The Best (Week 7)

A little bit of a special day today, but before I get into that.

I've told y'all before um growing up when I was in uh high school uh from a 1977 F-100 custom truck.

I I went to high school in the early 2000s, so the truck was way older than me.

No power steering, no power brakes.

And um anybody in here ever run out of gas before?

Well, there was a lot of stuff broken on that truck.

One of the things broken was the gas gauge.

So you're always kind of guessing.

I was always kind of guessing, you know, where I was at is trying to just kind of keep it filled up as much as I can.

Anybody not ever run out of gas before?

These newfangled cars that we have?

Anybody have not?

Anybody not?

There's a handful that never done it before.

It's it's a terrible experience.

It's a terrible experience.

Uh uh I'm I'm gonna tell on my wife a little bit here.

Um she she may be like one of you, you all that when the uh when the car hits zero, you're like, there's still 20 more miles.

There's still 20 more miles of gas in the tank.

Even when it hits zero, there's still 20 more.

Like, who knows if it's actually 20 or 10 or I mean, you know, y'all are testing that theory out.

Living on the edge.

Living on the edge.

I had this old truck.

Emily had this car called a Daywoo, an import.

Daywoo.

I don't even know that they make them anymore.

Maybe y'all, maybe we y'all got one, but I was saying we we called it the boohoo instead of the the day woo.

Because that thing was always getting messed up and uh empty on the gas tank a time or two.

I remember I I I ran out of gas one time in the truck, and I was in the middle of town in Shelbyville, where I grew up, right in front of Dairy Queen, in front of God and everybody.

In front of the queen and everybody.

So embarrassing.

I'm just sitting in the middle of the median.

I'm in the green machine, my old truck.

I had to call a friend to come bring me a gas can.

People just zoom in by me.

I'm like, this is so embarrassing.

This is so embarrassing.

You know, uh, this is the first week of February.

You know, this is kind of statistically the week of the year where people give up on their New Year's resolutions.

The diet kind of goes out the window, the gym is a little bit less crowded than it was the first week of January.

People uh start running out of gas.

Low on gas in the tank.

You know, people talk about there's this word, it's very popular right now.

Burnout.

I'm just burned out.

I'm burned out on this same type of food.

I'm burned out at my job, I'm burned out at what fill in the blank, it's one of these words that people are just throwing around now to say, like, you know, man, I just feel burned out.

But you know what?

Someone taught me this a few years ago.

That burnout has a lot less to do with the heat and the heat being turned up, and more to do with the lack of fuel.

You know, the candle doesn't go out until the wick is gone.

The candle doesn't go out until the oil is out of the lamp.

The stove doesn't turn off until the gas is gone.

Burnout, it's normally not a heat problem that there's too much heat in the kitchen, so to speak.

You got pressures, you've got things coming from every angle.

It's where's your fuel coming from?

Where is your fuel?

How is your tank being filled up?

And for us who are followers of Jesus and believers of Jesus, we have an endless resource of energy, of love, of fuel from our Heavenly Father.

Who's just waiting for us to tap into Him, to have His power and His fuel for us to move forward.

What we're doing this Sunday is we're kind of going back to for this week, back to the end of the year with the best.

Man, God worked powerfully the end of 2022 in the life of our church.

As we had this series called The Best, as we were talking about what it looks like for us to walk out in generosity that led up to us having a Sunday where we gave specifically to the Lord for us to see God work powerfully in our community, for us to be able to sponsor and provide Christmas for 54 children, families who are impacted by incarceration here in our town.

That was such a blessing to get to see.

Y'all providing those gifts and being such a blessing.

Amy Snow, who's the director of Juana Joyce Robinson Foundation, has told me time and time again how grateful she is for our church and the fuel it's providing for her.

And the work and the mission that they're doing.

And for us to invest in the future home of Multiply Church right down the road in the old save a lot.

But before I get way too ahead of myself, I want us to kind of think back to that and we'll we'll celebrate through that.

But before we do, I I want to share with you a passage of scripture, and this is from Jesus.

This is a parable from Jesus.

And a parable is a short story, a small story with a big truth.

And Jesus, in this parable that we're going to look at and that we're going to see, it really comes down to for us and what we're doing, and very applicable to where we are right now, the first week of February, and what are we doing with the resources, with the energy, with the income, with the relationships that God has so richly blessed us with?

Are we tricking ourselves into thinking that we're out of gas?

Are we running on E or are we tapped in to the Lord?

And are we seeing the things of God multiply in our life and move out?

