 And these four things are actually going to be reflected in a home group report. In a home group report. The first one is I want you to write down hunger for God. Hunger for God. Hunger for God. What is expected of somebody who's leading a home group in our church? What is the number one requirement and I believe the number one reason why home groups fail? Is when a leader of a home group loses. Not his prayer life. Not even his Bible reading. But it's hunger for God. It's kind of ironic being hungry generation and not having hunger for God. But it's easy to have a name and not to have the substance. We started as a church. One of the reasons our name is hungry generation is because we were known and we're still are known for hunger. For hunger. Hunger is a beautiful thing because hunger always breeds and produces humility and humility brings holiness. I want you to remember these four H's. Hunger brings humility and humility brings holiness. If we lose our hunger we become arrogant. We begin to think we know it all. We begin to think that we've done everything. We've succeeded. We got it figured out. And when we lose our humility the second thing that we always because with humility with loss of humility there's always loss of holiness. And so with us guys number one thing that you have to keep in your heart as a home group leader is your hunger. And it's harder for those of you who've been in our church since the beginning. Because you probably have went through waves more than you have fingers on your hand. You have went through movements. You have went through things you've got burned. You've been walked upon. You've been betrayed. You've been backstabbed. You already kind of like sometimes it's easy to go through the motions and everything. But for the sake of people who have never went through what you went through you owe it to them to have hunger. Painted fire never burns. So to pretend to have fire to pretend to be hungry we know how to mask and show that we're hungry. When we've been hungry we know how to show hunger without actually having it. Is that what we're doing is spiritual work and spiritual work requires spiritual warfare. Write this down under hunger for God is a spiritual work requires spiritual warfare. Unlike every other social groups you know even the ones that some of us in here have where we gather people. This is different. This is a spiritual work which requires spiritual warfare. Without having that hunger what we do is we don't show up on the spiritual battlefield to fight the battle. So what am I mean practically by hunger for God? Is that your hunger for God is really shown and seen and is strengthened by your prayer time or your Bible reading time. Without having a strong prayer life as a home group leader not only that shows that your hunger for God is dead but that also shows your hunger for God will never even come back. So prayer isn't the only thing that shows I have it. Prayer is the only thing that guarantees for it to come back. We're doing a spiritual work which requires spiritual warfare. David one time instead of going to spiritual warfare he decided to sleep in and stay home and sleep when the kings were supposed to go to battle. What that led him to is that that empowered his flesh and he started to live according to the flesh. I want you to remember this guys as home group leaders. This is not a pretty truth and there's no better way to put it, there's no nice way to put it but this way. If you find excuses to ignore your prayer life you will empower your flesh period. You can quit home group, you can quit every kind of ministry. If you stop praying you empower your flesh. When David didn't go to a battle, David struggled with the battle he wasn't anointed to win. He was not even supposed to be in that battle. Why was he in that battle? Because he refused to fight the battle God anointed him for. And that's the battle he was supposed to be with his armies. The battle God called you to fight is to be on your knees at least 30 minutes a day. An hour a day whatever the time that God places on you. In the morning or in the evening that's up to you. But if you don't show up to those battles, if you find excuses and simply say Jesus paid for it all. I don't need to pray, I don't need to do all this stuff because I've got it figured out. You will see this in your life is where you are going to be empowering your flesh. Same thing happened to Apostle Peter, John and James. When they were in the garden with Jesus and Jesus says hey guys stay with me, pray with me. And the guys were sleeping, guess what happened? When the temptation came in, the only person who endured the temptation overcame it was Jesus. And the guys who slept instead of fighting, they in the temptation, their flesh was empowered. They couldn't resist it. Put it like this, you're going to either have a secret place with God or you're going to have a secret sin with the devil. But you're going to have a secret. You're going to choose which secret you're going to have. I choose which secret I'm going to have. And so I understand sometimes it's hard to find time to pray. Sometimes it's hard to find a