2024 Sermon Transcript Archive

Full Sermon Transcript

A couple years ago, I was sitting with a group of pastors in Oklahoma City, a pastor of Life Church, the one whose church created the YouVersion Bible app that many of you use, invited a group of us to have a round table together. And the funniest interaction in that group of pastors was we were talking about one of the hardest things about ministry and there's a lot of hard things. And it was hilarious because over and over and over again, one of the things that kept popping up as the hardest thing is how to prepare a Christmas message. And you're like, what? It's because it's the same story every year. No? Like it's hard to get creative on telling the same story every single year, but it's a beautiful story, is it not? And here's the thing. We're gonna read some scriptures together, but I wanna tell you, there's a cast of characters in the Christmas story in Matthew chapter two and in Matthew chapter one, maybe it is, Luke two, I believe it is, and there what? You got the wise men, you got the shepherds, you got the angel, you got Joseph and Mary, of course. Jesus shows up on the scene a little bit later. How many of you guys know that there was no room in the inn? And so where was Jesus born? He was born in a stable, in a feeding trough, a manger. And there's all these cast of characters, but there's two things that I think about when I think about the Christmas story and it's two accounts that are very clearly mentioned, but I think some of us kinda skip over and I'm gonna share those with you this Christmas. Are you ready? But I wanna start with this passage of scripture, which is the prophecy, one of the many prophecies that were given about Christ's birth, Jesus's birth. In Isaiah chapter nine, it says, "'For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, "'and the government will be on his shoulders.'" Have any of you said or posted Jesus for president? It's okay, you're in a safe place. Thank you, okay, all right. One of you has been honest. Well, you're in good company because if you were around in Jesus's day, you would have been thinking that Jesus was coming to take over the Roman government, to become the government official, to rule and to reign. That would have been your thought process. Guys, I gotta tell you that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the presidency of the United States is beneath him.

Because he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And we're gonna get into that today because the government will be on his shoulders. What government? All governments, all people. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor Mighty God Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now, I look at that story in the scriptures and there's some cast of characters, one of which is Joseph and Joseph, you know him, he was pledged to be married to Mary. And then Mary and Joseph found out that she was pregnant. To which Joseph started to realize this is a problem because we haven't done marital things yet. Are you following me? Some of you, you're gonna have to explain some things to your kids after church today, but it's better that they learn it in the house of God than elsewhere, okay? Are you with me? So Joseph is like, he has this encounter with the angel and Joseph is like, man, I'm gonna divorce her quietly so that I don't get shame and she doesn't get shame. And the angel says to him, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that, that's wrong. Like when it gets hard, when it gets awkward, when people are gonna look at you funny, when people are gonna question what is going on, man, no, you stay the course because this is a gift from God.

And so Joseph hears the words from God through the angel and he decides to stay put, to stay faithful to Mary. And it even accounts that Joseph waited, listen to me, everyone, Joseph waited to consummate the marriage until after Jesus was born. He could have thought, man, we could just like, you're pregnant and we could just like make it happen and I'm all about that and because I like that and then we can just say it's ours. Are you following what I'm saying? But Joseph heard the word of God through the angel and said, no, no, I'm gonna do it the right way. I'm gonna honor God and I'm gonna wait even though this got awkward. There's another character in this story that I think a lot, again, a lot of us kind of skip over and his name is King Herod. King Herod heard of this coming king that was to be born and he started to freak out because he's the one in authority, he is the king. And so he decreed that every single child under the age of two should be murdered because nobody is going to take his throne. He's gonna keep it. And when I look at the Christmas story, I often wonder, man, where do we fit in this picture which we weren't there, which that can be dangerous sometime when we talk about that, but what kind of faith do we have? What kind of people are we in response to Jesus' birth? Are we like the wise men or the shepherds or are we like Joseph and Mary and are we more like King Herod? And I would argue this Christmas, and by the way, this is gonna feel a little heavy this Christmas for a while, but I promise it's gonna be good at the end, so stay with me, okay? I would argue that most of us have more Herod, King Herod-like faith than we do actually Joseph-like faith. And here's why. It's because we come into church or maybe we come on Christmas in Eastern, we go, man, I wanna be saved. How many of y'all think being saved is a great thing? And man, we sing the songs, I adore you and you're, man, cute little baby Jesus, like you just, I could eat you up.

But then we see scriptures like this one in Philippians chapter two, eight through 11, where it says, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Savior. It doesn't say that.

It says, Lord, to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus Christ is Lord. What is a Lord?

It's a master. It's a ruler, a king. What does a Lord do?

Rules.

And I think we have King Herod like faith because we have some issues with people ruling us. How many of you admit this Christmas that you don't like people telling you what to do? Do you know why you're conditioned for that? Because you grew up in America.

And you, my friends, like me, grew up in a culture where you were a king and have King Herod

burger king like faith.

I listen, I heard this yesterday, the little jingle on TV. It says, BK.

You rule. I'll be honest, I've missed the whole you rule part for a long time. I caught it yesterday. The whole world is telling you that you're the king and you've believed it.

We like customization of everything, right? Ma'am, can I let you, can you participate with me for just a moment? Are we friends or will we be friends afterwards? What is that you're drinking? Bigby coffee, what's in it? Is there seven, is it just coffee? No, it's a peppermint mocha. A peppermint mocha, is there any customization to it? Yes, I had skim milk. Okay, well how many of you walk through or nobody does that anymore, they just drive through or they order on the app and you're like, man, I'll get a decaf, no foam, no whip, no extra whip. No, I want to ice actually, not hot. And I just want like, you needed an extra shot. That explains a lot, okay. I can't get a name out.

But we live in this world of man, have it your way. Like it's your way. It's, and if we're not honest, like, man, give me some of this. I bought, I actually bought, this is young, come on. This is a little bit, it's like two hours old now.

Still good. How many of y'all order, how many of y'all order food and actually eat it the way the creator of it made it? This one. Drives me free. Man, this message is for you. And for me and for all of us.

Because I think, man, the problem, the problem is that the church, pastors, Christians, our culture, man, we've wanted to, we wanted the savior Jesus. We wanted the mercy of Jesus. We wanted the forgiveness of Jesus. We wanted the warm and cuddly fuzzies of Jesus. We wanted the Christmas Jesus.

Until Jesus tells you you're living wrong.

Until Jesus corrects you or corrects me. And I see this in scripture, right? We wanna call him savior, but Romans chapter 10 says this so clearly. It says, if you openly declare that Jesus is

and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Most people don't have a problem with believing that Jesus came to forgive them and to save them. What we have a problem with is actually calling him Lord, which means letting him call the shots, which means what he says, I do.

And there were two reactions to Jesus's birth that I think speaks volumes, right? There was Joseph, man, confronted with his idea of like, man, I could divorce her quietly and I could just escape. And man, I wouldn't be shamed and she wouldn't be shamed. And we could maybe not have all these people look at us weirdly and awkwardly of like, what happened? This is weird and how did they what? And Joseph chose to obey the word of the Lord, even if it was awkward, even if it was like uncomfortable, even if it was like, this has never happened before. And then Herod though, man, he's in charge of the kingdom. No king is gonna usurp my rule. No king is gonna usurp my authority. I'm the man. Now I'll do everything I can to keep this throne.

And so I wonder this Christmas if we need to figure out that maybe we're only eating a part of the faith sandwich, I know that's weird thing to say, that God wants us to eat because the creator listened to me, the creator created it a certain way and he created it his way, not your way. And there's two ingredients to following Jesus. Are you ready for him? Number one, it's faith. Number one is faith in him, not faith in yourself. Faith in him as the savior and the Lord. I don't think it was this week, maybe it was a couple of weeks ago, I posted something on Facebook and sometimes I get myself in trouble on Facebook or stir up the pot. But I said something like this, I was actually repeating another pastor, but he said, man, atheists have a problem believing in the virgin birth of Jesus, but they have no problem believing in the virgin birth of the cosmos, which means the Big Bang Theory, right? That there was no creative order, that there was no creative genius, a creator God. Can I tell you, does it take more faith to believe in that or to believe in the virgin birth of a savior who is Jesus? Just something to think about. But faith is a part of an ingredient of following Jesus. Faith that he, the guy that Jesus pointed to as having one of the greatest faith during his time was a soldier, someone who was in authority over other soldiers. And he told, he wanted Jesus to come and heal his servant. And he said, man, you don't even need to come to the house. If you just say it, I know it'll happen because I'm a man under, in authority, and I'm a man under authority. And when I tell that person to go, he goes, and when I tell him to jump, he jumps. And so I get it. And so when you say be healed, it will be done. Why? Because he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

But the second part, I think that again, we've been so accustomed to rebelling against authority, rebelling against what God wants for us, that we forgot the second part of the ingredients of following Jesus, and the second part is surrender. That you are not the King. You are not the Lord. I am not the Lord. And so we need to learn how to surrender. And I look at passage of scriptures of Jesus' interaction with people, and man, I love the forgiveness of Jesus. I love reading the story of Jesus at the well, and he's having this encounter with this woman, and it's just absolutely beautiful and stunning. And man, he asked her questions, and they're having this interaction, and he's a Jew, and she's a Gentile, and they're not supposed to talk to each other and even interact with each other, and it's just so beautiful and awesome and warm and fuzzy. And then Jesus says something like this, where is your husband? And she goes, oh, what was the question? Come again.

And then he says, the reason you're feeling comfortable in this moment is because you don't just have one husband, you've had five. And the man you're living with right now is not your husband.

And Jesus pushes that one thing. He hits her in that one thing. And we love reading the story of, and I love it too. It's one of my favorite stories in the scripture where all the idiot religious people bring the woman, caught in the act of adultery, don't bring the guy, hello, but whatever, bring the woman in front of Jesus. And Jesus corrects them, rebukes them and says, those of you who are without sin can throw the first stone, which by the way, the only one who had the power of the authority because he's Lord of Lords and King of Kings to throw the stone is Jesus himself. And we love the fact that he knelt down beside her and got next to her and was hugging her and like, I don't want you to feel shame or condemnation and where are your accusers? I don't accuse you, I don't condemn you. But what was next? Go and sin no more. Stop doing what you're doing.

I see this interaction with Jesus all the time in scripture because it's both and, he's truth and grace, he's savior and he's Lord. And in Mark chapter 10, he records, it records this interaction with Jesus. It says that Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him, fell on his knees before him. Oh my gosh, this guy's got it together, he knows the deal. He's bowing before King Jesus, right? He's got it going on. And the guy says, good teacher, he asked, what do I do to inherit eternal life? Great question. I hope it's a question all of you are asking. And Jesus answered, why do you call me good? Because no one is good except God alone. So do you really understand who I really am?

Jesus says, you know the commandments. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother. Man, how many of you all are really good at that?

Teacher, he declared, all of these things I've kept since I was a boy, which I would argue means he grew up in a pretty good family. He grew up a family that taught him how to love God and honor God and to live for God. And I love this next part, Jesus looked at him and he loved him and says, one thing you lack. If you ever walked into a boss's office and man, you feel like you're just crushing it and they just give you that one point.

My wife is snickering at me because I am both her husband and her boss.

Hi.

One thing you lack, he said, as I spit out half the sandwich. Sorry. He said, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me. And at this moment, the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth. This guy is talked about, he's notified in the scriptures as the rich, young ruler. So he had a lot of wealth, he had a lot of money. He had a lot of, he was young in his life and he had influence. He was a leader, he was a ruler, rich, young ruler. Had it all together. Jesus poked the one thing

that he wouldn't give up.

He wanted to keep his throne and not let Jesus have it. What is your one thing this Christmas?

Because if you're taking notes, you should write this down because if Jesus, listen to me, if Jesus isn't Lord of all, he's not really Lord at all.

And so I wanna talk to you for just a moment about what it looks like when we stay on the throne. Like for you, it's like, for you that one thing could be money. It's like, man, I gotta earn that and I gotta get as much as I can and I'm gonna hoard it and I'm gonna just keep it and I'm never gonna be generous. I'm gonna be stingy and it's just money, money, money, money, money. You could be the rich, young ruler. For you, it could be popularity. You're like, man, I will, I will. I'll sell my soul to make sure people like me. When my friends do it, I'm gonna go do it because I just wanna fit in. I wanna be popular. Or maybe desires. Maybe you're just chasing desires. Man, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. I live in America. You can't tell me what to do. I'm gonna do my own thing, man.

For some of you, you didn't intend to become addicted to that substance, but you did it and you keep doing it and you keep doing it. And you keep doing it. For some of it, relationships, it's like, man, relationships are on the throne and you're like, man, if I just get that girl, if I just get that guy, then it's all gonna happen. And, man, if I just get married and, man, I ask any married person if they just get married, oh, hey.

Success, man, I'm gonna be the most successful. I'm gonna be the most dominant business person. I'm gonna be the most successful athlete, man. Man, the Texas Longhorns are gonna win a national championship, baby!

Maybe, sir, you're not welcome here. I'm just kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Or you've heard this a thousand times, man, just follow your heart. Anybody heard that before? Just follow your heart. Just do whatever your heart tells you to do. Well, there's only one problem with that. Jeremiah 17, nine says the human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Like, who even really knows how bad it is?

Here's the common name. Find that one thing on the list, and by the way, your one thing might not even be on the list.

But you gotta let Jesus speak into it, because in reality, whatever that one thing is, it's there because it's still just you sitting on the throne.

It's me. I'm calling the shots.

I'm rebelling. I submit to your authority, God, what?

Listen to me, as long as you live as the Lord of your own life, you will live empty, broken, and have an unfulfilled life. The invitation of Jesus isn't, listen, isn't just to accept a savior, but to surrender to him as Lord, to repent, giving him the most important position in your life, and it's giving him the throne, because he's worthy of it, and he deserves it. Can we get practical for just a minute this Christmas? Most of us, most of us, if we were being honest, which you're supposed to be, it's church, right?

Most of us stay on the throne, and we just treat Jesus not as savior and Lord, but as consultant, Jesus. Jesus, you can have a seat next to me. Isn't it cute? And all the while, right, we keep the throne for ourselves, and Jesus, listen, right, Jesus gave the rich young ruler a command, he said, sell it all. Sell it all, give it to the poor, then come and follow me.

What he was saying is, lay down what you have, and follow me. And the rich young ruler couldn't obey, and so he walked away.

He left sad.

And everything about our world is conditioning us, training us, teaching us to be rebellious to authority. Parents, any grandparents in the room?

Holy cow, are your kids disobedient, weren't they? Are you shaking your head? I can't see you. Are they in the room? Give them one of these. Guess where they learned that rebelliousness from? You.

Ever rebel against a boss? Ha ha ha.

A pastor? He didn't say that, did he? I ain't doing that. Teacher, coach, spouse. Oh boy. Right, and we're taught, right, we're being conditioned now to think that it's unloving for someone to correct us, no?

But wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. Why? Why is a parent, I'm a parent of three, do I force my kids to wear a life jacket or floaties before they know how to swim?

Is it because I'm a fun suck?

Or because I actually love them and want them to live? Why do I force my kids to go to bed at a certain time?

Because I'm just a killjoy or because I love them and know it's good for them to sleep appropriate amounts of time and it's beneficial to the rest of you as well, can I get an amen?

I don't know, I don't wanna force my kids to go to church, pastor, you talk about that all the time, man, that's great, do you force your kids to go to school?

Hebrews 12, six says, for the Lord disciplines those he loves, John 14, 15 says, if you love me, this is Jesus, if you love me, obey my commandments.

Listen to me, how are you or your kids going to obey Jesus if you don't know what he actually commands you and I to do? It's why we gotta get in the word, it's why we gotta be in his house, it's why we gotta devote ourselves to the apostles teaching, it's why we gotta make church a priority. Number two, when Jesus is Lord, surrender isn't a suggestion. And so here's what happens, right? And when I'm sitting on the throne, I think, man, pretend I'm a girl for a second, we're not that kind of church just so you're aware, but pretend I'm a girl, pretend I'm a girl, okay? Man, that guy, he's a snack, he's a snack, man, that guy, he's a snack. Did I do it right? Guys, Gen Z, did I get it? See, he's a snack.

This is when my wife goes.

Man, I just wanna sleep with that guy, man, he is so high, he's so good looking, man, I just wanna, I know the Bible says to wait until marriage to keep the marriage bed pure and holy, but man, you'll forgive me, right?

Well, actually, my word says that run from sexual sin, because no other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. In other words, it's worse for you. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. It's gonna have consequences.

Yeah, but the Bible's kinda outdated, right? Like, it's just kinda like out of touch and just this is the way things are.

Well, my word actually says that the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.

I don't have to go to church, right? It's just me and Jesus and me in the deer stand or on the golf course or man, just me out in the wild, like living it up and I can just have a great faith.

Well, actually, I said that on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. And so if you wanna be a part of the greatest power on planet earth, you better be a part of my church.

Yeah, but my kids are in sports and dance and man, I like to sleep in on Sundays and man, golf when it's nice out and...

Yeah, but Proverbs 22.6 says, direct your children on the right path and when they are older, they will not leave it. And this has more to do with their life than just their sporting event or their activities. Matthew 7.14, I also said that, but small is the gate and narrow and difficult to travel as the path that leads to the way to everlasting life and there are few who find it.

And so the question is, do we actually call Jesus Savior and Lord because we don't get to pick and choose what we like about what he says?

And you might think, man, this is kinda heavy for Christmas. I thought this was gonna be awesome. We got a photo booth in the lobby and we all dressed up for this and I gotta tell you this too, this is also true for those of us who do call Jesus Lord and Savior, it's actually good. It's actually a good thing because Psalm 84.10 says, for a day in your courts, God is better than a thousand elsewhere. And I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Well, how is that gonna happen? Matthew 16, Jesus said this, then he said to his disciples, and he's saying this to you and I today, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way.

Take up your cross and follow me. What does that mean? It means you need to die to yourself. And if you try to hang on to your life, like the rich young ruler, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, Jesus said, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? I wanna invite the team to come back up because we're gonna sing in just a moment as we close, but I need you to know something because the whole idea of the culture that we grow up in is customization and I rule and it's all about me and have it your way. And we have a King Herod like faith and we think, man, but I'm free, I live in America. But what the Bible says is that when Jesus is actually Lord, when he's actually King of Kings and Lord of Lords of your life, when Jesus is Lord, freedom is actually your future.

Because John 8, 31 through 36 says, this is Jesus, if you hold to my teaching, in other words, obey what he says, you are really my disciples, you're the real deal. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. But we are descendants of Abraham, they said, we've never been slaves to anyone, what do you mean? You will be set free. Jesus replied, I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. A slave is not a permanent member of the family but a son is part of the family forever. So if the son sets you free, you are truly free. I gotta tell you this Christmas, when you are the Lord of your life, you are still a slave to sin. You are still in bondage. But when Jesus is Lord of your life, you will be truly set free. Because when you stay on the throne, whatever that thing is, if Jesus says to you in his word, man, that one thing you lack, when you sit on the throne, here's what else is on the throne with you. Anxiety, depression,

addiction, insecurity, emptiness, fear, sin, pain, bitterness, confusion, bondage.

When you stay on the throne, that's what your life looks like. Jesus didn't just come to be your savior, he came to be your Lord.

If you sit on the throne, all of that stuff sits with you. Because you're a slave.

But if you get up and give Jesus his rightful place, when Jesus sits on the throne, guess what?

Instead of anxiety, instead of anxiety,

peace, instead of depression, joy, instead of addiction, strength, instead of insecurity, confidence, instead of emptiness, purpose, instead of fear, power, instead of sin, forgiveness, instead of pain, there is healing in the name of Jesus. Instead of bitterness, love, instead of confusion, Jesus brings clarity. And instead of bondage, there is freedom. There's freedom.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, that calls Jesus Lord, and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead, and that they will be saved. And so this Christmas, I want you to think about how do I receive eternal life? You receive eternal life by the grace of God provided you in Jesus, that he died for your sins so that you don't have to.

But the Bible says that you're not supposed to keep on sinning. You and I are like the woman caught in the act of adultery. I don't condemn you, but go and sin no more. What's your one thing? Because that one thing might be the thing that's keeping you from experiencing the freedom of Jesus this Christmas. And the answer to getting your freedom is to call him Lord, and not just in one moment, but in every moment, keeping a yes in your pocket to Jesus, to obey what he has commanded you to do. And so if you want to receive eternal life, the forgiveness of your sins, to defeat death just like Jesus did on your behalf, you need to call him your savior and you need to call him Lord. And this, can I tell you something? This is the safest place on planet earth for you to do that.

Because those of us who are here, we did that.

But I can promise you, if you can't do it here, you won't be able to do it out there. And so I want to ask you to have boldness today,

to receive Jesus as your savior and your Lord. And if you've never done that before definitively, or maybe you need to come back, maybe you're like, man, I need to leave my life of sin and come back to Jesus and make him Lord.

On a count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up in front of everybody, because here's the deal. Everybody here wants to celebrate that with you. It's the greatest decision you will ever make in your entire life.

If that's you and you've never done it, on the count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up. One, two, three, be bold. Thank you. It's the best decision you'll ever make. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you. Now we're gonna bow our heads and pray together and I'm gonna help you to close the deal with Jesus. Right where you are, everybody who wants to call him savior and Lord, say this out loud with me. Jesus, in this moment, we believe in our hearts that you were raised from the dead to forgive us of our sins and give us eternal life. We believe in you, Jesus, as our savior.

And now right where you are, say it out loud, declare it with your mouth, Jesus, be my Lord. You are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You deserve all the glory and God, right now, I turn from my sin and I turn to you, Jesus, for forgiveness and the power to overcome sin and death and find freedom from everything that follows. In this moment, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be.

Jesus, you are my savior and my Lord. In your name I pray, amen. Friends, the Bible says that when just one person turns from their sin and turns to Jesus for salvation and to make him his Lord, that all of heaven celebrates, so you better believe that if heaven is celebrating right now, we're gonna celebrate too. So as you put your hands down, we're gonna put our hands together and say, welcome home. And just a moment, we're gonna sing Silent Night together

because it's awesome, because Jesus has now lit up your life

and Jesus wants you to change. He wants to bring about his light into your life to be about transforming you into his likeness. And as he does that, you're going to become a light into a world that desperately needs to know him. And so we're gonna sing this together as we close our service today. You can stand up.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning, everybody. How's it going? Good, good, good. Thank you, Maddie. Happy birthday to my bride, Kelsey. I know you guys said happy birthday already. I just had a wondering. I was sitting there in the first service and I thought, huh. Kelsey writes the beat. So I was like, did she write a happy birthday to herself? Well happy birthday. It was our anniversary yesterday as well, so we are full of celebrations this weekend. It's our favorite time of the year. As we get started in today's message, this series, if you didn't know this, we didn't really name it this, but it really follows some of the foundational parts of what's called the Advent season. Advent is celebrating the Immanuel, Christ born, to be God with us. And it follows a bunch of different themes of what Christ did for us. And so the first week we talked about what? You reacted the same way the first service did, which nailed it. Who was it? Come on, somebody, my mother-in-law. Hope that Christ came to give us hope. And so we talked about collective hope, that we have collective hope because of Jesus, the Son of God. The second week we talked about what? We did talk about generosity. We do talk about generosity through this series. We talked about peace, the peace of God. And so we're talking about this Advent season, the hope that God gives us, the peace that God gives us. Today we're going to talk about the love of God, collective love. And of course next week when we're going to cap it off with our Christmas services, talking about the joy that God brings to us because of his son Jesus. That literally the joy of the Lord is our strength. Can I get an amen? But before I get started in today's message, I want to give you a sandwich. How many of y'all like sandwiches? How many of y'all know that when you have some less than stellar news to share, you sandwich it, right? You give a compliment, then a little baby feedback, and then another compliment, and you sandwich it to make it feel a little more palatable, if you will, right? Well, I'm going to give you a sandwich for just a moment. If you're new to our church, we have a sign on the wall right on the facade outside these doors that says 500 gathered, and on the other wall it says 50 sent. In other words, we want to be a part of sending 50 missionaries to the nation, specifically to the 1040 window where people on planet earth have zero access to a Christian, a church, or a Bible in their language. Can I get an amen? We want to send missionaries. But in order to do that, we got to gather more people. When we left Madawon High School a few years ago and moved into this facility, we were averaging about 165 people on a given weekend, and last weekend we had 450 people in attendance last weekend.

By the way, I hope you feel a pat on the back because you have invited people. You've invited people to come and be a part of God's gathering, which is important to God to be in His house. But I also need to point out we need to thank God for Him growing His church, that people are drawn to Him and to His church. I just want to say that goal 500 people gathered was actually the goal for the end of 2025. Come on, let's give Jesus praise. Now, are you ready for the less than stellar news? How many of you all know that we had big give last weekend? I really thrive on giving really good news. I told First Service this, I was a little like, I didn't know how to share this. And so I'm sandwiching it and pray for me as I share this because when we ask you to contribute to things, serve, give, pray, whatever, how many of you all know that when I as a pastor or us as a church, nobody might show up or nobody might give. We have no idea what's going to happen. And so I'm just setting you up for that. Big give is something a lot of churches do to leverage end of your giving. So really when I share this news, I want you to see this as like, yes, we said big give last weekend, but it's really to infuse the church and the missions of the church with financial resources going into the next year. So as end of year is coming and you guys are thinking about taxes and how many of y'all have daffs, do you know what a daff is? Anyone? Nobody. A daff is called a donor advised fund, which means you donated to a nonprofit to get tax benefits. Some of you do that, you give out of that. Anyways, aren't you glad you came to church today? You learned a little something new. But man, this is the opportunity to unleash some of that for the kingdom of God. It's what kingdom builders is all about. And so last week when we talked about big give again, you can still give to big give. How many of y'all missed it? Most of y'all. Okay. That's what I'm about to share. So kingdom builders, big give last weekend brought in $3,431. Let's praise God. It's $3,400 more into the kingdom of God. Okay. The reason why I'm sharing that is not as less than stellar because typically when we have done this in the past, it's been more like $80,000. So you can see where the, you know, it's a little bit like, okay, so we still have opportunity. All right. Do you have, you have, we have opportunity to contribute. So to kingdom builders general, we had 10 people give $1,674 to kingdom builders local. We had six givers give $1,100 to next bend to kingdom builders next generation. We had $296 given by three givers. Kids, can you just look around at everyone? How many students, middle school, high school, kids, anyone? Raise your hand loud and proud. Everyone look at these students and say, Hey, you're worth more than $393. Hey, I, by the way, I, I hope you like, I'm just, I'm just sharing on as like, I feel awkward saying this stuff. Okay. All right. Anyways, moving on. Kingdom builders building projects. We had zero givers. So $0 into that. Remember we were going to put carpet in the kids' ministry. And, but I do need to clarify that because we have a gentleman who's a builder who has is we try to build a kitchen, a kitchenette in there to be more hospitable, to have more coffee, all that kind of stuff. He's donating flooring and, and cabinets and a countertop and his time and he's installed. Remember how I said our water doesn't have a filtration system. He's donating that. Can we give praise for that guy? Like, come on somebody. Kingdom builders national also had zero givers, which means we need to grow our heart towards church planting a little bit because we are a church plant, which means people gave to be able to make this happen for all of us. So we need to do that too. Kingdom builders global brought in $360 for people giving to global missions. I don't, I'm just, I just like y'all feel me. Can I move on with the other sandwich? Can I take a moment just to also say like this, this card again, I would love for you to fill it out because this is kind of a new team. Kingdom builders is kind of a new initiative and I want you to see it as a team. So just like people serve on greeting or they serve in production or worship or they serve in all these different aspects, I want you to see kingdom builders as a team and there's probably sections of kingdom builders. Again, those five aspects that I shared like local outreach, building facilities, you know, next generation, national missions, global missions, those areas, we, we as a church need to grow our hearts for those things. Can I tell you why? Because all of those things matter to God. And so yeah, there might, we might be lower on a tier and honestly it's, it's my job. It's our job as a church to kind of raise the awareness of these things that matter to God so that we can all be a part of it together. But what I want you to do is if one of those areas really speaks to you, like you could see yourself sacrificing for the benefit of making this mission happen, like local outreach, next generation, building projects, national mission, global. I want you to sign up for one of those teams because I want to, I'm always going to tell the church where needs are, but there might be needs where I can just go to that specific team to say, Hey, you guys really love the next generation. Okay. All of the people that hate kids, I don't want to ask them for money. Okay. Are you picking up when I'm putting down? All right. Fair. So grab this, ask God, man, if you would be a part of that team. I also want to take a moment before I do share the sandwich with you that all of this, being a part of this team and giving to big give is going beyond the tie that's above and beyond that to infuse resources into God's mission. And so I want to take a moment to thank you who are faithful and obedient to tithing. And honestly, all of us need to do that because none of this is possible without your faithfulness. Like, I hope you grab onto that for a second. Like literally none of this, like none, none of this is, is possible without faithful giving people to the kingdom of God to make the church happen. And so can we, can we praise God for people who faithfully give to New Life Church? Because they could literally turn their heads and go, you're the reason. You're the reason. Like every, when people give to the kingdom of God, every time someone is baptized, you invested in that. Every time we open the doors for a local outreach like Christmas shop yesterday, you invested in that. Every time you hear a story of life change, every time you see someone step into faith, in Christ and begin to live it out, every time you hear a story of someone's life being changed, you invested in that. And so when you hear those things, I don't want you to think, oh my gosh, Pastor Dan's amazing. I don't know if you know this. I am not all that. Like God is so much bigger than just one of us. He's moving through all of us collectively to bring about what his hope, his peace, his collective love and his joy. And so I want to share with you for just a moment the kind of joy that we saw yesterday out of opening our doors and sharing the love of Christ through the Christmas shop yesterday.

Who wants to sign up for that again already for next year? Like consider that an annual event for New Life Church. Like we want to be a blessing to so many people. And here's the thing, our tangible giving, listen to me, our tangible giving of presence is not even close to the ability of being able to give someone the presence of Jesus Christ. Like it is just a glimpse of the heart that God has for his people. Watch this in 1st John chapter 4 verse 9. It says, in this the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. Now they didn't fix it. This word right here, it says world, not word. It was my bad. It was my bad. Production people. My bad because they copy and pasted my own heir. Okay. All right. Just to clear the air. God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That we literally, if you are a sinner, you are separated from the love of God and from eternal life in Christ Jesus. And literally the only way to receive his salvation, his forgiveness, his mercy, his eternity and his presence is because God's love was made manifest through the son Jesus Christ. And can I tell you something? His love cost him everything. And I think for just a moment, I want to just clarify something. I think that's what's interesting when we talk about money in the church is because we grab onto our stuff like it's our stuff and God wants us to unleash it for his purposes. And literally if God just held onto his throne in heaven, he would not have come to earth to rescue you. Like it cost him something. Years ago, Kelsey and I were at a nonprofit organizations kind of end of your gala at the end of the year and they were doing a fundraiser. Can I tell you something? I don't know how to say this. I hate Christian fundraisers. Can I tell you why? It's anti-bible. It's anti-bible. What do you mean, pastor? What are you talking about? These fundraisers, what happens is they'll do stuff like really cutesy and they'll have people donate things so that you'll buy them or they'll auction them to raise funds. Where are you picking up what I'm putting down? So someone will donate an item and you'll sign up like, hey, I'll give $500 for that thing. Well, years ago, we're at this Christian nonprofit, which we're a fan of. We love it. We're for them. But we're sitting at this event and how many Dutch people do I have in the room today? Come on, somebody. Yeah. All right. Anyways, no jokes. Here's what happened. One particular family donated an all-inclusive, all-paid trip to the motherland. That's to the Netherlands, right? Or what do they call themselves now? I don't even know. Is that right? The Netherlands. Okay. And they were auctioning this off in order to raise funds for the organization. And they got the amount of auction for this particular trip they raised $8,000. Pretty awesome, right? The trip cost the person who donated it $15,000. To which I sat there and said, why didn't you just give the organization $15,000? You see what I'm saying? It's stupid. And here's why it's unbiblical, because biblical generosity is not about what you can get. It's about what you could give without expecting anything in return. Jesus knew that when He came to earth, you didn't have a whole lot to offer. And I didn't either, which is why He came. Yeah, it's ouch. Yeah, it's true. That's why it's good news. Because you don't deserve it. I don't deserve it. You didn't earn it. You can't earn it. And yet He did it. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Now made manifest, I want to give you a definition for that for just a second. What it really means is that we can comprehend, we can comprehend the love of God, listen not because we felt God's love for us, but because He acted in love towards us. Now how many times have you heard me say that God's word has power? Like when He speaks, something happens. But you know that God loves you because He acted in that love. Because He literally died in your place to forgive you of your sins. That the justice of God was that anyone who would sin against God would have to die. That was the penalty. The penalty of sin is death. And Jesus Christ took upon that penalty upon Himself so that you wouldn't have to take it yourself. It's the greatest gift you've ever been given. It's the greatest gift I've ever been given. And it wasn't just comprehended because of Him just saying it, it's because He actually did something. So if you're taking notes, love being made manifest, love made manifest, number one is giving love is more important than just feeling love. How many of y'all are married? How many of y'all want to be married? Can I give you like the greatest, can I give you the greatest piece of marital and biblical advice? You want your marriage to survive, it's more about giving love than just feeling it. Kelsey and I did a small group one time leading, it was called Newly Nearly Weds, and they were talking about, they were shocked that we were talking about all the fights we had. They're like, oh, you bastards, you guys fight? Like the best of you. And they were like, oh, lovey dovey, you know, this is just cupcakes and rainbows and awesome. We met some of those couples a few years after our life group and they go, we really didn't know what you were talking about, but no, we do. Why is it that when we have marriages that the pastor talks about, you know, living in sacrificial love towards one another, like loving each other in sickness and in health, in plenty and when in want, is because love isn't just a feeling, it's an action. And God made His love manifest by what He did for you and what He did for me. Here's another way to put it, love unexpressed is love that is simply incomplete. Love unexpressed is love that is incomplete. First John 3, 18 puts it this way, dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other, let us show the truth by our actions. And so can I tell you why I had to sandwich what I said today? Why I had to sandwich what I said today about big give in general is because I know as a pastor that the biblical love comes from the heart. It comes from, right? Jesus says where our treasure is, is where our heart is. Like it's an indicator of where our heart is. And how many of y'all don't have a problem? Like your kids feel loved this year by probably how much you've spent on Christmas gifts. Like we expressed love towards people yesterday by giving them Christmas gifts if they couldn't afford it. It was a pleasure. It was a privilege for us to do that. But I got to tell you when I look at how much was given towards big give and towards the infusion, I asked myself, and I try not to get like overly like want, but when I see like $360 or whatever it was given to next generation, I'm like, oh my gosh guys, we could do better. Or when I see nothing giving to national missions and we're a church plant who was literally, we became a church because of other people's generous, like how many of y'all were there before New Life Church giving to New Life Church to make us happen? None of you. And yet you're the recipient of someone else's love being invested in the kingdom of God for the purposes of God. Have you ever thought about that? Can you thank God for those people who invested in you before you were here? On the flip side, can we be the kind of people that invest in them before they, and without them even knowing that we did it for them? Or the 42% of the world who doesn't have access to a Christian, a church, or a Bible in their language? What would we sacrifice? Because literally giving to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can expect nothing in return. Can I tell you something? That is biblical Christian love. Look around the room for a second. Look at the person next to you. None of you want to do it. All of you are like, are they actually doing it? I don't want to be the only one. Now, just, I don't know how else to do this because I think this is an area of growth for our church that we're wading into, and it's growth for me too as a leader. So I want you to know that I'm getting into this just like you with you. But when I think about the 1040 window and the people that don't have access to a Bible, a church, or a Christian, they don't have what you and I have today. What you just looked at, they don't have. They don't have a Bible. You have 17,000 of them on your iPhone in your language. They don't have a church. How many of you all know that people, Jesus deserves to be worshiped and heard about and experienced in every nation, every tongue, every language by every people group on planet earth. Can I get an amen? And so I'm telling you this so that we can grow, so that we can learn to live out this thing called love being made manifest because when God puts His Spirit inside of us, He transforms us into His likeness, and He says that we are the body of believers, that we are literally to be His hands and feet on the earth. How does Christ's love be made manifest to people in your workplace, in your sphere of influence, on your teams, across the nation and around the world? It's because His love is made manifest collectively through us all. First John, oh, I forgot to say this. So we got to show it by our actions. We can't just say it. We got to show it. Number two, love that is given is a love that actually makes a difference. First John 4, 19 through 20 says we love because He first loved us, which means that we don't even know how to love each other until we know how much He has loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates or works against his Christian brother or sister, he is a liar. Can I put another word in that? Maybe just for emphasis. If anyone says I love God and hates, works against, or even indifferent towards, in other words, man, I don't even want to think about the people that don't even have access to a church. We need that way. We can't be the kind of people that can experience the love of God, can experience the love of God's church, experience the love of God through His word, and yet there's billions of people on planet earth that don't have what you and I have. We have to be a part of that for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has seen. And so I want to, love that is given is a love that makes a difference. I want to invite someone to the stage today because I am just an awe, hi. Hey, freak me out. I didn't know what was happening. Can I get a warning next time? Sheesh. We're putting him in the middle. Adam, would you come up? No, he's going there. Oh, he's going there. Yeah. Let's close this. Got it. Got it. Oh, sorry. I'm new here. So I want to introduce you to Adam. Many of you probably don't know who he is. Maybe you've never met him before. But and it probably if you come to this service, the reason you have met him is because he's normally in our third service. And the reason for that is I am a sign language interpreter. So we have some deaf people that come to our third service. I come here and I interpret for them. Praise God for Adam. Like I mean, we're talking about I'm gonna just kind of just jump right into it. Do it. I'm trying to think of how to make this. Guys, I don't even know how to tell you how many conversations go on in my head when I'm up here. So I'm trying to figure out where to land this plane. But the ASL community, the deaf community is a part of the 42% of the world that has very little access. Yes, absolutely. To Christianity, to a believer, to a Bible, to a church. Yeah, absolutely. If I can... I can love that. ...that's numbers for you. The community for the deaf in general, they have churches they can go to, but they don't all have interpreters that are there. They have Bibles that they can look at, but only 2.5% can understand it the way it's written. 2.5% of 644 million people in the entire world have access to the Bible the way that it's written. They have access to other people that know Christ, but they don't know the language to be able to tell them that Jesus loves you. So that is a huge community. That's why I love interpreting for church, especially here, because every Sunday is a mission trip. That's right. Every Sunday is a mission trip. We send people all over the world to reach other people. I get sent right here in my own backyard to not only reach out to people... Not only reach out to people that are shoved off because they're seen as disabled or needing fixing, which they don't. They are their own community, but they're also some of my best friends. Not only am I sharing the fact that Jesus loves you to deaf people in general, I get to share it with my best friends. It's an amazing feeling. Adam, your faith, tell us your faith story. Yeah, so growing up, I was raised in a Catholic family in general. My grandma was devout Catholic. She always went to church, always prayed, always read the Bible. My family, my parents, we were the E.C. Christians. Every Easter, every Christmas. It was mentioned. You had some other... Kreesters. They were like, oh yeah, I got you. You don't know who they are because they're not here today. It's fine. But invite them. We have Christmas coming up. Christmas is coming. Christmas is coming. But we were that family. We were only at church twice a year. And so I knew of God, but I didn't know the depth of his love. I didn't know Christ fully until 2013. It's hard to say, but 2013 I was sitting in a church going only because my then girlfriend, who's now my wife, yes. I love that yes. Yes. Like I can get that. Celebration. She went to church every week. So I wanted to spend time. So I went with her after working until two o'clock in the morning and would be found sitting in the church, probably sleeping. We're getting sad on this. No, it's spiritual. It makes you sound more spiritual. Yes. But I was found sleeping in the church just because I wanted to spend time with her. Now she will tell literally everyone. She prayed that if I wasn't the right person, that I would be taken away. That's a good woman right there, ladies. I don't know. Yeah. I'm glad that God made that work for me. But one day I'm at the church, October of 2013, and worship is hitting home. It feels like there's all these people in the room. This is a church that has 2000 people that gather. But yet God is talking one to one right with me. And then I'm feeling like, okay, but why me? Why? I felt that you've abandoned me. I was going through depression, anxiety at the time. I had a lot of things that were happening in the background. We can go deeper into that another time. Meet me. I will gladly share everything. But I felt abandoned, left alone in that moment. And then the pastor comes up and says, if you feel like you've been left alone, that you've been abandoned by God, he's waiting. You're going 360 degrees makes a circle, right? You're going the one degree direction that's away from God. Turn around. His arms are all encompassing. He's ready to accept you. And in that moment, I was ugly crying, walked up to that altar and said, I'm ready to receive you. Fully ugly crying. But that was the day that I became fully saved. I love that. And something that's so cool about your story, Adam, is that you already had a gift that you were using before you were saved. Sure. Just briefly to talk about that moment. Because you know, again, God speaks and God actively shared his love towards you, actively shared it towards me, towards us. And as a pastor who's been doing this for over 20 years, I can't tell you how many people will come up to me in the lobby and say it's almost as if God was speaking directly to me in that service. And if you've ever said that to me, I'm just going to tell you what I do in my head. I just shake my head and go, that's our God. And I want you to know it has nothing to do with me. Our God is all knowing. Do you know who's not? So when God speaks to you directly and shares intimately just how much he loves you personally, yeah, the word might come out of my mouth that God uses to connect the dots or maybe he uses you in that way. But that's how much he loves his people. Yeah, so good. So you had a gift that God had already been sharpening in you, which was American Sign Language. How did, what made you decide to learn ASL? What was your story of learning this gift? Well, it all got started just because it was a requirement for college for me. It wasn't necessarily something that I decided like, ASL, let's do it. It was, I'm required to take a foreign language, so let's look over my family. Mind you, my grandma is one of 20 children. My family is huge. We have his great grandparents knew love expressed. Yeah. It's my joke of the day. I tried it on first service. They didn't love it as much. So second service, you're now my favorite. When you're married, when you're married, one man, one woman, continue rabbit. Here we go. Pop him back up. We're in Albuquerque. How do we get? So I analyzed my whole family. I found people that spoke German. They had all passed and thank God because German is not a love language. But I found two deaf people, one of which was still alive. She's my mom's cousin technically, so I call her cousin anyways, but she's now 58. And I thought, okay, I remember growing up, seeing her trying to speak to me and what? No idea. So now I'm going to learn her language. Let's take ASL. I took a few classes, fell in love with the language, the culture, the community, but then I did something amazing. I reached out to that cousin on Skype, which tells you how long ago this was. But we got on. She started talking, saying, hello, how are you? It's good to see you. And then I signed back. No words. Sign back. I am sure that the other end of the earth felt how hard her jaw hit the floor. Something that I didn't know at that moment was that out of my huge family, my grandma that was the devout Catholic, her family, 20 children plus their children and their children, my generation, and then more out of that whole family, she has a sister, a parent, only one person in the entire family learned sign language to communicate with her. Only one. That shows you how much this community has just shoved aside. Learn my language, not yours. So that was inspiring for me to continue to learn more. And when I was encouraged to become an interpreter, I took advantage of it. And I found my true passion in that. I just think even yesterday, we watched people in the church use their gift to love people who have felt pushed aside. People who came in to receive gifts for Christmas that maybe don't even have a home address to write on their form. That can't provide gifts under the tree and who don't have family members that are willing to step out and to love them and to help. But there were people here who were willing to say, no, I'll take time out. I'll give resources to help. And for once they felt seen. And that's what you did for your cousin. And so I have two more questions for you. What is your favorite, favorite part of being able to use ASL within the church, within the body of Christ? My favorite part is that it's truly a mission trip, honestly. It's the people that I get to connect with that their voices have gone unheard for so long. And now they have the ability to communicate it out. They have the ability to receive God, receive the message. That is my favorite part. But at the same time, there's another aspect to it because there are back when I started interpreting in a church, we had students that would come just to observe. It's required for their curriculum that they have to observe an interpreter doing whatever and get those hours. They would tell you the first thing, I was not a Christian. I didn't believe. But from coming and sitting and watching, they got saved. People that sit in the back of the church and see my hands flailing around like I'm a bird. It's fine. We got to make fun of it, right? But they're seeing that and they're like, wow, it's so beautiful. Guess what? They're paying attention more to what he's saying and what God is saying through him to understand what I'm signing. Therefore they're getting more of the gospel right in that moment, too. It's not just the death that's being reached. It's everyone that gets reached by it. Amen. That is so true. And I know any of us that are in here through third service, Angie's nodding her head because the amount of times that during third service, it's beautiful. I've grown up a worship leader singing and I haven't seen anything as beautiful as when you're signing the worship songs. And it moves me 10 times more with that along with it. And it helps you see even more what... It's just such a beautiful picture of what the church body truly looks at when everyone is using their gifts. And you might think, what a random gift to bring into the church. But what I love about your testimony is that that was a gift that God gave you before you were saved. Absolutely. That was a gift that started in college, but you were saved in 2013. And so when you were saved, it was like, well, is there a place for me in the body to use this gift? And so my last question for you is what would you say to someone maybe who's in the seats today who has a gift and who's on the fence about if they could use it in the church or if they should or if they even want to? One simple word. Why? Why are you on the fence? Do you understand that God finds people when they're serving him? He finds people when they put their hands to his work. He did it with Moses. He did it with David. He did it with me. I just randomly showed up and started interpreting a church in Lansing. And then he showed me the mission field that was out there. You're on the fence. Why? What are you missing that God has for your purpose? Because you're not walking in his love. He gave you that gift. Always give it back to him. We are called to tithe. Yes, that's one tenth of your money, but that's also one tenth of your time, one tenth of your talents that he gave you. Give it back to him too. He's punching the ground trying to make sure that I can't tell you this. Use your gift. It's a beautiful thing. Even if you're good at smiling and that's all you feel you're good at, greet people at the door. Showing up and seeing a smiling face is the first feeling of feeling involved. Like, I am important here. You vacuum the room. Every swipe. Thank you, God, for this. Thank you, God, for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You'll find that every swipe, you'll count all of the thanks that you're providing to God and all of the blessings that he provided back to you. Use your gift. Use it. Put your hands to the work. You will be found and you will be blessed in it as soon as you do it, period. Thank you. There's one last little piece I want to add to that. We've all seen the imagery of how earth was disconnected from God. We have the heavens, we have earth, but it was disconnected during the Old Testament time. However, when Jesus came, that cross was the bridge that connected us back to being home. Us serving him and using our gifts allows us to become that bridge for other people to bring them home. We have the ability to become a bridge for other people to be able to see that eternal bridge and understand who God is, what Jesus has done for them. Use your gift. Become that bridge. Become the bridge for everyone. Church, can we thank Adam for sharing this morning? It's literally only ever happened to Steven Furtick. So I think you should just bow. I've seen it happen one time that a microphone has done that and it's because of Steven Furtick preaching and Satan was like, no. And I know I just freaked you out because I said Satan, but it's real. I mean, we have an enemy that doesn't want to hear something like that that says, I'm going to stop. I'm going to keep you comfortable in just sitting here and soaking and doesn't want people to use his gifts. And if you ever come to third service and watch Adam sign for his best friends, you'll see why Satan is trying to silence his microphone. Well, church, what an honor it is to get to do what we do together. What an honor it is to get to be collective love to the world around us, to get to be not just love heard, but love expressed, love given to the world, love that when together we can create Christmas for over a hundred kids, that when they wake up in the morning, they get to actually open presents under the tree. But church, I want to encourage you. We can't stop there because it's not just about opening a present because if we stop there, that's all it's going to be. Our goal is not just about presence. It's about people encountering the presence of Jesus. And if today you're like, man, I've never known the love of God. I want to give you the opportunity to know about a God that died, that sent his son to die on the cross for you so that just like Adam said, you can know that he loved you. He loves you so much that he sent his one and only son that whosoever believes in him would not perish, but would have eternal life. And even if you were the only person on earth, he still would have sent his one and only son to die on that cross so that you would know love. And if that's you today, I'm going to ask you to do something bold. And sometimes we say with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, but today we're not going to do that because I'm going to tell you if you can't raise your hand in a room with people who believe in you and who are going to walk this journey of faith alongside of you, you're probably not going to be able to stand and do it out there. So today I'm going to ask you to raise your hand in here and then we're going to pray a salvation prayer together, but I'm going to give you that opportunity to raise your hand so that we can pray that salvation prayer with you so that you can put your faith in Jesus today so that you know that you have eternity sealed so that you can encounter the presence of Jesus. So on the count of three, I want you to put your hand in the air so that we can pray that prayer with you today so that you can put your faith in Jesus. One, be bold. Two, three, would you put your hand in the air so that I know who I'm praying with today? Amen. Amen. Amen. I see you. God sees you. He sent his son to die for you. Now from your heart to his, let's pray this prayer together. Say, God, I love you. Thank you for sending your son to die for me. I put my faith in you. I turn from my old ways and I chase after you. I make you Lord of my life and King of my heart. And it's in your name I pray. And everybody said, Amen. Church, will you put your hands together for those who put their faith in Jesus today?

Full Sermon Transcript

state and the community uh... best way to explain is like it was a Irish community founded in the seventies shallg of ��m k ��m lock on being taught that we had to do a certain amount of things to make it to be accepted by God and to make it into the kingdom of heaven and that following the rules that the community had set up, yeah, if you didn't do them, you would get drug into meetings and the way they would handle people breaking the rules is if you broke them, you were reprimanded in front of your group and told you need to publicly repent of X, Y and Z, essentially taught that to appease this being in the heavens, that we're told loves us, but we had to do all these specific complicated things. We had to wear certain clothing, we couldn't drive certain vehicles, we couldn't listen to certain kinds of music, we couldn't make friends outside of the community. And I was just, I was kind of just a rule follower. I just did what I was told. My dad was a deacon in the community and so I lived under a lot of pressure from him on how to dress and how to act and don't do this, don't do that, but nothing came from what I felt God was telling me everything was told of what I needed to do, what I had to do. And it was a lot of anxiety because you can't live up to someone else's standards that they tried to put on you. I didn't like who I was because there was a part of me that always doubted everything that was taught to me. We were very snobby to outsiders. We wouldn't talk to them, like we'd go to the grocery store and we wouldn't say hi to no one, we'd like maybe say hi to the cashier, but that was it. Like we couldn't have a personal conversation with anyone. It always felt kind of awkward and weird and not right at all. But when I would bring it up, it was always told to me that well, that's just how it is. Like we are God's chosen people and so we have to be above the world. And I was like, what about the other Christians? What about the other? And that was always shut down, that we were the chosen ones. We were the only ones going to make it to heaven. There was a lot of fear. It was like the most terrifying thought of being called into a meeting, no peace whatsoever. You were constantly wondering, am I gonna make it to heaven? There was always like this, like, I'm missing something, I'm missing something, but I never knew what it was. Our lives could consist of more than just this town. So that was like where we started to be getting questioning things, but it was very small stuff. I still wasn't very much a zealot for the rules. Over the course of the months as 2020 progressed, God started opening our eyes. It was Romans 10, verse nine that jumped out to me. It says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. But the way we have been raised is to like kind of gloss over scriptures like that because those were scriptures that the worldly church, AKA any church outside of the church we grew up in, overused them. But that scripture like threw me a curve ball. There wasn't anything else you had to do. You didn't have to wear the certain things. You have to drive a certain thing. Like you were in its kingdom no matter what. It didn't cost you anything, but it cost us everything if you lived there. Yeah, that thought process was so foreign. It was safe. It was secure, but yet also not because you didn't have any peace, but yet because it was everything you had known, everything you'd grown up with, like to walk away from it, you were told if you walked away that your family wouldn't talk to you no more. You were on your own. You didn't have Jesus in your heart anymore. They were giving you over to Satan. So like you had all these things that kept you there because it was a fear factor. It was manipulation, obviously. So like to think that that day back to that day that Isaac said that, I was like, what does that mean for me, for us? Like we lived next door to my parents. So like I see my mom every single day, Kelsey would run over to see my mom all the time. Like what's that gonna mean for us? Because when you do that, they don't even want to see the kids, nothing. So yeah, it was hard to think about. His dad had left nine years ago. His mom was still around and his brothers, but like my family really attacked us and really tried to get me to see, tried to destroy everything that we had got it showing us within a year. Yeah, my mom texted me and said, can I just come over and talk to you? And it starts out by saying how much she loves me, yada, yada, yada. And I was like, well, I love you too, mom. But then she tries to convince me to leave Isaac and he's sitting right there. We were worried and we were hurting, but like we had so much peace about everything. God was truly showing us truths about his loving nature and caring nature and we had just clung onto that. The day that I had absolutely been terrified of rolls around December 1st. My phone rings and it's the pastor. Pastor. And he says, we're asking you to step away from community, our family, we don't want you around anymore until you can decide to change the way you're talking and speaking and believing. And I was like, you know what? I don't really think we believe in the same Jesus anymore. I hung up, I called up a couple of my friends that had kind of all been, we would all have been going through this together. Thank God we had friends that were seen the same way we were because it was like strength and like support. Called them up, I was like, I just got the call and they were like, I just got off the phone with them, I got it too. And there was so much peace. We didn't know what we were gonna do. We still lived like next door to our mom and dad. It hurts. It's til, til that's the day.

So like, we're gonna go. We could fight this. But yeah, we don't think that's of Jesus. I reached out to my dad, said I'm really sorry for the way I treated you the last eight years. Like, will you forgive me? Can we have a relationship again? We, four months later moved in with Isaac's dad and his wife, bless their hearts. Yeah, they reached out to us and they're like, we know you guys are trying to get on your feet. I was for a long time, I was like, I don't wanna, like I don't even know what I think a church was at the moment. Like, if you wanna, she wanted to look, I was like, that's fine, I'll support you, we'll go. I'm not sure where I'm at with that. I felt like I needed something that I could not give back to God, but yet feel that desire to serve God's people and that desire to love people again and be loved by people again, like with my family. And so we searched for a while, searched churches and just not landed on anything. So I literally just go to nearby churches, we're in Decatur, nearby churches and Madeline pops up and NLC pops up. I felt home, I brought the kids into the kids area and everyone was just welcoming. Just the people that came up to us, like that didn't really happen at any of the other churches. Getting away from the situation, getting away from the same area that was familiar, was almost like new ground coming down here and it was where God was able to plant and able to fertilize us and get us to see and get us to know Him more and make our roots go deeper. Even though it hurt, even though there was darkness, there was still clarity, there was still knowledge of knowing this was the right place. There was this like ember of peace like the whole time, like, no, you didn't make the wrong decision. He never leaves you, he never, never forsakes you, he's still working with you and it might take a moment, but he's still, he's not done with us yet.

Yeah, you can clap for that please. Collective, collective peace. You see, God is weaving our stories, the things that we go through, He's weaving His story into changing people's lives and we get to be a part of that, that literally He is bringing people together with different, of different ages, backgrounds, races and experience, He's bringing us together in the name of Jesus. And can you believe that we get to do this together, that we get to be a part of building God's church together? As we said in the beat earlier, that we're in the season of talking about generosity, teaching on it, we don't do this like all the time, it's a season of it where we write two times a year, we do 21 days of prayer and fasting, where we talk about praying and fasting, we talk about serving, we talk about these emphasis, these areas of our faith. And so we don't talk about that all the time, but today we're talking about unleashing radical generosity to see more people, more families come to Jesus and find a church home like Isaac, Abby and their kids, Kelsey, Conrad and Axel. And we're getting to do this together, building God's kingdom together. And there's no greater mission or cause on planet earth. Last week we talked about how in 2021, I believe it was, that the NCAA stated that an athlete in college athletics, they could be paid for their what? Their name, image and likeness. And for colleges to be able to do this, to be able to have the funding, to be able to pull this off, they had to pull together donors specifically to then get the athletes paid for their name, image and likeness. And what they created, what were called collectives. And last week we talked about how the church is a collective. Now we're not paying people for their name, image and likeness, but the church exists what? For the glory of God, for God's name, for the name of Jesus. We are image bearers of Christ our King, name, image. And we are being transformed into God's likeness. We exist for the name, image and likeness of God. And so last week I talked about how in the Bible, there are three areas in which God talks about giving and generosity. The first one is known as obedient giving. It's called tithing. Tithing literally means one 10th. It's bringing 10% of what God entrusts us back to his local church, to his storehouse or temple, to be able to build his church and his kingdom. The second one that we find in Scripture is hospitable and sacrificial giving. This is when we see the needs of other people and we attempt to meet them. It's why we do things like save families for children where people will literally volunteer to become host homes so that kids who are at risk and moms might need a support structure to help through some tough times will literally open their doors, take in kids for a season, whether it's a weekend, a couple weeks, or maybe even up to six months, to be able to love on these kids and keep their families together. It's when you see a need like Christmas shop next weekend when we know that there's so many families. And to be honest, I didn't think about this until this moment, but when I was in elementary school, my dad lost his job and my mom was a teacher and she was a breadwinner and I remember my brother and I only got one Christmas gift. And I didn't understand what it was like for my parents in that moment, but we have families in our community, man, they struggle to find even, they wanna be able to bless their kids with a gift and we get the opportunity to let them come into our house, to God's house and to shop for gifts for their kids. And when I say shop, I mean, they get it for free, but they get to choose gifts that they can give to their kids and we can wrap them up in God's love together. There will be over 25 families coming, over 65 kids that will receive gifts this coming weekend. And then there's grace giving. Number three is grace giving and we find this in multiple places in scripture, but we're going to Ephesians chapter four where it says the apostle Paul says Christ himself gave spiritual gifts. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists and pastors and teachers to equip his people, that's all of us, the collective, for works of God's service. And so when we teach on giving and generosity, that's what we're doing. So why? So that the body of Christ may be built up until all of us reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. That's what Isaac and Abbe were experiencing. They were experiencing manipulation and they were experiencing a fear-based biblical foundation, which is not God. So Isaac's and Abbe's story, they lost their family, their church family. They left that and they found New Life Church, a Bible-believing spirit-led church that they could have solid ground and a solid family of believers here. He continues and he says, instead, speaking the truth and love, we, the collective, the church, will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. This is being transformed into God's likeness. I love how Abbe in that video said that she wanted to be planted in a church so that she could serve other people and love other people. Then literally the experience that she had was the church told them that they couldn't even interact with outsiders, they'd go to the grocery store and they couldn't even have a conversation with other people. Can I tell you something? For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. For God so loved who? The world. And how are we to reach them and tell them about his unbelievable love and grace and mercy if we can't even talk to them? This is what the church is. It says from him, the whole body is joined together and held together by every supporting ligament grows and it builds itself up in love. Watch this as each part does its work. That God is building his church collectively and we all get to be a part of it together. And so when I see this, I see that God wants a hundred percent participation for those who are believers in Christ to build up his church. A hundred percent of us asking God, how can we serve, how can we pray, how can we give to God's work and then be faithful to it? Of course if you ask the question, God, what would you have me give in scripture? If you look in scripture, he's asked all of us who are believers to be tithers, to bring one tenth obediently to the work of God through the local church. 10%, listen to me, 10% of our income is equal for all. Like if you were a college student that made a couple hundred bucks a month, 10% is 10% to them. And those of us who have gotten a little further in our careers and make a little more, it's still 10%. That God uses to fuel his kingdom's work. Each of us, as Ephesians 4.16 says, doing our part together as a collective for his name, image and likeness. In Malachi chapter three, this is where the clearest picture of this is seen. It says, bring one tenth of your income into the storehouse, that's the local church, other translations will say temple, so that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord of Armies. See if I won't open the windows of heaven for you and flood you with blessings. He's talking to all of us collectively. And then for your sake, I will stop insects from eating your crops. They will not destroy the produce of your land, most of you don't have crops or land or producing fruit, but this is God's protection over your house. It's God's protection and provision. He's blessing and protecting, says the Lord of Armies. And I love this last phrase that he says. He said that all the nations, in other words, all the people out there will call you the collective, the church, the body of Christ, he will call you blessed because you will be a delightful land. I pray that we are a church, that if we were to some reason have to close our doors or no longer exist, that the city of Kalamazoo would say, man, we miss those people. Because they made a difference. They showed up and met a need and they loved us well, that we would be a delightful land. So Kingdom Builders offering today, our big give today is going above and beyond the tide. This is what generous biblical generosity looks like. It goes beyond just obedience so that his church can be called into a nation that would be called blessed and be known as a delightful land. So if you're asking the question, I mean, what is Kingdom Builders? Again, it's all above and beyond generosity. It's giving in a greater, more intentional way to build God's kingdom. So I want you to see Kingdom Builders as a team. We have a team of people that we call the dream team that make New Life Church what it is, right? All of us doing our part, that we literally have someone on camera. We have someone running sound, running the lights. We have someone preaching. We have people that lead. We have people who interpret. We have people that put lyrics on the screen, like all of us together being a part of God's kingdom. A matter of fact, if you feel welcomed or loved or encouraged this morning, it probably didn't come from me. It came from the army of people that God has called to be a part of making this such a special place. Kingdom Builders is a team of people who are collectively called to fuel God's work through financial resources. And we're gonna do this in five different areas of funding focus. The first is local outreach, that we want to be a church that's known outside of our walls, reaching out to people, meeting people's needs. It's why we partner with Safe Families for Children to wrap. Wrap people up in their times of needs. It's why we do Christmas shop. It's why we do the back to school blessing. Number two is next generation. It's making sure that kids and students can go to camps and conferences, go on missions trips to grow in their faith and to have these experiences. Last year, in the last couple of years, we've sent our middle school and high school students to Memphis, Tennessee for a youth conference. And last year, we took almost 30 kids in multiple vans and it was like three or four vans. I wish Kelsey was in the room, but she's not in the room. She has all those details. But we had over 30 kids going and out of those 30 kids, I think like 25 of them needed a scholarship in some way. This is our ability to make sure that no kids and no students can't have those types of experiences at a kids camp, conference or mission trip. That they have access to grow their faith in these special experiences. Number three is NLC building projects. When we moved into this facility, can I just tell you if you're new here, welcome to New Life Church, but for eight years, we set up and tear down, we set up and tore down every weekend on Sunday mornings. I wanna just take time this morning to praise God for the seats that we have. Can we give him praise? Can we, like, I don't want you to take that for granted. Like that's a big deal. But when we moved in here, we needed to get in here and do the best we can. But if I'm being honest, I'm a little, I'm a little, I don't know what the word for it is. I'm a little ashamed of this in some ways. The kids ministry got the short end of the stick. Now our kids ministry is doing a fantastic job and you're about to witness it in just a moment. Can we give our kids team a round of applause? Like they are amazing. But as an example, we had the money, the resources to be able to put carpet in two of our kids rooms. We have about five more that don't have carpets. And so the kids end up sitting on the floor and we have so many kids that they don't even fit on these mats and these mats are called ruggable mats. And they tell me that they're washable. Y'all, they look like trash. Like I was in there a couple of weeks ago, I sat on those and they do a great job. I think we can do better for our kids. Can I get an amen? Like we can get them some carpet. And so we gotta expand some of the technology resources that they have in their classrooms and continue to make a difference for the kingdom in the kids ministry way. Buying new coffee makers and building out a kitchenette. We have space just off of the cafe there. We have so many events and conferences that we host here. We wanna continue to make coffee and hot chocolate and tea and all those things that make this a hospitable place for all of God's people. And so we're using cabinets that already existed in here. And we've got a guy that's designing a builder in town that's designed, that goes to church here that's designing all this, but we gotta do some things. We gotta get a sink put in. We gotta get a filtration system for the coffee. How many of y'all don't want the city of Portage, Michigan's contaminants in your coffee? Can I get an amen? Somebody. We need to get something to wash dishes and some utensils and things like that. And so, man, when you give to the NLC building, building projects, man, that is how we're gonna use those funds. If you have the annual report, if you take that, it has more specific details, meaning specific numbers on what it's gonna take to accomplish these things. So I pray that you would look at that as you consider what you would contribute to these things. The fourth lane of generosity and impact that we have is national missions. We are a church plant. We started this church a little over eight years ago. And look at these babies right here. Man, he's got a glow, doesn't he? We were approved to plant a church through ARC in 2015, and we started in 2016. But just notice, I don't have that same glow. So y'all have like, you've given me gray hairs, I got more wrinkles because of you all, okay, right? So, all right.

Happy to have them, by the way. But man, we just, we have been, but we just can't believe what God has done since he called us to plant New Life Church. And we get to be a part of coming alongside of future church planners and encouraging them and training them. We even hosted an event through ARC to bless pastors and church leaders. And just this fall, we got to be a part of launching another church in Columbia, Missouri, the King's Church. And look at that mustache. I mean, come on, somebody. I couldn't pull that off. I don't, I couldn't do it. But ARC has planted over a thousand churches coming up on 1200 churches, and we were church plant number 608 in 2016, which means we've come alongside of and been able to encourage over 500 church plants since we started New Life Church. And your faithful giving and generosity allows us to do that in national missions, kingdom builders. The last one is global missions. This is specific funding for missionaries, mission trip leaders. We've been talking about this, right? Funding for biblical translations, church planting, specifically in the 1040 window. The 1040 window, right, is mostly Muslim. It's mostly areas of the world where it's literally illegal to be a Christian. You don't have access to a biblical translation. You don't have access to a believer or a church. You couldn't come and do what we're doing here today. And so we're building strategic partnerships with different organizations like Triad. Triad is this logo off to the left for you. This is Triad. Triad is an organization that is located in the middle of the 1040 window. And they're specifically called to train missionaries for the 1040 window. And so if you ended up being, if God called you and said, hey, I wanna be a missionary in India or China or some of those areas, you would be sent to Triad to be trained to become a missionary in the 1040 window. Project 42 you've been hearing about, they're kind of an all encompassing organization that helps with Bible translation, sending missionaries, training them, caring for them. They do business as mission. So many of those places, because they're adverse to Christianity, people have to start a business just to be able to, why can you start a business and start having conversation about Jesus? Because no matter where you are on planet earth, everyone speaks money.

Right? And so they use it as a tool to be able to share the gospel. It's not really about the dollars that they earn, but it's about sharing the gospel. Project 42 is a part of that. Black Box is actually an extension of Triad where as they begin to reach indigenous people in these different people groups in the 1040 window, Black Box is specifically to train and mobilize believers who are indigenous to those regions to be believers. That's what we do here. That's called discipleship. When we teach you how to share your faith and how to engage people and invite people into knowing Jesus, that's being trained for God's purposes. And so that's what Triad does in the 1040 windows. They train indigenous people to reach their specific people groups. And we get to be a part of that. So global missions is an area of emphasis. And so here's what I pray. I pray that you would see this as a team and God would begin to stir in your heart a desire to advance the kingdom of God in one of these areas. And so maybe, man, you're like all in on local outreach. I wanna go above and beyond the tide to accelerate our efforts as a church there. Maybe it's next generation. That's your passion point. Like you wanna sign up for that. Maybe you are NLC building projects. Maybe you're like, I like good coffee and I'm gonna make sure everybody has good coffee. Can I get an amen somebody? Or kids carpets. Like you're gonna do everything you can to get those kids carpets. But God is gonna stir in your heart something, a direction. And I pray that you would take that direction and follow him and be faithful to it. Maybe it's planting more churches. Maybe it's funding missionaries or biblical translations. You do what God has called you to do. I love what 2 Corinthians says in chapter eight. This is the Apostle Paul. And he's speaking to the church in Corinth. I think he's sharing the same thing with us now. He says, and now brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given to the Macedonian churches. So he's comparing and contrasting churches. He says, in the midst of a very severe trial, they are overflowing with joy and their extreme poverty welled up in generosity. Can I tell you something? It doesn't matter how much you have, you can still be biblically generous. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own. By the way, I'm not twisting your arm. I'm not shaking you down. We're not locking the doors until you give. We're not passing the buckets seven times. As a matter of fact, we're not passing the buckets once.

You're doing this entirely on your own. And it says that the heart of this church, they urgently pleaded with us, the church leaders, for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people, the collective, to build God's kingdom. And then they exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord and then by the will of God also to us. You see, they were fueling God's ministry. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made at the beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. They were leading in grace giving. They were leading in the spiritual gift of giving. It says, but since you excel in everything, and can I tell you something? I wanna be a church that excels in everything. Can I get an amen? Like I love, how many of y'all put your heart and soul into your business? You put your heart and soul into your athletics. Man, how much more should we give ourselves to the kingdom of God? Like I love this picture. We have a translator that usually comes on third service and we have people that are deaf and they need ASL translations. I'm grateful that we have a church where someone does that. Man, last service, we had a couple, a family that walked in and they don't speak English at all. I don't know if you know this, I don't speak Spanish. So what are we gonna do? But because God called someone here and because they are doing their part, as all of us are doing our part, she sat next to them back there and translated the entire service so that they could hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Says for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, or I've skipped a part. Since you excel in everything in faith and speech and knowledge and complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you, see that you also excel in this grace of giving. That's why we're emphasizing it because God wants us to be a generous church. He says, I'm not commanding you but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. If he's comparing the churches, can I tell you, I want to be more generous than the church down here. I want to be more generous than Valley Family. I want to be more generous than K First, more than the bridge, more than the river, more than radiant, more than whatever.

Can we be better than them? You're like, I'm not sure we're supposed to say that. I'm sure we're supposed to say that. I'm sure we're supposed to say that. Think about this for a second. What if the pastors, this is just for fun, because you're the last service, I get to do fun things with the last service. Imagine a group of pastors got together and shared what they were giving generously to the cause of Christ.

And then we wanted to beat each other.

Not so that we could win, because if we did that, guess who would win? The kingdom of God.

The people we are called to reach.

I don't know about you, but man, I wanna see more missionaries mobilized around the world for the kingdom of God. I wanna see more resources going to our kids and students so they have experiences where they can encounter God and learn to follow God. Man, what if we as churches unleashed a rational generosity, radical generosity? He says, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sake, he became poor, so that through his poverty, we might become rich. And here's my judgment about what is best for you in this matter, as the Apostle Paul says. He says, last year, you were first not only to give, but also to have the desire to do it. Can we have the desire to be a radically generous church towards the kingdom of God?

He says, now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it according to your means. Do you know what I love? Do you know one of my favorite things about New Life churches? We have kids in college that tithe. We have kids in college that sat in here in the last couple of services that gave above and beyond their ability to build God's kingdom. Why? Because it's bigger than them. And they wanna be a part of the greatest cause on planet earth.

For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one doesn't have. And here's how I would phrase this. Man, if you take care of God's house and God's people, you're a part of this thing that's bigger than just you and I individually, but collectively. We're building ourselves up as all do our parts. As we do that together, if you take care of his God's house, God's house and God's mission, he will take care of your house. In just a moment, our kids worship group is gonna come to the front and they're gonna show you how they have been being trained to worship and to share their love of music and to sing. And we're hoping to do the same thing with our students in the near future. By the way, one of our high school students already sharing his gift.

Samuel, our worship director, came to us while in high school to share his gift.

The song they're about to sing is called Kids by Brandon Lake. In it, you're gonna see the lyrics, powerful lyrics like this one, where it says, we will see the barren hold their babies. I can't tell you how many moms and dads we prayed for over the last several years.

Impossible things we're gonna see with our own eyes. And the girl who sings this verse, her parents, were surrounded by this church family. We prayed for years for them to have a second child.

And today, that two year old little boy is sitting right there. Whoa! Whoa!

Another child is gonna sing of marriages that have been on the rocks and have been restored. We've seen countless marriages in this church when a body of believers comes together to fight for marriages, struggling couples, praying relentlessly for God to speak and to move. The kids collectively are gonna sing, the miracle worker is working a miracle out. And he is never gonna let his kids down. We've seen countless miracles here. And we've seen that when people go all in with Jesus, when you take care of his house and his mission, he takes care of ours.

So let's join together and see what God can do. Oh!

Come here.

["You Are My Man"]

You are my man in my desert, desert.

And you'll be my lily in the valley, the valley. So I would have told you also God that's a pro-pile.

And you will then ran for every Isaac, Isaac.

And you'll be my shepherd when I left the 99. And you'll be beside me in the fire, fire.

So I would have told you what we showed up just in time. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. The miracle worker's working a miracle now. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. The evidence is all around. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. The miracle worker's working a miracle now. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. Your promise says we don't never let your kids down.

We'll see the prodigal returning, returning.

We'll see a marriage on the rocks, come back to life. And we'll see the barren of their babies, their babies. Impossible things we're gonna see with our own eyes. For the miracle worker's working a miracle out. The miracle worker's working a miracle now. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. The evidence is all around. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. The miracle worker's working a miracle now. The miracle worker's working a miracle out. It promises we don't ever let you get down

When you say you show up, you show up When you say you come through, you always do If you did it back then you could do it loud Cause you don't ever let your kids down They call you a healer cause you keep healing They call you a sanger cause you keep saving If you did it back then you could do it now Cause you don't ever let your kids down Cause you show up, you show up When you say you come through, you always do If you did it back then you could do it loud Cause you don't ever let your kids down Call you a healer cause you keep healing They call you a savior cause you keep saving If you did it back then you could do it now Cause you don't ever let your kids down They call you a miracle They call you a miracle They call you a miracle They call you a miracle Cause you put the 388 A miracle You don't ever let your kids down. Man, what a privilege it is that we get to do this together. All different ages, background, races, experiences, coming together as one because of Jesus. And we do this for NIL, for His name, bearing His image, being transformed into His likeness. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. It's the greatest news that anyone could ever receive. And it's the mission of the church to share that news with everybody who would listen. Whether they have a Bible in their language or not, we're going to do the work to expand the kingdom of God together. So as God leads you to give towards kingdom builders and to that end, let's unleash radical generosity together to build God's kingdom. And as we take care of His house, He is going to take care of ours. If you're in the room today and you're just maybe checking this whole Christian, maybe you're just checking out church, you're thinking about Christianity, God is shirring in you something spiritual. Might be the weirdest day you ever come to church where we talk about giving. But can I tell you something? Giving is just one aspect of our faith. We talk about praying and worshiping and serving, having a relationship with God every single day, following Him with everything we are. The Bible says that there's only one way to get to heaven and it's through the name of Jesus by simply believing in Him and making Him our Lord. And so I want to give you the opportunity to make Him your savior and Lord today if you've never crossed that line of faith. If that's you and you're in the room today, I want you to just take a simple step of faith. We're not going to ask you to get up on stage, give a speech, nothing like that. But if that's you, if you want to give your life to Jesus today and be saved and forgiven and receive His purpose, would you do it right now? On the count of three, would you shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up? One, two, three. Maybe you're coming back to God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now because we're a church where we don't have a kids table, I'm going to invite one of our students to actually lead you in the prayer of salvation to put your faith in Jesus Christ. Eliza? He loves me. I admit that I've done wrong things. I admit that I've done wrong things. And I'm very sorry. And I'm very sorry. I believe in my heart that Jesus, I believe in my heart that Jesus, your son, your son, died for me. Died for me. And that you brought Him back to life. And that you brought Him back to life. I commit to following you Jesus. I commit to following you Jesus. You are the leader. You are the leader. And the Lord of my life. And the Lord of my life. Amen. Amen. The Bible says that when one person comes to faith in Jesus, that he will be the one who will celebrate. It says that when one person comes to faith in Jesus, that all of heaven celebrates. It's all I want to take that moment to celebrate you today that you've come into a relationship with Jesus. We want to help you grow in your faith. And can I tell you something? Welcome home. Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

How you guys doing? Good. Good. Good. Good. Go Blue. All right. We're getting started early. Let's go. Let's go. That's right. Well, here's the deal. In 2021, something happened that completely changed the trajectory of our world. Because it was in 2021 that the NCAA started allowing athletes, collegiate athletes, to be paid for their game, image, and likeness. N-I-L. Are you familiar with this? If I'm being honest, I'm a little bit jealous of the situation. Because if you don't know this, I played football for the University of Texas Hook and Mores. Thank you. Thank you. That's my wife always, you know, making fun of me. But I would have loved to have benefited, profited, if you will, off of my name, image, and likeness. Now, I was a kicker, so I would have made about 50 bucks. But 50 bucks, you know, a little bit will go a long way. Am I right? But when you think about this idea, how many, again, how many Michigan fans do I have in the room today? Come on, somebody. I'm not going to name all the teams, because there's a lot of them, and you're very passionate. About your team. But in order for a team or a college to have the best team possible, to pay their athletes, to get the best athletes, to not only come to their school, but stay at their school, they needed to have a lot of money in order to do that. And so they started forming what are called collectives. Collectives are a group of people, business people, and everyday Joes, like you and me, who just love their team, and want them to have the best team possible, because we all want to win championships, right? Any Buckeyes out there? You're in the right place. We'll pray for you after the service. We've all been there. But what happened that changed all of college athletics was that these athletes were able to be paid for their name, image, and their likeness. And so what happens were these collectives formed to be able to provide for that very thing so that each college could have the best team possible. Now, I looked up this particular word in the dictionary. If you have one of those, dust it off later today or pull it up on your Google machine. But if you type in the word collective under the under noun, it says, number one, it's a collective body. Number two, it's a cooperative unit or organization. Sounds a lot like the church. A collective body or a cooperative unit that we're all invested in together to make it the best possible team imaginable. Are you with me? A matter of fact, if you look at the Bible, the Bible, the church collective is known as the body of Christ and the body of Christ is all about N I L. You see, because the church believers in Christ, we exist for the glory of God, for the name that is above every other name, the name of Jesus. We bear, right? God's image and we are being transformed into Christ's likeness. The church, the body of Christ is all about N I L. Now, if some of you are out there thinking, man, that is a genius illustration. I would love to take credit for it, but I went and visited my pastor in Austin, Texas last week and he shared this illustration. And so he gets all the credit for it. His name is Pastor Macrae Scharke. So let's give him a round of applause because it's unbelievable. Collective, collective. We're in this together. We want to have the best possible church imaginable and we do it by being together. Now, when it comes to the collective in the collegiate realm, right, it's all about raising funds to make sure the team has what it needs to be able to pay their players for name, image and likeness. Now, we're not all collecting a bunch of money at church today so that you can get more money for your name, image and likeness, but you're going to see where this is going in just a minute because some of you are going, where's this going, Pastor? And what I do want to do today is talk about the three types of giving that are in the Bible that we as the collective, the organization of God, the body of Christ, are to be a part of. There's three types of giving in the Bible. The first, if you're taking notes, is obedient giving. Obedient giving is the word tithe that's found in the Scriptures. Tithe means tent and the Bible says that we as believers, as God's collective, the body of Christ are to tithe to the local church. Now, check this out for just a second because here's what happens in a room when you start talking about giving. Some people are like, oh my gosh, I don't give. Oh my gosh, I don't give enough. Oh my gosh, I should give more. I don't believe in tithing. I don't want to tithe. All those things. Did you know that when God's word, when God says stuff in his Scripture, he's not just talking to one person. He's talking to the collective. He's talking to the body. And so for just a second, can we all praise God for the believers who obediently give the tithe to the local church because if they didn't, you wouldn't be sitting here today. Can we give them a round of applause? They are a part of making the body of Christ what God intended it to be. In Malachi chapter three, this is where it talks about so crystal clear what the tithe is all about. Now, just for just a second, let me just pause and say this. Obedient giving, bringing the tithe is bringing 10% a tenth of what the Lord gives you. Now, why it, this is a mark. Listen to me. This is a mark of spiritual maturity because if you are a mature believer in Christ, you realize that nothing that you have belongs to you. Zero percent. God owns it all. How do I know this? You won't take it with you, the Scriptures say. When you pass away, you're not packing up your bags, packing up your suitcases to lug it onto heaven with you. God owns everything. He owns a hundred percent of it. And the mark of a mature believer is we see Malachi chapter three when it says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. What's that? The local church, the temple of God, the place where God dwells. Bring the whole tithe. The whole tithe, why does he say the word bring and not give? It's because you can't give what doesn't belong to you. You can only bring that which belongs to God. And he tells us to bring the tithe a tenth into the storehouse. I watch this that there may be food in my collective, in my house for all of us to benefit from. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store. How many of y'all would like to see God open up the floodgates of heaven and bless your life? And then he goes on and he says, and God will not you will, he will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe. How many of y'all not only want the blessing of God, but you want the protection of God over your house? And here's what's crazy. If you were God and you had a collective, the body of Christ through which your mission, your message, every part of who you are was to be distributed to all the people. Wouldn't he want to bless his people more? He wants to open the floodgates of heaven over your life. That's so that you get more, but that's so that we can be a blessing more. Because watch this. He will bless you and protect you, says the Lord Almighty. And then he says that all the nations will call you blessed. Now check this out. He's not talking to you as an individual. He's talking to the body of Christ as a collective. He's saying that when you bring the tithe, it's not about you getting, oh my gosh, you are awesome. You as an individual. When we bring the tithe collectively, obediently to God, the world and each other, we will see the church and we will go, oh my gosh, they are blessed. The nations will call them blessed for they will see that we are a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. How many of you all think that God wants his church, his body to be known as blessed, to be seen as a delightful land? We have the opportunity to do that by just being obedient to God through the tithes. Here's number two. If you're taking notes, the second type of giving found in the scriptures is hospitality and sacrificial giving. In Acts chapter two verses 44 through 47, it said that all the believers were together. That's a collective. It's a collective. And they had everything in common, meaning the mission. Remember the collective is formed so that your team go blue. Could be the best team on the planet. Go green. You someone participated. Go back. I don't really care what team you cheer for unless you come. Come on. Where my guns at you Texas Tech, baby. I know you guys are out there. But collectively we come together to make it the best it possibly can be. And people I try to not say this and that sound like jaded. But think of all the billions of dollars that are being given to the collectives to make your team great. And yet God's church. Pennies on the dollar. Let's let that soberness sink into you for just a second. All the believers were together and they had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. So they not only gave what they have out of their abundance, but they even made sacrifices. They said, oh my gosh, there's other people who have needs. There's other people. You begin to see other people and the needs that they have. And you're not just thinking about yourself. You're thinking about the collective, the family of believers. And so you begin to sacrifice just as God has sacrificed for you to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continue to meet together collective in the temple course. They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts. And it sounds like a nation that is blessed, sounds like a delightful land, a collective, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. I wonder if people look at the church as a delightful land. That they would see us and call us blessed. And it came not individually collectively as the body of Christ. And it says, and the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. Here's the third one. I'm going to invite our team to bring up some chairs with this today because we're going to share a story with you of how you can see this collective in a greater way. Number three types of the third type of giving in the Bible that the Bible talks about is grace giving. Now, grace is a word in the Bible that you're just it's called undeserved favor. In other words, you didn't earn it. It was given to you. It is a gift. And in Romans chapter 12, the Apostle Paul is talking about the various spiritual gifts that he gives to people. And he says, for justice, each of us has one body with many members. Most of you don't have multiple bodies connected to each other. You have one body and you have many members like an arm and some legs and, you know, some toes. And some of you might have some digits and my mother in law, she were here. She has a digit cut off and she can do this little joke where she's sick or figure up her nose and stop her nose. But you she's going to kill me. You watch online. What's up mom and off anyways? We all have one body with many, many members and these members, they don't all have the same function. In other words, our bodies parts do different things. So is the same in Christ, the collective, the body of Christ, though we are many. We form one body, a collective and each member isn't just looking out for themselves. They're looking out for each other. We belong to one another. And we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. It says if your gift is prophesying and prophesy in accordance with your faith, if it is serving, then serve. It is teaching and teach is to encourage and give encouragement. Watch this. And if it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. It is to show mercy. Do it cheerfully. You know what's mind boggling to me is that there's so many people that can that can that can lead corporations and they can lead all these businesses and amazing things. But when they walk into the church, it's like. I don't know what I'm doing here. God wired you exactly who you are on purpose for his purpose. And you have a gift, a grace gift that was given to you. I love I love being able to see that the pictures of what Kelsey was describing that that we had literally a mom who had these kids and we're going to hear more about this in just a second. Who literally got their first apartment for the first time in their lives. And within 24 hours, the collective, the church furnished the entire thing. They had clothes. They had furniture. They had beds for the very first time. Can you imagine if that was your family? They weren't looking at individuals going, oh, my gosh, we're so grateful. They were looking at God's church because we don't do it for ourselves. We do it for his name. Image. And because of his likeness. So they praise him and not us. And so if you. Just for just a second, let's take a poll. You guys ready for a poll? You guys love when I do this. How many out there in your family, you're the budget person. You're the saver. You're the penny pincher. Come on, guys. It's what's here's what's funny. I'm going to do this in the opposite direction. Just second. And the hands are going to fly up. How many budget people are out there? Come on. Don't be ashamed. You pen the pennies. You look at the budget. You make sure it's all in line. Thank God for you. That's a gift. My wife, her hand was like, wow. Now, how many of you are married and you're married to the opposite where they can just let it fly like Black Friday isn't Black Friday. It's black every day. The Amazon packages. The target runs like zing. Well, that's me. How many how many have I got out there? You know what's crazy? Here's what I've noticed in my 20 something years in ministry. The people who can just let it fly when they're buying stuff for themselves are also more generous than the one who's pinching the pennies. Like my wife, it is a gift from God that she budgets and keeps us online. And by the way, I have to manage with our trustees the church's finances. So that's a lot. So she really helps our family in this way. But man, what she needs help with is generosity. What I need help with is budgeting. And can I tell you something? We can be more generous because she budgets because she stewards well. This is the body of God. This is the collective. And it's a beautiful picture if you allow God to work in this way through you. So I'm going to invite some friends of ours up to the stage because we're going to dive into a story today that is very powerful about how this collective can work. So Anderson's come on up. Kelsey, what's up? What's up, bro? Hello. Kelsey is going to be answering the questions I moved off the dot. Sorry. Ask when I say answering. You're going to be asking the question. When did you come to me like church? We came here 2023 just after Easter. You'll hear more about cars too, especially. But I think we were called here. I mean, we truly believe that. And we started reading the Bible and praying a lot. And what's that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And anyways, we're called here. And we serve. She serves in kids. I serve in the production team doing graphics and lights. He also puts together all my notes on the screen. It's usually that's a hard job. Because there's a puzzle. He said it's a puzzle. I love that. It is a puzzle. Well, if it makes sense to you, it's because I have no idea. No, it's not. 100%. No, it's good. And sometimes he gets it Wednesday. Sometimes Friday. No. It's Saturday. It's Saturday. Sometimes it changes on Sunday morning. Sometimes it does. Yeah. We're agile. We always say, bless you the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape. That's right. Yeah. They serve in a lot of capacities here. But we wanted to give you a little bit of background first so that you can understand a little bit about David and Carson. Because not all of you probably know their full story. And just so you know how I met David and Carson was, I got an email from Carson. I think it was right when we moved in here. And Carson said, hi. We don't really know each other. But I actually run a flower farm. And a way that I feel like I've been called to serve is, I want to donate. I think it was like three or four bouquets a Sunday. And I just want you and the staff to pray over who could benefit from these bouquets. And you guys can decide who you're going to gift them to every Sunday. And they're free. And I'm just going to bring them every Sunday. And I want you to give them to someone that needs them. And that's all there is to it. And I was like, what an amazing idea. And then they're like these beautiful bouquets. And we're like, what if I pray in a tea? Yeah. Like, to that I would. I'm not going to do one. Maybe once. But so Carson would bring in these flowers. And some of you were probably actually recipients of these bouquets. And it was such a cool ministry because we'd give women these bouquets. And automatically they'd just start crying. You'd be like, how did you know? How did you know that I needed this this morning? But what women didn't know was that you were actually in the middle of a lot of pain. And you were doing this ministry while you were going through a lot. And can you tell people kind of about this journey of pain that you were going through? And David, you can add on because we know that as a couple, when your wife experiences pain, you're going through it too. It's not just Carson's journey. But how that started, what that looked like for your family. Yeah. So like many of you, I'm sure. I'm no stranger to physical pain. A lot of it's mentally, honestly, when you wake up with something every day that hurts like it does. Started back in 2019. I had already had one surgery previous before we actually needed a surgery in order to get pregnant with our first baby. But back in 2019, during all the really fun COVID stuff that I know we all love, like I'm technically, that was 2020, but it was like the tail end of 2019 was when the pain started. And I had a full hysterectomy. I was, I think, 28 years old. And it was recommended because I was just in tremendous pain, pretty much unable to do normal day-to-day things. The disease had taken over my whole body and it was everywhere. So we went along with that. Our relationship with God wasn't very deep at that point. But going through that, well, let me backtrack just a couple steps. What was the pain like? I describe it like if you've ever been in labor, like very early stages of labor, it's like that all the time. So I mean, I've had two children since I knew that pain very well and just wouldn't go away. So it was like nonstop. I think it's funny, a guy in first service was like, oh, yeah. So I'll tell you guys that.

So we, for a long time I accepted the pain because I thought it was a punishment. And for anyone dealing with that out there, thinking that God's punishing you for your circumstances, I just want you to know that He's not. He's probably, no, He's not probably, He's going to definitely use it to refine you and to show you that even if you feel like you have nothing to live for, there's enough in Him. If you just let Him guide you and be okay with maybe not your plans, but His, because I'm telling you it's so much better that way. I think just to cap it, suffering is never for nothing. That's one thing we've learned through this for sure.

So I go through that surgery and I'm just so grateful that God has healed me. And that's when God really started to work in both of our lives. And I finally accepted the grace that God gives you. And I really understood that it was a gift. It wasn't something I had to earn. It wasn't something that I owed God. But I was just so grateful that I wasn't in pain every day. So I wanted to do something physically to be able to help people. And I'm an okay gardener. I'm not terrible. That wasn't great. But I was like, I think I can do a flower farm. I think let's do something good with it. Let's not just have it be just a normal thing. Let's really show God's goodness in it. And so we donated for every bouquet that we sold. We donated one to Centric and Care Hospice. And so the farm was going great. And I felt the best I had ever felt. And then the second year of the farm, I felt God really preparing me for a few months. Almost like trying to talk myself out of canceling or stopping the farm. But I just kind of like, no, not yet. We can keep going. And then the pain came back. And that was in my life when I looked back, that was the moment of my biggest despair because I looked at my life at what I thought was this big miracle that God had done for me. And then I felt like it was just like swept away. And so I got lost. OK. I think, well, so we ended the farm in 2023. And it was challenging. I think we look back on it though and say it was right. Like it was good that we ended the farm. Yeah, we actually ended the farm. I think our exact donation number was exactly 2,000 that we had donated. It was like a rounded even number. And I remember being like, OK, that seems like a good sign. But I remember feeling like people were going to be disappointed. We felt, I mean, for sure, you said, I think we prayed about it. And I think it feels like a failure right in the moment. And so much that we do, I think, as we maybe get diverted, it felt like a failure. And I had to sell my tractor too, so that sucked. But the sore subject. But since the pain had come back, another surgery was required, obviously. And luckily at that point, I was already planted here at New Life. So I had lots of people around me to encourage me. And I think even Kelsey and Jess both were like, you're not letting us down. If you can't keep this going, that's fine. It's not the end of the world. It'll be OK.

And so almost a year ago today, I had a surgery. And we came to church three or four days after I could barely walk. And just to think how far God has brought us from one year, he's really worked in us that if you have nothing and you don't know what your life should look like, just take the next right step. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, even just to pull it back even further, we never really came to church. I didn't grow up in a religious family, right?

But we knew, when I had kids, we knew in 2023 through this, I don't think we knew the reason for the draw, but we were drawn, right? We started reading the Bible before we came. We got conviction through it. Here we get conviction right. And I think that maybe the thing we've learned through the process of many, many probably haven't learned it over and over again in a way, right? Just like take the step. Take the step. It's so intimidating, all these different things, even just the surgeries, trying to navigate things. As a husband, you can't... I'm sure many husbands can relate. Our job first in so many ways is to solve the problem, protect the family, provide. You can't. It's not in your control. So you're in... You're in... Oh, yeah. So you're in... It's in 2023, right? I think it was like October, November. You had shut down the plotter farm. The pain has come back worse. So you feel like every day you're in early stages of labor, right? You've had a hysterectomy where you had told me that if your dreams have been to have more kids, right? You have two beautiful children. And in that season, you see a posting that we're hosting a Safe Families meeting here. And in the middle of your most hopeless season, you say, we're going to go learn about what Safe Families is, even though I feel completely hopeless, I'm in the worst pain I've ever been in, I feel like a failure, and you guys show up to Safe Families. How did the decision to be the first ever host family for New Life Church change the trajectory of your family's lives? How did that impact you? What did that look like for your family? Yeah, so at this point, before we had gone to that meeting, we were just really unclear about what God wanted us to do. We were here serving at church, but we know there's something more, right? Like, I know that God can use our brokenness, and like this isn't the end. One of the things that I remember that kept us coming to New Life was, Dan said something about radical generosity, and that really spoke to me, because I thought our farm was still going at that point. And that just was really encouraging to keep doing the business model that we were doing. So we go to the Safe Families meeting, and we're in the back trying to keep us... Local, right? Yeah, we don't want... Yeah, I don't want to take you to the... Very local. We need to get up. And Jenny, a worker for Safe Families, she used the term radical hospitality, and at that point I'm just in the back row bawling. I'm just like, okay, God, like... I didn't know what you had for me, but I know that you wanted me here to hear this, and I know that you can use this, and that we can have more kids in our house, because he's provided to law for us. Yeah, for sure. We've been blessed with it. We do have two kids, and even, you know, that was a struggle, but it came to fruition somehow. I just want to add something real quick that I just love. First of all, you didn't say this in this service, that you didn't last service, and you came because you loved me. That's true, yeah. We saw... You're not even saying that first. It's kind of what I said. Oh my gosh. That's what I heard. Exactly. Yeah. But let me make that... You are very lucky. Let me make that point. I'm very lucky. Some people will watch me online and go, yeah, that's too much. Oh yeah. He did say that. He said you were a lot. Yeah, but what I love, though, is you guys made it... I did say sweetie. You didn't really have this faith background. You didn't have a family to put this into you, and you made a decision together to go through and read the Bible yourselves in a year. Yeah. I think that is so important for everyone, because that way you're being pastored by God Himself. Yeah. And you can see it in heartbeat every time when you're in that. Yeah. You can take one little snippet of what I might say out of context, like radical generosity and just say, do you just want us to give all your money away? But when you see God's heart throughout the Scriptures in radical generosity, radical hospitality, that changes you. Oh, for sure. And I mean, without a doubt, when I finished reading the Bible for the first time, I just remember thinking like, okay, what did I take from all that? And the thing that just screamed at me was, take care of the orphans and widows. Yeah. You know, and then... And even just to cap on that further, it's like He didn't come to be served, He came to serve, and said, okay. Well, and so I think we knew we needed to do an act in some way. And we had no idea at the moment, like what was that going to be? So just a snapshot of Safe Families. Safe Families is an organization that hopes to somewhat prevent... Kids from going to the foster care. And it partners specifically with the local church because we are a collective, because we are the body of Christ. We're the family of believers that wraps our hearts and minds, our resources. We help in all of our gift things. We're looking after the vulnerable, and there isn't any more vulnerable than kids. And so many of these families, whether it's usually mom, but they don't have a support structure like a lot of us do. Like if you're in a crisis, you probably have a parent to call, or a friend to call, or a sibling to call to help you. But there's so many families that don't have that. And so what Safe Families does, it hopefully prevents kids from going into the system, into foster care, because they are being loved by the collective of the church. And so there's what they're called a circle of support, where host families are in the center of that. Like you're opening up your home. You're expressing radical hospitality and radical generosity. Like these are not your kids, and you're inviting them into your home for a period of time. The average hosting is usually a couple weeks, I think it is. But it could be for a weekend. It could be up to six months. There's all sorts of different hostings, but then there's a circle of support around it. So people can be a resource friend. They can be a family coach. They can come together in all these different ways to support these families in need. So you decided to plunge into the deep end and be a host family to open up your home to these kids. And it was chaos. No, it was great. We got approved to be a host family on July 2nd, I think officially. And we got our first placement on July 2nd. And we drove back from Sichawana as on a little family trip. And we met this family at a park. And the idea is like we're going to meet them. We're going to get to know them. One thing I love about Sichawana is actually is that it's all voluntary. Like the mom comes voluntarily, the family comes voluntarily. We come voluntarily. Everyone comes voluntarily, which is totally opposite of not opposite, but it's totally different than foster care. Well, and that's crucial because they want help. Yes, absolutely. And people who want help, they change. Yes. Like they get the help they need to get out of the circle or the cycle that they're in. Yeah. And that's one of the things I think that I love about it for sure. It's not like, it's not charity. It's not welfare, right? It's not charity in that way. It's somebody that's made a bad choice or maybe a series of bad choices and that wants to get out of a hole. And so you can come in and help lift them out, right? Like by God's grace. Yeah. And it's amazing to see people think that you're going to give up on them and you haven't. And that's because I think we as the church, we know that when we mess up God, we can go to God with that and be forgiven. But for this certain demographic to see that in action of like, hey, I know you messed up and like this might be going so great, but like I still love you and I still want to help you. Yeah. Yeah. And so we had, we took in the kids for five weeks. And it was wild and fun. And like there was a lot of joy and frustrations along the ways. And then they went home with mom for 21 days, for 21 days of prayer actually coincidentally. That's great. And then we got them back for about a week. And it ended like kind of tumultuous in a way. They moved to Chicago to be with other family and to Carson's point about the never giving up. They're back in Michigan. They're back in Kalamazoo now. And what did we do this week, David? We moved them into their apartment, right? Yeah. I mean, it was awesome. You can't, there's no way to describe it other than like, I mean, tears and gratefulness and the collective, right? Because we didn't do it. You didn't do it on your own, right? Like we did it together. There was so much stuff and like, um, and I think that's where the, she was the mom was just, I mean, she hugged you. And yeah, the mom, um, one of the things that was donated was a Christmas tree. And, um, as really when she gave me hug and she said, I haven't had Christmas with my family in over two years, like this, her kids are going to get to wake up on Christmas. And so like for all of you that helped donate and bring stuff, I knew it was like last minute, but thank you so much. Like it made such an impact on this family. Yeah. And then on the idea of like the collective, right? Like I think the heart, well, she was, she's so easily like obedient, right? And I'm the saver. So I'm like, I don't know. Should we be resource fans, friends instead of host families and, and, um, the, uh, just on the idea of the collective is that, where was I going with this? I don't know, but how different does the world look if we all do this? Right. If, Oh yeah. If we actually care for the orphans and the widows and we, and the church isn't known as this judgmental place of shame, and it's known as the people that love kids and the people that want families to be together and the people that, that love on these people that no one else loves right now. Yeah. And it's intimidating. That's what I'm going to do. It's intimidating because I was intimidated by like the unknown and there's so much unknown in it. Yeah. And the heart, but the hardest thing you'll do is take the first step. That's what he always says. Always like no matter what problem was going on. The 90% of the battles just show up. Yeah. And you couldn't wait to say yes again. Oh yeah. Well, she's already trying to figure out how to get a sprinter van. Cause now there's a family of like seven and she doesn't have a big enough car. That's right. She told me this week, like, I just need to find a bigger car. We have, we have multiple host families and we, we even had, there was one particular placement where you guys were kind of fighting over who's going to get it. You're like, I'm going to, you know, I'm taking them out. And like, what? That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And it's collective hope. Yeah. God's word says that he places the lonely in families. Yeah. Yes. And he lifts those up who are broken hearted and, and we are the collective hope that the world needs. Yeah. And we just need to take that step to be a part of it in whatever aspect we can be. And so maybe you're out there and you're thinking, man, I think I could take in some kids for a weekend or for a week. Maybe you could be a resource friend. Maybe you could be a family friend that helps drive kids to school or, you know, helps pick up groceries or anything like that. Like, and the beautiful thing is we're not doing this for us. We're doing it for his name. Yeah. His image and his likeness. Yeah. And in, and in hopes that they see the church for the delightful land that it is. Yeah. Yeah. That they see it as a blessed place that we get to be a part of this together. Yeah. Can I add one thing? Yeah. One thing that I love about David and Carson story is, and I wanted them to share their story from the beginning. Because I don't want you to think like, well, they're just in a season of life that we're not in yet. They came to that meeting in the most hopeless season they've ever been in. And then their hopeless season, they brought someone else hope. And that to me is the most inspiring thing I've ever seen. And there were days and there were weeks that they came in and they said, one of their kids was really struggling with having other kids in their house and was really struggling with sharing toys and adjusting. And there were times that it was ugly. Yeah. And it was hard. And just last week I got a picture of the same kid with a card saying just how proud they were of the fact that they now have two more siblings that they love and that they gave kids a home this year. Yeah. And while they were moving in the family, the same kid couldn't wait for the two kids to get there to play with them. Right. Yep. And just to see that transformation, what the impact is having on their own two kids and in the middle of their most hopeless season, they're helping bring hope to another family. But also the goodness of God is that just this week Carson got a diagnosis for her pain and was told that there's treatment that she can now live pain free. And that's the God that we serve. That he says while you're bringing hope to someone else, I'm also going to bring hope to you. That's right. Don't worry. I don't just expect you to take care of others. I'm going to take care of you and your family too. And that's hope collective. That's right. That's the collective hope in the God that we serve. Can we thank the Andersons for sharing this story with us? You're welcome.

Because not on I didn't turn it on. In all the years that I've served God and been a part of his church, there's one that I've experienced over and over and over again. And that is when people take a step in faith to serve God, to pursue Him, to lift up His name, His image, and bear His likeness. What's crazy is that a lot of times we begin to think that it's us doing something for someone else. That what we do, what we give is going to change their lives, and it does.

But there's no one that changes more than it, than you. So I bet if we ask that the Anderson's opening up their home and being a blessing to this family, I bet you would say that your life has completely changed for the better since taking that step of faith. So God wants to invite you into it. He wants to invite you into His collective. Whether it's being obedient to tithing, whether it's sacrificial giving and sacrificial hospitality, being a part of something called safe families, where the collective of the church gets to point to the goodness of God. That when people see it, they will know that this place, these people, is a blessed nation, is a blessed land, a delightful land. And God wants to invite you to be a part of it. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we are grateful today that that you said in your word, Jesus, you said that for God so loved the world

that you gave your one and only son.

That would whoever would believe in His name

would not die but receive eternal life. There's no greater hope and there's no greater gift that's ever been given.

That because of you, Jesus, our sins can be forgiven and our lives can be made new, transformed. And so God, in this moment, I pray that you would speak to every single one in the room today in directly the place that they need to hear from you today. For some, it's taking a step of faith to give, to tithe, to serve. For some, it might be being radically hospitable to a family by becoming a host family or a resource friend or a family coach. But God, I pray that you would rise up, raise up your collective, your body of Christ, because that's how you bring your collective hope to the world. If there's anyone in the room today and you've never given your life to Christ, I want to invite you to do it right here and right now. The Bible says that we are all separated from God because of our sin. But because of Jesus, He has bridged that gap back to Him, that we can turn from our sin and turn to Him, believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved and transformed. If that's you today, I'm going to invite you to step into a relationship with Jesus right here and right now. On account of three, I want you to take a step of faith and shoot your hand up in the air saying, here I am, God, I receive you. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. Now from your heart to God, I'll help you with the words. Simply say, Jesus, in this moment, I turned from my sin and my selfishness and I turned to you. Forgive me. I choose to believe Jesus that you died on the cross to forgive me of my sin and you rose again to offer me a new life, a transformed life. And so in this moment, I turned from my sin and I turned to you. Forgive me. Come inside of me and change me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit that I might be able to live in your collective, being a part of your family in the body of Christ for your name, bearing your image, transformed into your likeness. In Jesus name, I pray. Church, will you put your hands together for our God who saves.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning New Life Church How is everybody today? Good. My name is Jess. As Pastor Dan said, I am your next steps pastor here under Pastor Dan's leadership and I'm also his sister-in-law. So we have a really fun time working together. He is actually hold tight. This thing wants to take a picture of you all instead of giving me my notes. I have my husband's iPad today and it's a little bit smarter than me. He and I get the honor of working together here at New Life and he's actually in Texas today with his oldest daughter Harper. He took her to her first UT game yesterday and got to have her experience her first win. If you guys follow him on social media, check out his pictures because they are adorable of Harper. I'll tell you how well she is having the time of her life. This morning, many of you who don't know me or haven't known me for a long time, I was having a hard time getting on this stage. Not because of anything that's going on in life but because I don't love public speaking. I have learned to love what God can do when I say yes and I'm faithful and let him open my mouth on stage. But it was so cool because I was sitting in the front row worshiping and thinking like God, my voice didn't last through two services last time I preached. How's it going to last through three? And I really need you to show up. I stumble over my words and this is going to be hard. I looked up here and while I don't have permission to share the stories, I saw our worship team being faithful, praising God in the middle of their storms. I saw people that are in a storm that's been the last 12 to 24 hours and they're in pain. I saw people that have been in pain for the last five years. I saw people that have been in pain for the last year and I thought, how cool is it that they are trusting our God of promises that he's still good even when life isn't and they're still willing to stand up here and worship him and lead all of us knowing that he's good to his promises and he's going to come through on whatever storm they're facing. So can we give the worship team just a thank you today? It was so cool and encouraging to me.

We are in part four of Genesis. This is the last message in our series and we are going to talk about God's plan to redeem and restore this broken world. Without Genesis, humankind consistently falls short of God's character and his commands. We doubt God's goodness. We try to displace him as our master. We deny our sin and we deny his power. But we see repeatedly that God uses broken people like you and me to bring about his plans and promises and to remind us of his faithfulness. Last weekend, Kelsey shared an incredible message with us about fractured relationships that we live in with God and people and then how God wants to forge a relationship with us that will then overflow into every other relationship in our lives. She gave us four D's that lead to fractured relationships. Disobedience to God, displacing God as our master and choosing ourselves, thus choosing sin as our master, denying our sin and then distancing ourselves from God. She also gave us three F's about how God wants to forge our relationship with him and then with others. We need to find favor. We do that by reading his word, worshipping his name, being in his house and spending time with his people. He wants us to follow obediently, doing exactly as he commands when he commands it, regardless of the situation or our perceived outcome. And he wants us to faithfully move, acting on God's promises and faith, trusting God to do what he says he'll do and taking that first step of obedience into what he has promised. Today we pick up in chapter 11 and guys buckle up because we've only made it 11 chapters in three weeks and now I get to take you through 11 through 50. So exciting. I really want to encourage you to read these chapters at home this week. I often as an adult thought up until like the last year and a half, I know all of those stories, right? Those are the ones that we were taught in kids ministry if we grew up in the church. And so I wasn't interested in reading them, but then I started the Bible recap, read through the Bible in a year. I'm in my second year and I have been blown away at what God can teach us as adults. These heroes of our faith that we thought were just these amazing people that God wanted to use as an example for us are actually broken, just like you and me. They mess up his plan every time. And we see consistently that we fall short. Our heroes of faith fall short, but God never does. He's faithful. He moves and he always acts on his promises. So today I want you to see three things as we go through the story of Abraham. God's promises always prevail. His plans proceed and faith requires us action. We have to anticipate God's fulfillment and move on it. We're going to start in chapter 11 with the Tower of Babel. So at this point, the whole world has one language. We're past the flood. Noah's family is repopulating the earth, but they're all kind of sticking together when God told them to spread out and to multiply. They decide that they are going to build a tower to heaven to elevate a name for themselves which means they're displacing God as their master. And they even say, let us make a name for ourselves so that we won't be scattered throughout the earth. Guys, talk about complete disobedience. God said, spread throughout the earth and they said, let's build a tower so we don't have to. But God's plan prevails even though their idolatrous ambition is to build a tower to heaven, he comes down to them. He meets them where they are. He confuses their language and he scatters them. This is more God's mercy than it is his judgment because he knows that as humans, if we can all band together and use our sinful nature to make our plans come true, we would thwart his plans. We know that that's not possible to thwart his plans, but it's because he is always in control. Once again, after this tower of Babel and he spreads the people out, God will begin to redeem and restore his fallen creation and he'll start where he always starts with one man who is willing to do his will even if he doesn't do it perfectly. Abraham, or Abram at this point, is that one man. He's God's chosen remnant of his fractured world just like Noah was his chosen remnant from the flood. God calls Abram by grace, which means that he does not deserve to be the one to be called at this point, to bless this fractured world and to forge a relationship with his people. Abram's family continues to live in fractured relationships while God forges his relationship with them and ignites their faith. He'll use Abraham and his plan to restore every tribe, every tongue, and every nation to Jesus himself. Today we're going to look at the Abrahamic covenant. It's God's covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants. We're going to dig into what is it, who is it for, who upholds it, and what does it mean to us today? You will hear me go back and forth between Abram and Abraham over and over again because I can't keep it straight. He's the same man. He starts out as Abram and God eventually changes his name as part of the promise to Abraham. So what is this covenant promise? The book of Genesis goes through 2,000 years and more than 20 generations, yet it sends a third of its text on Abram. That means that he must be a huge pivotal point in God's story. His name appears 312 times in 272 verses. He's undoubtedly one of the most influential people in shaping our faith today. The promise that God makes to Abraham is found in Genesis 12, 1-3. And I will read it to you guys here. The Lord has said to Abram, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous. And then it goes on to say, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you. So what does God promise Abram? First he promises him land. Specifically, God promises him the land of Canaan that we now know today primarily as Israel. God promises Abram a nation. He promised to make a nation from him. He will have children and grandchildren and further descendants enough to populate an entire nation, more than the stars in the sky that he can count. God promises Abram blessing and protection. God promised to make his name great. There's probably no more honored name across multiple religions than Abram. He's honored by Jews, Muslims, and Christians. And we all strive to have a faith like his and to be a friend of God like he was. God says, I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who treat you with contempt. He promises that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the tribes of Israel, the Jewish people, and then finally us, will be protected by him. This remains true today and it's actually the reason for the decline and death of many kingdoms throughout our history. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Not only was Abram promised blessing on his own life, but God promised to make him a blessing, even to the point where every family on earth would be blessed. This blessing was not for his own sake or even for just the Jewish nation to come. It was for the entire world, for every family, and it came through Jesus Christ. Jesus is actually a descendant of Abraham. He comes through the family lineage and it is completely fulfilled in him coming as our Messiah and adopting us into Abraham's family. Spurgeon says it really well. He says this indicated a missionary vision that God intended Abraham's covenant descendants to have. They were to look beyond themselves to all nations, to all the families of the earth. There you see was the missionary character of the seed of Abraham if they had but recognized it. God did not bless them for themselves alone, but for all nations. In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Who upholds the covenant promise to Abraham? This is point two you guys. If you are taking notes, we'll have four. Does Abraham uphold the covenant? Well, let's see. He does leave his native country and he leaves most of his family but not all of them. He takes lots, so there's partial disobedience there. He moves toward the land that God is going to show him and that God is promising him, but when famine comes to that land, he thinks, oh no, I'm out. God's promised to protect him. He's promised to provide for him and he's promised that he is going to make him into a nation so we know he's not going to die of famine, but he's also not going to let God hold that in his hands and he takes off and goes to Egypt. Fun little fact, throughout the Bible, when God's people are called to follow him and then they turn around and go back to Egypt, it's always a sign of them walking away or out of his promises. It's a sign of not trusting him and we see the repercussions of that. Later when he's in Egypt, Abraham asks his wife Sarah, Sarai at the time, to lie and say that she's his sister because he's afraid that they will kill him if they find out that she's his wife because she's beautiful. Once again, he must not be trusting that God is going to give him descendants through his wife Sarah because he's afraid that they're going to kill him, so they lie and that gets them into trouble. He lies again later about her being his sister, which is a half-truth because she was his half-sister, but again, she is his wife. And even then, he decides way down the road to take God's promise into his own hands. He's old, Sarah believes that she'll never have a child, she gives him her servant and says have an heir through her so that we can make this promise work. Jacking full faith in God's promises at this point, Abraham is trying to obey partial commands while taking the rest into his own hands because he doesn't fully trust God to provide or protect. But just wait. Just like you and me, Abram is a work in progress. His faith will grow with every misstep and every trial that he goes through. I want you to see a few things here. Knowing fear, rule over faith leads us to walk away from and delay God's provision and protection. Abram's partial obedience does not negate God's promise. Instead, we might argue that it delays it or that it causes him and other people added strife, but God will uphold this promise. Abram does not start as a hero of faith. He is an example of growing in faith and obedience. We see over and over again throughout the entire Bible. If you read through Genesis this week, you will see it's like a pattern of God tells his people what to do. They try to take matters into their own hands. It doesn't go well, but God, he always shows up. Scripture never endorses the sins of Abraham and his descendants, but it reminds us that God uses broken people just like you and me to bring about his plans and promises and remind us of his faithfulness. Think about when you're driving here in Michigan with me for a minute. We have construction season, right? It's right in the middle of the summer when we all want to actually travel and have the ability to do so. Then we get stopped by detours. Detours always take us back to our intended path, but they take longer and they frustrate us to no end. But detours always mean that something is being constructed or corrected. God is in a building program, building Christ-likeness into our lives, and sometimes he has to use those detours to bring us back. Can you think of past detours in your life, or are you on one right now? Times when it seemed like God was delaying his promise and you were trying to take your future into your own hands in a way that maybe wasn't in line with his will. How did that turn out? Can you see looking back how he constructed or corrected you to become more like him during that detour? I can tell you guys that my husband Chris and I met in college. We met our freshman year and we were both on detours. I had been raised in a Christian home from infancy all the way up. I had accepted Jesus at an age that I couldn't even remember. I was two or three. I had walked with Jesus closely through middle school. And then I didn't stop believing in him or stop loving him, but I sure as heck stopped obeying him in high school and in college. Chris was raised in a home where they believed in Jesus, but they weren't in church. His grandparents were believers and his dad and mom were often working on Sundays, but he had a girlfriend. I raised God for her, whose father led him to Jesus. And he was baptized at 16. But then college came. He was in relationships that weren't God honoring. I was in relationships that weren't God honoring. And we were both kind of just off track. We were on a detour that was taking us away from God's intended purposes for us. Thank God, three years later, being friends this whole time, we both came off that detour at the same time. We chose a different route for our own relationship. We chose to do it God's way. And we were blessed for that. But guys, we brought baggage in that we picked up along that detour that we probably never would have had to bring in to God's intended marriage had we not stuck with him the whole way. We brought in heartache. We brought in memories that we had to work through because I think you're going to be just like so and so who wasn't following God and you're going to hurt me. When we're driving on a detour, we're constantly looking for our shortest way back to our intended path, right? How obnoxious is it when that detour goes in the absolute opposite direction of where we're trying to go? And we're doing anything we can to get back to the direction we're trying to go. Not a single one of us lives a detour free life. But how much better and more blessed can our lives be when we quickly recognize that we're on a detour and we work to get back on God's planned path? Can we all agree from the things we said about Abraham that he is not the one who upholds this promise because he's a flawed human just like you and me? Yeah? Good. God himself upholds the promise. A covenant is an agreement between two parties and there's two different kinds. The first type of covenant is a conditional covenant. When two parties enter into this, they both agree to the terms of the covenant and the covenant will fail if either one doesn't meet their end of the bargain. In old ceremonies back in Bible times, they would actually cut animals in half, put the halves of their bodies on each side and then the two parties in a conditional covenant would walk between the animals while stating the terms of the covenant and basically saying that if I break this, I will be cut in half just like these animals. An unconditional covenant is one that it's still two parties. They're still in agreement but only one has to uphold their end of the deal. It solely relies on that one party and nothing is truly required of the other party to make sure that what they said in the covenant happens. Genesis 15 shows us that the Abrahamic covenant is an unconditional covenant. God knows that Abraham is human. He's flawed like you and me and he absolutely cannot uphold his end. So he takes full responsibility for the covenant himself. In Genesis 15 1 through 8, we see that Abraham is expressing his doubts like we all have about the fulfillment of God's promise to him because of his current circumstances. So we read, some time later the Lord spoke to Abram in a new vision and said to him, do not be afraid Abram for I will protect you and your reward will be great. But Abram replied, oh sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have its son? Since you've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all of my wealth. You've given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir. Then the Lord said to him, no, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir. Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That's how many descendants you'll have. The last part says, and Abram believed the Lord and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. Then God reminds Abram of the promise of land that's included in this promise too. And he once again assures him that he can be certain of that promise being fulfilled. This is when we see God tell Abram to gather the necessary blood sacrifice animals for that covenant ceremony. Abram collects them, he presents them to God, and he cuts them in half, but then God puts him to sleep. God knows that Abram can't uphold his end of the deal, so he takes him out of it. He puts him into that deep sleep, and we read in Genesis 15, 17. After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch in the Old Testament God shows up often as smoke or flame. Pass between the two halves of the carcasses. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, I have given this land to you and your descendants all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River. The land now occupied by, and I said for service, like, can we put this in red so that you can all read these names with me? The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Raphites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gergishites, and the Jebusites. Whoa. The certainty of the covenant does not rely on Abram at all. It relies on who God is, not on who Abraham is, or what Abraham will do. The covenant can't fail because God cannot fail. In chapter 17, Abram's 99 years old and still childless. So I'm sure, like, those of us who have waited on something from the Lord for so long and we know the desires that he's put in his heart, Abram's probably getting pretty weary. But God changes his name at this point from Abram, which means father, to Abraham, which means father of a multitude. So once again, he's dropping that seed of hope, that faith, that reminder, my promises are still true, even if it doesn't look like it here. God says to Abram, I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant. I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. Then he says, and I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever and I will be their God. In Genesis chapter 21, God fulfills the promise to give Sarah and Abraham a son. She gives birth to Isaac. They've waited 25 years since God first spoke of them having a son. They're 100 years old and 90 years old. Can you imagine their shock, their joy, and maybe their fatigue? What are you waiting for God to provide in your own life? Do you believe that no matter how long the wait, God will be faithful? Are you waiting on a loved one to come to know Jesus? I can promise you that I waited years and years and he is faithful. Are you waiting on God to save your marriage? Are you waiting on that child that you believe in your heart that he's promised to your family and he hasn't given you yet? Whatever you're waiting on, are you waiting on healing? We know that he's faithful and we get to look at stories like this in the Bible to remind ourselves that no matter how long seems too long, he will still come through. By chapter 22, Abraham faces his greatest test of faith, I would argue, in his life. Having witnessed God's faithfulness for over 40 years, Abraham shows up this time with a completely different faith than what we saw when God first called him out and into the promised land. This is a pivotal moment in Abraham's faith. Isaac, his son, is a young man at this point and God calls Abraham to seemingly sacrifice his son as an act of worship to God. So Abraham obeys completely and immediately to the point of having Isaac carry everything needed to make the altar on his back up the mountain. He prepared the altar and he even went so far as to have Isaac lay on it. Now Isaac must have watched a man of faith as he's been growing up because he's old enough to overpower his 125-year-old dad and he doesn't. He obediently follows him knowing that his dad is obediently following God. But Isaac does ask on the way up. He says, where's the sacrifice? And Abraham says, son, God will provide it. So Abraham is going up there, he's laying his son on the altar, he's ready to kill his son as a sacrifice to God. And God calls out to him and shows him that there's a ram caught in the thicket. Some Bible versions will even tell you that that thicket was probably the same material that Jesus wore in the crown of thorns on his head. And God says, here's your sacrifice, take this instead. Abraham knew that even if God allowed him to kill his only son, that promise would still be fulfilled. He knew that God would bring him back to life or that he would stop him in time because he knows that Isaac is the one that the rest of the promise will come through. In Hebrews 11, 17 we read, it was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham who had received God's promises was ready to sacrifice his only son Isaac, even though God had told him. Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted. Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to live again. Where do you see yourself in your own faith journey today? Are you on a detour, walking away from God, partially disobeying him because you don't trust that he'll protect and provide? Or are you moving toward that uncompromising faith that Abraham shows later in his life, showing that God's able to provide and protect when he takes Isaac up that mountain? What kind of faith are your kids watching, your family, your friends? And what kind of faith are you striving to grow into? If you despair knowing that you do not have Abraham's faith yet, take comfort in knowing that you have Abraham's God, the same God that built that faith in Abraham that we watched grow, he can build in you and in me. And you do have faith. It's not the kind of faith that we talk about in God, but think about it, you buy a ticket to a sporting event and you trust that that ticket's gonna get you in, that it's good. You make your weekend plans in the summer based on the weather report and you go forward with those plans trusting that the weathermen are gonna be right. Or you fly on a plane trusting that the mechanics and the pilot know what they're doing. But we trust in all of these things, even knowing that false tickets are sold, right? We see scams all the time, weathermen are often wrong and planes crash. How much greater faith can we have in the author and perfecter of our faith who never fails in his promises? Number three, who is the covenant for? It's for the family line of Abraham all the way through Jesus and then modern day Jewish people today. God repeats his promise to Isaac and we see it fulfilled all the way through Abraham and every generation to Jesus and it still holds true. We see God create this nation of Israel through miracle after miracle, through barren women giving birth to children and often twins nonetheless. Some of these barren women, Sarah was barren and gave birth to Isaac, whose barren wife Rebecca gives birth to twins Esau and Jacob. Jacob's barren wife Rachel gives birth to Joseph. Jacob's other wife Leah, and remember scripture doesn't endorse him having two wives, it just tells us because he's broken, gives birth to Judah who is then in the family line of Jesus. This promise though is also for everyone of us. We get adopted into his family through faith in Jesus. Just like God passed through the broken bodies of the animals for Abraham, God the father walked through the broken body of Jesus to establish his covenant with us and God signed it for both of us. We merely enter into the covenant by faith. We don't actually make a covenant with God. Ephesians 4 21 to 24 says, he, Abraham, was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises and because of Abraham's faith, God counted him as righteous and when God counted him as righteous, it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was recorded for our benefit too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins and he was raised to life to make us right with God. We as Gentiles get to be adopted into the family and he chose each and every one of us were chosen. He's also asking us to go invite others into the adoption of that family. I have a really short video for you from Amir Tsarfati, one of my favorite pastors to watch explaining just how special that adoption is.

He is the Christ. Jesus is not a Christian. I know it's a shocker, but Jesus is not a Christian. God is not Jewish, by the way. And by the way, Jesus never ever quoted the New Testament even once in the entire gospel. Paul never used the New Testament to preach. I'm not trying to put down any, I'm just trying to tell you, going to church today with only the New Testament in the Psalm is half the Bible and I hope you paid half the price for it. Galatians 4 says, but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. He was a Jew of the tribe of Judah to redeem those who were under the law that we, say we, that we might receive the adoption as sons. We're all adopted. Do you understand that in the rabbinical writings adoption is even stronger than being born of your own mother and father? Do you know that being born to your own mother and father could be a planting or accident? Hello? You know, something happened, you know, but when you, there is no accidental adoption. You don't live your life and accidentally you have adopted someone. To adopt someone is to choose someone as he is and to say, I want him. That's the adoption that we all have. Are you guys glad to be adopted by Jesus into that family? I sure am. What does the Abrahamic covenant mean for us today though? First of all, it says something about our relationship with the Jewish nation of Israel. We have to pray for them. We should watch them because God's plans and promises that he has for the future come through them. And we need to remember that God told Abraham, I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you. We can't gloss over that part of the promise and what it means to us, but it could also be an entire sermon series. Just know that as adopted family members of the family of Christ, we're called to pray for and bless his chosen people. If you have questions on this, check your email tomorrow or your app. We will send some homework from a mirror that explains all of this. But again, he goes into it so much more deeply than I ever could. It also means that we have an opportunity to build our faith through remembering God's faithfulness to Abraham and his descendants. We read in Galatians, therefore, he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. You and I friends get to be sons of Abraham. Our call is to go to all nations, tribes, and tongues with the gospel because as adopted members of the family, we have to make sure that others have that option to be adopted into the family as well. We've recently partnered with Project 42 whose mission is to reach 42% of the world who has never heard the name of Jesus and they don't have access to the gospel. They say it really well when they say joyfully and optimistically, we look forward to the promise that every nation and language will gather around the throne of Jesus and give him the worship and glory that he alone is worthy of. In Matthew 28, Jesus gives us his great commission. He says go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is our call of what we're supposed to do with what we've been freely given through adoption into God's family. We have to go and share that same gift of adoption with every single person who hasn't heard the good news of Jesus. Friends will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much Lord for the gift of adoption. We thank you for your son Jesus who died on the cross and rose again in order to bring us into eternity with you. And we thank you for the promises that you made to Abraham and the ways that we can see those promises apply to our own lives, the way that they can build our faith and help us to trust in you more, help us to obey you. Friends, if you have never accepted Jesus or if you have and you've been on a detour for a while and you're ready to come back, I want to pray with you today. I want to pray for you. This is a moment that you can choose and say, Jesus, I believe in you. I trust you. I know that you are a God who keeps your promises and I want you to be Lord of my life. If you want to pray that prayer with me today, would you raise your hand just so that I know who I'm praying for? Friends pray this with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you love us enough to send your only son Jesus to die for our sins. We make you Lord of our lives. We admit that we're sinners and that we fall short, but that you alone can uphold your promises for us. Jesus, we want you to come into our hearts. We want you to take over our lives. We thank you for your salvation and we trust in you. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Friends, let's put our hands together for a God who's saved.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning everybody. Welcome to New Life Church. How are you guys doing? Good. Oh, it's the 10am. We've awoken. That's how we know. Yeah, the 10am would be my service too if I didn't work here. Just, well, 1130, let's be honest. I'd be an 1130-er. Well, my name is Kelsey Smith. If we haven't met, I'm so excited that you guys are here. I oversee all of our youth, our 6th through 12th graders, and our first impressions team. So that's everyone from the parking lot all the way to the coffee. They are amazing first impressions team. And I just want to take a minute and give a shout out to our pastor, Pastor Dan. I am just so thankful that he believes in sharing this stage and allowing other people to bring the message. And not just other people, but women. Because that it doesn't happen everywhere. And there's a sign backstage that says, thank you God for choosing me. It's an honor to step on this stage. And so as the worship team goes by that every day, they get to look at that sign. And remember that it's an honor to go on this stage. I don't take that lightly either, the honor that it is to stand up here and to be trusted to share the word of God with you. And Dan is often told, well, it must be nice to have other people that preach for you. And I want to tell you, it's actually a lot more work for him to have other people that preach for him because then he has to teach us how and check all of our messages and answer all of my annoying questions. I asked him so many questions this week and he's like, like, I don't just, oh, hey, Lucas. This would be one of my youth students just like, do you want to do this or what's up? You want to know something that's awesome? Lucas, what grade are you in? He's a sophomore. What are you doing right now? He's running cameras. Can we give a shout out to Lucas? Who else do we got? Oh, Ryan, what grade are you in? 10th grade, what are you doing? Running cameras. Oh, wait, we're not done. Brayden, what grade are you in? 8th grade, what are you doing?

You guys, when people say the youth are leaving the church, it's so not true. The youth are bringing the church into people's homes so that they can watch the church and come to church. I'm so proud of you guys. They're not probably going to come to youth group tonight because they're so mad at me, but that was totally worth it for me. I don't even care. Anyways, back to Pastor Dan. He lets women preach, and I probably won't be up here for a few months, so it's been nice knowing you guys. Also, not only does he let other people get on this stage, he loves our kids. He believes in our kids ministry so much that he's actually teaching what grades right now, Aliyah? Our second through fourth grade. So much so that he believes that our kids deserve our best. In the past few weeks, we've had over 70 kids in attendance at New Life Church. And how many of you know that not often do people come to church saying, like, I cannot wait to serve in our kids ministry. I can't wait. And Pastor Dan said, our kids' ministry deserves our best. We are not babysitters. This is not childcare. Our kids are learning the foundation of faith. Just this Friday, I went to pick up my kids at school, and my daughter is in kindergarten, and she has taken on the role of being a parapro without being assigned to a special needs kid in her class. He calls her my Gracie, and he says, my Gracie will do it. And she helps him do everything, and you know what is even better? She loves it. She's never once told me it's a burden. She loves this kid, and her dad came up to me and said, I have a really weird question for you. And I was like, okay, what's up? Do you go to church anywhere? I was like, oh, this is gonna be tricky.

And I was like, actually, I do. Why, what's up? And he was like, well, since we moved, we've been really wanting to get into a church, but we can only go to whatever church Gracie's at, because he will only go to whatever church Gracie's at, because Gracie will make him feel comfortable. And you know what? That's what these kids are learning in kids ministry here at New Life Church. They are learning how to love kids that are not like them. They are learning how to share the love of Jesus. They are learning how to make them feel comfortable, and then they are drawing them into Jesus's house. And I have never been more proud to have kids that stand on the foundation of Jesus, and can I tell you something? It's probably 10% because of Dan and I. And it's about 90% because of what they get in this house. And I am so amazed by that, and Dan said, Aaliyah, can I go teach in kids this Sunday while Kelsey's preaching? And so if that tugs on your heart a little bit, and you're like, you know what? I actually like kids. Like, they don't make me wanna, I could give an hour of my Sunday. We have kids teachers that teach every single Sunday. We have one kids teacher that teaches two services, and then sits for the last service. But most of our kids teachers teach one service, sit one service, and if you're like, you know what? I could even teach twice a month. If that, if you're like, I want to invest in future world changers, I wanna invite you to find Aaliyah after service. She's right there, waving proudly. It's me, hi, I'm your girl, it's me. I still like Taylor Swift. Take out Willow, I still like Taylor Swift, right? That's like the satanic one. All right, anyways, moving on. Trying to cover my tracks. Find Aaliyah, because these kids will inspire you to love Jesus more. It's probably, honestly, just as much about what you'll get out of it as what the kids will get out of it if you go serve in this kid's ministry. So anyways, that's where Dan is. He's not being lazy, he's not taking vacation. He's loving on your children. We are in a series called Clarity in the Chaos. We are studying the book of Genesis, learning the foundation of how the world was created, and quite honestly, where a lot of it went wrong. Last week, Dan talked about where Adam and Eve messed it all up, and I said, I wouldn't have eaten the fruit. And quite honestly, it's not because I'm that good, it's because I don't really like fruit. If it was chocolate, I would have, yep, totally. And then someone said, well, chocolate's made of fruit, and I was like, no, it's not. They taste nothing alike, there's no way. So whoever that was, we need to talk later, because I just don't buy it. But we talked about how when they ate the fruit, it opened up our entire world to sin because they disobeyed God. And it opened up our world to sin, and so then we had pain and work, pain and childbirth, men ruling over women in the house, and fractured relationships. And so this week, we're diving further into fractured relationships. And when I say that, you probably already have images in your mind of relationships in your life that just like broken glass have been fractured, have either gone through painful seasons and have come back stronger or who maybe have been completely broken and have never been reunited. All this week, I thought, what are some personal examples that I can give you? You may know that Pastor Dan and my job is literally probably 99% in the business of dealing with fractured relationships. Most everything we do is walking people through handling fractured relationships. Even in youth, no matter what sermon series we're in, no matter what topic we're talking about, when we split into small groups with middle school girls, middle school boys, high school girls, high school boys, what we end up majority of the time talking about is fractured relationships. Whether it's friend groups, whether it's at home with parents, no matter what it is, it always centers around relationships. Last week, I stepped into the high school girls' room and they were talking about so many loss of friendships. And you know what? A lot of it isn't even bad. A lot of it was them stepping away from unhealthy relationships because they've been inspired by the message series we're in on how to be biblical influencers. And they felt called to step away from relationships, but then they feel like they've lost a lot of friends. And I kept thinking, what are some personal examples I can give you? I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn't in good faith share with you any personal examples because I'm simply not through a lot of them yet. I'm kind of still in the middle of a lot because I can tell you that I can't on my own two hands count the amount of friends that I've lost this year. It's more than 10, is what I'm trying to say. I don't really know how to put that. It's more than 10 friends that I've lost this year. It's hard to go in public without fear of running into someone without fear of being triggered. Dan and I were at Starbucks yesterday and someone went through a Starbucks line and I was like, oh, it hurts. Because it's still pretty raw. But I also think that God in his grace is having me teach on this because he knows I still have work to do. And he won't let me preach on something that I feel like I've just conquered and I can just speak down to you on because he says, you gotta work too. And you're imperfect too. And you gotta share that. But I also have to be respectful of the people that I'm working through it with.

Fractured relationships.

So are we on solid or common ground that we've all had relationship turmoil? My family has people reach out to us often, which is so sweet and say, oh my gosh, I just wish I had been born into your family. Which I can acknowledge, I adore my family. Let me say that. I tell people oftentimes, I love to tell my parents, I'm just standing on the shoulders of your faith. I was brought up in the church. My parents are amazing Jesus followers. I look at some of my youth kids who weren't brought up in church and they're setting the ground of faith for generations to come from them. And I'm like, I am inspired by your faith because I didn't have to do that. I was the kid complaining about going to church and I was like, please let me go to big people church. Don't make me go to Sunday school. And then I have these kids that are asking for rides to come to church because their parents don't come. And it inspires me. And so I'm getting these texts from people of like, I just adore your family, but let me let me let you in on a little secret. Like my family still fights. We still have like dysfunctional family dinners. We still have like group texts that someone offends someone and then the like separate group texts happen. You know, and my mom has to like redirect me of like, Kelsey, you probably shouldn't do that. And that's a little divisive. And I'm like, so then I just text my sister and I'm like, can you believe mom told me I can't do that? And then she's like, so we all have fractured relationships, right? Because it's the world we're in. We are prone to sin, but to understand how to deal with it, we have to understand how it all began. So we can pretty much agree that it's Adam and Eve's fault. And right, right. But then we go on to Cain and Abel. Whoa, starts to just get darker and darker, right? You're like, oh, murder. Let's look at Genesis 4.1. Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, with the Lord's help, I have produced a man. Later, she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.

I walked away from my notes and I don't know what's next. Next slide. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd. While Cain cultivated the ground, when it was time for harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift. The best portions of the first born lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. Now I wanna take a pause and explain why. This was before Jesus. This is the first book of the Bible. Jesus was the sacrifice. The sacrifice that hung on the cross and bled. Before Jesus, it had to be an animal sacrifice to be pleasing to the Lord. It had to bleed. That had to be the first and the best. That's why even when we're called to bring the tithe, the first 10%, it's the first and the best. But the sacrifice, the aroma, when we sing day and night, night and day, let incense arise, the aroma, the animal sacrifice that bled and was pleasing, it was an animal sacrifice. So it says, Abel brought something that was pleasing to the Lord because it was a sheep. It was his first sheep, it bled. And then Cain is just like, oh, this corn looks good. Hear God. Right, it doesn't say it was the first crop. It doesn't say it was the best crop. It didn't bleed. This is going to have, I've said blood a lot. I understand. If you wanna pass out, it's fine. I kind of do too. While I'm talking about blood, I have to settle something for the young adults, the fight. I know you guys have a bet about what Dan's gonna say. He's not here. Jake Paul, John Paul, whatever. Jake Paul, either way he lost. He was either fighting a 60 year old man and one, that's still bad, or he lost to a 60 year old man. Go Longhorns. The two things that Dan would have brought up, I brought up. They had a bet on what Dan would bring up, that bloody eye in the fight. That's what made me think of it. Anyways, blood, it had to bleed. Oh, sorry, it had to bleed. That made me think of it. Now I actually wanna pass out. Okay, so it didn't bleed. It made God mad, because you might read that and be like, that was really mean of God, right? So we have to have an understanding. That was the expectation. God had already set that expectation. It's not mean. God made that clear. But then this made Cain angry and he looked very dejected. So what leads to fractured relationships? If you're a note taker, they are? We're all strangers. Ah, I love you guys. We have four points in this. Point one, what leads to fractured relationships is our disobedience to God. So Cain did not bring God his first and his best. He was disobedient to God. Going on Genesis 4-6, God says, why are you so angry? Like you already knew this was what was expected. Why are you being a baby? He says, why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out. Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. You must subdue it and be its master. How many of you have felt that? Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. Day in and day out, sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. I said in another message, when you think of sin, why lock all your doors and leave your windows wide open? It's like we're going to bed at night and we're like, we're gonna protect our kids, but we're gonna lock all our doors, but our windows are just wide open and that's how we treat sin. Like, well, we're not gonna do the big ones, but we're just gonna let all the little ones in and then not think that we're gonna be tempted to then lead to all the big ones. And that's what God is saying is sin is crouching at your door. Why are you messing around with this? Point two, leading to fractured relationships is displacing God as master. I wanna argue to you today that you can only choose between two masters, God and sin. You are going to be controlled by one of two things. You might say, what about option three, me? I love me some me. Well, you are sinful. That's still option two, sin. What about my own truth? Well, your own truth is still sinful, so that's still sin.

So you have a choice of two masters, God or sin. If you choose sin yourself, your own truth, it's all sin. So when you displace God as master, you are choosing sin as master and that's what Cain did. Moving on, verse eight. One day, Cain suggested to his brother, let's go out into the fields. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother and killed him. I want you to note that this is the first murder that took place in the Bible. What Cain wasn't willing to give over to the Lord. He was not willing to give a blood sacrifice to God. Then controlled him. He wouldn't give an animal to God as a sacrifice, so then he shed the blood of his brother. Whatever you're not willing to hand over to the Lord is what will control you. You wanna know what controls me? Finances. You know what killed me this week, and this actually sounds terrible, I told first service, I was like, I bet you guys are judging me so hard. I've gotten used to the tithe because it's auto-drafted out of our account, so I don't even count it as our money anymore. I went on and ordered gifts for our Christmas shop here at church.

You're judging me, aren't you? And it was brutal. I had to wrestle with myself for that extra money to come out of our account. My mom texted me and was like, I wish I could learn more from you on how good you are at budgeting. And I was like, I wish I could learn more from you on how you practice generosity because I have no idea how to do it. It controls my mind. So when we're not generous, when we're not obedient to the tithe, we're controlled by finances. When we're not in God's word about who he says we are, we're probably controlled by jealousy. When we aren't maybe spending time in worship and in prayer, then we're probably overwhelmed by anxiety instead of peace, right? So whatever we're not willing to give over to the Lord is what will control us. So I wanna ask you today, what's controlling you? Maybe that's a good thing to write in your notebook. Something to pray about is what's controlling me and what do I need to give over to the Lord?

Afterward, the Lord asked Cain, where's your brother? Where's Abel? And I love that God in his grace isn't just like, what did you do? You murdered your brother. He gives him a second chance, right? He's like, where is he? He gives him the chance to uncover his own sin. But Cain, oh Cain, he just can't figure it out. He says, I don't know, am I my brother's guardian? It's so sassy. Like, come on Cain. Step three is denying our sin.

So I told you that I wanted a personal example to give you and I couldn't come up with one.

But God in his grace gave me one about five minutes before the 8.30 service. But it's very real and my mom's in the room. So, she says it's okay. At least dad's not in here. So Dan and I love to watch TV shows at night. Every night, we say it's our quality time. Let me tell you, it's not. Like, it's not romantic. We put the kids to bed at 7.30, we sit on separate couches, we don't speak, we watch a TV show. Really healthy. And so we always try to find a show to watch, whatever. So, we're out of TV shows. And so we found one on Apple TV and we were like, this is gonna be great. So we start watching the show. It's a psychological thriller, those are the books I read. I think it's fun to get the twists and turns and we're watching it and I'm like, this is really inappropriate. Like, sexually really inappropriate. And Dan has shared from stage before that that has been a struggle in his past. Like, looking at inappropriate things and that is something that he and I together have worked so hard to overcome. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, you need to shut this down for your husband. Because you are not helping him at all. But the human side of me is like, but this show is really entertaining and you wanna know who did it. And there's some good stuff in this show too. So we watch it, we go to bed. I wake up this morning and I am in the office praying for the message and I feel like I can't breathe and I can't pray. And it's like, you know exactly what you need to do before I'm gonna let you step on that stage. And if you don't do it, you're not stepping on that stage. Because you are fracturing your relationship with your husband. You are fracturing your relationship with me and you are fracturing your husband's relationship with me. So we're in worship in the first set and I walk up and I find Dan and I was like, I need to talk to you. And he's like, okay. So we go backstage and who's backstage? My dad. And I'm like, okay, cool. So we go in the hall and he's like, just so you know, your dad's on security so he's gonna follow us back here to make sure everything's okay. And I'm like, cool. So we go in the hallway and I just said, I let you down last night. Like, I should have turned that TV show off on the first scene that was inappropriate. We were disobedient to God. We were displacing God as master and we were denying that it was sinful. And I should have turned it off. And he was like, that's not just on you, I should have too. And he was like, we cut the show off now. And I'm so glad you said something, because you're right. It was not healthy for me. And that's not healthy for you either. And then I said, well, can I use you as an example this morning? And he was like, of course, I use you all the time. Thanks at least for asking. So there you go.

