Multipliers - Meet God

Man, glad that you're here this morning.

I'm so happy to see you as we jump into this new series, Multipliers, which is really the namesake of our church in a pretty uh uh a pretty special and exciting moment to take a look at what it means and what it is to be a multiplier in the life of not only our church but outside of our church.

And today we jump into the first message today, which is called entitled Just Simply Meet God.

I don't know about you, church, but I already feel like God's met us here today on this snowy Sunday.

I'm thankful that you're here.

If I've not met you yet, my name is Forrest Lee, pastor here at Multiply.

Our church is just two and a half years old, and I'm thankful that we're kicking off this new year together as a church.

And thank you for braving the weather and glad that you're here so that we can meet with God together.

So we can meet with Jesus together.

How in the world did you meet Jesus?

What were the circumstances?

Were you one of the ones that grew up in church every single Sunday?

Every time the doors were open on Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday morning, Sunday night, that was me growing up.

Maybe you got to know Jesus later in life.

Maybe it was a roommate or a friend.

Maybe it was somebody that you knew who introduced you to Jesus.

And it's easy for us to think about being in the South and being in America that just everybody has already met Jesus.

Everybody that knows God, right?

We're in a Christian culture.

And I reflect on how I met Jesus and how I came to know Jesus.

There were seeds that were being planted in my life as a very young child as I was going to church.

And then my church decided that they were going to do this tent revival with this group of men with mullets and windbreaker suits.

Name the power team that came to our church and did feats of strength.

They bent rebar into shapes and they broke bats over their legs and they tore phone books in half and license plates and smashed big blocks of ice.

It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen at church as a kid.

And I remember this this was the 90s, by the way.

And I I remember coming to Christ in that tent revival in the middle of that week with the guys and mullets and leotards, but they shared the gospel clearly, and I got saved at that revival, and also my wife, who we grew up together, she also got saved at that same revival.

And I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for how I met Jesus to understand the gospel, the fact that Jesus loved me so much that he died for me.

And for me to take the step to accept him as savior and Lord of my life, believing in his death, burial, and resurrection, and committing my life to him by confessing my sins and calling out to Jesus to save me as a kid.

Was later baptized.

And I don't know if you got saved when you were a kid too, and maybe you did, maybe you didn't, but I do think that times there are times where we kind of just imagine and think that we're surrounded by this Christian culture.

Maybe we think about being in a Christian culture or a Christian nation or cultural Christianity.

What in the world is cultural Christianity?

Well, kind of at the base level, it's having the customs of Christianity with or without the commitment to Christ.

Richard Dawkins, one of the most famous atheists of our time, wrote The God Delusion and many other books.

He now refers to himself as a cultural Christian because he lives in Europe, because he knows the Christmas carols, because he's around the cathedrals and the churches.

He said he certainly doesn't identify with some other religion, but he's an atheist, though, calling himself a cultural Christian.

What in the world does that mean?

See, are we in the Bible belt?

Are we in the buckle of the Bible belt?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I know this that many of us have been told that we should have a personal relationship with Jesus, and that's all we need.

As long as you have a personal relationship with Jesus, if you go to church on Christmas and Easter, that's all you do.

As long as you have a personal relationship with Jesus, well then you're good.

But also we know that we've also been called that the people that we are in relationship with that they also should personally know Jesus as well.

How in the world are they going to know about him and meet him?

See, for us to be able to meet Jesus, we have to first receive him to meet him.

Have you met him?

Do you know him?

The Bible has a lot to say about what it looks like for us to meet with God and with his people.

And does God really take it serious?

Do you take it serious?

What are the benefits to meeting on Sundays with God's people?

What are the risks if we don't?

I'm so looking forward to sharing these scriptures with you today.

We're going to look at some passages out of Hebrews and some words of Christ, and I'm so excited to share these scriptures with you because I think it's going to be an encouragement to you.

And I think it's going to help to frame the beginnings of 2025 and what it looks like for us as a church and us as believers for us to be multipliers for God.

