unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Multiply.
SPEAKER_00: How we doing out there today?
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all sound good.
SPEAKER_00: Some good worship going on in here.
SPEAKER_00: For real.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all was really in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I heard you.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm really excited about what God is doing here at Multiply.
SPEAKER_00: I was just sitting there thinking as they were showing the pictures of being at uh KSU, um, how important it is for you as a church to understand that work is.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll, you know, I'm a person that grew up in church, but I found my relationship with Jesus as a college athlete on a campus similar to KSU.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody in my life or that ministry knew that the work they were doing in my life as a 19-year-old on a college campus would lead to the salvation of my wife, who you saw a picture of, who we met my sophomore year, and that I would leave my home state of Georgia to be a pastor in the state of Kentucky.
SPEAKER_00: That was not in my course.
SPEAKER_00: But the ministry that came through a para-church organization like FCA has led to much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to continue to commend you all to lean into that college campus.
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of kids going to school there right now who have their own plans, but God has a plan for their life that they have yet to realize.
SPEAKER_00: And we need churches like you to connect with them to help them see that God has more than just a business degree.
SPEAKER_00: God has a ministry for them.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to people, we want to see people walking there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, to get us started today, I want to read from God's word in the book of John, chapter 8, 31 and 32.
SPEAKER_00: And this scripture is just gonna settle our hearts into the posture that we need to take today as we dive into the message.
SPEAKER_00: Says this.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, meaning live your life, immersed in my word, you are truly my disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
SPEAKER_00: Today, church, with that scripture in mind, I want to talk to you about embracing the tension of that truth.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout this series, each weekend is aiming to bring life to values of multiplied church off of a sheet of paper somewhere into the hearts of the members of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And though these are values of multiplied church, what we believe is that these are just values for being faithful disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about embracing the tension, what we mean is being those type of people who are bold both in God's grace and in God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's about submitting to the truth of God's word and all of its practical do's and don'ts, and in its heart for unity and grace as a body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's about walking in humility, it's it's leaning into hard conversations when they come, remembering that we are called to each other for each other.
SPEAKER_00: It's about walking as Jesus walked and walking as he commanded.
SPEAKER_00: With that said, I want to attack this idea from a heart level first this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I want to help us discover what it looks like to have a heart posture that allows us to embrace the tension.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna do that from the book of Luke, chapter 8, verses 4 through 15.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever read the book of Luke, this will be a familiar passage to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_00: I think it helps me understand what it looks like to live this faith out Sunday to Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it says As a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from every town, he said in a parable A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path.
SPEAKER_00: It was trampled on, and the birds of the sky devoured it.
SPEAKER_00: Other seed fell on the rock, and when it grew up, it withered away, since it lacked moisture.
SPEAKER_00: Other seed fell among thorns, the thorns grew up with it and choked it.
SPEAKER_00: Still other seed fell on good ground, and when it grew up, it produced fruit a hundred times what was sown.
SPEAKER_00: As he said this, he called out, Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.
SPEAKER_00: Then his disciples asked him, What does this parable mean?
SPEAKER_00: So he said, The secrets of the kingdom of God have been given for you to know, but to the rest it is in parables, so that looking they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.
SPEAKER_00: This is the meaning of the parable.
SPEAKER_00: The seed is the word of God, the seed along the path are those who have heard, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
SPEAKER_00: The seed on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, having no root, these bel these believe for a while and fall away in times of testing.
SPEAKER_00: As for the seed that fell among the thorns, these are the ones who, when they have heard, go on their way, and are choked with worries, riches, and pleasures of life, and produce no mature fruit, but the seed in the good ground, these are the ones who, having heard the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it, and by enduring produce fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Bless the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Now, because I know God's word to be true, as I stand before you right now inside this room, exists the possibility for all four of those souls to be present.
SPEAKER_00: As the word goes forth today, and every day, whether it's through a preacher like me, whether it's through reading God's word, whether it's through a song that you hear, its potential in our life is based on how we receive it, but also how we maintain it.
SPEAKER_00: In our passage, it's obvious that Jesus wants us to be the good soul.
SPEAKER_00: And the first step in that process is examining where we are today.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: Every time that you come to church, you have an opportunity to come in with whatever heart posture you decide.
SPEAKER_00: And the heart posture I want to urge us to have today is a heart of humility.
