Our Absolute Need for One Another

Turn in your Bible to Hebrews chapter 10 verses 24 and 25.

Hebrews 10:24

I'm going to speak today about our absolute need for one another.

And in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25, something Paul says, he said something as powerfully as he could possibly say it.

Hebrews 10:24

And he said something to an early church, a young church that was just growing, and Paul had was speaking here, and he says, and Hebrews chapter 10 will come up on your, either in your Bible or on the PowerPoint, and let us consider how we may spur, and I want you to look at that word spur, but we're going to come back to it.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

You see, the early church was convinced that Jesus was coming back absolutely soon.

They felt that they not only saw Jesus crucified and they saw him again after he was crucified, but they believed that Jesus was coming back in their lifetime.

And so Paul was saying, even the more as you see the times of the end times approaching, begin to meet together, make sure that you are connected with one another.

Well, here we are, 2,000 years later, and the signs of Christ's return are imminent in our history and in our everyday on the news.

We see all the signs of Christ's return.

And if Paul's words were true for the church then, they are absolutely true today.

Let us consider how we may spur one another on.

And that word spur, you know what it means?

That if you're a cowboy, you know that those things you put on the boots are more than just uh just ornaments.

That they're actually meant to go, to encourage, to irritate and provoke.

Well, this is the word there, to irritate and provoke.

Here's what Paul was saying.

Irritate and provoke one another toward love and good deeds.

And that that sounds like a little bit of a paradox, doesn't it?

That sounds like a marriage, you know, sometimes, you know, to irritate and provoke one another to take the trash out and to do good deeds.

But that's the way it happens sometimes.

But he was saying in the church, in the body, to irritate and provoke in the strongest terms possible.

Make sure that you encourage one another toward love and good deeds.

Now, as you were growing up, there were three places that God was trying to help you learn about relationships.

One was in your family growing up, with your mom and your dad and your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles.

Those family reunions, by the way, were God ordained.

They were places that you're supposed to go and learn how to get along with a cousin that you did not like.

All these things in your family growing up, you were supposed to be learning and catching the idea of relationship.

And then the second place is our marriage, where God brings you together as man and woman, and in that relationship, God begins to teach you how to die to yourself and live for someone else.

And we begin to learn a whole different level about relationships.

And in the third place that God wants us to learn is in the church.

God puts you in a body for a reason.

God put you in this place to learn about relationships.

Now let's think about this for for just a few minutes.

In America, the three greatest attacks that we find in America today are against the family, against marriages, and against the church.

Can I tell you why those attacks have happened like that against those three areas?

Because see, Satan knows something that we don't know.

He understands that if the church ever catches hold of this idea that they can become a powerful living organism when they become a family, that his days and his effectiveness will be limited.

However, that's why he attacks relationships.

You see, there's a supernatural attack against relationships because coming together once a week in a conference setting is not the fullness of God's power and purposes for the church.

This is not the living organism that God created.

You see, we become a living, powerful organism when we become a family.

When we become a circle of family, when we begin to connect and intimately come together as family, as people that love each other and care for each other and serve one another, that's when we become the powerful living organism that God designed us to be.

Now, today in America, because of these attacks against the family and the marriage and the church, today in America, only 14% of born-again Christians are in any kind of serious accountability relationship.

Only one out of seven of us are in any type, including our marriage, are in any type of relationship where we're really held accountable for our actions.

There's no one that's asked us the tough questions.

No one asks us how we're doing in the tough areas of our life.

There's no one that will look us in the eye with love and concern, with genuine love and concern.

Only one out of seven of born-again Christians in America are in any kind of relationship where they're held accountable.

In fact, in most American churches today, if if more than 20% of your church is in some type of small group ministry, you are a tremendous success.

However, across the world in South America and in South Africa, across Africa, in parts of Europe right now, the rate is like 70 to 90% of people that are in the church are involved in some type of accountability relationship, either in life groups, small groups, Sunday schools, some type of small group, hybrid type ministry.

