You are invited to surrender your resources and time to God's purpose for His family. By giving generously and serving faithfully, you help build the house of the Lord and equip others for ministry. Trust that He will supernaturally provide as you step out in faith to go after His dream.
And I'm serious. I'm not if I'm lying, I'm dying. And I'm not dying, so I ain't lying. So they train the village. Hey, they're not witches.
That's not why they're still living, you know, and you can love them. God loves them. And then they also grow fields and crops in order to help the church that they plant to be self sustaining, and then they set up an orphanage too. This is a guy that has nothing. Like, he lives off of 200 a month that helps him to be full time.
I'll give you a story of how he planted 1 of those churches. You ready for this? Are you sure? Okay. Faith comes by hearing, requires believing, and is completed by obedience.
If you here believe and obey in the little things, God will give you more. Don't just here believe and obey in the big things. Here, believe, and obey in the go wash the dishes for your wife things, which I need to do more. I haven't done it in a while. Here, believe, and obey in the get up, get out of your bed, and go read your Bible.
Those little things, and then God will give you bigger things to do. Amen? Faithful with a little, he gives you more. So Samson, 1 of these particular villages, and many of the churches start this way. He's got lots of testimonies.
Maybe 4 years ago ish, he's praying, heard the Lord, said go to this mountain village and preach the gospel. They had never heard the gospel before. And so Samson leaves, and he goes, travels to this mountain village. At this time, he didn't have a motorcycle, didn't have a car, he'd walk. He'd go on the mountain, these are wooded mountains, and he'd sleep on the mountain and pray all night on the mountain.
He didn't have a tent, didn't have camping gear, just probably laid his head on a rock. Woke up the next morning, went into the village, preaching the gospel, how much Jesus loves these people. And a belligerent drunk is throwing bottles and cans at him as he's preaching and trash trying to get him to shut up and cussing him. What does Samson do? Keeps loving him with the gospel, the goodness of Jesus.
First day goes by, goes back to the the mountain, sleeps, prays in the middle of night on the mountain for the village. Second day goes, belligerent drunk, throwing stuff at him. Goes back to the mountain, sleeps again, prays for the village all night, gets back up in the morning, goes back to the village, preaches the gospel, belligerent drunk, throwing stuff at him the third day. He prophesies over the drunk by the word of the Lord. If you don't believe in prophecy, you believe a lie, you should believe in prophecy.
The Bible says, in 1 Corinthians-14, desire to prophecy. Okay? So just shift your thinking to what the word says. Amen? Repentance means I'm changing my thinking.
So go read 1 Corinthians-14. It says, eagerly desire the spiritual gifts. Challenge yourself to begin thinking correctly about scripture, and begin praying into it. Okay? God will bless you.
It'll be awesome. Anyway, he prophesies over the drunk. He says, hey, you're gonna give your life to Jesus, and you're gonna become the pastor of this village. What does Obligion and Drunk do? So third day passes, goes back to sleep, prays for the village, gets back up, goes back in the village, preaches the gospel.
On the fifth day, he finds out that the chief's wife is paralyzed, can't walk. So what does he do? He makes a way where he can go lay hands on her and pray for her. She gets up and starts walking. She's healed completely.
It's amazing. Well, it's the chief's wife. So the chief, he has the chief's ear. The chief calls the village together. He preaches the gospel.
Gospel. They give their life to Jesus. Belligerent drunk gets saved and delivered. And today, the belligerent drunk is no longer belligerent drunk, but is a mighty man of God who is the pastor of the village. I'll I'll tell you 1 more story from Samson, which is awesome.
This happened I don't know when this 1 happened. Maybe a few years ago too. But he was praying at 9PM at night, and this was before he had a motorcycle. He was praying, and the Lord said, I want you to go to this mountain. He's like, why?
And he didn't hear anything. But he heard the word of the Lord, go to this mountain. 9PM. So he didn't delay. He didn't wait till the morning.
