Chris and Jill Shelby | September 6, 2026

And welcome to the hills. It's good to see you guys. Glad that you are here. Today, if you are here in person at our North Richmond Hills campus, or if you are joining us online, we say welcome. And it is an honor to get to be with you today. As we begin, I just wanna say thank you so much to you as a church family for being a really great place for our family to belong. As you know, as I've mentioned before, sometimes our journey started together a long time ago, as you guys sent us as a family, with our team to the mission field, and you supported us and cared for us and took such great care of us. And now we have the privilege of being back here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, being on staff and getting to be a part of what God is doing through the hills now. It is an honor to be a part of this church with you. And I want you to know that we love you, and I just wanted to start that way today. And I know that there's a lot of you that are like, "Dude, I don't know who you are, and I've never seen your face." And that's okay, too. We're family, we just hadn't met yet. And so I hope that we get a chance to meet today or in the future.

But welcome to the hills. Very blessed to get to share a word with you today, along with Jill. One of my favorite Sundays is getting ready to come up a couple of Sundays. Starting next week, Rick is going to be doing our recast of our vision as we've been asking for nations and generations together as a church. And so starting next week, Rick is gonna let us know how we are pursuing those goals and what God has been doing through the life of the hills here and around the world. So I hope that you'll come back and get to hear that in the next couple of weeks. But as we get ready to do that, Rick asked if Jill and I would come and lead just a time in the word about being activated and being on mission as families together. And so we are honored to get to do that today. I'd like to begin by telling you a story. And it's a story of a man that we will call Youssef. Youssef is a passionate follower of Jesus Christ who lives in the Middle East. He is very passionate about making disciples in his homeland, even though it is very difficult and costly for him to do so. Now Youssef doesn't have very much. In fact, much of what he has has been taken away from him in his life because he is a follower of Jesus.

Youssef has been kicked out of multiple houses after his landlord found out that he was a follower of Jesus. And so without warning, they would kick him out of the house. He would often lose many of his belongings and have to go and find a new place to live. And in fact, many of the neighborhoods in which Youssef lived kicked him out, not just of the house, but they said, you can't live in any house in this neighborhood because you're following Christ and you're an infidel and we do not want you here. It has been costly for Youssef. But he loves to talk about Jesus and he loves to talk about Jesus at work, which as you can imagine, in a nation that might be hostile to the gospel, this can be problematic. It's caused Youssef to lose multiple jobs and he has had to go from job to job to job in order to take care of himself and his family. Not long ago, Youssef found a job at a bakery and the manager of the bakery was curious about this new employee because there was something different about Youssef. He discovered that Youssef was a man of faith. There was something about him that intrigued his boss and he wanted to know more. Have you ever been there? There's perhaps someone in your life that you know is interested in spiritual things. You know that if you engage them in a spiritual conversation that they would probably talk to you about things of faith.

But you also know that it could be costly. It certainly was possibly costly to Youssef. So what do you do? Well, this is what Youssef did over a very simple meal. He shared with his manager and his manager's wife about the goodness of Jesus Christ. And he told them at that dinner, he said, "I would do anything for Jesus." And the manager was really intrigued now. He's like, "Tell me more about this." But his wife started to become more reserved because it is really difficult to follow Jesus in this nation and she was frightened. But there was something about Youssef and there was something about this Jesus that he kept talking about that intrigued them. And after a few visits, the bakery manager's wife worked up the courage to ask Youssef a question. And she said this. She said, "If Jesus is the truth, can he give me peace?" And Youssef said, "Yeah, I think he can." Well, she had a dream one night. And in the dream, she had an encounter that changed her life. a little bit later. - Oh, okay, there I am. It's hard to come up after that story, but he really will tell you the rest of the story in just a minute. But speaking of story, most Sundays our kids are out of the room at this point of the service,

and they're experiencing something called kid's story. Kid's story is just this simple way of encountering the truth of God's word through discovery, through storytelling and through conversations in community. It allows kids to respond to the story and then to ultimately share the story with others. And we really hope that happens today, too. Would you like to have a taste of kid's story today? The answer is yes, okay, so I'm gonna ask some of our kids to come and help us act out the story for today. And while they're coming up, let me give you the background of the story. It's from Mark chapter six, verses 31 through 44. So Jesus is right in the middle of his ministry. He's called 12 disciples to him. Those 12 disciples have watched him and heard him preach the gospel of the kingdom in synagogues. They've heard him teach him parable. They have watched him heal the sick, make lame people walk, calm a storm, and cast out demons. And then things seem to be going really well, but then they watch him go to his hometown of Nazareth where the people who were supposed to know him best actually rejected him. Didn't understand what he was doing or who he was. But Jesus, in the middle of that, since his 12 disciples out in pairs together to go do the things that he was doing. Jesus then hears that his cousin, John the Baptist,

