Bricklayers (Week 2)

Amen.

Well, good morning.

My name is Forrest, Lee Pastor here at Multiply.

If I've not met you before, welcome.

Glad that you're here.

Would love to connect with you out at the guest services table at the end of our service.

But grateful that you're here.

If we've not met my family, along with lots of other families, now gaining on almost two years ago, a little bit uh over a year and a half ago, uh, did the work and beginnings of Multiply Church.

And so glad that you're here and glad you're a part of what we're doing.

Uh, I'd love to hear a shout out from the crazy people in the room who already have their Christmas tree set up in their home.

Woo, man, bum bug.

There's always some of y'all, as soon as that clock hit midnight on November the 1st, it was deck the halls, right?

Getting out there.

Uh now it's this is uh a big thing for me because um uh team Christmas versus team Thanksgiving.

I'm definitely Team Thanksgiving, okay?

That's right.

Yeah, there's not many of us.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

There's not many of us.

But Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because there's food, family, and football.

And I just have I just love Thanksgiving.

And so um up until after Thanksgiving, I'm pretty much a Scrooge.

But but you Christmas people are you're you're chipping away at me because this week, just last night, I turned on some Christmas music in our house.

So it's I'm getting chipped away at.

So, but um one of the things that I really love about Thanksgiving is literally it's a it's a time to be grateful.

It's a time to think about all the things that we've been blessed with and to think about the people in our lives and the circumstances, and to reflect on the last year, and to truly be grateful.

And I'm excited for that coming up this week.

I'm also excited about the UK U of L football game that's coming up.

So I I'm excited for this week to come, but in particular, as I think about for all of us as we go into this time of Thanksgiving, sometimes Thanksgiving can be about everything except for being thankful, right?

Where are we gonna travel to?

Who's gonna bring the dishes, who are not gonna bring the dishes, or that crazy uncle that I have to see once a year, and what's he gonna say, and what's gonna be brought up at the table, or maybe there's someone that's missing from the table that wasn't there last year, all the dynamics that are going into this week and into Thanksgiving, and in the midst of all that, sometimes we can lose the gratitude.

See, I think that there's definitely a ploy from the enemy, from Satan that we would take things for granted.

See, it's Satan who wants us to be ungrateful, to be stingy, to be focused on ourselves versus being others focused like Jesus was.

For us to all the ways that we've been blessed, instead of us being in a place of gratefulness for the blessing, but instead instead be taking the great things around us for granted.

Now, today's message, and we're jumping into week two of Bricklayers.

Last week got kicked off our friend Dustin.

And as we uh head into today, I I'm just gonna be honest with you.

I think I might be trying to do too much with this message.

I'm trying to do a lot with this message today, but it may be too much.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And I think about for us as we are people and want to be people that are not in the mindset of what our enemy wants to be and taking things for granted, but instead for us to be people who are walking in faithfulness to God, not ignoring his role in our lives and the way that we've been blessed, thinking that it's all uh all on ourselves, and that really that we would have that relationship with God, that being with him and walking with him and having gratitude would just be very ordinary.

See, sometimes we think about somebody who's particularly grateful that that's some extraordinary uh characteristic.

But really, we need to, like the scripture tells us over and over and over again, for us to have a heart of thanksgiving and praise.

See, even walking in the room today and the songs that we just sang, it weren't just so for all of us to hear our own voices or not want to hear our own voices, but instead for us to give thanksgiving to God and worship Him above any other name.

That's why we do that.

That's why we sing these songs that are filled with words about the cross and about Jesus, and so that we take time during our week for us to worship God and not worship ourselves.

And today we're gonna look at somebody in the scripture who was a very ordinary person.

A very ordinary person who made an extraordinary impact.

And it's this the story of the life of the man Nehemiah and his role in the kingdom of God.

Nehemiah's quickly becoming one of my favorite stories in all of the scripture, and we're gonna learn from his life and we're gonna learn lessons and his leadership over the coming weeks.

But the big thing is that he's just an ordinary person.

He wasn't a governor, he wasn't a priest, he wasn't a prophet, he wasn't uh this person that was of high esteem.

Actually, we're gonna see it was quite the opposite.

But he was very ordinary, but even though he was ordinary, he made an extraordinary impact.