He went at 9PM. This mountain was 50 kilometers away. So he had to walk 50 kilometers at 9PM at night, made it there by 2AM. Didn't know why. He's just going by faith because he heard the Lord.
Hear, believe, obey. Gets there at 2PM, and there's a bunch of people on the mountain sleeping on, like, mats. And he wakes them up at 2AM, says, what are you doing here? The people say, our pastor told us to come and pray on the mountain, but then our pastor didn't come. And Samson says, well, God sent you someone, and he begins ministering to them.
And he holds a holds a prayer meeting, and that was that. I'm telling you, if you're willing to believe God, hear, believe, obey in the little things, the big things are really fun. So that's your family. Samson is part of your family. He's part of part of your heritage.
Heritage means, like, it's it's what God has for you in the future. You hear the testimony of Jesus in this. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. You're hearing what God has done through Samson. Well, he's no more special than you are.
If he'll do it through Samson, he'll do it through you. Let it challenge your faith in the way that you live, the way that you think about God, and challenge you to seek after Him and hear and believe and obey in the little things so that you can walk out the fullness of the dream that God has for you. Amen? Ain't that good? Alright.
I'll show you 1 more scripture where it's talking about this familial language before we continue. I think I think I sound smart when I say that word familial. Anyway, Revelation-21:1. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. This is the end of the matter.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. By the way, that holy city is you guys. It you are precious stones that he's prepared. It's it's a Uh-oh. Hey, buddy.
You you are precious stones. Is he okay? You don't have to take him out. He'll be alright. Anyway, as a bride, you are his bride.
This is family language. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. You are God's dream. He dreams of a family relationship with you. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he was seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. And he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, it is done.
I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The 1 who conquers will have this heritage. There it is, that word heritage. This is your heritage.
If you're willing to become a child of God. And I will be his God, and he will be my son. Family language again. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for the murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, all liars, Their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. FYI, hell's real, and people that reject Jesus really do go to hell.
It's just part of it. It's truth. I love you enough to tell you. It's not that God is waiting to send people to hell. People are already on their way to hell.
People are already condemned. God sent Jesus to save us from condemnation, and he's calling out, come to me, run to me, and I will give you rest. I want you to be my family. Those that hear and turn and follow him experience family with God. You guys good?
Yeah. Alright. Let's go to the next portion of the message. Mark-14. I preached on this a bit back in maybe November or December.
I wanna I wanna look at it from a slightly different angle. This is Jesus. He's on his way to Jerusalem to die. He's on his way to Jerusalem for that last 7 days before his death. You see the Passover, and then you see the whole crucifixion.
And on his way, verse 3, it says, and while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table. Now question, why would Jesus be at the house of Simon the leper? Do you know what leprosy is? It's terrible. Leprosy causes your limbs to rot and fall off.
You know why Jesus was there? Because he Simon was his family. Simon was his dream. Period. And we we a lot of times think, well, you know, we think rich people are better than poor people or wealthy people are better than the the non wealthy.
We peep judging from the outside in, a lot of people think, you know, those that are healthy are better than the sick people, those that are more attractive are better than the non attractive in their eyes or whatever. That's not how God sees people. It doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, what you look like, what you've done, what you haven't done. God loves you, he cares for you and he created you. He knit you together in your mother's womb because you are his dream, and he wants to experience a family relationship with you where you're his son or his daughter.
So Jesus is at Simon the leper's house because Simon is Jesus' dream, but in all reality, he probably had already confronted him and healed him, right, of leprosy because if he was had leprosy at the time, then he would have been outside of the city in a camp that was set aside for lepers. K? So Jesus is at this man's house where he confronted his sickness and healed him. He was reclining at the table and a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly. She broke the flask and poured it over his head.
There were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii. Now, FYI, a denarii is a day's wage. So 300 denarii is 300 days wage, which would be in today's language, if we averaged it out, maybe about $50,000 around here, average income. Okay.
