Build One Another Up

amen good morning church we're going to go ahead and dismiss our three and five-year-olds as well as the six and seven-year-olds to their classes this morning and as they are being dismissed you can go ahead and grab your bibles and open them up to genesis 1. today we're going to be covering genesis 1 to revelation and so we got a little bit we got a little bit too to get at this morning so as you're turning to genesis 1 which again won't take long i want to share what we're going to be looking at today over the past few weeks we've been looking at how

how jesus has been revealing himself to the world primarily through the vehicle of the church or the avenue of the church the body of christ the family of faith as we oftentimes call it and it's really the way in which jesus manifests himself that's the kind of fancy term of what epiphany is is how he is making himself known how he is manifesting himself in this world is really through the body of christ it is through the church as we say we're the hands and feet of jesus we we represent uh christ and he even refers to himself as the head of the church and

so uh we are the body he is the head he is the pastor he is the shepherd he is the king he's the prophet he's the priest he's he's all of those offices for us as a people ruling and reigning and again is manifesting himself through us and so the way the world experiences jesus should be through the way the church functions as jesus the way the church loves like jesus serves like jesus belongs and communes together like jesus and as we'll say today or as we'll see today ultimately multiplies like jesus and that's really the four buckets that we looked at and and we've

been using this phrase the 59 one and others and what that really is is the commands that we have found in the new testament that deal with how the church is to function how it is to relate with one another and we took those 59 one another those 59 commands of the lord to us and put them into really four categories and and there's a lot of crossover in these categories i know that but we we view them down into four categories that we kind of refer to as uh the characteristic traits of a disciple we believe these four characteristics or these four big buckets

really are represented in a disciple uh you you you suffer as a disciple if you're not doing one of the four or two of the four but rather when you're operating in all four of these categories uh that that is seeing you as a healthy manifestation of christ it's seeing you as abiding in jesus and jesus is ultimately living through you and out of you if you are worshipping if you are belonging to the community of faith if you are serving the body of christ as well as those outside the body of christ and as we'll see today if you are multiplying if you are

multiplying and so that's what again our mission as a church is the district church is to glorify god it's our end goal that's our chief aim as that's what we want to do is glorify god by making disciples again that's the the way in which we glorify god is by making disciples by spreading his good news across the earth by making disciples of all nations through gospel-centered worship gospel-centered community gospel-centered service and gospel-centered multiplication and we are redundant with the idea of gospel centrality because we know a disciple cannot worship without the gospel cannot belong without the gospel cannot serve without the gospel and cannot

multiply without the gospel without the good news without the life and the death and the resurrection of jesus christ and so everything kind of flows from that and anything and everything that we do as a church is going to filter itself through this mission because again this is what we believe disciples are this is how they are to live out their lives and so today this big idea of multiplication is what we're going to be looking at and tackling as we walk you know kind of quickly through genesis um and then land a little bit in uh some of the new testament as we get

to revelation but this is the big idea that god has given us this mandate to multiply and and and we always want to take everything back to the creative order i mean really you could you can sum up the entire bible in god's creative order in his creative design and how it all got broken and fractured by just looking at chapters of one through eleven in genesis it really lays the foundation for how we are to then interpret the rest of the scriptures throughout the bible and how god is is working and moving among them and so this idea of being fruitful and multiplying comes

in genesis 1 26-28 when it says this then god said and just kind of give you the context here this is as he's creating um and we mentioned this we touched on a little bit last week but as he is creating up until this point there was let there be let there be let there be he was creating the the day and the night he was creating the land and the seeds creating the animals and their various kinds he was doing all these things let there be this is the first time that he moves and shifts the language to let us let us make man

in our image so then god said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and so god created man in his own image in the image of god he created him male and female he created them and god blessed them and god said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion again over the fish of the sea and over the

birds of the heavens and over every living thing that creeps and moves on the earth so the idea there was was not just get married and have babies like that's not just the idea that's coming out of this but the idea in being fruitful and multiplying is spreading god's image it's spreading god's image over all of the earth because again the the idea that god is wanting is for his glory to be made known for his glory to be on display and so not only do we see that in um in the psalms when it refers to creation that that creation is just displaying and