70 to 90 percent.

In America, though, we're the most fragmented culture in the world.

We're fragmented, we're very isolated.

But that's not the way the first church was uh was created.

Now let's turn to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I want you to look at this scripture because Jesus came and he invested his life.

In fact, the words that you have in red in your Bible, you know that Jesus, those are the words of Jesus.

Do you know that most of those words are recorded around campfires, walking along a lonely road, one with a group of three or four guys, in a house at night, eating dinner with one another?

Most of the words in red that are recorded in Scripture were written in a small group setting where Jesus was looking into the eyes and the hearts of a few people and imparting truth to them.

Because Jesus was investing himself in a group of people because one day he was going to leave and he was going to plant a church that would take over the world, who would begin with a group of eleven, who would spread to a group of 120, and would a mushroom to a group of 3,000 in a matter of a couple of hours.

That's what happened.

And Peter, when he was filled with the Holy Spirit, stepped out on the ledge and began to preach to the Passover crowd, to the Pentecost crowd that was there.

And what happened?

3,000 people decided that day to give their lives to Christ.

And here they are, this group of 120 people who have they they don't have any facilities, they don't have any felt boards for their Sunday school room, they don't have any equipment, they have no sound equipment, they have nothing, they don't have a budget, they don't have anything, and they've got 3,000 people to take care of.

Now what do we do?

And so something happened in their hearts.

I'm going to read it to you in Acts chapter 2, verses 42.

Acts 2:42

Read it along with me.

Here's what they did.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people, and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Now listen, you know why people were born again all the time in the early church?

I believe, and I want you to understand this today, your ability to win souls will depend on the relationships that you're willing to invest in.

The reason that as Christians we are not winning people to Christ is because we are not investing ourselves in lost people.

I tell people all the time, I won souls all the time.

When I used to work in television, I led about half of my staff to the Lord in about a two-year period.

I led people to the Lord all the time because I was around lost people.

Now that I'm a pastor, I'm around mostly born-again people.

I when I was around lost people, I begin to invest myself.

I can't tell you, hundreds of people I've led to the Lord when I was working in the world because I was around lost people.

That's where you are.

You're around lost people.

And if the moment you begin to invest in people, the moment you begin to care about your neighbor and begin to ask about people's needs and desires and hurds, the moment you begin to give yourself away to people, you will immediately become a soul winner because the early church saw people one to the Lord every day because they were absolutely committed to the relationships with other people.

Now here's what they were committed to.

The first century church was devoted to four things.

Number one, they were devoted to the apostles' teaching.

These are the apostles now.

The early apostles were men who actually walked with Jesus and heard the words of Jesus.

Here's what this means for you today.

You have to be devoted to sound doctrine.

This is why you come on Sunday morning or Saturday night or whenever you come, you come to a corporate service, and what you're going to hear out of this pulpit will be sound doctrine.

Because how many of you know we live in a confusing world?

How many of you know that once you leave here, that you can hear many, many things that are told as truth, that are spoken as truth, but they're really not truth.

You can, this is, it's a confusing world that we live in.

We hear mixed messages all day long.

But listen, when you come here, you're going to hear sound doctrine that's going to carry you through in a confusing world.

The second thing is they were devoted to the fellowship.

They were devoted to a partnership with one another, participation with one another.

They were devoted to sharing and communicating with other people.

The third thing is they were devoted to the breaking of bread.

And I'm so glad that this is included in here because I really like to eat.

And I'm telling you, it's a supernatural thing to eat with people, and I'm taking reservations.

I'm available after the service.

So just get with me.

But I'm telling you, listen, do you understand that if you are not eating together and meeting together and having people over to your house and sharing food with one another and sitting across the table and learning about one another, that you're missing out on a supernatural event.

It's not just for the one out of ten of us that have the gift of hospitality.

It is for all of us.

We are supposed to be inviting people into our homes, going to people's homes, taking people out to restaurants, being with people all the time.

The first church was devoted to being together at all times.