And I know it's heavy, but I want you to know it's real. And I want you to know that you have real pastors who struggle with these things and who sometimes mess up, but who still have the conversations and say, you know what, we fell short and it's not okay. But as soon as we acknowledge it, we're gonna cut it off because it's not worth fracturing relationships over. It may sound stupid, like you're talking about a TV show, but what can that lead to? That's what leads to divorce. That's what leads to downfall of marriages. Something as simple as that, because I thought it was entertaining and it didn't really do anything to me.

Fractured relationships. Point three was denying our sin. A really cool quote I found this week from a theologian that said, one of the consequences of sin is that it makes the sinner pity himself. How often do we feel bad for ourselves because of the consequence of the sin, but not the sin itself? Instead of causing him to turn to God. Well, listen to this. One of the first signs of new life is that the individual actually takes sides with God against himself. Have you ever had that? Where the sin has made you say, I choose God over me. I am not worthy. I am messed up, but God is worthy. I am not enough, but God is. Do you know how much freedom there is when you can say that? I serve a God who's enough. I will never be, but I serve a God who is. Taking sides with God against yourself. Let's move on to chapter 10. Oh, I think that was an amen. I love it, thank you. She's like, yeah. Verse 10, but the Lord said, what have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother's blood. Now he's banished from the ground that he once worked. No longer will the ground yield good crops for you. No matter how hard you work from now on, you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth. Cain replied to the Lord, oh, he's still so whiny. Cain is not my favorite person in the Bible. My punishment is too great for me to bear. You have banished me from the land and from your presence. You have made me a homeless wanderer. Oh, you know what is shocking to me is Cain is so sad about his punishment, but he's never repentant about his sin. He never once says he feels bad about his sin. Just you've done this to me. You've done this to me. Never once. God, I'm sorry for my sin. Fractured relationships.

When we're disobedient to God, we displace God as master. We deny our sin and we distance ourselves from God. Can you see this having happened in your own life? Maybe you've lost friendships. Maybe you're saying, but it wasn't me. And that's okay. Maybe you can see it happening on the other end. That's okay too. Maybe you played a role in it and maybe someone else played a role in it, but it helps you see the delineation and how the relationship was fractured in the first place or how your relationship with God was fractured. Poor Abel, right? It says he gave a sacrifice that was pleasing to God and then he died. He didn't really do anything wrong in this, but he still had a fractured relationship from his brother and then he was killed. Cain had a fractured relationship with his brother and a fractured relationship with God, all because of those four steps. Genesis five goes on to walk us through Adam's descendants. It even goes on to talk about a man named Lamech who was even worse than Cain. It's just like so sad. Lamech murdered multiple people and said, like I'm even better than Cain. What if I ended the whole sermon there? I thought about it like, all right, bye. Have a great day. See you next week. But that's what I love about God's word. Is in one chapter it talks about fractured relationships. Then in the next chapter, it totally flips the script. Well, almost. First we're gonna start with Genesis five. The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth. He saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. Do you think the Lord ever looks at 2024 and feels like that? So the Lord said, I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, I will destroy every living thing, all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.

That's so sad.

When six chapters before it says he made it and he said it was good. And then the next day it was good. And then the next day and it was good. And then the next day it was very, very good. And then in chapter six, he's sorry he ever made them. How quickly we mess up, right? What if the whole Bible ended there? We wouldn't be here to read it, first of all, because he would have wiped us all from the face of the earth. So I want us to read the next verse together. But Noah found favor with the Lord.

One man.

One man who found favor with the Lord. And because of Noah, God said I'll preserve a remnant.

What if God does look down and say, pretty sad, pretty sad I made this world. It's breaking my heart and he says, but Carson, but Lisa, but Thomas, but Quentin,

but Alicia, but Brooklyn, but Felix.

I was reading this week and I was like, I wanna be a but Noah, right? Like I want to be someone that would be worthy of preserving a remnant. Noah found favor. He didn't earn it. It doesn't say Noah worked so hard to have the favor of God. He was just uncorrupted by Satan's attempts. He still faced them. God needs you to be a Noah today.

He needs you to be a Noah in your workplace. He needs you to be a Noah in school. He needs you to be a Noah at home. He needs you to be a Noah on social media. He needs you to be a Noah at Target. Five times a week, at least. Amen. Do you know that the wickedness in Noah's day is actually compared to the wickedness that we will see in the end times? In Matthew 24, 37, it says, when the son of man returns, it will be like the wickedness in Noah's day. The wickedness in Noah's day was described with five things. Exploding population, sexual perversion, demonic activity, evil in man's heart, and corruption and violence. To which you would say, are we living in the end times, right? One of my favorite pastors besides Dan says, I get asked all the time if we're living in the end times, and I say, well, if we are, would you live any differently? And then I say, so do it. Live differently, because I don't know, but I wanna live like we are. That's from Chris Hodges, free of church. Because I don't know.

So Noah finds favor with God, and in Genesis 6, 17, God says to Noah, look, I'm about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on the earth will die, but I will confirm my covenant with you. So he gives instructions, bring a male and a female of every kind of animal, build this boat. And in Genesis 6, 22, I want you guys to read this with me as well, because it's so interesting. Ready, set, go. So Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him. Oh, you guys even put the emphasis on the right word. Exactly. Dan told us two weeks ago that Noah had never seen rain. God just told him he's gonna flood the earth.

That's when Dan would go, bloop, bloop, bloop. Hey, by the way, I don't like that. He just told him he's gonna flood the earth and he had never seen rain. And yet Noah still did everything exactly as God commanded him to. You wanna talk about faith? Having never seen rain, he built a boat that was, listen to this, one and a half football fields long, six highway lanes wide, four stories tall.

He didn't call on people to help him. He did it all by himself. It took him 75 years. People were mocking him. What are you doing? You're crazy. Who told you to do that? Full of faith, Noah built a boat exactly how God told him to. So in Genesis four through five, we see fractured relationships. In Genesis six through nine, we see a forged relationship between Noah and God. God in his grace said, here's how man fractured relationship. Here's how I forge it. Here's what you can learn of how to have a forged relationship between you and me. Let's look really quickly at four points because if I go over, Dan is gonna rub it in so hard. All right, four points of how to forge a relationship. One, we find favor. How do we find it? We seek it day in and day out. I think of when I lost my wedding ring and it was like it was the only thing I could think about. Gracie had hidden it in the piano. And it was all I could think about was, I'm not even wearing it today. It has been found, but it was all I could think about was finding my wedding ring. What if all we could think about every day was finding the presence of God? All we could think about, on Monday I gotta get into his word, I gotta find the presence of God. On Tuesday, I gotta get to my life group so I can be with the people who love him. Every time I gotta get into his presence, I'm finding it. I'm looking for it daily, I'm getting into his word, I'm getting into his house, I'm getting into relationships with him. Number two, we follow obediently. Exactly as God commanded him to. It says this three times when describing Noah building the ark. And number four, we faithfully move. Like I said, he had never seen rain. One solo man building a boat, having never seen water. Well, rain, he saw lakes probably. Thanks for correcting me. Sam's like, meh. Having never seen rain, he built a boat for a flood. Are you waiting on God? Wait in faith. Is God leading you to something so scary? Follow in faith. Then the flood covers the earth and Noah is still doing everything, exactly how God commanded him to. And once his family and all the animals get into the boat, God closes the door. And I thought, why? Why doesn't Noah just close the door? Like, why do they make a point that God closed the door? Doesn't that seem kind of weird? And in studying, it links back actually to Revelation 3.7 where it says, what he opens, no one can close. What he closes, no one can open.

And I think part of this ties back to fractured relationships. That we don't get to be the one when a relationship is fractured to say, well, they don't get to have God's blessing. They don't get to have salvation. I'm closing the door on that. God gets to be the one to seal their salvation. God gets to be the one to welcome them into heaven. God gets to be the one to unleash blessing. God gets to be the one to welcome them home. And the thing that I've found is the most helpful when I'm going through fractured relationships is committing to praying for those people every single day. I have a prayer list for those who have hurt me that I pray for their blessings. And you know what it'll do? It'll change your heart and I pray, God, would you close the door on their salvation? I mean that a good closing. Like welcome them into heaven. Would you seal their salvation? Then Noah gets off the boat.

It took him 75 years to build it and he was on the boat for 370 days. Isn't that kind of how God works? Like we prepare for something that he's telling us to do and you like work and work and then he's like, 375 days? That was it. But he was probably glad to like get off. And we know he was glad because when he got off the boat, it says the first thing he did was to heal. Was worship. The first thing he did was offer sacrifice to the Lord. In verse 20 it says, Noah built an altar to the Lord. There he sacrificed his burnt offerings, the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. The Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to him, I will never again curse the ground because of the human race. Even though everything they think or imagine is bent towards evil from childhood, I will never again destroy all living things. Noah's first act after leaving the ark was to worship God through sacrifice.

With only two of each animal, Noah risked extinction by sacrificing some of these animals. But costly sacrifice is pleasing to God. Spurgeon said common sense would have said spare them for you will want every single one of them. But grace said slay them for they belong to God. The sacrifice we are called to offer to God should also cost us something. So point four for forged relationships is we are called to freely worship. When the music fades and all is stripped away and I simply come. You sing this with me.

Longing just to bring something that's of worth that will bless your heart.

I'll bring you more than a song for a song in itself is not what you have required.

You search much deeper within through the way things appear. You're looking into my heart.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship when it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it. But it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. No one knew that it was all about him. So he freely worshiped. In Genesis nine one, God blessed Noah and his sons and he said be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He circled back to the exact command that he gave Adam and Eve and he said I'm gonna take a risk on you again. You know what God all knowing knew that we were probably gonna mess it up again. And that at some point he was gonna have to send his son. Because he loves us that much. But he was teaching us how to forge a relationship with him. How to be a Noah. And that's my prayer for us. Is that we can follow in faith.

We can learn how to constantly find favor in God. We can constantly seek him. We can be obedient. And that if God looked down at New Life Church and his heart was broken over the people he could say but New Life Church was worth preserving a remnant. Would you pray with me? God I thank you so much for your word. Oh God it's so rich in things that we can learn. They're so applicable to today. And thank you that you knew that we would be sitting in these seats cracking it open, desperate to learn more about you. God I pray that if there's anyone in this room today with a fractured relationship that you would speak directly to their hearts of how you want them to honor you with it. How to take steps forward of if it's a relationship that you are protecting them from being a part of or if it's something that you want them to work. Just towards forging and towards coming back stronger. But God I pray that we know that every relationship is better with you at the center. So I pray that we would focus mostly on strengthening our relationship with you first and foremost. God I pray that if there's anyone in the room this morning that has never put their faith in you that today would be the day. God we know that your word says that you stand at the door and knock like a perfect gentleman. So if you're in the room today and you've never put your faith in Jesus you will know because he will be knocking. He will as Pastor Dan says he will be messing with you. And if you feel that I want to give you the opportunity to pray that prayer today. So I'm going to count to three and you're just going to have the opportunity to put your hand in the air so that I know who you're praying with. All heads bowed, all eyes closed, no one looking around. One, two, three. Would you raise your hand so I know who I'm praying with?

Amen. You can lower your hand and you're going to pray from your heart to his. God I admit that I am a sinner in need of a savior. God would you come into my heart and be Lord of my life? Thank you for loving me. Thank you for choosing me God. I turn from my ways and I give my heart to you.

And it's in your name I pray, Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning, everybody. How you guys doing today? Good, good, good. Man, it is great to be in the house of God as we continue in this series, clarity in the chaos. This is part two. And, man, I want to take just a moment, if I could, are there any veterans in the room today? Man, thank you so much. Anyone else? Man, yes, thank you. Man, we are honored. I often say that I'm not a hugger, but I'm willing to give hugs. So if you guys are huggers, man, go hug that man. Go hug that man today and thank them for their service. We've been talking about over the last several weeks the 42% of the world that doesn't have access to a Christian, a Bible, or a church. And the reason for that is because they don't have religious freedom. That literally you can't talk about Jesus or have a Bible because you could literally lose your life for doing so. And so we thank God for you who have served in such a way that we can come together as a church to preach His word and to worship our God together. Can we give Jesus an amen and give Him all the praise because He's worthy of it? I want to take just a moment again to talk about the New Life Church app. If you go to the dashboard at the beginning, you can throw up that slide. The reason for why we take attendance and why we make that badge light up is, and by the way, if you're new here, we don't track your whereabouts. You do this willingly. So if you open up your app, it'll open this on Sundays and you can click 830 10 or 1130 and you can click whether you're in church in person or online so that you can light that badge up. But here's why this is so important. If you have a kid or if you've been through school before, you know that we track attendance. Why do we do that? Because we want people to grow and to learn with what they're doing. How many of you all know that if you miss a week of school for being sick, you're behind? There's things that you missed. There's things that you didn't learn. And can you imagine with me if you approached God that way and God's Word that way? The average American attends church once every four weeks. How can you know God's Word and God's ways if that's how you're living? It's just impossible. But how much more can we learn who He is and what He's all about if we engage in this together? And so it's an encouragement to you to light up that attendance badge and to engage in that way. And so if you're here today, all you got to do is click that 10 a.m. button and in person and online. And I don't remember how many times it takes to light up the badge. But if your attend badge is unlit, it's because either you just said, see this button right here? This is not your friend. Like if you want to light that badge up, don't click that. By the way, our veteran over there, I know he's done that because it actually tells us who clicks that button. So but we still love you and we're so grateful for you. Yeah. So Genesis chapter two is where we're at today. If you missed last week's message, I encourage you to go back in and watch it because we're getting clarity in the chaos. And Genesis chapter two, starting in verse 15, it says, the Lord God took the man, this is Adam, and he put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it. Right. Last week we talked about how Adam, which means in the Hebrew language, Adam is Adam. It means humankind. And so really all of us are Adam in Hebrew and he gave us his image. We were created in his image. Guess what his image is? Our God is a creator, God. So when you create things, when you have creativity, when you're an entrepreneur, when you build things, when you work, God is a worker. When you take care of things that God loves, you are acting in his image. You are living out who God created you to be. And so he gave Adam, he put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to care for it. And the Lord God commanded him, you're free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. Now if someone told you that if you did something, you would certainly die, how many of y'all would just sign up and let's go? Again, if you have had kids before, how many of you have told your kids not to do something and that's the first thing they do? How many adult kids out there, someone tells you not to do something and that's the first thing you do? Only one honest person in the whole church today. You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or when you eat from it, you will certainly die. Now throughout this series, I'm sending email messages with a little bit of homework. How many of y'all like homework? I think this is fun homework, but it's going to give you again, clarity to so many things that we're talking about because as we go through the book of Genesis, just so you're aware, if we were to go through the book of Genesis and I were to take time to explain everything that's in this one book, we would be going through it for the next five years together and probably then some. And so here's the miracle in this series. We're doing it in four weeks, but y'all are going to have to put some work in. And so we're giving you, I'm sending emails out every week with some clarity around some things, with some videos to get you to dig in a little bit deeper to find out for yourself some things that we're talking about, but not in great detail. So I encourage you to take advantage of those things so that you can get a better understanding of what God is doing in this story. In Genesis chapter three, you see this, it says, now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals, the Lord God has made. Now again, these emails are so important because how many of y'all got my email this week and you clicked on the video and you watched all the videos on spiritual beings this week? Wow, you guys are terrible students. How many of y'all, your emails are actually in our system. Maybe that's the problem. Did anyone not get the email? Download the app. It's important you download the app because this, that video will explain so many things that you need to understand. And here's what you need to understand. How many of y'all ever heard of Genesis chapter three that we're about to get into? We've heard what's called the fall of man. The fall of man. It's when sin entered the world. It's when humanity rebelled against God, rebelled against his ways, which we're going to talk about today. But in this passage of scripture that we're seeing, it talks about the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals of the world. You need to understand that something is explained later in the Bible that doesn't exist in Genesis. What happened in Genesis was there was two falls. One fall was the fall of man, but the other fall was when Lucifer and his demons rebelled against God and tried to usurp him. And they tried to fight God and that fight did not last very long and they were cast to the earth. And when we read the Bible, we read about things like the cherubim, the little fat little chubby babies that have wings and sit on the cloud and play the harp and lyre. They're cute. But God also talks about the seraphim, which is again under God, they're created. There's like God's team. It's like God's staff. And the seraphim were actually snakes that had wings also, right? This is spiritual beings that we need to understand. That's where we get the word seraphim. That's where we get the word serpent. So what you're seeing here is twin rebellions, a rebellion that happened in the heavenly realms and a rebellion that happened with humankind. Are you following what I'm saying? And so go back, watch that video. I'll include that in this week's email, that same video so that you guys can have it. Those of you who didn't, make sure we have your email. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, this is Eve, did God really say? Did God really say that? How many of you guys have ever read the Bible and you're just looking for the loophole? You read something that you're like, man, that really goes against how much fun I could have today. Man, God, you're just kind of a cosmic buzzkill. Did God really say? And what happens in this moment, what leads to the fall of man is number one, if you're taking notes and you should be because note takers are, say it like you mean it. Note takers are. Number one, what led to the fall is doubting God's goodness. Right because God spoke and it was. He spoke life into existence. He spoke the creation into existence. When he speaks, something happens. And what is it? What does he say? And it's good. When God speaks, when God's word is communicated, it is good. But what you see here is the doubting of God's goodness. Man, God, you said that, but I don't know if I truly believe that it's actually good. And what begins to happen is rebellion. What begins to happen is chaos. What begins to happen is sin. It says the woman said to the serpent, we may eat from the trees in the garden. So just to time out for a second. We may eat from the, well, I'll continue. We eat from the, we may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say we must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. We must not even touch it or we will die. Guys, I don't know if you know this, but women typically, they know the assignment. They know what's up. Now you're also about to see that it goes horribly wrong. The serpent doubting God's goodness, did God really say? And then he continues and he says, ah, you're not really going to die. Just a little bit of doubt. But God said we would, but really, does he really mean it?

The serpent said to the woman, for God knows, then when you eat from it, your eyes will actually be opened then and then you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

If you know anything about the Bible, and by the way, again, this is why we're sharing these emails with you, is that the reason Lucifer and the spiritual beings rebelled against God is because they wanted to be God. And you see this twin rebellion happening in this very story. The rebellion of, okay, you're not God anymore, I actually want to be God. I want to be my own God. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Here's number two, what happens with the fall, why it happened and why it's destructing our lives today is because we are creating our own truth and not living in God's truth. Because God's truth is good. And ours is so not. I'll give you an example for just a second. I've been working as a pastor for over 20 years and I've never met an addict. I've never met an alcoholic or someone who's addicted to some sort of drug, whether it's legal or illegal, that sees their life kind of being destroyed by this addiction over time. I've never met that person whose life is so in shatters, their family's being torn apart because of this addiction. I've never met the person who said, man, I'm really glad I started drinking then, after you see all the damage. There's a desire there, but then what follows is destruction. We start creating our own path. We start creating our own way. We think it's good. And the Bible says there's a way that seems right to mankind, but in the end it leads to what? It leads to death. The Bible has been communicating this from the very beginning in Genesis, creating our own truth. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, and I want to be smarter, I want to be all that, I want people to look at me and look at how cool I am and awesome I am, and man, it's pleasing. It looks so good. She took some of it and ate it. Isn't it so easy to do that? And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, and because husbands were fools, we'll eat anything our wives give us. I'm glad he laughed. By the way, we like to have fun in here. We can laugh. It's good. Here's number three if you're taking notes. What leads to our destruction and our fall and sin is doing what you think is good, but it really isn't. It's when you take matters into your own hand and you even see God's Word and you know it and you do it anyway. Things that He tells you not to do and you do it anyway, or how about this one, things that He tells you to do and you don't do it. It's rebellion against God and His ways and it began in the beginning and it's still continuing even today. It continues and says, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. It says then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Here's what you see in sin. Here's what you see in rebellion against God and His ways is you will feel guilty and you will feel shame. You will feel exposed and you begin to want to hide. Why did God create all of this? He created it to bring beauty out of chaos, to bring beauty out of darkness and to commune with you, to have intimacy with you, His image bearers, to be with you every single day that you would enjoy Him and enjoy His goodness. And then we took matters into our own hand and we rebelled against Him. We rebelled against His word and then when we're found out we try to hide and we made coverings for themselves. How many of you have kids? How many of you have been around kids? How many of you know that a two year old who steals a toy from their sister or brother try to hide it? Or when you ask them what really happens that ain't what you get. That's not the truth. You didn't have to learn this. It's just in you. It's just a part of who we are. This is the sin nature that has taken over our lives and what we do even today, just like they did then, is when we sin, we just want to mask it, cover it, pretend like it didn't happen. We hide and here's the worst part, we hide from God Himself. Like if you were to ask, if you were to go out into your workplace this week and ask why people don't go to church, there's a lot of reasons, but one of them is they'll say like, oh, it's just judgmental. They don't want to be found out. Until they actually come, how many of you have come and then realized, man, they're just a bunch of knuckleheads just like I am. That's why I say this phrase all the time, that there's no perfect people allowed in God's church. Why? Because the perfect, the only one who is, has been and will be, his name is Jesus who has never sinned and he's why we're here. He's who we learn from, he's who we worship and he's who we're saved by. But just a side note for just, can I take a time out in the middle of the message just to say something I forgot to say? How many of you all know that we have a sign out there that says 500 gathered? I'm going to explain what that means. We want to see God have 500 people gathered in his house between now and by the end of next year. We've averaged around 340 people for the last, I don't know, 10 weeks or so. I just got to tell you something. We had our highest attendance last weekend than we have in our entire existence except for Easter and Christmas. Can we give God praise? Now I really said that to the 830 and the 1130 services because they don't look like this room. Like you guys are packing this thing out. But we have three services so we can fit more people in to hear God's word and to worship him and to learn from him and to grow in him and to be attached to him and to do it every single week. And I just got to tell you, we've averaged, this is crazy, over the last, I don't even know, a couple months. Our 1130 service has, can I just be real for a second? When we were going to three services, how many of y'all thought I was crazy? I am a little crazy, it's fine. My staff, our staff was like, I don't know if people come to 1130 service. It seems too late. The 830 service gets about a handful of first time guests every week. This service gets about maybe five, six, seven, eight, ten, somewhere in there. The 1130 service in the last ten weeks has averaged over twenty first time guests. I wanted you to know that because again, if you come to the ten o'clock you're like, man, this church is awesome. But man, if you come to the 830, 1130, you're like, huh, where is everybody? Because there's not as many people as there are right here and right now. Okay, are you with me? So we praise God for that. What was I talking about? They hid. They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. They made coverings for themselves, they masked themselves, they tried to hide from God. They were afraid. What was the result of rebelling against God's word and rebelling against God's ways and just eating of the one tree, that one thing he told him, can you imagine if God only told you one thing you didn't have to do, wouldn't it be a lot easier to actually be faithful to what he says? And then we face all the crazy and chaos that came after that to which all of you are like, Adam and Eve, you suck. You'd have done the same thing. Here's the result. Hiding from God leads to desperation and bondage. Like you think that the thing to do is to protect yourself. I got found out. I was exposed. I felt naked, guilty, ashamed. And so people don't show up to church because they're like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, they can't really know. And so we hide. But freedom comes when you enter into his courts with thanksgiving, you come into Jesus and you lay it all on the line and he covers what you uncover, the Bible says. Watch this. It says, but the Lord God called to the man and said, where are you? Notice for me for a second that even when they rebelled against and walked away from him, he kept pursuing them and he never stops. And you're going to see this throughout the entirety of the Bible. It was true then. It's true now. He answered. This is Adam. Or no, this is God. He answered, I heard you in the garden. No, this is Adam. I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. Do you know what Adam and Eve were not before this? They weren't afraid of God because they knew how good he was. They knew his goodness. They trusted it. They were experiencing it. And then all of a sudden they became afraid because they saw their nakedness. So they hid. And he said, God, who told you that you were naked? Did God really say? Do you see the deception? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? He knows. Even when you try to hide, he still knows. Can I tell you something? You can't hide. You might be able to hide it from me. I may be able to hide it from you. You might be able to hide it from your wife, which by the way, it's not a good idea. You might be able to hide it from your husband. That's not a good idea either. You might be able to hide it from a friend or a family member. You cannot hide from God. But look at his goodness. Look at his goodness. And by the way, I want to talk to you for just a second. What were the consequences of the fall? Again, we're not going to go into detail of this. So if you want to go to Genesis 3 and read what happened after the fall, there were consequences to them rebelling against God. Why? Because God is a just God. He doesn't just say, oh my gosh, it's totally cool, but we're just going to forget about it. No, the Bible says that he disciplines those he what? Loves. And as a good dad, a good mom, we discipline our kids to help show them the error of the ways and to correct them and help them to walk in the goodness after that. What were the consequences of the fall specifically in Genesis? There were multiple that you can read about. The first one that it talks about is pain in childbirth. How many of you women love being pregnant? There's some. Yeah, you can raise your hand. Don't be ashamed. Don't hide. Was it painful? No you're tougher than others, obviously. My wife hated being pregnant. Like I had to convince her to have a third child because she didn't like being pregnant. Do you know that Jesus in the New Testament says that even though you went through pain in childbirth, you rejoice because of the fruit that God gives you through it. Like when you hold that baby and you see that image bear that God brings into the world through you, you start to see it was worth it. And it's so beautiful. But the reason why pain exists in childbirth is because of Eve. Again, if you were Eve, if you lived then you would have been the same. So don't get all high and mighty and go, dang it, I hate you Eve. Here's one that we don't like to talk about. But this didn't exist in Eden before the fall. And that is a husband ruling over a wife. Do you know how many weddings I've done where a wife has said, I don't want you talking about that submit to my husband crap. I ain't gonna do it. By the way, I live with a woman who is my wife, by the way, just side note. I actually live with three. I have two daughters also. And my wife is not like a pushover. Like I'm an intense personality. If you know me, I can be, I can be fun, but I can be super intense and she is not a pushover. I can tell you me ruling over my wife doesn't always go good for our household. Just keeping it real. It was a consequence of sin. It wasn't God's intended order. It wasn't God's intended goodness. They did it to help us along the way. And you're gonna see this as you get in further into the messages in the next couple weeks. Here's the next one, relational turmoil. It didn't exist. They did not sit down for a couple of papayas for lunch or dinner and have disagreements at the lunch table. They didn't have relational turmoil. They didn't have wars. They didn't have disagreements. They weren't sinning against each other, trying to take each other out. By the way, we're gonna dive further into relational turmoil in the next couple of weeks because that's how this all plays out, is we continue to see it wreak havoc in our world. Here's the next one, right? God created us in His image. We were to what? Work the land and to care for the things that He cares for. This was a part of His creation. Why? Because as image bearers, we are a part of His nature. It's a part of who He is that He gave to us. But here's what happened because of the fall. He said you would have pain in your toil. How many of you guys love your job? You ever have really painful days at work? Never met the person who hasn't. And it's because of the fall. It's a consequence of the fall. Now God's desire, again, was for us to live with Him forever, to have intimacy, to know His goodness. But because of sin, because of depravity, it led to bondage, to relational stress and tension, to rebellion, and what did it lead to? It led to death. There's a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death. Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil always leads to death. When you begin to rebel against God's word and God's ways and try to make yourself God and try to make yourself man, I'm the king of my kingdom and this is my truth, man, I don't care about what you say is true, God. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to pursue my desires. It always leads to bondage and death. In Genesis chapter three, verse 21, though, again, you can see, you can just see it so clearly, clearly the goodness of God. The Lord God then made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and He clothed them. Just practically for just a second, if you're Adam and Eve in the garden and you're like, how many of you guys are like shoppers? You're like, you know, you like to look good in your clothes. Would you rather have like a leaf or like a skin? How many of you are like, I don't want either really, but you know, what you are seeing here is the first picture of our Lord Jesus Christ because to cover their sin, a sacrifice of blood had to be made because what was the penalty of sin? What was the penalty of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What was the penalty? It was death. And God covered their nakedness and covered their shame and covered their guilt and covered their deceit and covered their rebellion by His goodness, even back all those years ago. And He's still doing it today. Why? Because God's heart is still merciful towards us in spite of our rebellion against Him. It says in the Lord, God said, the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out His hand and to take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. You see in the scriptures, the original, the tree of life was on the mountain of God in the middle of Eden. You have all these trees and in the middle there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the one tree, the tree of life that they would go to and have access to that they could eat from that got everything that they needed from God came from the tree of life. Every order, every goodness, everything they needed to bear His image came from the tree of life. And they could go to it and they could eat freely from it. And it was this divine power that came through this tree that was up on a mountain in the middle of the garden and they had access to it. And it's what gave them the opportunity to live forever with God and enjoy His goodness. But because of sin, He removed the access to the tree of life because of the penalty of sin was death and not just death physically, but death spiritually. Our sin, our rebellion against God in His ways and His word separated us from Him. That which He created for us, when we rebelled, it separated us from Him. It said so they couldn't eat from the tree of life or they would live forever. So the Lord God banished Him from the garden of Eden to work the ground with painful toil from which He had been taken. And He drove the man out and He placed on the east side of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. They no longer had access. You need to know this. Sin separates us from the goodness of God. Why do we talk about turning from sin? Why do we talk about repentance? Why do we talk about trying to move past our own created way, our own created order and go back to God's creative way and God's creative order? Just because that's what brings us back to His goodness. But when we don't, when we rebel against God's word in His ways, that's where we see comparison, envy, jealousy, greed, corruption. Our hearts begin to be filled with violence. Our human heart gets filled with evil. There was a tree that existed in the garden, the tree of life. That everything that you needed from God was available to you every single step of the way. But there's another tree that stands over history and stands over your life and mind. It's the tree on Calvary on the mountain of God where the creator of the universe became the savior of all mankind. The Jesus got on that tree on the mountain of God on Calvary to pay the penalty of your sin and my sin. And by His blood, we are forgiven, healed, changed. We have redemption. We get His mercy even when we do not deserve it. His goodness keeps on chasing us. Which tree are you going to continue to eat from? Are you going to continue to try to be your own God? Create your own truth. Mask your sin and rebellion. And for just a moment, can I ask you if you're doing that, how well is that going for you? Jesus said, I am the vine and we are the branches. That when we attach ourselves to the vine, the tree that stands over history, His name is Jesus. That the Father cuts off fruit that isn't bearing good fruit, but He rebukes, He prunes fruit so that it can bear more fruit. Can we be people who pursue the word of God and pursue God's ways in such a way that we're not asking the Bible when we see it clearly, we're not saying, did God really say that? That we don't really look at it and go, man, I'm doubting your goodness and man, I'm going to do it my own way, but we see it clearly. And when He tells us that because He loves us, that we should live differently, we live differently because we know it's good. And when He rebukes us and corrects us and encourages us, He changes us and He prunes us to become more like Him, as was originally intended from the very beginning. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You that even though we've rebelled against it, even though we've rebelled against You, God, that You continued to chase after us, You continued to pursue us. And even when we try to cover ourselves and hide and lie and deceive, God, You created a covering by the perfect blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ. That You, Jesus, paid the penalty for our sin so that we wouldn't have to. And that when we believe in Him, when we put our trust and faith, when we turn from our sin and turn back to You, Jesus, in Your ways, You are faithful, merciful, forgiving and true to forgive us of all of our sins and to make us brand new again, as if we had never sinned. It's available to You. It's available to all that the tree of life is literally accessible to You now and His name is Jesus. Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. You and I, we're going to die physically and we're going to die spiritually one day unless we believe and receive the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. If you're in the room today and you've never done that, I want to invite you to do it right here and right now. I beg you to quit trying to put your trust in yourself. Put your trust in God. If that's you today, you can take freely from Jesus to make Him your Savior and your Lord. And if that's you, you don't deserve it. Listen to me. You don't deserve it. You can't earn it. Jesus can because He gave His life freely for you. So if that's you that needs to receive it, the Bible says that He stands at the door of the human heart and He knocks. And so if He's messing with you, just receive Him today. On account of three with an act of faith, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air saying, here I am God, I receive you. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. Now from your heart to God, I'll help you with the words. You simply say, God, I see clearly now that I am a sinner in need of a Savior. I have rebelled against your order. I've rebelled against your ways. I've rebelled against your goodness and tried to create my own. And so right now, God, I do what you tell me to do. I turn from that, that way I repent and I come to you, Jesus, to forgive me, to redeem me and to change me. I turn from my sin and I turn to you, Jesus. I put my faith and trust in you and I call you Lord that what your word says, God, I will do. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Come inside of me and change me. That same power that existed in the tree of life can now be accessed by you living and breathing inside of me. So Jesus have your way. From this day forward, I'll give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. And all God's people said, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning, everybody. How are you guys doing? Man, you guys had an extra hour of sleep. You have no excuse. Come on. How are you guys doing today? All right, man. It's like we didn't have coffee out there or something. Man, well, we're going to dive into this series. It's a book in, excuse me, it's a series in the book of Genesis. Today we're going to be in the parallels of Genesis chapter one. The parallel is found in John chapter one. And so if you have your Bible, you can open up to Genesis chapter one. Of course, it's in the app. You can go to the section called Rhythm. You can follow along in the notes and take notes there because we say at New Life Church that note takers are world changers. You nailed it. You nailed it. Let's go. Let's dive right into it, shall we? Genesis chapter one, verse one, it says, in the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. Now I could stop right there and the message could be over because what you and I as humans, as human beings need to understand is that the beginning didn't start with you. I mean, some of y'all can take that to the bank right now. That'll change your life. And honestly, most of us, it'll take a breath with me, go like this. You're not God. Isn't that the best message ever? In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. God created the universe. Now I want to tell you that if you're in the Bible today, you might see in your particular translation it might say, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It might say, God created the skies above and the land below. But in the Hebrew language, it's one word. And in the beginning, God created the cosmos, created the universe. In Genesis chapter one, verse two, it says, now the earth was. You guys kind of nailed it. I think you can share it with a little more gusto next time. Okay, ready? Now the earth was. Formless and empty. Now, if you want to leave here today and impress your friends at lunch, that word, formless and empty is the Hebrew word, tovuvavohu. Say that with me. Tovuvavohu. Do it again, just for fun. Tovuvavohu. Man, you guys are Hebrew scholars. Tovuvavohu. Tovuvavohu. Formless and empty means there was zero purpose and there was zero order. It means nothingness. And then it says, darkness was over the surface of the deep. A dark picture of this, I think it's on the screen, you see the waters floating. It's a picture of a dark chaotic oceans. The ancients that shared this message from God described this as a pre-existent nothingness. And then it says something powerful and the spirit of God, which by the way is the Hebrew word again, if you want to impress your friends, is the Hebrew word ruach. Say that to your neighbor and get a little phlegm in there. Otherwise you're not saying it right. So if you don't spit on your spouse, ruach of course, the spirit of God can be translated in a couple of different ways, wind or breath of God, which by the way, in the verses to come God breathed his life, his spirit into us. It's our God's invisible presence and the spirit of God was hovering over these waters that were chaotic, no purpose and had no order, nothingness. And then what we see in the proof proceeding, excuse me, the verses to come are the next six days that start with the words and God said. Now I don't know about you, but when I read the scriptures, the scriptures actually bring peace into my life because I read these, this next verse and it says, and God said, let there be light and there was light. I don't know about you, but I still have to walk into a room and flip on the switch. Like my word has no power, but God's word has extreme power, ultimate power. Let there be light. And when he said it, there was light. And then it said, God said, God saw that the light. Now when you read the Old Testament, you'll see these letters, you'll see L-O-R-D and they're capitalized throughout the Old Testament. And when you read it, it's the name of God and it's pronounced Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. It's where we get the word Yahweh. If you've ever heard the word Yahweh, even the, excuse me, the first song I believe that we sang called Jehovah comes from this word, Jehovah, Yahweh. Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. And the ancients would suggest that it sounded like a breath, Yahweh, because the Spirit of God of course is what? It's breath and life. Now to summarize the next couple of verses, I got this chart for you. Right, God said, let there be light. When He created with His word that has power, He created out of nothing. He created order. He brought clarity where there was chaos. And He created light and an equal day. It was the beginning of time. And He separated the evening from the morning in verses 3 through 5. And then He said on day two, He said, let there be an expanse between the heavens above and the earth below. And He created the dome ceiling, the sky and the seas, this water that would exist, it preexisting was then separated above the dome and below the dome. By the way, if you're looking forward to the scriptures that come when we get to the story of Noah, did you know that all of creation existed without rain until God flooded the earth? That literally everything that God created was sustained and created and provided for by the waters below the land. And so He separated the two, dry land. On day number three, He created the dry land, popped out of the water and He created vegetation, the flowers, beauty out of chaos and nothingness. And then in days four, five and six, He began to fill that which He created on days one through three. So He created light on the first day and He began to fill the light in day four when He hung the sun, the moon and the stars and He created time, evening and morning. And He said what? He said it was good. Number five, day five, He created the habanins to fill the sky and the seas that He created, the birds in the sky and the fish in the seas. He brought beauty out of nothingness and clarity amidst the chaos. On day six, He created the land animals and included the human beings. And that's where we pick up the story in Genesis chapter one, verse 26. And it says, then God said, let us make mankind in our image. Now notice it says us again, we're going to look at the parallels between Genesis chapter one and John chapter one. Let us make mankind in our image, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, preexistent before creation began. He created mankind in His image, in our likeness, He says, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over the livestock and all the wild animals. And over all the creatures that move along the ground, He created mankind in His image. We are image bearers to rule on the earth as He rules over it all. That He is the Lord of Lords and He is the King of Kings. That He is the beginning. He is the sustainer of all things and He is the end. He is the alpha and the omega. In verse 27 it says, so God created mankind, you and I, in His own image, in the image of God, He created them. This isn't bold, but I think we should say it out loud. Are you ready? Male and female. Does anybody have questions? We can talk afterwards, totally fine. God created mankind in His own image. He did not create the birds in His own image. He did not create the fish in His own image. He did not create the vegetation in His own image. He created you and I in His own image. You are special to God because we represent God. We are His representatives on the earth as He rules over the cosmos, the heavens and the earth, He's given you and I dominion over the earth to reflect His goodness and His character. How many of you guys think we do that? Well, we're going to get into that in the coming weeks. We're to rule over the earth and its creatures and the vegetation. And when He had created mankind and finished day one through six, He didn't just say it was good, He said it was very good. But He spoke about mankind in a more intimate and a more proud way than He did the entirety of the rest of what He created. And then of course, we find ourselves in day seven where it says that God rested. He worked for six days and then He rested. And here's what you need to see in this particular story is that God, He says, He blessed the seventh day and He made it holy. Why? Because God's purpose in creating all this was for Him to dwell with His image bearers, with His holy people. And so you see here the picture of God resting on day seven, which of course we equate that to like we're in the house of God together, communing with each other, being friends together lifting up our voices to God and worship together. We see this in this picture of pursuing God together in community. Why? Because God was in community with Himself and then He made you and I as His image bearers to be in community with us. And here's what's crazy. If you look carefully in this particular section of Genesis chapter one, you will notice that there isn't, by the way, I think I might have skipped this. On every day that God created, He said, let there be light. And He said, and then there was evening and morning and it was good. All six days. But when He got to day seven, He did not say there was evening and morning. Because some of you, just to give you a broader picture, Sam even said this, that we are God's house, that we are His image bearers, that when we believe in Christ, He dwells within us. We gather on the seventh day together to be a part of God's house, but God didn't want you just to have intimacy with Him on one day. He wanted it every day. Every day. Because His purpose, His main order out of this nothingness and out of this chaos was for you and I to have a dwelling with Him, His holy people. And that would be every day in the order and the purpose that God created. If you want to get, this is some cool stuff that comes out of the creation story. How many of you guys know that the number seven in the Bible is the book of completion or perfection? The number seven, right? The whole author of Genesis wove the number seven into this entire story in Genesis chapter one. Seven days of creation. There were seven announcements that God said to creation that He created was good. There are seven Hebrew words in the opening verse. That's why when I said your translation in English might say, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's more than seven words, but in the Hebrew language, it was seven words. In the following verse in chapter, excuse me, in verse two, it's two times seven Hebrew words in verse two. Then the final statement about the seventh day has three lines of seven Hebrew words. I don't know if you know this or not, but in the beginning, God created order by His word. I don't know if you know this or not, but we need His word more than my word.

Do you know where it all goes astray? When we start, and we're going to get into this in the next couple of weeks, where we go astray is when we start thinking about our word being more important than His word. In the beginning, God. Genesis chapter one is designed to show us that God's purpose that we've throughout the entirety of the Bible is to share His creation and His goodness with His images so that they, we can rule and rest and enjoy Him forever. That's the purpose of what the rest of the Bible is all about, but you know that it gets a little rocky. We're going to go into that in the next couple of weeks. Did you know that when God created humankind in His image, go into Genesis chapter two as a preview for next week, if you've been around church for any amount of time, and I believe probably if you haven't, you probably still know these names. Who are the first two human beings that God created? You guys are impressive. Another fun fact, if you want to impress your friends in the Hebrew language, it's actually pronounced Adam, not Adam, and it means dirt because out of the dirt, he formed Adam and then breathed his Ruach into him. Another fact that many of you probably don't know is the word Eve, the name Eve is actually the Hebrew word for life. Human kind life. We are all Adam, humankind. We are all Adam, humankind. Eve, life. Life. How many of you guys know that God is the author of life? How many of you have been born without the breath of God living inside of you? None of you. Dr. Knopfinger, have you ever seen a physician create life from nothing? Anybody else? Have they ever seen it? It's never happened. Why because God is the only one that can create it. Life, Eve. How many of you have been born without a mom? Without Eve? No matter, check this out. No matter what the world says in the emojis that come out on your phones, life comes from God and from God's order. We see this in the next story, right? The Adam and Eve were born that were made into existence and what happens? There is two simultaneous falls that happen, right? The Satan and the angelic demons fall from heaven, betray God, are coming to earth and simultaneously in the scriptures, you have Adam and Eve tempted with do we eat of the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? Two simultaneous falls happen at the same time. Mankind sinned against God and even the heavenly beings, the Satan and his demons fall from heaven. You have two things happening now. If you look at the story, you might say, well, why was Satan in the form of the serpent? Did you know that in the Old Testament it refers to angelic beings that fell from heaven as the seraphim? Did you know that the seraphim has the form? It's the root of the word serpent. The angelic beings that betrayed God came to earth and simultaneously took people and humanity away from God and distorted God. Here's what happened, I'm getting ahead of myself from next week because we're going to die further into this. God put two trees in the garden. One was the tree of life, one was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told them not to take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because when they eat of it, they would surely die. But guess what happened? They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And what Satan said is that they would be like God. Do you know what that means? It's that we wanted to become God. God says in his word, if you read it, that his ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Do you know when we go awry as people that start to destroy each other? It's when we stop believing in the beginning God. And we start thinking in life, Dan, in life, my way. And of course, again, the twin falls. There's an evilness that got brought into the world, the enemy, Satan and his demons that begin to work behind the scenes manipulating people, speaking words against God, maybe even manipulating the word of God to get you to believe a lie because he is the father of lies. He's the great manipulator. And we need to be aware of that. And in the New Testament, what does Jesus say? He says that the thief, Satan and his demons comes to you what? Steal, kill and destroy. For he has come that we might have Eve, that we might have Eve. Eve. Now, I want to take a minute, if you'll allow me to, to pastor you. You fast forward to the book of Moses. The people had rebelled against God, and we're going to talk about this in the coming weeks, and they became enslaved because of it. And when they were enslaved by an Egyptian ruler named Pharaoh, and God called Moses to free them from slavery, what did the ruler, the king, the Pharaoh, the government have to say? Kill the firstborns. Fast forward to another king who had a spirit behind him named Molech who started having his people who followed him for a false God that began to tell God's people to sacrifice their kids in worship to him. Fast forward to Matthew chapter one, Mark chapter two, Jesus comes on the scene. That he's been talked about as the Messiah, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And there is a ruler, a king, a government named Herod who is threatened by this king. And he commands that all kids would be killed because he's threatened by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Whether you know this or not, the greatest evil that exists today is taking the life of an unborn child. Now let me make it abundantly clear. Does God love Eve, the image bearer? One hundred percent. He is the author of Eve. He is the author of life. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus has come to give life and life abundantly. Let me pastor you well. Do we agree with everything that different political parties say and do and personalities say and do? Are you perfect? Is there anyone perfect in this room today? We have a phrase around here that there's no perfect people allowed. And God, listen to me, when I tell you this, that the greatest evil is taking what God is creating, that he's knitting us together in our mother's womb, in Eve's womb, that we are his image bearers, the thing that he created within mind, that this is very good. And yet we have the audacity to kill what he said was good. Now here's the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You and I are all sinners in need of a savior. And God has this unbelievable way of loving us with his grace and his mercy, knowing that we deserve his punishment, his justice, which is death spiritually and physically. But when we repent from our sins and turn from our wicked ways and turn to him to ask for forgiveness, he has this, he has the, he's the only one who has the ability, the same one who declared, let there be light and there is light. He's the only one that can look at your sin and mindset sin and say it is forgiven. And so let me be abundantly clear, clarity in the chaos. People are not always evil, but people are often deceived. This is why it's so crucial that we don't just look to my way and my thoughts. We got to center our lives on Jesus Christ and his word and his ways in the beginning, God. Not Dan, not new life. I wasn't, guys, I wasn't even born like anywhere close to in the beginning. Just thought you needed a breath of fresh air for a second. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. This is the most important issue for God is human life because that's what he created and said was very good. Again, he has the ability and he even says it that he can take our brokenness, our bad decisions and he can redeem it and make it as if it never happened. Do you believe me? Don't believe me, believe the word of God, believe Jesus. He can make it new. In John chapter one, we see this, the New Testament companion to Genesis chapter one, two and three is John one. It says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Again, notice it doesn't say in the beginning was Dan and his word and it doesn't say in the beginning was the United States of America and how awesome it is or name the nation. And then he says he, the word was with God in the beginning. Who is he? Jesus. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. And in him, in Jesus, say this with me, was Eve, was life. And that life was to be a light to all mankind. We're supposed to be image bearers of God's goodness and God's character. John one five says that light shines in the darkness. We're in the midst of so much darkness, but you need to know this from the word of God, the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not and will not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light. By the way, you and I are witnesses to the light. We are not the light. We are witnesses to God's goodness and God's grace and his mercy, his forgiveness and all that he is. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world and he was in the world, Jesus. Even though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Hey, Christian, hey, believer, when you share the word of God and people do not receive it, you need to understand them. They are not rejecting you. They were rejecting God. They're rejecting the light. They're rejecting life. They're rejecting his word. Though he created them and though he was with them, the world did not recognize him. Why? He started to say, in the beginning me, in the beginning my idea, in the beginning my truth, my experiences, not in the beginning God. So why do we have chaos and not clarity? It's because we've rejected his word. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Make the connection point. We are not all children of God. We must be reborn by the spirit of God to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent nor of human decision or husband's will, but born of God, the spirit, the ruach. The word became flesh. Jesus became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the Father full of grace and truth. I'm going to stop you for just a second because I, y'all know that there's election coming up. You laughed. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He comes to divide. Can I tell you something? We as God's people need to be standing firm on God's word, not a political candidate or a political platform. Can I tell you something? On Wednesday, Jesus will still be the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. And he even says that the government will be on his shoulders and where things are wrong, he will make right because he is the great judge. And church were different in that, yes, and by the way, the antichrist, the spirit of the antichrist, which wants to tell you as a believer that you can't speak out against things that are in opposition to God's word, is the spirit of the antichrist. So you're telling me that they can say whatever they want to say, but we can't say what God says? That is a lie from the pit of hell. That is the enemy who wants to pluck the seed of God's word and distort it, manipulate it, and change it. The law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. We come here, we say there's no perfect people allowed. Why? Because we come here to learn from Jesus, to worship Jesus, to give our lives to Jesus, to serve Jesus, to love Jesus, and to love each other like he has loved us. Can I tell you something? After this election season and you begin to see someone who's in your family or a friend group or at your workplace that voted differently than you, they need to still be welcome at your dinner table. You need to still be able to love them because Jesus still came, lived, taught, and died for them, even if they're in opposition to his word, which by the way, we all have been. No one has even seen God, but the one and only Son, Jesus Christ, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Heavenly Father who has made him known. This message today is a series of messages that you need to dive into because there's been too many people who have tried to manipulate, change, get you away from God's true word and we need to dive into his word because it brings clarity in the midst of chaos. So if you're taking notes, here's three points that you'll get out of Genesis chapter one and John chapter one. Number one is that God is our source. You aren't. And I hope for some of you that gives you a breath of fresh air because you're like, I don't need to have it all figured out because he does. He created it. He ordered it. He knows it. So why we need to make him our priority. How do you live this out? You got to be devoted to God's word. And by the way, for some of you, you've been maybe devoted to the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You need to go back to Genesis because God was speaking in Genesis just like he was speaking in John chapter one. Be devoted to God's word, his whole word. Be devoted to God's voice, hearing his voice, listening to his word, talking to him in prayer. Be devoted to God's worship in his house, among his people. The Bible says that when God's word is preached, faith rises. Number two, you need to take this to the bank that God is our yours and mine. He is our sustainer, that we rely on his word and his power and not our own. The Bible says that his word has the power to change our lives. It even says that we're to preach his word in season and out of season. Preach his word that encourages us, that corrects us, rebukes us, disciplines us. How many of y'all love the rebuke and the correction and the discipline of our heavenly father? Not enough of us. Jesus came full of grace and truth. I am so, how many of you are with me? How many are grateful for Jesus' grace today? That you sinned against God. I sinned against God, but he doesn't make me pay for the penalty of my sin because he did it for you. But God says that true freedom comes when we receive him as a gift and we turn repent. Repentance isn't about faith. It's a military term. It's turning from our sin and our sin for ways, our meistic tendencies, our selfishness, our rebellion against God and it's turning to him and his word. And he says that his true believers, when we obey what he says, check this out, then we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. So it's not just about knowing the truth. It's about living the truth. Obang it, standing firm on his ways. God is our sustainer. So we rely on his word and his power and not our own. Check this out. I was thinking about this as I was actually before this service, in between services. In the book of Daniel, there was a government system, right? A king that was telling Daniel to not pray to God. He was telling Daniel to not obey God, to be in relationship with God. By the way, 42% of the world today has governments that are telling believers that they cannot list up the name of Jesus. They can't open up a Bible. They can't have it or they will be imprisoned or they will die for their faith in Jesus. I don't know if you know this, but that same spirit is alive and well in the United States of America. And what I love about the picture in Daniel is Daniel, how many of y'all know Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? They stood firm in their faith. They weren't going to sin against God by saying, man, government says to do it? Okay, I guess we can do it. No, they stood firm and the ruler, right? The king threw them into a fiery furnace to die for being obedient to God. But there was a fourth person in that furnace and his name is Jesus. And he took them out of those flames and into life. We're going to stand firm on the word of God. We're going to stand firm in our faith. Why? Because he is with us through it all. And number three, God is our light in our life. So we put our faith and trust in him. This is why we change. God is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. He does not change. We do in response to his word. We change. He changes us into being better image bearers that he created us to be, reflecting his goodness and his character in the earth, changing us from being so self-absorbed, so selfish, to being people who serve and love others, just like he has served and loved us, keeping God's word, teaching his values, rebuking evil where it exists and bringing people home to live in God's created order of blessing and freedom. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, that it is clarity in the midst of our chaos. And so God, right now I pray that you would continue to speak directly to every single one of us in the areas that we need you. Jesus, you said that when your word is shared, when your word is preached, that we need to have fertile soil of our lives to receive it. But God, we also know Jesus, that you said that there would be weeds that propped up amongst that seed. Those weeds are distractions or manipulations. Maybe things that are uncomfortable to us, that choke out your word from being received. You also say that there's rocks, that we're so hard hearted, God, that we deflect your word, that we rebel against it. But God, you also say that there is a spirit of the antichrist that comes to pluck the seed and eat it, devour it before it even gets a chance to get to us. And so God, we pray against those things so that we would be receptive to your word and your ways that will set us free. If you're in the room today and you've never given your life to the one true God, Jesus Christ, who the heavenly Father said, I want to invite you to do that today. Literally the only way that you will find life and life everlasting is through Jesus. Jesus said, I have come to give you life and life abundantly, that no one comes to the Father except through him. The Bible says that we are all sinners, every single one of us in need of a savior. And Jesus is that savior. You may have tried to save yourself and I know it hasn't worked because I've done the same. So if that's you today, I want you to find your savior and Lord right here. The spirit of God is drawing you. You just respond and let him in by faith. If that's you on a count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up and hold it up. One, two, three people. You shoot your hand down from your heart to God. Simply say, Jesus, right now, I know that I am a sinner in need of a savior. And Jesus, I believe that you are that savior. And so right now I repent. I turn from my sin and I turn to you, Jesus, for grace and truth. That you would be my savior and my Lord. Heavenly Father, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Come inside me and change me. And from this day forward, I'll give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Church, put your hands together for our God who saves.

Full Sermon Transcript

The Lord bless you and keep you, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

May his favor be upon you and a thousand generations and your family and your children and their children and their children. May his presence go before you and behind you and beside you, all around you, within you. He is with you, he is with you in the morning, in the evening, in your coming, in your going, in your weeping, in rejoicing. He is for you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. May his presence go before you and behind you and beside you, all around you, and within you. He is with you, he is with you in the morning, in the evening, in your coming, in your going, in your weeping, in rejoicing. He is for you.

Amen. Good morning, everybody. How are you going to do it? Good morning, Brad. Jesus told us that we were going to all the world to be a part of this. That every nation tried to make the first thing. I should probably start again for those online. Hi, those online. I now have a microphone. Jesus told us to go into all the world and to preach the gospel into all nations. That every tribe, tongue, and language, and people group on planet earth would have access to the gospel. And yet 42% of the world doesn't have access to the gospel. That doesn't have access to a Christian, a Bible in their language and to a church that you and I are able to have on a daily basis. Most of you, if you have a Bible app or maybe different Bibles, you can pull up in your phone and choose the translation of your Bible in the English language. And yet there are so many around the world that don't have an entire, even just one scripture translated in their language. And so we've been talking about how that has to change. And we've been talking about this through the lens of generosity because generous Christians are the ones, generous churches are the ones that are able to be a part of God's solution for making sure that his gospel is spread to every people group on planet earth. Can I get an amen church? And so we're going to dive into 2 Corinthians chapter 8 today. So if you're taking notes, you can pull out your app and then the rhythm section right at the top is a place where you can take notes. But of course, if you have your Bibles, pull it out to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. This is the apostle Paul speaking or writing a letter to the church in Corinth about other churches that he has had encounters with. And he says this. He says, now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia. By the way, church, New Life Church, we want to be a church that does things through God's kindness. Can I get an amen? We want to be that kind of church. The apostle Paul says that these churches in Macedonia, they're being tested by many troubles and they are very poor. But they are also, even in the midst of their troubles and even though they are very poor, they're also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity. Their abundant joy overflows in rich generosity. I think one of the reasons why many Christians need to go abroad, need to go into nations that are different than ours is because they get exposed to something that God is doing and that breaks through something that we don't experience here. I've shared this in the last couple of weeks that Kelsey and I went to Uganda together on a missions trip. This is before we started dating. So if you're single and looking for someone, go on a missions trip and you might find the one. By the way, just a side note, you're probably going to find a better one there than you would at a bar. Can I get an amen? Just a side note. So we started dating after that but we were astonished. We had been on missions trips before but what seems to happen is God doesn't change the people that we go to, he actually changes us. And here's what is astounding. We as Americans, we have so much stuff that we think that when we go to a third world country where these kids literally don't have clean drinking water, they don't know where their next meal is coming from, and they might live with grandpa, grandma, their uncle, their aunts, their cousins, all their neighbors in this tiny little hut that has no air conditioning, has no plumbing, and we go there and we think that they need what we have. And the first thing that you'll experience is that we need actually what they have and it's abundant joy. That they actually have abundant joy. It is so, if you haven't experienced this, you need to go. This is one of the reasons I believe you need to go to one of these places because you will see a difference in people that you don't see in America. It's an abundant joy. Even in the midst of their troubles, even in the midst of their poverty, they have abundant joy. And it overflows in rich generosity. I love that it says rich generosity because rich abundant joy, listen to me, abundant joy and rich generosity has nothing to do with how much you have. Can I say that again? Abundant joy and rich generosity has nothing to do with how much you have. It says, Apostle Paul says, for I can testify that these people, these churches, they gave not only what they could afford but far more than that. And they did it of their own free will, which means for those of you who are wondering if you came to church today and the pastor is going to come around and make you take out your wallet and look at it and say, look at it and see how much you have and you're just going to give it all. That's not going to happen. I'm not going to shake you down. I'm not going to stand at the door and, oh, hey, guys, lock the doors. No, that's not going to happen. They did it of their own free will. And watch this. Say this out loud with me. I think it's in bold. Ready? Wait for it. The next one. Next slide. They did it of their own free will and they? For the privilege. For the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They begged to give. Again and again. God's heart was so entrenched inside of them that it welled up in abundant joy and unbelievable generosity, even in the midst of trouble and even in poverty. They begged us for the privilege of sharing this gift. They even did more than we had hoped for. The apostle Paul said for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord. And to us, other believers, other churches, to the mission of God, just as God wanted them to do. And so the apostle Paul says that we have urged Titus, who encouraged your giving in the first place, to return to you. And encourage you to finish the ministry of giving. Thank you. If you're new here, we do like to read the bold words out loud, but sometimes I forget that. And so you just have to go with it. All right. So well done. He says this. He continues and says, since you excel in so many ways. He's talking to the church, to believers. You excel in your faith. You excel in gifted speakers. You laughed a lot more than the first service. It felt really awkward for a moment there. You excel in your knowledge, your enthusiasm and your love from us. You guys are amazing. Speaking of ways in which you excel. He says, I'm not commanding you to do this, but I am testing how genuine your love is by comparing it with the eagerness of the other churches. Now, I want to give you some context for just a second, because if you go back to the Old Testament and the people of God were dispersed. They had been kicked out of the place of God, Jerusalem, the city of God. They had been kicked out of the temple of God. It had been destroyed and they were living in exile. And God began to raise up leaders to bring it back, to bring them back to Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple. And when the people came back to God and came back to God's house, he then wrote a book called Malachi. And in the book of Malachi, he says, you're here with me physically. But your heart isn't. Your heart is still out there somewhere. It's not connected to my heart. Your desires, God says, are not my desires. And what has he said? You've done everything. You've come back physically, but your tithes and offerings you haven't brought. And he says, where your heart is, your treasure will be also. How many of you know that your heart is connected to where your treasure is? And he says, so he says to come back to God. How? In tithes and offerings. It's connected through your wallet. And I'm not again, I'm not shaking you down. But but here's the deal here. Why does God do that, by the way? I believe with everything I've got. He does it because he knows that you are more apt to worship things more than him. That it will control your life. And so we see this scripture of comparing to churches that the eagerness to give and to be generous and to breathe, to be tithers and to be givers and to be generous. And I love this. I love what he says. I think it's on the screen. I'm not commanding you to do this, but I'm testing how genuine your love is by comparing with the eagerness of the other churches. I think I'm competitive. Do you guys know that? I'm very competitive. Like I want to win. If we're if we're in a if we're just playing cards, I will beat you. Which is, again, this is funny story. This is free of charge on that mission strip. When we were in Uganda, Kelsey and I were playing pocket, monopoly, monopoly or monopoly go or whatever. And she destroyed me. Yes, you did. And then we play pool and she beat me. And like I just I just kept losing and I'm like, OK, God, this must be the one. Anyways, I don't know why I said that to you, but I think I read this passage scripture and I begin to see the apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth to encourage them based off of other churches generosity. And can I just tell you something? When I we all the churches of Jesus Christ who are proclaiming his gospel and are Bible teaching, Bible believing, spirit led churches. There are those who claim to be Christian that aren't those. But by the way, I'm just saying but we're on the same team. And when I pass those churches, I pray for them. I like God, fill them to overflowing. God, God propel them forward. But can I tell you something? I don't want them to be more generous than us. None of you. He's comparing the apostle Paul is saying these churches are more generous than you. Now, don't raise your hand. Some of you may have come at one point from Valley Family or from radiant or from the bridge or from whatever. I want to be more generous than them. None of you. You're looking at me like, can I do? Can we do that? Yes, because if we're competitive in generosity, we're expanding the gospel more. So, yes, I want to be more generous. I want I want us and this is not to prop myself up. This is to prop the kingdom of God up. Like we're we don't, by the way, just for clarity sake, us pastors don't get together in a room and compare our books. But the heart of generosity. I believe Jesus wants it to be entrenched in his church. I want you to excel in this. He says, you know that the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, he was he was on his throne in heaven and then came to earth to be born in a feeding trough for you and I. Yet for his sake, yet for our sakes, he became poor so that by his poverty, he could make us rich, that he would make us into co-heirs and conquerors with Jesus, that he would rob hell and populate heaven, not with our things, but with you and I. And so this is what the apostle Paul says. Here is my advice. I think he's saying this to the church in Corinth and he's saying it to us. It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. You were generous. You gave last year. You were the first who wanted to give. And you were the first to begin doing it. Now you should finish. You OK. All right. I just I was terrible at that. Sorry. Let the eagerness that you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving. Now, today's message is going to be a little bit strange because when we talk about the vision of the church, the vision and the mission of the church, it comes from Jesus. I'm going to give you some clarifying things for us here locally, for us as a church going into next generation about the about other things. So we talked about kingdom builders over the last couple of weeks that we want to continually invest money so that God can be glorified by as many people as possible. And generosity, let me tell you, it starts after being faithful to the tithe. Being faithful to the tithe. What is the tithe? It's the first 10 percent. God says that it belongs to him. Why? So that his church would be full with his message, with his preaching, with his words, with his community. That we're faithful to the tithe. Can I tell you something? God did not call when we get to heaven one day, by the way, I want you to pass this test when you get to heaven. When you get to heaven one day, you want to hear these words from Jesus. Well done. Good. And do you know what the tithe is? It's being faithful with your money. It's being faithful. This is the genius of God. When God tells you and I to bring 10 percent of what we make to the house of God, how genius is this? The 10 percent to the churches that he's talking about in Macedonia, to the Corinthian church, to Valley Family Church, to the Ridge Church, to Radiant Church, I don't even know how many churches. It's the tithe is 10 percent in all those churches. And 10 percent to you is 10 percent to me. It doesn't matter what you make. 10 percent is 10 percent. And so for some of you, you just need to step into the obedience of God and be faithful to God in the tithe. But then he talks about something completely different. I brought this up last week. If you're a business person or maybe you're just investing money. What is the number one goal of starting a business and investing money? Don't put it up on the screen yet. This is a test. I'm testing you to see if you listened last weekend. Who said that? Up top. Boom. Return on investment. You invest to make a return on investment. You want to get a percentage growth on what you invested. Nobody started a business to just have all the problems that a business has. You wanted to work to provide for your family, for your life. And by the way, God says that he richly provides for our lives through our work, our hard work, that we work for the Lord. And he even says he does it for our enjoyment. So I want you to hear that. That this is not a message of you just have to give all your money away and then not enjoy what God gives you. That's not the message I'm sharing with you today. But you need to think through what you do. But here's what God wants. If on the earth we invest resources, we invest our time in our businesses to have a return on investment, what do you think God wants? He wants an eternal return on investment. So when we invest resources into his church, guess what happens? We don't make a profit. We rob hell and we populate heaven. That's what we do. We get to share Jesus with people and see the kingdom of heaven populated because of our investment on earth. And so I love this in Matthew chapter 6 verse 19 through 21. This is Jesus. He says this. He says, don't store up treasures here on earth. Don't hoard all these resources where moths eat them and rust destroy them and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasure. Nailed it. Where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, the desires of your heart will be also. He wants you to invest in his kingdom, to invest in his mission. I love this. Last week we shared this gentleman might even be in the room today. So if I butcher this story, I'm sorry. It's secondhand. You told it to my wife, not to me. But we were teaching on giving and a man came up to my wife. He says, I'm so glad you're talking about this because we need to hear this message. Years ago, a missionary came up to me and he said she asked me to invest in her ministry, to invest in her mission. And her mission was to go into one of these third world countries and to buy sewing machines and to teach women to sew and to make a living for themselves so they could provide for themselves. But in doing that again, this is creative missions. It's business as mission. She was a missionary. And she asked this guy, hey, would you invest in this mission? And the guy, all he had was $40 in his wallet. He took out the $40 handed it to her. And she ended up buying the first sewing machine that she used to go into this mission. Years later, like decades later, he got the opportunity. And this doesn't always happen, by the way. He got the opportunity to hear how that mission was going. And now that particular mission, this that one sewing machine, that one seed of $40 is now operating in multiple countries, freeing women from sex trade. That is eternal return on investment. That you when you invest in the kingdom of God, God does something to touch and change people's lives that you might not ever know about. That's why it's well done, good and faithful servant. Too many of us were concerned with the results. And by the way, we're concerned with results. We want to see it happen. But but but we don't often get to see that. But we get to store up treasures in heaven. Just a side note. Kelsey and I, we're in an interesting time period in our lives because we are a we budget. We do the daybreak. Ramsey system. We do the every dollar system. So we tell our money where it goes. We don't let our money tell us where it's going to get. By the way, your money is going to say, hey, I want you to I want you to do this. OK, my my mom. I struggled whether I was going to share this with you, but my mom is as is in hospice. We don't know how long she has to live. She's got it could happen today. It could happen in six months. We have no idea. But she's in hospice. And my dad passed away years ago. And we know that that she is going to leave my brother and I. To us, a significant amount of money. So Kelsey and I have already begun because we're every dollar people. We've already began to have conversations about what are we going to do with those with that that amount of money when it comes in. Like like we God wants us to steward. What he's given to us. Now, how many of you you stored up resources and you want to give something away to your kids one day? Well, that's not a bad thing to do. But too many of your kids aren't taught how to handle money and the heart behind money and the desires of God behind money. And so they're going to screw it up. And I know that even as a pastor, I might screw this up. So here's our conversations. A week ago, we left my mom's house and we went to Watson's to look at hot tubs. Can I get a hot tub? I I before we went to Watson's to look at hot tubs, I said, can we go drive cars? Can I tell you the world and money is going to tell you what to do? Can I tell you a hot tub is never going to change someone's life? Can I be really honest? We're probably going to get a hot tub. I just want to make that abundantly clear in case some of you drive by our house and like they actually got. Yeah, we did. I'm just going to understand what I'm talking about, but we also are having conversations of what do we want to do? With this money that, by the way, we didn't earn. But God wants us to invest and we are going to invest and it's going to bless our kids. It's probably going to provide for some of their their college if they want to do that or, you know, it's going to it's going to help for health, whatever. But I guarantee you, because we have the heart of God's desires, we're going to do something to invest in the kingdom of God so that so that we can see and we might not even see it. But we know that God is going to give an eternal return on investment. And so it doesn't matter what you have. And so for the next couple of minutes, I'm going to go through. Right. We launched last week or a couple of weeks ago, Kingdom Builders. So the regular tithes and offerings go to to to operating the church, making sure you have seats to Arizona. Maybe it's heat. I'm hot. I don't know if you are. You might be cold, whatever. If you're cold, put on more layers. OK, anyways, it's hot up here. But Kingdom Builders is is lanes of generosity. And so we want you to be faithful to God and giving. And so if you're not tithing, maybe it's you need to go from. Zero percent to one percent. You need to go to one percent to two percent and work your way to being faithful to the tithe. Some of you just need to go all in and you've just been stubborn and haven't done it. I'm just saying that out loud. Anyways, my wife was one of them. You're welcome. But I want to walk with you through some very honest conversations about where our churches, where we want to go, where we the needs that we have. Some of you, some of you are like, I just want to know the need and I want to be a part of it like that. So that's what I'm going to do over the next couple of minutes. By the way, if you are one of those people that wants to know more details about where money goes, how we spend it, blah, blah, blah. We have a trustee meeting tomorrow night and we're going to set a date for a meeting, a business meeting, if you will. For those of you who want more in-depth information about how we steward resources, what we do with it, where the needs are, etc. More in detail. I'm not going to do that on a Sunday morning because half of you don't care. But for those of you who do, we want that available. We want to be as transparent as possible. But I'm going to walk through Kingdom Builders. And this is our ability to go above and beyond to meet needs of our church, to continually expand the gospel. And some of them, can I just use the word, some of them are really sexy and some of them aren't. I'm just trying to be honest with you, OK? So the first. Are you laughing at me? Why don't you come up here? This is my wife, Kelsey. What's up, Kelsey? By the way, I forgot to say this. This is Pastor Appreciation Month, which we don't need a month. But stand up real quick. Jess Sims is one of our pastors. Kelsey, Sam Hitchcock. Isaac was in the room at some point. Aliyah Roland, who leads our kids ministry. Honor them, love them, hug them, give them a hot tub. Anyways. But we want to talk about local outreach for a minute because local outreach is a part of our heart. Like when God planted New Life Church, He planted us here to be His mission, to share His gospel, to preach His word in our local area. That's why we exist. And so we want to have more people come here, right? We want to get over 500 by next year. But here's the deal. We want to go outside of our church to be a blessing to people. Our primary way that we want to do that is by something called Safe Families for Children. And so I want you to give an opportunity to share with them the vision behind Safe Families for Children and how we have begun to do that. And so if you want more information about how to get involved in this, don't come see her afterwards. You can come see me, but we'll get you the information. All right? Yeah, Safe Families is an incredible way to partner with families in the area. It ends up usually being moms who are in a season that they can't take care of their kids. But the goal is to keep kids out of the foster care system and to give the families respite so that maybe they can get a part-time job. They can get a job or they can get out of an abusive situation. They can get a house. They can get their feet back on the ground so then their kids can come back to live with them. And so what we do is we have a partnership with Safe Families that trains people. And we have quite a few people in the church already. We're actually the first church in the area that is fully certified and up and running as a Safe Families church. We've had multiple placements already of kids going and staying in Safe Family homes through New Life Church. But we have host families that then take in kids for anywhere from a weekend to we've had kids stay for six weeks, I think. Or we have people that are like family helpers. Those are the ones of like, hey, I need someone to get these kids from school because I'm still at work. And so they get trained and they go pick up the kids and then bring them back home. One really cool story is we had a family who they have three young kids, two young kids of their own. But they just felt nudged and said, you know, we have extra rooms. We're supposed to help in this. We're supposed to be radically generous. And so they took in three kids because the mom was actually in an abusive situation and needed to get out of it. And so they took in three kids for six weeks. Those kids were actually then brought to New Life Church and met Jesus here at New Life Church. Six weeks later, the mom was out of the abusive situation and the kids were returned home to mom. And a few weeks later, we actually got a call to come pick up mom and kids to come to Kalamazoo. And we didn't know that it was actually because mom was considering going back to the abusive situation. So I actually went and picked up the mom and the kids in Battle Creek and was driving them back. And some of the coolest things that happened was when we were in the car, the first thing the kids said was, can we please call Kiki? And Kiki was the mom who had taken them in for six weeks. Can we please call Kiki? And I said, well, we're going to have to get your mom's permission because they knew that these parents loved them. They knew that they took care of them for six weeks, that they were stable, right? And then the next thing that happened is we were driving from Battle Creek, right? And so we're coming this way on I-94. And I don't know about you, but as a young kid, I had no idea where I was on the highway. But we're going over the highway and all of a sudden one of the kids starts screaming. And I'm like, what's wrong? And they're like, that's my church. And I was like, what? And they're going, there's New Life Church. That's my church. And they had been here probably two to three times. But they knew that in there were kids' teachers that loved them and would teach them about Jesus, were families that loved them that they got connected with. And the most amazing thing was we got them here and the mom had a discernment spirit check where she figured out that she was not going back to that abusive situation. And she took her kids and they're now living outside of the city and they're safe. And that's what Safe Families is all about. Yeah, so it's really, yeah, exactly. It's being the hands and feet of Jesus outside of these walls. And it's providing opportunities for no matter what the situations are. Can I tell you something? It's messy. Like we didn't even know she was in an abusive situation until she got into that family. And we just said, we're going to display radical hospitality, radical generosity, and take in these strangers. And there's a trust factor there. Oh my gosh, can you imagine? I can't imagine giving up my kids into another family. But man, how good is it that we can be the love of Jesus Christ to these kids and they can see the heart of God in it? The next one I want to talk about in Local Outreach is every year we do a kind of a back to school bash. It's a massive serve day where we provide backpacks for kids who need haircuts. I mean all the back to school awesome stuff that we can do for so many kids that are in need sharing the love of Jesus. Here's one that's coming up that we've never done before in a couple weeks. You can register through the app. It's Christmas Shopee. It's Christmas Shop, spelled with an E. It's Christmas Shopee. You can't stand saying it normally. Christmas Shopee. I feel like Will Ferrell the elf at this moment. But Chris, here's what we're going to do. We're going to have you guys, we're going to give you lists of toys and things to get. We're going to all organize it here and we're going to make this into a mall where parents can come and grab toys at different levels for different age groups. And we have an entire other team of non male wrapping gift wrappers because they're not good at that. They're good at wrapping meat with bacon but not good at. But I mean if you are good at that you can. You're actually good at that. Okay, well not that day. It'll take too long. It'll take, I'm too meticulous. Anyways, moving on. So we're going to do that where people from all over the city can come and provide for their kids a great Christmas to spread the love of Christ and to expose them to the heart of God's church. We're going to talk about next generation. There's a drop down menu of Kingdom Builders next generation. And what is that? That's things like making sure that kids can go to kids camp or students can go to the student conference. We want to make sure that cost is never an issue. So last year we took, what was it? The exact numbers. The exact numbers. Last year we took 27 students to Memphis, Tennessee. The cost for one student to go on this trip is $700. 16 of those kids didn't pay a dollar to go. Because of your generosity. Because of your generosity. And I had the opportunity to meet with some other youth leaders in the area who were asking, like, how do you do this trip? How is this possible? And they had, they said, do you do like a bunch of fundraisers, like pop can drives, car washes? How do you make this possible? And I said, honestly, we've never had to. And they were like, well, you must just have like a lot of really rich kids in your church. And it was like 16 of them were sponsored. We just have a really generous church. They said, we just have people who say, like, how can I provide? And so there wasn't a single kid that wanted to go that wasn't able to. Because they were provided for. We had an older gentleman who came up to me and just said, my life was changed at a youth conference. So here's $700 because I want the same thing for another kid. I have people who say, thanks for asking me again to sponsor another kid because I love the opportunity to see the life change in them. So now literally all year long, you can go to Kingdom Builders and invest in Next Generation. So making sure that that is that access to the scholarship is already there and taken care of for when that need comes. By the way, just a side note, if you're a parent that likes, well, I want my kid to work for some of that. You can do that. You can have your kid work for some of that. But we want to make sure that they have the opportunity that money is not an issue. I'm thinking about global missions. I have the dream. I have the heart. I believe God has the heart that by the end of someone's high school years, by the time they graduate, that through New Life Church, every single young person can go to a missions trip. And missions trips vary from $2,000 to $8,000. I mean, it's expensive to send people to the nations. And I pray that we can get so much money into that Next Generation dropdown on giving that we can make sure that every student that comes through New Life Church is exposed to the nations because God's heart is for the nations. The next one is NLC building projects. You're by. You know, again, some of them are some things are more sexy than others. I'm just going to share a couple of things that the church needs. We need a water softener. Like, I would like our water to not be filled with all the lead that the city provides. Is that fair? Our baptistry, we did have some people try to figure this out, our baptistry had, like, yellow water. And I was like, I want people to get into baptism and not be afraid that they're stepping into pee. Like, just being real. Our coffee brewing equipment is about, I think, six or seven years old. Like, a bunch of them are breaking. We need to replace that stuff. It's not sexy, but it's a part of it. So NLC building projects allows us to, again, there's needs that happen that you can pour into those things to make sure that we have the opportunity. Here's one. Doubling the size of this auditorium. We have the space. Some of you are really excited about that. Who was that? Sam, do you have $600,000 to do that? No. But us together, we might be able to pull that off someday. Okay? So I'm just sharing with you that the trustees and I are having multiple conversations. We don't know if we can do that, when we can do that. We know it might happen. We might need to do it. But I'm just telling you out loud that that's something that we are thinking through and preparing for. National missions. We are going to continue to plant churches just like ours who also, by the way, when we plant churches through ARC, who planted us, it's in our bylaws that we are tithing to missions organizations. And so when you give to these organizations, they continue to tithe out. So there's a multiplication effect on your giving. And global missions, of course, we've been talking about this over the last couple of weeks, is we want to make sure that the 42% of the world that doesn't have access to you has access to a Christian who can tell them about Jesus. We want to make sure that the 42% of the world that doesn't have access to a Bible in their language, and you and I have access to all sorts of Bibles in our language, that they have a translation in their language, that they have access to a church sometime. Well, I want to tell you a story for just a moment because I believe this really inspired me. In the early 1900s, there was a guy named William Whiting Borden. And William grew up in a very wealthy family. His dad owned a business that was in charge of a silver mining business in the Colorado area, but they lived in Chicago, and so these people in the early 1900s were multiple beyond millionaires. And at the age of, excuse me, I've got to check my notes to make sure I'm not making this stuff up. William gave his life to Christ in Chicago as a teenager. You want to know why we talk so much about making sure that the next generation has exposure to the gospel of Jesus Christ? Because I believe that God is going to do something miraculous through our young people. Can I get an amen? And so, God, man, so William gave his life to Christ as a teenager at a church in Chicago called Chicago Avenue Church, which became Moody Church. William graduated from prep school at the age of 16 years old. And his parents did what most of your parents have done for you when you graduated high school, is they gave William a trip to go around the world, to anywhere he wanted to go, and they sent a chaperone with him to go. How many of you all just want to be the chaperone? And so they sent him on this mission, not on a missions trip, it was just a luxury trip. And on that trip, young William was exposed to Muslim people. And his heart started to break for these people who had zero access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And God began to stir in him. And it was on that trip that God called William to go be a missionary. And so he comes back home from this unbelievable trip at the age of 16, and he does what most families do that are wealthy. He ends up going to Yale University, where many prominent kids would go at the time. And in the first year that he was there, he started a Bible study with some of his friends, because he knew that as a believer, it wasn't just going abroad to be a missionary, but he was to be a missionary everywhere he goes. And so while he was a student at Yale University, he started a Bible study. By year two, by the time he was a sophomore, William Whiting Borden's weekly Bible study had reached the entire school. The entirety of Yale University. Could you imagine if that happened today? It only takes one believer to do it. And they begin to tell a story that kids from freshman, sophomore, juniors, and seniors, everyone began coming to William's Bible study on a weekly basis. And it was at that time that William wrote this in his journal. He said, I need to say no to self so that I can say yes to Jesus every time. And so while all the students were considering where they were going to go out that night, or what they were going to get engaged in, all the fun they were going to have. By the way, you can still have fun and love Jesus. Can I get an amen? But he began to say, man, Jesus, what would you want me to do with my life right here and right now? Year two, he started what was called the Yale Gospel Mission. Sharing resources, sharing just a cup of water, sharing food with people that didn't have it. That were in poverty. And there was a guy, a well-traveled English man, who came to the United States. And he went to Yale. And he said what most impressed him about America was this. It was the sight of that young millionaire who was kneeling with his arm around a homeless person at the Yale Hope Mission. I wondered if that English man, if he came to America today, would see the same thing from God's church. He went from Yale to Princeton Theological Seminary. He ended up becoming a board member of the National Bible Institute and then the director of the movie Bible Institute while he was still a young man. And then he was, again, he was called to be a missionary to the Muslim people who had zero access to a Christian Bible or church. And so he was intent on becoming a missionary to the Hui Muslims that were located in northwestern China's Gansu Province. But to make sure that he could be effective in reaching those people, he knew that he had to learn some culture. He had to learn some language. And so he went to stay with a Syrian family in Cairo, Egypt to study Islam and to study Arabic. And in March of 1913, William Whiting Boarding contracted cerebral meningitis and died three weeks later. He was 25 years old. Boarding is buried in the American cemetery in Cairo. And after Boarding's death, his parents, again, were like, what is this kid doing? He's a millionaire. He has access to the business and he's doing these things. These seem strange. His mom found his Bible after his death and on the front page, she was taken aback by the words that were inscribed on it. Each of these phrases had a date next to it. The first one said no reserves. The mom equated that the date next to it, which is his mom believed to be the moment that he renounced his fortune to follow and be obedient to Jesus. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven is what he thought. The next phrase in his Bible was the two words no retreat. It had a date next to it. His mom believed this to be in response to his dad telling him that he would not have a spot in the family business due to his pursuit of missions instead of business. And the third phrase was the two words no regrets. At 25 years of age after being diagnosed with cerebral meningitis and when he was on his deathbed, he had zero regrets. Inspired by Williams faith again, William had the call of God to go to China to be a missionary and he never got to do it. But inspired by Williams faith, I would I would say in fire inspired by Williams investment in the kingdom of God and the words in his Bible his family gave $800,000 to the China Inland Mission. After William died. This amount of money ended up building the Borden Memorial Hospital in Langzhou, Gansu, China, which is operational to take care of medical needs and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ that had zero access to a Christian zero access to a Bible and zero access to a church. That hospital ran was operational from 1918 until 1951 when it was taken over by the Chinese government and shut down because of spreading the name of Jesus Christ. So the question is, believers, church. What will you do? Where is your heart? So just real simply, I want to give you some generosity next steps. Number one, maybe some of you in the room just need to become a tither to be faithful to God and in bringing the tithe to 10% into his storehouse, into his church. Be consistent, consistent faithfulness. Set up recurring giving. Maybe some of you, you just need to work towards the 10% because you've got to adjust what you've been spending your resources on. Maybe there's too many hot tubs. I just want to say this out loud. If I can encourage you, those those of you who may be tithing, maybe you are bringing if you if you're giving online by debit or credit card. Can you consider giving through ACH? The reason for it is because when you give by debit or credit card, there's a fee associated with it. It's less money that goes to the mission. Some of you want the rewards and I get that. Maybe you need rewards in heaven more. Number two, give out of what you have out of abundance. Right. It said they welled up with abundant joy and they gave generously. And so some of you, man, you have a pile of money. Maybe you're like my dad who steward, stewarded resources. Well, you invested and there was a return on investment. And my brother and I were about to get an inheritance and some of you have an abundance of resources. You've invested in the stock market. Let's show the next slide real quick. I'm going to give you the opportunity to see this because in the app on your giving, there's the regular giving tab that says giving. And that's our normal giving tab. But some of you, man, you got piles of money in IRAs or in stocks or maybe you've got it in your business had stock options and you just have this unbelievable amount of abundance that you can give towards. You can literally take out your phone, scan that. Matter of fact, just do it right now. Just just so you can see what it is. So you can look at it. See. Check it out.

It's scan it and think through like. I'm a I'm a donor. I could. You can give stock through this through this app and in a really easy, secure way out of abundance. My my shared about my mom on hospice. My brother and I had a conversation with her a little while ago when she which we knew that that her life was coming to a close. And again, we know what she's with. We know what she's going to give us. And we had conversations about mom, why don't you start being generous so that you can see? You can see you can be you can know what your money is going for and going to. My mom gave this church thirty thousand dollars. And you know what? She might not even know. The eternal return on investment. That's going to happen. But I believe Jesus will show her when she enters his kingdom one day and he shows her and says to her, well done, good and faithful servant. I pray that we would be overwhelmed with abundance of joy. No reserves, no retreats, no regrets. Be eager. Pray. Start now. Big gives on December 8th. Second Peter three twelve says you ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of coming day of God and speed. It's coming. That's what we do in sharing the gospel. We speed God's coming. And if you take care of God's house, he will take care of your house. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you for your word. God, we thank you that your heart was to give and to give generously. So, God, we pray that we would have your heart to be generous. God, that we would give out of our abundance and we would give out of what we do have. That we would just be faithful to you. God, and you will do extraordinary things with it. God, I pray that in this moment people are called to get more involved in our local outreach, to get more involved in spreading the gospel to the next generation. Getting involved in what we're doing in the building, getting involved in planting more churches nationally and getting more involved in taking your gospel to the 42% of the world that still doesn't have access to a Christian, a Bible or a church. God, I pray that you would move and that we would respond and say, yes, Lord. If there's anyone in the room today and you've never given your life to Christ, let me tell you something. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. I want to give you the opportunity today to respond to Jesus, to believe in him and to call him Lord. If that's you today, I want you to take a step of faith. On the count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up. One, two, three. Now from your heart to God, right where you are, you simply say, Jesus, in this moment I acknowledge that I am a sinner in need of a savior. I turn from my sin and I turn to you. Jesus, thank you for paying the penalty of my sin by dying on the cross to forgive me. And rising from the grave to offer me a new life. So right now, Jesus, I believe in you and I call you Lord. Come inside of me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and change me. And from this day forward, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name. Amen. Church, put your hands together for a God who saves.

Full Sermon Transcript

ive been learning everybody. Man, something has to change. And I shared last week that it's beginning in us. We're getting exposed to information that we didn't know about. And the fact that 3 billion people on planet earth don't have access to a Christian. They don't have access to a Bible or church. They don't have access to a church like we do. That has to change. And so last week we shared that there's 3 types of people when they're exposed to this information who they are. Yeah, there's the first person, which I know was me a few weeks ago. There's the first person who had no idea. I thought everyone on earth at least knew who Jesus was. I thought everyone had heard about Jesus and God. I didn't know that 42% of the world literally had no access. So the first person is just the person who doesn't know. Second is the person who knows but doesn't care. Or Dan also said last service, maybe the person who knows but is too distracted to care. The person who cared for a minute but then life got in the way and it was like, well, someone else will be the one to tell them. Yeah, like imagine if you woke up every day with Jesus's heart to go and make disciples of all nations, not just thinking about what we would wear, what we would eat, what we would do for that day as a job or how we would play because Jesus said that even the birds of the air knows that they need to be clothed and fed and all those things. But what if we had the mission of Jesus on our heart and minds every single day? What if every Christian on planet earth knew that there were people who had yet to know just how much Jesus loves them? And that's the third person. That's the person who knows. They know that 42% of the world doesn't even have access to a Christian to tell them that God loves them and they can't sleep until they've done something about it. They do something about it. So last week we shared that we have a goal. We have a vision as a church to see 500 people gathered here on the weekends. And just to give you context, if you're new or even if you don't know, because if you just come to church, you probably don't know because you don't stay in there and count people. But when we left Madewon and moved here, we were averaging about 160 people gathered to hear God's word preached and to worship God on a weekend. And since we've moved here, actually the last 10 weeks, I think we've averaged around 340 to 360 people. So God is doing something at New Life Church and gathering people. And it's so important that we're gathered because if you if you're wondering like, man, why are our lives falling apart? Why is there so much dysfunction? It's because we've walked away from God and God's word and we've gotten distracted and man, we need to come back to that which grounds us, which is the Bible. By the way, faith, did you know this? Faith doesn't happen by you experiencing a miracle. Did you know this? The Bible actually says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. And so how can someone's faith be stirred up? How can they have faith if they don't hear the Word of God preached? And G and Kelsey actually asked me this question. I think it was one of our young adults asked this question as they're going through the Bible recap, you know, Jesus often when he healed people, especially early on in his ministry, by the way, we ask God for healing. We're not saying you shouldn't do that. But early on in his ministry, he healed people and then told them what? Don't tell anyone. And so one of the young adults said, why, why does he keep healing people and then asking them not to tell anyone? So I asked Dan, well, I don't know. Why does he ask people? And he said, it's it's so that they wouldn't become so obsessed with the product or with the healing of Jesus before they got to know the message in the teaching of Jesus. Right. That they wouldn't just want one part of him. They would they would want all of him. And so we said we want to see 500 gathered here on the weekend that we want to be a growing church because we want more people to be to be receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ to hear God's word because he is worthy to be worshipped. And we said that equally important is that we don't just come and gather and have a good time. By the way, we hope you have a good time. We hope you have good coffee. We hope we have a great kids ministry that you get a hug that you get prayed for that you feel loved here. But we need to be sent out by God to reach people who are far from God. So you saw I said this last week, I said, I don't know how it's going to happen. And it happened. Can we praise Jesus that there is a sign out there that says 500 gathered and 50 people sent and ironically, Kelsey was in charge of getting this done. And, and the guy who was who came here to do that sign, he he sent me the mock ups and it said 500 gathered and then it said dot 50. See, like, like the rapper CNT 50 cent. And I was like, you misunderstood the assignment. But this is amazing. Yeah, we changed it. But I thought you guys would get a good laugh out of that. And listen, right. I said this last week that that God cares about being gathered together and, and to hear God's word and to worship together. This is like a pep rally for believers to then go out in the world to be sent by God into the world to proclaim his gospel. And so but I saw I said that that gathering is just as important as sending that sending people is just as important in gathering. But here, can we just reason with each other for just a second? Do you believe that the more that we have gathered the more ability we have to then disciple people to then be sent? Like if we want to send more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ to nations and the people groups that have never heard the gospel, like we got to gather more people to be able to train them and to send them. And so we have that goal for a reason. I hope we can. Can is anyone with me? Can we obliterate that goal? Like, like 500 gathered seems like nothing in comparison to 360 at the moment. Like all you need to do is leave here today and think through this week, like who could I invite this week? Because you have divine appointments that God has placed you in every single day of every single week. And the more people we have gathered, the more we can disciple and send and and I and we're going to share with you some heart behind sending but it takes it takes people and it takes resources. And so I want to just get out some some logistical things right away this morning before we get into the meat and the heart of the content today. And that is that every year we do something at the end of the year called big give. And so it's our time to man we want to help accelerate the mission that Jesus has assigned to proclaim the gospel to more and more people. And so big give, you can write this down is on Sunday, December 8. It's the second Sunday of December. And so as we start thinking about end of your giving, as we think about closing the year strong, we want to we want you to have that date down so you can come and give your biggest and best and it's different for everyone. Your biggest and best offering to God and clarity is kind. And so we're giving you time to decide what is in your heart to give to be generous with second Corinthians nine seven says this, it says, each of you how many of y'all read that it doesn't say some of you. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give. Now, when you're married, the Bible says that the two become one flesh. And so it's it's, it's one heart, right? So you need to leave if you're a married couple, you need to leave here and have a conversation about like, what what would God have us do? You ask God, what would you have us do and then you be faithful to God and what he shares with you? Because here's what he says, each of you should decide should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, say this out loud with me this next part for you don't have it. For God loves a cheerful giver. Okay, let's say that out loud. For God loves a cheerful giver. Do you know why I'm giving you the date December 8? It's so that you don't feel compelled. It's so that you don't feel like you showed up to church today. And the pastor is asking you to take out your wallet and empty it like you're at Disney World. Okay, that some of you got that joke anyway, it would give them a bracelet and they would just scan it and then later your bill all your money is gone. So decide in your heart what you would have conversations got God, what would you have us do to move your mission forward? Yeah, and I you know, as we were preparing this message, I said, Dana, are you really starting to talk about money like at the start of the message? Like, why not at the end after like we do the heart and the meaningful stuff and then like do it at the end and he said, because clarity is kind. Yeah, like you don't you don't want to do all of all of the heart and then all of a sudden, like, and by the way, the church needs people and resources. So we're gonna ask for you to give. But we do we believe that the Bible says, where vision is lost, right, the people perish. And so we promise to always be asking for more vision from God to always be saying, God, what else do you want to do with your believers? What else do you want to do with your house? What else do you want to do with your people? In this year, we feel like our eyes have been opened to something that we probably haven't pastored you well in. Because if 42% of the world does not know about Jesus, we need to do something about it. Right. And we need to steward our finances well so that when all of us get to heaven, we can hear the words well done good and faithful servant, so that it's not where you stand there and you're like, why didn't know the people who were leading me didn't tell me I had no idea that 40% of the world didn't know about God, that would be on us. And so we want to make sure we tell you. And so maybe for some of you, it's like, hey, we just need to update our tithe. Dan and I just had to have that conversation. Because some of you may not know I went part time for the church when we moved into this building and bills were higher for the church, I said, I'll go part time so that we don't have to make other staff changes. So we had to change our tithe then maybe it's we started at 2%. Maybe we can step into three and see if God meets us there because I believe he will. When we were at this conference, this Project 42 that we're going to talk to you guys about, I've joked with a lot of you and told you like, I'm not really the generous one in this relationship. So when Dan says like, if you're married, you need to go home and pray about it. I'm the saver and I cringe because it's like I have to go home and talk to the generous one who what God tells him is normally an extra zero, then what God tells me. And so then I'm like, can we meet in the middle? And he's like, you really think we need to do that? And I'm like, yeah. So but the the amazing thing is when we were at this conference, I went from person one, the person who didn't know, to person three, the person who couldn't sleep within about two hours. And I woke up the next morning and I said, Dan, if I'm getting if I'm going back to full time at church, we've learned how to live on my budget of part time. So let's just take everything I'm getting from from going back and put it towards this mission. Or let's and Dan was like, Whoa, whoa, down, we'll figure something else out. But when God speaks to your heart, you can often trust that Satan will also whisper to your mind. So when God spoke to my heart and said, you need to be a part of the solution, you need to do something. Now you know what are you going to do? Maybe you can't go live in India right now because you're pastoring a church here. But I bless you with other things that you can be a part of it in. Satan automatically said, but you have three kids. But have you seen the cost of groceries? Like you can't even buy eggs. What's gonna happen in the next few months? What if you can't even afford your house? We can buy eggs, by the way, we can. But all of a sudden, I heard these whisperings. And when we were making our pledge of what we were going to give personally to Project 42, because we're doing that as well, I was sobbing. And Dan was like, What is going on? And it's because I have never felt spiritual warfare within my body, as much as I did that night, because God had so clearly spoken to my heart that I needed to do something. And Satan was having a heyday in my mind. So I want to encourage you today that you have to be able to pinpoint who's speaking to you. Yeah, you have to be able to say is this coming from the Lord? Or is this coming from the enemy? And oftentimes, the Lord speaks to your heart and the enemy whispers to your mind. In Malachi three, eight through 10, it says, should people cheat God yet you have cheated me, but you ask, what do you mean? Where did we ever cheat you? You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. You're under a curse for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse. There will be enough food in my temple. If you do says the Lord of Heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. Another translation says I will throw open the floodgates of heaven. I will pour out a blessing so great that you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it put me to the test. This is one of the only places in Scripture where God says test me, right? Right. Correct my theology. There's another place where he says, when he's talking to Satan, he's referring to Scripture and he says, do not put the Lord your God to the test. Yeah. God, God himself says test me. Test me. I will bless you. And the way I chop down this verse is to say if you take care of God's house and God's mission, he will take care of your house. Right. And the amazing thing is I can promise I've seen it time and time again. Every time that Dan says, well, I took our tithe from 10% to 12% and I'm like, what? And then all of a sudden it's like, but how did we have enough? By the way, I don't just do that without talking to her. We're gonna have a conversation after this. For a season. For a season he just had to because I was so not generous. Yeah, I was very stingy. Anyways, we'll continue. This is your part. We don't preach together often. This is why. Jesus, right. Jesus said to his followers 2000 years ago and he's saying to us today, it's never changed by the way his his mission has never changed. He told his believers he's telling you and us to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to share his good news. Mark 1615. And yet today on planet earth, 42% of the world is still waiting to hear Jesus still waiting to be exposed to a Christian still waiting to be exposed to a Bible in their in their language still waiting for a church just like ours to be able to share the gospel with according to the world Christian encyclopedia. Currently less than .01% of church resources are being used to reach the unreached. The 42% of the world of the 3 billion people on planet earth that will live grow up and die without ever being hearing the gospel. And by the way, Jesus said that until everyone has had the opportunity to hear, then the end will come. When every person and so you were sharing like it's crazy to me how how you're like man, I just wish Jesus would come back like it's getting crazier and crazier and yet we church have a role to play in Jesus returning and making all things new and right. We can speed his coming. We can speed his coming. With 42% of the world living without access to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we believe that the unequal distribution of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest injustice in the world today. Check this out. We were just praying for healing, right? Our God is the one who can calm the wind in the waves. He's the one who can literally walk on water. He's the one who can make the deaf hear and the blind see. He's the one who raises the dead to life. Can I ask you a question? If you had the cure for cancer, would you share it with someone? Of course you would. A matter of fact, I believe that you would wake up every day with who can I tell? And yet so many Christians hold the answer to life and death. His name is Jesus and they wake up thinking about what they're going to wear, what they're going to eat, what they're going to do that day, how they're going to chase their kids around and the church Christians have to be obsessed with sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ because that is God's mission. It's the same mission that reached you and I cannot be held just in this room. It has to be shared. Yeah, you know, Dan told a story last week of two lost kids and so I want to I want to tell it again but try to put it into context. We have Harper and Gracie. Gracie is six. Harper is eight and I want you to pretend. We do have a third kid but this is just out for this story. Yeah. Yeah. He I just got a picture of him chilling in the nursery and he's like laid out in one of those rockers and he's way too big for that. So I don't know what is happening. He's fine. So Gracie say that Gracie is lost in this building, right? Gracie is running around. No one can find Gracie. Say that Harper is lost in India. I say that I'm the church as the parent. I'm putting $99.99 towards putting towards finding Gracie in this building and one penny towards finding Harper in India but I know that there's about every single person in this room knows who Gracie is and knows who her dad is and can get Gracie to her father. Not a single person in India knows who her dad is or knows how knows how to get Harper to her dad yet I'm spending a penny to help Harper and $99.99 to help Gracie. That's an injustice. Right. Because there's a million people here that I could trust to bring Gracie to her dad. There's no one in India that even knows her dad that could get Harper to him. The same way that this morning I walked into the church and there was a couple that I met that had been sleeping outside and they came to sleep outside because there was free Wi-Fi and then they got warm coffee when they came in this morning but they had access to a church. Right. They had access to the gospel. They had access to me who would come and pray over them this morning before we had service. The same way that there's youth kids that maybe grow up in a home that don't have parents that are believers but they have friends who know about Jesus who bring the kids to the youth group who then learn about Jesus. There's kids in other countries who have no friends that know about Jesus because they don't have parents that know about Jesus because they don't have a bible in their language. They don't have a single person that can tell them but we're spending 99.99% of our resources here. So raise your hand for just a second if you didn't know that 42% of the world did not have access to a Christian, a bible, or a church.

That looks like just about all of it. And we were there just a few months ago and so we were exposed to some believers, some missionaries, some friends of ours that are in this and have been in this for a long time. And then we were introduced to a missions organization called Project 42 which we're going to talk today. Project 42 of course 42 to reach the most unreached people groups that have zero access to the gospel. And here's what they do and we're going to share this over the series today. Their goal is to raise awareness because people don't know. Raise awareness and resources for the 42% of people on planet earth without access to the gospel. So recently we had a matter of fact it was just me it wasn't Kelsey at the time but I had a conversation with pastor friends of ours in Holland who actually have been devoted to sending people to the nations to the 1040 window to the unreached people groups for two decades. And they told us man if we had to do it all over again if we were starting from scratch we would go all in with Project 42 because everything that we've been building over the last 20 years they're doing and in a more simplified manner. And so we're going to talk about Project 42 today because we're we haven't started from scratch like we send we're sending people to Honduras we're sending we're taking care of kids we are doing Bible translations but this is going to help us to partner with a great organization who's already doing better than we could ever do.

Are you are you picking up what I'm putting down like we're going to partner with strategic organization. So 100 percent of the support that Project 42 receives is dedicated to raising awareness and resources for those without access to the gospel of Jesus Christ and then through those strategic partnerships that they have they work directly with select missionaries and organizations that are already working among the 42 percent of the unreached people groups on planet earth. Oh am I supposed to keep going.

Did I take your spot. I think I took your part. So here are five areas if you're taking notes here are five areas that Project 42 focuses on in its efforts to spread the gospel to unreached people groups with zero access to a Christian scripture or church and so this is what we're going to be doing together. The first one is mobilization. If you come into our church we will talk about this often you'll see it on the the wall in our discovery room and that is that the local church mobilized is the hope of the world. The mo the local church gathered does nothing you have to go and preach the gospel. You have to share the gospel with other people. The new viral trending thing is go to church on Sunday be the church on Monday and gather and then be mobilized. Yeah absolutely. So mobilization what does that mean. We believe that all missions movements start with mobilizing listen to me committed long term missionaries. What is a long term missionary. Let me share with you the definition of a long term missionary. It's someone who goes on mission for two plus years. Okay. Some of you are like oh my gosh. What does that even look like. What does that even mean. This actually happens. People go on missions to places for two plus years and we have people in our church who have said they're already interested in that people in our church which is why we put up 50 cent on our wall to be able to do this together. But here's what happens if you're in the missions world they'll say that it takes time to build relationships with people to share the gospel. It takes resources and time and so you got to be there long term to which some people will say well then what is the point of short term missions trips which we do. Right. By the way if you go into the app you can sign up for our missions trip to Honduras. Many of you did last week. Please go do that. Okay. But here's the reality. On average those people who are called to long term missions they've been on six to eight short term missions trips before feeling called to long term missions. So if we want to be a sending church for long term missionaries we got to have more groups going on short term missions because we've said this all along when you go on a short term mission strip it changes you more than it helps them. Like God does a stirring in you that changes your perspective changes your life transforms you in such a way that you see mobilization and missionaries in a different way. You got a wife out of it. And I got a wife out of it. We went to Honduras. No we went to Uganda together and we began dating shortly after. By the way she begged me to ask her out on a date. Just fun fact. So if you're starting later so if you're single and looking stop looking at your local bar and start getting involved in God's mission. Okay. Less than three percent of all missionaries are currently going to work among the 42 percent of the still unreached people group. So we got to get creative to get there. And so through this strategic partnership with project 42 we're going to send and mobilize hundreds of more missionaries to those specific areas. Yeah. So the first thing that they do is mobilization. The second thing is scripture translation. And so there's over 2100 languages that don't have the Bible able to read in their language. And I was thinking this week you know Angie's here and Angie actually started our church through reading the Bible in a year. Kind of a cool shout out. Angie had the vision of let's do this Bible reading in a year and she was so passionate about it that then she invited some of us to do it. And now it's turned into a life group of over how many people are doing the Bible in a year. Yeah. Like 145 people reading the Bible in a year which is pretty awesome. Amazing. Amazing. And but I've had so many people ask me the question what translation do you read it in? And it's like do you read it in NIV, NLT? Do you read in the message? King James Version? And I'm like well right now I'm really loving NLT because it's short but still easy to understand. And then I thought oh my gosh there's people who don't have one translation. You know I can barely keep up with KJV because it's so fancy. But there's people who don't have it in their language at all. And yet we have like 50 different versions to choose from. To download and choose from. Yeah and so this organization partners to then get the Bible in other languages. So there's a group of people, a group of business leaders that actually saw an issue with Bible translation a few years ago. I referenced this last weekend. One of the guys is one of the members of the Green family that started Hobby Lobby who has given the money. I mean they've given billions of dollars. They built the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC which I believe it or is it in New York? I don't remember. But they and Bible translation is a huge part of it. But here's what they realized. What they realized is they was all these different publishing companies that were translating the Bible into all the different languages. And they were all working on the same languages in different companies. Do you understand what I'm saying? So they were duplicating the work. They were using more resources than were needed. And so these business leaders saw this issue, brought them all together under one umbrella called illuminations. And so if you want to research it, type in illuminations. And so what they've done is, is hey, if you're a Bible translating publisher, you focus on this language. We'll give you the resources to get it done, but we're not duplicating the work. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Like thank God for business leaders that saw this issue and brought these publishing companies together because they're not just about making money. They're about preaching the gospel. Here's another challenge to you that I was just made aware of this week. I shared this last week, is that in many of these companies countries in the 1040 window, it's illegal to be a Christian. Like you could be killed for being a Christian. You could be killed for having a Bible. You could be killed for being a church. And so that's why it's so difficult for us to preach the gospel in these locations. And so literally, can you imagine it's not just translating the Bible in their language, but it's getting them an app that has encryption on it so that it can be hidden from the government so they can actually stay safe in spreading the gospel. I learned this this week. During the pastor's gathering on Tuesday, we had an organization here called One Hope, and One Hope is bringing the Word of God to kids around the world. And they have to get creative in how they do it because they can't just go into nations and bring the Bible translation. So some locations, they wrote a book, and it's actually a book on hygiene. It's like how to... because some of these regions have horrible hygiene, horrible water, all these things, and they're malnourished. And so one part of the book might be, hey, here's how to wash your hands in a right way. Here's where to do it. And as they're doing it in this book, they're teaching the kids how to sing Jesus loves me. And so they're getting creative in how they're sharing the gospel with these people because they can bring the book in, but they can't bring the Bible in. Did you know this? I found that this is mind-blowing. How many of you are for Israel? Like you're praying, some of you don't even know if you're supposed to raise your hand. You should be for Israel because the Bible is for Israel. Those are God's chosen people. Did you know even in the nation of Israel that it is it is illegal to evangelize a kid under the age of 18? It is illegal in Israel to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to kids under 18 years old. And so we got to get creative on how we're going to do this to share the gospel with people have yet to hear it. I'm going to do these next two together. The next two are church planting and creative access. And they actually go together because in these countries you can't plant a church. Right. And you guys know that that church planting is near and dear to our hearts because we are church planters. Right. But you can't just go into one of these countries and make a building and call it a church because you will go to prison. Right. And so I got to actually work out with a missionary while we were at this at this conference. And she's a missionary with her husband and her two kids in Lebanon. And what they do is they actually started a gym. And so through this gym she has women that come to work out with her. And then through that she gets to preach the gospel to them. And then they started house churches where they meet in the basement. They share the gospel. I know another couple who is in outside of China somewhere around there. And they started a coffee shop because shockingly coffee is not big yet in China because they like tea. Right. So now they're really popular because they introduced China to coffee. And so people come to the shop. So it's church planting in a creative way because they're basically it's called business's missions. They're starting a business but then using that almost as like their facade to then be able to preach the gospel. Yeah. And it's so cool because it's literally creativity on how to share the gospel. And here's what we've learned in those contexts again it's creativity. It's creativity on how you're going to share the gospel with people. And so I love just the heartbeat of like we're going to start a business. But the purpose of the business isn't to make money which by the way in those countries where it's illegal to preach the gospel it's not illegal to have a business. It's not illegal to make money because everyone speaks what money. And so they create these businesses simply to proclaim the gospel with people. And so tell them tell them about just just real quick the couple that we met at this organization who are in Lebanon. They're from Minneapolis a church just like ours. And imagine matter of fact the missions pastor at that church is the founder. He and his wife are the founders of project 42 who have processed over 30,000 missionaries. But they were she was a news anchor in Minneapolis. Yeah so she's the one who owns a gym now in Lebanon. She was a news anchor in Minneapolis. The best thing is they're they're missionaries in Lebanon. Her husband had never been on one mission strip. Yeah. When they went to Lebanon to be full-time missionaries. But she said they heard about it and they felt a calling in their hearts to we need to go and we need to be missionaries. And they went newly married I think they had been married for about a year. And they went to Lebanon. It was very hard for her to get access because she was in the news. So to get access into Lebanon was very difficult. But then they had two kids in Lebanon. And you know what they said they said they the majority of the persecution they face for being missionaries is not in Lebanon. It's actually from Christians here who are against them having their kids be missionaries there. And she said my kids are great. This is what my kids know. Yeah. They love it. They're passionate about sharing Jesus. They're taken care of. But the most persecution she's facing is from Christians in the States. I love that. Well I was going to say one more creative idea is that we were we were talking about generosity at this conference and and how to get get creative and how to give money. And I love we met this family and they had kids in high school that literally created their own business so that they could help fund these missionaries through Project 42. One girl in specific I actually think I think she's in college now but she started it when she was in high school. She began making soap and selling it and giving all the proceeds of that all of the the the income that she created to Project 42 to advance the gospel. Like I believe with everything I've got that that girl is going to hear the most vibrant well done good and faithful servant when she enters Jesus' kingdom. Can that may that be said of all of us? The next one is compassion. Right we believe that compassion opens the door to share the gospel. Right I said this last week that we're going to share a cup of cold water with people. We're going to build water wells together. We're going to talk about hygiene. We're going to help clothe people and give food away and all these compassionate things. We're going to wrap our arms around people but if you do that without sharing proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ that you don't have to pay for your sins because Jesus has done it for you then they will never receive the full answer and help that they need. That we aren't robbing hell and populating heaven and so many of the poorest and most vulnerable individuals on planet earth today are in these unreached communities. They're in the 1040 window and so through this strategic partnership with project 4042 we're going to support people and help provide food and farming education and medicaid medical care for those that are in these desperate situations to make sure that they know that we love them and care about them when we're sharing Jesus with them. Yeah and lastly is awareness and engagement and we just saw it when we asked you how many of you knew about this or how many of you didn't know and for those of you who don't like look around and be creepy like me that's what I do. It was like everyone in the room. It was almost everyone in the room is like I just didn't know and you know what I said is we would not be doing our job as pastors to this church if we didn't tell you that 42 percent of the world doesn't have a church right down the street that they can go to to find free wi-fi but then be told hey your life is still worth living. Someone told me this morning I just feel like giving up. I don't think it's worth it anymore and I said no even if you were the only person on earth God still would have died for you. Can you imagine living in a country that there's no one that can tell you that? Right. Can you imagine being a high schooler and there's no friend that can bring you to a youth group that can tell you about the hope of Jesus? Can you imagine being a kid that doesn't have a kids church to go to where you can learn about the bible stories and learn about who Jesus was? I look at my kids and we're in the car and they want to they want to play worship songs and they want to talk about their bible stories. I told first service they wanted to stalk one of their kids teachers Facebook profiles because they love Mr. Brent so much that all they want to do is know more about their kids teacher because they love how passionately he loves Jesus. But I can't imagine knowing that there's kids just like mine across the world who have no ability to know that. They have no one around them that can share the hope of the world and so we have to do something something has to change. There's people that don't know they genuinely don't know but now you know. There's people that know and don't care maybe they're too busy and they don't focus on what Jesus is focused on and and then hopefully we're the type of people that that we know and we can't sleep until we do something about it. Yeah reaching the whole world may seem impossible seems like a big task but according to God's word it's inevitable because we see in Revelation 1 9 or Revelation 7 9 it says after this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation not some nations right every tribe not some tribes every people in language standing before the throne and before the lamb they were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands church I hope that when we go to heaven and we're standing before God that we look side to side and there's not just people standing beside us that look like us but not only that there's not people standing beside us that speak the same language as us that we're not just standing besides people that grew up in America like we did because we did our part in speeding his coming. I get asked by people which is funny that they would ask me because I have no idea they say do you think we're living in end times to which the first response is if we were would you live any differently because then maybe you should. Secondly if we are living in the end times then we have a long ways to go if 42 percent of the world still doesn't know because the bible says that everyone will have had the chance to hear about God so we gotta do something. We gotta do something and so I want to share with you again we're talking about vision this is Jesus's vision this is his mission but it's also about it's about generating uh we're gonna do something about it and so I seared last week that we're shifting our church like we're a tithing to missions church and so when money comes in we we send it out to different areas and to different partnerships not just building the walls of our church and making you comfortable but making sure the gospel is preached as many places as possible but we're about to shift because there is a great injustice that more resources need to be sent to these places that have zero access they don't have you and I to share the gospel with them and so I want to tell you just a goal of going above and beyond the tithes and so some of you again Kelsey said this maybe some of you need to start tithing maybe you need to go from two percent to four percent to be faithful in in that to God and and then maybe some of you you are tithing and you need to go above and beyond the tide to give to kingdom builders as God leads and so I have a goal of seeing New Life Church give forty two thousand dollars by the end of the year this year to project 42 to get as many resources as we can to the front lines of the 1040 window to the people who don't have access to the gospel and so I just want to share this with you this slide to give you some context the project 42 challenge four dollars and twenty cents a day that's that's that's less than a starbucks coffee can translate an entire book of the bible this year in a different language 42 dollars a month can plant a village church in Asia 420 dollars a month can give an encrypted bible app to a new language group so they can be protected in reading it and 42 000 dollars can start a business in a country that's closed to missionaries let me give you some stats for our church for just a second there's 73 days left in in 2024 I told you that there on average about 360 people at nlc on a given weekend if if every single one of us gave 42 dollars a day if one person gave 42 dollars a day that's three hundred three thousand sixty six dollars if one person gave 42 dollars a week that's four hundred sixty two dollars if one person gave 42 dollars a month for the next 73 days left that's 126 dollars if 360 people that gather on the weekends at new life church gave 42 dollars a month to this effort to kingdom builders global missions we would send 136 000 dollars to the 1040 window by the end of 2024 just 42 a month

I want you to ask God what he would have you do if you get out your app and you look at on the give site there's a right at the top there's there's giving and it takes you to our main giving page which which allows you to give your tithe it allows you to access kingdom builders which there's one section where if you get it give to kingdom builders you're giving the church the ability to give towards those lanes of generosity but man I want to be overwhelmingly more towards the global than we are towards the others because the others we we have more access to the gospel of Jesus Christ but what would God have you do you ask that question and let's finish 2024 strong by the way there's another giving section right before below again if you're on the bible app or excuse me on the new life church app on give one section down is one called overflow which gives some of some and some of you I don't know how to say this but some of you have a boatload of money sitting sitting in an investment account that you'll never spend and can I be really honest your kids don't need and you can literally give through overflow you can give stock some of you have stock options at your company and you're just you're just you don't have to give it all away but man would you ask God what may God what would you have me do what would you have us do together and I can't wait to see how God moves as we do this together let's pray heavenly father we thank you for your word and we thank you for your heart that you sent your one and only son Jesus who was sitting on the throne in heaven to become one of us to rescue us that in your word it says for God you father love so love the world that you gave your one and only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life so God we pray that those of us who have received that forgiveness have received eternal life by putting our faith in your one and only son Jesus said that he is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him God I pray that we would take on the father's heart that every single person would be able to hear and have the opportunity to respond to Jesus's love for them that they could be forgiven and go to paradise one day that they could experience heaven on earth today as the Holy Spirit fills them that literally the answer to all things is Jesus because he is the one that is going to make all things new and make all things right as we all want to see happen if you're in the room today and you've never given your life to Christ today the Bible says that all have fallen short of God's glory we've sinned against God we've missed the mark of his perfection and it separated us from God but God did something about that he sent his one and only son Jesus so I beg you I ask you would you consider giving your life to him today believing in him for the forgiveness of your sins if that's you I want you to take a step of faith on a count of three I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up real proud saying here I am Jesus I am believing and receiving you one two three shoot your hand up and hold it up from your heart to God simply say Jesus I am a sinner in need of a savior and in this moment I choose to believe that you died for the forgiveness of my sins so that I wouldn't have to and he rose again to offer me a new life Jesus in this moment I believe you and I receive you I turn from my sin and I turn to you Jesus fill me with your Holy Spirit come inside of me and transform me and give me a life and life everlasting in Jesus name I pray Amen church will you put your hands together and say welcome home to those who were saved today

Full Sermon Transcript

There are more believers in a Sunday school class in most of our churches than in all of Yemen.

There are a thousand needs in the world. None compares to this one.

Our God is worthy to receive praise from 6,000 more people groups on the planet.

You know, as an athlete growing up, I often heard that the name that you play for on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back of the jersey. And if you're new to New Life Church, you may not know this about me or not, but I played for the University of Texas Longhorns. Go Longhorns. Number one team in the nation, I think. And recently, all of college athletics changed when the Supreme Court stated that an athlete should be paid for their name, image, and likeness, N-I-L. And if I'm being honest, I'm a little bit jealous because that didn't exist when I played football for the University of Texas Longhorns. And how many of you have played young people or old people have played NCAA football before? My image and likeness was actually in the game to which I was never paid for. Now they give them like $75. So you know, it's not that big of a deal. But do you know what's hard for coaches? Really any leader, it doesn't matter, any coach, any leader, but is getting players to realize that the team that they're playing for, the name on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back of the jersey. Like so many athletes are trying to get what belongs to them and at the detriment of the team. And if they want to be a great team, they need to not just be in it for themselves, they need to be in it for the team. And so you'll hear phrases like this one, we over me. We is more important than me. And yet all of our culture, all of our world wants you to believe the lie that it's all about you. And so today as we launch this message, this series, I wanted to say that it's not just we over me or you, me over you and me, it's he over we. Like I don't know if you know this or not, but how many of you grew up wanting to be an astronaut or a firefighter or whatever and you've reached that goal, you're living out the dream that you had one day of doing what you said to do. You have a career, how many of you have a career? How many of you are grateful you don't have a career anymore? And you know that you have that career to do what? To make money, to provide for yourself and your family, maybe your wife, your kids. But what the enemy wants you to believe is that your career is your calling and it's not. Your calling, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, is not to exalt your name, it's to exalt his name. That he is over we, which is over just me. So something has to change. Every believer on planet earth has to be focused on our God given calling in building God's kingdom and not just our own kingdoms. In Matthew 28 verse 19 and 20, if you've been here a long time, you know that when there's bold words, you need to say them out loud with gusto. Are you ready? Matthew 18, excuse me, Matthew 28, 19 through 20 says, go and make disciples of all nations. Who is he talking to? Everyone who believes in Jesus. It's not a recommendation. It's not a good idea. It's a commandment from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Go and proclaim his name and make disciples of all nations. Watch this, baptizing them in the name of not your name, his name, not in the name of New Life Church, but in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that he has commanded to you. His name is worthy of it. And he says, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. Now I want to tell you something, something has to change. And as an organization, as a church, it's beginning with me. And when we talk about church, can I tell you something? We're about to host over a hundred pastors and leaders from around Michigan and Illinois and Canada, church leaders to help build into them this Tuesday. Can we just give God praise for that? I don't know how to tell you this, but this is a really big deal. Like the fact that this organization asked us to host this gathering on Tuesday, we are by far the smallest church that's been asked to do this. It is such an honor and a privilege. And so I want you to know that what God is doing here is special. But I want to tell you that sometimes we don't always get it right. And as church leaders come into this room on Tuesday, here's what's going to happen. Because I've gone to a lot of these events, a lot of the conversation at first is like, how many people are coming to church? How many come to your church? How many come to your church? Can I tell you something? It matters and it doesn't matter. It matters because we want to preach the gospel and reach the nations for Jesus's name. But whether you're a big church or a small church, we're doing the same mission. And we tend to focus on how many are gathered. And we do that for a reason because God says that His people should not forsake His gathering, that we should come together for worship and for prayer and for community because why His name is worthy to be worshiped. And so we have a goal to go and make disciples of all nations which exist right here. And we tend to focus on the gathering more than the sending of believers into the world to reach people for Jesus's name. And we have that, listen to me, that has to change because both are equally important. We need to be just as concerned with the gathering as those being sent. They are equally important. And so I've come up with a goal from now until the end of 2025 for New Life Church. And that is to see 500 gathered on the weekends in worship and in hearing the gospel proclaimed and in community and 50 sent out. 50 sent, 500, by the way, as you walk out of this room today, I have a vision of putting that number 500 gathered on the facade as you walk out of these doors. And on the side, 50 sent with a map of where we're sending people to. And by the way, 50 sent is not the wrapper, that's the goal. Just thought I'd clarify that. And I honestly, I don't know how I'm going to pay for that sign. Ask a trustee as we leave today. But we need to be focused. And I just want to share something just right off the bat. When we moved here a little bit over a year ago, we were averaging 160 people gathered at our last location. And right now we average 340 to 360 people gathered here on the weekends to God be the glory. Like we're seeing God move. We currently have that many people gathered on the weekend. And it's also stated, why do we have an app where it has like badges like attend and baptism and serve and give. That's discipleship. It's discipleship. Did you know that the average person comes to church once a month? Can you imagine with me for a second when we worship and we sang, let incense arise to the Lord, let our incense arise. That's an aroma, it's worship, an aroma that's pleasing to the Lord. Can you imagine to me if God was looking down on his kids and he saw his kids only gathering to worship his name, which is worthy to be worshiped once a month. And I want to be, can I be honest for just a second? Am I allowed to do that? If the average Christian comes to church once a month, if we average 340 people a weekend and we want to see 500 gathered, if you guys just came one more time a month, like just twice a month, we'd probably have an average of 450 a weekend right now. And honestly, we could change that number to 600 or 70. Are you with me? But we need to be just as focused on not just gathering, but being sent. We need to be a sending church. And so I'm going to explain this over the next couple of weeks to give you some vision because something has to change. When we started the church, we committed in our hearts that we were going to be a tithing to missions church. That means every single dollar that you give to the local church, we are going to send out beyond these walls to mobilize Christians to preach the gospel in our city, state, nation, and around the world. And here's what that's looked like. We've sent money out, but we haven't sent a lot of people out. We've sent money resources, but we haven't sent a lot of people resources. And God wants us to send people resources to reach every people group, every nation, tribe, and tongue for His glory and for His gospel's sake. And so something needs to change. In John chapter 20, verse 21, it says, again, Jesus said, by the way, I love when it says again, Jesus said, cause it's like people, come on, you need to get this. Again Jesus said, peace be with you. How many of you all want the peace of God? But how many of you don't know that He actually brings peace to you when you begin living on mission for Him? Peace be with you. As the Father sent me out loud, ready? I am sending you believers, not just pastors, not just church leaders, every believer. In Romans 10, verses 13 and 15, the apostle Paul says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Hey, believer, you may have the most disgusting looking feet on planet earth. Like there's a reason right now my dogs are covered on this stage. Athletes are not known for having beautiful feet. But you have the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus when you go out these doors today. Like imagine, look around the room and see the empty seats. Who has God, God has given you a divine appointment with someone in your workplace, maybe on a team that you're in, maybe in your school. And he's given you the mission, the commission to go and make disciples of people that you're around every single day. Last service, those of you who come to the 10 o'clock service, this is the most full service we see in the 10 o'clock service. It was about half this amount of people. So there's more seats to be filled. Again, do you know why we went to three services? It wasn't just because I thought it was a good idea. Matter of fact, I can't even sing and worship anymore so I can protect my voice to be able to preach the gospel three times in a Sunday. But it's so that we create room for you to go out and invite people to come and see and worship Jesus. Five hundred gathered. Fifty, not the rapper. Fifty cent. And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? I want to tell you something. There's been something that pervaded the church for probably about the last 20 years. And that's the idea that you can just do good things for people and then they'll just believe in Jesus. Can I tell you that is a lie from the pit of hell? They cannot call on the name of Jesus unless they know the name of Jesus. Like we are going to do things like give a cold water to someone who needs a drink. We're going to clothe people and help people and pray for people who are sick and ailing. But if it's absent the gospel, we will help people temporarily but not help them eternally. Can I get an amen? Are you with me? We have to be people who proclaim the gospel, who proclaim the name of Jesus. Matthew 24 verses 4-14. He says, by the way the disciples and the people around him were asking him questions about the end times. And Jesus answered them and he said, watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name claiming that I am the Messiah and will deceive many. By the way, there's a lot of deception happening in our world. Like people, you need to, why is the gathering of people in God's house so important? Because you need to know the real gospel. You need to get in a Bible believing church, spirit led church, who doesn't just preach what you think you want to hear but preaches what it actually says. Are you with me? And here's what Jesus says. He says, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Sounds familiar. But see to it believers that you are not alarmed. You did a great job by the way. Watch this. These things, such things must happen. You cannot prevent them from happening. Such things must happen but the end is still to come. Time will rise against nation. Sounds familiar. Kingdom against kingdom. I'll add to this because it's in another gospel. Family against family. Sons against fathers and mothers against daughters and vice versa. There will be famines and earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes in various places. All these are the beginnings of birth pains. I want to share something for just a moment that I shared with our family this week. This is not a political statement. It's a biblical statement but a lot of people talk about global warming. Can I tell you something? This is what Jesus predicted in the Bible. Because the very earth, the brokenness of planet earth itself is begging, screaming, crying out for redemption. Is crying out for things to be made right. And the only one who can make it right is Jesus. It says that then, this is Jesus, then you will be handed over to be persecuted, get ready church, and put to death, are you ready for that? And you'll be hated by all nations because of me. Sounds familiar. Even though we're called to do what? Love them regardless. At that time, many will turn away from the faith because their faith really isn't a faith at all. And will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. But 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. Now watch this. And this of the kingdom, not just doing good things, not just voting for the right person, not just having a career where you make money. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the old world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come. Sometimes if you want justice to come to planet earth, if you want all things to be made right, when you read the book of Revelation where Jesus says that He's going to create a new heaven and a new earth and He's going to take believers to be with Him one day, where there's a place in paradise in heaven one day, where literally there's no tears, there's no wars, there's no grief, there's no issues whatsoever because He has made it good and right again. He says that that is going to happen when we preach the gospel to all nations. Can I tell you something? Our focus as believers, something has to change. It has to change. And so this week I want to start a series of messages on that topic and I want to introduce to you something that's going to be a change for us. For some of you, you look at leaders or pastors and church leaders and you look at how the finances are going and how the things are going and can I just tell you like we're still figuring this out. And we've been a tithing to missions organization but it's about to change because we have typically been more about sending monetary resources to people and places that preach the gospel but we haven't been as good at sending people resources. That something has to change. Now we have sent some, right? We've gone to Honduras on missions trips and we're about to add more of that but we are going to become a sending to the nation's church. We're going to spread the gospel with monetary resources and people resources, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ across the street and around the world. In Acts chapter one verse eight, this is one of the last things that Jesus said to his followers and he's saying to us today. He said this, he said, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you might. You will. You will be my witnesses. Now for just a second I want to mess with some of your theology and it's in a good way. The Holy Spirit is to be your comforter. Like he wants to comfort you. He wants to give you peace. He wants to guide you. He wants to be the very voice that leads you in the right way. But can I tell you something that is a complete lie from the pit of hell? He does not want you to live a comfortable life. He wants to give you peace when you're on mission for him. Not just when times are good but when you're actually suffering for the name of Jesus Christ. When you are literally going into the world to be his witness, he will give you power to do that. You know, again, the lie of the pit of hell is the Bible, Jesus preaches against something called witchcraft. How many of you all, it's not good to be a wiccan or to be a witch or to be a warlock and we're obsessed with those types of movies, are we not? And the reason for that is because witchcraft is all about having power for yourself. It's about power for yourself. Can I tell the future? Can I manipulate something to benefit me? But when Jesus gives you the Holy Spirit of God, he gives you power to be a witness of his name, not your name. To be a witness for someone else, not just for yourself. He gives you the power of the Holy Spirit so that you can fulfill the great commission, which is to go into all the world and to make disciples. You will be his witnesses in Jerusalem. Half of you are in it. All right. I probably set you up for, I didn't set you up well for that. Let's do it again. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Notice it doesn't say or. For some of you, I won't even challenge you with this. Some of you have made excuses for why you aren't going into the world to preach the gospel because of your personality. You're like, well, I just don't have the personality of Pastor Dan. Can I be honest with you? When I go out, like when Kelsey goes, when we go somewhere together, I wish she was in the room. I love it when she's in the room. She's my bride. But I often like have to get her to start a conversation because she could start a conversation with that wall. It's no joke. She says she's awkward, but I'm actually the more awkward person. I'm actually the more introspective whatever. But can I tell you, your personality has nothing to do with being on mission for Jesus because that's about you and not about him. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? And so he doesn't just call us to be in Jerusalem. By the way, that's our city. You know, Jesus planted New Life Church to be a blessing, to be the best possible church for our city that these seats that are empty could be filled with people who don't yet know him, that we could rob hell and populate heaven. Are you with me? How is that going to happen? It's going to happen by you walking out of those doors today, grabbing a stack of cards saying, God loves you and so do I, and inviting people to come and see just how good our God is to glorify his name because his name is worthy to be worshiped. And his life is, and his name and his likeness is the only one from which people can be saved. And so man, we, something has to change. Where we don't just come to church to gather, but we come in swarms bringing swarms of people who need to know Jesus with us in our city. Even in all Judea and Samaria, that's our region and our nation. And so we're planting churches like ours through the association of related churches across our nation, many more churches. And so I'm telling you, I got to figure out how to pay for this this week. I'm going to have to do it with my own money, but 500 gathered, 50 cent, we're going to make a wall. It's got to be digital. It can't be like, it can't be like, you know, paint on or whatever, because we got to be able to see where we're doing these things together. Can I get an amen? Amen. Something has to change and that starts with us. We need to listen. We need to change as a church. I've needed to change as a pastor, as leaders. I'm going to, and I'm going to let this video, this video I'm about to show you, it wrecked me in a good way. And so I'm going to let this video be the start of this conversation. So when we use the phrase, the great imbalance, what are we talking about? Let's start with the basics. The great commission. When the resurrected Christ stood on the side of a mountain in Galilee and said, go, make disciples of all nations, it wasn't a suggestion, it was a commandment. Jesus even promised that before he comes back, we will accomplish his commission. So we're talking about the most important mission in the world. Now today on planet earth, there are 7.75 billion people and of those 7.75 billion people, over 3 billion of those people are unreached, meaning they have zero access to the gospel. Most of them will be born, live and die without ever hearing about Jesus. That's around 40% of the world's population. We break the whole population down into people groups. These are groups that share language, culture, tribe, etc. Every single people group can be put in one of two categories, reached or unreached. And the great commission involves taking the number of unreached people groups to zero. Now in order to accomplish any task, it takes determination, a plan and resources. But this is where you'll find the great imbalance. Today there are hundreds of millions of Christ followers in the world. These are people who understand and want the great commission to be accomplished. That's you, me, every Bible believing church you've ever heard of. These believers donate hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to their churches around the world. This money goes to pay for things like electricity, food, water, staff, missions, even things like handbells, I mean everything. And of the hundreds of billions of dollars given to the church, roughly $47 billion is already allocated to missions to the nations. But we don't just give money. Around 400,000 people are working as missionaries to the nations. But here's where it all starts to fall apart. Remember our two groups, reached and unreached? Of these missions, resources, people, money, already specifically set aside for missions to the nations, only 1% of the money and 3% of the missionaries go to take the gospel to unreached people in the world. That means 99% of our missions' money and 97% of our missionaries are going to people that already have the gospel. This is the great imbalance. And with the world's population growing at the rate it is now, every day we're losing more ground than we gain. This is why the global church needs a new perspective on how and where we spend our resources if we want to truly obey the Great Commission. She stated in that video that 40% of the world doesn't have access to the gospel. It's now 42%. Does not have access. What does that mean? It means that there's people groups in the world that don't have access to a Christian, don't have access to a Bible that's translated in their language, and they don't have a church to tell them about Jesus. Zero access. Now I have three kids and I love all of them dearly, some more than others depending on what hour or day. But I want to tell you a story of my two oldest kids. Imagine with me for a second just in your mind's eye that Gracie May, my middle child, who's six and my oldest who's eight, were all of a sudden lost at the same time. Gracie May got lost in Kalamazoo or even right here in the church. And then my daughter, my eight-year-old Harper, who's really good at navigating and really concerned about people and getting places and doing the right thing, and she still does the wrong thing sometimes, can I just be honest? But she gets lost in one of these countries that has zero access. And she needs to find her way. Even for me just a second, all the resources available to Gracie, my middle child, of finding her way home to her father. She has all of you in this room. She has our unbelievable kids ministry. She has this screen behind me. She has the Bible written in her language. She has a dad that's a pastor right here in Kalamazoo. Can you see that she has an easy way to find her way home? But if Harper is lost in one of these countries that has zero Christian, zero Bible that's translated in the language, and zero church, how on earth could she make her way to our heavenly Father? This is the great imbalance. Something has to change. And so we've been listening to me. We have been a Bible believing spirit led church who's leveraged money to impact people beyond these walls. It's not just about what we build here in this room, but we go beyond to spread the gospel and we've even done things like people in this room can even vouch for this. When we started the church, I was very serious that if an organization was not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, we were not giving them people and we were not giving them money because our job is not to just do good things, it's to proclaim the gospel. But here's what I realized in the last couple months that needs to change. We have been one of those churches that has sent money and people to nations who already have Christians, who already have Bible translations and already have churches planted in them. And that's going to change. So we do good things, but can I tell you something? Someone said this. Pastor, pastor, pastor, but what about my neighbor who doesn't know Jesus? Can I tell you something? That's why you're there. God has already put you there to share his gospel, his name with that person. But if God cares about his lost kids, he does what? He leaves the 99 to go and find the one. And that is going to be our heartbeat moving forward. Something has to change. In Revelation chapter seven verse nine, he said this, after this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count. Can I, sorry, sorry, it was fine. You guys did great. I wasn't ready for it myself. But can a great multitude that no one could count, can you imagine with me for a second that 500 gathered turned into 700 or 800 or 900 and it wasn't just here in this room, but it was in nations around the world who has zero access to the gospel. From every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the lamb who is Jesus, they were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. Listen to me. There are thousands of needs in the world, cancer, child slavery, I mean, political issues, whatever you, poverty, you name it. And Jesus will make it all new and right when his gospel is preached to the world. None of the needs in the world compares to this one. We recently, Kelsey and I went to California for a global mission summit of pastors and business leaders from around the nation and we heard a lot of these stories and the first night that we were there, they shared with us that there were this organization called Project 42, which you'll hear more about in the coming weeks, focused on the 1040 window, reaching the unreached people group, sending missionaries and dollars and businesses and missions like gospel translations. And they were sharing with us that the 12 missionaries that they sent to the nations were in prison. They've been in prison for some time and that next day they were about to be in court for the first time. They're asking us to pray for these missionaries when they go to court. And so the next day came and went and we heard nothing about it. The next day they came up and they said, hey, we need you to know that they went to court. There wasn't a verdict, but you need to keep praying because we found out yesterday that if they are, if the verdict comes back, that they are guilty that they will be put to death. Now you have to understand something. In the 1040 window, the places where the people do not have access to a Christian, a Bible translation and a church is because it's illegal to be a Christian there. It's illegal to have a Bible there. It's mostly Muslim countries. And so let me give you a glimpse of how this is going to work. When we send money resources to the nations and we go after these unreached people groups, it gets a little crazy. There's a family named the Green Family. You might not know them, but they started Hobby Lobby. Did you know this? The Green Family, Christian. They have given billions of dollars to organizations to help reach the unreached. And if you're a business person in the room, what's the biggest thing that you want? You want a return on investment. You want to know that what you invest in is actually producing something, right? Am I right? Can I tell you something about Jesus? He wants an eternal return on investment. He wants us to rob hell and to populate heaven, but here's where this gets dicey. So I think his name is Steve Green, went to investigate Project 42 and to understand the mission and to see how is this going to work and where is the money going? Is it accomplishing it? And he began to see, I'm not actually going to see as much as I thought, and here's why. When the founder of the organization shared with him, hey, when we send money to these locations there can be no tracking of it. Because if it's tracked, not only will the people who receive it be put to death, but we will be shut down as well. And so what happens is when we send money and people to these nations to preach the gospel, it goes to this account, which goes to this account and it's all hidden. It's 1,000% Christian money laundering. Bible translations, can I talk about that for just a second? Bible translations that literally have to be encrypted so that people can't find out that they're actually reading the Bible in their language. Can I tell you something? Something has to change because I don't know about you, but those sons and daughters of God deserve to worship Jesus and to know Jesus like you and I know Jesus. You have every resource at your fingertips to know and to worship Jesus, but they do not. Something has to change. His wife, Fraz and his wife, Meryl, one of the 12 missionaries that was on trial, the founders of this organization went to visit Meryl and her two-year-old, I can't remember, was a daughter or son, my wife would be able to tell you, but they have a two-year-old son or daughter and the husband is on trial for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Can I tell you something? Your problems don't matter. They do and they don't. Can I just be frank? Like in light of what these people are doing for Jesus. This is crazy. So these founders of this organization go and talk to Meryl. Her husband is on trial for his life for sharing the gospel. And Meryl, the wife's comment was this. They asked how they could pray for her, how they could support her, and she said this, and this wrecked me. She said, do not pity us. We are so grateful that Jesus would consider us worthy to suffer for him and his gospel. Something has to change. So the question is, what will you do? What will I do? What will we do for his name? And there's three types of people that I want to share with you today and quite honestly, I was one of them about six months ago. And there's the first person is one that doesn't know that this is a problem. They're ignorant of the cause. They don't know that this is a big issue. And then there's the second person, those of those who are in the room today, you now know, but maybe you come and leave today and then you just don't care. You're indifferent. And then there's three, verse 15 and 16. This is Jesus talking to his church. In the end, he says, I know your deeds that you are neither cold, which means you're invigorating or refreshing. Like you are, you're a life-giving person. You're spreading the gospel, nor hot. You're healing and therapeutic, getting people as close to Jesus as possible. He says, I wish that you were cold or hot. I just wish you were one or the other. But because you are lukewarm, spiritually useless, which means you know this and you do nothing about it. He says, I will vomit you out of my mouth, rejecting you with disgust. Let me tell you the person that I hope that all of the people of New Life Church will be. We want to be people who enter into the gates of heaven one day and we hear these words from Jesus himself, well done, good and faithful servant. We don't want to hear, oh my gosh, you did nothing with what I told you. He just vomits you out of his mouth, rejecting you with disgust. And so what are we going to do? We need to gather because God is worthy to be worshipped. We got to pray because we're going to pray that heaven moves on our behalf. We're going to start sharing missionary prayer cards and life groups and kids and students to elevate the global gospel purpose. We're going to give as a church, right, we've committed to tide the mission so at least 10% of what you give will go beyond our walls towards building God's kingdom and preaching the gospel. But God also calls all of us to be generous, to decide in our hearts what we should give even above and beyond the tide because God loves a cheerful giver. And so today we're now opening up five lanes of generosity called kingdom builders, areas of building God's kingdom that will most resonate with what God has put in your own heart, aligning your heart with God's heart in your generosity. And can I tell you something? And here's what you really need to hear. I think we really need to hear it in America. Kelsey and I have been following Jesus for a long time and we've been following him and our finances and here's what you need to know. Like get this to sink deep down in your soul. When you take care of God's house and his mission, he takes care of you and your house. He does it. Today, so today you can now give above and beyond your tide to kingdom builders in five areas, local outreach, continuing to go beyond these walls, next generation, making sure that we have kids that can go to camps and can go to retreats and to go on missions to the nations. NLC building projects that we just, we don't just see expanding this auditorium, but also going and planting other churches, national missions, going around the nation through art to plant more churches and global missions, making sure there's access to Bible translations, to business as missions, to mobilize believers to be sent to the nations. I'm going to talk more about these in the coming weeks, but some of you, maybe you need to take this fourth step today and it's to go on a mission strip. Right Jesus said for us to go to be his witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth and he didn't say or he said and. For some of you, you've even stated, man, I'll send somebody behind going. It's time for you to go. It's time for you to go. So we have a mission strip coming up in Honduras, March 5th through 11th. I encourage you to go on your app and sign up for that. We're going to add a country, I hope soon, either India or Pakistan, which is in the 1040 window. And we need to go on mission every single day. By the way, how many single adults do I have in the room? Raise your hand. Act like you're proud of it. Come on, right. How? Just, just a fact. Kelsey and I, my wife, we started dating right after we went on a mission strip. And so if you want some help, I'm just, I'm just saying. I promise you, you'll find a better person on mission than in the bar. We need to go on mission. We need to be sent. So we need to leave today and invite people to come and we need to pursue God and go to the nations together for His namesake so that more people can worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Are you with me, church? Something has to change. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you for your word. God, we thank you that you want none of your kids to perish, but to have eternal life. And there's only one name under heaven from which we can be saved. It's the name of Jesus. And so God, we proclaim your gospel right now that to anyone who's hearing it, that you don't have to pay for your sin. By the way, the payment for sin is death spiritually and physically. But because Jesus took on your sin and died on your behalf, He died for you to forgive you. And He got up out of the grave to save you. And now all you need to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to call on His name to be saved and to be forgiven. So if that's you right now, I want you to take a step of faith with nobody looking around. I want you to shoot your hand up in the air, hold it up on the count of three saying, that's me. One, two, three. And right now from your heart to God, I want you to call on the name of Lord Jesus. I want to be saved. I turn from my sin. I confess it. I am a sinner in need of a savior. So Jesus, come inside of me and save me and change me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit that I would have the power to overcome sin and be a part of your great purpose. God, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be from this moment forward. Jesus, I call you my savior and my Lord. In your name I pray. Amen. Church, the Bible says that when one person comes to faith in Jesus, all of heaven celebrates. So you better believe that if heaven is celebrating, we're going to celebrate to put together

Full Sermon Transcript

ike a moment to just acknowledge that we had some technological difficulties. And in spite of that, Jesus is still king. Can we give him some praise? Come on, he's worthy of it. Man, we are in week number five. This is the last in our five-part series in this topic triggered. And if you missed any part of this, I encourage you to go back and watch it because, I mean, I don't know if you've needed it. I have needed this message series so much. It's been spoken so much to my heart. And today, we're going to conclude this series, but honestly, I debated whether or not I would extend it by three or four weeks because there's just so much more that could be shared. But I want to go back to what I told you in the very beginning. There's two books I want to recommend to you. Well, the best one is the Bible. Can I get an amen? But for this particular topic, there's two books that I highly recommend if you haven't gotten them, get them. Or if you're like me, you can't read. You use the Audible version, but you can get it. The Bait of Satan by Pastor John Bevere. The Bait of Satan, of course, is unforgiveness. It's being offended. And how many of y'all know that Satan can really wreak havoc in your life when you don't deal with your offenses? And so I encourage you to get that. The Bait of Satan by John Bevere. And the second one is called Unoffended. I forgot the guy's name at the moment. Brant with a B? Brant with a B, Hanson. Go get that book because it's incredible. I actually have friends who have read the Bait of Satan every year for the last several years after it came out because the way they would put it is like, I need a Teflon coding of my life and my heart towards offense because Jesus said what? Jesus says that it isn't impossible, that no offenses should come. Like we're going to be offended. And so we need this type of stuff deposited into our lives. Well, today as we finish, I'm going to start with the title of this message. The title of this message is When Forgiveness Seems Impossible. When forgiveness seems impossible. In Colossians chapter one, verses 13 and 14, it says, for he, Jesus, has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. Jesus has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. And I want to pause there for a second and tell you that the dominion of darkness doesn't just exist outside of you. In other words, it's not just Satan and his demons. How many of y'all know very clearly that the dominion of darkness lives inside of you? Not many of you are convinced. Have you ever been around a two year old? I have a one and some change, one and eight, one year old, eight months, and he is freaking adorable if I can't say so myself. But man, you and I were born with a sinful nature. The dominion of darkness lives inside of every single one of us. If you have been offended or you've offended someone else, you know this is true. If you've ever been triggered, like I don't know if you know this in Matthew, I think it's Matthew chapter 24, it says, you know, when the end is coming, you'll hear war, you'll see wars and rumors of wars. How many of y'all see that happening around the world today? Like this is the dominion of darkness and Jesus has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us who believe in him into the kingdom of the Son who is Jesus, he loves. In whom Jesus, we have redemption and say this with me out loud, the forgiveness of sins. You don't have the forgiveness of your sins apart from Jesus. Jesus is the only one with the moral authority to be able to forgive your sins. He's the only one who has lived a perfect life. He's the only one that can be just in your darkness. And he took upon himself the penalty of your sin and my sin, which is death spiritually and physically. He died in your place to forgive you of your sins and all you have to do is receive it. You can't earn it. You don't deserve it. He has forgiven you. He's brought you into redemption. Can I tell you something? We need a perspective that releases forgiveness to others. We need a perspective that releases forgiveness to others. You see, because typically what happens is when someone offends us, we just want justice. Right? We want them to get what they deserve. And yet when we stand before Jesus and we've given our life to him, we don't get what we deserve because he took on himself your penalty of your sins. And here's what tends to happen. What we tend to do is we try to measure up sins. We like to look at, well, I'm not as bad as that person. I'm way better than this person. You need to know that God does not do that, whether it's you've lied. How many of y'all have ever lied in your life? Half of y'all just lied for the first time by not raising your hand. Do you know that the Bible says that when you lie, you're not just sinning against the person you've lied to. You're actually sinning against God the Father. Every sin you've ever committed, you are sinning against him and not just the person you're offending. So imagine the measure of your sins that God is willing to forgive. Every sin you've ever committed, every sin you ever will commit, and Jesus has forgiven them when you receive him. We need a perspective that releases forgiveness in our lives. And to illustrate this for a second, I'm going to go to a passage of Scripture, a parable that Jesus tells, but you've probably heard this before, some illustrations of harboring unforgiveness. When someone triggers you, when someone offends you, it makes you angry and you want justice and you're holding something against someone, here's what tends to happen. How many of you all know that the person that offended you or made you angry, like they've probably gone on and they're living their life and they're not thinking about the offense that they had towards you. But it's ruining you. You can't get over it. You're still dealing with the pain of that offense. You're still dealing with that trigger. You're still dealing with it. Here's the illustration. Harboring unforgiveness towards someone who has hurt you or offended you or triggered you or lied to you or whatever they did to you. Harboring unforgiveness towards them is like drinking poison and hoping they die because it's killing you. It's not killing them. Or here's another one. This is my favorite. It's like pouring gasoline all over yourself, lighting a match, setting yourself on fire and hoping the person that hurt you dies of smoke inhalation. It's destroying you. And so we need to learn how to unleash unforgiveness. There's a story that my wife shared last week found in the book of Matthew. This is Jesus telling a parable to those who were listening about the kingdom of heaven and what God's forgiveness is actually like and how we should apply it to our lives. And in Matthew chapter 18, this is Jesus, he says, therefore the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdom of earth, not the kingdom of what you think it's like, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with a servant. So a servant had a debt that he owed the king and the king was calling that debt to account. He was settling the accounts. He said, and when he had begun to settle accounts, one servant was brought to him, the king who owed him, say this out loud with me, 10,000 talents. Let's do it again with some gusto. Okay. Like act like you're in the second service and not the first service. All right. Y'all had some more coffee, some more sleep. Let's go. Ready? 10,000 talents. All right. Now remember that 10,000 talents. But as the servant was not able to pay that amount of debt, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and his children and all that he had so that a payment could be made. The servant therefore fell down before the king saying, master, have patience with me. Man, let me work a little harder and I will pay all that I owe you. When the master of that servant was moved with compassion, he released him and he forgave him the debt. How much did he forgive him? 10,000 talents. But that servant went out, found one of his fellow servants who owed him, say that out loud with me, a hundred. Some of you faded because you didn't know how what the pronunciation was. Right? Am I right? Denari. Okay. Denari. You might even see denarius or denarius. It's pronounced a little different ways, but denari. Say it again with me out loud. A hundred denari. What's so funny? That wasn't, this wasn't, okay. Anyways. That's my wife, by the way. A hundred denari. And this guy laid hands on his servant and took him by the throat saying, pay me what you owe. He had just been forgiven 10,000 talents. The king had had mercy on him, had compassion on him, forgave his debt, and then he went on to the next one and strangled him demanding that payment be made. And so his fellow servant fell down just like he had done at his feet and begged him saying, have patience with me. He didn't say forgive me. He said, have patience with me. I will repay it all. And he would not, but went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. Now my wife did a great job of bringing the scripture into the message last week, but I want to go further into it to explain some things that are happening here to give us some perspective. And so I have this wonderful illustration that I want to show you. I created this this morning at 6 a.m. Isn't that impressive? Come on, somebody. So here we have this parable. We have the king and the servant and the servant owes the king, say it out loud again. And the king did what? Forgive the entire debt. And then because this guy was so moved with gratitude and so moved with compassion, being so grateful for what the king had done for him, he went and then forgave the hunter D'Nartan. He didn't do that. He demanded payment. He strangled him. He threw him in jail. The one who was just forgiven, the entire debt goes on and demands a hunter D'Nartan. Now you probably don't know this and so I'm going to explain some things that are happening here today. But if you're in Jesus' day and he was sharing this parable, it would have made a little more sense to you with the language, talent, and denarii, but because you and I don't really deal right today in talent and denarii as our monetary-do you want some explanation? Do you want me to help you understand? Okay. A denarii would have been known as one day's wage. So one denarii was one day's wage for the average Israelite people that he was around during that day. In other areas of scripture, it might be called again denarius. It also would be referred to as silver coin. So if you see a silver coin that's a one day's wage in biblical times, are you following me? Okay. So one denarii would have been able to provide a pretty decent life. You would have been able to pay for your mortgage. You would have been able to put food on the table, would have had clothes. You wouldn't have been just like dirt poor. Okay. Do you understand this? One denarii, one day's wage. Well today I went and got on the Google machine this morning, and I think AI spit this out. It said that the average daily wage of an American today-okay, now again, I'm saying average. So there's people that make way more than this, and there's people that make way less than this daily average wage for an American. Are you still following me? Okay. The average daily wage of an American, so one denarii equals-wait for it, wait for it-there it is. One talent-oh, I forgot to tell that. One talent is 6,000 denarius. One denarius, one daily wage, is roughly $147. So one denarius, $147, the average daily wage in America today. You're still following me. And one talent equals 6,000 days. You'd have to work 6,000 days to just get one talent to pay the king back. One talent, if you do the math, equals-so just how you get this, one daily wage, $147, times 6,000, one talent equals $924,400. Is that math correct? Those of you who do numbers in your head, are you following me? Which equates to 10,000 talents that the servant owed the king is-wait for it-$9,294,900,000 in today's U.S. dollars. One hundred denarii is $15,464. Gives a little bit of a different kind of feel to the story when you know what Jesus is explaining. And Jesus is saying that the kingdom of heaven is like you and I being forgiven this kind of debt. That when we receive Jesus, every sin that you've ever sinned against God is being forgiven by Jesus. And isn't it crazy? Isn't it crazy that we would receive this kind of forgiveness of debt towards our king and then expect payment for one little sin, for one little offense. Every sin you've ever committed, lied, cheated, stolen, addictions, you've cursed your wife, you've cursed your husband, you've cursed your kids, nobody would do that. Or your boss, you gossiped last hour. You flip someone off on the way to church today or maybe as you leave the parking lot today. Every single time you've done that has added up to this kind of debt. And the king Jesus, who has no debt, has no sin, gave himself the ultimate sacrifice so that you would be forgiven. And then we turn around with our gratitude and demand payment. Friends, we need to unleash unforgiveness in our lives because here's the deal. Here's the point. If you're taking notes, pride kills a forgiving heart. When you think you're owed, when you think you're better, you'll always look at people as they owe you or you'll demand payment or you're better than they are. But when you realize just how much you've been forgiven by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, you can't help but extend mercy and forgiveness to others. Pride kills a forgiving heart. First John 1, 9 through 10 says that if we confess our sins, can I ask you how many of you know all the sins in which you need forgiven? How many have counted the millions of sins that you have probably committed in your life and probably will commit that Jesus is willing to forgive? Like half the time you don't even remember what you did last week or last hour on the way to church when you got in a fight with your spouse or your kids and you came at them. And Jesus is willing to forgive. If we confess our sins, He, Jesus is faithful and He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, then we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. And can I tell you something? Jesus is not a liar. So those of us who are still harboring unforgiveness, Jesus, can I tell you something? Jesus wants to set you free. He wants to have, get you to have a life and life abundantly. And you need to, in order to do that, you need to remember what He has done for you in forgiving your sin and your offense and your triggers, not just towards humankind and not just towards your neighbor or your coworker or maybe that guy that is across the football field from you on the other team. I know it's like to be a football player talking some mad trash when you are forgiving it. And here's the thing. I think we are so, we just don't understand the depths of which, of how much we've actually been forgiven. So we demand justice when Jesus is giving us forgiveness. Peace, if you want peace, peace is found in forgiveness. I've told this story before, I didn't share this with the first service, but one of the ways in which I've had to forgive someone the most, let me start with a different story. When I was in college and I had just began my relationship with Christ, I had heard a message like this and realized, oh my gosh, my parents need me to say I'm sorry, 50,000 times over. For everything I said, did, the worst of which, can I tell you this? So I'm adopted, just to give you an insight in my life, I'm adopted. And when I was in college at the University of Texas, just give you some context. I was a football player for the University of Texas Hookham Horns, all right? We're going to be the number one team in the nation again because Alabama sucks and they got beat yesterday. Okay. Did Michigan win? Sorry, sorry. Indiana won. Go Hoosiers. Anyways, what was I talking about? When I was in college at the University of Texas, I remembered calling my dad and asking him for money. And he said, well, I just gave you a bunch and I said, well, I need books. How many of y'all have asked for book money? Your parents know darn well it's not book money. I'm going to the library. Of course, every college on the earth has a library and it's not the library. So I was asking for money and my dad wouldn't give it to me. And I was so ticked at my dad that these are the words that came out of my mouth. Something about, something like, dad, I can't believe you. If you loved me, you would give me that money. And by the way, oh, I'm going to go search and try to find my real dad.