was killed. His 12 disciples come back to report to him what happened while they were on mission. So it's really important now as we get into the story that you kind of get a feel for where Jesus and his disciples are. They've experienced some highs and some lows and they're ready to get away and be together. But here come the crowds. And of course there are crowds. They've been seeing this healing and deliverance ministry and watching Jesus teach with authority. And then now they've seen these 12 ordinary, uneducated men do the same exact things. The crowds are curious. And that's where our story picks up. Okay, you have some homework while you watch the story. In kid's story, after they hear the story, they practice retelling it. So we're gonna make it short and simple. I'm just gonna ask you two questions after you watch the story. I'm gonna ask you what the disciples wanted Jesus to do with the crowds. And I'm gonna ask you what Jesus wanted the disciples to do for the crowds and then if there's gonna be a little test at the end, okay? Okay, here we go. Mark chapter six. Then Jesus said, "Let's go off by ourselves

"to a quiet place and rest a while." He said this because there were so many people coming and going that he and his followers didn't even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving. And people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat as he stepped from the boat. I think they're out of the boat. And he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place and it's getting late. "Send them away so they can go to the nearby farms "and villages and buy themselves something to eat." But Jesus said, "You feed them." "With what?" they asked. "We'd have to work for months "to earn enough money to buy food for all these people." "How much bread do you have?" he asked. "Go, look and find out." They came back and reported, "We have five loaves of bread and two fish." Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of 50 or 100.

Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven and blessed them, then breaking the loaves into pieces. He kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted. [BLANK_AUDIO] Crowds haven't eaten fast here. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed. And that's our story. [APPLAUSE] I told Chris, if you forget everything else we say, you won't forget that. And then the story will be in you. And that's the point. OK, here's the test. Ready? Everybody call out. Kids call out. Adults call out. Question number one, what did the disciples want Jesus to do with the hungry people? Send them away. Question number two, did I say that wrong? Maybe I did. What did Jesus want the disciples to do for the hungry people? You feed them. Yep. OK, you got it.

You got it. So scripture says that we as humans, we don't live by bread alone. But by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So the words that you're hearing today are life. As Chris and I have immersed ourselves in this story and many people have been praying for us, we have been fed from the mouth of God. And we want to share a simple but challenging meal or message with you today that I hope feeds you. And as you will see, we hope Jesus continues to feed other people through us today and through this story in the days to come. So we're going to go through this text from Mark using a really simple outline by answering three questions. Number one, what is the problem? Number two, what is the solution? And number three, what is the invitation? Well, Jesus sees the real problem before the disciples do, which that's kind of what Jesus does, isn't it, he sees things correctly before we're able to. And as soon as he steps off the boat, he identifies it and the problem is this, the people were like sheep without a shepherd. Like in verse 34, Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. What does it mean to be a sheep without a shepherd? Perhaps many of us in here today know what that's like.

Being a sheep without a shepherd is hard. It means you don't know where to go. It means you don't know what to do. It means you don't know how to protect yourself or if you get hurt how to find healing. It means you go look for healing in all the wrong places. It means you don't know where to turn to find hope and food and life. And Jesus sees this when he steps off the boat and he sees this crowd and he's moved with compassion towards them. So what does he do? His response, I think, should inform ours. He begins to teach them many things. Other gospel accounts of the same story says that Jesus also began to heal people. What did Jesus do? He began to reveal the kingdom of heaven to people who had not seen it yet. That was his first response. It's that you need to see the bigger picture of what life is supposed to be like and let me show you and let me teach you. The disciples also noticed a problem. It's a different problem. I'm looking at verse 35. Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place and it's getting late." You can kind of hear the tone in the disciples' voice, right? Like, what are they saying?