And then the fourth thing, and this is not in order of importance, but the fourth thing that they were devoted to was prayer.

They understood that they had to pray.

It was a source of their power.

And if they did not pray, God could not invest themselves in them.

But if they would pray, God would give them everything he had promised.

You see, this is they here's basically what they were committed to.

They were committed to coming together in the temple courts and hear sound doctrine, sound teaching, and they were committed to a life group.

And you're saying, well, Pastor Brady is a life group pastor, and this is just a paid commercial for life groups.

Yes, it is.

All right, let's just get that out of the way.

We believe this is not just a program of our church.

This is not just 10% of our church that's supposed to be in life groups.

One of the foundational stones of our church, you will hear it from every staff member, you will hear it from every elder, you will hear it from every leader in our church.

We believe in the power and anointing of being in relationships with one another.

I just so happen to be the spokesperson for that, but I'm not the only one that carries that burden.

Our whole church carries that burden.

It is our desire that every single person be in some type of small group ministry in our church, including life groups.

Can I tell you today that I believe there are a couple of things that keep us from being intimate with one another?

And here's the first one.

There's a social trend today of isolationism and disengagement.

I want to throw a couple of big words out at you there.

Those are my two big words to throw out at you.

But let me tell you what that means.

Here's one of the sociologists say today that Americans are participating less in social activities.

They're reading less newspapers, attending less political meetings, signing fewer petitions, writing fewer letters to the editor, attending fewer club meetings, entertaining less friends at their homes, attending fewer church services, and giving less blood.

This is what happened in America.

There is a social trend.

In fact, today in America, it is now normal to be lonely.

It's normal to be alone in America.

It is normal.

Look, how many of you have a house?

Here's what I do at my house.

I can drive up to my house in my car, and I have a button inside my car that I can hit, and my garage door will open.

I know this is going to blow your mind, and my garage door will open without me getting out.

I can drive into my garage, I can hit that same button, it will close.

As soon as the door closes, I can get out of my car and I can enter my house through a door that's inside my garage, and I can never have to, if I don't want to, I never have to make contact with the outside world.

I don't have to.

In fact, I can go upstairs on my computer and I can get into chat rooms with people and just have all kinds of interactions.

And when I get tired of talking, I can click the quit button and I can go to bed.

They don't have to see my face.

I don't have to become vulnerable.

I don't have to give myself away.

I don't have to say anything that I don't want to say.

I can live in a totally protected environment if I wanted to do that.

That's the culture that we live in.

That's why it makes us hard.

See, it we've made it easy on ourselves to be isolated, and we've made it difficult on ourselves to be vulnerable.

This is what's happened.

It all started.

If you want to really get into sociology, which I'm not, but let me tell you how it all started.

At the end of World War II, America began to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, basically.

Do you remember, for those of you that lived in that generation, I've read these stories, and I'm not that old, so I haven't been, I didn't live through this.

My parents did.

Do you remember the drills where you used to have to pull down the shades?

And we had the bomb drills, all those things where used to pull down the dark shades, turn off all the lights during that time, during the early 60s, late 50s, during the Cold War when it started?

I used to think it was funny.

For example, you remember those drills, maybe you were in school then, and they would have these nuclear bomb drills where all the children would have to get under their desk and grab their knees?

Let me ask you a question.

Would that really help if a nuclear bomb hit your school, would you be under your desk holding your knees, help you survive?

Here's what they would find.

They would find a whole bunch of little skeletons holding their knees.

But that's what we would get under the desk and hide.

We would shut our doors at night.

We became terrified.

We began to think that everyone, our neighbors were communist threats.

McCarthyism swept across America.

And then from that time on until today, there's been a social trend of staying inside your close-knit group and not investing yourself outside your core.

That's what it is.

In fact, rising crime, divorce, racism, busy schedules, all of these are reasons to avoid outside relationships.

The good news is people that were born before 1945, the generation that are now 55 plus, they are the ones that are much more likely to be civically engaged in my generation.

My generation is this.

