Forrest: Well, I'll tell you this.
Forrest: Real Christians come to church on Labor Day weekend, okay?
Forrest: You're here now, and I've had a pretty great Labor Day weekend.
Forrest: And I'm excited about the word from today, and I'm excited about what God is doing in this house.
Forrest: We had a great first service, and um I'll be honest with y'all, at nine o'clock service this morning, they were on your heels.
Forrest: That place was full.
Forrest: They were saying amen.
Forrest: I was appreciating it.
Forrest: I was like, praise the Lord.
Forrest: It was encouraging me.
Forrest: You know, I need encouragement too.
Forrest: Uh I had a great weekend.
Forrest: If uh if I've not met you before, I'm Forrest Lead Pastor here at Multiply, and I'm praising God because football was back this weekend.
Forrest: Can anybody just be excited about that?
Forrest: I'm excited about it.
Forrest: I had a great time.
Forrest: I actually had like one of the best football weekends you probably could ever have.
Forrest: And so I'm gonna need uh y'all's help in a little celebration today because uh University of Kentucky won yesterday.
Forrest: Yep.
Forrest: Praise the Lord.
Forrest: Uh K-State won yesterday in Detroit against Rival Central State.
Forrest: I got to watch that on TV, which is amazing as they played in Lions Stadium in Detroit was awesome.
Forrest: Now, uh, for those of you who don't know me, all my family other than me went to Auburn.
Forrest: So Auburn won yesterday, War Eagle, and more importantly, Alabama lost yesterday.
Forrest: Praise God.
Forrest: Alright, I'm the only one, I guess, but man.
Forrest: Uh I can't even believe I'm about to say this.
Forrest: But Louisville won yesterday.
Forrest: Yep, yep, yep.
Forrest: Here we go.
Forrest: And I really can't believe I'm about to say this.
Forrest: Ohio State won yesterday.
Forrest: Man.
Forrest: That's bad, those people that but gosh, it's like a wish come true when all your teams win on a weekend, which is what happened to me.
Forrest: And the title of my message today is Wish Come True, as we look at this last installment of our series, making room at the table.
Forrest: And today we talk about wish come true.
Forrest: Do for one what you wish that you could do for everyone.
Forrest: You know, we make wishes.
Forrest: We in our culture, it's kind of funny.
Forrest: We do this thing where we throw a penny into a fountain and we wish, and we think that that's gonna do something, right?
Forrest: We uh make a wish before we blow out a birthday candle.
Forrest: And I know that you all are wishing and making wishes when your team is down in the fourth quarter and needs that last touchdown field goal.
Forrest: I know you're making wishes.
Forrest: Today, though, what we're talking about is what we are doing and what we wish that we could do.
Forrest: The value and what we've been doing over the last few weeks is going through the 10 value statements here at multiply and breaking them down.
Forrest: And today is the last installment of this as we look at our value, which is do for one.
Forrest: Everybody say do for one.
Forrest: This is what it means.
Forrest: We do for one person what we wish we could do for everyone.
Forrest: We know one invite, one blessing can change someone's life forever.
Forrest: Jesus left the 99 to go after the one, and we will too.
Forrest: Let me ask you this question.
Forrest: What are you wishing for your family and for your friends who are not following Jesus and are not yet saved?
Forrest: What are you wishing for them?
Forrest: You're probably wishing for them to come home.
Forrest: And I wonder, do you believe that one moment could change everything for someone?
Forrest: Do you truly believe that?
Forrest: It was illustrated to me, amazing this last Sunday night as I was uh at K-State with my friend Pastor Destinor, who gave his testimony uh a few weeks ago.
Forrest: If you were here, you heard heard from him that he actually gave his life to Christ as uh athlete at K-State while he was a student when somebody came into the dorms and in one moment shared Jesus with him, and his entire life changed forever.
Forrest: And this last Sunday night, we were together for this worship night with FCA.
Forrest: By the way, FCA kicked off this week and is doing amazing.
Forrest: This last Thursday, praise God, kicked off.
Forrest: This last Thursday at 6.
Forrest: We had six different teams that were represented at FCA with student leaders and listen to this.