See, what I think is that even people who make an extraordinary impact, it may not be just because they have this overwhelming talent or ability.

I think about Teddy Roosevelt, president from long ago, accomplished some amazing things.

Most of the national parks in our country, the antitrust, a big business.

But this was said of uh of uh Teddy Roosevelt, an admirer said to Teddy Roosevelt one time, Mr.

Roosevelt, you are a great man.

And in characteristic honesty, he replied, No, Teddy Roosevelt, speaking in third person, I love that.

No, Teddy Roosevelt is simply a plain, ordinary man highly motivated.

See, that's who Nehemiah was.

Nehemiah was an ordinary person who was highly motivated for God's kingdom.

And I wonder today how many people in the room are ordinary, regular folks, who could have an extraordinary impact if they were motivated for the kingdom of God.

See, it was Jesus who said that we should seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.

Seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you.

Maybe you've come into the room today, and all the things that are on you right now are not going the right direction.

All the things that are happening around you just feel like this is this is just, I know that something is off, and I wonder if it's because the first part of Jesus' command to us there that we should seek first his kingdom, not our own.

And we align ourselves and when we move ourselves to be in alignment with him to seek Jesus, to seek his kingdom first, then the things are added on to us that it's in the right order.

See, let me set the stage here for Nehemiah.

The people of God have established Israel.

There's been prophets, there's been kings, the temple has been built, but sin has entered into Israel, and judgment has come upon them, and they have in strife had a civil war that has split the kingdom in two, the northern ten tribes into Israel, the southern two into Judah, and the pl the the kingdom of God is in disarray.

And it continues like that for some time until the Babylonians to the north that were much stronger, God allowed them to come and to and to take over, to take captive the people of Israel and of Judah, and to take them in slays and take them back to Babylon with them.

This is what's called the Babylonian captivity.

In 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar brought the armies back and demolished and destroyed Jerusalem, the temple, the walls of Jerusalem, decimated.

For a hundred and forty years, Jerusalem lay waste.

And in the book of Ezra, right before the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament, eventually, as the Babylonian captivity continued, that there was a release, sometimes called as the second Exodus, that people, the Jews that were in Babylon, they were able to return back to their land in Israel and begin to build back.

And the book of Ezra is all about the people of God rebuilding the temple for the first time in a long time.

But in that return, Nehemiah was still stuck back in Babylon.

Like I said, he was just an ordinary guy.

He wasn't some prominent person, wasn't a king, wasn't a prophet, wasn't a priest.

Instead, he was uh had a kind of a strange position in the Babylonian kingdom.

He was what was called a cupbearer.

Now, what basically a cupbearer was is that he was the guy that whatever cup was going to be presented to the king in the king's court, he was the guy who drank some of what was ever in the cup just to make sure that it wasn't poisoned, and then it was given to the king.

So literally, he was completely expendable.

He was the guy that literally they were like, hey, we don't want the king to die, but this guy, it's all right if he if we don't see him ever again.

Just give him to him first, let him test it out.

And so Nehemiah was in this position for some time, and even though this was an ordinary position, and and even to the place where literally he would have a replacement who was ready to uh step right in as soon as uh he drank a little bit of that poison and was gone.

But there was for that cupbearer, there was a strange and interesting and also a trusting relationship between the king and the cupbearer.

So even though Nehemiah was this regular everyday guy, God had put him in a very interesting position of influence, and ultimately we're gonna see of impact.

Some of Nehemiah's relatives had returned to Israel, returned to this place of the people of God, but he was again stepped back.

But he had a conversation with some of his family members about how things were going there in the in Israel in Jerusalem.

In the first chapter of Nehemiah, verse 2.

Hanani, who was one of his relatives, this is in first person from Nehemiah.

Uh Hananai, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah.

I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity, and about how things were going in Jerusalem.

And they said to me, Things are not going well for those who returned to the providence of Judah.

They are in great trouble and disgrace.

The walls of Jerusalem have been torn down, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.

When I heard this, I sat down and wept.

In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

Then I said, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps this covenant of unfailing love to those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer.

Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel.

I confess that I have sinned against you.

Yes, even my own family have sinned.

So, Nehemiah, who's stuck still in captivity, is waiting to hear some good news from his relatives about what's going on back home.