So she poured out $50,000 worth of perfume. Do you guys mind if I give just a little bit more background so we can all understand where we're at? Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah.
You guys okay with me getting in a little weeds a little bit? Okay. So FYI, this story or a story like it is said throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Okay. Now theologians argue about whether this is the same woman or not the same woman or all this other stuff.
And if you listen to different theologians from different camps, you're always gonna hear arguing. Theologians argue. It's what they do. Anyway, I try not to argue, although, I guess, I am technically, to some degree, a theologian. However, what I will say is this.
I believe Luke-7. Okay. So there's a a woman with an alabaster flask. And Matthew, Mark, and John, the woman with the alabaster flask. I believe this is all the same woman, but in Luke, it's obviously earlier in time.
So it's earlier in Jesus' ministry before the last week. K. And 1 of the I think maybe in John, she pours it on his head, and this 1 she pours it on his feet. It could be that Mark just noticed him her pouring it on his feet, and John noticed her pouring on his head and didn't write about the feet part. K.
Anyway, just getting in the weeds for you a little bit. In Luke-7, earlier in Jesus' ministry, the woman was called a sinner, a woman of the street, a prostitute, is what most people agree, and she poured out her past on Jesus' feet and wiped them with her wiped her feet with her hair, you know, wet them with her tears, washed them with her tears. And Jesus says, this is earlier in the ministry, and I believe once again this is the same woman just earlier an earlier time, the first time she pours out her past on Jesus' feet, and Jesus says, woman, you are forgiven. So she pours out her past on Jesus' feet, and Jesus credits to her his past. He didn't have any sin.
He forgave her, washed all of her sin away in that moment, and then she would have started following Jesus. You guys follow me? Okay. So this would be this would be a different time, and she did something completely different. This time, she poured out her savings on Jesus' feet.
The last time she poured out perfume that represented what she would use to draw men to her in order to make money, she poured out her life and her past life. This time, $50,000 Spikenard perfume that was probably what she had made and put away and could have been used for her dowry in the future, or could have been used for her home, her dream home, or could have been used for her her dream location, whatever it is, and she took this whatever she had been saving her dream and she poured it out on Jesus' feet. You understand? Okay. Let's keep going.
There were some who said to themselves indignantly indignantly, so they're angry about it, and like, why was this ointment wasted like that? In John-12, the sum were the disciples. It was the disciples that said, why was this ointment wasted like that? Not not just any of the disciples, like, says most of them, but but it says Judas was specifically the 1 who said this. For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor, and they scolded her.
But Jesus said, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can go and do good to them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could.
She has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. I mean, that's awesome. What was it about what she did that caused Jesus to memorialize her for all time? Wherever the gospel is preached, what she has done will be spoken in remembrance of her.
Why is that? She gave up her dream for Jesus' dream. What is Jesus' dream? He wants a family. What does the gospel do?
It brings people into his family. And the gospel will only be preached, powerfully preached, by people who have given up their dream for his. You wanna participate in the dream of Jesus? You have to give up your dream in order to follow his. Lord, what does it what does the Bible say in Mark-8, I believe it is?
Mark-8:34. Watch this. And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, "take up his cross", and follow me. For whoever would "save his life" will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake and the and the gospels.
So it's for Jesus and the gospels, which is his Jesus. For Jesus and his dream, will save it. Now, this is talking about their life, the dream of their life. So I'm just gonna do a little creative switcheroo here. If anyone to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Forever would save his dream will lose it. But whoever loses his dream for my sake and the gospels will save it. You see it? She gave up her dream for his, and anybody who takes the gospel anywhere, that's what they have to do. That's why they're entrusted with the gospel because they've given up their dream for Jesus' dream.
Now, what is it about Judas? Why did the event cause Judas to betray Jesus? I'll tell you. Because Judas' dream was money and power. Judas wasn't happy with the Jesus situation because Jesus wasn't following his plan.
