Be Fruitful and Multiply | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson
by Chad Erickson
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Genesis 9:7, Matthew 4:18-22, Genesis 11:4, John 13:35, Psalms 34:8, Matthew 9:10-13, Luke 19

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/chad-erickson--be-fruitful-and-multiply
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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and somebody said praise the lord anybody ready to go beyond her amen amen won't you stand to your feet with me and i just for a moment i first want to say i give honor to our our senior pastor our first lady amen they speak they speak highly of their family but i believe that the the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree amen and they have three wonderful children that i know that the three in-laws are so proud to marry into such a beautiful family and we're so thankful for that well everybody say vision the month of january is our vision casting month and pastor carpenter has has already cast vision matter of fact the last sunday of 2020 he preached the message entitled reading the bible through in 2021 wasn't that an awesome message and i hope that everybody's following suit i hope i'm not the only one that's glad that we're out of the book of job let me tell you something job has an awesome first chapter and it has an awesome last chapter and the ones in between um i don't want friends like that friends like that who needs enemies right then pastor continued on with his vision and he preached a message called the process and he preached whatever god has called us to do and we've already begun he said just finish it he said god is telling the church vision for this year is finish whatever god has led you to begin anybody want to finish i want to finish strong but i believe 2021 is gonna be a year of finishing in a few minutes i'm gonna i'm gonna address his his theme that he has given for our whole organization but i'm going to save that for just a few minutes i'm looking forward to hearing next week from our our youth pastor our student pastor as he cast vision for our strong tower youth don't we love our students don't we love our students our future our future that's already here in the present and then pastor nolan's gonna be following him and casting vision for our children for kids quest it's going to be an awesome year i believe 2021 is just going to be an awesome year i'm excited to see what god is speaking to them in the direction that they're going to lead our students and children this year well turn with me to genesis chapter 9 and verse 7 and i'm going to read just a few words i'm not going to read a few verses just a few words are going to get us to where i need us to be to get started tonight amen give honor to all of our guests here and i too love the sanders and uh love love our family from from illinois and uh so thankful that they're here tonight so good to see everyone i know i got two friends right here that drove all the way from indiana i i was told that you all got up at three o'clock and drove all the way here because you wanted to be in church with us this afternoon and tonight aren't you thankful for our guests there in the house amen so appreciative that the house of god is such high importance to so many genesis 9 and 7 says and you be ye fruitful and multiply and tonight uh my my vision casting service message is entitled simply be fruitful and multiply and i know that the title is going to raise some eyebrows to our monday morning viewing audience and i'm not going to preach about procreation this this evening i'm not although i do love all the babies that are being born around here can somebody say amen that is a way of church growth i just want to preach be fruitful and multiply let's please pray father we love you lord we're so thankful oh god you've given vision o god to this church lord god for this church lord for such a time as this and lord we're excited to fulfill your vision lord we're excited lord god that we are gonna come to an expected end lord that your ways are toward us your thoughts are toward us for the expected and father i'm grateful to be a part of the church of the living god the kingdom of god this is the this is the only place that i would ever want to be lord on a sunday night is in your kingdom with your people lord i pray tonight that the vision that i cast lord god that it'll be received and lord not just receive but i pray lord this shall be the greatest year we've ever had in the first apostolic church history lord i'm just believing lord god that nothing in our rearview mirror is going to stop us from what you have in store for us in 2021. come on if you believe this with me why don't you shout him in and you may be seated in jesus name this evening be fruitful and multiply i i just want to start off pastor hammond preached such a a beautiful message last week about the net without holes he preached about networking and and god is not going to add to the church daily unless the church is prepared to receive and disciple those that the lord adds there's a lot of times that we'll look and and people will say well lord why don't you add into the church and i just believe there's a voice from heaven that would say if you would prepare to receive the fish in your net if you had nests without holes if you were prepared to receive then i would be able to fill your nests and add to the church daily such as should be saved matthew 4 and 18 i want to read because this is so important because as i get into my message tonight i believe the fish are going to be drawn into the net and unless we have the net ready there will be a fish that will swim out of the net look look what jesus did here in matthew 4 and 18 it says in jesus walking by the sea of galilee saw two brethren simon called peter and andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishers and he said unto them follow me and i will make you fishers of men and they straightway left their nets and followed him then verse 21 it says in going from fans he saw two brothers james the son of zebedee and john his brother in