 This week I participated in a young minister's zoom with a very known worldwide known pastor who's already in his older age and The question was asked. How do you stay long with God? Meaning, how do you last in ministry? How do you achieve longevity in ministry? He had these three answers that really impressed my heart He said number one cultivate a relationship with Jesus that feeds you Not just a check mark not just a prayer room, but something that replenishes his spiritually secondly, he said Have a good reservoir of God's word inside of you Not God's word for a sermon not God's word to tell somebody not God's word to ease your consciousness Or not to lose streaks on you version Bible app, but God's word for your soul And thirdly something he said that caught my attention. He said never forsake your calling He said when you leave your calling you walk out from God's protection When you walk away from your calling you walk away from God's grace and God's anointing But sometimes life is hard. Sometimes ministry is not easy Sometimes serving our calling comes at the cost and we are all tempted at times to abandon our calling as Christians and even those who are in ministry You know, I look at today our society and I see how many parents abandoned their calling of being parents. I Meet those people regularly and probably you do as well and they had reasons But it didn't change the fact that all of their reasons brought a lot of damage to the kids That they left because they were either busy Immature or addicted to something and they abandoned their calling for those of you who grew up in the family where your mom or dad wasn't there Whatever the reasons they had for not fulfilling their calling as a parent. It didn't help you as a child Their reasons in your mind are just excuses when a Christian gives up on their calling others will suffer When a Christian Abandons their calling that God has given to them. He puts people around him in danger. Look at Jonah Jonah did not go to do what God called him to do and it says in Jonah chapter 1 and Jonah Ran from the face of the Lord the presence of the Lord It doesn't say that Jonah ran from the calling of God because any time a man and a woman of God who runs from their purpose They run from God's presence because God's presence rests on your calling. That's why Jesus says in Matthew chapter 28 He says go and make disciples of all nations baptizing and teaching them and then he says low I am with you. He attaches his presence to our purpose. He attaches his presence to our calling I want to encourage each one of you you have a calling as a Christian Your calling is the same calling Jesus had he came to seek and save those which are lost Your calling is the same that disciples had which was to bring the message of the gospel of the kingdom Into all the world and to make disciples that is your calling my friend. That is my calling You may say well this calling is is only for the pastor so for traveling evangelists or people with the external with the very Outgoing personality, you know this calling glad is for the extroverts my friend The Bible doesn't say go into home go into all the world make disciples unless you are an introvert The Bible doesn't say go into all the world and make disciples unless you have a business Unless you have children at home unless you are in school right now Unless you are very busy that calling my friend Doesn't wait and people are needing us to fulfill that calling One time somebody asked me a question. Why would God allow people to go to hell and I said I don't understand What do you mean? God doesn't allow people to go to hell. He sent his son to die on the cross He sent his spirit to live inside of us He has dispatched his angels to help us on our mission to reach the lost God has sent the church to reach the lost God is not sending people to hell. You do I Said the question is why do you let people go to hell? I Said God has done everything he could what else could he do what God has not done yet that he could have done Forced people to go there. I Said he send them you what are you doing so they don't go to hell and this person looked at me He says well, well, you don't understand. I'm just not a preacher. I'm just you know, I'm just busy I'm just a normal person and I said so you're making excuses You have a calling you should be making difference You should be moving forward but not blaming God that it's God's fault why people going to hell I'm not saying it's your fault But if we are doing absolutely nothing and people are going to hell in the hen basket my friend It is not God's fault It is our calling This week I heard a testimony that really blessed me and it's a girl who translated my book into German and She shared a testimony so about last year she reached out and She reached out through Instagram and Asked if she could translate the book I Asked her if she ever translated the book. She says I'm never translated the book But I would like to give it a shot I really feel an impression from God to help fulfill my calling by helping to translate the break free book It took a long time to get that book translated other people were involved last Sunday at this time a That day before