I'm adopted, right? You picking up what I'm putting down? So I remember hearing a message like this and I started to ask God, God, could you just, could you show me, you're not going to show me all of it because none of us has time for that, but can you show me how I have sinned against people in my life? How I have offended people, how I have hurt people. And God began to show me and I didn't have a heart of like, oh my gosh, I suck, I'm terrible. But I did have a heart of, man, I need to go and ask for forgiveness. I need to go and apologize for being an idiot. And I did that. I got on the phone with my parents right after that sermon and right after that service and I said, I don't want you to talk. I just want you to listen. And I began, I just asked God and I just began rattling off all these things that I had done in my childhood that were terrible and awful and some of it they didn't even know. And I just said, I don't need you to forgive me. I just need you to know I'm sorry. And of course they forgave me. They still loved me and they still have done amazing things for me. And then I'll remember fast forward several years later, again, that was me bringing my own crap to my parents to ask for forgiveness. And then I remember years later, I was working at a church in Kalamazoo. Kelsey and I had just gotten married and a guy had texted my wife, will you come over and watch a movie with me and snuggle me? A guy on the worship team texted my wife, will you come over and watch a movie and snuggle me? Now I was a pastor at the church. So I called him into a meeting and he had no idea what I was going to talk to him about, which you got to be a freaking idiot if you don't want him to talk to you about it. And I said to him, I said, hey, I know what you've been texting my wife. And I looked at him, I said, every part of me wants to get up and just destroy you right now. Matter of fact, a lot of guys in this room right now, you're with me. You're like, let's go find him.

And I said to him, I said, I absolutely 100% do not feel like forgiving you.

I feel like destroying you. But because of what Jesus has done for me and what he tells me to do in this moment, that he says, the disciples asked Jesus, like, how many times am I supposed to forgive my brothers? Is seven times good enough? And then he says, what, 70 times seven? Like, in other words, keep doing it. And I said, I don't feel like it, but because of what Jesus has done for me and for giving me, I am going to do what he did for me to you. And I am going to forgive you even though I don't feel like it.

And I would love to tell you that I walked out of the room that day and just felt just, yeah, this is awesome.

But can I tell you something? I forgave him and I rarely think about him.

Except when I illustrate it to you. Thanks for bringing up all the hurt.

I share that with you to say that, like, I didn't drink the poison.

I didn't light myself on fire.

I'm not still being wrecked by unforgiveness.

Because I unleashed it. Can I tell you, when you have the gratitude of what God has done for you, it changes everything. And it will change your life and it will change other people's life. I want to share a story with you. There were some missionaries in January of 1956 that left the United States and they went to Ecuador and there were five guys. Their name was Jim Elliott, Nate St. Roger, don't know how to say his last name, Eudarian or something like that, Ed McCauley and Pete Fleming. And they had discovered this tribe of Indians, the Waurani tribe in Ecuador, deep in the jungles of Ecuador, and they had found out that this tribe was literally mercilessly just killing people. Like just killing people left and right. And so they flew to Ecuador, they landed and they were on the outsides and they began thinking like, how can we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with these people? Because people who have been forgiven by Jesus Christ, who have received salvation and are filled with the Holy Spirit, they don't kill people. They are changed by the gospel. And so they went in and they began to think like one of them was a pilot and they're like, we can't just go in right away. Like we got to do something because we don't speak the language. We got to do something in order to get them to realize that we are friends and not enemies. And so what they would do is they would fly their plane over the whole Waurani tribe and they would lower down a bucket filled with goods, filled with supplies or medications or food or whatever it was to just simply share a gesture that we are friend and not an enemy. They did this over and over and over again. Until the point that they said, okay, we need to go in and make contact because how many of y'all know that people don't receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior if they don't hear the name of Jesus Christ, that they don't know that they need the forgiveness of sins. How many of y'all know that the food doesn't speak that? The water doesn't speak that. Yeah, the water and the food, it shares with someone, we love you and we care about you and we're with you, but it doesn't share the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so these missionaries, the night before they're like, they're going, they're going to land the plane, they're actually going to go in and try to reach the Waurani people. Nate Saint had a conversation with his son and this is how it went. His son came up to him, his name was Steve. Steve came up to him and said, hey, if they try to kill you, will you defend yourselves? Like if they try to kill you, will you protect yourselves? And Nate's response to his son was this. He said, son, I know where I'm going. I know that when they kill me, I will be in paradise in heaven with my Savior Jesus Christ. Where if you don't, if you're new to Christianity, if you go to heaven to be with Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Bible says that there is no tears, there's no pain, there's no sickness, there's no war, there's no strife. It's literally perfection in the presence of Jesus, which is why the Bible says to live as Christ, but to die is actually gain. And so Nate's telling his son, he's telling his son, we can't kill them because we know that we've received Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and we're going to heaven if we die. But we don't know that about them because they haven't received Jesus as their Savior.

And so they fly in the next day and they land the plane. And here's a picture of Nate Saint with Minkaiyeh, one of the Waurani tribal people. You see the plane in the background. You see the plane, he's like got a model plane down here, he's trying to share with them what it is because they were freaked out. How many of y'all know that when a plane flies over a tribal people that has like no technology whatsoever, they thought it was a dragon. They had no concept.

And here's Nate trying to share Jesus. He's sharing food with him, he's trying to get him to understand they're friendly. Minutes later, the radio started going off in the airplane because their wives and their children were back at home worried, are they still alive? Or they were supposed to radio back to tell them they were okay? So they were checking in, they started radioing on in the airplane and when that started going off, the Waurani tribe started freaking out because to them they thought it was a demon. Because to them they thought it was a demon. They couldn't see voices but there were voices coming from the radio.

And what happened moments later is Minkaiyeh and the rest of the tribal people killed every single one of those five missionaries.

Jim Elliot, Nate Sain, Roger Udirian, Ed McCully and Pete Fleming. Minkaiyeh killed Nate Sain.

Years later, a daughter of one of the tribal leaders made her way into some missionaries outside of Ecuador and began teaching them the language of the Waurani people. Elizabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot's widow now, was one of the missionaries still there.

Elizabeth Elliot went back with the daughter into the Waurani tribes and after years of sharing Jesus with them, they began giving their life to Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Can you imagine with me for a second, the power of forgiveness that flowed into the Waurani tribe? Through Elizabeth Elliot to continue trying to reach the Waurani people who killed her husband.

That story is written in a book by Elizabeth Elliot called Through Gates of Splendor.

If you're interested in getting it to hear the story, but remember the little boy, Steve Sain. Nate Sain told him, like, we can't kill them because we know where we're going. We're going to be with Jesus, but we don't know where they're going.

It was a different story for Nate Sain for decades. Nate Sain, not Nate, Steve Sain, the son, harbored unforgiveness towards the Waurani people for years.

They killed his dad. So much so that he wanted to go back. He's a Christian now. He's a Christian. He wanted to go back to, he had heard the stories from Elizabeth and from all the other missionaries that these people were beginning to leave their life of sin and follow Christ. And he wanted to go back. So he goes back. And by the way, he wrote a second story called The End of the Spear, which has become a movie now. So if you want to watch the movie, go watch End of the Spear.

And Steve Sain goes back and has an encounter with Minkaiye, the man who killed his dad for the first time. And by the way, he doesn't know it. Minkaiye actually tells him that he killed his son, his dad.

And in that moment, he was filled with unforgiveness and rage to the point where he almost killed Minkaiye.

Here's a picture of Steve Sain with Minkaiye.

Because he unleashed forgiveness, they are no longer enemies, but they are brothers in Jesus Christ.

And let me tell you something about how powerful unleashing forgiveness is. Is it's the power to change your life and the power to change the lives of other people. To live as Christ, but to die as gain. And the Joshua Project, who counts for all the different tribal languages and people groups all across the world and how they're receiving Christ or not receiving Christ. Here's what God has done since 1956 in the Waurani tribe. There's 2,700 people in that tribe today and almost 40% of them are Christian. Who are no longer facing eternity in hell, but will spend eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Can you imagine for me for a second, if Elizabeth Elliot and Steve Sain decided to demand payment. Rather than unleashing forgiveness.

Look around the room for just a second. Do you see chairs that are open with nobody in them? How many of you know that a couple of weeks ago we launched three services? You can respond. Do you know why we launched three services? So that more people who don't know the forgiveness of God can find it.

And so wherever you go this week, I pray that you would have the gratitude. To realize just how much Jesus has forgiven you. And to realize that there may be people that owe you, who have offended you, who have triggered you.

But Jesus wants you to forgive them like he has forgiven you and not just that. He wants you to see them as someone for whom he loves. And so I pray that through this series you wouldn't just unleash forgiveness, but you would unleash blessing. Because as Kelsey shared last week from the scriptures that Jesus doesn't just call us to love people who look like us, act like us, who agree with us. He calls us to love our enemies. And to pray for those who persecute us, can you imagine one day going to heaven and meeting Menkaie because of the faith of Elizabeth Elliot. I want you to see these chairs, these open chairs as an opportunity not to just, oh, we can squeeze in a little bit. How many of you all know what a bro seat is when you go to a movie theater? Like you got to have one seat in between, right? It's a bro seat. Yeah, it's a bro seat.

What if we had a church that had no bro seats?

The power of unleashing forgiveness to see God radically touch and change people's lives. Robbing hell and populating heaven. Can I get an amen church? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. And more importantly, we thank you for Jesus. God, you didn't count our sins against us, but you gave us a perfect sacrifice for our sins. And Jesus willingly went to the cross to die a sacrificial death and to rise again to offer us a new life. So God, I pray right now that everyone in the room would respond to that act of forgiveness and simply receive it. God, that there's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can say. We don't deserve it. We can't earn it. We can only receive it. God, that you paid the penalty of our death, the penalty of our sin by giving your son Jesus. As a God in faith, we put our faith in him to receive the forgiveness of our sins. And in return, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with gratitude to share your gospel with every single person so that they would know the extravagant nature of your forgiveness for them also. So if you're in the room today and you've never given your life to Christ, I want to invite you to do it right here and right now. That Jesus, the Son of God, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords left his throne in heaven to become one of us, to die for you and to offer you forgiveness of sins, a new life.

If you need to come into a relationship with him, receive him and know him today, I want to invite you to do that right now. The Bible says that you turned from your sin and you turned to him. So right now, if he's messing with you, I want you to invite him into your life right now. On a count of three, taking a step of faith, I want you to shoot your hand up and hold it up. One, two, be bold and be blessed. Three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. In this moment, what you're declaring is, Jesus, I am turning from my sin and turning to you. I confess my sin and I ask for your forgiveness. Friends, you've got to know right now that he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and to redeem you from the dominion of darkness. Now, in this moment, ask him to fill you with his Holy Spirit. Come inside of me and change me. And from this day forward, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name, Amen. Church, let's put our hands together and say welcome home to those who gave their life.

Full Sermon Transcript

h I love baptism Sunday. He is our eighth birthday as a church. So eight years. Eight years. Dan, can you come up here for a second, please? He was really thrilled that I did this for a service, but now he knows. So this is my husband, Pastor Dan. Hi. Hi.

And it was kind of cool this morning I was doing my Bible reading and we just went into Micah. We in Micah or Malachi? Malachi. We're in Malachi. Cool. I hadn't had coffee yet, but we're in Malachi and it's talking about the priests and it's giving the priests instruction. And one of the things it says is that they have gone against the Lord by showing favoritism in the word. So basically picking out what instructions from the Lord they're gonna bring to the people. And I immediately had a moment of thinking, I'm so thankful for our pastor that you preach the word and the whole word so faithfully. That even there Sunday is where you say this is gonna be hard because either I'm wrestling with it or I know it might be hard for someone else to hear you say I'm gonna preach the Bible. And I'm so thankful for that. I'm so thankful for the way that you lead us. I'm so thankful that we get to do this together. Those of you who might know me know that I actually didn't want to do this. I think when we were having a conversation in the McDonald's. He didn't force me. We were having a conversation in the McDonald's parking lot and I said, why can't you work at Stryker? And he said, if God leads us both there, I will do that. But I want you to pray about it. And I'm so thankful that that was his answer. I'm so thankful for you. Nope, we're gonna pray over you. So can you just extend your hand as we pray over Dan? God, I thank you so much for the pastor that you've given us here at New Life Church. God, I thank you for the way that you give him new revelations in your word, for the way that you pour out your spirit. And God, I just pray that you would continue to do more of that. God, that you would speak directly to him, that you would give him vision, wisdom, and discernment as you lead him in leading us. God, I pray for extra blessings upon him and upon his life this morning. I thank you for just who he is to every single one of us here. God, we love you, we give you this morning and it's in your name we pray. And everybody said, amen. All right, now you can go, now you can go. All right, so we are in message four of a series we've been in called Triggered. Has this been helpful for anyone in this series? Yeah, I know for me I like to often be like, I'm not like a very triggered person, I don't have that many offenses. And then we've been in this series and I'm like, woof, I got a lot to learn. And it's been so helpful. And if this is your first time here and you're kinda like, well, I have no idea what foundation we're building on, I would encourage you, you can go back in through the New Life Church app and find the whole series there that you can watch. The past three messages have been preached by Pastor Dan, so they're a little more funny than mine usually are. But you can find all three messages there. So I would encourage you to do that. But today we're gonna continue in our series of Triggered and this message is called Kill the Root. The bitter root that is planted once we've been offended. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like in my 35 years of life, I might be living in one of the angriest years, not of myself, but of everyone. I feel like anger has become almost like a secondary pandemic to the world, where everyone is angry. I don't know if any of you have social media. You get on there and you're like, wow, everyone is just really mad. Maybe it's just the day. And then you get on the next day and you're like, everyone's still really mad. I call them keyboard warriors. We sit behind the keys and go at people or sit on our phones because you don't have to have a conversation face to face and hear the other side. You can just present yours and then it's like, peace, I'm right by. And everyone's walking around with just this giant chip on their shoulder. For example, Dan does post some things on Facebook that can get people really riled up, but there was one day that he posted one that was just genuinely funny. It was like, why can't we bring Red Rover back to recess? I feel like that really toughened our kids up. I was like, praise the Lord, finally one that's not going to tick someone off. Someone was still mad. They were like, this is a terrible idea and then went off on him. And I was like, oh my gosh, we're mad about Red Rover. What is happening? We're all really mad. It's a secondary pandemic that we're living in. This bitterness within humanity. It's that root that starts with one maybe form of offense that isn't tended to, isn't brought to light and then it affects everything within us. A psychologist in an article from Psychology Today explained bitterness this way. He said, emotional bitterness refers to feelings of sadness, resentment, and anger, especially anger that accumulate over time. So it keeps building. It's a secondary emotion outside of sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust that can result from insult or from injury. Feeling bitter involves mixed emotions and it can be really hard to identify. Becoming emotionally bitter is much like the progression of a child's physical growth. Parents don't notice how much their child gains in height each day, but there comes a time when they suddenly notice how much their son or daughter has changed. Becoming emotionally bitter happens similarly, but follows an escalating pattern until a difference is noticeable. In our garage, we have a chart of the kid's growth. And so they come in and they're like, mom, can you measure me? Can you measure me? And they get there and you mark it and then you're like, when did you grow four inches? I've seen you every day and I didn't know. Maybe you seemed a little taller. When did that happen? And I love how he compared it to this because when we have that bitter root, we often don't notice how much it's growing. Because you're living with it every day until all of a sudden someone's like, you're different. You've changed. Maybe you're, why are you seeing everything as the glass half full? Why are you so angry all the time? And it's because that bitterness has been growing inside of us. Let's look at God's word about what he says about bitterness. In Hebrews 12, 14, oh, and you guys know when it's yellow, what do you do? You say it. Yes. I was told that I could not change the system because that would confuse everyone. So when it's yellow, say it. All right, you ready? Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy. Because without holiness, no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. You guys are great at that. I feel like the choir teacher in me really tries to come out at that time. And I'm like, no bitter root. Yeah. It doesn't. You guys don't know what to do with that. And neither did my students. So it's fine. Reasons I'm here. But see to it that no bitter root grows up. Bitterness is often discrete or hidden. But it's personally destructive. Why does the Bible compare it to a root? I hate weeding. I hate it. Dan knows I won't do it. And it's because I don't have that attention to detail to actually get the root. I want immediate gratification. I want rip it out, rip it out, rip it out. Done. So when I weed, I get a bunch of heads of the weed. But they just kind of popped off. You know how unsatisfying that is? Can we just address that when you go to weed and it's like, you're like, got nothing. Cool. It's going to grow back. Why do we have to get the root of the weed? It grows back. And so this bitter root, if we're not addressing what the root is, it always grows back. If you still have this root, then another scenario happens and it triggers that root. And then all of a sudden, you're offended again and you're still sitting there. Just yesterday, I was watching my daughter cheerlead. And I got stung by a bee inside of my pants right here. And it felt like it continued to live in my pants. I was digging my hand. Dan's not even there with me, so I just look like a total fool trying to get it out. And I'm like, ah! I still don't think I've gotten the stinger. Because it is now this big, red, hot, and burns. If it wasn't there, I would show it to you. But like I told first service, nobody wants to see that. So I don't think I got the stinger. And I started thinking, why do you have to get the stinger? So I searched it up and it says, if you don't get the stinger, it will continue to release venom. And I thought, isn't that just like the bitter root? If you don't actually get the root, it will continue to release venom inside of you. It will continue to grow until all of a sudden it's taking over every area of your life. I also like to compare it to a rock in your shoe. How many of you have ever had a rock in your shoe? And it ends up being the only thing you can think about, right? Like you're walking, you're seeing people, you're like, hey, I got a rock in my shoe. What's up? Got a rock in my shoe. Cool, still got a rock in my shoe. Awesome. Until you get the rock in your shoe out, nothing else matters. And you're so aware of it. This is that bitter root inside of you. Sometimes you don't even know that the offense has taken place, right? You're like, I'm so angry, but you have to go back and find a way to pinpoint what caused the root. I was asking God this week, when are times that I have been offended that could have led to a bitter root, or maybe that did? And on Monday, I'm like, I got nothing. I'm so good. I have no roots. I'm just perfect. And then by Wednesday, I'm getting ready. And I'm like, oh, yep, remember that. Yep, oh, no. And then God gave me like five scenarios that I had had bitter roots. And I was like, cool, I got some stuff to work through. So in high school, I was a junior. I was trying out for the volleyball team. I had been on freshman and JV team. And this year, I was trying out for varsity. All my friends were on the team. I got to the final day of tryouts. And I went out in the hall, and my coach said, I'm so sorry you're being cut from the team. I was like, cool, all my friends are going to get to hang out. I don't get to play volleyball. And then he said, but you can't be mad at me because I'm a brother in Christ. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can. Now I'm real mad because you just pulled the Jesus card, right? Before I went to college, I loved to use my sister as examples. I just love it. I promise I'll come back to it. But Jess made the terrible decision to get married two weeks before I left for college. I thought that was so, my mom's laughing because she's like, that was awesome. I thought it was so rude of her because how dare her distract my mother from tending to me? How dare her get married? Like, who's helping me decorate my dorm room when we're planning centerpieces? And who cares that I'm going to be eight hours away in Nashville? No one cares because Jess is getting married. That's how I felt, right? I had a bitter root. I was resentful. In college, I wanted to be in this singing group. It was called Phoenix. It was the top group. And so I even made the choice to study with the voice teacher who was in charge of this group because I was like, if we have a relationship, he knows me, he obviously has to pick me. He kept telling me like, the spot is yours in this group. You have it. So I went in for auditions. He literally put his face in the camera, and he says, this is my girl. She's in Phoenix. And I was like, it's in the bag. I got it. Then I get on the posting list, and my name's not there, and my best friend's name is. And I was crushed. I was so mad. How dare him choose her? She doesn't even study with him. I was so bitter. What about dating someone for seven years thinking you're going to get married, and then all of a sudden you find out you got cheated on? That can cause a bitter root. You're like, oh, that just went from funny to serious. Yes, I'm trying to give you like a plethora. Dan would like you to know. Sorry, I forgot again. Dan would like you to know it was not him. What about betrayal of a friend? What about you think you're going to do life together? You think they have your back, and then one thing happens, and poof, they're out. And you're like, were you actually for me? Was this real? There's so many different scenarios that can cause offense. And if it's not taken care of quickly, it plants itself. And it takes root, and then it affects everything else in our lives. A bitter root will always yield to rotten fruit. Because at first, it only affects you, right? It's lying dormant inside of you. And then all of a sudden, it starts to come out in every situation. You know, I think of those different times that I was offended. After getting cut from the volleyball team and not making that singing group, I had a hard time trusting that leaders wanted the best for me. I had a hard time taking them at their word, and when they said I was doing something well, actually believing them. I had a hard time thinking that they were going to follow through with what they promised. When Dan and I started dating, I had some big trust issues that he and I had to work through together because I had to deal with that offense, with that bitter root, before it yielded rotten fruit in my marriage.

I had to deal with friendship wounds for how to be ready to be a good friend next time and not come in thinking, when are you going to turn your back on me? What are you going to do? You have to deal with that offense so that it doesn't turn in to a bitter root. Many of you, maybe Dan and I will often say, why are our kids yelling? Why do they have terrible attitudes? What is happening in our house? And then it's like, oh, because we've been yelling, because we have terrible attitudes. They're showing that rotten fruit. Maybe you're around people and you're like, why is my friend group so negative all the time? Why are we always gossiping? That's rotten fruit from your or their bitter root. And we have to deal with it because bitterness can poison those around you. Some of you, right now, you have that image in your head of, yep, that's the person. That's the person that I know they're bitter because when they're around me, it sucks the air out of a room. But just like Dan said last week, I want to challenge you that probably at one point in your life, if not now, you've also been that person. I have been that person. I was so hurt at one point by friends that one of my new friends said to me, you are so focused on the hurt from them that you're not even seeing that we're here.

And so I think of that every time. How do I deal with that bitter root? Back to Hebrews 12, 15, it says, see to it that no one falls short of the glory of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and to. The word you were supposed to say, it's not up there, but the word is defile. Ready? Defile. You did so good. Defile many. Defile in the Greek means stain, contaminate, or pollute. How many of you have felt contaminated by someone else's bitterness? They walk into a room and it's like, oof, the air is sucked out of the room. All of a sudden, the things that you felt joyful about in that day, the things that were going well, it's like they just went, pfft. And everything, then all of a sudden, is contaminated, is polluted. I know there's been days that I've come into the office and I'm in a really bad place. And I've come into staff meeting and it's like I pollute the entire room. And I have to come back later and be like, you guys, I'm so sorry. Dan and I actually used to do that when we would be fighting and then we'd come into a staff meeting. That was fun. For no one? I got kicked out of a staff meeting once. Isn't that cool? I did. I got kicked out just once. Because we've learned how to deal with the offense, there's been times we've texted the staff, hey, we got to put off staff meeting by an hour because Dan and I need to go on a drive and figure some things out. Because we're not willing to contaminate the whole culture because of our offense.

Our culture celebrates bitterness. Have you guys seen this? Especially on social media when you see someone saying, like, that was so rude, that was so offensive. And then you have all of their cheerleaders in their 30 comments underneath them, like, yeah, you tell them, you go get them. Burn it all. You know what I mean? And you're like, where is the person calling someone up? Where is the person saying, like, I know that was hard, but don't stoop to that level. Maybe that was unfair. OK, life's not fair. Jesus had to die on the cross for us. I'm pretty sure he thought it wasn't fair. Like, maybe we're not going to get everything we think we deserve. We live in a culture of bitterness that's celebrating it instead of correcting it. Hey, there's a better way to live. There's steps to freedom. Because I don't think any one of us is having fun being bitter. No one's walking around like, do you guys wake up and think, I'm so glad I'm bitter today. It's going to be a great day. No. No one actually wants to live like that. I was trying to think of people in the Bible who are bitter. Who was a good example? Because I love God's word. He gives us examples of everything. Like, he gives us adulterers, murderers, gossippers, all of these different people who were bitter so that we know, like, hey, we're in good company. But also, we know there's a better way to do this. And I immediately thought of King Saul. King Saul was king before David became king. David, side note, was anointed and told, hey, you're going to be king. And it took 15 years until he was actually on the throne. So if you need, like, a lesson in patience, read some of 1 and 2 Samuel in the Psalms because he had 15 years. Anyways, David is told you're going to be king, but Saul is still king. They go to battle. And how many of you know the story of David and is that it? First service I did this. And he was like, that's a bow and arrow. I was like, oh. With a slingshot, right? A sling and a stone, David defeated Goliath. Saul gets bitter. We see it in 1 Samuel 18, 6, when they're coming back from battle. It says, when the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing and joyful songs and timbrels and liars. So they're all coming out and he's like, yes, they're going to praise me, right? King Saul is so excited for their praise. As they danced, they sang, Saul has slain his thousands. He's like, yeah! And then there, and David has tens of thousands. And he's like, David just got the credit. And right there, a bitter root was planted of offense. Saul was jealous. David got what I was supposed to get. How many times have we felt that? They got that promotion. They got that raise. They were noticed by that person. They got that boyfriend. They got that girlfriend. They got on the team and I got cut. Insult, not getting the praise you think you deserve leads to that rotten, bitter root. It says after that in the scripture then Saul was sent a tormenting spirit. When we house that bitter root, it's like you're opening the door to Satan. Have your way in every area of my life, right? It's not even just like a cracked window of like, oh, Satan, you can sneak in here. It's a wide open door. Hey, I'm bitter. Come on in, Satan, have your way with me. So Saul was sent a tormenting spirit and because of his bitterness, we read in 2 Samuel that the whole empire was divided. Everyone had to make a choice. Am I following David, am I following Saul? Saul hunted David multiple times. Saul's son, Jonathan, was torn because he loved his dad but he also loved his friend David. And he thought, who am I following? How many of you have been torn between someone else's offense? I've probably put people in that situation before where I've made them feel torn.

One bitter person can divide a family, destroy a marriage, destroy a life group, divide a church, divide a culture at work, divide a sports team. One bitter person can contaminate the whole place. So the question I wanna ask you today is how do we kill the root? When we're trying to get to that root, how do we make sure it's not just like the weed that just the top pops off and then the root keeps growing? We had one root outside by our fire pit. It was a weed and it looked like it was just something you were just gonna like yank out. It was literally growing into a tree. It was the weirdest thing ever. And so I tried to pull it and it was like, oh, that baby's stuck in there, right? We had to get a tool. How many of you guys have seen those weed tools that you stomp down, it twists and it like, and Dan struggled with it. Some of us today we're gonna deal with a root that's that strong. That you need a tool and you need people around you. I had to call in Dan. I was like, I'm not strong enough. That's what life groups are for. Get people that are gonna help you point out this root and are gonna help you dig it out. Because if you just get the top, it's gonna grow back. If you just get the symptom, if you just get the like, oh, this person offended me today, I need to have a conversation with them, but it's really that like your dad hurt you when you were five and you haven't dealt with that. It's gonna keep coming back. Satan's gonna keep finding ways to trigger that root. So I have three points for you today because those of you that are note takers are? World changers. World changers. Erin Green's such a world changer that she, Erin Hitchcock, sorry, that she is in her notes. Can't even say it cause she's so busy taking notes. I love it. I love it. You guys, fun fact, I had them in middle school choir. Well, not Sam, he chose band. Anyways, it's fine. All right, three points. How do you kill the root? Number one, we have to expose the objects of your bitterness. This can be hard. This is what I wrestled with this week. When I said, God, can you show me where those roots are? In Ephesians 5.11, it says, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather, expose them. Expose them. I've found that Satan, the liar and the deceiver, likes to work in the dark. He's not often like loud about his tricks because he's a deceiver. He works in whispers, right? He'll whisper something in your ear. He'll deal with the issues in the dark. I was thinking of bitterness, picture like a hot coal sitting in your stomach. And when we don't deal with it, Satan, the whisperer, is like, what happens when you blow on a hot coal? Turns into a flame and it's gonna burn everything in our lives. But if we bring that hot coal to life and we bring Jesus to living water, how do you put out those coals before you go to bed and you wanna make sure a fire doesn't start? You pour water on it. When we expose them, it's like you're taking that coal and you're bringing it before God and you're saying, pour out your living water on this and put it to death so that it'll never start another fire in my life. So are you actually able to call out the root? If you're not able, if you think, I feel really angry but I don't know what the root is, ask God. He is so gracious, he wants to bring you to freedom. He will show you, it might not be right that second. It may be two days later when you're in the shower and you're like, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, I got a lot of roots. But he'll show you so that you can deal with it because he wants you to live in freedom. He doesn't want you to just be waiting for heaven miserable on this side. That's not what we're called to in our faith. So maybe it's someone got the raise you wanted. Maybe it's a new girl dating your ex-boyfriend, a spouse cheated on you. You're mad at God for taking a parent or a child too soon. You feel unappreciated at home. There's so many different things. Some that sound so small, like who would think that me getting cut in high school from volleyball would be that big of a deal. Some of them sound small and silly, but when you let them live there, they get really big. Those weeds keep, the roots keep growing. We can't heal from what we are unwilling to admit. We have to bring it to light. Talking about the story of King Saul, we have another person that I mentioned on the other end. We have King David. King David had every reason to be bitter, right? He had a reason to house that root. God told me I was gonna be king and I'm going on year 14 and haven't seen the fruit yet. God told me I was gonna be king. Why am I like living in a cave hiding? Why is Jonathan telling me all the places I have to go hide from this guy who's gonna kill me? He had every reason to be bitter, but how did King David fight that bitterness? You see it right in Psalm 139. He says, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. I think so many times Satan reverses it for us and we say, search them, oh God, know their heart, have the justice. Know their anxious thoughts, get them, right? But David never once said, search Saul. Know Saul's issues. David was constantly saying, what's in me? What's the root within me that you need to deal with? Because the only thing that we're in charge of or in control of is ourselves and David, in all of his mistakes, he was still known as the man after God's own heart. Because he was saying, search me, oh God, show me my root. You deal with Saul, because I know you will, but I am begging you to deal with me.

That's how David kept from becoming bitter. He was exposing the root. Number two, we have to cancel our offender's debt. This one's like, really, could we stay at one? Just point one. We have to cancel their debt or their offense. Jesus often talked in parables, and in Matthew 18, he has a parable about a servant coming to a master, and the servant has so much debt, he's panicked, right? And he's going to the master and he's saying, master, please release me from my debt, I can't pay it. And the master says what? Your debt's forgiven. And he's like, oh, sweet. So he walks away and then his servant comes to him, because he's the master of someone too. And his servant says, forgive me my debt. And he's like, nope. And so in Matthew 18, it says, you wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me too. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured. It's easy to say, I'm gonna take the forgiveness of God. God loves me, God's so gracious, God forgave me. But then not give it to someone else. We think we deserve it, but we can't then pass it on to someone else. And God is using this parable to say, I gave it to you. We read that and we're like, well, that servant looks really dumb, right? He just received it and then he goes and says no. I hate to tell you guys this, but we're the servant in the parable when we don't offer forgiveness. I love throughout the gospels that God's kingdom was so upside down to what man thought it was. Dan and I are watching The Chosen, I don't know for any of you who have watched it. Sometimes it takes some biblical liberties. And I often just ask Dan, like, is this in there or not? And he's like, why don't you read it? I'm like, because I have you. Sounds fun. But we just watched an episode. It's in the newest season when Jesus and his disciples are walking, they're all tired. They've been walking a long time and Roman soldiers meet them. And there was a law that Roman soldiers could ask people to carry all of their stuff. So they're, all the armor of God, all the stuff, the helmet, the breastplate, heavy stuff, and then also their bags. So they tell Jesus and his disciples, you have to carry this. And the disciples are like, are you serious? And Jesus is like, okay. So they take it and they carry it for a mile. The law in that day was that you could only make them go for a mile. So when they get to a mile, the soldiers stop and they say, okay, give us back our stuff. And Jesus says, but we're not to the place that you've asked us to go to yet. And they said, well, the law says we can only ask you to go for a mile. And Jesus says, oh, we'll finish. And the disciples are like, are you serious? In Matthew 5.40 it says, if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. So not just your shirt, we're gonna go above and beyond, hand over your coat. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them too. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Who are we to receive the forgiveness of God and yet to not give it to another?

To say, God, thank you so much for forgiving me, but then not giving it to another. But the question is how? What about when you don't feel like it, right? When it's like, yeah, but they were really wrong. I don't feel like forgiving them. Do we have that forgiveness model? There was a forgiveness model that I was gonna put up here for you guys. And it's basically just a circle with .1, .2, .3 and it flows and it starts with our immense gratitude to God for his forgiveness. Because when we remain aware of our debt to him and what he paid for us, then that gratitude flows to the next person because that gratitude then flows out in you forgiving someone else. And then it goes to them forgiving someone else. It starts with just awareness and gratitude to God for what he's done for you. The more we can remain aware of our own sin, of our inability to be perfect, the easier it is to give it to someone else. When I was in college, I went to South Africa for a month for study abroad. So I got to learn and to walk in the steps of where Nelson Mandela was. Those of you who might know, in South Africa, they faced something called apartheid, which was a lot like what was segregation in the United States and what led to the Civil War. People were being ripped out of their homes, being murdered and Nelson Mandela said that he was gonna fight for their rights. So I compare Nelson Mandela to our Martin Luther King Jr. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for that. For some of you, you haven't even lived that long. For some of you, maybe that's half your life. Can you imagine 27 years in jail? But he's known for this quote. He says, as I walked out the door of the gate when he was released from prison, that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and my hatred behind, I'd still be in prison. He knew that if he didn't leave it behind, whether he was actually held inside in a prison, he was still gonna be in his own prison. And for some of us, we're feeling that because of the root of our bitterness, so we have to cancel our debt, cancel their debt. It starts with forgiveness, with gratitude to God. Number three, you have to bless your offender. Luke 6, 27 says, but to you who are listening, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you. The Greek word for bless is eulogao. It actually reminds me of an Amy Grant song. You are starlight, I'm Galileo. Anyone? That was my favorite song as a kid. No? Cool, just me. All right, eulogao, it means to speak well of.

When I'm dealing with offense, when I'm dealing with something that could turn into a bitter root, I make myself, the first thing I do in the morning is to pray for blessings for the person that has offended me.

When Dan first sent me this message, I think I responded saying, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. He was like, what? I was like, I can't do that without crying because it's a little too real. He was like, isn't that how God works? He's gonna make us deal with it before we're allowed to stand on stage and preach it. I'm so thankful for his word and for this message because it's helped me work through so much. It's helped me dig up that root. When I get up in the morning, I say, God, I pray that you would bless that person. God, I pray that you would help them to get planted, that you would send them friends, that you would send them people around them who love them. Dan and I have a commitment that every Sunday on our drive into church, we actually pray for blessings over every church that we pass because it protects us from a bitter root. It's a step of protection to closing the doors so the enemy can't get in from thinking, oh man, what if that church has more cars than their parking lot? What if they have higher attendance? Guess what? There's so many people in Kalamazoo that if every church was full, there still wouldn't be enough room. We're not in competition, but Satan wants to tell me that I am, so I have to go on the offensive and I pray. I say, God, I pray for blessings upon Kalamazoo first. God, I pray for blessings upon Valley Family. I pray for blessings upon Radiant. I pray for blessings upon New Life Church because we're all on the same team. But when you allow a bitter root to take heart, things will change really quick.

In Proverbs 25, it says, if your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. And in doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head and the Lord will reward you. In Isaiah, the idea of heaping burning coals on someone's head was they would carry around burning coals and it was a sign of repentance. My mom actually told me in high school to pray to heap burning coals on someone's head, and I was like, I can do that. And she was like, that's not what it means. I was like, oh no. It was a sign they would carry around the burning coals as a sign of repentance. When we pray for our offender, when we pray for those who have hurt us, it allows them to let the Lord deal with them. It allows them to be open to see the goodness of God because then God will deal with them and bring them to repentance. We aren't the ones to have the final say, so we gotta pray for heaping coals upon their head. In Ephesians 4.31, it says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with malice. Be kind, be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. When I read that last part, as God in Christ forgave you, I started thinking about the example that we have in Jesus. Singing about his 33 years on earth and how he had so many opportunities to have a bitter root. I'd never really thought of it until yesterday, but what if my dad said, hey, Kel, change of plans, I'm gonna send you to die for all those terrible people. I think I'd have daddy issues, right? Jesus had every opportunity to be bitter. Then he gets to earth and he spends 33 years living among sinners but not telling them that he's the savior. How many times do you think he ran into situations or I'm a carpenter yet I'm a savior? That's not quite a job promotion, right? He could have been bitter about that. His 12 disciples couldn't quite understand what he was teaching them to do most of the time. He could have been bitter, why don't you understand me? He knew that one of them was gonna be one to sell him out to then come for the Roman soldiers to come get him and hang him on the cross. He knew that the other one was gonna deny him three times, but yet he still invited them all to his table the night before he died. Judas sat at his table. Peter, the one who would deny him, he said, Peter, on this rock I will build my church. Can you imagine someone who's gonna deny you three times and you hand over the keys to the kingdom? I think that's blessing your offender. He gave us the perfect example how to do it but we can't do any of it without him, without asking for more of his spirit. So I wanna ask you today, who's affected by your bitter root? Who's contaminated by you not taking out the weed? But on the opposite end, who could be impacted by you choosing to drop the stone, kill the root and live unoffended because there is such an amazing life of freedom on the other end? Would you pray with me? God, I thank you so much for your spirit. Thank you for your word. I thank you for the way that you so gently, like the Good Shepherd, nudge and prod us to living a life of freedom. It says your staff and your rod guide me. God, I pray this morning that your staff and your rod would guide every heart in this room, every ear in this room, God, to show us how we work through these three steps to kill the root.

And if there's anyone in this room that has yet to put their faith in Jesus, like I said in the message, you can't do it without him, without leaning into his strength and his power. So I wanna give you the opportunity this morning to make Jesus the Lord of your life, to put your faith in him and to spend eternity with him. The Bible says that he knocks on your heart until you're ready. So as Pastor Dan says, if he's messing with you this morning, you'll know that it's your turn. So I'm gonna count to three and on the count of three, I want you to raise your hand if that's you, if God's messing with you this morning and is saying, make me Lord of your life, put your faith in me. With all eyes closed, all heads bowed, gonna put our hands in the air on three to make that decision today. One, two, three. Would you lift your hand up in the air if you wanna accept Jesus as your savior today, amen. Say this prayer with me. God, I love you and I make you Lord of my heart. Would you live inside of me? God, I repent from my old ways and I turn and I follow you. Thank you for sending your son to die for me. And it's in your name we pray and everybody said, amen. New Life Church, we know that when one person puts their faith in Jesus, all of heaven celebrate. Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

urn morning guys, how are you? Man, it's great to be in the house of God today who had a donut. Big donuts, come on somebody. We love all donuts, but I had a moment later this week where we had already ordered and paid for the donuts and I thought, you know, we should have gotten some of those like Go Lake donuts or Schultz donuts. How many of y'all love those? Like, hmm, cinnamon at goodness. Well, here's why we have donuts today. We are celebrating. I've been telling you about this. We're celebrating the launch of something incredible today. It's the New Life dashboard. It's a personalized dashboard. We're rolling out. So it's dashboards and donuts. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're rolling out a next steps dashboard to help us to personally know and engage with every single person in our church family in more relevant ways. So let me give you an example. Our staff has been working so hard on this. Our leadership team has been working so hard on this and because our church is almost eight years old. We celebrate eight years next week as a church. So you're not going to want to miss that. But in the eight years, we've sent out emails every single week practically to every single one of you who has given us your information and how many of you guys know, like you get that email and you're like, I don't need to know that because I've already done that. For example, I was baptized over 20 years ago. I'm the pastor of the church and I get the same email every time we do baptism to sign up for baptism and I don't need to get baptized because I've already been baptized or how about this one? You're a man and you get information about something having to do with a woman. Well, sometimes that's appropriate because we as guys, we need to sign our women up for the maid conference. Can I get an amen somebody? Don't even, we don't go there. But so we're launching the new Life Church app today in a different way, a more tailored experience for every single person allowing you to feel seen, feel known and feel more valued in your relationship with Jesus. The NLC app is the absolute go-to place for every person to stay connected and in the know in appropriate ways. And so they were talking about, we're making our app more personalized. So as you know, right, our mission as a church, you walked in today, you saw it on the wall as you walked in. Our mission as at New Life Church is for every person to know God personally, to find freedom from their sin, find freedom from the consequences of sin and to discover their purpose, their God-given calling in their life and to make an eternal difference with their life. This is what, can I tell you something, this is what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is all about. And so we encourage people to take next steps of faith. How many of y'all know that that your next step of faith might be different than the person sitting next to you? And so this is personalized. So as a church, we want to come alongside of each and every one of you, each person to guide you in your next step in your faith journey. So which is why we're so excited to introduce you to this personalized mobile app experience. So I want you to take out this card with me real quick. It looks like a phone. And if you don't have the New Life Church app, that's your first next step is to download the New Life Church app. And we've made it super easy. On this card, you will find this little guy right here. This is called a QR code. I found this out this week, but how many of y'all didn't know that QR stands for quick response? Am I the only one that did not know what QR meant? It means quick response. So you point your phone at the QR code, the quick response code, and it pops up a link and you can click it. It takes you directly to where you need to go. And so if you don't have the New Life Church app, that's your first step is you need to take your phone out and get how many of y'all have the app. You guys are awesome. And so this is the go-to place. The app is the go-to place for all things happening at New Life Church. We've made it easy for you to find information on upcoming events, update your personal information. How many of you guys when you work out, like you need a plan? How many of y'all don't work out because you don't have a plan? So I love my new workout plan because it's literally like every set, it's like I do this and I do this and I click the button and it tracks my progress and it helps me to get better. This is the exact same thing for you in a spiritual dynamic. This is so much so. This week when this came into my, when the dashboard came alive for me, it had my kids, my family in my dashboard and it showed Kelsey and I, my wife, and it had pictures of it. And because I'm so type A and I noticed all my kids and said their names but it didn't have a picture, guess what I had to go do? I had to go give my kids some pictures because I love my kids and I want to see their faces. And so I updated my information to be able to do this. And so we're launching this together and side by side, we're going to take our faith in Jesus to another level. We're going to come along side by side to help you and to help us take next steps of faith. And so I want to point these out for just a second. These are called badges. Say badges. Badges. Your goal is to light these up, to light the badge up. And so here's what they mean. If you haven't been baptized, put your faith in Jesus and be baptized. Now some of you, you might think, well, if I go to my, my app, it does, it does, it doesn't show that it's lit, but you've been baptized. Here's what you need to do. You just need to update your information to let us know that you have already been baptized by immersion with your decision, not your parents' decision, your decision. And then boom, you've lit up that badge. Are you feeling me? All right, here's the next one. Attending church. How many of y'all know it's important to Jesus that we come together for corporate worship? And so if you, by the way, he's, he just, okay. Yeah, you can do that because they don't know how to get into it yet. Go to the next slide. So what happens if you don't see this screen, you're going to see this screen first. And so if you have given us your information at any point in time, you'll simply just put your phone number or your email and hit submit and it'll give you a code to then get into your personalized dashboard. How many of y'all see this? How many of y'all see your personalized dashboard? Sweet. How many of y'all don't need to submit your information? If you are, if you don't know how to do it, just find someone who's 12 and they'll help you.

By the way, if you're more of like a computer person, you can find this on the front page of our website. It'll say my NLC dashboard on top. And so if the badge isn't lit, it means you have a next step of faith to take. So attendance, by the way, we're not like tracking your whereabouts, just to be clear. You have to actually go in and when you bring up the app on a Sunday morning, it'll say, which service are you attending? 8 30, 10 or 11 30. And it'll, you'll click 10 because you're in the 10 and then you'll click in person because you're in person. And if you're at the 10 and you're online, you click 10 and online. I don't know which camera I'm on, but it doesn't matter. And that's how you light up that badge. Are you with me? Are you following? So it's personalized. Get in the group. Life change happens not in rows, but it happens in circles when you get to know each other. And so this is the life groups badge. Here's the serving badge. Jesus said that he came to serve and not to be served. And so if we're going to become more like Jesus, what do we need to do? We need to serve other people and love other people. And so we need to light that badge up. And here's the giving badge. Jesus was known by generosity. And so we're going to light those badges up. These badges, we have five that we're starting with. We will have more to come as we get into this. And, and as, but here's, we're going to go into, how many of y'all ready for triggered part three? Have any of you gotten anything out of this message series? Like God has so spoke to me personally in this message series. And so if you haven't been a part of it, if you haven't seen the first two, I encourage you to go there. But I want to start this particular message with a question. Are you smarter than the average person? Are you smarter than the, I had someone in the last service just say, yes, I am. To which I said, yes, sir. This message is exactly for you.

Are you a better driver?

Are you less sinful than the person sitting next to you?

Are you more right than they are husbands?

Can I just tell you, I know that I am way above average.

And I just got to tell you, it's really hard being right all the time.

There's so many important issues in our lives today, right? And, and, and, and our families, how to parent well, how to be married well, how to love our wives and, and our spouses, man, what do we teach our kids and, and what's going on in politics? And, man, there's so many important issues and man, every, every issue that I think about, man, everybody else is just dumb. They just need to figure it out because I know, I know it all and they just need to get, get in line, right? Even in the faith world, this happens, right? We talk about the end times and there's always these different arguments about, about, you know, when, when is the end going to come? And how many of y'all seen some pastors predict the end? And Jesus himself said, you won't know the end. He himself doesn't know the end. Only the father knows the end.

How about this one? Have you ever spent time in church and argued over whose spiritual gift was better? Or how about this one? We've, we've had this one before. Do you know what women are supposed to do in the church? What, what, what women are supposed to do and not do in ministry?

You got, you guys got really quiet. Some of you, you might not even know what I'm talking about and that's good. How about this one? Capitalism, bearing arms, who should have guns, who shouldn't have guns, when they should have guns, what type of guns they should have? Abortion. Oh gosh, no. If you're, if you're following me on Facebook and social media, you'll know that, you know, I tend to trigger people. Sexual and gender issues, capital punishment, should we, should or not. This one is my favorite. Our staff argues with me over, over whether or not Birkenstock sandals are dressy enough to wear at church. How many of y'all are wearing Birkenstock sandals today? Well, I just need to tell you that just right off the bat, you're welcome to wear Birkenstock sandals at church, but, and you'll thank me for this later, no toes are to be on this stage. Like, I will freak out if I see a toe on this stage. Can I tell you why? Because I don't want to stand over here trying to worship Jesus while looking at someone's toes. I told you, you'd thank me later. Anyways, it's exhausting being right all the time.

Jesus was surrounded by some people who always, who thought that they were always right. They thought they were always smarter. They thought they were always better. They thought they were always holier than everyone else. And in Luke chapter 18, he says, to some who were confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else, Jesus told this story, this parable. He said, two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now a Pharisee would have been a religious leader of the time. These are the ones that they think they have it all together. And the tax collector would have been known as a thief, someone who took more than they should. Says the Pharisee would have stood by himself and prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, like robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a tie. I give a 10th of all I get. He continues and he says, but the tax collector stood at a distance and he would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast

and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus said, I tell you that this man, the tax collector, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. You see the Pharisee saw himself as being always right, always better than someone else. The tax collector saw himself as wrong, as needing God, not being worthy. To Jesus, listen to me, to Jesus, it wasn't just about right and wrong. It was about pride

and humility. Pride and humility. About being arrogant or having a humble spirit. Can I tell you something that we've been talking about through this series? Proud and arrogant people do not love others well. The title of this message today is, There's a Better Way to Be Right. There's a Better Way of Being Right. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would speak. The word says that your word has the ability to change the human heart and spirit. And so our job is to clear the way, to get rid of the things that keep us from receiving your word because your word has the power to change our lives. And so God, right now we get rid of our arrogance. We get rid of our boastfulness, our pride. And God, we ask you to do what only you can do. We ask you to touch and change our lives, including mine, in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen. You know, unfortunately, Christians can also slip into pride like the Pharisees did. And we tend to think, and I get it, and I've even preached this before, we tend to think that part of our job is just to always be right. But listen, it's not our word, it's God's word. It's not our goodness, it's His goodness. And when we point people to Jesus, we're pointing Him to the perfect one, not to ourselves, because we're not. And because we're so right, we often get triggered or offended by those who we see is wrong because we're right. Am I preaching to anybody yet? Triggered. We get triggered by that social media post. Now, by the way, again, if you read the Bible, if you really know who Jesus is, Jesus confronts our sinful nature. His words, actually, the Bible says, are offensive to our sinful nature. And it's to show us that we need Him. We need Him to move in our lives because we need His goodness. And we need His goodness, not our own righteousness. How many of y'all are with me? And so that social post that drives us nuts, like we need to learn how to handle that. And how many of y'all follow me on Facebook or social media and know that I have the tendency to trigger and offend some people?

Which is why, Kelsey, she says, yes. Which is why I always try to point people to God's word, not my own. We get triggered and offended on how to vote, what to believe, how to behave. Triggers come. Listen, if triggers continue to simmer, offense is going to grow. That's going to lead to contempt. And trigger and offense and contempt leads us to hating people rather than loving people. Do you see the progression? The Pharisee always right. He knows it all. He tells everyone, I got it together. I know more. I'm better than you. Don't we do the same thing? Like we always have the perfect political view. We always know how to spend money more than the other person. What to wear? What Bible translation is the best? Pumpkin spice lattes over caramel apple cider all day long come on somebody.

Here's a good one. How many of y'all watched football yesterday? Man, don't you just know way more than that football coach.

Oh, here's one. Here's one even better. Man, you could have made that call. Man, how dare that referee get it wrong.

We think we're the smartest, the best, the most rightest of all time.

But we're sinful. Our hearts are easily deceived. We are often very wrong and we don't even know it. And here's the deal. Even if you are more right than most people, what if you are right but not loving? What if you are right but you're rude? What if you are just about making points rather than making a difference? Can I tell you how marriages end? Can you tell, can I tell you how how parents lose their kids and kids lose their parents?

You can be right and still be wrong, the Bible says. I can tell you how guys like come on let's can we keep it real for a second? Guys, how many times you know you're right? Wives, how many times you know you're right? But how you said it certainly didn't help your relationship

because you condemned the other, you hurt the other. Man, my marriage isn't better because of that.

Oh man, do we need the word of God. Let me tell you about myself for just a second because I'm pretty awesome. Kelsey and I tithe, we bring actually above 10% to New Life Church. We give offerings above and beyond when God lays it on our heart to do so. We give to people who are in need. We might sponsor a kid to go to access or we might sponsor a kid to do you know different things or go to a men's retreat or the women's conference. We serve, right? We serve you, we serve other people, we do things. We've both been baptized by immersion. I had the opportunity to actually baptize my wife which is probably the coolest thing I've ever done. We attend church frequently and not just because you need me, it's because I need him. We lead in the church. We're a part of life groups because we need to grow just like everybody else. Let me give you a little bit of glimpse into other things. When we're talking about like lighting up badges, can we throw up my dashboard for a second? So these are my badges. These are actually my badges. I've been baptized by immersion. That was my decision, not my parents' decision. I'm in life groups. I serve and I give. Attendance isn't lit up because we started it today and it's going to take some time for me to light that bad boy up, but are you feeling me? Can you look how awesome I am? Let me tell you about a badge that we're probably not going to add but it's just as important to Jesus. When Kelsey and I watch a TV show on Netflix or Hulu or whatever the things are and there's a sex scene, we fast forward through the sex scene or if there's too much of it, we stop watching the show altogether. We have porn blockers on all of our devices. I have it on my iPad. We have it on all of our kids' iPads. We have it on our computers. We have it on our phones. Kelsey has the password to like change any of that, but she's forgotten it. So even if we wanted to change it, we can't. About a year ago, Kelsey and I, we shifted. We probably drank alcohol several times a week, not in excess mostly, but we really started cutting it out. And we still drink from time to time. I'm not saying that that's wrong, but getting drunk is wrong in the eyes of God. Smoking marijuana, you literally can't take a puff without being intoxicated, which is what the Bible says, be of sober mind. Again, that's not going to be a badge that lifts up, but I want to tell you something. I smoked marijuana twice in college and neither one of those times went well for me. The first time I ended up with my car parked between two trees in the backyard of, get this, ironically, a pastor of a church whose daughter I went to school with, and I had to call her to ask her dad how I was going to get my car out of that situation.

The second time I was at a stoplight and the girl in the passenger seat fell out of the car with a cop caddy corner right across the way. Then we pulled into a restaurant, you know, because we were hungry. We had the munchies. And I lost my keys and the only backup keys were in my parents' house in Iowa and I was in Texas and I couldn't, I didn't have a car for a week. I work out five days a week. I date my wife. We have zero debt. We're living a pretty awesome life, aren't we? I love it. Do y'all like me? Do y'all think I'm pretty cool? Let me ask you this question. Do you want to follow Jesus because of how holy I am? Jesus because of how holy I am?

Listen closely and if you're taking notes, people aren't drawn to Christianity by our moral superiority, more superiority in our moral goodness.

Just because you might be right doesn't mean you are making an eternal difference in someone's life. Jesus was the only person who has ever lived who never sinned. And though he was sinless, he drew people to himself who were sinned. Jesus, listen, Jesus went to parties where sinners flocked to him. There was a prostitute right there that poured perfume on his feet and everyone thought that was weird. When in Jericho, Jesus spent a day with a man named Zacchaeus who was a tax collector. He was known as a repubate. No one wanted to be around him. Why? Because he was stealing all their money and Jesus went out and hung out with him at his home. He spent time with the woman at the well, right, who went from bed to bed to bed to bed from husband to husband to husband. Let me ask this question. Why did sinful people want to be around Jesus?

It's because Jesus didn't make them feel wrong. Jesus made them feel loved.

John 13, 1, he says, Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the very end. Check this out. The last time that Jesus was around his disciples before he went to the cross for the payment of our sins, he was gathered around with his disciples at the last supper, right? He was eating dinner knowing that Judas would betray him, that Judas would stab him in the back and Judas still had a place at his table. He knew that Peter would deny him and Peter was still sitting closely in relationship to Jesus. John 13, 33 through 35, Jesus says, my children, I will be with you only a little longer. You're going to look for me just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now where I am going, you cannot come. Say this out loud with me, the bold words, a new command I give you. Be right all the time. Act like you're better than everybody else.

Be a know-it-all. A new command, notice it's not a new suggestion.

It's not a new good idea. It's a new command that Jesus gives to his followers to love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. I'm going to do this with you and so I'm going to duck down because apparently some of y'all can't see this. Bold words, by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

They're not going to know you're his disciple by winning an argument. That word, my children, the word children is the Greek word technia. It means relationship. It means that you have a closeness to Jesus. You've received his love. You know him and it's not worn out. It's fresh. It's new. You have a life-giving relationship with Jesus. It's you know that you've been forgiven and you're forgiven. His mercies are new every single day for you. You didn't earn it. You don't deserve it. How will the world know that you love Jesus, that you follow Jesus, that you are his disciple. They won't know that we are his disciples by what we are against or who we vote for or by what we post or how we are right. They will know we belong to Jesus because of our love. There's a spot for them at Jesus's table just like there's a spot for us. Let me ask you this question. Why don't we love others like this?

It's because we're too busy being right.

I'm right. I'm the Pharisee. I'm right. I'm better than you. I'm morally superior to you and I'm so judgmental of you. I'm always pointing out how you're wrong and I'm right. I'm easily angered, triggered, and offended and that's exactly the opposite of how Jesus was. Jesus, listen to me, Jesus was the most right. He's God and he was the least condemning person who ever lived. Sinners, people who were wrong, flocked to him. Right? The woman caught in the act of adultery that we've talked about, that the Pharisees brought her in front of Jesus and said, man, the law of Moses, I know, I know, the law of Moses says we're supposed to stone this woman. We're supposed to take her out.

And Jesus in this most unbelievable way says to the Pharisees, he said, okay, whoever of you is without sin, go ahead and throw the stone. And the scriptures account for this, this story. And he said, literally it says, and the oldest to the youngest, one by one started to drop the stone and left because they realized they had no right because they too were sinners. Do you know who was the only person there who could have thrown the stone? Jesus. And he didn't. And then he did this unbelievable thing, which I think is the perfect way for us to see just how loving Jesus was. He stooped down to her level and he just came alongside of her and he said, look, where are your accusers? Where are they? And she's like, they're gone. And she says, and he says, just like those people, I don't condemn you, but in a loving way, here's what he did, but leave your life of sin. You know, Kelsey and I, again, I try to be as raw and real as I possibly can. And I haven't told her a lot of this stuff. Both her and I had sex before marriage. How many of y'all know that's a sin before God? We had sex before marriage, but check this out. We didn't have sex with each other before marriage. Here's what God does. He changes sinful people and his kindness, his loving kindness leads us to repentance. It leads us to life change. And so Kelsey and I, when we came together, it wasn't like, oh my gosh, well, I guess we already blew it. Let's just keep on going. Now we responded to Jesus in a way that I believe Jesus. How many of y'all know the scripture that God works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And because we love him, we don't want to disappoint him. And so we allow him to change us into becoming more like him. The Pharisees were always right. The woman, she's wrong. She needs to get it. Jesus never sinned. He had the right to judge and he didn't. The men left and dropped their stones. They dropped their right. How many of y'all know that Jesus is a man of the right to judge and he didn't? The men left and dropped their stones. They dropped their right. How do you think the woman felt? Do you think she felt condemned or do you think she felt loved? Do you think it welled up in overwhelming gratitude to Jesus that she felt valued, loved, even in spite of her sin, even in spite of her being wrong. She felt, which is the point of faith, she felt forgiven because she was. I'm forgiven. When I'm forgiven, when I acknowledge that, I feel the profound sense of gratitude. I become more accepting. I become overflowing with love instead of just, let's check this out, instead of just being right all the time and ineffective, by the way, in your marriage with your kids. Be humble and loving. It's the better way of being right. It's more effective. Listen, you won't change people by judging them. You'll change them by loving them. Right. We rarely help someone by just condemning them. We rarely help someone by just judging every action that they have, but we might help them by loving them and pointing them to the one who forgives our sins. 1 Corinthians 13, 1 through 3 says, if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but don't have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all the knowledge of everything that's going on, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast and tell people how awesome I am, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Friends, I want to tell you this as clearly as I possibly can, and I can tell you it's hard because you're in a spiritual battle. Yes, yes, yes. We need to stand firm on biblical views about sexuality, about abortion, about politics, but we need to love people well. We need to stand firm and love people well. Because Jesus wasn't into pride. He wasn't into arrogance. He was into humility.

Can I tell you something? The proud people, arrogant people, really don't grow spiritually when they think they have it all together, when they think they know it all. And they typically don't love people well.

So if you often think that you're always right,

just consider that you're probably not as right as you think you are. Humble yourselves before God, because there's a better way of being right, because Jesus didn't call us to just be right. He called us to be loving. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you, and we thank you that you and you alone have the words of life. And God, even if your words trigger us and offend us, God, we pray that we would remove those things so that you could change us and heal us and make us more like you.

So God, I pray that your word would speak, not my word, your word,

that it would lead to freedom and it would lead to changed lives, that it would restore and change and strengthen marriages, relationships with kids and their parents, in the workplace. And God, that the whole world would know that we belong and follow you, not because we are right, but because we are loving, by how we love one another, by how we look after each other. God, our goal is to point them to you, not to us.

If you're in the room today and you've never given your life to Christ, given your life to Jesus, I want to invite you to do that today. The Bible says that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God, stands at the door of the human heart and he knocks. And listen, because he's a gentleman, he doesn't barge his way in and force his way in. You have to let him. You have to open the door and invite him in.

And so if you've never done that before, I want to invite you to do it right now. With nobody looking around and all eyes closed and all heads bowed, this is your opportunity to receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord, to begin following him and receive a new life in him. If that's you and he's messing with you, I want you to take a step of faith by shooting your hand straight up in the air and holding up on the count of three. One, be bold. Two, it's the greatest decision you'll ever make. Three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. In this moment, you're declaring, Jesus, I choose you. I know that you are a better way. And so right now, Jesus, I turn from my sin, my sinful nature, and I turn to you, Jesus, to be forgiven and set free.

I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, to help me to know and receive your words of life and to overcome sin and death. In Jesus name, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

this is Jesus, he's speaking h after 17. This is jesus. He is preaching to his disciples and he says, it is impossible that no offenses should come. Read triggers. It is impossible that no triggers should come but woe to him or her through whom they do come. So, as we start this message today, I So as we start this message today, I want to take an opportunity to maybe talk about some offensive people. Because offensive people is what Jesus is saying, woe to him through whom offenses come. And so we need to be aware of who is it that's offensive. Are you ready? How about someone who is super critical all the time?

Offensive. Someone who's always controlling. None of you know anyone like that, right? How about the person who's so arrogant? Like they just, they don't even see it. They're just mean. Like you walk in the room and it's like, I'm just gonna get my head bit off. They're just mean. Here's one of my favorites, the know it all.

We got social media, Shouters, we got office gossips. We've got that relative at Christmas birthday parties and Thanksgiving. Like you have the picture in your head, right? You know who it is. Every time you show up to that reunion, whatever, you see that person and you're like, oh gosh. If you don't see that person in your head right now, it's because it's you. All of your relatives and friends and family, it's you that is in their head. Right, we got the hypocrite. Man, the hypocrite is offensive. It's so offensive, right? They tell you to do something and then they, or not to do something and then they do it, right? Here's one of the worst phrases I've ever heard in my entire life. I don't know who came up with it, but really any kid has heard it. Do as I say, not as I do. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Do as I say, it's literally the definition of hypocrite, right? Isn't that offensive? Do as I say, how about this one might shock some of you. Someone who's just so needy. They're just always needy every day. Every time you talk to them, every time you get that text message, I need every issue is just blown so far out of proportion. This is crazy, I wanna tell you this. This is kinda how real it is. I've been in ministry for over 20 something years. And I love one of my favorite seasons of ministry is when we do 21 days of prayer. We do it twice a year. We do it in August, where 21 days we seek God with everything we've got. And we ask people to fill out prayer requests, right? Cause we always say there's nothing too big for our God that he can't handle and nothing too small that he doesn't care about. Can I get an amen? And so we want people to bring their prayer requests, to bring their issues. We did that this morning. And this past August, the stage was half full with prayer requests. I believe in January, when we do this again, it's gonna be like full of prayer requests. I can't wait to see it happen. And we have people that come day after day after day praying over, literally going to God on your behalf when you present a prayer request. Here's what I know in 20 something years of ministry. I know some people, man, I get their prayer requests all the time and they've never asked if they could pray for me.

They're just always so needy. How about the manipulator? That doesn't even need an explanation does it? They're just constantly manipulating to get something for themselves. The critic again, to know it all. Let me ask you a question. Which one are you? Ephesians 4, 26 through 32,

you might be asking pastor, hey, didn't we just do a whole series through the book of Ephesians? And the answer is yes, but we need it again.

Because I forgot it already. Anybody else? It says in Ephesians 4, 26 through 32, it says in your anger, when you're triggered or offended, do not sin. It says, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold. Some of these words that I'm about to say aren't bolded and you know what to do when they're bolded, but let me have you say some out loud with me. It said, do not let any, it's all right, it was a terrible setup. It was my fault. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.

Yeah, but pastor, but what about in this situation? Yeah, but they, man, they just gotta know.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. But only what is, say this word.

We're almost there. By the third time, we're gonna get it.

But only what is, yes. For building others up, not tearing people down, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen, who are hearing, get rid of, or their sentiments. It's just one little tiny word there, just three letters. All. If you were to study the Greek language in which the New Testament was written in, that Greek word for all, if you found the really profound definition, it means all.

Not some, it means all. Not in certain circumstances, it means all, get rid of all bitterness, all rage, all anger, all brawling. I mean, I don't think this is a pretty good idea. You're not sure yet, okay, it's weird. All slander along with every form of malice, and instead be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.

Ephesians 4, 26 through 27, right at the beginning, we're gonna go back to it, it says, in your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Can I tell you something based off of Scripture, based off of what Jesus said that he says, it is inevitable, it is impossible that you will not be triggered, it is impossible that you will not be offended, but being triggered, if you're taking notes, and you should be, because note takers are, being triggered is inevitable, but living triggered is a choice. Being triggered is inevitable, but living triggered is a choice. If we look at that word, the foothold, by the way, if you wanna impress your friends at lunch today, I am gonna give you a Greek word that actually means something a little bit different that will help us to understand this. The Greek word for foothold is the word topos, and it means to have a place or a room. In other words, when you get triggered, when you and I are offended, we have to give it a home. We have to give it a place to live. It is a choice. And can I tell you something? You could be offended at work, you could be offended by a teammate, you could be offended by a number, you could just turn on the TV, you could get a text message and just boom, social media, hello, I mean, it's just all over the place. The triggers, the offenses are inevitable, but living triggered is a choice, and here's what I know from just being a human is that when we give the devil a foothold, we are giving the devil access to our marriage. We're giving him access to our family, we're giving him access to our friendships, we're giving access to the church and how we're gonna relate to one another. And so if I was, and I'm not, by the way, I hope you know that, if I was Satan and his demons, and we were having a meeting, a strategic, like how are we gonna take him down meeting, a strategy meeting, I would think about, man, how could we most break God's heart and destroy those that he loves?

He'd do it through offense. He'd do it through a trigger. And so I wanna show you this for just a second. This is my own family. This is my wife, Kelsey. She's not in the room, and normally I'll like it when she's in the room, but the number one person who triggers me on planet Earth, is the number one source of offense on planet Earth

for this lovely lady.

Do you see why it's important that we do not give the devil a foothold? The enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to destroy. It's the bait of Satan, right? The two books that I talked about last week that I suggested to you, the bait of Satan by John Bevere, you gotta get it, because the bait of Satan is offense. He wants to destroy your marriage. And the only way he can do that is if you give him a foothold, is if you choose to live triggered, to live offended. Here's the next picture. We give him access to our family, aren't they? Aw, come on everybody. Seriously, they're the snuggliest. Oh my goodness, look at this.

Kelsey says weird things like, I could just eat you. And I'm like, that is strange. This one literally woke up this morning at like 6 a.m. and snuggled me for like 30 minutes. It was the best thing ever. This one I have to beg to snuggle me. I'm like, just get in here. And here's, we don't have favorites, right? None that we don't, right parents? We don't, we don't have favorites. But ironically, we don't have favorites. I love these nuggets. But this one, does you not see this? Like she looks, she's like a mini Kelsey. I just wanna just get in here. Anyways, here's the, how many of y'all know that these suckers can trigger me?

And they're not even teenagers yet.

But they're so snuggly. But I can't give the devil a full, this kid right here, I'm gonna tell you this a little bit, he was one of the whiniest suckers all week. I just, just like got under my skin. I'm like, ah, just get away from me. Anyways, next picture. We can't give the devil a foothold. Here's some friends of mine. This just triggered some of y'all. You're like, pastor is too soon. All right, buddy.

But these are friends of ours. Andrea is a friend of mine from way back in college. And she was a part of our ministry in Austin that I was a pastor at. And her parents actually supported me when I went to seminary, they paid for my room and board. And when we go back to Austin, we often go to their house and have dinner with them. We're great friends. Chase, her husband was introduced to us later. So we're getting to know him more. And the first time we met Chase, we quickly realized that we typically vote for different people.

And we also realized very quickly that Andrea and Chase vote for different people.

Can I tell you something? If they want their marriage to survive, they can't give the devil a foothold.

And there's some other issues there in their family that we've come alongside of them in, but we can't, the devil wants to tear apart our friendships. Here's the last one is our churches. Wait for it, boom. Man, if Satan wants to destroy what God wants to do, he's gonna divide, he's gonna conquer, he's gonna destroy, he's gonna break God's heart and destroy those that he loves. And so I wanna take a moment, I wanna give you some thoughts. These are the three, I call them the 3D results of living offended, giving topos to Satan, giving it to him. Is he's gonna divide your families, your friends, and our churches. And he's gonna do it through offense, he's gonna do it by triggering, he's gonna use politics, he's gonna create divisions, he's gonna tear apart friends and families and marriages and split churches. It's been said that the number one reason that people get a divorce is what?

It's money. Can I tell you something? Can I tell you something? Wrong, it's offense.

It's offense.

Division destroys, unity though, united though, the church, listen to me, the church of Jesus Christ, if we're united and not divided is unstoppable. A divided church is weak and ineffective. Here's the second one, 3D results of living offended is it distracts Christians from our actual mission. How many of you guys know what our mission is?

He's not sure. So out there, you can read it as you come in, it's know God, find freedom, discover a purpose and make a difference. Know God, can I tell you what that is very plainly? It's robbing hell and populating heaven. This is a side note, this isn't in my notes. Um, should I say this or not? Gosh, this isn't even a part of the message, but I'm triggered.

If I knew the Pope, the Pope and I would be having a conversation this week.

Let me go really quickly, this is really fast, this is a side note, this is nothing to do with the message, everything to do with the message. Let me talk about two words, the inclusivity of Christ and the exclusivity of Christ. The inclusivity of Christ is John 3 16. For God so loved the world, everyone, that he gave his one and only son that whoever should believe in him would not perish but have eternal life, robbing hell and populating heaven. Can I tell you about the exclusivity of Christ? Jesus said that he is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him.

Some of y'all don't even know what I'm talking about, do you? The Pope said this week that there's many ways to God and that is absolutely 100% a heresy. And if I knew the Pope, which I don't, we would be having a conversation about repenting and coming back to what is actually true. Are we okay? Okay.

But it distracts Christians from our mission. And let me go through this really quickly. When we just all of a sudden get triggered by cultural things happening again last week, what do we say? Jesus was never shocked when sinful people did sinful things. It never shocked him. He was like, oh my, really? And so here's what Christians do. We boycott businesses.

We complain about pop culture, music that's coming out and yet we're listening to it. Disney, oh my gosh, there's the, oh, I gotta be careful what I say. That Netflix series, man, et cetera. Or we start comparing ourselves on Instagram because we gotta get that many followers and friends and look at me and I'm awesome. Man, how many of y'all share? You, do I have any conspiracy theorists in the house? Can I just slap y'all, stop it.

That was free of charge. That will change your life. I literally, they're not in the room today. One of them is, okay. Our staff members, two of them, a couple of months ago, we're all up in the, is, what is her name? I don't even know her name.

Princess Kate Middleton, Princess Kate Middleton. Guys, they claim during lunch break, they were looking at videos on whether or not Kate Middleton was alive or dead. Can I tell you how much time was wasted?

But seriously, how many times, listen to me, do these divide Christians and are really just a distraction from our mission?

The third thing it does is it discredits our witness because when we are triggered, easily offended, always angry Christians, we tend to focus on what we're just against rather than what we're for. Like we're always just argumentative. We're always mad. We stay angry. We're always critical. We're always judgmental. We're always hypocritical. We're self-centered and self-righteous and we're easily triggered. We're always ticked at everyone. Nobody knows any Christians like that, right?

And tragically what happens is this outward anger, it infiltrates our marriages, our homes, our kids, our friends and our churches and it destroys us. And so what do we gotta do? You can throw that video up on the screen. We've gotta do what this video is. In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. Can I make it a little bit more, and it doesn't need any more clarity, but let me put it this way. If you're taking notes and you should be, the day of your hurt should also be the day of your healing.

You cannot give the devil a foothold. Because he will exploit it every time and he will tear you apart. He will tear your marriage apart. He will tear your family apart and he will tear churches apart. The day of your hurt, when you're betrayed, offended, you need to attempt to reconcile, to work it out. Don't give it, don't give it room to live and to grow, right? Living triggered, living offended is a choice. I usually explain it like this. When an offense comes or a trigger comes, typically it can happen in a couple different ways because we're all different. Some of us, we just sweep it under the rug and we keep on moving. And what we don't realize is when it's stuck under the rug, what do we got? We got lumpy carpet. So when we wake up in the morning and we haven't dealt with it, it's hidden. We end up tripping over and falling over because we haven't had coffee yet and the lights are not and our contacts are not. And we're just, we were just letting it grow. We're feeding it without even knowing it. Here's the other type of person. Have you ever heard about Tupperware anger before? It's when you get it triggered or offended and you tuck it away, you put it away like leftovers into the fridge and you lock it up in the Tupperware and you put it in the fridge and how many of y'all forget what's in the fridge? Just my house. And then you pull that sucker out a couple months later and you talk about offensive.

That's what's happening in your life. That's what's happening inside of you when you let offense have a foothold, when you keep living triggered. What happens, Dan, what happens if this happens just right before bed and you're like, we're literally like, I'm about to pass out, I'm so tired. Well, I love when this happens, but literally this week I had already written this message.

My girls, my wife and my girls were out doing, I don't even know what they were doing, some sort of something. And I'm with the little one, Ollie, that snuggly little nugget. And he has been so whiny. He just nonstop, I don't know if it's teeth, I don't know what's going on, he's whiny. And like I said, it's just like under my skin, I'm just like, ah, I can't handle this. So I finally get him to bed and I turn on the TV, I turn on a Netflix documentary about Connor Stallion's just to see if it's true.

Some of you are shaking and some of you are like, that's, we just poke in the bear. Anyways, Kelsey comes home with the girls, I'm watching, I'm all dialed in, and it's really like getting to the end, it's getting good, and she walks in with the girls and says, hey, can you put the girls to bed? And I'm like, that's never happened to anyone here, right? When the spouse walks in and just all of a sudden interrupts, whatever, it's just in my house. I instantly am triggered. Can I tell you something? That is the dumbest trigger. That's the dumbest trigger. I'm literally like, how selfish or how unaware am I that I just, do I know that I'm a dad and I should put my kids to bed and it's not just her responsibility? So here's what happened, I get triggered, I get offended by the dumbest thing and you all can feel me, you can relate. And so I take the girls downstairs, I start putting them to bed and I'm literally like, Satan, how dare you? And no, that's not actually what happened. I said, wow, God, you really are something. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I had already written this message and everything that I'm feeling and everything I'm wanting to say and do,

I have to stand before these people this week and explain to them how terrible I am of a human and how triggered I am and how offended I am. And so I got quiet, which is, if you know me, I'm not quiet at all, ever. And I got quiet and I was silent and I was dealing with myself. I was like, God, deal with me, because this is so stupid. And then Kelsey is not, again, she's not one to let things go. She'll notice immediately and then just start digging and just digging and digging and digging. And I'm like, I'm trying to deal with myself, okay? Stop, just stop. Well, I was tired, we went to bed, woke up the next morning, I gotta make this story a lot faster. But she's like, what's going on with you? And I tried to tell her, and then eventually she said to me, she goes, until you're ready to be nice, don't come home.

I'm like, all right, I'm out. I just start packing up and she gets the girls, she takes them to school and I start pulling out of the driveway. And I'm like, where's Ollie? My one and a half year old is in bed. And so I'm like, my wife just slept with the girls, I'm supposed to be leaving for work. I can't go back in the house because she told me I can't until I'm being nice. So this is what I did, because I'm an adult. I sat in the garage, in the garage, outside of our door, just sat there until Kelsey got home. She gets out of the car, looks at me, what are you doing? You told me I couldn't go home until I was ready to be nice. And I realized as I was pulling out of the driveway that our baby is still in bed.

And I also realized I'm preaching on this this weekend, I can't do this. I already let the sun go down, I've already failed, we gotta work this out, we gotta figure this out. Can I tell you something? Kelsey and I are great. But how many marriages are not great because they didn't deal with it? They let the devil have a foothold that continued and continued and it's destroying you. Listen, it builds and it builds and it builds. And you gotta know something, a strong marriage isn't just pointing out each other's flaws, it's owning your own flaws. Because you don't score, listen to me, you don't score points by huffing and puffing and by yanking covers and by acting like a child. I was acting like a child.

Imagine with me for a second, how different our friendships, our marriages, our families would be if on the same day we came to them and said, I was wrong. I am sorry. I was wrong. I am sorry. Now I'm gonna set some of you all free for just a second because here's what I think a lot of times happens again, when you're a manipulator, is you go to them and say you're sorry only because you want forgiveness. Like you don't actually wanna own your part, you just want them to tell you it's okay. Can I tell you something? There's a big difference between those two. Jesus said that it is inevitable, it's impossible that no offenses should come but woe to him or her from whom they do come. I've never met a couple in a marriage, I've never met a relationship, strive for disagreement, that it didn't actually have two people involved in it. It's never been all their fault. It's always been an issue that's probably built over time a foothold that has developed on both sides that gave the devil a foothold and now it's being destroyed. It's why if you come to us at New Life Church and you're like, hey, I gotta talk to you about my marriage, we're trying to get better at this but the ladies on our staff will say, hey, we're not gonna talk to you about it until you're both in the same room. Because how many of y'all know that when we just talked to the one person, we probably don't get the entire story. That offenses came from both sides, triggered. But what if you were to say on the same day, man, I'm so sorry, I was wrong and you can say, will you forgive me? But listen to me, the forgiveness is a gift to be given by them, it's not something that you can demand.

And so let's talk about this for just a second, Ephesians 4 29, right, it says, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. But only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs. Like, can I tell you the trick of marriage? It's not all about you.

A matter of fact, marriage is a mirror and this isn't just a relationship series or talk, marriage and it's friendships and it's relationships with your kids. It's all those relationships, even coworkers. I mean, how helpful of it is it when you just berate other people? It's not.

But helpful is building other each other up according to their needs, not just your own needs, that it may benefit all who listen. So let me give you a list of things that Kelsey and I have learned from the scriptures and even from our own counseling for our own marriage. And you get an argument, you get triggered or you start offending each other, listen to me, no belittling of each other. No being arrogant and I'm better than you and I'm above you and no bad mouthing, no criticizing, only what builds up. So let me give you a list of things you should never do when you're feeling triggered. Never call the other person names. Never raise your voice. Never raise your voice. Never raise your voice. Never raise your voice.

Oh, here's a good one. Never get historical.

Here's one that's kind of ironic. Never say never. Never do this.

You never do this. You never say always. You always do that.

Here's the biggest one probably. Never threaten divorce.

Take it off the table. Get it out of your vocabulary.

It means you've given the devil a foothold for too long. Here's the best one. Never quote your pastor during a fight.

I'm serious. I don't need to get in the middle of it. But what happens when we're triggered? What happens when we're offended? We're tempted. We're always tempted to defend our anger to, man, they hurt me. I deserve this. I'm entitled to justice, man. I'm gonna get them. No unwholesome talk. Only what is helpful for building up. Righteous anger, man. They don't just so righteously anger, man. They've sinned, man. It's just self-righteous. You're placing yourself above them, better than them that you know more and just self-righteous. Listen, do we call other destructive forces righteous? Let me give you some examples. Have you ever heard of righteous greed?

Or righteous lust?

A righteous affair?

Righteous lying?

I said this one last week, righteous gluttony. We're just filling ourselves with too much alcohol and too much food and too much coffee. Whatever it is, just, no. Ephesians 4.31 says, get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Notice what the next verse, verse 32 doesn't say. It doesn't say, be arrogant about your moral superiority. It doesn't say, be critical of everyone who thinks differently from you. It doesn't say, be harsh because you're just dealing with a bunch of idiots who are less than you. No, Ephesians 4.32 says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ has forgiven you.

Let me ask you this question. Maybe it's not a question, maybe it's just kind of a statement.

Man, how dare we receive forgiveness from God for our own sins, but don't extend it to someone else. Be kind, compassionate, forgiving.

How does this happen? How does it need to happen? It needs to happen up close and personally.

Like, because it's easy to shout through social media.

It's easy to speak truth and opinions from behind technology from a distance.

But it actually takes time and effort

to love people up close.

I thought about this this week. Do you have a friend who, man, they're just always right?

Like, they're just always right. Knows everything about everything.

Knows everything about church and how it should be run and what we should do and what we shouldn't do. Man, they know everything about theology and about spending money and not spending money, how to raise kids even though they don't have kids.

Man, how to be married and they've had six marriages and write what the government should or shouldn't do. Man, they just know everything about everything.

Can we just all take a moment and just thank God for that person? Because out of eight billion people in the world, what would we do without them? You can chuckle, it's funny. The smart, they are the smartest person in the world. What would we ever do without them? They're all we need.

And do you know what I realized?

You know, most people, most of those people

don't know that they are those people.

And I thought to myself, again, going back to the beginning, talking about all the people, the offensive people and who I was on that list, I started to look, which one of those am I?

And then I searched the scriptures and I was looking at the life of David and this just popped out at me. David is the man after God's own heart. He was the man that we look up to and he was the one who was a king and he was a shepherd and he was a worship leader. And he was all these amazing things. He was a warrior.

And then David had an affair.

And to hide his affair,

he literally had the husband of the wife that he cheated on with, he sent him off to battle to be killed. And a buddy of his came up to him and he said,

hey man, I know you did that. And not in a condemning way, but in that kind of friend that you have then in a loving way says, dude, man, you are awesome. Like you're the king. You've been a warrior. Man, even when King Saul was trying to come at you and attack you and kill you and take you down, you honored him. You're an upright man and yet you did this. You were filled with offense.

And he pulled it out of him. The reason why David is known after a man after God's own heart is wasn't because of how awesome he was. It's because of what we see in Psalm 139, verse 23 and 24 when he says, search me God. Know my heart. Test me. Know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

So what do we need to do with this message? We need to come to God and say, where am I? Where am I arrogant? Where am I judgmental? Where am I deceived? Where am I self-righteous? Where am I harboring anger, carrying offense, giving the devil a foothold? Where am I carrying all this anger? We've got to get rid of it and be kind and compassionate because the devil divides, distracts, discredits and destroys and he does it through triggers. He does it through living and staying offended and becoming angry.

Listen to me, every moment that you and I are angry, we lose a minute of God's supernatural joy and peace and our ability to begin to make a difference with the people around us. Listen, being triggered is inevitable, but living triggered is a choice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Jesus Christ, he has forgiven you. Let's pray together. God, we love your word. We love it because it helps us to be free, to be free of anger, to be free of offense, to be free of the triggers. So God, in this moment, I pray that your Holy Spirit would move, that you would search us and know us, find any offensive way within us and lead us in the way everlasting.

Jesus, in this moment, I pray that if there are people that don't yet know you, would come to know you today. Friends, the reality of our situation is that we have offended God in our sinful nature. We are not, listen to me, we are not offensive to God. He loves us, he's not as shocked by our sinful nature, by our ways that we go against him.

But because we are that, he is a just God and he can't be around sin. And so what he did is there's a punishment, there's a justice for sin and that sin, according to the Bible, that justice is death, death physically and death spiritually.

But Jesus came to take on your penalty of sin and my penalty of sin upon himself so that you and I don't have to.

That he literally died for your sin and for mine, to forgive us and to save us and to make us new. And that's available to you today. And so if you've never given your life to Christ, put your faith in him for your forgiveness. I wanna invite you to do that right here and right now. On the count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up. You'll know it's you because the Bible says that the Holy Spirit of God knocks at the door of the human heart. And so if he's messing with you right now, let him in. Receive his love, his mercy and his forgiveness. One, two, three. Put your hand up and hold it up. Now from your heart to God, I'll help you the words. You say this, here I am God. I choose to believe that Jesus, you died for me and you rose again for me to give me a new life, a new start. In this moment, I'm turning from my sin, I'm turning from my offense, my triggers, and I'm turning to you Jesus for forgiveness. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. And from this day forward, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

Extra A Good morn to everybody. How you put it right back down. And then move on, all right? Because we're good sports here. If you are new to New Life Church, I went to the University of Texas, that's why I did that, so I'm actually a fan. And I just gotta tell you, Kelsey and I had the opportunity to go to the game yesterday in Michigan. I know they're not all great fans, as they aren't all great at Texas, but man, the people around us were phenomenal. And you should be proud of how Michigan fans handled themselves yesterday. A few years ago, we were about eight years old as a church, and a few years ago, I had come in on a Sunday morning, we were actually in the high school still, we weren't in this building yet. And another college football fan walks in, he was a USC guy, and he just starts jabbing me. Like, talk about great timing. Like, he just starts poking me about how our, because the Longhorns were really bad for a good decade. All right, so, I mean, they were poking me, and I was just getting, I'm like getting irritated and frustrated, how many of y'all know, like if you're a football fan of a college, and going to church on Sunday mornings, like y'all need some Jesus, right? And here I am, I'm supposed to preach a message, and this guy was just getting under my skin, and I felt triggered, triggered. I think there's probably not a more important topic to talk about in church in our world today than the topic of being triggered. Because I think we all are in different phases of our lives, and we're triggered, we're easily offended, we're exasperated, we're irritated. Anyone, am I the only one? And sometimes, Christians can actually be the worst people at triggering others. We can be some of the most offensive people. For some of you, you're like, but PD, aren't we supposed to get upset about culture and about evil and wrongdoing, and isn't that a part of our jobs, to be offended and gripe about culture and be mad and get angry and stand up for the truth and point out sins, et cetera? So this series, can I say that again? This series of messages is very important for all of us. And why I highlighted series of messages because you need to take in all of the messages, because I even know that in church that I could preach a message about one particular topic in a series, and you got maybe triggered, offended, by one, but you didn't see the complete story. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? I think we need this series in our lives, in our families, in our workplaces, in our world today. So as we get started, I wanna recommend two books for you if you're a reader. If you're not a reader but you listen, you can get it on both of these on Audible, or any other type of store that does that. The first one is called The Bait of Satan by John Bevere. By the way, we actually have a guy in our church that's leading a men's group on through this series, The Bait of Satan. The Bait of Satan is offense. The Bait of Satan is offense. And so pick up that book, read it, listen to it, whatever it is. The second one is a book that was actually recommended to me a couple years ago by a guy at our church. It's called Unoffendable by Brent Hansen. I encourage you to dig into these books, to dive into the content. We have friends, I have friends that literally, they read The Bait of Satan three times a year, four times a year, because they know they need it. And I think we all do. And I think you're gonna see that in the message today. And I gotta just be honest right off the bat, 100% of the content in this series of messages, I'm hijacking it from the material in these books because it's great stuff. But the good stuff, it's all me, baby. It's all me. I'm kidding, of course. Let's think about politics for a second. Can we talk about politics in church? Nobody wants to do that. But what's the reality of politics in our nation? It's offensive, divisive, fear mongering everywhere. Like you turn on the news, you turn on social media, you see the ads. Guys, I get text messages. How many of y'all get text messages from a political party? And you're like, I didn't sign up for that. Which that's offensive. Y'all stole my phone number. And they're fear mongering why to win. And to keep or get power. Have any of you ever offended your spouse? If you're married, you have. Have you ever been offended by your spouse?

Young people who aren't married, get ready. Buckle up. Have you offended your kids before? Have they offended you? I think about our three kids. I have three kids. I have an eight year old of five. Yes, she's five. She's almost six. That's why I did that. And then almost two, one and a half, somewhere in there. And they're all different, right? Like my oldest, she clings to my wife. She's a mama's girl. She loves her, some mama. She loves dad and she would run up to me and hug me and she's a people person and loves it. My youngest is similar. He's the boy last night or yesterday we came home and he runs out and he's like dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. And or mama, mama, mama, don't we just love kids like that? Parents. Notice I haven't mentioned my middle child yet. Fun fact, parents are not supposed to have favorite but I actually love this kid. I love, like she has an extra dose of daddy's heart. But man, we come home yesterday after being gone all day and they're like, hey, do you wanna go see mom and dad? Nope. Hey, you will snuggle me right now. Get over here. I wanna snuggle right now. And you wonder why they don't wanna snuggle.

That's my middle child. I love the independence but man, sometimes she's so like aggressively not wanting us that I'm like, I'm offended. I wanna, can I just love you? Give me, I want some love. Offended. Now you guys who with older kids are like, that's cute, pastor, wait until they're teenagers. Okay, I can wait, thank you. But what about bigger stuff? What about like a friend's betrayal? Like someone who you really trusted really hurt you. Stabbed you in the back. Maybe you've experienced something that's out there called church hurt. Maybe you've been offended by someone within the church. Maybe you've been offended by me, which is why I brought up this as a series of messages because I don't know how many times in the history of New Life Church I've said like one statement and they were so offended. Someone was so offended by that one statement that they didn't hear the rest of the message that probably would have softened whatever it was that offended them. And in the church, you gotta realize like the Bible itself, Jesus himself that says that the word of God is offensive to us. Why is it offensive to us? It's because we have a sinful nature. And God is preaching to us. He's telling us what's better for us and we get offended by God's word because we have a sinful nature, not a righteous nature like God does. And so sometimes you might have hurt in the church whether it's from someone sitting next to you or by even me personally. And then you leave and then you criticize the church and that's a crazy dumb church and I hate that church and man or that sermon or that stupid, that outfit, why is he wearing cowboy boots? What is going on? We're in Michigan and whatever it is, and then you go to another church and then you're criticizing, you find something to criticize about that church and then you go to the next church that offended you and you criticize that church and then at some point you need to realize there's a common denominator here.

Because we're so easily triggered. Some of y'all, I think we need to wrap you in bubble wrap because it's just so easy to get under your skin.

I don't know if you had this before, whether it's a workplace or maybe even your home, but someone in your home is so easily offended that you're just like, oh, how many of y'all think that we need to learn

how to handle offense? We need to learn how to handle what triggers us. And so we need to look into the series, we need to look into the Bible and get after this message because we need to help, we need God's help, the Holy Spirit's help, God's words help to help us get over anger and to get over our offenses. So let's ask God to be here with us, the Holy Spirit. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would pour out your spirit in this place because we know that we need you. Like every single one of us, we know that we're triggered, that we're offendable and God, we are people who offend others. And so God, we need to learn how to handle offense. We need to learn how to handle it so that we can let it go. And so God, we pray that you would transform every single one of us during this series, including me. God, if we would take into our lives the message that you have for us and apply it, God, we will literally see our lives change, our homes change, our workplaces change, in Jesus' name and everybody said, amen. If you're new to New Life Church, when I read the scriptures, if there's a bold word, we're gonna say it out loud together with some gusto, all right? And you need to give it some flair, all right? None of y'all talk in monotone, all right? Nobody has, mom, mom, mom, mom, okay, so let's go. Ready? James one through nine. My dear brothers and sisters, by the way, we have a phrase around here if you're new, that note takers are, the Bible even says, take note of this, okay? Get your notes out.

Take note of this. Everyone. Should be. Quick to listen, slow to see, and slow to be calm and angry. How many of y'all feel like you did that well? Like I still heard a lot of monotone action up in here. It says everyone. It doesn't say just Republicans or just Democrats. It doesn't say just wives or just husbands. It doesn't say just adults or just kids. It doesn't say just bosses and just employees. It doesn't say that. It says everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Do you know what's interesting? And by the way, just before I say this again, I don't wanna trigger anybody, so I'm giving some backstory, or I don't even know what I'm gonna say, so who knows, let's go for it.

How many of y'all are patriots? Like you love United States of America. Me too, okay, all right. We're all friends, let's go.

How many of y'all are really grateful for the First Amendment? Y'all know what the First Amendment is? Freedom of what? Doesn't mean you should.

Well, you can all go home now, goodbye.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. If you were to study Jesus, which is why we are in this place, we're to study Jesus, we're not to study Dan, we're to study Jesus. Jesus, when he was one-on-one with people, he asked more questions than he answered them. What do I mean? Jesus directly asked individual people a hundred and three, 183 questions in the scriptures. Let me give you an example. He met this woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, he was a Jewish person. Two things were happening there. Jewish people did not interact with Samaritans at that point in time, and he interacted with her. What also didn't happen is a man would not address a woman, and vice versa. So she was shocked by the fact that Jesus was actually talking to her. And then what happens is Jesus doesn't begin to, Jesus is God, by the way, did you know this? Okay, Jesus is God, he didn't come to the well and start saying, oh my gosh, I can't believe you did this, I can't believe you did that, oh my gosh, you slept with that guy, you slept with this guy, you slept with that guy. No, he began to what? He began to ask her questions. She said, he said, where is your husband? And she answers and he said, well, I've had five husbands, and here's what happened. He didn't start digging at her, he didn't start triggering her, he asked her questions. So what, she became actually self-aware. There's a difference. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? He answered, listen, when Jesus was asked a question directly, he only answered three questions.

Y'all have some homework to do to study Jesus this week. 183 times he asked questions, he answered only three times. Broadly speaking, when he was preaching, he asked 307 questions. Jesus was a question-asker. Do you want to build great relationships in your life? Be a question-asker. Ask people about themselves, don't just talk about your favorite topic. Do you know what your favorite topic is? You.

Jesus asked questions. Study Jesus, here's a question for you. What is your trigger? Do you know it? Do you know what triggers you? Is it someone cutting you off in traffic, triggered? People who don't respond fast enough to your text messages. You feel ghosted, triggered. Or maybe if you're an Apple iPhone user, you say something to someone and then you see the three dots and you see it, you're like waiting for it, you're on pins and needles, what are they gonna say? How are they gonna come back, whatever. And then it goes away. And then it pops back up three dots and you're like, oh, wait. And then for seven more days, nothing. Triggered. I don't know what the other phones do because they're inferior, but anyways.

Or how about this one? Someone that you really look up to. Could be a teacher, could be a coach, could be a pastor. Someone who's an author, who really spoke to your life, really, really did awesome things for you and you really looked up to them and they failed. They did something horrible.

And then you begin to think, well, everyone else is horrible. I think about this, I think there's been a string of pastors who have had affairs or one big one that you may have heard of, may have haven't heard of. He got fired from his church or resigned, I don't even know, in Dallas, Fort Worth. And like 30 years ago, he was 20-something, had a sexual interaction with a 13-year-old, which by the way, he should have been in jail, not preaching.

But then, what happens is someone with that kind of clout who's written all those books and pastored this unbelievable church, you begin to look at all pastors in the same light and said they're all the same.

You're triggered. A leader fails and you're triggered. A coach fails and you're triggered. A mom or a dad fails and you're triggered because you lump them all the same. Someone tells you what to do.

Heaven forbid someone would tell you what to do. Oh no, they did not.

Triggered. Someone, check this out, someone at work, a coworker criticizes your idea. Or how about this one? You brought an idea to your boss and they didn't take it. Triggered. Offended.

How about this one? You're angry about an issue. Maybe it's a political issue, maybe it's just an issue at school, maybe it's an issue with a team or whatever. You're angry about an issue and just because someone else doesn't get angry like you are at that same issue, it makes you angry and you're triggered.

I'm about to go from preaching to Madeleine here. Someone succeeds and you didn't. Someone got the job or that promotion and you didn't. You feel triggered.

Years ago I was working at a church in the Dallas Fort Worth area and a gentleman, a guy was walking his kids into the kids ministry and I saw him turn and look at his kids and literally starts to say, these people are so fake, they're all so happy, they're all smiling, they're all having fun. This is just crazy talk. Heaven forbid someone's having fun. Someone's smiling and happy. And the miserable just wanna keep being miserable. Triggered.

Are you easily angered? Sometimes that's hard to admit, isn't it? Because some people, not any of you, none of you, but some people just like being angry.

Ever met that person?

I hear the laughter of familiarity. And here's the deal. We do not like what makes us angry, but we love feeling angry. We don't like what made us angry, but we just love feeling angry. Some of us in the church, by the way, I encourage all of you to do it, to get into a life group. We have life groups here where we're life giving people, we're lifting people up and doing it together. We have life groups here, but some of you, man, you're in a different type of group, you're in an anger group.

What's it called, Reddit?

Or if you're a Michigan fan, I bet you can find some fan pages out there that are just angry today.

Are you in an anger group or a life group? Man, when we are angry, here's what happens. When we're angry about something, we actually are feeling and putting ourselves in a I am superior position.

You're wrong, I'm right, everyone else, not me, everyone else is wrong and evil and they're an idiot. Let me ask you a couple questions. How effective is your anger?

Like whatever context it is, how effective is it? Is it working? Is it helping you to build better relationships at home, on your team, with your spouse, at school? Here's an even better, bigger question for us in the room today, is it making us more like Jesus? James 1.19, the scripture I shared right at the beginning, says everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Why? Because human anger, is the righteousness that God desires. Whatever the trigger, human anger, whatever the offense, human anger, whether it's small or a major betrayal, maybe it's an opposing political view, maybe it's the middle finger you get as you leave the service today in the parking lot. Here's the first note if you're taking notes, your human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

So we gotta learn how to deal with our trigger. We gotta learn how to deal with offense. And here's what happens, but pastor, you're sitting there listening, you're like, but pastor, man, my anger is righteous anger, I'm supposed to be this way, I'm angry over sin, I'm angry over what the Bible calls evil, I'm angry.

Have you ever noticed that your anger

is almost always over someone else's sin and not your own?

You're so angry that someone else is evil, someone else's sin, someone else is wrong, but when it comes to your own,

and can I tell you, that's not really truly righteous anger,

that's self-righteous anger. Like you'll criticize their foul language, but you'll ignore your own spiritual pride, oh man, look at me, I've been a Christian for 30 years, you're just a baby, you just don't even know yet, and you're just acting like you're spiritually above them, spiritual pride, man, you judge their sexual sin and then you ignore the fact that you eat too much, which the Bible calls gluttony, or you drink too much, which the Bible calls, he says, be of sober mind.

Is anybody offended yet by this message?

How effective is our anger? Is it making the world better? Are you changing anybody's minds?

Here's a critical question to ask. Are you more joyful, which God desires from you, are you more joyful, peaceful, happy, loving, if not, it's time to make a decision, here's the decision that we need to make between two questions, do I want to make a point, or do I want to make a difference? Do I want to make a point, or do I want to make a difference? Matthew 28, not 28, Matthew 22, verses 37 and 39, Jesus replied when asked a question, this is one of the questions he answered, he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Let me ask you a question, do we have to be angry and triggered to love our neighbor as we love ourself?

Is it even possible? Listen, again, note takers are world changers, this note, you gotta get it deep into your heart, Jesus didn't call us to be right, he called us to be loving.

You don't believe me, let me tell you something, listen, some of the best fighters in the world aren't angry. How many of y'all like watching MMA? Or boxing? You know, they're not trained to hate their opponent, they're just trained to beat them because it's a sport. They're not angry, if I'm a football player, whether it's for Texas or Michigan, or Michigan State or Notre Dame, oh gosh, I need Notre Dame people here. I need Notre Dame. Oh gosh, I need Notre Dame people here. Oh gosh, I need Notre Dame people here. Oh gosh, I need Notre Dame people here. Oh gosh, I need Notre Dame people here. Oh gosh, I need Notre Dame people here. We train not to just hate the other team, we train because it's sport. That's why I love going to the game yesterday and being around people that were so gracious, and man, the one time a Michigan fan got out of line and actually started John at a, at a, what are they called? They're called Texas fans. All the Michigan people told the guy, sit down, that's not who we are. Michigan fans, you should be proud of that. Now there's always idiots amongst the bunch, right? They're on the Texas side, they're on the Michigan side. Church, we can't be those kinds of people. We can't be those kinds of people. Some of the best fighters in the world who are fighting injustice in the world are police officers. They don't do their job because they're just angry, and they're doing their job to protect people and love people, serve people, soldiers, they're fighting injustice, they don't just walk around angry, they're there to serve and to help and to fight injustice, but they're not doing it out of anger, now sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, but, so how are we, here's the question that I know some of you are asking. Again, this is a series of messages that we're gonna dive in deeper into a lot of the questions that you're probably asking, but one of the questions is, how are we supposed to battle against forces of darkness? Is that a question you have? How are we supposed to do that? Here's the answer, we need to lead with love, not anger. Lead with love, not anger. Here's the better of the two quotes, we are not called to fight darkness with darkness, but with light. So how do we do it? We gotta let go of the anger. We gotta fight against the triggers. We gotta fight against, we gotta overcome offense. And so I'm gonna share with you a couple points of how we're gonna do that, and the first one is gonna be like, ah, this doesn't make sense, I don't get it, number one is you need to lower your expectation of other people. You're like, what? Lower my expectation of other people. Here's what I mean, here's what happens. You're like, I can't believe they would do that. Parents, have you heard said that about your kids? Or about your spouse? Or about the coach? Or about the referee? I can't believe they made that call. What? Are you kidding me? You're shocked. You're like, I'm appalled, I can't, I didn't raise you like that, anyone say that? Oh gosh.

Ugh. And really, here's the question. Are you really that shocked? Do you not know yourself? And what you've done? And what you're capable of? Second Timothy three, two, three, four, this is sobering. People will be lovers of themselves. Lovers of money. Boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents. Do you see yourself on the list yet?

Ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving. Are you holding on to unforgiveness, slanderous, slandering other people without self-control? Brutal, not lovers of the good. You're treacherous, rash, conceited. Certainly no American is like that. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. So let me get this straight for a second. You're shocked by other people's sin.

This is gonna set some of y'all free today. Listen, sinful people do sinful things. Can I say that again? Sinful people do sinful things. If they are, let me put it another way. If they who are doing sinful things are not Jesus, which means they are not perfect, they're gonna let you down.

Listen to me.

I, me, PD, as some people call me, if you're in the cool cats club, I guess, Pastor Dan will let you down.

You stay here long enough in the church, in our church, at New Life Church, and maybe get to know me a little bit. Some of you are like, I can already tell you're an idiot. This is not shocking. I will let you down because I'm not Jesus. Like we're here to worship Jesus. We're here to learn from Jesus. We're here to become more like Jesus, but I am still in process just like you are. Listen, Jesus was never shocked by people's self-centeredness, by people's selfishness. He wasn't walking around interacting with people dumbfounded by immoral behavior. He wasn't shocked. He wasn't like, oh my gosh, I can't believe, write the woman at the well he was interacting with. She had five husbands. It didn't shock him. The disciples who were the closest to Jesus, they were arguing who was gonna be the best and who was gonna be able to sit right next to Jesus when they go to heaven and be his right-hand man. They were comparing and saying, who's better? And I'm the best and I'm gonna be the best of the best. And Jesus didn't come at him. Peter, I love Peter. Peter's like my homeboy because Peter was a little bit, he was a little braggy, he was a little cocky. I'm working on it, okay? I'm just telling you I'm working on it. But Peter, man, Peter, here's the deal. Peter, Peter, which Jesus said on this rock, Peter, I'm gonna build my church. Peter lied, betrayed, denied, stabbed Jesus in the back and abandoned him. Jesus never lost it on his disciples. He never got angry. He never got triggered by them. And their stupidness. Jesus didn't, Jesus didn't quit his life group because of maybe one word that was said or maybe a phrase. Like he didn't do that. He didn't rant on Facebook about what a preacher said or all that stuff. He didn't quit the church and yell, man, you all suck and man, stay triggered and post on Reddit. And is it Reddit? I said it wrong in the first service, I gotta check myself. Or stay angry, stay miserable, stuck in church hurt.

So number one, we've gotta lower our expectations of people because we, we, say that with me, we are all sinful. This place is messy because no perfect people exist here. We come to worship again and learn from the perfect one and his name is Jesus. Can I get an amen? Ephesians, so the second point I wanna make to you is, is you need to raise your gratitude for God's grace in your own life. Raise your hand if you've never sinned.

Just checking closely. Because I wanna meet you if you haven't. You've never lied or cheated, looked lustfully at a guy or a girl. We're at the Texas game yesterday and my wife, she keeps asking, where's, where's Matthew McConaughey? Where's Matthew McConaughey? Where's Matthew McConaughey? I'm like, who cares? Apparently she did.

Have you ever envied someone else? Gossiped, farted on someone. I'm sorry, I said that one. I'm sorry, I said that one.

Ephesians two, eight through nine says, for it is, I went too fast into that one, I'm sorry, I set you up terribly. For it is, that you have been saved through faith and this is, it is the gift of God, not by anything that you do so that,

they lied. He's so arrogant. Well, I guess I'm a little self-righteous. They stole. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Now listen, I do not in any way, again, this is a series of messages, I do not in any way in this initial message to minimize a hurt that you might have. Like someone, I don't even know, there's outrageous things that happen in our world. Someone may have molested your child, I can't even imagine. Maybe your spouse lied and cheated on you, which is horrible. I beg you, I beg you, I beg you. Be careful not to feed your anger. Don't fuel the fire inside of you because it's only going to imprison you. Don't have that mentality, man, I'm right, they're wrong, I got it all together. Don't be superior, like morally superior, putting yourself above other people. In John chapter eight, Jesus, again, he's in a group of people and these super morally superior guys named known as the Pharisees, they were religious leaders of the day, again, Christians can be some of the worst. They brought a woman who was caught in the act of adultery before Jesus and they said to Jesus, hey, if she's been adulterous, man, you need to stone her. Like she needs to be put to death. And Jesus looked around the room and said, again, he asked a question.

If any of you are without sin, then go ahead. If you don't have sin, if you're not a sinner, then go ahead and throw the stone. Now, if you know anything, Jesus is the only person in that scenario who has the authority and the spiritual superiority and moral superiority to be able to throw the stone. And the Bible says that one by one, they begin to leave the oldest to the youngest and they left and they didn't condemn this woman. And Jesus kneels next to her and says, where are you accusers? Where are those that are there to condemn you? They're not here. Well, I don't condemn you either, but go and sin no more. Like Jesus has this way of coming alongside of us and picking us up and propelling us into righteousness, propelling us into following him, following his ways, but he's not doing it in a condemning, angry, triggered, offended way.

And so let me just say this for a second. Listen, your anger, this is the next point. Your anger will justify your right to hold the stone. You'll feel like you have the right to cast the stone, to throw that stone. Man, they hurt my child. I can't believe they chose that guy to start over my son or to get that job promotion or man, they're letting me down. They're spreading false information about me at work. Man, I can't believe who they voted for. Oh my gosh, what kind of sign do they have in their yard for that party? Friends, drop the stone.

Drop the stone.

Jesus didn't call us to be right, he called us to be loving.

Our goal isn't to make a point, but to make a difference. To introduce sinners who are just like us to the perfect one, the redeemer of all mankind, the savior of the world. Our goal isn't to make a point, it's to make a difference. And how are we gonna do that? We need to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you. And we thank you for your word. We thank you that it's so counter-cultural, it's so different than what we're taught.

But it's what the world needs most, it's what I need most, it's what my marriage needs most, it's what my family needs most. So Jesus, we thank you for your word, we thank you for your church, and we thank you for your son, Jesus, who came to pay the ultimate penalty for sin, which is death. Jesus, you came and you died on our behalf so that we wouldn't have to. You paid the penalty of our sin. And so God, right now in this moment, we say thank you.

Jesus, we thank you for your word, we thank you for your church, and now in this moment, we say thank you. Let us never be ungrateful for what Jesus has done for us. Now, here's the deal. If you're in the room today, and you've never given your life to Jesus, here's the deal, we are all sinners, the Bible says, in need of a savior. That sin in our life separates us from God. But Jesus came to bring us back into a relationship with him by taking the penalty of your sin and my sin on himself and offering us his life, his righteousness. And so it's a gift that can only be opened, it cannot be earned. And so if you're wanting to receive Jesus as your savior today for the forgiveness of your sins, I wanna invite you to do that right now. You have the moment, the opportunity to turn from your sin to turn to Jesus to receive who he is and what he has done for you. If that's you, faith is likely to be stirring in your heart right now, because the Bible says that the Spirit of God knocks on the door of the human heart, and all you gotta do is let him in. And so if he's messing with you right now, I wanna invite you to come into a relationship with Jesus today. If that's you, on the count of three, I want you to take a step up there and shoot your hand up in the air and hold it up. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. Declaring Jesus, here I am, I receive you. Thank you for forgiving me. God, that you sent your one and only son to pay the penalty of my sin. God, right now, I receive it. I receive your forgiveness. In this moment, I turn from my sin and I turn to you, Jesus. God, fill me with your Holy Spirit and help me to follow you and walk with you all the days of my life that I might be changed by you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

we'll have a new we'll have a new one t n How are you guys doing today Pete? Good man, you guys are like the super spiritualS one s Right? We're off to a great start. Good luck Michigan this coming weekend.

But really, good luck. I do have to tell you right off the bat though, this service at 9.15 next weekend won't exist. Do you know this? Just so you know, communication works two ways. There's people who do the communicating and then there's the people who hear the communication. So don't come next week at 9.15, come either at 8.30, 10 or 11.30. Ready, ready? Let's do that. Everyone together, ready? 8.30, 10 or 11.30, are we all on the same page? Okay, as we go into this next season, we're gonna hear a great message, I hope it's a great message, it's from God's word, but sometimes the communicator is a little bit off. But anyways, over the next couple weeks and months, I want to ask you to do one thing for me. Are you ready for that one thing? I want you to be flexible. Can you do that? Can you be flexible? How many of you guys are really flexible? Like you can do some crazy flexible things. Like okay, so like how many of you guys can do this? Oh, just so you can see, like my legs are straight. Now I might, what's weird there is I had more issues

with my abs than I did with my hamstrings. I mean, girls, is this impressive? How, you cheerleaders? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm too close to the edge.

Okay, okay, all right.

I know, it's really impressive for the pastor can do fun tricks.

Here's a phrase that you need to know. Blessed, say that with me, blessed are the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape.

Let's repeat that again. Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape. So here's what I'm gonna say to you. As we launch three services, there's one reason for launching three services. It's to reach more people for the kingdom of God. There's only a couple of you that are excited about that.

Really, this should be all churches, but especially New Life Church, it's our passion point. We want to rob hell and populate heaven. Those of you who are at the 8.30 service next weekend, there might become a time where we say, hey, we need you to move to the 10 o'clock or to the 11.30. Are you with me? I don't, and can I tell you something? I have no idea the reasons why at this point. But we're gonna be flexible, right? Because here's what I do know. I've been a part of a lot of different churches who have done multiple services, and what tends to happen is people who show up to the 11.30 service,

they might have been out late last night. Or they might be in college, you guys are college, how many college students do we have here this morning? Like early. What in the world? Is 8.30 gonna be a stretch? You know, you guys are on top of it. You go to bed early. But what I do know is there's gonna be people who come to the 11.30 that God wants to take to heaven and wants to find a full life. And they're gonna come to the 11.30 service, and guess what? They're gonna need some of your smiling faces. They're gonna need some of your energy. They're gonna need some of your, you're welcoming them to the table, to the family of God, to the house of God. Are you with me? And so I'm just putting it out there because as we do these things, we're doing them in faith to see what God does. And I know this is true, this is statistically true. One service is gonna be a big service. It's likely to be the 10 o'clock, okay? The big service is probably gonna be the 10 o'clock. The 8.30 is probably gonna be the second largest. And the third, 11.30 is likely, based off statistics in our area, that's likely to be the third most least popular service. But the people in that service are gonna need God. And can I tell you something? They're gonna need God's people. Okay, so if you just come to the 8.30 and worship and then leave, I'm asking you to be flexible. Are you with me? You're gonna get it from this scripture. As we conclude this sermon series in Galatians, Galatians chapter six, if you have notes, take them out. If you have a Bible, take it out. If you've got the app, take it out. You can take notes in the app. By the way, you might be wondering, why are we pushing the app so much? It's because we have something incredible coming to you through the app. It's gonna change the trajectory of our church in just a few weeks. So you gotta get the app, you gotta get the app. Who knows you gotta get the app? Now you do, okay? Again, communication is one part. Communication, the other is listening. Okay, so download the app. Galatians 6.14, this is Apostle Paul. He's been talking about the difference between bondage and freedom. Right, last week was all about, we think that just doing whatever we wanna do gets us to be free, but what God says is that when we just do whatever we wanna do, especially in our sinful nature, what he calls the flesh, it actually leads to bondage and not to freedom. Right, and I used the unbelievable illustration last week of those of you who have maybe drank a little too much, which I've been there, I've had that experience. And again, I know what it feels like and when you're bent over the porcelain thrown at 2.30 in the morning and you're puking your guts out, you're thinking to yourself, man, I had a lot of fun tonight, but this is miserable. Can I tell you that's bondage? And too many people find themselves in bondage to their sinful nature, their flesh, rather than finding freedom. And so Christ wants you to be free. And then we've talked about how it's because of Christ that we can become free, that literally freedom comes at a cost and it costs Jesus his life. And he did it for you, and he did it for me. And so I don't just live my life now after I've received Christ's salvation and I've received his spirit living inside of me and I'm learning to live by his spirit and not by his flesh, I don't stand up and walk out the doors every day and go, oh man, look at how awesome I am. I'm all that, can't you tell? Carly can tell that I'm all that. All right, she's shaking her head, she's feeling awkward because I'm staring through her soul.

But this is what Paul says when we're filled by the spirit, this is the kind of response that we should have. Galatians 6.14, it says, may I never boast, stop boasting. Like if I were to look, listen to me, I'm gonna get in somebody else's grill for just a second. How many of y'all's social media pages are boasting about who you are and not about who God is? How cool you are, man, you've gotten the boat and you've gotten the house, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with those things. But man, when you boast in everything else except for God, you gotta be careful with that for a second because Galatians 6.14 says, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Longhorns through which the world has been, it's not what it says, just using it as an example. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. In other words, I no longer live by the flesh, I live by the spirit of God. And I'm crucified to the world. I'm not gonna live that way. Why do we need this? And it's because of this phrase, if you're taking notes, write this down, because the experience of freedom in Christ is moving you from I don't have to, to I get to. Here's what I mean by that. It means that when you read the word of God, you might at one point in time thought, man, this seems like a lot, this seems hard, I don't know if I can do this, it seems like God is just a buzzkill. But then when you begin doing things his way, when you begin living by the word of God and saying yes to what he says and no to what he says you shouldn't do and you begin to live that out, you start to realize, man, I don't just have to follow God, I need to follow God because it's good for me. It's not I have to, it's I get to. I'll never forget this. Man, if you were to look at the track record of my life before meeting Christ as a senior in college, man, you would have been like, this dude is a psychopath. Like I'm not even kidding. Like I was known in my entire home, I grew up in a super small hometown and they would have been like, this dude is straight crazy. And then post Christianity, I'll never forget this, I'm hanging out with a group of guys and I remember having a conversation about faith and about not living in the sinful nature any longer but not being controlled by alcohol and some different things that were grabbing a hold of my life prior to that. And I'll never forget this sitting in that group of guys and one of them looked at me and said this phrase, which is probably taking a lot of you out, man, are you just holier than thou?

And I remember thinking, man, how do I explain this? And it's literally like, I wish you could just see and know that following the Lord is good and that following his ways are good. It's not a burden, it doesn't lead to bondage, it leads to freedom. Are you with me? And so I have that thought process and so I'll read in Galatians 5, 13, 14, it says, you, my brothers and sisters were called to be free, he wants you to be free. It says, but do not use your freedom just to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. You know what's crazy is, is all throughout history, science and psychology and educational people, they always seem to catch up to what God has been saying throughout history. For example, are any of you familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? It takes you back to, I don't know when, fifth grade, maybe. And Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, you can Google it after this to get a refresher, I needed a refresher, but it talks about how we have basic needs as people, right? We need food and we need, what else is on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I'm trying to blank it out for a second. You raised your hand, what's on it? Now I put pressure on you and no, anyways. What? Shelter, you need shelter, food, friends, friendship. And here's what's crazy, do you know what has been added by psychologists and by people who have studied this for years and years and years? It's the greatest need that the human being has

is the need for having a purpose. It's what they call fulfillment. It's being fulfilled, that every single human being on planet Earth craves fulfillment. And here's what I mean by that, I think to myself, I'm like looking back on all my life and I've had jobs and I've been on teams and I've been a terrible student, but C's get degrees, where am I C people at?

You A people, man, you just need to take it down a notch. Just kidding, it's fine. You're great, that's my wife, so I'm kind of talking to her. What was I talking about? See, this is why I got C's. I have no idea what I was just saying.

Purpose, fulfillment, oh.

How many of y'all, growing up, I remember at recess time it was like, maybe this brings back torturous memories for some of y'all that Jesus wants to set you free from. But how many of y'all lined up and you had captains picking for the football team or the basketball team or Red Rover, Red Rover? Come on, somebody. Little kids getting clothesline. Where's that in today's culture, come on.

But you were picking teams, right? And how many wanted, everybody wanted to be picked. There's not a single person that didn't want to be picked.

Maslow's Hierarch of Needs. You and I, we want to be picked. Jesus has picked you. He has brought you from death to life. He's paid the payment for your sins and he's given you his spirit. Not to just not do the things that are bad for you, but to do the things that are good for you. To have a purpose. And Jesus is literally through the Apostle Paul is saying, man, you are called to be free. Don't use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another. This is the very essence of who Jesus is. That Jesus came to serve and not to be served. It's why he calls his followers, his hands and his feet. You know, I debated whether I was gonna share this. Do any of you follow me on Facebook? Some of you shouldn't. Anyways, it's fine. Every once in a while, I'll tip my toes into some political crazy, all right? And why I do that is because we don't live in just a political world. We live in a spiritual world, okay? And so I brought up, shockingly during election season, I brought up the topic of abortion. And I was sharing the nuances of abortion. And one of my friends from college started just coming at me. Like he didn't even read anything I was saying. He didn't even read any of the responses. And here's what's crazy. He was like, you just stand up behind a podium and just shout all these things and you don't care about people. And I'm like, oh really?

Because I'm pretty sure I do. I care about all these people. I care about what we do with safe families for children. I care about what we do with the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission. I care about what we do with global missions. I care about what we do in Honduras with kids who are more likely to end up in a gang rather than a church. I care about these people. And he's just shouting down at me and I'm just literally thinking to myself, like that's the sinful nature. Just in attack mode and not being a solution. And God's called us, church, do you know this? God has called us to be a solution. That he has called us the hope of the world. And that we would literally point people to Jesus to find true freedom. And so what does that look like? We don't just indulge the sinful nature, rather we serve one another in love. Do you know why I just asked you to be flexible with multiple services? Because God hasn't just called you to sit in a service. He's called you into the game. He wants you to be on his team for his glory. And so be flexible with that. The entire law it says is summed up in a single command. It's to love your neighbor as yourself. And here's what's so hard sometimes is because of our backgrounds and because of not knowing Jesus, sometimes we don't know how to love other people because we don't even know how to love ourselves.

And most commonly the reason for that is because we're still stuck in our sinful nature. And that's why it's so important to be a part of a family, a church, the body of Christ, because the church helps you, comes alongside of you with people and grabs you and pulls you up out of that where the whole world is trying to take you down and keep you trapped. The church exists to get you to God to help lift you into his kingdom and to set you free. Yes, please. One of you, yes. Yes. Yes.

And so what do we do? Galatians 6, 2 says it this way. He says, share each other's burdens. And in this way, you're obeying the law of Christ. Can I tell you why life groups are so important? It's because in life groups, you get to be known and people get to know you and they get to hear what you're going through and they get to celebrate your successes and they get to come alongside of you in your trials and in your struggles. Guess what? I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm a pretty awesome person.

I'm being facetious, Aaron. You don't have to go, ooh.

Look up facetious later, it's fine. Okay.

I'll give you a hug afterwards. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.

See, this is the problem. What was I talking about?

Guys, this is a problem. Life groups. But what was I talking about? Oh, guys. If you share a prayer request, which you should. On the app, if you ever have a prayer request, you go into the app, you share a prayer request because there's no prayers too big for our God that he doesn't want to do something powerful for and there's nothing too small for God that he doesn't care about, all right? But how many of you guys know that I can't be there for all of you at all, like all the time? I'm just, I'm literally asking that question because some people think that I can. Like I'm Superman.

But guess what? The body of Christ, when they come together in groups, when you have a baby or when you have a job need or maybe something breaks at your house or maybe you're moving for the 17th time in a year, college students. Like you have a community of people around you that are ready to serve, that are ready to step out and care for you and love you. I love this from the very beginning of New Life Church. We've simply done a couple things really well and if people had issues within their life groups, they shared it with their life group. Hey, I got this issue that we're praying about and the church doesn't just say, oh God, we're gonna pray for you. But they start asking God, God, what could we do to be your hands and feet to love this person well? How can we come alongside of them? How can we serve them? And we've seen this happen, like meal trains of people who have come home from the hospital with a baby or maybe they lost a loved one and they're desperate for someone to just show up and love them. Like this is who we are. And the whole world is so focused on themselves and what they can get and what they can do. It's so self-centered that it's so hard to break free from that and learn to experience the power of it. And so I wanna invite you, if you haven't gotten into our life groups, man, check it out, ask somebody that's a volunteer here, ask them how you get involved. We have men's groups, women's groups, married groups. We have groups seeking freedom from addiction. We have groups for kids and students. We have groups for financial reasons, like hey, if you're stuck and you keep struggling the same ways over and over and over again, let people help you. This is why the church exists. Are you with me? Here's the next one. John 13, 34, Jesus says, a new command I give you to love one another as I have loved you, so you should think about loving one another. That's not what it says. It says you must love one another. A matter of fact, remember how I shared with you that Facebook post and a friend came at me just shouting down like, hey, man, you're just saying all this crazy stuff from a podium in a pulpit and you're just a leader who could just say stuff and never do anything about it. But every response that I had was no, no, us, the church, we're in the game. We are doing things to love people well. Like we're not just shouting what we believe in, we're living out what we believe in. Loving people, caring for people, nurturing people, bringing them to Jesus and serving them. Why? Because he served us. Church, this is not something we think about. This is something that is a must. This is a command from Jesus and here's the deal, right? Maslow's Hierarch of Needs. Jesus knows that you need this in your life. Like can I tell you the greatest substitute to sin? It's serving.

Should I say that again? The greatest substitute to sin is serving. Why? Because sin is self-seeking. Sin is destructive. Serving is fulfillment. You stop thinking about just yourself and you start to look around and go, oh my gosh, there's actually other people on this planet.

And it's fulfilling. Have you ever given something to somebody and they were just blown away? Or you did something, you served someone, it was totally unexpected. And you thought, man, I don't know how this is gonna go and I don't know if they're gonna like this or whatever. And they might have, man, they might have just received it so well. Sometimes, you know what, people don't know how to receive gifts. Sometimes people don't know how to receive service but the fulfillment. And here's what you need to understand. When God calls you to, say yes. Say yes. And guess what? As believers, He's called all of us to this. Galatians 6.10 says, therefore, as we have opportunity, can I tell you something at New Life Church? We will constantly and consistently put opportunities in front of you for you to live out what God has told you to do. Like we're not just waiting. Like every single month, we have this thing called discovery where it talks about discovering your spiritual gifts. And guess what spiritual gifts are? Spiritual gifts aren't just for you to soak in and go, yes, I'm awesome. The Bible says that spiritual gifts have been given to you so that you can serve other people to build up the body of Christ. And so, man, when you see gifts in action, when you see your gift come alive, and by the way, if you're a person that's like, I think I have spiritual gifts and I wanna use them, man, sign up for discovery next weekend. You gotta be a part of it to get in the game because God isn't just suggesting this to you, He's calling you to do it.

And so let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the family of believers, do you see? Jesus has called us to be the light of the world, salt on a hill that cannot be hidden. My friends, wherever you go, do people see Jesus in you, living through you? Can I simply say it's to serve. Serve them, care for them. And so first and foremost, you gotta, number one, you gotta identify your sphere of influence because Jesus wants you to do this in your sphere of influence. Second Corinthians 10.13 says, but we will not boast beyond limits. In other words, we're not gonna think about everything that's beyond our sphere, but we'll boast only with regard to the area of influence that God has assigned to us to reach even to you. Can I tell you something? As pastors, I think this is hilarious, and I was discussing this with my wife the other day, because we know, we're good friends with a pastor and his wife in Holland, and it's a bigger church, and we love them, and they had a guy who I know, he was, this guy planted a church in Detroit, Michigan. This guy who planted the church in Detroit, Michigan has been here to New Life Church to preach for me before, and he, check this out, he was in my student ministry in Fort Worth, Texas. The guy who planted the church in Detroit, Michigan was in my student ministry in Fort Worth, Texas. So in the grand scheme of things, he's like a son to me. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Well, guess what? Our friends in Holland, they have this big church, they supported him as a church planter like we did through ARK, and he was invited to preach at their church last weekend, and they were showing on social media him preaching, and Kelsey, Kelsey, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus again, but she got mad. She got mad, she's like, why does he get invited to do that, and you've never been invited to do that. And do you know what my response was? I'm called to pastor New Life Church. And if God wants me to preach somewhere else, guess what? I have a yes in my pocket. But guess what I'm concerned about? I'm concerned about the sphere of influence that God has given to me. Do you know what the sphere of influence is? It's Kalamazoo, it's Portage, it's Vicksburg, it's our surrounding area, it's you, it's the places that you go into, and you have to identify the sphere of influence that God has placed you in. Here's what I wanna tell you. As we go to three services, those of us, we need to roll out the red carpet, we need to prepare the table and invite people to come and to join it. Do you know that God wants everyone to be at his dining table? He wants everyone to be in his heaven. He wants everyone to be in his presence, in his house. He wants to know them, love them, care for them, save them, redeem them, restore them, and put them on purpose. And there are people, listen to me, there are people in your workplace, there are people in your schools, there are people that you interact with, wherever you go in your sphere of influence, listen to me, that I will probably never meet unless you invite them here

to experience God's goodness. Friends, if we're gonna see a full heaven one day, if we're gonna, and here's how I picture it, I picture it going through, right, to Jesus, at the gates of heaven, and he's gonna ask us, did you know our son, it's the first test, did you know my son? And we're gonna say, yes, we knew your son, and he's gonna open the gates up, and then he's gonna say, okay, well, what did you do with the spirit of God that I placed inside of you? What did you do with the serving nature that I put inside of you? What did you do to reach your sphere of influence? And you're gonna tell him, and he's gonna reward you for what you've done here on earth, and here's what's even gonna be cooler. I pray that you and I get to see heaven one day, and we get to see not just houses and apartment buildings and mansions, we get to see cities built in heaven because of our faithfulness and our sphere of influence today. They're literally cities and even nations being built in heaven because we said, hey, you gotta come see Jesus. You gotta come meet him. You gotta come know who he is. You gotta come be set free and to know who he is. Are you with me? And so here's the challenge for you this week. I want you to identify your sphere of influence. You know what it is. You know the people you interact with. And some of you, you're like, man, I don't wanna invite them to church. It might be weird, you know, and if I do and they say no, then it's gonna be awkward, and can I tell you something? Getting them to heaven is far worth it. And you can't control how they respond. Let me give you some, I gotta preach real fast here. 4.48, let's go, okay, okay, all right, how do I sum this up? Your job is not to seal the deal. The Holy Spirit goes before you. He's drawing people to himself. You're a vessel just to present the opportunity. Hey, come and see. Come and check it out. Invite them to experience it for themselves, but here's the deal. You might take someone from maybe a negative 10 spiritually to a negative five. And here's how you're gonna do that, by how you live, by how you love, by how you speak, by how you serve, by how you're invitational. Like when people come to church, when they come here, man, we might hit them with some truths that God wants to share with them, but I promise you, if they come here because of you, they will feel loved, and they will feel cared for, and they will feel welcome at God's table. Because this is who we are. This is who we are. Acts 17, 26, it says from one man, Jesus, he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and listen to me, and he determined the times set for them, and the exact places where they should live. Listen to me, if you and I, as Jesus' followers in Kalamazoo, Michigan, don't take this scripture to heart, then who is going to reach the world for Jesus? If we don't, right here and right now. He has put you here for a reason. Do you know what that reason is? To rob hell and to populate heaven. To rob hell and to populate heaven. And here's what's gonna happen. When they experience Jesus for themselves, they're not just gonna get their ticket punched to go to heaven, but heaven is going to come to earth to live inside of them. And they're going to get to experience the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. And so those coworkers, listen to me, those coworkers or their teammates, they come in and they're rough and they're struggling and they're hurting and maybe they're filled with addiction or anger, whatever it is, maybe their marriage is struggling, but they meet Jesus and the kingdom of God, heaven comes to earth and they get to experience that and you begin to see their joy and life change. Friends, when you get to watch that, you will see church completely different. Your life will never be the same again.