a ship with zebedee their father and watch this mending their nets and he called them and they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him notice that peter and andrew what they were doing when jesus called them notice notice what james and john were doing when jesus called them they were fishing and they were mending nets they all understood the necessity of making sure there wasn't a backdoor to their nets if you will and jesus noticed that and he knew immediately that a person who understood the process of catching and retaining fish could also be taught how to catch and retain their neighbor he told them i'll teach you to be fishers of men do we really realize how good a teacher that jesus was i i believe we probably ought to study his techniques tonight his his teaching techniques for jesus was asked more than 370 questions in the gospel i'm going to say that again jesus was asked more than 370 questions in the bible but he only answered eight of them directly instead he asked 182 questions in return think about that i i love the thought of that because he's a teacher and if you're a teacher in the house you understand even to teach children you gotta you gotta ask them questions because if a child could hear themself speak the answer it's one thing for me to get up here and just tell you and give you facts from the word of god it's another thing if i start asking questions to your questions you ask me and make use make you hear yourself speak the answer and jesus was all about this he was a teacher's teacher somebody said amen he was a disciple maker what a teacher and i i want to pick up here in just a moment but i i can't quite start here begin here because of a word that i hope i never have to preach again and that word is simply coven 19. i'm so sick of talking about covert 19. but i just feel compelled because we're at the beginning of this new year that that we have to understand where the church is when it comes to covet 19. i'm going to begin with a story that i read in our text from it's a story of noah and the ark probably the most recognized story in the bible every sunday school child knows the story of noah and the ark i i don't know maybe only second to david and goliath but i don't know i i think i've seen more murals of of of noah in the ark even than i've seen of david and goliath man you walk into any sunday school any sunday school wing of any church here in america you're probably going to see some kind of a mural uh this great ark and animals coming two by two as they walk up into the ark they've spent millions of dollars creating the ark encounter how many have been to the ark encounter it's a it's an awesome experience to see this this great art that they feel like everything is is how it was uh in the bible or they they perceive it was in the bible and it's awesome to see the animals and see uh where they have the living quarters of noah and his wife and three sons and their and their wives and it's just it's just a great it's a great way to kind of to build the concept of what's in the word of god and there's all kinds we we're in branson missouri a few i don't know probably a few months ago at some aljc meetings and we got to go to the sight and sound theater and we got to watch the show called noah and man it was awesome i'm telling you they they had the whole stage the whole stage was the inside of the ark and not just the whole stage but even the curtains opened on the side on the left side and on the right side and it was two or three stories of just animals in there in in their in their age places in cages and and you saw the the giraffes and the hippopotamuses and and you saw the elephants and you saw all these animals and and they did such a great job portraying what it must have been like in the ark but with all of these stories what you never really come in contact with in any child's book you're gonna read or any story about the ark is how many people died in that day we've made a child's story which which is an awesome story it's about the saving of a man and his wife and his family the saving of eight people and it's a great thing that noah obeyed god and his family was saved but what you really don't see is that the rest of the world died annihilation everything animal anything living died at the end of the story and we have been through a pandemic this past year and we've lost they say somewhere around 2 million lives worldwide in a world that right now earth the population somewhere around 7.8 billion people and so the pandemic has taken point two five of our population that's a quarter of one percent there would there be there would be near eight million deaths worldwide just to eliminate one percent of our population and please understand i'm not trying to minimize the loss of life that we had in 2020 because i personally lost many people i love the people i looked up to so please don't don't don't take this wrong but i just want to make a point that the loss we have felt over this pandemic in the way it has physically and emotionally affected each of us doesn't even compare to what noah and his family must have felt when they stepped out of the ark and realized that 99.9999999999999 of their world had died i want you to think about that it's something that i don't think about when i see a mural on the wall of of two cute giraffes walking up a a boardwalk or two elephants walking it's something i don't really think about but can you imagine the emotions they were going through when they stepped out of that ark and realized we're all alone you say but the people were wicked and and the people were cruel not all the people you don't know it and his wife and his daughter-in-law's they had family they had parents they had grandparents they had siblings they had brothers and sisters you've heard you've heard the name methuselah oldest man to ever live records records tell us the bible tells us he was the oldest man to ever live he was 969 years old when he died if you go up to brother jacob sullivan's classroom upstairs his high school classroom you're going to see a bible timeline that takes up the whole wall of his classroom and you're