Forrest: We've got students now who are coming to our church who are helping as student leaders uh in FCA on campus.
Forrest: Somebody praise Jesus, somebody give God some glory and praise for that, that that's going on.
Forrest: It's been uh a long time coming.
Forrest: If you want to jump in and be a part of it on Church Center, there's a spot where you can sign up to be a part of what's going on at K-State.
Forrest: There's a sign up there for you.
Forrest: But me, we were there this Sunday night for this worship uh uh gathering with some of the campus ministries, and Pastor Destinor was there.
Forrest: We were in the student center, and Pastor Desenor was uh as students were walking by, he was like for 15 minutes, like 15 different students, he would just say, Young man, come over here.
Forrest: And they'd like walk over to him, and he'd say, Do you know Jesus?
Forrest: And it would lead to a conversation.
Forrest: And he said, Young lady, come over here.
Forrest: We prayed for people, we were talking to them.
Forrest: Here's why because Destinor actually believes that one moment could change somebody's life forever, because that's what happened to him.
Forrest: Somebody shared Jesus with him in one moment, and his whole life was radically changed, and he now believes and knows that that is possible, and so he's operating in that.
Forrest: And so maybe you don't have the boldness to call somebody out who's walking uh down the street or around you, but what if you could be the one that God uses to work in someone else's life?
Forrest: What if you could be the one, as you do for one, to see God do something amazing in somebody's eternity, in somebody's here and now?
Forrest: Because what are people truly, genuinely wishing for?
Forrest: A lot of times when people are not walking with God, they're not thinking like, oh, I need God in my life.
Forrest: They're thinking about all the problems and all the things that are going on, and they're looking for answers.
Forrest: There's people, and maybe you're in the room today, and this is your mindset, or people who you know that there are people that are tired, they're anxious, they're weighed down by the world, they're just wishing that the chaos in their mind or at their home would stop.
Forrest: Do they know that Jesus is the Prince of Peace?
Forrest: There's people who just want to feel whole.
Forrest: They want to be healed, yes, physically, but also emotionally in their relationships in their life.
Forrest: They just don't want to feel broken anymore.
Forrest: Do they know that Jesus is the great healer, the great physician?
Forrest: There are people that that just wish that they had someone who chose to love them and stay.
Forrest: And they built up walls because at some point somebody has left.
Forrest: Do they know that Jesus said, I'll never leave you and never forsake you?
Forrest: People who feel like something's missing because they want to belong and and they don't really know where where they fit in their purpose and where they belong, and they feel isolated, even feeling among their family and with their friends, they even still with those people around are still feeling alone.
Forrest: Do they know that Jesus is not only our Savior, but he's also our friend?
Forrest: See, this is what we get to do is we get to show people, encourage people the love of Jesus as we walk out our life as followers of Jesus.
Forrest: And today's message has got big three three big parts as we walk through it.
Forrest: And I just want to set the stage for this.
Forrest: We're gonna dive into uh what it means to do for one in Luke chapter 15, and then we're gonna hear an incredible testimony of what that looks like.
Forrest: And then thirdly, we're going to look at an example of from Jesus of doing this in John chapter 5.
Forrest: See, Jesus is our Savior and He's our friend, and Jesus was the friend of sinners.
Forrest: That's what the scripture tells us, what we're about to read.
Forrest: But that made the religious people really upset because Jesus wasn't doing what they wanted him to do, he wasn't saying the things that they wanted him to say, he wasn't hanging out with the people that they approved that he should be hanging out with, and so Jesus in their criticism of him and them being upset with him, Jesus looks at them and he tells them a story.
Forrest: And so we're in Luke chapter 15.
Forrest: If you have your Bibles turned there, if you get your phone at, pull that up.
Forrest: You want to highlight these verses, we're gonna go through the first seven verses.
Forrest: There's three stories in this chapter.
Forrest: We're just gonna look at the first one of those.
Forrest: This is Luke chapter 15, starting in verse 1.
Forrest: Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.
Forrest: This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people, even eating with them.
Forrest: So Jesus told them this story.
Forrest: Verse 4.
Forrest: If a man had a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do?