So are y'all ready for this?

You ready for some scripture today?

Well, I'm excited about these passages.

We're in Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

The writer of Hebrews is writing to Jewish believers, Jewish people who had then become Christians in the early church, and it's giving instruction with the backdrop of everything that they knew about Judaism and all the laws and all the rules that they were following from the Old Testament, and all of a sudden they have a newfound freedom in Christ.

And the author of Hebrews is helping to shape their thinking around what it looks like for the church to expand and to grow and for them to walk with Jesus and to follow him in the first century.

And so we look at Hebrews chapter 10, we start in verse 19.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Y'all ready?

Verse 19, and so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's most holy place because of the blood of Jesus.

We could probably stop there.

We could all just go home.

Verse 20.

By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the most holy place.

Verse 21.

And since we have a great high priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him.

For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean.

And our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Verse 23.

A temple that in 70 AD would be destroyed.

Fulfilling prophecy of what Jesus said that no stone would stay on the other.

But they were used to going to the temple in Jerusalem.

And it was in the temple temple in Jerusalem where there was this place called the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.

And for almost a millennia, almost a thousand years, the Jewish people were used to only the priest being able to go and to have access into this Holy of Holies, this innermost place where God's presence resided.

And the priests would go into the Holy of Holies and would offer sacrifices on behalf of the whole nation.

And they would go to the temple and they would be outside in the outer courts and they would worship, but they wouldn't be able to get into God's presence.

Only the high priests would be able to get into the presence of God.

And then on the cross, as Jesus proclaimed, it is finished.

That curtain in the temple, it tore from top to bottom.

And the presence of God was unleashed.

So that we could go right into the presence of God, is what verse 22 said.

I accepted Christ as a kid, and life began to happen, and high school happened, and I began to kind of sow my wild oats and began partying with friends and athletes and doing the high school party scene.

And I remember being met face to face with my sin and with judgmental attitudes from Christians.

And it was at that point as a junior where I was thinking, you know what, like I just need to probably just get out of all this.

And I remember that my youth pastor met with me, he prayed with me, and he showed me grace.

And he kept me on the right path.

See, if I had just focused on the people around me that had judgmental attitudes and not God's people who love me and encourage me, I don't know where I would be today.

I don't know if I would still be walking with God in the way that it that I have been.

See, maybe you've been there before.

You've been tempted to give up on God's people.

You've been tempted to say, you know what, bump all this church.

But I want to remind us today that Jesus calls his body, the church, his bride.

So we should be very careful and very cautious about how we talk about Jesus' bride.

If you have something to say about my wife, we're gonna have a problem.

We're gonna have some words, okay?

Nobody's perfect.

But I'm gonna come to the defense because I love my wife and Jesus loves his bride.

Not perfect.

But being made perfect through his perfection.

To one day be united with him and glory.

See, you may be at times one time or another to be tempted to just say, you know what, I'm giving up on this church thing.

But be careful.

Because what Jesus is calling us to is for us to be in his presence over and over and over and over and over again.

For us to walk and to get into the presence of God.

And there are times where you might be tempted to give up on the bride of Christ, but as we think about meeting with God, we collectively as a church, we need to make it into God's presence consistently, over and over again.

That's my first point.

Make it into the presence of God over and over and over and over again.

And as the scripture says, and as verse 22 said, that we should come with a sincere heart, fully trusting Him.

Make it into the presence.

Make it into the presence of God.

Because the world wants nothing more than to keep you distracted and to keep you from being in the presence of God.

See, the world doesn't care that Jesus gave us a blood-bought path into his presence.

They want you to give up on Jesus.

Even though he's never given up on you, even though he's never abandoned you.

Don't let the world ruin your pursuit of the presence of God.

The world wants your priorities.

The enemy Satan wants your priorities.

But our priority is for us collectively that we make it into the presence of God, that we pursue the presence of God in 2025.

If you're with me, say I will pursue the presence.

We're going to pursue the presence together.

The presence of God.

I remember when I was a seventh grader and went to church camp for the first time.