SPEAKER_00: Because a heart of humility comes into a gathering like this knowing that God has a word for them.
SPEAKER_00: A humble heart comes into a gathering like this knowing that they are not where God wants them to be, and they are willing to receive what God has for them today.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to be in that posture.
SPEAKER_00: My favorite scripture that charges us with that is 2 Corinthians 13, 5.
SPEAKER_00: It calls us to this practice when it says, test yourself to see if you are in the faith, examine yourselves, or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus is in you unless you fail the test?
SPEAKER_00: What the Apostle Paul is getting at is that every day of our faith journey is filled with daily decisions.
SPEAKER_00: And as you go about making your daily decisions, you have to understand that some of the daily decisions that you're going to be asked to make might not align with the faith you possess.
SPEAKER_00: And so as you go about making your daily decisions, even in your heart posture, you want to be asking yourself, does this decision I'm making, if I make it, will it profess the truth of God's word in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Does the way that I'm living, does it show evidence of God's grace, but also of his discipleship?
SPEAKER_00: Does my faith contradict or confirm the words of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the type of questions as mature believers we have to be not afraid to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of how you answer that question, the good news is that good soul is on the other side of just being willing.
SPEAKER_00: In that we find three ways this passage teaches us about what it looks like to be willing followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was describing the good soul, he said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, number one, they receive the truth with an honest and good heart.
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing you need to know is that every time you encounter God's word, whether you read it or whether you hear it, I want to challenge you to pray that the Holy Spirit will give you a soft heart.
SPEAKER_00: I want to challenge you to say, Holy Spirit, give me a word that only you can give me about my situation, about my life, and about my commitment to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We got to come before God with an honest heart, acknowledging our sins, acknowledging where we've fallen short, being faithful to repent of those things, and at the same time understanding that God's goodness is the only place that He's leading us to.
SPEAKER_00: So even when something sounds hard when I receive it, it's leading me to something good and holy and righteous in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is this is that they held on to the truth with everything they had.
SPEAKER_00: It uses the the language of enduring.
SPEAKER_00: It uses the examples of the others to show what they had to go through to remain good soil.
SPEAKER_00: So just like the soil before it, they they deal with the worries of the world too.
SPEAKER_00: The pleasures of life tried to get them too.
SPEAKER_00: Their jobs and their careers and their families and their relationship status, all these things tried to come in and rob them of the seed that God had planted in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: But there was something different.
SPEAKER_00: When those things came, they abided in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They held on to the word of God with everything they had.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what it looks like for us if we want to be willing Christ followers.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing that we read is that they endured the cost of living in that truth.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the part that we don't like so often.
SPEAKER_00: See, sometimes enduring the cost of following Jesus means that you got to miss out on stuff sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: There's some trends and some things that come and go in the world that Christ followers just don't get to be a part of.
SPEAKER_00: There's also some hardship, some heartbreak that's gonna come into your life sometimes when you live according to the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: There are gonna be some relationships that are gonna break your heart to end, but it's for your good to end that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And God is calling you to that goodness.
SPEAKER_00: There are gonna be some careers or some jobs that God is gonna tell you it's time to leave, it's time to go.
SPEAKER_00: But you know leaving this job means leaving this big old house I got.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, trust me, not the paycheck.
SPEAKER_00: There are gonna be times where you're gonna be called to endure in relational capacities where your commitment to Jesus will be at odd with your entire friend group, and that peer pressure is gonna come.
SPEAKER_00: And those are gonna be times that the Holy Spirit will empower you to stand if you are a willing disciple, to be a testimony to your friends that I'm not here just to be your friend, but I'm here to point you to the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it looks like to be a willing heart, to be good soul in God's hands.
SPEAKER_00: I love those distinctions because they encompass what we often focus on when it comes to embracing the tension of following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Like when we think about endurance, when we think about holding on, when we think about having a good and honest heart, as we wrestle with truth, sometimes we have to ask the question, well, God, what actually is truth?
SPEAKER_00: We gotta be willing to ask questions like what is the right thing to believe, and what is the right religious practice to commit to because of these beliefs that I'm holding on to for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Theologically, we call this process or we call this idea orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
SPEAKER_00: Here are the definitions.