And this is what Jesus is calling us to be, is calling us to do. Here's the second one, you gotta meet them, these people in their place of need, in their place, identify their place of need. Matthew 25, 34 through 40, holy cow, I got a book, I got two minutes left. He says, the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom that was prepared for you since the creation of the world. And here's what he says, for I, Jesus, was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me and the king will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you actually did it for me. And here's what's so powerful in this, here's what I want you to see, is that the church of Jesus Christ is not just, listen to me closely, look at me, the church of Jesus Christ is not just New Life Church. It's His church, wherever they preach the Bible,

wherever the Holy Spirit is, that is Jesus Christ Church. And here's what's so powerful about, in Kalamazoo, let me give you this example. So many churches around the Kalamazoo Portage area have made the Kalamazoo Gospel mission run. By finances, by building a place for them to be, by serving meals, by coming alongside of people to care for them in their most darkening places and their time of need. Like I don't know how many people have come through our doors all throughout the week and man, how many times are we in desperate situations to go, man, I don't know how we could exactly help you, but here's the Gospel mission that we partner with. You can go there and you can experience the love of God and experience Christ. So you could come back here on Sunday mornings, but we're gonna point you to that. That's the church in action. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. Here's the deal. There are so many people in your lives that are strangers to God, but they don't have to be. Because you have the opportunity to invite them in to a relationship with him. Here's one of the ways that we do this so well. Think about this, our partnership with Safe Families for Kids. Safe Families for Children. What we're talking about, kids that get lost in the foster care system and it's a government run system. Government run systems are not godly systems. Can I say that again? Government run systems are not godly systems. They're a godly people that serve in those ways, for sure. But here's what Safe Families for Children does. It sees people in their time of need who don't have a support system and the church of Jesus Christ comes alongside of them and says, oh my gosh, you have this issue. You're gonna go have a baby and you don't have a husband who's there to watch the kids for you. Hey, we're gonna take your kids in for you for a time period and can I tell you how radically hospitable that is to people who don't know Jesus? Wait, a stranger. You are a stranger to me and you invited my kids in to love them and care for them while you needed to go to the hospital. Can I tell you something? They won't see Jesus if we let the government do that. Are you with me? We have, this is so cool. We have started a partnership with Safe Families for Kids and we have so many different opportunities. We have resource friends where you could literally, you could literally, we have, we've started collecting baby things. So that when there's a need and you're a family who might take some of these kids in and there's a need, you don't have to go buy a car seat because we have one. You don't have to go buy a crib. Why? Because we have one or a bassinet or whatever because we have one, because we have donated toys. We've started to collect these things. So when those times of needs happen, we can be prepared. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a family who took in some kids and man, it is just a beautiful thing for us to say, you know what, we have no idea where you come from, what your faith background is, but we are inviting you in as strangers. Why? Because what we do for them, we are doing for Jesus.

And so you're gonna obviously hear more about that, but if you've never been a part of Safe Families for Kids, man, I implore you, man, come, come you and find me afterwards. There's multiple people that are involved in it, but we gotta, we're building, listen, we're building that plane as it's flying. All right? So like we need you. Here's the third one. You gotta point them to Jesus and his church. You gotta point them to Jesus and his church again. We are the family of God. We're where we're gonna protect each other and care for each other and lift each other up. We're gonna serve each other and grow each other. Matthew 11, 28, 30 says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Check this out, a yoke, again, when people read the Bible, sometimes they get confused, and a yoke is not an egg yoke. Those are cool. I like those, but this is a yoke of burden, right? The difference between a sinful nature and a spirit-led nature is Jesus' nature, Jesus' spirit leads you to freedom, leads you to fulfillment, away from your sinful nature. So take his yoke upon you and learn from him, for he is gentle and humble in heart, and when you do that, you will find rest for your souls. He says, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Again, in the very beginning, we said, this is what the freedom experience is, I don't just have to do it, I get to do it. Psalm 29, 12 through 15, this is the scripture that you'll see right on the wall out there. This is a different version of it. It says, the righteous will flourish. The righteous, by the way, isn't just people who have it all together, it's the righteous is when the righteousness of God in Christ has been given to you. It's something you didn't earn. It's something he gave to you, his righteousness is inside of you, and the righteous will flourish. How many of y'all wanna flourish? Some of you aren't sure. It's okay, you can interact with me, it's fine, I'm not gonna bite. The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon, for they are transplanted into the Lord's own house, the church, the body of Christ. They flourish in the courts of our God. Listen to me, even in old age, they will still produce fruit. They will remain vital and green. How many of y'all wanna get to the end of your life and go, man, I didn't just give up on serving the Lord when I was young, man, I finished the race.

I love that. Galatians 6, 7 through 9 says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps or a woman reaps what he sells. So we can't just sit here, we gotta get in the game. It says the one who sows to please, just their sinful nature, from that nature, they will reap destruction. But the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit, will reap eternal life. And this is what I love, some of you, you may have even asked this question, three services it seems like a lot. I wanna be very honest, our trustees are in conversations, we're doing a lot of digging and a lot of research right now on what's best for our church, because we have the opportunity to potentially build this out into a twice as big a room, or we could do like a side room with acoustic worship to expand our worship service, to maybe bring it back to two services. We're looking at different options.

But here's the deal. I wanna be a person, I wanna be a part of a church, I wanna be a part of a people of God who are saying, man, God, I wanna be flexible for you. I wanna say yes to you.

Yeah, there's a lot of things going on in my life and in our lives, but I wanna make sure that I am serving you and the people you've called me to serve. God, that one day I'll stand in front of you and begin to see the ripples effect of me responding to you in this way.

God, I can't imagine like neighbors of yours in heaven because of what you sewed into their life. Co-workers in heaven one day because of your invitation. God, marriages that you see that are being destroyed or kids that have been lost, college students that are just going crazy and they have no idea that it's literally causing destruction, but there is freedom that can be found in Jesus. And he finishes with this, he says, let us not become weary. How many of y'all are weary? It's okay to say that. Let me ask you this question. Are you weary because you're doing the wrong thing?

Pleasing the sinful nature, the selfish nature. Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest

if we do not give up. Church, as we go to three services, do not give up. Do not give up. Your coworker is worth it. Your neighbor is worth it. The people you interact with and your spheres of influence, they are worth it. And we have the opportunity to serve them like Jesus has served us. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you for your word. We thank you that we can come here and worship you and experience you. God, we pray that every single part of this service would be glorifying to you. God, that you inhabit the praises of your people. So when we worship you, you are here with us. That you're fighting battles even in worship. God, I pray that this would happen, that the wall on the front, the vision of New Life Church would come to fruition because of people who say yes to you. God, that people would come to know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ who you've sent. That they would know God, that the lost people would be saved.

God, that they would find freedom.

That they would get to know a group of people that are fighting on their behalf, not to stay in a destructive nature, but to find their spiritual nature, that lost people can be saved, and saved people can be pastored in the context of life groups.

That people can discover their purpose. That God, your word says that you've placed eternity in our hearts, that we would not sin against you. And because you've placed eternity in our hearts, you've given us the spirit to serve and to sow.

And so God, we pray that we would say yes to make an eternal difference.

That we would know God, find freedom, discover our purpose, find fulfillment, and make an eternal difference with our lives.

That we want to be chosen by you, called by you, put into the game by you, Jesus. So God, I pray that you would send out this group of people into their spheres of influence this week, and that you would invite the lost to come home. That they would find a place here, a place at your table, Jesus, and a family to call their own. If you've never come to Jesus in his table, I wanna invite you to do that right now. It says that all are lost, but you can be found. And so at this moment, if the spirit of God is drawing you to him, and you've never given your life to Jesus before, I wanna invite you to do it right now. You'll know that that's you because the Bible says that the spirit of God knocks on the door of our hearts, and you just simply need to let him in.

He's coming to set you free. Invite him in. If that's you on a count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air as an act of faith, saying, here I am, God, I receive you. I welcome you in. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. From your heart to God, you simply say, God, I'm turning from my sin, my sin nature, and I'm turning to you. God, I've tried it all and it's not working. So I'm coming to you, Jesus, to find eternity, heaven, and fulfillment of life. So I turn from my sin and I turn to you, Jesus, forgive me, change me, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and give me a new life. If that's you, the Bible says that when one person comes to faith in Jesus, that all of heaven celebrates. So you better believe that if heaven is celebrating right here and right now, that church, we are gonna celebrate it as well. So put your hands together and say welcome home to all those who came to Jesus today.

Full Sermon Transcript

Hey guys, it's so good to be in the house of God today. Good morning. How are you guys? Isn't it great to be in the house of God today? Man, we got some air conditioning in here. I heard it's going to get to 90-something. Who's excited? One more pool day, lake day, something. Chris told me that they don't have air conditioning in their school tomorrow. Oh, they do have air conditioning. Okay, praise God. All right. you guys will have air conditioning when you go back to school tomorrow. Well, if you're visiting for the first time, or if you're new, you're checking this church out, I just want to introduce myself. My name is Dan, I'm the lead pastor of the church, and I'd love to meet you after the service if you are new, and we'd love to connect with you. But we're in a series through the book of Galatians, and so if you have your Bible with you, you turn to the book of Galatians, it's in the back part of the Bible. It's a letter written by the apostle Paul to the churches in Galatia, and we've been working through it. And so if you missed any of that, I encourage you, man, and download the app, all of that content is in there. So if you listen to things on your ride to work, or if you like podcasting, whatever, all of our content is there, you can watch it, you can listen to it, I think, right? They can just listen right through the car. I think we worked that out. But you can do that, you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel if you want, but all that content is there for you to go back and listen to. We're gonna be in Galatians chapter five today, and so if you're in the app, I encourage you to download the app really, I don't know if you know this, but everything we do to help you and to live this life out is gonna be in the app. So how many of y'all have the app downloaded? Raise your hand. High and proud, high. Man, look at that. Okay, the rest of you, download the app, because you're gonna need it, okay? All right, so Galatians chapter five, starting in verse one, I'm gonna go kind of fast through this first section so that I can get to the end, because the meat of what we're talking about today is at the end, but there's some really powerful things in the beginning.

Man, before I get there, let me, how many of y'all know that there, like we're tribal people, right? Do you know this? Like, it's pretty obvious, like right now, we're like in a tribal war, Republicans and Democrats, right, but if you know anything about me, you might not know this, but I'm kind of tribal, like I'm a Texas Longhorn. That's right, hook them horns. Two weeks from yesterday, we play Michigan, so look out, you Wolverine fans. Get your burnt orange ready to wear that Sunday morning afterwards, because if Texas wins, you know, I wanna see all your pride, and if Michigan wins, hey, yeah, okay, all right. If you have a Michigan shirt for me, I'll wear all the shirts. I may be caked in shirts from all of you Michigan fans, but I also wanna say really quickly, I was gonna say this, the day after that, so September 7th is the big game, right, Texas versus Michigan, go Longhorns, hook them horns, all right, the day after is the day that we launch three services, okay? So in two weeks from today, we will have three services, not just two, and those are gonna be at 8.30, 10, and 11.30. I just nailed that. I mean, anyways, normally I get all that wrong, and then you guys get confused, and you're confused because I'm confused. But thinking about being tribal, how many of y'all know that when you enter a tribe of people, many times we take on that tribe's identity? For example, I just wanna let you in on a little secret. I have a tattoo on my back right here of a Longhorn, and it was kind of a tradition that if you were a Texas football player, that if you were new to the team, you went out and you got a Texas Longhorn tattoo. We basically got branded, okay? But it was voluntary, all right? We chose to do this, and so I have a tattoo of a Texas Longhorn on my back right here. It's not right here, just for all of you that are wondering, which is a whole difference. I'm glad y'all laughed at that.

But really, what we're looking at in Galatians is Paul is talking about there's a difference between being a part of God's chosen people, the Jewish race, the Israelites, and he's combating a teaching that in order to be a follower of God, you have to get branded. Because in the Old Testament, if you were someone who wasn't of Jewish nature and you wanted to get into the family of God, a part of God's people, adult males would have to make the decision to get circumcised, okay? We're gonna see that in just a moment. That was showing people that they belonged to God, that they were a part of God's family, okay? So when, do y'all know what Gentiles are? We've been talking about this. If you are not Jewish, if you are not born Jewish, you are a Gentile, are you following me? Is everyone on the same page? Okay. And then on a flip side, let me ask you this question. How many of you are grateful for the freedoms that you have in the United States of America? Yeah. How many of y'all know that those freedoms didn't come free? They came at a cost. They came at a cost. How many of y'all know that those freedoms aren't as big and as glamorous and as awesome as the freedoms given to you by Jesus Christ that cost him his life? And we're gonna look at that today in Galatians chapter five. And so we're gonna go through the scriptures pretty fast. The apostle Paul said is, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Now I wanna take a time out, you didn't set yourself free. Christ did. Christ set you free. Like you could be living in America and you could still be enslaved by sin. You could still be in bondage by addiction. You could still be enslaved by your very nature that tears things down, rips things apart, causes dissension and envy. And man, am I just preaching to myself?

Like it doesn't matter, like it is for freedom that Jesus Christ has set you free. And then he says, stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. A yoke is something just for context. Remember last week when I said I'm really good at looking at things that are wrong. I see everything. I'm sorry. Ha, pray for me, I need counseling. Okay, stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened by again by a yoke of slavery. A yoke is a farm equipment. It's not something that comes in an egg. It is something that comes in an egg, but it's farm equipment. It would be attached to two farm animals, typically oxen, and they would be plowing a field, right? That's where we get the phrase, do not be yoked to unbelievers as a married couple. So if you're married and you're going to get married, don't get yoked to an unbeliever. Why? Because their life's going this way and your life's going that way, and it's a disaster to plow straight lines. You get what I'm saying? A yoke of slavery means you were being mastered at all time. Like imagine you're plowing the fields, you're your master, you're the person behind the plow, like he's whipping you to get going. It is a burden to carry that yoke. And Jesus is saying, the apostle Paul is saying that Jesus has freed you from that yoke of slavery. He says, mark my words. I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Last week, I explained, if you look at the Torah, the Old Testament, the law of Moses that is represented multiple times in the New Testament, there's different types of the law. There's ceremonial law, there's moral law, and there's civil law. He has freed you from the ceremonial law, which included circumcision. Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised, that he is obligated to then obey the entire law, everything found in Leviticus 1 through seven. You who are trying to be justified by that law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from the grace provided to you from Christ, for through the Spirit, we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope for. When you come into a relationship with Christ, the Holy Spirit is put inside of you, and it is a deposit of your ticket to heaven. The only way you're getting to heaven is if you are marked by the Holy Spirit of God. You didn't earn the Holy Spirit, it was given to you freely by Christ and by grace. Are you following me? And his righteousness, check this out, his righteousness, not your righteousness, is deposited into your account. Because your righteousness, the Bible says, is like filthy rags to a holy and perfect God. And so we're trying to be justified by the law, have been alienated by Christ. You've fallen away from grace, for through the Spirit, we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope for. How many of y'all want the righteousness of God to prevail in every part of our lives? And you clap, but I just have to tell you, that's not gonna happen until you fully enter God's kingdom. Like you have glimpses of that here, and we're to be salt and light in a dark and broken and evil world, and you'll get glimpses of God's kingdom here, but the only way you're ever gonna see the fullness of righteousness is when God comes and judges the earth, destroys it, builds a new heaven and a new earth that we will reign in forever with King Jesus. Can I get an amen? Amen. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good grace, but someone caught in on you to keep you from obeying the truth. That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. He says a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. And so some of you, man, you've been trying to earn your way to heaven, and you've been trying to do all these things, and you haven't believed in Jesus. You're the king of your own kingdom, and you're trying to measure up, and it's never gonna work. And you need to be free through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that cost him his life. Galatians 5.13, it continues through 21, it says, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, you need to serve one another humbly in love. So if you bite and devour each other, it's an easy target during election season to call out Republicans and Democrats. Can I just say that?

If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other. So that you are not to do whatever you want, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under the law.

The acts of the flesh are obvious.

Sorry, sorry, I tried my best to set you all up for that. The acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry,

witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage,

selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness,

orgies, and the like. Would you like me to go through that? And like explain.

Okay. These are acts of the flesh. And the bondage, the slavery you will still find yourself in is when you live by the flesh and not by the Spirit. Matter of fact, when you end up living, even when you live in the Spirit, you've given your life to Christ, and you start still chasing the acts of the flesh, the bondage, you will literally feel it. You will literally feel the Spirit inside of you says it grieves the Spirit when you don't walk by the Spirit, when you're still walking by the flesh. Can I tell you something? You're still in bondage. You're still in slavery. This is why it's so important that we get as many people to Jesus Christ filled with the Holy Spirit of God as possible. Yes, we say this all the time. We want to rob hell and populate heaven. Can I get an amen? But man, we want people to experience God's life, his everlasting life. Jesus said that he came to give us life and life abundantly. His law, the way he describes how we're to live in step with the Spirit, it is not burdensome, it's freedom. And so that's the way we need to see this. And so he goes on and he says, I warned you as I did before, that those who live like this, this is very intense, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Y'all did way better than me. I got all soft and quiet. The Bible says that we're gonna be known by our fruit. We're gonna be known by what comes out of our lives. Is it going to be acts of the flesh or is it gonna be acts of the spirit? What is the fruit that comes out of our lives? And that's what we're gonna dive into today as we talk about living life in the spirit over the flesh. The acts of the flesh are obvious, right? Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish inhibition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

So if you see your life filled with those things or even one or two of them, or one of them, it's like, God, how can I step out of that and into your spirit? How can I walk in spirit? Because Christ wants you to be free. He wants you to be free. But here's the tension, Romans 7.19, I think you'll agree with this. How many of y'all, we haven't seen this in a long time, but we used to see those pictures of the devil sitting on our shoulder and the good guy, the angel sitting on our shoulder, and they're like, does anyone ever feel like that, like a bobblehead?

I don't know what to do, you're saying this, and you're saying this, and this, and there's that you feel the tension. You can literally sense it. You can feel, do I go this way or do I go that way? Romans 7.19, this is again the apostle Paul. He says, I want to do what is good, but I don't. And I don't want to do what is wrong, but then I do it anyway. Can I tell you something? One of the most powerful things that you can ever do is to one, obviously give your life to Christ, be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, begin to live in the Spirit, living by the ways He wished to call us to live, and then you need to get around people who are just like you pursuing the things of God. Here's why this is so important. Because I can promise you that if you came to me and you said, hey, Dan, I'm living full of the flesh, I'm not living full of the Spirit, I will be able to point to your friends.

I'll be able to point to your friends. Because your friends, I call it the sway of day. Your friends have a way of swaying you away from God in God's ways. They have a way of swaying you away from the things of God. They have a way of swaying you away from actual freedom. Likewise, when you're around a group of believers, this is why life groups is so incredibly important, is you get around a group of believers who are pursuing the things of God. By the way, just so you know, if you go into a life, man, I don't feel judged, whatever, there's no perfect people in this room. Like, yeah.

I'm gonna go off camera for just a second. Can you follow me? It's fine, if you can't, it's all good.

I'm not perfect.

I introduce myself, I'm the lead pastor at New Life Church.

I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. I'm in process. God is still teaching me how to live, not of the flesh, but of the Spirit, to keep in line with who He is. And can I tell you something? I'm more free today than I was yesterday. And so here's the thing, you need to be around people. I love this phrase. How many of y'all know that there's, I wasn't gonna share this, but I think I got time. I might.

Too often in life, we're looking for compatibility. Compatibility, are we compatible? Here's what compatibility is. Compatibility is you find someone who likely has gone through the same thing and you keep doing the same thing.

Like, you relate to them because they've been there, done that, they've got that T-shirt, and honestly, that's why I think a lot of people relate to me because I've been there, done that in a lot of ways, in so many things. Living by the flesh. That list, I've probably been there in more than half of them.

But that's not who I am today. By the power of the Spirit. And by being around Christ followers, here's the key. Not compatibility, not looking for compatibility of like, yeah, I can relate, because what we're really after is accountability. And here's what accountability does. Accountability does, when you get into life groups, what you're gonna find is, oh my gosh, these aren't a bunch of perfect people. They're a bunch of knuckleheads that are just like I am. And they're pursuing Jesus. They're pursuing the Spirit of God. They're wanting their lives to be changed. And what's so cool about that is you get around other brothers and other sisters in the faith that are pursuing God and trying to live by the Spirit, is they go, you know what? I know, I've been there. I've done that. Matter of fact, I went back there last week. But you look each other in the eye as men, and you go, you know what? But we're not going there again. We're gonna fight for each other. We're gonna pick each other up, and we're gonna walk in the Spirit and not of the flesh, and we're gonna find freedom together. Can I get an amen? Woo! Sorry. Online, sorry. I don't know what I was doing there.

So what does God want for you? I kind of summarized it in four points if you're taking notes. This is what God wants for you. Number one, he wants freedom. Freedom. And this goes so far beyond. I mean, I am so grateful for the freedoms that I have in the United States of America, but this is personal freedom. This is freedom from sin, the bondage, the slavery that it gives us. The Spirit, listen to me, brings freedom from sin and its destruction.

Sin causes bondage. If you want to stay in the flesh, if you wanna stay in sin, it's gonna keep you in bondage. But the Spirit, living in the Spirit, living in step with the Spirit, brings freedom from sin and its destruction. The Spirit brings freedom from your enemy, the devil. And matter of fact, I don't even know who said it. It might've been you guys yesterday at 21 Days of Prayer, but it was like when I got an issue and the fleshy part of me, the flesh is coming out and like I wanna go that way and honestly my friends are inviting me to go that way, I begin to pray and I begin to ask God, like God, what would you have me to do? And then I look at his word. By the way, the Bible is the sword of the Spirit. It's an offensive weapon. So it's written by the Holy Spirit. Man held the pen, but the Holy Spirit wrote it. And so you look at the Scriptures and you go, what should I do in this situation? That's called walking by the Spirit and it provides freedom from bondage. Number two, what God wants for you is he wants faith. How many of y'all know that the Spirit of God produces more faith. Flesh produces doubt. Trusting God produces faith. Doubt keeps you trapped right where you are. Like I don't know if God can heal. I don't know if God will heal. Can I tell you God wants to heal. God wants to redeem. God wants to restore. God wants to bring mercy and forgiveness. God wants to bring you the power of his Holy Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the death. And that same power lives inside of you to overcome sin and death. Faith. Let me give you an example of this. And by the way, this is why it's so important to get into life groups because you need to be around people who maybe, who again, they're not perfect. They might have just gotten here sooner than you. Like think about that for a second. They just might have a slightly longer track record of walking in faith and in the Spirit with God than you do. It doesn't make them better. It just makes the got here before you did. And can we praise God that you got here? And I'll never forget this. Kelsey will tell this story and this is not to puff myself up. This is not at all to puff myself up, okay? This is not at all to puff myself up. Are you hearing me? I'm hearing you. Because here's why it's not here to puff myself up. I had no idea what God was gonna do with New Life Church. God put a dream inside of me to plant a church. He called me, he said, Dan, I want you to plant a church. And I wanna be very honest. If I would have been choosing, I wouldn't have done it in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I'm factual. Like I just probably wouldn't have chosen here. But God called me to do this. So let me let you in on a little secret. And some of you have heard it before. Kelsey didn't wanna do this. She was hesitant. She was doubt filled. Like I remember us having conversations of like, we're a part of a great church. Why do this? I get that. But God said. Or check this out. She'll say, well, but we have a paycheck at this church. And we have insurance through this church. And I don't know if you know this or not, Dan, but we're having a baby. And like, that's important. But how many of y'all know that walking with the Spirit of God and taking steps of faith when God calls you to do something and you do it, He shows up every single time. Can I tell you something, Kelsey and myself, Kelsey has learned to live more by the Spirit because of planting this church than any other situation she's ever stepped into in her life. Do you know why? Because she walked with the Spirit. She trusted God. She had doubt, but doubt keeps you in bondage. And can I tell you something? God didn't want just us to be in bondage. He didn't want you in bondage. He brought the vision of New Life Church to me through Kelsey and through the dream team and the launch team to help you know God personally and to be saved by Him. Now, some of you, you had that experience for many others. It may not have been me, but God sent someone. He wants freedom from your life. He wants faith for your life. Here's the third one. God wants you in relationship, not religion. Like if you wanna look at religion, the law of Moses that he's talking about, the Torah, the ceremonial law, again, go read the Leviticus 1 through 7. If you wanna go to sleep, read it. But here's the deal. But here's the deal. When you read that, you will literally praise Jesus that you don't have to do that anymore because He did it for you.

Many more of you should have clapped, but it just means you need to go read Leviticus 1 through 7. Okay. Flesh produces religion. Flesh produces I'm in control. Flesh produces that. The Spirit is all about relationship. The Spirit of God. God is a relational God. The Spirit is all about walking in a relationship with Him. Religion says how you act is more important than who you know. But here's the reality. When you know Him and His Spirit is alive and He's well in your soul and you begin to walk by His Spirit and know the difference between walking that way and walking this way in a relationship with Him, you go, oh my gosh, this is the best life possible. My best friend, this is awesome. God is with me every single step of the way. You need to know that. That when you enter into a relationship with God through Jesus, He fills you with His Spirit and you walk with Him every single step of the days you live. Here's number four, grace. Flesh produces legalism, but the Spirit produces grace. The Spirit produces grace. The Spirit produces grace. So how do we walk in the Spirit? That's what we're getting at today. How do we walk in the Spirit? Galatians five, verse 22, this is his continuing. Remember the list, right? Remember the list found in, I don't know what the, where is it, the list. The acts of the flesh are obvious, okay? You remember that list? If you're in your Bibles, go back and look at it real quick because it kind of, I'm gonna show you the contrast of what walking in the Spirit does. Galatians five, 22 says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I don't know about you, but when I read one list and then I read the other, it's just so night and day different, like what, just reading one list produces like anxiety in me, but produces fear. It produces depression. I mean, it produces like, oh my gosh, this is what? But when you read the list of what happens, when you begin to live by the Spirit, by the way, again, this is the Spirit living inside of you, in spite of you. And you need to ask yourself when you read the Spirit, so when you're walking in the Spirit and you're maybe a little unloving to someone, probably a little fleshy. If you're walking and you're so, not, what? Hey, you're fine. All right, you're good. Elsie will grow up someday and it's fine.

Y'all, I'm sweating. Holy cow.

Joy. Like, if you don't have joy in your life, it probably means the fruit of the Spirit is a little bit silent. You're probably a little bit too flesh driven. Ow.

Anyways.

This past week, I was, see, I'm like finding all sorts of dust and, I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Okay. How many of y'all, I mean, yes, that's right. I have not always been known as peaceful. And there's, you know, I look back on my upbringing,

all of my life was pretty much like sports and coaches and people yelling at you all the time. How many of y'all know what I'm talking about? Or a dad that was, my mom was not really that way, but, how many of y'all know that? Like, that still exists and we need the heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit living inside of us to overcome that which was given to us.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, we could use a little more kindness. I posted, you know, something a little politically controversial on my Facebook. And Kelsey and I were talking about how, even I'm learning how to handle it better, in that, can we just have dialogue? Like, can we talk some of this stuff out instead of like being so just attacking constantly? Now, by the way, our leaders need to do a better job of that because they don't model that well. Patience, kindness, goodness, these are all things that come from the Spirit of God, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, self-control. He gives you these things. He says, against such things there is no law. You can't break the law against those things. There's no law against those things. Those things are good things. Those things are beautiful things. Those things, those are the things of God, rather the things of the flesh and of your enemy. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh within them with its passions and desires. When you give your life to Christ, you are saying, God, I want my life to be crucified. I want my sinful nature, everything that is against you, and sinful and causes destruction, and burden, and bitterness, and bondage. God, I crucify that to you. With its passions and desires, again, this is what happens apart from living in the Spirit, but since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking, and envying each other. Gosh, I don't even have to say much words today. The Apostle Paul is just like, eh, eh, eh.

I'm literally thinking to myself, like, how often do I provoke my kids? Or provoke my wife? Or provoke the people I love the most? How much does envy rob me of the joy of the Spirit? You know, young people, you're constantly looking. I mean, I don't even know how you grow up in this generation. I mean, I'm in it, but constantly looking at Instagram, and TikTok, and Snapchat, and... I don't even know what they are. But you're constantly comparing. Can I tell you something? That's slavery. That's bondage. That God wants to free you from. Yesterday, my eight-year-old daughter walked up to me, and what did she say to me? She said, she pierced her ears, and she got their, no, she got them pierced. She didn't pierce her own ears. But she was asking me a question about beauty, and makeup, and how much makeup. And I said, never let this, never let this, your heart, soul, mind, your spirit. That is the most beautiful thing that God created, keep it in step with the Spirit. And when you do that,

this is a side note for you women, young people, because guys, you know, we're as good as we look today. We just get worse as it goes on. Oh, thank you, I'm like a fine wine, she says. Okay, all right. Not promoting wine, by the way, but that's whatever. What was I talking about? Oh! Can I tell you something? Like, I want my daughter to find a godly man.

Who doesn't care about how much makeup she wears?

I want him to find her in God. I want her to find him in God.

And so, Kelsey, she asked me this question, Kelsey looked at me like, well, how are you gonna answer that, pastor? Can I tell you something? I need to lean on the Spirit of God. In that moment, I literally knew that I was, we're in a war for freedom. We're in a war for freedom. And Christ came to set you free. And so how do we live by the Spirit? The first point is you need to see by the Spirit. You need to be able to see with God goggles on. You need to be able to see the world differently because of what God says in his word. You need to see the word of God as written by the Spirit of God. See with his glasses, his goggles, his viewpoint, so that you don't stay in step with the flesh, you stay in step with the Spirit. Are you with me? Are you following? And then the second part is you gotta listen by the Spirit, not the flesh. It could have been so easy. Like, I don't know if you're like this, guys, but how many of you know in your marriages that sometimes it's just not worth the fight?

Y'all are giggling based off of experience. But can I tell you something? God calling, saying to Dan Smith, I want you to plant in your life, church. Can you imagine how hard that was for us to have a conversation about doing that and uprooting our entire family? But here's what the Spirit knew that I didn't even know in that moment. He knew you.

He knew you. I had no idea when he called us to plant this church that half of you even existed, probably more than that. But God knew, God knew.

And he's always pursuing people because he loves them. He's always pursuing them because he wants a relationship with them. He's always pursuing them because he wants the best for them. He wants you to have life and life abundantly. And there's a difference between having that life in this world. It's the difference between having a relationship with God and living by the Spirit or living by your flesh, by living by your sinful desires. And so we need to be able to listen by the Spirit and not just the flesh. How do we do that? We gotta get around more people who are listening to the Spirit.

And by the way, it doesn't mean that we totally discard those who are not because you know what? Those people, God wants here. God wants in his heaven. And so yes, you might need to create a little bit of distance so that you're not being swayed. Get your best friends in the house of God. Get your best friends who are hearing, seeing, listening by the Holy Spirit of God. But God wants to bring everyone home to find him.

And so Isaiah 30 verse 21 says this, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way. Walk it in. The last point is follow the Spirit, not the flesh. That's what it's all about. Spirit over flesh. James 1.22, again, God's word is written by the Holy Spirit of God. He says, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

And you will find freedom. It is not a burden. It is freedom. And here's the promise from God that you need to take home, is you, I am never alone. The Spirit is always with me. Even when you're away from your friends, even when you're away from your spouse, even when you're away from your kids, even when you're away from your boss, whatever it is, the Spirit of God is always with you. And Jesus said that when you come in a relationship with him, he would never forsake you and he would never leave you. It's all about relationship. Let's pray together, heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you didn't just leave us in our flesh, that you didn't just leave us in our sinful natures. But God, you did something amazing. You sent your son Jesus to live a perfect life and to die a sacrificial death on our behalf, to forgive us of our sin, to redeem us and to free us. But God, you did something extraordinary because you desire a relationship with you. When Jesus got up out of the grave and he ascended to heaven, he sent his Holy Spirit to live inside of us, that it would literally change our very nature, that we could live in step with you, God, in light and not darkness, in forgiveness and not sin, in grace and not the law. So God, right now, I pray that if anyone is in the room or watching online, that if you've never stepped into a relationship with God himself, Jesus Christ, I want to invite you to do that right now. In just a moment, on a count of three, I want you to take a step of faith, basically saying, God, here I am, I'm choosing you. The Bible says to turn away from sin and its destruction and to turn to Jesus for life and life everlasting. This is your moment. On a count of three, if that's you, I want you to shoot your hand up and hold it up. One, two, three. Declaring Jesus in this moment, I'm giving my life to you. God, like the word says in Galatians five, that I am right now, I want to crucify my sinful nature. I want to turn from my sin and turn to you Jesus for forgiveness. I thank you that in this moment, you've provided for me salvation, that you're gonna fill me with your Holy Spirit. A matter of fact, right now, you ask God, you say, God, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Give me a new desire. Help me to walk with your spirit and out of bondage. In Jesus' name, amen. Come on, church, let's put our hands together for a God who says.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning, everybody. How are you guys doing? man, I Think you're doing better than that you guys doing better than that All right. Well, it's always good to be in the house of God man If I haven't met you yet if you're visiting for the first time I would love to meet you I'll be in the lobby afterwards. I usually give this Fore warning. I am NOT usually a hugger Right. I didn't really grow up in that kind of family, but I will hug you. So if you'd like a hug I'm all in all right for all you huggy people. Okay, we're in this series in the book of Galatians So if you have your Bibles with you Pull it out go to the book of Galatians if you have your Bible app I encourage you to get on the the New Life Church app we you can take notes in there They are interactive notes and we we have this phrase around here that note takers are

Did we make coffee this morning You all are just tired from serve day, huh Let's let's do this again. No takers are All right. If I'm gonna bring my best you better bring your best. Can I get an amen? All right principal Just toasting me with your coffee. All right. Anyways, I Said to the worship team this morning that pastor Dan is like a box of chocolates. You're never gonna Know what you're gonna get. So here we go. If you were here last week you fully experienced that Anyways Galatians we're starting in Galatians 3 verse 26 This is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Galatia And this message is you know, this is applicable to us today And and one thing I would I'd like you to know that oftentimes when the Bible is talking to people He's talking to a group of people. He's not just talking to an individual How many y'all know that like he is talking to you as an individual, but he's talking to us the people of God Okay, so that's important to know Galatians 3 26 says and and if the words are bolded you're gonna say it out loud with me Okay, so you're gonna have to give me a little more gusto. All right, you guys in you guys ready? Alright, you are all To which half of you said I'm a daughter So let's do that again and you just put in Your your part, okay you with me you are all Of God through faith in Christ Jesus how many of y'all have heard people say man I'm just a child of God and they don't know God at all Well, the scripture is very clear and you're gonna see this in the scripture today that the only way that you and I can actually be Called children of God is if we believe in Jesus as our Savior and I'm gonna show you this in the scriptures today You are all sons or daughters of God through through what faith in Christ Jesus It's the only way you're going to enter into the family of God Going into chapter 4 Galatians 4 verses 4 through 7 he says this but when the set time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman Born under the law right we talked about the different types of the law last week, right you remember that Born under the law to redeem those under the law. What was the law? There's three parts of law if I just a quick review. There's three parts of the law. Can you name them anyone remember from last week? Here's why relationships are so important because none of y'all remember what I said last week But you remember the person who helped change your life So when when Kelsey talked about community and being in community being with people who love you and care for you That's why it's so important because seriously none of you remember. I don't even remember what I talked about last week Kelsey Kelsey's like that's true. Okay So let's take a little review for a second the three types of law that you'll find in the Old Testament Right are what there's the civil law? Which we have civil law today, right? I just read an article last week that we have like 500,000 laws in the United States and and every single one of you is a felon welcome to church Like you didn't even know you committed that broke that law, but welcome to church. You're a felon. Okay, great So we obey civil laws how many y'all lawbreakers out there broke the law when you spent the church today. All right anyways We have the civil law. Do you think it's important? You think it's important to Jesus to obey the civil law? Did I just flip y'all off? I'm so sorry The civil law is it important to obey the civil law? Yes, unless it goes against God's law, which is what the moral law? The moral law God's moral law we should still be obeying today and then there's what the ceremonial law Which Jesus was born under and broke? What's the ceremonial law because you're a sinner because I'm a sinner if we grew up under the ceremonial law We would have had to bring our goats and sheep and doves and animals to what to be sacrificed For the forgiveness of our sins and we would have been non-stop doing that. Y'all wouldn't have had jobs. Y'all wouldn't had relationships Y'all wouldn't had car like nothing because you would have consistently constantly be bringing your sacrifices To God for the forgiveness of your sins But there was one sacrifice that looms over history that was provided to you from the Son of God who is Jesus who was the Lamb Of God who took away the sins of the world for all who believe in him How many of you are grateful that you don't have to live under the ceremonial law today because Jesus broke that law He forgave it and you can now live free So Galatians 4 says but when the set time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those Under the law that we might receive adoption to Sonship anyone adopted Just a side awesome. Awesome. We're in the same boat. I'm adopted I was adopted in but how many of y'all know that you have to be adopted into God's family It's his decision to bring you home. How many y'all know that like it's one thing to be born How many y'all burst some kids and you're like man, I could wish I could just give that one back

Sure happens sometimes at least in some moments in a moment, but you anyways you get that But man when God chose to adopt you there was something more powerful that took place and you've been adopted as a son as A daughter into God's family by what by faith He says because you are his sons or daughters God sent the spirit of his son the Holy Spirit to live inside our hearts. He gives us a new nature The spirit then calls out Abba father he's he's father. He's intimate How many of y'all grew up in church or around the church? You know it was about obeying the rules and doing the things and and man you didn't know that there was this father who loved you Like I don't know if you know this or not, but me I have three kids I have an eight-year-old a five-year-old all right in my accurate okay, an eight-year-old a five-year-old and almost two no not almost two one and a half and some change year old and and Man, how many y'all know like? They can be idiots Like I just said like there's times you just want to give them back But but here's the love of the father it doesn't matter what they do. I still love them I

Still love them Like like I could when they do something wrong. I Don't love them less. I might get angry I Might get upset. I might coach them teach them how to do it better But I don't love them less you need to know that your heavenly father Loves you so much. He gave his one and only son for you Do you think for a second then we when we when you wronged him by sinning when you sinned against him not just against your Brother not against your sister not against yourself that he loved you any less the answer is unequivocally no Are y'all picking up what I'm putting down And so you can't do anything Wrong to get him to love you less and you can't do enough right to love you more Because you are his sons or daughters God sent the spirit of his son into your heart to change your hearts the spirit who Calls out Abba father. It's about relationship and he says this so you are no longer a slave But you are God's child and since you are his child God has made you also in air So I'm gonna talk about this for just a second before I get into the points There's two types of slavery that are mentioned in the scriptures There's there's what's called debt slavery and there's what's called chateau slavery if I pronounced that wrong Forgive me, but should tell slavery is the slavery that everyone thinks about Like like you are owned you are you everything about you you are property. You're not a value You don't have any kind of worth they are taking advantage of you. They are hurting you they are whipping you they are selling you They don't they don't care anything about you. How many of y'all know what that kind of slavery is You don't you maybe you've never experienced it personally, but you know that that slavery and actually still exists today And how many of y'all know when when God sent? Moses to free the Israelites from Egyptian slavery that that was called chateau slavery He sent Moses to set the captors the captives free

But there's another type of slavery That the Bible references it's known as debt slavery and and and that type of slavery you'll see this so often in the scriptures where people Individually or as a family they made the decision not not the owner But they made the decision to give themselves as debt slaves to pay off a debt How many of y'all know that some of you are in debt slavery right now? with credit cards with loans The Bible literally says that that you are slave to the lender guess what those owners of the cut Those those credit card companies. They don't care about you They just want your money and They didn't make the decision to give you debt you made that decision How many of y'all know when you make a decision to to use drugs or to do something that that kind of hurts you and harms You that you become a debtor to that issue Like you become enslaved to that issues No one else made that decision you made that decision Do you see the difference between the two types of slavery? Well check this out. He says in Galatians 3 Later on excuse me Galatians 4 verse 7 He says you are no longer a slave, but you're God's child and since you are his child God also made you an heir You're an heir of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords So here's here's the notes if you're taken here's the here's the points if you're taking notes there it is The first one is the slave has a master if you are enslaved to sin Sin is your master if you're enslaved to an addiction that addiction is your master if you're enslaved to debt Whether it's whether it's whether it's financial debt or whether it's relational debt you are enslaved To that issue and you have made that decision you was the slave has a master, but here's the difference Between what our relationship with God is like verses having Religion is the slave has a master, but the son or daughter has a father

The sonnered I'm so glad you clap for that because I was about to do this to myself. I haven't done that one in a while

It did Anybody have some ice the Romans 8 Romans 8 15 through 16 says that the Spirit the Holy Spirit that you received When you were saved when you had faith in Jesus the spirit you received does not make you slaves So that you live in fear again, right? What how many of y'all are fear of like you're just gonna you're so in debt. You don't know how you're gonna pay for it You're so in over your head with that mortgage. You don't know how you're gonna pay for it You're so in debt with that that addiction. You don't know how you're gonna pay for it You've made so many poor choices relationally that you're in debt to these people and you don't know how to pay for it But when you enter into a relationship with God Jesus paid the price for your debt So you no longer have to live in fear rather the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship to daughtership You you didn't earn it You you can't do anything for it. Jesus gave it to you Here's here's here's the next and he says and by him By the Spirit of God we cry Abba Father. How are you gonna actually proclaim God? You are awesome I love you. I thank you How are you gonna do that is because the Spirit is crying aloud inside of you because he is the one who? enlightens your life to know the one true God and to be grateful for it to know the Father The Spirit himself testifies with our own spirit that we are God's Children here's the next points if you're taking notes the slave is an employee But the Sun is an heir The Sun is an heir The slave is an employee, but the Sun is an heir Romans 817 says now if we are children Then we are heirs Aiers of God you guys forgot your your assignment. I also didn't hold you accountable for the assignment, but that's fine Let's do this again ready. Are you ready? Now if we are children then we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ Does that fry a circuit in you for a second? Like everything that belongs to Jesus, which is everything The cosmos belongs to Jesus The heavens and the earth belongs to Jesus you're worried about your car and your house and your job and your couch. I

Don't know just people own couches, right just popped in my head I said it

But man when you're a co-heir with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords How many of y'all are always worried about not having enough how many of y'all know that the Lord has it all That there's plenty There's always enough and you are a co-heir With Christ Jesus God's Son Philippians 2 12 says this so so in that in that relationship check this out It doesn't say be sloppy and just live on the couch and do nothing with your life What does he say work hard to show the results of your salvation? Obeying God with deep reverence and fear Here's what I know about people who start to obey God after having the Holy Spirit live inside of them They start to realize doing things God's way works and When we try to do it our own way, that's when we get into debt That's when we get into trouble. That's when we see chaos That's when we start stiff-arming God and thinking we're God and we're awesome and we're like I'm gonna build it my way And and I'm gonna do it at my way God and and and that's where you'll have relational strife. You'll have relational debt You'll have you'll have all these sinful issues That are tearing you down And and that's where Satan likes to live like he wants to keep you in that spot How many of y'all know that that Jesus said that that the enemy comes to steal kill and destroy But Jesus came to give you life and life abundantly How many of y'all know you're still living in that tension of being enslaved to your sinful nature and not the new nature in which God put inside of you And and here's here's how he finishes this in Philippians 2 he says 2 12 through 13 he says work hard to show the results of your salvation obeying God with deep reverence and fear For God himself is working in you Let's do that again because some of y'all didn't know didn't know to do it. All right, you're you're learning. Okay, it's fine We're all it's good for is working in you giving you the and the power To do what pleases him?

How many of y'all know that when you are So sold out to God and You begin to walk in his ways you realize it's good for you. It's not burdensome. It's awesome It's freeing and you start to realize that God is actually doing a work inside of you. Here's here's how I like to put it Then I thank God They that I am NOT who I used to be. I may not be who I want to be yet God is working on me still. I am NOT perfect. You know this I try to be as honest about that as possible You ask my staff who has been here for like four or five years and I'm like a different boss Like y'all used to hate me I'm talking I'm talking to my wife and my sister-in-law. Can we talk about how messy that is?

We're related and I'm their boss One of the first one of the first times that Kelsey and I were in a life group together with other people We were supposed to go have fun go have dinner at one of our life groups houses And this is by the way I said there's a couple weeks when you get into the church the church is messy don't look for the church to be to be Perfect. There's no perfect people allowed here. Jesus is the only perfect person. He's he's helping us to become more like him Can I get an amen? And so it's gonna be messy Don't here's how one pastor told me I'm gonna come back to the point in just a second I'm just going off for a second Can I go off for a second if you ever find the perfect church don't join it because you're gonna mess it up I'm just saying And so just take a deep breath once in a while and go me ah man they offended me Yeah, you probably offended them too at one point Like We got to learn how to do this together and because God is working on us by his power By his own God by God working inside of us. What was I feel like I fight in the car. This is so funny So I don't even know I can't remember what happened. This is how free we are now, right? We had fights we had a fight. We didn't have a fight yesterday. We were talking someone During serve day and you left the conversation like I'm so sorry I brought you into this like marital thing and he goes if that's a marital thing, man, you guys got it going on But anyways, so we're sitting in the car our life groups in the house having dinner and and and Kelsey's like super ticked at her boss Right and she and and so we're duking it out in the car She's so mad at her boss and by the way, just to make it clear That's me and so and then she walks in to the house and she goes guys we're so sorry I'm so sorry. We're late. My boss just totally ticked me off and I had to talk to my husband about it

Can anyone relate yeah, I mean it really doesn't matter where Does that have anything to do with the scripture? I don't know the point is It's messy But I'm better why why am I better because I tried harder Are you kidding me when I try harder I mess up worse But how many y'all know that like guys when you get in a fight with your wife probably the best thing to do is Just shut up Think take a moment like ticket ticket day Somebody I'll need a week And I'm not saying she's always right by the way right Sometimes by the time you get to the end of that day, she'll realize she's actually wrong and you didn't even have to say a word You know why because the Holy Spirit did something The Holy Spirit spoke something and when you give him time To share the truth when you give him time to deal with you and your brokenness Because how many y'all know a fight didn't start with just one person. It started with two it took two to tango and You need God working inside of you giving you the desire to do it, right? And the the power to do what pleases him. Can I get an amen? So here's the next points the slave is driven by duty, but the son is driven by devotion By devotion I was thinking about this for a second I was thinking about all the different family types and and even how I grew up and man I just to give you a glimpse into my life again. I was adopted into my family I was the youngest of two brothers were not the same family were Like we're not from the same family is what I mean to say, but we were both adopted. My dad was a single child only child born during World War two he didn't know his dad for the first five years of living and How many y'all know that guys when they came home from World War two, they were? rough and Can I tell you my dad's upbringing was rough was harsh was hard He not only didn't know his dad for five years So when he came back, he was terrified of his dad, but his dad had just gone through World War two Like can you imagine growing up in that household with that kind of dad? Can I tell you something? I Mentioned this this is guy. I think God is connecting the dots here for some of you But do you know why I'm not a hugger because I didn't receive love as a kid Now Now my Listen to me. My parents loved me Like they were they were there all every time I had a game my parents were there Every time I had activity my parents were there But do you know why I still to this day struggle with hugging people because I that's not how my family operated Why because my dad was never hugged. I Don't think my dad was ever told that he was loved And Can I tell you something? There's not a day That I don't think about my dad and how much he loved me Like like God has done something with that and but I can tell you I still have the ramifications of that today But when I'm in a relationship with my kids, can I tell you what? I'm always telling them I love them and you know when I tell it to him the quickest after I just yelled at him After I just corrected them After I just helped him to see an error after I just helped him to see something that was why because I love them I believe in them. I want the best for them And so we need to have this kind of relationship We're not gonna get it perfect But we have to to rely on God's power the slave is driven by duty. The son is driven by devotion Can I tell you something your God the father who sent his son is? unequivocally devoted to you

And when we think about family when we think about church man, can I tell you something I just I want to be can I be raw for just a second We have too many I Don't know I should say this We have too many people jumping from church to church because they've been offended by one thing I

Get offended every week by one of y'all What and Some of y'all I still like you, but I still like all of you But Can I tell you something? There's too many people jumping from church to church because they're offended how many of y'all got offended by your by your mom or dad and You need to know that they loved you now some of y'all you had idiot parents that didn't know Jesus and they didn't know what They were doing Okay It's legit My dad was one of them But man, we can't keep giving up on each other We need to fight for each other We need to help each other We need to give grace to each other that why because that is what Jesus Christ has done for you and for me

The son is driven by devotion he doesn't he doesn't quit When it gets hard he doesn't junk ship I I was listening to a podcast this week about what from other church leaders and there's a a Guy who asked a question he's like it, you know as pastors or church leaders. Do you do you feel roasted toasted or ghosted?

Roasted means man They just in you if you're a business owner or you're a teacher or whatever who receives feedback from parents or you know Whatever like you can feel roasted like they they met you they hate you They shared it on Facebook in that group and you can't outlive it and people come into the church and they're like man That guy's an idiot. He's so ad ad I'm never coming back. He says he's not a hugger. I needed a hug

Just needed a hug anyone hug me I Don't know what it is, but people bolt for whatever reason and sometimes you get roasted. How many of y'all have been roasted? Like they it done it doesn't even matter if they have the context for whatever happened. They just roasted you

You didn't deserve it necessarily maybe maybe like this much But they probably didn't You're picking up what I'm putting down and Then here's the other one. Here's toasted. How many of y'all feel toasted in relationships? It it doesn't matter again thinking about my own kids and when they do wrong, man The first thing I do is yes, I correct them Yes, I get angry when I'm trying to help them go a different direction By the way, God says that the rod and staff comfort me. What does the rod do? The rod bunks the sheep on the head and says you're an idiot How Many y'all feel the rod comforting you when you hear the word of God and it corrects you And so if I if I correct my son or daughter second, I don't like them it's cuz I love them I'm devoted to them. I'm trying to help them and when I come back to them, even if they're like, oh my gosh I'm offended. Oh my gosh, dad's so mad at me. Why is he yelling me? I come back to them I wrap them up in my arms just like God does with us and says I love you. I care about you. I believe in you

Feel like I was gonna say something else there and I totally lost it What the toast? Yeah, I'm still on that right the toast the toast means hey, I'm called somewhere else The toast is like I'm I'm moving or or hey this this church is doing this particular thing And I and and you guys aren't doing it which happens by the way, because we can't do everything. How many y'all know that? That's why God's church is global. God's church has many different versions many different contexts God's church is not new life church. How many y'all know that? Got we are one family of God's big-sea church So people get called elsewhere maybe to plan a church maybe to help other churches do something and they toast you they say pastor Or they say hey church family. We love you. We're excited for what you're doing. We believe in you We're cheering you on we're just being called out to do this and you're toasted and you're like, yeah, that's awesome We're gonna celebrate that we're gonna send you we're gonna love you. We're gonna care for you. We're gonna say God bless you And then how many of this is what happens most of the time? How many of y'all have had people in a life group? And they just gone They ghosted that they just and you have no idea and It might have been something that could have been worked through and It's almost like a cup. It's like it. I'm not calling them children, but it's almost like a child running away And they they really don't know that they can be messy and we're learning and we're growing and we're trying to work it out And so have you ever been roasted ghosted or toasted? because when you're devoted And it changes everything It changes relationships it it changes your family relations sons daughters moms and dads ants and uncles in laws

My in-laws aren't here today

My wife just did this to me so

Well, where's that where was I at the son is driven by devotion. Here's Luke 10. This is Jesus Jesus Was in the house with Mary and Martha how many y'all know this story and it says she came to him and asked Lord Don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me How many of y'all look around the room you're on the dream team and you're with a group of volunteers You're like, I just wish we had more help And He says to her Martha Martha the Lord answered you are worried and upset about many things But few things are actually needed or indeed only one Mary has chosen what is better. Do you know what Mary was doing? She was worshiping Jesus She was at his feet. She was devoted to him. She was in relationship to him She wasn't seeing her relationship with God as something she had to do as a duty She was seeing something that was a relationship. She was she was intimate with God himself and you know, what's so cool I hope you had this experience yesterday And if you haven't just keep keep kind of doing it get around these people because when we have served a how many of y'all had a blast and It wasn't a burden Like it was fun It wasn't a to-do list It wasn't a duty Some of y'all might have felt that way because you we asked you to come here at 8 a.m And you're not an 8 a.m. Person, but you did it anyway, and you're like, oh my gosh, my heart my life My soul man is full There's a difference between relationship and duty and relationship and religion and this is what Jesus is talking about Galatians 8 4 8 through 9 Says formerly when you did not know God you were slaves to those who by nature are not God You were enslaved to those that keep you in debt your sin to financials to the duty to to religion and not relationship So the question is do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? Or do you want to keep that relationship with God? And so here's the final point number one Do you see God as a father? Who loves you as a father or do you see him as a slave driver because they're totally different people Matthew 7 9 says which of you if his son asked for bread This is Jesus will give him a stone or if he asked for a fish will give him a snake if you then though You are evil and I am evil know how to give good gifts to our children How much more will our heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him? Do you know why we keep coming down for prayer? Asking him for for healing and asking him for to move in our lives because we know that he is a good father And a good father is willing He's willing Number two we need to approach God through relationship and not rules John 5 39 40 says you diligently Study the scriptures because you think that by them you will possess possess eternal life But you're gonna do it all and you're gonna live perfectly how many you all know you can't live perfectly. It's not gonna happen

And so you got to approach God through a relationship not just through rules here's number three you got to give God Your whole heart I Got to give him my whole heart My my whole heart. What is that? It's everything Jeremiah 29 11. How many of y'all know that verse? It's it's the verse that shared in every graduation ceremony every marriage ceremony It's on every coffee cup you buy that's Christian and here's what it says Jeremiah 29 11 says for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord Plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and a future again The Bible is speaking to a group of people. It's not just speaking to an individual And do you want to know what the context of that verse is? Let me show you He says this and by the way, doesn't that verse sound awesome? Like no wonder everyone wants to put it on their backdrop and on their wall Like how many y'all have have it hanging from your wall or you got it in a card or whatever you you know this It's awesome Yes, Lord. I want to have that but do you know what verse 10 says right before that? This is it starts with this verse 10 verse Jeremiah 29 10 says this is what the Lord says When 70 years are completed in Babylon I Will come to you and fulfill my good promise and Will bring you back to this place and then he says After 70 years, I will fulfill my promise for I know the plans for you plans to bring you Give you hope in a future right all All how many of y'all want 70 years to go by before the promise comes?

How many of y'all think we're we're living with this idea of having a relationship with God almost as is God is Chick-fil-a God Or McDonald's God or Starbucks God

And We're just begging him to move we're begging him to do something for us And how many of y'all know you you here's how I'm gonna put it You actually want the promise of God more than you want the promiser himself

Because in Jeremiah he finishes this it this thought in verse 13 to 14 Right. He says after 70 years all this is gonna happen By the way when they were in Babylon they were living in a non godly nation They were living in in in slavery and exile. They were away from God and God's people God's promised place But in the midst of those 70 years at the beginning of it and he said this but in the midst of all that You will seek me And you will find me When you seek me with all your heart

Can I tell you something the Lord is close to the brokenhearted He lifts up those who are crushed in spirit Stop seeking the promise Start seeking the promise or the promise keeper Because when you seek him you will find him when you seek him with all your heart He says I will be found by you Declares the Lord. So even in the waiting you have the Lord Even in the chaos and the bondage you have the Lord even in the muck even in the I God, I know I'm not who I who I want to be and who you want me to be but thank God I'm not who I used to be you're working on me. You're working inside of me. God. You're changing me your power exists in me And even in the evil that inundates our world and our country and comes against our families and our kids the Lord can be found When you seek him All your heart So I beg you Go all in in a relationship with Jesus To just to give you I'm not giving you this list as a as a duty because when you do these things You'll start to realize you'll you'll get in these relationships. Can I tell you something? Finish the last seven days of 21 days of prayer This week we have seven more days left of 21 days of prayer Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. Devoted to what to what Mary was doing worship and prayer Seeking God with all our heart And get in the Bible learn how to do the first 15 with God every day, what's the first 15? Before you touch your phone your devices man before the kids Get all crazy get up early Devote yourself to time in the word time in worship and time in prayer 15 minutes five five and five the first Make the decision now we have a new season of life groups coming Make the decision now that you're gonna get into a group of people because how many of y'all know that when you're around the right People godly people God lifts you up because of who you're around and when you're around the wrong people people are gonna tear you down

So important to get in relationship in the community here make the decision How many of y'all how many how many of you at serve day yesterday thought it was a blast? How many of y'all know that it was a blast because you got to do it together?

You gotta do it together better together It was so it was so much fun to walk around and see all your smiling faces and to see the energy And it wasn't it wasn't a duty is like oh my gosh, we get to do this with the best people with the best team God's team and it wasn't a burden It was a joy why? And here's the last point because relationship changes everything Relationship with God and Relationship with his church with his people. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father. We love you And we thank you that you first loved us That the word says that we even know how to love because you first loved us And so God we're coming back right now to our first love There's so many things that take us away from that love but God we're coming back to that first love to that first relationship And so God we want to fall in love with you all over again Jesus I pray that your Holy Spirit would help us to do that To give us a new desire that that your power would be to do that That your power would be working inside of us God that we would know you as Abba father

God in this moment If there's anyone in the room I pray that that as your word says you you say that that by your spirit you knock on the doors of the human heart

Asking if they'll let you in So You may be here today and You're my like I I don't really know God. I don't really know him as a father I don't have this dynamic relationship with him and and maybe that's because your own father was was not a good one

But your perfect Heavenly Father is a good one he is a good good father and so if this in in this moment If you come here today, and you don't have that relationship with God, and you want it again. It's by putting faith in Jesus And I want to invite you to take that step today To believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins That you no longer have to be in debt because Jesus paid the debt for your sins and my sins for you for me All you have to do is respond to God in this moment if he's knocking on your heart if he's Messing with you with nobody looking around with all heads bowed and all eyes closed I Want you to take a step of faith and the count of three? I just want you to shoot your hand up declaring God. I am responding to you. I'm believing in you right now by faith one Two three shoot your hand up and hold it up What you're saying is God I choose to believe right here and right now in you God a Jesus you came to forgive me of my sins to pay my debts. Thank you. I didn't earn it. I don't deserve it But because you loved me You did that for me I Receive I opened that gift and now God I want to enter into a relationship with you So God in faith, I pray that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit Giving me the power to know you and for a lot my life to be changed to become like you And so from this day forward Lord I go all in I Give you my whole heart. I Gave you everything I am and everything I'll ever be in Jesus name Amen

Full Sermon Transcript

I wanted to take a minute before we start today and tell you, because I'm not sure I do this enough, but how many of you all know that it's good to hear an I love you from someone? And I've met plenty of men who have grown up in households where they never heard I love you from a dad. And I want you to know that I love you. And you're like, you're not my dad. Well, I'm a spiritual father to you. But also, you need to know that your spiritual father, your heavenly father, loves you. And can I tell you something anymore? He not only loves you, he's proud of you. And I want to tell you why. When we talk about offering, when we talk about giving and backpacks, you need to know something that everything that we have comes from our heavenly father. Do you know that? And one of the opportunities that we have as followers of Christ, as his kids, is to hold what he gives us like this. And to be able to love people what he gives us. He doesn't just give us stuff and things and opportunities and paychecks for us to just hoard it to ourselves and build our kingdoms. He wants it to flow through us to love other people. And so there's opportunities like backpacks and school supplies and haircuts and car washes that are coming up this Saturday that allows us to take the opportunity to hold what we have loosely and to be a blessing to our city. So I want to tell you that your heavenly father is proud of you. Your spiritual father, your lead pastor, is very proud of you. And I want to tell you that I love you. And thank you.

Another way that I love you and I'm proud of you how many of you all know we're in 21 days of prayer? If you don't know we're in 21 days of prayer, we're in 21 days of prayer. What does that mean? It means that for 21 straight days, we're devoting ourselves. And for many of us, we're returning to our first love. Because life has a way of kind of getting us away from our first love, getting us away from Jesus, distracting us from our faith and from our father. And so we take 21 days twice a year to really refocus and come back to our first love, which is Jesus. And so when we started 21 days of prayer, wouldn't... There she is, my wife. I'm looking for people who might know. Did we start maybe the second year? Or third year? I think it was right when I went to the metal. It was the first year. It was like the second or third year as a church. We're coming up on eight years as a church this fall. In a second or third year of the church, we started partnering with a church in Alabama that literally streams these prayer services all across the world. And that first year, that first time we did it, if you're around, how many of you all know that we might have had two people show up for 21 days of prayer? Like there were legit days where two people would show up for these prayer services. And I'm just going to be honest, like that feels awkward. But how many of you all know the Word of God, where it says, where two or more are gathered in my name, there He is with us. And God also says, do not despise the day of small beginnings. And I'm so grateful and so proud, and I love you church so much, that we did not despise the day of small beginnings, that those two people really created a firm foundation of prayer and seeking God in a powerful way, that this week I've been blown away. We've probably averaged 50 people here every night this week for 21 days of prayer. Wednesday, of course, we begged the worship team to rehearse so you guys have music to listen to on Sunday mornings that's decent. And are we grateful for our worship team and production team? I'm so proud, and I love them. So Sam, thank you for your leadership. Isaac, for your team production. But man, they create the environment for us to be here. But I love this because we had 79 people here for a prayer service on Wednesday night. And you all, you have prayer request cards in front of you. We are seeking the Lord on your behalf. And I say this all the time, there's nothing too big for our God. There's nothing too small that He doesn't care about in your life. And so please present your request to God, and we're going to see people pray over. I love this past week, we saw elementary kids up here reading your prayer request and praying over your prayer requests. My daughter, who's eight, who's going into third grade, she was praying with her mom. And I was sitting in the back trying to ignore her. And no, I'm just kidding. Or maybe I'm not kidding. But anyway, she comes up to me, sits on my lap, and she's like, Daddy, mommy and I just prayed for you.

Isn't this what we want for our kids? And so I want to tell you, I am so proud of you. And I love you. Keep seeking God. He's going to move in power. He's going to do something, He's going to move miracles, move mountains. And so, man, you fill out those prayer requests. And every single night this week at 6pm, we're in it Monday through Friday, in here on 10am on Saturday morning. So if you haven't been, you got to come. Like you got to come. And some of you are like, I don't know, it feels weird. You got to come. I promise you, you got to come. Even if it's just one time, you make the decision right now that you are going to come this week. I promise you, you will not. Are you all ready for the Word of God today? All right. I hope that was a blessing for just a moment. Now I've wasted seven of my minutes. Anyways, we're in Galatians chapter 3, starting at verse 1. Paul says this, and he's saying to us as well, oh, foolish Galatians. And when you see the bolded word behind me, can y'all say it out loud with me? And say it with gusto. The bold. OK, you're going to say evil spell. OK. Galatians 3, 1. Oh, it's the wrong sermon notes. It's last week's. Are we grateful for our production team? Hey, hey, hey, ain't none of you perfect either. All right. So in Galatians 3, verse 1, it says, oh, foolish Galatians. And Paul says, who has cast an evil spell on you? That's pretty intense language for Paul. Now check this out. He had just got done talking about this interaction that he had with Peter. How many of y'all know who Peter is? Peter was one of Jesus's main dudes. I like to think of myself as kind of like Peter, because Peter kind of, I don't know how to say this, but he's got some just, he just flies off the cuff. And he tends to step in it. And he tends to say things. And Jesus has to correct him. Well, guess what? Peter did some things when the believers were coming together. There's Jews and Gentiles. How many of y'all know there's Jews and Gentiles? The Jewish people are the people of God. They are the people that the premises of God have come to earth through. Gentiles, if you're new to this whole thing, Gentiles are anyone who's not Jewish. Did any of you grow up Jewish? All y'all are Gentiles. So when you read Gentiles in the Word of God, you're a Gentile. Well, these guys, they grew up around the Jewish custom, around the Jewish faith, the Old Testament faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And they were taught a sacrificial system, right? In order to have your sins forgiven, you had to sacrifice bulls and goats and birds and do all these things. How many of y'all would get exhausted doing that to pay for your sins? Let's talk about the sins that you committed this week. You wouldn't have been at work. You wouldn't have been paying attention to your wife or your spouse because you would have had to do all that work to prepare your sacrifice, to take to the altar, to be forgiven of your sins. And what's happening here is Paul is calling out, again, he's going back to that interaction with Peter, where Paul, can you imagine Paul, an apostle, calling out Peter the apostle? Like how many of y'all are afraid of tough conversations? Peter came before Paul and yet Paul is correcting Peter. Hello, and here's what he was correcting him on. He was hanging out with the Gentiles, Peter was, and then he began to shy back and just hang out with the Jewish people, and Paul called him out because of his hypocrisy. Can I give you a modern day example that's gonna make you really uncomfortable? How many of y'all don't eat with or hang out with people that don't look like you, act like you, have what you have,

vote like you vote.

How many of you maybe grew up in a family where like we don't interact with that group of people or this group of people? Paul is literally calling out Peter for that mentality. He's saying, okay, they weren't born Jewish, but guess what, this faith, this salvation, what Jesus did was available to all. What is John 3.16 says? John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that God gave his one and only son that we would not perish but have everlasting life. I think I skipped part of it, but you know what I'm saying. And so this is what Paul is saying. You foolish Galatians, you've bought into a lie. You've had this evil spell cast on you. He says for the, can you read it with me out loud? Is it there? You're the man, Isaac. Come on, Isaac, come on, yeah, buddy.

I'm not trying to make you feel awkward. Oh, thank you, okay. I told all of them that they're not perfect either, so it's fine, okay. For the meaning of, you all aren't with me.

What?

Yeah, you all weren't talking. You gotta give me some gusto. Yeah.

Oh, okay, all right, okay. All right, all right. Are we together on this? Are we united now? All right. For the meaning of, Jesus Christ, yeah. Can we not do it in a monotone? Like, you gotta, you gotta, come on. Do y'all talk like that? No. How many of y'all, when you're in school, you read like that, it's like, no, you don't know. Okay, anyways, I'm just trying to help y'all. For the meaning of, Jesus Christ, yeah. You're still monotone, but it's fine. Was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Now, what I want you to see here is that Jesus's death on the cross has provided everything you need for salvation. You don't need to sacrifice bulls and goats. You don't need to sacrifice anything. You need to believe that there was one God who gave his life for you.

And he says this, he says, let me ask you this one question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit obeying the law of Moses? Now, when it's saying the law of Moses, for some of you, how many of y'all are super confused when the Bible talks about the law of Moses? Bible talks about the law of Moses in the New Testament. None of you? All right, well, let me explain. There's three types of laws found in the Old Testament. There is the civil law, which is, we have civil laws, right? How many of y'all don't obey the speed limit? Okay, that's a civil law that you need to obey. All right? How many of y'all know that most of our laws stem from the 10 commandments? Like, to not murder comes from God. It's a good idea, right? Not to steal, not to covet, all those things. They come from God. We've gone way farther beyond that. But there's the civil law that it talks about in the Old Testament. There's the moral law. How many of y'all know we need to obey God's moral law? It still exists today. It's not been done away with. The ceremonial law is the third part. That is the one that has been fully completed in Jesus Christ, which is what we're talking about right now. Are you all with me? The ceremonial law, you no longer have to obey or consider because Jesus Christ is the perfect sacrifice for us all. Okay? So he's saying, did you receive the Holy Spirit? So if you go back to the Old Testament, when they were doing all those things, obeying all those sacrificial systems of bringing the goats and bulls and doves and all those things to the Lord to sacrifice for their sins, they didn't receive the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit did not dwell inside of them. And so that's what Paul is saying. Let me ask you this one question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit obeying the law of Moses? The answer is no, he even says it. Of course not. It's the next one. Of course not. Say that with me. Of course not. You see, it's a lot more fun when you say it with some gusto. You receive the Spirit because you, say that word. I know it's not bolded. Say that when you believed the message, say this with me. Heard. How many of y'all have ever grown up in a church where they literally say, you know what? I just hope they believe the message by the way I act. Right, I said that it was a stupid quote. Some guy, St. Augustine, it wasn't St. Augustine. I don't remember who it was. And he said, you know, if at some point I need to use words to talk about the gospel, I'll do it. But guess what? Nobody can believe the gospel if they haven't heard the gospel. It's all throughout the scriptures. Does that mean that your character doesn't matter? That God doesn't want you to grow in character and in godliness and in righteousness and obeying the moral law that he puts out for us? Absolutely not. We need to do those things. You received the Spirit because you believed the message that you heard about Christ. It is not something you did, it is something that he did for you. Are you with me? How foolish can you be? Now, how many of y'all like it when Jesus, you know, when God through Paul says, you're an idiot. Honestly, I take comfort in it. I really do. Because I need the God who created it all to tell me how things really should be. And how things really should go. Because how many of y'all know that when we're in charge, we make a mess of it. Have you ever been married? Have you ever been a parent? Well, no, but you'll understand some day. You had parents though and you knew they made a mess of it. You're in good company if you've made a mess of it. But that's why it's so important that we have a God who can call us out and who loves us enough to say, okay, you're believing something different. He says, after starting your Christian lives in the Holy Spirit of God, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Yesterday, I confess that in my own personality, how many of y'all think you have grit? You know what grit is? Grit is basically taking the bull by the horns and you will not be stopped. I have literally trucked over people with grit. Fact, like if you ask my staff who have been here a while, there were days where I literally trucked them with my, what would you call it, passion, my grit, my intensity. I grew up as a football player. Ain't no manby pambis on the football field, all right? If they are, they're not playing. I don't know, that wasn't very nice of me, but that's the culture we grew up. Anyways, but how much more do I need because of my sinful nature, how much more do I need God's Holy Spirit nature inside of me, allowing him to live through me instead of me trying to live it and do it myself? How are we gonna change? We let God's nature come alive inside of it. The only way that happens is through the Holy Spirit of God, not by human effort. Galatians 3, 10. He says, all who rely on observing the law under a curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. So when you read the Old Testament, when it goes through all the sacrificial systems, how many of y'all skip those parts?

How many of y'all have never read those parts? It's fine. I challenge you to go read those parts because here's what I realized years ago. I got exhausted reading about it. They had to do it. They literally had to live their lives constantly bringing sacrifices to God's temple for the forgiveness of their sins. They constantly had to do that. And we get tired just reading about it. Think about that for a second. We just skip it because we're so bored with it. And yet that's how they had to live their lives. Aren't you grateful for Jesus Christ? And here's why, here's why it's cursed for everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law is this point, if you're taking notes because note takers are, the law couldn't be perfectly obeyed. No one perfectly obeyed it. You can't, they didn't. We won't. Right, that's why I just said like mistakes are gonna happen in church. Why? Because we're doing it. We're leading it. I had a pastor once say, if you ever find a perfect church, don't join it. Do you know why? Because you're gonna mess it up.

It's fact. I'm gonna mess it up. Because I'm in, that's why we're here. We're here to seek the perfect one. Who obeyed the law perfectly, who lived it out perfectly. Galatians 3.19 says, what then was the purpose of the law? Have you asked that question? What then was the purpose of the law? He answers the question. Galatians 3.24-25. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. Do you know what the law does? It tells you how you're actually wrong. How many of y'all know that if we didn't have laws, we would just do whatever we wanted to do? And how many of y'all know that that wouldn't work? Like it wouldn't work. We needed the structure of God. One of the most grace-filled things that God ever gave to the Israelite people after they came out of Egyptian slavery was the Ten Commandments. Because these people did not know how to live together. They did not know how to get along together. I'm so grateful, let me tell you a story. How many of y'all have family, and it's kinda hard to live with family sometimes? I'm so glad for your interaction and honesty, thank you. Well, my nucleus family, it was basically us fours. My mom, my dad, my brother and I, and we went to family gatherings, but we rarely came around family. I married into a family that literally, they're never not around each other. Like we'll go on vacation, we'll take a week, and we'll go on vacation together. And I'm driving back from vacation, they'll say, so where are we gonna go to lunch? I'm like, I just spent the week with you people. I don't need more time.

Anyone feel me? And y'all laugh, and you're like, I wish we had the kind of relationships your family does. I am grateful for my family. But let me tell you something. When I came into that family, I didn't know how to operate in that family. Matter of fact, I remember very clearly, Kelsey will tell you, almost every vacation we went on, I wanted to leave early. Because I didn't know how to handle that. I mean, I grew up in a very independent family. We didn't really talk to each other, we just did our own thing. Man, we come into this family, it's like, what are y'all doing for breakfast? What are y'all doing for, what are y'all? And it's always together. And so I had to learn to be a part of that family. How many of y'all know that God helps us to be a part of a loving family that has issues, but he tells us how to deal with those issues, how to navigate them, how to work through them, how to prevent disaster before it happens. How many of y'all, the word of God tells us what not to do so that we don't cause our own chaos? We need the word of God. We need it, it protects us. It's his grace. Grace was given to us. The law was put in charge to lead us to faith in Christ. We're justified by faith in Jesus, the only perfect one. Here's the second part, is the law leads us to Christ. Why? Because it tells us when we're wrong. It tells us when we are wrong. It tells us when we are sinful. It tells us that you and I need a savior because the wages of sin is what? Death spiritually and death physically. Galatians 3.24 says the law was our guardian until Christ came. It protected us until we could be made right. Have y'all ever had made rights? That's my ADD. I don't even know what to say. Sloppy Joe's, you call them sloppy. They're actually different. Like loose meat sandwiches, made rights, sloppy Joe's. I grew up in Iowa, anyone? No. Well, by the way, if you're new to New Life Church, welcome to New Life Church where I'm ADD global. So you're never gonna know what you're gonna get. I just got hungry, that's what happened. The law was our guardian until Christ came. It was a way to allow people to be saved. It was a way for people to stay right with God. It was a guardian until Christ came. It protected us until we could be made right with God through what? Faith. Through faith. Why is faith important? Because it's not what you can do, it's what God has done. You have faith in the perfect one. You have faith in Jesus who forgives your sins and heals all your diseases and punches the ticket for you to get to heaven. It's the only way. So number one, if you're taking notes, the grace of God, grace is a free gift from God. How many of y'all, it's really hard for you to accept gifts. Some of you it's really easy. Some of y'all just give me the stuff, right? I just called some of y'all out, but I'm not gonna point you out, I'm just gonna say it. But how many of y'all, it's like, you're so gritty. You're so like, I'm gonna get it done. I'm gonna pull myself up by my bootstraps. I'm a self-made man, I'm a self-made woman. And literally you struggle with how could it be free?

The grace of God is free. It's a free gift from God. Why? Because Paul says this, it's so that no one can boast in their own goodness. Because God says that your goodness is like filthy rags to God. Like even in your best efforts, you come miserably short of how good and perfect God is. Are you following me? Like you can't stand up on the top, what's the podium at the Olympics and go, you know what, I got it all together. I'm just, look at me, I'm the perfect one. Do you know who did that? Satan.

Satan did that. How many of y'all know it did not go well? For Satan. A matter of fact, if you wanna know that heaven and hell, they exist. Heaven was created for you to spend eternity with God. You have to choose him, you have to put your faith in God to be able to have, in Jesus, to be able to have that perfect place in heaven. Hell was created for Satan and his demons. Why? Because Satan said, I'm perfect. I don't need you God, I wanna be you. How many of y'all have that mentality? You need to check yourself. It's almost like he's saying, oh, you foolish Galatians, don't think that way. But how many of y'all know in America, that's what we do?

By the way, the University of Texas Longhorns are gonna be all y'all this fall. Anyways. Yeah, come on. Again, ADD, sorry, I'm sorry. Where was I at? Did I say grace is received by faith? Number two, grace is received by faith. I did say that. Ephesians 2, 8, 9. It says, for it is by grace that you have been saved, what God did through faith. And this is not from yourselves, what I just said is the gift of God. Not by works so that no one can boast. You can't say, man, look at me, I'm awesome. Some of you do, I'm awesome. Some of you do on your TikToks and Snapchats and all that, but you're not all that. Jesus is. He is all that. Romans 4, 16 says it this way, people receive God's promise by having faith. By having faith in what? Faith in Jesus. And number three, grace is available to everyone. This is what Paul was saying to Peter. He's like, man, you gotta stop saying that all the Jews are more important than the Gentiles. That they all have the ability to receive faith in Jesus Christ. Do you know what's super hard for us? I think it's super hard because we can pair our lives with each other and we're like, oh, we got it figured out. We got it going on. And man, then when you get in the room with someone who doesn't look like you, act like you, vote like you, grew up like you, or all those things, or have as much as you do, like you have this tendency to go, oh, it's us and them and us. For Jesus, every single person, no matter what nation they grew up, what ethnicity, what race, we have this American, American, I just always say it. I don't know why. It's like habit. This Americanized version that God is just American and it is just not true. Can I give you an example of that real quick?

How many of y'all like,

how many of y'all know that I post up on Facebook and it stirs the pot sometimes? And it's not, I'm trying to help people. I promise you, I'm trying to help people. I posted a message that we did last year on Facebook this past, I think it was the past week, is about like, should Christians engage in politics? Now, nobody answer, nobody throw elbows. I really do encourage you to go back and watch that message if you haven't seen it, because I think it'll be super helpful in our political season, okay? We're all living in it. We might as well learn how to engage it, okay? But one of the things I think is fascinating, and people have said to me over and over and over again, is like, if you don't fight for what you believe in, then you're gonna lose your 501c3 status and the government's gonna come after you. Can I tell you something? That's not new for people in China. That's not new for Christians in India. That's not new for Christians around the world where literally government systems, it's illegal to be a Christian. And so, do you know what my answer to people is when they say, well, of course, let's watch the video, engage, engage, engage, but here's the deal. If the government comes after us, we're gonna still be a church. That's worshiping Jesus. That's teaching his word and teaching his ways. Can I get an amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. I thought that was good. I mean, I don't know if it has anything to do with the message, but anyways.

Grace is available to everyone. It's available to that family, those people in Africa. Matter of fact, when we talk about going global, when we talk about having like a global missions and sending people to Honduras or Africa, Kelsey and I, matter of fact, when we went on a missions trip to Africa in Odotel, Africa, she came back and was like, please date me. She did. So, hey, young people, or old people that are looking for someone, go on a missions trip. You might just come back with someone who wants you. I did. It took me 33 years to get someone and look at what I found. Thank you. I mean, it's, talk about the grace of God. Okay. What was I talking about? I am, this is terrible today. I need medication. Wrap it up. She said, I got 10 minutes left. Okay, okay, all right.

How many of y'all know she does this to me? She's like,

she keeps me on track, all right. And we all need a good wife. Okay. Romans 10, 13 says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

You know,

oh gosh.

I hate it when this happens.

I don't care. Okay, let me, let me, let me preface this statement. I don't care what your politics are. Okay. I don't care who you voted for last time. I don't care who you voted for last three times. I've seen all this stuff and I, and it could be on both sides. I don't always, I don't always see it.

I saw a pastor post something about former president Trump the other day that was like, it seems like former president Trump only talks about being a Christian in front of Christians. And the question was, does he just do that for political reasons? The answer might be a hundred percent. That could be true. Do you know what I don't know? I don't know the authenticity of his faith. I've also seen a video where he literally proclaims Jesus as his savior. Can I tell you something? What does the Bible say? Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's true of Joe Biden. That's true of Kamala Harris. That's true of, I don't even know Joe Waltz. Is that his name? Tim Halsey, I don't, honestly I turned that stuff off during 21 days of prayer because I don't need the anxiety that they're feeding you.

I'm just trying to give you examples, okay? I'm not trying to get all political. I'm just trying to give you examples. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

What about president, what about, what about Vladimir Putin?

What about, can I tell you something? I think as Christians, we need to pray for those people to be saved because if they're saved, they won't start wars. If they're saved, they won't terrorize people. If they have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of them, it will change them. I'm just trying to navigate the world we live in, okay?

Because I know you all are seeing it just like I see it. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Number four, grace comes only through Jesus the Christ. How many of you all know that Christ is not Jesus' last name? It's a fair comment. I mean, I've had people think that. The Christ is actually a title. It's like a position. It means the anointed one. It means that he is the one from God in which we can be saved. What he says, he says, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Our enemy, Satan, comes to steal, kill and destroy. Where you see chaos, where you see war, where you see all these issues, that is where you find our enemy, Satan. But Jesus said that he came to give life and give life to the abundance. Do you know what else he said? He says that no one comes to the Father. No one gets to heaven except through him. That he is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus. You know, I had this moment this past week in prayer, in 21 days of prayer, where the pastor who was giving the talk that particular day said, hey, can you start praying for the lost people in your life? And so people who don't know Jesus, Gentiles, Jews, whatever they are, they just don't know Jesus. They don't go to church, they know nothing about God. And I had this moment, Kelsey had the same moment, where it was like, I work in church, I spend most of my time with Christians who are in our church, our staff. And I'm like, who do I know that's even lost? I don't work where you work. Do you know that? Like the people that we hire, how many of y'all know that we've screened them to actually be Christians?

Yeah, fair?

So I don't, on a daily basis, you interact with more lost people than I ever will. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be reaching out to people who are lost to invite them, to share Jesus with them. Matter of fact, Kelsey and I were like, we both started praying for our neighbors, because our neighbors, like, we don't know. That way, I'm pretty sure most of them don't go to church. And then I had this moment today, I go to the gym and try to do the, what do you call it, Kelsey, the executive treatment? On Sunday mornings, I go to the gym and I hit up the hot tub and the sauna and the steam room and try to clear myself out before all this. And I pray and I listen to worship music. And today it was all broken, so that's probably why I'm broken.

But I had this moment, I'm literally getting ready, and I've interacted with so many people. I'm gonna show you this, but I have a few things. How many of y'all get awkward when you're in the locker rooms and gyms? But I have this on my leg, if you can see it. I don't know if there's a camera, but you can, can y'all see it? It's writing and it says the cross, and it's written in a dead language that doesn't exist anymore. It's a language called Aramaic. How many of y'all know that Aramaic is in the Bible? It's a language that Jesus often used with his followers, with his disciples. But how many of y'all know that, I'm gonna pull this down because you all are gonna be distracted, okay? Y'all are like, that was blinding, okay.

How many of y'all know that language has, it evolves from one location to another? Do y'all know this? And so there are many people from different countries who look at this and they go, they ask me questions, and they go, it kinda looks like this, but it's not quite and it's a little bit different. And so can I tell you, one of the reasons why I have tattoos like this is so that they ask questions. Because you know what? The most people in the world that don't know Jesus exist in what's called the 1040 window, which is mostly Muslim countries. And it's people that grew up around the faith and their language is very similar to what Jesus taught because they're in the region. And so it's literally an opportunity. So I had this moment where I'm like, I interact with these people at the gym sometimes and they start asking questions. And I had this, I think it was from God, I just had this moment of when I engaged in the conversation instead of being Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, or church, church, church, I should just say, what were you ever taught about Jesus? What do you know about him? Like almost in a conversational way so I could continue it. Because I've already got this conversation starter with them and they're asking questions like it means the cross. So they already kind of know where I stand on this whole faith thing, but it's, we always have this like, is it Jews and Gentiles? Is it Muslims? Is it Christians? There's one way to Jesus, or there's one way to heaven. And his name is Jesus. And so we gotta be able to have these conversations. This is by grace that we are saved, not by works so that no one can boast. You are not all that. You are only what you are because of Jesus. John 3 16, grace is extended throughout eternity. So the forgiveness of your sins is extended throughout eternity because of Jesus. John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. That's what we're about. If you wanna know what New Life Church is about, it's about robbing hell and populating heaven. It's about sharing the gospel. It's about teaching you God's ways. Yes, God's ways matter. And so we teach you that. Titus 2 11 through 12 says, for the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. And here's what it says after that. I love this. And it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. I think I might've said this last week, or maybe I said it during 21 days of prayer this week, but Kelsey and I, we were in Indianapolis a week ago. A week ago, and we took our girls, well, all of them, we took all of our kids, Oliver, who's our youngest, doesn't need school supplies yet, but we took them basically to get backpacks and to get some things and some clothes. And we went into, I think it was Dick's Sporting Goods in the Indianapolis area. And Harper, our oldest, eight year old, gonna be in third grade. She walks up to Kelsey, she's like, I want this shirt. Well, how many of y'all know that when you're shopping for girls these days, like it's hard to find something that covers skin. Like, and so she pulls out this, what do you even call that? Crop top, I was gonna say halter top. I don't even know the names for this stuff. I know that if I see it, I don't like it, she ain't wearing it, you know what I'm saying? I was so proud of Kelsey, this is so cool. She walked up, Harper walks up to Kelsey and she's literally in front of the person checking her out, not checking her out. How else do I say that? Scanning the stuff to pay for it. And the person operating the system. See, this is why people get confused on social media. So Harper walks up with this crop top and Kelsey says, you're not wearing that. You're not getting it. And how many of y'all know in our society, our culture, it's really hard to say no. And I was so proud of my wife. And you know what was super cool? The person checking her out said, I'm so glad you did that.

And I think I've said this before, but I'm gonna say it again.

Girls, and it's guys too, but girls, you need to know that you do not need to seek after the affirmation of a guy by wearing things that are revealing or whatever, because you have all you need in Jesus. You have all the affirmation you need in your heavenly Father. And just as a side note, like we wonder why we have

so many issues with this, many issues with abuse and objectifying women and all these things looking down on people. And like we're growing up in the culture that exists. And we have all these issues. And so I need to teach you the word. Why? Because it protects you, it helps you. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. And it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. How many of y'all know that the same words that were spoken through in Titus are good for us today?

And here's the last thought. I think this will help you. Here's the definition of grace. Grace is when what you ought to do becomes what you actually want to do.

Yeah, how many of y'all have read that verse in the Bible where it says that, you know, God will give you the desires of your heart? You know, it says that if you fall in love with Jesus, then he'll give you the desires of your heart. What you need to know though, is that God changes your desires. He changes your nature. He doesn't make you better than everybody else. He just makes you a better, more godly version of yourself. It's a gift that can only be given and only be gotten through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that literally it says that by your word, when it is preached, when it is spoken, when it is seen and heard clearly, that faith rises. As of God in this moment, I pray that you would continue to build our faith through your word and through your Holy Spirit. God giving us that new nature, the nature of your Holy Spirit. The grace of God, the gift of God, the free gift of God that is salvation through Jesus Christ your son and that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us and God in your word, it says that the Holy Spirit inside of us is actually a deposit. It's the ticket to heaven.

Because when you see us, even in our, still in our imperfection, you see yourself inside of us. Inside of us.

And so in this moment, I pray that you would continue to build us, teach us, change us, and help us to be everything that you've created us to be. Full of life and life abundantly. A breath of fresh air to a world that desperately needs it. If you're in the room today, and maybe you're just checking this whole thing out, you're like, I didn't grow up in church, I know nothing about Jesus, but I came today and I pray that God spoke directly to you.

And you need to know something that we don't want you to just join a church or follow a weird ADD pastor. We wanna introduce you to the living God. We wanna introduce you to Jesus, who provides you with salvation, forgiveness of sin, and he doesn't just affirm us, he transforms us into his likeness. So if you want that, if you want a relationship with Jesus, we're not talking about religion, we're talking about a relationship with the living God. If you want that today, I wanna encourage you to take a step of faith. With nobody looking around, with all eyes closed, this is the free gift of God, that you don't have to pay for your sins because Jesus has done that for you, that you can be forgiven and saved and changed. If you want that today, on the count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up and hold it up saying, God, here I am, I want to receive you. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. In this moment before God, you're declaring, God, I know I'm imperfect, I know I mess up, and I thank you Jesus in this moment, that you came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died the perfect sacrificial death, to forgive me of my sins, and to give me your Holy Spirit, so that I can one day live in eternity with you. Today, from your heart to God's, I'll help you with the words. You say, today, I give my life to you. Come inside of me, Holy Spirit. I believe in faith, that you will give me everything I need for godliness and for life change. And so from this day forward, I give you everything I am, and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name, amen. Come on church, let's put our hands together for a God who saves.

Full Sermon Transcript

I always forget to unmute myself. I do it every time. One of these days I'm gonna remember it before I walk up here. Anyways, good morning everybody. I am so excited that you guys are here in the house this morning together. I am our kids director, so normally I'm not in service to be able to watch the five minute video. And this morning I was watching it and I just, I love seeing just how much God has moved over the past almost eight years at New Life and just being able to see the church, the people in this church, all of you guys making a difference in our community. And so it's just, it's really cool. It was very special to me. So thank you for being here this morning. As I said, I'm our kids director. My name's Aliyah Roland. I absolutely love being the kids director here at New Life Church. I often will say, and I truly believe this, that it is an absolute honor and a privilege. I feel like teaching kids about Jesus is probably one of the best jobs in the entire world. And to be able to see kids learn about Jesus for the first time and get that foundation is just so fun to watch. And it challenges me to grow in my faith even more because they're growing so much. As I was preparing for today, I was like, I wanna give you guys just a little cool story about our kids ministry that I experienced last week. So in our kids ministry, we've been averaging probably, I would say like four to five new kids a week, which is good. But last week, we had a new family who was new the week before they came back. And their kids had invited all of their friends. So we had 12 new kids in the first service alone. Yeah. Yeah. And then we had five the following service. So we had 17 new kids in total. And what I thought is I was so, my entire team, if some of my kids team members are in service today, and we were so fired up because we're like, wow, there's so many new kids. But what's so cool to me is that sometimes kids are better at inviting people to church than we are as adults. And so I thought to myself, man, when was the last time I invited 12 of my friends? So it was a good challenge for me and hopefully for you guys as well. I just wanted to say quick welcome to anyone who's watching online. Hello, whatever camera's on my face. Hello. We're happy you're here too. Before I get into this message, I and our church are really big on honoring people. I love how the Life Church in Memphis, which is where we take our students for the access conference, how they talk about honor, and they talk about honoring up, honoring down, and honoring all around. And so I wanted to take a moment just to honor our pastors, Dan and Kelsey Smith. I know a lot of times people will come up here and say, they're just so nice, they're great people, and they are, they are, don't get me wrong. But I think when I was thinking of a way that we can honor them, I don't know if you know this, but a lot of the things that you guys love here at New Life Church, our dream team, being able to serve on Sundays, being able to have an impact to yourselves, not just the staff having an impact, life groups, the merch wall that's out there, the design of a lot of things, a lot of that comes from Pastor Dan and Kelsey's vision. And so I am so thankful today, and I know that so many of you are thankful for their vision and their obedience to carry out what God has given them, because sometimes that's really hard. Sometimes it costs a lot. But I'm so thankful that we follow a pastor who is following God. So can we go ahead and give them honor this morning? Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! So this morning, if you're taking notes, which we say note takers are? World changers. World changers, yep. If you're taking notes, I'll give you the title of it, because I know some people really like that. If my friend Jillian's in here, she likes that. So it's for you, Jillian. It's called The Crucified Life. How many of you guys were here when we did the study on Ephesians? Anyone? Yeah. I loved that series. Did y'all like it too? Yeah, I loved it, because I love being able to sometimes really dive into a book of the Bible and kind of go scripture by scripture. And I love that we're doing that now with the book of Galatians. So last week, Pastor Dan opened up the sermon series on the book of Galatians, and he talked about Galatians 1, 6, and 7, and the one true gospel. And he asked us a couple different questions, but one that stood out to me was he asked us if we thought we could earn our salvation, which, spoiler alert, we can't. And he gave us three different ways to live a life following the one true gospel. I highly recommend if you missed it last week, go into that app that we talked about, and go ahead and watch it on there. It's awesome. So he also really did a good job of teeing up my message, because a lot of Galatians is about the same sort of thing. So you might hear some things today that you heard last week, but it's a good continuation of what we learned last week. So if you have your Bible here today, go ahead and grab it out. I brought my own Bible today. This one's new. It's a little bit heavy. I was like, wow. I was like passing it to the kids' team, and I was like, you can get an arm workout with this thing. But my other one's covered in coffee stains, so I figured this one was better. Yeah. If you have your Bible, go ahead and open it up to Galatians 2, 11 through 21. While you're getting there, I always like to say sometimes you might read the Bible, and you might read it, and it might totally just go right over your head. Anybody ever have that happen before? Yeah. And so my husband and I really are big into reading something in a different translation. So maybe today, hopefully today, I do a good job explaining it. But if you're finding in your Bible, I don't really get this. Try something new. Is everybody there? Yep. Cool. All right, let's get started. All right. Here we go. But when Cephas, hold up, some of you guys in your Bible, you might have the headings, and it says that Paul opposes Peter. So you might be thinking, who is Cephas? Like who's this guy? That's another name for Peter in Aramaic, which is this language that Jesus and a lot of the people during this time period spoke. So it's Peter, don't worry. So when Cephas came to Antioch, I, this is Paul speaking, opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him. So even Barnabas was led astray by the hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the gospel of truth, I said to Cephas before all of them, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew, how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews? I'm gonna be really honest with you guys. I probably have read the book of Galatians probably 10 times in my entire lifetime. I don't think I've ever actually read that part. I think I've always glossed over it because I read it and I was like, huh, okay, this is cool. But even as I read it, the first time I read it, I was like, what is this trying to tell me? And then I read it again, still thought the same thing. So I had to take my own advice and look it up in a different translation. I like the Amplified version because it has a little bit more fluff to it, and I like that. And I had to read it. So let me go ahead and explain it for you guys too. So before I do that, I wanna set the scene. So in this, Paul, Barnabas, and Peter are all in Antioch, which Antioch is a city that in modern day is on the border of Syria and Turkey. And they are there as Jews, and they are amongst Gentiles. So they're eating with them, they're hanging out with them, they're teaching them about the good news. So they're having a good time. Well, back in Acts chapter 10, which if you've never read Acts chapter 10, please go read it. It's probably one of the coolest chapters in the Bible. I really like it. But in Acts chapter 10, God gave Peter a vision. And what this vision was is that God shows Peter that his goodness and his salvation isn't just for the Jews, it's also for the Gentiles. Now at the time, the Gentiles were considered unclean, they weren't allowed in synagogues, they weren't associated with a lot of the Bible, they were kind of seen as like outside of it. So this, when God showed him this vision, that meant that they were supposed to be one, and they were united in their faith. So we know that as this continues, we see that Peter is kind of taking a step back when other Jewish people come that are maybe more focused on the law. It says in here, it calls them the circumcision party, which as Pastor Dan talked about last week, they were more focused on the ceremonial law, the different sacrificial practices that you did to remove your sin, as opposed to the relationship. And we know that ceremonial law was abolished when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. So Peter is bending to fit in with the other Jews, maybe because he's a little bit nervous, maybe because he thinks that they're gonna think less of him, but in the amplified version, it says that this act of removing himself and the other Jews going along with Peter, it ignores their knowledge that Jewish and Gentile Christians are united under the new covenant in one faith. And Paul calls them out for it, because he knows that's not what this is all about. Let's go ahead and continue in 2.15 through 21. We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. But if our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we were too to be found sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I proved myself to be a transgressor. For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I've been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself from me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. I love that passage. It's so beautiful. I love that this is such a good picture of our savior. I love that God doesn't require us to jump through different hoops in order to earn salvation from him and his love. He freely gives it to us through his grace and his love for us. Pastor Dan talked about last week, for our good deeds don't get us into heaven. The ceremonial law that they're talking about it's ceremonial law. Just wanna point out, please still follow moral and civil law, just don't need to do that. But the ceremonial law, we don't have to do that, because that was what Jesus did. He was the final sacrifice. So our faith gets us into heaven. And when I was thinking of this, and like, because sometimes we can sometimes think we have to do things in order to earn something. I'm a person that I'm like, I feel like I have to earn everything, but with God we don't. We don't serve a transactional God. We serve a God who already paid the transaction fees for our salvation. I love in this scripture, and it talks about a certain word a couple times, besides law. And if you're in the Bible recap, Tara Lee Cobble does a really good job of helping us look at scripture a little bit more closely. And in this passage, in this section, the word justification comes up a lot, or justified. And I had to look up what justified means, because when I think of justified, my biggest thought is how many of you guys have ever made a purchase before? Maybe for your house, maybe for your girl or guy, maybe a new shirt that was a little bit more expensive than you should have paid. And then you're like, okay, well, I made this much money working at work over time. I did XYZ. So that way, for me, when my husband would come home, I would already have a bunch of good reasons of why I bought it. And it would kind of soften the blow of like, yeah, I spent XYZ on this, but you know why I did this and this and this, make up for it. That's not necessarily what justified means in this. So I looked it up, and Britannica says that in Christian theology, justification is the act by which God moves a willing person from a state of sin on justice to a state of grace or righteousness, justice. And I love that. It's a willing person. You have to be willing for God to move you from your sin in order to have that grace. It's a both and. We weren't removed from our sinful state because of our deeds. It doesn't say in here because you did XYZ, you completed the checklist. It's because of the grace of God and his righteousness. So my sermon is about the crucified life. And if you're listening closely, or maybe you know this because it's probably one of the most chordable verses in the Bible. Galatians 2.20 says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I live now in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I love that. It's one of my favorite verses because it really helps us to be able to come down to the thought of like, what does it mean to be a Christian? When we become a Christian, we look different and our life has to look different because as Paul talks about in this verse, Christ lives in us as Christians. And we need to reflect that by not just living in our flesh, what our earthly wants and desires are, but by our faith, which is what God wants and what God desires. We have to live a life crucified with Christ, especially in the days that we're living now. It's crazy, every day there's something new. And there are three different ways that you can do that amongst other things, but today I'm gonna give you three points. And you know, maybe you're a person who loves to have a checklist and you just cross it off and you're like, okay, check, check, check, I'm good, yay. I'm so sorry to tell you, that's not what today's message is like. Because this is something that you have to do daily. This is something that you can't just do one time and be done, it is daily. Sometimes it's every couple hours, you never know. So point number one, fall in love with Jesus. If you were here last week, you know this is Pastor Dan's first point. But truly, in order to live a crucified life with Christ, you have to know him and you have to love him. So I'm married, my husband and I have been married for three years and one week. Last year, last week we celebrated our three year anniversary. Yeah, so exciting.

And when you go into marriage, you have to get to know that person pretty well before you marry them. You don't just enter in a lifelong commitment with somebody that you don't know. If you did that, come find me in the lobby, I'd love to hear your story. But you don't do that, you have to know them first. We aren't gonna live a life crucified with Christ if we don't know him and know who he is first. We have to understand him and why living a life crucified with him is important. A lot of times, people will also say that the people you're closest around, you start to sound like, look like, all of those things. And that's true also for spending time with God. When we spend more time around God, we become more like him and we know the things that he desires and the things that he wants, so it helps us put away what our fleshly desires are. The more you come to church, read your Bible, pray, worship, you get to know God more who in this passage sent his only son to die for you. A really great way to know God more and to be able to spend time with God more, come to 21 Days of Prayer. It has completely changed my life and my husband's life. We had been coming to New Life for quite a long time and we got on the dream team and we were serving and it was great, but when we fully committed into coming to 21 Days of Prayer every single day, or at least every single time that we could, we had to make sacrifices. We dinner probably at nine o'clock during 21 Days of Prayer, so sacrifices. But it's worth the sacrifice in order to know the Savior. So please come, it starts today, tomorrow we meet for the first time, Monday through Friday, six o'clock to seven o'clock and Saturdays, 10 to 11.

I love what John 14, 15 says and it says, if you love me, keep my commands, or some translations say obey my commands. And a lot of times people will hear that verse and they're like, ugh, really? I don't wanna have to follow a lot of rules. This isn't fun, being a Christian isn't fun because I don't get to do what I want. But they're not living on the right side of that comma. See, if you notice, it says if you love me first before it asks for obeying the commandments. And what I love about that is it shows us that we can't follow God's commands if we don't love him fully first. He calls us to live to a higher standard and to a life that looks different to what the world says is good. But that's the whole point of living a crucified life. Point number two, it says to die to yourself daily. In 1 Corinthians 3, 16 it says, this is Paul talking to the church in Corinth, it's one of his letters, don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and the Spirit of God dwells in your midst. I love that. When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and dwells in us so each of us has God's Spirit in us. In order to live a life crucified with Christ, we have to remember that in our daily choices.

We have to think, is this choice of my flesh? Or is it in my faith? And we have to decide if it's something that we have to die to ourselves on. And this means no longer saying yes to things that maybe make us feel good, but they're grieving the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God that is inside of us. So I actually had an example of this that happened a couple weeks ago. And so a little bit more about me, I'm 27, I'm married. I don't have any kids yet. So my husband and I had this little thing called downtime. And the parents in the room were like, what's that? So in my downtime, I love watching a good movie or a TV show, like that is like my favorite. That's my favorite, that is what I do when I go home. It's awesome, I grew up in a house, we watch movies all the time. In that house where I grew up, we would watch a lot of things, but my parents were very particular on what we were allowed to watch. Some would maybe say sheltered, I say smart, but you can decide. Amen. Just saying. But because I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of things, when I left to go to college, I was like, free for all. I get to watch whatever I want. And I did. Mom, I am so sorry.

But because I was watching whatever I wanted to, I was grieving the Holy Spirit that was inside of me because I was watching things I should not have. So recently, I was watching a show that's very current and I started to feel a check in my spirit that maybe this isn't something that I should be watching. And I think my first sign should have been the commercial that had a lot of witchcraft in it that only played during the commercials of that show. Like very strange, but God was definitely trying to talk to me. And then they had an episode on the show that was very inappropriate for a married woman to watch. And so I had to die to stop myself because I love watching that show. I find it very entertaining, but I knew that it was grieving the Holy Spirit inside of me and it wasn't worth continuing to watch. And I want you to know that like, I'm not saying that you don't live a crucified life if you're watching things like that because that's not my spiritual walk, that's yours. But what I can say is that if you feel like you have to do something in secret, or if you feel like kind of yucky afterwards, it's probably grieving the Holy Spirit inside of you. And it is worth asking God to check your heart on because it's not worth grieving that Holy Spirit. If it is, if it is making you feel yucky, get rid of it. It's a hard choice and you might have to make every day, but I can tell you it is worth it. Point number three is don't bend. So if we go a little bit further back into our reading in verses 11 through 14, Paul is calling out Peter for his conduct. And there was so much to learn from that of what a life that is crucified with Christ looks like.

So in this part, again, Peter's hanging out with the Gentile Christians and everything's great until the people come who are more focused on the ceremonial law. And Peter changes who he is and what he looks like based on who he's around in this story. And Paul, as his friend and a fellow believer, calls him out on it. When I read this, I thought, how often do we as Christians change who we are to match who we're around? Peter knew, guys, God gave Peter the vision that Jews and Gentiles were the same, were both welcomed into the family of Christ. So Peter knew that God said that to him, but still Peter ignored it to match who he was around. Living a life crucified with Christ means that who we are in Christ doesn't change based on who we are around. We don't bend ourselves to fit into a mold that we think will get us more likes or more friends. And if we do, we're at risk of losing what God has for us. So I used to be a former teacher and I love having a good prop. So this is my prop today. And if a spider crawls out of it, I might scream. So it should be good that my husband checked it out before me. But if you don't know what this is, this is a garden hose, pretty fun. Let's say, if this garden hose will cooperate with me, let's say that this garden hose is what living a life crucified with Christ looks like. If I were to hook this up to a spigot, which I won't because I think I'd get in a lot of trouble between Pastor Dan and Isaac, but if I were to hook this up to water. It's dripping. Okay, oopsie.

Well again, hey, there's water coming out of it. Well anyways, if I were gonna hook it up to water, water would come right out of it if it was straight. But if we, and it would fill up whatever it was filling up until overflowed. How many of you guys are gardeners in the room? Anybody? Yeah. So you know, you can overflow things. But if you have a garden, what's the one thing you don't want to happen to your garden hose when you're watering? Kink. Yeah, you don't want it to kink or you don't want it to bend. Well, if this is us living a crucified life and we're on that straight where we have water flowing through it, let's say we get around a friend who makes us feel like we have to compromise our morals in order to fit in. There's a bend in the hose. Let's say that we're watching something or doing something that grieves the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God living inside of us. It bends the hose. So if I were to hook this up to water now, would water flow through it? No. And if it did, it'd be like trickles of water.

When we try to turn on that water, it's not gonna work. When you bend to the world, just like this hose, the water, the flow of the Holy Spirit, that water in your life stops gushing out and it stops overflowing. So your conversations with people who need it aren't gonna look the same because that Holy Spirit isn't being activated.

Friends, in our lives, we can't bend and live a crucified life. There's no both and. Remember how in point two, I said daily, we have to make decisions daily to not bend to fit into what the world says is good. And today that's hard. It's hard to determine, but we have a thing right here. The thing right here tells us what we're not supposed to bend on. We're called to a higher standard because we know the truth of the gospel. In 1 John 2.15 it says, "'Do not love the world or anything in the world. "'If anyone loves the world, "'the love of the Father is not in him.' "'We aren't meant to be worldly "'and crucified with Christ at the same time. "'Like I said, it's impossible. "'We must choose who we will follow "'and die to ourselves daily." And I wanna say with that too, it doesn't mean that we hate people or we're mean to people who are living lives that are worldly because God loves all of us. What it does mean is that we stand apart and don't do things that follow non-believers. But because in this story, we can't be like the Jewish Christians who looked down on the Gentiles. What we are called to do is to share the life-changing gospel with everyone and pray that God alone changes their hearts and to what the Bible says.

So to recap it, in order to live a life crucified with Christ, we must fall in love with Jesus, we must die to ourselves daily, and not bend to fit into the world. Some of you in this room might be thinking, I need to die to myself daily and stop bending who Christ called me to be to fit in. And if that's you, I have a step for you to do. Find someone in your life who can hold you accountable. In the story, Paul calls Peter out, unbending to the world. We all need people in our lives who are gonna call us out in a loving way when we're not living a life crucified with Christ. I love how Barry and Pastor Dan were talking about having men in your life. Have friends, if you're a man, find another man that can hold you accountable. If you're a woman, find another woman in the room, whether that's maybe someone you met out in the lobby, maybe that's someone in your life group, maybe that's someone you serve with. Have someone hold you accountable. I love our life groups at New Life Church. They are so special, and they are so great for people to be able to get to know people and go through things alongside them. But I wanna call out one of our life groups. We have an amazing life group in our church right now that is called Freedom From Addiction, and anything else? Freedom From Addiction and Abuse. And what that group does is they meet weekly here at the church, and they practice being accountable with each other, and they practice what it looks like dying to self every day, and not bending to what the world says is good anymore. Get in a life group. Find people you can be around. Maybe if you're in the room and you struggle with an addiction, find those group leaders. They're gonna be out in the lobby by the prayer room. They're gonna have that life group going through the fall. If that's not you, there's other amazing life groups that you can get into as well. Some of you might be in the room thinking, I'm done with living for myself, and I wanna live that life crucified with Christ, but I don't know who Christ is. Friends, Christ died for you. In this passage it says that, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for you. I don't know a lot of people who give themselves for someone else, but Jesus said, if that's you, I'm gonna ask you in a couple minutes to make a decision, and I can tell you, it is the best decision that you will ever make. And I can tell you this too. Like I said in the beginning of this message, it's not gonna be easy. This is not a one, two, three, and you're done kind of thing. This is hard. This is something you're gonna have to do daily. You're gonna have to work on it. It's not easy, but it is worth it. Go ahead and bow your heads with me. God, I thank you so much for this morning. I thank you for each and every person in this room who's just a son and a daughter of you. God, I thank you that you set your son to die on the cross for us, so that we can live a life with you. God, I thank you for the people in this room who can help other people when they are needing accountability. God, I pray, Lord, that we would just, as we go into a season of life groups in the fall, that God, you would bring so many people to come into life groups to seek accountability, and that you would prepare those to hold other people accountable as well. God, this would be a time where we get to, we get to truly live out what Proverbs 27, 17 says, where iron sharpens iron, one friend sharpens another, that God, you would help us to be able to hold each other accountable and hold each other up. God, I pray for those in the room who maybe don't know you this morning, but are feeling a stir in their heart, feeling like a knocking on the door of their heart to know you. God, I pray, Lord, as they're sitting in their seat, that they would listen to that knock, and they would open the door to you. Some of you in this room might be feeling something, we kinda say, messing with you, and that's God knocking on the door of your heart and asking, will you let me in? So if that's you this morning, and you wanna live that crucified life, you wanna make the decision to follow Jesus, will you raise your hand on the count of three so I know who I'm praying for? With no eyes open, head's bowed. One, two, three. God sees you, God loves you so much, and I am so excited because this is the best decision you will ever make. If that's you, go ahead and repeat after me from your lips to God's ears. God, I thank you so much for this morning. I thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for me, and paying the transaction fees for my salvation. God, I pray, Lord, that you would help me to live a life crucified with you, that you would help me to fall more in love with you, that you would help me to die to myself daily, and that you would help me to not bend who you've created me to be to fit in with other people. God, I thank you so much for that. I thank you that you set your son to die for me, and I thank you that you forgive my sins. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

I think there's supposed to be a video there, but it's all good. How many are you glad to be in church today? Look at it. Look at this room Praise God. I think it's a good opportunity To tell you up parents how many parents have kids that are going back to school in just a few weeks How many of her how many are excited for that? Yeah It's like a bittersweet thing in our house. It's like we love our kids we love getting to hang out with them more often, but we also like routine and they need routine and and Other people telling them to behave and all that so we look forward to the fall as well speaking of the fall If you haven't heard yet, we have two services currently at 915 and 1045 and This fall right after Labor Day the first weekend back. We will have three services So if you can't tell like we need more space Praise God for that and so I'm gonna butcher this but I believe it's at 930. No, no, yeah It's at 830. So this one's gonna go earlier 830 10 and 1130 Is that right? This is if you if you look at me, like what is this guy do I let people will ask me? Hey, can you can you answer this question for me pastor? No, because I have it's obvious that I don't know so 830 10 and 1130 Starting the week after Labor Day, so put that in your calendars get ready for it. We're excited They're made just to give you some warning this by the way This is unbelievable that God is growing our church in this way and and for some of you we're gonna like We're gonna learn from this. We're gonna see what happens But typically what happens is one service is huge the other services a you know, the second service is a little bit less and the third service is a little bit less than that and So there might be we might see this happen I'm just telling you based off of what other people tell me about going to these amount of services is if we end up in A situation where one service becomes overfilled like there's too many people and there's not enough seats We're gonna ask you I'm gonna stand up here. I'm gonna say hey, will you consider going to one of those other two services? So that we can make room for people to experience God. Can we all be on board with that? Come on Let's praise God for that Well, we're starting this series through the book of Galatians and we've been in the book of Ephesians And I love how the Apostle Paul when he writes a letter to these churches He's got something specific to tell them But there's also so much from these letters that that we can glean from that we can learn from and I love Paul Often starts his letters by thanking God for them By thanking God for their faithfulness to Christ and to each other and oftentimes he'll even say like hey I want you to know that I come to you. I'm writing to you Because of these other relationships that I have like I have these relationships with Timothy or or Paul or the other apostles And and he starts this one very differently He starts this one by telling you in a Galatians chapter 1 He says that he's coming to to write this letter not in the name of other people but Just out of side note. How many of y'all feel like you need someone to have validation?

Any of you How many of how many of you are single and you think you need a spouse in order to have validation?

Mmm, or Let's go a different direction How many of y'all think you need that degree to feel like you're capable or good enough? To have that job. Well, some people require it But but think about this for a second Paul would often start his letters with I have these relationships And it's good for for people to know that he has these relationships with other people that that he has backing that they're together in This they're united But Paul starts this letter with I come to you in the name of God only Like God is the one who called Paul To be an apostle Peter didn't call him the Jerusalem Council didn't call him God himself a matter of fact Jesus met Paul on what the road to Damascus and Changed his life Paul was a Pharisee Paul was actually persecuting Christians His name was Saul before then and so he wanted to make a distinction that it is God Who has called me to this ministry and to share this message with you? And so it's important to know that you and I We need to be affirmed by other believers. We need to be together in this We need to be united in this gospel and and in the Spirit of God and on the Word of God But when God called me to plant new life Church, he is also calling you to the ministry that he has specific to you This last week we got the opportunity to host some missionaries That they came from from all over the place. There was people from Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan and from Brazil and there were there were people from from from Texas and from all over the states and I feel like I'm missing some there were there was somewhere else that one of Philippines one of them was from the Philippines and We literally got to see I love doing that because you get to see that God is not American God is global God created the heavens and the earth He created every known human being and sometimes we have this idea of God that is very small But here's that what I love is that the same God who called me to pastor this church is the same God who called them Who is calling you to be a part of his kingdom? To build his church matter of fact one of the girls we got to host them this weekend a Little bit more and we sat together in prayer and worship and we're talking and and one of the girls confessed to us that she felt a little Inadequate to be on this trip with this group of musicians and preachers and and all their talents because she came Because she knew some of them But she also she was taking pictures and she was selling t-shirts to help support the mission that they were on and she said You know, I just feel unworthy or I've not maybe not unworthy. I just don't feel like my gifts are good Like I don't have the gift of singing or of or of teaching or all these things I looked at her. I said don't ever think that your gift doesn't matter Like she was she was taking pictures She's literally telling the story of what God is doing in Visual form and I looked at her I said I guarantee you that most new people that come to our church They see a picture that has taken of what happens here before they've ever heard my voice before they've ever walked into the parking lot Or come into this building. They've seen a picture of what God is doing here and now can I get an amen? So you need to know that your gift matters and so but here's the deal God calls all of us He's calling he's speaking to you To do something for his kingdom's sake just like he said to Paul that he is the one who calls you It's yes I might be my staff our staff our team We might be nudging you encouraging you to step out of your seat to get into the game just like Paul did But but here's the deal It is God who calls and then when you go into Galatians further into Galatians 1 we're gonna go into 6 7 Galatians 6 7 where it says he says the the Galatian church. He says I am astonished That you are so quickly Deserting the one who's the one Jesus? Who called you? Who called you he's speaking to an entire church. He's not speaking to one person. He's not speaking to the pastor I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace This other word is by the favor of Christ and are turning to a different gospel Which is really no gospel at all He says evidently some people are throwing us into confusion. How many of all how many of y'all are confused? In the days that we're living in Like it's confusing Can I can I? Give you some some hope or encouragement or maybe it's Scary, I don't know. It's all of the above

The enemy of yours and my soul Satan Lucifer Was an angel in heaven an archangel in heaven charged with worship. He knows God and He knows his word But he's also a liar he's the father of lies he's the deceiver he knows the word and he twists it

Man so how important is it for us to be united together in his house in his word led by his spirit To have his discernment and wisdom to live through these confusing days Can I get an amen? I mean we need to be excited to be together in this pouring Into the word of God seeking the Spirit of God. And so what is this different gospel? I want to I want to pose to you some key questions to really hammer this point home with you And the first question is this do you think that you can earn? your salvation Do you think that you can be good enough to get to heaven one day? Do you don't have to raise your hand? But if you if you if you think that and believe that I'm gonna show you that that is Not how you're gonna get to heaven You cannot earn your salvation A matter of fact God even says that our our good deeds our good actions are like filthy rags to him Like because he is holy he's better. He's he's perfect. He's awesome. There's no one like him And so even when we try to good it falls miserably short of who he actually is And so the question can you earn your salvation? The answer is unequivocally no It's I want to show you this different gospel This is this is kind of interesting because because Paul is addressing some things that are happening Okay, Paul again giving you some context Paul was a Pharisee. He was a Jewish. Hi

It's my wife everyone welcome. Hi I'm sorry Paul is Jewish He's in the sect of the Pharisees and which is probably the the most tight like we're gonna do this and we're gonna We're gonna live by it and and and so and he's persecuting this thing called called faith in Christ And and and then he comes to Christ and and then he has this interaction with the other believers in Jerusalem And they're trying to get believers in Christ. Check this out to be circumcised So Some of you are like why are we talking about circumcision in church?

Circumcision in the Old Testament was a sign to other people that they belonged to the Jews that they were Jewish people It's one of the ways that God set them apart. They were circumcised unto the Lord It was it was something that delineated them from everybody else It delineated the Jewish people from the Gentiles who are the Gentiles anyone who's not Jewish Are any of you Jewish? Did any of you grow up Jewish? one Everyone else is a Gentile all of us are Gentiles. How many are don't I'm not gonna ask In

Acts chapter 15 verse 5 you see this interaction with Paul and some of the other believers It says then some of the believers who belonged again to the party of the Pharisees They stood up and said again Paul knows this because he was a Pharisee stood up and said The Gentiles must be circumcised and they must be required to keep the law of Moses So there's this there's this there's this disunity happening amongst believers there They're saying that there there's a gospel that belongs to Christ like like you could you can't earn your salvation But then they're trying to tell him no No You have to be circumcised in order to to get salvation or you need to be able to live all of the law in order To receive salvation and and Paul is telling us very clearly in Galatians that that's not a gospel at all It's a different gospel. It's gospel plus and then some By the way, just so you're aware New Testament circumcision is water baptism Water baptism is the sign that you belong to Jesus Christ. I'm gonna talk about this right now It's so so yes, I think there's some some some what is it some some health benefits to circumcision But you don't need to be circumcised and even in order to belong to Jesus Amen everyone because really if you look at the Old Testament, it was a bunch of older men that were getting circumcised

I'd rather be water baptized. Praise Jesus

In Luke chapter 23 In Luke chapter 23 39 through 43 Jesus is hanging on the cross for your sins and for my sins and he's hung between two criminals who actually deserved to be there and One of the criminals that hung their hurled insults at him the scriptures say And he says aren't you the Messiah which means the one who could redeem or save? If so save yourself and us in other words, take yourself off the cross Save yourself from this death and save us But the other criminal rebuked him and said don't you fear God? He said in other words, he was just mocking him Don't you fear God? He said since since you are under the same sentence We are punished justly for we are getting what our deeds deserve But this man this man Jesus has done nothing wrong and Isn't it interesting that Jesus is the most condemned not person on planet earth? even to this day And then he said this criminal he said Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom and Jesus answered him Truly, I tell you today You will be with me in paradise Now let me give you a glimpse of what I'm talking about here because see here you have Paul saying that there's a different gospel That's being preached. There's like a gospel plus a gospel of you still need to earn your way In other words, they're saying that the Pharisees are saying hey You got to be circumcised in order to be saved and Jesus and Paul is telling us no Jesus and Jesus alone is the only way to be saved Remember when I said that that water baptism is the New Testament circumcision that we belong to Christ This guy profess professed faith in God and and he said to Jesus this criminal next to him said Jesus Remember me when you come into your kingdom Can I tell you what this guy did not do? He didn't unhitch himself from the cross Jesus didn't do the same and he didn't go down and baptize him in order to be saved and enter the kingdom of God You don't see it You don't see it Have any of you grown up in a context where you had to be baptized in order to get to heaven?

This is what Paul is speaking about Baptism does not get you to heaven only faith in Christ and Christ alone does let me show you Let me show you in Ephesians chapter 2. We just were there right again. This is Paul It's a clear message Ephesians chapter 2 8 9 it says for it is by grace Favor from God that you have been saved Through faith you believe in Jesus and this is not from yourselves You didn't do the act of being circumcised. You didn't do the act of being baptized You didn't you didn't you had nothing to do with it It was Jesus and Jesus alone This is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God not by works. Check this out. So no one Can boast you can't say hey look at me. I've been baptized. Hey look at me. I've been circumcised Hey, look at me. I've lived this way so perfectly that I've earned Favor with God and grace of God you can't earn favor with God. He gives it It's a gift and the only thing that it can be can be done with it is to be received Is to be received. Here's the second question. I want to ask you this morning out of this passage is Do you think? That you can become more godly again. We're trying to we're trying to earn our way, right? Do you think you can become more godly without God?

Again our our best deeds our best days are like filthy rags before him And so here's the answer to be godly you and I must live a life surrendered to God It's not hey, I'm gonna wake up this morning. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna get her done and it's like, you know God you wake up every day and you're like God through his word through his spirit through worship. God lead me. I Want to I want to be faithful. I want to be surrendered To your will to your call on My life and he's called all of us Galatians 220. I'm I'm jumping ahead to next week. So So you're gonna get a head start Galatians 220 he says I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. Do you read that that that that that that verse in the first song where it says Kelsey, what did it say? I'm so glad I'm born again. Well, I don't know the phrase Praise the Lord. I've been born again This is what he's talking about He has died Spiritually, he's been crucified with Christ and he no longer lives but Christ Lives in me the life. I now live in the body. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and He gave himself for me. I want to I want you to take notes. By the way, what do we say around here? No takers are world changers We got to get this deep into our soul a false gospel the wrong gospel a different gospel The one that Paul's referring to a gospel that is no gospel at all a false gospel requires external duty to earn God's favor I

Don't parents how many I'll wish your kids acted better Listened more

How are you as a kid

Do you think that God the Father Feels the same way as a dad Man, I just I wish I wish they knew how much I actually know And how much I know is good for them and and that what I tell them is is beneficial And and I'm trying to help them and and yet they're we're not listening We're not listening and even if we did listen We're not following We haven't received can I can I tell you I read how many of y'all are disturbed by the things that happened in the Olympics I didn't think I was gonna talk about this today And I don't really know all that happened, but I didn't even watch it and I probably won't watch it but

Anyone even know what I'm talking about So you don't live under a rock, okay Basically the Olympics they with art they mocked Jesus's Last Supper. I

Agree it's ridiculous, but do you know what I think is more ridiculous to Jesus? People who claim to be followers of Jesus who aren't at church Who aren't serving who aren't worshiping him who aren't together? and In revelations it literally gives a warning to churches to Christians that you've you've literally forsaken your first love And yet we have people who claim to be Christian all over the world who are so mad That the world is being the world See I'm saying that that people who who aren't followers of Jesus are being stupid hello And They're so mad and I I'm mad with them

And I don't know how to say this without being judgmental they don't pick up their Bible Because if they did they'd be here They'd be in the house or they would know that the church matters to God That we are the bride of Christ. Do you know what I care about more than anything on this earth beyond Jesus? It ain't my kids It's my bride Do you know what Jesus cares about the most he cares about his bride He cares about his bride. He cares the church is the bride of Christ and Jesus even says this to believers who claim to follow him and know him and love him He says that if you don't follow him the way he deserves to be followed that He we're like lukewarm to him. We're lukewarm in our faith and you know what the language he uses towards them He's gonna chew him up and spit him out Jesus loves us and can I tell you something that isn't an unloving statement. It's a warning

It's just a warning why because parents when you warn your kids that they're gonna do something stupid knuckleheadedness That's gonna get them in trouble You warn them because you know, it's good for them

A false gospel requires external duty to earn God's favor. The real gospel is receiving God's favor God's salvation God's by the way The the word the word for the grace of God can be translated both God's grace and God's favor That you can't earn God's favor. Why as a dad my kids can't earn my love. They have it They have it before they do anything. I Love them no matter what they do. They have it God's the real gospel is receiving God's favor Which is Jesus dying on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and rising again to offer us a new life that we could be Crucified with him just like Paul was and I you no longer live but Christ lives in me The real gospel is receiving God's favor and it changes I internal desire It's a new nature. It's a new spirit that God puts in us that we are born again 1st John 5 3 and then in verse 12 He says this this is love for God To obey his commands To love God is to obey and look what it says here again talking about the father He loves you his commands are not burdensome. Can I tell you what is burdensome? disobedience to God Chasing after your sinful nature is burdensome I mean, I Don't know how many I can ask to be vulnerable in this moment And you don't you know, you don't have to but how many of you have been enslaved to pornography?

Yeah, thank you, no, thank you That's that's realness Those are people being changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ how many of you have been enslaved by an addiction It can I ask you quite is that real life or is that more burdensome? When when God says to be of sober mind when he's telling all of us who are his believers He's telling us to be of sober mind. I'm talking about alcohol. I'm talking about marijuana cocaine heroin I don't know. I didn't know all the drugs there are and that new ones come I love mushrooms But what the heck? How do you get high on mushrooms? Don't tell me I don't want to know

But God doesn't say those things cuz he doesn't like you he says those things cuz he loves you and and to obey him Isn't burdensome. It's to help you But when you chase after your sinful nature and not God and the way he wants you to live It's more burdensome than it is to be obedient to him. Do you see what I'm saying? and so even in this culture of of sexuality and I try to be as as as Truthful as possible, but listen to me God wants you to not watch pornography. He wants you to not lust after someone in your mind Just like you would in your actions This is true for heterosexual couples and of course Jesus goes into Fornication and orgies and he literally talks about all these things Heterosexual he does talk about homosexuality and for some church for some reason the church is just going I don't know. I gotta talk about that. It's too hot and nobody's gonna talk They're talking about it They're mocking our Savior. They're mocking our father who wants to love them. Well Do you see what I'm saying?

Checking the time sorry His commands are not burdensome He says for he she us who has the son has life and life abundance. We have Eternity he who does not have the son of God does not have life church We need to give people Jesus We we I'm we're gonna talk about things in the word and how he wants us to live because he wants us to be free He wants us to live the best life possible But I can tell you shouting from the and I got to check myself. Believe me I got to check myself Paul had to check himself matter of fact He goes on to say he's like hey if I preach another gospel come and tell me come and tell me that I'm doing the Wrong thing come and tell me that I'm I'm wrong. He had the humility to say even I am capable of swaying To a different gospel. Are you hearing me? So we need to be aware and awake. So how do we do this? How do we make sure? We're focused on the true gospel the good news and that is number one. We've got to fall in love with Jesus We have to fall in love with Jesus Can I can I tell you something? Maybe this is an encouragement for some of you Do you like coming to church and hearing me preach? You don't have to say yes because I know I'm not for everyone

I'm an acquired taste as they would say But that's why some people love when Kelsey preaches there some of our guest preachers preach I think you should hear from abundance of joy of other voices, but can I tell you something? There's nothing like hearing from the Holy Spirit of God through his word Because So many times when the got when the Bible offends us people leave new life church or they leave a church and what they don't realize is it's still God's Word and If that church was true and good and stood firm on God's Word that truth doesn't change whether you're here or there Or in another country are you are you picking up what I'm putting down? But the word when it's offensive it's because he is trying to lovingly Correct us and put us on the right path and it's not burdensome. So we've got to fall in love with Jesus We've got to fall in love with his word We got to fall in love with the spirit that corrects us and changes us and guides us comforts us leads us calls us provides for us changes us John 14 15 This is Jesus. He said if you love me You will obey what I command Now here's people read that And

Trying to think how to put this People read that as man. I gotta I gotta I gotta earn it. I gotta I gotta it's pressure-packed. I gotta get it right I gotta be perfect. I gotta live it out and man, I'm if I mess up But here's the thing you need to see in this passage of Scripture When God when you receive Jesus as your Savior and you fall in love with Jesus Your entire desire changes Your desire like when when you have how many of y'all have been again maybe stuck in the addictions of whatever it is and And you all of a sudden you used to just do it You used to just go there and and do that thing and get drunk and get and maybe you still are welcome to New Life Church will love you will hug you you're welcome here But I and not just I the word of God Jesus himself is going to lead you to better And so when I share these things it's not to harm you it's to help you Jesus Is trying to help you But when your desire changes post salvation, there's a new heart a new spirit within you You look at those things is not as oh my god Jesus is the the ultimate fun suck He's like the cosmic killjoy. No, you don't see it that way You you literally your heart your desire changes to God. I want to there's nothing I could do To tell you thank you for what you have done for me I'll never forget this after I was saved by the way, I try to be as real as possible I share a lot of things. I'll share all the things But when I was in college You know playing football for the best university in the entire world Hook the morns we're coming for you in Michigan Oh I have I by the way, just this just time out. Can I take a timeout for a little sports thing real quick? Do you do Michigan fans want to make a little uh wager?

So if Texas beats you You have to come to church wearing a Texas shirt The day after and if and if and if and if Michigan beats Texas I would be happy to be here Michigan beats Texas. I will preach wearing a Michigan Wolverines whatever Who's in who's in? anyways For those of you who aren't sports fans. I'm sorry. I just had to just do that real quick

That's right, but we got a fall in love with Jesus I gotta rein it back in right if You love me you will obey me. It's it's out of a love relationship with Jesus that you begin to see man. I he loves me He wants the best for me and you begin to see his word differently because you're seeing it through his lens of a father Who wants to do what's best for his kids and you begin to lean into that and realize man what he says I want to do because it's actually good for me and And so your nature begins to change So the first thing you've got to do is not try to earn it not try to have this pressure-packed relationship because once you fall in love with Jesus your desire changes and That's what I want for you. So badly. Here's the second one is don't allow condemnation Don't allow condemnation Right, what is the word said for now? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Here's what I mean. Here. Let me get make that abundantly clear So when you have a new nature when you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you and you know What God is telling you is right and wrong and good and and pure and lovely When you watch that pornography you fall again You need to hear and see the blood of Jesus Jesus went to the cross to die for that sin There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus But what did he tell the woman who has caught in the act of adultery but go and sin no more? So so so it's not a oh my gosh. I failed again I'm done. God hates me. No, he he's still with you and He's walking you into freedom and you keep pursuing That thing that is holding you back that is taking you down that is causing you this burden And he is with you every single step of the way. The second one is don't allow condemnation. Are you with me?