We all loaded up in a boat, on a bus, and we went down to uh Panama City, Florida, and we went to big stuff camp.

There were hundreds and hundreds of kids that were there.

And I was in an environment not like not unlike our church, and the music was pumping, and we were singing, and things were kind of different from the church that I grew up in.

We were at church camp and singing was going on, and I remember singing my young heart out to God, and for the first time being filled with the holy presence of the Lord in worship.

It was like what the hymn says that I felt a strange warmth overtake my body.

And as I was singing and worshiping as a middle school student, I kept feeling the power of the presence of God.

From that moment forward, it's something that I wanted to pursue.

To be in the presence of the Almighty King, who for you and for me has torn apart the barrier.

So that we can go right into the presence of God.

I love the end of our year this last year with our Christmas service, and we got to celebrate Alex's baptism and also that last service and Christmas service of the year.

One of our middle school students made the decision to follow Jesus and be baptized.

And I praise God for that.

I praise God for that.

Because there's a response that happens when we enter into the presence of God.

And as we enter into God's presence, it turns our hearts to want that for other people.

And that's what it means to be a multiplier.

That's what a multiplier is.

Look at the next verse, Hebrews 10, verse 24.

Hebrews 10:24

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

Verse 25.

Let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Church, I I can say with confidence that on Sunday mornings, especially as I'm coming early and getting prepared to speak and to share, the first thing that's on my mind on Sundays is not always love.

And I'm going to venture to say that even for some of you who came here today on the snowy Sunday, that maybe like the primary thing that you're thinking about of being here right now, and even your attitude, even as we're talking, as we're sitting here, right, may or may not be an attitude of love.

It may be very grumpy.

Maybe thinking about all the things that are going on outside of here.

Aren't we prone to neglect?

Aren't we prone to ignore when something is something that we don't want to do?

See, as we go right into the presence of God, the writer of Hebrews encourages us that when we meet together in God's presence, that we should let it motivate us to love and to acts of good works together collectively as a church and as believers.

And that we shouldn't neglect meeting together, but instead that we should encourage one another.

And so when you come to meet with God, my second challenge to you and encouragement to you is to make it about more than you.

Make it about more than you.

When you come into God's presence, and as we collectively meet together, make it about more than you.

See, there's an attitude right now about church that church is just a performance.

It's just what's going on on stage.

And if that's the case, then we should all just stay at home in our sweatpants and watch the biggest churches on TV.

Because it's just about what's going on on stage.

That's all that church is.

No, it's not.

That's not what the scripture is teaching us.

That's not what the scripture is telling us right now.

Is that for us that as we show up, just our showing up is serving in the ministry of presence.

When I got into ministry, I learned about the ministry of presence, and I'm thankful that I did because I've sat with some people and some of the darkest moments, their loved ones have taken their own life.

And I've sat with them, and there's no words to say.

And you're in a moment and you're thinking, as a pastor, like I should come up with something to say right now to encourage.

But honestly, there's moments where you just sit there with somebody in a moment of ministry of presence when there's nothing to be said.

And so just you showing up is serving to not only love God, but also to love the people that are sitting right next to you right now.

See, because we're supposed to be showing up for one another, and love shows up.

Everybody say love shows up.

Something that Emily and I have said to each other for years now is love shows up.

See, because the scripture teaches us that there's a lot of different reasons why we show up for one another.

I'm gonna give you a whole laundry list.

You should take a picture of this.

We're supposed to show up to love one another, John 13, 35, to welcome one another, Romans 15, 7, to care for one another, 1 Corinthians 12 25, agree with one another, 2 Corinthians 13 11, bear one another's burdens, Galatians 6 2 says, Forgive one another.

Ephesians 4 32 says, Teach one another, Colossians 3 16, do good to one another, 1 Thessalonians 5 15, confess to one another, James 5 16, and to show hospitality.

To one another, 1 Peter 4, 9.

We're supposed to show up for one another.

For a lot of different reasons.

Almost every Sunday, and especially over the last month.