time to focus and pray. But hunger for God, love for God is really the only thing they will keep as like T.P. Jeffery says on the course following Jesus. And so get back to your secret place. Maybe slow down a little bit on the social media every free time. If you haven't been reading the scriptures, but you're constantly on the social media, maybe tone that down a little bit. If you know a lot what's happening on TV, but you have not been engaged in prayer in spiritual warfare, which your home group situation will reflect that. And so you don't have to go very far to ask for it. You just look at your home group and you figure out that, hey, this is a good reflection of that. Or your own spiritual life. I just really would challenge you to get back into the hunger for God. Number two, after hunger for God is maturity. Or we can put it emotional, maturity. After hunger for God and prayer life and good life in the word. The second thing that's not just required, but it's important for us to maintain. And that is maturity. Under maturity, what I mean by that is that there's three levels of maturity. The first level is the level of the child, which needs to be taken care of. The second level is we know the level of the youth, which learns to take care of himself. And the third level is the level of the father, which cares for others. So maturity. It's when you mature enough to learn to take care of your own spiritual life, and then you actually mature even further where you become concerned and you notice other people, not just yourself. There's two parts of our spiritual growth. One is when we meet the cross. The second one is when we pick up one. And many of us, we only know how to come and gaze at the cross and find healing, forgiveness, all paid for. And that's a believer's. But Jesus switched it, always with his disciples, not with the crowd, but with his disciples. He always said this. He said, after they found out he was the son of God. He didn't say that until they knew he was the son of God. So it means after you have a revelation of the cross, he right away brings you another revelation. If you don't pick up your own, you're not worthy of me. He wasn't saying that to the crowds. He was only saying that to people who are close to him. And this is this part that we sometimes don't like to mention it, even behind the pulpit. And this belongs to us. As guys, our maturity involves, we move from looking at the cross to caring one. What does that mean? Caring the cross, where I grew up in the church, the cross meant your spouse. Your spouse, your husband. The cross that you have to bear. And so, and your husband, literally, even Martin Luther, he was teaching his pastors. He says that this bitter, bitter cross that you have to endure and that is just your annoying, crazy spouse. And so that was the way. Some people think cross is a sickness. That's not, we believe the cross is, is you live your life for the cause of Jesus, without feeling sorry for yourself. I recognize, and I see this in myself sometimes, when you start to do something that you don't get anything for it and you kind of sacrifice yourself and the devil always puts the person beside you who is supposed to be doing the same thing. But at this season or at that time, they're not, it feels like they're not doing it and then you start developing self pity and you start feeling sorry for yourself. Like Elijah, I'm the only one who obeys you God. And Saul did the same thing. He came to the priest and he says, nobody tells me anything what David is. You know, I'm just all alone and everything. And that's self pity. The problem with self pity and the problem with feeling sorry for yourself is that that is very deadly. This one thing that I've learned, if you really want to be sacrificial in long haul, you're going to have to kill this snotty little demon called self pity. What I mean by this, guys, of maturity is that we consciously have to live with this fact. Right is that? Our life cannot be dearer to us than Jesus's life was dear to him. Our life cannot be dearer to us than Jesus's life was dearer to him. What Jesus views as maturity is that you know how to live, not for yourself. If your life is very dear to you, so dear that you shake at the possibility that you're going to give something more than what is really required, then you and I have to mature that we are not afraid to... I know it's not proper and it's not politically correct. We're not afraid to waste our life on the cause of Christ. To waste our life on the cause of Christ. The problem with many of us is that when we become homedocletives, guys, it's kind of like becoming a father. And those of you here who are fathers, you can testify to the fact you can't raise a family with a bachelor lifestyle. You can't be a bachelor and raise a family. You sleep less, sacrifice more, you spend more money, and sometimes it's easy to look at people who have pets, you know, you have children, you know, you're like, man, but those people, they spend less money, they could just shoot the pet if they don't like it, you know, with me, you can't do that and stuff. And there's a different lifestyle. You