Jesus was supposed to rise and ascend to the throne of Israel and get all of the wealth, power, and influence that was to come with that. And Judas, by being 1 of his disciples, would have benefited from that so he could have more money to share. I don't think I gave the scripture, but in John-12:5, Judas or verse 4, it says, but Judas Iscariot, 1 of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? See, to share with the poor. He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and having charge of the money bag, used to help himself to what was put into it.
So there's your proof. Judas was acting like he cared about poor people, but really he was caring about himself. Like he wanted to feed the poor children, but really all he cared about was having the money to feed his own. The greatest threat to God's dream is your unsurrendered dream. The greatest threat to God's dream is our unsurrendered dream.
Judas sacrificed Jesus' dream for his own dream and got 30 pieces of silver out of it and ended up dying. He who loves his life will lose it. Whoever loses it for my sake will find it. The other lady sacrificed her dream on the feet of Jesus, Mary, and ended up being a part, you know, being the first 1 to see Jesus risen from the dead, was entrusted with the gospel, and got to go share it with the disciples. Hey.
Jesus is risen. Jesus is risen. The greatest threat to the gospel being preached is us putting our dream in front of God's dream. 1 dream or our dream can blind us to God's dream and even cause us to work against the work that Jesus doing is doing around us. Selfishness blinds us to God's dream.
You know, the number 1 thing that marriages fight about statistically or by psychologists, number 1 thing is? Money. Money. Now, it depends on what list you look at. Some lists, you know, they have money as the second thing or the third thing.
All top 5 lists, money's in there, but most lists say money is the number 1 thing. You know, a money fight in marriage is usually not really about money. The biggest fights in marriage are dream fights. What you're doing is affecting my dreams. The way that you're spending my heart on money, baby, the way that you're just going out and shopping and doing all that stuff, I took my time and my talent to make that treasure, and and the way that you're spending it is is demonstrating that you don't care about my dream of being respected.
The way that you're not trying to work up the corporate ladder and get more and more money, it's it's affecting my dream of of being taken care of for the rest of my life. The way that you're wasting money, it's affecting my dream of having a dream home. It's not about money. It's about the dream. Right?
The way to combat that is for the husband and wife to learn to tithe together. Because tithing is putting God at the first and putting God at the center of your marriage and of your finances. And so everything else in your finances will revolve around him. And then with the other 90%, praying about God, this is not ours, this is yours. What of this 90% is meat to eat and enjoy to take care of our family?
And what do you designate as "seed to sow"? To bear fruit for your dream, not for ours. Amen? So couple of quick questions. What is your alabaster box?
AKA, what is your dream? Do you have an unsurrendered dream in your life that is keeping you from serving the Lord obediently? Is your dream coming before God's dream? Do you have an unsurrendered dream that is causing problems in your marriage daily? Is your dream of being a golf champion coming before your wife's dream of having a family that loves and spend loves each other and spends time together?
Think God wants you to put his dream first, and part of his dreams for you to have a healthy family. Is your life a self centered life, or is it a God centered life? Jesus' life was self centered. He was willing to steal from Jesus to get what he wanted, but the woman who came and poured out her alabaster box, she had a Christ centered life. I want to allow God to put His finger on every single 1 of my dreams and to test it to see if it comes before Him.
Because there's another scripture, Mark-10, and you're about to see this proof. Mark-10:29. Jesus said, truly I say to you, there is no 1 who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel. So it's we we we give our lives, we give up our dreams for the sake of Jesus personally and for his dream, the gospel, people coming into his family. So no 1 who's given up stuff for his sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now.
Everybody say now. Now. In this time. In this time. Yeah.
Now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions. So there's also persecutions too in this time. And, so not just now in this time, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. So I just kinda wanna spend a little bit of time in this next part of the message to let you know some of the dreams I've had to lay down and what that looks like in my own life.
