Hi, Dr. Ryan Dellamater at Ocean Water. We help people get their water from the ocean for free. I'm here on the beach today with my family where I come each week to share God's word with you. We're glad you're here. Today I want to share with you four ways to multiply your life. Today we celebrate one year of ocean water. We plan on taking the lessons we learned from the first year and applying them to the second year. This means
multiplying ocean water from two locations to six locations in the next 365 days. Now the same principles that we can use to multiply our life is what we're going to use to multiply ocean water. So today I'd like to share them with you. In life, go is a powerful word. In fact, in all of its variations, it's used over 3,000 times in the Bible. Following Jesus is all about going. It's a journey. It's not just something you do and sit still. God says, I want you to go,
and he tells us to go into all the world. It's a very important task. You can't follow Jesus without going with Jesus. Over the past five years, we've sent over 120 people on 13 different trips to El Salvador. And now in 2020, we're going to take all of that learning because we feel like we have an algorithm in place that's going to allow us to scale. This is a really exciting time. In fact, in life, timing is everything. Now, when you say go to the different parts of the world,
there are so many things that you learn along the way. It was a year ago on May 1st, 2019, that we started this. And what you don't know is that every night from 2017 to 2019, I would wake up in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling because I felt like God was telling me to leave my current role as a pastor at Saddleback Church. I can't be more clear than what I'm about to say. I did not want to leave Saddleback. I love Pastor Rick. I still watch
every one of the weekend messages. And over a two-year period, God was making it clear to me that now was the time. I remember when I first started to feel like God was telling me to leave, I was arguing with God. God was telling me Joshua 1, 9. It says, have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. My wife Maria found this verse in an art piece and it hangs in my office. And I have read
that verse every single day for the past year. It's my life verse. When I came to San Clemente four years ago, I asked my wife if she would support me in that decision. And she said yes. I felt the same way about leaving Saddleback. So I asked her again, Maria will you come along with me in this journey? And she said yes. Now I mention this because without a spouse that says yes, it's impossible. My wife is a behind-the-scenes person. Literally, she's behind the scenes right now with
our granddaughter praying for me and having some donuts right now as I speak. Without her, none of this would have been possible. In fact, last week Aubrey told me, good job grandpa. I made sure to get her donuts and a breakfast burrito. God gave me this little cheerleader to root for me and I'm stoked. So without them, I wouldn't have made it today 365. So what has happened in the first 365 days? Well, we survived, we thrived, we developed a small loyal global following through Instagram
and Facebook and YouTube. We got ocean water up and running in El Salvador with some popo and tesi. We've been asked to go to India, to Bangladesh, to the Philippines, even to Indonesia. So we have the opportunity to expand to Obie Beans and the Hidden House Coffee up in Santa Ana and we funded our second year. Now God's done many things and we're so thankful. As we move forward, ocean water really has three advantages that I wanted to share with you. One, ocean water is
simple. Anyone can read the Bible each day on their phone. That's easy. Anyone can have people over to where they live and have some food and watch my message. Anyone can gather at a coffee place once a month and have tacos and sing and have a great time. And anyone can get on an airplane and go somewhere in the world to help people drink the ocean for free. It's simple and it's scalable. We're not a bunch of pros. In fact, we're a bunch of bros. Literally, the last time we had
church we had 65 guys and seven women. I'm not sure what to make of that, but we always welcome everyone. The word amateur means out of love. So if somebody calls you an amateur, you take that as a compliment because you're not doing it for money. You're not doing it for fame. You're doing it out of love. Ocean water is for new people. Amateurs. We're intentionally for amateurs in spirit and in practice because being simple gives us an advantage, especially when you go to scale. Leadership is
always about taking personal responsibility. So at Ocean Water, we accept the responsibility to help people get their water from the ocean for free that can be used for their daily health and even growing their own food. So we move forward one conversation at a time, one day at a time, one relationship at a time. We accept the responsibility that goes along with this. The second advantage we have is our funding. Now for many, many years, the idea was that giving aid to people, giving
