Forrest: Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast.
Forrest: Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life.
Forrest: We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon.
Forrest: And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message.
Forrest: Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.
Forrest: So we're jumping into this second week of our plenty series.
Forrest: The title of my message today is Plenty of Fish and Loaves.
Forrest: Who in the house believes that we worship the God of Plenty, of overflow?
Forrest: The greatest above all.
Forrest: Last week we jumped into a story about a widow who had nothing at all except a little oil, and God turned her faith into plenty.
Forrest: And I'm excited today as we jump into the second installment of this series of plenty, and we're going to start by setting the foundation with a statement and a teaching of Paul as he's quoting Jesus to the Ephesians as he's teaching them about giving.
Forrest: And what he tells them is profound.
Forrest: He's teaching them from his own example, and he quotes our Lord Jesus in Acts chapter 20, verse 35.
Forrest: When he says, I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard.
Forrest: You should remember the words of Lord of the Lord Jesus.
Forrest: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Forrest: Last week, as we talked about there being plenty of grace from our God that we have from Jesus and the gratitude that overflows from us when we have the lens of gratitude, that we would have an understanding that we already have plenty from Christ.
Forrest: And we talked about opening up our eyes to what we can see that God's already richly blessed us with.
Forrest: And this morning we talked about opening up our hands.
Forrest: Last week I was showing my six-year-old daughter pictures of the 80 Thanksgiving meals that you all prepared for families across six local schools.
Forrest: And I had some pictures that I was showing to my six-year-old after church, and she was looking at the pictures, she was like, That is so awesome.
Forrest: I love that our church did that.
Forrest: That's so great.
Forrest: And something that my wife and I we tried to instill in our girls from an early age is this principle that Jesus tells us in Acts 20, 35 in the kindergarten version, which is it's better to give than to get.
Forrest: But why?
Forrest: Why is it better to give than to get?
Forrest: Why did Jesus even say this?
Forrest: Why did Jesus even give us this principle?
Forrest: Because the crazy thing is that a lot of us believe that our God is a generous God right until he asks us to give.
Forrest: Or we trust him with our salvation, but we don't trust him to provide as we flow and walk in the principles of generosity that he's given to us.
Forrest: And we all get it.
Forrest: We all get it because how life goes and the things that we think and the way that our mindset is around this, even though Jesus tells us as much to for us to know that it's better for us to give than to get.
Forrest: But maybe for you you've had these thoughts like, you know, well, I'll be generous when I finally get ahead.
Forrest: But the problem is that a head never comes, it's always moving.
Forrest: The thought of being generous someday, it just never happens to be and turn into today generosity.
Forrest: Or maybe you're thinking, well, what I have to give, it won't actually help.
Forrest: Like somebody else should give financially, my little bit, it just doesn't even matter.
Forrest: Can I tell you, if this is the soundtrack that's in your head, you're not weird, you're not broken, you're just believing a smaller story than the one that Jesus is inviting you into.
Forrest: And that's exactly what we're gonna look at today.
Forrest: We're gonna look at a story of Jesus as this story unfolds of this miracle of multiplication.
Forrest: And Jesus is talking to his disciples and he asked them a question that he already has the answer to.
Forrest: See, there's this huge crowd that's following Jesus, but there's a problem because Jesus wants his disciples to feed them, but there's no Chick-fil-A catering around at the time.
Forrest: That's not an option.
Forrest: And Jesus asked this question of his disciples, and he already knows the answer to the question.
Forrest: It's literally just a test.
Forrest: The scripture tells us he's literally just testing the disciples.
Forrest: Because Jesus, he attends to do this miracle of multiplication with fish and loaves.
Forrest: And you've probably heard this story, or if you haven't, we're jumping into this story in John chapter 6.
Forrest: If you're new with us, welcome.
Forrest: I'm Forrest Lee Pastor here.
Forrest: I'm glad that you're here today.
Forrest: If you joined us, if you're new, I want you to know this: you have stepped into a generous church.
Forrest: A generous church that over the last few years we've gotten to see God flow in and through us to be able to serve, love our city, to be three years old, to be debt-free and in a permanent space.
Forrest: Like these things just don't happen.
Forrest: And you stepped into a generous church, and we're looking at the story of Jesus as he's testing his disciples.
Forrest: And so if you have your Bible, you can turn to John chapter 6.
Forrest: It's gonna be on the screen.
Forrest: If you have your phone, look up John chapter 6.
Forrest: We're gonna start in verse 5.
Forrest: There's just 11 verses, or it's just six verses here to verse 11.
Forrest: This is what happens in verse 5.
Forrest: Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him.
Forrest: Turning to Philip, he asks, Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?