going to see all of these names and all of these patriarchs and matriarchs you're going to see all these names come across but in the day of the flood you're going to see a domestic stop where every life ends right there and methuselah was one of those that ended in the year of the flood do you know who methuselah was he was noah's grandfather so i just want us to understand we we sometimes think and we kind of quickly moved through the story of noah and whoa no and his family were saved thank the lord and and the door opened and they walked out and sacrificed and everything was great i'm sorry i just don't believe that i don't believe that they weren't feeling some emotions of a loss some emotions are probably depression if you will here we had cities and here we had places to go to mark and we had people to talk to and now we walk out of this ark and there's nothing nothing is as it was a year ago can somebody in this place say amen what is normal normal is no longer normal but i just believe as noah and his family walked out of the ark there were some decisions they had to start making they could either look at their loss and they could cry over their loss and they could just stop and mourn and stop and mourn over the economy and stop and mourn of what used to be or they could rise up and think my god is giving us a promise and we're going to leave this place and we're not only going to leave this place but we're gonna go out and be fruitful and we're gonna multiply the seed all across this world we have a question that we've got to ask ourselves as we're coming into 2021. we got to ask ourselves are we just going to stop and wait and just kind of see what happens and and just kind of see what see which way the wind's blowing today and and try to figure out what we're going to do and and cry about the loss of economy and all inflation's going up and and everything seems to be what's going on in washington and oh my goodness what's gonna happen with the presidency and the senate and the congress what's gonna happen in our government what's gonna happen locally what's going to happen we could worry ourselves to death about what might happen or we could just stand up and say you know what it's a new day and everything may never be normal but whoever satisfied with normal we've never been satisfied with normal not satisfied somebody said i'm not satisfied with normal if kobe was brought on by the powers of hell that it was intended to slow the church down and cause the church to settle for a goal of what used to be if we're going to press toward a mark somebody it surely isn't going to be a mark of yesteryear i've got to move on i'm nowhere near what i need to be but listen to this we we follow the life of noah and his sons and and of course we understand that there's years and years and probably decades that go by as their families are are beginning to grow and beginning to spread apart and once they make the decision to move forward what we can't do is what noah's kids did the natural thing to do after a pandemic or after a worldwide catastrophe is to go inward and build for yourself and try to recover loss think about this think about what the kids did think about what noah's kids did think about ham sham and jebeth think about what they did and what their offspring did everything had been destroyed not just other living beings but their society and technology and their man-made structures and and the tower of babel was a response from the people to build something for themselves something that would make them feel secure come on i want you to follow me with this because we're moving to 2021 and if we're not careful we're going to follow into those footsteps genesis 11 and 4 says and they said go to let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach up into heaven and let us make a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth they were trying to get back to the place where their society left off before the flood they were trying to rebuild what used to be they were trying to make a name for themselves but isn't it interesting that in the word of god or even in literature in history not one name of one builder was ever given of the tower of babel they were trying to keep from multiplying across the earth but that's exactly what ended up happening and you know the rest of the story if you don't read it for yourself but they did end up being fruitful and multiplying across the world but when people come up with their own vision for themselves and not god's vision nothing goes as planned it was never god's wishes or intentions or command for noah's offspring to make a name for themselves or build a kingdom for themselves god never wanted them to just recover what they had lost and returned to the place that they were before the lost god's plan was for them to be fruitful and to multiply and somebody clap your hands god god never meant for us to just rebuild after pre-covered era there's a common question among pastors of churches the common question is simply this is your church anywhere close to its pre-covered numbers i hear that all the time and every phone call every text messages i have with other pastors that's what i hear how are you doing in marriage how severe we're going how are your numbers how is your attendance what percentage of your church is back what percentage of your church is coming back from from quarantine as if that is now the goal of the church across the country to just try to reach what used to be an average listen we can't build a kingdom that only benefits us we can't build a tower that begins us to give us glory the enemy would love for us to be in us for in no more church the enemy would love for us to stop giving the missions because we're so worried about the economy he would love to see our missions program fail in the assemblies of the lord jesus christ because pastors are worried about what's going to happen at the home front but oh my god that is not the vision that god has given he says be fruitful and multiply i feel the holy ghost in this place and if you're watching by way of the webcast if you're a pastor take hope and just know don't