You know what my motto is?

It's all about me.

That's what it was when I was growing up.

That's what I had to overcome when I became a Christian.

That's what the first thing the Lord attacked was my selfish nature.

Because, see, everything, my entire focus was that I owned the world and everyone else paid rent.

That it was about my happiness, my fulfillment, my career, my marriage.

Everything was about me.

And if anyone got some residual effects from that, got some kind of residual benefits from that, that was good for them.

But I had to make sure that I had self-fulfillment.

And that's the culture that I grew up in, and that's the culture that most of you grew up in.

You see, listen, today we've made it easy on ourselves to be isolated.

And then there's a second reason why that we don't become intimate, and that is that we have a fear of becoming vulnerable.

And John chapter 8, verse 12, this is the Apostle John writing.

John 8:12

This is what he said.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

And that's good news, isn't it?

Do you remember when Jesus came into your life?

Do you remember how the scales fell from your eyes and you began to see things that you had never seen before?

How everything began to make perfect sense to you?

How you began to walk out of the darkness, the misery that you had lived in.

In fact, the word darkness, you know what the word darkness means?

Misery.

It means misery.

That's how the Greek word for darkness, it means that it means that there is an ignorance of divine things that causes misery.

Now look, the same guy wrote 1 John chapter 2, verse 11.

1 John 2:11

The Apostle John wrote both books.

Now look at 1 John chapter 2, verse 11.

1 John 2:11

He says, But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness.

Let's just stop there for a second.

You know that the reason some of us and most of us are miserable today is because we have broken relationships that we have not made any effort to fix.

Now this is not this is not my theology.

This is the Lord Jesus Himself.

This is authority of written scripture that says if you have broken relationships and you've made no effort to go fix broken relationships, there's a promise and a curse of darkness that's coming to you.

And you know what that darkness is?

It's misery.

It's miserable to be in darkness.

And you can watch all the movies you want, and they can glorify the dark side of the world, and they can show all the power of darkness.

Let me tell you what the end result is.

It's misery.

Yes, there is a display of power in darkness, but it's a false display, and the end result is always misery.

And can I tell you what motivates me every day to make sure that relationships in my life are repaired and in order and healthy?

Because I don't want to be miserable.

I have walked in darkness before.

Now let me ask you a question.

Is it possible for born-again people to walk in darkness?

Absolutely it is.

According to John chapter 8, he says, I am the light of the world.

John 8 · chapter mention

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.

But the same guy wrote again, he says, but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness.

He does not know where he's going because the darkness has blinded him.

These are born-again people that have chosen not to amend, not to not to make good in their relationships.

Look, you know, many times we grew up in divorced homes, and then we become divorced people ourselves.

Are we get mad at an employer and walk out?

Are we get mad at a brother and sister and won't call them for twelve years?

And we begin to live with just a pattern of broken relationship after broken relationship, and we make no effort to go back and make any amends for that because it's all their fault.

You see, I can't find anywhere in Scripture, nowhere in Scripture will you find that you're off the hook if it wasn't your fault.

In fact, in Matthew, it says that if you remember, if you're at the altar bringing your gift to the altar, in other words, if you're in a church service and you're trying to worship the Lord and have a breakthrough in your spiritual life, and there you remember that you have a broken relationship or something against your brother, you are to leave your gift at the altar and go there, right then, go right then, as soon as possible, and go make that relationship good.

Then your prayers will be heard in heaven.

Do you believe that that's true or not?

You see, I'm here today to challenge you in your thinking, because either I'm gonna tell you this here now, or I'm gonna tell you when you come to my office for counseling.

So let's just save both of us a trip.

If you come to my office and you've got a whole series of broken relationships in your life and you're wondering why I'm living in misery and I'm living in darkness, and I cannot get through breakthroughs in my life, I'm gonna tell you, if you when the moment you become obedient to the word is the moment the curse will be broken, and the Lord Himself will come and the light will shine once again in your life.

But if you're not willing to make any of this right, I can promise you one thing darkness.