They're like, "Okay, Jesus, it's been a long day." All this is fine. You've been teaching, you've been healing, but we are in a remote place. There is no food. There are people who are starting to get hungry and we don't know what to do about it. Both are problems, but we cannot forget brothers and sisters that the number one problem that people in our world face is that they are lost and that they need to know where to find the grace and the care of a good shepherd. We can't let each other forget that because the hungry and needy crowds, they confront us with a really crucial, missional question and the question is this, Look at how Jesus responded, verse 34 again. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat and he had compassion on them. See, before you can act on behalf of the lost, you have to feel something for them. Here's a challenge, right, in our day and age. And maybe you guys feel this. There felt compassion, fatigue, it's a real thing, right? It's a real thing that we face, especially in the age of technology. When every time we open up our phones or our social media feeds, you have the brokenness of the world at your doorstep.

That's heavy, and we wanna care, and I know you do. I know you do care, but man, it seems like our compassion in our day and age leaks pretty easy because we're overwhelmed. You know, Jesus actually prophesied that this would happen in Matthew 24, verses 12 through 14. He says, "Because of the increase of wickedness, "the love of most will grow cold, "but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved, "and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached "in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, "and then the end will come." Church, I want you to notice the connection here, that standing firm in our love will be the cause of the gospel being preached around the whole world. There is no greater impetus for mission than the love of God expressed through the church. And one of the major questions facing the church in the 21st century is this. How can we continue to love God and love our neighbor without giving up? See the great commission where Jesus said, go make disciples and all the nations? It flows from the great commandment where Jesus says, "Love the Lord your God "with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, "and love your neighbor as yourself." In order to reach the world, you have to love the people in it. The mission is fueled by it.

For the past several years, as we have been asking for nations and generations as a church, we've been able to now pursue unreached people groups in many nations around the world. And those are often in nations that are hostile to the gospel. And so we have to be careful when we go in, but we were privileged recently to be able to go into one of these nations with a team of our missionaries and some people from our church. And we went and we were invited into a village in the northern part of this nation that was completely unreached, that had never heard the gospel before. And they invited us in to do a sports camp, which was a fun way to get to bless the community, make relationships, and then we were privileged to be able to share the stories of Jesus. And we got to do that by using kid's story of what you've seen here today. That's one of the greatest honors of my life, to tell the stories of Jesus, to people who had never heard them. One of the things we did as a result, as a part of that sports camp, is we took little eye black stickers, you know the stickers that you put under your eyes that athletes will wear sometimes to keep the glare from the sun off of them. And there was a little pencil that came with those stickers

and you could write on those stickers. And the kids were writing things like, I love America, you know, I love football, different things of that nature. And as I was walking through the crowd, as everybody was having fun, I noticed this young man. (audience chattering) And I don't know what prompted him to write those words on those eye stickers. I don't know why he wrote "Lost Boy." But that image is gonna stay with me for the rest of my life. Church, how do we keep our compassion and our love burning for young men like this who live around the world? How do you have love and compassion for people who live across the street and if I'm honest with you today, my love and compassion can get cold pretty quick. I can go about my day and be about my business and I wanna take care of my family and make sure things are okay. And it seems like I spend a lot of my days not really caring about the people around me. How do we keep it burning? I think we need to help with the Holy Spirit and so I want us to ask today 'cause the Spirit is ready, right? The Spirit is ready for the church to be fueled by love and he can give us the love that we need

to have compassion and love for the world. And so what I want us to do, families, maybe you're sitting here together today. I would love for you to pray together and ask God to help you keep your love burning. Maybe you're sitting with people that you know and you're comfortable doing that with, please pray together. If you would rather just pray, silently at your seat, that's great too. But I want us to ask God to help us keep our love burning for those who don't know Jesus, okay? So go ahead and pray, please. For about 30 seconds. (audience member speaking) (audience member speaking) - Thank you for praying for compassion. Because without compassion, we might miss the problem. But without compassion, we will definitely miss becoming part of the solution. So Chris talked about the problem. There are two different solutions presented in the text and the story from today. You know, the disciples had a solution and Jesus had a solution. The disciples saw the problem as hunger and so their solution was, verse 36, sends the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and get themselves something to eat. But Jesus, who saw the bigger, fuller problem,