I mean, I just say this.

You may be in the room today, and you you barely made it in today.

Kids are going crazy.

Life is hitting you in the face.

Hard times.

You're in the midst of it.

Here's the thing.

We're at the place now in our church that at any given time there's somebody in our church who is going through something very challenging.

Very challenging.

Just last night, Douglas and Cheyenne Bowman, who come to our church, they had to rush their three-rook-old baby, Georgia, to the hospital last night because their heart rate went through the roof.

They shocked her heart rate to get back in order, and she reached out this morning for prayer.

We're going to be praying for them.

Everything looks well right now, but what I'm saying is at any given moment, there's somebody in our church, somebody that we know that's going through a difficult time.

And when it feels like we're on E, are we actually on E?

Or are we just not necessarily walking in the blessing, the resources, the giftings that God's given to us and provided for us and wants us to walk in for us to be able to bring our best.

Jesus in Matthew 25, he starts by telling this parable about ten brides.

And these ten brides are waiting on the bridegroom, and again, this is a story, and and and they all have oil for their lamps, but only five of them had enough oil for their lamps to wait on the bride for their groom to actually come, and five of them ran out of oil, and Jesus is giving a picture of the kingdom of heaven, and he's saying, Are you waiting prepared?

Are you waiting prepared?

And then he moves into this parable that we're gonna look at today about three servants.

And these three servants and the opportunity that was placed in their hands and what they did with it.

I'm excited to share this parable with you because I know for some of y'all, this will be the first time that you've seen this parable or read through it.

For others, you've seen it a million times maybe.

But Jesus is gonna tell this story about three servants, and it has to do with money, but it doesn't actually have to do with money.

Again, this is a story, there's a principle here.

It doesn't just apply to finances.

So let's dig into it.

Matthew 25, starting in verse 14.

Again, the kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip.

He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone.

He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last, dividing it in the portions to their what?

Abilities.

And then he left on his trip.

So we have the first kind of part of this story, scene one.

You've got a master, you have uh a master that has servants, and he's leaving with them the NLT translation, it says a bag of silver.

Some other translations you may have say the word talent.

What a talent is, is a talent is a denomination of money.

Denera is a small denomination, a talent is a large sum of money.

Scholars think somewhere in the neighborhood, if it was today,$300 or$400,000 of our money today would be one talent.

And he gave five of those to the first servant, two of those to the second, and one to the last, and he divided to them among in proportion with their ability.

And then he left.

Verse 16.

Then the servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more.

The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more.

Then the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master's money.

After a long time, their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money.

The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.

And in verse 21, the master was full of praise.

Well done, my good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you more responsibility.

Let's celebrate together.

The servant who received the two bags of silver came forward and said, Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.

The master said, Well done, my good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities.

Let us celebrate together.

And then, verse 24, the servant that with one bag of silver came and said, Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn't plant, and gathering crops you didn't cultivate.

I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth.

Look, here is your money back.

So the first two servants took the five bags of silver, the five talents that represent more than just money.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the master is Jesus.

He gives him five talents, gives him two, gives him one.

And for the two that invested it, doubled it, multiplied it, he looked at them and he said, Well done, good and faithful servants, and then he rewarded them with what?

More responsibility, a bigger portion, more of a portion, but then the final servant, the last servant, had one talent, one bag of silver.

And what did he do?

He took the bag, he dug a hole in the ground, and he buried it.

Why'd he bury it?

What'd he say?

In verse 24, he said that he knew that the master was a harsh man.

And he goes on to say that in verse 25 that he was afraid to lose the money.

And so he hid it in the ground.

Here's the thing.

This servant had kind of a good theology about the master to have a fear of the Lord, but he didn't truly fear him the way in awe and in reverence.

He put on God, on Jesus, on the master in the story.

He said, Hey, you I knew you were harsh, I knew you were angry, you're difficult.

And so I dug a hole and I hid it because I was afraid.

How do you view God?

Do you view God as up there in the sky just waiting on you to mess up?

Waiting to punish you, waiting to dole out punishments for things that you do, walking on eggshells.

You know, when we live that way, when we are consumed by fear, fear becomes the master.

And when you don't trust the master, it leads to fear and hiding.

What'd he do?

He dug a hole.

Put it in the ground.

What does that look like in your life?

I feel like so oftentimes that there are people who say, you know what, I don't want anything to do with God.

I don't want anything to do with that.

I don't want to come to church, I don't want to be a part of that.

If I walk through the doors, lightning would strike me dead, the walls would fall down.