Someone, at least someone, has been shedding a tear on Sundays.

Talking about what's going on in their life and in prayer together.

I'm not talking about having an emotional response to a story that the preacher says.

I'm talking about on Sunday mornings here, real life.

People who are making about more than just themselves.

People have been shedding a tear and asking for prayer because they've had a relationship that's fallen apart.

Or they're going through a medical issue.

Or life has hit them sideways.

And they're here on a Sunday morning and they're asking and being prayed for.

And I've gotten to witness and see and experience the shedding of tears of people who are in this place loving one another.

And doing what this passage is telling us.

And we have the hope.

Not forgetting the hope that we have.

Or neglecting one another.

But instead showing up for one another.

Do you remember what life was like before you had Jesus?

Some of us don't because, you know, we grew up like born and then went to church.

But there are probably many of us who think about what life was like before Christ.

And just a few verses later, the writer of Hebrews tells us to reflect on it in verse 32.

Think back to those early days when you first learned about Christ.

Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering.

Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten.

Sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things.

Verse 34.

You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail.

And when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy.

And you knew that there were better things.

Everybody say better.

There were better things waiting for you to last forever.

I remember those coloring sheets in Sunday school when I was a kid.

I remember Max Doyle leading me to Christ.

That tent revival.

I remember Bible trivia with Mr.

and Mrs.

Rubel in my Sunday school class as a kid.

I remember Beauty Group.

And I'm I'm tempted to think that I've gotten to this place in my life on my own.

And I know that there's times where you're tempted to think that you can stay faithful to Jesus all on your own.

Without being in his presence with his church every week.

That's not what this church is teaching us today, is it?

Instead it's teaching us and leading us as we meet together in God's presence, that we make a better life for all.

Not just for you, but for somebody else.

Multiplying grace and peace and God's word and God's people together and not just thinking about yourself.

The enemy wants us to just think about ourselves.

What we can get.

What we can get out of a Sunday, what we can get out of life, what we could get out of our relationship with God, instead of thinking about when we first came to Christ and the better things that we now have that are gonna last forever, and the people who don't have it yet.

The people who don't get have it.

Multipliers are mature.

It means having a ministry like Jesus that he came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

If you're a multiplier, that you're someone who is producing good fruit in Christ, and you're someone who is reproducing disciples and good fruit in your life, that is when you are spiritually mature.

When you're multiplying the things of God.

We know it from the scripture.

2 Peter 1, 2 tells us, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

We're the ones who get to get to carry grace and peace and multiply it because we know Jesus and we met him and we're walking with him, and as people walk into this room, we get to be the ones who get to multiply grace.

Not because of anything that we've done, but everything that Jesus has done for us.

The fact that he's the one who in the blood bodh created a way for us to be in his presence and bring other people into his presence as well.

That's what we get to do.

We get to be the ones that multiply grace and peace and his word and his people.

And it's Jesus Himself.

Don't miss this, don't miss this.

It's Jesus Himself who gave us this promise in Matthew 18, 20.

For two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.

Matthew 18.

Jesus is talking about conflict in the church and how it should be handled.

And he gives this statement that we should agree in prayer and receive in prayer what we ask for with other believers, and there are two or three are gathered.

He is there also.

Jesus is with us right now.

He's talking about the context of the church, of the body, getting together, worshiping together, living life together, trying to follow his word together.

And when we're together, Jesus is there too.

When we're in his presence.

A few Sundays ago, I turned the corner here in the building, and I ran into about 20 women huddled in prayer over a pregnant mom who's in our church who's going through a high risk presence, high-risk pregnancy.

And I I walked up to this group of ladies as the last person was saying amen.

And there were tears that were flowing because they were praying ahead of a monumental doctor's appointment that was happening the next day.

And in that moment, I was so proud to be a part of a church who prays for one another.

Who will do battle for a better life for one another?

Who will go to God and will pray.

And the next day was a good report of the doctor.

I want to see even more.