declaring the glory of god but we also know that in man itself that in in you and i in male and female is the beauty of god's ultimate glory and ultimate image on display so that yes you might see a mountain and you might think man how good is god and you might see the ocean you might say how vast and glorious is god but when we look at human beings and how intricately in uh in detail they are created and that there's a deeper level of image born to each one of us when it comes down to a soul that nothing else in all

of creation bears that same image nothing else in all of creation like when you're and i know i'm harping on like dogs and cats so maybe i'll go cats this time all right so uh if your cat is is walking around on the counter and knocks off a glass and it breaks and shatters on the floor that cat is not all of a sudden thinking how wretched of a person am i like it it's not having any remorse over over the fact that it's just done something wrong it's not worried about whether or not it is sinned against his creator there's there's something different and

unique to human beings that god has created where we have eternity written on our souls that we have this broken relationship with the lord that we're wrestling with on a daily basis because of the indwelling sin that we have from our birth and that we're groaning and that we're working that out as we are coming to christ and that that we are are learning about the gospel and growing in the gospel and being able to then put that groaning and that sin to death and become alive in the new identity that we have in jesus christ like nothing else in all of creation is worried

about that or is wondering how to work that out like when the lion is chasing after the gazelle and is eating it and killing it it's not guilty it doesn't feel guilt in that sense when it's killing something but we do we do not the gazelle but just in general we feel this pain because the way god designed us is to praise him in all things and to enjoy him forever like a lot of times people ask why did god create humans and a lot of times people will answer he created us for community like that he was lacking he was bored and he just

thought i'm going to create humans so that i can have someone to fellowship with and and again that's why i love the fact that god begins the creative order in saying let us make man in our image now we are a monotheistic religion if you will which means we believe in one god one god so if you were to say we believe in one god but yet this god is referring to himself as an us is he schizophrenic like is he confused here like what no it's that we believe in one god that is made up of three individual persons father son and holy spirit

that's what we believe so god has existed for eternity in a community so he was not lacking he was not bored he didn't have no one to talk to or or to a work out praise and glory and honor he knows who he is and he's not lacking of anything so then why create humans well one to also put on display how awesome and amazing he is but at the same time and this is the benefit of us but for something else to enjoy who he is for something else to experience the glory that he is and that he exists in for eternity and we

see this psalm 67 may god be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us saylah that your way may be known on earth your saving power among all nations let the peoples praise you o god let all the peoples praise you let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth let the peoples praise you o god that all the peoples praise you the earth has yielded its increase god our god shall bless us god shall bless us let all the ends of the earth fear him know him

what that psalm is declaring to us is that the way in which we experience gladness and sing for joy is flowing out of and directly tied to us praising his name us honoring him us worshiping him us seeing him as the greatest treasure that we could possibly ever possess greater than relationship greater than money greater than resources greater than influence greater than friends greater than any of those things he is our ultimate treasure he is our greatest praise and when we're in that place we then receive the greatest gladness and enjoyment and satisfaction and joy it's the famous quote from john piper god is most

glorified in us he's most praised in us when we are most satisfied in him those two things are are are not mutually exclusive but they go hand in hand with one another now that's again the primary reason for why god created humanity was for them to praise god and enjoy him forever all over the earth as they spread his glory through being fruitful and multiplying expanding if you will bible trivia how far did we get with that anyone know how far did we get with this fruitful multiply enjoy god two chapters two chapters all right good job humanity like we we killed it we actually

really didn't even be fruitful multiply yet all right it was just husband and wife and messed it up genesis 3 we get the fall and from genesis 3 all the way to revelation god's fixing it god's restoring it he's fixing it but just to kind of give you a little bit of what's going on here in the the the reason for why we need multiplication is because the effects of sin in genesis 3 17-19 also we see this in romans 8 19-22 we see the curse on creation so again there's a curse on creation in the sense that when you see the mountain and you

feel that all you see the ocean you feel that all you see a beautiful flower whatever it is it is still lacking what its intended design was to be you're still not experiencing creation in the way god first ordered it and created it we're seeing a fractured picture of creation which is great because he's going to fix it and restore it in the end but romans 8 literally says that creation itself is frustrated with us creation itself is groaning until the lord comes back and restores all things and i mean that's where we get a lot of the biblical foundation for why there's hurricanes and

