SPEAKER_00: Amen and man.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome to uh start our morning off that way in worship.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're anything like me, my heart needed that.
SPEAKER_00: So glad to be here connected with y'all.
SPEAKER_00: As they mentioned, my name is Nate, and uh just really glad to be hanging out with y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might have been here.
SPEAKER_00: I had a chance to uh come last fall and preach, and you guys were over at the movie theater just around the corner there.
SPEAKER_00: And look at you now, like quite the glow up here.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what kids call it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's awesome to see how far God has brought y'all, uh, moved you into this space in this facility.
SPEAKER_00: And I was talking with Forrest a few weeks ago and said you guys are already expanding or looking to expand for more children's space.
SPEAKER_00: So just proud of you for taking God's command to be fruitful and multiply literally with a whole bunch of more kids running around this place, which is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think they mentioned I work at a church in Lexington area, South and Christian, and we have just had a front row seat to what God's been doing in y'all's midst, and it is incredibly uh encouraging to me specifically, and a blessing to our church to see you guys up and going.
SPEAKER_00: So keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm also blessed because I have an amazing wife, Stephanie, who's here with me this morning in this service.
SPEAKER_00: And we've got two sons, uh, Jordan and Lincoln.
SPEAKER_00: And Jordan is a tenth grader.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Lincoln is a seventh grader, so I'm basically a part-time Uber driver at this point because we've entered that stage of life.
SPEAKER_00: But man, being their joy, uh uh being their dad is really a joy.
SPEAKER_00: And so the reason I'm here today is to talk about one of the values that you guys have as a church here at Multiply, and you have 10 of them.
SPEAKER_00: So when I found out you had 10 of them, it made me start thinking about like that old, I don't know if many of you guys are old enough to remember the David Letterman show.
SPEAKER_00: He had top 10 lists, and they were hilarious.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So I was jogging memory lane, and there's a couple of them.
SPEAKER_00: One was the top 10 signs that the government is running out of money.
SPEAKER_00: Um, another one was the top 10 signs you are a lame superhero.
SPEAKER_00: And then there was uh the top 10 things you don't want to hear from a guy dressed as Santa Claus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, his top 10 lists were really funny.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't read them because they're kind of crass, but y'all's like top 10 lists, it doesn't make me laugh, it gets me inspired.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not so inspired, I'm gonna try to preach all 10 of them here in one sitting because, well, we have to get to lunch at some point, let the kids out of their class, and I want you to like me when we're done.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna tackle one this morning, and it's this one.
SPEAKER_00: The value is stated this way.
SPEAKER_00: At Multiply Church, we see a need and fill a need.
SPEAKER_00: Really simple.
SPEAKER_00: We see a need and fill a need.
SPEAKER_00: And it goes on to elaborate this way.
SPEAKER_00: At Multiply Church, we look for opportunities to sacrificially serve one another.
SPEAKER_00: We are the hands and feet of Jesus inside and outside the walls of the church.
SPEAKER_00: We won't wait for someone else to step up.
SPEAKER_00: We take action to meet the needs of those around us, and this is kind of rooted and grounded in Mark chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, I had a chance to play in a golf scramble for a local charity in the area.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of you that aren't familiar with the way golf scrambles work, it's kind of fun because you get to basically be in a team.
SPEAKER_00: So there's four of you, and you all hit your shot, and then you take the best shot, and everybody gets to put their ball there and hit from that shot.
SPEAKER_00: So it's really a lot of fun, and you kind of repeat that process until the ball goes in the hole, then you record your score, and on to the next hole you go.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I like it is because when I play golf by myself, you know, the the little white ball, it's just sitting there on the ground, it is not moving, and I have in my mind where it is supposed to go, and then I hit it and it goes in the woods or in the tall grass, and then you got to go hit a recovery shot.
SPEAKER_00: And if that goes poorly, it's gonna be a long day.
SPEAKER_00: And I paid a bunch of money to be out here, and we got four more hours of this, and I'm in a bad mood, right?
SPEAKER_00: But the beauty of the golf scramble is if I hit a bad shot, chances are one of the other three guys is not, and we get to go on as though my ball that just got hit in the water doesn't count.
SPEAKER_00: So golf scrambles are a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I was gonna play with in this golf scramble with another pastor who works on South and with me, um, another church planter here in the community, not forrest, another church planter, and a former college golfer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of those is not like the others, right?
SPEAKER_00: The former college golfer clearly we were going to rely on his shots most all day long, but a funny thing happened.
SPEAKER_00: The guy who works on staff with me at church got sick and could not come.