can no longer be a bachelor. Guys, when you become a home group leader, there's a lot of, sometimes it feels like, man, but that's not fair. Not only I'm meeting with the people, not only I have a home group, I mean, now they're like putting me at everything and then I have to be like a prayers and I have to be the example for everything. And I felt this backlash even from some people saying, you know what, I don't think that this is for me or I think this is like too much, I need a break and everything. You know, when a father gets a child and I see that with Elliot Martin up close and stuff, they can't just simply say, you know what, I'm just gonna sell the child or rent him out for a few months because I'm done, I'm tired, I get sleepless nights, I mean, I can't manage my life now. You sort of, after you get that, this is when maturity is developed, you recognize, my season changed, my life is no longer mine. And if a home group leader doesn't have that, he hasn't matured. You will feel to a certain degree pulled. And if you're not being pulled, that means you're really carrying a title of a leader but a lifestyle of a believer. You can't raise a family with a personal lifestyle. Maturity means simple, I'm aware of new people. Maturity means that my life is no longer mine. And if they ask me, you know, on Saturday, do we need to clean up the church? And on Friday we had a night prayer and on Thursday, you know, we had a conference meeting and it feels like I have no life. So if you don't have it, it's probably in his hands. It's make sure in his hands, you know, or people just keep asking me to do stuff. Well, last time I checked, you did pray, Lord, make me a servant. Why do you complain if they treat you as such? And I've realized the only reason Jesus was able to serve on the last sub is because the Bible says this, he knew who he was, he knew where he was going. When you know who you are, you're secured to serve. Insecure people can never serve. If it doesn't give him anything, why? Because their world is going to fall apart. And so there's a certain security God will develop in maturing us and in serving other people. Jesus says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. And he says, learn from me for I am meek and then you'll find rest. It means relax. Don't be important. Serve. Love people. Help people. And you will find rest. Because when you worry about your little kingdom, it's very stressful. Because you find out not everybody likes to worship you. And to get everybody to worship you is sometimes just hard. When it comes to home groups, multiplication, this is the huge part. Jesus outlined that faithfulness is not in preserving, but in multiplying. Preservation always leads to two things, laziness and wickedness. The guy who preserved his talent, Jesus labeled him as lazy and wicked. If we stop aiming in our groups to multiply our groups at least once a year, two things are going to creep in. Laziness. And after laziness, wickedness. Wickedness just means sin. Laziness meaning we become lazy. And then we become wicked. Preserving our group is not the goal of the group. Multiplying our group is the goal. How do we multiply the group? By number one, as we mentioned, our maturity is that we disciple new people. We help the new believers. We try to have constantly new people because if your home group is always the same people and it doesn't have new people after a while, your home group lacks the excitement. When you have new people, the next thing that happens is that your goal and my goal for you and your goal for you is your group has to multiply at least one time a year. At least one time a year. So that means that as you are bringing new people, you're already developing your helper. Your helper. When you cannot make it to the home group, the home group doesn't get canceled. Your helper does your home group. He does the report. When you cannot make it, let's say you assign to this person who just gets assigned that you really cannot make it. You assign your helper. You start to get your helper involved. When your home group becomes so big that you're ready to split it but your helper isn't ready, this is what you do. You do a home group, you can do the lesson, share your relation, whatever. When it comes to the ministry time, you get him prepared. You almost have two home groups meet in the same house until you feel like that helper is ready. Just because the helper has people, that doesn't mean the helper is ready. We cannot make a mistake of releasing people prematurely. But the way you can get him ready is by making your home group in two home groups right in the spot, by letting him minister already to a few of the people right there in the home group. And this way you can have a bigger home group which sometimes numbers attract people because if you only have two people, a lot of younger people will have a hard time coming in. It really is easier. Begin to empower your helper. Sometimes, on purpose, pretend to be sick. No, I'm not saying every other weekend once a month. I'm saying sometimes, and just let him handle it or let her handle it so you can see also how well did you