Sunday, she feels the impression to take the book and go deliver it to her brother and Put it into his mailbox someone who has been addicted to drugs for ten years and did not believe in God She didn't want to speak to him because she was afraid of him So she just put the book in the mailbox Next morning on Sunday, her mom gives her a call and says please come to your brother's house Because your brother just phoned me. He wanted to commit suicide As they arrived at the house turns out that the brother Contemplating to take his own life went to the mailbox Found the book he did not know who dropped the book start reading it and right there in front of his family for the first time in ten years He repented and he accepted Jesus and instead of taking his life He surrendered it and she replied back. She says you have no idea what this means to me Little did I know a year ago when I said that I'm gonna translate the book that God would use that Ministry to save my own brother To bring my own brother to Christ. I want to tell you something my friends We are all called to win souls and make disciples Jesus said to disciples who were fishing he says come follow me and I will make you fishes He didn't say follow me and I will make you famous. He didn't say follow me and I'll make you rich He also didn't say follow me and I'll make your life great He did come to give us life and more abundant But the promise of following Jesus the fruit of following Jesus the consequences of truly following Jesus is not an amazing Life, it's a life of meaning purpose and significance The whole world is chasing one thing how to make money, but Christ wants you to make a difference Christ wants to make your life have meaning more than have money Pastor Ilya shared last Sunday the first installment of the series hitting a Homerun where he talked about vision how vision gives us purpose and purpose gives us discipline Regularly talk to young people who feel unmotivated who say man. I just feel lazy. I just feel like I I don't have any Motivation in my life I just feel like I lack discipline in my life if you lack discipline in your life I'm gonna tell you a secret you don't lack discipline you lack purpose You lack vision the Bible says without vision people perish in other words cast off restraint Lack of discipline is a sign that you lack vision You don't need to chase discipline You need to get a vision for your life and the best way to do that is to come to Christ because Christ not only gives you Salvation Christ also gives you purpose and Christ gives you a meaning and gives you a Goal in life and my friend that goal is not to just graduate from college Get married have children buy a truck a trailer and retire at the age of 55 That goal is not just going having a vacation once a year and pay off your home and follow all the seven baby steps Outline by Dave Ramsey program that goal is to win souls and make disciples Come on somebody And that applies to all of us and not just to the few but to all of us win souls and make disciples To reach our world for Christ for the glory of God I would like you taking I would like to take a reading from Exodus chapter 1 verse 7 But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty and the land was filled with them verse 10 so the Pharaoh said Let us come and you shrewdly with them less they multiply and it happened in the event of war and It happened in the event of war that they would join our enemies and fight against us So let us so to go out of the land verse 12 But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew and they were in dread of children of Israel Multiplication meaning that we don't just have salvation, but we share our salvation now We can't make somebody be saved. That's the work of Jesus But we can share the gospel by which they can come to the knowledge of Jesus and then become his followers and with time Become his disciples who in return can disciple others and bring others to Christ. That's what I mean when I say multiplication Many of us are multiplying all in wrong places multiplying our weight multiplying our other stuff instead of multiplying our Significance and influence in the kingdom of God and it's time to take the right multiplication because we were multiplying in the wrong places We were called by God to multiply If I may remind you when God created this world He created the plans to multiply the fish to multiplies the birds of the air to multiply the creation were created with multiplication inside When God created a man and a woman he also blessed them in Genesis 1 verse 28 It says be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over everything that moves on the earth Humans were called to be fruitful and multiply God promised to Abraham I will multiply your descendants like the stars of the sky and the sand on the field He was 70 when God gave him that promise it took 220 years before Abraham saw only 70 people in his little tribe very slow multiplication Nevertheless, he was moving toward that goal of seeing multiplication God promised through an angel to Ishmael and his descendants that he will multiply them Isaac was promised the same thing Jacob was promised the same thing our Lord Jesus