First, I'll go to soccer. It was my dream to be a college soccer player, maybe professional 1 day if I was good enough. And, it was God's dream for me to marry this beautiful woman right here, Courtney. They love you. They clap for you, baby.
So when I graduated high school, I had the opportunity to go and play college soccer at UCA. University of Conway, Arkansas is a division 2 school. They were like 2 in the number 2 in the nation. It was a great opportunity. Praise the Lord.
And I had a full ride. It wasn't soccer wise, it was academically, but I was gonna I'd already practiced with the team. I was gonna get a walk on the team. Or to go to a school that didn't have soccer that she was going to. 1 or the other.
I knew in my heart, she was gonna be my bride, but I knew if I went to UCA, we were gonna break up and not be together. So God's dream for my life or my dream of soccer. And praise the Lord, by his grace, I sacrificed my dream, ended up going to University of Louisiana Monroe with Courtney, and we got married 2 years later, which was awesome and has been awesome. We've been married 17 years. Another dream I had to give up, the American dream or at least the American dream that was, like, communicated to me.
American dream communicated to me is I needed to graduate college before I got married, get a job, have enough money to get a house and a "white picket fence" with a dog, and then get married, and then have 2 children, and ride off into the sunset happily ever after, and retire wealthy 1 day. The American dream. Yeah? However, my junior year in college, I'm reading the scripture, and the bible says, it's better to marry than to burn with passion. And Courtney and I were growing closer together.
Believe it or not, we did get married as virgins. However, we weren't going to if I didn't obey God right here. And so in that moment when I read that scripture at 20 years old, I heard the Lord say, I will always take care of your finances, which meant I needed to sacrifice the American dream in order to trust God with my finances and get married as a junior in college at 20, and I didn't have a job. So you know what I did? Yes, Lord.
Close my bible, sacrifice the dream, ran to her room, her apartment, and the other apartment building on campus, knocked on the door, said, baby, forget I said this, but I'm gonna go get a job, buy you a ring, and we're gonna get married. She was half asleep, doesn't remember. She had narcolepsy at the time anyway. She's been healed of narcolepsy, by the way, but at the time, she don't remember that. So I went to Olive Garden, started working, got a ring.
6 months later, we're married. Praise the Lord. Sacrificed my dream for his dream. It was the right decision. Drumming.
Before we got married, I had a dream of of being a professional drummer, and I would spend 4, 6 hours a day when I had time drumming, just practicing, getting ready, preparing for what was to be my future. I even told my future bride to be who we were engaged, don't marry me if you can't handle a traveling musician. I mean, I was serious. We got married. The rest of my band members didn't say that to their wives, so we stopped traveling.
And I had to either sacrifice my drumming career to be a good husband and provide for my family, or sacrifice my family for my dream. God's dream is always for us to take care of our family. As a matter of fact, the Bible says those who don't take care of their family are worse than an unbeliever. So Christian, husband, go take care of your family so that the bible didn't call you worse than an unbeliever anymore. Repent, go to work.
K? I love you. Alright. So I had to give up the that, and I ended up joining the military because 1 job led to another, and it just wasn't consistent. So I ended up going and going into the military, which was another sacrifice of 1 of my dreams.
See, my dream 1 of my dreams were or was to not do the same thing my dad did because I wanted to be my own man. My dad's a pastor. Everybody always said I was gonna be a pastor 1 day, and I'm like, I I can do Jesus Jesus thing in the marketplace, and you can, and many of you are called to, but I wasn't called to. So I ran from my calling like Jonah and ended up in the "belly of the well". I was a submarine officer in the Navy.
And it was in the belly of the well that God got my attention, and I said, okay. Yes, Lord. Every life decision you give me from this day forward will be in line with your dream for my life of full time ministry. I sacrificed my dream. Yes, Lord.
