The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 3: If You Can

Episode Date: November 24, 2019

The boy’s dad in Mark 9 needed a miracle to rescue his child from oppression. Today, God could use YOU to be that miracle in the life of a child that needs to be rescued from poverty in Jesus’ name. compassion.com/COE22

Amen and amen. Church, if you got your Bible and I hope you do, we're going to be in two places, Mark chapter 9 and Matthew chapter 14, as we finish up this three-part series called One More Generation. And it's really a part of a two-year discipleship journey that we're on that you've heard already in this service called the One Initiative. And so week one of this series, we kicked it off with just this idea that every parent knows near and dear to our hearts. There is no pain like kid pain. and we ended our service with prayer and anointing, and we prayed for that one more generation. And then week two, last week, Pastor Britt did a marvelous job leading us through the reality that every family has a story.

And there's a story here at 1122 of a young girl that has impacted us all, even if you didn't know the story, it's why we shared it. And Blake and Steph Wilson shared the testimony of their own testimony and their daughter, McKenzie. And then a bunch of us showed up at the run yesterday. How many of you were at the run yesterday? Praise God. Look at all you fit people, all right? Testify. I've met a million of you. It was awesome. Okay, way to go. And it's crazy how God can use the life and legacy of one teenager to affect so many people right here in Jacksonville and all the way to Uganda and a whole bunch of places in between. And so if somehow you missed last week, go online, make sure you listen to it. And through her testimony, God last week saved 90 more people. Amen?

Praise God. Incredible. which leads us to this week, week three, of One More Generation. The idea being is that God has called us not to just reach one more generation like in our house and in our church, but we have been called to reach one more generation to the very ends of the earth. And so as you notice when you walked in, there are packets of kids all over every worship center that we have because you have walked in on Compassion Sunday. And what I am about to do, what we are about to do, is I'm going to do something

that I have been advised against since we began the church. You see, as you know, we are right in the middle of this generosity initiative. And if you made a commitment three weeks ago, today begins the day where you began to give towards that commitment or, you know, continue to give if you made a commitment last year. And so right in the middle of that, we are going to do Compassion Sunday. Now, when we first started the church, we were about three months old and we'd already outgrown San Pablo and we had to add on to the back. And so we started an initiative then, and right in the middle of that, we did Compassion Weekend.

And church experts, like these, well, I'm not going to air quote it. I believe they are Christians, maybe. But they said, Pastor, you probably shouldn't do that, okay? Because if you do this compassion thing, then that $38 a month goes away from what you're doing at 1122. And I'm like, yeah, but here's the thing, man. When I read my Bible, it seems to me that God does not lack for resources, that God has everything and every good and perfect gift is from above. And it sounds like you're working on a kind of a worldly economy, but the kingdom economy is just something different. You see, this world's economy, every time we get more,

we think it's mine. We think we have to hold on to all we have. And the problem is, you've noticed this, the more you try to hold on your stuff, your stuff gets a hold of you, doesn't it? But the more that we give away, the more God fills us up. So from the very beginning, we have been a compassion church, and we believe that generosity begets generosity. And speaking of generosity, I've got some numbers on the one initiative. Three weeks ago was our commitment or recommitment weekend. And if you'll remember, our number one goal, the number one goal is that everyone that considers 1122 to be their church would say, all right, God, you are the one thing that

drives everything, and we want to commit to bring our first and our best. And in fact, three weeks ago, we had 4,263 people commit for the very first time here at 1122. All right? That's a lot of people. That's two megachurches in case you're counting. We had 837 human beings increase their giving. That means they made a commitment last year, but this year they believed that God was leading them to increase what they had committed to give. We had 1,967 people commit to finish strong.

They made a commitment and they were behind, but they are believing that his divine power will give us everything we need to accomplish everything that God has called us to accomplish. And the total number of human beings that made a pledge were 11,718 people said by filling out a card. All right, God, you're the one thing that drives everything. That's a ton. A part of that reason is because the number of people that listen online, and I don't know if you know this, everybody doesn't come to church every weekend and a rough. Can you believe those people? Not you. You're here, but some of those people were there that week, not here this week.

So we are real darn close to our every, you know, like our average weekly attendance and the number of people that filled out pledges is about one to one. Pretty incredible. And then we had a secondary goal. And our secondary goal were we were believing God for a certain amount of resources to accomplish all that we believe he's calling us to accomplish over the next year to be one church to reach one more and especially one more generation. And do you remember the original goal last year was $52 million? And then you guys did such a good job that we upped it to $56 million. And the commitments and expected giving for the one initiative are $60,493,000, $469.5. Okay?