Christ. He multiplied fish and bread He outlined in Matthew chapter 25 that he expects the talents not to be preserved but multiplied and People who preserve the talent he called them not faithful, but lazy and the guy who multiplied his talent He didn't get called successful Ultra spiritual. He was called simply faithful and good servant I believe it's time for the church to redefine the definition of faithfulness We define faithfulness as you know, I'm keeping my faith brother. Oh sister I'm just going through a very difficult time But I'm just not losing my salvation and that what we call faithfulness number one You shouldn't focus on losing your salvation because your salvation is secure in Jesus Christ You are secure and the Lord God didn't call you to focus on maintaining your salvation God called you to multiply your influence in his kingdom Please understand God doesn't call faithfulness preservation preservation faithfulness. He calls multiplication as faithfulness Jesus Christ he multiplied his character in his 12 disciples 11 disciples one of them will when cuckoo haywire stuff But 11 of them caught his heart the scripture says in Acts chapter 6 that the early church Disciples multiplied and then it says and the number of disciples multiplied greatly. What am I trying to say? We all are called by God to be fruitful in our walk with Christ and to multiply ourselves and other people By bringing them to Christ helping them to mature in Christ so they can help to bring other people to Christ Who will mature in Christ to help bring other people to Christ who will mature in Christ? That was Jesus's strategy now. I understand objections right away because you may say well that that's awesome But that's isn't that what the pastor supposed to do? That you're talking about ministry Vlad and that's that's for the pastor scripture says the pastor's assignment and job is to help the saints To do the ministry now pastor is also a believer and he needs to do that as well He's not just there to equip the saints and never do it himself pastor is called to do that himself But the saints are called to the ministry Some people say well, I understand this whole discipleship thing and evangelism You lost me there the moment you mentioned it Vlad are you lost me? Why because it doesn't apply to me? the reason why it doesn't apply to me because I Already am involved. I already do a lot of things and I'm very busy My friend nowhere in the Bible that Jesus say Discipleship is only for those who have nothing else to do in church No, we're in the Bible does the word of God say that winning the lost caring for other people is only for those Who didn't qualify for kids ministry? They're not qualified for worship team. They do not know the sound they don't do slides in church They're on usher. They're on greed. Oh, there is that little ministry for those who have nothing else to do And for those who couldn't fit into any other ministry shove them into this hypership That's not what the Bible says. I find it interesting that parenting Is not limited to people who are idle Our president is a parent He has a very stressful job, but he has children president before him Barack Obama had children Why he's busy the whole world hangs on him Them most powerful man in the world. He doesn't have time to be a parent Billionaires have children People who are in college have children one of my guys who goes to my life group right now is in full-time job Full-time school and he's taking care of four children full-time job full-time school and four children He didn't say well, I can't do children. Why because I'm in work. I'm working. No parenting is not only for people who are unemployed Parenting is for businessmen parenting is for billionaires parenting is for homeless Parenting is for unemployed employed rich poor smart not so smart. It's for everybody Nobody disqualifies himself from being a parent just because they're busy Yet in church in the kingdom of God many of us We take the parts of about our purpose and about winning the loss Discipling others and we say well that doesn't apply to me. Why because I'm busy I'm finishing school I'm working on my this. I'm working on my marriage. I'm building a house. I just started a business I bought a new truck. I need to test it Doesn't that sounds like the guy who refused to follow Jesus and refused to come to the wedding feast because they had these Wonderful life excuses. I just want to challenge you that winning the loss and discipleship the vision of Jesus for your life It's for your life my friend If you call yourself Christian that means your Christ like and Jesus underserved He ministered to the masses and he mentored a few people and so there is no way on this God-green earth You can call yourself Christ like yet reject the very reason why he lived and died There's no way. I'm not saying you don't believe in God You do demons believe in God too But to say that I follow Christ and I reject his mission for whatever reasons we conjure up in our mind is just not Just doesn't make sense Doesn't cut it. We believe in the Lord. Yeah going to heaven, but to be his Christ like The only thing Christ like in us is Is that we believe in God Do we follow God's