Forrest: Won't he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go search for the one that is lost until he finds it?
Forrest: And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home to on his shoulders.
Forrest: In verse 6.
Forrest: When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep in the same way.
Forrest: Everybody say, same way.
Forrest: In the same way.
Forrest: There's more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over 99 others who are righteous and haven't strayed away.
Forrest: Jesus gives us this teaching about what it means to be lost.
Forrest: And Jesus tells this story to these Pharisees, showing them that the way that they're acting and the way that they're acting towards people is not a way that he would act towards people, and that not only is Jesus talking about people going wayward, but he's also talking to these religious leaders who have no love and compassion and care for the people that he's around and hanging out with.
Forrest: And he's telling them and showing them what it looks like to be lost, and that Jesus, he's the shepherd who goes out and finds his lost sheep and brings them back to him.
Forrest: And as we talk about what it means for the lost, I know I get this imagery when I think about lost.
Forrest: I think about me the times when I put in the right address to my GPS, and for some reason I show up still at the wrong place because it's not right, and I'm confused and bamboozled for a moment.
Forrest: I gotta figure out what I'm doing.
Forrest: And yes, that's a part of what this means, but actually the Greek word for loss that Jesus uses is he tells this story is apolimi.
Forrest: Everybody say apolini.
Forrest: And what what it does mean to lose, but it also means to perish or destroy.
Forrest: See, people may be wandering from God and confusion.
Forrest: I don't know about all that Jesus stuff, I don't do that religion stuff, I don't believe in organized religion.
Forrest: I don't know if Jesus, I mean he's a good guy, good prophet.
Forrest: He said some good things, but I don't know about that.
Forrest: And wandering and wandering and all while not realizing that they're wandering into destruction.
Forrest: Wandering in confusion, but like this sheep that's now without a shepherd out in the elements where the predators can come to kill.
Forrest: This sheep could fall off a ledge in danger, in danger of destruction.
Forrest: Jesus takes this sheep and he throws it over his shoulders.
Forrest: Now, this is a classic image of hippie Jesus with the lamb over his shoulders.
Forrest: Y'all seen it before.
Forrest: You see it like in your grandma's like living room, the stained glass windows, and hippie Jesus with the lamb over his shoulders.
Forrest: But I feel like those pictures, they're missing a key part of the story that Jesus tells about.
Forrest: They're missing the party that ensues.
Forrest: Think about heaven erupting like it's Commonwealth Stadium or Jordan Hare Stadium when the Hail Mary catch is caught in the end zone and the place goes nuts.
Forrest: That's what heaven is like when one person repents and turns to God.
Forrest: And so we should then be a reflection of heaven and the way that we are seeing people come to Christ and the enthusiasm, the excitement, and when we realize somebody's just not just gone from doing bad things to being a good person.
Forrest: They've literally gone from death to life.
Forrest: They've been redeemed by Christ who on the cross died for them in their place and did what they could not do for themselves.
Forrest: And that's why I think that it is a sin for church to be boring.
Forrest: We have so much that we should be celebrating and what God is doing in our lives and the lives of others.
Forrest: You know, if you don't know anything about football and you try to watch it, it's boring too.
Forrest: If you don't know what God cares about, then it's going to be boring when you hear and learn about the things of God.
Forrest: God is chasing after you.
Forrest: See, the party, the eruption, the amazing uh glory in heaven and on earth, the reason for the party is repentance.
Forrest: The chase is for change.
Forrest: A genuine change in your life, that the rejoicing is now coming because someone has turned from their wicked ways and turned to Christ and done about face, which is what the word repentance means.
Forrest: That you turn around, about face, and you go from walking and wandering away from God to walking towards God, and there is a party in heaven, and the party is for the repentance.
Forrest: The chase is for the change.
Forrest: That's my first point.
Forrest: Now, not just contact, not just Sunday service, not just a prayer from grandma, but genuine repentance in heaven erupts.
Forrest: What the world is telling you, you don't need to change anything.
Forrest: You don't need to change anything.
Forrest: I'm just me.
Forrest: I'm just I don't I don't need to change anything about my life.