I love that somebody put a nickel on their commitment. I don't think that was the total. I just think somebody was tithing for the first time and said, Martha just moved the decimal and there was a nickel there. Again, that's $60,493,4669.5. Glory to God. Amen? Now, what that means is that we will be able to do a lot more faster than we have

planned to do. In regards to one church, we will be able to dedicate more resources to kingdom resources. Our church is a blessing to a whole bunch of other churches, like the album we're working on, things like year-to-date up to this point. in the year, there have been over 13 million unique views of the sermons from 1122 in over 100 countries. It will give us an opportunity to address that. That we will be able to open our North Jacksonville campus sooner. We will be able to open our St. John's campus sooner.

And we will be able to cross over into the promised land, Georgia, sooner than we believe. Amen? Coming your way. All right. In addition to that, because of your generosity, we will be able to finish out the San Pablo footprint sooner than we thought, which means we will have adequate space for all of our kids, all of our middle school ministry, all of our high school ministry, and something near and dear to our heart at all of our location sooner than we thought, we will be able to have adequate space

to serve families with kids with special needs. Amen? Amen. So, And that begins right now. So if you made a commitment, you start giving right now. And if you're new here, you know, we don't even take up an offering. So you can give online. You know how you do all that. And with that in mind, with that in mind, what we're going to do on our first day of the last year is we are going to sponsor compassion kids.

Again, because God is not in lack. God is not in need. God's not just sitting up there in heaven going, if 11-22 could just get it together, then I could do all the things that I wanted to. So the goal here today is that we would see. sponsor compassion kids so far we sponsor before this weekend we sponsor 5,000 to 22 in the life of 1122 we sponsored 9,930 kids so far today it's about 1,200 or so kids that we've sponsored and I think we can do another 1,000 in our 1122 service so that is the goal so I don't always tell you the point of the

sermon early because if I did you'd probably leave I'm giving you permission that if you are convinced right now if that's all you need to hear at any point in the sermon you can get up at any of our locations you can get up, you can move to one of the tables around the outside, and you can sponsor a kid, and you fill out the information on the back, turn it in, and you could go to lunch. You don't even have to stay for the rest of it, all right? Because that's the point. You accomplished the point of church today. Now, if you can't hold it and you've got to go to the bathroom, you have to sponsor a kid. That's on you, all right? That's on you. You can't enter the bathrooms without a packet. All right, so Mark chapter 9, I want to start there. We're going to go to two places. Mark

chapter nine is a passage that if you pay attention around here, and I'm sure some of you do, I hope some of you do, I teach on it all the time, and I taught on it during the mountain series. This is the dad with the kid with a demon, and he asked Jesus to cast out of the demon. Now, but this week, as I was, look, if you've been around Bible study for a while, don't you love it, when you read something that you've read 100 million times, but you just, I don't know, you're just in a different place in your life, or maybe the spirit just wants to teach you something new, and you see something brand new that you just didn't see last time. And so from the spring to today, as I read through Mark chapter 9,

in light of this weekend being Compassion Sunday, I just saw some new stuff. Hopefully you'll see it too. Mark chapter 9, verse 14. And when they came to their disciples, the they here is Jesus, Peter, James, and John coming down from the mountain of transfiguration. When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.

And immediately, all the crowd, when they saw Jesus, they were greatly amazed and they ran up to him and they greeted him. And he asked them, what are you arguing about with them? And someone from the crowd answered him. And this someone is a dad in utter desperation. And he says, teacher, I brought my son to you. For he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, he foams,

and he flams and grinds his teeth, and he becomes rigid, and so I ask your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able. Now, don't think Sunday school story. This is not a story. This is an event. This is a dad, an actual dad, with a real kid who has a name. And this kid needs help.

I mean, real help. And this dad is willing to do whatever it takes, get help for his kid. Let me ask you, what would you do for your kid? You do whatever it takes, right? You'd sell it all, you'd give it all, you'd move the mountains, you'd pray it, you'd do whatever it takes. And this dad brings his kid and he's looking to find Jesus, but he can't find Jesus because Jesus isn't physically there. Jesus is up on the mountain, transfigured with his face glowing like the sun. So he looks for the next best thing, he looks for Jesus' followers, which would essentially be at that time the church. It's not a whole lot of people, but the church, the Jesus

followers, they are gathered here, and Jesus is up there, and so he brings his boy to them. Don't think story. This is a real kid. What would you do for your kid? A couple months ago, I'm preaching in Europe. I got invited to preach in Sheffield and Paris in a couple of different places, and so it was over Reagan's birthday, so we took the whole family. All right, the Griswals did the European vacation. There we were. were. It was awesome. And while we were there, JP wanted to go to the Tower of London, because they have guns and swords, and it's awesome. Okay, they kill people there. And so we took a tour. You ever did the little audio tour? You put the headphones, and they're like, teet and crump. I don't know. It was awesome.