calling? By surrendering our life to his purpose my friend each one of us is called to do that. It was of lad. You're You're rough Forgive me. It's been two weeks that I preached. It's all bottled up truth and love Maybe I'm lacking on the love today, but just more on the truth We balance that out by the end of this message God called us to To win the lost To make disciples God called us to To live our life with purpose meaning and intention No matter which country you in and no matter which season you're in right now Sometimes it's not easy because of the seasons that we are in and that's the focus of the message today Sometimes multiplication is fun God blessed them in Genesis 1 verse 28 and said be fruitful and multiply piece of cake paradise and Sometimes multiplication is pain Sometimes multiplication is pleasure man. You're in the perfect season of your life and Sometimes multiplication is you're in the worst season of your life. Look what happened here Israel the Bible says was afflicted burdened troubled and the enemy did that for this reason watch this last day multiply If they could maintain He won't attack The reason why he attacked them is because of the fear that they will multiply Why because whatever multiplies is mighty the Bible says he was afraid they'll become mighty See when you begin to multiply you become mighty when the church begins to grow in discipleship Not just the pastor preaching but the believers are following the example of Jesus the church is not a crowd. It's an army The church is no longer a babysitting a church is a boot camp and army of soldiers is being risen up And the church becomes a mighty because it's not just the pastor that is mighty It's the church that is mighty and that's why the devil will fight us so that we don't multiply So we produce baby couch potato Christians instead of warriors for God Less they multiply but devil I have a news for you You are gonna fail at hungry generation because there is an army that is rising up. There is an army that is rising up We're not building a Babysitting club. We're not building little touch you. Oh, you offended me there. You offended me there No, we're building mature mighty strong grounded soldiers in the army of God Like these people in Exodus chapter 1 the Bible says the more they afflicted them The more they multiply What am I saying? Your calling is not only for pleasure times. It's also Expected by the Lord to be fulfilled in crisis In painful painful times in times where things are not easy. We must understand it takes maturity to multiply in misery It takes maturity to multiply in misery a Lot of us who were born physically. We're not born when our parents had perfect situation For example, it's ideal for the parents to start having children when they get their own house when they're financially stable And they finish school, but how many of you know? That's not reality Sometimes you have kids you don't have a house Sometimes you have some of you had kids you didn't even have a husband Perfect. No But kids are still a blessing Some of us had kids and we didn't have money at all Some of us had kids and the spouse and the husband were not in the good terms at all Nobody waited until they got promotion until they finished school until everything in their life is perfect to have children Sometimes stuff like that happens in suffering in Difficulty and then these children they become such a great blessing that they actually alleviate our suffering by the pleasure of their birth Their birth numbs everything else in our life and we rejoice in that miracle of new life What I'm saying is this should we all desire to have better circumstances to have children? Of course, should we plan in order to have children? Yes children should be desired There should be expected, but what I'm saying is the reality of life sometimes. That's not how it happens But people what they did with their calling is they postponed their calling to a time that honestly will never happen on this side of eternity Once I finish school Once I get the promotion Once I get married then you get married like you know once I have children once once once and what happens is you're Constantly living for the next and you're ignoring the now and God wants you to remember is that your calling is not at some long place It's happening right now as you are living God wants you to be fruitful and multiply While you quarantine God wants you to begin to be fruitful and multiply when you're gonna come out and your full-time job and full-time school God says I want you to still open your mouth and instead of Blaming other people and lying and gossiping and whining God says evangelize share with others about your faith Begin to reach out to others why in misery multiply don't enjoy the misery But say listen the misery won't stop me my affliction won't stop me my financial problems will not stop me my challenges will not stop me Burnout will not stop me business will not stop me boredom will not stop me I will pursue the calling of God whatever this situation that I am in my God somebody give God some praise right now You know Jesus never promised us safety and pleasure Jesus promised us suffering and That promise is alive