SPEAKER_00: Orthodoxy is embracing the tension of the truth and belief.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is uh living in orthodoxy means that when I read God's word and it says, when Jesus says, There is no way to the Father except through me, we embrace that as truth, even though it's really hard for me to believe that when I got friends who are Muslim, when I got friends who are Hindu, when I got friends who are atheists, because I want everybody to get in.
SPEAKER_00: But if I'm committing to Jesus, then I have to commit also to the idea that there's only one true religion in the world, and that is following Jesus, even when it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: Now, orthopraxy is embracing the tension of truth in practice.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the idea of saying, I'm not just gonna come and be a hearer of the word, but I'm gonna be a doer of the word.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus in his word calls me to turn and repent or to move away from something, I don't just hear it and let it sting me, but I choose to walk in that newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: My actions match my words.
SPEAKER_00: I don't just get on the public say, this is a big problem in our society right now.
SPEAKER_00: I was I was talking to my men's Saturday small group.
SPEAKER_00: We're reading through the book of Proverbs, and if you ever read through the book of Proverbs, I mean, you get to like chapter 15 and 16, and it's like it's really hard to read those and be hateful people.
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to read those and be spiteful people.
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to read those and not care about what you're doing because it teaches you all about the principle of sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: And I was reading that and I said, man, you know what breaks my heart is there are a lot of people who have a public space right now as Christians, and I'm afraid they might have never read the book of Proverbs because they profess with their mouth that they are rocking with Jesus, but some of the initiatives and some of the things that they're doing in a public space have nothing to do with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they're giving people a character of what it means to walk with Jesus that we faithful believers on the ground have to fight against every day.
SPEAKER_00: And so we got to be people who are committed to the practices of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the way that we get to orthodoxy and orthopraxy is learning how to deal best with our emotions, and that's what we call orthopathy.
SPEAKER_00: This is embracing the tension of the truth in our passions, in our emotions, and our concerns.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just belief and it's not just action, but it's also our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Our heart has to be submitted to the truth of God's word as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, make no mistake about it, embracing tension is about our doctrines, it is about our practices, and it is about our restraints.
SPEAKER_00: Yet, from the lens and example of Jesus in our passage, but also through his life that led him to death on a cross, the fruit of those things authentically taking root in our lives should look like perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: It should look like long suffering, it should look like self-forgetfulness, it should look like a fatherly submission, it should look like obedience in the hard things in life.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus didn't cut corners when he preached this.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 24, 13, he said this the one who endures to the end will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Pointing back to this parable.
SPEAKER_00: See, that indicates to me that embracing the truth is is not just about having the right opinion, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about telling, it's not about getting on social media and making a post about sexuality or politics.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's not what it means to walk with Jesus authentically.
SPEAKER_00: Walking with Jesus authentically is having a perspective from God's word on those things, but also being willing to walk out the work that it looks like to bring people into that truth.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like living a life of sincerity before God.
SPEAKER_00: It's about living a life of safety before God.
SPEAKER_00: It's about learning how abiding in God's word is the best way to survive in your faith in His Word.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Like when you think about walking with Jesus and you think about persevering in your faith, when you think about not backsliding whatever words you want to use, the reason that we commit to like orthopraxy and orthodoxy and orthopathy or the full-fledged submission of our whole being to God is because it produces a sincere faith in us.
SPEAKER_00: Like when you give your whole self to something, that something begins to truly impact your life.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, when you truly give yourself to like eating right, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like when you say, I'm gonna do uh, you know, no no carbs, when you fully give yourself to no carbs, right?
SPEAKER_00: You over time that begins to impact your life.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to look different, you begin to feel different, your desires begin to change, the things that you order at the restaurant begin to look different, the things that you cook begin to look different.
SPEAKER_00: Like when you fully give yourself to something, it produces a sincerity of commitment in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Along with that, though, sometimes we don't think about this, but God gives us his word not as rules, but as guardrails for our life.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us these things to keep us safe.
SPEAKER_00: Like, think about watching a basketball game with no rules.
SPEAKER_00: You've maybe seen this with five-year-olds.
SPEAKER_00: It's chaos.
SPEAKER_00: No dribbling, they tackling each other, they running down the court, they shooting on the wrong rim, they got six kids, this team got four kids.
SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like when you try to live your faith without the guardrails of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You can make your own rules because it's all okay.
SPEAKER_00: God loves me, and that is not what Jesus calls to.