We walked around and looked and stuff. So in one room, they had the crown jewels. It's pretty cool. You ever seen the crown jewels? I have. All right? There's crowns and scepters and orbs and gold stuff and diamonds, and the price, they don't even know how to value the price of the crown jewels, because they're just irreplaceable, and here they are. And there's guards and the people with the fuzzy hats, you know, like the Q-tip guys and the swords, the whole people, they're all in there. Well, at one point, my family goes into that room, and there's like a little moving sidewalk so that you say everybody has a chance, and you get on one end and you just moves you along,

and you're listening to little videos or audio of Queens getting crowned and all this stuff. And then I look around the room. It's very, very crowded. I look around the room, and we can't find Reagan. Now, you people that have, like, three or more children, God bless you. I don't even know how you keep them alive, okay? Because we're a man-to-man defense in my house, and we can barely keep up with two of them, all right? I thought I had J.P., so did Gretchen.

We were two-on-one on him, and we let her go, all right? And so anyway, I look around, I can't find her. Now, it didn't last long enough for, like, the panic mode. But it did get a little uneasy. And I don't know if you know this, every child there looks like Reagan. All the little British kids are just a little blonde-ed of babies, okay? And everybody, oh, that ain't her. Oh, that ain't heard.

And then you just begin to get that little, right? And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, these priceless jewels all around me, do you know how much they were worth to me? Nothing. Nothing. And if the Queen of England herself were to come up to me in that moment and say, I will give you all of this priceless jewelry if you'll just quit looking for your daughter. I was like, you can keep your tacky hat.

It means nothing to me. That little girl matters to me more than all this stuff. And every parent agrees, right? That's this dad, because this is a real son. This packet I hold right here, that's a real kid. kid. He's got a real mama and daddy or granddaddy or somebody is taking care of him. And I am telling you, for little Francisco in Brazil, they would do whatever it takes to get help for every one of these little faces that are looking at you right now, just like you would if you could not feed,

cloth, and educate your kid. So this is what this guy does. And I want you to see something. Here's what I saw in Mark chapter 9 that I had not seen before. You see, what happens here is that this dad brings his boy to the followers of Jesus and they were not able to help. And I think all of these kids here on behalf of their parents, they are coming to us asking for help for their kids. Now, the crazy thing is, just like this boy in Mark chapter 9 needs to be delivered. from spiritual oppression, every one of these kids need to be rescued from poverty. And it is a spiritual oppression. Now, we'll find out later in March chapter 9 that the disciples couldn't do it.

They were not able. Why? Jesus says, because you didn't pray? Jesus says, this kind can only be cast out in prayer. Essentially, what was going on here is that they were relying on their own power. And when they did that, they got sidetracked by arguing with the scribes and the Pharisees. You see, essentially, the disciples got sidetracked by their own agenda instead of being aligned with Jesus and being about his agenda. Basically, Jesus is like, why are you fighting with the religious leaders instead of fighting for the health and well-being of these little children? And oftentimes in the church, when we see needs, we don't help.

And one of the primary reasons is because we don't pray. And I know what you're saying. You're like, no, pastor, I pray. You pray for what? Think about the things we pray for. We pray for, like, good parking spots and that the dogs will go to the college football playoffs and that God will enact his justice

against the Crimson Tide and their evil deeds, okay? We pray about stuff like that, or at least I do. I don't know what you pray for. But prayer, I hope you know, that prayer is not about getting God on your side or getting God to do stuff for you. Prayer essentially is about alignment that you would be aligned with the heart and will of God.

And oftentimes we don't help because we get sidetracked with our own comfort and cares, that we begin to think just like the rest of the world thinks, and we think more is mine. And we begin to think that stuff can satisfy. And we begin to talk about wants as if they are needs. Have you ever heard yourself say, I need some shoes? But you have shoes. You just want more shoes. It's okay. I have buffalo skin boots. You know why? Because they are bad. I'm not finishing that, okay? They are. I like them. I preach in them. I feel taller. I like them. I already had other boots, but they weren't buffalo. I don't even know what the difference is, except they're badder.