SPEAKER_00: So at the last minute, there was a need to be filled.
SPEAKER_00: And the former college golfer called another former college golfer, and all of a sudden we transformed into the Dream Team Golf Edition.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not joking.
SPEAKER_00: Like, literally, I got to spend all afternoon watching two guys that know how to play golf play it really, really well.
SPEAKER_00: We got through the whole process and we handed in our scorecard.
SPEAKER_00: We were so good that day, we got accused of cheating, having run away with the golf scramble victory.
SPEAKER_00: And all I did to contribute was basically show them what not to do.
SPEAKER_00: You know how that works, like especially on the putting green.
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, don't roll it there because clearly it should go there.
SPEAKER_00: But we had a great time and a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00: And so it can be a very beautiful thing when someone sees a need and fills a need, can't it?
SPEAKER_00: Especially when that someone is like highly skilled and trained in that need.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at Mark chapter two, and if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and open them up there.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna learn from this little story a lot of things, but one of those things is that meeting a need and filling a need is not just for the especially trained or skilled the professionals, it's for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're probably familiar with this story, even if you haven't been in church a lot.
SPEAKER_00: If you went with a little kid, there's a good chance you heard this because it's a great story, all right?
SPEAKER_00: There's basically two miracles, and they're kind of wrapped around this heroic, jaw-dropping story of four guys that make like special um forces-level tactical decisions to get this thing accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: So it was like a Sunday school teacher's dream, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because what better lesson to teach rowdy fourth grade boys than these four dudes who go up, bust a hole in the roof, and get their friend to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There are several things that we'll observe and learn, but one thing is this that the friends saw a need and they met a need, and the next thing that happened was literally a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 12.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read this from the message translation.
SPEAKER_00: It says this after a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word got around that he was back home.
SPEAKER_00: So a crowd gathered, they jammed the entrance so no one could get in or out.
SPEAKER_00: He was teaching the word.
SPEAKER_00: They brought a paraplegic to him, carried by four men.
SPEAKER_00: When they weren't able to get in because of the crowd, they went up and removed part of the roof and they lowered the paraplegic on his stretcher.
SPEAKER_00: Impressed by their bold belief, Jesus said to the paraplegic, Son, I forgive your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Well, some religion scholars were sitting there and they started whispering among themselves, He can't talk that way.
SPEAKER_00: That's blasphemy.
SPEAKER_00: God and only God can forgive sins.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus, he knew right away what they were thinking, and he said, Why are you so skeptical?
SPEAKER_00: Which is simpler to say to the paraplegic paraplegic, I forgive your sins, or say, Get up, take your stretcher, and start walking.
SPEAKER_00: Well, just so we are clear that I'm the son of man and authorized to do either or both.
SPEAKER_00: He looked now at the paraplegic, get up, pick up your stretcher, and go home.
SPEAKER_00: And the man did it.
SPEAKER_00: He got up, grabbed his stretcher, and walked out.
SPEAKER_00: With everyone there watching him, they rubbed their eyes, stunned, and then praised God, saying, We've never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_00: So to recap, we've got a group of four men that brought a paraplegic man to Jesus and they couldn't get in the building, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they improvise.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, I don't know these guys, but I'd like to meet them in heaven, heaven someday.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are tenacious and they are creative and a little bit redneck, right?
SPEAKER_00: They just kind of rednecked their way through that process, figured out how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of waiting for like the talk to be over and the crowd to disperse and then getting their friend to Jesus that they were urgent and they went and got after it.
SPEAKER_00: These are the kind of guys that you want on your team, right?
SPEAKER_00: The kind of guys you want to hire and have on your project.
SPEAKER_00: They worked and acted outside the box, resulting in something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: Now hold that thought for a second.
SPEAKER_00: So, as we've established, I work at a church and I'm in some meetings where we have to solve problems from time to time, as you can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I can just see how this meeting went, like after the event, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody had to circle up and go, all right, now over at Simon's house, Jesus was teaching, and some guys showed up and they wanted to get the friend of Jesus instead of just waiting until the talk was over.
SPEAKER_00: They went on the roof and then they busted a hole in the roof, and then they interrupted the talk.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean it was a little bit frustrating, but Jesus just stopped the talk.
SPEAKER_00: He forgives the guy's sins.
SPEAKER_00: Next thing you know, he's bouncing around because he's been healed and the place is going crazy.
SPEAKER_00: It was amazing, but we've got to get a call into the insurance company and get a roofing contractor out there, and that's just probably what had to happen at some point, even after the miracle was over, and that happens in the church.