try to get back to what you used to be take your church to another level take your church to another level spiritually physically numerically take your church to another level don't settle for pre-covered numbers somebody shout amen you may be seated i want to jump back into the new testament be fruitful and multiply ah it's gonna be a little play on words for us but i know what be fruitful and multiply meant in the old testament i i know what god was speaking to adam and eve i know what god was speaking to noah and his wife and noah's sons and their wives i understand what they were talking about but in the new testament jesus also used fruit for the purpose of multiplication the initial evidence of the holy ghost we understand the infilling of our body with the spirit of god is the speaking of an unknown tongue but there's additional evidence that when we are filled with the holy ghost the bible says we will begin to grow fruit of the spirit nine different types of fruit love joy peace long suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness and temperance and we begin to grow these nine different fruit and it becomes obvious to ourselves and it becomes obvious to everybody around us that we truly have been filled with the spirit of god john 13 35 speaks of the most important fruit when it says by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one two another that's just the fruit of the spirit it's something that begins to grow inside of you that love and fruit must be tasted to reveal their goodness psalm 34 8 one of my favorite verses says o taste and see that the lord is good no matter how beautiful a fruit is unless it's tasted it cannot be determined how good it is i don't care how pretty it is unless you know and taste it you cannot tell the taste of the fruit no matter what it smells like unless it's tasted it cannot be determined how good it is my wife and i my daughter paris we were in singapore in in malaysia which borders singapore uh there is a fruit called the durian fruit in asia i bet we have some people that have had who who's tried the durian oh i know i know i know our a southeast oh yeah i know you did i don't yeah i know you did it is the worst smelling fruit in the world you say brother erickson you are exaggerating i'll tell you how bad it is they will not allow it it's against the law for it to be in a hotel it's against the law to bring it onto a city bus it's a it's against the law to bring it into any elevator and i'll tell you why because you can't get rid of the smell it smells like like the worst sewage smell you've ever smelled now i i think personally i think it smells like natural gas it smells like there's a gas leak a bad gas leak and so we we were natural gas yeah that's right natural gas some of y'all cocked your head i wasn't sure i was like what did i say yeah natural gas like like like lp listen i said it right i don't know what you're laughing at so we were in singapore and they they were like they're like brother sister erickson you've gotta try this and i know you gotta understand me i travel enough i'll try anything now my wife's a different story so they cut it open and they dug the flesh out the fruit the flesh out of it kind of a red slimy and so there i am of course holding my nose i'm beyonce it was horrible but the people in asia think it's the best fruit they've ever tasted matter of fact it's some of the most expensive fruit you should have saw those singaporeans when we when we rejected the durian fruit they attacked that stuff i mean i mean i mean we like like spit it out push our seats back and they dove in to grab that durian fruit because they love it but but i said all this to say to get a real understanding of a fruit you gotta taste it doesn't matter what it looks like doesn't matter what it smells like you've got to taste the fruit and i wish so bad i wish so bad i had come up with this but but but our good friend pastor timothy lee from singapore as he was preaching to our our leaders the other night on our zoom training he said this he said in order for fruit to be tasted someone's got to take a bite into it he says and when somebody takes a bite into you it's never comfortable he said it's painful but it's a necessary pain because in order for us to be fruitful people that we're trying to reach for jesus they're gonna have to be able to bite into us and be revealed jesus and having the appearance of the fruit isn't enough we've got to allow people to experience the very fruit oh taste and see that the lord is good i'm preaching about being fruitful and multiplying and i know sometimes it's painful when you get out there and you gotta expose you gotta allow people to experience the taste of the fruit but i want you to know we cannot have multiplication if we don't have the taste if there's not a fruit that leads to the multiplying i said it earlier that jesus used fruit for the purpose of multiplication allow me to vision cast for a few minutes the vision of our small groups this year is not just be a place where people can survive but they're going to be a place where people can thrive it won't be just a place where you get fed but a place where you can feed others listen groups will be a place where our fruit of the spirit are on display not just to be seen but to be experienced come on now listen to me group leaders and you that are attending our groups our whole paradigm of small groups has begun to shift when we began it was just a good connection we're trying to we're trying to get new families to be connected the families are in the church or new converse would be be connected to people but our whole paradigm has began to shift because instead of it just being a place where we can get fed and somebody teach me and somebody feed me and somebody care about my needs i want people to rise up from first episode who have joined groups and say i will be the person you can tell me what you need you can you can lay it on my shoulders i'll bear your burdens with you whatever's in your life i'll try to help you i'll try to tell you about my testimony how god brought me through and i'll allow you to experience the fruit