tornadoes and earthquakes and fires and all these things is because again creation itself is is fractured and friction is happening in the sense that sin is still running rampant we also see the fact in genesis 3 that humanity is alienated from god all right the way that they manifest their alienation from god is they run and hide from him because they know that the relationship is broken and fractured sin also in genesis 3 strains the marriage relationship all right they had two chapters singing songs to each other enjoying one another and here they're throwing each other under the bus adam what happened that woman you

gave me things were great and then you gave me her and then things went sideways like that's essentially what adam is saying god's like okay just a few moments ago you were like flesh of my flesh bone of my bones like i've not seen anything like me this is like me this is good this is a helper this is fit for me nothing else is better than this this is great and then all of a sudden he's like worst thing you could have done god i mean that's literally what adam is saying the woman you gave me caused me to sin and then the woman

passes the blame as well no one's willing to own their blame she passes the blame on to the serpent and then we see in genesis 4 when they actually are fruitful and multiply we see violence in the family when brothers murder brother i mean jacked up family right you feel like yours is rough we then see in genesis 4 23 it continues on we see hostility in the community of relationships genesis 6 5-8 we see that all of society is corrupt at that point to where god floods everything just wipes them all out you know it's funny a lot of times culture says god if

god is so good why does he allow bad things to happen why doesn't he just fix it all this is the first time he did that so a lot of times if you ask that prayer why doesn't god just fix everything he's just gonna wipe everything out again all right let's just not go crazy lord let's just not do that again well he promises us that he's not you get to celebrate that every time you actually see a rainbow he then continues on after that starts over with noah and his family hey continue to go out be fruitful and multiply let's start this thing over

noah kicks it off really well getting drunk passing out naked in a dent well this feels like it's going to go great again to the point where as he continues to be fruitful multiply i guess genesis 11 1 through 4 and we see the first organized rebellion and the end of god's creative order when it comes to the tower of babel and this organized people who have come together and they're doing two things that are going completely against god's creative order again god's purpose make my name great spread my name over all the earth the way you're going to do that is by being fruitful

multiply just keep going just keep expanding and what do we see in genesis 11 1-4 now the whole earth had one language in the same words and as people migrated from the east they found a plane in the land of shinar and settled there and they said to one another come let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly and they had brick for stone and uh bitumen for mortar and they then they said come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves lest we be dispersed over the face of the

whole earth two things they're doing here let us make a name for ourselves but we're not worried about the name of the lord anymore we're here to make a name for ourselves at the same time we're not going anywhere we're not dispersing anymore we're done expanding so not only are they directly disobeying give lord the lord the renown and glory of his name this is really where we see the first organized idea of secular humanism the idea of make a name for yourself expand your influence expand your power expand your wealth except like leave your legacy and and that's actually completely anti the gospel it's

actually completely anti god's creative order it was never meant for your name to be renowned amongst the generations and to be passed down but rather the name of the lord and you really see that i mean the best way it comes down to is john uh john the baptist like he must increase i must decrease like that's gospel and here what they're saying is we must increase our name and decrease the lord decrease the lord it's here in genesis 11 that the curse of sin has reached its real pinnacle now one point to be made here regarding the sovereignty of god is you will never

you will never for god's plans which is actually very uh very freeing to know like that that should be something that you're not like fearful of the lord in the sense but rather that should be something that allows you to rest a little bit and knowing that no matter how you think you might jack up your life you're not going to thwart god's plans over your life that's good to know and what that actually does is for some people they're like well that gives me a license to sin then no no that means you don't really understand god's plans what it actually does is it

gives you the fuel for worship it gives you the fuel for worship because it shows you how much grace and mercy god is willing to continue to extend to where you begin to hate the things he hates and you begin to love the things he loves and you begin to sin less and worship more you begin to belong more and sacrifice individualism more you begin to serve more rather than receive and ultimately you begin to multiply rather than divide so what did we see the lord do how does his plans not get forwarded we see in verse 5 genesis 11 the lord came down to