handouts to people around the world is a good thing. But Africa's Exhibit A over the last 50 years, it's had over $500 billion of outside investment and it's actually worse off because people don't need a handout. They need a hand up. When you give something to someone, it robs them of their dignity, makes them dependent upon you. And if you think of it, it's actually disrespectful because you communicate to people that you don't think they have the IQ to be self-determined. So we do
things a little different way. We do sort of a self-sustaining model where we come alongside a group of people that we have a relationship with and we empower them to really love and operate within their own community. So we have some real advantages. We're simple and we invest in people and we're really excited about being able to apply these things. So how has COVID-19 affected ocean water? Well really not at all. We just have a few hundred dollars a month of fixed overhead
costs. We're really proud of that. We've accomplished putting together in the first year sort of a lean, mean fighting machine, which gives us a huge advantage as we start to scale to different places because we're able to do it for virtually no cost because we don't spend money on buildings and other items. All of our finances go basically directly to water and food for the marginalized. You might be saying, well that's nice for other countries, but what about here? Well that's a
great question. We in fact do that here. In fact every week Bobby Ramsey comes and picks me up and we go and buy groceries for a friend of ours who has early onset Parkinson's who's in our guys group. We take the groceries over to his house. Bobby does it. Ivan does it. Adam and Julie Watts do it. You don't have to be a part of a giant food distribution network. You can always just find one person that could use some food and some assistance and you can personally take that responsibility to
help them out. And I want to say as your pastor that God's proud of you when you do these things and he's watching you. The third advantage that we have is that ocean water is a relational network. At ocean water we have the philosophy of putting people in positions of responsibility with minimal service training that they have on the job training for the rest of their life. You see, until you go you don't even know the questions to ask. So we want people to learn as they go. We
learn just enough so that we do no harm, sort of like taking the Hippocratic oath. And we want people to be on the job training. So this is intentional. Now you might say well don't you believe in training people and putting people through a process? Well absolutely. I've completed six schools after high school. I believe in education because I have several degrees, but experience is better. Ocean water is a relational cooperative. What we're beginning is
sort of a network of networks. And this is built around common values, common goals, and a common methodology. The other thing we try to do is utilize technology. So we've laid out now daily content. We have a podcast and a reading plan. We put our messages out on Friday so people can watch them whenever they want throughout the weekend. And we've built several channels that are now going to lay the groundwork for us to gain new people to join us in this journey that we're on.
So right now this first year we existed in California and El Salvador. We have plans to scale into Ocean Beach and to Santa Ana and also into Bangladesh and Indonesia in the next 12 months. It's a very exciting time. You see God loves it when we take giant leaps of faith. Virtually every day in the past year I've gone into my garage and prayed. And time after time God has sent His Holy Spirit into my garage and told me, Ryan keep going. I got you. Have you ever done a trust fall with
someone where you get behind them and they literally fall backwards into your arms? They have a total faith that you're gonna catch them. God loves it when we do the same thing. Have you done a trust fall with God in your life? Some of us are disinterested or I even use the word bored because we don't take enough risk. Some of us get our lives so systematized and so dialed in that it has taken the adventure
and the faith right out of our system. God loves it when we engage in faith. So why has God helped ocean water in the last year? Does God have favorites? Well actually He does. God loves the poor. There are over 2,000 verses in the Bible that talk about how God loves the poor and God says that if you take care of the poor I will take care of you. If we're gonna assist the poor we have to do it in the right way. What the poor need or the marginalized need is not a handout but a hand up.