Time to get out of the Navy. When it got time to get out of the Navy, I had the opportunity to either go into engineering because I was a submarine officer, nuclear engineer in the Navy, or to go into ministry. And I wrestled with this because if I was going to go into the ministry, was gonna sacrifice influence and prestige as a engineer. If you're an engineer, praise the Lord. You have I I respect you.
I'm not doubting you. I'm saying, this is things I wrestled with in my heart. Or the option was to go into full time ministry, working at a church full time as a janitor. Seriously. I wrestled hard because this was a major blow to my pride, and I had a lot of it.
And my wife said, you gotta take that janitor job. You told God every life decision that you'd make would be in line with full time ministry. You see why God gave me her? So I said, yes, Lord. Sacrifice my dream of influence and prestige and all this other pride junk.
Oh, by the way, at the same time, if I was gonna take this job, had to sacrifice my dream house too. Because in the Navy, as an officer, I had a little bit more than I was used to, and we bought my dream home. 24, 2,600 square foot, 4 bedroom house with a big office and a huge living room, brick, gorgeous, 10 minutes from Amelia Island Beach there in a nice neighborhood with a picket fence and a dog. And wasn't gonna be making enough as a janitor, believe it or not, to pay for that house. So by saying, yes, Lord, I was sacrificing my dream home as well.
We sold it and had enough to get out of debt. That's it. God opened up, gave us an a part of my dream. I had a dream of living by the beach, and he opened up supernaturally this little small apartment on the 2nd Floor of a home that was just enough for me and Courtney and Trip, and it was a block from the beach. Man, I enjoyed that place.
It was awesome. Then, I had a nice job. I'd risen up, become a pastor at this church, and and it was a growing, amazing church. I was 1 of the pastors on staff. And God said, hey, you're gonna move from the beach and go back to Louisiana and help your dad with his church.
In the sticks, in the middle of nowhere, God was asking me to give up my dream by the beach to go and continue his dream for my life. It was hard. I said, yes, Lord. And end up going to Northeast Louisiana, which is Duck Dynasty country. It's what all my family sounds like and looks like.
They're awesome people. They are. You know you're redneck if you have an aunt Bubba. I do. And she's a nice lady.
And she told her 16 year old daughter to put her teeth back in. If I'm lying, I'm dying, and I'm not dying, so I ain't lying. And then, I was getting to travel the world, which was 1 of my dreams with my dad all over. It was awesome. And God said, nope.
I want you to sacrifice your dream and travel in the world. I want you to move to Clearwater, Florida, place I've never heard of before. Didn't know it was by the beach. If I did, I wouldn't have moved here because I would have thought it came from my flesh. Moved it.
Called it said Drey Bonney's Hometown. It was actually and move there, stop traveling the world for a while until you build a healthy church. Because that real church is my dream for your life. Pinellas County is my dream for your life. Preaching the gospel there, that's my dream.
Are you gonna give up your dream from my dream? Well, yes, Lord. We moved here 6 and a half years ago. First time I got to travel with my dad in 6 and a half years because you're God's dream. You're God's dream for my life.
Pinellas County is part of God's dream for my life, and it's way better following his dream for my life than it is following my own. Every time, God God will test your dreams to see if you're willing to sacrifice them for him. Because if you're not, he's not your Lord. That dream is. If you only follow Jesus as long as he's good with your dreams, then you're like Judas, sacrificing Jesus for your sake.
Is He your Lord or not? Are you willing to follow Him at the cost of your life and your dreams or not? And I would encourage you, wrestle with that. Face it because he's worth it. Because I just read in Mark-10, truly I say to you that no 1 who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time.
I want you to know that you're my family. I laid down drumming. Guess what? I get to drum from time to time. The drums are behind that curtain.
About once every 6 weeks or so, as often as I want. I laid down traveling the world. I still get to travel the world from time to time. God sends me different places, and it's fun because we have an amazing team here that that runs it, an amazing speaking team that in in different ways speak better than I do. Family.