Forrest: The simple things I do, the way I talk, the way I act, it's just my personality.
Forrest: You know, you make your personality subject to Christ.
Forrest: See all the while as a lost sheep wandering, but you're getting closer and closer and closer towards destruction.
Forrest: You know, Jesus is not afraid of how far away you've gotten from him.
Forrest: He's not afraid of that.
Forrest: He is chasing after you to see you turn and turn your heart towards him and to see genuine change by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Forrest: And he's not afraid if you feel isolated, he's ready to run after you.
Forrest: He's not afraid that if you feel alone or if you're an outcast, Jesus is chasing after you, and he allows us to be a part of the chase and allows for us to have a changed life, a renewed life by knowing the word of God.
Forrest: This happened for me when I was a teenager, when there was a moment where I had accepted Christ, and then I got into high school and was doing the party thing, and I was kind of in this world and doing this other thing, like high schoolers sometimes do partying, drinking, girls, all this stuff, and I have one foot in and one foot out, and the Lord pursued me, and the people who love Jesus in my life, when all that came crashing down, the people in my life who love Jesus love me back to him and back to the right path.
Forrest: I sent across to my youth pastor, Andy McDonald, who instead of casting me away, he brought me close as I as I prayed and truly repented before God to get on the right path, and God was right there waiting for me.
Forrest: And if you're on that path with God, say, God change me.
Forrest: See, Jesus is chasing after us so then we would move from lost to found.
Forrest: And I I want for you to hear a testimony of a friend of ours, somebody who's in our church and been in our church for the last couple of years, who's a friend of mine that about six weeks ago I really felt impressed that you all needed to hear his testimony.
Forrest: And so, if you would help me in welcoming TJ Hood as he comes out here to share with us for a few minutes.
Forrest: Give it up for this dude.
Forrest: My friend, love you, bro.
Forrest: Thank you for doing this.
Forrest: I uh I want for you, TJ, to take a second and to introduce yourself and your awesome family and tell us about you.
Forrest: Will you introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my name's uh TJ and um my wife Jesse, she serves on the worship team.
SPEAKER_00: Um and we have four kids, um Josiah, Stella, and Lincoln, and Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm sure you guys have seen them.
Forrest: Around, yeah.
Forrest: Yeah.
Forrest: And what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm uh in construction, so I build buildings.
Forrest: Really big buildings, yeah.
Forrest: Yes, really big buildings.
Forrest: Um tell us, brother, you you didn't uh necessarily grow up in a Christian home and tell us tell us how you came to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we didn't uh I didn't really grow up in church.
SPEAKER_00: Um we went to Easter um, you know, every now and then.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so I really didn't understand like the gospel or you know what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: And when I was 12, 11 or 12, um, I felt guilty for something that I did.
SPEAKER_00: And my mother, she took me up to the church, and on the outside of the church, across the whole front, was edged in stone the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And so we read each one.
SPEAKER_00: Um and honestly, it didn't make me feel any better.
SPEAKER_00: Are you serious?
SPEAKER_00: No way.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was like, well, it's like this doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, like since then, like I was uh I knew that that there was a purpose to my life.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it wasn't until I was 18 years old um I was hanging out with this girl and and asking questions because you know she was going to church and stuff about you know Jesus, and I I really didn't even know how Jesus worked in the whole picture.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um and she uh told me that maybe I should go talk to a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: So I looked up a pastor in a phone book and made an appointment.
Forrest: Just random in the yellow pages.
SPEAKER_00: Just yellow pages.
SPEAKER_00: Just random church.
SPEAKER_00: I know you guys probably don't remember the yellow pages.
Forrest: Yeah, the yellow pages, young people, is like a list of people's phone numbers on the internet, but it's in a giant book.
Forrest: And they reprint it all the time.
Forrest: So yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So uh I made an appointment with him, and he shared the gospel with me, and and I'll never forget it.
SPEAKER_00: Like there was a painting that he had up on a wall, um, and it was Jesus on the cross and had nails um and a hammer laying around the cross with people on their hands and knees.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he shared the gospel through me, through that, and that's when I accepted the Lord, like surrender my life to Christ.
