:46:31] That's a multiplication strategy.
[00:46:36] All right, so we talked about what biblical multiplication is. I want to conclude here for just a couple more minutes, few more minutes. What does multiplication mean practically for us as restored Temecula? Okay, I'll go through this quickly. It means this. Firstly, we're committed to multiplying in four key areas in our church. Okay? Not just adding, multiplying, so reproducing. Okay? We're committed to multiplying in four key areas. Disciples, leaders, gospel communities and churches. Okay? Disciples, leaders, gospel communities and churches. We just kind of got done talking about disciples. I want to touch quickly on leaders, okay? Leaders are people who influence other people, okay? People who have responsibility. And they use that responsibility to model and to influence other people in ways that Jesus would if he was them. Okay, so what does that look like? It looks like we are.
[00:47:26] If you know anything about me, you know that nothing gets me more excited than helping people identify what God is on about in their life. And then leveraging everything I possibly can to go, what is God calling you to? Let's see you do that. The problem is that most people, they're less concerned about what God has for them and they're more concerned about what, here's what I want, and that's fine. But you miss out on the kingdom of God when you live that way. Okay? So it means that we are passionate about Multiplying leaders. It means we're passionate about identifying how God has called each one of us. Not some of us. Youth in the room. You guys too.
[00:48:00] I'm most excited about you, like, identifying for each one of us the areas how God has called us to serve and influence others.
[00:48:09] Okay, what does that look like practically in the local church context? It looks like identifying emerging elders, deacons, multiplying GC leaders and worship leaders and prayer leaders and youth ministry leaders and kids ministry leaders. Right, that's us. But also there's other forms of leadership that God's called people to. How do we fan that into flame?
[00:48:29] How do we help develop each other in these meaningful ways that God has given us the opportunity to influence other people? That's leadership. Okay. We're committed to multiplying every area of leadership in our church. Every area. Okay.
[00:48:44] The next. The gospel communities you guys have experienced. If you've been journeying in the gospel community, you've felt the bittersweetness of partnering together to send emerging leaders or to develop people or to. Or to partner together to see new gospel communities started.
[00:49:01] It's bitter and it's sweet. Cause you get to see the multiplying the fruits of multiplication. But it's costly and you miss your friends and all the things.
[00:49:09] Ebony and I, we've been giving ourselves over to multiplying gospel communities for over 15 years now.
[00:49:16] And I just want to tell you, the fruit of multiplication is exponentially better than the fruit of addition.
[00:49:26] How many people experiencing God through one another in life altering ways, it's been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Okay. When this church began in our living room in 2017, it was just one gospel community. That's what it was.
[00:49:41] And God in his grace has been multiplying gospel communities among us ever since. It's been beautiful.
[00:49:48] This is something I'm so proud of you guys.
[00:49:51] Cause you've sacrificed to do this. You've partnered together to do this. Because at least for the most part, most of you see the value of multiplication from a kingdom perspective. It's noteworthy. I honor you. I bless you. It's beautiful. It's awesome. Yes. And amen. Keep going.
[00:50:07] And then finally, churches.
[00:50:09] Okay, multiplying churches.
[00:50:13] Talk about go and make disciple making disciples. How about church planting churches?
[00:50:19] Think about that table.
[00:50:21] And you factor in churches.
[00:50:24] The potential is off the charts.
[00:50:27] It's off the charts. What started as a small church plant of us. Like literally not that many of us down in San Diego. Eric and Heather were there too. Not that many of us in 2012, one small little church plant has multiplied the churches all across Southern California and around the world in like, 15 years.
[00:50:47] It's crazy.
[00:50:49] Next month, we already talked about Give Love, our annual initiative of raising as much money we can to give away to gospel initiatives, hopefully church plants. Colton o', Malley. Guys know I've been with Colton. Colton's been with me since he was 12.
[00:51:01] He's the son of this house. He moved up here with us and the team to plant this church. He's one of us. God's been again, this concept of multiplying leaders, multiplying gospel communities, multiplying churches. Now Colton, he's literally stepping out. God's called him and not just like him. As a lone ranger. I feel like I'm called to plant a church. No, no, no. Like us collaboratively putting our ear to the ground. God, what are you up to? Highlight it like we're all in consensus. God's doing something. Him and Mallory are stepping out. Hear me. Planting a church. I don't care what anybody says. It's the hardest thing in the world.