Forrest: He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.
Forrest: Verse 7.
Forrest: Philip replied, Even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough food to feed them.
Forrest: And then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up.
Forrest: There's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish, but what good is that to this huge crowd?
Forrest: Verse 10.
Forrest: Tell everyone to sit down, Jesus said.
Forrest: And they all sat down on the grassy slopes.
Forrest: The men alone numbered about 5,000.
Forrest: Verse 11.
Forrest: Then Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks to God.
Forrest: Everybody saying thanks to God and distributed them to the people.
Forrest: And afterward, he did the same with the fish, and they all ate as much as they wanted.
Forrest: And we know that there was even 12 baskets that were left over.
Forrest: Now, I don't know about you, but oftentimes I do the exact same thing as Philip did in this story.
Forrest: I'm looking at the needs, I'm looking at the the crowd of needs, and then I look at my bank app and my calendar, and I scratch my head and I think, this is not enough.
Forrest: You know, I I can talk myself out of faith pretty quickly with a calculator and with a worst-case scenario thought in my head.
Forrest: What could possibly happen?
Forrest: But maybe you're like Philip too, that as you think about generosity, the math just isn't mathing.
Forrest: And you want to be a blessing, but just you immediately think of all the things the mortgage, the groceries, the Christmas.
Forrest: Or maybe you're like Andrew, the disciple.
Forrest: It's that there's there's this little that I could give, but what good is it with all of these needs?
Forrest: Can I ask you?
Forrest: Can I ask you to follow Jesus into the bigger story?
Forrest: That's my first point right now.
Forrest: Follow Jesus into the bigger story.
Forrest: We don't just calculate the cost and pull out the calculator.
Forrest: We consider the one who's calling us and the one who is our God that is rich in mercy and in glory, the God of the universe that owns all of the finances and all the money.
Forrest: The scripture says he has a cattle on a thousand hills.
Forrest: Jesus isn't asking us to feed 5,000.
Forrest: He's asking us, will you trust me with what's in your hands?
Forrest: See, the boy's lunch wasn't the thing that fixed the problem.
Forrest: It was Jesus.
Forrest: The Jesus that we follow that had a bigger story than that little boy had.
Forrest: You know, the only difference between too small to matter and more than enough is whose hands it's in.
Forrest: And we're we're not just the people who are just out here just living a life of paying bills.
Forrest: We're we're a little boy with a lunch in the hands of our multiplying God.
Forrest: It's 80 families who received these meals this last week.
Forrest: The the schools, they were so thankful for the meals that were provided.
Forrest: But I bet those families were even more grateful and thankful because they wouldn't have to worry about where that Thanksgiving meal was going to come from, and they got to have peace in their home this Thanksgiving.
Forrest: You know, we've we've gotten to serve like we did this last week in our city, and we've gotten to serve over the last year.
Forrest: We've been able to serve in our city 28 times already this year, which is more than twice a month through our Frankfurt Forward initiative.
Forrest: And I'm so grateful for what God is doing through that team, through Jamie Aleka, who has led and coordinated this from the beginning.
Forrest: And what I've just been looking forward to all year long is the fact that we are uh launching frankfurtforward.com right now.
Forrest: It is out live and ready to go.
Forrest: Yes.
Forrest: And what we done last year is we got to come alongside at Christmas families at Christmas time.
Forrest: We're gonna get to do that again this year to be able to sponsor Christmas from families from the Wanda Joyce Robinson Foundation who are kids and teens who are impacted by incarceration, also through for our National Guard base uh our National Guard base and families through National Guard.
Forrest: And what I'm excited about is now with FrayfortForward.com, we're getting to invite not just what's happened internally here as we've signed up in the station on the app, but now we get to share this out and we get to invite our city into this bigger story.
Forrest: So people, some people that would never cross the threshold or come to church on a Sunday, but they would go and shop for a kid for Christmas that you know, that would be a witness to them for Jesus.
Forrest: You can share it out and you can send this to them because we're inviting our city into what we have been doing, which is we've been sowing into our city now for years.
Forrest: And God, who's rich in mercy, has allowed us to be generous over and over again, and now we get to invite other people in our city into it.
Forrest: Come on, somebody.
Forrest: I've been as excited about this all year long.
Forrest: Other churches who want to jump in, and so you if you go to the website, there's a place you click on serve, and then you can go from there and uh you can sign up to serve to for shopping for a family that we're sponsoring this Christmas.
Forrest: They'll give you all the details on this later.
Forrest: But what we're doing is sowing into our city, and the apostle Paul gives this very pointed teaching about generosity and giving to the church that is in Corinth, and he says it like this in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6.