And he asked them, How are things going back in Israel?

How's it going?

And his family members give him bad news.

They say, Things are not well.

The temple's built back, but the walls are still ruined, have been destroyed by fire.

The place is still in disgrace and open to attack from the enemies.

And when he heard that, it absolutely broke his heart.

It broke his heart so much that he heard that news and immediately went to God.

The heartbreak that he felt for Israel and for God's people and for the temple and for the walls of Jerusalem, this place that he had been from, his heart breaks and immediately pushes him into prayer, fasting, and asking the Lord for help.

We know from this passage that it says that I prayed for days and nights.

He actually prayed for four months.

For four months he prayed to the Lord.

Heartbroken.

Wanting to see God to restore his homeland.

And I wonder for us today.

What's going on in your heart and mine?

Because something that I believe that we need to have is holy heartbreak.

What is it that breaks your heart that's going on?

What is unwell in our community that actually breaks your heart?

Is it what's happening with women and children?

Is it the drug drugs and what's going on with that?

What is it in our community that is breaking your heart?

And I wonder today if there's nothing that's breaking your heart outside of your own life, are you truly seeking the kingdom of God or your own?

See, we should have a holy heartbreak because the things of God that we should be looking through his eyes and the things that break his heart or the things that should break our heart, that we would want to see redemption and restoration in our families here in our community, the people that we know, our schools and children, and what are the things that are happening that break us?

You ever uh heard the statement you don't appreciate things until they're gone?

You ever heard that?

I think it's kind of true, don't you?

We don't have to be that way, though.

You know one thing that we didn't appreciate or are now appreciate more after it's gone?

Blockbuster.

Uh everybody in the room, are we from the air?

Everybody in the room went to Blockbuster at some point or another.

Hopefully somebody went there at some point or another.

Because we used to have to go on Friday night and had to get in the car and drive to this place called Blockbuster that smelled of stale popcorn and the rows that were filled with all the movies, and it was like a treasure hunt every time because you wanted to go see this is the movie I want to see, and you move the front box right to see if the one was, if it the real movie was behind it.

Y'all know what I'm talking about?

And sometimes it wasn't, sometimes it wasn't.

You didn't make it in time.

There was no streaming, there was no buying off Amazon Prime.

There was no, there was no video, there was no streaming at that point.

Literally, you had to go to Blockbuster.

You had to show up.

Uh now you all know that Blockbuster is gone.

And we know that's for a good reason a reason that they just dissipated into irrelevance, but there was something about Friday night.

See, for my family, we go, we would do Friday night movie night, and we would get Papa John's pizza.

And it was just a whole experience.

And we we we now will never have that experience again, will we?

It's just not there anymore.

And I think about for us that we don't have to be people that only appreciate things when they're gone.

But instead for us to have a heart, for us to have a posture of gratitude that overflows out of us, that we're actually thankful for the things that are around us right now, even things that one day may be gone.

See, that's in a lot of ways for us as we end 2023 and we head into 2024.

I'm believing that God's going to do powerful things among us.

In the weeks to come, as we get uh in in plans and excited into what is in the future, I don't want us to be in a place where we're ungrateful, but instead in thanksgiving.

Nehemiah, he prays for four months and he's asking the Lord to guide him.

He's asking the Lord to help him.

What should I do, Lord?

How do I help my people?

How do I see Jerusalem restored?

And the Lord opens a door.

Nehemiah 2.

Early the following spring in the month of Nisan, during the twelfth year of King Artaxerxes' reign, I was serving the king as wine.

I had never before appeared sad in his presence.

Now, why is that?

That's because when you're in the royal court, you do not want to be the one who gives bad news to the king, okay?

Uh, don't kill the messenger.

Anybody heard that?

For good reason.

Because if you bring bad news to the king, you may be gone along with that bad news right after you share it.

So Nehemiah, he's never been sad in the presence of the king.

He's only ever given good news.

So the king asked me, Why are you looking so sad?

You don't look sick to me.

You must be deeply troubled.

Then I was terrified, what Nehemiah said, because he was about to say some not good news.

But I replied, Long live the king! How can I not be sad?

For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and the gates that have been destroyed by and the gates have been destroyed by fire.

The king asked, look at this, well, how can I help you?