Forrest: Incredible.
Forrest: This random church, random pastor, and then something miraculous began to happen.
Forrest: And tell us, TJ, how you started to see your family come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, so after that, um, through discipleship, um, you know, with this pastor and uh fellowship with you know a couple guys my age, um, like we we started to learn to share our faith and our testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so I started, you know, we started sharing the gospel with with people, random people, um, people that was in my dorm, you know, at college, and and so then I started sharing sharing the gospel with my family.
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, the person that I cared about the most was my grandfather.
SPEAKER_00: He practically raised me, he's the most influential person like in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, like so I shared the gospel with him, started asking me questions, and he got super defensive and was like, don't talk to me about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And um apparently like in his Past he began to tell me that people would um visit his house and try to get him to come to church.
SPEAKER_00: And one time he did come to church, and they said, Well, the the roof is gonna fall in.
SPEAKER_00: John Pennington is here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so he didn't really have a great um you know experience.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, didn't sound like it.
SPEAKER_00: So um I was like, Okay, um, you know, we were driving down the road, and I was like, Well, that didn't go well, you know.
SPEAKER_00: He was very defensive, and but um about six months later he called me and he wanted to let me know that he went to church and he walked down the aisle and surrendered his life to church or to to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So um after after that, like you imagine like someone, you know, my grandfather, he's in his 60s, so you know, his kids and and his grandchildren started coming to church with him, and it it started this huge domino effect in my family.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my parents wasn't really going to church um until my mom started going, my my grandfather started going to church, um, and my dad didn't.
SPEAKER_00: My sister started going to another church.
SPEAKER_00: I got a sister and and my parents, but at one point there was all four of us was going to a different church.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then um it was about a year later, um my one of my best friends like passed away in a car accident, and I was speaking at his funeral, and um I looked out like you know, into the crowd, and there was a lot of people, like you know, it's a very prominent family in the area.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's probably two or three hundred people um, you know, um at this funeral.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was speaking, I didn't see my dad.
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, I was kind of frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: I went home frustrated, um, you know, because I really wanted him, you know, to hear me.
SPEAKER_00: And um later that night, like he called me real late, like 11 or 12 o'clock, and said that he was walking around the parking lot praying and didn't know what to do, and he surrendered his life to Christ.
Forrest: Amen.
Forrest: Praise God.
Forrest: Your grandfather and your father.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and I was uh able to um um baptize my grandfather.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, shortly after that.
Forrest: You know, TJ, as you're sharing and and you're telling telling the story, which is amazing.
Forrest: Which where in Kentucky was this?
SPEAKER_00: As Aslan, Kentucky.
Forrest: Kentucky.
Forrest: And there's people that are uh thinking, man, I wish God would do that in my life.
Forrest: I wish God would do that in my family.
Forrest: I guess I wish that God would do that for my loved one.
Forrest: And as you think about that, uh if you could encourage somebody who's in that mindset about their own friends or their own family who aren't following Jesus, what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_00: Um I just encourage you to you know to share your faith, like share your share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's very hard sharing it with family, like um it was much harder for me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the worst thing they can say is no.
SPEAKER_00: I mean it's it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Um and um so I just like you know, why not?
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I'm gonna share my faith.
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it all of it wasn't like it wasn't me, it was like the Holy Spirit and God like using me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, this thing has like changed the projectory of my family, and you know, with my kids, like generations are gonna be affected by this.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it's so fruitful.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, everyone has influence over someone.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I was you know, a grand grandson, I was the first like boy in the family because he had three daughters, um, you know, and and I think I had influence with him and you know, willingness to share my faith and stuff, even though he responded negatively at first, um, you know, I think it resonated with him.
Forrest: Church, I want you all to know that um this isn't just like a bygone has been story, but also I want you all to um know and the affirmation that TJ, his wife Jesse, they've served um uh for some time serving the Lord, and right now in our church, they're serving as they're leading our youth small group that is meeting uh every single week as they are pouring into and discipling teenagers in our church.