SPEAKER_00: I've been there, the rains come and the roof leaks, or the students are meeting and they bust holes in the drywall, or we've had the one where someone's like stealing money out of the offering bucket.
SPEAKER_00: Like you just kind of have to solve problems when you are gathering around groups of people.
SPEAKER_00: Back to the thought we were holding, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 2, verse 5, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of an interesting thing when the guy sitting in front of Jesus is paralyzed.
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: First century Jewish assumptions would be that this dude or his parents were like bad people.
SPEAKER_00: Like the common belief was if something like this happened, you had done a series of bad things and God was punishing you, or your parents had done one or a series of bad things, and so your lot in life was just kind of tied to the need for God to punish you.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus stating that he forgives this guy's sins confronts those faulty assumptions.
SPEAKER_00: And it also implies that Jesus is God or God like, and the religious leaders couldn't fathom it, they get mad.
SPEAKER_00: So the fact that Jesus can forgive this man's sin is actually an entire sermon for another day.
SPEAKER_00: But for right now, let's keep our focus on the friends.
SPEAKER_00: The guys who were less concerned about what kind of box they needed to keep Jesus in, and more concerned about seeing the need and filling it through the power of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when I read this story earlier, I read it from the message, and Eugene Peterson, the translator of that message, he calls the friend's faith bold belief.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the men in the story saw that need and they filled it.
SPEAKER_00: Their friend needed to get to Jesus, and so they figured it out.
SPEAKER_00: But isn't it amazing that the man's sins were forgiven and his body was healed because of the faith of his friends, the guys up on the roof?
SPEAKER_00: See, our focus is on seeing a need and feeling the need, but let's not miss the point that what motivates our actions also matters.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's one thing to do good things for the sake of doing good things for others, but it went, but when it is the overflow of our faith in Jesus, our belief that Jesus can change the circumstances of those we're serving and can change them, it blows the doors off what's possible.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not pointing this out.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a mathematical formula or a science-backed theory or a guarantee of any outcome.
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply recognizing that the text teaches us that the faith of the friends was involved in the miraculous event.
SPEAKER_00: It mattered.
SPEAKER_00: You see, there's a danger in seeing a need and filling it for the sake of doing this because, well, the guy at church talked about it on Sunday, or it's printed on the church brochure, or it's on a website somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: You see good deeds get disconnected from a good God.
SPEAKER_00: They have their place, but they lack power.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in all our best efforts, we can't change a life.
SPEAKER_00: Only Jesus can do this.
SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, you've tried, right?
SPEAKER_00: You've tried to change your kids, or you've tried to change her, or him, or them, and it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: It gets messy.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the truth Jesus has the power to forgive sins and save souls and change people.
SPEAKER_00: So we see a need and meet a need, not out of altruistic Western cultural congeniality built on platitudes and well-wishes.
SPEAKER_00: We meet needs because this is what Jesus did for us.
SPEAKER_00: And we just sang about it.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Bible teaches we have a big problem.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is sin, and our sin, our rebellion against God's best, his plans and wishes, it puts us at odds with God.
SPEAKER_00: We are broken and we are lost and without hope.
SPEAKER_00: We are wandering in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And in loving response to our condition, Jesus came to earth, he took on a body, he endured this life, including a brutal death on the cross, to receive the punishment that we deserve for our rebellion against a perfect God.
SPEAKER_00: He saw our need and he met that need.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the reason that we gather here every Sunday, and more importantly, it's the reason we go out of this building and we meet needs.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of deep theology and kind of one bite and it's early.
SPEAKER_00: So let's step back for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, by show of hands, how many of you in the room are sign people?
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean like a cool marquee road sign.
SPEAKER_00: I mean like there's two paths.
SPEAKER_00: God, show me a sign you like to have kind of your hunches confirmed, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of you out there, and some of you nodding your heads.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my wife's kind of that way, so y'all are my people.
SPEAKER_00: Like I have a lot of affinity for you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not necessarily a sign person, but while I was preparing and kind of thinking and praying and studying for this message, I took a break and I just decided to walk down the sidewalk at our church.
SPEAKER_00: And I get to the end of the sidewalk, and it was the other end of the building where students had been uh hanging out a couple nights before, and some of them um had sidewalk chalk, and they were just out in front of the building riding sidewalk chalk, wrote some really cool things.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, in that sidewalk chalk art, I saw this verse, 1 John chapter 4, verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: And 1 John chapter 4, 19 says this we love because he loved us first.
SPEAKER_00: We love because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a signed person, you're really leaning in right now, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because here I am, I'm preparing for this message.