Does that mean you're gonna go to hell over it?

No, I don't I don't know about that.

I believe that if salvation is forever, I believe that.

But I'm gonna tell you something.

It's much better to walk in the light while you're on the earth than it is to walk in darkness.

It's a much better life.

You know why?

It's much better to sleep at night too.

I cannot tell you the last night that I lost sleep over worrying about anything about a relationship.

I I don't lose sleep.

You know why?

Because I make sure that my relationships are in order.

I I love confrontation.

I love healthy biblical confrontation.

It is the healthiest thing that I've ever learned in my life.

It has helped me sleep good at night.

The blessings of the Lord have come to me, and I have more friends than I've ever had in my life.

The moment I learned how to healthy biblical, uh biblically confront people is the moment God began to bless relationships.

You know why?

Because the Bible says, do not let the sun go down on your wrath.

He says, He says, do not give the devil an opportunity.

Don't give the devil a foothold.

Don't even give him an opportunity to come into your life.

So therefore, go and make amends with your friends.

Go make amends with your family.

Make sure things are right with your husband and your wife.

You see, what you what we must understand as believers today is that Satan has legal authority to live in the darkness of your life.

You see, Jesus told Satan, see, Satan doesn't live in hell.

You know that.

Satan is not making his home in hell this morning.

Satan lives in darkness.

The only place that Satan can abide is area of darkness.

That's the only place.

That's where he has legal authority.

You know that demons are law-abiding citizens.

Believe it or not, demons are law-abiding citizens.

They only live where there's darkness.

And the moment the light comes, they leave.

They have to, and they know it.

It's real easy.

Once the light has shined into your life, Satan and all of his demons and all of his hordes of demons have to leave.

And they know that.

And so if you are allowing darkness to penetrate you and to stay there, they have legal authority and you can you can pray and you can go to worship services and you can do all those things, they'll come right along with you.

Because they have legal rights to be there.

But the moment you begin to get rid of broken relationships and to shine the light into your heart, look, every morning, wake up and pray this prayer.

Lord, I give you permission today to shine the light of your Holy Spirit into my heart.

And Lord, I pray that you would look at every corner, every crevice of my heart.

And if there's any area of darkness, Lord, I give you permission right now by the power of your Holy Spirit to shine your light.

I don't want darkness.

I don't want misery.

You see, the issues that you hide from God and from other people will become the strongholds of the enemy.

Satan will feast on areas that you keep hidden.

You see, and this is why you must have people in your life that you can share the darkness of your heart with.

Now I honestly the first step is to share it with the Lord.

But you know how you're kept accountable?

Other people You see, listen, man, I'm talking to you by the way, and I know most men in this room right now have shut me out because I'm talking about relationships.

We don't get it, we don't understand it, we don't want it.

Look, when men go to a men's retreat, we don't sit around a campfire singing kumbaya and talk about our feelings.

That's no, we don't.

Here's what happens at a men's retreat.

You know, how you doing?

Well, I'm going through a hard time.

Boom, get over it.

You'll come back with a couple of bruises on your arm if you're not doing well.

I mean, that kind of punched on you, ah, get over it.

You know, ah that's how that honestly, that's that's our first response.

Now that's not how most men are, but that's our tendency.

That's what we want.

We don't want to be open, we don't want to be real, we don't want to even talk about our feelings.

That's a sign of weakness to us, and it's a miserable existence.

If most men were honest, they don't want to live that way, they just don't know another way to live.

Their dad didn't show them how to you know, most of our dads didn't know how to share their feelings with us.

We didn't know how to, our dads didn't cry in front of us.

Our dads were working hard all the time.

They came home and read the paper and went to bed.

They didn't have feeling time with us.

They didn't sit around and share their emotional outbursts with us unless it was just anger.

That's the only emotions I saw is a lot of times was anger.

They had a wonderful dad.

But it's hard sometimes, guys.

Look, you know that 50%, according to George Barney, his research, 50% of born-again Christian men don't even have anyone they can call a best friend, including their wife.