SPEAKER_00: He calls you to a safe faith.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us these guardrails because he knows the outcomes of stepping outside of those guardrails.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is out of his love that he puts restraints on our life.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing is survival.
SPEAKER_00: Like your faith is meant to survive because your faith is for the next generation in your family tree.
SPEAKER_00: We have to leave an inheritance of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of us can point to our big mama or our grandma or grandpa who had strong faith.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we can point back to it is because they persevered in the faith, they held on to their faith.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta think about some of the things some people went through to hold on to their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we we too soft.
SPEAKER_00: We think about you know, our world and what's so hard.
SPEAKER_00: Man, listen, this ain't nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, inflation sucks.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my paycheck means more, means less to me every day.
SPEAKER_00: It sucks, all right?
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I still ate out this week.
SPEAKER_00: It's all right.
SPEAKER_00: But like when I think about some of the things that at least like my my grandma went through, like my grandma held on to her faith, like growing up in the Jim Crow South, where the congruence of her expression of Jesus and the society that she was living in didn't match up all the time.
SPEAKER_00: But something about what she knew about God allowed her faith to survive so that when I was a little boy, I could go to her house and she's gonna tell me a story about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna open her Bible, she was gonna lead us in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Something happened, and I know what happened.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't allow the circumstances of society to decide her sincerity of faith.
SPEAKER_00: But she leaned in and allowed the faith to produce fruit that moved to two generations away from her that I can reference back to that faith today.
SPEAKER_00: That can be your story too.
SPEAKER_00: That multiply, this is a core belief.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be people who embrace attention.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what Forrest and the rest of the team knows.
SPEAKER_00: They know that Frankfurt needs followers of Jesus who follow him even when it gets hard.
SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, they know that the way that you grow a healthy church is to grow and build healthy people with healthy families and healthy and healed relationships.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to challenge you.
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about embracing the truth of Jesus, the first place that that has to be embraced is in your heart and in the people closest to you.
SPEAKER_00: What does embracing the attention and the truth of Jesus look like in your home right now?
SPEAKER_00: What would that mean for you as a spouse in your marriage?
SPEAKER_00: What would that look like for you as a parent or a child right now?
SPEAKER_00: If you say, Jesus, you have the throne of my heart and I want to live in attention to what that means, what is that calling you to right now?
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, it's gonna call you to some forgiveness you don't want to give.
SPEAKER_00: But can I tell you that lack of forgiveness is your prison?
SPEAKER_00: Not the person you hate.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna call you to some humble submission.
SPEAKER_00: If some of you would commit to this in your marriage, it will save your family 10 years from now.
SPEAKER_00: See, some of you don't know that the path that you're walking on in your home is leading to a moment of decision one day.
SPEAKER_00: Because one or the other people are gonna get tired of compensating for your lack of commitment to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are holding together because you still got little kids and making plans right there in your head that as soon as these kids leave, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: And your spouse has no clue that you're at that point.
SPEAKER_00: Can I challenge you as a follower of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Live in the attention of what it means to be honest in your place.
SPEAKER_00: And allow Jesus to come in and reorient some things in your life right now.
SPEAKER_00: That's just one example.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for you?
SPEAKER_00: My prayer is that we would be believers so committed to Jesus that when we encounter his word and it stings, and that when we're called to press on, when it feels easier to quit, that we understand his goodness is with us even in the middle of the storm.
SPEAKER_00: And that we will remain committed to what we've been called to.
SPEAKER_00: Because embracing the tension of God's truth is really just embracing faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: It's embracing faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the best ways that I've found that illustrates this idea of embracing faithfulness in God is actually the vows of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it said this way before.
SPEAKER_00: And what it's speaking to is that marriage is not just some business agreement, but in God's created order, it is a covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That means my life now belongs to you, and your life now belongs to me, and we're gonna rot this way until one of us die, both of us die.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you think about the words that people say at a wedding, sometimes they mindlessly say these things because that's not the important part of the wedding, it's the most important part.
SPEAKER_00: But people get so with the decorations and what type of rice we're gonna have.
SPEAKER_00: Is that chicken look a little pink, throw it back in the oven?
SPEAKER_00: Like people so worried about all these other things at a wedding, and they missed the point that everybody's coming together as witnesses to watch them make a lifelong commitment that means that sometimes your life is gonna suck, but you stick with it.