he turns to his disciples and he says, you feed them. So there are two solutions to this problem of sheep without a shepherd, of a hungry world. Send them away or you feed them. And Jesus had already been feeding them. Remember teaching and healing? He was giving them the bread of life and he's trying to get his disciples not just to see what he's doing, but to actually join him in what he's doing. Feeding the sheep, giving them the stuff of life, the things that they need. True bread from heaven. And just like the disciples, we have a choice today with lost hungry people. Send them away to fend for themselves or follow the command of Jesus, you feed them. Some of you might be thinking, how am I going to feed a lost world, a lost hungry world? You see the magnitude of the problem and you're seeming limited resources and you think, what do I possibly have to give that could help here? The disciples asked the same question. Look at verse 37, with what? Well, you remember the kids doing that, with what? We'd have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people. Look at the contrast, the big problem

and I don't have anything. They immediately focused on what they didn't have. We do the same thing, right? Is anyone else like me? We see the big problem of the world and we think, what do I have? Not enough, not enough time, not enough money. Maybe if it's about spiritual conversations, not enough knowledge, not enough skill, not enough courage. But Jesus is always working on our paradigm, our framework, the way we see things. He's enlarging it, the way we look at the world so that the way we see things actually aligns with the kingdom of God. You know, this scarcity and smallness is because we feel disconnected from the source of life. So therefore, we think we don't have anything to give and Jesus, he's coming to reconnect us. So notice how he responds to their response. How much bread do you have? Go, look, find out. And they came back and reported, we have five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus says, okay, take inventory of what you do have. He is so responsible. Jesus, even, he's so responsive to you. You make an excuse and he is ready to have a conversation with you. We say we don't have enough. He says, go find out what you do have

and then watch what happens as the disciples engage this process. Their eyes become open. That's what the gospel of Mark is all about. Do you really see? Their eyes become open and they realize that with Jesus, whatever they have is more than enough. Even right now, start shifting your paradigm from scarcity and not enough to what do I have. What has Jesus already given you? Jesus says some really mysterious, One of them that came, and I feel like he revealed to me what he meant as we studied this text, was elsewhere in scripture he says, "To the one who has, more will be given." And I think what he means is, if you think you don't have anything, you're not in a place where you can receive anything. But if you can see what you've already been given, you're the kind of person that can be given more. So today, maybe the shift for you is just the shift from not enough to what do I have. But Jesus is not finished. Because he says, "Whatever you think you have right now, "you have more than that with me." Look at verse 41, Jesus took the loaves and two fish and he looked up toward heaven and he blessed them, then breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people.

He also divided the fish for everyone to share. Jesus is showing his disciples that they don't have to send the sheep away because with him, you feed them is possible. He took what they brought small, though it was, and he looked up toward heaven and blessed it. And I think this is a crucial piece of the text. Jesus is showing his disciples the way everything was meant to be in the first place, that earth was meant to be connected to heaven. He's invoking the blessing of heaven on earth. You guys remember how he taught his disciples to pray? Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, right here by the seashore where there's 10,000 plus people waiting to be fed, bless this bread and make it enough, make what's happening in heaven come to pass on the earth. Jesus knew with the Father, he had access to everything. And he was just calling it down to earth and showing his disciples how to do the same thing. Notice the words, he kept giving the bread to his disciples so they could distribute it. The supply never ran out because the source never ran dry. Jesus was making the connection of earth. Do you ever feel like, oh, I have enough, and then I give and now I don't have enough. It's because we lose our connection. Jesus said, stay connected to me, stay connected to the vine and you will never run dry because I never run dry, I'm the source of life.

Once the connection of earth to heaven is made, the possibilities are endless. What if the church really took Jesus at his word and we stayed connected to the vine? Yeah, what happened would be beyond our imagination, but we really do have access to all things. There's a song that says, all things are mine because I am his. Jesus is turning a miracle into a parable. He's teaching his disciples the economy of the kingdom. The disciples and us, we don't have enough on our own. But with Jesus, they and us, we have access to everything we need. And we don't just have access to what we need. We have access to what the world needs. Our family lived and served in Rwanda for many years, like Chris mentioned, supported by this church. And while there, Jesus gave us compassion for boys living on the streets. It was the massive problem in Rwanda, just kids living on the streets, no home, no family. The need was overwhelming, but God had given us compassion and we found ourselves struggling with that dichotomy of massive need and not feeling like we had anything to offer. So we started praying, asking Jesus what he wanted to do. And I think this is key, if God gives you compassion, stay connected to him and he will give you the solution. As we prayed, God connected us really quickly to some Rwandan friends who had the same compassion and burden for boys living on the streets.