Half of all Christian men cannot honestly say that they have a best friend that they can tell anything.

Now here's the key that they can tell anything to.

My wife is my best friend, and I can tell her absolutely anything, and she loves me unconditionally, even when I'm at my weakest and most sinful.

I know that's hard for you to believe, but I can be really sinful sometimes.

And I need to tell my wife she holds me accountable for my behavior.

And then I have men in my life, you know, Jeff and Robert and Marcus and Preston Thomas, all these guys on staff.

It's more than we're more than just coworkers.

We're friends and brothers here.

And these are people, many of them, I go into their office, and they come into my office and we share what's on our heart and what the weaknesses are, and I can become vulnerable to them.

See, you've got to get over your fear of becoming vulnerable, or you'll never have any significant relationships in your life.

Men, listen to me.

Your wife should not have to drag you to a life group, kicking and screaming like a little baby.

And then when you get there, you sit in the corner, when they start taking prayer requests, you start pouting because you don't want to become real and vulnerable, because you don't want to share your problems with anyone else.

That happens.

Look, men, it is a proven fact that if a man will lead the way in his household, that 90% of the time the rest of his family will serve Christ.

If the woman leads the way, you know what the percentage is?

30%.

It's higher actually if a child leads the way.

But when men lead the way, 90% of the time the rest of the family will do whatever he does.

Isn't that amazing?

Guys, I'm talking to you today about being vulnerable.

I'm talking to ladies.

Sometimes, ladies, you've made intervals in your own heart.

I'm not going to ever be that close again.

The last time I was that close with anyone, they they they betrayed me and hurt me and they they rejected me.

I'm never going to do that again.

Well, why does God, why, what is God saying?

Here's a couple of things today that I believe the Lord's that if if you're not motivated in the area of relationships, you see, it was about it was about seven years ago when I was in my late twenties.

I was really struggling.

I I mean I was being beat up by the enemy.

I and I'd been in the ministry, I had done all these things, but I I I was missing something, and I could not, I did not understand what it was.

And then I met a man named Garvin McCarroll who discipled me into this area of relationships.

He began to talk to me every time I would get together with him.

He began to tell me about the power of being in relationships with people.

And something began to happen in me.

Number one, the strongholds of the enemy began to be broken in me.

And secondly, I have never experienced more of God's favor and more of God's anointing.

The more that I invest in people, the more God gives back to me.

You know that your love for people is a reflection of your love for Jesus.

And it cannot be separated.

You cannot say you love Jesus and don't love people.

Your passion for Jesus is equal to your passion for other people.

You believe that or not, but that's the word that says that.

If you don't have passion for other people, I can promise you your passion for Christ is a facade.

You must have, you must be willing to invest yourself in other people.

And give yourselves away to other people.

Or your love for Jesus is just words.

Now here's the second thing.

Here's I mean, here's a couple of things that I want to give you.

The first reason in why God requires us to have relationships is number one, relationships require the death of our selfish nature.

Now, Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 through 4, it says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Philippians 2:3–4

You know the Greek word for nothing there?

I looked that up and did about a three-hour study on the word nothing.

You know what it means in Greek?

Nothing.

It was a waste of three hours.

I mean, it was uh basically the word means nothing.

It says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interest, but also to the interest of others.

You look, every when you go, when you turn on the radio, you turn on any secular radio station you want, listen to all the songs you want to hear, and you know what the subject of all the songs are?

You know what they are?

Love.

Every song's about love.

You know why?

Because love is our greatest need.

It's what we want.

We want to be love, we want to give love away, but then here's the greatest sin that we commit is selfishness.

So that's a paradox, isn't it?

We want love, but we want selfishness.

And so you can't have both.

You understand?

You see how tricky and how smart and how strategic the enemy is.

You cannot have love and you cannot give love away because we have a selfish nature by design.

We are born with a sinful, selfish nature, and until you die to that, you cannot receive love and you cannot give love.