today True it's gonna be true in every place. I know that in America. We have enjoyed freedom and freedom is a great blessing Unfortunately today many of us have gotten addicted to safety Our nation was the nation of freedom and bravery today is the nation of safety and cowardness We have made safety an idol At the altar of which we worship We have made not offending anybody our Lord and Savior make sure that somebody doesn't get hurt We are not called to live a life. That's politically correct. We are called to live a life the spirit filled God honoring and God feeling we are called to be the light in this city We are not called to be hidden under the rug We are called to bring an influence to a dying world to be assault not to conform to the mold of this world We are called to shed the the faith and the courage and the life of the Holy Spirit that lives in us not to succumb to fear and doubt and cowardness and and be addicted to safety comfort and acceptance of the world Who's currently spiritually blind? Francis Chan had a conversation with the pastor in Shanghai And this pastor in Shanghai told them something he said that when we were hiding as a church Because the government didn't let us meet We were thriving and doing great and then one time we finally got the permission from the government to meet in Shanghai And when we did so he said I found out when two thousand all my members lost their spiritual DNA and Francis Chan asked him what is the spiritual DNA of underground church in China and this pastor whose name I don't know Outline five pillars that the Chinese or underground church Has in China and some of you know the church in China is growing as the early church under persecution was growing And he said our five pillars are these Devotion to God's word each individual believer is devoted to God's word not pastor studying the word for everyone But they're all learning God's word for themselves number two deep devotion to prayer And no no no not that prayer where you pray before breakfast blessed the food But deep devotion to prayer throughout the day and commitment to God in prayer Number three he says is every believer is expected to share the gospel and to make disciples that doesn't rest on Some departments in church. It's the direction of their life Number four he said we expect miracles when we gather together in underground illegal church We expect miracles. They said we don't have Google on our side. We don't have Facebook ads We got miracles and They spread for free faster and better than any other ad Church's advertisement has been from the beginning Miracles signs and wonders because when somebody gets healed of cancer, you don't have to pay them to tell other people When the woman at the well met Jesus, she couldn't keep her mouth shut She went all air all over ex-boyfriends and their friends to come and meet Jesus They said we have miracles and signs and wonders as our advertisement and the last thing the Francis chance that he said caught my attention They said we embrace suffering We don't pray against it Now the suffering the Chinese pastor was referring to is not financial problems marriage conflict or Trouble with children the suffering he was referring to are not Health crisis. He was talking about suffering as a discomfort. We endure Due to us following Jesus Fully, I'm not talking about believing in God Because there's a big difference between all the Chinese Christians all they had to do is believe in God And they will be fine. But if they follow Jesus, that's when they come under persecution and they said we embrace suffering You know when I listen to that it caught my attention that in second Timothy chapter 2 Verse 1 Paul says to Timothy he says be strong in the grace that is an old Lord Jesus Christ my son in verse 2 He says commit the things you hear you heard from me to other people who will tell you to other people I'm like, yes, awesome be strong in God's grace. Remember your calling tell other people about the gospel And then verse 3 he throws this punch He says and endure suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ my friend The problem with us with me is That we've spent too much time at the believer level and Many of us have not transitioned to the disciple level See a believer comes to the cross to see the beauty of God at the disciple gets on the cross to see the dying world The believer comes to eat of Jesus at disciple is someone Jesus says he who follows me let him deny himself Pick up his cross a believer learns love Die self at disciple learns die to die self a believer is somebody who believes a disciple is somebody who dies a believer is somebody who values comfort Disciple is somebody who values the calling of Jesus One is the baby the other one is a soldier and some of us who've been in church for too long Who reject any discomfort it causes to our schedule our wallet or our life to follow Jesus as The Lord is not leading me into that Please forgive me you're a fat baby They need to grow up It's not the leading is that you're so good with your diapers and your Christian daycare But you've been in the Lord for 30 years. It's time to pick up the cross and Lay aside your laziness lay aside your