So we started praying together. You guys see what's happening, right? Yeah, and then one day as we were praying, five boys showed up at our gate, knocked on the door. These were five boys living on the streets. One of them, his name was Peter, he was 12 years old at the time. And we realized that day God isn't asking us to solve the whole problem. He's sending us hungry people and just asking us to feed the people he sends our way. Those five boys became the beginning of peace house ministries, which today serves boys living on the streets, girls living prostitution and families seeking rent. to our door. Through a weekly ministry, our teammates, and we offered what we had. Simple meal, a place to shower, clean clothes, and most importantly, God's word. One week, we studied out of the book of Philippians, and it was the text where Paul says, "I have learned the secret of contentment. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I can be content whether I'm well-fed or hungry." A few days later, Peter showed up at our door, and he told us, "I have not had anything to eat for three days, but that text from Philippians has been my food." I'll never forget that, obviously, and I don't think you will either, because even though he had not eaten literal bread, he fed us that day. And I think even what he shared is feeding you today. Years later, Peter is still following Jesus. He's married, raising the child of his own, and he has a compassion for boys still living on the streets. In fact, here's a picture of Peter with our son, Sy. This was from this summer. We took a group of teenagers from the hills to go back, and we served with Peace House Ministries. Peter got up in front of our group, and he shared his testimony, and there he was, feeding people from this flock, and today, feeding all of us. Peter did find the secret of being content. When Jesus becomes your daily bread, you stop

living from scarcity. You start living with trust that there is enough for you and for the whole world. There's always bread available. I love what verse 41 tells us about the way Jesus multiplied the bread. Look at these four verbs. He took it, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gave it. Some scholars believe the literal blessing Jesus spoke over the bread was this. Listen to these words. Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. Jesus knew that everything that we have came from above, and he knew that that source was limitless. It's all gift, and we just offer it back to the one who sourced it in the first place, and trust that the one who sourced it can multiply it. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. So we're going to take some daily bread today to get out your communion, but don't take it yet because we are going to take it all together. All throughout scripture, there is great significance in the breaking of bread. Eyes are opened when bread is broken. Trusting that's going to happen today, too. What we're doing today, communion, this is the solution to the problem of the whole world. Later in the book of Mark, Jesus goes through these same actions on the night he was crucified, about to be crucified. So imagine you're one of those 12 disciples that watched what happened on the seashore, and then Jesus takes bread and a cup, and he says and does some of the same actions. Mark 14 verses 22 through 24, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples saying, "Take it, for this is my body." And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it, and he said to them, "This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many." Go ahead and take the bread out of the bottom of the cup. I want everyone to hold up the bread, and we're going to speak a word of corporate blessing together. So would you pray the words on the screen with me before we take the bread? Blessed are you, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. Thank you, Jesus, that you are the bread broken from heaven for us. You could take the bread now. [silence] [BLANK_AUDIO] Thank you, Jesus, for your blood sacrificed, that confirms the covenant between God and us.

Through this cup, all things are ours because we are yours. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. So we come to the end of our story in Mark 6, verses 42 through 43, says, "They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftover bread and fish." There are two parts to the miracle as we close the story today. The first part is this, everyone ate as much as they wanted. That is a miraculous statement. The miraculous statement for then is a miraculous statement for today, for what this symbolizes. You know, our church illustrates the ending of this miraculous story every Sunday. And if you look around our building when you come in, you know that you will find baskets just like this that are full of communion, that are full of breads, that is available every Sunday. And every Sunday that you come here, there is always going to be something here for you. Every time somebody who comes to Jesus, when they come to Him, they will find the bread of life that is ready and waiting for them. It does not run dry. We do this every Sunday. We will do it every Sunday until the Lord returns. And there will always be something for you. And that is miraculous. But the miracle is not just for us church, because the second part to the story is that there are leftovers in this story. You see, the twelve baskets of leftovers tell us that there is not just enough for you and for me, but there is enough for everyone. It causes us to ask the missional question, who still needs to be fed? Our world is broken.