do. Because real success of your home group isn't how many people show up, how many people you bring. It's how many people show up if you're dead. It's how many people show up if you can't make it. That is really how you empower or you are not. And so multiplication is the second thing. If you don't have this vision in front of you, you can just simply meet what's new, what's lessons. You're not going to be looking for new people. You're not going to be having new people because you're not looking for them. And then God's not going to be sending anything. Why does he need to send something to you if you're not even ready for that? You're not even needing that. And so you really have to, as a leader of the group, you really have to have that vision in front of you. And last thing, mind management. Mind management is that your mind always has to be positive about your group. Just because you sacrifice and carry the cross, they don't need to know that doing a home group is a cross. When Abraham was bringing his son to sacrifice on the altar and his son was asking, hey dad, where is the sacrifice? His dad didn't say, you're the sacrifice. He says, listen son, don't worry. God's going to provide a sacrifice. I was reading that story today in Genesis 22. Abraham was so positive, though he was the most sacrificial. And I realized one time, sometimes when we develop this modern mentality of really dying for Jesus, it starts creating this pessimism within us where we feel like the more sacrificial we are, the more right we have to be negative. You cannot be negative just because you're sacrificial. You actually have to be positive. Otherwise your sacrifice is going to suck. Life out of you and out of them. You got to be like Abraham said, Lord, you'll provide. God is doing awesome things. This whole idea, nobody wants to come. Nobody likes it. Honestly, maybe it started like that, that nobody wanted to come, that nobody is new, that they just, they have no point in everything. Honestly, it started like that, but now the reason why the home group is like that is because of you. You got to get rid of the stinky thing. You can't think like that. You can't say like that. Your feelings about your home group, if you dread that meeting, go to your room and say, Lord, bring me new people, give me new people, change me, them or somebody, but something has, I cannot feel like that. You can't walk into a home group and your home group elevates your feeling. You have to go to your home group. You elevate the home group because what is the home group in your mind always has to be bigger than the home group in your house. Write this down. The home group in your mind always has to be better and bigger than the home group in your house. You got to be optimistic. This is what 4th Dimension is all about. You got to have it in your mind clear and cut. This is going to be great. I have an awesome group, awesome people, even if they're not awesome, they will become awesome. God will send you awesome people, but if you're walking around, this is not working out, this is not for me, do two things, either change or quit. But don't drag on like that. If you can be positive, either you change or just don't do home group. I'd rather have 10 home groups that are passionate. They're literally, they don't want to, and when I told them that we had a meeting on Monday and Larissa got mad. Why? Because she's passionate for a home group. Not mad, but she's just like her face turned red. No, that's it. And why? Because her home group is her passion. You talk to Larissa, she's not looking how to cancel it. She's not looking, she's looking. She loves her home group. She looks forward to home group. And that is the home groups that multiply. Because why? Fourth dimension inside is full of peace. I'm excited for it. And the weird part how it works, it's like a magnet and you attract the kind of people who love it and you multiply it and it could be in the same church and other people literally cannot scrape to get, find one person. Maybe change the magnet inside. It's interesting when Lot left Abraham. Two things happen. The Bible says Lot looked and saw. Lot lifted rise and Lot saw Sodom and Gomorrah and he said this is like the Garden of Eden. Very delusional. Fourth dimension. And Abraham's eyes went down. Lot left him. A lot of people left him. And God comes to Abraham and God says to Abraham, you now lift your eyes. I want you to notice the difference. Lot lifted his own eyes by his own and saw something in fourth dimension that looked like Garden of Eden. He was actually Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham who was brought down, he was discouraged and God came to me and said Abraham, lift up your eyes and look. Look this way, that way because this is the land I'm giving you. Guys, if somebody left, if something didn't work out, God is speaking to you. Lift your eyes. Don't lift your eyes on your own but God is speaking to you. Lift your eyes and just begin to imagine, begin to dream of the home room. People coming, getting saved. You meeting with people. Home rooms being released and all of the goodies that are going to happen.