SPEAKER_00: Here, listen to these vows, and I want you to hear these vows from the perspective of being a disciple making this commitment to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It says, In the name of God, I take you as my spouse to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until we are parted by death.
SPEAKER_00: This is my solemn vow.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of God, Jesus, I take you as my Savior, to have and to hold from this day forward.
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm gonna stick with you for better or for worse in this life, for richer or for poorer in this life, when I'm sick and when I'm healthy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna love and cherish you and your words and your grace for me until I leave this earth and experience the first death.
SPEAKER_00: God, this is my solemn vow.
SPEAKER_00: What would that type of life look like?
SPEAKER_00: What would that type of commitment produce?
SPEAKER_00: Does that type of unwavering commitment fill your heart and mind today?
SPEAKER_00: When I think about that, I think about Jesus when he said in Luke 14, 33.
SPEAKER_00: So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Damplified Bible gives it to us in commentary this way.
SPEAKER_00: It says, this call of Jesus is for people to carefully consider the cost and then for his sake be willing to give up everything they possess and about themselves to be his disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the world today, we ain't got no problem no more with the giving up the possessions.
SPEAKER_00: What we really got an issue, especially in our Western culture, is the things about themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have a culture of idolatry where everybody are little demigods running around here and everything about us makes us special.
SPEAKER_00: And the enemy has snuck in and convinced our society and our world that everybody deserves a throne.
SPEAKER_00: And since everybody deserves a throne, since everybody's a king, since everybody's a queen, since everybody is something special, it leaves no room for Jesus to be the only special one.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he comes asking for our identifiers, we have a hard time putting those down.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we got Christians online arguing about crackerbarrel redesign.
SPEAKER_00: Stupid.
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I saw so many followers of Jesus online this week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm boy coming to crackerbar, putting my grandma picture back on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up.
SPEAKER_00: Crackerberry made me uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: I like the new cracker bear.
SPEAKER_00: And it felt like I was going back into slavery for them pancakes.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to go to crackerberry how it was decorated.
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I'm with the corporation.
SPEAKER_00: Because them pancakes is good.
SPEAKER_00: I like that syrup.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to always have to get it catered.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like we arguing about dumb stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason that we're arguing is because we don't realize that something is attached to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We got to give all of ourselves to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe for some of you in the room, that's a new version of Jesus for you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the gospel you received never quite touched your stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you only got Hobby Lobby Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You get the pictures, you go get your devotion, 365 days of meditating on Jesus, and it's all about warming your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just tell you that Jesus wants to warm your heart, but the Holy Spirit wants to finish the work that he started?
SPEAKER_00: And so, can I just encourage you to receive all of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You got to receive the love of Jesus and the warrior Jesus and the King Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You got to receive the Messiah Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You got to receive all of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to pause right here and say, listen, if if you if you don't have a like a full understanding of Jesus, it is not a rocket science formula.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to just to read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to just encourage you to go to the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: Those were written for that purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never read those, if you and you're looking for a place to start, the place to start in the Bible is not Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not Leviticus.
SPEAKER_00: Um, don't go read one of the prophets because your cousin name Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go there.
SPEAKER_00: Start in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you get to see the ministry in the life of Jesus and his words.
SPEAKER_00: And then once you understand his words, you can go understand what Paul was talking about and what Peter was talking about and what the Old Testament was prophesying about.
SPEAKER_00: So start with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to pivot from the heart and go to the practical.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want to do is I just want to give us a easy acronym to remember because I'm a principal, I'm a preacher, and preachers always have to make stuff rhyme or go together.
SPEAKER_00: And so I worked real hard to come up with an acronym today that's spelled out good.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I want us to do is figure out how we can be good people at Multiply Church.
SPEAKER_00: How we can be good people at multiply church.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing I want to call us to is uh group identity over idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Group identity over idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: All throughout the scriptures, we are reminded of the fact that the Christian faith is not just a set of beliefs, but it's a beloved community.
SPEAKER_00: In God's view, whether we like it or not, each and every one of us are one family and one blood in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because of that, he has given us a standard.
SPEAKER_00: He has an expectation that we would live like our spiritual reality.
SPEAKER_00: That we would act like we got some home training out here, that we would be a family.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 12:1 says to us, uh, remember the great cloud of witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: AK, remember the family that came before you.