With a prayer to the God of heaven.

Don't look over that.

Before he spoke, he prayed.

Twelve times in the book of Nehemiah, we see that he prays and asks the Lord for help.

With a prayer to the God of heaven, I replied, If it please the king, and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.

Nehemiah steps up, he speaks up.

After being on his knees in prayer, he rises to take action.

And when the moment comes for him to ask for help to the king, he takes it.

Because he had things to do.

Church, we have things to do.

I I'm so excited about what happened this last week and the the launching of Frankfurt Ford initiative and the hundreds of snacks that we got to supply to the academy.

They're gonna love it.

They were so thankful.

They were so grateful.

You know what was really cool from that church?

I can't believe this.

We gotta kind of keep it quiet.

But when we were they received those uh snacks last week, they were so grateful.

They said, Hey, would you all come back and share with our students what you guys are doing in the community?

The first time that we served them, they said, Hey, would you come back?

Would you come back and share?

How powerful is that?

We have things to do at church.

See.

You all know that I love Jesus and I love our the local church.

Uh last month marked 15 years of local church ministry of uh in my life and and and dedicating uh my life and time to the local church and to God's ministry.

But can I tell you something, church?

I'm also concerned for the local church because I think that in the next 20 years, we're gonna see a lot of churches have their blockbuster moment.

And they're gonna disappear forever.

See, I love God's church.

You know, my heart is I want us to be uh if if if a church in this community is preaching Jesus Christ, we are brothers and sisters, is what the scripture says.

So we want to be a blessing.

But I'm concerned for the local church, not just in our town, but in towns across our nation, that in the next 20 years that there's gonna be many that close their doors.

And that we have a mandate and a call as a church that we would stay culturally relevant and biblically sound.

Don't miss that.

We need to stay culturally relevant and biblically sound.

And when we do those things, for us as a church, we're carrying the kingdom of God on into the future.

Now, for those churches that have are gonna have their blockbuster moment, I'm not angry with them, I'm not upset with them.

Sometimes churches that they they live their life cycle.

But I know this, church, and I know you believe it too.

We got things to do.

We have things to do, we have people to reach, we have the kingdom of God to continue to build.

Nehemiah looks at the king and he says, King, how can I not be heartbroken?

How can I not be sad?

Because my homeland is in ruin.

I want to go and to rebuild it.

And the king looks back at him and says, How can I help you?

And essentially that's what the the king did.

The king in the next few verses, Nehemiah, he asked Nehemiah, what do you need?

He tells him, I need protection.

Would you send uh protection with me from Babylon down to protect us as we're trying to rebuild?

And he says, Yes.

Nehemiah gives a plan and says, Hey, well, you asked these neighboring kings if they would supply the materials to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and he says, Yes.

Nehemiah's asked to the king that he thought it might kill him, he asked for protection and provision, and he granted it.

Almost like he had God on his side.

And she's just crying out to the Lord.

And she's in an apartment where, you know, the some of these apartments, the walls can be paper thin, and she's crying out to the Lord, and her next door neighbor is an atheist.

And is hearing her cry out to the Lord is thinking, How silly is this woman?

For crying out to an imaginary God for help and food.

He's like, you know what?

I I you know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna show her.

So he goes out to the grocery store, he buys her groceries, he brings them back to the apartment, and he he puts them on the stoop of her house.

He's waiting.

Does a little knock on the door and he's hiding.

She opens up the door, she says, Praise the Lord! Thank you so much, God.

Thank you, Jesus, for providing these groceries.

I knew that you would do it.

And then he popped them out and he said, See, you're wrong.

You didn't, it wasn't God who provided these groceries, it was me.

There is no God.

She said, Lord, thank you for providing these groceries and making the devil pay for it.

Nehemiah asked the king of a country who had destroyed his city if he could rebuild it, and he said yes.

Because he had God at his front and his back.

A few verses later, Nehemiah speaking to the people in Judah, the people in Jerusalem about rebuilding the wall.

And in verse 17, he tells them, but now I said to them, You know very well what trouble we are in.

Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.

Let us build the wall of Jerusalem and end this disgrace.

Then I told them about how the gracious hand of God had been on me and about my conversation with the king.

They replied at once, yes, let's rebuild the wall.

So they began with a good work.