[00:51:34] There's never enough resources. Satan's trying to kill you. It's insane.
[00:51:39] What on earth would cause someone to sign up for that?
[00:51:44] Yeah. The gospel of Jesus transforming your heart and you experiencing that. You experiencing the kingdom of God change you and you desperately.
[00:51:52] You're filled with that same love that's affected you. And then you're driven out to go do whatever you can so that other people can experience what you've experienced.
[00:52:01] You with me?
[00:52:04] That's why we're trying to raise as much money as we can for Colton and Mallory because we're multiplying people.
[00:52:10] Please pray and please give generously and sacrificially to that. Okay? This is what we do. Like, this is who we are. We talk about our six core values. These are the distinct things that make us us. These are the things that drive everything that we do. This is who we are. This is what we do. Get this. These are the things that we celebrate. Man, we get fired up about this because we value multiplication.
[00:52:34] Now, let me say this.
[00:52:38] I believe with everything inside of me because I know enough about the heart of God and I've experienced it enough. There are future leaders in this church right now.
[00:52:48] There are people in this church right now. And you will be on church planting teams in the future.
[00:52:54] You will lead gospel communities in the future. You will provide leadership and oversight to areas in the church as a deacon in the future. There's future elders right now in seats.
[00:53:03] They might be in their 30s or 40s or 50s, and they might be in their teens, but they're here.
[00:53:08] Why? Cause God's a multiplying God.
[00:53:11] It's what he does. It's his heart. It's how he operates. It was the first command given to the people. Huh?
[00:53:16] He's serious about it, and he knows how effective it is. Cause he's brilliant. He's the greatest leader of all time. Okay. What else does it mean for us? I'm almost done. It has a huge effect on how we use resources.
[00:53:28] Okay, I say this often, if you know anything about me.
[00:53:31] The vast majority of our finances are gonna go towards freeing up people to pastor and plant churches.
[00:53:37] Some churches spend a lot of money on different things. The vast majority of our money goes to freeing people up for ministry. That's just what we are. If you disagree, I'm sorry. There's other great churches. This is who we are. This is what we're about. Okay.
[00:53:47] Why? Because multiplication is something we value. Okay. What else does it mean? It means that when it comes to discipleship, we choose quality over quantity.
[00:53:55] Why? Because I think Jesus did.
[00:53:58] I think he was an anti crowd, but he favored the few. He prioritized spending the time with the few. Okay? That means that we focus on the health and the development of the few. Okay.
[00:54:12] It doesn't mean we turn people away. It does mean that we're more concerned with our health as disciples than we are about how many people attend our gatherings.
[00:54:20] And finally, what else does it mean for us? Practically, it means this. It means we must collaborate to accomplish the mission.
[00:54:29] Like we have to collaborate. That means we have to work together.
[00:54:32] The reason we have to work together is because if we're going to make healthy disciples, we need everybody's gifts.
[00:54:40] Multiplication is reproduction, Right?
[00:54:42] If all we do is reproduce the gifts of a few, we're gonna have serious gaps.
[00:54:50] We're gonna have a bunch of disciples who skip leg day, right? We're gonna have, like, there's just gonna be a handful of gifts that are reproduced instead of the diversity of the gifts of the body of Christ all being reproduced. You with me in this? So if we don't collaborate, the disciples that we reproduce, they're gonna have real big gaps and their discipleship, real big gaps in the areas that they operate. You tracking with me?
[00:55:17] All right.
[00:55:19] You put up with a lot this morning. I bless you. I honor you. Band, will you come up? I'm going to close.
[00:55:26] Is it just me, or is it a thousand degrees in Here, I see that hand, Owen. I see that hand.
[00:55:36] All right, so here's what I want you to know.
[00:55:41] We're almost done.
[00:55:43] If you're a Christian in the room, if you're following Jesus, if you're a Christian in the room, God has called you to spiritually reproduce. It's not like an optional assignment. It's not something. I mean, you have the choice to opt in or opt out. But Christians reproduce. That's what they do. Okay? And I want you to know that the mission of multiplication, it's not the same without you.