Forrest: The point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Forrest: Each one must give as he's decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Forrest: And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work, as it is written, He distributed freely, he is given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever.
Forrest: He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
Forrest: You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
Forrest: Now, this passage talks about this principle of sowing and reaping.
Forrest: And if I'm not thinking about all God is doing in his kingdom and what's happening, I just think like for me, I can feel like, oh, I'm I'm sowing out and I'm just reaping more bills and more bills and more bills.
Forrest: If I don't have my mind set on Christ and what he's doing in his kingdom, or maybe for you, you grew up in a church where giving all it was all it was talked about was just guilt and pressure.
Forrest: We just see from this passage that it's our God that is calling us into our generosity, not out guilt or pressure, but for us to give not reluctantly, but to give to him cheerfully.
Forrest: And ultimately the thing is that God doesn't need our money, he wants our hearts.
Forrest: Where your treasure is, your heart will be also, is what Jesus said.
Forrest: The treasure, it precedes the heart where your treasure is, where you're investing in generosity, that's where your heart will go.
Forrest: And Jesus wants us to give him our whole lives.
Forrest: And as we give to him, he's the one who does the multiply miracle.
Forrest: And the second point is that Jesus will multiply what you give, not what you hold back.
Forrest: This isn't a situation where we're just like giving to get.
Forrest: Remember, it's better to give than to get.
Forrest: And as we do get to give into what God is doing, then we get to be a part of the miracle.
Forrest: Now, some of you are thinking, or the world is saying, well, you know, this is just church talk.
Forrest: This is not real.
Forrest: But Jesus is the one that He's the one who says that there's a blessing, that there will be bountiful, there will be a bountiful return as you are sowing then bountifully, then you're gonna reap bountifully.
Forrest: I feel like the only time you hear this word bountifully in culture is what's gonna happen to me on Thursday when I have a bountiful feast for Thanksgiving.
Forrest: I am so thankful.
Forrest: Uh already, I'm just like, I'm already just ready for Thursday.
Forrest: I'm just, it's my favorite holiday.
Forrest: I'm gonna have a bountiful feast.
Forrest: And I I I hope that that you will too.
Forrest: As Jesus, he he's the one who is going to bless our bountiful sowing, not our hoarding.
Forrest: And I I want to tell you all an update from this last year, around this time last year, as we were in our series and marching towards us all giving collectively together, like we'll do this year on December the 7th, last year.
Forrest: There was a couple in our church, a young couple in our church who God put it on their heart for them to give their savings last year.
Forrest: Do you remember this?
Forrest: If you were around, and we all collectively prayed for this young couple that God put it on their heart to do that.
Forrest: Now, God doesn't call everybody to do that, um, but they have been a couple that from the the outset of this have been generous.
Forrest: They've been tithers and generous in their giving for years now.
Forrest: And last year the Lord laid it on their heart for them to give their savings, and they did that in full of faith, believing that the Lord was going to then return to them and that they were gonna sow in and see the Lord return.
Forrest: And they were inspired by a story that we talked about last year of somebody giving their savings.
Forrest: And what happened over the course of this year were a lot of mountains and valleys.
Forrest: As the year went on, they were praying for uh the wife to who was looking for a new job in a better circumstance, and basically over months of this year, it led to several different interviews that went nowhere, got all the way to the end of the process, and then something didn't didn't work out.
Forrest: And so this couple was just they were just remaining in faith all year, continuing to give, continuing to tithe.
Forrest: And on August the 11th, she told me on August the 11th, she went to an interview and got picked and chosen for her dream job that has provided so much for their family.
Forrest: They've even been able to pay off debt that they had that they haven't been able to pay off previously.
Forrest: And all of that happened in the course of time.
Forrest: And as they were in faith, and not only that, all year long, they've got to see 20 people get in and out of the baptism waters in this house to move from death to life and know that God's growing his kingdom through this young couple and their faith.
Forrest: I tell you that story again, not because God's gonna call everybody to give their savings, and that may not be what God's leading you to, and that may not be the wise thing, but for them, they stepped out in faith and believing God, and bountifully so, and then for him to return it to them, and then to see God flow through this house to serve in our city, to see young people stepping in to serving.
Forrest: They're walking in the principle that Jesus gave to us that it is better to give than to receive.
Forrest: That as we sow bountifully, then we will reap bountifully, that we're gonna have all of our needs provided for.
Forrest: Can I tell you this too with this young couple?
Forrest: The story didn't end with they won the lottery and moved to Hawaii.
Forrest: The story ended with God provided their every need.
Forrest: Over and above, bountifully, a great opportunity and job for her to go to work, every good work, and see God flow in and through their lives.