We know it. There is war and there is violence everywhere. Child trafficking is rampant and the weak are preyed upon. Corruption plagues our governments and poverty is hindering the flourishing of entire societies. People are hungry and so few get to eat every day and are truly satisfied. Nations and neighbors are polarized and scared and they don't know where to turn to for help. People are literally starving for life, but church, but church. Come on. Come with me now, but church. We stand here with baskets full of bread leftovers in the story that you will always be able to eat from, but that are ready for other people who have not come and eaten this meal yet. We stand with baskets of answers for a world that is broken. And it is a prophetic declaration that the day has come for the world to know where real life comes from and that everyone who eats this bread is going to be satisfied. There is bread for you here today, but there is a basket full of leftovers with somebody else's name on it. And so we want to extend a very simple invitation as we close today. And it's an invitation for us to be activated into the story because this sermon is only as good as what happens when we leave this place. Jesus is inviting us to accept His solution and it now becomes our invitation. In the month of September, we are inviting you. We are inviting your families. We are inviting your group of together people. or a group of friends that gets together regularly. We want you to invite somebody who doesn't know Jesus to come have a meal at your house. It's that simple. It's that simple. You know, you hear us talking often about

who's your one here at the hills, right? Maybe this is a chance to get your one to the table. It can be overwhelming because we see the need of the whole world, but you don't have to feed the whole world. So start with one, start with one. Who needs to come to your table? See, this simple act of hospitality is gonna give us the opportunity to bless those who need to be blessed. It's going to allow us to be in a place where we can listen to people's stories and to hopefully share with them the goodness of a Jesus who loves them more than they could possibly imagine. Now you may be sitting there thinking, okay, hold up, dude, that sounds like a lot, right? I don't even know where to start with this, okay? If you feel that way, you feel exactly like the disciples did. Jesus is the answer and he's got what you need. He just needs us to take a step of faith and follow him into the story. We've also put together an equipping guide and a guide that we hope will be helpful to you and to your family as you think about engaging this. Now Bailey's already talked to us about the wonder of tap, right? And so you can take your phone and just make sure your screen's open and you can tap that seat back in front of you and it will take you to the equipping guide. And in that guide, you can find tools

about how to have spiritual conversations, about ways that you can discern who needs to come to the table. And we invite you to do this, kids, look at me. Right here, you with me, kids? I love you, I'm so glad you're in here. Hey, you guys are some of the bravest followers of Jesus that we have, right? (audience applauding) You are brave and you are courageous. And what I want you to do is I need you to help your family bring somebody that doesn't know Jesus to your table. You know maybe who needs to be there. Teenagers, maybe you have a friend that you knows like a sheep without a shepherd, somebody who's wandering and you can get 'em together for coffee and just, hey, how can we pray for you? How can we bless you? How can we share the good news of Jesus? Whoever it is, we invite you to respond to that invitation. And so I owe you the end of a story. And so as we close, this is what happened with Yousaf and the bakery manager and his wife. The manager's wife had a dream one night after asking the question, if Jesus is truth, can he give me peace? And in the dream, she said she was walking in a place of utter destruction. Kind of like being a sheep without a shepherd.

She saw two doors. One door said the door to Islam. And the other door said the door to Jesus. She said in the dream, she was reaching out to walk through the door to Islam. But a hand reached out and grabbed her. And she said when she turned and looked, she saw a man dressed in dazzling white. And the moment he touched her, she instantly felt peace and joy, which was the exact question that she had asked Yousaf. The man in white told her to go through the door to Jesus. And she did. And when she went through the door to Jesus, she woke up. She told her husband, they called Yousaf, the courageous brother who simply shared a meal and the goodness of Jesus with them. And they were baptized, and they are followers of Jesus today and are strong members of the church in the Middle East. (audience applauding) (audience applauding) And it all happened because one person was willing to take what little they had, just some courage and a deep love for others, give it to Jesus over a simple meal. And now, one more person has been fed. Let's pray. Jesus, we bless your name because you are the bread of life. You are the bread that has come from heaven

that has been broken for many. Your blood has been shed for the forgiveness of our sins. You are the one that we can run to when we are like sheep without a shepherd you know what to do when you find us and you know where we need to be healed and where we need to be loved and blessed. And we bless your name, Jesus, because you have given us now the bread from heaven. But we also are grateful, Jesus, that there are leftovers in this story and there is enough for everyone. Would you give us the courage to step into this invitation, to invite somebody who doesn't know Jesus to our table and may they hear about how good he is. We love you in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.