see the city and tower which the children of man had built and the lord said behold they are one people and they have all they all have one language and this is the only of the beginning of what they will do nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them come let us go down again that language that trinitarian language let us go down and there confuse their language so they may not understand one another's speech so the lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth and they left off building the city therefore its name was called babel

because there the lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth so despite their sin god will still multiply them and spread them over the earth all right now that solves the mandate to be fruitful multiplied right but god just came in and just spread them and continued to do that work himself it solves that aspect of it but what about the aspect of god's name being renowned in god's name being made much of when it comes to them being spread across the earth well god answers that for us too the first

time he answers that for us is in genesis 3 15 when he tells adam and eve and he's talking they're kind of adjacent to this he's talking to the serpent but he tells the serpent i will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel this is the first time that god is preaching the gospel to humanity it's the first time that there's good news in the midst of darkness it's called the proto-evangelium is the first good news the first good news it's the first promise of god that he's

actually going to undo what they just did and he's going to fix the problem and that it's going to eventually be through again being fruitful multiplying having offspring and descendants it's going to come through one of the offspring of the woman a child that one day will bruise the head of satan and in the meantime also bruise the heel of the christ the messiah this battle between jesus and satan death and the enemy ultimately of course that is all pointing to the cross this is god preaching the cross right here in the garden of eden that's the first promise that we get he continues going

on with that same promise following that great engineering idea in at babel god disperses all the people over all the earth and as he disperses all the people he then calls one guy who's dispersed one guy from the east his name is abram and he calls them out we see this in genesis 12 1-3 now the lord said to abram go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that i will show you and i will make of you a great nation and i will bless you and i will make your name great so that you will be a blessing

i will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you i will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed shall be blessed so again this is taking the promise from genesis 3 and continuing to now amplify it that not only is there just going to be a death of sin and evil and satan eventually but also there is going to be a blessing a blessing and the ultimate blessing honestly is just the presence of god among the people it's it's restoring the relationship so that again the people are enjoying god forever and we are praising god's name because

of the fact that we are enjoying him forever so that is the blessing the blessing is i am going to bring my presence among the people and in this regard among all of the families of the earth are going to be blessed but abram is going to come through your house i'm going to make you a great nation now if you know anything about the bible you know here abram is 75 years old he's in old age at this point he's married to sarai who eventually becomes sarah she's in old age at this point barren to the point where they cannot have a child and

yet he is telling them i'm promising you a child and through that child is going to make a great nation that eventually will bless all the nations so follow me here for a moment that main promise is given to abraham now if you know anything about it you know that it takes a while all right this is a promise given he moves to the land that god has called him to move to he uproots his family he begins sojourning across the the the geographical location there and he just continues to move and as he moves their whole thing is god told us there's going to

be a child so let's just keep getting busy doing that let's figure that out but yet it takes 25 years 25 years before god actually blesses them with the child that he promised which is tough because that requires dependence it requires trust it requires faith that again god's not going to leave you without because as i said last week in the sermon that he gives us that measure of faith whatever he promises to us he also gives us the measure of faith to trust so that we can be faithful and continue to praise even when we're waiting he then has the child and we know

that that promise is then repeated to abraham's son isaac in genesis 26 that there's going to be a blessing to all the nations it then is promised to isaac's son jacob in genesis 28 as he is continuing to be fruitful and multiply we see jacob is very fruitful and multiplying and has 12 sons that become the 12 tribes of israel all right jacob's name eventually gets changed um and i believe it's like around genesis 37 to 41 right in that range um or no genesis 35 there it is i knew it was in my notes his name gets changed to israel and he becomes the

father of the nation of israel so that all the 12 tribes again continue to be fruitful and multiply but one thing to point out here is that there's a beautiful story in the middle of of of this family because even this family is a jacked up family all right is the story of joseph joseph is one of the twelve sons joseph is a type of christ joseph is a type of jesus he is a beautiful picture of the story of jesus that is ultimately going to come what we see with joseph is joseph is is beloved by jacob by israel beloved by him so much