Why are they saying that?

They're saying that because there's a fear, they're afraid of change, being asked to do something differently.

They're afraid that they may have to give up some stuff and hide.

It's not the heart of God that we would hide from him.

That we would come to him.

When we're walking out in fear, when we're afraid, when we're scared, it makes us stingy.

It makes us stingy.

Now I'm not just talking about, I'm just not talking about dollars and cents right now.

When we're walking, when we're scared, when we're walking out when we're afraid.

We're stingy with our time.

We're stingy with our gifts.

We're stingy with our words, with our encouragement.

Afraid that some axe is gonna fall, that the shoe's gonna drop.

Look at what the master, look at what Jesus replied.

He said, You wicked and lazy servant.

If you knew that I harvested crops that I didn't plant and gathered crops I didn't cultivate, why didn't you deposit my money in the bank?

At least I could have gotten some interest on it.

And then he ordered, take the money from this servant and give it to the one with ten bags of silver.

To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance.

But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.

Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Here's what I want you to see.

You had somebody with five talents.

Made five more, two talents, they made two more, and one that had one and he was lazy and he was afraid and he was stingy and made nothing.

Didn't even have the gumption to put it in the bank and just make a little bit of interest to do anything with it at all.

And what he thought was going to happen, that he may lose the master's money, it did come true, but not because of what he thought.

He lost it because he wasn't faithful with what God put in his hands.

He lost it because he didn't do what he was supposed to do with what God requested.

Here's what's interesting to me.

Here's what's interesting.

In the story, there's some different quantities.

But the master is more about the quality than he is the quantities.

The guy had five, he made five more.

The one that had two had less than five.

And he brought in two more.

It was less than the first, but what did he say to both?

He said the exact same thing to the first two.

You took what I gave you and you doubled it, you multiplied it, you walked it out.

You saw an increase, you were responsible, and so, well done, good and faithful.

Let me reward you with more.

A stewardship piece.

What did they do with what was in their hands?

What did they do with what Jesus blessed them with and gave to them?

Did they multiply it or did they sit on it?

Were they stingy?

I think there's some powerful pieces here.

There's some powerful lessons here.

And like I said, I don't think that this story is just about money.

If anything, in the context of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks, last Sunday we got to see 16 people step up and say, hey, I've got gifts and talents.

I'm gonna step forward and I'm gonna use them for God and I'm gonna multiply them, and I'm gonna see new people come to faith, and I'm gonna start serving the Lord, and I'm gonna join a team, and I'm gonna get on mission and start moving my feet, and I'm going to walk in God's calling and purpose on my life.

And it wasn't a numbers game.

It wasn't that who brought in the most.

It was what did you do with it?

It was the quality, not the quantity.

You know, one of the things that's really jarring about this story is that last verse.

In verse 30, the master says, Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

You know, I read through this whole story this morning.

You want to know why?

Because sometimes Jesus can be watered down, whitewashed, and sanitized in our preaching.

But you know why I left it in?

Why am I even talking about this passage today?

Well, a couple things.

One, Jesus talks about money more than he does heaven or hell, but in this one right here, he's talking about this outer darkness.

He's speaking of hell and speaking of the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And that servant is thrown out.

Jesus is not afraid to speak the truth and love and grace, but truth nonetheless.

Here's the thing, here's a thing.

The scripture outlines these spiritual gifts that are given to us when we become believers.

There are in a couple of different portions of scripture, and this isn't going to be on the screen, but but and you can look this up on your own.

But there's there's a there's a laundry list, a litany of these spiritual gifts that are listed in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 Peter, and in Romans chapter 12, verse 6 through 13, these spiritual gifts are listed of prophecy and the ministry of health, of teaching, exhortation, which is encouragement, giving, leadership, administration, mercy, love, and hospitality.

Romans 12:6–13

And in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and 13, these gifts of wisdom and of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues, uh, apostleship, teaching, helping, administration, giving.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Ephesians 4, verse 11 talks about apostleship, prophecy, evangelism, shepherding, and teaching of 1 Peter 4, 8 through 11 talks about love, hospitality, prophecy, and ministry.

Ephesians 4:11

There's a laundry list of gifts from the Holy Spirit.

That when you are in Christ, when you have Jesus as your Savior, when you've been bought and paid for by his blood on the cross, you are then gifted from God above.

The scripture says that you at least have one of these gifts that are listed.

If you're following Christ, if you're a believer in Jesus, you have at least one of these spiritual gifts.