that i'm growing in my life the vision for our connect groups this year is a place where we can merge our universes let me explain we must build relationships like never before with unbelieving co-workers and acquaintances i'm gonna say it again we gotta build relationships like never before with our unbelieving co-workers and our acquaintances and maybe even some of our family members so that we can bring them to a place or into an environment with believing friends community is so important let me let me give you an example of how community works my wife and i last night kind of preparing for bed just trying to just kind of chill out like we do on saturday evenings getting ready for sunday kind of listening through the music the music sets making sure we knew what was going on on sunday morning making sure we knew who was leading wasn't what order the songs were going for when all of the sudden in our backyard landed a ufo and a little green guy got out knocked on our door invited us into his spaceship we got in his spaceship and he took us he took us to pluto who would have known there we are on pluto get out we have dinner with his family he had a great little green family great family got back in the spaceship he brought us back to our backyard and would you believe i don't know if it was some kind of time warp or something only one earth second went by and there we were back getting ready for service how many believe my story ross does good jeremy poole these are people i knew would believe it i got another story for you there was this man who was on a boat sleeping and there was a wind and a storm and waves were covered over the boat and this man woke up out of his sleep and he just lifted a hand and said peace be still and all of nature obeyed him and everything stopped the wind stopped the wind oh it had raised but it stopped in the waves they had covered the boat but in a split second all of that stopped in this same man he caused he caused people that had leprosy that had an uncurable disease he healed people with leprosy it was our modern day age you wouldn't believe it but he healed them with leprosy and this same man he brought a man who had been dead for four days out of the grave he called him forth and he said lose them and set them free and the man came back to life this same man i'm telling you about every funeral procession that he came by it was no longer a funeral procession because he would take the person by the hand and raise them up from the dead are you telling you do you believe that story who believes that story wait a minute you're telling me that that's easier to believe than my ufo story here's here's the deal with community watch this because everybody in the room believed the story it was very easy for you to believe just like with my ufo story because nobody believed the story except a couple it was very easy to say it's not believable because that's what community i'm trying to bring you into perspective how important small groups are because if you can merge your universe of unbelieving friends with your universe of apostolic pentecostal believing friends if you can bring those two together which somebody may never have believed before and understood before what they may have they may have read all their life and just said that can't be true when they're in a house full of people when everybody says i've been filled with the holy ghost i've had my life changed i've had my marriage put back together it's so much easier to believe when the whole community believes it i want to preach vision for our small groups our connect groups i believe this year oh my god i believe this year is going to be a year of revival a soul revival because we're going to get on board and we're going to find people that need god people that never have received the gift of the holy ghost never had their sins washed away and we're gonna bring them into a place where they're gonna rub shoulders with people who've got a testimony whose lives have been changed and we're gonna see people added to the church daily such as should be saved let me rephrase that because we have multiple groups we're going to see people multiply to the church daily such as should be safe because it's not just one church one building one people reaching out we have some 15 small groups that are reaching out and bringing people in the vision of this church is we're going to grow from the grassroots i just believe that with community and bringing our universes together we are gonna see lost people one to god if you believe that with me why don't you clap your hands and give god a shout of praise maybe you see i just want to prove this concept because i believe somebody in here is still stuck on my ufo story you ain't never made it past that moment let's see let's see what jesus did let's see how the great teacher let's see how he teaches us how to merge our universes together look look with me in matthew 9 verse number 10 i want to read a few verses in your hearing and we're going to see kind of how jesus does it since it came to pass as as jesus said and meet in the house behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and who okay okay so we have jesus with unbelieving universe and a believing universe that jesus says we're just gonna put all the same table together and when the pharisees saw it they said unto his disciples why edith your master republicans and sinners but when jesus heard that he said unto them they that behold need not a physician but they that are sick but go ye and learn with that meaning i will have mercy and not sacrifice for i am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance i i want to read from another translation verse 12 and 13 just simply says jesus overhearing shot back who needs a doctor the healthy or the sick go figure out what this scripture means i'm after mercy not religion i'm here to invite outsiders and not coddle the insiders listen to me somebody i i read then i thought to myself that's what our small groups are going to do right there listen all of us have issues all of us have problems and listen care group's a great place connect group's a great place