Romans 8 1 through 2 He says therefore this that's I just said it Because through I didn't even know that was in my notes I'm just you know because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin And death here's number three Make the choice to obey him because you love him Every day Every day Here's the way I like to put that I I often I have shared with Kelsey when she first met me She thought I was filled with a bunch of rules that were really stupid Didn't you? She doesn't know yet. I'm giving her the example She she led worship at our former church and and one day after their rehearsal the worship pastor who's married Drove her in his car to a restaurant where the rest of the worship leaders were hanging out Which is great. The worship team was hanging out together. It was awesome And I told her I'm like Kelsey you can't get in the car with a married man She's like what do you what but we're just friends. It's fine, right? Yeah, but you have to be Considerate of the fact that when you show up in public stepping out of the car of a married man And and someone might see you and see him together and and then his wife gets a text message or I get a text message You're like who's this guy that Kelsey's with her with at a restaurant? Can I tell you something? There's some things that we need to do There's some things that we need to do to guard the hearts and minds of our spouses Why because we love them? And it doesn't sound extra it probably is extra but can I tell you something when we moved into this building We put cameras all over the place. You know why I Want no one? To think that I could go anywhere in this building and do something I shouldn't do

First of all because I love Jesus second of all because I love my wife and Third of all, I am protecting by God's grace what God has called me to do

It's why many of you you don't even know this if you go through our offices We have these glass panel doors that were already built before we even came in here and and we had volunteers come in here And scrape off this crazy It was like a frosted window and we had people scraping it off It took them weeks and weeks is the it was the worst job if it seriously We had to use like all these chemicals and scrapers And like if Mike Rowe was still doing his dirty jobs job store like TV show he would have done that Why it's because I want to make sure that Everything we do God you can see it and people can see it And it's done right and well Make the choice to obey him because you love him every day Deuteronomy 30 and this is when we'll close it says today I've given you the choice church. He's giving you the choice between life and death and For some of you your sinful nature is screaming that that's the weight of life, but it's not it's the way of death Jesus is the way of life his ways give you life Between blessings and curses. So now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice that you make. Oh That you and I would choose life choose Jesus So that you not just you but also your descendants might live parents grandparents They're gonna see your life They're gonna see your faith And it has an impact You can make this choice By what by earning your way Even in the Old Testament Deuteronomy chapter 3 by loving the Lord your God comes first loving Jesus allowing him to change your nature and then saying God I want to I want to obey you and Committing yourself firmly and only to him. This is the one True gospel and it is key to your life. Let's pray together Heavenly Father we thank you for your word

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning, New Life Church. My name is not Jake the rake or Jake from State Farm, but it actually is Carlton Earling Jacobson and I could give you the names of my nine siblings, we come from Swedish parents and it would take at least ten minutes maybe to get through all those names, I won't do that. But there's three words that I'd like you remember. And that's what this message is going to be about today as we bring a conclusion to this study on Ephesians. I have been so personally challenged by the Word of God, brought by the various speakers starting out with the young people. And it's incredible how the Lord can use different voices as Pastor Dan was sharing with me when we met a couple weeks ago for coffee, how God can speak to us through different perspectives, different experiences. And I trust today that some of the things that I share will not come across as being prideful, but actually being humble as to how God has worked in my life. We've lived in the greater Kalamazoo area quite a few years, and some of the things that I'm going to share are going to relate to some of the experiences that I've gone through. But if there ever was a day that you and I needed the spiritual armor of God, I'd say that it would be now when you agree. And it's God's armor, the armor that Jesus Christ used in his battle with the devil that enabled him after he fasted those 40 days in the wilderness. It was that the Word of God amongst many other things that we'll talk about today. Okay? Three major points, or if you like, three words. It took me until Friday to come up with three words that I felt I'd be able to give you at the beginning and ask you in a quiz at the end. Now let's see if I remember them. Okay? So the first is abandoned. The second is equipped. And the third one is prayer. So you ready? Can you say them with me? Abandoned, equipped, and prayer. Okay. It sounds like you got it. So we'll see if you have it at the end. Now to set the table for today, there's something for you to see. We've got a picture coming up. I'll move out of the way. About nine years ago, I was on my lunch break, and I happened upon this abandoned factory slash warehouse. And I didn't climb over the fence because I can read the sign, which says what? Like kind of stay out. And I don't know if they had attack dogs behind there, like Dobermans or some other kind. But anyway, I decided no way am I going to climb over the fence. But I had my cell phone and I'm not really a great photographer by any means, but it's amazing how many pictures you can take with a phone. And so while I'm standing there and after I just had this overwhelming sense come from God, I believe that just as this warehouse has been laying vacant, kind of in ruins, there's a lot of people in the greater Kalamazoo area. This is not being judgmental, but it's being people. But it's about people who have felt abandoned by God. Like perhaps God was not there when their marriage was struggling, when they were wrestling with a serious illness of a member of their family, or perhaps they were not treated right by their parents or other people. People have felt abandoned like God left them by the sidelines. And perhaps in some ways, these were people that when they were younger, they were exposed to the word of God through Sunday school, through godly parents, through grandparents, through neighbors, vacation Bible school. I remember as a kid when I first with my sister praying with me, decided to give my life to Jesus and follow him. That sister is still proclaiming the word of God. And then going to a service, we were involved in a church that had services Sunday morning, Sunday night, probably Wednesday night, maybe Thursday night, but the scoop is we had to drive about 20 miles to get there. At any rate, I gave my life to the Lord then again and I want to continue to give my life to the Lord on an ongoing basis. I worked at Chequere Motors for a while. I don't know if you knew about Chequere Motors, they are on North Pitcher Street in Kalamazoo. At one time, army tanks were built there. And then the Markins ended up producing the Chequere taxi. This gentleman owned some taxi fleets in Chicago and elsewhere and began to produce that very, very strong Chequere taxi cab. The cabbies liked it because it was steel from the front end to the back end. Now, how do I know that? Because when my buddy wouldn't show up for his job on the framing table, which came right from the welders, it was my responsibility to do some of the things that he did. One of which stands out in my mind, do you think batteries are theft items in cars? Well, you know they are. And so they would have a battery cable attached to the front part of the engine, all the electrical stuff. The battery cable ran the length of the frame to the back and was put in the trunk. That frame had steel from the front end to the back end. And those frames were heavy and big. We used a hoist to get it on the framing table. And I felt like I had a little power and control because I was a rookie in that job. And that job allowed me to turn the line off. I mean, we were into big production. We produced about 23 Chequere taxi cabs a day. I mean, isn't that a lot? Well, you know, maybe not so many. But that's the way that our system worked. At any rate, there's something to be said about strength. Now, we all have a common enemy and we know that things have declined in America. In 1974 or 72, right in that range, the Pew Research Center did a survey of Americans. How many consider themselves to be Christian? The answer was 90%. In 2020, just a few years back, 64% of Americans, including children, considered themselves to be Christians. 30% were religiously unaffiliated. And about 6% were adherents of other religions. To prophet Isaiah in his writings from Isaiah 59, and our granddaughter, Natalie, is going to come up and read this scripture from Isaiah 59. Isaiah prophesied this, wrote this down in about 700 BC. Please go, Natalie, with that scripture. Because justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the public squares and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it and was displeased, and it displeased him that there is no justice. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede. Then his own arm brought him salvation and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. Thank you, Natalie. Appreciate that. Notice God is describing himself through the prophet Isaiah as a warrior. Do you think he had to have a warrior spirit when he helped the Israelis escape from Egypt and he put a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day to block the Egyptian soldiers, Pharaoh and his chariots and so forth. There's an old song we'd sing about, you know, his chariots he cast into the sea. Well, when Moses put down the rod, the water's parted, the Israelis crossed the sea, got to the other side, he put his rod down and the waters collapsed on the Egyptians. What a horrible judgment, you know? And so God is powerful. He's a warrior. Do you think God is concerned about the decline in spirituality in America and in the world? Pertaining to the events in America in 2024, several Bible scholars and bloggers view what is currently happening as the devil overplaying his hand. He has prepared a goose that he thought he was going to enjoy. He was getting ready to cook it. And unfortunately, it's already cooked and it's him that is cooked because Jesus defeated him at the cross. He is not getting the results he desired. So it's obvious that we are in a cosmic war. There's not going to be a quick end. It's been going on since before creation. So this is where the big C that Brody was talking about several weeks ago, the church, you and I are part of the big C, whether as Brody was saying to me earlier, he said, you know, it's here in this building, but it's wherever we go. Are we reflecting Christ? Are we going his strength? Are we going his power and strength? I don't know if you ever chance to see on the Discovery Channel. It was about 10 years ago when this program stopped. It was called the Gator Boys. If you ever caught that, these dudes were tough dudes. They probably wore some boots so they could get in the water. Maybe they didn't because they were so tough, they probably could go barefoot. But you know what? My wife loved that program and she would say, Jake, look at these guys. It's amazing. And I thought they had this long pole with some kind of a metal hoop on it and they'd put it around the neck of the Gator. And then you know what they do? They jump on their back. And so besides jumping on their back, they had some duct tape. I don't think it made any difference what color it was. The main thing is that they avoided the jars of the Gator and it was kind of fun. So you might kind of enjoy this little picture here, a picture that Natalie took one a year ago. A year ago we had an opportunity to visit the Circle B Preserve and Ranch between Winterhaven and Lakeland, Florida. That Gator was about 12 to 14 feet long. And just for effect, could you run it again? Run that video again, please. There he is in the water. He's still kind of long. He hasn't shrunk in size. And I thought the arms on that dude, my goodness, he's got some moss on him too, it looks like. He was hanging out in a swamp and he took a regular path across there. Now you might think, well, this wasn't this dangerous. I mean, I particularly thought it was dangerous to even go there in the first place. We were on the path and we were told as long as you're not going during their mating season, which is late May to like maybe mid July, it's okay. And you know, that was somewhat assuring, but I was kind of thinking, Lord, don't let that Gator come after me because my wife can run faster than I and I might be Gator meat. Wrestling at Gator is not as near as difficult as it is for you and I with the warfare, the lawfare,

the evil that has divided our country. That passage from Isaiah earlier indicated that those who had fled from evil then become the prey. We've seen in our own nation, people who have stood up for righteousness have been somehow viewed as villains. And so I believe God is not pleased with that. And I believe that that he is depending upon you and I as believers not to be smart Alex or whatever word you'd want to use. I have a tendency to be sarcastic. I'm trying not to be, you know, however, God has put these thoughts within my heart and mind and how do I graciously share these thoughts with people to challenge them? Well, in Acts chapter nine, the story is told, we won't be necessarily pulling that scripture up, but X chapter nine, the story is told about Paul's trip from Jerusalem to Damascus. He had received letters from the high priest. He was going to haul the butts of Christians into jail because he was so, he was so mad and so worked up. And you could understand, I mean, it was the Jews that God allowed to bring Jesus Christ to the cross, but it was our sins that caused that event to take place in history. And thank God the Lord Jesus was victorious. But as Paul, and you could wonder from the scripture, well why Saul? It's kind of like, I've got three names, right? Well, four names, Carlton, Erlene, Jacobson, Jake, you know? Paul, Saul, the name was used in different areas. Most of the book of Acts and later in New Testament, he refers to himself as Paul. So this bright light from heaven that flashed and the voice that spoke, Paul's traveling companions could not hear the voice Jesus Christ said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? So begun Paul Saul's experience that changed his life. And there was a man that the story tells there

in Acts chapter nine, Ananias, he had a vision at night. God wanted him to go to the street called straight and to pray for a man, to pray for Saul as he was known. And I could understand any reluctance that Ananias would have. I mean, he was a man that was watching and observing and allowing the clothes of Stephen, the first martyr to be laid at his feet. Saul was a young man who was aspiring to leadership in the Sanhedrin, the 71 member

associated with the temple, 71 men that controlled the civil life and the religious life. They're associated with the temple and he was an up and comer, so to speak. And so Saul was, he was ready to go take some prisoners like he's already did. So Ananias decided to obey the

Lord and the rest is history as the New Testament says. And he said to Saul when he got to him, Saul did not eat for three days nor drink anything. I'm sure he was shaken to the core because of what he had seen. The Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Shortly thereafter, Saul, Paul began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God. And he says in Ephesians chapter five verses eight through 10, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. What we heard so capably from Jessica last week talking about how we have responsibility in our relationships. Whether we are husbands, whether we are wives, whether we are children, whether we are parents, whether we are employees, whether we are employers, we are to guard our relationship so that they are Christ honoring. And then Paul says in Ephesians 3 16, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. So we talked about abandon. Do you feel abandoned today? I want to encourage you turn from that abandonment, embrace Christ in his fullness and be equipped. And so that's the next part of our message. The second point, the armor of God. And Paul says, and I'm going to read this verses six, 10 through 13 and then we'll comment on it. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil schemes. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so when that the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand. Several things stand out in that passage. Paul says, finally, so this is in the sixth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. It's kind of like, okay, I've talked about relationships. I've talked about sin and how you need to turn from sin. I've talked about the immeasurable grace of God that he's made available to you through Christ Jesus. Okay team, are you going to get it? Are you going to listen? And so he's saying finally, he says, your strength needs to come from the Lord. I remember when the first fight club was started here last fall, here at New Life. And I remember Pastor Dan for a fact had three brutes up on the platform doing pushups. One of those was Sam. Sam, you're not a brute, but you got some muscles. I noticed that. And I've been working on mine. They're not quite there yet. But at any rate, while these guys are doing as many pushups as they could do in, what was it? Three minutes? Oh, a minute. Okay. My goodness. I couldn't believe it. And all I could harken back to in my own mind is as a young man, you know, kind of like last year, I could do one arm pushups, one arm pushups. So anyway, it's good that we have physical strength. We want to be physically strong and we want the Lord to bring the healing in our bodies as we have need of that. Paul says put on the full armor of God. So we read about that. The perspective on God from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. And then he says, take your stand, kind of a military stand, you know, like, you know, you are not going any further. This is it. No way, you know. And it's not in our own strength, but it's in the strength of the Lord. And we're not sarcastic. You know, we're not David with Goliath land sakes, but obviously David knew his God and he was empowered by the Lord. And so we're not going to drill down on the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and so on. When Lucifer was kicked out of heaven, the scripture says that one third, one, two, three, one third of the angels departed with him. And so they they're trying to do the thing, but they are still defeated. And so that's where you and I as the church need to be, need to be active. Put on the full armor of God so you may be able to stand your ground. Our strength comes from the Lord. It's not ours alone. Now here's an interesting scripture from the Psalms. I know some of you like horses. Some of you like working out. His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior. The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. You know, a woman who prays can put a lot of people to flight. When we first came to Kalamazoo and we're serving on staff at a church a number of years ago, I remember one of the ladies talking about her husband when he was serving in a second world war, she would quote and believe Psalm 91, which talks about a thousand, they fall at your side. 10,000, you know, I probably got that mixed up a little bit, but at any rate, but it's not going to come nigh thee because of their dependence upon the Lord. I listened with tears kind of come into my eyes when the story was retold of the men who were willing to storm the beach in 1944 on D day 80 years ago of the 235 Marines. If I've got the story straight of the 235, I believe it was like 110 survived that what happened when they threw those ladders up and begin to climb. And when the German soldiers, the enemy at that case were firing down at them, you know, when one fell, another soldier took their place and one up. And it was just absolutely incredible. You know, there, there, there is something that has been done by men and women who were brave and who are willing to trust God, even with their lives. The scripture says about us to not even count our lives onto death because the Lord is able to carry us through that even. And I was so touched and I thought, there's no wonder that the soldiers of that era of the second world war were called the greatest generation. I mean, these dudes were tough and many of them, what 18, 19 years old committed themselves to help bring an end. A little side note here. There was a ship that was leaving from Great Britain to come to America. Lusitania, I believe is the name of the boat. Is that right, Natalie? Okay. Natalie did a, a, you know, a historical story on our family. My grandpa, when he came from Sweden, a year before he had taken that ship from Great Britain to come to America, Ellis Island, an immigrant. And it so happened that then, approximately about a year later, it was the sinking of that boat by the German subs that caused the United States to be alarmed enough to get into the battle in the second world war. And so the comparison, the illustration, I don't know what it's going to take for you personally to decide that you are going to be a warrior for Christ, that you are going to be one that gives yourself. You're going to take the equipment that he has provided for you as the word of God says. Let's look at that soldier a minute. Paul was in a Roman prison. He had some freedoms and so forth. However, he probably saw a batch of these guys around. So, uh, even though in this scripture, he's not talking about this dude's armor, but let's just talk about this dude's armor just a little bit. Paul was talking about God's armor that Jesus had on that you and I need on. So we'll start from the top. What is the top called? The helmet of salvation, right? And then across the chest, the breastplate of righteousness and his belt of truth is kind of hidden. I used to go into this one dairy mart party store, I think, to get milk or something. And maybe I bought some Snickers. Don't tell my wife on the way home from work. And, uh, the one dude would say, dude, that was not the right way for him. The gentleman who was the cashier behind the counter, he was, he was a little bit gruff and he said, well, what's the word? What's the word? And I said truth. And he looked at me truth and what I was thinking in my mind, but I didn't have the guts to say it. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. So I'm getting bolder now. If I do, if a man, a cashier, a woman or lady asked me that I'd say that. Anyway, the belt of truth, it's kind of hidden because his, um, we'll call it his, his tunic, okay, is covering that up. But he, a place where the sword could be put. And then he's got on some pretty decent shoes and Paul refers to shoes, the gospel of peace. If we go in the name of Jesus Christ, if we go with hearts that are tender and willing to be kind and gracious to other people who are different than us, the Lord can use us. I was so impressed by the teens who shared, uh, on that report when they came back from access about going to pray for that one man that said, no, no, no, no, no. And he finally said yes. And that sometimes is the, the reluctance that someone will have towards us praying. But it was, it was so good seeing people respond today to be prayed for. Jesus gave this illustration about the woman who wanted to be avenged of her adversary. And she came to the judge and the judge said about this situation. It wasn't that he was such a, I'm paraphrasing the words that he was such a good man or anything like that, but he was just getting so tired of this woman coming to him. And so Jesus said, and although I know the subset of this story is that God is not upset with us coming frequently, but in fact, the judge said, you know, I've got to help this lady. So she's avenged of her adversary. So she stops coming to me. Now again, that's not the way God views us, but the whole point of that story was it's okay. If you, if you ask the Lord to bring salvation to your household, to your parents, to your brothers and sisters, to your nieces and nephews for the neighbor across the street, whomever, we just got a report that one of our young nephews, just a sweet young man, if I could use that word, he's kind and loving. He's not quite as gruff as his dad is, but his dad, his dad also has got a good side to him. But anyway, we received the report, excuse me, that he had given his life to Jesus. I tell you what we rejoice because we've been praying for the large families that both Jacque and I have. She came from a family of six. I came from a family of 10 and we are seeing God answer prayers. Now I got to take a sidestep again here before we get to the praying and it's okay that the soldier is gone, but you have some idea and I chose this shirt for today because I believe it's a spiritual fight. And the way that I feel about America, I don't think America's washed up. I think America needs a reset. I think we need a regeneration. We need the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So two things that are going to be sidesteps before my last point on praying. Competition. My wife and I are so competitive. When I met her at college, I was one of the few guys that could beat her at ping pong. And she thought the reason I didn't bring my car to college is because I had a nice car at home. Well, that wasn't the case. It was an old Ford that had nice blue finish on it, wherever there wasn't rust spots. And when I'd go to the gas station, it was to fill the oil and check the gas, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I would beat her in ping pong. We went bowling for a date sometime after that. Do you think my wife would let me, you know, she'd be just a nice little woman, you know, and let me beat her bowling? Oh, no, it was okay. And so then fast forward a little bit. I go golfing with her brothers, her 12 year old brother, and now I'm probably 18, 19, whatever. Her 12 year old brother beats me. I'm not a golfer. I'll admit it. And I didn't live that down. The scoop is don't do it right now, but sometime look up big Duke, a gracious man, her father, who was a champion boxer in his prime. If you know history at all, he fought Sugar Ray Rhombus in Chicago and almost beat him. He went to 14 rounds. And when he, I believe, when he had gotten down, fallen down, whatever, being knocked down, he got up. Sugar Ray did not want to box him again. And so at any rate, this man, so gentle and humble. When we go to visit her folks on the east side of the state, we were sitting in there at the kitchen or something and say, where's dad? I looked out the door and he's out there. He had either washed our car. And if he didn't do that, he had some kind of a treatment he was putting on the car. And he was so gracious and humble that way. Boxing had played a trick on him, you know, the, the disease that set in a little bit, Parkinson's disease after that, you know, and it affected his speech. But I'm not kidding you. He was so kind and gracious and he knew the Bible and he was loving and kind. The kids enjoyed him at Sunday school and at church because he'd always have pockets full of candy. Well, I don't have any candy to give you, but anyway, what I do have to give you is number three. Is that right? So we talked about abandonment. We talked about being equipped. And the third one, what was the third word that I said? Okay, here we go. Paul said to the believers in Ephesus, and his word would speak to us today as from the Lord, I believe, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. And Paul was humble enough to ask them to pray for him that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. He was basically, he was in captive, right? Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Here's a little phrase, not original to me, but I think it's important. Pray like your life depends on it because it does. Pray like your life depends upon it because it does. When I was in Bible college, second year, shared an apartment with three other brothers. And this is crazy. One of the brothers worked an overnight shift at the post office and being the spiritual guy that I was, I mean, that year, I think I was president of the sophomore class, big deal. Anyway, I knelt by the bed and prayed before I went to bed. And he got home, I think in the morning, like five or so in the morning, maybe six. And I was still kneeling and praying. I mean, I was kneeling and sleeping by the bed. My knees hurt. It was crazy. I decided to think I'm going to lay down next time I start praying like that.

When should you pray? When you're running, walking, biking, motorcycling, driving your car. And even if you have a Jeep that has a litany of ducks on the back wheel or across the deck, for land sakes, pray because those ducks aren't doing it for you. Pray while shopping. First time this happened to me, I thought it was a little odd. Sometimes the bright lights in the fluorescent lights in the big box stores, it's almost too much, the Meyers, the Walmarts, the Menards, those stores. And I'd wear sunglasses, but it's like the Lord peeled back that reluctance in me. And this prayer dropped into my heart. I felt it was from the Spirit of God. I pray, Lord, I asked you to drop the question of you into the hearts of these people who are shopping at this time, even until the store closes tonight. I pray that you would do that. Other times when I've been driving, I used to have to drive to the east side of the state for my job, I'd see some semis going by, Lord, I'd pray for those drivers and their families. I pray that your Holy Spirit would touch them. And sometimes when I, again, I thought this was kind of nuts. And I don't expect you to imitate what I've done. But the whole point is you trust the Holy Spirit to make and apply this message to you so that you can be ready to deliver the message to those who feel abandoned, because you've got the equipment, you've got the power of God. And so almost like laser like, I wouldn't take my hands off the wheel because that would not be good when you're driving. But I'd pray when I'd go through neighborhoods, Lord, touch these neighbors. When I drive by churches, and I've been doing this probably for about 20 years, I would say, Lord God, touch the leadership, touch the congregations, let your Holy Spirit be poured out. One of the key congregations throughout America has a symbol on it, like a flame of fire associated with the cross. And it's making reference to the Holy Spirit, the work that God is doing. Those churches need to be touched by God and His Holy Spirit. That rainbow sign next to their marquee, that movable sign, that needs to be cleansed and cleared off of that church. But at any rate, not being judgmental, but we know that the Lord is looking for holiness and righteousness. How about your neighbors? Do you know the names of your neighbors? Now that's a hard work to get the names of your neighbors, and it takes effort. And I use notes on my phone to just zip them down when I hear them. And then I probably ask them about three or four times because it's hard to remember sometimes. So it looks like I'm about at a time. One other thing here, and this is about the Greater Kalamazoo area. And who knows how the Lord's going to have us plug into it. But I do know that Safe Families is, I have the title right, Safe Families is doing an awesome thing. Sitting there, getting the oil changed, waiting in the waiting room at a local dealership. There was about five or six people sitting there in the room, and three of us happened to get into conversation. One was a sheriff's deputy, the other was a mortgage broker. He had the day off. And then myself, the popcorn maker, the pop can filler, and the garbage takeout man at the East Hardware in Texas Corners. That's a little promotion there. Okay. The popcorn's good, by the way. I know the guy who makes it. Yeah. Thank you, Dan. Good testimony. So anyway, here we go. We're talking about the homeless problem. And none of us had a real secure answer, except we know that some things are being done. And it's like the Spirit of God prompted me to say this. Like what is the solution? I said, spiritual revolution, spiritual revolution. And just about then my car was ready, ready to go. And I left and I was pondering as I'm driving home. Now, Lord, why did I say that? I mean, like I said, I'm kind of verbose and sometimes I don't get, I spend too much time on the details, but I just felt like spiritual revolution. And I began to pray then for those two men and the other people that were there in the waiting room. And so again, it's not for me to draw attention to myself, but who knows how the Spirit of God wants to use you? Who knows how God would want to use you like he used Ananias to go pray for Saul. He may use you to speak to the president of your company. He may use you to speak to the manager where your work is. He may use you to speak to that teacher or professor or college president who is taking the university a wrong way. Who knows how God wants to use you? Are you willing to be bold? Are you willing to realize that there's a society that has abandoned God and we need to have a return and repentance and revival and renewal in our country? And believe you me, it's happening. I know it's happening. I read a story about a gal who was a former Wiccan priest who in the state of Texas, she together with some other associates, I believe it was earlier this spring or something, 2000 people were water baptized. I mean a woman that was serving the devil. I think Saul who later we refer to as Paul, now the apostle, he was killing Christians. What took place at Asbury University? It was because some students have been praying for some time. What took place at the university of revival and one of the, I believe one of the Carolina or Georgia universities. And so one of these days it's going to break out at WMU. It's going to break out at Kalamazoo college. It's going to break out at KVCC. It's going to break out at the homeschool association where students are taught and et cetera. And it's going to break out in your neighborhood and wherever your feet are going. If you go shed with the gospel of peace, the shoes of Jesus Christ, humility and a willingness to be his vessel. You know what? The devil is an accuser. He wants to kill, steal and destroy and bring up shame for some things we've done in our life. Maybe many things we've done in our life. The blood of Jesus Christ, the scripture says cleanses us of all sin and it washes us enables us to be righteous. Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you that

though it seemed like your father abandoned you when you died on the cross, you said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But you knew in your heart that you were doing what your father wanted to do. You said in your life, I came not to kind of build my own thing, but to do what the father wanted me to do. And I thank you for that Jesus because you were so willing. We want to imitate you. We want to be equipped with the spiritual armor that you have portrayed and what you put on us. And Oh, father, we ask for forgiveness and cleansing from sin in each of our lives. We want to live as holy vessels. We want to be equipped with the spiritual armor so that we can withstand the fiery darts of the enemy. And Oh, Lord God, we want to pray like there's no tomorrow. And father, we ask in Christ's name for your help. Now, while heads are bowed and eyes are closed, I want to pray that you are. Well, heads are bowed and eyes are closed. I want to ask you and I'm going to be looking because I'm asking and I want to pray for you. Are you needing to come to Jesus? Are you needing to surrender your life to him? If so, I'd like to have you raise your hand. Okay. Any others that sense that the Lord has drawn you by the Holy Spirit? Okay, that is good. And then I'd invite others, everybody to stand with me. We're done with that. I want to pray another prayer, but I'd like you to do this exercise with me. Let's take to ourselves the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, our feet shed sod. I'm sorry, I'm getting mixed up there. Our feet covered with the shoes of the gospel of peace like Jesus Christ, the shield of faith. No fiery darts are going to get through from the enemy, right? If they do, try to get around. Man, we're going to take the sword of the spirit, the word of God, and we're going to, we're going to take him down and a prayer then for you now in Christ's name, Father. Thank you for this group of people who love you. And we pray that because of the ministry of Paul, the apostle in the Ephesians, we're going to be different because of what you've done in our lives. We give you thanks now in Christ's name. Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

thank God for the opportunity to bring his word to all of you. We've been in Ephesians for eight weeks now. Can you guys believe it? Does it seem that long? It doesn't to me. We've had incredible speakers teach us about Paul's letter to the early church. And it shows us what we want our church and our lives to look like today. I connect better with a speaker when I know a little bit about them and about what they're bringing to the stage based on their own experiences. So today we're going to talk about the Christ-centered household. And I feel like I need to answer the question for you, where have I lived in that household, right? I grew up in a Christian household. My parents taught me at a very young age to love and trust Jesus as my savior. We went to church whenever we could, but like my own family right now, everyone was involved in sports and going in different directions. So there were times that we missed. And I can tell you that I truly loved Christ, but I don't know that I truly loved his church. I walked in to the church because I wasn't always there or because I didn't take the time to connect with his people to get involved. And I didn't feel like I was a member like I was in my own home. That might be exactly why God called me to work for this church, where our goal is that you walk in the doors on Sunday morning and you feel welcomed, you feel loved, and you learn that you're needed and known in this place. My parents have been Christ followers my entire life, but I wouldn't say that it was until the storms of life ravaged our comfort and revealed cracks in our foundation that our family came to truly, completely rely on Jesus Christ and rely on his church that he gives us to support us and hold us up. If you know us as a big crazy family of 16 people who seems to just get along and all live within three miles of each other, I'm sure you also know that that didn't come easily. That didn't come from an easy life. That came through feeling that life was crumbling and learning to rely on God and one another. This August, my husband Chris and I will be married for 17 years. He's not here this morning because he's with our twins at a lacrosse tournament, but they will be online with us. We also have a daughter, Eliza, who's nine, and I would tell you that we are living in a Christ-centered household today because of the foundation that my parents built, because of the foundation that all of you have poured into me that Pastor Dan and Kelsey have poured into me over the years. Do we get it right all the time? Absolutely not. Are the things I'm preaching up here something that happens every single time in our house? No, we mess up. Our kids mess up. We make terrible parenting decisions sometimes, and we pay for those, but every one of the five of us living in our house knows exactly who holds us all together and who we have to stand firm on. That's plenty about me, so I want to pray, and then we're going to get to the word. Jesus, thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to your church today. God, we want to hear from you and not from me. God, I pray that you would speak through me and in spite of me. I pray that we would hear your word through the lens of your Holy Spirit and not through the world and the culture that we live in today. I pray, God, that we would even see the differences and the reasons that our culture's households are falling apart because we're not following the structure that you set out for us. And I pray, God, that we would be encouraged in the way that we are. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen. So today we're in Ephesians 5, 21 to 6, 9. I'm going to read the entire passage to you guys from my Bible if my eyes are good enough to see up here. I've never attempted this. Starts out with wives and husbands. Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or anything like that. But holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it just as Christ does for the church. Since we are members of his body for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is profound. But I'm talking about Christ and the church. To sum it up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself and the wife is to respect her husband. Children and parents. Children, obey your parents in the Lord because this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land. Fathers, don't stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, today's word would be like servants or employees. Obey your human masters with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your heart as you would Christ. Don't work only while being watched as people pleasers, but as slaves of Christ. Do God's will from your heart, serve with a good attitude, as to the Lord and not to people. Knowing that whatever good each one does, slave or free, he will be receiving this back from the Lord. And masters, treat your slaves the same way without threatening them because you know that both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no favoritism with him.

Paul gives us a picture of the foundation that's necessary for a Christ-centered household that overflows into a Christ-centered church and community. Our household is where it all starts. It starts in our own heart and then in making that the foundation of our household and then we're able to serve our church, our community. Do everything that we do that Pastor Dan was talking about to bring people to know Jesus. When we build our lives and families according to his plan, his blueprint, if you wanna say on his firm foundation, we're able to overflow with his love, his service and his message into our spouses, our children, employees, churches and communities. I woke up in the middle of the night one night while I was preparing this message thinking about the words foundation and overflow. I was very confused. I don't like waking up in the middle of the night but they were stuck in my head and I was trying to figure out where on earth it was coming from. Had I had a dream, was I reading something yesterday? Trying to figure out where they were coming from, I also started thinking about the connections between God's biblical foundation for marriage and the foundation of a building. The elements that are required in the foundation of a building to ensure it will weather any storm and any disaster, to ensure it'll stand the test of time and that it will protect its inhabitants rather than crushing them under its weight. I knew this was from the Holy Spirit because you guys I know nothing about building and I've never cared to. I trust the people that do to build roof, foundation, everything, put it over my head and keep me safe. I continued to look into my Bible, podcast, sermons and each one was giving me something about foundation and that was a confirmation that it really was the Holy Spirit, again because I know nothing about those things. So starting in verse 21 today, we read, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. What we need to know though is that this is not a stand alone sentence in the original writing. It actually started in a really long sentence that Paul starts in verse 18. So if I were to read it to you as one long sentence as he wrote it in the original language, it would be filled with the Holy Spirit speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts of the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father.

And then it goes on to say, for everything in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ and submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So in our passage today, Paul isn't saying, okay, I'm done talking about the Holy Spirit that Dan was preaching on last week that gives us that new life in Christ and now I'm gonna move on to marriage. No, he's actually saying, I'm talking about the Holy Spirit and how he is going to make you able to live this life in your marriage, in your parenting, in your household, in your work relationships. He doesn't want to separate those two, even though we do because our language is different. So it's really a subheading of this is what the Spirit-filled life looks like. It's what your marriage should look like. It's what your work relationships should look like if you're relying on him. Why is it important? I think because if we look at the world today and the two views of marriage that psychologists say that we all come from in some way or another, one is the old worldview that you marry to secure your position in society, to secure the job that you want, the children that you want, to secure your family, to provide for them. It's definitely this culture that the Old Testament people were living in when we would see wives needing to be provided for and have children. We would even see them taking it upon themselves to give their husband, their servant, to have children because they couldn't. They were trying to secure their role in society. Now, was God's intention for it to be this way in the Old Testament? No, but he shows us through those stories that his perfect plan can come through his imperfect people. If we read about those people in the Old Testament and saw that they did it all right, we'd be like, pfft, I can't do it. I'm not like Abraham. I'm not like Sarah. I can't do this. But we see that they are messed up people just like us. And he's showing us his plan and his redemption through them. The other more Western view of marriage is that we love, we get married for love and passion, right? And that's probably what we grew up with if we grew up here in the States. We kind of throw aside that whole societal, this is what I need to get to where I want to be, or this is what my family has arranged for me. And we marry someone because we fall in love with them and we're passionate about them or about the same things that they are. Both of these views of marriage though are self-focused. They come down to I need, I want, my family needs, my family wants, I'm expected to, I'm planning to, I'm passionate about. God isn't in any of this when we're focusing on just those two. So when we look at scripture today and learn about marriage and household relationships founded on Jesus and the word, we need to throw off those preformed notions that we have of marriage. We need to throw off the worldly view to accept the Christ-centered, Holy Spirit-filled, empowered marriages that we're actually called to live. The relationships Paul describes in this section cannot exist without the Holy Spirit in our lives. They don't fit the world's view of marriage. And we can't expect our non-believing friends and family to have marriages that look like this. We can't necessarily model ours after theirs until they have the Holy Spirit. So the only way to marriage and relationships that Paul describes through a relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we can't get there without it. It doesn't exist and it doesn't work. As we work our way through today's verses, I have three things I want to show you, three major foundational elements of the Christian life that Paul's describing. The plan, the power, and the purpose.

Our plan or blueprint for Godly relationships is found in Christ's relationship with us, every one of you sitting in this room, his bride, the church. Our power source in Godly relationships is found in the Holy Spirit. And our purpose in Godly relationships is to see our person that God's given us as he intends them to be, to surround them, protect them, support them in their God-given role, and work together as a single unit to advance the gospel. We can also look at these three elements as pieces of a foundation in relationship to a building or a home or the household that we're talking about. The plan then becomes the blueprints and design for the building. God's blueprints for our marriages and other relationships is found in his word and on the example that Christ set for us when he came to rescue his church. The power source is the foundation of the entire building and what it's built on. In Jesus' time here on earth, that was called the cornerstone in buildings and we see Jesus called the cornerstone in the Bible. In today's world, it would probably be the footings that get dug deep into the ground to pour in rebar and concrete, not pour in the rebar, pour in the concrete, put in the rebar. It's what the entire structure rests on and relies on for its strength. It's our mutual relationship with Jesus and his Holy Spirit. And then the purpose or the intended function of the building is to surround, protect, and prepare the people inside to become more like Jesus, to advance the gospel both inside and outside of that home. Let's go back for our passage today and look at the plan God gave us for a godly marriage and household. We see that in every one of these verses, it says out of reverence for Christ. As to the Lord, just as Christ, it's pretty clear who our model is to be and whose example we're supposed to follow, right? What do we know about Christ's example for our relationships that he set through the way that he loves people here? We know that his love is sacrificial. It's freely given without regard for our flaws or for the way that we are today. It's protective, it's formative, and it's forgiving. Jesus chooses to love us just as we are when we're unlovable, and he chooses to see the future glory that he puts in us through more so than our current flaws. But does he ignore our perfections? Imperfections, I mean, no, he doesn't. Because he loves us too much to leave us that way. He loves us too much to leave us where we are when he knows what we're intended to be. He addresses and creates a desire in us to turn from our old ways and to become more like him. His focus isn't stuck on who I am today, praise the Lord, but it's rooted in who he knows God has called us to be and who he gave his life for us to become. Amen. Thank you, yes. Now let's look at the specific instructions that Paul gives to each member of these relationships, wives versus husbands, children versus parents, slaves versus masters, in light of Christ's love and example. So he says wives, we have two things we have to do. We have to submit and respect. Husbands are called to love, sacrifice, and care for. Children are called to obey and honor. Fathers are called to discipline and instruct and train. And then slaves or today's employees are called to obey, respect, revere, and serve. And masters are called to show that exact same respect to their slaves, their servants, their employees, knowing that God is their master and that he doesn't have a favorite between them. When your brain starts to tell you that these rules and that the way that they're lined up could be harmful in today's society, I want you to remember who Paul is speaking to and about. First off, in that culture, the wives, the children, and the slaves would not have been addressed at all. In that worldly culture, they had no rights whatsoever. They were treated more so as property or a means to an end. So the fact that he even addresses them and that he addresses them first means that he is turning that society upside down. And he's saying, you are loved, you are worth being cared for, you are equal in Christ's eyes with anyone else who's in a role that's actually over you. Second, he's talking to a Christ-filled church. He's talking to the new church and he's called them out of the culture that they were living in. He's speaking to followers of Jesus with the assumption that they are filled with the Holy Spirit, that both husband and wife know God and follow and serve him, that they understand that submission and obedience are safely given in that relationship when both people are submitting to God. He's not speaking to relationships where submission or obedience can end in abuse or sin causing the other person to sin. That's a time that we don't obey or submit. So let's dig in and wives, we get it first. And I'm sorry, you might get it the heaviest today because I was reading it to myself. It says in further, submit to one another out of reference for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. And then it goes on to say, he is the savior of his body, the church, that's talking about Jesus, as the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. Submit and respect. Ugh. There's, the verse goes on in verse 33, where it says, so again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Those words take a negative connotation in today's society. I personally find comfort in my role to submit because I know that if Chris is following Jesus and listening to the Holy Spirit, he carries a weight that I don't have to carry. I get to submit to him as he submits to Christ, and that is a comforting role. But some of you here today, especially if you grew up without a Christ-centered household, probably wanna push back at that word, to show that we're equals, we're not subject to our husbands, to show that God loves us both equally. We think of it as passive and silent when we hear the word submit. But I don't believe that that's how Paul intends it to be. I believe Satan wants to deceive each and every one of us into believing that submission is passive and silent so that he can create cracks in our marriage foundation by messing with God's blueprints. Think about it for a minute. Is Satan messing with the blueprints for your marriage to create a faulty foundation? We have to cast him off and follow God's words so that we can have the strength in it. He wants to deceive you into believing that God sees you as less than, inferior, silent, and passive. But our God, just like we sang in the first song today, is a God of order, not a God of chaos. He knows that we will have disputes, he knows that we'll have disagreements in our marriages, and he's actually giving us the blueprints to define our roles before we hit the standstill of that fight. He's saving us from some of that tension that comes in a household when we're imperfect people living together. In fact, the word that Paul used, submit, is a military word. And it means to fall in line for the greater good of the entire unit, not just serving oneself. So when we're submitting to our husbands and they're submitting to Jesus and our children are obeying and honoring their parents and we are not exasperating our children, we're all falling into line for the family for that household unit.

Remember too that he's speaking to Christians, to wives that are able to say, my husband is submitting to the Lord. He's filled with the Holy Spirit. He's not submitting to his own will. That makes it a whole lot less scary to submit to someone. When we can trust that our husband has equal access to God that we do, and if we don't trust that, we definitely need to check ourselves and have a conversation. We are able to rest on knowing that he's trusting God while we're trusting him. Submission does not equal silence though. I think I may have believed this at some point that submission meant, yes sir, that's what we're gonna do, I'm not gonna ask questions. Silent submission comes out of fear and a desire to avoid conflict in our relationships, right? We want this illusion of peace because it feels better and I am definitely a person that struggled with people pleasing and not wanting to address the conflict. I would just want to walk out of the room, be like, okay, you got this. But that comes with selfish motives. That's not being used to support and prepare our husbands for who God's called us to be. That's not encouraging him to live out his God-given purpose here on earth. It's coming out of our own desire to be comfortable and avoid hard conversations. It comes with the assumption that our spouse can't hear from God or isn't willing to hear from God like we are. It's no longer about building him up when we're silent because we're not choosing to see him as Christ sees him as he grows. So as wives, we are called to submit, respecting our husband's role as the head of the household, honoring him in that position, and encouraging him to grow in his leadership. We pray for our husbands. We choose to address areas of concern with love and respect and kindness, always though with the focus of helping him grow into who God wants him to be, not who I want Christ to be.

Submission isn't passive. It isn't silent because we are his supportive partner and we're actually called to be one with him. Now we also though need to yield to the Holy Spirit in when he wants to use my voice and when he wants to use his own voice because sometimes my voice, as the Bible says, is a clanging gong and it's not going to get anything out of Chris. Or it's a clanging gong to Pastor Dan, you know? Very well could be. A nagging wife doesn't gain any traction in trying to drag her husband into the role that she sees him in. A very wise female pastor, Crystal Sparks, who spoke to us at our marriage conference, explained it to me in this way, and it was so good. She said that just like a family has designated seats at a dinner table. Anybody, do you always sit in the same seat when you sit down to eat dinner? Yes, yes, awesome. So we do too, and we have these designated seats, but everyone's invited to the table. So in God's kingdom, every one of us is invited and we're all equal, but we do have designated seats. And he says that our husband is designated to sit at that head of that table as the spiritual leader of our household. Now as wives, sometimes we see our husband and we think he's not there yet. He's not following Jesus. He's not listening to the Holy Spirit. He's not praying about this. And what do we wanna do? We wanna go and be like, I'm gonna sit in your seat now because you're not doing it right. But Crystal said we are never to take his seat because that's not our designated role. We are to love him and pray him into that role that God's chosen for him. We're to prepare the table and keep the seat open.

What does submission and respect look like in my household? It's not always perfect. There are definitely times where I probably use it as an out to answering the kids on something. Your dad's the leader of the house, go ask him. It happens and then he's like, but I don't care, so go ask your mom. And then they get really mad at us and say, can anyone just answer? But yesterday I thought it was funny. We were at a lacrosse tournament and the leader of the boys team, but also the whole lacrosse division, I can't think of the word, comes up to me and he's like, I heard a rumor that your boys are trying out for a different team. And I was like, yeah. He's like, how do you feel about that? Well, I don't like the idea of the drive. I don't like the idea of the further travel, but they really want exposure to college teams. They really think that they can work hard and do this. And he looks at me and he says, what does Chris say? And I was like, well, Chris says that they should have a chance to try and then we'll decide as a family. And he said, so you're gonna let them try. I said, yeah, who leads your house? Chris. And he was like, wait, what? You're a mom in sports and Chris leads your house. Yes, Chris is in charge. If he says that they can try and that we'll pray about it and figure it out as a family, that's what we're gonna do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wives, you're off the hook for a minute other than listening to what your husbands are supposed to do for you in their role. So for husbands, Paul says, this means love your wife as Christ loved the church. He gave his life up for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. And then he goes on to say, he did this to present himself as a glorious church, present her to himself as a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. Remember, they're called to be one. No one hates his own body, but feeds and cares for it. Just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. So husbands, you're called to love, care and sacrifice for your wives. You're called to see them as Christ sees them, to prepare them to be presented to him in that glorious day where we get to see him face to face, spotless and without blemish. Following Jesus's love, your love is to be freely given without regard for the ways that she's not measuring up to who you thought you married or who you thought you could turn her into. She may not quite be there yet, but your love is supposed to protect her, be formative for her and forgiving. You're to care for her as much as you do for your own body. So these are the blueprints for our marriage, the plan given to us through Jesus. Following those blueprints brings glory to God and provides a solid foundation for the rest of our household, for parenting together, working to advance the gospel, working in our communities, our places that we go, our churches. So we have number one and two so far. We have the plan that God gives us. It tells us who to follow and how to follow him. Then number two, we have the power to follow that plan that comes through the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Without the Holy Spirit living inside of us and guiding us in these relationships, they're not possible. We don't have the power to love one another the way that Christ loves the church. And without his power, we're left to our own human strength and guys, it's not enough. In Ecclesiastes 4.12, we see a picture of this when we read, a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. Three or even better for a triple braided cord is not easily broken. Who's our third? It's the Holy Spirit, he's in the center. We're braided into him. I want to take you back for a minute to the building foundation that we were talking about. In order to stay standing and protect the inhabitants, a building has to have a solid foundation. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are our solid foundation. Everything in our marriages and our household relationships depends on the presence of that foundation and the depth of that foundation. The Bible tells us that Jesus is our cornerstone and we are being built on his foundation. It says God is building a home. He is using us all, irrespective of how we got here, in what he is building. He used the apostles and the prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day, a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. So what's a cornerstone? It was traditionally the very first stone laid in a masonry foundation that directed the entire rest of the building, of what direction it faced, of where it went, of what ground it was on. All of the other stones were set in reference to it, but today, cornerstones have actually become pretty symbolic. They've moved them from the actual first stone to a very visible stone placed in a church. Sometimes they'll even be glass and have memorabilia in them. Or sometimes they'll be over a doorpost with the architect or the family name or whoever designed it inscribed on it. We need to make sure that Jesus is not becoming merely symbolic or commemorative in our households. We have to actually build our lives on him or our foundations will fall. Today, structurally, we hear more about foundations as footings. They're the critical component in a building that goes deep into the ground so that they can make amends for what kind of soil you're building on. And their purpose is to support the entire weight of the building, to spread it out, so that it doesn't settle in troublesome soil, so that it provides a solid foundation for the structure by transferring that weight to a deeper, more solid layer like bedrock. Soil in our hearts, bedrock as in Jesus, and Holy Spirit in the word. Have you all heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa? I think there's a picture of it coming up behind me. It's the most famous example of a failed foundation. They built this thing, it took 200 years to build. It kept stopping and starting. But they built it on clay and shells and sand and didn't account for how deep those footings had to be. So their footings are only three meters deep. But this building is 56 meters tall. That's really shallow for how much weight it has to hold. So as they built, they would stop and try to reprocess it, why is this thing leaning? And they would try to go in and sure up that foundation, but the more weight they put on it, the more it would lean.

So they had to consult the best architects in the world to try to straighten this thing out. Our marriages are a lot like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We require deep footings that can withhold the weights of life and the storms that are bound to come. The condition of the soil of our hearts requires that we dig deeper and fill them with the strength and power of Jesus, his word, and the Holy Spirit. When we try to build our marriages and our relationships on faulty foundations, they begin to lean and risk collapsing altogether. And when they collapse, guys, the collateral damage goes way beyond the singular relationship of the one that collapsed. In Luke 6, 47 to 49, Jesus says, "'I will show you what it's like "'when someone comes and listens to my teaching "'and then follows it. "'It's like a person building a house who digs deep "'and lays the foundation on solid rock. "'When the flood rotters rise and break against that house, "'it stands firm because it's well built. "'But anyone who hears and doesn't obey "'is like a person who builds a house right on the ground "'without a foundation. "'When the floods sweep down against that house, "'it will collapse into a heap of ruins.' "'As I prepared the message today, though, "'I thought, how many people listening "'are gonna check out right now and say, "'Just my marriage is doomed forever then? "'We got married before we knew Jesus. "'I know Jesus and my spouse doesn't yet. "'Or we got married knowing Jesus, "'but then we walked away "'and we fell away from that foundation. "'I don't want you to check out "'because Jesus doesn't ever leave us without hope. "'And even in buildings, did you know "'that it's not too late to correct "'a faulty foundation, to shore up "'and fortify the foundation that was originally built, "'or to fortify the foundation of your marriage? "'It's all possible. "'You can actually repair or replace one "'that never existed. "'But it takes a plan. "'It takes set supports, and it takes time. "'I had to look it up because, again, "'I know nothing about buildings, "'but I did learn that you can do this, "'and they actually did this with the Tower of Pisa. "'So in 1993, when it was on the brink of collapse, "'they called in the best architects in the world, "'the best engineers in the world, "'and they got it to actually correct itself "'by like two or three degrees. "'So it's no longer at the risk of falling over. "'You can actually go up inside "'and not fear that you're going to go down "'with the building. "'Marriages too can be reinforced, "'but they're gonna take the master architect "'of our lives to come in, to give us new blueprints, "'to shore up or build that foundation "'with the Holy Spirit and His power in us. "'You have to reevaluate your blueprints. "'You have to ask the master architect "'to come in and take care of it, "'and you have to lean on the support of your church "'and the people that have gone before you. "'Remember when I told you to hang on to the part "'about my family and the household that I grew up in, "'and how we didn't have that complete reliance on Jesus? "'We loved God, we knew Him personally. "'We didn't know what it was like to wholly rely on Him. "'We had everything we needed. "'Things were going great in life. "'But we faced a period of 10 years "'where we didn't know if my brother "'would survive serious addiction. "'I went away to college, not knowing each time "'I called home if they would know where he was, "'if they would know that he was safe, "'or if he would be in the hospital or some tragic news. "'But through those 10 years, every single one of us, "'including my brother, who is well and free from addiction "'today, praise the Lord, happily married with two kids.' "'Because of that, we realized that it was time "'to fortify our foundation on Christ, "'the Holy Spirit and His church. "'You cannot miss out on His church "'because they are the people that are intended "'to hold you up. "'We've looked at the plan and the power, "'but now we need to look at the purpose. "'The purpose of our marriage relationship "'outside of love and passion and society "'is so much greater. "'It flows into every other relationship, "'and it's so that we can be an illustration "'of Christ's church to the world. "'It's so that we can see our spouse or our child "'as God intends them to be to surround, protect, "'and support them in their God-given roles "'and work together to advance the gospel. "'As the scriptures say, a man leaves his father and mother "'and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. "'This is a great mystery, but it's an illustration "'of the way Christ and the church are one. "'So again I say, each man must love his wife "'as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. "'Our marriages are the illustration "'of Christ's love for the church. "'We don't get to fully understand it here. "'It even says in the word "'that it is a mystery, but that we are somehow giving "'a glimpse of his love, his sacrifice, "'and his sanctification of the church "'through godly marriages.'" Ephesians 6, 6 to 8, charges us with this. "'As slaves of Christ, do the will of God "'with all your heart. "'Work with enthusiasm as though you were working "'for the Lord, rather than for people. "'Remember that the Lord will reward each of you "'for the good that you do, "'whether we are slaves or free. "'Just as our marriages are intended to point to Christ, "'so are all of our work efforts, all of our relationships. "'It doesn't matter whether you clean houses, "'sell insurance, heal the sick, teach children. "'Anything is so that you can point people toward the Lord. "'Everything we do is for his glory "'and his expansion of the kingdom, "'and that doesn't exclude our relationships.'" So what do I want to encourage you today? Whatever role you find yourself described in in these passages, whether it's the child, the parent, the husband, the wife, the servant, or the master, I want you to be bold enough to ask two questions, one of God, and then one of that other person in relationship with you. Number one, do I know the master architect of our lives, and do I follow him? Or if that's of your spouse and you're not sure, do you know the master architect of our lives? Do you know Jesus Christ? And are you willing to follow him with me? And number two, this one's harder, how am I doing well and how do I need to grow in the God-given role that God's given me in relationship with you? Hey, Chris, how do I need to submit to you more as the spiritual head of our household? How do I need to set the table for you to prepare you to lead us well? How do I honor you, Mom and Dad? More in my everyday life? Or, hey, Dan, how do I honor you in the role that I get to serve under you on this church staff? If you don't know our master architect, Jesus, our solid foundation, I want to invite you into that relationship today because it is by far the most life-changing decision that you will ever make in your life. But I'm also asking you to be bold. So if that's you today and you are ready to come home to him, say you've walked away, but you're like, God, you gotta solidify my foundation, or you've never met him, I want you to raise your hand for me so that I know who I'm praying with and for, and it is an honor to pray with and for you. So on the count of three, while no one else is looking around, just shoot that hand up in the air so that I know who I can pray for. One, two, three, thank you. God sees your hands and he is so happy to see you come home. Heavenly Father, we lift these people up to you today. God, we thank you for the solid foundation that you provide in our relationships that you have modeled for us in the way that you love your church. Friends, if you're praying this prayer today from your heart to God's, I just want you to say, Lord, I want you to be my solid foundation. Come into my life, take over, reevaluate my plans, help me to turn from my old ways and turn toward you, God. I trust you, I want you to be the king of my life. I want to build my life and my relationships on you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning and welcome to New Life Church. Hey, if any of you joined us in 2020, we're back with you in the virtual lobby. Virtual lobby was something we did all through COVID where we literally just had a lobby with you guys. And let me just say there were some fun things about it. And so we're excited to bring it back to you this morning as we have online church only coming off of our July 4th weekend. Speaking of July 4th, what was the favorite part for you? I love Boyne City on July 4th because it is just a giant family festival the whole time. So I love all the red, white, and blue. I love that my kids have all the traditions that they cannot go the 4th without. So fun. Love that. What about you, Aliyah? So my husband, Brody, and I are actually in Florida for the 4th of July. So that was our first time being there, like the Destin area. So it was fun to watch fireworks with our family, beach time, just all of that soaking in the summer sun. Oh, that's so fun. I would have to say mine is trifle. Yeah, it's an dessert my mom makes. It's amazing. Oh, man. Only get it once a year. Yeah. So yeah, mom. We have a complaint. Only once a year. A request. Yeah, we would like more trifle in our lives. But so happy Independence Day, happy 4th of July to all of you. We're so excited that you're joining us. But we know that while online is great, nothing beats being in person because we always say, you can watch online, but you can't get a hug in the lobby. You can't get someone that will lay hands and pray over you or someone who can say, hey, are you OK today? Or I'm so glad you're here, right? And so we really want to still invite you into that family. While we're online this weekend, we're in person next week, and we want to get to know you. And so the best way you can do that if you're new to New Life is there will be a link that our online host will provide for you to just click on and to say, I'm new and I want to get connected. And then we're going to get to know you and help you get connected to this amazing family. Because when we ask people what's their favorite thing about New Life, while we love the worship, we love the messages, the most important thing is first, encountering the presence of God. But second, we always hear the community. It's always the community and the people. So we want to invite you into that. So just click on that. I want to get connected that online connection card so that we can get to know you more. Speaking of connecting, Kelsey, do we have a little incentive for them to actually connect with us today live in the chat? I do think that we have something fun. If you know one thing about us at New Life, we love food. And what we love even more than food is free food. I don't know about you guys, but that pumps me up. If I have a gift card, I am living my best life. Starting a hole in your pocket. Right, right. So today only, if you engage in that chat, either tell us where you're watching from. Tell us what your favorite thing over 4th of July was. How many hot dogs you ate this weekend? I mean 12. How many red solo cups of trifle dessert? Yes. Well, that's my 12. Yes. Maybe a prayer request. Maybe a amen pastor. That was a great point. Anything that you do to engage with the online chat, then your name will be put into a raffle for a free gift card for some awesome food. And then we will announce that person next Sunday in person. I believe that is July 7th plus 8 is 14. Oh wait, plus seven. A week is seven days. More than July weekend, you know. July 14th. We will announce the winner in person. Yes. What else? We have something else happening on July 14th. Speaking of July 14th, that is your opportunity to go to Discovery, step one. Discovery is our way of helping you get to know the vision and values of New Life Church. But more so, it's about you. It's about finding out how you are uniquely designed by God with your personality and your gifts to serve in his kingdom, to be a part of his church. And we want you to meet new friends. Discovery is a great way to do that because it's a smaller group than sitting in the sanctuary on Sunday morning. So that happens every first and second Sunday usually. This time we're switching it because we're online today. So it's the second and third Sunday, July 14th and 21st at 10 45 during our second service. How do they register for that? They can actually register right here in the app. Okay. They're watching. There's a link, I think that says signups or events. I can't remember the exact wording, but if you go in there, it has Discovery. Sign up. Let us know that you're coming. We have childcare provided during Discovery. Yes, we do. So don't worry about your kids. They'll just get to hang out right through kids ministry. Yeah, super cool. Awesome. So exciting. Awesome. Before we invite Pastor Dan to join us for our amazing message today, we do want to take a moment just to do ties and offerings. Even though we're not in the house today, we know that God's word says to bring your ties, your first fruits, your best to the house. So we want to encourage that today. You can give today actually in the app to it's under giving or you can text the dollar amount to 84321 and you can do it that way too. What's cool about the tide is that actually this, what we're doing right here is because of the generosity of you guys. We get to be able to set up and have online church and do it in a way of excellence. So, so cool. Yeah. So many amazing things happen because of our faithfulness to the tide, not even just in the church, but I know personally in my own life, there's been so many times that, you know, it says God's word says, test me in this and see if I don't throw open the gates of heaven. And I know personally, sometimes that's not even financial blessings. Sometimes I say like, God, I'm going to trust you with this, even when I don't see if I have enough. And then he literally just throws open the floodgates of heaven and it's the coolest thing to get a front row seat to watching. So let me pray this morning before we invite Pastor Dan in for the message. God, we just thank you so much for this time. We thank you for the gift of technology. God, we pray that we would utilize it and use it well to further your kingdom. God, I thank you that New Life Church has always had a vision to bring church online to those who maybe are traveling or can't be here with us and that God, you've been faithful in providing that opportunity. God, I pray over the tides of every single person this morning, over the sacrifice, over the obedience to give that 10%. God, I pray that you would multiply it in ways that we could never even ask or imagine because you are the God who gives so generously, God, that you gave your best. And so now we give you back some of what you've given us. God, we pray that we would be faithful in this, that we would have, just like Pastor Dan is going to teach us about today, just a heart of generosity. God, we pray that you would open our ears this morning for the message that we would lean in when your word is opened. God, that you would limit distractions. We know that when we're watching from home or on a drive, there are so many distractions coming at us that we often don't have in the sanctuary. So God, I just pray that you would protect this time and help us to focus on your word and on what you have for us. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.

Thanks for joining us online today for our post July 4th service as we continue our series through the book of Ephesians. I hope you had an incredible 4th of July weekend. Happy Independence Day. But I would love for you to share comments as you watch today's feed. I have part of our staff here to be a part of this message, but also people filming it, of course, as well. So we're grateful for all of them. But I'm going to dive right in. We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 4 today. And the title of this message is The New Life. The New Life. Because Jesus said the old life is gone, the new life has come. Which I don't think it was Jesus. I think it was actually the Apostle Paul. But nonetheless, Ephesians 4. 25 through 32. I'm going to start by reading it all. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth. For we are all parts of the same body. And don't sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. For anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you are a thief, quiz stealing. Instead, use your hands for good, hard work. And then give generously to others in need. Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything that you say be good and helpful. So that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Like you can literally hurt the Spirit of God living inside of you by what you do. Remember, He has identified you as His own. Guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. So get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other. Tender hearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Fun fact about all of those things that were just shared in those scriptures, because it's a long list of what we should do and how we should live, the fun fact is this. Practically every religion on planet earth would tell you these things. Except the religion of me. Which is the religion the world teaches. It's all about me. It's all about what I want. It's whatever makes me feel good. You know, it's what I would call the me kingdom. Right? We've been talking about that over the last couple of weeks. The me, me, me, I, I, I, my, my, my. I'm just going to do whatever I want. And by the way, just a side note. Good luck. Good luck with that. Like we wonder why our lives are out of control. It's because of this mentality and we're trying to figure out how to navigate through it. But let me for just a second. I got to get my notes in order here. Some might say, well, when you say that, pastor, does that just mean that all religions are the same?

And yes, I would say that you can find some similarities, but let me today, I'm going to show you something that is drastically unique and distinctive in biblical Christianity. So we're going to go back for just a minute for two Ephesians four 17 to begin to see it. Four 17 says with the Lord's authority, this is possible, the apostle Paul with the Lord's authority. I say this live live no longer as the Gentiles do for they are hopelessly confused. Gentiles, right? When we go back, Gentiles is anyone that would not have been Jewish while this time was written. For us, it literally means anyone who doesn't know God, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. Gentiles, that's who that person. So any person who doesn't know Jesus, that's who a Gentile is. Now let's work backwards a little bit. We're going to jump to four 19 and then we're going to come back to that verse where it says, no longer live as the Gentiles do for they are hopelessly confused. So I'm going to go back from verse 19 and then go back to four 17. Ephesians four 19 says the Gentiles, they have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and they eagerly practice every kind of impurity. What does that mean? It means that they are enslaved to their desires. There's no there's no check on it. It's so me focused. There's no awareness that it's even wrong. They just keep doing it over and over and over again. So let me give you a couple of examples. Greed, greedy people, right? Everything in culture says get more, ask for more, go after it, build your kingdom. Greed with no check on it. What do we know about that? It means they aren't generous people. They're just looking out for themselves and how much they can get and they aren't generous, which God calls us to be as people. How about sexual or sensual pleasure with literally no shame whatsoever? Right. We see people jumping from bed to bed to bed, heterosexual relationships with no check. People watching pornography with no check on the fact that it could be ruining your life, ruining your relationships because we're just chasing what's good for me in the moment. Sexual, lustful pleasures, eagerly practicing all these kinds of impurity. How about alcohol and drugs? Marijuana, right? You even crave the feelings, maybe even the security, the safety, or maybe even control that alcohol or drugs give you, except for when you've done too much of it and you find yourself over the porcelain throne puking your brains out. You're like, pastor, how do you know that? Well, I wasn't always a Christian. Let me put it that way. But you eagerly practice these things without shame, without remorse. And some of you, maybe even in the last couple of days over July 4th, Independence Day weekend, you may have gone on a three-day bender celebrating America's birthday without even thinking twice about it. Like we all crave something, right? We all crave something, but without God, there's no sense of shame or wrong. And this is what the Apostle Paul is getting to. So here's an honest question. What's the one thing that you have to have for life to be good? What's the one thing that you just can't let go of for life to be good? Because this is life apart from God, craving, greedy hearts, needing something other than God. It's a lack of Jesus. It's thinking you don't have enough. Where does the Apostle Paul say that these cravings come from? Well, let's go back to verse 18. Ephesians 4, 18 says that their minds are full of darkness. They wander far from the life God gives them because they have closed their minds and they've hardened their hearts against God. So these cravings, they come from the absence of God in our lives. When we are one with God, our lives are satisfied and they're filled. We're not craving all this extra. We don't have this list of things that we have to have in order for life to be good. But when we reject God, we've lost that essential life-giving, soul-satisfying relationship with God. We felt like we were missing something. We felt naked. The Bible even talks about that.

What do you do when you feel naked? When we feel naked, when we feel exposed, ashamed, we search for cover. We saw that in the very first story of the Bible with Adam and Eve. They sinned against God and they looked for covering because for the first time they realized they were naked. And for you and I, that's what we do all the time. We search for cover, something to mask our shame or our nakedness. What we're really searching for is we're really searching for Jesus. We're really looking for His affirmation. We're looking for His presence. But all too often we end up searching out and finding really cheap substitutes in alcohol, in marijuana, in lustful pleasures, in relationships that will never fulfill. Ask any married couple, right? I'm going to let you down. You let me down. We're never fulfilling that perfect relationship like God can and does. And so we look for cheap substitutes. By the way, I'm not calling you G. You might call me G. I'm not offended. But where, okay, so where does this alienation from God come from? Verse 18, part B says, because they've closed their minds and they've hardened their hearts against Him. This is why you could, listen, you could have two of the most brilliant people you've ever known in your life. Look at the same set of evidence for God, for Jesus, and one could say there is a God, and one right next to them could say there's not. Like, like maybe for you college students, you have this brilliant professor and one of them's a Christian and one of them's not. And you're like, how can these people both be this brilliant and beyond totally different wavelengths? And they disagree on this. Who's right in this conversation? The Apostle Paul here says that whether we see God or not has nothing to do with the quality of the evidence presented. But the state of our hearts.

Whoa. Have you ever heard this phrase before? The same sun that hardens the clay softens the wax. Have you ever heard that before? So think about this for a second. The difference, the same sun that hardens the clay softens the wax, the difference is not in the sun that shines on the material, but the makeup of the material that's that it shines upon. A famous atheist, Frederick Nietzsche, agreed with this. He said in his book, Beyond Good and Evil, which I'm not necessarily recommending, but it's an I'm just giving you for context. Frederick Nietzsche said this in that book, the idea of objective human beings who are just disinterested seekers in truth is crazy. The human heart is too insecure to ever be able to handle the truth. There is a natural hatred and fear of the truth. We actually revise our memories to fit the stories of ourselves that we want to believe. There's no way I could ever have done that, right? Says our pride. I never could have been that person. And it's not long before the past we remember is the past that we want to be true. This is what humans do. Everybody in every culture modifies the truth to fit our preferences. We try to do this with the truth about God. We often see God not as he actually is, but who we want him to be, including even not wanting him to be there.

And so what's crazy is that when the skeptics heart begins to soften to God and maybe even open up to him, they begin to see him everywhere. Like I'll never forget this in my own life. I grew up in church. I grew up knowing about God, but I didn't know Jesus. The condition of my heart wasn't receptive to Christianity. I'll never forget this right after I was saved. There was a period of I don't even know how long it could have been a year or two years, but I literally remember seeing God everywhere. I was driving down the highway and all of a sudden I would have never paid attention. Of course, I was in Texas and so you probably saw more of this, but there were business signs that literally had the ichthus attached to the business sign. What's an ichthus? An ichthus is the Christian symbol with the fish. I had never seen that stuff before. Neither of them. And all of a sudden, boom, I was seeing it everywhere. I was seeing the cross everywhere. I was seeing people of faith everywhere. I never even noticed those people everywhere. Why did that happen? It was because of the condition of my heart. Right? These people, they walk skeptics. They walk around saying, man, I can't see God. While so many other people walk around and say, how can you not see God? You might not always understand him, but you see evidence of him everywhere. You know he's there. So here we are. The human heart is alienated from God. It craves sin. And we can't see God or sense him or know him or maybe even know we are looking for him. Because our hearts are so hardened. They're blackened or even the Bible would put it even dead because of sin. People have always done religion. What's that? Like we do religious things still many times out of self-interest. To be known or want to appear to be good or even godly even. Uh, you might even give to God or serve God and you do it so you'll get something from it. So that maybe God will reward you. You do it to be blessed rather than just to simply give or serve or be a blessing. You do things just so God will take you to heaven. How many of y'all think you can earn your way? You can't. Paul says in Ephesians 4 24 he says put on your new nature created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. Created to be like God. Jesus didn't go to the cross because it was good for him.

He went to the cross because it was good for you.

Like we need a new nature. We need God's nature. Only God can give us this new nature to change our calloused, broken, blackened, dead end heart. So here's humanity's problem. We have an ignorant, dead heart that doesn't really want God. And so I'm going to give you two solutions to this. We need two things. Solution one found in verses 21 and 22 says that we need a new knowledge of God and a complete disregard for our former way of life. That's why we call this the new life. Because we can't keep living how the world teaches us to live. We can't keep living the me, I, my, me kingdom focused life. Ephesians 4 21 22 here's the verse says since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature. Like another phrase would be cast off. It's literally like, can you imagine throwing something like you're getting rid of it as far as you can. Like even if you're skipping rocks, you're going to want that thing to go as far as you can. How many of y'all throw things like trying to skip rocks and just goes kerplunk. I think too many of us are kerplunking our old way of life. Maybe we're just casting it off. Maybe we're just throwing it off just far enough to where it's still within reach.

But he's saying here, once you've learned the truth from him, you got to throw off your old sinful nature. You got to go, you got to completely turn away from it. Your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. So I want to ask the question, like, is your life working for you? Because if you haven't fully thrown off your old, thrown off your old nature, you're going to keep repeating the Bible says what in Proverbs, he says, we return to our sin like a dog returns to its vomit. Who wants that? That's disgusting.

Here's solution number two, found in verse 23. It says we need a renewed heart to delight in that who God is and what his truth actually says. Is that my, my desire of what we want him to be like or what we want his truth to be like? It's what it actually says. Ephesians 4 23, it says, instead, let the spirit renew your thoughts and your attitudes. So we need a new vision of God, of who he actually is. And we need new eyes to see and attitudes to see him in order to obey him. God has to give you eyes to see him and his truth. And so I want to ask this question, how is Christian morality fundamentally different that one than what other religions teach? And so I'm going to finish this message today with five axioms of biblical change, meaning this, these things are unchangeable. These, these things you can take to the bank every time. Number one is God gospel centered, biblical change, life change happens by change of desire, not by change of action. You do what God says because you love what God says. Moralism, I'm going back to my seminary days to study this stuff. Moralism is usually what the world teaches. And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm about to call myself out in many ways, but moralism is a false substitute for biblical change. Moralism is equal to teaching people that external behaviors matter more than your internal disposition. The phrase used in Christian circles is God needs to change the inside before he changes the outside. We're changed from the inside out. So let me, let me put it this, let me give an example. How do you motivate a kid to quit lying? To quit lying. This is about to blow your mind. And we're about to get real because we're all going to go, yeah, I'm doing it wrong. And I'm going to be the first to raise my hand. You can tell your kids, don't lie. If you lie, you're going to get caught and you're going to get in trouble. Or people will think bad about you. What does this do to your kid? It creates fear of punishment. They're just afraid of the punishment. It hasn't changed anything inside of them. Or you could say it this way. Don't lie. You're better than that. You're a Smith, for crying out loud. We jokingly say that in the Smith house, man, you eat like a Smith. Proud of it. Don't lie. You're better than that. You're a Smith or you're a Christian. If you lie, you're just lowering your standards and that you're just like everyone else. Well, we just told our kids that they need to change to feel or be superior to everyone else. I'm pretty sure, again, I've said both of these things out of desperation in a moment. The problem is both of those things make us tell the truth. But neither of those motivations make us love the truth. Moralism is taught by every religion in the world and by many Christians even. Sometimes, again, even by me. And if we aren't careful, man, gospel-centered biblical change happens by changing our internal desires, which in turn changes our external actions. But our external actions, again, from the inside out, our external actions doesn't change our internal desires. We can change in a moment our external actions, but it won't change the heart. It won't change our desire. Here's number two, the second axiom. Gospel biblical change begins with spiritual sight, not just physical sight. So we need to pray and ask God that He would give us eyes to see His truth. Ephesians 1, 18, if we go back to the very beginning and that first or second message that we preached, the apostle Paul said, I pray that the eyes of your heart, your spirit would be enlightened. That's what we need. We need spiritual eyes to see God's truth the way he says it. Verse 21 says this, since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life. This is your ability to see with the lens of heavenly truth, to see it clearly with spiritual eyes and love it. Number three, gospel biblical change is a response to grace and not an attempt to earn God's favor. All throughout the book of Ephesians, it talks about for the glory of God, you and I have been forgiven. It's not about us. It's not about what we do. It's about what Jesus has done. You and I, right, the apostle Paul said, are sealed. We are guaranteed salvation on the day of redemption, not because of what we've done, but again, because of what Jesus Christ has done. God, apostle Paul has said, has made us His children by the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, that we don't have to pay for our own sins because Jesus has done it for us. God gives you and I righteousness as a gift. It's not something that you can earn. It's His righteousness. It's not our own. And the last part is you are accepted not because, again, because of what you have done or haven't done, but because of what Jesus has done on your behalf. Gospel change, biblical change is a response to grace, not something we can earn by being good. This is totally different than every religion on planet earth. Number four, gospel change is more powerful than religious change. Ephesians 4.32 says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ Jesus has forgiven you. So you can actually forgive and love others who don't deserve it because you realize just how powerfully Jesus has loved and forgiven you. How dare we accept Jesus's forgiveness, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His teaching and not extended to other people. Verse 26 says, do not let the sun go down on your anger. Let me put it this way. When you are selfish, selfishly angry, it never leaves you. It's going to stay with you. But when you love someone like Christ has loved you, anger quickly dissipates and you forgive and you move forward and you move on. Here's number five, gospel change, biblical gospel change is all encompassing. There's no area of your life that's left out. Paul references this in this scripture that we read at the beginning, poor communication with each other, emotions that run awry, relationship, strife and struggles, sexuality, materialism, greed, time management issues, humor, work ethic, care for the poor, theft, families, employee, employer, employee relationships, marriage, the occult work, the occult world, not one square inch of any of our lives is unaffected. He talks about all of them. Not just one part of you changes. All of us has to. All of us has to. So if we're going to live the Christ-gen life, we can't live it in a compartmentalized fashion. And that's how so much of it is for so many people. And they wonder why God isn't moving in a certain area of their life. It's because we've, again, we've kerplunked our cast off sinful nature. And we've kept it within arm's length because what was the question? What do you have to have in your life to live a good life? It's like lioness is blanket. We just need to hold it close and keep it for ourselves. That's how connected to our sinful lives we are. For so many people, then what does this look like? Well, I attend church. I give.

But if I'm honest, I cheat on my taxes.

I've got this relationship, man. I know I have this. I have a spouse and kids, but I'm getting a little flirtatious at work with that girl and pays attention to me in that cubicle down the aisle. Or maybe I travel for work and nobody knows. And you have this relationship that doesn't honor God. Nobody sees what I'm doing behind closed doors watching pornography on my phone or on my screen, whatever it is.

What's the matter? What's the hurt? I go to church, but my temper, man, it gets the best of me. Or maybe even you've got your temper a little bit more under control than it used to be.

But you're stingy. You're greedy. You're still. I still. It's me, me, me, my, my, my, I'm building my own kingdom. And you're definitely not living a generous type of life that God calls us to live in a non, listen, in a non self serving kind of way. I was actually having a conversation with someone this weekend in the lobby and they asked me about doing a fundraiser and they were talking about all these things and man, we can get this donated and this donation. We can do this raffle and I literally told them, I said, I, Kelsey and I went to a fundraiser for a Christian organization a few years ago and I left mad. I left angry because they were raffling off all this stuff. We were actually sitting next to a table with a guy who had donated an entire trip to Europe, to Amsterdam, to the motherland, right? Dutch people and the trip costs like 10, $12,000. Doing the raffle, they raised like $6,000. And I looked at Kelsey and I said, the guys should have just given $12,000 to the organization. But because everything we give needs to be about us still, like we need something in return, that's not generosity. It's self serving. And we've got to walk away. We've got to cast that kind of thing off. Friends, you've probably been bought hook, line and sinker into moralism rather than complete change of heart and desire that Jesus wants for you and I. So as we close this message, we're going to pray for God to change our hearts, our spiritual condition of our hearts to not be blackened, to not be broken, to not be deadened to his truth, that our desires would change and that God would change us from the inside out. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I pray by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would show and namor us with who you are and what your truth can bring us and do for our lives that our desires would completely change. That we wouldn't just seek to live moral lives as the rest of the world is trying to do and failing miserably at it. But God, that we would literally be changed completely from the inside out. That we wouldn't hold on to our old lives, but that we would eagerly seek after the new life that you want for us. God, we pray for eyes to see, spiritual eyes to see from our heart exactly what your truth is and that we would fall in love with it because it works. Because you are the author and perfecter of our lives and our faith. And God, you desire us to have the best life possible. So I pray that we would go all in, that we would turn from what the world teaches and we would turn to you, Jesus. Right now, if there's anyone watching this or maybe even listening to it on a drive or maybe at home, wherever they find themselves at, I pray that no matter what religion they be following or maybe it's the me kingdom they've been established in. Man, we've all been there. We were all Gentiles at one point. All of us not knowing God and knowing the true God and Jesus Christ who he said. And in this moment, I want to give you the opportunity to trust, to put your life in the hands of the one true God who can forgive you, save you and change you. Who can take you to heaven, to paradise, to be with Jesus one day. That you would not have to face the penalty of sin, which is death spiritually and death physically, eternally. That you don't have to do that because Jesus has done that for you. That your salvation, your eternity can be secure and your life today can be forever changed in Jesus name. If that's you and you want this relationship with God, you want to know him. You want him to change your desires. You want him to change your heart. So that you can live the life that God has called you to live a new life. That I want to give you the opportunity. Right now, there will be a way for you to click a link for you to say, I'm giving my life to Jesus today. And we want to help you as a church to take next steps in that faith journey. But right now, here's what you need to do. You need to simply from your spiritual heart, your spirit, yourself, say to God, Jesus, I'm turning from my sin and I'm turning to you. I believe that you came to teach us how to live. That you came to die a sacrificial death on my behalf so I don't have to. That you paid for my sin to forgive me. And you did what I can't do. What you can't do. He defeated death and sin and got up out of the grave with the offer that if you believe in him and call him Lord, that you would receive life and life everlasting, eternal life. You're forgiven. You are healed. You will be changed. And so right there where you are, you can simply say, Jesus, I put my faith in you. And in this moment, I call you Lord. Change me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. And from this day forward, I'm going all in. I'm giving you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name. Amen. Friends, thank you for joining us online today. We hope to see you next weekend as we continue this series through the book of Ephesians right here at New Life Church. We'll see you then.

Good morning and welcome to New Life Church. Hey, if any of you joined us in 2020.

Full Sermon Transcript

We're at those physical rooms. Good morning, everybody How ya guys doing? Man, it's so good to be in the house of God. Man, a couple weeks ago, this is actually before I start the message, but I just, I felt the Lord kind of stern me to share this. I was watching a podcast a week ago, and they were talking about all the ways in which it seems like the church is under attack. Or let me even say something different. Maybe even church leaders have failed. You've seen it. And the question was, is do you feel like the church is not gonna survive? It seems like so many things have happened, and so many leaders are falling, and different things are happening, but I'll never forget this answer, and I hope you take comfort in it, is no matter what happens to us, no matter what we do to maybe tear it down or break it up, because I don't know if you know this, but we are imperfect people who can do really stupid things,

which is why we're here, because we need God. But I stand on what Jesus said. Jesus said that He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Amen. Do you believe that? Yes. So that means that no matter what comes, no matter what we do to maybe break it apart, to challenge it, no matter what leader falls from grace, no matter what leader, whatever we do, Jesus is gonna build His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I don't know about you, but I know that I wanna be on the winning team, which is why I am here today because of Jesus. Can I get an amen? Amen. Well, we're in the series on Ephesians, and we're gonna continue today in Ephesians chapter four, so if you have your Bibles, I encourage you to bring your Bibles. By the way, if you have physical Bibles, that's awesome. But we do have Bibles. You can have it in the app, the Do Life Church app. You can actually take notes in the app. We encourage you to take notes. Why? Because note takers are? I don't know if you believe that. World, note takers are? You better believe it. Ephesians chapter four. The Apostle Paul says this. He says, therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord. In other words, he was so audacious in his faith in sharing the gospel that people were coming against him so much so that they put him in prison. I'll never forget this. I mean, this has happened multiple times in our history, but recently, probably in the last, I think it was in the fall, someone asked me the question, Dan, what would happen if the government took the 501c3 status of churches away? What would you do? And I said, nothing would change. We'd continue to preach the gospel because I don't know if you know this, but the Church of Jesus Christ exists in places where there is no 501c3 status, that it doesn't matter the benefits you get from giving that the government gives you. It doesn't matter the protections you have because I don't know if you know this, but the places in which the gospel, the kingdom of God, the church is growing in the most, is the places where it's literally illegal to be a Christian. Do you know this? And so it doesn't matter what kind of persecution comes our way. This is what Paul is saying right here out of the get-go. I am literally a prisoner for serving Jesus. How many of you are afraid of going to jail today because of your faith? Probably none of you. What do you have to be afraid of? Not much. And then he says, I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. By the way, he's talking to the church. He's talking broadly. He's not talking to an individual. He's not saying, hey, Pastor Dan, I pray that you would lead a life worthy of the calling. In other words, yeah, we've seen some pastors fall from grace, pastors that maybe have had affairs, or how about the Catholic church, right, and the scandal of having child abuse. By the way, one child is too many. Right. And we have to, all of us, especially leaders, lead a life that is worthy of the calling. By the way, I said Catholic church, that stuff exists in other churches, not just the Catholic church. But we need to lead a life worthy of the calling. We're gonna see that in just a minute. What does that mean? It means that we need to mature. We need to grow up to be more like Christ. That we need to leave behind those carnal things within us and be changed, transformed by the gospel, that we need to lead a life worthy of your calling. By the way, you are called by God. We have too many churches that are filled with seats, just like these, who sit and stare at the pastor thinking that he's the only one called by God. But the apostle Paul is literally saying to the church, all of you, every single one of you, are called by God. And what does he say? So always be humble and gentle. I don't know if you know this, but I'm still working on gentleness. I can't tell you that I've reached full maturity in the word gentle. Matter of fact, I don't think anyone has ever described me as gentle, but it doesn't mean I'm not to become that. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Be patient with each other. I don't know about you, but we have a world that the minute someone offends you, you're gone. The minute the church, the minute a pastor says something from the word of God that offends you, that challenges your framework of how you're supposed to live, lead a life worthy of the calling that God has given you, you're gone. And we see people jumping from church to church, when in reality, every church should be doing what? Preaching the word of God, which doesn't change, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. We have people that say, oh, well, that was just the Old Testament God. We have the New Testament, God has never changed. Some of you don't, are sure about that, but I can promise you, He is the same. His word lasts forever. So here we say, it says, always be humble and gentle, be patient with each other, making allowance for what? For each other's faults because of your love. Can I tell you something? We're gonna be a church that speaks the truth in love, and you're gonna see that in just a moment, that we're gonna challenge each other to grow up into maturity. And guess what? None of us have become all fully like Jesus, which means what? All of us have room to grow. All of us have room to grow, and we need to be patient with each other, that there are people coming into New Life Church. I remember this, someone came, it was in a small group years ago, and she said, man, there's so many people that just don't know the Bible like I do. I just wish there were more people that knew the Bible more like I do, so that I could talk to them about it. And I had a moment where I was like, it's a good thing, that there are people in your life group that don't know the Bible like you do, because why? They need to mature to know God's word. And instead of looking for people that have the same understanding, maybe God has you among those people to help your understanding of who God is by sharing with them the Bible knowledge that you have to grow in yourself.

Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love, because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with the peace that Christ gives. For there is one body that's the church and one spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. Paul goes on and he starts to talk about unity and oneness. And then he begins to shift. So if you're following along, when he goes into that, he's talking about oneness, being united as a church body, then shifts to the uniqueness of each of us, of every single one of us that makes up the church. He talks about how that he has gifted us to build up his body, the church, how we relate to each other, to the church, and how you and I, the church, are to relate to the world. He continues in verse seven. If you're following along with me, by the way, I'm reading from the NLT, the New Living Translation. So if yours is a little bit off, you have the NIV or NKJV or the AMP, I could go on and on and on with translations of the Bible, which, can I be just real for a second? There's really one translation of the Bible. It's the original Greek and the original Hebrew, and some of the translations are a little bit more accurate than the others, just for your awareness. But Ephesians chapter four, verse seven, it says, however, he says, so he talked about the unity of Christ, the bigness, the oneness of it. And then he says, however, he, Christ Jesus, has given each one of us, every single one of us, a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the scriptures say, when he, Jesus, ascended to the heights into heaven, he led a crowd of captives, which by the way, means that you were slaves to sin, and he's led you to freedom, and then he gave gifts to his people. What is that gift? He placed the Holy Spirit, God himself, inside of us, inside of you, and he's given you and I spiritual gifts. And then he continues, he says, notice that it said, he ascended. This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. So he was in the heavens, he was born, what? As fully God and fully, how many parents, like your kids ask you questions, or they talk to you, and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't even know if I can comprehend what to say to you. This week, my middle daughter, which no, it's my middle child, it's my second daughter, I'm all confused now. She asked me the question, when is God's birthday? I think she meant Jesus. And so I said, well, we celebrated on December 25th, but scholars say it might be actually during the summer. Now I just fried a circuit in all of you by saying that. But anyways, so we celebrate Jesus' birth on December 25th. She said, well, when was his dad's birthday? And I was like, oh my gosh.

So out of the mouths of babes, right? And so I'm like trying to figure this out. I'm like, okay, so Jesus was born fully man, but also fully God. Like she wasn't, Joseph had no, like Joseph and Mary, they didn't do the thing. And if you need me to explain that to you later, I'll be happy to do that after service. But Joseph is not Jesus' dad. God the Father, God himself is Jesus' dad. So then I'm like trying to figure out anyways, this has nothing to do with the message. I don't even know why I'm sharing this now, but I'm sure it has a point.

But God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have always existed. They don't have a birthday. There's no one like them. He's the same yesterday, today. He is the what? The Alpha and the Omega. There is no end to him. There was no beginning to him. And in everything he created, all things are sustained by him and through him. And so listen, he ascended. But he descended to this lowly world. Now when it says that, I wanna be very clear because some people say that this verse says that he went to hell. It actually doesn't say that. It's literally saying that he came to earth. Which some of us could say, well, it feels a little like hell. I'm glad you laughed.

And then he said the same one, Jesus, who descended to our lowly world, and the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens. Meaning he's even above heaven itself. That heaven is a destination, but he is the true, true north. He is the true destination. So he ascended higher than all the heavens so that why did he do that? So that he might fill the entire universe with himself. So he left and then yet filled the entire universe with himself. In other words, he says that he fills every single believer that where you go, he goes. And he has now endowed you, you, every single one of us with his spiritual gifts. What are spiritual gifts? Here's a definition if you're checking notes. Spiritual gifts are an experience or an ability that God has given to you that he uses, listen to me, not to build your own kingdom, but to build his kingdom. It's not meant for you. You know, why is the church, let me put it this way, why is the church against things like witchcraft? Well, one, because the Bible says it, but it's also because witchcraft is all about getting power. What? For ourselves. Where Jesus, when he fills us with his spirit, the power isn't for us. It's to build up others. Which can I say something? The church or the world is all about building up us, building up me, my kingdom. What can I get? You don't believe it, spend time around a two year old and then go hang out with some 50 year olds and you'll realize they're the same.

I'm just saying. But spiritual gifts are not meant to build you up. They're not meant to just make you cool and awesome and to build up your kingdom. They're meant to build up others that build up the kingdom. He, in verse seven, he says, but grace was given to each one of us. What is grace? There's grace gifts. These are the gifts of the spirit was given to each one of us, every single one of us. And then verse 12 says what? For the building up of the body of Christ, the church. Why did he give us spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ? He didn't give it to build up a school. He didn't give it to build up a hospital. He didn't give it to build up your business. He gave it to you to build up his church. He said he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. I do some weird things.

So if you're new to New Life Church, welcome. He's given it to us for the building up of the body of Christ, the church. Verse 13, until we all attain to, verse 13, until we all attain to the knowledge of the Son of God.

In other words, when you use your spiritual gifts that God has given uniquely to you, you will grow to actually know God better. Not just by sitting in a service, but by using the gifts that God has placed inside of you. Why, I think it was last, maybe it was two weeks ago. I didn't preach last week. By the way, did Brody do a great job bringing the word last week? Yeah, he's not here, but if he's watching, Brody, great job. But man, a couple weeks ago, I said something to the effect that was probably a little offensive. And it was like, if you don't want to, if you wanna just sit in a chair and not be involved in the church, go to another church. Because we need people who want to be involved. Why, because this is what Christ has called us to do. Lead a life worthy of our calling. What is our calling? You pair your spiritual gifts with your calling. Why, because you will actually grow to know God better, not just by sitting in a seat, stirring your intellectuals, but by literally living out the life that God has called you to do. That he has empowered and gifted you to do. That literally, when you read the Bible, you can read all the things, the miracles, and the things that God's doing, and the people that he used to do it. And there was nothing special about them except for they were gifted the Holy Spirit of God. And they used the gifts that he gave them to serve him and to build up his body, the church. And so when you read the scriptures, when you begin to use your gifts that God has given you, you begin to read your scriptures and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm like a little Paul. Oh my gosh, I'm like a little Peter. Oh, that came out way wrong. These are one of those moments that will live like,

several years ago I talked about changing one of my daughter's poopy diapers, and then was like closing, landing the plane on a really powerful service. And I was like almost praying or closing it down. It was really powerful. I said, you know, I really need you Jesus, even when I'm changing my wife's poopy diapers.

This is one of those moments that's gonna live on forever, especially in social media age, because my staff will never let me live that down. Okay, but because he said in the beginning, to always be humble and gentle, I will accept whatever comes my way.

Wow.

Moving on. Verse 16, he says, when each part, when each part of the body, which by the way, includes every single one of us who is a believer in Christ, that there's zero believers in Christ that is exempt from what he is saying here. When each part is working properly, it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. This is how Christ ministers to his people. It's how we experience his power. One of the things I love about New Life Church, and this is what I think is, I don't know why it's hard to comprehend, but can I tell you something? There's a couple of reasons why churches are dying and closing. And one of the biggest reasons is because people come to church to sit in a seat and they're not actually being the church. They're not actually serving in their giftings. Listen, this is not about Dan Smith. This is about Jesus and how he's working us together for his good and for the benefit of others. I hope by the end of this service, you're not feeling pressured, but you're really feeling ignited because God has literally created you, endowed you, purposed you. He's called you to use the gifts that he's given you. Listen, to some of you, he's given gifts that he hasn't given to me, that I don't have them. I'm gonna show you that in just a second. And so you are needed to build up the body of Christ. This is how Christ ministers to people and how we experience his power. 1 Corinthians 12 calls spiritual gifts. By the way, you can write down 1 Corinthians 12 to do a little bit deeper dive. 1 Corinthians 12 calls spiritual gifts a manifestation of Christ. What is a manifestation? A manifestation is when something is invisible, becomes visible. Jesus called you and I, the church, his hands and his feet. If we aren't serving him in using our spiritual gifts, how are we, the church, and how is the world out there gonna visibly be able to experience the invisible God?

They can't and they won't. And so we've got to do this. We've got to be an obedience into this, that you and I, we are all called to this. Here's a question. How do I know that some of you might have, here's a question some of you might have. How do I know my spiritual gifts are not just a talent that I have? Are any of you asking that question?

Let me give you some thoughts. What could make, no, I shouldn't even say could, what will make your talent a spiritual gift is if God uses it to reveal himself to others. Again, God created every single one of us with talents. We all have talents, you are uniquely made. But we need to use spiritual gifts. Again, it's not for building us up, it's not for building our kingdom, it's not, some of you are phenomenal business leaders and God gifted you that way. He gifted you with numbers. Man, whatever it was to be able to see things, how many of you all are math people? Look around the room, there ain't many of you. How many of you are like English people? Like you love like correcting grammar and stuff like that, it's why you don't follow me on social media. Cause it's just like, oh my gosh, I don't know how to deal with this guy. All the typos. Like, but you've been gifted with stuff, I mean, I was gifted as an athlete and man, I wish I could still play ball, but guess what, I'm called to something even greater than winning championships when I was a kid. I'm called to serve God in a way, man, I could literally experience God, can I still use my talents that God gave me to make God known? Matter of fact, let me tell you a story. This is so awkward. When I first started in ministry, I was in student ministry and I was actually volunteering in our student ministry. I was my first job out of college, I was a financial advisor, I don't know if any of you know that, but I was a financial advisor and so I dressed in a suit every single day. Can we all praise God, I don't do that anymore. For those of you who have to dress in suits every day, I feel for you. But you live in Michigan, I lived in Austin, Texas at the time and wearing a suit in Austin, Texas during the summer, it was brutal. Anyways, I was serving in our student ministry and one of the things that was a very clear core value of our student ministry is that we didn't just expect students to come to us, we went to them. We went to their games, we went to their schools, we showed up where they were, why? Because God is calling us to reach them, not them to just come and pay attention to us. How many of you all just have gatherings of kids at your houses and all of them just fall to the floor on their knees and give their lives to Jesus? Well, I pray that that happens for you, I want that for our church. But I had to intentionally take a step to use my giftings and talents to serve the Lord. So I showed up, can you imagine? A guy, I was probably about 25 years old, walking into a high school cafeteria wearing a suit who wasn't the school administrator. By the way, school administrators didn't wear suits in Texas. Why? Because it was too hot. Can you imagine the things that high school students called me or said to me as I walked into their high school cafeteria to have lunch with them? I don't want to repeat them here because I don't want you to think that that's actually who I am, it's not who I am. But here's what I did, this is, that got intense for a second.

I played, I'm trying to be humble here, but some of you might think it's impossible. I played football for a really good university, Texas. We're gonna be good this year, can I get an amen? The Texas Longhorns, it was a very good school, very good football, and I played for them, which to a lot of people, that makes a really big deal. By the way, two years after I graduate, they beat the University of Michigan in the Rose Bowl. I'm just saying, I don't. So all you state people are like, yeah, anyways. Michigan, Texas plays at Michigan this year, I can't wait, I can't wait. Okay, yeah, go Blue, all right. I will not be saying that that day, but anyways. So I walked in, again, natural talent. God gave me natural talent as an athlete, and I had experiences that I knew that students could relate with. And so I walked into these high school auditoriums, these roundtables, and can I tell you, I was scared crapless of high school kids. I mean, they're terrifying. It's even worse now with social media. But I walked in, and I had this big old honking bull ring. The rings they have now are unreal. But I had this bling of a ring, I have multiple of them, and I would walk in with my suit on, and I would just slap my hand on the table, and I said, hey guys, I'm Dan. And instantly I had credibility, because they were like, ooh, what is that? And it was a conversation starter. Why was I there? I wasn't there to build myself up, I was there to actually tell them about Jesus. But I used something that God gave me naturally to make a connection. And for some of you, God is gonna use your pain that you've gone through. That literally stuff that you've gone through, God's gonna bring other people around you so that you can tell your story of how God has redeemed and changed your life. And guess what? All of our pain and all of the things that God has rescued us from probably looks a little different. Because not all of us have experienced the same challenges, not all of us have grown up in the same environments and had maybe the same addictions or the same storylines. But God is doing something through all of us, and so we need to be able to see it. The manifestation of Christ is when something visible is made visible. Here's another way to see talents versus spiritual gifts. Again, talents are given to you when you're born. It's when you're born. Spiritual gifts are given to you when you are born again.

When you're born again, you don't have spiritual gifts just when you come into the earth. Talents are given to all people, but spiritual gifts have been given to people who have been saved, who are born again, followers of Jesus Christ. Verse seven again, a grace was given to each one of us, to use, why? John 14, 12 says it this way, this is Jesus. He says, I tell you the truth. Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done. By the way, Jesus did some phenomenal, crazy, amazing miracles while walking the earth. And he says, I have you, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done but even greater because I am going to the father. He ascended, he descended and then he ascended and then he filled the whole earth because he literally put his spirit in every single one of you. Can you imagine me for a second? If Jesus' system of being on the earth was the same today, imagine Jesus was the only way you had to get to Jesus in order to be saved, healed, forgiven, transformed, set free, all the things that you and I need in our life. Imagine if we had to get to one man, it'd be a long line. And we'd probably have to fly to Jerusalem to get there because that's where his kingdom came from, right? We'd have to all jump on a plane, get in line. And then what if, I shared this a few weeks ago, what if we were standing in line and we had just a nanosecond to get our needs out and God, I need you to save me and I need you to transform me. What if we only just had a nanosecond and we forgot one of the things we wanted to ask him or something we wanted to do for us and we forgot we'd have to get in line again behind five billion people trying to get to Jesus. But because he's put his Holy Spirit in every single believer on planet earth, the gospel of Jesus Christ can spread throughout all nations, all people groups because we're empowered. But we have to use our spiritual gifts in order to do that. So number one, if you're taking points, my question for you believer is do you know what your spiritual gifts are? For some of you, this is the first time you're like, I didn't even know what spiritual gifts are. I didn't even know spiritual gifts existed. This is why discovery is so important, discovery. Some people are like, what's discovery? It's many things for a lot of people. It could be for you new people, it's like, hey, I wanna get to know people. We're gonna help you do that through discovery. For some of you, it's like, hey, I grew up in a church or maybe I didn't grow up in a church. Discovery is you being able to discover who New Life Church is. Like what makes up what New Life Church is all about. That why we're called to do what we're called to do. How we do it, why we do it. But then the second part of spiritual gifts is you connecting to how God has uniquely spiritually gifted you. You have the opportunity to take a spiritual gifts assessment in step number two. That's July, so July 14th is you discovering who New Life Church is and being able to get to know each other. And then on the 21st is you being able to discover your unique spiritual gifts if you have not done it. Or if you, maybe, let me put it a different way. If you haven't done it in a while and you feel like you're out of touch with your spiritual gifts, you take out your phone, scan that bad boy right now.

Did y'all forget your phones? I literally see no phones. Ah, there's a phone. That's someone that wants to get out of the seat and into the game right there.

There's another one. Yeah.

By the way, I don't know if you noticed this, but when you walk into New Life Church, I'm usually not the first person you see.

Like you have an impression of God and an impression of New Life Church long before you ever get to meet or see me. And some of you, let me put it a different way. Some of you, when you get to meet me or see me, you might be disappointed with what you see or hear. Remember, I'm still working on gentleness. I'm not a hugger, but I will hug you. I just won't like it.

I'm just saying, I'm just keeping it real. Sorry. Number two, why is it so crucial that I know what my spiritual gifts are? Again, these are not just talents. Listen, the human DNA code says that you are one in 10 to the two billionth power. You were uniquely created by God with your unique talents, with your unique personality traits. And then when you believe in Christ, He puts the Spirit inside of you and He gives you spiritual giftings. That's one of the things I love about our discovery in week two of our discovery, is we take a personality assessment and we pair that with your spiritual assessment. Why do we do that? Let me give you an example. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is hospitality. Now God calls all of us to be hospitable to each other and hospitable people, but literally He gives the gift of hospitality. Let me show you how this can look differently by personality trait. Some of you have the gift of hospitality when you literally, you would have people over and you're working your tail off to make your house smell good and look good and be awesome. And it's just wafting with the most incredible meal and the best coffee and all this stuff. Like you roll out the red carpet of good eats and man, I want to be invited to your house. So if you're that person, please get and see me after church because I want to overflow with the Spirit of God, but also get food. Anyways, but the idea of you like engaging people is like, oh.

You know, we have people that serve in our church that serve behind the scenes because their personality types are a little bit like not forward interactors with people. Is there anyone out there that's like that? Now it doesn't mean that you shouldn't at some point interact with people.

But if you're like, man, I love kids, or maybe you're gifted to teach and we're like, hey, could you go into kids, but you hate kids, we're not gonna put you in kids. Okay, do you understand what I'm saying? But you are uniquely made by God and you will never, this is what the scripture says, you will never find true fulfillment in your life unless you begin to use your spiritual gifts for God. I mean, literally what we have in the wall out there is to know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and make a difference is because God wired us to do this, that he's called you, he's called me to do this. It's why one of the reasons I love seeing people go on mission trips for the first time, or even serve in the church or lead life groups using their spiritual giftings for the first time is because they begin to have this aha moment when they realize for the first time that God is actually using them. That they're not just, he's not just looking at pastors going, oh my gosh, well done, good and faithful servant, but he literally wants to say that to every single one of us who is a part of his church. And I want that for you. I want God to have that moment for you when he reveals even more of who he is to you because you begin to live out his spiritual gifts and you begin to see God move, you begin to see the invisible become visible and you're like, oh my gosh, that had nothing to do with me, I don't know how that happened. That was so God. And can I tell you something, your faith and how you see church, it will never be the same again. Many of you, maybe you feel like you're unfulfilled or maybe you're even bored spiritually. Like sure, you may have come here and you're like, I like the music, the pastor seems pretty cool. He's kind of funny. I think he's real. I mean, let's not talk about what I said earlier today. But you're feeling like there's gotta be more, right?

And listen, there is because you need to experience the power of Christ surging through you to benefit someone else, to see who God is, not who you are, who God is. Number three is why should I get involved in the church? Why should you and I just not come to church but be the church through serving you in our spiritual gifts? So to close, I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna let the word of God just speak and then I'm gonna invite some students from AXIS Conference for just a minute to share what they experienced last week. The Apostle Paul says, now these are the gifts that Christ gave to the church. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers. These are the leaders of the church. Watch this, what is their responsibility? It's to equip God's people to do his work and to build up the church, the body of Christ. Listen to me, I would not be doing my job if I let you just sit there. If I didn't teach you and train you, equip you to experience the spiritual giftings of God. Now, can you go back to the last slide for just a second? Here's what's crazy. How many of you call me pastor? More of you need to, Pastor Dan. Or you can call me PD, okay? Spiritual giftings wise, I actually don't have the spiritual gift of pastor. Fun fact, my wife does. My sister-in-law does. The spiritual gift of pastor, do you know what spiritual gifts God has given to me?

How many of y'all know that a lot of people who are unbelievers, people who are far from God, people who are lost, have come to faith in Jesus Christ through New Life Church, can I tell you why? It's because I have the spiritual gift, I am an evangelist. And many more of you are. And many more of you are. It doesn't mean that I'm just the only evangelist. Man, he's given all of us this, he's given apostles. I truly believe that he's literally right now, he's starting to build an apostle gift within me. What does that mean? An apostle gift is literally that you could go into all nations and represent Christ, that you could share the gospel. A couple weeks ago, I told you that as a church, we're about to really refocus and not to change our focus from what God is doing here in Southwest Michigan, but God is telling us to go to all nations, to all people groups. And I read that in the scriptures and it's God's word, but I think part of it is God is starting to unleash an apostle gift within me, which means that he wants me to lead our church in building more of God's move, not just here, but around the world. And I believe that God is gonna equip you, his church, to build up not just this body, but other bodies as he brings us to know who he is through the gifts that he's given to every single one of us. You look at these gifts that are used to equip the body of Christ, to equip his church with what they're supposed to do with the gifts.

I'm only two of them. We've said this phrase over and over again. This church is not built on one man. Let me rephrase that because it is built on one man. His name is Jesus.

But this is not Dan Smith's church. It is his church and he's building his body, the church, every single one of us to serve him in our own spiritual giftings. Why? Because our responsibility as God's, as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, our responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church. Why do we have discovery? It's to equip you to know your spiritual gifts, to build up the body, to build up the church. And he says this will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's son that we will be mature in the Lord. And some of you, man, you look old, but man, you're immature.

You look old, but you're actually a toddler because you're not allowing yourself to the fullness of knowing who God is. And God is politely nudging you. He's nudging me, he's nudging us to continue to grow up, to mature. The perfect man, until we reach looking like the perfect man, Jesus, we grow up to maturity in order to resist the adverse forces that threaten the church's health and effectiveness. He says this, then we will no longer be immature like children, we will be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. By the way, we have people being blown around by the wind of every new teaching. God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. And we will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies or clever. Have you ever seen this meme? My wife says this to my kids all the time.

When you're a part of the church and you're a part of building it and seeing it grow and you have this maturity to where you're seeing people's flaws, yeah, you're seeing them, but you're also seeing your own. And you're seeing God build something incredible and you're being humble and gentle. And remember when it says, be patient with each other, man, we need to be patient with each other. As we see him build us up and grow us. But I'll never forget this, you know, when you see immature people, when you see immature children, what do they do? They're whining, they're complaining, they're looking for every fault, they're pointing fingers at every turn. They're certainly not patient.

I don't know how many times I literally heard this words last week, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, stop saying my name. Which by the way, dads, we don't even get it, moms.

And my wife's response to our kids when they're like that, she says, what ails you, my little unemployed freeloader?

Stop being a freeloader in the church. Be a giver and not just, and be a server, be a part of it, be a part of building his kingdom and not just your own kingdom. He says, instead, we will speak the truth and love and growing in every way more and more to be like Christ who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly as each part does its own special work. It helps the other parts that grows that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. Let me close by saying this, I'm gonna show you an access video and show you some pictures as we close and I'll pray, we need you.

Why? Because God designed it that way. Let me tell it to you another way. We are better with you.

We are better together. I wanna show you a glimpse and I'm way over time, so maybe I should cut this. I can't cut it. I wanna show you a glimpse of what happened this past week at Access Conference with our middle school and high school students. Jesus wants your life to overflow. He wants your life to overflow with joy. He wants your life to overflow with peace. He wants your life to overflow with purpose, with love. He wants your life to overflow with satisfaction.

We love boundaries. We love structure. That's why I wanna encourage you. Let's be a generation that lives according to God's word. Let's be a generation that whatever God says, if I teach it to all Shawnwhap, you wanna see something cool? No. Well, I'ma do it anyway. Music

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These are two Korean represented exercises your hopes up. For miracles to happen, the foundational ingredient is faith. It's faith. But to have faith, you must have hope. Hoping is helpful. HGA, that's the law. You share, finish, all. Access conference, you have to remember that part of the overflow that you experience is the faith to see God do something that only he can do.

I'm so grateful that even when I'm not looking for God, God was looking for me. Anybody been found by God? Like your testimony is not that I found Jesus. Your testimony is I was running from Jesus, but everywhere I ran, there he was. The great day!

And there are students and maybe of a leader that are going to share a little bit about what God did this week. And I love the fact, and we can even show some of these pictures, can we go on? They finished this week, not just listen to me. These students, how many of y'all know they have a lot that they could consider doing in their summer? And they devoted a week to make this happen, to grow spiritually. And they ended this week with not receiving, but by serving and giving. A matter of fact, we actually had a group of girls, I believe, that were talking about, man, how do we bring this back to our church? And literally, an example is they gave out an award for an MVP of Serve Day. And out of 2,000 students, someone from New Life Church was named MVP of Serve Day.

What do you want to share? I just want to say that our students probably, they really felt God at access, within Serve Day, praying for just people they saw on target, people they felt needed it, giving compliments out to strangers at random stores, random restaurants, putting notes on their cars just for some encouragement throughout the day, because we don't know what they're going through, but all we can say is that Jesus loves them. I think that everyone that went to access can probably say that Serve Day was one of their favorites. Worship was just moving through them, the Holy Spirit moved through all of us. We all got to see God move through every single one of us, people that went. It changed, it changes your life. And this was my second year going. And I think that this year was one of the best.

Can we go back to the last slide for a second? This guy said no to being prayed for multiple times. And then for what, even by people in our own group, and then he said yes again to our group. And how many of y'all know this guy might have been resistant to God, but God was not resistant to him. I had the honor of leading these kids this week. It was probably one of the most incredible experiences I've had as a believer in Christ. Seeing these students so on fire for God, sprinting down when they called for prayer. Coming back moved in tears. I'll tell you what, that last night we didn't have enough leaders to comfort all these kids. And I just, and I thank God for that experience because it made me realize that it is not about me whatsoever. Everything that we did that week was for those kids and it's going to impact them for the rest of their lives. So parents, if you were hesitant about sending your kids to access, go talk to another parent of a kid that went, you will not hesitate to send them next year. And I pray that our youth group doubles next year when we take them because that is going to be amazing.

I want to share a quick story as I close. Thank you guys. Can we go? Well yeah, I'll tell a story about this one real quick. So these guys, Eric and Dominic, sitting right there, they walked up to the security guard at Best Buy. They asked if they'd pray for him and he's a police officer and they prayed for him. And then a woman came up and literally started complaining that people, they were soliciting. And the police officer looked at the lady and was like, they just prayed for me. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced. And they were faithful with using their gifts, their talents. This is young people. Be inspired. It doesn't matter whether you're young and old. This is how God can move through you. And I want to show you this. What was this? This is the last picture of the one before.

I don't have permission to share this story, but I'm going to share it. This young lady has been coming to our church for a good amount of time.

And she has been a self-proclaimed atheist.

She went to Access Conference as a self-proclaimed atheist. And on Thursday night, Wednesday night of the conference, her...

Are they blood brothers or sisters? It doesn't matter. Her brother, younger brother, was praying for a miracle that she might be saved. Her teenage, about to be freshmen in high school, was praying that her sister, who's a proclaimed atheist, would be saved. No more than two minutes later, she walked up to my wife and said, I want to pray to make Jesus my savior and Lord. And this is her the day after, in serve day, using her spiritual gifts. Can I tell you something? The day after, she has no idea what she's doing.

And some of you, you feel that way. You have no idea what you're doing.

But God does. And he's empowered your every move. And so all you need to do is you need to say yes to God. You need to say yes. And every step you take, he's going to guide your steps. He's going to put you around people that he knows that he wants to touch and change their lives for his glory so that we can build up his church and take as many people to heaven as possible. Can I get an amen, church? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we get to be a part of your move on the earth. God, how crazy is it that we're the ones who needed your salvation, that needed your help to overcome sin and death, to be transformed. And yet then you have given us, you equipped us with your Holy Spirit to then begin serving and giving and praying and supporting others to build up your church, to rob hell and to populate heaven. Why? Because you want to know every single person on planet earth would come to know you and be changed by you. And to God, even in this room today, I pray that as they've heard this message and maybe they're new to the faith, maybe they're just checking these things out. Maybe they're like the young lady who said they're an atheist. But man, there's a manifestation of the Holy Spirit right now where the invisible God has become visible to you. And right now the Holy Spirit of God is knocking on the door of your heart, telling you to give your life to Jesus Christ, the one true God.

If that's you, I want to encourage you to open up the door of your life to him, to believe in him, to accept him, to trust him and to follow him. If that's you in a moment, I'm going to ask you to take a step of faith with nobody looking around with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. If that's you on a count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and say, God, I believe in you. I choose you. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. In this moment you say, Jesus, I choose to believe in you, to trust you. I believe that you came to earth to live a perfect life and you died a sacrificial death. Why? Because we are a sinner in need of a savior. That payment, the payment of sin, it has to be dealt with, that you are a just God. And so you died in our place so that we could be forgiven, that we could be raised from death to life. And if that's you right now, if you're putting your faith in Jesus, you are forgiven. You are made new. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Now do this from your heart to God. Say, I turned from my sin and I turned to you, Jesus. In this moment, save me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, that I would be born again, born anew. And God, from this day forward, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. I'll serve you all the days of my life, using the spiritual gifts that you've endowed to me. In Jesus name. Amen. Come on church, put your hands together

Full Sermon Transcript

Good morning. Like she said, my name is Brody, my name is Brody Roland. I have the honor of being one of the youth leaders. We get to leave tomorrow for a fun trip. I have the honor of being the young adults leader along with Aliyah. And then I also spend a lot of my time serving around the building, whether it's on production, whether it's on sound, drums, keys, stuff like that, facilities, all of that. So you might look at me and say, oh, wait, that's not Dan. Okay. So those of you who are new, I am not Pastor Dan. Pastor Dan is the regular pastor. I just get the honor of speaking up here for one time. And some of you will notice that we have had multiple different speakers throughout this sermon series as we're going through the book of Ephesians. And something I was just thinking about even just this morning with this is that Paul wrote so much of the New Testament, but even through all of that, he was encouraging so many others to be teachers and to be leaders and to be speakers. And that's really what built the first century church. It wasn't Paul and then everyone else below him. It wasn't the 12 disciples and then everyone's below him. It was him encouraging and all of them encouraging so many other leaders. I'm so honored and thankful that I have the opportunity to be under someone who is like a Paul right now. Dan has been really working hard to empower so many people and has always been like that. So in my day to day, I do get to be a teacher. So I teach music to young fives through fifth graders. It's a wonderful time, but it's a very different perspective. So if I am looking for you to be kicking your neighbor or if it looks like I'm waiting for something to happen, that's probably what it is. I'm not used to a group of people that sit so still and pay attention so well. So that's what I'll be looking for. So there's going to be some times where we read stuff together, where we do stuff together. That's how I am. Some of you will also already know that I got to be on staff last year, January through September as the facilities manager. So as we built out this beautiful space, we tried to do it as much cash as possible. Before that, we were in a week to week set up at Madeline High School. And then when we moved in here, we had to do as much of it by ourselves and we had to do as little with the contractor. This space was clearly done not by us. This was by a contractor. The cafe clearly done not by us by a contractor. However the classrooms on either wing of the building, the offices, back rooms, stuff like that, I had the honor of getting to lead our volunteers and our people and empowering our people and getting people in the door so that way we could get stuff done. On as little a budget as possible. And as you can imagine, in going through that process with Dan, we have very differing personalities. So Dan has said it from here before, he is a ready, shoot, aim kind of person. I am not. I am quite on the opposite side of the spectrum. I am a ready, aim, wait, aim again, wait. Okay, let's overthink this a little bit. Okay, now let's go for it. And so in that time, I was still also being a teacher and coming here Tuesdays and Thursdays at night and spending my Saturdays here. So as you can imagine, like two very differing personalities and process-based people, both huge visionary perspectives, but the executing of the process is different, meaning that as Paul also states in another book, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another, well, iron doesn't sharpen iron in an easy lighthearted way. It is through heat and it is through pressure and friction and lots of slamming of an iron, a different iron on top of it. So we had scenarios where we would have, okay, Dan, we can't do that. We can't do that. We have to do this. And he would say, but why? Or because I said so, or because of this or that. And there were multiple times where we would have moments where we would disagree. He is a red-headed Irish Texan. I am a very passionate person. Both of us, very, very large personalities. So even, I loved that in those disagreements, we would have those times where we disagree. We would come here to the building. We'd have our meeting. I'd say, Dan, I see that you want this. We can't do this because of XYZ. So how about we do this instead? And we would get through it. We would, we would hug it out afterwards. He would say, you good. I would say, I'm good. I would say, you good. He'd say, I'm good. And we would move on from it. And so I so loved that process because that's how relationships should be. And I want you to see how some of that stuff comes out in our message today. So I would like to give you the points up front because I know some of you, when you structure your notes, you like to have it written out in a spaced kind of way. However, the points are going to change from the beginning to the end. Okay. So first God works in us and then God works through us and God works through us. Yes, that's correct. It's not a typo. So we'll dissect that the middle of the end of the message. But I want you to write those down. I want you to also see how those points come through in the message today. See if you can catch it before I have to obviously point it out at different times. My goal today is to point out how exciting the Bible can be. So often we just read through something and we're like, well, what was going on there? The Bible oftentimes can need a bit of a translation because it's not necessarily easy to follow for us, especially if you're not someone who likes to read. So hopefully in this process today, you get to see my passion for the word and how that comes through. There's going to be some times where I ruminate on some words and sit on some words because they're important. And then there's going to be some times where I'm going to plow through pretty quickly. In the parts where I plow through pretty quickly, it's to show that it's not super important because it's a bit repetitive at some different times. We will always dwell on a point, but then when we revisit it, we'll plow through a little bit. Okay. So we have been in the book of Ephesians. It's a church that was based in Ephesus. A little bit of a background. So Paul was writing from prison to the church in Ephesus. He had previously spent two years there with those people. So he loved them. He had a great relationship with them. He was very passionate about them. What happened is there's a lot of Greek and Roman God worship. So a lot of non-Christian stuff going on. But then also, this is one of the first examples we see where Paul is really, really pushing the fact that believers can be Gentiles and Jews. So there's two structures to this book. There's a first half and there's a second half, and there's a miniature praise break right in the middle. I love that I get that praise break bridge today, and we'll look at that in a minute. So this is really cool that this is the first time where all of us, unless you have done an ancestry DNA test and found out you are truly Jewish, some of you probably are, for the most part, most of us probably owe our faith to this book. Because this is one of the first books that truly talks about the fact that you don't have to be a Jew in order to go to heaven to believe in Jesus and all that stuff. So if you are a person who likes to write down passages, we're going to be looking at chapter 3, verses 14 through 21. And then there's a big word, therefore, right in the middle of it at the beginning of chapter 4, and it's therefore. It's huge. Any time you see therefore, it is a huge transition word in writings in the Bible. And then we will look at verses 1 through 6 in chapter 4. If you're someone who likes to dig in, write that down so that you can dig in on your own time. Like I said, there are multiple times where we need some assistance with looking at the Bible. Two places that I reference, the Bible recap, we are going through that every day right now as a church. So I've read through the Bible cover to cover two times. However, this book and going through it with the church is the first time where so far, as of June 23rd, I have not missed a single day this year. So I'm super excited about that. It's a lot of fun. I've made it through twice, but I want to be diligent and persistent and do it every single day, not missing a day, not going, oh, just God, I'll do two tomorrow. I can catch up. I want to do it every day. If you are also following along with that, the Bible project within the Bible app, the Bible project is in the Bible recap. And it's those like cartoon videos that pop up every time you visit a new book of the Bible. It's really cool. So I believe that the way that I imagine them doing this is it's likely on like an iPad or something. And the guy's doing a voiceover narration of what happens in each book. He draws out different events that happen. If you're a visual person that likes to see pictures, a lot of us are nowadays, then go look up the Bible project. It's super duper helpful, very accurate, very, very good background stuff. Okay. Let's dig into the passage here. We're going to look at verses 14 through 19 first. When I started to dig in, I started in my Bible. So a couple weeks ago, I think it was two weeks before the end of school, Dan said, he sent me a text and I said, would you like to speak in the Ephesians sermon series? And I don't even remember what I said. I've got in a text message. I said something about like, I would love to. It would be an honor. And the first thing I did was that next Saturday, he gave me what date it was and I got the passage. So then I took my personal Bible out. We talk about this a lot where like, this is my Bible. Okay. So I have my Bible. I know Jillian's got her Bible and her Bible is marked up in a way that my Bible will never be marked up. I know that some people don't like the Bible being marked up. They like it to look good and clean and different. Mine is second hand. So I got this from a cousin who gave it to me. You'll also notice that it's a little bit mobile. So the book of Isaiah, like you can take it with you. And obviously I spent a lot of time in this specific Bible recently because since I prepared this message, the book of Proverbs and part of Isaiah is also now mobile. So the phrase goes, if your Bible is falling apart, that means your life isn't. And so like I love that when I look at this, I see cat bite marks from my cousin's cat. I see that the lamination is coming off the outside. I have one big bookmark. I have another bookmark. Notice that one bookmark is a beautiful metal bookmark and it says, for I know the plans I have for you, which is verse... Oh, for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, which is verse what? Jeremiah 2911. Some of you are just too scared to say it. So remember, like I said, I teach little kids, so I'm so used to outbursts of, Mr. Roland, I gotta go pee. Mr. Roland, you kicked me. Okay, well, you kicked three times first and then they just kicked you back the last time you didn't like that. Okay, then you notice that my other bookmark is actually like some directions from like a drawer slide. So it's what I had in my hand at that time. I said, I need another bookmark. What's around me? I grabbed some of this. I said, oh, that works. It looks like a bookmark. It's directions from a drawer slide that might seem unimportant right now, but it does make sense. It does have to do with what we're doing. First, let's dig in. I don't need to keep going on this. Let's dig in. Okay. And should all be up here first, you'll look that we're in the NLT, New Living Translation. When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, who's the creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. When Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him, your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to fully understand. Then you will have made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. So that's, there's a lot there. I read this passage when Pastor Dan gave it to me. I said, Oh, this is good. There are so many different sermons that could be pulled from that passage alone and we've still got a handful of verses after that. So after I read it in my Bible, I then went on and I said, okay, so you know, we know that there's a lot of value in reading other versions. And so I grabbed my phone and pulled out the Bible app and I read in the NIV version. So when you go from your Bible, it's very personal. You spend a lot of time with this Bible. This is your personal bridge to God. Then you go to everyone's Bible. It's your phone. Everyone can access it. I'm going to go through this one a little bit quicker because after I read it, I realized, oh, there is not much differences in this version. But we're going to read through it just the same. For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Okay, so not meant, not much differences, a lot of similarities, two different versions, but a lot of similarities. The reason we do different similarities is so that we don't become so used to one set of words. John 2, 16 says, the God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life with Him in heaven. We can recount that, but when we go and read a different version, it makes our brains stop because there might be one word in there that's different, but it causes our brains to stop and we say, hold up, I've got to actually think about this as I read it. So now I want to go on to another version, and this version is where I like to say it starts to get juicy. This is the amplified version. There's a lot of flavor in it. I like to use the analogy with the amplified version of, okay, you're in 11th grade English, your teacher says, please write me a 700 word essay about your favorite food. You write the whole essay. It's all there. You've got everything you thought you wanted to put about it, but you're only at 500 words and you say, oh man, I'm not going to add to it, but you start stretching it. You add the extra words into it. You add the adjectives, you add the words that describe it a little bit more. So I want to sit in this for a minute on a couple different spots. Okay. Verse 14 says, for this reason, grasping the greatness of this plan by which Jews and Gentiles are joined together in Christ, I bow my knees in reverence before the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. So in this version, I'm going to pause there in this version, grasping the greatness of this plan by which Jews and Gentiles are joined together. So he's referencing the first three books, the first three chapters of this book. That's everything. That's the reason. That's the focus. It's because Jews and Gentiles are joined together because of Christ. Okay. Moving on. Verse 15 says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, God, the first and ultimate father. It's in this verse that we actually start to also see a bit of why we are in a male-led family, a patriarchy, because God is the first and ultimate father. If he's the first and ultimate father, then we have a lot to live up to and to follow that as men in that position. Verse 16 and 17. I'll give you it first. Here we see all three parts of the Trinity referenced. We've got the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. See if you can see it. May he, capital H-he, grant you out of the riches of his capital H glory to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through his spirit in your inner self, indwelling your innermost being and personality, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and may you, having been deeply rooted and securely grounded in love. Pause in there because I don't want to go on. So you see another verse there where it has all three parts of the Holy Spirit referenced. I just think it's cool because that's big. That's the reason where that's that. We sit in that because in the first three chapters, you have Jews and Gentiles coming together and then you see the why behind it. Okay. And I mentioned that one of my bookmarks was a set of directions for a drawer slide. It was just a project I was building in 2020. In that, you'll see why my mind paused on this in verse 18. To be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints, God's people, the width and length and height and depth of his love, fully experiencing that amazing endless love. So my brain being a directions oriented brain that likes to build things. I love working with my hands. I love building projects, doing things, working on things. My brain pauses and says, hold up. We know that it's length times width times height for geometry. Why is there another one in here of depth? We know that the Greeks kind of were huge starters of geometry and stuff like that. But why is there a fourth one in there? I mean, it can't be like some multiverse dimension thing. That's the 21st century stuff. In this time, we only had length times width times height. That's where I said, okay, I need to dissect this. I need to look at this. So I said, okay, how do I figure it out? Let's look at those four words. The breadth, length, depth and height. I have another one here. This is a heavy boy. This is called an interlinear Bible. This has Hebrew, Greek and English in it. No, I'm not one of those people that just uses this in my morning time to read through. No. This is the book you get out when you want to study something. This one is very pretty. It sits on our TV stand underneath our TV. When I actually got it out, I actually had to go and dust a ton of dust off of it because it just sits there a lot. It's one that you don't reference all the time. So I found the verse. I said, okay, Ephesians, let's find verse 18, blah, blah, blah. And when you go in here, you see that a guy named with the last name of Strong at one point labeled every single word with a number in the Greek and Hebrew languages. So each word has a number that is assigned to it. That allows us to go from our English back to the original Greek or Hebrew language. And so I went in and I found it all for you. I made it easy for you. So if you want to throw up that next slide, it has all of these words on it. Okay. So breadth, it is 4114. I then went and looked it up on Google. I said, okay, breadth 4114. Okay. It's plateaus. Broad plane ends of the earth. And when I started to look at this, I also realized that 4114, that word for breadth, is also only used a different time in Revelation. And then I said, okay, let's keep moving. Length, 3372, blah, blah, blah. Macos, foreshadowing the greatness, extent, and number of the blessings received from Christ. Okay. So that's looking at everything that's going to come. Okay. Then keep moving. 899, depth. Bathos, bathos, whatever. That one refers to the depth of the ocean. The ocean was something that was crazy to them back then. And it's still crazy to us now. We don't know that much about the ocean. There's a lot that we don't know. There's a lot of the ocean floor that we haven't even accessed, we haven't even looked at on a complete side note. I almost went into marine biology, so I love this kind of stuff. So I love that this came up because the amount of mystery that is in the ocean is crazy. And what's happening here is God's love, it says, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep, is the love of Christ. The love of Christ is that mysterious. It's that unknown. It's that deep. It's crazy. And then the last one, 5, 3, 11, height. Hoopsos, hoopsos, referring to Jesus' ascent and presence in heaven. And so I got through all those and I said, hold up. That doesn't mean X axis. That doesn't mean Y axis. That doesn't mean... So this really means something completely different. And so in that moment I realized that Paul is writing this to show us with images how amazing the love of Christ is for us. I don't know. It's something that I sit in and I could dwell on that for a long time because you can't understand that. You can't know that. And then he goes from there and he says, hold up. In verse 20 through 21, it's called the doxology. We have put labels on the Bible. The human races put labels on the Bible. Paul didn't write chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. The early church did. And so this is labeled as the doxology by the early church. I'm going to read it in the way that we read verses a lot of times in church. If you can put up verses 20 and 21. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. So often I feel like when we read our Bible, that's how we read the Bible. We read it so basic and so boring. Notice we have highlighted words. Notice we even end with an exclamation point. Like that's not normal. That doesn't happen all the time. When we text nowadays we use a lot of exclamation points just to show our excitement in text messages because that's texting lingo. But they didn't have texting lingo back then. They wrote in different ways. So when there was an exclamation point, that's a big deal. So if you've been around New Life for a while, almost all the way back to Fetster Center days, I think it stopped when you were at Fetster Center, we used to read this verse at the end of every single service at the end of the last worship song. We'd all stand at the end and we'd say, amen, blah, blah, blah, at the end of the last worship song. And would you read this with me? Let's actually do that right now, but don't read it the way that I read it. Read it with some emphasis, some exaggeration, some fun. Okay, ready and go. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine according to His power that is a work within us. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. So you're like, that's good. That's important. That was Paul saying, hold up. We're at the middle of this letter to you guys. I have to pause. I've written three chapters. He wouldn't have said that because we put the label on the chapters. I have written one part of this book. We get to do this because of Jesus. Gentiles and Jews are together because of Jesus. And he says, hold up. This is important. I got to take a moment to praise God. And then he continues. So if Paul 2000 years ago, almost exactly 2000 years ago, it might've been like 1,980 years ago, but if Paul 2000 years ago was willing to take a moment in his writing to pause and praise God for all the good things that he's done, we also should look at that and do that as well. So now let's get into those points that we had. First one, he works in us. So like I was saying before, two of those points are the same. And we'll look at that right now. So right now I want to make, I want you to make it personal. Okay. He works in us. Change that to he is working in you right now, or what you would write is he is working in me right now. So in 16 17 Paul says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you. I pray that he may strengthen me with power through his spirit in my inner being so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. We know after we've been to church for a while that this is only possible through the salvation prayer. You know, that's the first step as the first step for the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. And then I want you to look at a tag that was there. May dwell in your hearts through faith. So we talked about this a couple weeks ago. I don't even remember which one it was, but in Ephesians two, it says, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. If it was by works, none of us would have that right. No matter how good our day to day actions are and no matter how many big things we do in our life that are good, none of us would be absolutely worthy of that. So thank God for that verse right there. Second point. So this is where we start to think, okay, you've got to look at what emphasis you're putting on the syllable. Okay, so let's look at that same second and third point two different ways. He works through us. Okay. He is working in me. He is working through me. Okay. So he works through us and our actions. In Romans eight eleven it says, and I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power. Sorry, that's not Romans eight eleven. That one was verse fifteen. I think it was fifteen. No, seventeen, eighteen. I have it right there. Silly me. I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power. Okay, so first being rooted and established in love we have power. Okay, now let's look at Romans eight eleven. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, that's a lot of power. He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you. That's a lot of power. Okay, and let's look at Acts one eight. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That's everywhere. All the way around the globe. And then let's look at James two twenty six. Taking a bit of a shift here. For as the body, which is powerful because if we've got the same power living as us, we are powerful. As the body without that spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. If I looked at my wife Aliyah and I said, I love you, but none of my actions ever said that. That is an empty love. If I, if I say one thing with my words, but none of my actions show that, that's an empty love. We're missing out a lot. If you come to church, listen, learn, go throughout your week without demonstrating your faith. Okay, you're saying that you believe, but your actions show another thing. If we, if we take all the talents that God has given us, we use them to our benefit, but then we don't return that back to God and give him some of the benefit. That's, we're still not, we're missing the point. If we don't use them to benefit the big C church, we're missing that point. Our faith becomes dead just as before we were believers. I'm going to repeat that again. Our faith becomes dead just as before we were believers. If you don't take actions, your faith without that action is dead. It's this, that's the exact same word he's using from those places to places. It's dead. Now, last point, he works through us. He is working through us. Capital U us as a group, people, group. It's a person. There's, I have a personal struggle with this because let's, let's think of like a team perspective for a moment. Okay. You're on a soccer team or football team or the Olympics team, any of them. And it's a team sport. You're not practicing an individual sport. You're playing a team sport. And you've got one teammate who consistently and constantly shows up not putting in the work outside. They're sleeping like four hours a day because they're just doing anything else. So they're coming in groggy. They're not able to put in the effort. They're not fueling their body correctly. They're not putting in the extra work outside of the mandatory practices. If you're in a team sport, most of the time you would get angry at that because, you know, we know that the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Okay. The team is only as strong as the weakest individual. And so oftentimes we would get angry with that because we want to win. The goal of a team is to win. It's, it's okay. You can, you can say like, ah, but this team just wants to show great teamwork. Uh, sure. Uh, you can say, but this team just wants to show a common unified mission. No, the goal is to win. Any team who goes out and does anything, the goal is to win. So if we are a team in the Big C church, if we are a team, the goal is to win. What is winning in church? Um, it's we rob hell to populate heaven. I almost went like this, but that would also be going down. We rob hell to populate heaven. If we are a team, we want to work together to rob hell and populate heaven. But then there's multiple verses here that say, don't fight or don't argue or don't be angry. But we know that Jesus went into the temple and he was angry. He flipped over tables. So how do you, how do you figure that out? How do you find that difference between righteous anger and not being angry with your brother? So I had to do some personal digging on this. Relations 5 22 through 23 is the passage that I use as my filter. Um, and looking at this, um, this is the fruits of the spirit passage. We, we can probably, most of us can probably know a lot of them because we've read that same exact translation so many times. Let's take it out of order. Um, but the fruit of the spirit is self control. Can you control your emotions? The fruit of the spirit is faithfulness. Are you faithful to that friend no matter what? The fruit of the spirit is forbearance or patience. Can you be patient? Can you have peace? Can you have joy? Can you be gentle in talking with that teammate? Can you have goodness or kindness and the joy? Can you love that person? And so if you sit in it right, we have to use that filter because if you, if you're not sitting and demonstrating the fruits of the spirit, then you're not handling that scenario right. The first of them is love. First of all is, is your intent love? Um, quite a few years ago, 10 years ago or so, here's a trend. Everyone would, would draw like the fish symbol. I forget what it's called. The Jewish fit. What is it? They would draw the fish symbol and they would put WWJD underneath it. What would Jesus do? And then I think like five years ago or so, there was a trend of like H W L F. What would Jesus do? He would love first. And I always love that because that's what we're called to do. The first word of the fruit of the spirit is love. Um, but I like referencing John chapter eight, one through 11. So here it says, this is the, this is when the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus and they, and they, they, they asked him, um, uh, teacher. Uh, we know that the law of Moses says that someone caught in adultery is to be stoned. Um, and what do you say to that? And he stoops down. This is my favorite thing because he stoops down. He writes in the dirt, he stands back up and he says, okay, yes, you're correct. Um, however, the first one to throw the first stone is the one who has no sin. And then he goes back to writing and it says one by one, they all left from the oldest to the youngest. I have a list of questions that I'm going to ask God when I get to heaven. He's keeping track of them for me because it's so long. I can't keep track of it anymore. Um, and one of the questions is what was Jesus writing right there? Was he writing the sins of all of those teachers and calling out their hearts so that they realized, oh, I've got a long list. You know, the oldest left first cause they got the longest list. The youngest left last because they were just young and ignorant and they were just too bold. Now, I don't know. I just, I want to know that one day, but what Jesus said is he said, um, the, the woman was kneeling in the ground still. And he said, uh, where are your accusers stand? I don't see them. Um, and, and he says, there's no one left to condemn you and neither do I. Now you could, you could stop there. But what he says next is, it's so important. Go and sin no more. Okay. What would Jesus do in this scenario? He loved first. Okay. He got rid of the accusers. He said, we're going to have a one-on-one moment right here, one-to-one, brother to brother, brother to sister. Uh, and he says, where are your accusers? I'm not going to condemn you, but go and sin no more. So often we cut off that last blurb of go and sin no more. Matthew 18, 15 through 18, you can reference it on your own time. If you want the gist of it, go and confront a brother one-on-one. And then if they still disagree, two-on-one. And then if they still disagree, disagree, bring him before the church. And after that cast them out of the church and they are as good as a nonbeliever. Okay. Three verses later, Jesus states when I think it was Peter asked him, teacher, how many times should I forgive my brother though? Because Peter obviously knew that like again and again and again they were going to mess up. But Peter says, how many times should I forgive my brother? And Jesus says seven times 70. Um, in Jewish history and perspective, that would mean infinitely again and again and again and again for all time. Um, another thing that just came to my head, it's not even in my notes, um, Peter denied Jesus three times and received that forgiveness three times. Okay. What if, what if Peter in his head was saying, I'm only going to forgive my brother one time. If Peter was held to that same standard for himself, he would have never became part of the first century church and we would have had a whole different world right now. So if Peter was held to the same perspective and only forgave one time and then cast out his brother and if he didn't ask that question, we'd have a different world.

I'm, I'm thankful right now that Peter asked that question so that we can have the written reference to go back to. People always think like, oh, the Bible's so old, it's so dead. No, it's not. You can use all these things and bring them right back up. How many times should you forgive your coworker endlessly? How many times did you forgive your husband or wife endlessly? Uh, that's, that's a lot. A house divided cannot stand. Who said it? Ah, we got a lot of people who got it right. What we know most recently as is Abraham Lincoln. I love that Lincoln was the president who quoted the Bible. He quoted Jesus. Um, he said it, uh, after the Pharisees, uh, to the Pharisees after he had healed the young man. If we, we will, we as a team will not succeed if we don't stand together and do stuff together. Now, this is not saying we're not going to have disagreements. We're not going to have things that, that we have to get past, but no matter what, we have to be on the other side of it, a part of the same team. We, so many people, I'm going to go on a quick tangent. So many people say, what is the right denomination of the Christian faith? What is right? Which one's right? Jesus didn't make the denominations. He didn't say, um, Peter, I want you to go, um, you're, you're kind of a lively person. Um, I want you to go find found a sect of religion that's high energy that dances and sings like David, but just don't streak. Just don't do any of the streaking. Um, Matthew, you're very legalistic. So I want you to go found a denomination that's very rule following. Uh, James, my, my half brother, I want you to go found a religion, a denomination, um, that is all about relationship because you and I, you know, we, we came from the same house. We got the literal same blood flowing through us. So we've got good relationship. I want you to found a denomination based upon religion or relationship. No, none of that happened. So we messed that up. We, when we are a part of our teams have changed all that. So what we have to do is go back and figure out like, okay, what does the Bible say about all of that? Because if we don't stand together, the big C church is never gonna win. We're just gonna drop the ball. If we don't stand together and do our job together, it's, it's, it's just gonna, it's gonna fail. So I want you to think like, okay, if, if God calls us to do that in our faith walks and if that's a good foundation for a faith walk, we probably should do that in our personal lives, right? Okay. We probably should implement that same kind of stuff in our, in our jobs. I'm a man. I'm a manager of eight people. I'm going to start on Monday in our first team meeting back. I'm going to start a time where we work on unity working. We're on the same team. So I want to work on unity. I am a doctor on a team. So when I get back, I'm going to work on, on making sure that I recognize that he's working through me when I go out. Because if, if these points are good enough for us to implement in our own personal lives, in our faith walks, they're definitely important enough to implement in our, in our group walks. So you remember that, that first one, God works in us. He can't work in you if you haven't prayed and asked him into your heart. So God, thank you today for an opportunity to, to come together, to worship, to listen, to learn. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to show my passion for everything that I've got here.

God, I, we know that, that you're working in us right now. You're working in me. God, you are working in me. God, I know that right now you're, you're working through us. You're working through me. God, I know that right now you're working through us as a team.

In order to get to that team point though, you got to get through the individual stuff. So maybe you've prayed the salvation prayer before. Maybe you've not. Maybe you're re-praying it. But no matter what, I pray that right now you would feel that knock or that, that tug from the Holy Spirit in your heart, that power trying to come alive inside of you. There's, there's two things that go in inside that prayer that you have to make in order to really start that, that relationship, that close relationship. God, you have to declare God, I want you to be the Lord of my life and lead my life. And God, I believe that you sent Jesus to save me. Just those two things.

Such a simple prayer. So whether you're praying it for the first time or whether you're praying it for like the 15th time, I personally, I try and pray it all the time because God says we have to take up, Jesus said we have to take up our cross daily and follow Him. We have to take up the, the role daily and follow Him. We have to do the acts daily and follow Him because faith without those works is dead. So if you're praying that prayer for the first time, I want you, I want you to raise that here right now and just a bit of a sign of surrender saying, God, I want to recognize right now that you're the Lord of my life. I want you to lead my life. We don't use Lord too often right now, but God, I want you to be the leader of my life. I want you to direct my steps where I go, what I do. I want my life to be led by you, God. I want you to be the king of my life. I want you to be above every political leader in my life. I don't want to have a politician leading my life. I don't want to have a boss leading my life. God, I want, I want you to lead my life and God, I also recognize that I'm so thankful for the fact that you gave your son to die on the cross. He would die and then come back.

Thank you, God, for, for doing that. Thank you, Jesus, for doing that. Thank you for then allowing the Holy Spirit to come into my life. God, I, I'll open my heart to you right now that you would come into my life and dwell with me wherever I go. God, I pray that I will be the leader of my life. God, I pray that this week I would live a little bit different for you. God, I pray right now that we as a group would recognize we are part of the big C church, that we are working together to depopulate hell and populate heaven because we want heaven to win. So, God, I pray that we would, we would take these works. God, we will recognize that you are working in me. You are working through me and you are working in my people group. God, thank you for the time that we have. Thank you for having the heart that I have to worship. Thank you for the freedom to worship and thank you for that sacrifice that you gave for us. And everybody said, amen. So, we know that that's a big deal when we rob hell to populate heaven. That's a big deal. And if Paul was willing to pause and praise break in the middle of his letter, then shouldn't we pause and praise break in the middle of our service?

Full Sermon Transcript

This is church, right? Is today church or what? Like this is incredible. And I love, this is, I don't know if you know this, but, because not all of you are on social media, but I posted something this week about how Father's Day is one of the least attended church services in the entire year. And in comparison to Mother's Day, it's one of the highest attended of the year. And I just want to tell you, like, thank you. Like this is powerful. Dad's you showing up moves the spirit of God in a way that you can't even comprehend. And we just witnessed it in the room today. And so thank you for being men of faith that pour into this place. Can we give them again? Thank you dad. I got to get moving so that we can get out of here before next service. Okay, so we're in this series called Ephesians. Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul who wrote the book to the church at Ephesus, which we've been going through right this, Paul is going to answer four questions in today's section of Ephesians. By the way, if you have the New Life Church app, you can take notes in there. Again, I'm going to fly so you're going to have a hard time keeping up with me today. I'm just warning you. But here are the four questions that Paul, the Apostle Paul is going to answer in today's section of Ephesians. The first question is, why should we be involved in the church? Man, I hope you just felt it. I hope you just saw it. I hope like, again, Kelsey said this, like watching online is a great alternative for when you're away or when you need to when there's a sick kid, but there's nothing like being together. There's nothing like being in the room. And I want to tell you, again, we do prayer over those things once a month, but can I tell you, every time you come to this church, you can ask for prayer. And a matter of fact, if you find a believer, ask them for prayer. We are to pray for each other, to encourage each other, to be together in this. So why should we be involved in the church? I just gave you a multiple tune and answers. Amen, let's go home, right? But here's question number two. How involved should we be in the church? What is the mission of the church? And then what does this mean for you? Those are the four questions we're gonna get to. Ephesians chapter two, starting in verse 11, Paul says this, he says, therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth, remember that at that time you were separate from Christ. Last week we talked about how many people need Jesus? Everyone on planet earth. It says that none of us are righteous, not one. And there's only one way to get to heaven and it's through who? Jesus. So he's telling us right now that he's saying to the Ephesians, he's saying to you and I that we were Gentiles by birth. What does that mean? We were not Jewish. We were not in the people of Israel. We were not God's chosen people. This is true for the Ephesians and this is true also of us as Americans. We are what the Bible calls Gentiles. We are non-Jews. God revealed himself first to the nation of Israel, to the Jewish people. To what? To know God intimately, you would have had to become a Jew. You had to come a part of that family and how you did that was to be circumcised. Today we get to be baptized. Aren't you grateful for New Testament living? Not that anyways. But you and I, most of us, if we didn't grow up Jewish, we're excluded, right Paul says in the next verse. We were excluded from citizenship in Israel and we were foreigners to the covenants of the promise, the promises of God. We were without hope and without God in the world. You need to know this because some of you, you have a very small vision, a small maybe understanding of what God means when he says to the world, global. God has a global nature and a global mission to reach all people to the ends of the earth. And unless you were Jewish, Greek or Italian in those times of Jesus that were around Jesus during that time, man missionaries were sent, church planters were sent to the ends of the earth to reach you and I with the gospel. Now, Ephesus would have been in modern day Turkey at the time it actually wasn't. The political landscape of the day would have been different. It would have been a part of the Greek nation at that time. But today it's actually in modern day Turkey. And so that the original disciples, man, that they would go to the end of the ends of the earth, literally for them to go from the promised land in Israel to go to Turkey would have been to the ends of the earth for them. And how crazy is that that the gospel who got to Ephesus also got to America. And if it didn't, you and I wouldn't be sitting here today. America, we think that we own the church, that we're like, we're it, like we're the ones that own it all, we know it all. Man, we're gonna send missionaries from here to the nations, to the world. Guess what? There are nations around the world that are saying Christian missionaries to us. But yet we think that we're, it all revolves around us, right? And so this is what Paul is getting at, that we weren't just all dramatically in, we were actually foreigners. The gospel is a global thing, it's not an American thing. It started in Israel and even in modern day Palestine, not by, listen to me, not by a white guy, not by a Republican or a Democrat. Jesus was a Jewish, Middle Eastern, miracle working carpenter who is more than a mere man. He claimed to be God and either he's crazy or he is in fact God. He died sacrificially, he defeated death in his resurrection and you and I, by knowing and following him, we can be what? We can be saved. Jesus said to us who are saved, those of us who are followers of him, he told us to what? To go and to make disciples of what? Of all nations. Now listen to me, all nations, as I'm gonna describe to you in the message today, all nations, to the book of, in the book of Ephesians that Paul was writing to, all nations and even Jesus in the Great Commission, all nations doesn't mean nations with political borders.

Right, I just stated that in the original language or in the original, to the nations, Ephesus, which is now in Turkey, would have been in Greek, in Greece, which means the national borders did what? They changed. Did that change God's mind on where he was gonna reach people? Absolutely not. All nations, a matter of fact, if you go to the original Greek language, when Jesus says to go into all the world, go and make disciples of all nations, that word all nations is the Greek word ethne. Say that with me, ethne. You can go and impress your friends today, you know some Greek. But ethne is better translated, people groups. It has nothing to do with political regions. It has to do with people groups. Do you remember on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon people and they began to speak in tongues, what were they doing? They were speaking in what different languages, why? Because Jesus wanted to reach different language groups, people of different nations, different ethne. And so he provided the opportunity for his gospel to be shared with as many people as possible. He said to you and I that we would be witnesses to the ends of the earth. And if the original disciples hadn't shared the gospel, hadn't gone to what they considered and what they saw as to the ends of the earth, you and I would not be here today. We would still be excluded from citizenship in heaven. We would be foreigners to the promise, we would be with hope and without God. Can you imagine that? Like think about that for a second. Those people had to step out in faith to be disciples who make disciples. They had to be disciples who are willing to share the gospel with other people. And if they didn't, New Life Church would not exist. America would not have seen the gospel. Who's grateful that those people shared the gospel back then so that we can know it here and now? Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Me too. Because again, once we were excluded, but now Ephesians 2.13, you can throw the next verse on the slide, it says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by what? By the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made the two groups one, Jewish, the nation of Israel and Gentiles, all the different nations had made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. Ask yourself this question, what are the dividing walls of hostility that we see in our world today? Race is a dividing wall of hostility. When's the last time, this is a sobering thing to ask because I've asked it to myself, when's the last time that you shared a meal with someone? By the way, a meal is symbolic in the scriptures as being close, as saying, you're welcome at my table, like this is the gospel, this is what Jesus did with sinners and with outcasts and with people who were broken and hurting. When was the last time you shared a meal with someone that doesn't look like or sound like you? Because if Jesus is gonna reach the ethno, then we need to get comfortable with people that don't look like us, act like us, have the same culture as us, maybe even speak in a different language as us. And by the way, I am so glad, and I'm just gonna share this to this service because you don't see this happening right now, but we, oh, you do, oh, it's active, I love that you see it. We have a group of deaf people that come to the second service and they don't have a church to find because they don't have access to hear the gospel, and so what did someone say? How can we do that at New Life Church? I didn't say that, I didn't come up with that idea. One of you did, and now we have the opportunity, and by the way, if it cusses on here, it's not me, it's Google. And it has happened.

But they speak a different language than you and I. Are they excluded from the promises of God? Absolutely not. And so we need people in this church that don't look like us, act like us, sound like us, that don't speak the same language. Man, they might not vote like us, they might be different than us, but they are welcome at God's table because you and I have been welcomed at God's table. Here's another one. How much money? Here's another dividing wall of hostility, how much money you have or don't have. Does someone who doesn't have as much, are they welcome at your table? And I think I have permission to share this from someone who's probably watching online, but my in-laws, this story has been told before, but on Thanksgiving, all of the kids had been gone to the in-laws, and you know my father-in-law, probably he's very active here, my mother-in-law, they've been here from the beginning, and they're some of the most generous, kind-hearted, will share anything with anyone kind of people, but I'll never forget this. Hearing about this, not my husband, hello. And now he's in the row. Well, anyways, I don't even know how to recover from that. I don't even know how to recover from that. My father-in-law went to his office on Thanksgiving Sunday, and he came across a homeless man who had somehow gotten into the building and was sleeping in his office. How many of y'all would have called the police? It's not necessarily a wrong action.

He was trespassing on private property and sleeping in a building that doesn't belong to him, but guess what my father-in-law did because he is filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and he knows the Scriptures. He invited this man home for Thanksgiving dinner

with nobody else but he and his wife. This is godly living. Can I tell you that? This was uncomfortable for my mother-in-law, and she'll acknowledge that. She would say that to you, and really the more uncomfortable thing wasn't necessarily the dinner. She's opened her house to a lot of people. She's a very hospitable woman. She's a godly woman, but what made her uncomfortable is when her husband, the father-in-law, fell asleep watching football after the dinner, and it was my mother-in-law and the homeless guy just looking at each other like. What? What?

How about this? If you were to go into a middle school and high school cafeteria, who would you see sitting together? Would it be the athletes at one table, band kids at another, theater crew at another one, or would they be mixed? I know when I went to middle school and high school, it wasn't mixed. I bet the same thing is true. I haven't been in a middle school and high school cafeteria in a long time, praise Jesus, but anyways. The dividing wall of hostility in America, the biggest dividing wall of hostility right now, before I even say it, you probably know it, it's political parties. Do any of you disagree? Like check your pulse if you do, because you might be dead.