Yet it's our greatest need in our culture today.

You see, in our culture, we've produced these multiple generations of people who see the church simply as a commodity that they can consume and not as a place where they should invest themselves.

Can I I want to give you something that maybe you've never thought of?

God is not a socialist.

God is an investor.

For example, don't every one of us have spiritual gifts, right?

Do we all have the same gifts?

No, we all have it in proportion to our what?

Our faith.

And to what God by his own own authority and own purposes, he's giv he's given all of us spiritual gifts.

Why did he give those things to you?

He's an investor.

God is investing gifts into you, and what does he want back?

The same thing you want back when you invest in a stock.

You want a positive return.

That's been harder hiding.

It's been a little more difficult.

But that's what God wants from us.

You see, in God's eyes, it's always, it's always, always, always a good market for him.

He's always looking for a positive return.

And the time, you see, when that this is what he wants from us.

He wants he not only did he invest himself in us, he wants us now to invest in other people.

And the second reason that God wants us to have relationships is that relationships make us more powerful and productive.

You know that God always blesses a team approach to ministry.

You know, when I'm when I'm around the right people, other people make me smarter, other people make me more courageous, other people make me more alert, other people hold me accountable to live a holier life than I would if I were by myself.

I mean, how many of you guys and g and ladies, how many of you that are married hate it when your husband or wife are is out of town?

It it it it to me it's a greater spiritual battle when I'm by myself than when I'm with other people.

Isn't that not right?

Am I the only one that's being vulnerable in here today?

Absolutely.

I want I like my wife to be home.

I don't like to go two or three days at my house by myself.

I don't like to be alone at any time.

You know why?

Because I mean there are times I like to be alone, but not for three or four days.

You know why?

Because I like being held accountable.

I want someone by me.

I know the weaknesses of my own flesh.

And I love someone looking over my shoulder and making sure that I am doing the right thing.

I need that.

I desire that.

And and your success, the success that you desire in your kingdom and your family will ultimately be decided by the relationships that you've developed.

Now read this, I want you to think about this scripture in Deuteronomy 32, 30.

You've all heard the scripture that one can put a thousand to flight, and that two can put ten thousand to flight.

Well, if you do the exponential math on that, that means three can put a hundred thousand to flight, and four probably could put a million to flight, and five probably could put ten million to flight.

So you can go from a thousand to ten million just with four other people.

Isn't that amazing?

Now, I don't, I'm, I know that's stretching that scripture a little bit, and I know that I'm taking a little liberal approach to that scripture.

But here's what God's saying to us: that when God is in your midst, he blesses you when you're with other people, when you've connected with other people, when you've decided that you're going to do ministry with other people, when you're investing and giving yourselves away, God comes at that point and gives you greater ability than when you would ever have by yourself.

Now look at this scripture in 1 Samuel chapter 14.

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

And this is one of the best stories, it's one of the most overlooked stories in the Old Testament.

But Jonathan is a young, a young warrior.

He has a warrior heart.

And the Philistines are camping out on both sides of a cliff, and all the Israelites are down in the valley hiding in caves like small children.

They're terrified of the Philistines.

They have no courage.

And Jonathan says, you know what?

I'm tired of this.

I would rather go out there and die like a soldier than to sit here like a small child on the back of a cave and have them come run a spear through me.

I'm going to go out there, I'm going to go to that cliff, and I'm going to say, if I'm going to look up at that cliff, and if the Philistines tell me to come up that cliff, then I believe God's with me.

And his young armor bearer probably didn't know any better, said, I'll go with you.

So they come out of the cliff, and something happened when the two of them began to walk toward the enemy.

Both of them did.

Let's read the story.

It says, Jonathan said, verse 6, Jonathan said to his young armor bearer, Come, let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows.

Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf, and nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.

Verse 7, do all that you have in mind.

You see, you need people in your life, like it says in Hebrews, to spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

You need people in your life who will tell you if it's a lousy idea or a wonderful idea.

Don't you?

I mean, how many of you have ideas to do things in ministry?