to bring and and we can pray over your needs and we can try to help you out of situations and and if you want it we can even give advice and that's all good we'll share our testimony it's going to give you hope for your life but it's all about the person who's in the world who's coming in and saying i'm sick i need a doctor is this the er i've tried everything i've tried every drug i've drank myself to sleep what can i get in this house and jesus is saying i am the great physician and if you'll just get them in the house i'll take care of all their needs somebody shout him in jesus always merged his two universes together when simon the pharisee invited jesus to dinner he made sure his disciples were there too luke chapter 19 tells us the story of the unbeliever zacchaeus inviting jesus to dinner at his house if you go back one chapter into chapter 18 it tells us that his disciples were traveling with him when he met zacchaeus and so we can conclude that obviously jesus's connect group was with him when he went to zacchaeus house she tells me two things jesus never hung out with sinners without his connect group because that's what you got to be careful of we can build relationships with people at school that don't believe at work that don't believe but we've been preaching this to our young people they're not people that you spend the night with they're not people that you go to other cities and other states and other places and go go spend time with the idea of you making friends and creating relationships with unbelievers is that so you can draw them into your believer's circle because in your believer's circle there's safety there's testimony i could just see that jesus look at me zacchaeus says he's up the tree as he's inviting jesus to come come come to his house and and jesus like absolutely will come come on come on connect group we're going to get some dinner together because you know what that's what connect groups do we eat you don't you can't break down people's defenses any better than serving them food give him some some of sister ammon's gooey bars sister naomi's banana bread man let me tell you something that anybody that's unsure if they ought to be there you give them a little bit of that they get over that quick listen baby i know we're trying to die and we're trying to change our eating lifestyle but even jesus half the stories in the bible he's eating all you brothers can pat me on the back later here's a vision for our connect groups this year because of the relationships our small group members are going to intentionally make with unbelievers in 2021 and because these unbelievers are going to merge with our connect group believers the result is gonna be souls and not just souls we're talking about disciple making we are disciples making disciples matter of fact i'm going to make it really easy we'll make it really easy on y'all and i hope if you're not in a connect group i hope you join please sign up at the booth please please it's not about you it's about the people that you're going to disciple but right here right here we have uh brother dale mcbroom designed us some some some some cards invite cards for our connect groups front side says first episode church connect groups on the other side it says a place to connect and on it you have win you have the time you have where so this is you might have a connect group on monday evenings at seven o'clock you put monday 7 00 p.m where it's at first apostolic church 1331 william blunt drive uh in global grounds coffee shop and then there's a there's a space that says more info and that's where you put your name and you put your number so they can text you and they can contact you just to make sure that you're going to be there when they show up but what these cars are for it's very simple these are for co-workers these are people you might meet at the store you you might just strike up a conversation and you might just start talking about the lord and and they get they get interested in their their eyes light up and you you see a light bulb turn on when when you start preaching doctrine to them and you say hold on a second i've got a perfect group i've got an awesome group it's it's called a connect group it's just a few of us man we get together and we eat and we fellowship and we talk about the word of god we have prayer together it's just a great time if you've got questions about the bible you could come to this connect group and we'll talk about it with you we'll answer questions with you and you can hand them one of these cards and i just believe that there's going to be a revival of people who will think about every person that they come in contact with whether it's somebody at work whether it's somebody at college at school and you'll say i'm gonna start inviting people to my connect group but i talk about disciples making disciples and and this year will be the inaugural year of the movement conference that's going to be hosted right here at first apostolic church of maryville and to all of our ministry leaders we need you to be prepared because the ministries that you have been overseeing and the ministries that you have been leading as soon they're very soon to be put on display for hundreds of other apostolic churches to see exactly what you're doing to disciple people in your groups in your ministries there's a hunger in the apostolic churches to go beyond the norm of just having church there's a hunger more than ever before to reach the lost and the only way that that's going to be fulfilled is by disciples making disciples that's that's what the movement is all about it's a disciple making movement we want churches from across the country to join us here in maryvale and even all over the world i know there's there's people coming from across the world to join up with the movement it's not just a conference it's something that we want people to join august 31st through september 2nd listen i'm preaching announcements is all i'm doing the ministries of this church will be on display as example of disciple making day care the academy sunday school department the fit team global grounds coffee shop kids quest strong