You've heard the old expression, don't give a man a fish but teach him how to fish. Well you don't have to give him just a fish. You have to teach him how he's going to be able to fish for himself so that he can then sell the fish. So that's sort of our motto that we use when we scale to other places. In future messages I'm gonna be talking about this a little bit more so that we can get a greater understanding. Securing long-term water rights is the foundation of everything that people
need to sustain. In fact this is why Los Angeles exists. A lot of people wish LA didn't exist. That's a Bay Area joke. But Los Angeles exists because a hundred years ago a guy named William Mulholland knew that the growth of Los Angeles was going to be contingent upon water. So he went to the base of the Sierra Nevadas and built the largest public infrastructure project at the time, a 227 mile aqueduct system that existed today. And that is why I'm standing here on the beach in San Clemente
was because of that water project. This is what we do in ocean water but on a smaller scale. We help people secure their long-term water rights from the ocean so they can survive and thrive. There was a study done about a year ago that discovered about 600 million people who are poor in the world could support themselves if they just had daily dependable access to water. Wow, that's the space that we want to lean into. You see if you give people money just as soon as it's
gone the money's gone. But if you give people water that's how they get out of poverty. People have water, then they have food, and then they have work. That's how we do it. So we look forward to helping be a solution for thousands of places around the world that need the platform that we understand. God is good. Jesus had a ministry of caring for the sick and the marginalized. He cared not just about people's soul but also cared for their bodies. In fact the Bible tells us that Jesus
went into every village preaching and teaching and yes healing. You see a third of Jesus's ministry was being a healer and a teacher. One of the things that we've accepted responsibility for is the billion people in the world that don't have access to clean dependable water. You see food and
water are the greatest global problems of our time and we accept responsibility for this. We'll commit to the personal responsibility needed, the vision needed, and the work necessary to help the 108 countries with coastal access develop small-scale desalinization platforms for those who do not have a voice so they can be helped and heard. I stand next to the ocean each week not because this is some gimmick. I stand here because we have all the world we need. We just
need a group of people committed to the infrastructure. That's us. We are committed to the infrastructure, not for the profit of it. We give it away for free because grace is free. So we want to take everything God's given us, these 13 trips in the last five years, these hundred people with experience. We want to leverage that so that we can scale and be more helpful to people in other contexts all around the world. Did you know that in heaven water will be given for free?
Did you know that? Revelation 21 says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth and the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look God's dwelling is now among the people and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be their God. He will wipe away every
tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, I'm making everything new. Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. He said, it is done on the Alpha and the Omega and the beginning and the end and listen to this, to the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. So we're ready. We're ready to go to Bangladesh and Indonesia
and ocean beach and Santa Ana. So in our first year we learned from those two places and now we want to multiply to six places and in the next 365 days I want to help you multiply your life in ways that don't just add to it but ways that compound it and multiply it. We've been very careful the first 365 days that not to apply anything that can't be easily multiplied and scaled. So here are the four things you need to multiply your life in the next year. One, you want
to multiply your wisdom. Be in God's word every day. Today we have multiplied and scaled information but we do not have multiplied and scaled wisdom. Everyone has the same information now but wisdom is the ability to apply information in the right context. This is what separates successful people from people who fail is wisdom. How you apply information is wisdom and that helps you become successful. You see information is an addition mindset. Wisdom is a multiplication mindset.