Jesus, Paul says, tore down those walls by giving us a whole new understanding of who can be inside and who is on the outside. And guess what? Those who are on the outside, he wants what he wants on the inside. Ephesians chapter two, Paul goes on, he says his purpose was to create in himself, this is Jesus, one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through Jesus Christ's cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit. He continues and he says in verse 19, consequently you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but your fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, members of his household built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. You wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for their faith in sharing the gospel to the ends of the earth. With Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone, in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too say this with me together, you are being built together. How many of y'all know a Christian that says, man, I can just be a Christian and live out in the woods and me and God have this time and man, that's probably true. You can interact, God is everywhere. You can interact with God anywhere, but you can't necessarily obey what God calls you to be and to do out in the wilderness by yourself because he calls you and I to what? To reach the ethnic, go to the ends of the earth, to reach the ethnic, to be this church built together, to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. Do you believe that Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God is proud to dwell in this room today? It's because we're living out what he's telling us. So all Christians everywhere have this, have these in common. Number one is you have a common source of righteousness. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone. Jesus said that he is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. The only way to be a part of the kingdom of God is through Jesus Christ, the Son. Number two is we all have a common foundation of truth. What is that? It's the Bible which came to us from the apostles and the prophets. It's the ones who are willing to step out in faith to be full of, what's the word for it? Bravery, to be unafraid of what could come against them to share the gospel with people. Matter of fact, I looked up this picture, I should have put it on the screen. I looked up this picture today in Ephesus. Remember when the students preached the first message in this series? They talked about how this, the church in Ephesus started with a riot and they talked about how the apostle Paul and the believers in the city of Ephesus were coming against persecution. Why were they mad? They were mad because Paul was preaching against their idols. They were preaching against a false God that they were making money on. How many of y'all know people that are making money out of a lot of false idols and it's taking people away from God? Paul preached against that and they were mad, why? Because it affected their bank account. And in this theater, the amphitheater there in Ephesus, they filled it up with people that are so mad at the believers and the picture like this is crazy, but if you looked at that picture, it's probably thousands and thousands of people that fit in that amphitheater. Like when you and I think about that, you're like maybe it was a couple people. No, it was like the whole city against them. And they came against this persecution, but because of their faith, you and I have the truth. We have Jesus Christ as our cornerstone. Here's number three, we share a common purpose. We are built together as a dwelling place for God by his spirit. This is the church. So here's the four questions. The four questions that Paul wants to answer through this scripture today. Question one is why should we be a part of the church? I hope you already see it. I hope you already felt it in the room today. Why must we be a part of the church? Answer, if you want to know Jesus, you must be intimately connected to his body. The church is called the body of Christ. Like how connected can you be if you are detached from the body? Like imagine, sometimes I feel like I'm in conversations with people and they might ask me a question and I literally feel like my head is disconnected from my body. How many of y'all have ever felt that way before? Like it's, we can't be disconnected from his body if we want to know him. Ephesians 3.10, he says that his intent, this is Jesus, Jesus' intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom should be made known. The manifold wisdom of God should be made known. What's the manifold wisdom of God? It's how to live a godly life. It's how to have a godly marriage. It's how to raise godly kids. It's how to live on mission together. It's how to love one another. I shared a post today this morning if you follow me on, I don't even know what I posted on, but anyways, Facebook, Instagram, I don't know where it is. How many of y'all have been in a situation this week where someone has been gossiping? The Facebook, go to Facebook. You can follow me on Facebook. Every one of you. I guarantee you, every one of you has been in a gossipy conversation this week. And yet God, God calls that sin. But what do we do? We're just like, it's not that big of a deal, right? We're just gonna gossip and we're just gonna talk about people behind their back and they're not in a room, so what's the harm? Like they don't even know. But God calls that sin and we just like, whatever, it's fine. Man, do we not need the scriptures and do we not need togetherness? And God wants to make us better. God is a just God. He wants to create us into something new because where gossip happens, guess what happens? Strife happens. Problems get escalated. Division happens. Divorce happens. Oh man, I just went from preaching to Medallin for just a second because a lot of people that have struggling marriages, they run off to their friends and they start seeking advice from idiots. Is that polite to say? Who just tell them what they wanna hear and tell them, and they're not thinking, man, this is gonna affect a family. This is gonna affect kids for generations. We need the church. We need the body of Christ. This is the manifold wisdom of God that the church is making known to the world. How many of y'all think our Republican and Democratic parties, libertarians need the church to speak God's truth into them? Some of you aren't convinced, but it's true. We are built together as a dwelling place for God by his spirit. God inhabits, he said, he lives in the praises of his people. God was in the room this morning because you guys were praising your faces off where two or more are gathered in his name, Jesus says, there he is with us. Here's B, answer two to that question. So question one, answer A, that was the first one. This is answer B if you're taking notes. If you want God to work in your life, you have to be a part of the church. You have to be a part of the church. The church is his bride. He refers to it as his body, you have to. Let me say something honest and real. You're like, you've already done that a couple times, Pastor. This might be an offensive to some of you.

How do I say it so you like me? Can I smile?

What? What?

We.

Yes, it's the wisdom of my bride. We have no right asking for the power of God if you have separated yourself from the means of that power.

Let me say that again. We have no right asking for the power of God if we've separated ourselves from the means of that power. Why did we ask people to pray over people is because God told us to do that. Why did we anoint people with oil is because God told us to do that. We didn't make that up and there's power in that. Guess who didn't experience that power today? Again, I'm not trying to pick on online church. You're welcome here, please come. Those of you who are traveling for Father's Day, I'd be here next weekend. But you gotta be in the room. You gotta be here to experience the power. Why? Because he's building us together as a dwelling place for where he will be. Let me put this another way. If you've been at this church for a while and you've refused to get involved, quit asking God for help if you've separated yourself from the means of his power. Question number two, how involved should we be in the church? Let me ask this a few different ways. The first one is how involved do you want Jesus to be in your life? Here's a different way to put it. How well do you want to know Jesus? Because I don't know if you know this, but the public schools aren't teaching Jesus. Your workplace is likely not teaching Jesus.

Your sports teams. I just went from preaching to Madeleine again. The manifold wisdom of God is to be what taught and shared by who? The church. It's why we exist. And if you aren't involved, listen, in a life group or serving on a team, you're only experiencing, or maybe even attending church like once in a while, you're only experiencing a fraction of what God wants for you. Here's question number three. What's the mission of the church? The mission of the church ultimately is that God would receive all glory for all things. And God is glorified when people of all different, listen to me, when all different backgrounds, cultures, races, experiences, languages, and ages, ethnic, come together as one because of Jesus Christ. Like they become foreigners, they become people who are on the dividing wall of hospitality, hostility, but then they become a part of God's family. They become brothers and sisters. Can you imagine with me? I mean, imagine what heaven wants right now, that there are people in Palestine, that there are people in the Middle East, that I'm gonna talk about in just a minute, that are at war with each other, the dividing line of hostility, and God wants them to be made one, to become brothers and sisters in Christ.

Here's NLC's mission statement. Out there, you'll see our vision statement, which is to help everyone to know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and to make a difference. But here's NLC's mission statement. Honestly, it's gotten lost over the years, and I took it down, and maybe I changed it like 75 times because that's what I do. I change things around here, like I change underwear. It's just a fact. And I change a lot. So just, if you're wondering, I change my underwear a lot.

Some of you were asking that question, so I thought I'd just answer it. Okay. Yes, praise Jesus.

Here's the NLC mission statement. It's not sitting in a chair. It's us as believers going across the street and around the world to rally people to a life-changing relationship with Jesus for the glory of God. Woo! Woo!

And I am so glad that all of you are here today, but if you just wanna sit in your chair, we need it for someone else who wants to get in the game and go and make disciples.

I love you, but these sits aren't here for you to sit in. They're here for you to worship. They're here for you to receive from God, but he wants you to go into all the world and to make disciples. He didn't just tell that to pastors. He said that to everyone who would call him Lord. And what Ephesians chapter three said this, "'By God's grace,' says Paul, "'By God's grace and mighty power, "'I have been given the privilege," listen to me, "'You and I have been given the privilege of serving God "'by spreading this good news.' "'What's the mission of Jesus to spread his good news? "'What is the mission of Jesus to rob hell "'and to populate heaven? "'How do people get into heaven? "'It's only through Jesus the Son.'"

Yeah. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! I don't know. Oh, I need to move. She's like looking at me. Man, that was evil eyes. I have a lot to go. Ephesians 3.13, so please, he says, "'Please don't lose heart because of my trials here. "'I am suffering for you, so you should feel honored.' "'Do you know the Apostle Paul?'" He went through so many things. He was snake bitten. He was beaten. He was flogged. He was jailed. He was shipwrecked. I don't even know what else. He was cussed out. He was... Y'all haven't faced any kind of persecution like Paul did. Maybe some, but not like Paul did. And he's telling you, man, you should be honored that I did that. I faced all that. What? So that you could know Jesus and spend eternity in heaven. Aren't you grateful for the Apostle Paul? Woo! Let me ask you this question. How many people in your workplace are grateful for you?

Because you've gone and shared the good news of someone who desperately needs it. I know you don't even, you don't even have to think for five seconds about someone who you know who's far from God. And so many times we come to church and we say things like, "'God, yes, I want the gospel. "'I want that person to receive it. "'I'm gonna pray for them and please do.' "'You need to pray for those people. "'You need the heavenly Father. "'You need the Holy Spirit to draw them unto himself.' "'And he's doing it.'" But guess what? God placed you in that workplace with that person for that reason.

And how many of us have seen people come to faith in Christ because we are there?

Matthew 28, 19, this is the great commission, right? Therefore, go, this is for you and I, all of us, go and make disciples of what? Ethnae. All nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son and of the Holy Spirit. By the way, one of the best things I've seen us do in New Life Church, and we've done a lot of cool things, is watching people who have poured their faith out to others be a part of baptizing the person that they reached. Can I tell you one of the greatest things? It'll literally change how you see church, is when you see someone come to faith in Christ and you're a part of baptizing them, hello. That's the real deal. Now, some of you wanna get baptized, you're like, I want Pastor Dan to do it, which I don't understand, I'm not that cool. But I would rather, man, your dad or your mom, or maybe it's a sister or brother that led you to faith and you get to be a part of that, because you've lived out what Jesus has told you to do. And here's the crazy thing, he tells us to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and this is what the church has gotten wrong for probably decades, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. We've stopped doing that because we're afraid of how people respond. But you need to understand then that the words of God are the words of what? It's the words of life. And so we need to change that. Paul arranged his life's mission according to God's eternal mission. Here are three stages in every great work of God. The first is it's impossible, the second is it's difficult, and the third is it's done. Because Jesus said that what's impossible for you and me is what is possible for him. So what you think is impossible and what you think is difficult, it will be done, especially when it comes to reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ because no one wants to reach more people to take to heaven more than God himself. So if you wanna get God involved in whatever your life is, man, get involved in what God is doing, and this is what God is doing. God will give us, give you the help that you need. Romans 10, 13 through 15 says this, everyone, not just some people, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And he continues in verse 14, it says, but how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them, and how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? Can I tell you something? St. Augustine, if you remember from last week, I shared a quote from him, I thought it was really cool. By the way, some preachers and pastors and people who teach the word of God, they can be idiots too. And so I'm gonna share with you a way in which St. Augustine is an idiot. You've heard a phrase that says something like this. I think, and I believe it was St. Augustine, otherwise I'll have to apologize and repent to St. Augustine for offending him. But I believe it was St. Augustine that says, share the gospel always, and when necessary, use words. I just wanna humbly say,

St. Augustine, you're an idiot. Whatever, St. Francis, dang it. I repent, St. Augustine, I'm sorry, you were the real deal. St. Francis, read Romans chapter 10. They can't know him unless they hear about him. You have to use words. You can't just do good deeds because guess what? Your bad deeds disrupt the good deeds because none of us is fully good. Like I want to live a life worthy of the gospel. I would love to tell you, I would love to say that I stand up here as a perfect pastor. Sorry, I just, you just got baptized with spittle.

Thank you for sitting up front.

Are you picking up when I'm putting down? You have to use words. How did the gospel spread in Acts chapter two when the Holy Spirit and Pentecost came across it? He filled the people with many languages so that they could just see the cool things happening. No, so they could hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can't reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ without using words. And so here's some things that we are gonna do as a church together. We're gonna do it together. And this is not, hey, this is gonna happen overnight. This is something that's gonna take years and years to develop and to make great. But here's some things that are gonna come at New Life Church. First of all is those of us who are followers of Jesus, we need to step out in boldness like Paul did for us and share Jesus with someone that we know who is far from God and maybe even closed to Christianity. Because you know that reaching those people and changing those people's lives is just the kind of thing that God does. What did he say? He brings people who are far from him into his church,

into his family. Here's another thing we're gonna do. Church, we need to have the heart and the boldness to go to the nations. We need to have the boldness to go into our workplaces, into our families, into our sports teams, into our schools to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we have to have the heart and boldness to go to the nations with the gospel, ethnic, people groups. Did you know that there are 16,349 people groups in the world? We don't have that many nations, like with political borders. That's how many people groups exist in the world. People groups are equated as this. They have one language and one unique culture. 6,647 of these people groups qualify as what missionaries, missions organizations would call unreached people groups. UPGs, get that in your dialect, UPGs. Unreached people groups. What is an unreached people group? They're made up of one language and one culture that are less than 2% Christian. That's what qualifies as an unreached people group. Of the 6,647 unreached people groups, 1,662 of them are unengaged. What does that mean? Unengaged. That not even one Christian is actually working in amongst them to bring the gospel to them. But here's the deal. I know that it's God's purpose to bring these people of these language groups into the church. And so over the next couple years, months, I want you to be a part of God's purpose to bring these people into the church. I want many of you to arrange your life's mission around that mission. I want you to begin burning with passion to see God's love brought to the nations. And for many of us to go with confidence to these places because you know that's what God wants because it's what his mission is. So some of you, maybe a girl in the congregation today, maybe you're even saying, man, I'm gonna go start an orphanage somewhere. I'm gonna see these places, I'm gonna see these people in the heart. And God's gonna reveal to you that you have a burden for these people. He's gonna put it inside of you. Maybe you're an engineer or a medical student. Maybe you're a nurse, a doctor. Man, use that to bring the gospel to these groups. Maybe you're a teacher. Maybe you're an athlete. Whatever it is, use that to bring the gospel to these groups. Maybe you're an international business. I was with a group of pastors a couple of days. I need to bust it. Kelsey, I am out of time. I know. Are you an international business? Man, some countries and people groups, listen to me, are quite high in persecution so we can't, we literally cannot send white, Anglo-American Christian missionaries to these people because you'll be put in jail, maybe even killed because of it. But some of you, you go to these locations because of business. They'll take your money or they'll pay something to you to get the product that you're selling. And so because of commerce, God has opened a door for you as a missionary to reach people in those nations. Where no one else can go, you, business person, can go there because, how many of y'all know that all nations and all people groups speak?

God has you there not just to make deals but to rescue the lost. What if that guy or gal that you do business with becomes a Christian and then their family becomes a Christian, guess what? Then you don't have to go to just make disciples there on your business trips. They're there with their people making disciples in their nation because you were like Paul, unafraid to share the gospel. They become missionaries in their own country to their unreached, to their ungaged people. Second, Paul uses the word stewardship in light of the purposes of God. Most of you have a job and one day you will have the, this is her cue to say, get off the stage. One day you will have to answer for how you personally furthered the mission of God at your workplace.

All of us.

How are we doing? How will you say to God that you helped to advance the mission of God? Jim Elliott, a famous missionary once said, I haven't heard a voice telling me to go. You don't need a voice, he says, you've got a verse. Go into all the world and make disciples. Go to all nations, all ethnic. And over the next year, the next coming years, we're gonna be developing our ability as a church to send people to all ethnic. Can I get in a resounding amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. And we're gonna do this in four ways. And I'm just, I'm sharing this. This is, again, this is like a launch, like a launching time period. This is coming, we're gonna invite you to be a part of it. It's gonna take years to develop, it's gonna take people to develop, it's gonna take money to develop it, but we're gonna do this in four ways. Number one, we're gonna send people on short-term mission trips. So right now, we do that in Honduras. We send people to Honduras. We're gonna send, did you see maps up here? I'm not gonna share them because I don't have time, but we're gonna do that in the future, showing people the 1040 window, which is mostly Muslim countries who are anti-Christian. But I gotta tell you something, American Christians, we're not to just go and make war with those people. We're gonna reach, we're called to go to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna send people as midterm and long-term missionaries. Midterm is about one month to two years. A long-term is over two year missions. And we're gonna focus on the 1040 window. What's the 1040 window? It's the place where the most unreached people groups exist. We're gonna share more about this in the years to come, in the days to come, months to come. Again, it's mostly Muslim countries who are anti-Christian, Hindu countries.

We're gonna do this through Bible engagement. Did you know that approximately 3,400 languages still have little or no scripture?

What? 3,400 languages don't have the Bible translated into their language. Church, we gotta change that. And that's gonna cost money. Go and research illuminations. We've partnered in the past with Illuminations. It's Bible translating with the goal of making this happen, making God's word available and accessible to all people by 2033. And the fourth thing we're gonna do is we're gonna plant churches. Again, across the street and around the world, we're gonna do it locally, we're gonna do it nationally, and we're gonna do it globally through missions partners. We currently, again, we send people to Honduras. Man, we've got our eyes right now, again on the 1040 window, on India, Bangladesh, and others because they sit in there. But you might be called to a nation. I pray that you would ask God. I pray that you would have the heart. Lord God, here I am. Send me. So here's the fourth question as we close today. What am I asking for you to do? God wants to build us together into something powerful. Number one, you need to be very active in your church. You need to attend church. You need this. You gotta get in a life group. You gotta serve on a team. And for some of you, this is just learning to act like Jesus. Jesus came to serve and not to be served. And so when you come from the outside to the inside and become God's people, out there, all you're taught is how to be selfish and how to care about, number one, me. Right, we said that last week, me, me, me, I, I, I, my, my, my. But in here, we're gonna be transformed to be like Jesus who came to serve. And not just to be served, which is why I ask you, not to just fill a seat.

You gotta be open to other styles of church. What does that mean? Years ago, the biggest church division happened with music. And some of you to this day, you sit there and abuse and you're like, this is too loud.

But some, man, we literally have people, and I'll just say older people, who also have the heart of Jesus, who look around the room and say, oh my gosh, look at all the young people.

I thought all the young people were leaving the church. And they're inspired by it. Can I tell you one of the reasons it's not the reason, it's one of the reasons, is because they relate to the music. But can I tell you something else? Man, I hope we get some gospel up in here because we got, man, I was in a predominantly black church yesterday with Kelsey and man, they were, they were worshiping on a different level than you and I white people do.

But I pray that we have people who speak Spanish, worshiping God in here. I pray that the nations would be represented here in this room because that is what heaven is going to look like. And it's gonna look like that here in this room. Can I get an amen? Amen. Amen.

You've got to become comfortable connecting with others who are not like you, different races, backgrounds, ages, experiences, language, cultures, political parties.

You got to share Jesus with people who are far from God, and you've got to invite them to church. Consider going to the unreached people groups on short, mid or long-term missions. Start giving so that other people can be sent. And by the way, today, if you open up the app and go to our giving section, we unveiled a new section of giving. There's ties and offerings. And by the way, if you're a tither and offering, you don't just shift your ties and offerings to this other sector because we need that to pay our staff and to keep the lights on and to keep it cool in here, which it's not. But by the way, but there's another section of global missions. And so I'm unveiling it today because I believe that God wants to send people to the nations. And how many of you guys know that some people in this room want to go, but they can't afford to go. But together, we can afford to send them. Can I get an amen? And we're going to do it together. We're going to do it together. And so God, we pray in this.

Full Sermon Transcript

ight we're gonna get all right Ephesians chapter two are you ready I'm gonna sit down and the reason for that is quite honestly it's because I I've been told I'm a little more palatable it's like it's like having a family meeting and so I'm gonna sit down to kind of to just be kind of with you and and because we're gonna I'm gonna share some things from God's Word that's probably gonna well let's just say it this way it's going to offend you and it's good that it offends you. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 through 10 the Apostle Paul writes once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. Right out of the gate I want to share with you that a lot of times when we come to church when we think about church actually when we think about life we think that other people are bad we're not bad other people are bad right you ever think about that like those people over there they do wrong they're the ones that are that are evil they're the ones that are bad like but not us like people who kill people are bad would you agree with that yeah but Jesus says that if you hold anger in your heart it's like you're murdering your brother and sister and have you gotten angry lately lately people who rape women are bad but not us people who steal kids we can agree that's terrible awful evil Republicans are bad don't raise your hand Democrats are bad Muslims are bad you know many many people declare that Christians are judgmental proud hateful etc but the reality is if you really know the scriptures and really take what the Bible says we are all bad the Bible is very clear here's the what's clear about it here's here's point number one if you're taking notes you are evil and you are dead in sin not just those people you me we all are Romans 3 verse 10 says if I can find it it's up there there is no one righteous not even one aren't y'all glad you came to church today you know it's interesting is we have churches all over the globe today that are that are preaching a Bible of just you know people are good and you know it's it's it's all it's all okay and it's it's all health and wellness and it's all is it offensive that God says that you're evil are you offended or is it almost like gosh I can just breathe now because I'm finally gonna admit who I really am there's no one righteous not even one I don't even know if the cameras on me right now but this is kind of fun sup online wish you were here with us we'll see you next week I don't know why I just did that and here's how I want to put this because I think so many people when they think about sin they think about the things that they do that are sinful do you think that way do you my my daughter I have to be careful when I talk about my daughters because I don't want the PK the pastor's kid to always get a bad rap because I have great kids they're awesome yesterday Harper lied to us Kelsey and I and then later was discovered that she lied because she told her sister and her sister told us thank you for siblings and Harper literally said to Kelsey I was not there but she said to Kelsey I just feel heavy I feel so heavy because I lied lying is a symptom of the disease called sin you and I were born with the disease called sin a fatal disease of fatal flaw our own nature you were born with you didn't have to learn it no one had to teach it to you how many of y'all have kids that are one two years old and you know that sin is real and you think oh those innocent little babies young been to my house and then those innocent little babies become adults and boy do they get all sorts of crazy sin is a disease when you do things that are wrong those are the symptoms of that disease and most the time you know if you were to poll the audience today poll the people that are in in church today you know some of you would sin probably in different ways it might not be the same sin but you know are the same symptom but you have the same disease called sin are you are you with me is it clear that all of us have it it's not just a select few it's not just people in church and people out of church don't have it do have it all of us have sin and because of that the Bible says the condition of your spirit heart because of that disease you are dead spiritually you are a walking zombie for those of you who like zombies I thought I'd just throw that in there you are dead spiritually and the symptoms of that death spiritually they play out by us doing bad and evil things sinful things Ephesians 2 2 through 3 says this you used to live in sin past tense right so when you become a believer so just like the rest of the world you used to live in sin obeying the devil oh but Dan I'm just a good guy a good girl no the Bible says that you're actually obeying the devil when you live in your sin the commanders the powers in the unseen world he is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who say this with me who refused to obey God and he says all of us used to live that way so in other words there might be some that don't anymore we followed the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature by our very nature we were subject to God's anger just like everyone else st. Augustine said this that Christians people who have received Christ of their Savior they they have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of them he said that Christians should look differently than the world in three ways money sex and power do you want to see the most prevalent pervasive things about Satan running this world and people who obey him it comes in play in money sex and power right the world is obsessed with getting more it's obsessed with piling on and who can get the most and and and I just you work work work work work work why so that I can get glory for myself so I can look good before others driving around that Lambo I saw a picture this is crazy I couldn't I couldn't tell if I should be jealous or if I should be concerned but I saw how many of you are in social media for those of you who aren't praise God for you we all need to catch up all right but I was on social media actually this morning and I played football at this tiny little school in Texas called University of Texas hook and horns and this video is playing this morning about how they're about to receive some recruits for football it's recruiting is a big deal for a college football and and here's what they had lined up as the athletes from high school are going into the University of Texas this weekend for a recruiting visit they have Lamborghinis lined up for all of them to drive and guess what they're probably all gonna end up getting one hello where was mine I never got one I certainly didn't need one I want to crash that puppy within five seconds this is the obsession of money how about sex we obey the desires of our body even when it's bad for us or for others and we go against God's design how do I know this okay let's not even talk spiritually speaking and what the Bible has to say let's talk about science and medicine and all this kind of stuff and I know this is gonna be controversial but stay with me okay do you think sexually transmitted diseases or infections would exist if we did things God's way the answer is no no so we are dead in our sin money sex power this is I mean we're not even talking about LGBTQ plus and whatever they name it now I don't even know because they keep adding stuff or or or but this I'm talking about people who aren't married having sex or jumping from bed to bed to bed heterosexual couples the Bible says Jesus said that even if you'd look at someone lustfully in your heart you've committed adultery so Jesus takes it up a notch in his expectations for his followers money sex power we're obsessed with power right how do I know that do you think we'd have an into as intense of election seasons as we do if we weren't just after power like if we were just coming together to try to actually do good for humanity rather than just seek power we're obsessed with power always looking to get more of it by by whatever means necessary I mean you see this on social media all the time and I'm picking on social media because it deserves it right we're always striving to be this how many of y'all have gotten like 17 degrees and you still don't have a job I just went from preaching to Madeline and I don't even know why I said that but man you just want all the letters next to your name why power to make yourself look better smarter or we we have this obsession with selfies man I got you got to get that angle right I mean I how many of y'all take like 17 pictures to make sure the angles right oh gosh oh man he's not talking to me man we strive to be the smartest the best looking the richest the most successful the most religious because that gives us power over others and yet the Bible is saying all of us are sinful all of us are dead in our sin which makes it an even playing field but when we do all of those things money stacks power man the warrior old worship those three things and they give them devotion that should belong to God and so we are obeying the devil when we give him this this kind of this kind of influence in our lives the one following Satan listen because this is what I think some people think the one following Satan is just some you know somebody in a cult when they're all like you know dancing around and and worshiping Satan and sacrificing children at midnight no no no the one who follows and obeys Satan is the one following the world the one who's chasing money sex and power the passion of the flesh got God talks about the passion of flesh flesh all the time you you watch pornography why because you want to satisfy the desires of the flesh why do you drink so much smoke so much do all these things so much why more more money no matter how stingier who gets hurt in the process man I work and work and work and work and ignore my wife and ignore my family because I I just got to make more money and do all this it's and never be generous and and and never give any of it because you just want more you want to be the best the most I I I my my my me me me it sounds like a bunch of toddlers and why does this happen here's what I wanted to share with you in this point we were made we inherited by nature we are children of wrath just like the rest of mankind we are ripping ourselves apart because of sin why because we kicked God off the throne of our lives and we put ourselves there man that was awesome preaching pastor I have fired up to come to church today man you guys are like this guy's psychotic let me let me give you an example you guys want an example of what this looks like so some of you have or are or or are in the process of maybe dealing with it you watch pornography and by the way this is not a guy thing this this gets attributed to guys but there's actually statistics to share that women watch pornography just as much as guys so don't think it's a guy thing but you you might say to me pastor I can't I don't know how to say no I can't say no the desires they're just too strong I see that image I see that pop up there's just too many things that come my way and I just can't turn it off I can't turn off the lust for porn just like a light switch and and and man I'm like yes you can you can do that I know it because I've done it they're like how it's impossible well imagine this with me for a second imagine you're watching pornography you're doing you know who knows what with pornography and your mom walks in light switch the desire is now gone because you are what embarrassed ashamed you feel caught you're like oh my gosh my mom what and your mom's like what did I just walk into desire off like a light switch and it's not because you just lost your lust for porn or developed great self-control and that nanosecond no it's because you know you're afraid of what your mom might say in that moment you're embarrassed because of being caught was greater than your lust for the image and it just drove it out but but think about this for a second think about God for a second God said that he would be what he would always be with you and he would never forsake you the Holy Spirit of God lives inside of you he goes everywhere you go he sees what you see he hears what you're saying he he knows what you're doing all the time he's in the room he didn't just walk into the room like your mom walked in the room he's in the room yeah yeah and if you know that God is always watching but the thought of what he thinks about it is not enough to make you turn away from that sin like if you took God even as seriously as you took your own mother walking into the room you wouldn't look at pornography anymore but you've so minimized God to the point that the thought of his presence doesn't even make you hesitate anymore towards sin that my friends is what the Bible calls blasphemy to God it's it's cosmic treason and the Bible says that it deserves God's wrath it deserves God's justice but we're right but we just want we just want God to get over it we just want God to forgive and forget right but then again when other people are bad or someone else sins or someone else hurts us God man you just gotta hammer him with your justice man you got to make them right you got to make them feel it we want God to punish them but we want him to forgive us oh my gosh does anyone else like yeah you're right does anyone does anyone else yeah not us man you punish that not not not don't punish us you punish them like we're okay right with God being mad at Satan and and and doing something to to punish Satan or murderers or child molesters don't we want justice for those people who do those evil things but how often do you and I we justify our own sin and we want grace instead of justice and here's the deal you you can't blame the world for being at bad influence on your life you're like well I might be able to but let me tell you something who created the world's influence a person just like you and me and some of you you've heard this phrase like you made your bed you got to sleep in it have you anyone heard that before and so you can't just blame everybody else for your own sin your own actions we can't just blame Satan because listen the Bible says he can't force us to do anything he can simply bait the hook throw that lure out but who has to take the bite we do we do he only tempts us with things right that we naturally in our sinful nature crave is something we were born with it's a disease that is destroying us it's destroying our lives it's destroying humanity we deserve the wrath of God as my wife would say wolf our blasphemy against God deserves eternal punishment that the Bible calls hell hell is an eternal punishment and you need to know this God created hell for Satan and his demons and as their punishment but he also says that anyone who rejects God like they did it's a place that they choose to go themselves when they decide to just keep disobeying God keep kidding keeping him in an arm's distance it's a place completely listen hell is a place the Bible describes is completely void of life light hope and good how many of y'all like life light hope and good how many of y'all would rather have that than the other it's a place that lacks the presence of God that's why it looks that way the Bible says it's a place of eternal wailing burning isolation and say it with me ganashing of teeth I like it better when the G is actually stated that doesn't sound like a fun place God created as an eternal punishment for Satan and his demons but anyone who would choose to reject God would also find themselves in this eternal place a punishment of their own choosing we all of us have sinned we're dead in our sin and we deserve the wrath of God Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4 if you're watching with me say it with me out loud very loudly but God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead and it is only by God's grace through Jesus that you have been saved somebody say amen for he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus why so God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of not your own good but his grace and kindness towards us as shown in all that he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus if you're taking notes here's point number one you didn't cause salvation grace by Jesus alone caused your salvation number one Ephesians 2 8 said this that God saved you by his grace when you believed grace is the undeserved favor of God you didn't earn grace you don't deserve it have I made my if I were if I were arguing in a courtroom had I have I made the point clear that you do not deserve it none of you do I don't no one does but God saved you by his undeserved favor grace when you believed grace came to you listen grace came to you Jesus did what he did for you before you believed before you could even have faith God did what was needed for you to be saved grace came to you before faith God's grace drew you to believe in him and to have faith it's what drew you to God himself here's number two faith alone is the means of receiving salvation it is a gift Ephesians 2 8 through 9 says and you can't take credit for this how many of y'all want to take credit for being a good person stop it you're not a good person and and don't get into the comparison game well I'm better than that person stop it knock it off I love him Lee want to pass for you stop it can you can you just do this with me right put your hand out stop it you can't take credit for this because it is a gift from God it's a gift salvation is not a reward for the good things that you've done because you can't do enough good to measure up to who God is he's perfect in all his ways why so none of us can boast how many of y'all how many of y'all I probably shouldn't say this movie out loud because I'm probably ashamed that I actually watched it but Ricky Bobby who knows Ricky Bobby stop living stop living your faith life by Ricky Bobby theology if you ain't first or last Jesus said actually the first will be last and the last will be first did he not

Christ died for you and you have the opportunity to sit down in the chair matter of fact grab me a chair real quick I'm gonna time for this we'll see

yeah you can do it I'm an athlete I know I said my wife isn't an athlete but she caught that phone like she was yet last week here's the reality what like like Christ died for you he did the work to save you and you have the opportunity to sit down in the chair that was given to you or not you have the opportunity to open up the gift to be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms but but too many of us when we disobey God when we keep doing our way money sex power and there's so many other ways and this is just giving a couple examples but money sex and power we kick Christ off the seat and we're like look at me look how awesome I am look at how cool I am I'm perfect in every way I never sin I never do anything wrong I'm so good look yeah I'm try my phone get a little selfie here get a little more bling here man I'm so powerful I'm so cool I'm so much better than you and and we live our life when we when we approach the scriptures when we when we when we see what God tells us to do and how to live and we just say you know what nope not gonna do it pastor what's an example well the the world worships money have you ever tised oh gosh is he talking about tithing again yeah I'm talking about tithing because it's an indicator of whether or not your heart actually belongs to the Lord or if you just want to build your own kingdom and not God's kingdom I I I my my my me me me I was in a pastor's retreat this weekend a missions retreat as a global we were talking about global missions and and how many of y'all want justice in the world like man I'm gonna vote for this person and made justice is gonna come and and I'm gonna do we're gonna do all these good things we're gonna build wells and we're gonna do awesome things we're gonna do safe families and by the way we're doing safe families right we're gonna wrap up but do you do you want justice to come like actual justice to come on the earth like for people to be held accountable for the evil that they do like you want do you know what the Bible says how that comes uh anybody the only time do you know what it's gonna come it's when Jesus returns and he makes everything right when he literally deals with sin once and for all he wipes it out and he creates a new heaven and a new earth and you and I who were put our faith in Christ not by our works but by faith in the work that Jesus has done that he will live literally give us new bodies that aren't broken and diseased and hurting and striving and and working it all out and he will make everything right when when the Bible describes heaven and describes the glory of God and he says that in heaven there will be no tears justice there's no more crying because there's no more hurt and heartache when he says that he's gonna wipe away all sin and all pain and all hurt and disease justice do you know how we can speed it's coming we tell the world that you need to turn to Jesus for salvation do you know that that G that that God is that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father right now in the heavenly realms and Jesus loves you so much he loves his bride who's the bride the body of Christ the church people who believe in Jesus Christ and this is how I picture Jesus Jesus is sitting on the throne in heaven and he's literally like I want to go get my bride have you ever imagined like guys when you're when you're waiting for your bride to walk down the aisle and you're getting you're so excited you're like and and some of us guys if we're being honest we're excited for what happens after the wedding I'm just being honest I'm just putting it out there especially if you obey what God says about sexual sexual nature things waiting for that moment and you're so expecting you're so excited and Jesus is sitting in the throne in heaven waiting for his bride he's just anticipating like I want to go get him I want him to be with me I want to I'm tired of seeing him hurt I'm tired of seeing them them do these things I'm trying to themselves I'm trying to I'm trying to you know when they're dying and hurting and and going through all this pain and the elections and all this crazy war and all this stuff and Jesus is like I want to go back I want to go back and the Heavenly Father who's sitting on the big throne is literally holding his son back saying no we can reach one more we can get one more to believe in us to get more people into heaven instead of hell do you want to see justice come tell more people about Jesus every disciple make a disciple every single person as we are going as you are sent into the world listen the church will not grow if one person if it just pastor Dan and pastor you know all these pastors the different churches if we were the only ones doing the work to tell people about the greatest gift that's ever been given on planet earth that people don't have to pay for their own sins because Jesus has done it for them that they can go to paradise eternally with heaven rather than face the wrath of God in a place called hell man what are we doing with our lives it's the greatest gift we've ever been given and yet so many of us because we're still dead in our sin we're still dealing with sin and trying to get over it we're we're not focused on God's kingdom we're like when we go to work and man I would just collect my paycheck and I'm gonna put in a bank account and I'm gonna have the best retirement ever and I'm gonna drive those 18 year old athletes getting to drive labor genies come on

you know the average NFL football player they make gazillions of dollars and they lose it in the first three years and you want to give these idiots more money sorry I was I was unloving

why did I even have this chair up here we've kicked God off the chair of our lives the throne of our lives but here's the crazy thing when Jesus did get off his throne in heaven and come to earth to die a sacrificial death on your behalf on my behalf to bleed and to die so that your sins could be forgiven do you know what he did it's the great exchange it's the greatest gift exchange that's ever existed on planet earth when Jesus said I'm gonna give my life I'm gonna die for you so that you don't have to and I'm gonna give my seat to you that you were dead in sin but now when you believed in Christ you are now seated with Christ in the heavenly realms your spirit is there and your eternity is secure number three the effects of salvation are good works you don't do good works to earn it you do good works because it's been given to you Ephesians 2 10 says that for we are God's masterpiece you church are a masterpiece created in Christ Jesus he says he has created us say that word with me a new the Bible says that we are what born again born with a new nature not a sinful nature born again why born anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do the good things that he planned for us long ago to do so when we are saved man he gives us a new heart and he gives us new desires his desires let me make this clear how many of y'all how many of y'all have believed in Jesus and you're still struggling with sin do you all feel like a fraud I do but can I tell you something struggling with sin is an indicator that you are saved because you are seeing the Word of God receiving it in a way that you know I need to change it's the person that sees and hears and reads the Word of God whose soil is rocky and full of weeds and even outright rejects what he says that person needs to ask themselves am I saved because when we get a new heart a new life new desires our desires change from being I my my my meet meet meet our desires change to we want to serve people love them why would anyone want to do anything called save families because our desires have changed our lives have changed and so we serve people we love them we point them to Jesus we pray for them we help them in their times of need in distress we express a rational generosity we don't just tithe we say God what would you have me do to advance your kingdom with my finances to love making God proud number four what God started he will finish Ephesians 2 10 for we are God's masterpiece that word masterpiece in the Greek is the word poema God is masterfully composing you and I into something that glorifies him doesn't glorify our family not just our teams I know I'm the University of Texas is the best school in the round I'm just telling you just kidding God doesn't care about that he cares about his kingdom and then more people would come into it God has already determined the final outcome of that poema the masterful composing thing that he's done for you that that he will complete and make perfect and beautiful so you have desires now to grow and to change your life to be more disciplined to be a better father or mother a better son or daughter you want to be more generous you want to pray more consistently and become more godly you want to see your friends come to church and experience Jesus and experience his kingdom and his life you want to be a disciple that makes disciples God will finish what he started you walk forward in faith we are now dead to sin and are now made alive because of Jesus Christ and even though we're still walking in this broken down body of death and struggling we are now seated with Christ in the heavenlies your spirit is alive and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead has raised you to walk in his victory let's pray together Heavenly Father

Full Sermon Transcript

good morning, New Life Church. I'm so excited that you guys are here this morning. Good morning. Thank you. You know, my sister prayed this morning that you guys would be responsive and that I wouldn't feel alone up here. That's pretty awesome. You said good morning to me. That makes me feel special. I'm a little nervous today. I don't really know why, so I'm just going to put that out there. I am so excited to get to bring you this third message in our series in the book of Ephesians. We've been learning the first week we had our four young communicators that kicked off the whole series and taught us about the riot that actually started the church in Ephesus. This riot that happened because people didn't want to give up their idols, right? People didn't want to. Tradesmen didn't want to lose money because people weren't going to be buying the idols because they saw that they had no significance anymore. And so it literally started a riot with thousands of people chanting, great is the Queen Diana or whatever they chanted. I don't know. Noah can help me out. He preached on it, didn't you? Pastor. Yeah. And there was this riot that then started the church in Ephesus. And then last week, Pastor Dan, who I should mention, my name's Kelsey. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm married to him. That's who I am. And last week he talked about what Paul shared were spiritual blessings that are upon the church and upon believers. And so this week we're still in chapter one because if you've been reading through this, you know that Ephesians is deep in theology and learning and understanding. I read these 15 verses and I was like, huh, what are we going to do with that? And my favorite thing about that is when I read it and I think, God, you got to teach me before I teach them. So this is coming through personal experience in the word this week that it wasn't just like I read it and I was like, oh, I'm a great theologian. I know exactly what to preach. It was like, God, you got to speak to me before I'm willing to speak to them because I promise you don't want me up here speaking to you just out of what I know or out of myself, out of my own strength. And I promise you that I have wrestled with him this week on what I'm teaching you. So we have Paul who is writing to the church in Ephesus. And what I want you to know about Paul, I actually learned this this week, is that Paul loved the church in Ephesus. He wrote letters to a lot of different churches. He wrote letters to the church in Philippi, to the church in Corinth, to the church in which I learned this morning is pronounced Thessalonica, which I think is really cool. I was like, I think we could write a rap about that. I won't because my rapping skills are terrible, but Thessalonica. So he wrote these letters to different churches, but in all the other ones, it was like he was putting out fires. Like he had seen a problem in that church, and so he was writing to them saying, this is the problem, and this is how you need to tend to it. This is what you need to take care of it. But with the church in Ephesus, it says in the scripture, we know in the scripture that he spent longer with this church than he spent with any of the others. So his heart was for the church in Ephesus, and I almost compare it to him being the church planter of the church in Ephesus. So when we look at his words to this church, it's almost like if Pastor Dan was writing a letter to the church of New Life. If he was saying, here's how I feel about you, here's how my heart beats for you. Because while we pray for every church across the city, because we believe that we're in the big C church, right? The goal is to just have more people know God. Pastor Dan got the vision from God for New Life. So when he prays for you, he knows you, he has experience with you, and his prayers look differently than if he was praying for any other church down the road because he hasn't walked through life with them. And this is what Paul is doing with the church in Ephesus. So even in the beginning of the scripture today, we are in chapter one of Ephesians. We're starting at verse 15. And Paul says, this is why since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all saints, I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. And I love that because he's saying as I heard about your love for God, and as I heard about your love for people, I haven't been able to stop thanking God for you. And so as I look around the room, I think about the people that Dan and I, how we just pray for you and thank God for you because we get this upfront seat to seeing how God works in you. Just this week I was thinking about, he's gonna be so mad at me for doing this, about Doug Corstange. One night we were having a conference here, I believe, and someone showed up outside on their bike and were homeless. And it was really cold outside. And I watched Doug give his only winter jacket to this person because he was on a bike. And he said, I don't want you to be cold. And I watched his wife say, well, that's interesting. That's his only winter jacket. We have to go shopping tomorrow. But without thought, I watch Doug say, here's my coat. I don't want you to be cold. And so when I pray and when Dan prays, we say, God, thank you for Doug Corstange's love for you and for his love for people because they go hand in hand. When I hear of life groups going to build ramps for people who haven't been out of their house in years, when we hear of people going to serve the city, when I'm looking at Kelly Hooks who showed up to our office to just say, I'm here to help with this software that you guys have no idea what you're doing with, but I know how it works. And so she sits in an office with Dan and I giving of her free time to help us make New Life Church stronger. It's a love of God and it's a love of people. And so the same way that when Paul prays for the Church of Ephesus, he's saying, I literally can't stop because I'm so thankful to see what God is doing in your life. But right in the beginning of the scripture, it's so rich because he says your love for God and your love for the saints. It's twofold. When we love God fully, our love for people is just an overflow out of it. But you can't really have one without having the other. To fully love people while we have to have a right understanding and a right love for God. And so sometimes if you hear someone say, well, you know, I love God, but I just cannot find a way to love that person. Well, maybe there's something off in the way that you are loving God the Father. Last night we played a really awkward family game at a birthday dinner and we said, everyone share your favorite thing about yourself. And everyone was like, this is so awkward. And I was like, this is so fun. And I was like, maybe I need to like check my humility or something, but I thought it was great. But my mom said, I love that God has given me a heart to love even who maybe I used to think was unlovable. And I thought, how cool is that that God is constantly changing our hearts to love those that maybe we thought, I don't really have anything in common with you. We do have in common that the same God sent his same son to die on one cross for all of us. So that means that we love anyone. And Paul is saying, I thank God for you constantly. And as I read this constantly, I thought, you know, not every prayer has to be this. I have to go into my prayer closet. I have to have it quiet. I have to be on my knees in this exact way because he's doing it constantly. But Paul was still going about his life. He was still going to different churches. He was still doing things, but he was praying constantly, which means that even as you are going through your day, you can be praying for people. You can be thanking God for people. It doesn't need to have this Instagram perfect picture of what your prayer life looks like to be in constant communication with him. So he's saying, I thank God for you without ceasing for your love for God and for your love for people. And that had actually nothing to do with the message this morning. That was just the setup to what he is talking about. And I just thought that was so amazing that our love for God and our love for people then causes us to just thank God. Today we're looking at basically Paul's prayer request list for the church. It's called Paul's prayers and we see prayer for spiritual insight. So I'm going to read through the whole scripture for you. If you have your Bibles, you can get them out. We're in Ephesians 1, like I said, starting at verse 15 and going all the way to verse 23. So as we just read, it says, this is why since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all saints, I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the mighty working of his strength. He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at the right hand in the heavens far above any ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given not only in this age, but also in the one to come. He's outside of time. And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way. Let's pray together. God I thank you so much that we are all able to join in your house together. God to come together as believers and to be encouraged and equipped of how to go outside of these walls and spread your love, how to know you on a deeper level, how to experience your love, how to experience your power and authority. God I pray this morning that you would open every one of our ears and hearts into what you have to teach us this morning. God I pray that you would speak through me, and most importantly God that you would speak in spite of me. God if there's anything that you want to share for your people, would you open my mouth, and if there's anything that I am trying to share on my own behalf, would you close it? God we pray that you would give us exactly what you have for us this morning, and it's in your name we pray. Amen. So we're looking at Paul's four requests for the church, and we actually see them broken down in the scripture. So if you're a note taker and you like to lay it out ahead of time, we're going to have four points, but point one has sub points. So this drives me nuts when someone's like we're on point one, and then it's like in here's one, two, three, four, and then they're like in here's point two, and I'm like my whole paper's messed up. Anyone some of you are like I feel that. So thank you. So we have point one, two, three, four, but point one has an A, B, and C. If Jillian Rohr was in the room, she'd be really excited. I do know that. So point one, she will be. Point one is we want to pray to know God more. In Ephesians one, 15 through 17, when he says, ever since I heard about your strong faith and your love of God and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly asking God, the glorious father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. So prayer request one for us and for the church is that we pray to know God more. I was looking up what the actual translation of the word knowledge is in the Greek, and it's gnosko. But it's not just head knowledge. It actually means understanding and knowledge by experience. So it's not just knowing about someone. It's actually knowing someone because you've walked through seasons with them. You've experienced them. So we can't be content with just knowing about God. We have to strive to know him personally. A.W. Tozer, a theologian, wrote that the most important thing about a man is what comes to his mind when he thinks about God. The most important thing about you is what comes to your mind when you think about God. Do you think about this strict ruler that's just like a giant buzzkill and doesn't want you to have fun? Or do you think of him as a loving father who set guardrails for your life because he knew that that's what was going to be the best, most freeing way for you to live? Do you see him as your anchor in the storm that holds you close when you're going through something? Maybe someone who's not going to pull you out of it, but someone who's going to keep you steady and confident and calm through it. The most important thing about a man is what comes to his mind when he thinks about who God is. So we want this knowledge. We want this understanding. And what I think about is, you know, I can know now because of social media on Facebook, I can know about a lot of people. I can find out maybe what their hobbies are. I can know who they're married to. Have you guys ever gone on like the deep dive searches on Facebook and all of a sudden you're like, wow, I know this person. And they know nothing about me. And I am so creepy, right? Most of us have gone there. Some of you won't admit to it. You can know a lot about a person. But until you've walked through seasons with them, until you've experienced them, until you know what their greatest fears are, I think even about my daughter, Harper is terrified of bees. But if I hadn't have been with her when she was stung and when she was terrified, then this fear now would look a little ridiculous because I just know, oh, she's obviously scared of bees. But I wouldn't know what that what that fear looked like when she experienced it. Dan and I have walked through mountaintop experiences and really low experiences together too. Now to the point that we know each other so well that maybe he's just maybe he's just really angsty and grumpy for a day. And I don't immediately think, could that be accurate? Sometimes I immediately don't think like, wow, Dan hates me. I think maybe what's going on in him that has hurt his heart or has made him feel this way so that this is his reaction. And that's his first question to me when I'm acting the same way is what experience have you had lately? You have to experience life with them. And if you're like, how do I do that with God? I am going to give you three points, but I also want to encourage you. Our whole last sermon series was on the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity that God gave to us to live inside of us, the living, breathing person of God inside of us, that when you walk with the Holy Spirit day in and day out, you're experiencing God. When you're going somewhere and he says, Hey, give an extra word of encouragement to that barista and you give it to them and they're like, Oh my gosh, how did you know I needed that the other day? I had this thought just come into my mind that says, text your sister-in-law and tell her she's a really good mom. And I texted her and I said, you're going to think this is so random, but I was just told to text you and tell you that I think you're an amazing mom and you inspire me. And she was like, how did you know that my daughter was just screaming at me because I couldn't go to field day because I had to work and I was feeling really guilty. And I thought, well, I didn't know that, but obviously the Holy Spirit did that's experiencing things with him. And the more that you do that, the more that you begin to trust his leadings. So knowing God more is not just knowledge about him. It's experiencing him, but you may be wondering how, so how do I get to know him more? And so I have three ways, three really practical ways that you can just start to get to know him more. And the first one is you want to read his love letter to you. I have a friend who didn't know her grandparents. They died when she was young, but she has a stack of love letters that they wrote to each other and she'll read them just to get to know more about her grandparents and about their relationship. But even better than those love letters is the book of the Bible that he wrote to us because it's alive and it's breathing. His word says it's sharper than any two-edged sword. So as we read it, it also reads us. As a church, we've been going through the Bible in a year and I did the same thing last year, but this year as I'm reading it, I'm seeing brand new things. Things that never stood out to me before and maybe it's because the season of life that I'm in and it's like God knew you would be in this scripture on this day and you needed to read this. Even this morning where you started the book of Proverbs and it's interesting to me because the scripture talks about asking for wisdom, right? Wisdom and knowledge of God. This was written by Solomon and he is David's son and the one thing that Solomon asked God for, does anybody know what it is? Wisdom. The one thing that Solomon asked God for was wisdom. In the verse this morning in Proverbs says, trust in the Lord with ... Wait, nope. Is that not the one I wanted to say? Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend, thanks Brody. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do and he will show you the path to take. So when we trust in the Lord and we seek his wisdom and we don't depend on our own understanding because I don't know about you, but when I've depended on my own understanding, it takes me down a very dark trail very quickly. I can spiral real quick when I depend on my own understanding. So we read his love letter to us in Psalm 119. It says, I lie in the dust, revive me by your word. So his word revives us. It brings a dead heart beating again. I told you my plans and you answered, now teach me your decrees. Help me understand the meaning of your commandments and I will meditate on your wonderful deeds. I weep with sorrow, encourage me by your word. So it doesn't just revive us, it encourages us in the days that maybe we feel hopeless. Keep me from lying to myself. Give me the privilege of knowing your instruction. So it's a privilege to open his word. I have chosen to be faithful. I have determined to live by your regulations. I cling to your laws. Lord, don't let me be put to shame. I will pursue your commandments for you expand my understanding. I love that about his word. It revives us. It brings us back to life. It encourages us. It's a privilege. Another scripture that I read, Dan, can you hand me my phone? Because your word is a lamp. Oh my gosh. What's the first thing you say about me? I am not athletic. So you know better than to throw this at me. It says your word. It's going to take me a minute to calm down. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And when I was looking at this, this actually means two different things. The lamp is like a tiny foot lamp. So Isaac, if you could just kill the lights for a second, a tiny foot lamp shows about this much, which means every step that I take, I need the foot lamp to go with me. So when I say, God, do I want to do this? I have to go back to his word because it's a lamp unto my feet. God should I say this about this person? Oh wait, I have to go back to his word because it's a lamp unto my feet. God should I want this new job? You have to go back to his word because it's a lamp unto my feet. Every step you take day in and day out, you need the foot lamp. But then it also says it's a light unto my path. And this light is not the same thing as a lamp unto my feet. This light is a flood light. Isaac, can you show us that? This is a flood light, which means it illuminates our future. So while we're using the word to check in on our day today, we can also see a hope for the future. We can also see the plans that he has for us, the hope of salvation, because we have that flood light that is showing us everything in his word. It's a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Can we give a hand for our lighting people? Thanks Isaac. All right, we can stop blinding them now. You guys get the point? So we're going to study his word. We're going to read his love letter to us. The second thing is we're going to talk to him. Just like when Paul said, I never stop thanking God for you. Do we talk to God like we talk to a friend where he's accessible to us? He could listen to the prayers of the entire world at the same time and know what every single person is saying. Just the coolest thought to me that if we were all praying right now and then you have other people praying in different languages and he's like, yep, got it all. How cool is that? He wants to hear from us daily. My youth pastor when I was growing up compared it to think of when you first start dating someone and you always talk to him before you go to sleep at night, right? And then you text him first thing when you wake up, good morning. And then you're like, they didn't text me. Good morning. What does this mean? Don't get into that. That's a whole different message. But how many of you have ever fallen asleep on the phone talking to a boyfriend or girlfriend? Oh, yeah, you guys get it. Yeah. When you're so, you just want to know more about them. You just want to talk to them more. And my youth pastor told me, God's not offended when you fall asleep talking to him. Don't you think he's happy that you're the last, he's the last person you were talking to? And that just changed my whole perspective on prayer. He wants you to talk to him constantly as you're going about your day. We were in a Bible study once that we were doing a prayer circle. And some of you may know Ben Bololi. He plays drums sometimes. And we were going around praying and it got to him and he didn't know it was his turn. So he's sitting there and he's like, Oh, hey God, it's me, Ben. And we laughed so hard because we thought, how cool is it that that's his way of communicating with God? Hey God, it's me. What's up? Don't you think he wants us to just talk to him so much that it's so comfortable that he's the first person we go to. My sister always says, go to the throne before you go to the phone. Are you calling on him before you're calling on a friend? Before you're asking for their advice, are you asking the one who gives you wisdom? We're going to talk to him. The third one is that we're going to worship him for who he is. Why do we come in and worship God first before we do the message? Because it sets our hearts to focus on him. Dan is actually a stickler about what worship songs we do because he always wants to make sure that they're more focused on God than they are on us. Worship should be magnifying his name. Just like we're singing about actually our last song, I'll give it away for those of you who are lyric people, says, I'm coming back to the heart of worship when it's all about you, it's all about you. I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I made it because it's all about you. When we worship God, it's not telling God how big our problems are. It's telling our problems how big our God is. Like saying, remember, you stand zero chances against the king of kings. This problem may feel so big, but when I come in, when I raise my hands and surrender, when I say I am nothing without you, you are worthy of my praise. In Christ alone, my hope is found. All of a sudden there's a perspective shift because it's like, wait, I serve the king of kings. This problem at work that just happened, this drama with my friend is so small compared to what my God can do. We first, as we pray as a church, we pray to know God more. To know him more, we read his love letter to us. We talk to him daily and we worship him for who he is. Number two, and I love this one, we pray for confident hope in our calling. In the scripture it says, I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called, his holy people who are rich in his glorious inheritance. He prays for a confident hope that he has given to those he has called. Have you ever noticed that most people who have lost hope have also lost a sense of calling? When you lose hope, you think, well, I don't really have any purpose for the future. I don't know if God can use me. I don't know if he even wants to use me. Sometimes when you hear people say, just have hope, just have hope, you're like, well, that's great, but everything good happens to you. You don't know what it feels like, right? I don't know, maybe I'm the only one being honest about that today, but man, I had a friend in college who had the best life ever. Actually the joke was she was at Disneyland when she was little and her dad said, you can't get that snow globe unless you find $5 and $5 fell from the sky. Her dad tells this story all the time and that's just kind of how life is. Then when she would say, have hope, I was like, I don't know if you get it. I want to tell you a little bit about the author of this passage that's telling us to have hope because I want you to know that Paul understood what it was like to be afflicted. Paul understood what it was like to go through struggle. So when he tells us to have hope, he gets what it feels like and how easily you could have had hope taken away. It says Paul needs every ounce of courage because of the heavy sufferings he knows that his work will bring. He says in Acts 2023, the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. So the Holy Spirit says when you go, you will be persecuted and imprisoned. And he's like, cool, here I go. I can't imagine that. He knew the imprisonment and persecutions were waiting. He's kidnapped in Acts. He is beaten in Acts. He's threatened, arrested many times, accused in lawsuits, interrogated, ridiculed, ignored, shipwrecked and bitten by a viper. That is someone who knows pain and suffering for the gospel. And I think sometimes we get a little pushback on our faith and we're like, oh, maybe I'm not doing it right. Oh, maybe I wasn't supposed to do that. What if Paul would have just stopped when he was arrested the first time? What if Paul would have stopped when he was imprisoned? I don't know about you, but the biting of the viper would have been what would really just make me throw my hands up. I'd be like, all right. I think, let's be honest. If I was beaten, I'd be like, I wouldn't have even made it to the viper. I'm kind of a wuss. But he knows, he knows what it felt like to have every reason to give up hope, every reason. But he says, I pray that you would know the hope of your calling. I love in the scripture what I like to call the hope circle. It's in Romans 5, three through four. It says, we can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance then develops strength of character and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. How do we get hope? The hope circle actually says that it starts with trials. We can rejoice when we run into problems because we know that it develops endurance, endurance strength of character, character strengthens our hope of salvation. So what if we go through a trial and the only thing we gain is a deeper understanding of the love, grace, and mercy of God? I don't know about you, but in every trial that I've gone through, that is the greatest treasure. I've talked to people who have walked through really, really hard seasons and they say, you know what? God was never more apparent to me than he was in that season. His voice in my ear, his arms wrapped around me. I knew what it felt like to have a constant friend in trial. And sometimes we may wonder, why are we going through this? And sometimes it's just to know him more. Sometimes it's just to experience him more. And to me, that's enough. That's totally worth it to come out on the other end saying, I know him deeper as a friend. I know that he has purpose for me. I know that if he didn't let this season take me out, he's definitely strengthening me for something else. He's preparing us. In every scripture in the Bible, when something was prepared, it was so that the presence of God could rest in it. When the tabernacle was prepared, when the temple was prepared, everything that was prepared was so that the Spirit of God could rest in us. So when he's taking us through those trials, when he's developing that hope in us, maybe it's because he wants to dwell in us even more. That confident hope in our calling that he has called us, he doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. And he wants to use you and me. Point three is we want to pray to see ourselves as God's inheritance. This is a small part in the scripture, but you'll see at the end of this part in Ephesians when it says, this means, oh, nope, not that part. It says in the same part we were just reading, who are his rich and glorious inheritance? And I read that and I thought, wait, it's not saying that he's our inheritance. It's saying that we're his. And an inheritance is something of deep value that you're leaving to someone. Something that you value so much that you think, man, I hope my kids get this. I'm going to really shame myself for a minute. When my sister and I, this is my sister, she's the nice one. When she, we were talking about inheritances and I said, man, I hope I get the cottage. My parents have this amazing place up north that they let us go to for respite, that they've literally set aside for our whole family and said, come up anytime. It's yours just as much as it's ours. And me as the youngest child said, I hope I get the cottage. And Jess was like, oh, all I want is mom's Bible with all of her writings in it. Now it was like time for me to curl in a hole because I look like a total turd. The thing you value most. And then I was like, wait, I want the Bible, right? That thing that you value most, which now I would, I would like you to know, I have changed my heart. I see that the Bible is of great value. The cottage is also awesome. But when he says that we are his inheritance, we are the thing he values most. The thing that he wants to return to him. The thing that he's thinking, when you die, I want to make sure that you spend eternity with me because you are my precious child. So when he looks at you, he's not seeing you for maybe the fact that you're still hung over from the night before. He's not seeing you for the lies that you told. He's not seeing you for maybe the way that you berated your child when you shouldn't have. He's seeing you as his rich and glorious inheritance. He wants you to spend eternity with him. And it's time that we start turning our eyes to see how he sees us. Because when you do that, then we're going to actually act the way that he sees us. Then we start acting as his rich and glorious inheritance. Someone that God longs to have an eternity with him. In 2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 21, it says it means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. He doesn't see you for who you are. He sees you for who he made you to be. Because now that you belong to Christ, the old life has gone and the new has begun. For all this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. He doesn't count your sins against you. He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. That through Christ, he brought us and God back together. So we are Christ ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. For God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering for our sin. So that we could be made right with God through Christ. When he looks at us, he sees his son. Because he sent Christ to die on the cross and then so he sees us as him. It says our sins are washed white as snow. I think it's time that we start seeing ourselves as his rich and glorious inheritance. And point four is that we are going to pray to experience power and authority that come only through relationship with Jesus. You'll find this in verses 19 through 23. It says, I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe in him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else. Not only in this world, but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. It's for our benefit. And the church is his body. It is made full and complete by Christ who fills all things everywhere with himself. He has given us power and authority in this world through the name of Jesus. I love how it says, he is the head. It says, God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. The body, which is us in the scripture, the body of Christ is supposed to be governed by the head, right? If you know how the body works, we have a mind that is then telling our body to do everything it does. So if I want to shake your hand, I can't do it without the head telling my arm to extend it and shake your hand. And it would also be weird if I didn't have a body and I was like, I'm shaking your hand and just my mind was thinking it, right? You'd be like, no, you aren't. And I am not downplaying the power of God because if he wanted to, with just being the head, he could also be the body. We know that. We know that he could do all of it, but it's a privilege that he chose us to be the extension of himself. That he said, I'm going to tell you what to do, but I'm trusting you to do it. I'm trusting you to be the one that reaches out and helps someone feel welcome that tells them about my love. So it's not that he can't. It's just that he chose us to do it and that he gave us that power and authority. You know, I was thinking just this week about how we see that power and authority play out in our lives because I know a lot of times I think, you know, we read the scriptures and we think, well, I've never seen someone raised from the dead. So have I experienced his power and authority? I've never watched demons fully. I know people who have, but I've never experienced his power and authority. And I think sometimes it might actually look a little different in our culture in America and experiencing that power and authority. I was listening while I was reading in the gospels when it talks about the woman with the issue of blood. It says she had been nonstop bleeding for 30 years, correct? For 30 years. And she's desperate for healing. And so what does she do? As Jesus is walking through the crowd surrounded by people going to do another healing, she pulls at the hem of his garment, desperate to get just a little bit of what he has. And what does it say? It says he felt his power leave him because his power went to her. But instead of just saying you're healed and carrying on, what does he say? Who touched me? She had to admit that she was weak in front of a whole crowd of people. She had to say it was me. I pulled on the hem of your garment. I needed more of your strength. Here is my struggle. And so I don't know about you, but I know when we're not honest about what our struggle is, then people can't experience the strength of God in us. Last time I stood up here was a month ago and I talked about being hurt and being wounded and feeling like it's really easy to preach when people like you. It's really hard when you don't know if they do or not or when you're actually positive they don't. And that's hard. And so I talked about the power of the Holy Spirit coming alongside of you. And I had people come up to me after that message and just share their own testimonies of this was how hurt I was, but this was how God showed up. And it was like suddenly they had the freedom to just say, oh my gosh, I've hurt like that too. But here's how God showed up. And so Dan and I always say, we promise to stand up here and be as honest with our struggles as possible because that's the only way you're going to see the power of Jesus in us. I want to be someone that you see constantly just reaching for the hem of his garment. Because if you see me as having it all put together as not being hurt, as not being wounded, as feeling fully having the credentials to stand up here and preach, then you're not seeing God for who he is because he's the one that does all of it. I want to share a story with you about a friend who I actually met through teaching a long time ago and I told her about the church and she was like, yeah, cool, maybe I'll check it out. And then years later, she went through one of the toughest years of her life. She was divorced from a high school sweetheart, not of her choosing. And in the same year, her eighth grade daughter was diagnosed with cancer. That's when we look at and say, wow, how do we say that God doesn't give us more than we can handle? Because that's a lot to handle. I don't know about you, but I've never gone through either of those things. And so I look at this friend and I think, oh, you're tough. But my favorite thing about Tiffany is that she's constantly clinging to the hem of his garment. Instead of running from God in that season, she said, I got to go to church. And she showed up and she said, I'm a mess, but I have to be here. And then she said, I'm going to get in life groups. And she got in life groups and she was like, I'm a mess. I mean, she will always be the one to say that, to honestly say I need more of God. But I also look at her today and I'm so proud of the woman that God has made her and you literally see his living and breathing strength inside of her because of the power and the authority that he's given us through Jesus. I want us all to just be people that live life clinging to the hem of his garment. So we're going to pray to know God more. We're going to ask to experience hope in his calling. We're going to pray to see ourselves as his rich and glorious inheritance. And then we're going to stand in the power and the authority, but that doesn't just mean acting like we have it all together. That means showing our weakness so that his power can be made strong. So to close today, I actually want to pray this prayer over you, New Life Church. New Life Church, since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus. I've never stopped thanking God for you. I remember the times that you've given a coat to someone who was cold. I remember the times that you've gone and you've given pizza to those who were serving during COVID. I remember the time that New Life Church, you filled over 75,000 sandbags to help those whose houses were flooding and you showed up without questions. So I thank God for you. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. I pray that you would come to know him more in a way that is so powerful, so real and so raw that you hear his voice, that you experience his spirit and that you walk daily with him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling. Church, I pray that every Sunday as you show up, whether it's to make coffee or whether it's to serve in the kids' team or whether it's leading us in worship, that you would know that he has called you to be an ambassador to the world, that he has trusted you. I pray that you would see yourself as his rich and glorious inheritance, that you would not see yourself for the mistakes you've made, but that you would see yourself for the gifts that he has imparted into you and that he desperately wants you to use.

I pray that you may know of the immeasurable greatness of his power in you, according to the mighty working of his strength. I pray that you would feel free to hang by the hem of his garment when times feel too rough, that you would be bold enough to say, I am the one who reached out for Jesus because I needed his strength because I can't do it on my own. It was me. And that you would experience his power and his authority in a new way. But if there's anyone in the room today who maybe doesn't know how to reach for the hem of his garment because you've never asked him to be Lord and Savior of your life, I want to be able to pray for you to do that today. In the Bible, it says that he knocks on the door of your heart. So if you feel him nudging in you today, it means that he desperately wants to have a relationship with you. And it's pretty simple. We're going to have no eyes open, all heads bowed, no one looking around. This is a moment between you and God. But if you want to put your faith in him today, I want to make sure that I give you that opportunity.

And if that's you, all you're going to do is you're going to raise your hand on the count of three and then you're going to pray this prayer with me. So one, two, three. If you want to put your faith in Jesus this morning, would you raise your hand boldly so that I can pray with you?

Let's pray together. You can slip your hand down. We're going to say this prayer, God, I believe in you. I give you my heart. I turn from my old ways and I make you Lord of my life.

Would you reign in my heart? Would you give me spiritual wisdom and understanding? Would you speak to me? Would you guide my path? Would you be that foot lamp and that flood light through all the days of my life? And would you give me strength that comes only from you? And it's in your name we pray. And everybody said, Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

how are you guys doing? Good, it's great to see you. Man, we're continuing in our series on the book of Ephesians. Last week was absolutely incredible. We had four young people, students, that brought the message. Man, did they do a credible job or what? Man, yeah, let's give them another round of applause. But we're in Ephesians and we're going through it bit by bit over the next several weeks. And so I wanna kinda dive in today. We're gonna go straight into the scripture. I'm gonna read today's portion of Ephesians right off the bat and then there's a lot that I'm gonna unpack theologically in these particular verses because a lot of stuff in there is really solid, good, deep theology. And so I'm gonna take some opportunity to explain a lot of that for you today. So if you are taking notes, it would be a great day to do that. I have a few points. But let's pray together as we dive into God's word. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity that we have to worship you and to come together as believers and maybe even unbelievers who are checking this faith out, checking out who you are. God, I pray that every single person would have an encounter with you today. God, they wouldn't just hear a message or hear a preacher, but they would encounter the living God. And so God, to that end, we are grateful for your word. We're grateful for your church. And we pray that you would do in this time what you would have us to learn and to grow in, in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen. All right, well, if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Ephesians chapter one. And we're gonna start in verse three. And again, I'm gonna go through all of it, the section today, and then we're gonna unpack it. Ephesians 1, three through 14 says, "'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in Christ, in Jesus, before the creation of the world, to do what? To be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ. In accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one Jesus whom he loves. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will, according, I lost my place, I looked up for just a second, I knew I was gonna do that. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. And when you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. You're probably thinking for just a moment, how on earth is can you preach on all of that today? Well, if you want to, you can pray right where you are because I'm gonna need God's help, because there's a lot there. But the first thing I want to say to you is that you are chosen by God. When you believed in Christ as your savior, you were marked with a seal, the Holy Spirit of God, the deposit of what is to come, the deposit of eternal life. And you were given a purpose to live out in accordance to God's will. How many of y'all would like to know that you have a position in Christ that's going to heaven? Do you want that? How many of you would like to know that you have a purpose that God has for your life specifically? So I'm gonna break down this today, that what all of us should do as adopted sons and daughters of God, for those who have been saved. And then again, if you are visiting today and maybe you're just checking faith out, maybe you're watching online, maybe you saw New Life Church on social media or whatever, and you're like, man, I want to learn about this faith. I mean, I've heard about Jesus and man, I'm just checking this out. I like to say like, maybe you're just kicking the tires on what this looks like. Listen, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms has been given to those who are adopted sons and daughters of God when they were saved. And if you haven't been, if you are a person that haven't stepped out in faith in Jesus, everything that I'm about to talk about, everything that I'm about to talk about is available to you. And it can be given to you today in just a few moments. So I pray that you would listen to these words and be able to see what's available to you in Christ. The first one, if you're taking notes, is the assurance of salvation. It's like, how do you know that you know that you're saved, that you are going to heaven? Have you ever asked that question? Like, how do I know? Listen, what God started, the scripture says, He will finish. What God started, He will finish. He will carry it onto completion. Guess where salvation did not start? It did not start with you. It started with Him. And He will carry that onto completion. Jesus offered you the gift of salvation, that He died on the cross to forgive your sins so that you wouldn't have to die yourself. And if you believe this and receive this, admit that you are a sinner, receive this gift of salvation in your heart, in your spirit and call Jesus Lord, Romans 10 says, you will be saved. You believe in your spirit, you believe in your heart, you call Jesus Lord and you will be saved. And in that moment, Jesus's fulfillment of salvation becomes abundant. It is secure. How can I be sure though? Here's how. Again, salvation doesn't come from what you do. Salvation only comes from what Jesus has done. It comes from the work of Jesus alone on the cross. Jesus said this in John chapter six. I think it's on the screen behind me. There it is. And this is the will of Him who sent me. This is Jesus, that I shall lose none of all those that He has given me, but to raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life. And I will raise them up at the last day that He should lose none of them. Jesus will complete what He has promised to complete. You can be assured of your salvation when you believe. Here's number two. Jesus gives us the blessing, the power to overcome sin and death and struggle. So you might be sitting in a room and you're like, man, yesterday was a disaster. It was awful. Worst day in my life. You might've woken up this morning and man, the kids were crazy and you barely got to work, not to work today, got to church today. And you're like, wow, this is terrible. But you can be assured that Jesus gives you the power to overcome everything. Why? Because you were chosen by Him. Like you can be free. We talk about the freedom afforded to us, but right by the heroes, men and women of old who have given us the freedom to worship and to live like we're able to live in America. But there's only one person that's given you the power to live freely in your spirit and without sin. And it's Jesus. His mercies are new every single day, the scripture said. And He's given you, He's given me the power to overcome sin and defeat and death. Power to move from sin and defeat into what? Into what He said, holiness and victory. So your life should literally look different when you become a son and daughter of the King, your life should begin to change. Ephesians 2, 8 says it this way, for it is by grace that you have been saved. Through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. When I look at that scripture, do you know what I think about? I think about when I read the scriptures and I see all the people and all the things that they did to build the kingdom of God, to pour into God's work. Today, if you're reading in the Bible recap, we have the Bible in a year plan that many of us are reading through. And today it talks through the building of the first temple. And He lists, how many of y'all read the list in the scripture and it's like, so and so begat so and so and so begat so and so. And it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Or like, there were 375 warriors in this clan and there were 762 in this clan. And how many of y'all skip those sections?

Thank you for being honest in church today. But today it was incredible. I've learned to see those as something so much different. I began reading the list of things today and it was talking about this group of people, they worked the vineyard or they worked the ability to build the buildings. They had all these different skill sets and they were all working together. All their differences coming together to what? To build God's kingdom, to build God's house. And I love the picture of that. And He's naming them. He's literally saying this clan and this family and this person and man, that's how I see what God is doing here today. I couldn't help but be thankful reading those lists of people and being thankful for our parking team. Hello. We need more parkers by the way because we have canyons out there. We're trying to get our landlord to do something about it but it's coming, I promise. But man, our parking time, I love we had a young person in here with his dad and they were in here just watching rehearsal and they were kind of getting a behind the scenes picture and it was so cool because I'm like, man, you might be in kids ministry and you might see what happens with the teachers in the kids ministry. But man, you didn't see that there's a person running sound and camera and lights and man, we've got a person on the keys and playing piano and we see all this stuff but then there's this whole room back at the back of the building that's running online sound and everything that goes on the screen and you've got greeters and people making coffee and all these things, why? Why? Because God has brought us all together to be a part of his purpose, of building his kingdom. And I can't help but read those passages of scriptures where he's naming all these people and in today, right now, right? Where in Ephesians two, eight through 10 it says, you and I were created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do, that passage of scripture that we read today in the Bible recap, that was for them then. But it's for us now that we get to be a part of this. And God does listen to me, God does not choose the equipped, he does not choose the perfect, he equips those he calls and he's given you the power to overcome sin and to do and be a part of the good works that he's prepared for you in advance to do. Do you believe this? Yes. So why do we, listen, why do we teach and encourage people to serve? Why do we encourage people to go to discovery? It's not because God just chose a few of us to do good things for his kingdom's sake. No, he's chosen all of us who are believers to be a part of it, to give, to tithe, to be generous, to forgive people, to pray for those who persecute you and to persecute you persecute us, to pray for leaders. Right, he tells us to pray for leaders, governmental leaders in our city, state and nation, even around the world, to pray for those even when we disagree with them.

To share our faith with other people, to point others to salvation that can't be found in a person or in themselves, but can only be found in Jesus alone. It's because God has given you the power to do these things, to overcome the other way that causes death, but to walk in the ways that gives life like he only does. So I think about this for a second. When you think about salvation, I've heard this illustration a bunch of times throughout my life. It's probably, I mean, I don't even know where it started. It's probably one of those preacher illustrations that's been passed down for many generations. But salvation is pictured like this. Imagine there was a terrible wreck. You were in a terrible wreck and you don't even know what happened. Something blindsided you. My wife, by the way, she's watching online. Hi, Kelsey. We're joking right now because all the animals out there seem to be attacking her car this year. She's demolished her van on multiple occasions. The first one by hitting a deer. The second one by a turkey. Must've been a big turkey.

But imagine with me, it was even worse than that. And she was fine both times. There was nobody else. Actually, there were kids in the car with the turkey, but not with the deer. But no one was hurt, thank God. But then the car was demolished. But think for a second, you got into a car accident. There was a terrible wreck and you're hurt. You don't even know what's happening. And an ambulance shows up to pick you up. And then all of a sudden, you're in the ambulance. The sirens are on, you're on the way, and the person's sitting next to you. And then all of a sudden, you come too and they look at you and they tell you, you've been in a wreck. You're very badly hurt. You're gonna be okay if you'll let us help you. You have to give us permission to help you. You have to give us permission to serve you. You have to give us permission to actually do what's needed to save your life. You can't do anything. You're just gonna lay there and die unless you give us permission to save your life. Will you let us help you? And you have the choice to either say yes or you can jump out of the ambulance and refuse the help. Friends, the conditions of yours and my soul can only be helped, served, and saved by Jesus. He's simply asking you, will you let him save your life? And the answer is either yes or I'm gonna try and do it myself. That's salvation. That is God doing what only God can do. Here's number three, is to be humbled. You see, according to Ephesians, all of us ever did was just wake up in the ambulance. Again, you may think that you became a Christian because of you. Like you might think, man, I considered it. I read, I studied, I pondered, and then I decided to follow Jesus. But according to Ephesians one, the only reason that you did those things is because God was seeking you first. You are a Christian by grace alone, not because of anything that you've done. And why was it, ask this question, why was it that God chose you? Was it because that you had a better heart than the person sitting next to you? Or you had more natural skill sets or strengths? And God thought that you would make a better Christian. So he had you be saved? Ephesians says, no, you were chosen, Paul says, so that God could glorify his grace in you. If anything, if you look at the scriptures, scripture says that God chose you because you were weak. Paul said that in the weaker people, God could most easily put his grace and his power on display because it has nothing to do with us. A matter of fact, God's preference is to turn fools into Christians. So the fact that he chose you demonstrates that you were most likely a bigger fool in his eyes than other people. Like you had less potential for his kingdom, not more. How does that make you feel today? Aren't you glad you came to church? You're so proud. Be insulted in Jesus' name.

Here's number four. You have hope from heaven to courageously face your trials. Romans 8.28 says that, and we know that in all things, say that with me, in all things, God works for the good, check this out, not of everyone, works for the good of those who what, who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. So even in the things where I feel victimized, something's happened, someone's done something to me, or I feel hurt, maybe I feel unlucky, maybe I feel less than, maybe I feel like that person's getting a better end of the bargain. God is working for your good. He's working for my good. And listen, I don't have to ever do anything to him or for him to make him work for my good. Like the Ephesians thought they had to do to Artemis, the false God that the students so brilliantly talked about, yes, last week, right? Artemis and the cacophony of gods and spirit beings that they were worshiping, the false gods. Christ had already done that, and I know that in him, God has permanently and irrevocably, did I skip something? I did, sorry, that was weird. Right, they were trying to please the gods. They were doing everything, they were selling these idols, and they were working to make Artemis happy and Diana happy and all these false gods, and Jesus is literally the flip. He's like, you don't have to do anything. To please me, I love you, and I'm gonna work on your behalf. That's salvation. Salvation says I'm gonna do the work for you because you can't do it yourself. Listen, this idea, if you're studying world religions, this idea shatters the idea of fate or karma.

When you and I get to heaven, the ultimate paradise one day, God's perfection, in the glory and in the fullness of God's presence, where our physical bodies who are broken and decaying and can get sick and hurt and damaged, man, we're not gonna look back on our days on earth and see our trials and see why they happened or even ask the question that we're asking now, why, why, why? Why would we not look back on that as because we're gonna be in the presence of absolute perfection where there's no crying, there's no weeping, there's no hurting, there's no mourning, there's no negativity, there's no social media banter, there's no elections, there's no dying, there's no, are you picking up what I'm putting down? We will be so in awe of God's finished product that we won't even be concerned with the process that he used to get us to that place. Paul says in Romans chapter eight, 18 through 19, he says, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Isn't that a little bit terrifying? Right, you can be assured of your salvation, but right now you're like, am I gonna be the one that's revealed?

No, I'm just the only one.

Okay, here's number five. Five is a spiritual blessing from God that only he gives is the boldness and the confidence in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. So if people are chosen by God, listen, ahead of time, why do we have to share anything? Have you ever asked that question? If God has already chosen those he's gonna adopt into his kingdom, why would we even have to say anything? Anybody, no?

I had a pastor, I worked for a pastor years ago in Dallas, Fort Worth. They actually have the same name, Pastor Ed Young in Dallas, Fort Worth, who I worked for and his dad is a pastor in Houston, Texas. So Pastor Ed Young, the elder, he once said this in regards to God's chosen art or elect. He said this, I keep nominating people to get saved through prayer and sharing with them the salvation that can only be found in Jesus. And don't you know, God keeps electing slash choosing them. Do you wanna hear that one again?

Pastor Ed Young says, I keep nominating people. So he's going about through life and he's like, I met this guy for coffee, I met this guy at a coffee shop. I keep nominating people through prayer saying, God, would you save this person? Would this person be your chosen? I keep nominating people through prayer and in sharing with them the salvation that can only be found in Jesus. So he prays and asks God, would you save this person? He shares the gospel. The only way you can be saved is through Jesus. And lo and behold, God keeps electing and choosing them. Can I tell you something? I have no idea who God has chosen, but every single weekend at New Life Church, when the hands go up in the air to receive Jesus as their savior, God keeps choosing and electing them. And do what I know won't happen. It won't happen if we're not faithful to share the gospel. No hands will go up. No hearts will be stirred. They won't know of Jesus and the salvation that he offers them. It is crucial that we do this. This is what the church does. Paul had confidence in preaching the gospel and in the world. Paul had confidence in preaching the gospel and in the ways of God because he knew he wasn't alone in the task. That's what I love, how God brings the believers together for such a work to do this task. God was working before he even showed up. I love Acts chapter 19. This is what happened to Paul. One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, don't be afraid, speak out. Don't be silent. How many of y'all feel like as a Christian, you're afraid to speak out?

Like you think the whole world wants you to be silent. That we shouldn't talk about Jesus as the only way to salvation. That we shouldn't talk about his word and his ways. Because he has specific ways. And I don't know if you know this, but they're contrary to the ways that the world tells us to live.

And the media doesn't like it. And probably half of your social media friends don't like it.

But Jesus said that he is the way, the truth and the life. And no one can get to eternal life except through him. So God said to Paul in a vision, don't be afraid, speak out. Don't be silent. And God told him a promise that he's telling to you and he's telling me today, for I am with you. And no one will attack and harm you. For many in people in this city belong to me. Listen, when you're coming against a force of people that are person-cuting you because of your faith and speaking out and standing firm on the gospel in God's ways. Look, there's a group of people here that have your back. There's a group of people here that stand firm in God and in God's ways. You are not alone in sharing the gospel. And it's the most loving thing you can ever do to anyone that you come across is sharing the gospel so that more people can be saved by Jesus. To simply tell them that they don't have to pay for their own sin. Right, it's one thing for us to face death physically, which we all will. I don't know if you know that. The stats on death are terrifying. One in one dies.

But it's another to face death spiritually any day. Spiritually and eternally.

Church, we have to speak out.

And as I close today, this is Jesus in John chapter one. To as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God.

That we're adopted sons and daughters. We're not blood. He chose us.

As he will choose many more. If you're in the room today,

and you haven't put your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and for eternal life, I wanna invite you to do it.

All of us are in the ambulance. You're in the ambulance. The Bible says that if anyone sins, they face death and death eternally. It's the payment of sin.

And so you're in the ambulance. You're facing death spiritually and eternally.

And there's only one person in the ambulance that can save you. And his name is Jesus.

Will you receive his help? Will you call on him to save you and call him your Lord?

Will you say yes to Jesus? How do you do that? Dan, here's what you'll do in just a moment. I'll give you the opportunity. You do this, you say, God, I'll trust that you are working in all of my circumstances. Even though it seems like everything is out of control. God, I'll let you lead me into victory, into life. And God, I'll receive you as my savior. I will say yes to your help.

Let's pray together, heavenly Father. In this moment, I pray that all of these spiritual blessings that are available to us as adopted sons and daughters of the King, that we can be assured of our salvation. That you can give us the power to overcome sin and selfishness and death and step into your calling, into the good works that you've prepared in advance for us to do. God, that we can be humbled, that nothing we have comes from us. It all comes from you. And what you started, you will carry on to completion. God, that spiritual blessing that we have hope from heaven to courageously face the many trials that we go through in this life. And God, that we could have the spiritual blessing of boldness and confidence in sharing the gospel of Jesus with everyone, that you want no one to perish, but all to have eternal life. And so in this moment, if you're here today and you've never stepped over a line of faith and put your whole life in the hands of Jesus, I wanna invite you to do it right now. That the Bible says that there's only one way to an eternal life. There's only one way to be forgiven of your sin. There's only one way to overcome death and to enter eternal life. And it's through the work of Jesus Christ. And so right now, I wanna invite you to put your faith in him. The Bible says that you simply turn from your sin, stop trying to do it yourself, stop trying to work out your salvation. The self-help books won't work. Not enough money in the world will work. Not enough possessions will work. Not having the right relationships or climbing the corporate ladder, not doing all the things will work.

You're in the ambulance and there's only one person that can help you. His name is Jesus. Will you say yes to him today? If that's you, you'll know it because again, God starts this relationship. Matter of fact, the Bible says that he stands at the door of the human heart, the human spirit, and he knocks. And so in this moment right here in this room, or if you're watching online, if God is messing with you, he's literally knocking on the door of your heart, asking you, will you let him help you, save you? All you have to do is say yes. If that's you, I want you to step out in faith today. With nobody looking around, all heads bowed. On a count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up and hold it up, declaring, here I am, God, I am saying yes to you today. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold it up. God sees you in this moment, this act of faith. As you say yes to him, right now, I'll help you with the words you simply prayed, Jesus, I'm turning from my sin and I'm turning to you for forgiveness, for healing. God, I pray that you would deposit your Holy Spirit into my life, marking me with a seal, the assurance of salvation. Jesus, I pray that you would give me the power to overcome sin and death and trials and to step into your purpose, to do the good works that you have prepared in advance for me to do. Jesus, from this moment forward, I call you my Lord and I give you everything I am and I everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

ive been here for a while. Good morning, everybody. Can we take a minute and welcome our young communicators as they come to the stage this morning? Man, I don't know about you guys, but I can tell you that as a 17 or an 18-year-old, I never would have done this. I was like, I'm not going to do this. Some of them I asked and it wasn't let me think about it. It was, oh, yeah, I'll do that. Tell me what it's on. And then the other two actually approached me and said, hey, can I be one of the young communicators on a Sunday morning? And to me, that is so exciting to see the next generation, the now generation, saying, I believe I have a purpose here. I believe just the way that first Timothy says do not look like a person, but I believe that. And I think, I have something that I can bring. God has gifted me with something. And today they actually have the honor of kicking off a new series where we're going to be walking through the book of Ephesians. And so we're talking about Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus and studying what can we learn from that? That the church in Ephesus faced trials just like the church today is now facing. And so we apply that to our lives today. But before we start, I want to pray with us this morning before we open God's word. God, I thank you so much for meeting us here in this place. I thank you for your plan for the church. I thank you that you designed it to be the hope of the world, that you designed it to be mobilized, that you designed it so that we could do life in community and so that we didn't have to do it alone. God, we give you this morning, we pray that you would speak to here, that you would say exactly what you have prepared for each person. And we know that it's different, God, but we know that you can work in miraculous ways to reach and teach all of us. We give you this morning, and it's in your name we pray, and everybody said, amen. So I'm actually, I know you're like, I didn't come to listen to you, and that's totally fine because I want to hear them too. But I'm going to tee this up and give you a little background because then they're each bringing a point from the scripture. So we're actually starting Ephesians 1, and we are in the book of Ephesians, but today we're also going to be in the book of Acts. And you're like, well, how does that work? Why are we in Ephesians and then in Acts? And I'm going to tell you, but first in Ephesians 1 and 2, this is greetings from Paul where he's addressing the church of Ephesus. And he says, this letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. And that's all we're going to read in Ephesians today because now we're jumping to Acts 19. And if you have your Bible or if you have your Bible app on your phone, I actually want you to get that out because it's quite a long scripture, so I'm not going to have it on the screen because that gets a little clunky. We're going to get out our Bibles and we're going to read through it. But you may be wondering, why are we going to the book of Acts? And if you know, sometimes when we read the Bible chronologically, you'll be reading Second Samuel and then you'll also be reading in Psalms because Second Samuel is written about the narrative of what King David went through and then Psalms are some of his cries and his songs to God. So the same way right now we're reading about Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus, but we need to study how the church in Ephesus actually started to understand these people. And that context is given in Acts 19. So we're going to actually read this morning. I love the title of this message because it's so fitting that we have young communicators up here talking about this. We're starting at Acts 19 verse 23 and it's the riot that started the church. How many of you know that a bold church is oftentimes a persecuted church? A church that stands on truth, a church that teaches the word is often persecuted because it doesn't fit in with the world. A church that is counter cultural that is saying, well, the world is telling us to do this, but we stand on the truth of God, not on our own truth, not on our own feelings on the truth of the word. And sometimes we may feel, I know personally, we feel attacks within the church and we're like, are we doing something wrong? Is God not for us? What's happening? And I think sometimes we forget that there's a real enemy that does not want people gathering in the house of the Lord, that does not want people empowered to go out and reach the world. And so a bold church is a persecuted church. And I don't know about you, but when I was reading this this week, I found so much relief and peace. I thought, man, God gave us this scripture now to tell us that when we feel persecution against the church, and I'll tell you, it's not just new life, it's churches across the area feeling persecuted, feeling torn down, being questioned on everything they're teaching. I know Dan once asked a pastor, what's the hardest thing about being a pastor? And he said, my motive is always being questioned. And we see that left and right, that the motive is always in question. But when I read this, I thought, this isn't new. When I was reading Acts 19, I thought, that's funny, Satan doesn't have any new schemes. He's using the exact same things that he did when Paul was a missionary in the Bible, and he's trying to attack the church in the same way today. And that made me say, thank you, God, for your intentionality to give us this scripture so that we can stand firm, so that we can see, that's the enemy. When we can start calling the enemy out for his tricks, then we can know what they are. But really, my only job here today is to actually just redo the scripture, so I'm gonna do that. So, Acts 19, verse 23. So we do need to know that Paul had actually been teaching in Ephesus for about two years. He had come from the church in Corinth, and now he was coming to Ephesus. And actually, before this scripture that we're going into today, it says, the Word of God in people's faith in God was growing in mighty ways. So you need to know that the scripture right before this says, actually, a lot of people were coming to faith. People were being saved, people were being baptized. And then all of a sudden, this riot breaks out. It says, about that time, serious trouble developed in Ephesus concerning the way. You'll wanna know that the way actually means the church, or the Christian movement, the Word of God. It began with Demetrius, so this is a business owner in Ephesus, a silversmith who had a large business manufacturing silver shrines of the Greek goddess Artemis, or also in your translation it might say Diana. Don't know why Artemis or Diana, they don't seem close, but it's fine. He's building and sculpting idols, and his whole business is off of people buying them. He kept many craftsmen busy. He called them together along with others, employed in similar trades, and addressed them as followers. This businessman is calling all together the people of Ephesus. Gentlemen, you know that our wealth comes from this business. But as you have seen and heard, this man Paul, this missionary, is persuading many people that handmade gods aren't really gods at all. And he's done this not only here in Ephesus, but throughout the entire province. Of course, I'm not just talking about the loss of public respect for our business. I'm also concerned that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will lose its influence, and that Artemis or Diana, this magnificent goddess, worshiped throughout the province of Asia and all around the world, will be robbed of her prestige. So he's calling them together saying, we're not only losing our money, we're losing our idols, the ones we've worshipped. And he's saying, shouldn't you be concerned? At this, the people's anger boiled, and they began shouting, great is Diana of the Ephesians. And soon, the whole city was filled with confusion. Everyone rushed to the amphitheater. Apparently this amphitheater is still standing today, and it can hold about 30,000 people. So everyone rushed into this amphitheater, dragging along Gaius and Arastarchus, who were Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia. Paul wanted to go in too, but the believers wouldn't let him. Some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent a message to him begging him not to risk his life by entering the amphitheater. So they're saying, we know you want to go in and do well, but this isn't going to end well for you. These people are confused and angry, and they're going to take you out. Inside the people were all shouting, some one thing and some another. Everything was in confusion. Isn't that the way Satan works? How many times do we see anger and confusion hand in hand, and we know the enemy's at work? In fact, most of them didn't even know why they were there. I don't know about you, but I've seen that happen before. We're just all jumping on a bandwagon of anger, right? The Jews and the crowd pushed Alexander forward and told him, please explain the situation, so please be the voice of reason. He motioned for silence and tried to speak. But when the crowd realized he was a Jew, they started shouting again and kept it up for two hours. Great is Diana of the Ephesians, great is Diana of the Ephesians. So they're worshipping this idol. At last the mayor was able to calm them down enough to speak. Citizens of Ephesus, he said, everyone knows that Ephesus is the official guardian of the temple of the great Diana whose image fell down to us from heaven. Since this is an undeniable fact, you can stay calm and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here, but they have stolen nothing from the temple and have not spoken against our goddess. If Demetrius, the head craftsman, and the other craftsman have a case against them, the courts are in session and the officials can hear the case at once. Let them make formal charges. And if there are complaints about other matters, they can be settled in a legal assembly. I am afraid we are in danger of being charged with rioting by the Roman government since there is no cause for all this commotion. If Rome demands an explanation, we won't know what to say. Then he dismissed them and they dispersed. The riot that started the church. And now I'd like to introduce to you our first young communicator that is going to bring to us the first point out of this message, Jacob Ickles. Good morning, New Life. How are you all doing this morning? Good. I'm Jacob. I'm a senior at Madawon High School. I'm going to graduate in exactly three days from now. I'm planning to attend Kalamazoo College to pursue a major in pre-med, as you heard earlier. And all right. So raise your hand if you have ever felt uncomfortable with how you spend your money. I'm all right. Now is that spending it on things that are sinful or is it just stupid stuff that none of us want to admit we spend money on? What will y'all do anyway? Yeah? All those Starbucks trips to the lady, huh? We sometimes feel uncomfortable even embarrassed about this because we like to, we feel like our spending habits should be kept a secret instead of confessing and trying to stop with the help of the church community. To help out with talking about this difficult topic today, I would like to start us off with a prayer that helps us with this message. Dear God, help Kylan, Noah, Reagan and I to speak clearly and speak the truth. Help the people here today to get something out of what we were preaching. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. Today I'm here to talk about how the church affects the economy and how we need to stop investing into earthly things when we need to pour it into God's kingdom. We see in the beginning of Acts 19 that tradesmen are very nervous because the preaching of Jesus is affecting their income because people aren't purchasing the idols they are making. In Acts 19 25-26 a popular silversmith who made idols of false gods named Demetrius called the craftsmen together that he worked with and said, you know my friends that we receive a good income from this business and you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. When the craftsmen heard this they were enraged. Soon spreading this anger to the whole city of Ephesus. Paul spreading the word of Jesus threatened the wealth of people making money off of sin. When people started having a relationship with Jesus they realized they didn't need to buy these shrines to Diana or other idols that served no true purpose. My favorite verse from the Bible ever is John 15 5. It says, I'm the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you you will bear much fruit. But apart from me you can do nothing. This can be compared to so many things in our lives. For when it comes to the economy it shows that without Jesus we are totally relying on our sinful selves and the world. Instead we need to give everything to Jesus so we can be blessed and bear much fruit in this world. When we decide to follow Jesus our wealth comes from a true relationship with Him. We don't try to control our money or hold tightly to it because He calls us to be generous. And I see this in my life in many different ways. One example is seeing the generosity of people who help the youth in this church to have food and a place to worship together for youth group. And also people who sponsor and donate to give opportunities to the youth in ways that will let them have a strong relationship with God. How different would our world look today if Christians would decide to not put their wealth in ungodly things? Maybe all the pot shops would close or addictions of things would start to disappear. But most importantly there will be more people in God's kingdom. Believing in God is one thing but you also need to invest in Him. Raise your hand if you've ever seen the show Shark Tank. If you haven't it is a show with a small business that gives a pitch to a bunch of sharks who could possibly invest in their business. I like to think of it as that we need to be like the sharks who want to invest in this small business which is God. But also the church does not affect the economy in a negative way. But the church just a couple weeks ago has been the first place that people affected by tornadoes have run to. This place people are being housed in the church, volunteers are being sent to clean up through the church not the government and supplies are coming from Christian organizations. The local church mobilizes the hope of the world and because we don't put our wealth into earthly things we can put it towards eternal things that will impact people in a greater way than any shrine ever could. Thank you guys. And now we welcome to the stage the one and only Kylan Hevinger. Hey good morning New Life. I am Kylan Hevinger. I am so excited to be up here and share this message with you today. I've been to church my whole life. I've been coming to New Life specifically for a little bit over a year now. And I also attend the youth and I've made so many amazing connections and so I'm really excited to be here today. So Jesus, or Jesus, Jacob just touched on Christianity within the academy. So my main point that I'm going to bring to you today is how the church is known for its love for Christ above all else. So for a little bit of context, often in Christian history we can see that when God moves among his people it's going to affect the livelihood of those who are willing to trade in vice or immorality. Basically saying that when we solidify ourselves in Christ and make ourselves known as Christian Satan is going to attack. He gets jealous because we can only serve one God. We can only devote all of our time to one thing. He's going to try to distract ourselves in our everyday lives at school, in our job, in relationships. Maybe he tells you specifically you're not good enough. You can't measure up. This kind of relates back to scripture because in Acts the riot in Ephesus' building, Acts 19.28 says, at this their anger boiled and they shouted, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Soon the whole city was filled with confusion. Satan was basically taking advantage of the fact that they were idolizing this fake God and making them confused, making them angry. In our everyday lives today we can see ourselves falling into traps and idolizing fake or cultural things. We can create our own chants like, great is our favorite sports teams like the Lions or the Wolverines. Greater celebrities like the Kardashians who are loaded with material wealth and fame. I'm also preaching to myself because I constantly find myself focusing so much on little things that really don't matter. For example, if I go to post on social media I'm constantly asking myself, is this picture perfect? How many likes, shares, comments does it get? Did I put the perfect caption? It is so consuming and guess what? Nobody cares. But that's exactly what Satan does. He tries to get in our head. He tries to tell us that little things like this that we kind of paint the picture matter so much they don't really matter at all. And then on the flip side of that, if we begin people, if we begin hearing people say, great is the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes they're regarded by many as strange and different. How many of you have ever been in a situation like this? I know I have. I've lost friends simply because our values have changed. But I've also gained friends who have the same common purpose that I do of pursuing Christ. And I believe it's important that we take advantage of that in those areas where maybe we don't see Christ as present. We don't see him as the center of everything. And we can invite him into those areas. Jesus said in the Bible, go make disciples. Tell people about me. And Dan and Kelsey often say, receiving the gift of Jesus is the best gift that you could ever receive. So who am I to not want to welcome people into that? Also an Acts that says, Paul wasn't alone when he stood outside the theater. The chants of great Diana were so loud on the inside. And he was tempted to go in. He really wanted to. But he was standing beside other Christians who grounded him, who reminded him who he was, who reminded him whose he was, and helped ground him and stand firm in his faith. So I just want to get across the point that us as Christians, we the church are unified in Christ. We have the opportunity to reject fake idols that stand in our way and instead share the love of Jesus and tell people the good news about him. It's important that we find the people who share the common purpose of putting him first in all things. That's why I'm personally so grateful for places like New Life and that I get the opportunity to be able to go to youth where I have made amazing connections, made so many new friends, and I have leaders who are full of knowledge and will always guide me back to Jesus. Ending on that note, it's a privilege to be able to share this part of the message with you today. And thank you. I would like to introduce the shooter in the 269. Morning New Life. How's everyone doing? My name is Noah Van Lanheim. I've been going to New Life for about three years now and just like Pastor Jacob over there, I'll be graduating in three days from Madeline High School. Have any of you ever felt called by God to do something and suddenly felt like it all went wrong? Well, as they just talked about business and false idols, I'm discussing when you see God move in the church, you can know that Satan is also trying to stop the momentum. God worked mightily in Ephesus through Paul by preaching for three plus years that that discredited Diana. Therefore Demetrius decided to start a riot because it hurt his business, his business of making the silver shrines of the false god Diana. The spirit of God moved upon the children of God, therefore the movements of the unbelievers showed the fear in Satan. Satan was scared of the church developing in Ephesus. The dismissal of the assembly, the city clerk dismissed the assembly. That shows how God ended the threat to Paul and the Christians along with preserving his work in his people. God will always preserve his work in his people. The other thing is when you recognize Satan, you can become stronger. He never just threw away the church, never mind, since Demetrius is rioting and everyone's all going crazy. He said never mind, I'm not going to give up the church because of this. He never gave in to Satan showing himself. He always trusted in God and trusted in his church. It is a compliment to be attacked by Satan because that means he's scared of your growing relationship with God. Your growing with God, that shows your growth with God is amazing and that the devil is just attacking you because he fears you. I wanted to bring an example in my life that happened pretty recently. Basically as some of you may know, basketball is a big part of my life and playing college basketball is a big goal of mine. Some of you might think, are you really going to go to church and talk about sports? Well, yeah, because that's pretty much all I do. I go to church, I go to school, and I play basketball. Like I said, college basketball is a big part of my life. I just ended my senior season and it was successful for me. I achieved my goals and I could see where God's plan was showing through me. I had plenty of opportunities to play in college and I was exploring all of my options to try to find the best place for me. It got down to crunch time in April when I wanted to make my decision. I had plenty of interests and offers to play somewhere, but then I had some coaches lead me on and then end up not giving me an opportunity to play. I grew very impatient, frustrated, always angry for a couple of weeks. I struggled at school, got some bad grades. Sorry about that, Mom. But the worst part about it was I turned from God during that time. What happened was Satan used my gifts and talents and passion to turn me away from God, which that's where I saw him try to slow down my momentum in growing with God. So I was in the middle of pursuing Jesus and enjoying my last few months of high school when Satan distracted me during a very stressful time in my life. I've seen Satan use my gifts and passions to get me, whether it was even at church, at school, or at sports and basketball, or just hanging out with friends in general. But God led me back to decision to play basketball at Albion College, and he preserved me just like he did with Paul in his church. Thank you.

Now to the stage, Reagan.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Reagan Gunther. I'm a junior in high school, and I'm soon to be a senior in three weeks. I'm also captain of Madwin Varsity Cheer. This message came from the scripture titled, The Riot That Started the Church. And today, I'm going to tell you how the riot that started the church then changed my life. So I'm going to take a moment to share peace of my journey with you, as well as implement what we have talked about today in a more relatable way. Growing up in Kentucky, I was a part of a Catholic school and community. My family and I went to church every Sunday, and my grandma and great-grandma was the biggest influences in my faith. From a young age, my relationship with God was vibrant, and my faith was a huge part of my identity. I was very naive and pure as a child. Like most kids, I thought the biggest challenge I would face is learning to ride my bike. Repentance and confession has always been second nature to me until I moved to Michigan. My family and I had a huge struggle trying to find a right-fit church. I always felt out of place, and the message was really hard for me to understand. I started to lose my faith more and more throughout school, the less my family and I went to church. Entering middle school, my foundation of God was being depleted faster than I could have imagined. The little faith I shared and acted on was a source for kids to use as mockery, and I started to idolize the wrong crowd of kids. I felt the devil giving me worldly joy that never felt real or fulfilling. I started regarding my morals God has taught me, and I found myself in a sticky situation and almost felt faithless. Reaching my bike was a whole lot easier than the spiritual warfare. Throughout COVID, I was on and off with a relationship between God and the world. I didn't think it was possible for me to regain my faith like it once was because it just felt too difficult for me. I realized how manipulation Satan has caused in our world today and how easily manipulated we are to follow his ways. It wasn't until the beginning of this year a friend invited me to New Life Church. The first time I attended was youth group. I began to feel that familiar sense of belonging again. Stepping into church felt like coming home. The first time was I was welcomed with open arms into a family and community that embraced me, flaws and all. And trust me, there was a lot. I met friends that made it easy to step out of my comfort zone of worldly behaviors and into a new life of love. It wasn't just my spirit that was nourished here. It was my entire being. There's a passage from the book of Proverbs that has become a guiding light for me, especially during the most challenging year for me, which is junior year. Proverbs 3, 5, 6 says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and learn not on your own understanding and all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. These words have echoed in my heart, reminding me to surrender control and trust in a higher power, even when life feels chaotic and unpredictable. They've taught me the importance of humility and submission of letting go of my own desires and agendas in favor of world's plan for my life. In a world that often feels fragmented and disconnected, finding a community like New Life Church has been nothing short of a miracle. Jacob reminded us that the church impacts the economy and I've seen the church work in this way. Without New Life Church community, I would not have had the opportunity to go to access. I'm forever grateful for my sponsor that gave up their hard earned money to give me this once in a lifetime opportunity that I've had not in the past. The excitement that I feel is like no other and I have no doubt this experience will change my life forever. Thank you for the bottom of my heart to whoever you may be. I will forever remember this gesture of generosity. Kylan then touched on making Jesus our focus in every aspect of life. A good way to do this would be to turn away from ungodly things and throw yourself into a loving community of great faith. If you are in middle school and high school and want to implement God into your life, a great way to do that is to attend our youth group on Sunday nights. This is where I've made some of the most important people that have shaped my life today. Lastly, Noah brought up when God moves within the church, so does Satan. For me, this happens the most when I feel my connection with God is strengthening rapidly, but Satan tries to throw distractions to throw me off track. But perhaps it's not the friends or opportunities that are most important, but where I rediscovered my faith. And for that, I'm endlessly grateful. So today, as we navigate the ups and downs of life, I encourage each of you to hold fast to your faith. Whatever form it may take, repenting from Satan, invest into God's kingdom, or saying goodbye to that worldly community and hello to that faith-filled one. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and know that even in the darkest of times, He will guide you and make your paths straight. Thank you. Can we give all of our young communicators a big round of applause? Good. I'll let you go, I guess. I'll let you go. Man, I don't know about you guys, but that fires me up. And I can't breathe right now because I feel so emotional hearing them talk about why they do what they do. I often tell them that I believe they're living in a harder time than I ever knew. And they're going to school in a place where you can make a mistake, and it's not something that maybe you get teased about for a day, and then you come back the next day and it's forgotten. It's you make a mistake and it's posted on social media. And then all of their friends know about it, and then it's shared, and all of their friends know about it. For when they're being bullied, it's not just to your face, it's on social media. And so I believe that the church is vital, is vital to their wellbeing and to their health and then to going out and sharing the word of God. They're an inspiration to me because they're the ones that are having the conversations day in and day out about why they believe in Jesus. It's one thing to work in a church and to do ministry and to be surrounded by people who really have the same beliefs normally. It's another to be going into a school and being asked, why do you feel the way you do? And to have to be able to answer for it and to stand on it. And the church is the training ground. The church, just like we saw in Ephesus, is where the word of God can spread rapidly, but it doesn't just stop within these walls. It's the training ground to then come together on a Sunday or to be in your life group and to be equipped and to be empowered and to then go out and share the message. I have to be honest with you, I look at those four students and I can tell you that I thought every single one of them would say no to me. I thought when I asked, they would say, absolutely not, I have no interest in that. And to know that God has been building in them some things. You heard that some of them have been coming to this church for a year. Can you imagine a year into your faith walk standing up on stage and saying, sure God, I'll share your word in front of people that I've known for a year and that's incredible to me. But that's why, that's why we do what we do is so then people can be empowered, not just that generation, but every generation. And today I have the honor of showing you a really cool video that some of our younger students have been working on. These are second grade through sixth graders. And I know Dan has told the story before, but we talk about trading in worldly values or vision for godly things. And during COVID, we were stuck at home and Harper's favorite thing was to watch Kids Bop on TV. And she would watch these kids singing songs that maybe had been popular on the radio and then they take out the inappropriate language and just fill it with something else. And, you know, but the message probably still isn't that great. But there are these kids that are singing and dancing and our kids loved it. And Dan looked at me and said, why does it have to be Kids Bop? Why can't we have them doing worship songs? Why can't we create a space in the church that kids are learning how to use their gift of singing and dancing and they're worshiping God instead. And then we can use those videos to then reach other people. And these are kids that are standing in their gifting and using that to reach people. And to me, that's so exciting to see that we have second to sixth graders and then we have high schoolers and then we have adults that are leading life groups. And then we have people who have been in their faith walk for a long time that say, you say, what about the Christians that are in the deep? What about the Christians that love theology? What about those people? If you love theology so much, we're going to practice it and we're going to do what God said about go and make disciples. That's the theology. So we're going to take what we've learned and then we're going to pour it back into the people who are coming in the doors that desperately need it. The riot that started the church. Now I want to show you what coat these kids wear as they take their faith outside of these walls and share the love of Jesus with others. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am wrapped in a light. I am held in the arms of a loving father who is lying in a pit but I'm walking the palace now. Once I was a beggar now I live in the king's house because where there was a bug that saved my life. I pulled me from the dark gold was a crown you placed upon my head and showed me who you are. With mercy and grace I've been embraced like no other. I gave you my heart. You gave me a coat of many colors. Sometimes your worst enemies turn out to be your brothers. I know you understand. Cause I've got dreams I can see to give me troubles flying in a pit but I'm walking the palace now. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I gave you my heart. You gave me a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors. I am clothed in a coat of many colors.

I am clothed in a coat of many colors.

Full Sermon Transcript

Hi, how are you? Hope. I'm going to celebrate it with you guys today. My name is Jess, and before I get started, I want to tell you a little bit about me. First and foremost, the only reason that I'm standing on this stage today is because I am the daughter of a mom who is a prayer warrior, who has prayed me through every moment of life and who has made it so that I could actually step out in my calling. I'm also the sister-in-law of a pastor who has called me out into my calling a million times the first time he asked me to stand on this stage, I told him no. I said, I don't speak in public. I don't like it. And he said, that's what Moses said. So as we talk about Moses' story today, think about that. I'm also the daughter-in-law of a woman who is servant-hearted. She's kind. She's loving. She would rather put a shirt on someone else's back than her own. And so I am just so thankful for the moms in my life. I am also a wife to Chris. And I am a mom. I'm a mom to two boys who are 13, almost 14, and my daughter, who is nine. And if you're in the room today and you're a mom of infants or really little kids and you're thinking, all right, Jess, you don't get me right now. You're too far past that. I didn't sleep last night. I am wearing spit up on my shirt, all of that. I want to tell you that God decided, or Satan, I'm not sure which, if it was an attack or not, last night that I was not going to sleep. And I sleep really well every night. My kids stay in their beds. They do what I tell them to. They don't get up to eat. But last night, at least two of my three were in my bedroom and making ruckus and waking me up. And I was like, what is going on? So one came in, knocked some stuff down, I think turned on the shower, turned on a light. This was one of my almost 14-year-olds. I asked them this morning. Which one of you was it? I don't know. I was like, were you sleepwalking? Why were you in my room? And then my daughter came and got in bed. And she hasn't done that in over a year. So I see you. I honor you. I know that you're in a tough season. But I am so excited to celebrate you today. I also want you to know that I'm not up here because I'm a perfect mom, right? None of us are. So I want to tell you a story so that you can relate a little bit with me. When my son Hayden was eight years old, Dan and Kelsey had their second daughter, Gracie. And I don't have Kelsey's permission to tell this, so hopefully I don't get in trouble. We were in Kelsey's hospital room. Our family's big. There were 15 of us in there. And it was just hours after she had given birth. And Kelsey had Gracie via C-section. Hayden, my eight-year-old curious little kid, is like, hey, mom, can I see what you're watching? Meanwhile, I'm watching Kelsey's C-section that Dan had videotaped on Kelsey's phone. And I think it's amazing because I like that kind of stuff. And I'm like, well, Kel, it's your body. You can decide. She's like, I don't care. You're the mom. The mom made the wrong choice. I'm like, sure, buddy. You can watch it. So I'm standing there with him, letting him watch it. And he goes, mom, this is so cool. Boom. He's on my feet. His eyes are twitching back and forth. His body is shaking. And I'm thinking, I just gave my kid a seizure. And he doesn't have seizures. So come to find out, he has vasovagal responses and passes out when someone he loves is being hurt. And he was clearly watching a lot of what would cause pain if Kelsey hadn't had meds during the C-section. So mom fail. We all do it. I'm right here with you today. When we study moms in the Bible, we don't get their entire story. We don't get the entire picture of their lives or the exact details. But what we do know is that God chose each and every one of these women to be a springboard for their child or their nation's God-given destiny, regardless of their flaws, their insecurities, and their shortcomings. Thank God that he can use us even when we can't measure up. We know that God chose each one of them to instruct, inspire, and correct us today by learning from them and watching how they influence people for their God-given destiny so that we can do the same for our kids. If you're sitting in the room today and you're like, Jess, gosh, I came. Mother's Day is hard. I'm not a mom. What do you want me to get from this? Whether you desperately want to be a mom and you've been praying for God to answer that, I've walked in your shoes for a short time, and I'm praying right along with you that he'll answer that desire of your heart. Whether you're a mom to a child who's already gone to heaven and you're mourning that loss today, or whether you're a daughter or a son who's lost a mom, know that I'm right here with you and that I still believe that we can learn so much from these mothers in the Bible. There's even mothers in the Bible that are called mothers who we don't even know if they ever had their children, their own children, or adopted children, but they're called a mother of a nation. You guys, God called Deborah, a prophetess and a judge, the mother of Israel. We don't know if she had kids. We don't know a whole lot about her other than because of her wisdom and discernment, she got to judge all of Israel and was called the mother of Israel. So know too that regardless of whether you are a biological mother, an adoptive mother, or a spiritual mother to spiritual sons and daughters, you are making a difference and you're influencing and you can learn just as much from these moms. As I was praying and reading and asking God for a message for today, I came across Psalm 20, four to five, as part of my Bible reading. If any of you were doing the Bible recap, you came across it too and I knew immediately that God was telling me to pray it over these moms today, the ones that want to be moms and haven't had that experience yet. It says, may he give you what your heart desires and fulfill your whole purpose. Let us shout for joy at your victory and lift the banner in the name of our God. May the Lord fulfill all of your requests. So know that I've prayed that over you this week and I'm going to continue.

Motherhood, whether to our biological children, adopted children, sons and daughters like we talked about, brings with it an immediate spiritual attack. We get thrown into the front lines of battle and that battle is messy and unpredictable. Satan puts a target on our backs because he knows the power of influence that we have over the next generation's heroes. He doesn't want us to succeed and he definitely doesn't want us relying on God. But God is trustworthy and his victories on our behalf are always so much greater than we could ever hope or imagine. How do we set ourselves up to claim his victories on behalf of our children? That's what we're going to lean into today. I want to start though by praying over all of you moms in the room. Jesus, we thank you so much for the moms in this room who have guided us, whether it be as their children or as adopted sons and daughters or as spiritual children, God. And we just thank you and we honor them today. We give you all of the glory. God, we pray for those moms who have a desire to be a mom and you haven't fulfilled that promise yet, Lord. And I ask you, God, that by next Mother's Day, they would experience that incredible blessing. We trust you with them and we know God that there are so many stories in the Bible of mothers who begged for children, who faced infertility. And God, we know that sometimes their children are the ones that came out with the most powerful stories and testimonies of your goodness. God, I pray for the moms that are hurting because they've lost children. And I pray, God, that you would comfort them with your Holy Spirit, give them peace and comfort today, Lord, help us to all surround them and love them well and help them to be able to celebrate the gift that their children were here on earth and that we know that they are in your arms. We pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen. You've spent any time in church, you probably came in here this morning thinking that you were going to hear a message on the Proverbs 31 woman, right? The one that's like all over our planners, our journals. But honestly, she's the one that we all admire and we try to become anybody like me thinking, yeah, she's got way too much on her plate. I don't know how I would do this. My children do not rise up and praise me in the morning on most mornings. Sometimes my husband does. But as I was asking God for a message today, he took me in a different direction. So we are going to learn about two moms in the Bible from one Bible story and three things that they chose to do consistently to become that Proverbs 31 woman. They can't be her on their own, neither can we, but the consistency of their choices allowed them to look very much like her. Our story today starts with Jacobed. I'm going to call her Jacobed today, but guys, I listened to three different pastors and to my Bible app to see how we're supposed to pronounce her name, just like Habakkuk and all the others that I can't say. And I heard Yokebed, I heard Jacobed and I heard Jokebed. So if anyone in the room is a Jewish and knows how to pronounce her name, let me know. I would be grateful. Jacobed is living in the time beyond when Pharaoh put Joseph as his second in command. So during that time, the Israelites were very well treated. They were thriving in Egypt and they're multiplying rapidly, but there's a new Pharaoh on the throne. He does not like the Israelites. He's extremely intimidated by them. And he wants to end their bloodlines because he's afraid that they're going to take over Egypt. This new Pharaoh on the throne makes an edict or a command that all Israelite males born to Hebrew women be killed, but he asks the midwives to do it. And what he didn't factor in is that these midwives fear God more than they fear man. So they lie to the Pharaoh and they tell him, I'm sorry, these women are so vigorous that they just give birth before we even get to their houses so we can't kill their sons. So he moves on to plan B and he says that every Israelite male born to a Hebrew woman must be thrown into the Nile River to drown.

I can't imagine. Can you imagine being a Hebrew woman living in that time? You find out that you're expecting a child. That's one of God's greatest gifts. You're so excited, but you don't have the technology that we have today. So you don't have an ultrasound to tell you whether you're having a boy or a girl. You know the infant mortality rates are extremely high in this time. So you already know that you could lose your child. And then you know that there's a 50% chance that your child will be thrown into a river and drown in an absolutely horrific way. I think that raising a child in today's world is really hard and scary, but I can't imagine then. I can't imagine knowing that my kid wouldn't even have a chance. That's the situation that we find Jacobed in, the mother of Miriam, Moses, and Aaron, who go on to lead God's people out of Egypt and out of slavery and teach them to follow God. We find her story in Exodus chapter two. So let's start reading her story now. Says about this time, a man and woman, that's Jacobed, she doesn't get named till later, from the tribe of Levi got married. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. Mom's in the room. Have you ever tried to hide a newborn? I know I have. Have you ever tried to keep a newborn quiet? I know I have. Let's think for a minute about your friend's wedding that you're desperately wanting to go to, kids aren't invited, and you have a brand new newborn baby that's still nursing. So you can't leave them home with a babysitter and you're like, you know what? They'll be in their car seat, it's fine, they're not gonna cry, and then they start crying during the ceremony. I tried to do that. Didn't work well. Or think about your child on their first flight or maybe a flight when they're still young enough that it really hurts their ears to fly. I actually just went on one of these flights with Dan and Kelsey with baby Oliver. And you know the fear of a mother getting on that plane of like, is everyone gonna love me because my kid is so cute? Or is everyone on this plane going to hate me because I can't throw my child out the window? Which Dan actually told people next to him he couldn't do. Because my child is screaming and his ears are hurting. So again, like, we can't hide a baby. Or have you ever tried to get into the sermon with a sleeping baby thinking it's okay, they're gonna sleep through the whole thing, like they won't make a peep, and then they start screaming. And you're looking around you thinking, where's my closest exit? I've done that too. And it's so hard, but I'm so thankful that all of my anxieties about this come out of respect for people and respect for the environment that I'm in and just wanting to honor people. Can you imagine if it was coming out of a fear that your child would die the second they made a peep? I just can't even fathom that. So we're gonna pick back up in Exodus 2.3. It says, but when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch.

So she's making this basket, and actually I found out this week that the word in the Bible for the basket is the same word that's used for Noah's ark at one point. So think about this as a deliverance, a way to safety. We're gonna stop here for a moment

and think about the most sacrificial, faith-filled love of a mother. She can no longer hide him. So in the next verse, it tells us that she places that basket into the river, the very river that's intended to kill her son. She's now trusting God to use as the thing that's going to deliver him to safety.

You send also his younger, or his older sister, but she's very young, to watch out for this baby to see what happens when you place him in the river. And you know that the Egyptians are just on the other side of the river. They're your slave drivers. They don't like you. They don't want your son to live. They probably don't love your daughter, and now you're putting her in faith, in harm's way, trusting God to do what only he can do. Can we pull up the very next slide? You guys are awesome. So we know that she waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and then the next slide. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds, along the bank of the Nile River. She's letting her son go, trusting that God loves him more than she does.

Then, his sister Miriam steps out in courage. When she sees the Pharaoh's daughter, the princess, bathing in the reeds, or bathing in the river, and her servant girls are there with her, and they look and see the baby, and Pharaoh's daughter pulls the baby in. Miriam comes out and says, hey, would you like me to find a Hebrew woman to nurse that baby for you? Again, what courage to talk to the princess who hates your people and ask if you can find someone to nurse the baby.

So, can we go to the next slide?

So the princess says, take this baby and nurse him for me.

The princess told the baby's mother. Miriam went and found her own mom to nurse her baby brother because of her courage and her faith in God. And the Egyptians offered to pay their slave woman to nurse her own baby. If you've heard this Bible story a million times like me, I have always seen it as this miraculous deliverance of God. Him taking Moses and putting him in the river and then allowing Pharaoh's daughter to actually find him, give him back to his mom. I didn't realize growing up that she paid his mom to help raise him for two to three more years, and then bringing him in the palace so that he could learn the Egyptian ways and deliver him to the world. And then I never heard of the word of God because it was never his people from slavery. But what I didn't notice before was the characteristics and choices that it took of Jacobed, his biological mother, the Pharaoh's daughter who becomes his adoptive mother, and his sister Miriam. So we're gonna break it down into three main ways that these women set themselves apart to be used by God. One, she loves God more than she loves her family. Did you just take a double take on that one? Anyone in the room like, I can't love anybody more than my family? As much as we love our husbands and our children, there's one love that has to surpass them all in order for us to love them well. There's one love that anchors a godly mom's feet and gives her the strength and stability she needs to selflessly serve others. In Mark 12.30, we read, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, "'all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.'" A mother of the word actually loves God first and foremost and her love for her kids flows out of that. She puts time in God's word and prayer first, allowing the Bible to inform her thoughts, decisions, words, and actions. She intentionally disciples her kids and she sees that as her responsibility. She doesn't just pass it off to the church or to her kids' school or to another person that she sees as being spiritually more mature than her, but she sees them as supporters and partners in the journey with her.

Deuteronomy 6, 6-8 says, "'And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly "'to these commands that I'm giving you today. "'Repeat them again and again to your children. "'Talk about them when you're at home "'and when you're on the road, "'when you're going to bed and when you're getting up. "'Tie them to your hands "'and wear them on your foreheads as reminders. "'Write them on the doorposts of your house "'and on your gates.'" So a mother of the word is pursuing the Lord on good days and bad, and she's leading her children by example. Matthew 6, 33 says, "'Seek the kingdom of God above all else "'and live righteously and He will give you all that you need.'" So how do we see a mother who loves God more than she loves the world, more than she loves her family in Jacobed's story? I think we can see it best if we try to reverse her story. If we would reverse it, what would it have looked like if Jacobed said, "'I love Miriam and Moses "'more than anyone else possibly can. "'I'm their mom. "'What if she had taken the stance "'that these are my children, my job to protect them? "'No one, not even God, loves them as much as me.' I think about how this mindset usually turns out for us when we try to adopt it. We fall short because we come out thinking, "'My kids, my love, my job.' And we don't trust the one that actually loves them more than we do to help us raise them. We expect to love and protect our children by mere human strength, but inevitably we fall short. We can't see what God can see. We don't know what God knows. And if we're honest with ourselves, we actually don't love them as much as God loves them. They aren't ours, they're His. He has essentially loaned them to us here on earth to raise them to help Him further His kingdom. There's a Bible verse that says that they are arrows in our quiver that we're actually supposed to set them on fire for the Lord and shoot them out into the world to share His kingdom and His love with others. Had Jokobed relied on her own love for her children and chosen them over her love for God, I would assume that she would have tried to escape Egypt with Moses, or she would have continued to try to hide him, both of which would have failed miserably. She would have never entrusted him into the river, the very one that was supposed to kill him, so that God could deliver him. She wouldn't have sent young Miriam out to watch and to talk to the princess, knowing that she was in harm's way. And she wouldn't have instilled the faith and the courage that it took in Miriam to be able to speak up to the princess.

We don't have concrete evidence that Pharaoh's daughter was a believer in Yahweh, but I believe she followed the same principles. Do I believe that God turned her heart toward this baby boy that she was supposed to hate so that she could choose him even though she didn't know God personally? Yeah, I do. I don't think there's any way she would have had He not affected her heart. She chose one of God's chosen children over her security in the palace, her father's wrath, I'm sure, probably her ability to lead her kingdom. She risks everything and hires a slave woman to nurse her own baby, not by her knowledge, but by God's providence, right? And she allows him to take that baby that she's fallen in love with back into her home because she knows that she can't give him what his biological mother can at this point. They don't have formula, so she knows that she has to rely on this other mother to nurse him. Whether knowing it or not, she chose God's word and God's people over the world. Number two, our second point of what moms do consistently to become that Proverbs 31 woman is that they're steadfast and strong and stay off the roller coaster. What do I mean by stay off the roller coaster? Moms, do your kids ever try to get you to jump on their roller coaster of emotions? Mine do all the time. My daughter was actually listening to me practice this and she just started bursting out laughing. So, anyone have that child that can go from like, mom, you're the best mom in the world, I love you so much too. Mom, you're the absolute worst mom in the world 10 minutes later because you won't let me do what all the other kids moms will let them do. Yes, I do. Do you jump on the roller coaster and ride those highs and lows with them? Or do you maintain a steadfast strength and stability that comes only from God?

This mother's foundation of faith keeps her stable and strong. In Psalm 42, it says, he lifted me up out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. Psalm 26, 12 says, now I stand on solid ground and I will publicly praise the Lord. Because of our faith in God and our ability to choose his word, we are not riding that roller coaster. This mom sets boundaries and makes decisions based on scripture rather than convenience or culture. Galatians 1, 10 tells us, obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant. I have to remind myself that all the time because I'm a natural born people pleaser. Isaiah 26, 3 says, you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you and whose thoughts are fixed on you. And Galatians 6, 9 tells us, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. First Corinthians 15, 58 tells us, therefore my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. How do we see a mother who's steadfast in her faith and not getting on the roller coaster in this story? If we go to Hebrews 11, 23, it takes us back to the story of Jacobed in Exodus and it says it was by faith that Moses' parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child and they were not afraid to disobey the king's command. Then Hebrews 11, 24 tells us, it was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of the Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. Where did he learn that kind of faith? Probably not in the palace. It was probably in his mother's home those first two to three years that she had him in her care and was able to pour everything she knew about God into him.

And number three, finally, a mother of the word does not go it alone. She relies not on her own strength but on the strength of the Holy Spirit. Now there's a disclaimer here. Jacobed didn't have the Holy Spirit at her disposal like we do all of the time. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come on a person for a certain task and then he would leave. He wasn't accessible to every single one of us all the time until after Jesus died and ascended to heaven and said that he would send someone even greater than he. However, because we have the Holy Spirit today, because we all have access to him all the time, we have an even greater responsibility to never go alone without his comfort or his counsel. First Peter five, six to seven says, "'So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, "'and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. "'Give all your worries and cares to God "'for he cares about you.'" How wonderful it is that we can hand over those worries and cares about our children and trust that God loves them more and that he loves us and that if we trust in him, he will bring us to a place of honor. That mother that doesn't go it alone also knows that she has to keep in community here with other believers. Community with other believers is never easy, but she chooses authenticity and community because faithful moms seek and support friends who will speak truth, correct, and pray for them and encourage one another. Hebrews 10, 24 to 25 tells us, "'Let us consider how to stir up one another "'to love and good deeds, "'not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, "'but encouraging one another all the more "'as you see the day drawing near.'" When I look at this story, I see Pharaoh's daughter choosing community. She knows that it's not gonna be the easiest thing, but she loves Moses and she wants him to have the best, so that means that since she can't nurse him, she has to give him back to his mom that she doesn't know is his mom. And I'm sure that they didn't part ways as soon as she like handed him back for two to three years. She knows that his life depends on her willingness to not do this motherhood thing alone.

Jacobed must have also chosen community in some way because otherwise, I would think that the second my baby came back into my arms, I would do the same thing we talked about earlier. I would flee. I would run out of Egypt or I would try to find someone else to hide this baby so that he isn't killed and isn't raised in a palace where they don't know God. So I'm sure they didn't cut all contact in the waiting. I'm sure that there had to have been some sort of connection. And finally, that mother builds others up. A godly mom knows that her words carry the power of life and death in her family and to all of those around her. She does her best to honor the Lord and the conversations that she has and avoid gossip and just further his kingdom. Proverbs 17, nine tells us, love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. And then Proverbs 31, 26 tells us, she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. And Colossians 3, 16 tells us, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in wisdom. And then finally, Ephesians 4, 29 tells us, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such that's good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. That mother of the word accepts that her role extends beyond the walls of her own home, impacting the lives of other women who look up to her. First Thessalonians 5, 11 says, encourage one another and build each other up just as you already are doing. As I look around this room today, I see so many mothers of the word. These mothers accept that every child belongs to God, that he doesn't belong to us. They're on loan to us so that we can raise them to be his warriors. We might think that we love them the most, but to love them best, we have to surrender them to the one who loves them more than we ever could. We entrust the Lord with the desires of our hearts and the hearts of our children. A mother of the word exhibits unwavering courage in the face of challenges. She relies on God's strength and track record, not her own. She instills hope in her family through that trust in God's plans and promises. She remains a backbone of assurance in the times of adversity. She has enough hope when the others around her don't have any. These moms choose the word over the world. They love Jesus more than their husbands or children. They ask God for help being steadfast in their faith and staying off the roller coaster of their kids' emotions or what the culture's telling them to do. And they know the power that we find in the Holy Spirit and in a community of believers that he brings to us. They don't go it alone. And because they hold true to these three things, they become like the Proverbs 31 woman, clothed with strength and dignity, laughing without fear of the future, that's my favorite. Speaking wisdom and giving instruction with kindness, carefully watching over everything in their household, and their children rise up and bless them and their husbands praise them. Moms, if you're sitting here in the room today thinking, Jess, that's all great and encouraging, but where on earth do I start? I'm unsure of how to actually live out these three choices in daily life in this world today. Here's what I would challenge you to do. Number one, choose Jesus. Choose him first. Offer your child back to him. I have to do it sometimes every morning. God, I know that Hayden, Hudson, and Eliza are not mine. They're yours. I know that you love me and you love them more than I could ever love them. And I know that you've loaned them to me for their time here on earth. So I'm going to trust you with them. And I'm going to ask you what to do with them. Spend time reading your Bible and praying because he will reveal the things you need to know for your kids through his word. Number two, join a life group. Next week, we get to launch our summer life groups. And I promise you that the community that you will find in life groups will uphold all of your daily life. It will help you to seek out other believers when you don't know how to do it alone.

When you're consistently praying and reading and choosing community, the peace that God gives you through his word and the Holy Spirit will keep you steadfast. It will keep you off of the roller coaster. So pray, read, and join. Those are the three things that I want you to walk out of here and do today. Is that simple enough? It's good for me because it's just three words that I can hang on to. But if you're sitting in the room and you're hearing this today and you've never experienced the power of a relationship with Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit that we've talked about today and the strength that he gives you in a community of believers, I want to invite you in. Choosing to follow Jesus, choosing to give your life to him is the absolute best decision you will ever make in your life. And the peace that he gives will transcend all understanding of raising these kids. When we accept that God died on the cross, that he rose again, that he took our sins with him, that Jesus is Lord, and that he offers victory to you and me, we get to live in that freedom. As everyone bows their heads and closes their eyes, I want to ask you to take a step of faith today with me. I'm not gonna ask you to come up here. I'm not gonna ask you to say anything, but I want to know who I'm praying with and for. So if that's you and you feel the Holy Spirit knocking on the door of your heart today, would you raise your hand for me? One, two, three. God sees you. He knows your struggle and he loves you so much and he wants to invite you in. Would you pray this prayer with me? Jesus, I know that you're the Son of God. I know that you died on the cross, that you rose again, and that you claimed victory over my life as a sinner. God, I know that you bridged the gap so that I can be in constant communion with you, and that you give me the Holy Spirit for his comfort and his counsel. Lord, I want to invite you in today. I want you to be Lord of my life. I want to trust you. I want to hand my kids over to you. I pray these things with my whole heart. I accept you, Jesus. That's in your name we pray, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

how are you guys doing today? Good man it's good to be in the house of God with you today, we are continuing, actually ending finishing our series on the Holy Spirit today this is part five. If you've missed any of the any of the sessions that we've taught on the Holy Spirit during the season, I encourage you to go back to our YouTube channel, download the app all of that content is there. Today is kind of like last week, if you if you were here last week remember I told you don't take notes, right? Usually I say that note takers are, but we're again providing the notes for you and the reason for that is because this is heavy on teaching. Today's message is a lot of scripture, a lot of points, and in order to get through it and to get you to understand it, I want you to be able to focus in. And so the scriptures will be up on the screen for you. Again, if you're in the app, those notes will be there for you. And of course, when we send out our email every week, we will include those notes there. Are you guys ready? All right, today we're gonna talk about gifts of the Holy Spirit, but however, we're gonna talk about one specific gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, if you wanna know all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I'd really encourage you to go to our Discovery class because every single second Tuesday, not Tuesday, second Sunday, hello, every second Sunday of the month, we do step two of Discovery, which is your opportunity to learn about spiritual gifts and to discover the spiritual gifts that God has placed inside of you for a purpose. And so I encourage you to go to that. We do that every single month as we dive into the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But today I wanna talk to you about something that I think is not talked about often and maybe misunderstood a lot or misconstrued even sometimes. And we're gonna talk today about tongues. How many of y'all have ever wondered what tongues are when it comes to the Bible? You're like, it's confusing, I don't know what it is, or maybe you've experienced it, maybe you haven't, but we're gonna talk about that today. There are four specific types of tongues that are found in the scriptures. Two of them are public, which means that they are said out loud in front of people. And then two are private, which we're gonna dive more into today. The first public one you saw at Pentecost, okay? So at Pentecost in the book of Acts, this particular public tongue was given so that the gospel could spread in other known languages to other people. So what happened was is the disciples, they began, they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, right? Jesus said, wait for me so that you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit so that you can be witnesses of me to the world. And then at Pentecost, right? Tongues of fire came down on the disciples and they began speaking in a language that they did not know. But other people who were there knew what they were saying because they were speaking in other known languages that were unknown to them. Are you following what I'm saying? So that is a public declaration, this happened at Pentecost. And then the other public tongue in the church is when it's described a couple of times in the scriptures, primarily through Paul's writings to the church in Corinth, is a public tongue that happens in the church which needs interpretation. So someone stands up, they begin speaking in a tongue that's not known to people, but it's known to them or it's actually not known to them, it's known to God. And then there's an interpreter that also has the spiritual gift of interpretation. Now I wanna make something abundantly clear here at New Life Church. Here at New Life Church on Sunday mornings, we do not allow that. And here's why, I'm gonna show it to you later in the scriptures, I'm gonna give you insight into why we don't allow it in Sunday morning services. And it's primarily because we believe that speaking to you to get you to understand in the language that you understand the gospel in is most important here on Sunday mornings. Can I get an amen? So we will allow it in other contexts, like 21 days of prayer in different worship settings, but for Sunday mornings, when we're preaching the gospel out of God's word, we wanna make sure every single person knows what is happening and can understand, are you with me? All right, two private versions of tongues that you'll see throughout the scriptures. One is for personal prayer and prayer for other believers around the world, and this is known as intercession. This is praying in tongues for other believers and I'm gonna show you what this looks like in just a moment through the scriptures. But you might be asking the question, Dan, why then if we're speaking the gospel here, if we're teaching God's word today in a known language that all of us can understand, why would God give us a language that we don't understand? Have you ever asked that question? Why would he give a language that we don't understand or can't understand? Well, I wanna share this to you in 1 Corinthians 14 too. It says, for he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. So there's a language that you're actually speaking out loud, not just to men, but to God. This is 1 Corinthians, this is the Apostle Paul. This is tongues, again, this verse is not referring to either of the two public categories of speaking in tongues. This one specifically is talking about talking to God himself in prayer, in intercession. This is prayer. When we talk to God in a tongue, this is known to God, but it's not known to men, it's not known to humankind. Romans 8.26 says it this way, the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For when we don't even know what we should pray for, has anyone been there? Like you've been in circumstances where you don't even know how to say it, you don't even know what to even declare out loud, you don't even know if you can do it. But the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you knows what you're going through, for we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. So we don't know what to pray or how to pray. So picture this for just a second. Let's talk about intercession, speaking or praying in tongues when it comes to intercession. How many of y'all believe that there are believers all over the world in every continent, in every country around the world? So picture right now that there is a believer in Jesus Christ in Iran right now, or in Syria, or in Israel, or maybe they're in Palestine, and they're going through all sorts of crazy things that you and I can't even fathom right now. And when you begin to pray for this person, and you're thinking, man, I wanna pray for these people, by the way, just ask yourself, how often do you pray for those people? And I bet if you're being honest like me, it's rare in the English language, right? So here's what happens. You don't know what to pray for. There are believers all over the world that are facing persecution, that are facing issues, that are going through all sorts of turmoil in their faith because of Jesus. And you don't know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what they need. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what they're going through. So imagine this for just a second. This is how I'm gonna describe it. Have any of you ever met the President of the United States? Nobody, all right, well, this is awesome. I haven't either. But I imagine what that would be like. If I walked into the room with the President of the United States, I wouldn't really know what to say. And here's why. Because this guy or gal, maybe someday, this person, they know way more about the world than I ever will. They know all about national security secrets. There's all sorts of secrets that they know that I don't know. And so that person, the President of the United States, is gonna have to talk to me on my level because I don't even comprehend how to have a conversation on his level. Imagine with me you walking into the room with the King of the universe, the God who created all things, who sustains all things. You walk into that God's office, and I can only imagine trying to talk to him in English and try to talk to him on my level. And he wants to do that, right? He wants to know about my kids and my wife and how's the church going. And man, I feel stressed out. I might feel sick. And man, he wants to be able to talk to me on that level. But how many of y'all know that you don't have the same comprehension that God does? You don't speak on his level. Just like you don't know the things that he knows. Like it's what you know is actually foolishness to God. And so why would the President, ask this question, why would the President of the United States not want to have a conversation with me about national security issues?

I think I'm a pretty trustworthy guy. But how does he know that? Like how does he know that I'm not a spy that's gonna share some things and get him into trouble and get our nation into trouble? How many of you know that we are in a war? We are in a spiritual battle. We are in a spiritual war. God wants to speak to his people in a way that the enemy cannot understand it. First Corinthians two verse seven and eight. It says, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time again. Who's ours? It's believers. It's born again Christians. And here's how I picture this. I picture Peyton Manning or pick your quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who's your favorite quarterback? Picture that guy. And he's walking up to the line of scrimmage and he sees the defense and he knows the play. He's already called, but he sees something that nobody else does and he starts yelling, Omaha, Omaha, Omaha.

Now the linebacker has no idea what he's talking about. The defensive back, no clue because he's on a different team. He's speaking a hidden language that only he and his teammates can understand why so that they can win. So they can run a play that is successful. So his team can understand the play and the opposing team cannot. The Holy Spirit gives believers, children of God, born again Christians who are baptized in the Holy Spirit, he gives us this secret wisdom. First Corinthians two seven eight again. This is what it says. We speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. Watch what he says next. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The greatest play call that's ever been made was the heavenly father sending the son of God to earth to live a perfect life, die a sacrificial death and to rise again. And guess what? The enemy didn't know that that was gonna save yours and my soul. Because if the enemy knew it, he would have tried to convince him not to do it. Are you following what I'm saying? God wants to share his secret wisdom with believers so that he can defeat the enemy's plans. He's saying that if the enemy would have known God's wisdom that Jesus wouldn't have maybe done it or he might've had a different, he wouldn't have a different strategy. He would have said to Pilate and he would have said to even the Sanhedrin or to the, who was it? Pilate, what's the other guy's name? There are a bunch of them. There are a bunch of, I don't even know. We're gonna move on because I don't have time. Okay, anyways. They would have said to themselves, we're not gonna crucify this guy. Why? Because that's what saved you and me. They wouldn't have done it. They wouldn't have run that play. And here's what you need to know. The enemy of your soul, of my soul is making plans. He has play calls to destroy you, to destroy your kids, to destroy your family, our nation. And he's mounting an attack. But then someone, a believer, gets down on their knees and they don't know exactly what you're going through. They don't know exactly how the enemy is coming at you or coming at believers around the world. And they begin to pray in a language that's not known to them, but it's known to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is praying on their behalf through you.

There's a demonic force that's coming at you. And when a believer gets down on their knees and begins to pray in the Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, and then all of a sudden, listen, this is what happens, a barrage of angels begin to show up and wipe out those demonic forces before calamity even happens. How many of y'all know that you have gone through some things or maybe even God has prevented you from going through some things because people were praying for you in the Holy Spirit. And you didn't even know it. The same thing is happening for those people in Israel. Those people who are in Iran or Syria or all around the world that are facing calamity because of the name of Jesus that they wear across their chest and on their foreheads and all over their bodies. And the enemy is being destroyed because of the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why Paul says that I wish all of you spoke and prayed in tongues. New Christians, old Christians, you need this wisdom. You need this language. Again, I picture the quarterback. I picture my homes standing at the line of scrimmage, going up to call the play and he can read the defense and he can see what's happening. He knows the play to call. Christians, we need the wisdom from God to be able to discern what's happening spiritually in our world and to be able to take command of the heavenly force that God has given availability to you. Do you know this? Do you believe this? Listen, God has given you and I dominion of earth. He's given you and I believers dominion of earth. Paul says, I speak in a tongue of man and of angels. Why? Because God has given me the language to command angels to do things on believers behalf. And you need this. And here's the deal. If the apostle Paul needed this, don't you think we need it too?

Praying in tongues is also about intimacy. It's about having connection again. It is intercession. It is praying on the behalf of and calling the angel, the armies of heaven, the angels on our behalf and for other people, but also intimacy, personal intimacy with the Lord. Look, Kelsey can look at me. Matter of fact, she did this, I don't know if it was last week or the week before, but I was doing something. And how many of y'all are married can catch a glimpse of your spouse's just facial expression and you can know without a doubt whether they're happy with you or very not happy with you.