tower anchor points discipleship training bible study teacher training connect groups all of us are going to come together and we're going to show other churches what god is doing through our ministries because people want to know people want to know what's going on with the fac production team what is that how are you all doing what you're doing our production leaders are getting phone calls from across the country of churches that are far larger than our church people that over the years have been at the very top and they're looking towards our production team and they're saying how do you do it we want to produce a service like you're producing a service we want to get it online like you're getting it online tell us about the studio tell us what you're doing to make music videos we just want to know how you're doing it and i thank god that we have a spirit of excellence in this church that other churches can look into the ministries of first apostolic and they can say tell me what are you doing we want to do it too because saul's souls is our focus in 2021. apostolic collective we talk about it all the time but but maybe we haven't explained it real well the idea was born pre-covered days but the idea took shape and took form when we're forced into quarantine how many enjoyed all the videos the music videos and and all the studio the preaching and the bible studies and everything that happened during quarantine aren't you thankful for apostolic collective studios let me tell you a little bit about uh i'm just going to read this is the bible this is uh this is the theme this is our mission statement apostolic collective is a community of apostolic singers musicians and songwriters from around the world collaborating under the name apostolic collective the goal of apostolic collective is to unify and strengthen the voice of the apostolic church through songs of worships and also songs that proclaim the exactness of salvation we believe the need is the call our churches need songs that proclaim the truth and lead congregations into times of spiritual warfare we believe that music is a powerful platform that can open the hearts of people to receive the truth through the preached word of god and through song music gets into places where preaching sometimes can people get to listen to apple music or whatever streaming uh platform you listen to and who knows if we can't get the exactness of salvation into somebody's ears and into somebody's heart to make them think well i've never thought about that before listen i know i'm going along but i got to tell this story sister diana triplett she has a friend that she went to high school with that's at college and and she's she's writing a paper and and and in a study her professor said you've got to interview a catholic priest and you've got to interview a pentecostal preacher y'all those are spectrums wide apart so she had already interviewed the catholic priest and she'd also interviewed some other pentecostal denominations and other uh other pentecostal pastors and preachers and and so i answered sister diana i answered her four questions she had four good questions i explained our worship and what we do and how we do it in the order and and all that good stuff and why we do it and and you know i i snuck some things in there to kind of kind of you know kind of get the little light bulb maybe kind of flicker a little bit but then she made a mistake oh no she really didn't but at the end she said is there anything that you would like to tell me in addition to what i've asked y'all i'm bored my wife is shopping in the mall i'm sitting on on a mall bench i'm like i got all the time in the world i said well as a matter of fact there is i think she says something like what makes you all different than other pentecostals i thought oh yes this is great man so i just i just without making the story too long because i don't have time to tell you the whole story i just started talking about the oneness of god i said i said there are some differences other pentecostal organizations they they believe in the trinity and and you're baptist so you i'm sure that you're aware i told her you're aware of what the trendy is and and i said but we don't believe in persons we believe in manifestations and and i started talking about the the father of creation and the son of redemption and the holy ghost sits at work in the church today and and all of a sudden she said that is so incredible she said i went and talked to my pastor the other day and he's thinking some of those same things she said he he said to me she said we have casual conversations she said i work at the church we have casual conversations a lot and he said the other day he said you know i've been thinking that maybe jesus the son of god began at the birth in bethlehem and jesus the son wasn't in the old testament and i said you're you're a pastor he he's on to something you need to start studying then i started giving her some scripture to study listen people are hungry people are looking people are searching people just want to know and all you got to do is get that little light bulb to start flickering just a little bit and all they got to do is pick up their bible and start reading the things they've never read into before oh somebody help me oh we can get this message into people's hearts we just got to find a way to get it in i'm almost done you maybe see that i'm almost done i got off got off subject a little bit got a little excited there but our studio was developed during quarantine and we had such brother brother hammond brother chase and brother darren all we had so many people working and helping us get everything set up and get everything in place and god even moved on a man's heart at national youth convention in 2019 he had a domain name that is apostolicmusic.com and if you know anything about domains dot coms are very hard to come up with especially apostolicmusic.com and he said i have been offered he said i've been offered thousands of dollars i've had bible schools contact me want to have this domain name he said but i just believe we were talking about apple stock collective in that