SPEAKER_00: As you understand what it means to be a part of this group identity of being Christ's followers, understand there's a lineage of faithful believers that came before you.
SPEAKER_00: And when you think it's time to quit on Jesus because Jesus ain't giving you that new car, remember the person that got set on fire for just saying the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Peter who was crucified upside down for proclaiming Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, remember our brothers and sisters in the faith who died to preach the gospel so that when you go through your struggles in life, you don't allow those to overwhelm you and choke you out.
SPEAKER_00: You're a part of a lineage of perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 12, 5 tells us that we are one body and belong to one another.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard because we all want to be champion of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But the the Christian faith is of such that once you accept Jesus, you become a part of a body.
SPEAKER_00: And so you may be a finger and somebody else may be a thumb, and y'all need to work together.
SPEAKER_00: You are part of a body, you're not your own anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 4:4 tells us that not only are we one body, but we also share the same spirit and hope.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is this, guys, we got the same daddy.
SPEAKER_00: And we all getting the same thing for Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we got the same daddy.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm ugly, you ugly too, because we got the same features.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I would say to my brother.
SPEAKER_00: You ugly.
SPEAKER_00: You look, we look just the same.
SPEAKER_00: We got the same face.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we go somewhere, y'all must be brothers.
SPEAKER_00: So that means you're ugly too.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm ugly, you ugly.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, 1 Peter 2 5 says this about us.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to hear this.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is about purpose.
SPEAKER_00: We got a lot of people wondering what their purpose is in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just read to you what the word of God says your purpose is?
SPEAKER_00: It says, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's your purpose.
SPEAKER_00: That's who you are.
SPEAKER_00: You don't wear no collar, but God said you're a priest.
SPEAKER_00: And your job is to be a mediator between the lost world and a loving God, pointing people to his reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: That's your job.
SPEAKER_00: And when we live those scriptures as the means in which we see each other, it becomes easier to discipline our here and now emotions and comfort and desires unto the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When we don't live that way, we can move obedience to the side and we can move scripture to the side and we can begin to preach a gospel of me over we.
SPEAKER_00: And when we begin to preach that gospel of me over we, idolatry has taken root into our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Because we are the center of the story and not Jesus anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And so, can I tell you this?
SPEAKER_00: How you live as a part of the body of Christ is either a detriment to the kingdom of God or to the benefit of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: How you choose to love, forgive, and speak life has everything to do with the representation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I heard it said, you may be the only Jesus somebody sees.
SPEAKER_00: Could you walk with that weight every day, please?
SPEAKER_00: One of the best illustrations of this that I read last summer is this in this old book that came out in the 90s.
SPEAKER_00: It's a book called Tuesdays with Maury.
SPEAKER_00: It's a book about a college professor who was passing away, and one of his students, who was really endeared to him, just committed to flying in every Tuesday to spend time with Maury until Maury passed away.
SPEAKER_00: And Maury just poured out his life and all the wisdom he had, and the students took it in.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote a book about it.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a story in there about a little wave.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it says This is a story about a little wave bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time.
SPEAKER_00: He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air until he notices the other waves in front of him crashing against the shore.
SPEAKER_00: My God, this is terrible.
SPEAKER_00: The wave says, Look what's going to happen to me.
SPEAKER_00: Then along comes another wave.
SPEAKER_00: It sees the first wave looking grim and it says to him, Why do you look so sad?
SPEAKER_00: The first wave says, You don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: We're all going to crash.
SPEAKER_00: All of us waves are going to be nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it terrible?
SPEAKER_00: The second wave says, No, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: You're not a wave.
SPEAKER_00: You're part of the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: Part of the ocean, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Part of the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this.
SPEAKER_00: Are you living as a wave or part of the ocean?
SPEAKER_00: Check your calendar.
SPEAKER_00: Check your money.
SPEAKER_00: Check your friend group.
SPEAKER_00: Check your text messages.
SPEAKER_00: Are you living as a wave or part of the ocean?
SPEAKER_00: This is why we're excited about groups launching.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to live as a part of the ocean, join a group.
SPEAKER_00: That's the easiest first step.
SPEAKER_00: Learn to do life with people.
SPEAKER_00: Learn to be a part of the ocean of work God is doing here in Frankfurt.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing I want to encourage us into is to own your sins and snares.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite instructions in the Bible is found in Hebrews 12.1 when the writers say, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us.