But still, I don't need them. And we can begin to think that way. And because we are not aligned with the heart of God, we can begin to just see stuff as if it will satisfy. And then we begin to think, well, what kind of difference could I make anyway? What kind of difference could I make? you see the answer is honestly you have no idea what kind of difference you could make if we would just be faithful to do the little thing that God has called us to do you have no idea the infinite thing that he might choose to do through your faithfulness and so this dad he says hey Jesus look man I brought my kid who's in great need

I was looking for you but you were gone and so I brought him to the next best thing I brought him to your followers and they couldn't do it and they got in this argument with the religious leaders about their own agenda. And so then they go on and have this very famous conversation. I want you to pay attention to it. Verse 20, and they brought the boy to Jesus. And when the spirit saw him immediately, it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground, and he rolled about, foaming at the mouth.

And Jesus asked the father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into water to destroy him. But notice this, okay, here's what he says. but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus responds, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes. And immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief.

That's one of the most honest prayers in the Bible. Most often, I was so focused on that part that I missed the first part. It's legit, okay? Jesus meets him right where he is. We sang the song, you can move a mountain. It comes from these verses. if you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, itty-bitty faith, and an infinite God,

it's infinitely more powerful than putting all your faith in your circumstances. All that is very true. But what if the emphasis here is on the word you, not if? Maybe the dad's not going, if you can, but what if he's saying if you can do anything? And maybe the reason that he's saying, if you can do anything, what he's implying is because your followers couldn't. You see, I went to them, and I made the story.

same request, my boy is in spiritual oppression and we need help. Will you have compassion and help? Notice he asked for two things. He asked for compassion. The Greek word is splegitsomai. Say splegitzo my. It means from the bowels or from the guts. Like deep down in here, you are moved like at the core of who you are and you begin to think and feel that is not okay. Heartbroken is a pretty good translation of that word. And will you help? It requires two things. You have to have compassion and the capabilities. You got to have like the feeling, the motivation to do it, and the resources. One without the other won't get it done. And he says, essentially, I brought him to your followers and they couldn't, but if you can, what if this is a picture of the church that it's worse when it fails? You see, nothing errone.

people's faith than Jesus like the faithlessness of Jesus' followers. Gandhi is very famous for saying the problem I have is not with your Christ, it's with Christians. Like what if, what if this world saw us with a heart burning for the things that Jesus had a heart for? I mean, just imagine in our world right now, imagine if all of Duval County and Clay County and all of Northeast, Florida, even if they didn't believe all the things we believe doctrinally about Jesus, but when they saw the church of 1122, they could not deny the things that we were doing for our city. Like, what if there was not one foster kid in all of 904 because 1122 just said, I'll take that? Or what if every under-resourced child from kindergarten to senior year in high school was

mentored by a believer in Jesus and the graduation rate began to skyrocket? And you could argue all you want to about theology, but you couldn't argue with the graduation rate in 904. Do you understand what people would begin to say then is maybe their faith in Jesus would grow when their faith in his followers would grow? So this dad is saying, Jesus, the reason I'm struggling, believing in you is because I tried with your church and it didn't work. And so what Jesus does here, again, praise God. He says, if you can, anything is possible for one who believes. And the dad goes, yeah, that's my struggle right now. I believe, help me overcome my unbelief. and Jesus meets him right where he is

and Jesus heals his boy. He doesn't say, go and build your faith meter up to miracle level and then come talk to me. No, no, no, no, no. He meets him right where he is. And then the disciples ask, they get in the house. This is verse 28. And he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately,

why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. I think Jesus is just saying, you got distracted from me. you got distracted from me you see when you pray our heart's aligned and my agenda

becomes your agenda this dad is coming to you and saying if you can will you help if you can will you help and I want you to pray and if the Spirit of God tells you to sponsor a kid I want you to sponsor a kid

now I don't want to end the sermon on the church not getting it right there's another place in scripture where I believe the church gets it right and I believe it is a picture of how God intends to operate in this age. Matthew chapter 14. Again, even if you're new to Bible study, you've at least heard of this one before. Matthew chapter 14, beginning in verse 13, says, now when Jesus heard of this, this is his first cousin, John the Baptist, got beheaded. Okay, so it was a bad day for John the Baptist. So when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there

in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. So Jesus, Jesus, were getting a boat and he would go straight across the Sea of Galilee and then everybody else would just kind of run around the bottom or the top of it and catch him where he was going. And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had, here's our word, compassion. Jesus had spligitsomai on them and he healed their sick. Again, both here and in Mark Chapter 9, he had compassion and the capability to do something about it. It requires both. Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him, came to Jesus, and said, this is a desolate place and the day is now over.

Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. But Jesus said they need not go away. You give them something to eat. I think what has happening in this very moment is Jesus is going to show the church how the church is to operate once he ascends to the right hand of God, the Father, and he sends the Spirit. He is saying this. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, why are you coming to me for this? That's why you're here. Like when we pray, dear God, would you just do something about poverty around the world?