Church, we have to build back what's been broken.

We have to build back what's been broken.

See, because there's lots of things that have been broken here in this world because of the scourge of sin.

Relationship with God has been broken with those who do not believe.

Believers in Jesus.

Sometimes have has some of them have their their faith is just so low that they need their faith to be restored.

That God is with them.

How about the fact that there's been broken trust with the local church?

And that we can be a part of building back what's been broken.

As we say, hey, we're not just gonna be here for ourselves, we're gonna be here because we want to love Jesus and love you well.

Copy his hands and feet.

And so what it's what's that gonna look like for us over the next few weeks?

Well, as we're in this series, bricklayers, it's leading up to on December the third when we as a church collectively get to give a year-end offering to the Lord.

And we've done this now for a couple of years.

And we've taken that offering and a portion of it or has has gone for us to to do things specifically in the community.

And I'm thankful because of your faithfulness to the Lord and obedience in the last couple of years.

We as a church collectively, this new church plant has been able to invest over a hundred thousand dollars into our local community in the last couple of years.

Let me say that again.

This new young church plant has been able to invest over a hundred thousand dollars here in our local community through different nonprofits, specifically with those that are helping women and children for the last couple of years.

And leading up to the next few weeks up into December 3rd, what is it we're gonna do?

Well, one thing we're gonna do that we did we've done years previously is that we're going to come alongside and sponsor Christmas for a number of children and families who are impacted by incarceration through uh through Christmas joy.

We've done this the last couple of years.

We're gonna do this again, more information to come.

But just this alone, this this initiative alone is uh uh over$5,000 just for this portion of it.

And there'll be more details about how we're gonna do that.

And we'll do that through our small groups and through Sundays.

You can sign up to be a part of it.

And I'm excited for us to be a blessing to these families and specifically these children who are in very difficult positions.

Obviously, you guys know too that what we're giving to here in a few weeks is gonna go to the work and to the completion of our new space, a new building that's going to come.

And I'm grateful for how much you all have already how much has already been done.

And as we uh close out this year, we want to finish strong.

Because, you know, we're we're just in the a short time away for us being able to move into that new space.

And not it's not only us who the Lord has brought a provision for us to be able to be into a permanent space, but also one of our partners that we've served several times, Avenues for Women Clinic.

Avenues for Women Clinic, who help uh women uh that in our community that is our crisis pregnancy center.

They actually have had a piece of land donated to them that's right next to the hospital.

And they right now are praying for provision so that they can build a clinic of their own there on that land that's been donated.

And so I would love for us as a church to be able to give and to give to them as they are taking a step of getting into a permanent location.

Because they're stepping out in faith, we've stepped out in faith, and we want to continue to be a blessing.

How much is that gonna be?

I I don't know.

The first year that we did our year-end offering, we were able to give$10,000 to Avenues Clinic.

Wouldn't it be awesome?

What if we could give more than that?

So as I think about what is coming on December the 3rd, I'm truly thankful already for the work that God's already done.

See, here's what's amazing that just by you being here right now, you are a part of the foundations of what God is doing here and through the life of our church.

You know, we move in this permanent space, there are gonna be brand new people who come.

And every single one of us who are in the room right now, we have a little bit of a head start.

A little bit of a head start of seeking first the kingdom, a little bit of a head start about what it means to be a part of the local church and to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

We got a little bit of a head start of going after the Lord for those that are gonna come and setting a foundation, a foundation on Christ, a foundation on Jesus and Him alone.

And I'm truly grateful.

And out of that that gratitude, when we're grateful and we're not taking things for granted, we're not waiting to appreciate appreciate things until they're gone, when we have a spirit of gratitude, out of that spirit of gratitude flows generosity out of the recognition of what God has given us, we then in turn want to see that blessing.

Go forward.

You know, the enemy wants to keep us in a place of not having that gratitude.

And there's negative effects.

When we're ungrateful, we're ungratified.

This week for Thanksgiving, I don't know about you, but I'm gonna eat a couple plates.

I'm gonna be full.

And I'm gonna be satisfied.

When we're uh we're in a place where we're ungrateful, it doesn't matter what in the world, it doesn't matter what is coming your way, it doesn't matter what people say to you.

If you're in a state of being ungrateful, you're gonna be in a in a mindset of not being gratified in your life.