Maybe it's hospitality, maybe it's service of others, maybe it's giving, maybe it's leadership, but you at least have one.

You may have more than one, but you at least have one.

And of this gift, of this talent, hello.

What are you going to do with the talent that God's given you?

Are you going to multiply it?

Are you going to bury it in the ground and hide it away and not reach the potential that God's called you to?

God doing a miracle of multiplication.

That each one of us prayed, and if you weren't here then, we prayed for weeks and weeks about us bringing our best to the Lord.

For us to be faithful with what God would bring to us, what He would do in us and through us as a church.

And so we collectively came together and we taught, and we taught through the fact that we get to give, that we get to bring our tithes and give our offerings.

And those things are different.

You bring your tithe, the tithe, the first tenth of your money that you're blessed with.

We know that every good and perfect gift comes from above, and so that first 10%, we get to give back to God because He asks us to, and it's ultimately His, and He can help you to do better with 90% of your income than you would do on your own with all 100% of your income.

And so we bring the tithe.

Why do we bring the tithe?

Because you can't give something that's not yours.

The first 10% isn't ours, it's God's.

It's dedicated to Him.

And so we bring the tithe, and then we give an offering, an offering to the Lord that's talked about all in the Old Testament and New Testament, over and above that tithe.

In generosity, we get to walk out giving an offering over and above, and we got to see God do a powerful work in and through our church.

And we're already seeing it pay off.

Look at 1 Corinthians 15, 58.

Therefore, brothers, therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.

Let nothing move you.

Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in what?

In vain.

Your labor is not in vain.

When we're working for the Lord, when we're giving to the Lord, we're being faithful to bring our best, God's faithful to respond.

We got to see an absolute miracle of multiplication in the last few weeks of this year.

Can we celebrate together for a second?

I want to tell you this.

Let me share this with you.

Let me share this with you.

And this is mind-blowing.

This is mind-blowing.

In the last six weeks, basically since the middle of December, with our year-in offering the best, leading up to moving into this new space, God has blessed us and multiplied our efforts to the fact that over the last six weeks we have seen over$300,000.

$304,000 that has been given by this group and then be multiplied by our ascending church dollar for dollar.

And to God work an incredible miracle of multiplication.

You know what else we've gotten to see in the last few weeks?

We got to celebrate three precious sons and one precious daughter be baptized two weeks ago.

Amen.

Amen.

We got to celebrate 16 new people stepping up and saying, hey, I'm going to join a team.

I'm going to be involved.

I'm going to get on mission.

And coming soon, the next few weeks.

Small group is multiplying.

The Zeman small group is multiplying with the Olekas, going down to Elberg to have a group down in Lawrenceburg.

And that's happening in the next few weeks.

I'm excited to get to celebrate in our new place that we have tonight.

Our volunteers are going to be there.

So I'll tell you just a little bit of the timeline of what at least we know.

So the plans for the new space, we've uh leased this old save a lot building that's over across from Juniper Hills Park, 15,000 square feet.

And the sketches are being done right now.

Once the sketches, the architect, and all that stuff is done, then it's going to go to permitting for approval.

The architect told me that the permitting process can take between six weeks and six months to be approved.

Six weeks and six months to be approved.

Yeah?

Yes.

But we're going to be asking the Lord in faith.

Believing in faith?

I have a church friend of mine who's uh in Tampa and they're building a building down there, and uh they submitted their plans and they were waiting on the approvals, and uh the somebody in the church knew the mayor and reached out to the mayor, and they uh kind of tried to go over the the permitting guy's head, and then he ghosted them for six and a half weeks because they tried to go over his head.

So we're not trying to play all those gays, we're trying to ask the Lord for his timing.

Okay.

And then after the permitting is done, the build out's gonna be somewhere between four and five months to build it all out.

So we're walking together, knowing that the building is not our savior, but we get to build God's kingdom right here in this place, week after week, walking together and being faithful with the gift things that God's given us and seeing them be multiplied all this year long as we step forward and give to the Lord our hearts, our lives.

And it's just it's it burdens me.

I don't want any of us in this room to miss that opportunity.

The last servant, Jesus, the master, said, cast him out into the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

You know what's interesting about that imagery?

That's not like the fire and brimstone type hell.

Jesus is talking about a loss, a separation from God, the outer darkness, a loss of opportunity.

The life that you could have had, the life that God wanted for you.

That if you aren't walking with God and you're walking away from God and you're not saved and following Him, that you're missing out on opportunities.

A few months ago, I guess it's been over a year now, I got introduced to a guy in Eastern Kentucky, Michael Clark.