SPEAKER_00: And literally, the best verse in all of the Bible just pops out of the woodwork written there on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm still not necessarily a signed person, but the kids are right.
SPEAKER_00: We love because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Later in the Bible, Romans chapter 5, verse 8, it says this, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this.
SPEAKER_00: While we were sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the filling of needs that we see around us that we get to pass along the love that God has for us in practical and tangible ways.
SPEAKER_00: I want to look at one more picture from Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's one thing for a group of like ordinary guys to kind of see and need and fill it, but given all that we've said to be true about Jesus, I want us to see how he demonstrated on a much smaller yet very profound scale.
SPEAKER_00: This time we'll look in John chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if you have your Bibles, you want to turn over there to John 13.
SPEAKER_00: It's another pretty well-known story from Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is nearing the end of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: The guys that have been following him most closely don't necessarily realize that, but he wants to get them together for a meal and kind of pour some things into them.
SPEAKER_00: And so at this meal, he sees a need and he fills it.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 13, verses 3 to 5 say this Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.
SPEAKER_00: So he got up from the meal, he took off his outer clothing, he wrapped a towel around his waist.
SPEAKER_00: After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, somehow, this meal had been planned in advance and everything was taken care of, and it would have been customary for someone to take care of washing those the feet of those that were coming in, because back then stinky feet were a big problem at a meal because they'd been out on the streets all day, so the dirt and the dust and sweat would be on their feet.
SPEAKER_00: And the way that you ate that meal would have been reclined on one side with your feet kind of on down the line, so right behind the back of the person eating next to you.
SPEAKER_00: So a big problem would have been the smell of stinky feet kind of wasping over the table.
SPEAKER_00: But a bigger problem was this none of the guys realized that someone needed to take care of that.
SPEAKER_00: They had watched Jesus for the last three years spend time reaching out and taking care of the needs of people around him, and they just overlooked it, trying to elbow the best position they could at the table.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, he gets up and he takes care of this problem, and he begins to wash their feet.
SPEAKER_00: And they felt pretty awkward because they realized it's something they probably should have done.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, Peter, one of the followers of Jesus that was closest to him, gets into an argument.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Jesus, don't wash my feet.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is embarrassing.
SPEAKER_00: I should be washing your feet.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No, no, this is what needs to happen.
SPEAKER_00: So resolves that uh argument that kicks up.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus returns to the table and he shares a lesson for his followers, and he shares a lesson for us.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it says John chapter 13, verses 12 to 15.
SPEAKER_00: When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand what I have done for you?
SPEAKER_00: He asked them.
SPEAKER_00: You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am.
SPEAKER_00: Now that I, your Lord and your teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.
SPEAKER_00: I've set an example for you that you should do as I have done for you.
SPEAKER_00: So this picture captures Jesus in the posture of a humble man and servant.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the beginning of the text that I read clearly states that Jesus had all power and authority.
SPEAKER_00: He had all this power and authority, and yet he got it from the table and he started washing dirty feet of those people around him.
SPEAKER_00: I make my kids take out the trash at home, partly because they need to learn that kind of responsibility, and partly because, well, I don't want to take the trash out if they can do it, right?
SPEAKER_00: If we're honest.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, he did not leverage his position of power and authority to make other people do things for him.
SPEAKER_00: He saw needs and filled them so that you and I would know what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: This example is carried out in the very first churches ever established in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to read very far into the book of Acts where this history is kind of recorded to see that the believers were together and had everything in common.
SPEAKER_00: You see, they would sell things and take care of the needs of people around them.
SPEAKER_00: They were taking care of needs from day one.
SPEAKER_00: They also later in the book of Acts, you see recorded, there's like a like a fight, an argument that breaks out because in the midst of doing good, of feeding hungry widows who couldn't take care of themselves, they're worried about who was getting overlooked in that process.
SPEAKER_00: And so they appoint some men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom so that they can more effectively meet the needs of people around them.
SPEAKER_00: The church has been doing this for a very long time.
SPEAKER_00: From major hospital systems all across our country to private and public education, it is Christian men and women and churches that have established these places of doing good that have made a massive difference in our country and all around the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's what Jesus pointed out would be the thing a watching world would notice about us.
SPEAKER_00: He said, By this, everyone will know you're my disciples if you love one another.
SPEAKER_00: A few years back, um, it was in the fall, and my in-laws were coming to town to visit my wife and I, and they live in uh the state of Missouri, and so it just so happened that that same week in the University of Kentucky was going to play football against the University of Missouri.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, man, it'd be fun to take my father-in-law to that game.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I didn't have much money, so I started kind of looking for tickets.