In the people that are around you, what God's given you, but instead it'd be a place of thankfulness.

I was reflecting even just this year, this uh this week on the last year and all that God has done.

And also recognizing the fact that this week is the anniversary week of Emily and I and Ember moving to Kentucky three years ago for the beginnings of Multiply, November of 2020.

I remember driving up from Charleston, we sold our house in Charleston.

That's the day we moved, had no idea what we were doing.

Sold the house.

We got up to Kentucky into 2020.

It was so cold.

It was so cold.

All the restaurants were shut down in the state.

Everything was shut down.

I came rolling up the road and we drove from the morning and we started, you know, in pretty good temperatures there in Charleston.

As we got there that evening and it got dark, um, the camera I was driving at that time, it didn't have heat.

And so I started, uh, I had the dog in the back, and the car was filled up with all stuff, and Emily's car, and we had the U-Haul, and I started seeing my breath as I was driving.

I'm like, this is not gonna work.

This is not gonna work.

It was cold, it was cold.

And I reflect and think about the fact that as we were packing up to leave, Liberty O'Neill, who was in Charleston at the time from Anderson County, part of our church there.

Liberty, who we had said, hey, we're heading to Frankfurt, we're gonna plant your hometown.

And she said, Good luck.

I said, appreciate that.

And then a few weeks later, as we were packing up the boxes, she looked at Emily and I she said, I'm coming with.

And so Liberty her faith, the first person to join the team packed up her stuff and moved.

The beginnings of multiply.

There there's multiply church right then.

There we are.

And I'm thankful for those moments, and I'm thankful for what the Lord did, and I'm thankful for the faith of Liberty, and I want to take a second to honor her.

Will you stand up so we can honor you and clap for you right now on your faith?

Liberty was the first to join the team this morning.

Patience, who's a young lady in our church, is serving in kids and volunteering in kids for the very first time.

And just as important as Liberty saying yes as a first person is Patience who's over there loving my kids right now.

Because we're building a foundation church.

We're building a foundation.

Whether this is your you've been here many, many Sundays, whether this is your first Sunday with us, I want us to build a foundation on Christ.

And do it together.

See, because it was Jesus who said in in Luke 12, for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.

And it was Jesus on the cross who built back what was broken.

Our relationship with God that was broken, torn apart because of sin.

Jesus, death on the cross, built a bridge back to God, that we could be in right relationship with Him, that we could have our sins forgiven, that we wouldn't have to be separated from God anymore, but instead we could walk in power with the Holy Spirit that God granted to us and purchased for us on the cross.

And we think about restoration and building and building back what's broken.

Jesus is the ultimate one who's built back what's broken.

And we get to join him in that ministry of building what was broken so that we can see the power of God, life, and love, and goodness, and faithfulness that starts today, starts right now, starts on this side of heaven.

That Jesus prayed over us on earth as it is in heaven.

That today we could build the kingdom of God here, that one day when we cross the plane in death into eternity, that we're stepping from the kingdom of God here into eternity, the kingdom of God with Him.

This isn't just this far-off, this far-off thing that the kingdom of God is just heaven that we're gonna get to someday.

No, the kingdom of God is here and now for those who believe and are doing the work, the good work of restoration, of building back.

The walls of Jerusalem have been torn down, burned, and destroyed for almost a hundred and fifty years.

And you know what we're gonna see?

Next week.

After almost a hundred and fifty years, they were rebuilt in 52 days.

They were rebuilt in 52 days.

Do you have many days there are between now and the end of the year?

52.

No, I'm just joking.

Yeah, it's 43, 44.

But I wonder, Church, what is it that we can build in that time?

What is it that we can build in that time?

See, when you head out of the room today, you're gonna get a card.

It's gonna say bricklayers on one side, and the other side, it's gonna have a place for your information, a place for you to begin to pray about what it looks like for us collectively as a church to give to the Lord on December the 3rd.

And what we're gonna do that Sunday is that for us as we give together, we're gonna have stations around the room, and and and each of us are gonna have the opportunity to go and to give above and beyond to the Lord and give an offering so that we can be a blessing to our community, so we can step into the next season of good work at our church.