Then God would look at us and go, you know, I was going to say the same thing to you. You see, in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, it was temple-centric. Everything came to the temple because the presence of God was represented in the Holy of Holies, this one little room. But when Jesus dies on the cross and says, it is finished, then the curtain that separated the presence of God from the people of God was ripped from the top to the bottom, And then the day of Pentecost comes, and the Spirit of God dwells within every single believer. And now what Jesus essentially is saying here is that, no, no, no, no, you don't have to send them away.

That you should do something about this. It's a total shift, total shift. And they say to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish. They essentially look and they're like, Jesus, we're not sure. We have enough. We have only five loaves and two fish. Okay. Just a couple thoughts.

Now, I'm saying there's no way that's true. Now, I'm not saying the Bible's not true. I'm a Bible guy. I believe it, cover to cover. I believe the leather's genuine. I believe in infallibility. I believe it all. Okay, if there's a higher view of scripture that you can have, tell me what it is,

I'll adopt that. All right. God's word is true and trustworthy all the way. I'm just saying in this whole crowd, all right, in this crowd, we're going to find out in a little while that it's 5,000 men plus women and children. So there's between 10 and 15,000 people. You mean to tell me, with 15,000 people there, they ain't at least one person who's got a little tucked away somewhere? Let me tell you this.

When I was growing up, we were going somewhere like Myrtle Beach, which was 22 miles from Dillon, we would, on the way, stop somewhere like Ryan's or Golden Corral or Quincy's or the Western Sizzling, Okay, nice of steakhouses that we had in dealing. And at the end of the meal, my grandma, her name was Mertt, we called her Mert. And Mert would say, can I get another order of bread? Why? Because the bread was free. And at the end of the meal, they would bring bread, and she would put the bread and put it in her purse, and this is known as purse bread.

Y'all don't know about purse bread? If you were going somewhere for the day, we'd go to the outlets or something, and we were like, we hungry. Can we get some? She pulled it out, purse bread. We don't know how long it's been there. But it wouldn't kill you, and you would just eat it. Big fat yeast roll seven hours later. You mean to tell me there's 15,000 people,

and ain't one Jewish grandma with some purse bread in the whole bunch? Ain't no way. Hey, some teenager with some beef jerky or a Dorito or something, some dad with a half of snickers in his boot. I'm telling you, there had to be more food in this place. We find out from John chapter 6 that the way they got the five loaves and the two fish is one little boy gave all that he had. There was one boy in the entire crowd.

There was one person that day that took what they had, put him in the hands of Jesus to see what he could do. Maybe this is why Jesus says that we should have the faith as a child unless we change and become like one of these little children. We have no part with him. You know who's willing to give up all that they have? Somebody that knows there's more where that came from. Man, we've got all these kids come to my house in my neighborhood. My kids will give away all our goldfish. You know why?

because in their understanding of our budget there's an infinite supply of goldfish. We don't even have to go to a goldfish place anymore. We hit the button on the phone, the goldfish people will bring it to the house. You understand? So it is easy to give away what is not yours, this boy. He gives away all that he has. He puts it in the hands of Jesus, which leads me to wonder how many miracles are still in people's purses because they were scared to give away what wasn't even really theirs.

Now, here's the reality. We gave generously to the one initiative. Praise God. But I know there's $38 a month still in there. And the reality is, most of us in the room, we ain't living on fish and loaves. It's not like $38 that's going to put us over the edge to break us. Man, we have resources on resources on resources. Think about how much we waste for $38 a month.

What do you get for $38 a month? like five pumpkin spice lattes. You boo-hoo, you better sponsor by seven kids, all right? I mean, seriously, you go out to eat, not to celebrate or not on purpose or not to glorify God because you didn't have a good plan and then you just end up with indigestion. I'm telling you, man. I'm telling you. I hope and pray that we will have the spligizomi, we will see a need, and we will help.

See, I think it's a picture of the New Testament. church. The old covenant was bring it all to the temple center and in the new covenant is no, no, no, it's not temple centric. It's spirit driven. In fact, Jesus says this in John chapter 14, verse 12. He says, very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact will do greater works than these because I am going to the Father. What does that mean? That we will do greater works than Jesus. That's what Jesus said. My friend, J.D. Greer, who is preached here and will again, he wrote a book called Jesus Continued. And the subtitle of the book is this, the spirit in you is better than Jesus beside you.

This is what Jesus is saying. That the model of the church is going to be that the spirit of God working in every believer around the world will do more than one Jesus in one place at one time. That the spirit in you is better than Jesus beside you. And I got to admit, can you imagine Jesus with us right now, like standing beside us Jesus right now? I would, it'd be legit, I'd put him on staff today, all right? He'd be the chief shepherd. Because it'd be awesome. Wouldn't he be awesome? You'd driving around JTB? Place is packed, five o'clock traffic, look over at Jesus, and he parts the Red Sea, shonk.