Forrest: And I think about the faith that you guys are pouring out right now to see that discipleship happen for students, maybe even some that aren't growing up in a Christian home just like you, and now he's pouring out, they're pouring out as well in that way, which is such an encouragement to me because I have a first grader, but I'm gonna, you know, in a flash, she's gonna be in middle school, right?
Forrest: And they're helping to lay the foundation of what youth ministry and ministry to teenagers and students are gonna look like.
Forrest: And so I I just praise God for that, church.
Forrest: I know you do too.
Forrest: So would you put your hands together right now and thanking TJ and the hoods for all that God is doing in and through them to do for one.
Forrest: God has done this amazing work in TJ's life because he was willing to step out and do for one for his grandfather and then for his dad.
Forrest: And the domino effect that happened because he was willing to go and to tell.
Forrest: That's what Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 28, verse 19, this great commission.
Forrest: Jesus gives us this instruction to therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Forrest: And TJ got to live this verse out practically for his family and generations to come because of the willingness to go and to make disciples and to tell and to tell his testimony and to speak, because God pursued him, changed him, found him, and then he became a finder.
Forrest: Which is the third part of this today.
Forrest: What it looks like to be a finder.
Forrest: Jesus gives us an example of this in John chapter 5, verse 15.
Forrest: It's a story of Christ as a man who was ill, in need of being healed, starting in verse 1.
Forrest: Afterwards, Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.
Forrest: Inside the city, near the sheepgate, was a pool, was the pool of Bethesda with five covered porches.
Forrest: Crowds of sick people, blind, lame, or paralyzed, lay on the porches.
Forrest: One of the men lying there had been sick for 38 years.
Forrest: When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, Would you like to get well?
Forrest: Verse 7.
Forrest: I can't, the six sick man said.
Forrest: For I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.
Forrest: Someone else always gets there ahead of me, and Jesus told him, Stand up, pick up your mat and walk.
Forrest: And instantly the man was healed.
Forrest: He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking.
Forrest: But this miracle happened on the Sabbath.
Forrest: So the Jewish leaders objected.
Forrest: And they said to the man who had been cured, You can't work on the Sabbath.
Forrest: The law doesn't allow you to carry this sleeping mat.
Forrest: But he replied, The man who healed me told me, pick up your mat and walk.
Forrest: Well, who was uh who said such a thing as this?
Forrest: They demanded.
Forrest: The man I don't know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.
Forrest: The man didn't know for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd, but afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and told him, Now you're well.
Forrest: Stop, so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.
Forrest: Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
Forrest: Jesus finds this man who is lost in need of healing, but he's not wandering, he's stuck.
Forrest: And sometimes it can be so easy in life for us to get stuck.
Forrest: This man was so stuck that he was stuck in this state for 38 years waiting to be healed.
Forrest: And when Jesus came to him, and Jesus said to him, Do you want to get well?
Forrest: He didn't even say yeah.
Forrest: Jesus says to him, Do you want to get well?
Forrest: This Greek word well, it means whole.
Forrest: Do you want to be whole?
Forrest: Do you want to be complete?
Forrest: Do you want to be made well?
Forrest: And the man has been stuck in this in this situation for so long, instead of saying yes, he gives an excuse.
Forrest: Well, uh sir, I I can't get well because I can't get into the water and nobody will help me when the great physician is standing right in front of him asking if he wants to get well.
Forrest: You have to, and it's easy for us to get stuck and thinking that once we are found that somehow that that's the finish line, but really it's just the starting line of our faith as we are moving from found into being a finder because it's so easy for us to get stuck in this situation or whatever sin that we're in or whatever scenario that we're in.
Forrest: And Jesus wants nothing more than to pick you up and to dust you off and to heal what's going on in your life.
Forrest: So don't instead of receiving what Jesus did for you on the cross, make just another excuse of why this won't work, or why this couldn't work, or why God couldn't reach my friends or my family.
Forrest: There's been people in my life where I've thought to myself, God, are you ever going to save them?
Forrest: Are you ever going to do something in their life?
Forrest: And Emily's reminded me before is God not big enough to save that friend or family in your life?
Forrest: He is.
Forrest: Like, what experience do you want when your brother shows up to church for the first time?
Forrest: Do you want just people just saying like, hi, hi, hi, hi?