SPEAKER_00: I was asking around if anybody knew have tickets, and a friend of mine came up with two tickets, but these were not ordinary tickets, all right?
SPEAKER_00: These were tickets with a parking pass.
SPEAKER_00: And beyond that, when you got into the stadium, you had to go to a special set of elevators to get up to your seats.
SPEAKER_00: We went into a room that I didn't even know existed on the planet, let alone that stadium.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as those doors opened, as far as the eye could see, were televisions and food and drinks and people having an amazing time.
SPEAKER_00: And then when the game started, we went out another set of doors and we walked down to our seats lower and lower and closer to the field, and the players were big and giant and massive like they are in real life.
SPEAKER_00: Not like little tiny ants like they looked at when I had gotten seats and been to the stadium a few times before that.
SPEAKER_00: We had an amazing experience that night.
SPEAKER_00: And my heart was so full.
SPEAKER_00: I could never have ever afforded that experience on my own.
SPEAKER_00: But you've been there when your heart is so full of joy and humility and gratitude because you've been given a gift you could never repay.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what motivates our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: That's what motivates the hearts of this church when we consider what Jesus did for us on the cross, where he died and suffered.
SPEAKER_00: We know we could never repay the debt he paid for us, but we can use a small part of our lives to share the love of God that we've received with others.
SPEAKER_00: So, in view of Jesus' sacrificial love, we get to go and we get to give that same amazing love away to other people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's great about this is y'all are the kind of church that's already doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Force didn't hire me to come in and get you to start doing something you're not.
SPEAKER_00: We saw it on the screen earlier.
SPEAKER_00: You furnished a home in this community to help people, but you've been doing this for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard stories and I've seen the pictures myself and I've seen it with my own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, you guys gathered on a Saturday to build a wheelchair ramp for a woman who was stuck in her house.
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't get in and out.
SPEAKER_00: She's in a wheelchair, very limited.
SPEAKER_00: And so on a Saturday you got together and you poured footers and you anchored some foundation there and you cut boards and you measured and you put those boards up and you built a wheelchair ramp so that this woman could get in and out of her house.
SPEAKER_00: You saw a need and you filled it.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, you guys heard you heard about some kids in this community that would go back to school.
SPEAKER_00: And they do it with old torn, worn-out shoes.
SPEAKER_00: And you just you couldn't stand the thought of that.
SPEAKER_00: So you sacrificed and you went and bought a whole bunch of shoes so that kids could go back to school with shoes that fit and that they could run and jump and play and love the shoes that they had on their feet.
SPEAKER_00: You also helped feed a group of young men from Kentucky State University.
SPEAKER_00: You feed them physically and spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: You see, many of them think that they're here to live their dream of playing college football, but you know, you know that they're really here because God has a plan and purpose for their lives.
SPEAKER_00: He loves them.
SPEAKER_00: And though many of them don't realize it yet, he wants to save them from despair and fear and hopelessness.
SPEAKER_00: And so you feed these boys and you empower force to teach them about the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then when they show up here, you greet them and welcome them and you show them the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: You pray and encourage them, you take them to lunch and you build them up.
SPEAKER_00: And you do it because you've experienced that same amazing love of Jesus, and you're just compelled to give it away.
SPEAKER_00: So this city will be different when the hundreds of people that call Multiply Church home spend the next 365 days seeing needs and meeting needs.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that Jesus will multiply your efforts because in his economy, a little boy's sack lunch, it feeds thousands of people.
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't happen with my number one from McDonald's.
SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus gets his hands on things, and when he gets his hands on you and on this church, things change.
SPEAKER_00: People rise up and walk, marriages are restored, the hopeless feel again and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: The love of Jesus, it just spreads and it grows.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible tells us that the gates of hell will not prevail against this amazing force of love.
SPEAKER_00: So today, let's gather the pictures in our minds of Mark chapter 2 and John chapter 13 and 1 John 4.19, sidewalk chalk, and people that are out building wheelchair ramps and little shoes and shoes on little kids' feet, and hungry football players, and the picture of Jesus Himself on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Let's plant these pictures in our head and in our hearts, and let's go out of this place this week, see needs and fill them in the loving name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for the love that we've received in Jesus and from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for the opportunity that we have, God, to just give a small portion of that love back to others.
SPEAKER_00: And God, we pray that you would multiply our meager efforts, and that through those efforts, people would see the goodness of God, and they would turn and they would give their lives to Him.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for what you've done for us.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray all this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.