addiction to comfort lay aside your addiction to your sin Lay aside your child Childness and say Lord it's time because see you feel that inside of you like mass something is missing Well, of course something is missing imagine you being 25 years old running to your mom for her breast Yes, something is missing. That's not supposed to be like that Paul says in in Hebrews He says by this time you should be like Teaching others by this time you should be eating meat meaning go killing something and eating it yourself instead of Drinking milk by this time you should have your senses exercised so you can discern He says but a lot of you are still babies and that's why the idea of suffering throws us into a cold sweat because many of us Now if you are a baby believer, it's only been few months or a year this message is not for you It's for somebody else on that live stream right now. Just just relax receive that keep growing in the Lord I'm just talking to those people today who honestly have outgrown Spiritually and who have become and developed spiritual diabetes If really just Lost that and then they keep complaining man. Something is missing. That's how I'm gonna tell you what's missing my friend You need to become a disciple and The challenge to disciple is not common believe the challenge to disciple is come and die The challenge to a believer is come and live the challenge to a disciple is come and die You keep coming to come and live when you have to take a step and come and die And Jesus says the promise is you will find your life more fulfilling when you no longer focus on your life a focus on the Lord friends, not Francis Chan, but Samuel Chan wrote one of the honestly best leadership books I've read and in his leadership book called leadership pain He said this reluctance to face pain is your greatest limitation There is no growth without change no change without loss and no loss without pain the best leaders had to endure more pain and Many people could never have more influence because they did not have big enough leadership pain threshold If you're not hurting you're not leading Ask every parent who's leading children will tell you They have pain Ask every boss who's leading employees. They have pain. You don't know about the less pain you have less promotion You're gonna have so God is saying in order to take you higher. He wants to increase your pain threshold That's why Jesus wants to increase our threshold for suffering Why because he wants to take us to a greater success in his kingdom. God is not trying to hurt us He's trying to develop us nurture us and to be into his image and likeness. Remember my savior your Lord has scars and Remember the picture of Christianity is not a beach. It's a cross We don't hang beaches on the top of our churches. We hang crosses. Some of you wear one. It's time to get one Get on one pick up one. It's easy to wear it. It's another thing to die on it believers They buy them at groceries Disciples they lay their pride their ego their ambition their definition of their life at the cross of Jesus to say Jesus No longer I but Christ who lives in me. What do you want me to do Lord? I want to live for you not for myself my family lives for you my finances live for you My house lives for you and they're not just singing it like what Evan Hill said. He says Christians. We don't lie We just sing lies We're so good Lord. I give you my heart and an offering basketball puts in and we throw a little dollar there come on It's time to be a disciple. I know that this is maybe a strong message for some we may be too strong for 1130 on Sunday morning, but God called you to be strong You're gonna make it Bring this message to a conclusion. I want to encourage you as The enemy used affliction against Israelite so they don't fulfill their calling to multiply The devil will also use I really feel like these five bees to hold you back From winning souls and making disciples We're not just called to hit the ball. We're called to hit a homerun We're not just called to do something activity. We're called to be fruitful. The first bee is bad experience Some of you the idea of discipling others the idea of opening your life group one day the idea of Winning the lost has a bad taste for you. You're like, I tried it I had a bad experience with some people and I no longer am interested in that I have a bad experience who doesn't I had a bad experience at the coffee shop Every two weeks. I still go drink coffee Some of you seen bad experience of marriages that shouldn't stop you from getting married You've seen maybe bad experience of parenting. It doesn't stop you from being a parent Some of you have seen bad experience of drivers. You see how some of those drivers drive None of you said I'm giving up my license renouncing my license. Why I've seen bad drivers you know if Israel would have said well, we had a bad experience multiplying Pharaoh is killing us. They were never birthed Moses. I remember one time when I did not want to do a calling or didn't feel motivated The Lord said if you let the bad experience stop you right now You will never see your Moses. You will never see exodus. You will never see Leviticus. You will never see numbers You will never