Forrest: Or do you want somebody to actually like reach out their hand and say hello?
Forrest: Hey, I've never met you before.
Forrest: Nice to meet you.
Forrest: To feel the love of God.
Forrest: You want them to feel judged or be able to come into this space and be able to receive the good news of Jesus and for them to have the opportunity to get on the path.
Forrest: That's why here at Multiply, we are constantly thinking about what we can do for that one.
Forrest: Who is that one?
Forrest: Who's that one person that God wants to touch?
Forrest: Who's that one person that God wants to change?
Forrest: Who's that one person that we're caring about that we want to see come to know Jesus or to be helped or to get unstuck?
Forrest: And it changes our perspectives because Jesus, in this passage, he goes to this one man who needs to be healed.
Forrest: Now we weren't there in John chapter 5, but apparently there was a bunch of people who were sick.
Forrest: And Jesus, maybe he healed everybody who was around that pool.
Forrest: Maybe he didn't.
Forrest: We don't know.
Forrest: All we know is he went to that one man to deliver healing to him.
Forrest: And so as we think about what Jesus wants to do, the one for that one person, that one person in our lives, we can't be in this mindset of excuses and feeling stuck and what is in the past, but instead to take hold of what God wants to do in our life and make us become a finder for Him.
Forrest: Anybody in the room want to be a finder?
Forrest: Anyone in the room want to see somebody come to know Jesus, who's a friend, friend or a family member?
Forrest: You want to see somebody who gets unstuck and gets to receive the good news of Christ?
Forrest: This uh this concept of getting stuck was illustrated to me in a big time this week.
Forrest: When I got home and started looking for my sweet dog Theo.
Forrest: I've had him for 10 years.
Forrest: This is the way he looks like, oh, isn't he so cute?
Forrest: Theo had somehow, and this has happened before, he he got himself stuck in our bathroom behind the bathroom door.
Forrest: I don't know how long he was back there, but when I got home, I was looking for him and I could just hear him whimpering.
Forrest: And I go to let Theo out and to push the door open, and the door didn't move.
Forrest: It didn't budge.
Forrest: In all of his scratching of the door and trying to get out, this dog had locked himself in the bathroom.
Forrest: Got an old school, I got an old house, got an old school lock, goes like this.
Forrest: Don't judge me for having an old house, okay?
Forrest: And the my dumb dog had locked himself in the bathroom.
Forrest: And I'm thinking to myself, what am I gonna do?
Forrest: So I go get a rubber hammer and I start beating against this door for like 10 minutes trying to get it to jostle open, it wouldn't.
Forrest: So finally I just had to heel kick my bathroom door open to get this dumb dog out of the bathroom and get him unstuck.
Forrest: So imagine me doing that this week.
Forrest: Don't you know that God loves you so much that he'll tear down whatever wall you've put up, whatever excuse you've made, whatever thing that you don't believe for the person that needs to receive him, Jesus is going to deliver himself to you and to the people who you love, who need to love him, if you would just allow him to work through you to open up your mouth, to show somebody the love of Jesus with your hands, to care enough in your heart to get unstuck.
Forrest: The Bible illustrates this in a graphic way in Proverbs 26, 11.
Forrest: It says, As a dog returns its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.
Forrest: I want us to move from being lost and without hope to being found in the beauty of Christ, and then to be a finder for people to be able to receive the amazing work of Christ.
Forrest: Because here's the thing a finder is a multiplier.
Forrest: You can't do everything, you can't do everything for everybody, but you can do something for one person, and when you do, that person very well may see the wish come true in their life that they don't realize is what God is waiting to give to them.
Forrest: Listen to me.
Forrest: Jesus sets the table for sinners, so let's make room, church.
Forrest: Who are you bringing to the table?
Forrest: Because Jesus is faithful to chase you down, to cast you across his shoulders and to carry you home.
Forrest: And it's the same shoulders that Jesus used to carry the cross up the hill to Calvary, that cross that was on his bloody back, that he went to Calvary and died in your place.