So we want to encourage you to every day put God's word into your mind to help you become more wise so that your day and your time and your decisions can be multiplied. That's why we do it. Yeah you might say well I don't understand everything that God tells me in my life every time I read the Bible. That's okay. We don't understand everything that people tell us in relationships but it doesn't cause us to give up on the relationships. It
just causes us to keep plugging away at it. You know if we look at our daily usage times on our phones every Sunday when it pops up from Apple we can see that we have more than enough time to listen to the Bible every day for 10 minutes on our phone. So I really want to encourage you. If you'd like to be a part of that you can just message me at Ocean Water and that'll help you get involved in our Bible reading and to help us become wiser. So we multiply God's wisdom through
his word each day. The second thing you've got to do is multiply your vibe. Did you know we all have an energy a vibe we give off the way we make people feel when they're around us. I want people to feel God's spirit when they're around you. One way you can do this is as we start the second year is to join us in fasting on Tuesdays from four o'clock to Wednesdays on four o'clock. That
means we're going to use this 24 hour period each week to pray for two things. One for power for our life and two that we would give off great vibes to the people that we interact with on a daily basis. You know the greatest compliment that you can get from someone who interacts with you is after people walk away they say man I like them. Weren't they great. That's God's spirit giving you favor and helping you connect with people so that you can represent him well because God always works
through relationship and we want our vibe to be multiplied. So I want to encourage you to join us on Tuesdays as we start to do that. You know setting a time to fast and pray helps us multiply. The third thing I want you to do is multiply your adventure. I want to help you start like a church at your house. What do you mean start a church at my house. I mean that if you go back in time like just 400 years there were virtually no church buildings in the world. Churches have traditionally
just been at homes. What do I mean by that. I mean that in the last 2020 years for 1600 of those years there were like no church buildings and we would meet in other structures but mostly it was in homes and that means that if you can that you can do that in your house just like people have been for thousands of years. You know there are more pastors walking the earth than you think there are. A pastor is just someone who loves God and loves people. That group could have five people in it.
All you have to do is have a heart to shepherd others. Now I was trained in the traditional way. You go to Bible college and seminary and a doctorate and you do the Harvard equivalency of working at Saddleback. Is this how we're going to train people. Absolutely not. In fact we're going to train people the opposite of the way that I was trained. We're going to train people the way that Paco and Drew and I had a relationship with our friend Simpapo. A loving genuine friendship, prayerful
encouragement, help people learn as they go. Sometimes what happens is we raise the the bar so high for people that they feel like they can no longer participate. We want to do the opposite. We want to help people as they go. We want to help people be full of faith and we don't want people to feel like they have to be a professional to have people over to their house for a meal and
to watch a message or to go on a trip and start a project. We want to be able to scale quickly and easily and a lot of times this just comes down to cost and control as it affects your ability to do things in the future. We've worked very hard to eliminate cost and control as inhibitors to growth. You know having a church at your house is simple. You just invite people over once a week
at a time that works for you. You serve your favorite food. You can watch my message and you can ask each other what was one thing God spoke to you and two what is one thing I can pray for and that's it. Congrats you're a pastor with a church at your house. I also want to ask you to go on a trip. This is important because we tend to get caught up in the trap of thinking my whole world is the world. Well that's not true. The way you combat this is every year you get on an
airplane and you go into a different part of the world and you learn from it. You don't go as the teacher you go as the student. You allow yourself to take in the sights and the smells, the humidity, the air quality. This is why the world has become smaller through this digital age but you still have to go through the actual physical places because the fullest parts of how God made us don't show up on a social media feed because you don't experience people's energy and the taste
and the sounds and the air and the temperature and the background noises. These teach us as well. So in the next year I want you to go with us to El Salvador or Bangladesh or Indonesia. In fact I want you to go on our website today and I want you to sign up for a trip, make a page for yourself, make a contribution to get your trip going. I know a little secret about trips. Nothing helps you grow more in your faith than getting on an airplane into another culture, language and experience.
So starting a church at your house or going on a trip will help you multiply your adventure. The fourth thing I want you to do is multiply your generosity. I want you to help us as we rally around younger people like Steve and Bella as they take a step of faith to lead a trip to India and Bangladesh and Hidden House Coffee in Santa Ana. I want us to close our eyes right now and I want you to ask God how generous you feel like you're supposed to be. I want you to ask God, you know,
how much should I give? You know this is what I do in my life. I close my eyes and I just say hey God how much should I give? Whatever number he gives me that's what I give. That's what I encourage you to do. You can Venmo us at Ocean Water or you can go on our website oceanwater.com slash give and you can contribute whatever God wants, whatever God has put in your heart to do. It's not important the amount, it's important that you follow through and you be faithful to what he
has put on your heart to do to help expand his kingdom. So I want you to multiply your generosity. Why are we doing all this? Well we're doing all this because it's our responsibility. It's not somebody else's, it's ours. The Bible tells us in Luke 12 these are the words of Jesus, much is required from those to whom much is given. For the greater their responsibility, the greater is expected from them. I've been all around the world and seen it from all different
angles. You know here in California we've been given so much. It's such a blessed area to live. We've got great freedom, great health, great weather, jobs, the ability to do whatever you want. Most people in the world would love to have California problems. We're blessed compared to the rest of the world. We really live at the top. You know the Bible says to whom much is given.