see the run me. You will never see Joshua. You will never see Ruth You will never see Boas. You will never see Solomon. You will never see Samuel. You will never see Isaac You will never see Isaiah. You will never see Jeremiah. You will never see Haggaiah You will never see Mardukai. You will never see Esther. You will never see Mardukai You will not see these guys because you let the bad experience Stop you from going further in God. My friend God is trying to birth a Moses Don't let the bad experience stop you from birthing, stop you from going forward because you had a bad experience. Shake off your hands, shake off your feet and say listen I'm going to stand and I'm going to go after God and no bad experience is going to take my destiny and take my calling from me. Is bad experience real? Oh yeah. But so is God's promise. So is my future. I still have the best future in front of me even if I had bad experiences behind me. Jesus did not wash off his hands from discipleship and said well sorry guys Judas committed suicide bad experience. So I'm closing discipleship down. No, no, no he told them go into all the world, make disciples, Judas was bad, bad experience doesn't stop your best future. The first thing the enemy will use is bad experience. Number two that the enemy will use is burnout. He will use burnout so that we don't move forward. Some people who don't want to do discipleship don't want to do life groups, don't want to go to them, we don't want to pursue one day to disciple others, generally have just been burned out. Sometimes the burnout happens is because our sacrifice is not replenished with self-care and then it leads us to self-medication and we just burn out. Sometimes burnout happens because negativity comes for dinner but you gave it a room to stay for life. You just felt negative and instead of shaking it off and reminding yourself of God's promises you didn't just give negativity a dinner, you gave negativity a room and it stayed and from negativity you became just a negative person who now looks at everything positive to the lens of that negative experience that lingered too long you let it stay. Sometimes we burn out because we really don't do what God called us to do, which is to love people. Instead what we took on doing is changing people and after a while let's face it, most of us have a hard time changing ourselves. That's why we need the fruit of the Spirit to produce self-control. We can't even control self without the Holy Spirit. Imagine controlling the world, imagine controlling your children, your husband, your wife, that is a full time without paying job and that will burn you out faster than anything so it wasn't that the calling burned you out, it's you stepped into shoes of God. If you focus on loving people God will do the growing and Holy Spirit will do the changing. Sometimes the bad experience for some people it's a burnout. The third B that I see that the enemy uses is the burden of life. It's when life just gets busy, when life gets burned out we get burdened by responsibilities that we abandoned our calling and my friend, remember when you stand before God you're not going to boast about your FICO score, I'm pretty sure even on your funeral your kids are not going to be saying oh my gosh I'm so proud of my dad, he spent every weekend at the office, just couldn't be more proud of him. Those things won't matter, don't let life burden you so much you become unfruitful in the things of God, Jesus warned us in Matthew 13, he says I see that falls on the ground that has thorns and thistles, it chokes it. Your life can be choked if you allow burdens to take the center place of your life. The fourth B is business, it's when you're too busy and the last one is boredom, it's when you're not busy you're just bored to death and that's when the solution to all of these is no matter if you feel burned out, if you had bad experience, you're burdened right now and honestly your life may be busy or you're bored, begin to respond to God and say Lord what do you want me to do? Begin to move from believing to being disciple, begin to move from trying to change yourself to trying to grow and stop being afraid of discomfort and suffering that following Christ might produce and honestly stop hitting the ball, hit a homerun. What do we do? What do we go from now? One, receive Jesus' vision for your life. He has a personal vision for you. You know what that vision is? The same one Father gave him, win souls, make disciples, touch the world, love God, love people. Number two, make a goal that you will become a disciple maker. Now I don't know, maybe for some of us it could take 12 months, for some of us it might take two years, but have a goal. When you grow up, you have a goal, one day I'm gonna have my own house. That's not super successful, that's normal. Have a goal, you will be a disciple maker. And number three, commit to the process of growth. What is that process of growth look like? In our church we have a very simple process of growth. It's outlined in four stages, believe, belong, build and become. Believe is when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And then you go to the part of belonging. You go to life group, you