Forrest: That same shoulder that he's carrying you home is the same cross shoulder that carried the cross that you could not carry for yourself, that I could not carry for myself, because we cannot save ourselves, we can't be good enough, we can't do enough good things for us to be made right with God.
Forrest: It is only by the blood of Jesus and Him coming to get us and carrying us by the power of His cross and the restoration of the resurrection.
Forrest: What if we all just did for one person what we wish that we could do for everyone?
Forrest: And that looks a million different ways that multiply.
Forrest: That looks like somebody stepping out and saying, you know what?
Forrest: I actually am gonna serve because I know that somebody today is they're giving their God shot, and so I want to care for kids and I want to care for somebody who doesn't know Jesus, who's gonna experience him for the first time.
Forrest: It looks like people in our church being radically generous, and and over the over the years helping people and paying for car payments and helping people in small groups to pay for groceries between jobs and just just people stepping up and saying, you know what, I can't we can't we can't help everybody with their rent, but this one person, this one situation we know and love, okay, when we can do for one what we wish we could do for everyone, right, church?
Forrest: We can be generous, we can be caring, we can be loving.
Forrest: So, what are you doing for one this week?
Forrest: One blessing, one word, one gift, one invite to church or small group, one conversation, one act of forgiving someone, one phone call, one coffee, one act of caring.
Forrest: What is it that God can do as you allow Him to transform you?
Forrest: I mean, lost to found a finder in Christ.
Forrest: In a room this size, the diversity of this room this size, there are people in this room that are in each of these camps.
Forrest: You're somebody who you walked in today, and you know you've been wandering, you know that you are wandering from God and you have not received Him as your Savior.
Forrest: You didn't grow up in a Christian home, or you did, or what whatever your situation is.
Forrest: And today is your day for you to receive Christ and for you to be saved.
Forrest: There are some in the room that you've given your life to Christ, maybe it was years and years and years ago when you were a kid and you were found.
Forrest: And now it's time for you to take the step for you to be a finder so when somebody else can be found as well.
Forrest: Would you bow your heads with me, Father?
Forrest: Right now I want to pray all across this room, Lord, for those that are in this room that Father are in desperate need of you to change their life and their hearts.
Forrest: Some of those, God, in this room may be somebody who needs to give their life to you for the first time.
Forrest: Many are those who have been found, Lord, that right now, God, I pray that you would give them belief and faith.
Forrest: Lord, that they can see, God, you work miracles in the miracle of salvation in their family's life and friends.
Forrest: God, I pray right now, Lord, that you would give us encouragement and courage to open our mouths, to open our hands, to love in the way that Jesus you've called us to.
Forrest: And if you're in the room today and you've not received Christ as your Savior and you've not had the salvation and free gift that He bought for you on the cross by believing in Him and giving Him your life, today is the day of your salvation.
Forrest: If that's you today, I I ask you right now to pray in your mind and heart, Jesus, save me.
Forrest: This is it magical words.
Forrest: This is a genuine place in your heart.
Forrest: Pray it for a genuine place, Jesus, save me.
Forrest: I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin.
Forrest: Forgive me, cleanse me so I can be in heaven with you one day.
Forrest: Thank you for finding me.
Forrest: I give you my life.
Forrest: From this day forward, in Jesus' name.
Forrest: Nobody looking around.
Forrest: Today was a day for you to pray, to receive Christ as your Savior, to receive his gift for you on the cross, for you to be saved and set free.
Forrest: What I want you to do is make a sign before heaven, before God, so I can pray for you.
Forrest: Of that decision by way of at the count of three, for you to raise your hand up so I can acknowledge you.
Forrest: If that's you ready, one, two, three, raise your hand.
Forrest: Anybody in this place?
Forrest: Father, I pray today, God, over this house, that it would be a place, father, that we would erupt and in worship and in glory, Father, over one sinner who repents.
Forrest: So, Father, I pray now, God, that you would make us into your image of those that are found, Father, those that are on the hunt, on the search.
Forrest: For those who need you, to receive you.
Forrest: And God, we're going to be faithful to give you the glory and the praise in the strong name of Jesus.
Forrest: Everybody said amen.
Forrest: Church, you stand to your feet right now as we worship, as we sing.