And I pulled those grandkids away, my mom's first grandkids away from her to move 800 miles away. I was persecuted by my by my extended family. My mom got over it, praise the Lord, and understands we're doing doing God's will. She's amazing. She's full of Jesus.
But I wanna tell you, it was not easy. I was taken up ripping their dream too, and there was persecution. But it's worth it because now they have aunts and uncles in you. They have friends and cousins in you. That I mean, Jerry and Heidi, they call them "pop pop and nana" because it's like their grandparents.
Miss Judy, like their grandma. I mean, you're you've become family. God's family, the spirit in you, spirit in me, together, not just real church, all around the world, everybody who's really following Jesus, and you're willing to really let your guard down and get to know, becomes family. So God's dream, now it's time to build on it. God's dream for this church is Pinellas County coming to know Jesus.
When we moved here, 90% of Pinellas County was not in a church, which meant most of them, the bible says, if you walk in the light as he is in the light, you will have fellowship 1 with another. So those 90% that are not in church consistently, they're not walking in the light as He is in the light because they're outside of fellowship. Man, they need to be discipled. They need to be reached out to. They need to be loved.
I mean, that that would mean, shoot, 900,000 to 1000000 people that need to be in a church somewhere, and we're not done until every single 1 of them is in church. It doesn't have to be real church, but many of them will be. It's what he's called me here for, not just here, but around the world. And I just got back from Tanzania. Why?
Cause some of your calling is in Tanzania, 1 day I'm a get to send you. It's gonna be fun. God's The next part of God's dream for real church is a building. Yeah. It is.
They're clapping because they set this thing up every day, every Sunday, every weekend. If you don't if you're not a part of the serve team, you don't know what it's like. Many hands make light work, praise the Lord, but they've been doing it for years for you so that you could know Jesus and become a part of his family. But the next step in our church being effective at making disciples is a building. It's time.
God's put it on our elders' hearts. He's put it on my heart, and it's time. And so we're gonna start a building fund today. And what it's gonna take is if Real Church is your home, praying about it, sacrificing what's in your hands, your dream for God's dream, to build God's family for the gospel. I'm a tell you how it's gonna work.
In Exodus-25, when Moses was building the tabernacle, God it was God's dream to build the tabernacle. And the first verse he said, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel that they take for me a contribution from every man whose heart moves him. You shall receive the contribution from me. And this contribution that you will receive will receive from them will be listed what it's gonna be. Watch this.
Exodus-35. So Moses heard from God, heard, believed, and obeyed. That's where I'm at right now. And then Moses went to the people. Exodus-35 verse 4.
Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, this is the thing the Lord has commanded. So he's speaking it by faith, something that's too big for him. So what I'm doing, take from among you a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord's contribution. And he lists what it is.
Verse 20. Then all of the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. You're gonna leave here today. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting and for all its service and for the holy garments. So they came, both men and women, all who were who were of a willing heart.
Everybody say willing heart. Heart. See, many of you are gonna leave today in the spirit, Holy Spirit is gonna move you. It's gonna stir you. And you're gonna have a choice whether or not to hear, believe, and obey in the little thing.
Whether or not you have a willing heart or not. Some of you, Holy Spirit won't stir you or move you. You're not supposed to be a part of it. Okay. Praise the Lord.
That's fine. But many of you will. And then they brought all that stuff. Verse 29, Exodus-30:35 verse 29. All the men and women, the people of Israel whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work of the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a free will offering to the Lord.
Everybody say free will offering. Free will offering. Right. Free will offering. So this building fund is a free will offer offering.
It's not a tithe. Don't put your tithe in the building fund. You know why? Because we won't be able to operate as a church. Your tithe helps us to operate as a church.