so that he he buys them a coat that's made up of multiple colors and it actually frustrates the other 11 brothers so much so that that that they are um that they're going to just get rid of joseph all right some of them want to just kill him off and a couple of the other brothers reuben another one are like hey let's not kill him we don't need to shed blood here let's just dig a pit and throw him down in the pit and just kind of leave him leave him there and then eventually they see some midianites coming down the road and they say

you know what instead of that let's just sell him let's sell him and then we'll take his coat from him we'll tear it up we'll throw some blood on it and we'll go back to jacob and we'll tell jacob that you know an animal ate them up and and that's actually the story that they end up going and doing but one of the beautiful things that we see here is that god's blessing is going to make its way all right again you cannot thwart god's plans so joseph in this moment gets sold into slavery for 20 shekels of silver and you can actually even foreshadow

that all the way to judas eventually selling jesus off he gets sold off goes into slavery actually ends up getting imprisoned but because of god's presence that blesses while he is in prison the prison guards are literally just blessed by joseph to the point that they then put him in charge of all the prisoners a prisoner in charge of prisoners interesting he then again comes out of that begins interpreting some dreams for some people and as he's interpreting dreams it catches wave with pharaoh in egypt pharaoh's having some trouble with some dreams that he's having and he says go get this dream interpreter and bring

him to me so joseph comes and as he comes he interprets pharaoh's dream and it's this weird dream that's talking about flourishing and famine and whatnot and he's trying to figure out what to do with that and as he literally interprets this dream for pharaoh pharaoh sees the wisdom and discernment and that the lord the presence of god is with joseph that he places joseph a hebrew over egypt literally in charge he becomes second in command over all of egypt that's amazing like that that just doesn't happen i mean everything in this day and age is all about lineage it's all about blood it's all

about uh right of of family and where you come from you don't take something from another tribe you don't take someone from another ethnicity and place them over somebody in this regard but this is exactly what happens with joseph now joseph and the blessing of the lord is with him egypt is flourishing guess what's happening with everything else in the world all the ones that are making a name for themselves all the ones who are trying to not praise the lord anymore the brothers with their tribes and their they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing doing famine are you you want to starve

yourself of flourishing just go against anything that god has ordered go against anything that god has designed go against the way god wants you to live your life you'll starve yourself you'll find yourself in no satisfaction joseph finds himself in a place of blessing and what ends up happening is the 11 brothers and some time has passed here the 11 brothers they bring their people and they come to egypt because they're looking for life they finally realize that we're sinning and that's leading the famine we need life we need sustenance we need we need grace and we need mercy in this moment and so they

picture it they repent and they turn and they come to where the blessing is and joseph is there now joseph in this moment being in the position he is in has every right to kill every single one of them but instead what does he do he forgives his brothers they don't even recognize him at first when they do i mean they fall weeping and he extends grace and mercy and he takes care i mean this is exactly and another thing that's again i just love how the bible was just so in the nitty-gritty details joseph is 30 years old when he enters into pharaoh's ministry

that he gives to him how's jesus when he enters into his ministry 30 years old like the bible just like god just loves dropping in little you know nitpicky things that really wouldn't matter it but he's like i'm just gonna just sometimes they're dumb and they just don't understand so i'm just going to try to make it as as black and white for them as possible this is joseph is like jesus all right he's like same age same age and he's going to bless that's exactly what he does he blesses now when it comes to the idea of this promise going out it continues on

in 37 and 41 and on and on the blessing continues to go how does it eventually get to us because again you're looking at a nation you're looking at the hebrews you're looking at the people of israel well unless in your you're in this room and you're actually jewish uh which i don't think anybody is from that bloodline you're considered on the outside you're considered gentile according to the bible so the bible just categorizes everyone in two groups all right jew gentile well again you got to come back to abram not only did he say am i going to bless your descendants but i'm going

to bless all of the families of the earth through us so that we even see in genesis 3 16 paul just puts it out there how do we know jesus is the one that's going to be this blessing for us he says this in general galatians 3 16. now the promises were made to abraham and to his offspring it does not say and to offsprings referring to many but referring to one and to your offspring who is christ so right there paul's especially saying it was all talking about jesus it's all talking about jesus jesus is the genesis 3 15 fulfillment of the offspring of