It'd be awesome. You go to a party, they run out of wine, you're like, hey, Jesus, and he, whew, and the good stuff, take that, Baptist, all right, send a book. If Jesus was your roommate, you got home and your dog's dead, be like, hey Jesus, he'd be like, Lazarus, come from. forth. Bring your dog back to life? Or if you got a cat and you're like, Jesus, my cat died, he'd help you dig a hole and put it in. And yet, Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no, it'd be better that I go and give you the spirit so that every believer in all places at all times could be doing the work of the spirit, not just me here in this one place. I mean, think about it. That on one day,

on one hill he fed 5,000 plus people. And in one weekend through one church, we can do the same. But when you sponsor a kid for $38 a month, you don't just feed them once. You feed them, you clothe them, you educate them, you give them health care, you write letters to them. And most importantly, you give them the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus says, when they say, all we got is just a little bit of fish, a little bit of bread, He says, bring it here to me.

Bring it here to me. See, it's amazing what God can do with $38 a month. There are 280 million children living in extreme poverty in our world right now today. That means they live on less than $1.25 a day. Today, in our world, 220,000 children will die from preventable disease. You know what that means? That means malaria. Do you even know anybody who has?

malaria. Do you know why? Because if anybody were to get that here, you'd go to, like, you'd just go to the clinic. They give you a shot, and it's over. It's over. You have flu-like symptoms for a minute. Do you know what? One of the number one killers of children in poverty is, diarrhea. What do you do when your kid gets diarrhea? You don't, like, call the elders and say, oh, no, this is a life-threatening disease. You go to Walgreens and you shove some pepto or emodium in them. That's it. They miss school for a day with a note. And 22,000 kids today won't make it because they die of preventable disease. It is not okay.

Where you live should not determine if you live. Not in our world. Not these days. And so Jesus says, so just bring that to me. Bring that little bit to me. And then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish. He took up, he looked up to heaven and he said, blessing and then he broke the loaves and he gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave it

to the crowds. So, technically speaking, who fed 5,000? The disciples did. Now make no doubt about it, Jesus was the source, but his followers are the system. Jesus is the source. Every good and perfect gift is from above, but we are the system by which he wants to demonstrate compassion and help people in need. Think about how this worked. Jesus says, hey, you feed them. And they're like, oh, we got this one little lunchable. He goes, here, bring it to me. And so, I mean, think about this.

Jesus is standing there, and he looks up to heaven, and he blesses the food. Father, thank you for this food, and the hands that prepared it and let it nourish our body. He must have said that because that's what we always say, all right? And he takes it, and then he hands it to the disciples. So I don't know exactly how five loaves and two fish spread amongst 12 disciples. But imagine you're a disciple, and you've got this little part, and then you turn around, and there's 10 to 15,000 people looking at you. and you got a half a piece of bread and a fishhead.

And you're like, I feel like a fool starting to hand this out. I'm going to hand it to one person and be like, all right. So, hey, just take a little bit. And he hands a little bit to this guy and hands a little bit. At some point in the handing out, it has to occur to the guy. I can hand it out and hand it out and hand it out and hand it out. And the more I hand out, the more I have to give. Hey, can I have another fish?

Yeah, you can have a whole fish. Look, you want a fish and you want a fish? I mean, this thing is just, and at some point they look around and the Bible says that everybody ate all that they could eat. They had their fill. Think like Thanksgiving 3 p.m. Sweat pants on. All the fish, all the bread. They are slam full.

And then they go, what are we going to do the rest of this? I don't know. Put it in a basket. 12 baskets left over. Do you see the picture here? When J.P. was much younger, he was in preschool. I was taking him to school. He was in Ms. Nita's class.

Ms. Nita is now on staff with us. That's how I hired her. Everything she did, she just made it awesome. And so I was like, I need that here. And I felt like my staff at that point was like a preschool class. We need her to help. Okay, so she came on. She made everything better.