[00:56:09] Like, do you hear me?
[00:56:12] It lacks significantly if you're not collaborating, because God has given, he's entrusted unique, special, powerful spiritual gifts to every single one of his children that includes you. And he does it in meaningful ways. He does it with intentionality. And so please hear me say this. I don't care how old you are, I don't care how young you are, I don't care how long you've been following Jesus, even if you're just investigating Jesus, like, if you're a Christian, the mission of multiplication, it's not the same without you.
[00:56:46] But please hear me, it's not the same without you.
[00:56:52] But you can only reproduce what you are.
[00:57:01] I'm going to say that again.
[00:57:02] You and I, we can only reproduce what we are.
[00:57:11] Dogs can't reproduce. Cats, right?
[00:57:16] You can only reproduce what you are.
[00:57:23] And some of you know what I'm talking about.
[00:57:26] Because the brokenness that you experience in your day to day life, it was reproduced in you from generations prior because you can only reproduce what you are. And so you've been walking with the brokenness that you inherited and that you find yourself. Why am I talking to my kids that way?
[00:57:49] Oh, yeah.
[00:57:51] Why am I so anxious when it comes to money? Oh, yeah.
[00:57:57] Why do I genuine. Why do I think I'm better than other people? Like, why do I struggle with pride in this way? Oh, yeah.
[00:58:04] Because we can only reproduce what we are.
[00:58:11] But the gospel of Jesus says there's a better way.
[00:58:16] And that's what I feel like God wants to empower us with. He wants to empower us with his gospel, to reproduce different things.
[00:58:24] So listen, if you want to reproduce deep love for Jesus and other people, which if you're a Christian in the room, I hope that you're like, yeah, I do. Yes, I do. That's like the purpose. Yeah, it's the mission. Like, if you want to reproduce deep love for Jesus and other people, it requires that you have a deep love for Jesus yourself.
[00:58:41] Because you could only reproduce what you are. Parents in the room, dude, don't you. You want your kids to thrive in Jesus. You want your kids to love God's word. Any parent in the room.
[00:58:51] Any parent in the room. Want your child to, like, love God's word and get, like, I can't get enough of it. If that's you, can I just tell you?
[00:58:58] Yes, 100%.
[00:59:01] It begins with you.
[00:59:04] It begins with you.
[00:59:06] Because we only reproduce what we are. If you want your kids to, like, live a lifestyle of prayer, not just cry out to God when they're having a hard time, although that's important. Not just ask God for stuff like, give me this. I want to do this, I want to do that. But like, a lifestyle. We talked about this a few weeks ago of, like, staying with God and abiding in him and remaining in him and partnering in friendship and in the kingdom in every area of their life. In fact, if you want that, which I'm sure I know you all do, you wouldn't be in this room. If you want that. Can I just tell you. It begins with you.
[00:59:41] You can't talk to you guys for a second.
[00:59:51] Do you have friends in your life that don't know the love of God for them?
[00:59:57] I've talked to some of your youth, and you've shared with me, like, yeah, I have this friend. I have that friend. And I just. Man, I wish that they know Jesus the way that I know Jesus. I wish they experienced Jesus love. God's love. Can I just encourage you? Hey, it begins with you experiencing God's love on the regular.
[01:00:16] It begins with you. Them. Get this. Them experiencing God's love begins with you experiencing God's love. Them receiving and embracing and yielding to what God says is true about you and about the world and about all things and them experiencing that. It begins with you. Do you see how meaningful and how much your time and your attention and your energy matters in the mission of God? It's not an age thing.
[01:00:42] You want your friend. Like, I want my friend. Like, they're doing this behavior, and it's, like, not good for them, and I can see that it's harming them.
[01:00:50] If you want them to experience that, you want them to make adjustments. It begins with you. Because we can only reproduce.
[01:00:57] We are.
[01:00:59] You have so much dignity.
[01:01:01] God's created you with so much dignity.
[01:01:04] So maybe you're here and you're a disciple.
[01:01:06] You're like, I'm a follower of Jesus.
[01:01:08] Awesome, beautiful. Maybe you're here. You're A disciple. And you aren't actually spiritually reproducing.