Much will be required. So we accept responsibility today because we're going to stand before God and God's going to say what did you do with all the talent and the network and the ability and the freedom and all the things that I gave you, your brains, your health. What did you do with all of that? We will be held to a greater level of responsibility and we accept that. The second reason is because we've been given authority. Jesus has given us the authority to go do all
these things. It's called the Great Commission. It's commanded of every person who follows Jesus. We often leave this verse out. Jesus said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations. Here's a little tip about studying the Bible. Anytime you find a therefore in the Bible you want to go out and figure out what it's there for. In light of what was just said Jesus was saying here I've been given all authority on the
planet therefore go and go to all nations. We've been authorized to do this. The government's not authorized to do it. Businesses aren't authorized to do it. Other organizations aren't authorized to do it. God says I'm telling you the people in my family to go. God's intent was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known. His family. It's through us. So we accept this responsibility. God says I don't just authorize you to do it. I'm going to be with
you as you go do it. That is really comforting. Now there's a third reason too and it's not just responsibility and authority. It's inevitability. We're going because it's of history and where it's headed. The Bible tells us that history is moving towards a climax. It's not circular. It's linear. It's moving toward an impact. History is his story. God is in control. God started the beginning of it
and he knows the ending of it. How it's going to end. God has a plan and a purpose. The Bible tells us that God created the entire world so he could create human beings because he knew that some of them would voluntarily choose to love him and trust him. He says I don't want to force you to do this but if you choose to love me and trust me I want you in my family and you're going to love me
and you're going to live with me in heaven for eternity. He knew not everybody would do it. He said we're going to make it a choice. It's not real love unless you can choose to love someone. He says my plan is that everybody would hear the good news. That I love them. I have a purpose for their life and I want to forgive them. I have a home for them in heaven. All these good things he says. The moment the last person is heard and that
they make the decision that'll be the time. This is what God says in Isaiah 14. I have a plan for the whole world. Not just for the United States. For the whole world. His mighty power reaches throughout the world. The Lord Almighty has spoken. Who can change his plan? The answer is nobody. The Bible tells us this good news will be preached into the whole world to every nation and every tribe and then the end will come. You want to know when the world's going to end? Well no one knows that.
No one knows the time. No one knows the hour. But we do know that history moves in a direction. And God wants us to be in line with what he's already doing. So here's a challenge. Psalm 67 says send us around the world with the news of your saving power and your eternal plan for all mankind. Will you be a part of that? Will you be a part of that plan? Do you think God brought you here today to watch this without wanting you to be a part of it?
Of course he wants us to be a part of it. I'm going to close by asking you to do those four things. One, get signed up to read along with us every day. In God's word, you can just message me at ocean water. That'll help multiply your wisdom. Two, get your home ready. I want you to open up your home in year two. I want you to pick a night of the week to have people over and some food and some fun and watch this weekly message and pray for each other. It's literally a
church in your house. Awesome. Then once a month we gather together in all of our groups at different coffee places and we rejoice in that. We want to multiply your influence and we want you to get signed up on a trip to help multiply your adventure. And then lastly, just a reminder, to multiply your generosity and go and pray about what God puts on your heart to give and then just follow through with that. Whatever pops in your head, I trust that you will be able to do that.
I trust that that's God's voice for your life. Just make sure that you're faithful with what God tells you to do. That's the key, being faithful. Let's pray together. Jesus, thank you that you're here to help me. Help me today to multiply my life in Jesus name. Thanks for watching today and I hope you have a great week.