It's like a secret language that comes with what? Intimacy. It comes with knowing each other really well. It's, and man, I love it when it's not like, what are you doing? I love it when it's the other side of like, oh man. You did the dishes. What time are the kids going to bed? That's a whole different sermon, sorry. Like we have a secret language that communicates intimacy with each other that none of you know, but we know it. Yeah, but Dan, if I don't understand, what's the point? If I, have you asked that question, but if I don't understand what we're saying, what's the point? First Corinthians 14, four says this, for when I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. I don't know what I'm talking about. And that's what you're thinking right now, right? But go back to the previous verse, go back to 14, 13. It says, let him who speaks in a tongue, pray that he might interpret. Who's he? The Holy Spirit. Pray that the Holy Spirit would interpret what came out of your mouth. You ask God to give you the interpretation. So when I pray in tongues and then ask God to interpret it, interpret what happens, here's what happens, ideas come. Dreams, wisdom, messages for you, revelation from the Bible. It's like it comes alive. Inspiration for godly things comes. Listen, the interpretation of all of those things, it might not come immediately. So if you go to your prayer closet and you start praying in tongues, and by the way, I'm gonna share with you how in just a few minutes, but when you do that and you're like, I got nothing, just wait, you ask for the interpretation. I could be driving in a car right after that morning time with the Lord. I could be driving in a car and then I just had this aha moment. I could be working out, getting my guns ready, and then all of a sudden, boom, the Holy Spirit begins to speak. And it all makes sense in a moment because I spent that intimate time. But here's the deal, it takes faith to pray in tongues and to wait for the answer. We're not very patient in waiting, are we? We don't like to get in line very long. We certainly don't wanna wait for God to answer, but I can tell you when he does answer and when you do listen and when you do hear him and when you do have that aha moment, it is so worth it.

He prays, Paul says, I do both. I pray in English, which by the way, he probably didn't speak English. He probably spoke a different language at the time, but for me, I pray in English, I pray in tongues. Paul says that he does both. He prays in his native language and then he says he prays in the tongues of angles. Angels end of God. So we need to do both, Proverbs 20, 27. Says the human spirit is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one's inmost being. So here's something you need to know. The Holy Spirit does not speak to your head. The Holy Spirit does not speak to your mind. The Holy Spirit does not speak. Here's where the Holy Spirit, he speaks to your spirit. He illuminates and he reveals himself and his wisdom to our spirit, not our minds. Proverbs 20, verse five. It says, counsel in the heart of man is like a deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. So I need advice. I need to hear from God. I need some secret wisdom. Listen, who is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is your counselor. The Holy Spirit, the counselor is in the heart of man. This is your spirit, but only a man, according to Proverbs 20, verse five, only a man or woman of understanding knows how to draw it out. Only a man or woman of understanding knows how to draw it out. So how do we draw it out? Do you wanna know? That's a good question to ask. How do we draw it out? Jesus said in John seven, verse 38, he says, anyone who believes in me may come and drink. For the scriptures declare rivers of living water will flow from where? Your heart, not your mind, your heart, your spirit, counsel in the heart of man is like deep, deep waters. What scripture is he talking about, right? It says, for the scriptures declare rivers of living water will flow from your heart, from your spirit. What scripture is he talking about? Isaiah 12, verse three. It says, with joy, you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation. You can't have it unless you are saved. Unless you are a child of God belonging to the family of God, you cannot hear this secret wisdom. Why? Because God is trying to keep his secret wisdom from who? The enemy.

And then, so in Proverbs, this secret wisdom, it comes up from our hearts, and then Jesus tells us plainly that the source is the Holy Spirit. He is the Holy Spirit, is the fountain of living water. First Corinthians 2, seven. It says, we speak the wisdom or counsel of God in a mystery. Now, sometimes you've read that, again, if you read the scriptures and you read some things that are in English, you gotta understand some things. Things in English don't always go back to what it really said in the original languages. So here's what I'm gonna explain it. When you hear mystery, you think creepy. Do you not? Because maybe you have a Hollywood version of the scriptures. You think mystery, you think creepy, or I don't know, it's kinda weird, and ooh, ah, ah, ew. Listen, mystery here does not mean mysterious or creepy. This is the Greek word, mysterious. Say that with me, mysterious. You can go out afterwards and impress all your friends that you know a Greek word from the New Testament. You're welcome. Mysterion means hidden or not fully known yet

understanding or wisdom. It's hidden from ungodly or wicked men. So it's for you, the believer to know, and not for people who aren't believers to know. Are you following me? This is the Greek word, mysterious. So if you just read, we speak the wisdom or counsel of God in a mystery, you would have never picked that up. You would have never known what God was saying there. 1 Corinthians 2.7 says, we speak the wisdom or counsel of God in a mystery. 1 Corinthians 2.12 through 13 says, what we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the spirit, explaining spiritual realities with spiritual taught, with spirit taught words. Are you following me? Are you seeing the scriptures? Like how many of y'all have gone this deep into the scriptures about this particular topic? You've probably seen it here and there, but you've never seen it go this far and to this extent. Here's what that means, hidden counsel. It's not fully understood, yet counsel flowing from the heart of believers interpreted by the Holy Spirit and brought out by men or women of understanding who draw it out. Listen, believer, there is deep wells of living water available to you right now. We said this last week, I want you to say it again. There is more. There is more. Say it like you mean it. There is more. Some of you aren't convinced. Let's keep going. I want to say this. This is a statement of mine. This is not a statement from the scriptures. Listen, I pray in tongues, not because I'm better than you. Because I think a lot of you feel that way. You feel like if you haven't prayed in tongues or haven't spoken in tongues or haven't experienced this, you think that there's just a bunch of Christians out there that are thinking they're better than you. I don't pray in tongues because I think I'm better than you. I pray, sing, speak in tongues because I need God's hidden counsel to make me a better version of me.

I know what I'm capable of. I know what I have to offer and it's not enough. I need the Holy Spirit. I need the hidden wisdom of God. And I need to be a man or woman of understanding who knows how to draw it out. And I want this for you too. Why am I talking about it? It's because God wants this for you. Have you ever wanted to go somewhere or do something? And then all of a sudden, man, you just have this like gnawing in the pit of your stomach and like deep inside of you and you're like, I don't know about this. Can I tell you something? That's the Holy Spirit saying, don't go. How many of you have paid attention to that? Or maybe you're going somewhere or you have a decision to make to do something and then all of a sudden, this unbelievable peace. And you know, man, it's whatever that decision is, wherever you're going, man, it could be hard. It could be the worst conversation you're ever gonna have in your entire life. And yet you know it's the right thing because the Holy Spirit just gives you this peace that suppresses all understanding. And you can hear him and know him. It's the secret wisdom. Let the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, calling you to live in harmony and in unity with other believers. That's the Holy Spirit, Colossians 3.15 says. So many, listen to me, many decisions that have been made through New Life Church was the Holy Spirit speaking to me directly. A matter of fact, I was sitting, just to give you some context, I was sitting in a middle school musical rehearsal. My wife was the middle school choir director at Matawan for several years. And I was just sitting there in the audience watching these crazy little middle schoolers who were, half of them were pubescent, half of them weren't. Half of them could, like the guys, right? Their voices hadn't changed yet. Whoa. Sam Hitchcock was one of them, our worship leader. Yeah. Yeah. Very large. Sam and Aaron Hitchcock, both of them, they were in the middle school as, they were in that middle school musical. And the Holy Spirit, I'm sitting there watching this rehearsal and the Holy Spirit said to me, Dan, I want you to start a church. And he began giving me, listen, hidden wisdom, revelation. He began showing me pictures of what this would all look like and feel like and sound like. How many of y'all, seven years, eight, almost eight years ago, we're sitting in the auditorium of Matawan High School watching a middle school choir rehearsal and you saw the same picture that you see right here?

None of you. The Holy Spirit of God revealed himself to me with secret wisdom to plan a church that you now exist in. Are you, I want to say this as humbly as I possibly can, are you grateful that I listened? Are you grateful that I heard? Yes.

God wants this for you. Now I want to be very careful of how I say this because again, a lot of times when people talk about the Holy Spirit, they have this super conservative mentality or then there's this super liberal and super weird and crazy and listen, the Holy Spirit is not weird. People are weird.

And with the Holy Spirit, without the Holy Spirit, they're still weird. So I heard from the Holy Spirit say, Dan, I want you to plan a church. And honestly, starting this church has been the best thing in my entire life. It's also been the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. But it's been worth it.

I don't even know what I was talking about. The second week of this series, the Apostle Paul was saying, it seems like this would, it seems like this is good to the Holy Spirit and to me. Do you remember when I said that? It's in the scriptures, it seems like. So I could have come out of that moment in that high school and honestly, I kind of did. I mean, Kelsey can tell you, I was kind of resolved and like, I'm pretty sure I heard from God to plan a church and Kelsey said, I'm pretty sure I didn't hear that.

And so I kind of held it like this for a while and I said, but we wrestled with it. So I could have come from that experience saying, it seemed like the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. Can I ask you an honest question? When you hear from the Holy Spirit, are you surrounded by other people who are also filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit who can hear from Him as well? Because the Bible says there's wisdom in a multitude of counsel. You need people, other people who are receiving the same type of hidden mess or wisdom from the Holy Spirit as well. God gave me the specific task to go and plan a church and I'm so grateful, aren't you grateful that Kelsey came along for the ride? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

If I pray in the Spirit, in tongues and in English and I have a check, like it doesn't seem right, man, I'm not gonna do it. But if I have that peace of God, then here we go. And honestly, we ran through some checks. Like how many of y'all know this church was supposed to be called a loss of church? None of you. And one of the checks was our church planning organization told us that's a terrible name because you'll have to explain it every time you say it. And I'm so glad we came up with New Life Church, but my wife didn't like that two weeks after that because I literally was walking around for every moment of every day saying, music stand church, microphone church, I don't know what to call this thing. I had a name and you took it away. Anyways, I don't know why I said all that.

If I have the peace of God, man, here we go. And I asked people to pray with me and to share with me what they hear from the Holy Spirit. You need this for your life. Why do we have groups? Because you need to be around other believers who are hearing from the word of God, hearing from the Spirit of God for secret wisdom and revelation.

Psalm, let me give you, maybe this is a little trick that I'll give you. Every morning I wake up and I don't touch my, I grab my phone, but I don't look at it. Every morning, well, I go to the Bible app in my phone. And the first thing I do is I pray. I ask for God's revelation. I ask for his wisdom. God, help me see the scriptures, make them come alive. Help me to see you. And honestly, here's what happens. It's like this divine hookup of revelation happens when I start my day every day like that. Why does this work? It works because of Psalm 89 verse seven, which says God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be held in reverence by all those around him. What does that mean? It means that I start my every day with first thinking about how awesome God is. I start my day, I even say it out loud. This is in English, I say this. I say, God, there is no one like you. You hang the sun, the moon and the stars. You created day from night. You created the cosmos, the heavens and the earth at an instant awesome sound of your voice. All of creation came into being. You are the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Nothing exists apart from you, but by you and through you all things in heaven and on earth have been made and in you all things are held together. You created all things and sustain all things. Nothing we are or have comes from anything but from you. There is no one. There is no one like you, especially me. And I need to hear from you. And when I do that, when I have this reverence of the Lord, when I speak his majesty and his glory, it's like I'm getting into his presence quicker because of this holy reverence. It's like this divine hookup between God and myself. And you need this. Jesus told us that we were to pray like this, right? He said, our Father in heaven, hallowed or hallowed be your name. What's hallowed or hallowed? It means holy, awesome, sacred, revered name of God. There is no one like it. So here's what happens. You enter into the presence of God to pray and you got all sorts of prayer requests. And half the time you don't even know to pray for. So let me give you a glimpse of what you should pray for and what you need to pray for. And I know you want to pray for. Prayers that we need to pray are so unlimited. They're prayers for my kids. Prayer for them. What house to buy? When to say yes or when to say no. Where I'm supposed to go to church. Where I should give. How much I should give. How and what to pray for my church. How should I pray effectively for leaders and politicians that the scriptures tell me to do. For my pastor praying for him. For spiritual leaders. For my life group leader. For people in my life group. For world missions. For the economy. Hello, who to vote for. What my calling is. Who I should date. Who I should marry. The list that you need to pray for goes on and on and on. It goes on. It's endless. And I am so glad that God didn't just leave me and you with the ability to only pray with our own understanding. Because I am so limited in understanding. But when I yield to the Holy Spirit, there have been times when the tongue coming out of my mouth sounds like, I'll just be honest, it sounds like it could be Spanish. It sounds like it could be African sounding. This morning, just to be real and raw, it sounded like it could be Ukrainian or Russian. It's the weirdest thing. Middle Eastern. I have no idea what I'm saying. But God does. It's our what church? It's our Omaha. Omaha. That's speaking to God and to angels. It's our spiritual authority. Commanding the spiritual armies of God against our enemies. Listen, we need God's wisdom and direction for our lives. James 1.5 says, if any of you lacks wisdom about what to do, what are we to do? We're to ask God who will give you all the wisdom that you need. If you need wisdom, if you need direction in business, government, the classroom, on your team, sales for your family, go into a private place, pray in the spirit, pray in tongues. Why? Because listen to what God says in Isaiah 48.17. He says, I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit. That's to be successful. For you to live the right life, to be profitable in everything you do, he leads you by the way that you should go. This is his secret wisdom. Listen, I'm not a businessman. I was at one point. But if I was, I would be praying in the spirit a lot. And then I'd be making decision based off of the spirit's peace that I have in my heart. I want to fly through some benefits of praying in tongues. So I'm going to share with you some points. You can take out your camera if you want to snap them. But again, we're going to give these to you. Number one, praying in tongues, it keeps the enemy from knowing God's game plan to win battles against the enemy. Here's number two, intimacy with God. He wants to connect with you on his level, not just on your own level. You're limited. Number three, it gives us the ability to draw out God's wisdom. It gives us the ability to draw out God's hidden wisdom for situations that we are facing. Number four, it brings rest and refreshing to our bodies, soul and spirit. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 14. He said, brethren, that's brothers and sisters in Christ, do not be children in understanding. In other words, don't just be like a child in your understanding. In the law it is written, with men of other tongues and other lips, I will speak to this people. That's the language of God, the language of the Holy Spirit. What law was he quoting? He was quoting Isaiah 28, 11 through 12, when he said, for with stammering lips and another tongue, he will speak to his people, to whom he said, this is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest. And he says, and this is the refreshing. Let me ask you this question, are you ready to quit? Are you ready to throw in the towel? Are you tired, exhausted, burnt out, tired of parenting, mothering, fathering, being in your workplace? Are you praying in the spirit? Because the Bible says with stammering lips and another 10, he will speak to you and there there is rest and there is refreshing. So you need this, you need this kind of rest and refreshing from the Lord. Listen, I think some people are burnt out because they don't honor the Sabbath. When God says to work six days and to rest one, they don't, they work seven days, then eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, they just keep working.

They're not honoring the Sabbath when we need rest. But I think others, I think others of us reach burnout because we're working, not because we're working too hard or too much, but because we aren't getting the rest and refreshing from praying in the spirit. Here's number five, it builds our inner man. It makes me a better me. First Corinthians 14, four says, he who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. What does edify mean? It's the Greek word, oikodomio, say it with me. You've got two now, mysterious and what? Oikodomio, which literally means to construct or to build, God is building you, he's constructing you. It means to build up your inner man's capacity to house the presence and the power of God. You need this. Jesus said in Matthew 7.24, anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise like a person who, say this word with me, builds a house on solid rock. That word builds is the same Greek word, oikodomio.

You need the Holy Spirit to build you, to construct you. Jude 20 verse 21 says, but you dear friends, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit in tongues, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you into eternal life. Number six, it gives us the ability to give thanks at a much higher level. In first Corinthians it says, for if you praise God only in the spirit, how can those who don't understand you praise God along with you, which is why we praise God in English right here so that everyone can understand. How can they join you in giving thanks when they don't understand what you were saying? You will listen to this phrase, you will be giving thanks very well. It's one of the most misunderstood verses. Paul is affirming that you praying in the spirit is giving thanks to God on a greater level and it is a good thing. But he's telling you that we also need to give thanks in English, in our known language, or in Spanish if you speak whatever it is, so that others will be strengthened by it. Too many people, listen, too many people might be looking down on people for not speaking in or praying in tongues. Listen, if you're that person, don't do that.

They are brothers and sisters in Christ. They just haven't learned yet how to yield to the river of living water. It's there, it's available. It's available to all believers, right? There is more, which is why Jesus said in Mark 16, and these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will drive out demons. How many of y'all wanna be able to do that? They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up snakes with their hands. How many of y'all ready for that one? And when they drink poison, I don't recommend going home and doing this, but this is a promise from God. It will not hurt them at all. They will place their hands on the sick people and they will get well, we've seen this. We've seen it happen. This is not about how good you are, it's about how good he is. And in just a moment, I'm gonna invite you.

As we continue to worship, we're gonna close our service with worship and I'm gonna invite you to stand up and we are gonna have prayer partners. We have prayer partners available every single weekend, whether we announce it or not. And if you wanna be baptized in the Holy Spirit, you can literally, what do you need to do? You need to ask God, but you can sit in your seats and ask God to do that. We see this in scripture where whole crowds of people, right at Pentecost, whole crowds of people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other tongues. Other times, the apostles, people were brought to them and they prayed over them, laid their hands on them and they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. So in just a moment, when we continue to worship, you have that offer to step out in faith to ask God for more, to ask God for more of the Holy Spirit to baptize and you can do that right in your seat or you can do that by coming up to our prayer partners. But here are the steps. There are steps in order for someone to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Let me give them to you. Number one, you must have already received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. This is only available to God's people.

It's hidden from ungodly people, the world. They cannot receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Here's number two. There cannot be a pattern of disobedience to God in your life. Peter said that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. Acts 5.32. Many times, I think that the disobedience that we face that prevents us from receiving the more is found in unforgiveness. Like you're willing to accept forgiveness from God, but you're unwilling to offer someone else forgiveness

that they don't deserve, I get it. But neither did you deserve it when Christ gave it to you. Number three is to ask to receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that earthly sinful fathers know how to give good gifts to their kids. How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him for more? And here's number four. You have to speak. You gotta speak.

For many of you, you think that the Holy Spirit is just gonna grab your tongue, grab your vocal cords, and make you speak, but here's the deal. God has given you a free will. The enemy pushes you to do things the Holy Spirit leads. He guides, He invites. And so like the rivers of living water, they begin to bubble up inside of you. It might just be one syllable that pops out of your mouth, it comes out, and then it begins to just overflow and you just begin to go for it. Listen, you have to do it by faith. How many of y'all know you can't speak English and Spanish at the exact same time? When you begin to speak in tongues, you can't speak English. So it may start with a rumbling, rambling lip, utterances, complete nonsense to you. It's supposed to be. It is. But it'll end up being many languages, a language to God and a language to His angels, and He will give you revelation if you ask for it. You speak in faith, here's three keys. Number one, you need to yield your lips. Number two, you've gotta yield your tongue. Number three, you gotta yield your vocal cords. How many times have you been frustrated with a situation? I remember just a couple of days ago, I had gotten some news from somebody and I was, here's what happened. I literally had our staff in the car, they got out of the car, and I just went, hah! Like I just wanted to, how many of y'all wanna leave your house some day and just scream at the top of your lungs and what comes out of your lungs is absolute nonsense.

Let the overflow of your heart, your spirit, speak to God's spirit, let His spirit speak to your spirit. Yield your lips, your tongue, and your vocal cords. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14.5, I wish you all spoke with tongues. Why? Because it links us all together as believers to defeat the enemy of God, to reach the world in the name of Jesus Christ. Listen, God's greatest desire, passion, is to see more people come to know Him, to rob hell and to populate heaven. So get ready in faith to ask the heavenly Father to baptize you in the Holy Spirit. For some, you can stay right in your seat, for others you can come forward. If you want us to lay hands on you and pray over you. Our prayer team is here. Then after that, again, we're gonna prepare you with worship, and then I'm gonna come back up here in a moment. I'm gonna give you the chance to respond to God, to ask God for more. And I want, if you're staying in your seat, just simply extend your arms as if to receive. You ask the heavenly Father for more. To baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And then you begin in faith to yield your lips, your tongue, and your mouth. In songs of praise, in prayers that you don't understand, but God does. Let the new tongue of your heart flow in faith to God. Not English, not your native tongue, but in the tongue of God. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you. And we thank you for today. We thank you for your word. We thank you for clarity. We thank you for faith. God, where the word of God is preached, their faith rises. And so in this room today, I pray that the faith of your people would rise. That they would begin to experience your hidden wisdom

and begin to speak in a tongue that they don't understand, but God, you do. So God, I pray that they would respond to you in faith, asking you for more. If there's anyone in the room and they haven't given their life to Christ, I pray that they would do so right here and right now. You can do that by simply saying this, I am a sinner in need of a savior. I need Jesus. And Jesus provided for you the way to heaven, through the Son of Man. So right now you can receive Jesus as your Lord and savior. On a count of three, I want you to shoot your hand up and hold it up saying, here I am, Lord. I want to trust you. I want to believe in you. I want to receive you. From this moment forward, I turn from my sin and I turn to you. I ask you to save me. And right now I make you my Lord. Come inside of me, fill me with your Holy Spirit. And from this day forward, I'll give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be in Jesus name.

Full Sermon Transcript

s Oh man, I just come on. I believe you could do better than that. Come on. How are you guys excited to be in church today or what man? I am expecting that God is going to do something today in a powerful way. It's one of my favorite Sunday's that and we will celebrate with you in a massive way. As we get into this particular message, I wanna give you some thoughts right off the bat. This is our fourth part in this series called The Holy Spirit. And we started with Aliyah Roland, our kids director did a phenomenal job of kind of teeing it up, starting the message on who is the Holy Spirit. Then I did a message talking about how to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and what that looks like, ways in which we can actually grieve God, we can actually hurt Him and wound Him and He becomes silent in our lives. And so if you missed any of those messages, I encourage you to go back and do it. And then of course, last weekend, my wife brought a brilliant message as a continuation of relationship with the Holy Spirit. So again, if you missed that, man, go to our app, you can see all those messages or listen to them. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel to be a part of that. But man, we need to lean into the Holy Spirit. Today, I'm gonna bring you a message on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And before we get started, I often say this phrase that note takers are, well, today, I'm gonna give you an out. I wanna tell you actually not to take notes. And the reason for that is because there's going to be a lot and I need you to focus, okay? So the scriptures are gonna be up on the screens. Really, if you want to take notes, go rewatch this message because there's a lot there that I'm gonna get into. We are gonna share these. Again, if you need a nudge on receiving some of our emails that we send every single week that has the message in it, the message notes in it, make sure we have your email, download the app, all of that's there, but we're gonna blaze through some things so we can understand about the Holy Spirit. Are you with me? All right, let's go. In Acts chapter one, verses four and five, this is Jesus, he's saying that being assembled together with them, now with them, he's really talking about the disciples. He's also talking about a group of people that were followers of Christ. It was probably around 120 people. And he said he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem. He commanded them. He said, but wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you have heard from me, for John, John the Baptist, baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Why don't you say that with me? Say it not many days from now. Not many days from now. Then in John chapter 20, verses 22, I want you to see this. This is Jesus talking to the disciples, a different account, okay? So this is different than what he just said. He said, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Two different occasions, two different accounts, two different experiences. Jesus breathed on the disciples, said receive the Holy Spirit. But then in Acts chapter one, he said, wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon you to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. In Acts chapter two, verses one and four, this is the promise that he stated earlier, that wait for the Holy Spirit to be baptized, for you to be baptized. This is where it happens. In Acts chapter two, it says, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all there in one accord. So he commanded them not to depart, to stay there, and they were there in one accord and in one place, when suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, like a rushing mighty wind. Now, it doesn't say that the Holy Spirit was a rushing mighty wind. It says, as of or like a rushing mighty wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one lay upon each of them. And they were all, say it with me, filled with the Holy Spirit. And they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, I'm gonna say this a couple of times during this message. Next week, I'm gonna talk about the language of the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna talk about tongues, and I'm gonna explain that more as we go on today. But next week is that. In Acts chapter two, further down the way, it says, this Jesus, God has raised up of which we are all witnesses. Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, that he poured out this which those who are around it, those who saw it happen, those who were a part of it, they could see it and they could hear it. Like it was unmistakable that it was happening. That they had seen an experience, they had seen it and they had heard it. I want you to remember that as we go on today. A couple of verses later, it said, when Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. That's water baptism. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off. They're separated from God. As many as the Lord our God will call. Now I wanna show you through the scriptures in the book of Acts, four accounts where we say that there was a difference between people receiving the Holy Spirit, like they were saved and they received the Holy Spirit. Right in John chapter 20 verse two, when he said he breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit, they believed and they received, was different than being baptized in the Holy Spirit. And there's four accounts of people being baptized with the Holy Spirit. Three out of four of these accounts are separate accounts from them being born again. Born again, I'm gonna show it to you. And then you're also gonna see that people were witnessing, that people that were there witnessing this action, they could see it and they could hear it happen. Here's the first one. By the way, if you wanna take out your Bibles and in the Bible app, you can go to the book of Acts, although I'm flying through a lot of it, again, they're all gonna be on the screen. All right, your priority, you're like, I couldn't have taken notes on that if I tried and this is not even a quarter of the way through. All right, buckle up. Here's the first one. Here's the first example. Acts chapter eight verses 12 and 13. Philip had gone to Samaria and he was preaching the gospel. He was sharing Jesus with other people. Okay, Jesus was a Jew, they were in the Jewish nation, they were in the eight Israel, and Samaria were people that were, they were called Gentiles, they were people that would not have been around the people of God or known about God. So Philip went to Samaria to preach the good news of the kingdom of God, it says. And it says, when they believed Philip, so they heard him preach the gospel and they believed. It says, when they believed, they were baptized in water, both men and women. And then Simon himself, who was a Jew, believed and was baptized as well. So what I want you to see in this is they believed in Jesus. They didn't make any sort of action, they didn't do anything to earn it. They believed in Jesus, that Jesus paid for their sins so that they would not have to, they received him. They received Jesus and immediately they were born again. They became a child of God. Then right after that, their first step of faith was to be baptized in water. What was that? To be baptized in water was for the remission of sins. Now watch this. He goes on in Acts chapter eight, it says, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, by the way, that's a fruit of someone who has received Jesus as their Lord and savior, that they have the Holy Spirit inside of them, that they receive the word of God. They hear it and they receive it. They hear it and they don't reject it. Are you following me? Okay, so that's proof of being born again, that they are believers, that they are children of God. So the apostles heard in Jerusalem that Samaria had accepted the word, so they sent Peter and John to them. So they accepted the word of God, sign of being born again. The apostles had heard the message that this had happened and they sent Peter and John to them. Now to give you context, Jerusalem, where the apostles were, where Peter and John were located, was between, let me see here, was between 35 and 42 miles away from Samaria. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Did you know that during that time, they didn't have cars? They weren't driving around with Maseratis. Like to get to Jerusalem, the message to get to Jerusalem from Samaria, 35 to 42 miles with someone walking would have taken at least three days. Now maybe they borrowed someone's donkey or a camel and it might've taken a little less time, but you can see that there was a time gap between them believing, being baptized, and the apostles hearing the message that they had believed, sending them, it could've been a three-day gap to possibly a six-day gap from them hearing the message, receiving it, and then getting to Samaria. So here's where we pick it up. Are you following me? All right. It says, when they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit, now watch this language, the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them. They had simply been baptized, water baptism, in the name of the Lord Jesus. So Peter, John, and Jerusalem, they're far away, they get there, they heard the message, they get there, they're getting there to baptize them in the name of the Lord Jesus. So these people, listen to me, these people, because of their faith, belief in Christ, they believed when they received the word, they were saved, they were sealed with the Holy Spirit of God, and they were sanctified. They had the Holy Spirit living inside of them, but there was more, say that with me, there is more. Let's do it again. There is more.

And I hope you're asking right now, what is the more? And not just what is the more, but how do I get that more? Well, Jesus says in Luke chapter 11, verse 13, he says, if you then being evil, by the way, this is just a side note, have you ever heard people say like, why do bad things happen to good people? The Bible says that none of us are good. Not one of us. That all fall short of the glory of God, that all of us are sinners in need of a savior. So, and when Jesus is saying that, he's saying if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Say it again, there is more. Say it again like you want it and believe it, there is more.

In Acts chapter eight, it says that the apostles, right, then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit, and when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles hands, the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money saying, give me this power also, by the way, you don't need to pay for it. Just a side note to receive this kind of power. He said, give me this power also that anyone on whom I lay hands may also receive the Holy Spirit. So check this out, these people were already born again, they were already saved, they were already sealed, sanctified, then later the apostles, probably six days at least later laid hands on them, and then they received and were baptized with the Holy Spirit, and the people saw it, and they heard it. Here's the second example. Jesus speaks to Saul from heaven, Saul who became Paul who ended up writing two thirds of the New Testament. In Acts chapter nine, Jesus says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? By the way, Saul is literally killing Christians. He's murdering Christians as a Jewish man, and he says, who are you Lord? Saul asked, and the voice replied, I am Jesus. So Jesus is in heaven, and he's speaking to Saul. He's saying, why are you persecuting me? He says, who are you Lord? And Jesus responds, I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. Remember when I just shared that scripture, that one of the fruits of someone becoming a believer, someone who has received Jesus as Lord, is they receive a word from God, from Jesus, and what do they do? They do what he says. They receive it, and they believe it, and they do it. This is what Saul is doing. Saul responds in faith by doing what the Lord commanded. This is belief. Saul has believed and received and called Jesus Lord. Saul, if you study any kind of historical background, or if you study the commentaries, the people who are experts in this, Saul was converted on the road to Damascus in this moment. Acts says right after that, that Saul then fasted. He didn't eat or drink for three days. Listen to me, this is an action of a born-again believer. He then goes to Damascus doing what the Lord said, and there was a guy, a believer, a disciple of Christ, named Ananias in Damascus, and Jesus begins to speak to Ananias, and he tells him, go to Saul, and do what I tell you to do, and by the way, if you read the Scriptures, this is crazy. This is who God is. God is all-powerful, he is all-knowing, and he is everywhere all at one time. Sorry, I just spit on you, sir. Wipe it off.

I don't even know what to say about that.

Jesus is having a conversation with Ananias, a disciple. Simultaneously, he says in the Scriptures that he's also speaking to Saul himself at the exact same time. He's telling Ananias, go seek Saul. He's telling Saul Ananias is coming.

This is our God, and Ananias begins to freak out because like, I've heard of this guy Saul, he kills people like me. So then Ananias, because he's a believer, he responds to what Jesus says. He does what he says, and this is where he picked up in Acts chapter nine. He says, brother Saul, this is believer language. This is, we're on the same team. We are family, we are brothers in Christ. So Ananias didn't show up on the scene, and all of a sudden make Saul a disciple. Saul was already a disciple. He was already a believer. Ananias says, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Again, Saul was already born again. He was born again on the road. We don't see Saul and Paul, right? We talked about how there was a seeing and a hearing. We don't see, what we don't see in this account is Saul or Paul then speaking in tongues in this moment, like you'll see in the other accounts. But Saul receives power to fulfill God's calling on his life, to fulfill the call of God, which is to preach the gospel. And right after that, you begin seeing Saul who became Paul sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a guy who was just killing Christians. And then all of a sudden, because of the power of the Holy Spirit, began sharing his faith in Jesus to other people. This was a massive transformation, a massive power change. But notice, again, Paul does not speak in praying tongues, but he does state that he does later in 1 Corinthians 14, 18, if you're wondering. He says, I thank my God that I speak with tongues more than any of you. Kind of a humble brag there by Paul, I'm better than all of you. I speak with tongues more than you all. Yet in the church, I would rather speak five words with my understanding that I may also teach others than 10,000 words in a tongue. Why do you not hear a ton of tongues speaking for me in this church is because I want you to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're gonna talk about that more next week. Here's the third example. This is Cornelius's house. Cornelius was a Roman centurion, so he wasn't Jewish. He wasn't a Samaritan. He was a part of a Roman, he was a Gentile. He's a Roman centurion, but he had received Christ. He had heard about Jesus. And he was a born-again believer. Here's what happens in Acts chapter 10. Are y'all keeping up? Because I'm about out of breath, but it's okay. I'm gonna keep going. It says, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. I imagine like you're in a message like this one. You're hearing someone preach the gospel and literally in, it could be five words in, it could be 10 words in, it could be halfway through a message, it could be halfway through worship. When you're hearing the proclamation of the gospel and the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you respond. Why do we see people respond in faith every single week at New Life Church? Because the gospel is preached. Because we ask people to receive Jesus, to know Him, not to receive Dan, I got nothing to offer, but Jesus has everything to offer. While Peter was speaking the words, the Holy Spirit fell upon those who heard the word and those are the circumcision, by the way, just to explain this, if you don't know this, why is the Bible talking about circumcision? Circumcision in the original nation, the Israelite people, the people of God, the Jewish nation, circumcision was a sign that they belonged to God, that they were children of God, okay? Old Testament people of God were circumcised. New Testament water baptized, can I get an amen? Not that circumcision is bad, we just don't need to do that with adults, okay? All right, glad we got that covered, all right. And those of the circumcision, so Jewish people who believed, they were astonished as many as came with Peter because the gifts of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on Gentiles also, meaning it could go to anywhere and any person at any time when the gospel is preached. For they heard them speak with tongues and they began to magnify God, so the Holy Spirit was poured out and they saw it happen and they heard it, they began to see people speaking with tongues and they were magnifying God, they were glorifying God. Here's the fourth example, Acts chapter 19. Acts chapter 19, again, this is Paul, he's going around doing his call on his life to share the gospel with others and he goes into a region and he says, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Kind of sounds like a strange question, doesn't it? And they said to him, we have not so much even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit, sounds like a lot of Christians in a lot of churches today. Like if I was just to take a poll right here, how many of y'all have heard about the Father, you've heard about Jesus the Son, but you've rarely heard about the Holy Spirit growing up in church? You can acknowledge that, it's okay, this is a safe place. I mean, to be honest, that was me growing up. It was almost like the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Trinity who is God, all of God, was like just the unwanted stepchild, which by the way, if you're a stepchild, you're not unwanted, you're highly loved. Forgive the phrase.

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They had not even heard about the Holy Spirit and he said to them, this is Paul, then into what then were you baptized? And they said, into John's baptism, what was John's baptism? For John baptized with what? Water, which is what we're doing today. Baptizing with water, then Paul said, John indeed, baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him and who would come after him, that is on Christ Jesus. So check this out, I want you to understand this clearly as we go into baptism today. Baptism, water baptism, happening after you believe in Jesus Christ is you being washed clean of your sins. You're literally identifying with Jesus' death and burial and then his resurrection. And so you walk into the waters of baptism with your sinful life, your dirt, your funk, you're the things that don't please God. And you're saying, God, I am dying to that life. I am dying to that person. And I'm walking into a new life in Christ Jesus. The old is gone and the new has come. You can get excited about that. And you're gonna watch, you're gonna watch that happen today. You're gonna watch people step into the waters of baptism. They're leaving their life behind and walking into the newness that God has for them. It's a baptism of repentance. It says when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So they had already believed. And they're like, oh my goodness, let's do it again. Like, I don't think it took. So, and by the way, if you feel that way, if you believed in Christ and you're like, man, I never, and here's how I put it, man, I was baptized as a kid. That was my parents' decision. That was not my decision. But when I believed in Christ and I was walking out of my old life, my old sinful ways in life and walking into the new, I was saying, man, I'm gonna do this in faith. I'm gonna step away from the old and I'm gonna walk into the new, be washed in the water, just like Jesus has washed me with his blood for salvation and sanctification. That is what is happening in water baptism. Are you following me? So maybe you've been baptized and you're like, man, I'm still living that old life. Step into the water today. Step into the baptism of repentance today. And you watch God take and make the old person become new. They were baptized in the name of Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and they prophesied. Again, I'm gonna talk more about tongues next week. There are actually four different types of tongues that the scriptures talk about that are mentioned in scripture. I'm gonna explain all of that next weekend. But I wanna summarize with you a few points that we just went through because I went really fast. And so I wanna give some clarity. Again, going back to Acts chapter one. It says on one occasion, this is Jesus, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. And by the way, he's giving you and I the same command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift. My father's promise, by the way, you're not in Jerusalem, but you're in the house of God. Would you have heard me speak about? For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. By the way, we're gonna do that next weekend. Then they gathered around him and asked him, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Do you know what they're saying? They're saying, are you going to take over the nation that the Roman people have taken over? And for some of you, you're like, man, I just want you to change my life. I want you to change my trajectory. I want you to get my life together. But God has more than that in store for you. This is what Jesus said. He said to them, it is not for you to know. The times are dates that the father has set by his own authority. But you will receive, say this with me. Do it again with more power. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Why? Say why. Why is the Holy Spirit coming upon you, believer? To live a perfect life, yeah, that's a part of it. To comfort you in your times of need, that's absolutely a part of it. To be your guide, to be your director, to help you to live a godly life, absolutely. But why is the Holy Spirit coming upon you? It's so that you will receive power. But why does he want you to receive power? It's so that you will be witnesses of who he is. That you will become like Paul to Saul. That you will become people that are sharing Jesus with other people. And where? Where should you be doing this? In Jerusalem, that's our city. That's Kalamazoo Portage in our region. In Judea and Samaria. That's like our state, our region, and our nation. And then to where? To the ends of the earth. Why does the Holy Spirit come upon you, baptize you with his power? It's so that you can share Jesus with the world. Why? Because Jesus wants a full heaven. And our role as Christians is to know him, to love him, be changed by him, and then to make him known to as many people as possible. We're to be his ambassadors, robbing hell, and populating heaven. And we need the Holy Spirit's power to accomplish that goal.

So here's the first point if you're taking notes

and you're not supposed to be.

But you'll get these later. The first point is that the primary sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues. It's power to share the gospel. And I want you to hear that clearly because I think if you've grown up in a church where the baptism in the Holy Spirit is maybe made so prominent, and by the way, we need it, we have to have it. Why? Because I need the power to share the gospel with people. I need the power of God to be able to share with people who need Jesus even when they hate me for it. But what you need to see is that you're not a less than Christian when you don't speak in tongues, when you don't have the gift of prophesying. You can grow in those things, and you can have those things, and we're gonna talk more about that next week, but you should never be made to be known as a lesser Christian because you don't have those things, because the first sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the power to share Jesus with others. So let me encapsulate this. Here's how the Spirit works. The Spirit of God leads us into a relationship with Jesus, which is salvation. The Holy Spirit is the one who draws us to Him. Then what happens? We're baptized in water by disciples. We're baptized in water. Why? For the remission of sins. We're walking away from the old, and we're stepping into the new. And then we are baptized with the Holy Spirit of God. Why? To share our faith, to share Jesus with other people. How many of y'all feel like it's really hard to share Jesus with people at your work? On your team? Maybe on social media. You're like, you're not even sure. Can I even say that I'm a Christian? I'm so nervous about that in the condition of the world today. How many of y'all are nervous about that? Can I tell you something? That's why you need the Holy Spirit's power. That your timidity, that your nervousness, that your fear. What does God say that there is no fear in love because perfect love drives out fear? Can I tell you something? The reason why you're afraid to share the gospel isn't because you're just too timid or you're not confident enough. It's because you lack power. Power that the Holy Spirit of God, when you are baptized into, can change. A timidity that will disappear. A boldness that will come upon you. Listen to me. In a world that is deeply disturbed and being destroyed by evil spirits, we need the power of the Holy Spirit to see one more person saved. Are you with me? We need this power. Here's the second one. The Holy Spirit baptized you into Christ, which is salvation. When you personally believed in Jesus, here's 1 Corinthians 12, 14. It says, for when one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. So the Holy Spirit's main role is to draw you to Jesus on earth to make Jesus known for salvation. And then you're baptized into what? The family of God. Into the church. You now become a child of God. Matthew 28, 19. This is the Great Commission. It says, go therefore and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That's what Jesus is telling every single one of us to do. So if he's telling every single one of us to do that, why aren't we doing it? It's because we haven't been baptized with power to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we've gotta have it. Here's number three. Notice this. That a disciple baptizes us into water. A disciple baptizes us into water. And here's what I love. We actually changed this several years, I think several years ago. And by the way, if you ever ask me to baptize you and our staff tells you no, it's not because I don't want to do it. I love to do it. But here's what I would rather see. I would rather see a child walk up in faith to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit for the remission of their sins because their parents shared the gospel with them and the parents are baptizing their kid. Or maybe you stepped into a men's group and you maybe were far away from God. You were living a life that was far away from God and you met Jesus because of your men's group. That someone, maybe it's your life group leader, a part of the men's group that's with you, that shared the gospel with you, that can stand up with you and baptize you in the name because of disciple. Jesus said, go into all the world and to make disciples, he's not just saying that to pastors. He's not just saying that to church leadership. He's saying that to you. Man, I promise you that if you want your faith to change, you ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit for power and then when you begin to share your faith and people begin to respond to it, listen, people respond negatively. I can tell you, I can account for that. Jesus, they are rejecting Jesus, not you. But I can tell you this, the thing that will change your life the most is when you have a part in sharing Jesus with someone else and their life is changed and you get to be a part of it by this baptism, listen to me, your faith and this church will never be the same to you again because you'll realize that you're a part of something that is so much bigger than you.

It's a part of God's kingdom. So a disciple baptizes us in the water. Here's the fourth one. Jesus then fills us with the Holy Spirit. I'm just, just a side note, I have one minute to finish and we're gonna get going. Have you ever seen, how many of y'all know that Jesus was born fully God and fully man? Fully God and fully man. Did you know that Jesus did not perform a single miracle until the Holy Spirit descended upon him? Why? Because he needed the power. He had let it go for the sake of being fully human. But to perform a miracle, the Holy Spirit came upon him. How much more do we need the Holy Spirit's power to come upon us in order to live the life that God has called us to live? So Jesus fills us with the Holy Spirit, Matthew three. He says, I baptize you with water for repentance. This is John. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I am not worthy to carry. He, Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Hey, believer, Jesus doesn't want to baptize you just for tongues. He wants to baptize you with power to fulfill the great commission. There is more. Why? So that more people can know God, that they can be saved, that they can be pastored in a church, that they can be trained and mobilized in power to reach more people for the kingdom of God. And for some of you right now, it's the moment of salvation. It's the moment that you're hearing the gospel preached. Do you want to know the gospel? The gospel is this, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that none of us is perfect, that none of us is deserving. And all of us are facing death eternally, internally, physically and spiritually because of that sin.

But Jesus did something. Jesus paid for your sins so that you don't have to. He died in your place so that you don't have to face that penalty, which is of sin and He died for you. And for some of you, you need to hear that and you need to receive it right now. You need to believe it and you need to make it your own, that Jesus died for you.

And right now, this is the moment of your salvation, that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that you receive Him as your savior and your Lord. For others, it's to step into the baptism of repentance, to step into the water, leaving your old life of sin, walking into baptism, being washed, and walking into your new life. And next week, we're gonna have prayer for you to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Why? For power, to become bold in being Jesus's witnesses,

to reach more people for the kingdom of God. Let's pray together.

Full Sermon Transcript

And today we're talking more about our series, the Holy Spirit. Aaliyah brought us the message in the first week about who is the Holy Spirit? This part of the Trinity that sometimes the forgotten God or maybe like the crazy uncle that you avoid at Thanksgiving because you know he's gonna say something off the cuff and it's gonna be like, eh, there he goes again. In first service, I had maybe a Holy Spirit moment where I felt like he told me you're the crazy aunt and I need to go home and wrestle with him on that because I'm not sure if I'm receiving it yet or not, but that might be me. But we have kind of what is like this forgotten God, right? We have God the Father, oh God the Father is love. He loved us so much that he sent his son and then the son, wow, Jesus, the giver of grace. He gave us what we didn't deserve when he died on the cross. And then it's like, okay, and I'm done there. But what is the Holy Spirit? This third part in the Trinity. And so Aaliyah talked about how the Holy Spirit is a person. Then Dan brought us a message on the personalities of the Holy Spirit, how he longs to have fellowship with us. He longs to have intimacy with us. And so today we're diving more into that and we're gonna talk about how to walk with the Holy Spirit because you may think, okay, great, I've learned about who he is. I've learned about what he wants, but how do I actually access him? How do I gain that relationship? And so that's what we're gonna talk about today. I would argue that the Holy Spirit really is the most important person on this earth today. And the cool thing is that he's living inside of each and every believer. So I'm gonna kind of show you where we're coming from. We're gonna be in John chapter 14, just as kind of our foundation for this message, John chapter 14, and I'm actually gonna read to you in verses 15 to 27. They will not be on the screen, I don't believe. Maybe they, who knows. I'm gonna read it to you. Says, if you love me, you will keep my commands. A little context, this is Jesus talking to the disciples. So the disciples have heard, oh, he's gonna go away. Jesus has said, I am going to my father. And they're like, we're not done here. Like we just started, right? You're gaining a following. How are you gonna go away? What are we gonna do? When we need healing, what are we gonna do? When people need advice, what are we gonna do? And so they're terrified that Jesus is leaving. So he says, if you love me, you will obey my commands. And I will ask the father, so I will ask God, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. He, the Holy Spirit, is the spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn't see him or know him. But you do know him because he remains with you and will be in you. So he's saying the world can't see him, but you will know him because he's actually inside of you. Jesus goes on to say, I will not leave you as orphans. I am coming to you. In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. On that day, you will know that I am in my father, you are in me, and I am in you. How cool is that? Jesus goes to be with the father. He says, I am in my father, you are in me, because we put our faith in Jesus, and I, now my Holy Spirit, is in you. The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me, and the one who loves me will be loved by my father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him. Judas said to him, Lord, how is it that you're gonna reveal yourself to us and not to the world, right? He's like, how will we see it, but the world won't. This is a little confusing. And Jesus answered, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My father will love him, and we will come to him, we, as in God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. We will come to him and we'll make our home with him. The one who doesn't love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine, but it is from the Father who sent me. I have spoken these things to you that while I remain with you, that the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you. Would you pray with me this morning? God, I thank you for your word. That you say that your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. God, it is a firm foundation that we can stand on. I thank you for your love that you sent your one and only son. I thank you for the grace of Jesus that as he died on the cross, he took on our sin and our shame. But I thank you, God, that you loved us so much that you didn't stop there. You said I'm not just gonna save you, but I'm gonna give you freedom on this side of eternity and then you imparted into us the Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, I pray that today you would speak. That you would speak through me, that you would speak in spite of me, and that you would speak to every ear that needs to hear. God, that you would give us each something to take away from this, to live life in freedom, walking with the Holy Spirit. And it's in your name, we pray, amen. So I'm gonna start with a little analogy, and it has to do with a baby boy named Oliver. This is my son, he's now about 15 months old. He was born in January of last year. And when Ollie was born, Dan and I were holding him, and we were like, oh, what a sweet little baby. Side note, I think infants are terrifying, but he's still sweet because he's mine. And I was like, he's so sweet. And Ollie was born with two legs. Now when he was born, he didn't jump off the hospital bed and start walking as a one day old because that would be slightly terrifying. But he had the gift of legs when he was born. For a while we held him right, and then he thinks like, ooh, I see other people moving, I gotta learn how to be active. So Ollie starts army crawling, which is where he's not quite using his legs yet. So he's trying to crawl, right? And then, oh, army crawl, army crawl, and pose. Thanks, Ollie. I said to last service, he's gonna be so mad when he's 18, and he's like, mom, you put a picture of me in a diaper on screen? That's awesome, that's what we get to do, right? Yeah, suck it up, kid, that's what Dan says. So that's Ollie, he started army crawling, right? He has his legs, but he's obviously not quite comfortable using them yet. Then months progress, and he's like, I'm gonna try walking. So he starts using his push walker. He's like, look at me, how cool am I? And Harper's distracting him, and cheering for him. And he's trying, right? But it's awkward to watch, because he's like, oh, what are these things? What is this gift I've been given? But the funny thing about Ollie is he will always revert back to what is fastest. So even though he knew how to crawl, there was a really long season that he just kept army crawling. And Dan and I were like, should we be concerned? What's happening? Why isn't he crawling? Then we would see him take little steps, but he would constantly go back to crawling when he could do that fast. Then one day, Maymay and I are sitting on the couch, watching TV, we have yet to see Ollie walk on his own yet, and he literally, so we're on the couch here, this is Ollie, walks by us, like 15 steps, and we're kinda just like, ugh. And then I turn to Maymay, I'm like, did you see that? And she's like, yeah, did you see that? And we're like, okay, so Ollie's walking. Oh yeah, so that was the video of Ollie walking. If you could play that again, I would like to point out, other one, yep, that his sleeper is just big. So yeah, a lot of people were really concerned about that. I was like, we just put him in a size up, that's all. That's all. So Ollie, when he was born, had legs, right? But he wasn't using them when he was born, and I think maybe some of you right now are like, ah, I see where you're going. Because scriptures say that when we put our faith in Jesus, when we raise our hand, when we say, I make you Lord of my life, we are immediately given the gift of the Holy Spirit within us. Because every Christian, every person who says, I wanna make you Lord of my life, I wanna follow you, actually has the gift of the Holy Spirit. So it's not until, it's not, oh, go to church for six months straight, check off the boxes, and then I'll give you the Holy Spirit. Get baptized three times, then I'll give you the Holy Spirit. Lead four life groups, then I'll give you the Holy Spirit. Put your faith in me, and I will give you this gift. You'll see that in Acts 5.32. It says, we are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God freely gives to all who believe. To all who believe, not just to some, to all who believe. So when we raise our hand, it's this immediate gift that is placed within you. But the thing is, some of us have legs that have been given to us, but we're still army crawling through our faith. Maybe we're wondering, why isn't this easier than I thought it would be? Why am I not seeing signs and wonders? Why am I not hearing the voice of God? Why is he so quiet? Why do I read the Bible and it is oh, so boring? Those are maybe signs of people or of ourselves that are not walking with the Holy Spirit. I know for years, I would read the scriptures, and it was like, check, done, and then I'd be like, I don't know what I just read. That meant nothing to me. That didn't impact me at all. Or maybe I'm reading it and I read a scripture about husbands should love their wives, and I'm like, that's for Dan, give that to him, but I'm not affected by anything. So maybe that's a sign to you that you're not walking in the Holy Spirit if the Bible is dry and boring. Another sign would be maybe if you see Jesus as more of a historical figure than a living entity. Maybe we're like, yep, just like Abe Lincoln, Jesus came for peace, died on the cross. Good man, thank you. But there's no relationship. There's no, oh my gosh, that the Father loved me so much that he sent his one and only son. Maybe like I said, we put our faith in Jesus, but then it feels like we're army crawling and Satan keeps pulling us back. Dan often says like a dog returning to its vomit. You think, I wanna overcome that addiction. I wanna stop gossiping. I wanna stop living in the ways of the world, but you just don't. And you think, why isn't this more fun? Why is other people, why are other people telling me, oh my gosh, God told me this? And you're like, well, God's never told me anything. Maybe you have the gift of your legs, but you're not walking yet. So today we're gonna talk about three points of how to walk with the Holy Spirit. We often say here that note takers are world changers. Oh my goodness, that's great. Note takers are world changers. So we have three points. The first point is to walk with the Holy Spirit, you have to talk to the Holy Spirit. In John 14, 16, Jesus says, this is in the scripture we just read, "'I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper "'to be with you forever. "'I will ask the Father, he will give you another.'" So Aaliyah talked to us about how the Holy Spirit is a person, he's another. And I think in culture, we have dumbed the Holy Spirit down to just being about atmosphere. We've substituted the presence of the Holy Spirit for atmosphere, so we think, oh, if I get the tingles during worship, or if there's really cool lights and a lot of smoke and a bunch of people raising their hands, then there's the Holy Spirit. Or we see, while the Holy Spirit was a dove, the Holy Spirit falls in fire. Yes, those are all scriptural things, but the Holy Spirit is also a person that dwells within us. The Holy Spirit isn't just with you in this room when people are coming down for prayer and when amazing things are happening, or when you have that time set aside to maybe go to a retreat and you encounter the Holy Spirit. Yes, he's there. But then he also comes with you to everywhere you go. When I go to the school drop-off and I have six kids in my car that are screaming and it doesn't feel glamorous, you know who's there? The Holy Spirit. When I wake up in the morning to go and do my prayer time, guess who's there? The Holy Spirit. When I'm doing my workout and the kids are all interrupting me and bothering me and climbing on me, saying, do abs with me on you, and I'm like, you're 50 pounds, guess who's there? The Holy Spirit. He's not just in these amazing, amazing certain atmospheres, he's with you everywhere because he lives inside of you. And so I started thinking about what does this another mean? And I listened to another message this week that had a great analogy that as any good speaker or pastor, I thought, well, I have to research this analogy to make sure it's true. So I took Dan on a little field trip to do some research and here's where we went. Jesus chicken.

And Jesus, Dan would like you to know, no, we've already established that. Dan would like you to know that he wanted to get grilled nuggets, but I made him get a Chick-fil-A sandwich on behalf of my research. So we go to Chick-fil-A, Dan orders a sandwich. I go to the counter and I say, ooh, that sounds good, I'll take another. And when I'm eating my Chick-fil-A sandwich, I'm not looking at Dan's jealous of what he's eating because I know they're exactly the same. Dan and I don't share food, so it's not the same sandwich, right? They are two different sandwiches, both with equally amazing bread, equally juicy chicken, great pickles. I am eating another. And it's- Chick-fil-A sauce. Chick-fil-A sauce, yeah, for sure. But that's up to each person's opinion, but if you don't like Chick-fil-A sauce, this probably isn't the place for you. We love Chick-fil-A sauce. So we're both having a Chick-fil-A sandwich, but I'm not having the same one Dan is having because that's going into his stomach and this one's going into mine, do you get me? Another, when Jesus said, I will send another, he's saying the exact same thing as me, but now you have 24 access, 24 seven access to me. When you need to talk to me, you don't have to get out of your tent and come to mine to ask me for advice. You don't have to go on a plane and go miles away to Israel to get in a line to then ask for healing. We have the greatest gift in the world because we have the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. We have everything that the disciples had, but even better because that's like each disciple having their own little personal Jesus, 24 seven following them around. That's the another, but we have to stop just seeing the Holy Spirit as an experience. The person of the Holy Spirit has a special gift for you and it's not just tongues. It's not just your own private prayer language. It's not just prophecy. It's shown to us, the special gift is shown to us in second Corinthians 13, 14, where it says, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So we have the love of God, right? God so loved the world that he gave us his one and only son to save us and he gives us the grace, right? Grace is getting what you don't deserve when he died on the cross and took our sin. But then what is the gift of the Holy Spirit? It says the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Here at New Life Church, we push life groups and you know that we encourage people. We say we want everyone in a group. Dan even says we want more people attending life groups throughout the week than even in a Sunday service. And why is that? Because we know of the power of fellowship. We know that when you have a prayer request and you have believers that you can reach out to, how powerful that is. When you have a friend that you can text and say I'm really struggling. When you have a kid that needs sponsored to go to Access and you can ask your whole group in fellowship, hey, can you help sponsor my kid that really needs to go and they do? That's the power of fellowship. But even better, because I have friends that I have fellowship with and I can tell you that sometimes I probably don't give the best advice. Sometimes I'm probably operating out of hurt, out of anger because I'm not perfect. But with this fellowship of the Holy Spirit, we have access to someone 24 seven who will never operate out of hurt, out of shame, out of fear. Who will always guide you in the perfect path. Who will always be with you and who will heal every ailment. We have a perfect friend. So to walk with the Holy Spirit, we have to talk to him, we have to see him as Jesus right beside us. I was saying in first service, well Braxton's in here, Braxton giveaway. There's Braxton. I did ask him for his permission ahead of time to use this example, but Braxton has his dog Booker with him. Is Booker down there? Yeah, we got Booker down there, cutest dog ever. Many of you may not know why Braxton has Booker, but when Braxton was younger, he was diagnosed with diabetes. And so there's an app on his phone that he can use, but sometimes how many people know technology can go a little haywire. And so Braxton now has Booker, this dog that has been trained to know everything about Braxton. So that anytime that his sugar is too high, his sugar is too low, what does Booker do? He says, hey Braxton, it's time to take care of yourself. It's time to eat this. It's time to do that to make sure you even out those sugars. And that's what the Holy Spirit is to us. That maybe sometimes when our self esteem dives down a little low, the Holy Spirit says, you don't need to find it in yourself, you need to find it in me. Or maybe when our pride's a little high, he says, hey, it's time to come down off that ledge. It's time to recognize that your strength comes through me. He is that helper, that another that comes to us. So to walk with the Holy Spirit, we have to talk to the Holy Spirit. Number two, to walk with the Holy Spirit, we have to remove the obstacles to move in power. I think of when Ali started walking, right? I use this cord as an example. So say Ali's starting to walk and he's going across the stage and there's this cord here. And he's uneven, uneasy on his toes. What am I, as a loving parent, gonna do? I'm gonna move this out of the way really, really quick so that he doesn't have to trip over it. A loving parent will remove those obstacles so that the kid can learn how to use their legs and not get hurt. Just like our loving father in his word, he gave us things, the obstacles that we're supposed to avoid, that he says these are gonna bring pain. These are gonna bring you back to your knees and you're gonna start crawling again. You're not gonna be walking. And if you don't remove those, then you're gonna be taken back down. And so in his word, he's saying, hey, watch out for that. Remove that obstacle. Take that out of the way. Because in James 4-5 it says that we have a spirit within us. That's the Holy Spirit and he lusts with envy. I love how strong that is, that he lusts with envy because he wants all of our attention. He will not tolerate other lovers. The same way that say one night I said, hey, Dan, I'll be back in like two hours, I'm going out to dinner with my boyfriend. He'd be like, huh, that's weird. He will not, if we make ourselves a lover of the world, say maybe we're becoming drunk on things other than the Holy Spirit. Maybe we are so set that we need to get that raise at work that will take out any other coworker. Say that we're so hurt that we'll gossip people down to the ground to make ourselves feel better. Those are obstacles that grieve the Holy Spirit. Dan talked about this a little last week, that when we grieve the Holy Spirit, he becomes quiet within us. Ephesians 4-30 and 32 says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. Are you acting out of bitterness? Do you have a red hot temper? Are you slandering others? Those are obstacles in the way to truly being able to walk with the Holy Spirit. So we have to remove those obstacles to be able to walk in power. But this one is twofold. Because for some of us, maybe we already know about the Holy Spirit. We've been walking with the Holy Spirit and then he's gone quiet. That's how we grieve the Holy Spirit within us by choosing to do those things. But for some of us, we had people after first service say, I was never taught about the Holy Spirit. I've gone to church my entire life. Thank you for doing this series. I've never heard about the Holy Spirit. For some of us, we've never activated the power of the Holy Spirit within us. And I know some of you TikTokers are hearing right now, Holy Spirit, activate, activate. It's like the greatest. And that's what I thought the whole time I was preparing this. But it's a real thing. We have to activate the Holy Spirit within us. And so for some of us, you're thinking, well, I never even knew about the Holy Spirit but I can't find the strength to get rid of this addiction. I can't find the strength to get that obstacle out of the way so that I can start walking with him. And I will tell you, this one almost seems contradictory because if you've never walked with the Holy Spirit before, the first thing you have to do to be able to remove those obstacles is just chase after him. Just start talking to him. Just get to know him because he will meet you there and then he will give you all the strength that you need to get rid of those desires. When Jesus said to the disciples, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. He didn't say, show me how many fish you can catch and then you can follow me. So so many of us, like I said earlier, like, okay, well, once I haven't sworn in two weeks, then maybe I can get the power of the Holy Spirit. Once I haven't gotten drunk on that battle of wine, then maybe I can get the Holy Spirit. But the truth is if you've never encountered him before, the first thing you need to do is just ask for his power within you. And then all of a sudden, those obstacles become a lot less heavy. They're a lot easier to just have the strength to say, nope, I don't need that because then you felt what it's like to chase after him. So to walk with the Holy Spirit, we have to talk to the Holy Spirit. We have to remove the obstacles to be able to move in power. And third, we have to be available and ready to run. In Acts 1a, it says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you, all of you, not just Dan, not just Jess, not just Nicole teaching kids, all of you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. All of you, when you receive the Holy Spirit, you will receive power. How do we do this? We have to spend time with him. We gotta get to know the sound of his voice. If Dan and I go out on a date and say Dan's pouring his heart out to me about how he feels and then all of a sudden I'm texting. He's like, hey, are you listening to me? And I'm like, yeah, totally keep texting. He's like, what did I just say? I know. I had to come up with personal examples. We actually got in a fight about it last night watching our TV show. Like, you're on your phone. No, you're on your phone. We have to limit distractions. But if Dan says, what was I telling you? I probably can't actually tell him what he said. How many times is the Holy Spirit trying to talk to us but we just haven't tried to be available? This is a really weird example but I just wanna show you how actually easy this is because I think sometimes we make it so hard in our heads that we're like, well, I'm not Christian enough to do that. When I go to Target, which is approximately three to four times a week, and I do pickups because I'm lazy and I've told Dan it's a way to save money because if I order on the app then I'm not tempted to buy all the Magnolia stuff inside of Target. So I order on the app, I go to pickup. What I've started doing is just saying, Holy Spirit, would you give me just the opportunity to talk to the person who brings out my groceries? Sometimes it can be a mind-blowing conversation. Sometimes it's about the type of sparkling water I got and she wants to know if it's good. But then she says, come back next time and tell me if you liked it. So there's the start for a further conversation where I say, well, next time I go back, I'm gonna look for her and then we're gonna start talking. We have to be available. Because once we're listening to the Holy Spirit, that's when we encounter the fruit of the Spirit. And I love how in Galatians 5.22 it says the fruit. One, not fruits, not, oh, you get a little love, a little joy, it's all in one cantaloupe, right? In Galatians 5.22 it says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If you find one of those things lacking, maybe we need a little more time with the Holy Spirit.

I actually told Dan this morning when we were sitting in the back room praying, I had a hard week. A really hard week with friendships, with hurt, a lot of tears. And I told Dan in that room, I said, it's really easy to get up on stage and preach when you feel like people like you. It's really hard to do it when you don't. If I'm just being honest.

And I said, I don't know how you do it all the time. And he said, because I'm not the one doing it. And you don't have to do it either. And Dan being a really good leader easily could have said, why don't you give me your notes, I'll do it. Because I'm scared of the blubbering mess that you're gonna be up on stage and what you're gonna say. But instead he said, tap into the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn't ask you to do this on your own. As a matter of fact, he really just asked you to be the vessel to stand up there.

It says, he will give you power. Sometimes it's hard to play hurt. Sometimes it's hard to step into the game when you feel like your heart has been taken advantage of. When you feel like you've been betrayed. But when you step into the power of the Holy Spirit, none of that matters. I wanna give you some examples of how you can hear the Holy Spirit moving in your life. How you can know that it's him talking to you. Because like I said, those mountain top experiences are amazing. But he never promised that that's gonna be our day to day. He knew that we were gonna live in this world. That we were gonna have mundane days. That we were gonna have maybe not the best days. But we can trust that we're still hearing from him. I went to Costco one day and I was pumping gas. And I heard what I have learned to know is the voice of the Holy Spirit. You'll learn his voice the more you listen to him. Take it to scripture. See if it's something that he said in his word too. So that you can trust that it's him talking to you. And I heard the voice say, turn around. It's like, all right, turned around. There is a lady bawling behind me pumping her gas. And I was like, oh, that's unfortunate. Went back to pumping my gas and he says, yeah. He says, go love on her. I was like, how? Just tell her God loves her. It's like, okay. So I walk over, I said, I know you're gonna think this is weird and I'm so sorry. I can tell that you're having a really hard day. But I just wanted to tell you that God loves you and he sees you and you're not alone. And she starts crying even harder. So then I was like, oh no, what did I say? And she says, that's so crazy because I just said to God, if you see me, would you remind me that you love me? And how powerful is it when all of a sudden you realize that God's using you to love on someone else? That can become addicting in the best way possible. I think of a few months ago in January when we were doing 21 Days of Prayer and I was again having a really emotional day. I think I'm, well, I'm definitely a very emotional person. I was having a really emotional day and I came to prayer and I was crying. And I actually said the same thing that the lady at the gas station said. I said, God, can you just remind me if we're making any impact, if we're doing anything right, can you just remind me that you're here, that you see me? And Nicole Eddy came over and sat by me and gave me a bracelet. She said, I just felt like God told me to give you this bracelet today. I don't know what's going on, but I just want you to know he loves you.

The Holy Spirit and Nicole worked through her to love on me when I wasn't hearing him.

I said how just this week I've been really struggling with hurts, I just feel like an open wound. And on Wednesday, God said go get your devotional out of the garage. I was like, first of all, why is my devotional in the garage? That should be a telltale sign of why I'm struggling. He's like, go get it out of the garage. I was like, okay, I don't know where it is. And he says, it's in the flower pot. I was like, this is like seriously a problem. I am really hard to live with. So I go to the flower pot and there's my devotional in the flower pot, it's not a joke. I pick it up and I open to what I think is the next day that I'm supposed to be reading and it says beyond betrayal. And the whole thing is about how Jesus showed us what it felt like to be betrayed so that we could know how to handle it, how to respond. And it was like he was saying, I know you're hurt. I've been hurt too, what are you gonna do with it? Are you gonna become a friend of the world and start gossiping and start tearing people down or are you just gonna stand in my power? The Holy Spirit wants to direct you, wants to be your best friend, the one that will never let you down, the one that will guide you in the way everlasting. All we have to do is start talking to him, start seeing him as that friend that's with us 24 seven. Start removing the obstacles that stand in our way and asking for his power to remove them. Then you can be available because I know, I look around the room and I see some of you that have been available. Some of you that have been really ready to run. And it is the greatest honor of our lives to get to see you step into the power of the Holy Spirit. People say, why do you push serving so hard here? Why? Because that's you using the Holy Spirit. That's not just us keeping him to ourselves because he equips all of us to do the ministry. When the Holy Spirit comes on you, he will give you the power to be witnesses. In your home, in your city, in your state and all over the world. Would you pray with me this morning? God, thank you for meeting us in this place. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for your word that is just a lamp onto our feet. God, I thank you that when I'm run by emotions or the ways of the world, that I can come to your word that never changes. God, that I can come back to it and learn from you. But also thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, the person living within each and every one of us believers that wants to guide us, that wants to help us experience freedom and life on this side of heaven so that we're not just waiting for the gift of eternity, but we're living in the gift that you have for us here. God, I pray that with every single one of us in this room this morning who's put our faith in you, that you can help us to walk with the Holy Spirit, that you will make his voice loud in our ears, that we would desire friendship so that we can run the race that is set before us. And if there's anyone in this room today that has yet to put your faith in Jesus and you think, well, the Holy Spirit sounds really cool, but I haven't even encountered the son who died for my sin. I wanna give you that chance today to put your faith in him. When you surrender your life to him, when you say, I wanna make you Lord of my life, I wanna follow after you, the gift of the Holy Spirit, like I said earlier, is immediately departed onto you. And if that's you today, you'll know because he'll be knocking on the door of your heart saying, let me in. You've been running from me for too long, come back. Come into my arms for the first time. So if that's you today, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to raise your hand so that I know who I'm praying with. You're not gonna have to come up front. You're not gonna have to say anything in front of everyone. You're simply gonna raise your hand and then we're gonna pray together. So if he's knocking on the door of your heart today and saying, let me in, would you raise your hand on the count of three? One, two, three, put your hand boldly up in the air so that I can pray with you. Amen. Thank you for your boldness. You can put your hands down and from your heart to his, say, God, I give you my heart. I make you Lord of my life. I believe that you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for me. I turn from my ways. I repent from the way that I've been living and I give my heart to you. I pray that today you would help me to begin walking with the Holy Spirit so that I can stand on steady legs in faith. I give you my life and it's in your name we pray and everybody said, amen. Let's put our hands together for those who put their faith in Jesus.

Full Sermon Transcript

ight, husbands and wives, like, you gotta have some chemistry, you gotta learn who they are, what they like, what they dislike, in order to have a ery relationship with them. Is this true? And it's ery of anyone. And so today, we're ery gonna talk about the context of the Holy Spirit's ersonality. And so I want you to think with me about what ers are like, and what they're ers like. And I want you to ers to think with me about what ers are like, and what they're ery to think with me for a second about the miracle of the oly Spirit being with us, living with us, guiding us, living erside of us, how important that is to our faith walk. Because ers the reality. If you just had a relationship with Jesus, can I ery tell you something? Jesus is not here. That might shock some ery of you. Jesus is in heaven, s idded at the right hand of the ery Father. He is not here. The oly Spirit is here. And the genius of this idea, sending the helper, sending the Holy ery Spirit to us, is that Jesus went to the cross, died for your ersins and my sins, and he rose again and he's send ed to heaven where he said to the right hand of the Father. Well, check this ers out. If Jesus would have just remained himself and not sent us the Holy Spirit, then you and I would have to embark on a journey to Jerusalem, which doesn't sound like a good idea today. Let's pray for them. But that's the reality. If Jesus was just one man and you had to relate to him personally, you would have to take a jet plane, go to Jerusalem where his kingdom would be established, show up, get in line with the millions of believers who want to talk to him and get to know him. And you'd have to have your list of questions or things that you'd like to discuss and talk about. And you've waited in line for ery months to get up there or four months, however long it would take to get through the line. And then you'd get before ers and go, okay, Jesus, I got some things to talk about and your time is limited because you see the line behind you. And then you forget one of your questions and you walk away and go, oh, dang it. I had this one moment with Jesus, with God, to be able to have this conversation, this relationship. Darn it, I have to get back in line, wait another four months in order to talk to Jesus. But the power, the miracle of the Holy Spirit of God is he is available. He is omnipresent and he's with every single one of you today with full access to have a relationship with him every minute of every day. How many of y'all believe that that is a great, that's great news. You have access every single moment of every single day. So we got to get to know the personality of the Holy Spirit. And I'm going to start with this verse found in 2nd Corinthians 13-14, where it says, May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, all right, great, we've been given grace by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ that that we have been washed clean of our sins by the blood of Christ. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, how many of y'all need the love of God in your life and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. You need the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You need the love of God and you need the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to be with you every single day. And so today, I want to jump into that verse. And I want to point out this particular word because sometimes we don't get go up this particular word fellowship is the Greek word koinonia, which which has a ton of different meanings. So I'm going to show it to you. You can put up the next slide. Koinonia means that you have fellowship with this person, companionship, think of your best friend, communication with, intimacy, sharing together. It's a it's a partnership, joint, I think it's supposed to say joint partnership or close mutual association. That's a lot of things that go into this communion, this, this, this fellowship with the Holy Spirit of God. And so today, what I'm going to do is I'm going to break this down into three parts, all of those words, I'm not going to go into every single one of them, I'm going to break it down into three parts. And here are the parts. Number one is fellowship, we're going to talk about the personality, what that looks like with you and with him, the fellowship. The second one is partnership. And three is intimacy. And so number one, fellowship, if you're taking notes, fellowship is a friend, friendly relationship. It's companionship. It's sharing together, it's talking about your day. It's the good and the bad and the stresses and the struggles and, and man, your dreams, you're talking together. How many of you have a friend that you literally, you tell them what you're doing? We have a lot of work here to do if you guys have no friends. Welcome to New Life Church, where there's plenty of friends to be had, okay? Because so many of you did not raise your hand. So clearly, there's a friend problem in the room. By the way, this is a side note, just this is, this is maybe an extra message free of charge. If you want to have friends, be a friend. Now preach. All right, so if you need a friend, be a friend. All right. All right. So you tell your friends what you're doing, you speak with them, you talk with them, you share stuff with them. Hey, you talk about your kids and, and man, my kids struggling at that or maybe they, they're awesome. My kids are the best ever. And, and or you tell them, hey, I'm going on this trip or I got this business meeting. Can you, can you talk about things? You have a close relationship with these friends. That is what fellowship with the Holy Spirit looks like. Well, let's look at that in scripture. Acts chapter 20, verse 22 says this, it says, and now I am going to Jerusalem, drawn there, irresistibly by the Holy Spirit. By the way, how many of y'all have friends that are irresistible in whatever they say you do? How many of y'all have gone and done some things that you probably shouldn't have, but that friend irresistibly drew you? Or on the flip side, you had an irresistible friend that led you to do something awesome. So we see the Holy Spirit there that they had this kind of relationship with them, that they could literally hear his voice and they, they followed him. They were drawn by him, not knowing what awaits me, the author says, except that the Holy Spirit has told me in city after city that we're going there together in, that jail and suffering lie ahead. How many of you have gotten bad news from a friend, or maybe a warning from a friend like, hey, you shouldn't do this, or maybe you should do this, but here's the ramifications of what's coming when you go that direction. And how many of y'all are like, I need to find a new friend. But if you read the scriptures, if you study the word of God in Acts, you see that the Holy Spirit is drawing the disciples into doing these things. And he's telling them, he's warning them, hey, this there, you're not going to have it's not going to be cupcake and rainbows all the time. Like, like you're going to be on mission with me, you're going to go with me to these places and jail, hello, jail and suffering lies ahead. But what they knew, because they were so close to the Holy Spirit, to the person they knew him, that they knew that he was with them every step of the way, no matter what they would face, jail, suffering, beating, no matter what they would face, the Holy Spirit was with them. And of course, you know that when they went from city to city, and these things began to happen, how many of y'all know the story of Paul when he was in chains in prison, and the Holy Spirit knocked on the walls and let him go free. Like he knew, he knew what awaits them, but they had this kind of relationship with the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter 10 verse 19, it says, while Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, again, this is conversation, they're talking to each other like they're friends, he said, behold, three men are seeking you, he's telling them what's about to happen, he's telling them what he should be looking out for. In Acts chapter eight verse 29, it says this, the Spirit said, you see this, it's communication. It's communication with the believer, a follower of Christ, and with the Holy Spirit, they have this relationship, the Spirit said to Philip, hey, go near and overtake this chariot. Of course, if you know that story in Acts chapter eight verse 29, there was a leader of Ethiopia, he's known as the Ethiopian eunuch, and he's reading the scriptures. He's reading the Bible, he's reading the law of, and he's trying to understand like, what is this all about? He's asking questions of himself and the Holy Spirit guides Peter, no, is it Peter? Philip, it's Philip to go near the chariot. And then Philip begins to hear this Ethiopian eunuch begin to have this conversation asking these questions. And then the Holy Spirit led him to answer the questions and he talked about Jesus and then they had this conversation and then they've traveled along and then all of a sudden what happened? Philip, you know, shared the gospel with this Ethiopian eunuch. And he said, if you believe in Jesus, you should be baptized, belief and baptism with your whole heart. They have this conversation, they have this fellowship with one another that they know each other, they're speaking and communicating to each other. In Acts chapter 16, it says now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit. How many of y'all wish you had that kind of relationship with God to know that that warning's ahead and you shouldn't go there? That you have that kind of relationship with the Holy Spirit that he literally forbids you and you listen to him when he's telling you what to do and what not to do. They were forbidden by the Holy Spirit even to do what they're called to do to preach the word in Asia. And after they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia. How many of y'all are glad I'm speaking these words today instead of you? But again, it's but the Spirit did not permit them to go. They had this closeness and proximity. They heard the Spirit's voice to go and to go near the chariot and to preach the gospel and then to not go when it wasn't right to go and they had this closeness. Can you imagine, again, going back to that idea that again, if Jesus was just one man and we were all trying to get to that one man spending months trying to get to him waiting in line, can you imagine how difficult life would be in that kind of scenario without the access to the Holy Spirit of God? Imagine having 24-7 access or friendship with someone and you never talk to them. Because that's a lot like a lot of our faiths. Yeah, we read the scriptures and we kind of know about God the Father and we certainly get God the Son, but man, the Holy Spirit of God wants to have friendship and fellowship and relationship with you and I. He lives inside of us who are believers and we have 24-7 access to God Himself and yet we never talk to Him. We never have that kind of relationship with Him and so that's why we're doing this series so that we can help you to understand the Spirit's personality that you can have this kind of relationship with the Holy Spirit of God. The second one, again, the last section, they're talking with no one, they're getting to know each other and they're starting to listen to His voice and they know what He's saying. The second one is partnership. The second part of His personality is this partnership idea. First Corinthians 3, how many of y'all think it's weird that you would have partnership with God? Am I the only one? Like think about that for a second. You enter into a business relationship with someone, like you have a partner with someone and or your spouse, your husband and wife and you have this partnership. How many of y'all think like, oh my gosh, I am so unworthy of a partnership with God and yet that is what the Holy Spirit wants with you and I. He wants a partnership and of course that doesn't mean that we're going to overtake Him and try to overcome Him and try to be God ourselves but He wants this partnership with us. Look in 1st Corinthians 3, 9, it says that we believers in Christ, the church, are laborers. What does that word say? Together with God. How many of y'all pray prayers like, God, I just wish you would would do something in that person's life. Like I just I wish that you would save that person at work that I know desperately needs you. And do you know what the Holy Spirit of God is probably thinking and saying in His head? You're right here with this person at your workplace. We are co-laborers with the Holy Spirit of God. That the Holy Spirit literally, could you imagine, literally sent you, His partner, to be that person that they need. Just like He was leading Philip, just like He was leading the disciples back in the day, He's leading us today in this same way. Acts 15, 28, check this out, this is a weird one for grab a hold of. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. I'm sorry, what? So we had this agreement that it literally, the Holy Spirit, it was good to God and it was good to us. How many of y'all have read through the Old Testament and you see this dynamic happening with Moses when Moses is complaining to God about the people, about all their rebellion and all their things and all their idols and all their complaining. And I would never talk to God like that about you. That's supposed to be funny.

Full Sermon Transcript

ight so today I'm so excited to be up here because I am actually entering our brand new sermon series about the Holy Spirit. It's going to be a four-week series. It's really awesome. I'm super excited about it. And when I was preparing for the message, I was, you know, I'm not really a big reader, but I try to be. I feel like that's a grown-up thing to do, so I'm trying. So if you have any good book suggestions, maybe put them my way after service. But I was looking for some different books about the Holy Spirit. And, you know, there was like the typical, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit in you, who is the Holy Spirit. But two of them actually really stood out to me. One of them was called forgotten God, and the other one was called the God I never knew. And I thought, huh, I wonder why is that? And I realized the church in general, we don't talk about the Holy Spirit enough. We don't know about him enough. I feel like some people probably think, ugh, the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. I don't know about that. And it's a topic that's caused a lot of division in different areas of Christianity. And I wanted to give you guys a disclaimer, because maybe you're sitting here today and you're like, ooh, the Holy Spirit, is that the Holy Ghost that they talk about sometimes? I don't know about that. Kind of seems weird. I want to give you guys a disclaimer that the God that we serve is not a God of disorder, weirdness, or darkness, so we can rest assured that the Holy Spirit isn't any of that. In John 10-10 it says that the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and that I have come, this is Jesus speaking, that they may have life, that we may have life, and live it to the full. The thief in this situation is Satan. So I thought, of course, Satan would twist the good gift that the Holy Spirit is. He'd twist this good gift from God so that way we kind of feel a little hesitant, maybe a little not sure about it, so we wouldn't live in the full life that God has for us with the Holy Spirit. So I want you to lean in today. If you're maybe that person who's, uh, I'm not really sure about it, lean in today, get to know who the Holy Spirit is throughout today and the next couple weeks, and I can promise you you'll see him as a gift. Growing up, I went to a church. We talked about the Holy Spirit all the time. It was very common in every service we talked about it. So I'm very comfortable knowing who the Holy Spirit is, but I realized that I more so knew a lot of the gifts of the Holy Spirit rather than knowing who the Holy Spirit is as a person. And so today I want to talk to you guys today about who the Holy Spirit is. As we go throughout this series, you'll learn about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but I want you to help, I want to help you learn who the Holy Spirit is. That way when we talk about the gifts, you know who the gifts come from. So if you're taking notes today, which we say that note takers are world changers, yeah, good job. The title of today's message is who is the Holy Spirit. And I encourage you to dig deeper throughout this four weeks of messages. I'm married to my awesome husband Brody who's sitting over here. We've been married, it'll be three years in July, and I would say I know my husband pretty well. I'm not an expert because I'm still like newly married. Some of you who've been married for much longer, you're probably an expert on your spouse. But I have, maybe not. But I would say I know Brody better than everyone in this room right now because I put in the time, I put in the effort, and I put in years of time talking with him and listening to him to get to know who he is as a person. And I encourage you as we go through this series on the Holy Spirit to do that with the Holy Spirit as well. If I only talk to Brody and heard about Brody and who he was for one hour for four weeks, I wouldn't know him very well. So I encourage you throughout this, dive into the Holy Spirit. Ask God to reveal to you even further who the Holy Spirit is. The book of Acts talks all about the Holy Spirit. So that's a great one to read too. So I can give you guys three points today on who the Holy Spirit is on that surface level, but dive in. So point number one is the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. Pretty self-explanatory, right, guys? So I wanted to give you guys a little example because I think sometimes the Trinity can be a little bit confusing because it's three parts, but we serve one God. So if you think back to your old maybe second grade elementary, I used to be a teacher back in the day. So we're going to talk a little bit about science for a section, so I hope you guys are prepared for that. So we have three different parts up here. We have liquid water. We have some ice that's going to be ice, steam, and water, but we know at the very core of it they're all what? Water. They're all H2O. They're all the same. They all have the same molecular makeup, but they have different purposes. They have different jobs and different roles and different forms that they take. The steamer probably won't heat up in time, but you guys get the point. So we know that even though we serve one God, there's three different parts. We have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I love when Jesus is baptized, we get to see all three of the Trinity and one passage of Scripture. So in John 3, 16, and 17, it says, as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water, and at that moment Heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from Heaven said, this is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased. And so I love this Scripture because we see all three so clearly. We see Jesus because he's standing in the water waiting to get baptized. We see God the Holy Spirit who is ascending on Jesus like a dove. He's not a dove, but he's ascending on Jesus like a dove. And we hear the voice of the Father saying, this is my son, whom I love. And with him I am well pleased. So we see all three in one part of Scripture. If you've ever been baptized at New Life and if you haven't and you want to, baptisms are actually coming up at the very end of this month so you can sign up on the app, just a little plug. But if you've ever been baptized, we baptize people with all the Trinity. We actually quote this verse from Matthew and it says, this is Jesus' command to us. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we do this because, again, we serve a God with three different parts, but it's all one. What I love about the Trinity too and what I love about the Holy Spirit's role in the Trinity is that the Holy Spirit is actually the only part of the Trinity that is here on earth currently. He's dwelling in the hearts of believers. So many times in my walk of Christianity, I've thought to myself, man, it'd be really cool if I could like go see Jesus and like go hear from him and go talk to him. And I thought about it, if I, if Jesus was here on earth still, and if I wanted to go talk to him, he lives in Israel. So I'd have to take a plane ride from here to like, let's say, Tel Aviv in Israel. Then I'd have to drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We'll say he's there. That's like an hour and a half drive. And then when you get to Jerusalem, we know that Jesus attracts a ton of people, like crowds of maybe like 5,000, 3,000 just to name a few. So then you'd have to get there, you have to waddle your way through the crowd to finally get to Jesus in order to have that conversation with him. And what I think is cool is, yes, of course, I would love to have that conversation with Jesus, but that same power that's in Jesus is right here in my heart and it's in the heart of believers, too. We know that the Holy Spirit's here, but I want to talk just for a second on where the other two parts of the Trinity are, too, because I think that's important to know. And we know where the other parts are. We know that God is seated on the throne, and we know that Jesus is seated at the right hand next to God. And we know that because in 1 Peter 3, 21 and verse 22, it says, it saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand. So we know he's right there. And then the Holy Spirit is living in our hearts, and he came during Pentecost, which was awesome. That whole video we watched, the bumper that talked all about Pentecost, it was pretty sweet. So now that we know that the Holy Spirit is God, we now need to know that he's actually a person, too. Not like a person like you and I, but he's a person with qualities like us. So point number two, if you're taking notes, is the Holy Spirit is a person. When I was preparing for this message, I came across a quote that I actually really liked, and I wanted to read it to you guys. It's from John Breveer. If you have heard of him before and maybe haven't heard of him, he's this really amazing pastor. I think he's like in the south maybe? Yeah, he's awesome. Really good. Actually, our men's life group is doing a study by John Breveer, so very great. And it says that we get it wrong when we try to study the works of the Holy Spirit without knowing him as a person. The Holy Spirit is not an it or a spirit of, when I say like a spirit of, it's not like a spirit of like democracy, generosity, spirit of Christmas. It's not like that. But he's a person full of power and authority, but also tender and loving. And if we just think the first part that he's just an it or a spirit of, we actually devalue him as God. He has so much power, so much authority, yet he's tender and loving towards his people. He also has a couple qualities that are similar to us, too, that we can find scriptures for. He has a mind, he has emotions, and he has a will. So we know that he has a mind, because in Romans 8, 27, it says, and he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. We know that he has a mind. It literally says he has a mind. He thinks, and his thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways. We know that he has emotions because in Ephesians 4, 30, it says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. To grieve means to upset. I don't know about you all, but you might sometimes have a little bit of what we call righteous anger. You might feel like your heart gets angry about something that isn't right in God's eyes. Anyone ever had that before? Yeah. Yep, that's the Holy Spirit. And we know that the Holy Spirit also has a will, because in 1 Corinthians 12, 11, it says, all of these are the work of the one and the same spirit. He distributes to each of them just as he determines. So he does things. He moves things. He leads, and he guides them. He leads, and he guides us in the ways of God. What I love about the Holy Spirit too is not only does he have the different qualities and attributes as a person does with a mind, will, and emotions, he also is some of the things that we describe people as too. Some of the names of the Holy Spirit is that he's our comforter. When you're in times of sadness, he's there to comfort you, there to speak to you. He's also our friend who we can develop a closer relationship with, and he wants to be your closest friend. When I first got married a couple years ago, it was supposed to be like the best time of my life. You know, you get married and you're like, oh, my gosh, my whole life, I've been waiting all these times to be married, and it's going to be perfect and wonderful and amazing. And like it is. But for me, and my marriage was great in the beginning, but for me, I actually went through a period of time where I was super anxious and super depressed. Which if you know me, that's not typical of me. I will never forget there was one time where my entire family had come up from water fleet, so like a half hour drive, and we were going to go to gold medal farms. And I was super excited. I've been actually like planning for this for months. And the day finally came, and I'm sitting in my bed crying because I didn't want to leave the house. I didn't want to go anywhere. I didn't feel like getting up and going and spending time with my family because I was just in such a dark place that I just felt so stuck. Anyone ever been in that place before? Yeah. And I remember my husband, because this went on for a couple weeks, my husband would come home from like worship practice or from work, and he'd say, because all the lights would be off, I'd be in my bed, and he'd be like, it just feels like I'm walking into a house with like a cloud of darkness. And that's just what it felt like at the time. And there was a time at Matt, a one when we used to be there, that we had our large rally, so we had all the dream team members come together. So we're in this large rally. I'm smiling. I was on the first impressions team at the time, so I'm supposed to be like the smiley person at the church. And I just felt so sad. Didn't want to be here, which is not me, but it just was a hard season. I left the rally because I just was very much in my emotions, and I went to the auditorium and just sat in there. And I had a moment where I just was like, God, I just feel really alone. No one knows what I'm going through. Maybe some people can see it, but they don't see it fully. And I remember crying out to God or just feeling like, God, I want this to end. I just feel so alone. And all of a sudden I look over and someone's walking into the auditorium who had no idea of what was going on. But they knew that something was telling them to go into the auditorium to find me and to pray with me. And they prayed with me. We talked and we talked about just what I was going through and everything. And that to me was such a clear time of when the Holy Spirit was that friend. He prompted someone to come find me, to pray over me exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. So the Holy Spirit wants to be your closest friend. Point number three, oh, three. Point number three is the Holy Spirit is a gift. What I love is I love the thought of when Jesus is ascending into heaven. He's going up there. He's probably excited to go back with the father. But I can only imagine the smile on his face knowing that shortly after at Pentecost that another gift would be coming down for people. Which would be the Holy Spirit. Something that I love about the Holy Spirit. Something cool to know is that Jesus actually didn't do a miracle until after the Holy Spirit descended on him while getting baptized. Which is when he turned water into wine. Jesus learned, grew and was empowered by the Holy Spirit. He knew him super well because he was part of him. Some of the names of the Holy Spirit as I mentioned, the helper, the comforter, the spirit of truth, the spirit of God, the counselor, the intercessor which means to pray over or on behalf of someone else. The guide which is someone who leads us in the ways of God. There's a ton of names of God. If you want to really dive into more of the names of God, they're all over in the New Testament. Like I said in Acts and further in the New Testament you can sometimes see them in the Old Testament too. But I want to really point out one of them that is one of my personal favorites and it's the one who speaks on our behalf. If you have kids who are in youth group, we are taking another trip to access which is awesome. Highly recommend. I've been twice. And the first time I went to access one of the speakers, it was the very last night we were talking about the Holy Spirit. He's a very cool pastor out in Las Vegas and he did a demonstration about who the Holy Spirit is as the advocate. I want to show you guys what that is because I think it's such a clear picture of what that looks like. I need my handy partner in crime to come on up here. All right. And in this scenario, Brody is actually going to be the Holy Spirit in this scenario and I'm going to be just the regular person. So I want you to imagine. So an advocate. Let's talk about that for a second. An advocate. When I think of an advocate, somebody who speaks on behalf of someone, I don't really think of that. I think of somebody who has different advocates who plead the case of people. So you can think of maybe a lawyer advocate, that sort of thing. So I want you guys to imagine with me, we're in a courtroom. Okay? We're in a courtroom. If you're anything like me, I love court shows. So probably it's pretty clear to imagine it. But I want you to imagine a courtroom. And before you, you see a judge on the throne. That's God. So that's your judge. And then right on your left, you have your accuser, which is Satan, speaking lies to the judge. Then you're here standing here before the judge with your accuser. The Holy Spirit's role as your advocate is to come alongside you at your right side and to lock arms with you and to be with you during that. The Holy Spirit is here also to speak on your behalf to the judge. The accuser is saying things that are not true. The Holy Spirit can step up and say, no, no, hang on, judge. That's not true. Or wait, wait, wait. That's not it. Or another role that the Holy Spirit has in this scenario is the Holy Spirit can also whisper things for you to say, to speak for yourself, too. I love this because it's such a clear sign of who the Holy Spirit wants to be in your life. He wants to be somebody who does life side by side with you. What I love about this, too, is that I don't know about you guys, but I've definitely been at times in my life where I've been in a scenario where I feel like I had so many lies, so many different things are coming at me, and I have literally had to do this to lean on the Holy Spirit, to look at them and say, can you speak on my behalf? Can you help me? And the Holy Spirit always says yes. And I love that about the Holy Spirit because it's such a clear sign of who He is in our lives. He's that helper. He's that advocate. He's the one who goes before us, and He'll be with us in those hard times. So, thank you. I want to dive a little bit more into the word advocate. We see the word advocate come a couple different times in Scripture, but the advocate, the helper, the intercessor, it actually is all from a Greek word. How many of you have ever watched my big fat Greek wedding before? Anyone? I so badly wanted to come out here and be like, the Greek word, but I was like, well, we don't need to. I did it anyway, so it's fine. The Greek word for intercessor is actually a word called paracletos. Do you guys want to repeat it? Paracletos? Paracletos. And we see the word paracletos come into Scripture a couple different times, but one that I want to point out is actually in John 14, 16, and it says, and I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you and to be with you forever. We can take that word advocate, pop in the word paracletos, and it's the same thing. I want to break down the word paracletos for you guys, too, because we have two different parts of the word. We have para, which means very close side by side. Maybe some of you in this room are para professionals. In a school, you work side by side with a student. Maybe some of you just know what a para professional is or paralegal. Those kind of people work side by side. Then we have the word clatos, which is the second part of the word, which means to beckon or to call and to call permanently. So when we put that together, we can rest assured knowing that the Holy Spirit is called to walk alongside us permanently, to be our advocate, to help us, and to guide us in our walk with God. When I was in that time of just that kind of depression and feeling just very anxious and not really myself, it went on for quite a while. You know, I had people pray for me, but it was something I had to battle, I thought, and it was hard. It taught me a lot of dependence on God because I can't do it on my own. But I'll never forget, there was one day I was working a job that was a lot, it was a great job. It was a little bit harder than I expected. It was during COVID. So you can imagine during COVID everything was a lot harder. And it was just, it was hard. It was a season where I was like, okay, God, I know you have something next for me, but I don't know what it is quite yet. And I remember I got an opportunity to apply for a new job, and I was super excited. I was like, oh, yes, this is my out. This is my time that I get to try something new. Maybe this is what God had for me all along. And I was really excited and I was really hopeful that this was it. And I remember I interviewed, it went great. And I remember I got a text while I was at my job, and I got a text that it wasn't the right time. And I remember I was so crushed. I felt so, the word that I think of when I, the phrase that I thought of when I was in that time was I felt just very devoid of hope. I felt like everything was just like crumbling down. And I'm sure that some of you guys have been in that place before. I remember I literally, my kids were out at recess because I was teaching at the time. And I remember I laid down on my classroom rug and I just cried. And I'm like, all right, my kids are coming back in in like 10 minutes. God, I need you to help me get up off of this floor because I can't be laying on the ground when my kids come in. And I remember the Holy Spirit so clearly saying to me, I have this. I've got this. Trust me. I'm here to walk alongside you. And I'm so glad that I had that time, even though it was a no in the moment, I'm so glad I had that time because I was able to grow so much more in my relationship with God. I was able to grow so much more in my dependence on God and my following of the Holy Spirit. So it was so much more worth it to me to have that than to get the answer right away. So as we start to wrap things up, I want to remind you guys of the three points. The Holy Spirit is God. He's a person and he's a gift. And like I said, Jesus knew this before he left this earth. When he's going up into heaven, he knew that something was coming soon. That was going to be a gift to us. A little trick of the trade that I like to do for myself when I'm reading the Bible is sometimes if I'm not understanding or if I want further understanding, I like to read the same passage but in two different translations. So I want to do that for us today. I want to start with NIV, which is just the typical one that I read most of the time. And then I want to move to the amplified version. So if you go to John 16, 7, in the NIV, it says this is Jesus speaking to his disciples. But very truly, I tell you, it is for your good that I'm going away. Unless I go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. Great verse. Jesus knew the gift that was coming. He was excited for the disciples and for us as believers to have this gift. But let's read in the amplified version, too. But I tell you the truth. It is for your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper, the comforter, the advocate, the intercessor, the counselor, strengthener, and standby, we see so many different names of who this Holy Spirit is. We see so much more that he's more than just a helper. He's all of those things as well. Will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him the Holy Spirit. And I will send him to you. Who is all of those qualities, yet he wants to be in close relationship with you. And we know this because we can read all about it in the Bible. I love in the book of Acts when after Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit came down, the disciples depended on the Holy Spirit. There's so many different scriptures that will say things like the disciples listened to the Spirit. The disciples were sent by the Spirit. They were guided by the Spirit. They were warned by the Spirit. They were led by the Spirit. There's so many different places in the scripture that we can see the dependence on the Holy Spirit. We can see the Holy Spirit working and moving. Sometimes I think, at least for me, I think that we can read scriptures and stuff like that. We're like, that's great for the disciples, but like, does that actually happen anymore today? And I thought of just a couple of like the modern examples of when you can feel the Holy Spirit. How many of you guys have ever been in your car driving and all of a sudden you hear a song come on the radio and you're like, that song was for me. Anyone ever feel that? Yeah. Yep. How many of you guys have ever been in a sermon series or in a sermon and you feel like the pastor is speaking directly to you but you have no, they have no idea what's going on. They have no idea what happened on the way to church this morning. They have no idea what happened earlier this week. That's the Holy Spirit. Maybe you have gotten a text from someone randomly right exactly when you needed it. That happened to me today. That's the Holy Spirit. Maybe you've texted somebody and they've responded back, I really needed to hear this. That's the Holy Spirit. Maybe you prayed for someone on the spot without knowing a single thing of what's going on in their life but you knew something in you was saying, go pray for that person. That's the Holy Spirit. Maybe you were speaking to someone and it felt like something you had to say, so you said it. You felt like God was telling you to say it. You said it. Maybe you don't remember everything you said but they remember every word. That's the Holy Spirit. Anybody ever cry and worship? I do all the time. That's the Holy Spirit. There are so many different times that the Holy Spirit is working or moving or you can feel the Holy Spirit in your life. He's not just someone who is in the Old Testament, the New Testament with the disciples. He's someone who's living here today with us. In my life, I was thinking about just some personal examples in my own life where I felt the Holy Spirit. And for me, a couple different times that really stood out was there was one time my husband and I, we were brand new to Kalamazoo. I like to say we're country mice. We're from waterblee. It's a really small town. There's like one stoplight. So we came to Kalamazoo and we're walking through just a bunch of different like tables of different things you can do at Western. And I saw this really cute blonde couple is what I say. And I was like, they're starting a church. I'm looking for a church. I don't know. Maybe it's not it. And then I felt something in my heart say, this is your church. This is your church. So I grabbed Brody and we went. We talked with them. It was Dan and Kelsey. Spoiler alert. Here we are today. But they, the church hadn't even been planted yet, but I knew this was going to be the church for us. Another time that I felt the Holy Spirit was I, um, before coming into being in ministry, I worked as a teacher. I quit a full time job to come into ministry, knowing that there's going to be different challenges in it. I also, sometimes I stepped into a job of teaching kids about Jesus, which is the best job in the world. But y'all, it's weighty. It's weighty. Um, and sometimes I don't feel equipped for it, but I know that God equips me for it and I know I'm here for a reason. And so the Holy Spirit has just moved in so many different times in my life. But I wanted to share with you guys. I, when I was preparing for this, I actually texted my mom because I was like, I can't remember any of the things that the Holy Spirit has done in my life and I've known him for a long time. But I was having a hard time remembering. And so my mom texted me back a prayer and prayed over it. And I thought, man, how many times in our lives do we forget sometimes too? How many times do we think, the Holy Spirit's not speaking to me. What am I doing wrong? He's been there all along. He's there. He wants to talk to you. So my prayer for you today is that you're reminded of how the Holy Spirit has moved in your life. Like how my mom prayed for me. My prayer is that you remember him. You remember and you use the authority that lives inside of you. Some of you guys might be here today or joining us online. And this is your first time you've ever come here. I'm so glad you're here this morning. It's a great day. You might be thinking, man, that sounds really cool. I would love to have someone who's like a friend who's there with me every day. And you can receive that same gift this morning. Some of you might be in this room. And maybe you came from the background where you're like, I don't know about you. I don't know about the Holy Spirit. That kind of just seems a little weird. I'm not sure. But maybe today you're like, I want that. I want that. I want to go from knowing 33% of the Godhead, knowing God the Father, or 66% of the Godhead knowing God the Father and the Son. And I want to know the whole 100%, all three. That might be you today. All you have to do is you have to believe and you have to receive. Some of you might be in this room too. And you're feeling, for me, I always feel like it's kind of stirring in my heart. Something's pulling up my heartstrings. Pastor Dan says, you feel like something's messing with you. That, my friends, is the Holy Spirit. He's knocking at the door of your heart, Jesus in the Holy Spirit knocking at the door of your heart. And they're asking you to remove any obstacles, any barriers, and to let them in. So let's pray together. God, I thank you so much for this morning. I thank you for each and every person that is in this room or who's watching online. God, I thank you for just all the good gifts that you've given us. God, I thank you for the gift of your son who we talked about last week with Easter. I thank you that he died on the cross so that way we may have life. God, I pray, Lord, for any person in this room who maybe doesn't know Jesus, doesn't know you yet, that God, I pray, Lord, that they would make that decision in their hearts today, that they want to know you. And I ask that if that's you today, I'm not gonna make you come up to the front. I'm not gonna make you do anything crazy. But when I say, I do ask that you take a step of faith and you raise your hand. So if that's you today and you feel like, I wanna know this God, the God that has three different parts, I wanna know him, I wanna have a relationship with him, if that's you today, will you raise your hand so I know who I'm praying for? Thank you. God sees you. God sees your hearts. If that's you today, from your heart to God's ears, I want you to repeat this prayer. God, I thank you so much for who you are. I thank you that you love me so much. I thank you that you love me so much that you gave your only son to die in my place so that I can live with you forever. God, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I admit that there have been so many times in my life that I've sinned and I'm sorry. And God, I commit to following you and to following the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And if you're here today and you maybe have never asked the Holy Spirit to come reside in your life and to lead you and guide you, I ask that today is a great day to do that too. If that's you today from your heart to God's ears, you can repeat after me. Holy Spirit, I invite you to live in my life.

I invite you to lead me, to guide me, to warn me, to correct me, and to speak to me. I want to know you more and I commit to following what you have for my life. And I thank you for the gift that you are. In Jesus' name, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

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Full Sermon Transcript

So I wanted to end this series with something that we've been talking about the fight, that we're not just fighting against our families, we're fighting for our families. And the reality is if you read the scriptures, faith was never something that was supposed to come to us and just remain there. It was always supposed to come to us to go through us to somebody else. Like we've been blessed by having a relationship with Jesus Christ. We've been blessed by being able to be in his house among his people, learning from his ways in the scriptures. But God didn't want it to just stay with us. He wanted to go to other people. And so today I'm going to talk about, okay, how do we have a family of faith, right? We want that we're after God's ways. We're after God himself, God first, marriage, second, kids third, but how do we have a family that's not just living faith today, but passing on the faith tomorrow? So that's what we're going to get into today, because this is so important. Again, they mentioned the announcements, the Bible recap. There's so many of you that are going through the Bible in a year plan called the Bible recap online. And today actually we're in the book of Joshua and Joshua takes over from Moses, right? Moses led the people out of Egyptian slavery. He goes through the wilderness for 40 years, and he doesn't get to enter the promised land and he hands the baton of faith and the baton of leadership off to Joshua. And Joshua, check this out, we're in Joshua. Joshua is fighting the battles that are winning over and over and over again, these battles to take on the promised land. And something amazing happens. If you're reading the Bible recap, you probably heard this this morning and it's that in the midst of a battle, Joshua literally shouts a praise like in the midst of a battle. How many of y'all know that when you're going through life, sometimes the best prayers just go, God, I need you. God, I need you to show up. It's not just this awesome, like spectacular words that come out of your mouth and you've planned it ahead of time. And it's just awesome. It's like, Jesus, I need you right now and I need you to show up and I need you to do something amazing. And I just like how many of y'all have seen God move in that desperation in that moment. And here's what Joshua did. Joshua literally says to God, God, make the sun stand still. I'm sorry, what? Make the sun stand still. And the scriptures record that God heard his prayer in a narrow second and the sun stood still for 24 hours.

And it's equated. It says in the scriptures, it's one of the greatest miracles that God ever provided in the history of the world that one day Joshua. So if you go to the end, Joshua, by the way, he leads the Israelite people into the promised land. And at the end of his life, 110 years old, how many of y'all want to live that way? 110. No, some of you are like, yeah, come on somebody. Do you know how to do that? Do you know how to live 110 years old? Obey your mother and father.

Fun fact, right? What does the 10 commandments say? It says obey your father and mother so that you can what live a long life on the earth. You want to live a long life on the earth? Obey your father and mother. That's for all you parents and for all you adult parents, adult kids, obey your father and mother. Okay, ready? Okay. So Joshua is the leader. He is taking the people to be committed to serving the Lord. How many of y'all know when you go into a distant land filled with people who are worshiping other gods and other deities and doing things that are not right, they're actually evil in the Lord's sight. How many of y'all know that it's really hard to lead a group of people not to fall into the ways of the world or the ways of evil or the ways of it's really hard to do that because I don't know if you know this, but I know the pull of sin. I know the pull of evil in our world and it is really hard to navigate. So Joshua, he leads the people and they are committed to serving the Lord. It ends in Joshua, the end of Joshua and it says, Joshua's generation served and loved the Lord wholeheartedly with everything they've got. In other words, they made sure that God was first, right? We're fighting. We're fighting for God to remain first, marriage second, kids third. So they fight to keep God first and it says that all of the people of that generation, they worshiped and they served the Lord with wholeness. Fast forward just two chapters into Judges chapter two and it says that the entire generation that followed Joshua's generation, they forgot the Lord. They walked away from him. They left him. Can I tell you one of the greatest fights that we have is to pass on a faith legacy to the next generation. It is crucial that we keep our eyes focused on passing the baton of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ onto the next generation. How many of y'all want an entire generation of kids and grandkids to follow you who don't know the Lord? No, you don't know who don't. You want them to follow the Lord. I've teed you up for the wrong response. You want them to. So if you want to know why we always make such a big deal about kids ministry and youth ministry and then when your kids grow up and they get into a young adulthood and go to college and we pour into young adults here and then of course, can I just say something? Early on in the church, you know, I had this dream in my head that we would be a church filled with all sorts of ages and generations and ethnicities and backgrounds and experiences that would come together as one because of Jesus. And early on in the church, we had a ton of young families, which we have a ton of young families now, but we had a ton of young families and I'll never forget this, some gray hairs, which I have a lot of gray hair, by the way, some gray hairs came up to me and they would say, I just don't know if I fit in here. There's just so many young people and so many of them left. How many of y'all can attest to this? You were here and you watched it happen. Look around the room. Can I say, I want to thank you that we see every single generation of people at New Life Church. Come on, come on. That is something to be happy about and thrilled about. I praise God for that. But here's what Joshua said, and this is what I beg you as families, I beg you as blended families, as nuclear families, as single adult parent families, whatever family you find yourself in, my encouragement to you and my prayer for you is that you do this, you do what Joshua did. In Joshua chapter, I can't remember what it is, is that you're going to decide who you're going to serve, decide who your family is going to serve. And in Joshua chapter, I can't remember what it is, chapter 24, he said, as for me and my family, we are going to serve the Lord. Come on, are you with me? Because here's the reality. It's one thing to want to do that. It's another thing to fight to keep it as a priority. It's so easy to drift off into something else, to serve something else, to serve someone else. And typically it's a slow fate. And so we've got to fight to keep this as a priority in our own personal lives, in our marriages, in our families, so that we can pass on this unbelievable faith to the next generation. And so the second point I want to point out to you is that we need to leave a legacy of faith, hope, and of love. Well, how do we do that? Well, the great commission of Jesus, Jesus, this is Jesus, one of the last statements that he made on earth, Jesus came to his disciples and picture Jesus coming to you and I right here and right now, his encouragement to you and I to leave a legacy of faith, hope, and love that lasts for generations is to do this, to go and to make disciples of all nations. Is that what he said? Wait. Oh, I missed that part. Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven on earth. Guess what? Guess what? Guess what? Guess what? Fun fact. The president of the United States doesn't have all the authority. Congress doesn't have all authority. Russia, China, you name any government does not have all authority. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ. That's good news. That's a hope filled message, man. When we go into some political seasons, we all get nervous, right? But Jesus is still on the throne. All authority has been given to him and our faith is only in him. Here's the next part of it. He says, therefore, go. Yes. It's almost like I've begun to train you to do it. Again, for those of you who are new, I love it. When you interact, it helps me to preach a good message. And so when you see the bold letters, if you just go for it and read them with me out loud and proud, it'll be the greatest message on planet earth. I promise you. All right. So therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Don't go yet. Don't go yet. I love that. Go and make disciples. Do you know what Jesus wants from every single follower of him on planet earth? For us to go and to make disciples. Now a caveat, if you were to read this in the original Greek language, which this verse is written in, that word go is not very easily translated into the English language. It actually has the connotation that as you are going, you're making disciples not just when you go to church, not when you just think about, you know, you know, doing something for the Lord. It's literally as you are going in everyday life, everywhere you go, make disciples, make disciples as you are going. And so just like, just like Joshua was fighting the battle with all of his people and they were winning and maybe they were on the verge or on the cusp of losing and he's just shot up a prayer. God help me in this moment. God, make the sun stand still. What if there's a person that you're interacting at worth and you're like, man, this person, man, if they gave their life to the Lord, if they began to follow him, man, their life would be radically transformed. Well, instead of saying, man, I wish some, I wish God would send someone to them. What if you began to realize that God has already sent someone to them? He sent you.

He sent you. Go and make disciples. Where? In Kalamazoo? In the state of Michigan, in the United States, to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, go on to the next one. Teach these new disciples. Man, so it's not just sharing. Man, Jesus loves you. Oh, this is when it gets a little harder, isn't it? Jesus loves you. Man, can I just give you a Jesus hug? Man, Jesus, you look like you need a hug. Do you want a hug? Like I'm actually asking you. You know what? He doesn't want a hug. I'm not a hugger. I've shared this and I was about to give him a hug. I was giving him, it's free hug day. All right. So after the service, it's free hug day. I got to get moving. I don't know what's happening. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands that I have given to you. Why is this important for us to understand? It's because the best life that anyone can possibly ever have is by doing things God's way. It's not to hurt us, right? We've been talking about in the family. When we see discipline, when we see discipline happen to us, and when we give it to our kids, it's not because we don't like our kids. It's because we love our kids. We want the best for our kids. And so, man, why is that important to us to really embrace that idea is that we teach these new disciples to obey everything that he's commanded us to be because it's good for us and it's good for them. And be sure of this. This is important. Jesus is with you always, even to, what is it? Even to, that's generational. Generational. God is with you every single step of the way. And so today I want to do something a little bit special because you know this. We take kids very seriously at New Life Church. We take passing on the baton of faith very seriously. As you can tell, I'm still not over whatever I was on last week. Anyways, what was I talking about? Kids. So, today we're going to talk about leaving a legacy. We're talking about who we're going to serve and how we're going to leave a legacy, a family legacy of faith, hope, and love. And to do that, I want to share with you one of the partnerships that we have as a church to do that around the world because he told us to go to what? To all nations to do this. And so I want to invite you on that journey today. And so I want the team to throw up a couple pictures to you to kind of share a little bit of my heart behind this. You know, when we go to the nations, you know, one of the great partnerships that we have is through an organization called One Child, which you're going to hear about in just a minute. But what I love about this is we have the opportunity to partner with this organization, honestly, as a family to be able to share the love of Christ around the world. And so we strategically partnered with an organization in Honduras, the nation of Honduras. And I'm going to tell you my own personal story. When we started this partnership, Kelsey and I decided to take on One Kid. We sponsored One Kid. And we did that because we wanted that One Kid to be almost to have a pen pal with our daughter Harper, who's eight years old. So Kelsey, myself and Harper, we would write the kid and they would write back. And then Kelsey went on our first ever admissions trip and met that little girl. It's so powerful. And here's what I love. This is Eric. Oh, it's switching around. Erica began sponsoring. What's her name? Erica, I see you over there. Abby. And Erica began sponsoring her and then Erica took the step of faith to go to Honduras with our last trip, I believe, wasn't it? And so here she is with her, with Abby in Honduras. Go to the next slide. And then she met Abby's sister and she decided, okay, God, Abby's sister needs some love. And she came home, not with one kid that she was sponsoring, but two kids now she's sponsoring. It's the power of going global. Here's the next slide. And this is, I love this one. This is one of my favorites. This is one of the letters that was written from our families to to Johan in Honduras. And it's written by the Sims family, the Sims family who you just heard from, from, from Jess earlier. And I love this because she's talking about her kids. She's talking about her husband's an assistant principal, but now he's actually the real thing. He was a fake one before. He's my brother-in-law. I can do that. But then Hayden and Eliza, she's talking about, again, it's family. It's family. You want to, you want to train your kids how to have a general, generational legacy, how to not just think about themselves all the time, how to think about other people, how to serve the Lord by loving and serving other people. Yes, we can do that here, but God tells us to what? To go global, to go to the nations to do this. And, and one of the most powerful things I believe personally is that when you go on a trip, when you, when you get into this relationship with other people across the globe, you start to realize your God is way bigger than you thought because he is being worshiped around the globe. It's not just an American God, although we thought we tend to think that sometimes, right? It's just not true. And so I love, here's this next picture. So this is the letter. This is Johann holding the letter. And then Johann, they're at the house. He's like, man, these are the twins. Look how cute they are. Getting pictures. And in Honduras, this kid is like, this is like my second family. These people love me. They're sharing the love of Christ with me. And he's, he's, he's keeping the letters and he's keeping the pictures and man, this is my favorite picture. I think of all of them. I think it's the next one. This is Johann's house. Is that right? It's Maro's house. I lied to all of you. Please forgive me. This is Maro's house. So they went across the globe and, and, and look at this. This is two families basically coming together as one because of who? Because of Jesus Christ. You see a Honduran family coming together with an American family. This is, this is, I think this is Jess right here. This is, I don't know which one it is, but here's the twins. So these are literally middle school kids learning that their God is bigger than Kalamazoo, Michigan. They're learning that faith goes around the globe. You want to fight for your families to understand the gospel. It doesn't just come to you, but it goes through you to someone else. You teach and train them to serve the Lord and to do it, not just here, but globally. And so today I want to invite you on this journey. I'm going to invite, we're going to share a short video to get a glimpse of, of one child, what that organization does and how we partner together to make this ministry happen. And so I'm going to move this out of the way to show that video. And then I'm going to invite my friend, bring it up in just a moment. My dreams start when I wake up. I dream of a full love with more happy moments. I am going to join in sometimes with love. I'm not scared. It means I have to be great. But I am not alone. This journey is surrounded by champions, helping me, listening to me and believing in me. This is a journey with laughs. A journey with lots of work. A journey with care, a journey with love, a journey that is hard, but no longer hopeless. A journey that starts with someone far away. Someone who wants me to drive. Someone who will be losing me and everything I will become. Someone like you.

Welcome to the stage, my friend, Brandon Ramey from One Child.

You said on this side last time, I thought I'd give you that side. I don't know if you have a good side, but I do. And this is my good side. That's actually my good side as well. So you guys get my bad side. I apologize to especially everybody over here. You definitely get the bad side. Well, Brandon, man, this has been a special relationship between New Life and One Child for quite some time. To be honest, I can't even remember how many trips we've taken. COVID kind of put a damper on that for a hot season. And then we went everywhere. And then we went back. And man, I'm just so thrilled that we're a part of this journey together. And so who is One Child? Yeah, well, I mean, first off, thank you guys for your consistency. I mean, you guys are consistently taking trips and visiting the community. So for those of you who may be new, or just kind of a good reminder of if you're not familiar with One Child, we're a child development ministry. We work with kids internationally in 16 plus countries around the world. And what we do is we work what we call in the hard places. And so if you're trying to think about like what a hard place looks like, it could be physically a geographical area that's difficult to get to. It could just be due to physical poverty. It could be due to spiritual poverty. We work in the 410 window. And so we work in these areas and to kind of just give you even a better glimpse into that. We work with little girls who have been trafficked by their own family in Cambodia, just to put food on the table. We work with kids in Pakistan who are literally breaking rock to make brick because they're indentured into a system and they can't get out of. We work with kids in Honduras who just don't have access to nutritious meals and education. We enter into these stories because we don't believe that's the end of the story, right? We believe that Jesus has a better plan. He has a purpose for their life. And so we work through local churches, which are cities on the hill, and we work through that local church to help kids find hope in Christ. So we want Jesus to be the hero of every child's story. So when a kid comes into that church, they get the benefit of what we call the program, which is medical care, a nutritious meal, educational support. They're surrounded by people, as you heard from the video, who believe in them, who are praying for them, who are basically discipling them. So that's what child development work is. It is discipleship. It is as we go, we are bringing in the community around us, specifically for one child kids. And so the hope of all that also is that they hear about, right? Christ, His Word, His purpose, His plan. And the hope of all this tangible benefits that kids receive, medical care, nutrition, education, all those things, is it should lead somewhere. All that should lead somewhere in the life of a child. And the language that we use of where it should lead is we use the language that it should lead for them to be able to hope and dream in their life. That they can hope that tomorrow can look different. It doesn't have to look like what their families have gone through for generations. They can create a new system and a new generation, which their kids will never have to experience the past because there's a new future. They can dream about who they can become. Maybe they can become a teacher or a police officer or a doctor. But the realities that have opportunity now to be able to hope and dream about what their life can become. And so one of the, actually one of the guys that we work with, he's an ambassador we would call him. He works in Nashville. He's actually a music manager. He grew up in India. He entered into our program and he got all the educational support. And one of the things that he says is that his kids will never have to know what he knew or what his parents knew or what his grandparents knew. His life has forever changed. And now generations future forward, their lives are forever changed. And that's the hope, right? To break the cycle of poverty, whether it's mentality or it's actual breaking that physical poverty. But to have the opportunity to believe in hope that life can be different, that's huge. That's fantastic. I mean, I feel like I'm blocking you from like this whole side over here or something backing up a little bit. They were very disappointed. Okay, I'm so sorry. It's all my, it's my back and shoulders. You're welcome. Biceps. Stop it. So I don't even know what I was saying now. Oh, so I'll never forget this. So the first trip we ever took, Kelsey went, my wife went, if you haven't met her, she'll be here after the service. But she went on the first trip and I'll never forget her coming back. Well, first of all, our commitment to one child and to Honduras like went up 10 levels after that first trip because of my wife, just to be honest. And like, we got to sponsor more kids and we got to get like, this has to happen. And we got to, you know, I don't even know. There was a lot that came back, but it was awesome to be fired up like that. And I'll never forget what she said. Like, the majority of people that are kids growing up in Honduras, they're pulled into gangs. Like gangs is the biggest thing that is holding a kid back in the country of Honduras. And, but she said, what's fascinating by it, and I don't know if it's a, I'm sure it's a faith protection, but she said the gangs are actually terrified of the church. Like they're not terrified of government. They're not terrified of police. Like they practically own the police, but they are afraid of the churches. And so to get these kids into these hope centers that are at the churches and around the churches is crucial for the success of these particular kids in Honduras. And so I loved getting to hear the glimpse of that. And, and, and, and why I'm sharing that with you is because we could easily, you know, work with an organization, and sometimes you have to do this. You referenced the 410 window, which is probably the most godless window in the world. It's, it's mostly Islamic in nature. And so Christ is not welcome at all there, but he's pushing through. Excuse me. But I love, I love the opportunity that we have to not only just sponsor and pour into these kids and to have these relationships with the kids, but we have the opportunity to go there, to really see what is happening, what their lives are like. And honestly, to expose even our own kids, even ourselves to that, because we get caught up in a man, I just wish America was better. But then we go to across the globe and you meet these kids and like, they're filled with the joy of the Lord. And you're like, man, you, in comparison to what I have and where I grow up, I don't know how you have that kind of joy, but you do. And it's because of the Lord and it's because of the partnerships like this. And so, man, why, why is this relationship so important between NLC and one child? Yeah. I mean, I think you just described it, right? It's the opportunity to not just partner your life into the life of another. So I always say what sponsorship is, it is partnering with the purpose and plan of God in the life of someone else. And, and that's really the gospel. Like Christ came, he wove his story into our story. And now because we have been changed, it doesn't come to us, it goes through us. We get to now weave our story into somebody else's. We get to believe in them. We get to pray for them. We get to dream with them. And so the uniqueness of the relationship is that Jeremy is not just a picture on a page for New Life. Jeremy's actually a person, a child you get to go to see because you consistently go to the country, you go to the community, you go to the Hope Center that he's a part of, and you get to be a part of his story, his life, you get to see him. And even if you never take the trip, you know that your church is, right? And so you've got these photos. Somebody can take a snapshot, right? And send it back to you. And so there's all these opportunities to not make it just, again, something that you're just doing. It's actually a person whose life you're involved with. You're praying for them, you're believing in them, you're writing letters to them, you're jumping on planes to go see them. So the uniqueness of the relationship is just that there is an investment. The church is invested to the community. You're invested into the life of these kids. And so I think that's what makes it beautiful is, again, it's not just something that you're seeing, you know, every month just out of a bank kind of statement. You're actually sitting down and as you pray over your meal for lunch, you're thinking about Jeremy and what he might eat, and you're, Lord bless whatever he's eating today, Lord bless that. And what you said is important because it takes us out of our own worldview and it gives us a global worldview. One of the best things we can do for our kids is to remind them that life is bigger than us and that there are people who have different situations. And so when you have a hard day, it's okay. You can have a hard day. But when you pray for yourself, you can also remind yourself of like, man, I don't know if Jeremy's had a hard day, but Lord, if he's had a hard day, bless him in that. Like help him get through that. So we're reminded in our own struggles that we don't struggle alone, that there are other people around the world who need Christ, who need his help just as we do, and we can bring their petitions to the Lord as we bring our own petitions to the Lord. So I think that's the beautiful part about partnership is that, again, it's a weaving of stories together, which is a resemble of the gospel. It's resemblance of that, right? Yeah. I love that scripture, the Great Commission, go and make disciples in all the world and to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I remember seeing videos of our last team literally celebrating baptism with the kids and the church together. And what a beautiful picture of the church of Jesus Christ from Kalamazoo, Honduras, coming together to... My favorite Sundays at New Life Church is when people are going into the waters of baptism, we're seeing their lives completely changed by this relationship with Jesus. And so, man, I love that we literally get to be the church on a global scale together. It's so awesome. I'm going to put you on a spot for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have any idea how many kids are sponsored through New Life Church? I did actually just look... I don't know active, but I do know 86 at one point, like total active. I could see what that looks like. It's totally fine. I didn't ask you this ahead of time. Yeah, I actually did look at it though earlier. So 86 is a strong man. And what's been cool is that literally when we started this, it started with maybe 40 or 25 or whatever. And we've done this, I don't know if we've done it every year, but we need to do it every year because new people are coming into the family of faith here at New Life Church. And we get to help them partner with some of these missions that we have. And so that's what we want to do with you today. So if they're thinking, man, I want to do this with my family, I want to do this myself, what are the next steps that they would take to get in this partnership or relationship with a child? Yeah, so outside as you walked in, you probably saw the profile stand and it's got the profiles of the kids, right? This is Jeremy. He's six years old. You can find out a little bit more information about Jeremy if you open that up. The next kind of portion is the practical portion, guys. This is the part you fill out, right? It's all the basic information. You'll see an option for $39. That's how much sponsorship is. So there's a cost to sponsorship, right? All the programmatic work of nutrition, medical care, all that stuff, it costs something. There's a $45 option. That extra six helps what we go towards an unsponsored children's fund. So Jeremy's in our program, but say he doesn't get sponsored today. We don't go to Jeremy and be like, hey buddy, didn't work out that Sunday. Sorry, man. You know, we keep them until we can find a sponsor to be a part of their life, right? And so that's the cost. That's the practical, but here's what I always say, but the power is that relationship. The power is the ability to come alongside somebody else and to visit, to pray, to write letters, to think beyond just my own life and to allow myself to be involved in somebody else's life. That's the power of sponsorship. It's weaving, again, our story into theirs. It's partnering with the purpose and plan of God in the life of somebody else. It's as we go, we are discipling, right? As we go, we are getting involved. As we go, we are moving beyond just ourselves and we are looking for the people to serve. That's what I love about all throughout scripture. Like as Jesus went, his eyes were opened. He saw, he noticed, he looked, and that's what we're doing. And so I'll be out there if you have like specific questions. One of the most important things we say is if you are interested, tear out this perforated part, the practical part, and turn it into me once you've filled it out. But just don't take the profile with you unless you have filled it out. So that's kind of like the big disclaimer, right? Just don't take the profile home. We don't want to lose the kid. Yeah, no one's children today. Yeah, so just make sure if you do fill it out, turn it into me. And then if you are just, you know, still having questions and curious, I'll be out there to answer anything specific that you guys might have today. Yeah, specifically, I mean, most of the kids that are available are on these cards. I think there might be just a two or three maybe online. So I mean, I think there's a QR code you said. Yeah, so there probably will be a few online and there's not duplicates. It's a one to one, right? So if there's a specific, like if your heart is like, Jeremy's the one, he's not going to be online. And like you said, I think there might be like five. So the majority of the kids that we brought are in these physical profiles. So yeah, stop by, come be a part of what new life. This is your church, by the way, this is your kids. These are your communities. So this isn't one child here today. These are new lives communities, new lives, children that you guys are working with. So this is a part of your DNA. I just get to bridge the gap. Yeah. And I just want to encourage you as we kind of end our time together. You know, again, part of the hope is that yes, we're sponsoring these kids, but how many more kids do you think are out there that need to be sponsored? There's more. Like there's more kids that are in right outside of Togusa Galpa, Honduras, who are at risk to being pulled into gangs rather than the church. And so I've loved being able to watch this community of faith partner together to make sure that kids don't have that, that they're fighting for, we're not just fighting for our families here, but we're fighting for God's kids all around the world. And so I want to encourage you as you leave today to check out those profiles. I believe we have some people that have been on trips that you can even speak to that will be out there in the lobby. And then also I want to throw up one more QR code because we do have, don't block it. You might need to move out of the way. Hey, let's thank Brandon for coming today. And there's one more QR code because I think this is so important. Again, our commitment isn't just to sponsor kids and just say, hey, like, have fun. Like we really hope that at some point you take the step of faith if you're sponsoring a kid to go meet your kid. I think it could be one of the most powerful life-changing things that could ever happen in your life. And honestly, we first chose to go to Honduras. Some of it was practical and it was practical for this reason. I think they're in the same time zone or maybe one time zone off. It's a quicker trip. It's a cheaper trip. It's a trip that you can make with your kids. Like this is actually a family mission. There are places around the world that you can't do that with because it's a little more dangerous. But I mean, this is a place you can do that. And so I want to encourage you to maybe consider, pray and ask God. You can click that QR code and it'll take you to the registration to be able to be a part of our trip that's happening this August 12th through 17th. And so as we close today, I want to pray a blessing over you, but I also want to pray a blessing over our partnership in Honduras, our two Hope Centers that are filled with these kids. So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we pray a blessing over every single family that's represented in this room and all the families that are watching online that may not be able to be here today. We pray a special prayer of blessing and protection. God, as we've gone through this series that we've learned how to fight not against our families, but for our families in the ways that you tell us to. And so God, I pray that we would put you first, that we would be in your word transformed by it, that we'd be filled with your spirit surrounded by the community of faith of people in your church, growing and learning how to live our best life, the life that you've called us to live. And God, I pray that faith wouldn't just come into our lives and into our homes, but that it would go through our lives and through our homes to the people around us that need to know who you are. God, even in this room that we have the opportunity to take our faith in you globally. So God, right now I pray that you would lead. God, that you would speak directly to the hearts of people today in what kind of step they should take. For some it's to get involved in the church, to some it's to find their community of faith here to grow in their relationship with you. For others it's to maybe consider being a part of a life being a part of a life group, getting into a community of faith. For others maybe they've done some of those things and you're calling them God to take their to take their faith globally. Consider partnering with you to start relationships with kids in Honduras today. And God, only you know what kind of things are going to come out of that relationship. So God, I pray that you would lead and that we would respond. God, that we would be people of faith that just like Joshua said, as for me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord. And then it's going to outlast us and it's going to lead to generations of faith

in Jesus name. And everybody said, Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

But today we're talking about the blended family. You know, I looked up some statistics earlier this week about how many families might exist out there that are blended. And the statistics were staggering. But just for a moment, just in reality, like how many of y'all have experienced some sort of a blended family? Like maybe it isn't your initial family, but maybe it's an uncle or a cousin. Like you've seen it happen. You've had friends that have had blended families. We've all experienced to some degree some of the chaos that comes into play when a blended family comes together. And so this message is about a blended family. And I wanted to give it a ton of attention today, so I saved it for its own week. And of course, because we're talking about the blended family, I have a blender. Get excited. But let's talk about today. Let's talk about the process of blending. The process of blending. Because we want God's best for our lives. And so we need to go through the process that God has. And by the way, if you're wondering, like, does God care about the blended family? So let me just give you a brief snapshot in history. Abraham, the father of our faith, it is said, Abraham, how many of y'all know, had two wives, slept with two ladies, had two different kids. And he sent one of them out. And he sent one of them out into the wilderness. Good luck to you. Sounds like a great husband and parent, right? He had a blended family. Then you fast forward, right? You've got Jacob. We serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons from different wives. And how many of y'all know, again, history, biblical history lesson, Jacob slept with the wrong woman on his wedding night.

Oops. Blended. Blended family.

David. David had multiple wives, the Bible said. He's a man after God's own heart. And he had an adulterous affair. He had a kid. And there was a blended family. Some might even argue that Jesus himself has a blended family. Because Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit of God. Joseph was not. His biological father. Blended family.

Aren't you glad you came to church today? You're learning so many great things. Blended family. But the process of blending is curious, right? If you're going to blend something, again, how many juicy, juicy. How many juicers do I have out there? You got to, come on. Any health nut juicers out there? You guys, okay. Blenders. You like to make smoothies. Like a morning protein shake, maybe. It was milkshakes. Yeah, come on, somebody.

As I learned last service, I am not really into this. So this illustration could go awry. But what I do know is if you want to make a great smoothie, you've got to choose the right ingredients. And so that's the first thing that we're going to talk about. When it comes to blending a family is you've got to choose the right ingredients. It's about the selection process. That's number one. If you're taking notes, the selection process. So you got to find the right ingredients. So this is true. Whether or not you've, maybe you're single and you're wanting to get married someday. You've never been married before. Or maybe you've been divorced and you want to get married again. The selection process is abundant. It is crucial that you take the selection. The selection process seriously. You've got to find the right ingredients. And how many of you all know that you can go out and try to find the ingredients to blend together. But you know, there's a lot of the wrong nuts out there. That landed horribly. So some of you, if you're in the dating world, you've got to have a hard pass on the nuts. Nope. Still not any better. Okay. All right.

Galatians 5.22 says this. It says, but the fruit of the spirit, time out. How do you have the fruit of the spirit? Well, the fruit of the spirit isn't just available to anyone. It's only available to those who have the spirit of God living inside of them, indwelled inside of them. How does that happen? When you give your life to Christ, you turn from your sin. You turn to him. You acknowledge it. You get the fruit of the spirit. You turn to him. You give the forgiveness of sin by Jesus on the cross and in his death, burial, and resurrection. And then, so you're saved by Jesus. You make him your Lord. Then he puts the Holy Spirit of God inside of you. The only way that you will ever be able to live out this kind of fruit is if you are the real deal. How many of you have gone through this election process? In days of sin? In dating? In trying to find a relationship with someone who may have claimed to be a Christian, but you come to realize they are fake and they are phony? Whoa. Like you go into the produce aisle and you're looking at the bananas. Do they have the brown gnarly spots on them? Is the spinach a little rotten? Like how many of y'all check your fruit? Like you look to see, you test it, you feel it. You're like, is it too much? Oh, she, is it too hard? Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of science and process that goes into the selection of the right stuff. But too often, right? When we look at the scripture, we say, is that scripture? Keep the scripture up there. All right, let's keep it up there. It says, when we look at selecting the right ingredients, we got to find the fruit of the spirit living inside of this person. So again, whether you are trying to get married again or married, for the first time, the selection process is incredibly important. So here's the spirit. Here's how you know it's this person is the real deal or not. The fruit of the spirit is love. Say love.

You know, I've been in ministry for 25 years and I've watched more relationships start based off of lust rather than God's actual love. Like we, we live in a world where it's like, just chase what you feel. And, and man, we've got people sleeping around before marriage. And the Bible says that we are to keep the marriage bed, pure, undefiled. We're to be what? Virgins before we enter marriage. We're supposed to do it God's way. But here's what happens. We get infatuated with lust rather than the true love of God that he wants us to have. And we have these thoughts for our marriages. And then we wonder why we get into marriage and we go, oh my gosh, I had no idea this person was a nut.

They're a nut. It's because they don't have the Holy Spirit of God, the fruit of the spirit, which is love. How do you test this out? The real deal. Well, do they love what God loves?

What does God love the most more than anything else? Some of you said us. Who is us? Who is people? God loves his bride more than anything else. Who is Jesus's bride? The church. So if you want to see the fruit of someone in their life, how do they handle the church? Are they planted in the tree of life? Are they planted in the tree of life? Are they planted in the tree of life? Are they planted in and a part of Jesus's bride? What does God love the most? What does Jesus love the most? He loves his bride the most. Well, some people will say, well, well, pastor, I just, I'm in love with Jesus and I just, it's just me and the wind and the waves and you know, whatever. And that's not in the Bible. If they don't love the church, you got to check the fruit. Because Jesus more than anything else loves his bride. Think about this for a second. If you're in the selection process and you're trying to find the real deal and they're jumping from this church to that church to go over here. Oh, I like this worship. Oh my gosh, this teaching. Oh my gosh, did you go to new life church? That pastor is crazy. It's probably true. But what if we were to see the love of God in the fruit of his bride? What if we were to see the love of God in the fruit of his bride? What if we were to see the love of God, the Holy Spirit of God seeing in the church, man, I love the church. If you're trying to find a spouse that's going to be filled with commitment. Oh my gosh. And this person is treating the church just like, ah, I don't know. Again, check the fruit. Do they love the church? Do they love what Jesus loves? Joy. They have the joy of the Lord. This is not just happiness. It's really circumstantial. Like you could go through absolute crap, but they still have the joy of the Lord inside of them. It's supernatural from the Spirit of God. Peace. How do people have the peace of God inside of them? Well, the way that they're going to have the peace of God inside of them, again, coming back to the fruit of the Spirit only happens if the Spirit lives inside of you. The only way to get peace with God is to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And to love him. To love the Lord and Savior. And to follow him with everything you've got every single day. And so we get peace with God by choosing Jesus. And then when we do, he fills us with the Holy Spirit of God, which gives us the peace of God. So we get the peace with God through Jesus, but then we get the peace of God with the Holy Spirit. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Patience. Do these people have patience? You know, so many relationships in marriage, again, maybe going back to that analogy of like, man, I fell in love with Jesus. And then once I figured out they weren't just the real deal or maybe it got a little hard, man, I just bailed. And, man, we see that in the church and it's just, man, I'm running from that church to this church and oh my gosh. And it's just, man, relationships, man, do they have the fruit of the Spirit? Peace, patience, kindness. Are they the real deal? Do they, I don't know if some of you have, again, I've been in this for a long time. How many of you, man, he was so kind and he was so nice and he opened my car door and he was so nice. And he was so nice. And he was so nice. And he was so nice. And he was so nice. And he opened my car doors and he did all these things. And then, man, that changed. That's different. Is he or is she the real deal? Goodness. Do they have goodness inside of them? Faithfulness, again, do they have commitment? Are they showing this as fruit in their lives? Gentleness. I said in the first service, I have never been in my entire life called gentleness. I've been called gentle. It's just, it's usually not the first characteristic they would describe me as. But I think that the Holy Spirit of God has shown gentleness through me. And he does it in moments where I probably didn't even want to do it or be that or give it. How about self-control? We've been talking about having self-control, even talking about discipline and loving God's discipline, that God disciplines those he loves. If we want to, we have to. If we want to grow in our relationships and grow in our family and our marriages, man, we've got to let discipline change our lives. Self-control. We've got to do this person as I'm going through the selection process. Again, if you're a young person looking to get married for the first time or if you're trying to get married again, the selection process is so crucial. Select the right person. And here's another thing. Make sure that they're tested. Like, they need to be able to show you what they're like after they go through some stuff. Like when they hit some hardship, when they go through some challenges and trials, then how do they act? Then what do they look like? Are they expressing some of the fruit of the Spirit? And too many people, they rush into marriage because of lust rather than love, and it's not the real deal. And I would probably argue that because of the selection process, that's why your marriage is so difficult. That's why you're not getting married. That's why you're not getting married. That's why you're not getting married. Your marriage didn't last. It's because you went too fast. You went too fast and didn't allow it to be tested. Here's the second one. The second one is preparation. So I've gone to the produce aisle, and I've checked out the fruit, and I'm checking to see, like, is this milk? Oh, is it? I literally can't smell. So it's not helpful at the moment. But, like, is the fruit gone bad? Like, you're testing the fruit, and you're looking at it. And then there's preparation. Like, you can't. Imagine to me. This is bananas. I don't know if you can see this. Imagine to me if I just took this and just threw it all in there, banana peel and all, you'd probably be like, dude, you have no idea what you're doing. There's some preparation that needs to take place. Like, maybe you need to check some things out. You've got to cut it. Maybe you've got to peel away and see some of the pride that exists and see it take place. You've got to cut away some of the criticism in your life and maybe get into this preparation process with the person that you might walk into. You've got to prepare the ingredients. You've got to prepare the ingredients to be blended. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, 11 says this. Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Now, again, he's talking about are they the real deal? He says, Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, drunk this way or this way, it doesn't matter, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Last week I said, man, Jesus is abundantly clear. He's very precise. He tells it exactly how it is. But we live in a culture. We live in a culture that likes to call good evil and evil good. Last week, I don't know if I shared it in the service that you were in, but I said that Satan, our enemy, is the father of lies. He's the great manipulator. And so he likes to tell you and I that the good things of God are actually bad and the evil things of the world are actually good. How do I know this? Well, if you float a pride sticker, you know, the banner of pride rainbow, that is an example. Again, go to the scripture, 1 Corinthians 6, 9. Men who have sex with men, nor women who have sex with women, they're not going to inherit the kingdom of God. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Dan, what are you saying? I'm not saying anything. God's saying something. And yet, by the way, if you wait a minute, if you wave that banner, take it down. And if you have that tendency, if you have that sin draw, you are welcome here. But we're not going to sugarcoat what the Bible says because the Bible gets up in my face. Whether or not I'm sexually immoral, read here, someone who's having sex outside of marriage or even in the old days, maybe even today, they're having sexual dealings with men. Dealings with who knows what. Read here, pornography, idolaters, putting anything else above God, adulterers. Jesus said that if you lust after someone, even in your mind and your heart, you're committing adultery. You're not even just doing it. You're just seeing that picture. Boom. Oh, wow. Greedy. We talk about the tithe. We talk about bringing the tithe to the local house. Do you know what? Do you want to know how you tell God that you're greedy? You don't bring the tithe. You worship God more than you worship him. And he calls us thieves when we do that. Drunkards, no slanderers, no swindlers. Man, we're just trying to work it out for our good. Man, gossipers. I told Kelsey, I go to the gym. This is kind of funny. This is kind of a side note. Women are usually blamed for being the gossipers, right? All you women are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. I go to the gym. And, man, I was telling Kelsey this yesterday. Man, guys stand around in the locker room and just gossip and gossip and gossip. We're not immune to being gossipers. I'm just saying. And Kelsey's response was like, women don't even talk to each other at the gym locker room. Like, well, it's apparently the thing to do. Anyways, I don't even know what that is. Here's the point. Preparation. When we come into a relationship with Jesus, we are saved by him. We are forgiven. We are made new. But too many times we don't make him our Lord. We're turning from our sin, the thing that is tearing us up and taking us down. And we enter into Christ Jesus and we get forgiveness and we get his forgiveness and we get his new life. But we're still holding on to the old life. We still want this life. And it's still destroying us. And it's still tearing us apart. And so we got to step away from that and step into the new life of God. And here's what we got to do. We got to believe that God wants the best for us. And so he confronts us. But I love this. I love this next phrase. He says this. And that is what some of you were. Here's the deal. You need to step away from what you were and step into what God wants you to be. You got to let the old life go. And step into the new life. Guys, do you know why we call this church new life? Because the old life needs to go bye-bye. It's holding you back and it's tearing you up and taking you down. You got to let it go. But that is what some of you were. But you were, say this out loud with me. You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the spirit of the living God. And so we've got to be washed by the water of the word of God. We got to come in here and we got to say, God, man, I know that you see the junk and the funk. And you see the warts. And you see all the crap that was just listed there on that scripture. You see the part of me that you don't like and that needs to go away. And you want to heal me and forgive me and get me freedom. And I got to acknowledge that and walk away. I got to be washed by the water of the word. But here's what the culture says. The culture is telling us all around today that you come in here and want to change the word of God, not be changed by the word of God. You want the word of God to fit who you are, not be changed to be who God wants you to be. And God wants the best for your life. He knows how this whole thing works. He created it. You can pray, pray, pray, and pray reflects our life. I need the word of God. I need the word of God. I need the spirit. I want to be changed to change the dictatorship or the corrupt country. We become reinforced. But our wife, Trulia, from the Gott, she went to me not to be replaced by the word of God, but also we became fully white all around the country. So I said here's what I're saying implants because it's my wife. I recharge for you. I upgrade tomorrow and get to know new people. I become more open about what God can give me it's to change off to a new person. Listen to me, it's one of the things why you should be sure that when You come into this world, we should just be better, then be able to make up for the times we've had. you blend the family, people come into that relationship with different perspectives. They come into there with different experiences. And so think about this for a second, man. I got, I'm not, again, I'm not much of a blender person, so I'm going to figure this out, but we're going to throw some bananas in there. How many of y'all know when you blend your family, it gets a little bit like bananas. It gets, you blend a family, again, whether you're getting married for the first time or the second time or fifth time, hopefully it's not the fifth time, but you see, anyways. This is spinach. How many of y'all put spinach in your smoothies? Yeah, come on somebody. Spinach, it's like money. How many of y'all have money issues in your, in your family? Do you know that God has more to say about money than he does about salvation, heaven, and hell combined? What? Yeah, we got money issues in our family. family. He talks about it. Greedy, thieves, how to handle it. He has a lot to say about money. And so we blend these ingredients. We got, we got mango. Y'all like mango in your smoothie? I love me some mango. Oh, stuck. Mango. Let's see here. What else we got? But we throw it, when you get remarried, so, so you, you've been divorced and you've seen this happen. You get remarried and, and, and you, you, again, whether you've, hopefully you've fallen in real love, in God's love and not just in lust, right? I'm trying to help you, right? I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not trying to like pick on you. I'm trying, I'm trying to help you. When you fall in love, God's love, real love, instead of just in lust, you have this new relationship that you're really excited about. And you're about to blend a family. Well, guess who might not be as excited as you are? You're not as excited as you are. You're not as excited as you are. You're not as excited as you are about this blending. Your kids on both sides. Here's why. Because the fantasy that they still have in their minds and in their hearts of you and your original spouse, their mom and dad coming back together, that fantasy is gone. It's over. And that can be extremely traumatizing to a kid. If, if you read the Bible and the Bible says he hates divorce, he does not hate you. He hates the collateral. He hates the collateral damage that happens because of divorce. Now our God can redeem and restore everything that we do wrong. Do you agree? Do you agree? And so he's in this, he's in this, he cares about you. He cares about your blended family, but you've got to make sure that you have this in the front all over your brain that when you just blend your family, when you get remarried, you know, there's things that got to take place. There's, there's preparation and you've got to see this happening. You've got to be, you've got to acknowledge it. You've got to acknowledge it. Your kids, we talked about last week in the last two weeks, we talked about discipline, that God disciplines those he loves. He wants to discipline you. He wants to discipline your kids so that it can be, they can grow to be all that God wants you to be. When you blend a family, how many of y'all realize that your kids feel like a ping pong ball?