And there's a place for uh you to write down, hey, I'm I'm committing to begin to give, to begin to tithe, I'm this is how much planning to give, and and I'd love for each person, each family to get one of these cards as they head out.

And if you're already thinking about what that might look like, that is probably not it.

You need to take some time and to talk to the Lord and wrestle with the Lord about what it looks like for you to give above and beyond.

Can I tell you this, church?

And I'm gonna speak because Emily and I, we've done this now years and years and years in ministry as we come up to a time of generosity at the end of the year and giving.

It's always us, you know, asking the Lord and kind of fight with him and then fighting with each other.

What are we gonna give?

And um, this year, church, we're gonna be giving out of our savings.

There's not extra this year for us.

So we're gonna have to figure out, okay, what does that look like?

Are we asking you to give all your savings?

No, we're not asking you to do that.

But we are asking you to begin to think about okay, what does it look like, Lord, for me to be obedient and to step into a grateful heart and a generous heart to be used by the Lord?

So, what are we gonna build?

What are we gonna build?

You may be here today, you're thinking, oh man, it's my first time in church, they're talking about money, I knew it.

I knew it was gonna come, they're talking about money.

Can I tell you that we're we're not really talking about money, we're talking about faith.

We're not really talking about money, we're talking about restoration.

You know what I know?

It would be really exciting for me to see.

Not of you know how much so-and-so gives, but what I'm excited about is that on December the third, I hope that some of you for the first time are gonna take the step to have the faith to trust the Lord with your finances and give for the first time ever to a local church.

I'm excited for that.

I think, wow, God, look at look at the faith this person stepping out and what's gonna happen in return.

We know what happened in return.

We'll talk more about it in the weeks to come.

But I want us to think about the 44, 43 days we have left in this year.

What can God do?

What can he do?

What can he do through us?

He's just waiting for somebody to ask him to do big things.

He's just waiting on somebody to seek first the kingdom so that he can add all the things unto you.

Let me pray over you.

Father, all across this room, Lord.

There are people just like me, ordinary, regular people, but God that you can do extraordinary things through.

And serve you first, and give you our heart and give you our life first.

Run after you first.

Submit everything in our life to you first, God.

What could happen?

What would you do, Lord?

What could you do?

Father, we know this.

We know, Lord, that you want so much.

You want so much to save marriages from divorce, to have people receive you as Savior, to step into eternity in heaven.

And God, that you won't want to do that in some distant time, but God, you want to do that through us now.

And so, all across the room right now, Father, if there's anybody in this place that has not received you, Christ, and your restoration of what is broken on the cross.

Jesus died in your place.

And you've not asked Jesus for that forgiveness that he purchased for you on the cross, today would be the day that you ask for it, you receive it, and in doing so, you're sealed and saved and heading to heaven with him if you receive Jesus as your Savior.

Saying no to every other thought or philosophy or false God, but say yes to Jesus, the one true God, the Son, risen, walking with us.

And so today, if there's anybody in the room that you've not received Jesus as your Savior, you never asked for his forgiveness.

Today would be the day that you do that.

And you do that by just praying a genuine prayer to Him.

Praying from your heart and mind, Jesus, save me.

I believe that you died on the cross for my sins.

And I believe that you're the Son of God.

Forgive me, cleanse me, build back what is broken so that I can be in right relationship with you.

Thank you for saving me.

I give you my life as you gave yours for mine.

In the strong name of Jesus.

Nobody looking around in the room today, if you prayed that to receive Christ as your Savior and to ask for forgiveness and to be forgiven today.

If that's you, I want to be able to lock eyes with you and I want to be able to not embarrass you but encourage you.

And so if that's you today, on the count of three, I want you to just raise your hand so that I can pray for you and so I can see you.

One, two, three.

Anybody in the room?

Yep.

Yep, I see you.

I see you.

Father, right now, Lord, for those who just raise their hand, Father, they're not raising that to me or instead, God, they're they're making that proclamation to you, Jesus.

Receiving you as their Savior, being forgiven of their sins.

And in doing so, that forgiveness, God, Lord, that that would transform into them being sealed and bought with a price.

That their last breath on earth would be the first breath in heaven.

And that you would build your kingdom of love and of power in their life.

From this day forward.

We thank you.

We praise you.

In the strong name of Jesus.

Everybody said, Amen.