take a life class, which used to be growth track, four lessons, and one is happening right after this service today at 12.30. Reach out to your life group to get a link. And then you go to freedom weekend. It's part of your belonging to the body. Where you get freed, you get delivered. And then the build part is when you get discipled. Now it's like it's heavier stuff, it's deeper. There's more maybe discipline that's developed, there's more mindset shift. We do this thing called destiny training, which will be revealed very soon, you're gonna hear about it. And then you become, become what? A disciple maker. So start going to a life group because you can't lead others. If you don't let others lead you first. You can't feed others if you don't let somebody feed you. The best way to become a good parent is first to be a good child. And God wants you to first go to a life group. And I know sometimes you know, there are different seasons in life, but no matter how difficult seasons are, you don't disown your family. You don't come to your kids say, hey kids, just letting you know, work has been hard, school has been difficult. There's not been feeling really well. I'm putting you up for sale. And no, no, no, I'm leasing you out. I'm renting you out for three months. Why? I just need to catch a breath. None of you will do that with your kids. Because no matter how life, how hard life gets, parenting doesn't stop. So is your life with God. So is your life. You go through with God. You go through with your church family in your community. You don't just abandon it. Just because things have gotten a little bit challenging, a little bit difficult. Unless, of course, you're really hiding an excuse behind a spiritual mask. I would like to invite you right now to take a next step with God. Not just to accept Jesus, but for those of you who've been camping on a belief platform, to take it to the belong. And for those of you who've been living on the belong to the point that you two belong, begin to go forward so you become built and so you become. For those of us here, we're going to rise to our feet as the worship team will come up. As our team is going to sing a song, if we can sing the multiply song, we're going to take our offering right now. For those of you who are watching, you're part of our local church or this is your home church. It's our privilege to give. It's an opportunity to give. It's not a burden. And so there's a link below hungry gen.com slash give that you can give through today. We send our tithes and offerings. You can send them through mail or come to the lobby during the work hours and drop it off. It's a privilege. We're not pressured. We have the opportunity to be generous with the kingdom and God as a church during this pandemic, we are helping families that are going through a difficult time had a testimony this week. We heard of a member of our church who lost his job, had children. And so we brought some finances to help them. And a few weeks later, they recovered, he brings an envelope with with money. When we got the money, we're like, we can't accept it. We went back to him. We say, this is for you. They said, no, no, no, you don't understand. When the church helped me, I bounced back. I got a job. I got some support that came in. And today I'm give this is not me returning. I'm just asking you, please find somebody who needs this. And of course, we have families that are in need. And so please understand, when you give today, you're helping us to give to others. You're helping us to help others, not just keep the ministry afloat, but helping us to reach the world for the kingdom of God. If you're watching us all around the world, you can partake of this as well. HungryGen.com slash give. Do not miss that opportunity. Because believers, they receive the disciples, they share, they give, they share the nature of God and nature of Jesus. Let's begin to pray right now for our offering. Father, we thank you for your presence. We thank you for the purpose you've given us. We thank you, God, that we're no longer babies, but God, we are sons and daughters. We thank you that we are soldiers. We thank you, God, you never promised us safe sailing. You never promised us life will be easy, but you always promised that you will be with us, God. And Lord, I pray that we will not become so scared, God, of this world, so scared of suffering, God, so scared of embracing discomfort, sacrifice, and maybe some pain even to our flesh due to fasting or prayer or commitment to you, Lord, that we never mature. I pray for every person that is giving right now, for every businessman and every businesswoman. I pray for every mother and every father. I pray for every college student, every high schooler, every middle schooler, every kindergarten. Lord, as we give right now, bless us. As we bless you, bless us, Lord, from heaven in the name of Jesus, in Jesus' name. As a team is singing, send your giving. You can also use the church center app to give through or hungrygen.com slash give. We will come back right now and do a call for those who are not saved. We still need to accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior. Let's worship together as we give.