adam and eve he is the fulfillment of abraham's offspring that's going to have all nations blessed through him it is christ case closed god doesn't like confusion all right he he wants us to know because again he's about his glory and the renown of his name and he's about you and i enjoying him in all his fullness and all of his goodness and god is an absolute way in which that can be done how to praise god and enjoy him forever so he's going to tell us exactly how he wants every one of us to enjoy him in order to worship in spirit by god's

power and and to enjoy him in truth by god's design he gives it to us he just gives it to us but in giving it to us it still needs to get past us it still needs to spread there still needs to be fruitful and multiplying of the spirit and truth that is given to each person when the blessing comes to you it doesn't stop at you that that's what they tried to do in babel we we have received this engineering insight and we're going to build and we're going to construct and we're going to make a name for ourselves and we all we all

speak the same language that's great so we're going to commune here just stop here we don't need to keep spreading over the earth he said that's not how it works it's not what i've ordered so this good news this messiah the chosen savior the risen king the great high priest this good news must be preached and spread over all the world so that all the nations of the earth might be blessed through the offspring of adam and eve in the offspring of abraham the offspring of israel the offspring of david and it continues on why because again that's how god designed it look at this

in matthew or uh romans 10 9-15 how do we come to the good news how do we receive the good news how do you become a christian how do you get saved if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and you believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you will be saved great again he doesn't like confusion you hear the story of jesus the person of jesus christ right notice here it doesn't say anything about like how much money you give to the church or how much people you serve or how many friends you have or whether or not

you're close to the pastor or not or like it has nothing to do with what you do what you earn what you you know give your life how much good you do versus how much bad you do like there are no religious scales when it comes to this if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and you believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you will be saved you're confessing with your mouth jesus lord which is mean you've come to the conclusion that i'm a sinner he's not i'm not lord he is i didn't create he did he has

all power i have none i i've come to that conclusion again as we know because of scripture by his divine grace he allows us to come to that conclusion we were dead in our trespasses we're dead and i don't know last time you tried having a conversation with a dead person they don't talk back we're dead and he makes us alive to understand who he is through his spirit and so in that new heart that we receive we believe that god raised him from the dead you will be saved for with a heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and

is saved for the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame for there is no distinction between jew and greek all right remember it this isn't just about the family of abraham there's no distinction between jew or greek this is for all the families of the earth in order to be blessed for the same lord is lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him for everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved and then here he just starts to ask these kind of rhetorical questions how then will they call on him and

whom they have not believed how are they to believe in him and who they've not heard and how are they to hear without someone preaching and how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news right there he's saying multiplication is not only just a great idea it's absolutely necessary like it's absolutely necessary because the way in which god saves is by you and i as his saved children going out with the good news and sharing that good news with other so that as they hear it they're able to confess it

believe it and then proclaim it continue spreading it on where did paul get this from because again this is coming from the apostle paul well he gets it from jesus in matthew 28 16-20 the 11 disciples went to galilee to the mountain to which jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshipped him that's awesome all right we're getting back to praise his name all right that's the purpose of jesus bringing them in relationship with him is to worship him to praise him some doubted i i know you've heard me talk about that before i love that that's in there i love that

that's in there because here's the reality is is what we're teaching today some of you right now are you doubting you're doubting it you're doubting god's blessing over your life you're doubting god's goodness over your life you're doubting god's graciousness through your life and what he's saying here is he allows space for that he allows space for that in this moment there's there's actually no rebuke of them doubting but rather an encouragement for the doubt and encouragement jesus came and said to them you're doubting all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me don't forget that you cannot thwart my plans can

all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go therefore and make disciples of all nations all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit immersing them in the lead us immersing them in the relationship with the lord the father the son the holy spirit baptizing them in the name of the father son the holy spirit teaching them this is a part of multiplication teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you and behold i am with you always to the end of the age nowhere you go i will not be with you