Let me just real real simply, if 10 families bring 10%, then an eleventh family can dedicate their whole life to equipping those 10 families for the work of ministry, for full time ministry. And if a couple more families bring 10%, then that 1 family can now not only be full time equipping them, but can use the extra in order to engage the world around them for the gospel and help build God's family. And so by equipping these 10 families, this 1 family is helping them to do ministry and multiply, and then by using the extra stewarding it well, it's helping more families to come into the fold to know Jesus, God's family, for the gospel. So the tithe helps us to run as a church, helps to pay the staff, helps us to rent the facility, helps us to do ministry in the community. Praise the Lord.
This is not the tithe. This is a free will offering that you take the 90% and say, Lord, this is yours. What of this do you want to be seed? What is it to take care of my family? And what is it to enjoy?
Me to eat, seed to sow. Make sense? Alright. Watch this. Here's what happened.
Exodus-36. Bezzalel and Ohiliab, however you say that, and every craftsman in whom the Lord had put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary work in accordance with all the Lord had commanded. So God specifically anointed these guys. Our staff is specifically anointed by God to do what he's called us to do. The leaders in here that are leading, volunteering, specifically anointed by God.
Hey. Guess what? We got new staff here today that have moved from Fort Worth to God uprooted their family. They were heard, believed, and obeyed to come and be a part. They're gonna lead our outreach with Belong, which is amazing.
If you're not coming on Tuesdays, you should look into it. It's on the website. We we go out. We share the gospel. Ravi and Jenna, would you stand up?
They've been members of the family of Christ, so they've been your family for a long time, but now they're members of the real church family. Evangelists, they're gonna equip you for the work of evangelism. It's gonna be awesome. We're excited about you guys. You can be seated.
And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come do the work of the Lord. By the way, some of you, God's been stirring you to serve and do the work of the Lord, and you've been rejecting it because your heart hadn't been willful willing. Start being willing, Man, it's so worth it. It's what how you build relationship with people at real church. 1 of the main ways is serving together.
And the more people we have serving, we have room for you. Not only do we have room, we need you. The more we're effective we are at impacting this community with the love of Jesus. You are needed. Come to establish tonight.
Get established in this local body, and start using your time to help us build the house of the Lord, to go after God's dream instead of your own. Let's do it together. It's a beautiful thing. And they received from Moses the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work of the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning so that all the craftsmen who were doing the every work sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task he was doing.
They had to stop what they were doing to come do this. And they said, Moses, the people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do. So Moses gave the command, and the word was proclaimed throughout the camp. Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work and more.
That's what God's gonna do. But he's gonna do it through you. Like, Moriah preached last week, it's multiplication. What do you have in your hand? Give it to the Lord.
He gives it back to you and says, now go give it out. God's gonna supernaturally multiply what you have in your hand. And we're gonna need a lot because there's probably not land to build on around our church. It's Pinellas County. So we're gonna have to buy a building.
We have to buy a building big enough to grow and have parking spaces and all of that. It's probably gonna take, I don't know, $5,000,000. It's gonna take a lot. But praise the Lord, he can multiply it supernaturally. So I don't have a building in mind.
I'm not, like, looking and, like, man, this is we're going after it. If we don't get it by this amount of time, then we're not. No. God's gonna supernaturally provide. He's gonna provide when the church is ready.
You know when the church is ready? When they've given enough for us to go after that building. So there's no pressure on this. It's not like, man, if you don't, we're not gonna be able to no. But I'm man, I know that God can do it in a day.
And if he chooses to do it in a longer time, we're at rest. We're at peace. We're just gonna keep going after his dream and sharing the gospel and making disciples until this time. And if we're in a new building in 6 months, praise the Lord. We're in a new building in 3 years, praise the Lord.
That's up to you and him, and I'm good with it. Amen? Amen. So we started we put a building fund on the website. Everything that is donated to the building fund will only be used for the church, for the buying the new building, or for help for buy only buying the new building or helping to renovate the building so that we can be in it.
Okay? Everything giving to the general account will be used to help continue running the church, which will be your normal tithes and offerings. Does that make sense? You guys good? Yeah.
Chevy. Come on. I'm done. I don't have anything else.