So I don't know what she was teaching. We were going to school one day, and J.P. says this, Dad, how come God doesn't make enough food to feed everybody on the world? And I just thought. Well, actually, he has. There's plenty of food and resources on this planet to feed everybody on this planet, but son, for some reason, I don't know why. He has handed it to those of us that live around here,

and he wants us to hand it to everybody else around the world. Have you ever considered that God did not give you all that you have so that you could have all that you want, but so that others could have all that they need? And they all ate, and they were satisfied, and they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces left over, and those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides the women and children. Now this is total speculation. The Bible doesn't say this,

but I'm just guessing the apostle Peter gave the boy a basket to take home. Because Peter made up stuff all the time, right? Can you imagine the boy gives everything that he has? He leaves the house with like a little lunchable and he comes back with like the tailgate package. And his mom was like, where did you get that? It's like, Peter gave it to me. I gave Jesus all that I have. And now look, I have more than I can even hang on to. And everybody there is satisfied. So here's the deal. You have no idea what God could use your little $38 a month to do, to feed, educate, give health care, and most importantly give the gospel to a kid, to a kid who is oppressed in poverty and to release them in Jesus' name.

Look, in my house, we've been a part of this for about 20 years, 20 years. It was Gretchen's idea. She got us into it, and I try to do what she says. And at this point, I wouldn't ask you to do something that we're not doing, At this point, we sponsor, it was six before this weekend, and my sermon was so good, I talked myself into number seven, so there's that. We sponsor a little girl named Sonia from Indonesia. She's 10 years old. Reagan picked her packet after going through the compassion experience a couple years ago. We sponsored twins last year, Maria Clara and Maria Victoria from Brazil.

They're seven years old. Gretchen went to pick one, and they had a twin. She's like, how are you going to just pick one twin? So we got those two. We sponsored a little girl named Brandi from Georgia. Uganda, she's 11 years old. I've visited her multiple times. In fact, we support, 1122 supports a program in Uganda where as soon as moms find out they're pregnant, they do all this prenatal care, they help them have a healthy delivery and then care for the child until they're three years old

and can be sponsored. And so I met little brandy at one of those programs and kind of like called shotgun on her. So when she finally became a packet kid, we sponsored her and we went and visited her home. She lives in a little mud house in Uganda with her mom and her grandmother. They had every letter that we have written them, and they like pin it on the wall of their house. And to say thank you, her grandmother gave me a chicken. And then I had to have a conversation about Delta's policies on chickens as a carry-on. So that was a thing. We sponsor a kid named Vitor.

He is from Brazil. I picked him because that was one of my favorite fighters' names in the UFC. This week, we just filled out this. one to sponsor Francisco, Carlos de Cruz, and he is at a church partner. Here's what this means. We plant, but you know we've planted about 250 churches. Well, a bunch of them are in Brazil, in partnership with compassion. So if you see this little church partner thing on there, that means that you could sponsor a kid from a church that you planted. So that's pretty cool. So we sponsor him. And then we also sponsor a 15-year-old girl in Uganda named Grace.

And this is a picture of her. It was given to me, by compassion, really, 4-11-22, and you probably can't see it where you are, but it is a mosaic. All of these little pictures are pictures of faces of kids, of the thousands of children that you already sponsor, and it all comes together to make one picture of grace that my family sponsors. You see, this thing is personal for us. It's very personal for us. And like I told you before, we got involved, Gretchen and I got involved about 20 years ago. And when you start sponsoring kids 20 years ago,

there are little kids on these packets, man, they grow up. And I was trying to get this one girl who is near and dear to our hearts. Her name's Prossi. And I was trying to get her here to introduce her to you live and in person. But we had some visa complications and it's very difficult. And so continue to pray for that because I want to get her here. So we couldn't get her here. But it just happened to be that I was teaching some of our church planners in Uganda in September.

And so I sat down with this compassion kid who's not a little barefoot kid on a packet anymore. She used to be. Now she's a grown woman. And I just want to, I just want you to see what Jesus can do with $38 a month. Check this out. This is Prasie. Hey, church.

I'm sitting here in Uganda with one of the dearest human beings on the planet to my heart and my family. I would like to introduce you to Prasie. Church, I'm Namjuri Raprosi Jobi. I'm here with my dad here in Uganda, Massaka. I'm so excited to hear from you. I'm so excited to meet him as well and the entire team. So, Prasie, we met eight years ago

through Compassion International, right? So why don't you tell us a little bit about what it was like for you as a child growing up in Uganda? Life was very, very, very hard for us. And in my family, my dad, how can I say, he had many wives. He was a polygamist man. So my mother, being the first laid in the house, it was very, very hard for her to take care of us. Because we are many.

We are many. And then what about clothes and shoes when you were a child before compassion? I never used to put on shoes. I could go bare foot in. And what changed after you got sponsored? When compassion came in, they bought us mattresses, they gave us beddings, they took us to school, they bought us shoes, they could get up for the scholastic material, give us your uniforms, and life totally changed.

And was it compassion that taught you about Jesus? Yes. So tell me about how you became a Christian, how you met the Lord. I remember I was in P6. They preached to us, and that word cut my soul. I just surrendered because I could picture back and I saw it was God himself coming through compassion. So I had to surrender my life to him. It was the only hope.