I want to see even more of us being in God's presence, making it into his into God's presence, and at the same time not just making it about ourselves, but those who are next to us and those who are not yet even in this building or in this church or who've gotten to be a part of what we're doing.

Who are you going to be this year?

Who are we as a church going to be in 2025?

Can I tell you what the early church was doing?

This early church, the writer of Hebrews, is writing to.

And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

It what?

It multiplied.

God's people walking in peace that they were multiplying to one another.

And walking in the fear of the Lord, of a holy God who got the holy of holies and tore the curtain in two to give us access into his holy presence every single time that we get together.

When we're together in faith and we're worshiping God and we're singing to him and we're lifting up prayers through song, and we're praying for one another.

And as we're meeting with him, that we're being comforted by the Holy Spirit, and then God's multiplying it.

Not just for us, but for his good and glory.

So, yes, it's okay for me to meet God for me.

But I'm also called to meet God for you.

And you are too.

I praise God for those men with mullets under that tent who shared the gospel in a goofy way because it led me to the way, the truth, and the life, King Jesus.

The people that were around me and serving me and loving me, caring for me, and planting seeds in my heart.

And that's what we're doing collectively.

It's important for you to know, church, is that the leaders that are in a multiply of groups and teams, they they have committed to being in the presence of God and to being in worship 75% of the time.

Three out of four Sundays a month.

They've committed to being in worship in the presence of God so that they can love God but also love you.

And I wonder for everybody who's in the room, what does it look like for you to increase your consistency in worship this year?

Because you're a multiplier.

Can I encourage you to increase your consistency in worship?

What does that look like?

Before COVID, the average church attendance in America was like 1.2 times a month.

Pre-COVID.

So I wonder for you what it looks like for you to increase your consistency in worship.

And when you're here, listen to me, listen to me.

When you're here for those, and I feel like I'm preaching to the crowd right now, you're the ones here on a snowy Sunday.

But when you're here, make it a mission to encourage one another.

See, there may be somebody in the room today that's never met God.

Today's your day to do that.

Because there's better things that will last forever, that are ahead of you, for you to receive.

Would you bow your heads with me now, Father?

As we begin this new year, the fresh season, God, I pray right now over every single person in this place that God, we would, with confidence, that we would walk right into your presence over and over and over and over again this year.

God, that we would receive from you, but that we wouldn't just keep it to ourselves, but God, that we would be the ones that would be the ones that are multiplying for your good and for others' good.

Serving you, serving others.

God, I pray over every single person that's in this room right now, Lord, as we think about this year to come and all the distractions the enemy wants to tear us away, get us distracted and focused on other priorities.

God, I pray, God, that this year, Lord, that there would just be an increase of your presence in our homes, our workplaces, in our hearts, but especially here in worship in this place.

So, Father, we ask that, God, that you would do it.

Father, I pray across this room right now, if there's anybody in this room who's not met you, that's not received you as Savior, death, burial, and resurrection on the cross.

God, they're not waiting on you.

You're waiting on them.

So, Father, I ask today, God, that you would right now, Father, that you would invade their heart and their mind.

Father, open up their heart to you, God, that they would receive you as Savior, that they would pray, Jesus, save me.

Forgive me, cleanse me, wash me as white as snow.

I believe that you died on the cross.

I believe that you're the Son of God, and that you're alive.

Forgive me.

I give my life to you.

You gave your life from honor.

I want to be in your presence now into eternity.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

If you're in the room today and you prayed, receive Jesus as your Savior, as a sign towards heaven, and as a sign to God, I'm gonna count to three, and I want you to raise your hand so I can pray for you, so I can acknowledge you.

If you're here today and you receive Christ as your Savior to forgive you, set you free.

The count of three, ready.

One, two, three, raise that hand up.

Father, I pray, God, for our church that we would be people so that your presence would invade this place and the hearts and lives of many, many more this year to come to know you as Savior.

We ask this in the strong name of Jesus.

Everybody said, Amen.

Church, will you stand to your feet right now as we worship God, as we ask for his presence.