SPEAKER_00: Says this, let us run with endurance the race that lies before us.
SPEAKER_00: I love the sports language here because it's practical to follow.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to run for a long time, if you want to run well, you need to make sure that your journey is as simple and light as possible.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to run 10 miles, you don't need to put no 30-pound backpack on unless you plan it, unless you train it in the military.
SPEAKER_00: For us regular folks, you don't need to take nothing that's going to weigh you down.
SPEAKER_00: You just need the lightest load as possible.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, we want to have a long obedience in one direction with God.
SPEAKER_00: And if we want to have that long obedience in one direction with God, we got to be honest about our sins and aware of the snares in our life.
SPEAKER_00: These things that are weighing us down.
SPEAKER_00: Hidden and unaddressed sin in our lives offends God and hurts our neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're trying to run a race to represent God to reach your neighbor, then your sin is a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Snares, when taken lightly, hinder us from our commitment to God and our commission to others.
SPEAKER_00: See, sometimes the snare in your life is something you have a right to have a snare about.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody broke your heart and that produced some hurt in you.
SPEAKER_00: And you feel like I got a right to be hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Not when that hurt becomes bitterness and unforgiveness and resentment, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: Not when that hurt goes, tells you that you don't have to engage into the body of Christ, like the scriptures say, because the last church hurt you.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That is a snare.
SPEAKER_00: That is something that is tripping you up and getting in the way in the full expression of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, deal with it.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite movie scenes is in the movie Remember the Titans.
SPEAKER_00: It's this scene right here when Coach Boone he wakes the team up early in the morning and they get out of the bed, we're going running.
SPEAKER_00: They go running through the woods, giving me trauma of a football camp.
SPEAKER_00: And they keep running, they keep running, they keep running.
SPEAKER_00: They get to this opening.
SPEAKER_00: And this opening is what we learn is the battlefield of Gettysburg.
SPEAKER_00: And in their unique context, he was trying to take an all-black football team and an all-white football team and merge them together in a segregated South.
SPEAKER_00: And he was pointing out to them, hey guys, what we're trying to do on the football field is bigger than what you realize.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't figure out what it is that's holding you back from leaning into what we're trying to accomplish as a football team, we're going to create our own Gettysburg out here.
SPEAKER_00: And more and more people are going to die fighting the same fight that our ancestors fought years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the truth of the faith.
SPEAKER_00: So many people have already done it the wrong way, church.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to do it like them.
SPEAKER_00: They've left examples, they've written books about the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: They flamed out in front of us because of social media and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: Can we just choose the right way in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: So I gotta ask you, what evil is at rest in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: See, some of us got some things that we know are against what the word of God says, but it's comfortable in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I want that out of there.
SPEAKER_00: Another question is, hey, what in my life might be hindering me from becoming who I am called to be?
SPEAKER_00: What things are in the way?
SPEAKER_00: What things do you need to throw off?
SPEAKER_00: What type of person do you need to become to be somebody who walks as Jesus walks?
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you like the extreme of what a commitment to Jesus looks like?
SPEAKER_00: It's found in Matthew 5, 23 through 24.
SPEAKER_00: This is an important uh lesson, and this is what this whole value is based off of.
SPEAKER_00: It says this so if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.
SPEAKER_00: First go and be reconciled with your brother and sister, and then come and offer your gift.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the disunity with each other in the church is so important to God that we should sit our offering down before we try to worship God, until we are reconciled with each other.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't want your worship until your relationship is right with my children.
SPEAKER_00: That is what it looks like to radically allow Jesus to lead you.
SPEAKER_00: The third, oh, I have for, I mean, the third one I have for you is outsource your heart to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When I talk about our generation of the church, oftentimes I believe the reason we can be so lukewarm and prone to backslide is because we just don't look at Jesus enough.
SPEAKER_00: There's some people that get afraid and they backslide because they're facing imminent danger.
SPEAKER_00: They understand their profession of faith means their family would never talk to them again.
SPEAKER_00: They understand that if I walk as Jesus in northern Nigeria, that means that I'm probably gonna be slaughtered at some point because their Muslim jihad is all around here looking for Christians to kill.
SPEAKER_00: There are some people who get afraid and they shrink back because of that.