[01:01:14] You're giving yourself to other things. Maybe you've gotten caught up with addition. Maybe you don't feel qualified.
[01:01:19] Some of you youth, maybe you're in that space. You're like, I. What would I do? I'm young.
[01:01:23] Like, maybe you're here, you don't feel qualified. Can I just tell you? The gospel is what qualifies you.
[01:01:29] Like, what Jesus says about you, that's what qualifies you.
[01:01:33] You do not. You do not need a seminary degree.
[01:01:37] You have the endorsement of Jesus, who's placed his spirit inside of you.
[01:01:43] So maybe you're here, you don't. Or you're like, I don't know how. I'm a disciple of Jesus. I'm not spiritually reproducing because I don't know how. Or maybe you're here and you're like, I know I should. I do know how. Life's been beating me up. I'm busy. I got no margin. You just need a reset.
[01:01:58] What if today was your reset?
[01:02:01] If that's you. If you're a disciple of Jesus and you recognize I'm not spiritually reproducing, can I just say we would love nothing more than to serve you and help you with that.
[01:02:13] We'd love to help you with that.
[01:02:15] That's kind of.
[01:02:17] That's kind of my job.
[01:02:19] It's kind of the staff's job. Like, we want to help.
[01:02:22] Please give us the opportunity to help you. We'd love that. Or maybe you're here and you're actually not a disciple of Jesus.
[01:02:27] Maybe you believe that he's real, right? You're like, yeah, I think Jesus is real. I think he's God.
[01:02:33] Right? The demons would acknowledge that too. But maybe you're here, you're not following Jesus. You're not like, yielding to his lordship and his leadership in your life. And maybe it's cause you're like, I don't know if I can trust him. Can I just tell you just really quickly? I'm almost done. I promise. If you're here, you're not yet in Christ. You're not yet a disciple of Jesus. Maybe you think he's real, but you're not following him. Cause you're not sure if you can trust him. Can I just tell you? Look to the cross. Like the cross of Jesus is proof that he loves you. It's proof that he values you. And it's proof that you can trust him. It's proof that he knows Best, even when it doesn't fully make sense. Like he knows best. Even when it doesn't fully make sense. Like it doesn't make sense that God would die.
[01:03:10] It doesn't make sense that the savior of the world would be in a tomb, but he knows exactly what he's doing. Him in the tomb was the seed that would multiply disciples on the earth. You see it? What happens to a seed when it goes into the earth? It has to die first. That seed has to die for it to become the tree that produces multiplying amounts of fruit. You see it? God's an artist.
[01:03:33] If you haven't given your life to Jesus, you could do that right now. And we'd love to help you in this discipleship journey. We're all learning. That's what disciple means. It means learner.
[01:03:41] Ups and downs, mistakes being made, the grace of God carrying us all the way.
[01:03:51] Alright. Will you stand with me if you're able? Wanna pray for us?
[01:04:07] I'm going to pray quickly and get out of the way.
[01:04:13] Father, I thank you for this morning.
[01:04:17] And I just want to simply, in faith, trusting you, Would you spark a fire in the hearts of your people?
[01:04:34] Would they catch the vision? Your vision of a multiplying mission, of making disciples on the earth.
[01:04:43] Would you help them see that it's not the same without them?
[01:04:50] Would you give them a fresh vision for their life that it doesn't always look like totally changing all of the circumstances? No, no, no. Right where we are right now, you want to partner with us to see your kingdom come on the earth and to see your kingdom come in us. Because we can only reproduce what we are.
[01:05:08] So would you help us? Would you lead us? Would you guide us?
[01:05:11] Make us a multiplying people? We love you, Jesus. It's in your name that I pray. Amen.
[01:05:17] Okay, we're almost done for the morning. I did go long. If you're on the prayer team, would you come forward? Make yourself available for the next several moments. We're gonna. We're going to respond. Ben's gonna lead us in a time of praise. We can praise God and thank him for the ways that his multiplying mission has made its way to us and transformed our lives. If there's people in your heart that you want to receive prayer for, if there's. If you feel like you lack power, if you feel like I'm not reproducing and I want to please trust the men and women would love to pray for you. Ben's going to lead us and then we'll close here in just a moment, okay? I love you guys so much.
[01:05:51] Enjoy him.