And you all Michael Clark has planted Rooted Church over in Whitesburg.

We got to remember when there was the floods in Eastern Kentucky and we got to take up all of those donations and giving, we got to give to this brand new church plant out in Whitesburg, Rooted Church.

Well, the pastor of that church, Michael, grew up in Eastern Kentucky.

He grew up in and around Whitesburg.

Says he grew up in a trailer park, he ended up getting addicted to drugs.

Went to prison for 10 years as a felon.

I got a picture of him.

Maybe, maybe I do.

Oh no, okay.

Went to prison for 10 years, addicted to drugs, and it was in prison that a pastor came in and he said, preached a mediocre sermon, and he accepted Christ as a savior.

Why is in jail?

He said when he was growing up in Eastern Kentucky, he was in a trailer park.

He said that in his all of his upbringing, all the way until he was in jail, he had never had someone, one ever invite him to church, or two ever tell him the gospel.

He came to faith in Jesus, went through recovery.

Now he's been uh he's been sober for five, six, seven years.

And last year, he stepped forward to plant rooted church that now is has baptized many, many people.

They're meeting in uh the old Whitesburg high school there, and God is working powerfully to him.

But you know what he says?

You know what he says?

He says, I wish that somebody had told me about Jesus or that somebody would have invited me to church before I ended up addicted and in jail, a lost opportunity, him and his upbringing, that nobody ever stepped forward to bring him any type of hope.

He had to be in a jail cell for somebody to come and tell him the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Is that crazy?

I don't want, I don't want anybody to be able to say that multiplied church didn't do her best, didn't do her best to see people here in our community and beyond come to know the saving knowledge of Jesus, to have a life radically changed, to walk in the blessing that God wants you to walk in, in the favor that nobody could say that we didn't do our best.

So for you today, what does it look like when the world now is kind of running out of gas?

Momentum of the new year is kind of wearing off.

What's it look like for you to continue to be fed and have a full heart, ready to love, serve God, and see other people come to Him.

To see God continue to multiply the good things in your life, and for us as a church to continue to see that happen.

That's what I want to see, church.

That's what I want to see.

I don't want any of us running on empty.

All of us are gonna go through tough stuff, some of us going through tough stuff right now, but even in the midst of it, God can fill you up, not depending on the circumstances.

Oh, yeah, here's Michael.

He's the one in the hoodie.

It's a girl being baptized at rooted just a few weeks ago.

So you may be here today and you be in a place where you're trying to walk out your faith.

You may have gotten through the door today and you barely made it through because you're on empty.

Can I tell you this?

God wants to fill your cup.

God wants to fill your cup.

He wants to do it through his mighty power and the work of his local church, other believers and community, through the power of prayer.

And so I want to pray over each one of us right now.

Father, we come to you right now.

Lord, we pray over the Bowman's and baby Georgia right now.

Father, we pray over them right now.

God, they're in a difficult space spot right now.

They've rushed to the hospital, they're three-week old.

Father, I pray right now, God, that you would fill their cup even in the midst of the circumstance.

God, that you're with them, walking with them.

Father, I pray over the room today.

Anybody who's come into the room today and they've walked in feeling like they're empty, God, I pray right now, Lord, that you would fill them up, that God, that they would begin to see you in a way, God, that you're not just waiting to crush them or waiting to punish them, but instead, God, you want them to come to you so that God, you can work powerfully through them.

God, that you can multiply their life and their gifts, their energies, their passion, their resources, their families.

God, that they can have the life that you have called them to.

Father, I pray right now, God, that you would do a mighty work in hearts and minds today.

God, I pray, Lord, that each one of us, that we would be the ones that you would look at us and say, Well done, good and faithful.

And Father, I pray across the room right now, anybody who's in this place who has not followed you and accepted you as their Savior, Jesus, you would just show them right now that they were bought with the price.

That you paid for their salvation to a thousand years ago on the cross, that they would not spend eternity in separation, in outer darkness, but instead, Father, in your glorious light, in your love, here and into heaven.

So, Father, I pray for anybody in the room, anybody in this place who needs to follow you, that they would pray something like this: Jesus, save me.

I believe that you are the Son of God and that you died on the cross for my sins.

Forgive me, save me so that I can be in heaven with you one day.

I give my life to you as you gave your life for mine.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you prayed that today, we want to walk with you.

We need to encourage you, want to speak to you, we want to be able to come alongside you and see God fill you up and your cup up.

I want to ask you now to stand to your feet as we close in worship.