SPEAKER_00: But we shrink back oftentimes because we just won't look at Jesus enough.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at this world, we're looking at the things of this world, we're looking at our plans and our desires.
SPEAKER_00: We're not even excited about Jesus coming back because we ain't accomplished our goals yet.
SPEAKER_00: Like some of us haven't even processed the fact that maybe the chaos in the world around us is a signpost to us that our redemption is near.
SPEAKER_00: And rather than getting anxious about what's happening in the world around me, I should get excited because that means Jesus is about to crack the sky soon.
SPEAKER_00: There's a scripture that I love, 1 Peter 3:15, says this.
SPEAKER_00: But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What would it mean for you to revere Christ as Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you some a way that I was taught?
SPEAKER_00: They said if you want to revere Christ as Lord in your heart, wake up every day and look Him square in His eyes.
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time that you looked God in the eyes?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all know what it's like when you got in trouble, you did something wrong, or maybe your coach or a teacher or principal, they were talking to you, and you wanted to look down to not feel the entire weight of what it means to be you in this moment, in this position, and so you kind of snuck out of it by looking to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: They said, No, no, no, you look at me when I talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you that Jesus is saying, Look at me when I talk to you, look at me when you read my word, look at me when somebody's preaching, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: And when you look at Jesus, yes, you're gonna feel his accountability in your life, you're gonna feel him challenging you to change, but you're also gonna look at his eyes of love and realize he's a safe place to look.
SPEAKER_00: And so, would you outsource your heart to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: The second thing you do once you look Jesus in the eye is you let Jesus move the furniture around in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: See, some of us have invited Jesus to live in our heart as a guest, and Jesus wants to deed.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be the owner.
SPEAKER_00: But some of us got some furniture bolted down.
SPEAKER_00: This couch ain't going nowhere because I like the view.
SPEAKER_00: I like the view of my heartbreak right here.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna leave it right here.
SPEAKER_00: I like how my bitterness has decorated the walls of my heart, so I'm gonna hold on to it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to move in and give you a new home.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to do an extreme makeover in your heart, but you gotta let him move.
SPEAKER_00: In.
SPEAKER_00: You got to let him move the furniture.
SPEAKER_00: Outsourcing your heart to Jesus allows him to make our lives his home.
SPEAKER_00: And when he's at home in our heart, then his purposes can be at home in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then we realize the tension that we feel is not about what is happening in our life, but we're really just being called to embrace Jesus for real.
SPEAKER_00: Can we be those type of people?
SPEAKER_00: The last thing I have for you, and I'm out of the way, is D.
SPEAKER_00: Destination over discomfort.
SPEAKER_00: I love this quote.
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we believe in a story we're only in the middle of.
SPEAKER_00: It's from Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Kurt Thompson.
SPEAKER_00: To this, I love what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8, 28 through 29.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that we might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: In saying this, Paul is getting across to believers that everything that we face and are willing to embrace in pursuit of Jesus will not be wasted.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, God has already ordained those moments to serve as his hands, reshaping us into the image of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Every whore obedience is meant to make you more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it brings to bear in your life the truth of God's word that says one day when we see him, we will be like him.
SPEAKER_00: Church, this world and all of its half-baked excuses and pleasures and pursuits will pass away one day.
SPEAKER_00: Your degree will pass away one day.
SPEAKER_00: Your 401k will pass away one day.
SPEAKER_00: Your house will no longer exist one day.
SPEAKER_00: Your family tree will no longer exist one day.
SPEAKER_00: Those things have to die for new life to come.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let it take you with it.
SPEAKER_00: Division has no place in God's church.
SPEAKER_00: Bitterness has no place in the life of a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Resentment has no place in Christian relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Living for ourselves has no place according to Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Church, as we think about making room at the table in this series, can I tell you this?
SPEAKER_00: The first seat is always for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus sits at the head of the table.
SPEAKER_00: So here's your cheat code.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be good soul?
SPEAKER_00: Set the table for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Seek first his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And the embracing of the tension in this life, according to his truth, according to his word, really just become embracing his love.
SPEAKER_00: And when you embrace his love, you've embraced his truth.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth will set you free.
SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You're worthy, you're mighty.
SPEAKER_00: You deserve all the praise and honor and glory.
SPEAKER_00: So, God, we just ask in this next song of worship, God, that you would just say one more word to us, God.
SPEAKER_00: Say what you need to say through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: Pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.