i'm always with you wherever you go you're not doing this alone i'm not calling you to go anywhere that i'm not going to come and provide the sufficiency that you need in order to execute whatever ministry i'm calling you to go to so he's i'm providing everything you need and what you need is me i'm going with you everywhere so that i can keep reminding you all authority in heaven on earth is mine it belongs to me so you can go into this anti-gospel country you can go into this area that is hostile towards christians you can go into wherever it is because all authority

is mine and who i'm going to save as you proclaim the good news i will save them that's why i love like when we first moved to indianapolis to plant here and knowing that god has called us to come and plant here we didn't come just you know i just hope i hope that some people get saved no we we knew people will get saved and and the beauty behind it is it's it's really not up to us and how we convince them to get saved rather all we have to do is just teach the good news we teach the god we we teach the

bible we we discuss the bible in our groups we pray to the lord we work that out we we just teach the good news and and as it lands on other people's ears god begins doing the work of taking out their heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh as it says in ezekiel and all of a sudden now they have this ability to confess with their mouth that jesus is lord and to believe in their heart that new heart that they got that's flowing to believe in their heart that jesus has been raised from the dead and that he is their lord

and savior and that he is now their greatest treasure and now all of a sudden they are free from everything that they've been striving after everything that they've been longing for everything that they've been broken in they're free from that to be able to pursue the lord be able to abide in christ to be able to be fully satisfied and enjoy him and in return praise him for all the goodness that he's just done in their life and that so that's that leads you into gospel centered worship because it provides the fuel for your worship which then drives you into hey you're now a part

of a family of a church you're not part of the body of christ you not belong so now you are being made a disciple in the context of a community and then the overflow of that worship and that community leads into the overflow of serving all right jesus i didn't come to be served but to serve well jesus serves and so now that i am in christ and christ is in me i want to serve i want to multiply myself out to begin pushing it towards others and begin serving them with this good news that is now within me and then even more than that

it becomes to the result of discipleship which is hey i i'm going to be fruitful and multiply i'm going expand it if it ends with peter and james and john and matthew and bartholomew and all the rest of this if it ends with them you're not in this room right now period and the beauty is is you actually have access to be able to trace what we call church history you can trace the expansion of the gospel over the centuries the last two thousand years to be able to figure out how you got in this room right now like america didn't didn't create christianity all

right we we we were a mission field that needed the gospel to come and so when we settled we were just fortunate i say that jokingly you can't thwart god's plans the gospel came on the ships with us and it continued to expand and multiply as we are here and again it doesn't stop here it needs to continue to spread and multiply and have a heart as it says here for the nations you are to make disciples of all nations and how do we know and i just again i love revelation here because it provides for us the victory like it's it's almost like saying

let me let me pick a you know a kickball team we're going to enter into a tournament and let's just hope that we make it to the playoffs let's just hope that we make it to the championship let's just hope that we win well okay we we win like he he puts the team together the church and it goes out and it does not lose it does not lose john gets this vision and he sees in the end what it's going to look like when we're in heaven we see this in revelation 7 9-10 after this i looked and behold a great multitude that no

one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb that is jesus clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our god who sits on the throne and to the lamb like god's gonna bring it all back together so that we are rightly sitting in front of him praising him making much of his name and in that moment i mean you think you've experienced satisfaction i mean this is where we like i know we want to experience things in this life but oftentimes

if your greatest longing is not come lord jesus then then you don't have a right understanding of where we're going and what we're going to be experiencing you might be like well if i could i mean i just i remember i was in high school i was in college i was like lord just at least don't come back until i get married you know don't get don't come back until you know i you know multiply and have some little dwaynes running around and now i'm like come lord jesus you know guys now they're great i love them but we get to sit in front of

him unhindered presence with the lord no weeping no pain no sin and right now the period we're in is getting to play on the team of god saving and redeeming and inviting people to that room to sit in his presence and enjoy him forever and he's given us the command to go and be fruitful and multiply and to spread the good news that has been that has come to you and here's the thing he's gonna save who he's gonna save all right like we can rest in that he's gonna save who he's gonna save you rob yourself of the joy of experiencing what that multiplication