session he said i just believe in what you're doing he said i want to give you the domain name apostolicmusic.com so let me tell you something god is already in the works god's already doing great things songs have already been written the song called heartbeat pain in the praise turn our eyes the song called heaven the song called let him speak the song called let's testify it's been recorded already by indiana bible college the song called who knew that has somewhere around a half million hits the song called see my city we sang it this morning these are all songs that were burst out of apostolic collective i believe in jesus name i believe that all these songs over time are going to be translated into other languages and nations all over this world are going to be blessed by the music of apostolic collective stand with me stay with me listen we're planning to put a whole album together a full album during the movement conference choir you better get ready we're putting your ministry on display music you better get ready we're about to put your music all your ministry on display there's gonna be people that are gonna come here that just need a song they need a song of hope they need a song of deliverance they need a song to help them get through another day and get through another year and i just believe because of apostolic collective because of this church right here at 1331 william blunt drive i believe that the holy ghost is going to be poured out because songs of deliverance and songs of salvation are going to be written and sang and recorded somebody shout amen listen this exciting division cast for 2021 because now that we've stepped off the ark of 2020 we've been given a brand new slate pastor carpenter's vision for the assemblies of the lord jesus christ is simply all things new the sky is the limit in 2021 nothing is going to be the same as it was in 2020 and i i'm speaking by faith i've got eyes full of faith that song that we sang this morning that was written by apostolic collective simply says i've got eyes full of faith i see my city resurrected i see my city full of blessing eyes full of faith i speak in jesus name i see my city resurrected listen somebody in this place you might say pastor erickson you better be careful what you say in 2021 it might be worse than 2020. i sing it again to you i see my city resurrected i see my city full of blessings eyes full of faith i speak in jesus name i see my city resurrected come on somebody i pray you catch this vision of 2021. i pray you make a decision that it's your right now it's your right now to do what god intends for you to do lord not my will be done not my ideas not my will but your will be done i want to be fruitful and multiply i said i want to be fruitful and multiply i want to know tonight what do you see in your 20 21 tell the saints of god what do you see in your 2021 i hope you're not calming down i hope you're not eating a bag of cheetos and biting your fingernails watching the news and hoping everything goes okay i hope that you'll rise up and you'll step out of the ark and say the sky is the limit of what 2021 is going to become i know we have a lot of lost in 2020. i know a lot of things fell through a lot of things got canceled everything didn't happen like it should have happened but i i see resurrection on the horizon i see resurrection on the horizon come on somebody i want you to make your way to this altar and just say lord have your way in my life i don't want to do the things that i plan god i want you to do the perfect will in my life what have you taught me to do i believe shut up i believe this church is filled with disciple makers i believe this church is filled with disciple makers but you got to make a decision if that's who you're going to be will you be fruitful will you allow your fruit to be tasted by this world will you allow people to say oh it tastes so good all taste and see that the lord is good come on raise up both hands in victory and just proclaim 2021 it's going to be our year i'm going to win assault i'm going to discover resurrection i see my city filled with the blessing of the lord every destruction is jesus is jesus declared in jesus name come on speak it out i speak in jesus name i see my family resonated gotta have eyes of faith devil you can't have the united states of america i see my country we're built on the promise of the lord i speak in jesus name resurrected i feel the holy ghost in this place so strong i believe that somebody's responding to the vision somebody's responding to the word huh come on you got to get in with both feet you can't look behind you you can't remember and think upon what happened yesteryear you can't dwell on the things that used to be come on we got a beautiful and bright future ahead of us come on we need eyes full of faith we need eyes full of faith we need eyes full of faith we need eyes full of faith we got to see things as though they were we got to see things as though they were we got to see things as though they were somebody who needs to make a commitment right now somebody needs to make a commitment right now i'm gonna join a connect group not because brother erickson wants me to not because pastor carpenter wants me to but because i want to join because i see the need to merge my universes i see the need to get those people from the world and bring them into the church i see the need to get them around a community of like-minded believers i see the need to bring them into a house of people that can pray over them and have hope for their lives it can bring blessings into their lives come on somebody you gotta make a declaration i know it's gonna take time i know it's not always easy it's gonna take schedule i know it's gonna be inconvenient but you gotta say it's worth it for me to be a soul winner and a disciple maker it's the best thing that i could ever do teaching a bible study is the best thing that i can do the adding value to somebody's life is the best thing that i could ever do they're gonna sing this one more time but just lift up your hands and come on i wish somebody make a decision right now i declare i will i declare i will