Forrest: There's this principle is all throughout the scripture, it teaches us about us and our generosity.
Forrest: Even in Proverbs, it gives us the wisdom.
Forrest: It says it so plainly in Proverbs chapter 11, verse 24.
Forrest: Give freely and become more wealthy, be stingy and lose everything.
Forrest: The generous will prosper, but though those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.
Forrest: Everybody say refreshed.
Forrest: Now, what makes sense in my brain is financially is that if I give, then I'll have less.
Forrest: And maybe for you, when you think about generosity, generosity, it sounds like, well, I can't afford to do that.
Forrest: But we we need to realize the fact that generosity doesn't lead to less life, it leads to more life.
Forrest: That's my third point.
Forrest: More life.
Forrest: See, the world will tell us that giving that it equals less, but in God's kingdom, in God's economy, giving equals growing in Christ.
Forrest: Giving equals growing in our generosity and in our finances.
Forrest: Because stingy people live small lives, but generous people live big stories with God.
Forrest: Get to see him flow through their lives and see him work inside the walls of the church and outside of the walls of the church.
Forrest: Now we'll say this across the room.
Forrest: If there's anybody in here who is not a follower of Jesus, can I tell you that your story here doesn't start with your generosity?
Forrest: It starts with Jesus' generosity to you on the cross.
Forrest: That's where you're at right now.
Forrest: The fact that Jesus generously gave his whole.
Forrest: Whole self to you, not just a portion of himself, not just a little bit of his blood, but he poured out his whole self on the cross in your place to purchase the pathway for you to be forgiven, to be set free, to walk in his blessing from now into heaven, and this overflow that we receive from Jesus in this plenty of grace that we talked about last week, and it leads to a life that is filled with plenty of generosity.
Forrest: Could you imagine, church?
Forrest: Could you imagine if we all live like that little boy with a lunch and not like Philip with a calculator?
Forrest: What if our kids watched us give to the Lord cheerfully and not stressed?
Forrest: And maybe for you, you just you're wondering like what where I would go with this?
Forrest: Like I want for you to start with you are where you are.
Forrest: My wife and I at the beginning of this year, uh, we decided together in prayer that we were going to give 11% this year.
Forrest: And for the beginning year, start giving 11%, giving our tithe, and then over and above it all year long.
Forrest: And it has been super annoying because I have to get my calculator out every time because I can figure out 10% in my head, but 11% I got to get my calculator out and put it every time because like who can do 11% in their head?
Forrest: Like nobody can do that.
Forrest: And then as I'm giving, been giving on the app, I've just tried to just in a cheerful spirit spirit have a smile on my face and and and giving.
Forrest: And for you, just I want you to start where you are.
Forrest: Start at a percentage that feels like faith for you.
Forrest: Start where it feels like faith.
Forrest: And as you do that, you're gonna see what God wants to do in and through you.
Forrest: For you to begin to give, and what you're then gonna see in the bountiful sowing and the bountiful reaping from the Lord, and be walking in the way that Jesus tells us to live our generous life.
Forrest: And this is leading up to us collectively on December the 7th as we're gonna exercise faith together as a church and we're gonna give together.
Forrest: And we're gonna talk next week about the future and what God's doing in and through this house.
Forrest: But as you give and as we collectively give on December the 7th, we're gonna be giving to advance God's kingdom and accelerate what we already are doing and what already what God is doing is so we can go even faster.
Forrest: And if you weren't here last week and didn't get one of these cards, these plenty cards, they'll be at the door as you go out.
Forrest: I'd love for you to grab one if you didn't get one last week on your way out.
Forrest: And what I want to want you to do is to take this home with you and begin to pray about what you are going to give and bring on December the 7th.
Forrest: And there's a place here for your name, and there's a place here that that says that uh I'm giving this amount.
Forrest: That's our year in giving in 2025, which is on December 7th, and then also to admit to give into next year.
Forrest: And I just want you to go home and pray.
Forrest: Pray with your spouse.
Forrest: If you have one, ask the Lord what what is what does faith look like to you?
Forrest: What does generosity look like for you?
Forrest: And we're gonna believe in faith that God's gonna multiply.
Forrest: Because our generous God, that's what he does, that's what he's done this whole time, and he's gonna keep doing that.
Forrest: And for you in the in the house, you may be thinking about stepping into faith and you don't even have faith right now.
Forrest: Can I tell you that Jesus loves you, he died for you, he wants to heal you, forgive you, set you free spiritually.
Sallie: We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message.
Sallie: At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone.
Sallie: If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey.
Sallie: Visit multiplyky.com to let us know.
Sallie: We love you and we'll see you again soon.