looks like by keeping the gospel to yourself he'll grab the next disciple he'll grab the next disciple like like that's my prayer for the district church here in indianapolis is that we don't rob ourselves of the joy of seeing the lost come to christ here in the city of indianapolis because we get so tied up in our own uh first three buckets you get what i'm saying there like i've come from in the past backgrounds of churches that that we've got our christian subculture and we're good with it and we just bicker and complain about the lost outside like we we're not going to do

that we're not going to do that we're going to get in the game and we're going to be a part of the ongoing win where it's like every pass is caught it's a touchdown like we're seeing lost people get saved and we're experiencing the joy of that i mean it's a fire that just explodes out of you as it continues to just spread to those around you it's where it it becomes addictive i mean i remember being like on staff at the church in white house tennessee where uh my youth pastor at the time and the associate pastor at the time it was almost comical

in the sense of this like competition that they had now a wholly good competition but it was like i mean literally how how many people have you shared the gospel with this week like have you seen any results from it yet has he saved anybody yeah it's like have you experienced it here he's like yeah i've got two blind up in baptism in the next two weeks this is good like it became like a let's out do one another and showing honor kind of thing in romans 12 where it was a but it was like out of the joy of celebrating with one another and

this fire beginning to burn of this idea of just multiplying like it's a celebration it's good we multiply i don't know when and and maybe again this is i don't know i'm going long i apologize but i don't know when at some point in our minds and our development of christianity we started feeling guilty sharing the gospel we started feeling concerned about sharing the gospel we started feeling insecure about sharing the gospel as if we're ashamed of jesus we're ashamed of jesus to the point where we we've paralyzed ourselves of not sharing the gospel as if it's okay to allow that person to experience an

eternity in hell that's a hard truth that's a hard truth let's share the gospel let's share the gospel let's share the good news share your story how did you come to know christ someone share the gospel with you do what they did to you go do it to someone else we continue to spread that and as we continue to work this out in our disciple groups that again i know some of you are like i mean you know you've kind of been mentioning that a little bit our push for this year is for every single first and foremost every single covenant member to be in

a group of two to three people this is going to be an informal group that is meeting on your terms that is texting on your terms that is engaging on your terms but it is you drawing one another and spurring one another on as it says here in the idea of helping one another multiply you're like where's the 59 one and others in this instruct one another speak to one another with psalms hymns and spiritual songs teach one another admonish one another make your love increase and overflow for each other as it goes out encourage each other build each other up spur one another on

to love and good deeds which impact others encourage one another you go and make disciples of all nations by preaching the gospel the good news of jesus life death and resurrection and in these discipleship groups we are going to push one another on spur one another on to love and good deeds i hate using the the language we're going to hold each other accountable to sharing the gospel as if we're going to like police one another but what at least what i'm going to do is i'm going to say hey look man stop robbing yourself you're frustrated you're in famine right now whatever it looks

like stop robbing yourself just try it multiply go share the gospel see what happens what do you have to lose start with a complete stranger if you if you will that you might never see ever again in your life before you are fearful of destroying this 12-year relationship that you have with a neighbor or a family member that you feel like is going to make thanksgiving awkward like just if they have a heartbeat share the gospel with them share the good news i mean watch it like what like just fumble the gospel out of your mouth the best you can here's the reality if you

know jesus you've got all you need to know share it with them and if they have if they have questions that they're like hey what about this and what about this and you're like i don't know i don't know but he saved me and it's great it's great he can save you too he can forgive you of your sins name some sins he can forgive those you just you just you just try it and there's going to be some people who are like you're crazy you're absolutely crazy you're mean you're a bigot you're whatever and but but you can't for god's plans there are going

to be some that say oh my god i can see him i i see jesus like he's forgiven me he's forgiven me and that's what we're that's what we're after let's pray father we thank you for your goodness to us we thank you for your commission to be fruitful and multiply and we are so thankful for your heart for the nations because if that were not true and it was just one nation we would not be celebrating in this room right now but you had a heart for all people groups all tribes all tongues and because of that we are here and we know you

and because we know you we are blessed we are blessed and we actually do become children of abraham rightful heirs to rule and reign alongside christ for all eternity and it's all possible because of your son jesus christ and what he has done for us taking our sin and giving us his righteousness we thank you lord we praise your name as we enjoy you forever it's in christ's name we pray amen