How many of you have these ideas that are just sitting in your heart right now that either you have not shared with anyone or you have not found your armor bearer to go with you?

See, the reason many of us are lying dormant in our ministry today is you've not found someone who believes in you.

You've not found other people who have your heart and vision who will go with you and do great exploits.

See, I believe if Jonathan and the armor bearer had been sitting in that cave, but they were afraid to share their hearts with one another.

They were afraid to share their vision with one another.

I believe they would have stayed in that cave and been destroyed by a people that was not blessed by God.

Instead, they begin to share with each other, you know, why don't we just go out here?

I've seen God do this before.

He doesn't need a great army.

He just needs someone to believe in him.

Do you believe that?

Yeah, I believe that.

Well, let's go out the cave and let's go find out.

He found someone who would yoke with him, who would stand with him, who would, I'll go with you.

And so they walk up to the, they looked up to the Philistines and said, We're coming up there.

And the Philistines, well, come on up here.

He saw Jonathan and he saw a young teenage boy.

They said, and by the way, there's a lot of them.

And they said, well, come on up.

So they climb up the cliff.

By the way, if you're a military strategist, this is not a good idea.

To climb the cliff when you're, by the way, they know you're coming, no element of surprise, and they see that your forces are two.

You know, there's no trick here.

There's only two of them.

And they're coming up here on a rope, and they're going to get on top of the cliff, and they're going to try to take us out.

You know, if I'm a military strategist, I think my chances are pretty good if I'm on top of the cliff.

I've got them outnumbered 10 to 1.

And I see them coming.

And they're going to be exhausted from climbing the cliff.

I think I have them.

I think they said, I want those shoes that guy has.

I think they're already divvying up everything.

And so Jonathan and the young armor bear come to the top of the cliff.

And the Bible says that they killed 20 Philistines in a space of a half acre.

Basically, that's your backyard.

You go into your backyard today and look out there, and you put 20 well-armed, well-trained soldiers who have been trained from their boyhood to kill people, you put them in your backyard, and you go across the street and get your neighbor who owes your yard, and you go in there in the backyard, your young armor bearer, and you go back there and depend on God to kill all 20 of them in your backyard.

And you're not going anywhere, they're trapped.

It's you and them.

That's what happened.

That's a powerful story, isn't it?

They killed all 20 of them.

Jonathan and a young armor bearer.

Do you know why they killed all 20 of them?

Number one, they believed that God was on their side, and number two, they did it together.

Let me tell you something.

The reason that we're not being effective in ministry is we we're not finding people who'll do it with us.

I need someone who'll just say, Brady, I believe that.

You know, that that's when I become courageous.

You don't believe this, tell them for think about, think about, for example, how the wrong crowd could influence you when you were younger.

Or maybe now.

Do you remember you remember if you would have never jumped off that bridge if three of your friends hadn't jumped off in front of you and were yelling up right here?

Come on, come on.

I mean, it's dark, you can't see the water, you don't know how deep it is.

You jumped off the bridge.

Why'd you do that?

That was a stupid thing to do, your dad said.

And he was right, it was stupid to jump off that bridge.

Why'd you do that?

Because they did.

And they told me they they showed me the way.

They I would call me a chicken.

So I jumped off the bridge.

I mean, we the wrong crowd can influence you to do abundantly stupid things, but the right crowd can influence you to do tremendously powerful things.

This is this is what God's trying to say to you today.

It's time to yoke with other people.

Now look at Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verse 12.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

I'm going to close with the scripture.

And a cord of three strands is not easily broken.

See, by yourself, you're an you're an easy target by yourself.

All it takes is two or three other people.

You know that's why Jesus said where two or more are gathered together.

There I am in the midst of them.

Does that mean that God's not with you by yourself?

No, because all throughout scripture he talks about walking beside you, beside still waters, about carrying you and standing by just you and him.

That's not that what that's not what it means.

What Jesus was saying is when you'll yoke with other people, I'll come in a greater way.