Compassion had a program called Leadership Development Program, LDP, and it's my understanding that fouls. Thousands of high school graduates compete for very few spots, right? Eight years ago, before we had even launched as a church, we heard about a group of students in Uganda that made it into the LDP program. But they didn't have a sponsor. And so tell us about when me and you met eight years ago, when we got to show up in Uganda and tell you,

that we were your sponsoring church for the LDP program. I was so, so excited. It was so exciting meeting you, Pastor Jopi, and so it was a good experience to have a sponsor. Sometimes when fine you could be on LDP, but without a sponsor, you don't feel complete, if I may say, but if you are attached to someone,

someone is committed to see you go to school, it is really a blessing. and I just give God that glory. Since being involved in compassion, first and foremost, you met Jesus, surrendered your life to Him. Yes. Plenty of shoes and plenty of clothes.

And so tell me what you're doing now with your life. Right now, I'm working with the Judicial of Uganda and I'm working at High Court of Uganda in Mokono. Now you're a boss. How many people work for you? Myself, we are 23. Your picture was on a compassion packet, and somebody sponsored you.

And now you're the boss of 22 people. Yes. And then for us, this isn't just transactional, right? Like for us, it wasn't just writing a check. You got to know me and Gretchen and a lot of other folks from the church, and we got to know you. and even to the point where you changed your name.

I changed my name because of the love you showed me, and I just felt like I have a family now. I just felt so, so, so good to I don't know that job being named, yes. And if and when that day comes, when you get married, Gretchen and I plan on coming back, and I'm gonna walk you down the eye. Hey! They're so excited.

God showed his love through compassion. The thing is real. And we're testimony of compassion. I've tasted God's goodness in compassion. And I encourage members, this is not all about having money. When you're giving out, it's like God giving himself to us. I'm just grateful. Very, very grateful.

So this is very, very personal. Very personal. Just like in Mark chapter 9, that's a real dad with a real kid. And in Mark 9, this boy's dad needs a miracle to rescue his child from oppression. Today, there are parents of these children and grandparents around the world. And they are praying the same thing. And they are praying, if you can, would you please have compassion and help? And the truth is, we can.

you can. And so the way that we're going to respond is the way we always respond. We respond to the gospel by singing, we're going to sing. And we respond by bringing our first and our best, our ties, and our offerings. I would encourage you to do that. And we respond by praying. I pray that you would pray and that the Spirit of God would move in you and move you towards a child and that God would use you to be the answer to these parents and grandparents

and children's prayers around the world. and you would say, I can, and that you would sponsor a kid today to help, to help rescue them from poverty in Jesus' name. Now, we're going to keep the lights up, maybe even more so than now, at all of our locations, I need not a 20-year-old in the light console. I need like a 50-year-old to determine how bright is bright enough, amen, because that's different. And the way we're going to respond in just a second, you're going to stand, I'm going to pray, and as soon as you're ready, you can come forward, you can go to the sides, any direct. you can go and you pray and you just pick out a kid and fill out the information on the back and then you've got to turn that in today. Don't take them home because if you take the packet home and don't turn in the card, they are out of the rotation for like four months because this is a real

kid. He doesn't represent anybody. This is this kid's one packet. And so you'll keep the picture and you'll turn in the form and then you know what happens? It'll take a few months for the paperwork to go through and then what will happen is a teacher. at a compassion project, we'll go up to Francisco and say, Francisco, step out here. I need to talk to you. And he's going to think what I thought when I was 13 years old, oh no, they found out. But instead of getting news that he's in trouble, he's going to get this news. Francisco, congratulations.

Someone that you've never seen, someone that lives a long ways away, loves you and you have a sponsor. And these kids are praying for that. and may you be the answer to that prayer. Would you please stand and let's pray? Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. And Lord, I thank you, I thank you, I thank you, that when we were in spiritual poverty, Jesus, you had compassion and you helped us. That somebody that we had not seen somebody from a long ways away, moved into the neighborhood

and paid the full price to rescue us from our spiritual. poverty in Jesus' name. And God, I pray that you would use us to do the same thing. God, I thank you for the life and the testimony of Prasie. God, I thank you for her character, for her integrity. God, I thank you that you have blessed her. I thank you that you sent her through school and that she leads a team of 22 staff folks now in Uganda. And Lord, I pray for every single one of these children. And Lord, I pray that you would speak so clearly to our hearts and our souls, that it would not even be a matter of faith, that would just be a matter of obedience, that we would just step out and do what you have called us to do. We prayed in Jesus

name. Amen. Let us respond. Ready? Go.