I can't really do it that loud. It's not, it's not that great of an illustration. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. I need some love too. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Right. And here's what happens. Like your kids, right? We talked about the last couple of weeks. They need to feel consistency. They need to feel reliability. Well, what is the thing that happens the most? Again, when separation happens, those things go out the window. So you've got to fight for your family to have consistency and reliability. Your kids need it. So you need to feel so you need to work it out with your ex and figure out how do we not kids go to one house. They can do whatever they want. Get away with everything. They can just live their life, do whatever. They have no boundaries. They do. And then they go to my, I didn't say mom's house. It could be dad's house. I don't know what house it is, but then they go to the other one. And it's like, Oh, there's a big gap. There's a big gap between how I'm expected to live over here and how I'm expected to live over there. And we wonder why our kids are like, okay, beet juice. I mean, I'll put beet juice in your smoothie.

I'll love me some beet juice. I actually, I drink this every Sunday. The reason I am the best at drinking beet juice is because I drink it every Sunday. the way I am, I think is because of this. Cheers. Beet juice. How many of y'all throw, how many of y'all throw milk in your smoothie? Yeah. Throw some milk. This is almond milk. Okay. How many of y'all put ice in your smoothie? Y'all are being too shy. Like, come on. Okay. Apparently you guys are doing it wrong because then it waters it down. You're supposed to put frozen fruit in it to act like the ice to get it that, I've just told that. I don't know. I don't actually know. It's just what I'm just, you know, anyways. So I got some frozen. How many of y'all know when you blend a family, your kids can feel a little frozen out. They can actually feel paralyzed by the situation. And you have to, again, that doesn't change the fact that you're, you're, you're falling in love and you're getting this new family. You just got to acknowledge the fact that this can be traumatic for your kids. So you got to work it out because here's the deal. I can throw all these ingredients together and I can do this. When I blend my family, I can go, I'm going to get, I'm going to make this happen. It's going to, I'm just going to stir this up and I'm going to blend this and this is going to be my little bit. How many of y'all are that type A personality and you're just going to make it happen? Yeah. That didn't work. Or maybe it's this way. You get into that situation. You get into that blended family, blended marriage, and you're like, the marriage is going strong. It's going great. And you're, you're, you're in love. And it's, oh my gosh, the feelings and the kids are just crazy. And you're just like, whatever, they can figure it out. And you just leave the ingredients and walk away. How many of y'all want to come back next weekend and have me leave that there

as is like, you don't want that. You don't want the taste. You don't want the, the, the, the, the, the smell you like it's not, it's gnarly. It's nasty. This is what happens when you don't fight for the blended family, for, for the ways of God in your life. How many of y'all know what this is? This is what I would call the great equalizer. Like if you're a terrible smoothie maker, like you blend it up and you taste it and go, that's trash. Like that is, that's disgusting. You put a little more OJ in it and you can make that trash good. You know what I'm saying? I just, that's my opinion. I'm a matter of fact, come on, like, let's just come on somebody. There's a little more, a little more fruit. Let's I'm sick. I'll try not to touch it.

That's going to be delicious. Okay. So here's the deal.

All right. So I want this to taste good. I want this to be great. I want this new marriage to be great. I want our kids to get it together, man. I'm going to, I'm going to start. Yeah.

What?

Oh, I got to, I got to plug it in. Oh, there it is. You got to plug it in to the power source. Your blended family, your family needs to be blended with God's family in the house. This is a house hold appliance. You got to plug your family into God's family to have the power of God work in and through it.

Some of you are convinced that I am a great preacher. Some of you are like, this guy is crazy. Here's the scripture. Acts chapter one, verse eight. You will receive, say it with me out loud. Let, oh yes. Try it again. We were all kind of like, I didn't set you up well for that. It's my fault. Acts one, eight, you will receive read here. You will receive nuclear family power. When the Holy spirit comes upon you, blended family will receive power. When the Holy spirit comes upon you, you single parent family will receive power. When the Holy spirit comes upon you, you need to be plugged in to the power source. You need to be plugged in to the house of God, where the word of God is washing over your lives, where the Holy spirit is indwelling you and changing you, giving you the opportunity to express the power of the fruit of the, of the spirit of God. You got to be plugged into the power source. You got to be plugged in to the power source. You got to be plugged into the power source. You got to be plugged in to the power source. You got to be dynomite. It's powerful. It's explosive. The blender, we, we blend it together and it's got to be plugged into the power source for it to work. Ephesians four, five and six. Why am I talking about being plugged into the house of God? Again, if you're going to find a maid, if you're going to find a spouse, they got to love what Jesus loves. Jesus loves his bride more than anything else. You got to plug in to the power source. You got to plug in to the power source. You got to plug in to the of the house of God. Ephesians chapter four, five, and six, here's what he says. He talks about unity in the body of Christ that we're being blended together for God's purposes. He talks about marriage between a man and a woman. He talks about submitting ourselves to one another. He talks about how to raise kids. He talks about what's good and what's evil. And we need to be able to identify it in our lives and in our culture. We've got to see it for what it is, but we got to plug it in. We got to plug in. In the blended family, here's the stages that kids go through. Like it can be, it can be a little painful in the beginning when the blades hit the ice, the ingredients, and you got smashed all in there with a new dad or a new mom. And maybe you don't know how to deal with that. Or maybe new kids and man, there's new expectations or they're different. And man, you're feeling the pain of it. Maybe you feel, iced out. And there's a process. And over time, as it goes, as you go through this process, especially if you're planted in the house of God, learning the ways of God, and so is your family, your mom and your dad and your new mom and dad. And we're fighting for unity and we're fighting for consistency and reliability.

That which is painful can get better. And we're fighting for unity. And we're fighting for consistency and reliability. And you move into a season where you start to get it and you start to catch a groove and it's blending together. You're starting to see it happen.

Hopefully I figure out how to work this thing.

How many of y'all know it takes time?

God cranks it up. I think.

How many, how many blended families feel like this?

That guys, this thing is powerful. You could attach this to the back of the, to a back of bass boat. It was moving. Did you see that? I felt like I had to, hold it together.

It's been said that blended families, when they stay plugged into the power source and they're working through these processes that by year five or six, it takes that long year five or six kids start to catch a groove in their blended family. And it almost becomes just their family.

But you gotta go through the process. You gotta plug yourself in the house of God. You gotta go through the selection process, the preparation process, you and your kids connected to the power source, to the Holy Spirit of God washed by the water of the word. You gotta stay on the same page with your new spouse and your old spouse. You gotta bring discipline and punishment into it. Eight principles we talked about last week, consistency and reliability. And over time, man, this thing begins to sail instead of, I don't know how to work it. I just don't know how to work it.

I am sweating.

Who wants a drink? Who's a lot nervous? You don't pass it out. Don't drink it yet. Don't drink it yet. This has got a hunk of banana at the bottom. Something a little extra for you.

Don't drink it yet. Don't drink it. Don't drink it.

Got some. Got some extras. Hanging out smoothies today. I forgot to say this orange juice when I called it the great equalizer. I feel like orange juice is like the bacon of health foods. Nuts. Like you just put a little more in there and it's like all good. Right? Right?

When you go through the process of selection and preparation and plugging into the power source. Over time. Right? You stay plugged into the house of God and into the power of the church. You're washed in the water of the word. You get involved. You get your kids involved. You become unified. You get into a group. You allow God to change you. To free you. To help you. And then you'll begin to experience Psalm 34 8. Which says. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. Taste and see. It's good.

What'd you think? It's good? I'll be honest. I can't even taste it. I can't smell anything. I can't taste anything. Don't say that. I didn't touch it. I... Anyways. Blinded parents. Single parents. Not yet parents. Man, stay plugged in to the power of God. to the power source. Stay plugged into Jesus. Stay plugged into the Holy Spirit of God. Stay plugged into the house of God. Stay plugged into the word of God. Blending your family with God's family because God wants you to love, to fight, and he wants you to win. Let's pray together.

Full Sermon Transcript

Well, here's the scripture that we talked about last week. And if you see the bold words, I want you to with gusto say it out loud. All right. So Hebrews 12, 6, 3, 8 says, for the Lord. Disciplines. Guys, you got an extra hour before first service. You can do better than that. I believe in you. Are you ready for the Lord? Disciplines. Those. He loves. The Lord disciplines. Those He loves. He disciplines those He loves. And yet, we have kind of grown up in a society and a culture where we don't love discipline. We don't love punishment. We do the pushback. We disrespect authority in our lives. And if you want to know where chaos comes from, that's why. The Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His own son. Read, daughter, as you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as His own children. Whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by His father, I bet you know a few children who have not been disciplined by their father or mother, they got no discipline going on. If God doesn't discipline you as He does all of His children, it means that you are actually illegitimate and are not really His children at all. Like in other words, you haven't received Jesus in your Savior and you haven't made Him your Lord. And so that is an illegitimate child. We were all created in God's image, but sin destroyed that image. And you need Jesus to bring you back into that image, back into that family. And so God disciplines. The Lord disciplines those He loves. Listen, kids, adult kids, young kids, grandparent kids, single adult kids, God is disciplining you because He loves you. He's not trying to hurt you, He's trying to help you. It may be painful in a moment because your pride doesn't know how to handle it. But the more you learn to love God's discipline, the more He will train you to become all that He wants you to be. God is a God of order, not a God of chaos. Last week I did mention that I was going to have a message or some chatter about blended families. I want to invite you back next week because as I was going through this message, I wanted to make sure that I gave that enough attention. So I'm going to push that back one week. We're going to talk about blended families next week. And so you got to be back for that because it's going to be very important and very good. But I want to give you an overview and a flyover of what we talked about last week about discipline. So if you're taking notes, note takers are. So get out your phone, get out your pads, however you take notes, take notes because God wants to deposit something into your life. The first one, when it comes to discipline, is you need to start now. If you don't have discipline in your own life, you need to bring it into your life. If you don't have discipline in your home with your kids, you need to bring it into your life. You need to start now. You've got to start doing it right now because we need this. The second one, again, you want to know more about that? Go to last week's message. I talk about it a lot more. The second one is we need to discipline our kids for motivation, not humiliation. Oh my goodness. Discipline for motivation, not humiliation. This is what God does for us. God says that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God does not use humiliation to correct you. He does it to encourage you, to motivate you to become more like Him. So as parents, we need to check ourselves when we are bringing discipline into our house. Are we doing something in a manner that is humiliating to our kids? This can apply in the workplace. If you're a coach, if you're a teacher, are you humiliating your students? Are you humiliating your players? Whatever it is, is it to motivate or is it to humiliate? Discipline for motivation, not humiliation. Here's the third one. Don't give in or no one will win. So this one gets a little personal for, well, it's personal for all of us, but it's personal for me. But how many of y'all, you get to the end of your day and man, you've been dealing with all the adult children at work and maybe it's your boss and maybe it's your coworkers and then you come home and all those crazies are going crazy and you're like, I don't have, I can't deal with this crazy anymore. Anyone? And so what happens? You stop disciplining. You stop engaging because you're tired, you're whipped. You're just like, I can't do this anymore. And here's the deal. Your parents, yes, you lose and your kids lose when you give in. Don't give in or no one will win. Again, you're training your kids to have all that God wants for them. Here's the fourth one. Punishment is a part of discipline and the punishment should match the crime. So last week, I didn't say this in first service, but we're online this service, so I'm going to say this. So last week I talked about being late. Do y'all remember that? How many of y'all are late people? Raise your hand. Most of you are lying. Anyways, all right. Have you guys ever given your kids a curfew? You probably have to do that as you have older kids, like we have younger kids in the room, but you give your kid a curfew and then they're 15 minutes late, what's the punishment? Yeah, it's typically nothing, right? You're just like, okay, do better next time. Well, guess what? Those of you who work with all the adult children that are always late, guess what their parents never did? They never gave them consequences for being late. I had a really tense moment with our staff this week because I decided that I needed to practice what I preach. And so on Monday morning, I sent a text out and I said, if anyone's late, don't bother they're coming to the meeting. Oh my gosh. They're like, thank you for saying this so last minute. Listen, listen, I had a moment where I had to say, I haven't enforced this and yet I've seen people late every week. You picking up what I'm putting down? The punishment needs to match the crime. I've also heard this, you know, so in our culture, we've seen all sorts of crime happening and all sorts of things that are going absolutely crazy in our world. And we're like, why is this happening? Can I tell you a lack of discipline, a lack of punishment? I'll never forget this. When I was in seminary, I had an old Testament professor who was also our Hebrew professor. By the way, the old Testament is mostly written in the Hebrew language. And after class, he would always allow us to ask questions. And a lot of questions, you know, especially for Christians is like, you know, all those rules that God had about justice and judgment and discipline back in the old Testament, like should those exist in the new Testament? And it's what they're called the civil laws, right? And civil laws are made by governments. And so in the civil laws, right, is the Israelite people got taken out of Egypt. God had to establish some civil laws so they knew how to treat each other. So what did he say? He said things like, if you kill someone, you're going to die. If you murder someone, you no longer have your life. If you steal something, you no longer have your hand. You picking up what I'm putting down? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, like that's the judgment of God. So listen to me for just a second. So one of our students in our seminary class approached, you know, got up and raised her hand and said, Hey, so should we have laws like that that exist today? And I'll never forget his response. His response was we'd probably have a lot less crime. Like people might actually think about their actions before they do it. They might think about not killing someone if they knew that no matter what, they were going to lose their life too. They might think twice about I just like that key chain. I don't know what people steal these days. I mean, there's a lot or that soap or, you know, I don't know. My daughter asked, I don't even know why I'm saying this. We have this game. We have these little cards on our dinner table that are like conversation starters. Have you seen these? And you pull out a card and they have these great questions. And one of the cards that my kids pulled out yesterday was like, Hey, if you needed medicine, if you needed medicine and you didn't have money for it, would it be okay for you to just steal it? That was a question at my dinner table last night. And I'm so proud of my kids because you know what they said? No, there's lots of ways to get medicine. Matter of fact, if you need it, let us know. We'll help you. But just because you need something doesn't mean it gives you the right to take it. And God has punishment and he has justice. Why? To protect people from evil. Do you understand this? He wants you to become the right kind of people. And so he brings punishment into our lives. Punishment is a part of discipline and punishment should match the crime. Here's number five. Here's where we're starting fresh this morning. Number five is call it tight and they'll get it right. So parents, in your kids, with your kids, you need to have, you need to call it, you need to set the expectation and you need to call it tight and then they'll get it right. Here's what I mean. How many of y'all watch football games or basketball games or lacrosse games or any kind of game that has a referee? I feel like more of you do. I mean, come on, you can, it's okay. Like it's, no one's shaming you, right? But how many of y'all get so frustrated at the referees? Like at the end of a game, you're like, if they wouldn't have made that call, we don't want the game blah, blah, blah. And I know this is true because I see your posts on social media. The Lions would have won. They didn't, they called it on them. They didn't call it on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So if you're a referee or an official of some sort in a game, they're actually trained, they are coached, uh, to call it tight so that the players can get an understanding of what the game is going to look like. So when they're calling it tight in the beginning of the game, the players react and they go, oh my gosh, we got to get it together. I can't hold. I can't, I can't go off, off sides. I can't do all these things. And then as the game progresses and they start to kind of, you know, they're, they're not following each other all the time or not doing a bunch of illegal things. They start to loosen it up, right? This is what happens in the game. So parents, especially parents of young kids, you got to call it tight so that they'll get it right. Here's another way to put it. And I even use this phrase with our staff members. Again, if you're a note taker, this'll change your life. Uh, people don't do what you expect. People don't do what you expect. They do what you inspect. People don't do what you expect. They do what you inspect. So parents, you set the expectation that your kid would be there at 10 o'clock. Like the curfew was 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock. If you don't know when your kid is coming home, they'll never live up to that expectation. Our meeting, so our staff is listening. They're not in the room. They're listening in. Our meeting starts tomorrow at 9 a.m. It doesn't start at 9 0 1. It doesn't start at 9 0 2. Do you know that every single weekend we start this service on time, whether you're here or not, you're like, I'm always here at the second song. Well, it's because you're late. I must have an issue with lateness. I need therapy. All right. Anyways, or I need you guys to be on time. Okay. Anyway, uh, you know, the inconsistency is very frustrating. Do you know why you're frustrated with the refs? Is because you're like, man, they called it this way for that team, but they didn't call it this way for my team. Y'all are y'all ever in the workplace and you're like, man, the boss, the boss had this expectation for them. But I mean, but then they come consistency. If it's inconsistent, it's so frustrating. Refs, the justice system. And you call it tight and they'll get it right. And for parents, listen, this is, this is one of the hard things. This is why we need the Bible. This is where we need God's word to constantly remind ourselves of what he says so we could have his priorities and his ways in our lives and for our kids, for our marriages, for our families. But man, when it comes to kids, especially, especially younger kids and they get older, man, you can't have a zillion rules that they have no idea what they are and the consistency of it. They don't know how to live up to it. So here's one of the most frustrating things too. You've never set expectations. This is true as a coach. This is true as a leader in business. This is true of any, if your people don't know what the expectations are, it's not their problem. It's your problem because you didn't define the expectations. Guess what? God has defined expectations for our lives. And so we can't get frustrated when people are missing the mark who we're supposed to be leading our kids if we've never set the expectations. We got to make sure that kids know the rules, the boundaries of our household, and then we need to inspect what we expect. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? All right. Here's a, oh, there it is. Consistency and reliability equals security. Consistency and reliability equals security. Here's the counterpart. The counterpart, oh, let me, nope, don't move it. Don't move it. Don't, okay. Why is this crucial for us to understand? Our God is consistent. Our God is consistent. He is unwavering. The Bible says that he is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He is trustworthy. He is consistent. You can rely on him all the time. Here's the opposite. Inconsistency and unreliability equals insecurity. So let's appropriate this to our kids, right? Parents, if we have kids in our house, I've never met the parent. I've never met them. I've never heard these words come out of a parent's mouth. Man, I really wish my kids would be insecure and have low self-esteem. I've never met the parent who has wanted their kid to be insecure and have low self-esteem. Do you know why they become that? Inconsistency and unreliable. Inconsistency and unreliability. If you want secure kids, you've got to have consistency and reliability in your marriage, in your home, in your place of work. This is so important. Inconsistency, listen to me, inconsistency and unreliability will lead to insecurity. It is a fruit that will come out of it. Insecurity in your marriage and certainly in your kids. Let me get specific. Before I get started in this, I'm going to smile and I'm going to tell you again that God shares these things with us because he loves us. It's not because he wants to hurt us, he wants to help us. He wants to help you, he wants to help your family, he wants your marriage to be awesome and your kids to thrive. Are you with me? Kids who are frequently drunk or high on mushrooms or weed or hopefully nothing worse, I don't even know all that's out there. Do you think that they are reliable? Do you think that they are consistent? You might say, man, Dan, I was here last week and you seemed to be really picking on these things lately and I'm going to tell you why. The reason why is because I'm seeing so many Christians that think that those things are okay and they are not. And here's what happened, right? A couple of years ago, Michigan passed a law that made weed specifically legal. You can drive up and down the street and you've got more dispensaries in this town than you do coffee shops. I'll never forget when that law passed, I mean it's passed all across our nation and there's a group of pastors that we're friends with and associated with and we're on a Facebook group together and we're talking about like how do we address this, what happens, like it's so confusing and what do we tell people and I'll never forget this. There was a pastor that's in our group from Amsterdam who said, man, this has been illegal for decades in Amsterdam and it's not a thing in the church. It's not a thing for Christians. They know it's not okay for Christians to do. And yet now I'm seeing so many Christians who are like, they're high on this and they're high on that and here's what I've even heard. Can I get real for a second? Like abundantly and you know that I still love you, right? I've heard people say, these are Christians, like I'm not talking about lost people, illegitimate, like these are Christians in churches who are telling me that they've never had more spiritual experiences in their life since smoking weed or doing mushrooms or whatever. Let me be abundantly clear. That is not God. That is a drug that has the drug, the substance has a psychoactive ingredient that is titillating your brain, thinking you're having experience and it is not God. It is not God. It is a counterfeit. It is a false God. It's an idol and I can't, again, I'm saying this because I love you, God loves you. I can't think or I can't imagine anything being more offensive to Jesus than us thinking that that's Him. Are you feeling me? Yes. Chris stood up here and said that when he came here, he was addicted. I want to tell you something that there's many of you, and by the way, if you have friends that are struggling with addiction, you need to be here because while the whole world wants to say, do whatever you want and your life is filled with chaos and struggle and strife, this is a place where you can come and say, hey, I have a problem and I need help and we're going to help you. There's no perfect people allowed here, but I got to tell you something that when you come into a relationship with Jesus, He wants to clean house. He wants to make your life better. He wants to call you up and not just call you out. He wants more for you and the people that we've seen get clean from all sorts of substances, whether it's pornography or pot or mush, whatever the addiction is, it's gambling. Their life is better. Are we good? Can you all not walk out of here and ignore me? I will hug you. I do love you, but we got to be consistent. We got to be reliable. How many of you all have been in our world today, especially in Michigan and Kalamazoo and you're like, what is that smell? You all know what it is. And then you're wondering why your order that you ordered at the restaurant is all sorts of messed up. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm saying. Call it tight and they'll get it right. Proverbs 1532 says, if you reject discipline, you only harm yourself. Listen to me what I'm talking about over these last couple of minutes. If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself. But if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding. I love what Jesus said. Jesus said that our lives, our heart, our minds, our souls, the illustration he used was soil. And so if you're hearing a message like this, if you're hearing the word of God preached and you're seeing the word of God shared in a place like this, and it's confronting things in you that are not good for you, that God sees as wrong or not the best for your life, we need to check the condition of our soil. And some of you, you come up to me after a service, there's usually like two of you that come up to me after a service and say, pastor, that was the, that was the, it was like that message was directly for me. And I want to tell you something. Thank you for the compliment, but has nothing to do with me. When God speaks to you in a service like this, it's because of his word and it's because of his Holy Spirit. When you say something like that was the exact message that I needed to hear. Listen to me. I'm not that good. I didn't know you needed to hear that like you did, but God does. He does. And his word is alive and active. But here's what happens. The condition of our soil. Jesus says that when the, when the word of God is preached, when the word of God is shared, when we read it, we need to be in control of the condition of the soil. If you're going to sow a seed into ground and it's filled with rocks or weeds, like what happens? It doesn't grow like it's supposed to. So when you walk out of a message, no matter what the message is, if you walk out of a message, staying in offense, staying frustrated, then you need to check the condition of your soil. What is the receptivity of God's word that he wants to plant deep into your lives to help you and to change you for the better? Are you, are you with me? Here's the, here's the sixth one. We got to be specific. We got to be specific. Again, we got to set expectations and we got to be specific. Listen, God is so specific. He is so specific. Do you have anger issues? God talks about anger. He talks about when you should be angry. He talks about when you shouldn't. He talks about how you should, how you should handle your anger. Are you grieving? He talks about grief. When you're hurting, he talks about how to help you. Are you hurting? He talks about how to pick you up, how to have joy and peace, who you should marry, who you shouldn't marry. It's in God's word, it's specific. How to love my wife, how to love my, I almost said how to love my husband. That's a totally not right message. How to love my wife, how to love your husband, how to handle finances. What do we do? How do we steward the money and the resources God has? How to raise kids? How to forgive someone who has hurt you? How to ask for forgiveness? God's word is so specific. What is God's word? It's parents, leaders, Christians. We gotta be specific in how we're disciplining our kids and what the expectation is for our homes.

Sometimes, again, going back to that last statement, sometimes you might come here and go, this guy's an idiot. And other times you might think, man, he knows a lot about a lot. Again, I'm not that good. This is. This is. If you think something is good or it's wise, it ain't from me. I didn't write it. God did. And we need it. Proverbs 10, 17 says, people who accept discipline are on the pathway to life, but those who ignore correction will go astray. How many of you have had that in your life where the church was trying to share something with you or a pastor or a teacher or a Christian who called you up, who called you up, they weren't just calling you out and you ignored what they said and your life went astray. And chaos ensued. And you found yourself in a place that you never wanted, you never desired, and you got there anyway because you rejected discipline, you rejected punishment, you rejected the ways of God. Here's number seven. You gotta stay on the same page. This has got an exclamation point. Where is it? Stay number seven. Stay on the same page. Stay on the same page. Stay on the same page. Pastor, but my ex. Stay on the same page. Stay on the same page. But pastor, you don't understand. No, stay on the same page. Stay on the same. Who is God? He's consistent. He's reliable. But God is also the Trinity, right? He's the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, three and one. He's unified. Husband and wives, you need to be unified. Kids, this is like, I don't even need to share this phrase. Kids like to divide and conquer. Kids, I'm looking at some of you young adults, hey kids, do you ever try to, no, I'm not gonna pick on you. Parents, you know what I'm talking about. Mommy said, I could do this. I don't outright call my kid a liar, but I don't believe a word they say. Because they like to divide and conquer. They go up to Kelsey and they'll say, dad said we could or dad said I can do this. Stay on the same page. I don't go to my kids and say, well, what does mommy say? What did daddy say? I know the next words out of their mouths are not what mommy or daddy said. I'm gonna go to Kelsey, I'm gonna go to my wife, you gotta go, you gotta be on the same page. Why? Because kids CEOs are running the show. And they'll come up to you, right? How many of you know adult children in your workplace? And they'll go, it's not fair, it's not fair, they're in ten for tantrums all the time and they're always late. He knows. I completely forgot what I was saying. Kids are running the show. Parents, you're acting like kids. You're giving in to every demand that your kid's CEO is making and it's ruining your home, it's ruining your marriage, and you're not training them to leave. There is power in unified leadership. Listen to me, it is fine to argue married couples, parents of kids, even if you're separated or divorced, it's okay to argue or have disagreeing opinions or to discuss things behind closed doors. Not in front of your kids. Because when you walk out in front of your kids, you're what? You're on the same page. Unified. Unified. Listen, if a team, how many of y'all are Michigan Wolverine fans? The only reason they won a national championship this year is because they were unified from top to bottom. They were unified in message, they were unified in mission, they were unified in how they were gonna work hard to do it. They were unified as a team. Yeah, they might have had disagreements with their assistant coaches, with their head coaches, but when they walked in to public, they were what? Unified. Leadership teams in business, unified. In nonprofit boards, unified. Parents, unified. We gotta stay on the same page. The best thing, and the best thing, here's what's awesome. The best thing about Kelsey and I, that came out wrong. The best thing about Kelsey and I, we're really cool. The best thing that Kelsey and I do is we are consistently in the house of God. You're like, but you work here. Yes, that's true. We're also consistently in the word of God. Why? Because we need to know what the word of God says. It corrects us, it changes us, it helps us to stay on the same page. And one of the best things that we do is we partner with the local church who preaches these godly, transcendent values to our kids. When they go to our kids' ministry, they're learning these things. Parents, the big 10, it says, honor your father and mother that you would live a long life on the earth. Do you have kids that you would love to have honor you and respect you? None of you? I want that. I also need to understand that I'm an adult child that needs to honor and respect my parents. These values are taught everywhere. They're taught in the local church. They're taught in the local house of God. So we have phenomenal opportunities for kids and students to learn these transcendent values for their lives because God says that what you train them in, they will not leave it when they're older. And even if they do for a minute, they'll know where to turn back. They'll know what to come back to. Something that is consistent and reliable, it's God. Here's number eight. Apologize and you will build trust. This is parents to your kids. Apologize to your kids. Here's what we do. You must have heard me wrong. Right? When we apologize, we say things like, oh, you heard me wrong. Oh, no, no, no, no. I didn't mean it that way. You just heard what I said wrong. And guess what? We're not owning what we did. We're blaming them for what we did. See what I'm saying? Some of you are like, I don't get it. You took it the wrong way. It's your fault you didn't hear me right. No, no, no. A real apology owns what you did. I've been told for years, and I think it's gotten better. You can ask our staff, my family, people who know me the best. I've been told, and you guys probably feel it. I am an intense human being, but I'm also a teddy bear. I promise. I will hug you if you want me. If you want to hug afterwards, I'll hug you. I've been told for years that it's not necessarily that what I'm saying is wrong, but how I say it. I can say things that might be right, but it's demeaning, or it's humiliating. Like when I send a staff text and say, if you're not here by 9 a.m., don't bother coming to the meeting. And then I set that expectation that day, and then two people walk in completely humiliated. Guess what I had to do? What I said wasn't wrong, but I apologize that I put him in that position. But guess what? This week, if they're late, they know the expectation. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? You got to apologize. Here's the phrase that I want you to learn and put deep inside of your heart. Here it is. Wait for it. Ready? Let's repeat it after me. Let's go together. I'm sorry. I was wrong when I ... and be specific. Do you know what that tells your kids? It tells your kids that you know exactly what you did wrong. Do you know what one of the most important things for kids to learn is? To know exactly what they did wrong so that they know how to get it right the next time. You're training them. You're modeling them. You're creating an environment where they know it's okay to mess up. It's okay to make mistakes. Listen, all you potheads and mushroom smokers ... I don't even know what you do with mushrooms. I'm just being honest. I have no idea. I love mushrooms, but I have no ... not that. I just don't get it. Anyways, you are welcome at New Life Church. There's no perfect people out here. But God wants you to be free. God wants you to be healthy and whole. He wants the best for your life. And He corrects you, and He punishes you, and He brings you discipline for your good because He loves you. And so if you have an addiction, I'm so glad you're here. This is the place you need to be. But can I tell you something? Stay there. Don't stay in that addiction. Don't stay in that issue. We will help you. Right, Chris? We will help you to have the best for your life. So we're going to ask for forgiveness. Why? Because forgiveness is the foundational value of our entire faith. And it's the experience that we want to be played out in our marriages and in our family. We have too many families who are being ripped apart because they don't have anybody who's owning their mistakes, who's owning their sin, and when they get it wrong. And then over and over and over again, it builds and builds and builds and builds until we just can't handle anymore, and we bail. And marriages are over, and families are destroyed. Next week, again, I'm going to talk about forgiveness. I'm going to talk about blended families. I know so many of you are in it, and it's one of the hardest messages to preach when I'm preaching God's word of telling you how not to live, but some of you have gone that way and you've reaped the consequences of that sin, but we need to help. Can you be with me? Can we help to protect marriages and families going forward? Because those of you who may have been separated, again, I'm going into next week's message for a minute, but those of you who have first separated, listen to me. There is forgiveness. There is renewal. And here's what God wants for you. He wants you to get it right next time. Apologize. Ask for forgiveness. This is not weakness. It's strength. But when you own it, your kids need to see you change. They need to see you change. It's not going to happen overnight. Matter of fact, you probably have to apologize again. In your marriage, you probably have to apologize again, right, guys? Keep that phrase in your back pocket. That way it's readily accessible. They need to see us own it, and they need to see us change and grow.

Full Sermon Transcript

I was thinking about this this morning as I was preparing for preaching this message, giving this message, and I began to think about gravity. Do you know what gravity is? You have to go back to the school days and remember the definition of gravity. What is gravity? Well, gravity is in its simplest terms, it was brings two objects together. The reason that you're sitting in the seat right now and not just floating off into the universe is because of gravity. You need gravity. I need gravity to be planted, to be on a firm

foundation, to not live in chaos. And so literally God made this place to have gravity. We needed

it. We needed a firm foundation because what God is a God of order and not a God of chaos. But here's what our lives look like. Our kids' lives, our marriages, our families. If it isn't for the word of God and the church of the living God that preaches the word of God and the Holy Spirit of God that keeps us grounded in our life, here's what happens. You see, sin has a gravitational pull. You and I, we tend to go sin's direction. I don't think I have to convince you of this, but it has a gravitational pull. The way I put it this way is sin has its kicks, but it has its Chuck Norris-like kickbacks. I used to jump when I did that, but I'm afraid of pulling muscles these days. I'm not as young and fresh as I used to be. But sin can be fun, right man? Going out and getting some drinks can be fun, man. Smoking pot can be fun, man. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be fun, man. Man, going out with the people, man, that can be fun. There's so many things. There's so many things that are fun, that are sinful, and it takes you away from God and takes you away from God's best for your life. And so here's what we do with sin. The gravitational pull, we see the world and we see, man, how many of you all have said this phrase before? Well, everybody else is doing it. Am I the only one that said that? Okay, I just wanted to make sure I was at Safe Company. But it has a gravitational pull. We look and we say, hey, man, man, they're doing it and they're doing it. And this is how life has just lived. Man, you go to college and you think, man, this is just ... And what do we

do? We jump on the gravitational pull of sin and we're like, man, that seems like a ride. Whoo! Y'all are afraid I was actually going to jump, didn't you? But guess what happens

when you do that? Splat! Splat! Oh yeah, right last week I said that we have the tendency

to walk on the edge and the ledge of danger and on the edge and ledge of, is that sinful? Is it not sinful? Is it gray? We get as close to the line as possible hoping not to fall off. And then we do and then we go, God save us. Guess what? His word and his truth and

his spirit has tried to convince you and teach you not to even get close to the line, to not give in to the gravitational pull of sin and the ways of the world, the people around you that are pulling you away from God. And yet this is where we find ourselves and so what do we got to do? We've got to fight. We've got to fight. Today's message is a powerful one but you have to embrace what the word of God says and live it out so it can make amazing fruit come out of your life. When God says hard things to you, when he says things that are kind of boundaries or what you should do and shouldn't do, listen to me, do you know why he does that? It's not because he's a cosmic killjoy. It's because he wants the best for you. And too often we don't want the best for ourselves which is why we give in to the gravitational pull of sin but God wants to bring us back to his solid foundation that's based on his truth, his word. And so here it is. In Hebrews 12 verse 6 through 8, this is from the NLT New Living Translation, it says for the Lord, God is the Lord of the New Living Translation, it says for the Lord, okay I forgot to tell you that that's your role today. I did that a few weeks ago maybe last week, can't remember but let's do it again because I like, man a dead church is what? A quiet church is a dead church and we're not a dead church. Are you guys dead? Check your pulse, right? Don't touch the person next to you but I think they're still alive. Okay, so when you see a highlighted word, let's all say it out loud, okay? So for the Lord, disciplines. Okay, I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna say disciplines and you're gonna say he loves because it's highlighted in mind. See here's proof, here, zoom in, zoom in, there's proof. Guys, let's get moving. For the Lord, those, can I tell you something? When God corrects you, it's because he loves you. Man, but we've gotten so used to man, oh we're just namby pamby, you can't tell people that they're wrong and that their behavior stinks and they got to get it together and change some things and oh my gosh, give me a break. The Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one that he accepts as his son, read also here, daughter. And as you endure his divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. You ever heard of a child who has never disciplined by his father? I bet you all know a few, I bet you all know a few kids that have lacked discipline from their mom and dad. If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you're actually illegitimate, that's the word, and are not really his children at all. But pastor, aren't we all God's children? No. We were created in God's image but we destroyed that image. The only way you get that image back, the only way you get back into God's family is through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. You are adopted as a son and daughter of the most high God but those who reject him, they are not sons and daughters of God. Are you with me? Again, I'm a little bit intense because, and by the way, when I get intense, I'm passionate because I hope that you and I can get what God wants for us in this. But here's the, if you're taking notes, by the way, note takers are world changers, take notes. Discipline is not something Jesus does to us, it's something he does for us. It's something he does for us. I don't discipline my kids, I don't punish my kids when they do something wrong just because I get kicks out of it. Right? I don't just do it because, man, this is really fun to just correct you and punish you. But man, they benefit from it. They benefit, I've benefited from the correction that God has brought as parents have brought it into my life. And so we've got to see in this message, we've got to see the beauty and the goodness of discipline and even of punishment. It's actually family, right? Is the foundation of God's kingdom. He often refers to us, right? As his, as his bride. We're the body of Christ, we're the family of God. And so he's going to discipline those he loves. Discipline exists to make us into the best version of us that God created and intended us to be. So even while there's this gravitational pull towards sin, man, God is trying to bring us back into his original design, his original intention for what he has for your life. Do you believe that? He, some of you are convinced. He does. He's doing this for your good. Proverbs 1510 says this, there's severe discipline for him who turns away, goes towards the gravitational pull of sin, turns away from the way of God of righteousness and he who hates correction. You guys are awesome. He who hates correction will die.

Are you facing the chaos and the death of your choices, of your sinful decisions? Are you facing those consequences? Because whether you like it or not, you're facing the consequences of sin. You're facing the punishment from God for your sin. Now, because of Jesus, he took upon himself the punishment, which we deserve, which you deserve, which is death, he took it upon himself so that you could be forgiven. But can I tell you one of the major misconceptions of the Christian faith is that you can just make a decision and say, be my savior, separate from him also being our Lord. Do I need to say that again? Like you want fire insurance to escape hell and eternity away from God. And so you'll say in a moment where you're just feeling all good and we're all happy and glad and peppy and man, the worship really hit me and I'm sobbing and I'm crying and I'm experiencing the grace and the mercy of God. And you're like, man, I need Jesus. I need a savior. And the next day you become an illegitimate son again, because you keep living in the gravitational pull of sin and you're destroying your life. And here's what you're doing. You're basically flipping off the savior of the world. You're saying, I don't actually need what you have. You're saying, I don't actually want to love correction. I don't want to embrace that. I'm just going to go my own way, live my own life. And guess what you're saying to God? You're saying, God, you're not God. I am

not God. Aren't y'all glad you came to church today? My wife was looking at me like, dude,

I promise this is because I love you. I love you. And God loves us enough to put us in this sermon today, into this message today to share with us. And by the way, just a side note, do you know why it's so important that we make a devotion to God to be here every single weekend and to be in the God's word every single day is because the gravitational pull of sin is going to take you out. It's hard. How many of you have come close to God and then all of a sudden drifted come close to God and you're having this amazing experience and God's doing something amazing. And I have, welcome to life on planet earth. Discipline is about order. When your life is out of order, out of sync with what God's ways say, God sees an opportunity to bring you back into how his loving ways tell us to live our lives. And it's for our good. God is a God of order. God allows you to face the consequences of your sin, of my sin, man. It's very popular, right? These days and really probably all of life to, to watch pornography. You might not share that. You might not step up on the stage and go, man, I really love me some pornography. I got an addiction to pornography. No, you feel like it's wrong, right? In your, in your spirit. You're like, I don't know. And man, I remember having a conversation with my mom one time because the reason I got into porn originally was because my dad had Playboy magazines all over my house, readily accessible to like an eight year old kid. Now I had a loving dad. He was a great, but can I tell you that was a terrible dad decision. That was a terrible dad decision to have just playboys and pornography scattered throughout our house for his tiny little child to access. And how about this one, man, it's really popular to, to live with someone who's not your spouse. It's really popular to sleep with someone who you're not married to. When the Bible says that we are not to defile the marriage bed, we're to keep it holy to God. Oh boy. Oh, I struck a nerve.

And so consequences, punishment, and we're not even getting into homosexuality in this moment. Do you know why we have an issue with STDs? Sexually transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted infections. It's a consequence of sin. It's a punishment for sinful behavior. Oh God, it's just scientific. It's just, no, it's, it's God telling you this is a wrong decision and you're facing the consequences of that sinful decision. Now this is just one example. How about, how about this one? People hate this one because people get funny when you talk about money. How about faithfulness to God in giving and generosity and tithing to the local body, right? We, we, our prayers all the time is God bless me, bless me, bless me. I need that job. I, I need this to, I mean, I need to get my finances in order. I need to be blessed, man. Give me more, give me more. I want that house. I want that car, man. Just give me, give me, bless me, bless me, bless me. God says in Malachi chapter three that those who don't tie, those who don't bring the first 10% of their income to the local house, the storehouse, he calls them thieves. Malachi chapter three, verse 10, that it literally, if you don't, he says, he says, how are you stealing? How are we thieves? They said, because you're robbing God of bringing the tithe into the local house.

Let me ask you a question.

Would you bless someone that you call a thief? Huh. No, he said, bring the whole tithe, the whole tithe, not, not reserving some, not putting some here and there and bring the whole 10%, the first 10%. Why does he demand the first? God is a God of what? First. What, right? This whole series has been God, you are first. He's first. He's first. Our marriage is second. Our kids are third. Our lives are far beneath that. God is first. Why do we bring the first 10% to God? Because he's first, because he's first. Now in that same scripture, in that same scripture, Malachi chapter three, he says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, into the church, the place where his, he is worshiped and where his word is preached. He makes you and I a promise that if we do that, he will open the floodgates of heaven and bless you and protect you. So your prayers have been, God bless me. God bless me. God protect me. Man, crap is hitting the fan. I need you. I need you. He's telling you, put him first, bring the tithe and he promises to deliver blessing and protection. God is a God of order. God is a God of order. God, listen, God will not be second or third. He will not be second or third. He will not be fourth. He will not be fifth. He will not be, he will always be first, whether you put him there or not.

You don't want to get practical. Can we get practical? I'm going to move from preaching to teaching. Can I do that? Can I make that transition? Y'all have gotten a little bit too much of my intensity for one day. Welcome to New Life Church. I promise I am friendly and I will hug you after this service. If you want it, I'm not a hugger, right? I've made that clear. Let's get practical. In the next two messages that I'm going to get very practical of how we bring discipline into our lives and into our homes for our marriages, for our kids, for our wellbeing. There's going to be eight objectives of discipline that come from the scriptures. I'm going to start with four today. I tried to weave them all into all eight, but as time as you don't want to be here all day. Okay. All right. I'm going to start with four and then I'm going to give you four more next week. By the way, there's a specific word I'm going to bring next week about blended families. How many of don't raise your hand? It doesn't matter. But man, some of you are like, what do I do? We have a blended family. I've been down a road and maybe I regret that road or maybe some things happen that I wish never happened. Guess what? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's a word for you and I'm going to bring it next week. Okay. So blended families, you're going to want to be here next week. It's going to be a good one. And then four more objectives of discipline. Here's the first one. You and I need to start embracing discipline now. God disciplines those he loves. He punishes those he loves. He does it for our benefit. And listen, it doesn't matter if you're a student, it doesn't matter if you're married, almost married, not married, don't have kids, man, you got to embrace the Lord's discipline. Now start developing it and embracing God's discipline for your life. It's for your good. Here's what Hebrews 1211 says. It says for the moment, all disciplines seems painful rather than pleasant. Amen. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. God is trying to do something in and through your life. He's trying to develop you into the best version that he has for you. Proverbs 12, one says, whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.

I'm going to step out on a limb here and I'm going to share something.

We got an email. We got an email a few weeks ago. By the way, this isn't the easiest job, right, at getting up in your grill like this. Sometimes it's cupcakes and rainbows, but today is not one of those days. Someone said, if you don't want to offend anyone, go sell ice cream. I agree. I'd like to sell ice cream.

We got an email a few weeks ago of someone who came to the church and I literally, I looked into the crowd one day and I said, kids, y'all are stupid.

You're welcome. You're welcome. It's naive. It's naivety. You're growing, you're developing, you're being trained to be awesome by God. And the people said, thank you for the word, but

we out. It's basically what it said. Because you said our kids are stupid. Can I tell you something? I'm stupid. When I don't embrace the correction of God, I'm stupid. When you don't embrace the correction and the punishment of God, the God's word, you're stupid because it's for your good. And so I just, you know, I don't, I think we replied. Didn't we reply? I think we replied. She says focus. All right. Anyways,

the Bible said, you're stupid. So I'm just going to go with you're stupid. I'm stupid. We need to heed his correction. All right, let's move on. Proverbs 13, 24 says, whoever spares the rod hates his son. Read here, whoever doesn't discipline their son or daughter hates their son or daughter.

Parents, if you don't discipline your kids, you're telling them you do not like them. You actually hate them. And all of us are facing the consequences of those poor decisions.

I'll never forget this. I have a little bit of time. I have time. Okay.

Yes, I do. I'll never forget this. When, when our kid was our daughter, our oldest daughter was like two or three. You've all, you've all seen this in the grocery store. Right. In the middle of an aisle. And my wife, instead of like discipling our child, she gets on her phone and just takes a picture of it. Or no, no, no. You took a video. You took a video and you posted on Instagram or whatever, all the stuff, all the stuff. And all the moms were like, yeah, I can relate. That's ridiculous. Okay. Okay. How do I, how do I get y'all to love me after that?

Everyone in the store is like, who the crap kids is that? And all the parents are looking at that go, I know you get it. I know you understand. I know what you've, you've been there before, which is what you got in social media. You're like, that's real life. That's so good. That's, I can relate. Thank you for sharing that. That's good. But can I tell you that's not an excuse for you not to discipline your child who's throwing a tantrum. Have you ever met an adult kid that you work with that throws tantrums? Do you know why they're doing it? Because they weren't disciplined by their parents. Are you picking it up? Number two, discipline for motivation and not humiliation. Who is it? This is important. Oh, by the way, spare the rod hates his son. The, the, the word, what, what was the scripture that you shared with me this morning? In Psalms, it literally says, David says that, that God's rod and his staff, they comfort me. He's, he's declaring it's good for me. I love the fact that you're, I'm, I'm facing the gravitational pull of my sin and my decisions, but your rod a little, Hey, a little tap on the head. Hey, you knucklehead, bring it back. He realizes, man, it's good for him. It's, it's good for him. There's comfort there. And we need to get that discipline. Number two is discipline for motivation, not humiliation. I'm going to do all the humility, self humiliation for you on the stage today. Obviously. Ephesians six, four says fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial. In other words, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me describe it this way. If you're disciplining your kids just to make you feel better, you're not actually doing it for them. You're doing it for you.

Oh boy. Fine line there. That's harder to live out, isn't it? I'm preaching to myself right now. Demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive, right? Proverbs 13, 24, whoever spares the rod hates his son. That, that verse has probably been used to abuse kids for, for years. And it's just not, it's just not accurate. It's not, Hey, go beat your kids. Nor by showing favoritism or indifference to any of them. In other words, man, do any of you discipline some, but not the other, or maybe the consequences for some a little bit looser than the other. Man, you, you first born children. You're solid. And then kid two, kid three, kid four, kid five, they gave up. Don't give up. I, Kelsey, I live with you. You're a third born. I get it. I know. Our baby boy, our one year old boy can do no wrong in your eyes or who or my eyes. Okay. All right. Now she's meddling. Number three, don't give in or no one will win. Don't give up. Don't give in or no one's going to win. The best message, listen to me, the best message that I will ever preach is not going to happen on this stage. It's not going to happen with bacon. How many of y'all missed that message last week? Can I get some bacon? I couldn't figure out how to bring it into this message. Otherwise I would have had a little side snack. The best sermon I will preach is my relationship with my wife and it's the relationship and discipline and the raising of my kids. The best message I will ever preach is lived out in who my family is, my relationship with my wife, my bride, and my relationship with my kids. God first, marriage second, kids third. Kids, there's some of you in the room. Obey your parents. This is one parent got really excited about that. Parents, parents, you want to know why it's important to have your kids in church every single week is because I'm preaching messages like this one. I'm backing you up. You should get excited. Some of you are grandparents wishing that I would have preached this to them.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Me? Kids obey your parents. Respect your parents. Listen to me. Submit to your parents authority. Your parents have been given authority in your lives by God. Submit to their authority. Submit. Say it, kids, kids, say it with me. You're all kids, by the way. Kids, I am going to submit to my parents let's say it again. All kids. I'm going to submit to my parents authority. Guess what? You might ask the question, well, when does that authority end? Never. Now, if you want to start thinking about how you're going to actually live out your life in your own house and your own marriage and with your own kids, yeah, things can change a little bit, but really it's honor your father and mother. Obey your parents in the Lord. It's one of the top 10, the big 10 commandments, and God has a promise attached to it. Do you know what the promises? That if you obey your parents, you will live a long life. How many of y'all want to live a long life?

And so every time you think about disobeying your parents, just ask yourself that question. Do I want to live?

And do I want to live a long time? Yeah. God disciplines us because He loves us. Parents, we need to discipline our kids because we love them. Because we love them. Hebrews 10, or excuse me, Hebrews 12, 10 through 11 says for our earthly fathers, right, disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. Again, I'm coming back to this verse, but God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in His holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening. It's painful, but afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. But what do we do? Let me ask you this question.

Do your kids know where the line is?

Can I tell you something? Parents, especially adult parents with maybe older kids. The reason why they don't know where the line is is probably because you're not even living within that line. Your parents have picked up stuff from you of you crossing the line. And they're living under the consequences of the sinful decisions you did. The Bible calls this generational sin, generational patterns where you haven't seen the line and saying, man, I don't want to get close to the line. You walk on the edge and ledge and you might've even jumped over the line. You've jumped over the gravitational pull and you're wondering why your kids are going splat. It's because you're going splat. Here's another way to put it. Do your kids know where the line is and do you guard the line? Like if they cross it, is there a consequence? Is there a punishment attached? Okay. Who has like teenage kids that can drive? Some of you are like, I don't know if I should do this.

Have your kids ever come home 15 minutes late from the time you told them to come home? Was there a consequence? Was there a punishment? Oh, what if they're three minutes late?

Was there a consequence? Oh, mom and dad, mom, it's just three minutes. It's just three minutes. How many of y'all are in the workplace and you have people show up late to a meeting? It drives me freaking nuts. I think there's like a gene of like early people and late people, but also there's this is consequences of a lack of discipline that was developed in people from a young age. Can I tell you something, late people? Yes, I'm preaching at you right now. And I'm also blaming your parents. And I'm also blaming your parents.

You're not just late. You're being disrespectful to everybody else. Your lateness is affecting the entire team. When you walk into a meeting late, guess what? I'm training you to become adults. This is what we call hashtag adulting.

Can we stop being late? Like I want to help our dream team members for a moment. Stop showing up to rehearsals late. Stop showing up to make the coffee late. Stop showing up to, we all suffer. We all suffer. If you're a part of a team, if you're a part of a family, I'm getting on late people a lot. I'm gonna back off for a second. Do you get the point? Hold the line. What? Yeah, thank our dream team members.

Stop being late.

But there's a line, right? There's a line. We need to have boundaries. Kids push up against boundaries and want to know it's not going to fall over, that it's not going to all come to, you know, get all crazy wild chaos. There's order. God is a God of order. Where is the line? And when people cross it, are there consequences parents? Hold the line. Hold the line. Number four, punishment is a part of discipline and the punishment should match the crime. Let me say that again. Punishment is a part of discipline and the punishment should match the crime. Parents, here's where it's going to get really hard. And some of you are going to probably send me an email and say, Dan, you don't understand you have an eight-year-old, five-year-old, one-year-old. How many of you all think it's a privilege for kids to have a phone? It's not a right.

Kids, you're going to hate this section of the message. You're one of the greatest discipline tools available to us parents today. Give me that phone. But I won't know where my baby's at. Keep them at home.

Guess what? We didn't have cell phones when I grew up and my parents knew where I was. Well, it's debatable. I grew up in a really small town, so it's probably pretty accurate.

How about this one? You show up late.

Give me the keys.

Parents are literally in your spirit. I can feel it right now. You're like, but it's really helpful that they have keys because they can drive themselves. I don't care. To discipline your kids.

You're training them to become all that God wants for them.

Harper, my oldest, I have to get very careful about talking about my kids because then you'll go out and be like, it's really hard to be a PK, I think. Harper, just this week, we're sitting at the dinner table and we set up time limits on their iPads. Parents, this is, I'm helping you. Pick this up. There's time limits on their iPads. They can't just be gaming all the time and watching YouTube videos all the time. There's, there's time limits on their iPads. I'm trying to help you parents. There's time limits on their iPads. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? There's a timeframe in which everything on their iPad shuts off. They get like a maximum of an hour a day at the Smith house trying to help you parents. And there's a timeframe during dinner time that the whole thing shuts down because dinner time is family time.

Do you know when my kids get the most mad at me at dinner time? Harper says to me this week, she literally says, I wrote it down. I hate the time limits on my iPad.

And then we, she puts it aside. She, we start talking. We actually have these table things on. I think someone actually gave this to us. Angie Schmidt gave this to us. It's like a table talk thing. You pull out a card and it has like this question on it and we, we share things that are on the card. It gets, it helps us connect with each other. When's the last parents, when the last time you connected with your kids or you just sit at the dinner table or maybe you're never at the dinner table. And after we began having this conversation and we were playing this game and the kids got to pull cards out, Harper literally said eight year old. She said this, she said, I hate time limits, but I know it's important. I know it's good.

Parents, your kids are begging you for discipline. God is begging you to embrace discipline because it's for our good. It's because he loves us.

Full Sermon Transcript

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Full Sermon Transcript

ight, we're not fighting against each other, we're fighting what? We're fighting for each other. And it's how God has ordained it as how God has ordered it. And so we have this phrase that we're gonna fight that love is the fuel for the fight. Right? Love is an action word. It's a verb for God. So love the world he what he gave? It was an action. He gave us Jesus. He took action. Love is the fuel for God. We want to do that. Do not for the fight. Fight is conflict. We're gonna have conflict but we're not, again, we're coming from the standpoint of we're fighting for each other, we're fighting for our marriage, for our families, we're not trying to tear it apart. And then of course God wants you to win. Love, fight, win. He wants us to win, to win relationally. Well Jesus fought the good fight on your behalf and on mine. Like He did what you and I can't do. You might be in the room today and ask, how do I win? How do I win spiritually? How do I win with God? How do I make sure God is first? And I got to tell you there's a formula to it. And so we're gonna talk about that for just a second. Again, you were born into a family. I was born into a family even though I don't know my birth parents, my DNA, the blood parents that I have. I was born into a family. I had a mom and a dad whether or not they kept me or not. However, spiritually in the Bible, the Bible says that every single one of us who ever has lived is living and ever will live, was born estranged, separated from God and his family because of sin. We were born estranged, born separated from God because of sin. So what did Jesus do? Jesus fought for you. Jesus fought for me. Jesus fought on your behalf and on mine and He did what you would do if you had to face the penalty of your sin, which is what? Die. The penalty of sin is death and Jesus took the payment of your sin and my sin upon Himself. He fought for you and He did this. He fought for us. He did the work to get us, check this out, to get us adopted into God's family. The Bible calls this being born again. Now, some of you who may have grown up in the 80s or 70s, man, there was all sorts of televangelists and this kind of got a crazy mindset to it, but born again is a biblical concept. Go check out Nicodemus. I almost said Zacchaeus. It's not Zacchaeus. It's Nicodemus. Nic at night, right? Nic at night. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night and says, why do I have to be born again? Go research that story. But here's the reality and I don't want to summarize this for you because this is a formula. Here it is. We need to be born again in God. Do you want to know why we're called New Life Church? It's because you need a new life in Christ. Every single one of us needs to be born again into a new life in Christ. The old life is gone and the new life has come. So I had a seminary professor once that clarified it this way and I often I refer back to it. I think about it often. He said, if you are born twice, you'll die once. If you're born twice, you'll die once. You're born physically, born again spiritually, you will only die physically but you will live spiritually forever. That's a good news. Born twice, you'll die once. Listen to me. If you're only born once, you will die twice. If you're born once physically, you will then, if you're not born again spiritually, you will die twice. You will die physically and spiritually. This is the formula that God has put into action. You're born twice, you'll die once and live forever eternally. Your physical body will die but then you are literally given a spiritual glorified body that you were meant for for all eternity. You're born once, you will die twice. And so church, what's our mission? Our mission is to rob hell and to populate heaven. It's to get as many people adopted into the family of God as possible. How does that happen? It only happens through Jesus Christ and His salvation. We can't earn it. We can't do enough good things. A matter of fact, on your best day, you and I still fall short of God's perfection. We still miss the mark but Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that we can be adopted into the family of God. Check this out. When Jesus left His throne in heaven, now God is an all-knowing God, right? It kind of blows our mind, right? Because we're like, I know my family, I know my sister, I know my brother. How many of y'all know everyone in this room? You don't. God does. When He left His throne in heaven for God to love the world that He gave His one and only Son, He knew you. He knew you. He knew you would need Him. In this moment. Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaddy, He knew Him. My adopted parents, He knows them. I don't know them. He knows them. And guess what? He went to the cross for them. When my parents were faced with the opportunity, hey, we have this baby boy living in our house. Do you want him? My parents had a decision to make. Can I tell you something? Jesus didn't really think long and hard about trying to come to earth and live a perfect life, die a sacrificial death, and rise again to adopt you into His family. He chose you. The picture of baptism, I love it, as I share this often, I teach it this way, is baptism is like the wedding ring of the Christian faith, right? We're talking about family, we're talking about spouses, the bride of Christ, the church is the bride of Christ, it's the family of God. So what happens with the ring? You know, if I'm married to Kelsey, which I am, right? Kelsey, wave to everyone. She doesn't have a ring on today. Come up on stage. Come on. Kelsey's not wearing a ring today. You're not a single Pringle. She said she's a single Pringle. You do. So let's read the scriptures for a second. Well, we're not reading them, I'm going to explain them. Jesus was hanging on the cross and there were two thieves on each side of Him. One says, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, remember me. And Jesus's response was, friend, today you will be with me in paradise. Guess what Jesus didn't do? Jesus didn't unhitch himself from the cross, the nails pouring out of himself, and then unhang the guy on the cross next to him to get him off the cross, to baptize him, in order that he would go to paradise to be in heaven. Baptism does not save you. Faith in Jesus is the only thing that saves you. Are you following me? But what the wedding ring of the Christian faith is, is that Jesus chose me. He chose you. When I got down on my ring, on my finger, on my finger, when I got down on my finger, when I got down, I don't know what's happening. When I got down on my knee, where were we at? Well, this isn't gonna fit. I put the ring on, right? But what am I asking? I'm saying, will you choose me? This is a position of humility. Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, God Himself humbled Himself to the point of death on the cross for you and for me. He humbled Himself. And He said, would you choose me? Would you choose me? Man, there's so many other things, man, but here's the deal. You're staying up here because you're single pringle. But here's the deal. When you said yes to me, what did you do? Well, first of all, you said, ooh, shiny. Or yes, sparkly. It's sparkly. Yeah, I have nine minutes. I gotta go. Okay. But then I put the ring on, and what did my wife do? She made a decision inwardly to say, okay, He chooses me. I'm saying yes to Him. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, it's an inward decision that all of a sudden, boom, goes public. That's what baptism is. Guess what happened the day that Jesus, not Jesus, Jesus did not put His ring, my ring on His finger. Kelsey, the day I, she put my ring on her finger, what did she do on social media? You never believe what just happened. Oh my goodness. It's, I never, I dreamt of this day, you didn't do any of that. I'm making all that up. But you posted it. You said, look what happened in the whole world. But, oh, that's awesome. Congratulations. This is so cool. Guess what she was saying. She's saying, I said yes. He asked me to marry Him. I said yes. He chose me. And now, everywhere she goes, except for today, she is saying that He chose me and I belong to Him. We belong to each other. That's what baptism is. It's a public declaration of an inward faith that you have put in Jesus. Baptism is the wedding ring of the Christian faith. You can go and find your ring. One of our kids is probably wearing it right now.

Sorry, I'm, I got a little something. Okay, thank you for, for muting me for a second. I was, you don't need to hear all that. But here's, here's what happens, right? Marriage happens and life happens and man, we're so gung-ho during those, during those dating years and man, man, the time and when you're a fiance and you're getting ready for the wedding and man, we spend all this energy and man, I, I do everything, guys, right? I do everything I can to win her over and I'm gonna make myself look good and smell good. I'm gonna shower. I'm gonna take her out on all these great dates. I'm gonna shower her with praise and man, encourage her and love her and man, then we get married and then we just turn into the biggest numbskulls ever, right? And then we forget what we did to get her. Listen guys, if you want to keep your wife, you got to do what you did to get her. You got to keep doing that thing. Why? Because you chose her and so man, I love that Jesus models that he did everything possible for you to bring you back into a relationship with him and then when we accept and man, we go public with them and we declare our lives to him and we're changed. We have a new nature that's given to us. We have the Holy Spirit of God that's deposited to us on the inside. Man, it's the mark and so man, we have this scripture, Matthew 6 33 you can put on the screen. It says, seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Seek first and I said this in week one that this verse is one of those verses that might be put on a coffee mug or on a refrigerator and we get kind of all emasculated and it's just kind of like, oh this is cute and I like to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and yeah, that's all awesome. Man, Jesus fought for you. He died for you. He bled for you. He was crucified for you. I don't know about you but that's a fighter. That's a fighter and Jesus in response says, seek first his kingdom. You got to fight. You got to fight. You got to fight to seek God first. You got to fight to keep him first daily. Not just weekly. Right? We said we asked that in the pre-fight quiz is weekly church attendance. Being in the house of God, being poured into with the things of God, the preaching of God's Word in worship and we're declaring to God the first day of my week I'm giving it to you in worship. I'm dedicating it to you to be in the house of God. Are you fighting to keep God first and then are you living out his ways? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, his ways and then all these things that we want to happen in our life, the peace of God, the order of God, not chaos and not destruction, man, all of these things that we desire will be added unto us as well. But isn't it a fight? Isn't it a fight to keep God first? It's a fight. And so I want to talk to you for just a moment. What is loving God look like? Very simply. It's deciding to do it God's way. Like before you even have a decision to make about following God or not following God, it's deciding you're gonna do it the way he says it. Like when you read his Word and it's very clear and how many of you have gotten into the trouble of reading the Scriptures and going, God did you really mean it that way? Like I'm not sure and it's like it's pretty black and white. Like it's pretty clear what he's saying and you're just trying to like find the escape clause or you know what I mean? Am I the only one? Okay. All right. Well, okay. But man, it's a fight. It's a priorities. The priorities that God has already given to us, man, we have to seek first. We have to declare right now, man, God, I'm gonna do it your way. God first, spouse is second, kids third. You have homework today. I go back to Ephesians chapter 5 and chapter 6. Go back and read that all week. Study it. Get into it. Ephesians 5 and 6. It talks about this dynamic. But here's the thing. When God is first, everything else will fall in order. If God is actually first, everything else will fall in order. It's what he declared in Matthew. And when he isn't, that's where you'll see disaster and chaos of every form. When God is not first, that's where you'll see disaster and chaos at every form. When God sees, but here's the deal. When God sees disorder in your life, in your marriage, in your family, he sees the opportunity for him to come in and do what only he can do. Bring order and peace where there is chaos. We got to seek him first. He's literally waiting on us to come back to him. Marriage might be preaching to just a few of y'all today, but do any of y'all feel like marriage takes a backseat to kids? Can we get the lights up a little bit in here? I can't see any of y'all. I can't, I mean, half y'all are sleeping and I don't even know it. Y'all ever feel like your marriage is taking a backseat to God? I feel that way. And it can't be so. I was thinking about this the first week I said, what's the goal of parenting? It's preparing your kids to do what? To leave. Prepare your kids to leave. Now listen, I don't want to sound, you're like, okay preacher man, your kids are one, five, and eight. You got a long time until they're ready to leave and mine's about to leave and I'm very distraught. Listen to me, I get it. I look at my kids and I say stop growing up. We do that all the time. I'm like, stop growing up. I don't want to, I don't want you to leave. But guess what? God created them to leave. Our job as parents is to prepare them to leave. Spouses stay, kids leave. And if we don't have that priority, if we don't have that commitment, we will get our families out of order. And so our relationships, right, with our spouses, man, it starts to slide and we get too far into work and we put them behind kids. But it's God's spouse, kids, when we put God first, we're going to love our spouses better. When we put God first and our spouses second, we're going to love our kids better. They're going to learn what it looks like to have God's order for the family. And so man, we got to fight against the enemy that wants to rip families apart. We got to fight for our family. How many of y'all feel like when you're, when you're a spouse or relationship with God or even with kids that you just want to quit? Any of y'all feel like you want to quit? Just two of y'all are honest today. That's the rest of y'all want to quit sometimes. I don't want to quit. Man, how many of y'all would say, man, Dan, I just, I don't feel like going out with my wife twice or once a, what did I say, once a week, twice a month. Dan, I don't know if I feel like having sex with my spouse twice a day, twice a week. Same joke I used two weeks ago. This time they laughed. Yeah, I tried it again. And all the guys said, this is my church. I'm coming back here. Chris said, I didn't know two times a week was an option. Well, now you do. But Dan, I just don't, I just don't feel like parenting. I just don't feel like correcting my kids. I don't feel like giving them discipline. I don't feel like creating this or man, I got to do it over and over and over again. I don't feel like it. I don't feel like check this out. Do you think a champion fighter always feels like training? Do you feel like a champion basketball player, football player? Do you feel like a champion champion track runner, a champion? Anything? Do you think they always feel like doing the things they need to do to win? I don't feel like going on a date every week. I don't feel like discipline my kids, man. But man, a warrior, a fighter, doesn't always feel like it, but they do it anyways because it bears fruit. They put in the work. They fight. Jesus was a warrior. Jesus, listen to me, Jesus likely, and we actually know this, he didn't feel like being tortured, whipped, crucified for something that you did and he didn't. We see this in the Garden of Gethsemane, right? He said, God, heavenly Father, is there any other way that this can be accomplished? But he said, not my will. Your will be done. And Jesus fought for you and he died for you. And he did it because he is the ultimate fighter. He's the ultimate champion. So today I want

to finish this message. I got to go blazing lava. I don't know what the word for it. Blazing fast as a sprinter. But I want to talk today a little bit about fatherlessness because we have a fathering crisis in our generation. The fatherless generation isn't a emasculated generation. We've womanized men. Can I say that again? We've womanized men. We've tried

to take men and what they're supposed to be and supposed to do, we've taken it away from them. And so let me tell you what happens with a fatherless generation. By the way, the reason why I'm talking about this is because our God is the father to the fatherless. Like we talk about safe families. God places the lonely, hurting, vulnerable, broken in families. That's why we do this. That's why the church exists. That's why the family of God exists. God first. I want to show you some statistics. We got to develop discipline. We got to fight. We're going to talk more about how to fight and become more disciplined and to grow in these areas. But I want to give you some stats on fatherlessness, on fatherless kids. Here it is. Number one, 63% of youth suicides come from homes where kids

have no father. 90% of youth that are homeless or runaways have no father. 85% of youth behavior disorders come from a fatherless home. 80% of rapists slash anger issues come from a fatherless home. 71% of all high school dropouts come from a fatherless home. 75% of youth patients and chemical abuse centers come from a fatherless home. 85% of all youths in prison come from a fatherless home. Check this out. Have you guys ever heard of a guy named President Obama? You may not agree with his politics, but here's what he has to say. President Obama a few years ago said, once noted that the kids without fathers are 500% more likely to live in poverty and commit crime. They're 900% more likely to drop out of schools. They're 2000% more likely to end up in prison, which means from those studies, that fatherlessness is a better predictor of incarceration than race or poverty. Fatherlessness. Church, we need to fight for fathers. Fathers, you need to fight for each other. We got to bring fathers back into the house. Fathers need to fight for each other. We need to bring fathers back into the house. Fathers need to not just have, pardon my frankness, not just have sex with women as objects and then have the woman have to decide whether or not they're going to keep a baby because they don't know if they can support it or not. Check out the spiritual ramifications. I think the spiritual ramifications are very important. I think the spiritual ramifications

are up there. If the following family members come to faith in Jesus by person, here's the likelihood of the rest of the family coming to Christ after they did. If a wife gives her life to the Lord and nobody else in her family has, only 18% of her family will come to Christ. If a kid comes to Christ, and man, we see this all the time, kids who are coming to faith in Christ here, a new life and man, their family, their parents are following and they're coming, but only 22% of their families come to Christ. And you see that number. When a dad comes to faith in Jesus Christ, 94% of their families come to faith

in Jesus Christ. We have a fatherless issue. God is the good, good father. God is the good, good father. We've got to fight for fathers. Dads, we need you. Your wives need you. Your family needs you. I look at Malachi chapter four, verse six. Coming out of a season of

chaos, the people of God had been all over the place. I forget the word at the moment,

what's the word for it? They'd gone into exile. Malachi four, six, they're bringing the people of God back into the city of God and into the temple of God. And he says this, we got to turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, the hearts of children to their fathers, children, kids, you need dads, dads, you need to be dads for your kids. First Corinthians 16, 13 says this, be watchful, stand firm, which means fight in the faith. Guys act like

men, be strong. God created you to be that way and let all you do be done in love. Here's

the fight. We're going to love, we're going to fight and we're going to win because of Jesus. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we thank you. We thank you that you created the family, you created the order. God, we're going to seek you first in your ways and we're

going to live out our faith in you and do it your way. We're going to make a decision today to say, Jesus, you are our savior. You're my savior. But Jesus, you're simultaneously my Lord, which means you call the shots. In this moment, if you're in the room today,

with every head bowed and every eye closed, and maybe you've never come to faith in Jesus Christ, I want to invite you to do it right here and right now. Here's the moment where

there's the reality. The Bible says that every single one of us is a sinner in need of a savior. We've missed the mark of God's perfection. We've sinned and the payment for sin is death, death physically and death spiritually. But Jesus made a decision. He loved you and he chose you and he came to earth. He lived a perfect life and he died a sacrificial death.

He died on your behalf to forgive you of your sin. He took upon himself the payment of your sin and mine and he defeated sin and he defeated death and he overcame it. He got up out of the grave. He was resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit with an offer for you to come and die and be raised to new life as well. So in this moment, I want to give you the opportunity to respond to Jesus in an act of faith with nobody looking around right where you are. I want you to take a step of faith saying here I am God, I am choosing you as you have chosen me. I believe that you've chosen to adopt me in your family and I'm going to put my faith in you right here and right now on the count of three. I want you to shoot your hand up in the air and say that's me. One, make this decision. It's the best decision you'll ever make. Two, Jesus, I'm choosing you as you have chosen me. Three, shoot your hand up in the Holy Spirit declaring Jesus I am a sinner in need of a savior and

from this moment, Jesus, I turn from my sin and I turn to you. God, I thank you for salvation. I believe in you and I declare right now that I belong to you. I turn from my sin and I turn to you in this moment, fill me with your Holy Spirit. God, I come to you in faith.

I pray that you would raise me from the dead, that I would be born again in the spirit of God. From this day forward, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name, amen. Friends, if you put your hands down, we're going to put our hands together and say welcome home to the family of God.

Full Sermon Transcript

Our goal as parents was really three things we said early on is we wanted them to love God. We wanted them to love us and we wanted them to love the local church. That, you know, because sometimes I think that we can set two lofty goals and I thought, man, if we could just, Crystal and I just talked about it, if we could just get our kids to do those three things and so I can say, honestly, that we have succeeded in that. They love God with all their heart. They love the local church. In fact, when we're, it does not matter where we're at, sometimes we'll be on vacation and they'll be at church because they love the local church and they love us. They love spending time with us and so they love family time and so I would just tell you that it is possible. Some of you are in the weeds of it right now and you're like, I don't know. Is it possible? It's possible. Amen? God's got great things for you. Okay? Also, I want you to know that y'all have baptism coming up. If you haven't taken a step of faith in your baptism yet, people go, well, why should I get baptized? Jesus did it. Do you need anything else?

I mean, he was the son of God. You're not. So, you should absolutely, one of the most powerful things, you're going to have a moment at the end of every service where you get to opportunity to privately say, hey, yes to Jesus and that's a moment between you and God but there is a time when you need to go public with your faith and you need to say, hey, I have decided to follow Jesus. The old me is gone and a new me has taken its place and I would encourage you to get baptized. That's coming up on February 18th so mark your calendars and if you're not getting baptized, you need to be here cheering people on that are taking that step of faith. Amen? Because we are a part of the body of Christ. Amen? And so we celebrate and we cheer people on that are taking that step of faith. Amen? Got a Bible turned to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6. We're going to read verse 2 through 3. Ephesians 6, 2 through 3. And if there's any words that you're confused by that I say, just Google it. Honor your father and mother. Somebody say honor. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Lord, right now I just thank you for this word. I thank you that you're speaking to every heart, to every life. Lord, I thank you that every ear is open and receptive to hear your word. They didn't come to hear a word from me. They've come to hear a word from you so Lord, I pray that you'd use me to speak to the hearts and the lives of your people. Let every life be changed. Let no one leave the same in Jesus name. And Lord, let the commercials be good at the Super Bowl because we don't really care who wins. Amen? Amen. You know, parenting is one of the most challenging things that you will do. I actually think that we have some memes that I found on the internet that kind of describe parenting. Do we have those? Oh yeah, here you go ladies. When you go to Target without your kids, y'all know what that feels like? How about this next one? Do we have another one? There we go. Bathroom breaks, they will find you. Come on. You're never going to have a poo alone again. So how it looks, come on. This is how it feels. There's some dynamite there. Don't nobody say anything. Don't move. Don't say, don't make any loud noises or sudden movements. I don't know who gave my child a whistle, but I will find you. Come on. And I will kill you. Amen? That's the truth. Parenting at 8 a.m. Parenting at 8 p.m. Right? Like this is the way it feels. Parenting is a challenging thing. And how many of you are parents? Just raise your hands. You are parents, okay? How many of you have or had parents? Raise your hand. Okay. How many of you want to be parents one day? Raise your hands. Come on. Okay. How many of you know a parent? You just know a parent. Okay. I feel like parenting applies to everyone. And so don't check out on this message. You're like, oh, I don't need to hear this. The truth is that everybody knows parents. Everybody's life has been affected by a parent in some way, shape, or form. And I would say that our honor is one of the most crucial things that we can do in the parenting relationship. But let me just say this, that honor is one of the most crucial things that we can do in every relationship. If we would learn to honor each other in every relationship, what would the world look like? In fact, if Christians, instead of fighting on Facebook, would honor people and respect people and love people and not be hateful or rude or mean to people, if we would just choose to take the greatest thing that we could do is say, you know what? I'm going to honor you. I'm going to respect you. I'm going to love you. Like if we begin to carry this into every relationship that we had, the world would look like a better place. And that's really easy to say because honor is a really easy word to say, but it's a really hard thing to do. Sometimes you don't feel honorable. Sometimes you don't feel like honoring. And I know in rooms like this, there's people that come from all kinds of different family backgrounds. Some of you are, you come from great, a lot, lineages of families where you're married for a long time and there's no dysfunction in your family at all. And then some of you come from, you got crazy family. You know, like you got your family, if you have a family reunion, the cops are going to get called, right? Like this is your family. This is where you, and I would just encourage you that no matter where, what your family looks like, God can use you. In fact, God wants to use you and God wants to use your dysfunction and God can still do great things in that, in your family. Never let the enemy lie to you and say, well, I'm too broken or I'm too messed up or I've got too many mistakes or I've got too many things that like my whole family is jacked up and messed up. So there's no way if God did not use dysfunctional people, he wouldn't be able to use anybody because there's none of you that are perfect. Nobody is perfect. And so God still wants to use you. Honor your father and your mother. Let me just talk to the kids real quick, of all ages, kids of all ages, some practical ways that you can honor your parents. Are you ready? Kids, choose to believe the best about your parents. It's very practical, but this is the way that we honor. Just choose to believe the best about your parents. I know it's hard for you to believe, but the truth is, is that your parents really do love you and they really do want what's best for you. Like they really do want the best things for you. And so even though it's hard to believe sometimes, just choose to believe the best about it. I will say this, that we're often, we all always get what we're looking for. And so if you're looking for the worst in your parents, come on, you're going to see the worst in your parents. But if you look for the best, if you choose to honor them and love them and understand like, hey, I believe that my parents honestly wants what's best for me, then I'll start seeing the best in them. Show your parents the same grace that you want your parents to show you. Allow for the possibility, just a possibility that your parents know more than you think they know.

It's crazy, I know, I know. But just, just allow for that possibility that they actually know more than you think that they know. And, and here, here's a, here's a great thing. When you don't know what to do, do the most loving thing. Like when you're not sure what the situation calls for, just make the decision that I'm going to do the most loving thing towards my parents because I want to honor them. The Bible says to honor them and so I want to live a life that honors my parents. And let me just say this now, parents, every one of these things are reversible. So parents, choose to believe the best about your kids. Uh-oh, not nearly as many amen's on that one as... Parents, show your kids the same grace that you want them to show you.

Parents, allow for the possibility that your kids know more than you think they know. I mean, I'm just saying, maybe they do know a few things. If you're like me, I've been guilty of automatically jumping to an assumption. And, and, and when my mind's made up, I just make, and I don't have all the facts. Like, take time to gather some facts. Uh, and then listen, parents, when you don't know what to do,

do the most loving thing. Do the most gracious thing. Why? Because honor is a two-way street. So when I honor my kids and they honor me, we have an honoring household. And these things don't just apply to the kid-parent relationship. Honestly, we could do this in every relationship. Come on, we can believe the best about people. Come on, New Life Church, we're gonna believe the best about people. We're gonna show people the grace that we want to be shown. We're gonna allow for the possibility that people know more than we think they know. And, and when we don't know what to do, we're always gonna do the most loving thing. Why? Because that's what Christ did for us. And I know that parenting can be challenging at times, and when it's most challenging, remind yourself that God has graced you to be your kid's parents. And let me just say this, that God has graced them to be your kids. Like, God gave you the gift of children, and the reason why He gave you that gift is because He knows that, that He can entrust you, and He gave you the task of raising them. So He has graced you to raise your kids. Matthew 1, 23, it says, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, embarrass son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated. God with us. Some of you are like, wait, it ain't Christmas. What are we doing? Yeah. I just want you to know that God is with you right now. God is with you in the challenging seasons when your kids are acting demon-possessed.

God is with you in the difficult seasons. God is with you in the victory. God is with you in every season of your parenting journey. God is with us. Two things that I want to remind you of, as parents, the first thing I want to tell you is this, remember that your kids belong to God. Your kids belong to God. Psalms 1, 27, verse 3, says, Behold, children are a heritage and a gift from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. According to a recent study done by One Hope, 30% of US parents said that their primary goal as parents is to ensure their kids are happy. 31% of US parents said their primary goal was to make sure that their kids were successful. Only 14% of parents said that their primary goal was to pass down their values and their faith to their children. Can I tell you that it's time for the American church to wake up and we need to realize that we want our kids to be happy and we want our kids to be successful. Every parent in here wants that for their kids. But the most important thing that you could ever do is you pass down a heritage of faith. Why? Because when they're not successful, come on, faith will sustain them. In hard seasons, faith will carry them through. In difficult times, guess what? I can run to God because he is my refuge. The most important gift that I could give my children as a Christian man and as the father of my home, I would tell you is the gift of faith. I give my kids the foundation of faith because faith will sustain them when everything else fails them. As parents, sometimes, I'm just talking to the church. As parents, we will rearrange our schedules around everything else. But when it comes to church, it becomes optional. So we rearrange our schedule around baseball, around football, around soccer, around cheerleading, around all of these events. But then when it comes to church, it's like the church takes the back burner. And I know I'm preaching to the choir, but you know somebody that needs to hear this, so just share it. When it comes to church, it becomes a back burner thing of like, well, as long as it's not beautiful outside or we can go to the lake or what, like fill in the blank, like as long as we're not busy, then I'll go. But I'm telling you that the greatest thing that we could do is to stand up and say, you know what? As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. I'm going to give my kids a foundation of faith. Can I just say this, that God isn't a thing, God is the thing. God isn't a part of our lives. God should be the center of our lives. And I think sometimes we're seeing the things that we're seeing in America today is because the church hasn't stood up and said, you know what? As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. So I'm sorry, coach, my kid won't be at baseball today because we're going to be worshiping God together in church. Nobody, amen, dear, in that part. You know that your kid has a 99.9% chance that he's not going to play professional ball.

That's actually a fact. Not my Johnny. He's amazing. No, he's not.

I just don't want to mess anything up. Good. I can do the inhale.

In the name of Jesus.

That is in you, which is 12th verse. Where? In your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And I'm persuaded is in you also. I could go off on this. Where's the father?

But guess what? Single moms, you can pass down your faith to your kids. What you're doing right now, come on, he may not be around, but I'm telling you right now that you are passing down a legacy of faith. Can I just say this? That faith is living and faith is transferable. You can transfer your faith to your kids. Parents, you should let your kids experience your faith. Like, oh, my kids just don't want to come to church. You don't ask them if they want to go to school.

Well, I just don't want to push my faith on them. Why wouldn't you push your faith on them? I want my kids to know this is what I believe. This is what I stand for. This is what we do in my house. They need to see you prioritize church. They need to see you reading your Bible in the morning. They need to see you do something besides scroll on social media. They need to hear you pray. They need to see you be generous and put God first in your finances. They need to see you serving other people. They need to understand that church isn't something that we just do occasionally, but it's something that we do every single week. When I'm home, I'm in church because God is the center of my life. Don't forget to pass down your faith. Every one of you, you have influence in someone's life. And remember that you can pass down your faith. Come on, uncles and aunts, you can pass down your faith. Grandparents, you can pass down your faith. You can pass your faith on. We all know that we inherit traits from our parents. We know that we inherit possessions from our parents. We know that we will inherit money from our parents. You know, because we say things, oh, you got your mom's nose. You got your dad's smile. You got the house from your grandparents. Like fill in the blank, but I want you to know that you can also pass down your faith to your kids. The Bible says this, that you should leave an inheritance for your children's children. And I think that most of the time we use this to monetize things. Like it's just land, or it's just a house, or it's just possessions, or dishes, or whatever it is. But I'm telling you right now that I think the greatest thing that could be passed down to our kids and our grandkids is an inheritance of faith. I'm so thankful that I was raised in a house that taught me how to pass down my faith, that passed its faith down to me. I'm telling you right now that you see me up here today, but it's because of Carl and Anita Cutberth, who are my grandparents, that stood in the gap. And every Sunday we were going to be found in the house of God. And then my parents were the same way. I woke up in the morning and they were reading the word of God, and they spent time in the house of God. I'm thankful for a legacy of faith. And maybe you're out there and you're going, my parents don't go to church, I'm the first generation. Can I tell you that it does, it may not have come through to you, but it's going to come through you. That today you are starting a legacy of faith, and you're saying, you know what, as for me, from generations to generation to generation, that I'm going to be found in the house of God. My kids are going to be found in the house of God. Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7 says, in these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Like this is what we do as we talk about the word of God. We talk about God in every decision that we make. Like in everything that I do, God is a part of what I do. My son is, I mentioned he was a junior, and last year he was doing geometry homework, and he got stumped on a problem. And I was walking through the kitchen, I said, son, I said, how's everything going? He said, I don't know dad, I can't figure out this problem. Can you help me? And I said, yeah, son, I'm more than happy to help you if you're wanting to fail. Because I didn't know geometry back in the day, and I certainly don't know geometry today. Like everything that I did know about geometry, I have forgotten about geometry. I do not know that anymore. And I say that to say this, that I cannot give my kids what I do not have. And so if I want my kids to be passionate about the word of God, then I need to be a man of God who is passionate about the word of God. If I want my kids to worship in the house of God, then I show my kids how to worship in the house of God. I'm passing down an inheritance of faith, so I don't just show up to church, but I serve in church. I give it church. I worship in church. Come on, I don't sit there and sip my coffee and listen to a concert, but I worship my God because he's worthy of prayer. Well, he just didn't sing the songs that I liked, really. He didn't really like that. Like you could, like I like this song, not that song. They should have done. Can I just tell you that when you do that, you're saying worship is about me instead of about God. Come on, when I worship God, I come in when I like the song and when I don't like the song, when everything is good and when everything is bad, why? Because my God deserves praise and he deserves worship. And so I worship my kid, I worship my God because I want my kids to worship God as well. Number two, remember that you are called to be their parent, not their best friend. Okay. We live in a kid-centered society.

Everything is about little Johnny and everything is about them. As soon as you have kids, you think that everything should be about your kids. And I would just say this, that you are called to be their parent. You're not called to be their best friend. In fact, experts have broken down how kids develop over the years, people that are much smarter than me. And they've said this, from zero to five, these are the discipline years. This is when you should be disciplining your kids the most. I think that you're teaching them in this season how to obey. Well, we don't believe in discipline in our kids. Yeah, we can tell. Amen! Great job. You've caused many a kid's worker to give up and quit. Okay. At this point, it's not all the teachers are bad. Okay. It may be that your kids are bad. Just gonna say that. So, all right. I'll be gone after this and Pastor Dan will be back and he'll love you and take care of this. Clean up the mess. But if your kids don't learn how to obey you by the time they're five, you're gonna have some major problems by the time they're 15.

Proverbs 13, 24, he who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Now, I just want to tell you just a few things about discipline. Are you ready? However you decide to discipline your kids in your house, be consistent in that discipline. So, whatever you decide to do in your house, this is what we're going to do. So, if it's timeouts, if it's grounding, whatever it is, like this is what we're going to do in our house. The second thing you need to know is never discipline your kids when you're angry. Take time, cool off, why? Because you need to know like you need to be the calm, cool, and collected one, right? Never match your kids emotions. They are four years old, you are not. Act like an adult. Understand that no is a gift. Rules are a gift. Boundaries are a gift.

There is no such thing, we're still talking about discipline, there is no such thing as good cop, bad cop in your household. So, if the dad disciplines the child, the mother doesn't comfort the child. The dad does. Man, well they just run to mom like that's what they do. Well they run to dad. No, I'm telling you right now, whoever distributes the discipline gets to comfort them and love them. And then, well dad did this, no, we stand together. So, if your dad said that's the rule, then that's the rule. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna back you up, I'm backing my husband up, right? Okay. You can have disagreement behind closed doors, not in front of your kids. Okay, five to twelve, these are the training years. This is where you teach them why, the why behind the what, right? Like you want them to know the reason why we do certain things. The reason why we don't do certain things. It's not just because I said so, it's because it's the right thing to do, right? Twelve to eighteen, I got to move. Coaching years. This is, in this season they are learning the relationship between their actions and the results of those actions. Like this is when we get to come alongside them, we get to coach them. They're making some decisions on their own, and we get to come alongside them and guide them, we get to encourage them, and we get to help them along the way. Eight, ten, eighteen years and beyond, this is the friendship years. Like in this stage, we get to be our kids friends. And I'm telling you right now that I am at this stage pretty much right now, and it's great to be your, the problem is, is that a lot of parents try to move the friendship years to when they're 12 years old. And again, you're not called to be their best friend, you're called to be their parent. And if you will discipline them when they're young, you'll be their friend when they're older. Okay, I'm so, I'm from Texas. So I'm so thankful, I never thought I would say this when I was 12 or 14, but I'm so thankful forever, whooping, my parents gave me. Because I needed him. Okay. Whooping, Google it.

Yeah, there you go. Here, here, whatever season you find yourself in, you're in this age, your kids fall somewhere in there, whatever season you find yourself, just remember, enjoy the journey. Just enjoy the days are long, but the years are short. And it really does go faster than you think that it's going to go. One day, in the near future, the daughter that you carried in when she was born, you're going to be carrying her stuff out because she's headed to college. And you're going to look back and you're going to go, where did the time go? Because the days can be long, but the years go by really fast.

And I think that if we want to be successful parents, we cherish the moments. We love our kids, we honor our kids. We show them the respect that we want to be shown. We show them how to prioritize the house of God. We pass down an inheritance of faith to our kids. The world's oldest olive tree is believed to be 4,000 years old. And the crazy thing is that it's still producing fruit today. When you plant an olive tree, it takes several years of watering, of fertilizing and cultivating the ground around it before it finally begins to produce fruit. But once it grows the root system it needs, it will produce fruit for generations to come. Psalms 128 verse 3 and 4 says, your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house. Listen, your children, like olive plants all around your table, behold, thus shall be the man blessed who fears the Lord. What am I saying? That whenever we're parents who fear the Lord, who put God first, then they're growing a root system that's going to bear fruit for generations to come. That you may not see the fruit in this season, you may not see what the discipline is doing in this season. It may be in a hard time, in a hard season in your life, but I'm telling you right now that just keep doing what you're doing. Keep doing what God has called you to do. Keep disciplining them. Come on, keep prioritizing church. Keep making sure that they're found in the house of God, and I'm telling you that they're going to bear fruit in the years to come. Can every parent in here just open your hands? And Lord, right now I just pray for every parent. Lord, for the parents that are frustrated. Lord, for the parents that are discouraged. Lord, right now I just declare over every parent in this place that God, that we will not grow weary while doing good. Because we know that in due season we're going to reap a harvest. And so Lord, I just pray that you would strengthen every parent in this place. Lord, right now I pray for the parent who has the prodigal son who's walked away, the prodigal daughter who's walked away. Lord, I just declare right now that they're going to continue to believe God, that they're going to continue to stand in the gap, that they're not going to give up hope, that they understand that God, that the seeds that they sowed when they were young, Lord, that they're going to bear fruit in a season that's soon to come. Lord, right now I just pray that we would be a people in a church, that raise our kids in the house of God, that we give our kids a foundation of faith. Because we know that faith will sustain them in every season of life.

Full Sermon Transcript

The family is under attack. And I don't know if you've noticed it, but I've noticed it that the family unit is one of the quintessential things that the Bible talks about. It's one of the most important things that the Scripture communicates to us because it's all about relationship. It's about a relationship with God and it's about a relationship with God and His people, but it also has to do with husbands and wives, male and female coming together as one, becoming parents, and it's about the family. And during this series, I'm going to share three words with you. It's going to be a theme throughout this particular series. And it's the phrase, the three words are love, fight, win. Love is the fuel that is needed for our families. Love is a verb. Love is not a feeling. You might think, man, love is a feeling. We're getting close to, what is it, Valentine's Day and we're just like, oh, man, getting all romantic and lovey dovey. But love is not a noun. It's not a feeling. It's a verb for God. So love the world that He took action, that He left His throne in heaven, came to earth to come on a rescue mission, a warrior's mission to fight to take us away from our sin out of hell and into heaven. Can I get an amen from someone in the crowd? Jesus was a fighter. Love was His fuel. It also, it says in the Bible that God is love and yet we try to love each other with all sorts of counterfeit ideas of what love is. And then we've got to fight for our families, fight for our marriages, fight for our kids. But too often we don't do that. We quit. We send it in. We're just not going to fight. And too often we see in our families, in our marriages, we're fighting the wrong foe.

We're fighting each other rather than fighting for each other. And then ultimately, of course, the Bible is all about helping us, wanting us as God's people to what? To win. Love, fight, win. Too many marriages are losing. Too many families are losing. And so we've got to fight. We've got to fight. Are you with me? The Bible says that we are to run the race of this life, run the race of the faith as if to what? To win. You know what is really hard? Winning. Winning is really hard. It ain't easy. How many, how many lions fans do I have in here? No, no, no, no, no, seriously. Do you think for a second that the NFL or the 49ers or whoever else they played were just going to hand them the trophy and say, congratulations, you won. Or does it take a fight? Does it take discipline? Does it take training to win? And too many families, too many marriages, too many churches have sold out and have quit. But church is time to fight. And I hope that you, and I hope that you, I hope that there's something inside of you right now that's picking up

some, some fight from your pastor for you.

And so we're going to go through this series. I think it's going to be a high conviction series. I think it's going to be an enlightening series. I think God's going to show us some things about the families that we grew up in, the families that we live in, our marriages, our relationships. And you might be asking the question, you might say, man, I'm just a college student or a high school student, a middle school student, or maybe, man, I don't have a family or I'm divorced, whatever it is. Can I tell you something? Every single one of you was born into a family.

You may not know this. I was born in, I was born on May 28th, 1980. You can write that down. So when May 28th comes, you can shower me with all the goods. I really want a PlayStation five right now, but that's a whole different story. My wife won't let me get one. She says, oh, or who said, oh yeah, yeah, okay. Why did I say that? On May 28th, 1980, I was born, guess what? I don't know if you know this about me. I was born into a family that I've never met. I'm adopted. I've never met my birth mom. I've never met my birth father. I don't even know, well, obviously he existed because it takes two to tango, if you know what I'm saying. But we were all born into a family. I have been given by the grace of God. I was adopted by some incredible parents who I love and dearly, man, they kind of helped raise me in the church. One did, one didn't, but that's a whole different sermon topic. But man, I had a great family. We all have family and it might look a little different, but here's the reality of the scriptures is that when you are born, you are actually born with a sin nature that separates you out of the family of God, the ultimate family. And the scripture says that because of that, Jesus didn't leave you there. He just said, man, they're just worthless. I don't want to do anything about them. I don't like them. They're terrible. They disobey me. I try to help them and they just turn their back on me and they run away from me. He didn't do that. He fought for you and he's fighting for you now. And so what he did is he left his throne in heaven. He came to earth and he fought for you. He came to teach you and to learn from you, but then he did something that no one else in this world is lining up to do for you. He died for you, a warrior for you. He bled for you and he rose again for you. And because of that, guess what? You win. Not because of yourself, but because of Jesus. You can win. You are. The Bible says you are, you know, what's interesting about, about, about people saying stuff about scripture. They all say we're all God's kids. Wrong answer. We are only God's kids if we've been adopted into God's family. How does that happen? We put our faith and our hope and our lives in Jesus. And then we are adopted into his family. It's salvation. You can't earn it. You can't even fight for it. You can't, you don't deserve it. You don't deserve it. And neither do I. Love, fight, win, sick. Matthew 6 33, if you have your Bible as you could pull it out, we're gonna, we're gonna dive into this particular scripture during this series. And this is one, honestly, it's one of those Christian coffee mug type scriptures or the ones you put on your refrigerator. And they're so, I don't even know how to say it, feminine. Guys, are you ready to get a little more masculine in the room today?

There's nothing wrong with that, by the way.

Matthew 6 33, here's the coffee cup. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all these things will be given to you as well.

What?

Like, I mean, this, if we were to read this verse, how I believe the original language is actually portrayed this verse, it's literally saying to you, seek first his kingdom. First, first, first, not second, not third, not fourth, not first. The Harvard Business Journal review, something like that, did a study years ago that was probably about like entrepreneurs and business people and whatever. And they came up with this conclusion. They came up with the conclusion that these entities, these business people, they had priorities, but they weren't reaching their priorities because their commitments, there was a gap, there was a delta between what they were actually doing and then achieving their, they weren't achieving their priorities because their commitments were not going in the same direction. I don't know how to tell the Harvard Business Journal, but God's been saying that from the beginning of time, that there are priorities that we're to have in our lives, but our commitments take us away from the priorities we're actually supposed to have. Seek first his kingdom and his ways, his righteousness, and then all these things that we're seeking after, these things that we want for our lives, they'll come. If we have priorities in order, we got to fight, listen to me, we got to fight, we got to fight, we got to fight to keep God first in our lives, in our marriages, in our kids, in our homes. We got to fight to keep God first. And so here's the thing, we see marriages and families filled with chaos, filled with destructive patterns, filled with all sorts of moral decay, and it's because there's a lot of disorder, disorder. Now when there's disorder, I would like to give this to you today to really grab onto. Where there is disorder, God sees that as an opportunity to bring his love into it, change it, and bring order where there is chaos. He wants to fight for you, but too often, again, we have these priorities. We want, no one got buried and said, man, I hope this thing sucks. I hope this thing fails. No one ever said that, no one ever did that. Maybe a few people, but there obviously, well, there is a chance to go to heaven someday if they receive Christ, but I'm just saying, you know, there, anyways.

Order. God is the God of order. Here's the order in God's family. Are you ready? God first. Shocking that I'd say that. But do you know what our entire world tells us from the youngest of age to the oldest? Family first. I bet you have a boss right now that says, family first. You take time off, you go on vacation, they say, guess what? That's good. You should do that family first. And it sounds sexy, doesn't it? It sounds awesome. God didn't say that. I don't find that in the Bible. Go, you can get out your Google machine and it's pretty accurate in looking up, look up family first in the Bible. You ain't going to find it. Why? Because it's God first. Priorities, commitments. God is number one. Marriage is number two. Kids,

you're number three. Kids, you're number three. Adult kids, get out of your parents' basement. You're number three.

I said this is going to be a high conviction series.

If God is not first, listen to me. If God is not first, nothing is in order. Nothing is. Nothing. Nothing in your life is in order if God is not first. Why do we see so much chaos in our world? And disorder is because God is not first. Ephesians chapter five, verse one, let me show it to you all through Ephesians five and then six, five, one says, follow God's example. So in Ephesians five, it goes through this litany of how we're supposed to relate with one another. And the first thing he says is go to God first. Follow God's example. But here's what happens. You know, we have an enemy of our soul. His name is Lucifer. He was an archangel in heaven. He was the worship leader of heaven who disobeyed God. He tried to usurp God and he tried to take God's place. And I wonder if too many of us are actually living and following more of Lucifer's example in our lives than actually Jesus's example. What do I mean? Man, I'm a self-made man. I'm going to chart my own course. I'm going to build my own empire. I'm going to do it my way, says Usher.

That just showed you my age right there.

Follow God's example, your priorities and your commitments. If they're out of whack, if there's a delta, if there's a gap between them, the reality is you're not following God's example as first you're following Satan himself. Here's the second one, 525. Husbands, number two, God first. Husbands and their wives. Husbands loved your wives just as Christ loved the church. There's nothing Jesus cares about more than his church, than his bride. I've said this before, you mess with my bride, you mess with me. I can guarantee that. Jesus loves his bride. Jesus gave his life for the bride of Christ. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church. Here's the third one, found in Ephesians 6.1. Children, number three, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. Some of you kids need to go home today and you need to apologize to your parents for not obeying them. Hey, adult kids, adult kids, adult kids. I'll never forget this. Years ago, I was hearing a message just like this and the pastor said, man, I bet a lot of us as kids, if we really, if we started, you know what's crazy? There is a phrase that says, you know, the older I get, the more I act like my parents. And it's because we come to the reality that we're facing all the same stuff they did. We just had no context for it.

Some of you adult kids need to go home, call your mom and your dad and apologize for the idiot that you were as a kid. I did that. I did that years ago when I was probably just out of college, I called my parents and I said, listen, I don't want you to talk. I don't want you to say anything. I just want you to listen. And I literally like went through my life and just apologized like crazy for all the crap that I did. Man, you talk about healing for me and for my parents. Man, we got to fight to win. Love is the fuel, but we got to fight to win in the family, God's family. It's always God first, then marriage, and then kids, God, marriage, and kids. We're going to come back to this a lot throughout this series. But the question is, hey, mom and dad, hey, husbands, wives, how often are you actually spending time with God?

How much are you spending time with God? How often are you in God's house? If you want to win the fight, you need to get this right. You got to cultivate a relationship with God every single day. If you haven't done it, I want to invite you to do it. There's like 180 of us or something, maybe even more than that now, I don't even know, who are doing the Bible in a year together. It's spending time with God and it's training ourselves to have the discipline to fight and to win in a relationship with God. Can I tell you something? A lot of people will see our kids. Our kids actually are oldest, which are five and almost eight, our girls, they begged my wife today to come to church. I would love to tell you that that was because of really good parenting. It's not. We didn't teach them to love the house of God. We didn't teach them to ask my wife, hey, we really want to go and serve this morning. We didn't teach them. Guess what they did? They weren't taught it, they were caught it. Why? Because it's a priority for us, not just because we're the pastors, but because that's how we live our lives, seeking God first. Guess what? My wife is really good at this now. She used to not be a morning person. She's a morning person now. Can I get an amen, somebody? And so what would happen is, I am a morning person. I get up super early and I would get in the word of God and then the kids just start right on up and they want my attention. They want hugs. And of course, I want to give it to them. Because I love them. But do you know what I had a struggle with early on was, was shutting off time with God to pay attention to my kids. Can I tell you something? Listen to me right now. That is wrong. Your kids need to learn that God comes first. So every day when my kids come up the stairs, if it's me in the living room, spending time with God in the word of God, I will tell them, hey, I'm spending time with God right now. I will get to you later. Guess what? It's good for them, for you to tell them, go away. I tell them now, like they can't even come upstairs until 7 o'clock. Our kids get up in a ridiculously early hour. I don't know why some of your kids sleep until 8. Pray for us. That's all I gotta say. Stop putting your kids sports or dance or whatever before God. Can I tell you something? Every time I say that, I feel the enemy just say, stop it, stop it, stop it. It's good. It's important. It's whatever. I'm fighting for you. I'm fighting for your kids in ways you don't even comprehend right now. Your kids sports, I'm gonna go into this for a second. Your kids sports or dance or whatever it is, it's gonna last a blink of an eye of their life. And then when it's over, if they spend all their time chasing that instead of God, they will never be a godly man or woman. They will never be a godly husband or wife. They will never be a good parent to their kids. You're teaching them that they are first and God is second. And here's the reality. I told you I would kind of keep it real. I played sports at a really high level.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. I was the... my brother won athlete of the year in our high school. And one of our coaches had the audacity to come up to me when I was eighth grade and said, Dan, you have gifts of your own. I just been in a musical. And you have gifts of your own. And can I tell you, man, did that piss me off? Because I wanted to be the best athlete. I don't want to be a musical person. I don't know. Sorry. Musical people are great. Just not what I wanted to do. Anyways, my brother wins athlete of the year award. You know, their sibling rivalry thing. I don't want to be second. I want to do what? I want to win. I want to be first. If you ain't first, you're last. Create the illusion, Ricky Bobby. Anyways, so I go on.

I go on and I set our high school's record for the most varsity athletic letters that have ever been won. Except for the fact that there's a kid in my grade that I'm graduating with that got more than me. I was still not first. I still wasn't the best. So then I leave, right? I leave high school and I go to college and I'm still an athlete. I'm a football player. I go to the University of Texas, go Longhorns. And I get there and the first game, I didn't start. They put me in the game halfway through and I kicked off. I ended up starting the rest of the year. Guess what? The year after that, my senior year, I got beat out. I didn't play another game the rest of my career. The first day I got to the University of Texas, this is sobering for some of you parents, hopefully, they told us that less than 1% of all high school athletes make it to that level. To which we all said, we're awesome.

And then they followed that with, and then less than half a percent of you who are in this room at the University of Texas will make it to the next level. And even those of you who do, you'll be gone within months. And yet we're taking our kids to this sport and that sport and missing church and come on, come on. You know, when I think about parenting, I will never forget this after Kelsey and I had our first Harper, who's eight year, almost eight years old now, I was going through the gym and a guy walked up to me and he's like, how's it going? I'm like, great. We just brought home our first. And funny story, when we got home, I actually got locked out of our house, which is a whole other story. I was on top 10 dad fails that year. And so I'm telling him this story. And he goes, isn't it crazy that like you have to get a license to drive and, you know, a license to do all these different things. You have to be 21 to do this and you don't do anything to bring a kid home. And some of you are parents and you haven't done anything to parent your kids. The only thing you did was have sex to bring them into the world. That's the only kind of parent you are. We got to parent our kids. We got to fight for the order that God has for our lives. God first, marriage is second, kids obey your parents in the Lord. Here's the definition of parent. Parent is someone who teaches and trains their kids to leave.

Yes. Say amen again.

Spouses stay. Kids leave. I've seen too many families. I've had seen too many marriages who have so put their kids first, neglected God, neglected their marriages, that when the kids actually do go to college or move out, the marriage is over. The marriage is over. Why? The priorities and the commitments. There's a big gap between the two. The family is under attack and so we need to fight for what is right. We need to fight for what God tells us to do. We got to have his priorities in mind. Deuteronomy 6 verses 6 through 9 says it this way. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts, impress them on your children. Man, we got to have our kids, our families in the house of God, in the word of God. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads, write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. That is why I'm... That's the wrong verse. I skipped ahead. I don't know about you, but that verse, those verses,

it takes work. It takes discipline to keep that kind of home, to where the word of God, you're in it every single day. That you're not just... He talks about teaching it in the word of God. You got to teach your kids this and can I tell you the greatest thing, the greatest investment that Kelsey and I have ever made is the partnership in the local body of believers, the family of God. Why? Because we need the church to help us to raise our kids in a godly way. Can I tell you something? Our kids ministry is not a daycare.

Our kids ministry, when your kids go into that environment, it's not just that you can hang out for an hour and go home. Yeah, I know it's a little bit. I mean, yeah, I go probably an hour, 15 sometimes, but that's a whole different story. Did you know that the way our kids curriculum is formulated is so that every single year when you go to school, when you send your kids to school, you expect that when you're a kindergartner, they're learning something so that they're prepared for first grade. Am I right? When they go to first grade, they're learning stuff to prepare them to get into second grade, then to get into third grade, to get into fourth grade. Our kids ministry is training your kids in the word of God, to know God, to love his people, and it's training them systematically every single year. Can I tell you something? If putting God first or putting God second or third on the list and you show up to church once every month or once every two months or once every two weeks, guess what? Your kids are missing out. They're missing out. You wouldn't want your kid to show up to school once a week. And how much more important is it for us to have our kids in an environment like this where they're learning? How many of y'all wish you could go back in life and you wish your parents would have made church a priority? Like, be honest. Not many of you. But why did you come now then?

Because you know you need it. You know that there's chaos in your life. You know that there's stuff that needs to be worked out. Why are you coming here into this environment? Because you want God to speak into your life. You want something to change. Guess what? We don't just come here to stay the same. We come here to experience God in his goodness and to allow him to change us for the better. It's the greatest fight we can ever have in our lives. God first. Marriage second. Kids third. Genesis 2.24, which had been, oh, someone went back. Genesis 2.24 says, that is why a man leaves his father and mother and he's united to his wife and they become one. Why is our marriage conference called the one conference? It's because it's no longer two but one. Guess what? Your kids are not in the one. It's husbands and wives become one. And so we need to learn how, what this means. And so there's three rounds to this fight that I want to talk to you about as we close today. And one is, here's the first one, is attention. We're giving our kids too much attention. Helicopter parents, stop it. Stop it. Too much attention. Okay.

Calm down. Calm down. Too much attention on kids will produce whining, spoiled, bratty kids. And they won't leave. They'll stay around forever.

Do you know any spoiled, whining, entitled bratty athletes, musicians, even business men or women, teachers? Too much attention will mess us up. It will mess us up because we need to learn that it's not all about me. It's not all about me. Say that with me. Say it out loud, loud and proud. It's not all loud and proud. It's not all about me. And yet that's the environment that we raise our kids in.

Oh my goodness. How many parents have married couples have fought over that idea?

And I grew up in an environment like that. You probably grew up in an environment like that. Mom, dad, man, I just want to do this. I want to do that. You're such a buzzkill. And then you give in because you want them to like you. You want them to be your friend. Guess what, parent? You're not a friend. You're a parent. You're a parent. These people, man, these whining, spoiled, bratty, entitled, everybody, man, they got too much attention. It was all about them. It was all about them. And man, kids demand that from us, right? How many of y'all live in a kid's CEO house? The kids are calling the shots. You take them to do this and that and you give them the money and you say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The best thing you can ever say to your kids is it's not all about them. And you give in too easily because you're not ready. You're not trained. You're not disciplined enough for the fight. Now you're not fighting against your kids. You're fighting for them. Kids love the spotlight, don't they? You know adults like that, they grew up in this kind of house and we give them the spotlight and man, the kids, they're running the show. So today, parents, go home and fire that kid's CEO.

She's like, why am I looking at her? So I don't know. Is she the CEO of your house? Okay. She fired. You're fired. God first, marriage second, kids third. Here's the second one, is schedule, attention, then schedule. Man, we're made for order. We were created for order, not chaos. Jesus said, right, that we were to honor the Sabbath, through all the scriptures, we're to work six days and then corporately come together on the seventh day. Man, we've got to get our kids on God's schedule, not just their schedule. And I know, I know. Do you think that Satan isn't involved in youth sports and dance and gymnastics and all the stuff that is taking your kids out of God's house in his presence? Do you think he's not a genius, that you're spending billions of dollars sending your kids into these things, taking them away from God and God's house and the worship that he declares for us to have? Do you not believe that? But we give in and we say, man, I know, kids first, marriage third, God somewhere. How about this one? How many of y'all put your kids to bed when you are ready, not when they are ready? That would save some marriages right there. Kelsey and I, you might think we're crazy, our kids go to bed every day at 7 30 p.m. Every single one of them, every day at 7 30 p.m. Why? Because Kelsey and I are going to spend some kid free time together every single day. Here's the third one and it's intimacy. When's the last time that you took your bride on a date? Date night? Mate night, can I get an amen? Husbands, date your wife at least twice a month. Man, then you got work towards once a week. You tell me this, you say like, I can't afford that many dates. Listen, you can't afford the lawyer at $300 an hour when your marriage is over and ended. Yeah, glad three of you are excited.

You got to teach your kids that your marriage is more important than they are. Your marriage is more important than they are. Here's, that's the three battles. Attention, schedule, right? Intimacy. Teach your kids that marriage is more important than they are. The three huge battles. It's we got to fight, we got to love, we got to fight, and we got to win. Are you winning the fight? I'm closing now and so let's find out. We're going to do something super fun. You got this as you came into the room and man, even if you're a kid, you can do this and or maybe you can rate your parents. That'd be fun. Matter of fact, our student ministry is going to do this tonight. Send your kids because our students are going to do some fun things with this particular thing. Not this exact thing, but they're going to talk about the priorities that they have in family. What are the priorities that they have in family? Again, we're training kids to be godly, training kids to leave and be great people. And so I want you to take this out. Every single person, grab this sheet of paper, it's the pre-fight test. Pre-fight test. We're going to take this multiple times throughout the series so that we can grow in the things of God. And so right now, I want you to take this out and again, whether you're single adult, listen, single adult, single again, never been married, whatever it is, God is training. You might think this is a waste of time. God is preparing you right now for what He has prepared for you. So lean in, lean in, lean in to what God has to say. Here's the first question. Take your pen out. Every single person, don't do it together. Just take your pen out because it'd be awesome for you as couples to go back later today and see how you answered these questions. So the first one, here's the first one. Do you go on a date with your spouse at least twice a month? You can circle number one, never, two sometimes, or three always. Number two, do you eat dinner as a family at least three times a week? Never, sometimes, or always. Here's number three, do your kids sleep in their own beds every night? If your high school kids are still sleeping in your bed, we need to talk.

We need to talk. Number four, do you have sexual intimacy, that's sex, with your spouse two times per day? Oh, oh, sorry, sorry. Some guys just perked up and was like, man, this is the church for me. Let's go to discovery today. Sign me up.

Do you have sexual intimacy with your spouse two times per week? One, never, two, sometimes, three always. Again, we're going to get, we're really going to take inventory on our priorities and our commitments. Number five, do you and your spouse present a unified front when your kids question your authority? We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. Number six, do you have a set bedtime again? Do you have a set bedtime for your kids that is consistently enforced? Don't throw elbows. I know there's probably some couples that are like, I try, but she won't or he won't, I get it. We have that battle in our family too, but we're not fighting against each other, we're fighting for each other. Here's number seven, do you regularly put a check on your schedule to prevent over kids centering your house with activities? If your life is filled with chaos because you're chasing that and this and all of these things and God is being put off and your marriage is sliding, you got to put a check on your schedule. You got to reorient to the priorities of God for your life. If you want, if you want the benefits of living his ways, right? But we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. But here's what we do. We want all these things to be added to us without seeking first God and without seeking first his ways and your lives, your family, your marriages will never be in order if you don't do it. God's way. Here's number eight is weekly church attendance, a priority for your family. One never, two sometimes, three always.

Are you ready to fight? That wasn't rhetorical. Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to love, fight and win? Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we love you and we thank you that your word speaks into our lives in all the ways that we need you. God, that you confront us. Your word literally says that you discipline those that you love. And so I pray that in this moment we would be grateful for your word that that resets our directions, that resets our course,

that you discipline those you love. And so God, I pray that we would see this as an opportunity to be loved by you and to be changed by you. We need this. Our marriages need this. Our kids need this. In this moment, if you've never given your life to Christ today, let me tell you something. That you were born into the earth with what the Bible calls sin, and it's an archery term. It means to miss the mark of God's perfection. Listen to me. Every single one of us has.

And the Bible says that because of that we have been separated from God. And that the payment of that sin is death, death spiritually, and eventually death physically.

But Jesus didn't just leave us in that position.

He came to earth and he died a sacrificial death. He died in your place, defeating sin and death. And because of his resurrection, when we receive his grace and his mercy, when we receive his victory on the cross and in his resurrection, when we call on him and asking for him to save us, and we turn from our sin and we say, Jesus, you are my Lord, you call the shots. In that moment, the Bible says that we are saved, that we are eternally stamped into God's kingdom, into God's family. We are adopted as sons and daughters. And so if you've never made that decision to turn from your sin and to turn to God for forgiveness and salvation and to make him your Lord, I want to invite you to do that right now. Or maybe you want to come back to God. You can do that right now. On the count of three, I want you to take a step of faith. I want to raise your hand on the count of three and say, that's me. One, two, three, shoot your hand up and hold up. In this moment, I'm going to lead you in a prayer. It's literally you talking to God and you're saying, Jesus, in this moment, I realize that I am a sinner in need of a savior. I humble myself. And in this moment, I turn from my sin and I turn to you Jesus for salvation, for forgiveness, for a new life. So in this moment, Jesus, I call you my savior and right now make it personal. I make you my Lord. And from this day forward, I turn from my sin and I turn to you. Come inside of me, Holy Spirit, and change me. And from this day forward, I'll give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. In Jesus name, Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

And so I think about worship, but I think about the church. I think about the challenge of people coming in to an environment like this and and whether it's the way we grew up or it's our personalities man, we walk in and and and and trust me, I'm not judging you. We're not judging you. But but a lot of you you walk in and it's like.

And you're staring at the words. And your mouth is not moving. And you're definitely not singing because you're nervous if the person next to you will hear what you have to say and saying and how you'll sound or what they think I'm crazy over there and what's up and also we think it's a mental ascent. We just think man, if I just look at the words and and there's times for that where you look at the words and you soak it in and what is God saying and all this kind of stuff and but but you gotta know that that is not how God shows us to worship in the scripture. So we're gonna talk about that today. And in Mark chapter 12, this is Jesus when the disciples said, man, how are we to what is the greatest commandment that you have for us as believers? And he summarized the big 10 the 10 commandments right the first four is how to love God the rest is how to love each other and he said that you're to love the Lord your God. With all your you say it with me the green parts all your all your all your mind and all your. Does that sound like you walk into church and just. Man. Man, so the love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength and so we're gonna talk about passionate worship today because this is the command of God over every believer. That exists and that's what we're gonna live out. So we talk about here's a here's maybe a definition of passionate worship is expressing our love and devotion to God from the inside meeting our heart our spirit our minds from the inside from our heart and mind with. Our soul and strength which is our soul it's it's expressive it's relational it's it's feelings it's and strength is is an outward like we're doing something with our bodies to express worship. This is what passionate worship looks like it's it's expressing love and devotion to God and it's it's not just a mental assent it's it's everything and by the way right after this service and after next service I'm gonna buy all the guys because we have this thing called. Fight Club in church and it's about guys really living out this verse that we're gonna train you to love God with all your heart soul mind and strength and so if you're a guy man even if you're signed up for a different life group whatever it is and I want to invite you to go into the discovery room literally right after the service you just exit your seat and you go straight into the discovery room. I'll meet you there 15 minutes and we'll have you on your way but you go there and it's gonna be amazing because we're gonna teach you how to do this but passionate worship listen this passionate worship when it comes to the way in which to worship is nothing to do with your personality. It's a man you may say well I'm a little more reserved I'm a little more contemplative I'm I'm a little more introspective or what's the word for it what are the two personality types that we talked about introverted and extroverted and and and really I don't know if if Jesus when he shares a command to us if he really considers that. He doesn't.

And so we worship how do we worship we worship how the Bible tells us to worship and so over the next couple minutes I'm gonna I'm gonna explain six things in Scripture of how God shows us that we are to praise him we are to worship him and so you can take your bookmarks out and start at number one number one you're welcome here we go number one is to sing. Sing.

Sing. Man if you're not singing you gotta sing why because the Scripture says in Psalm 30 sing.

The praises of the Lord you his faithful people praise his holy name. We're to sing to God in praise and in worship we're to sing and so we we have this this is this is why churches are designed with singing with worship is because this is what's biblical we start with worship with with praise and with energy and we sing because God tells us to. We sing because it's biblical we sing listen to me we sing even if we don't feel it. Here's the second one. The second one don't look ahead it's to clap. You ever wondering why people clap man sometimes the worship team gets you clapping and you're not really sure and and man sometimes I clap just because I'm raring to go and I'm just being faithful to what God tells me to do because I worship him I don't worship you I worship him and so I'm gonna do what he tells me to do what not what you think I should do I'm gonna do what he tells me so I'm gonna clap my hands under the Lord. That's why we clap we sing and we clap. Here's the verse in Psalm 47. Oh clap your hands. All you people's listen you have no problem singing your team's fight song at a football game. You have no problem clapping your hands when something awesome happens and a player makes a incredible play. Listen those people have nothing compared to God. And yet we give them all our heart all of our what's the other one mind soul and strength.

And I do it too right I love that I love me some long horns man I'm gonna get me Michigan fans man you've never been more fired up than you are right now.

And yet you come into church.

Here's number three I think yes number three. Shout. Again you're at a football game here's your shouting man I was I took my nephews to their their first Texas football game this this fall and man we had a guy we were they were playing. Rice University and there was a guy named J.T. Daniels who's transferred from every school in the book and man this guy literally I don't even think he's watching the game he was yelling at J.T. Daniels the quarterback of Rice University the entire game. He was shouting at J.T. Daniels he was shouting we are to show why do we say hey shout out to the Lord why we declare the name of Jesus which is the name above every other name why do we do that is because the word of God tells us to do it shout to God with a joyful praise. This is what it shows us how to do this and so man we get these Facebook posts and man it just looks like a concert to me.

Certainly we got no one in here talking about things like that here's number four number four is dancing oh gosh guys you're like no. Dancing number four is dancing Psalm 149 says let them praise his name with no okay all right so some of you like I'm a I'm a get it's not just guys it's probably ladies too but you know I see some of you guys and I get it you're like Mr. Oh and you're like I'm tough and I'm not gonna dance and I'm just gonna fold my arms and run around my man and and just you know just just little little toe tap like just like just find your spine the rhythm I know some of you all don't have that it's fine but just find the little toe tap maybe a little shimmy like I don't know what like you if you feel it express it. With all your heart with all your mind expressed outward in your in your soul in your in your strength it's moving from the inside out we are dance dancing before the Lord how many of y'all would like to just cut a jig right now let's just get up and let's just stand up and show me your moves come on Jeff show me come on Jeff show me your moves I'm not joking stand up and show me oh yeah there it is there it is I love it it wasn't just a jig. But whatever number five is lift your hands lift your hands you know I I've so many people are like what's what's with lifting hands I'm gonna explain this to you Psalm 134 I believe it is verse two it says lift your hands in the sanctuary in God's house and praise the Lord and what is what is the lifting of hands what do we see in Scripture there's there's kind of multiple things that happens it's it's deference it's it's it's different. It's reaching out to God it's it's saying man I am not God I need you it's like I want to I want I want to grab a hold of your presence and other times it's it's surrender it's like Jesus I walked in here with these burdens I walked in here with all these cares and concerns and I'm weighted down and it's literally saying God I'm giving it to you I'm surrendering everything that I have and I'm giving it to you it's surrender it's lifting your heart to God in in worship and here's here's the picture here's what I'm saying. Because the Bible says that that the Heavenly Father is our good good father right he loves better than your earthly fathers ever possibly could and here's the picture I see we're supposed to have childlike faith Jesus says and with a picture of it is my little my little one year old who turned one this year he is the happiest kid on the planet. I don't know your kid but this kid smiles nonstop he brings me so much joy and here's what happens he is he is crazy right now he's like he found out how to call and he's like I don't even know how he does it he's like he's like in the air. He's like he's like floating he's going so fast and then he's crawling up on stuff and and here's what the coolest thing is he will if he sees daddy if daddy walks in the room. Man he he he crawls straight up to daddy he's smiling big and he crawls up my leg and what does he do? He's reaching. That's what we're doing to God our father we're reaching towards God himself for reaching towards our Heavenly Father in worship. I'm out of breath. Number six. Number six. It's just given me a breather. Is to his prayer. Prayer is worship to God Jesus said right there are his house would be what a house of prayer is communication with God its relationship with God it's it's it's talking to God it's it's expressing our emotions are gratitude to God it's it's it's it's coming together in Acts chapter four 24 I really do have to take a break. More cardio I guess. It says when they heard this acts chapter four 24. They raised their voices together in prayer together like New Testament prayer isn't just watching the pastor pray all the time now sometimes there's there's moments for that it's it's moments for someone on stage who's who's praying and but but you're to express like vocally out loud we're to do it together. And even that's why we talk about if you hear something that that's good inside your soul when you hear the word of God preached and you agree with it you respond you said that's good I agree. Amen. Let it be so like even in a prayer like you can agree you go even if it's like a little under your breath you're like. It's agreeing it's you're agreeing with God now I want to do something real quick to because we're kind of doing this whole response thing say Amen. That yeah how about a man. All right. Amen means I agree. It means let it be so there's a prayer that's spoken and you're agreeing with the prayer saying yeah God they said it and I agree I want that we need that it's agreeing and so I want to I want to practice this for for just a second because in 21 days of prayer. We do it more so during 21 days of prayer at our services that we then we do right here and it's and it's New Testament praying out loud together. And so I want to do that for a moment I want to I want to show you what that sounds like praying out loud together and so in just a moment I'm going to count to three. And and I know what's going to happen. Normally there's music playing in the background and you're able to communicate with God and express words out loud to God and but let's let's hear what it sounds like. Okay. So in just a moment I'm going to count to three and I want you to say out loud. I want you to say your full name. So my name is Daniel Robert Smith and I want you to say your address. So mine is I don't need all of you all showing up at my house but I know there's some crazy conspiracy people out there. So if you want to change your address that's fine. Google something right now and then say that address. That's fine. But on the count of three we're going to say out loud together our full names and our addresses including the the city state and zip code. Are you ready. Are the instructions clear. You're going to do it out loud and we're going to do it together. Ready. One two three. Daniel Robert Smith. 7 2 1 6. I'll try.

For 9 0 7 1.

Does anyone know what anyone else said.

Maybe your spouse because you like you're sharing the same address. But that is New Testament praying together lifting our voices to God in prayer together. Do you think that if God saw a church with that kind of faith and comfort in approaching his throne that he would be there in their midst and answering their prayers. Do you think you would see a move of God like you've never seen it before when that's how we express ourselves to God.

Man. So that's how we worship. Right. We're to sing. We're to clap. We're to shout our praises unto God being thankful for what he's done dancing lifting our hands praying out loud together and but now let's talk. Let's shift and let's talk about why should we worship. Let's talk about why we should worship. Number one is because God asks for it. A matter of fact his very nature demands it. It's like here's how I would express it. God is the creator of the heavens and the earth and you and I listen to this. You and I we are in awe of things. We go on vacations to the beach and to the ocean and we go to the mountains and we see this. We are just in awe of this. We're in miraculous wondrous awe of these things. And yet these things are tiny minute minuscule things that God literally created with the sound of his voice. And yet we're in awe. And yet he's the one who created it. He's the one who sustained it. He's the one that spoke it into existence. And yet we have the struggle of of knowing whether or not we can or should worship. But you got to I got to show you this in Scripture. This is Psalm 150 and I that I think it was a lady or guy and maybe maybe you're in the room. Maybe you're welcome in New Life Church. Maybe you said hey this is not a concert venue. And whatever. And you're welcome here. I will hug you afterwards. But let's this is the verse that I showed in Psalm 150. Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. The church is where we're at. Praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power because he's worthy of it. Praise him for his surpassing greatness. Did it change? No. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet. Oh no there's instruments coming into play. Praise him with the harp and lyre. Anybody play those? That'd be kind of cool wouldn't it? Praise him with the timbrel and with dancing. Praise him with strings and pipe. Praise him with the clash of cymbals. Praise him with resounding cymbals.

It kind of looks like a concert to me. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. This word praise in the original Hebrew language that's found in Psalms 150 here is the word halal. Say that out loud with me. Halal. Yes you're right. It goes a little. There's a little. Ready. Make sure you're not spitting something up on the person in front of you. Halal. This is the word for praise. Well this is this is this is what halal says. Halal's description is to shine. So we're praising God. Here's the difference between a concert and a worship environment in the church. We are creating an environment to shine light towards God not towards us. It's towards him. A matter of fact you and I don't know how well we've done this and I'm not throwing our team under the bus but we've been shifting. If you've noticed a little bit we've been shifting how we light our stage and how we light people because you in the past you might have seen this but you might have had a spotlight on a singer. Guess what we're changing that because it's not about the singer. It's about Jesus. We're not worshiping the singer. The singer is here to lead you to worship God. We're to shine the light. We're to make a show. Praising God. Boasting of his goodness and even like clamorously foolish. We're raving and we're celebrating all of who God is. This is what praise looks like. And listen Halal. Listen Halal. Halal Halal praise. It's not about you.

It's about the Lord.

It's not about you.

You too Siri is throwing up some you too right there. Siri. Shush Siri.

Stop.

Siri is crying out to the Lord.

What was I talking about. But here's the thing here. Do you know what I really believe. Here's what I really believe. Why we walk into places of worship and we're so concerned like what other people think. What am I going to look like. What do I sound like whatever. It's because of insecurity. Let me tell you very clearly. It's not about you. It's not about you. Say that with me. It's not about you. It's not about me. Yes say it say that say it's not about me. It's about the Lord. Here's the second reason for why we worship and it's because of what he's done. Like think about what he's done. And I want to tell this for just a second like we can be a little judgey sometimes towards people in worship can't we. I'll give you an example. My dad I grew up in a Methodist church where it was literally like okay now and there's nothing wrong with this. Turn to song or no what is it. What is it. Him no number 236 and we're going to sing the first second and fifth stanzas today and there might be a pipe organ in the back. That's fantastic. They have they have music. It's awesome. They might clap their hands even. But here's my dad. I was saved at a church that had this going on in Austin Texas and the first time my dad came in he was he was not a church goer. He would show up maybe at Christmas maybe at Easter if we dragged him. He just did. It wasn't his thing. And he walked into church and I was pretty new there and he leans over to me during worship and he points at the girl across the aisle who's lifting her hands and worship. I'll never forget what he said.

He said Dan look at that. She's raising her hands and worship and he points to the ground and there's like a cup probably of coffee. Do any of you have coffee cups in the room. So here's what my dad said. We were meeting in a high school at the time and as you entered the high school auditorium there was a sign on the outside that said what no drinks in the auditorium and he he was like look at her. She's a hypocrite. She's worshiping God with lifted hands and yet she's disobey being the rules of so she's anyways don't even get me started.

But we can be a little judgey. And so I want to show you this in second Samuel chapter 6. Here's the picture. David had just gone King David had gone with his dudes to go get the Ark of Covenant where it was the literal presence of God existed in the Ark of the Covenant and David was like almost afraid to bring it home and so he takes it to this other guy's house and then all of a sudden this guy's house like just became blessed beyond measure because the presence of God was in the guy's house. And so David's like okay all right I can take it home in my house. I really want the presence of God. I really want the blessing of God. I'm going to take so he takes it back into Jerusalem takes it back to his house and when they're entering the town they are worshiping their faces off. They're like dancing in the streets. They're going crazy and Michael the daughter of Saul who was the other king right married David. This is David's wife as the Ark of the Lord was entering the city of David. Michael daughter of Saul watch from a window. She's watching everything take place. Now watch this. And when she saw King David her husband leaping and dancing before the Lord she despised him in her heart. Now if you read further here's what here's what it says. It says basically that she she she thought he was making a fool of himself. She basically said dude you're a king. Why don't you act like it. You need to be a little more refined than this. You need to people need to be able to see you as a little more distinguished. And then King David responds a few verses later and says I will become even more on dignified than this. I will be humiliated in my own eyes. Why because it's not about him. It's not about you. It's about the Lord.

And you're to worship him with all of your heart mind soul and strength. You worship your football team.

More than you worship the Lord.

Cuts a little deep doesn't it. It's because it's a form of idolatry. Check this out. If you read a little bit further I'm careful to share this because God doesn't always do these things in discipline of his kids. But listen. McCall was watching from the window judging King David's worship and the result of that the punishment of that the result of her doing that towards David. The final verse of that chapter says that Mike McCall was barren from that day forward. She was unfruitful because she chose to judge how someone else was worshiping. What's the principle. Don't judge how other people are worshiping. But we're to worship how the Lord tells us to worship not just how we're just supposed to decide in our minds how to worship or to do it how he says to do it and check this out. This has happened over time. You even see this in the book of I forget the book in the gospels. Remember Jesus the woman who was in Jesus presence the disciples were there the woman who poured out a super expensive jar of perfume and she puts it on Jesus's feet and she's wiping her hair in it and the disciples looked at her and looked at Jesus and what do they do. They said she's spending too much money. She doesn't man she's worshiping. She that's wasteful. That could have been sold to be able to be provided for for someone who needs it. Man that's why they began judging how that woman was worshiping and check this out. What happens. Jesus confronts his disciples and he says she's worshiping this way because whoever has been forgiven much.

Loves much. They were judgmental of her worship. You see this in in further on you see this take place. Where am I at in my.

This is it. So I wonder. I wonder if sometimes. You know we've developed this like. Save your conflicts where we think.

We're actually God. But what if we what if we came to a place. What if we realize that as we got older I love that that picture of a child like faith they coming in worship like they're just they're just unrelenting they don't care. They're just going for it. And what if we got to a place. What if you got to a place in your life. That that you realize that everything you have.

Is because of Jesus.

Every single thing you have. Is because of Jesus if you've ever had a good idea it's because of the Lord. He created your mind. If you have a business he gave you the skill sets he created your personality type he gave you the grace it was it's because of the Lord if you got a college degree that you have a mind to do that you were able some of y'all you know how to read better than me I literally can't read. I'm not joking I can't read I like I took the A.C.T. when I was in high school and I like got a 12 in reading comprehension that's not good. But man I'm going to serve the Lord with what I've got and everything I have man it is because of God man if you're a doctor or or or a nurse or a teacher whatever it is it's because of the Lord he gave you the ability he gave you the mind it's the Lord man if you got out of bed this morning. It's because he gave you this day he gave you the very breath in your lungs you didn't earn it matter of fact you don't even deserve it.

We sang that song it's his breath in our lungs he literally breathed life into humankind you ask any scientist any person who's who's trying to invent things and make order out of all these things man the one thing they can never figure out what to do. How to create life because it only comes from God the very breath that you breathe in your lungs it's not you you didn't earn it you didn't deserve it it's the Lord in Luke chapter 19 verse 37 here's another example. In Luke right. Luke 19 it says the whole crowd of disciples man they burst into say it with me.

And it wasn't like oh man this is cool man our mighty mighty God me I just saw that guy. It was it was super cool in that that guy who was blind got sight man it was super cool when that guy who was lame began to walk that that deaf person began to hear that person was forgiven the prostitute who got brought in the open and Jesus had this way of deflecting the room's attention away from her shame and and she she was forgiven and made new in the presence of God man we don't walk around talking about the mighty works that we have witnessed. No we are enthusiastically praising God for it and they said blessed is he who comes the king in God's name all's well in heaven glory in the high places and then some of the curmudgeonly Christian people from the crowd told him teacher. Get your people under control.

Judgment. Man it's almost like Michael her like her like vibe was was like given to the Pharisees you know you all growing up a girl in a church like that you've been in a church like that you get your disciples on control in worship but he said Jesus said if they kept quiet the stones who are inanimate who do not have breath. They will praise him they will cry out to him. Man so we have this unbelievable opportunity to praise the Lord here's number three it's because sometimes we don't feel like it. Every week in our staff meeting the first thing we do is we pray to God and we ask for God to be in the room as presidents and to lead us and guide us and right after that immediately after that we share stories of life change because the reason why we exist is that people would experience God in a transformative way that you come in here and you are changed. By God and so we share these stories stories of life change and they talk about it for kids ministry and honestly the things that you're hearing from stage about what God's doing in people's lives it's coming out of that time period in our staff meetings where we're story where we're sharing stories of life change but you know what also happens. We get your text message and your emails and your and your prayer requests of Hey I really need this this family member just got checked in the hospital I need prayer they need they need healing. And we hear about struggles of the economy we hear about lost jobs we hear about the things that are going on your life and can I tell you something we care about it and our God cares about it and so we get it that you have moments in your life seasons in your life when you walk into church and maybe even when you get up in the morning you might not feel like it. But let me tell you something praising God in the midst of whatever it is that you don't feel like doing amazing things can happen let me share let me share with you scripturally. Paul and Silas the Apostle Paul and Silas he he had planted all these churches the greatest apostles that ever existed and and he and Paul is were arrested they are in prison awaiting court. And they're sitting in prison and they're doing what the Bible says they're praising God they're worshiping the Lord.

I don't know about you but if I'm in prison. In chains shackled up. I'm probably not thinking about worship. I'm thinking about like how do I get out of this. What did I do how do I get out of this how do I break free. Are these people next to me going to kill me. How do I survive. And yet they are worshiping. Listen if you follow the story what happens they worship before the Lord they worship before the chains broke a spirit of God came an angel of God came and broke the their chains free and they walked out of prison that the Lord gave for them to walk free from. They worship before the breakthrough. So even if you don't feel like it you come into the house of God and you worship when you don't feel like it because when you don't feel like it that's when God shows up. He says in his word that we in our weakness his strength is shown perfectly.

Man so yeah we praise him before the breakthrough for this reason for 2nd Timothy says I remind you and I'm reminding you today to fan into flame the gift of God which is inside of you. The Holy Spirit of God that was gifted to you poured inside of you the power and the authority man everything that you need in this life to overcome this life to overcome your sin and to get to be more like God. I mean everything you need man fan it into flame and it happens through worship. Here's the fourth one because worship changes the environment in Psalm 118 it says I called on the Lord who is worthy of praise and he saved me from my enemies. How many of y'all would need God to step in and to save you from your enemies but can I tell you something can I tell you one of the reasons why we should worship God is because he's worthy of it is because he saved you from the God. The greatest enemy you have and he saved you from yourself. He is your savior because you sinned and I sinned we are separated from God eternally but God didn't just leave us that way he came and left his throne in heaven to come to earth and to save us from our own sin. That literally the only way that you'll get to heaven in paradise in the presence of God himself is through the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. He's worthy of it and man he saved me from my enemies the enemies that are external and the enemy that's even internal. Last week we talked about being planted in the house of God the seed that we our lives are to be a seed that's planted in a healthy soil of the local church. And we have three weapons at our disposal we have God's word which shares with us what the actual truth things are of life there's worship it's not about me it's a it's about God there's prayer Psalm 18 says this I already said it got ahead of myself it's Hebrews 10 24 and so you like.

You wonder why your life can have some does anyone feel like their life can just be like a roller coaster like it's just crazy. Can I tell you something it's not because God left you it's because you wandered from him. He said it he said he will never leave nor forsake you.

And yet life even good things have this way of pushing God out and let letting everything else back in. David Pollack I don't you might not know him he's a he's a former athlete he played defensive I believe his defensive end for the Georgia Bulldogs back in the day he used to be on ESPN game day playing the NFL he posted this you actually shared him with me yesterday he posted on X yesterday he said parents man you're putting your kids and all these activities that are getting in the way of church and you got to understand something like they have less than like a thousand a hundred thousand of a chance to go pro.

But your kids your kids listen to me your kids a hundred percent of them will one day stand before Jesus and have to give an account for their life. You will have to give an account for your life. And so Hebrews 10 24 puts it this way let us consider thoughtfully how we may encourage one another to love and good deeds that that's what happens in the church to the preaching of his word not forsaking our meeting together. That's what we're doing right now as believers. For worship and instruction in the word as is the habit of some but it's not a good thing to do. We're encouraging one another all the more we got to faithfully make church a priority as you see the day of Christ's return approaching and can I tell you something Christ's day of coming is it's approaching it's coming. And so I want to give you this picture I'm going to share this verse with you and then they're kind of going to clear the stage don't take my don't take my my iPad I'm going to need it in Ezekiel chapter 46. Thinking about the church that's always existed the temple and being in the presence of God and the tabernacle the first portable church Ezekiel explains it this way but when the people come in to church, they go in through the North gateway to worship the Lord during the religious festivals when the people gathered they said they must leave by the South gateway they came in one way and they went on another and those who entered through the South gateway must leave by the North gateway they they came in one way. And they left another you can you can you can take it. Don't throw up the don't throw up the graphic yet. tradition is said, john the Baptist the one who was to prepare the way for the Lord for Jesus, that when he was baptized and people were coming in swarms to be baptized by john to receive Jesus as their savior they were being baptized in the river Jordan, and it said that they came down into the river one way. And they left the other. Why. It's because they came in one way. And they left forever changed their life was changed. Now check this out. First Kings chapter seven. They built the temple of God and it's, it's unbelievable. And on the outside entrance I'm going to show you the picture you can throw it up there. There's two pillars. As you were to enter into God's worship. And there's two pillars now if you're reading the original languages in Hebrew, it's not read like English is from right to left it's read from left to right, and these pillars as described in first King seven. It's these, it literally says that these were not supportive they were just, they were just symbolic they were, they were there for you to see it every time you walked in. And no matter what you were facing no matter what happened that week. No matter how hard it was for you to get up in the morning, and to get your kids rally together to come to the house of God to worship God, and to hear the word of God preached when you walked into the house of God, you walked into through the pillar. Pakeen, which means established reading from left to right. The other pillar which is Boaz, no matter what you face that week, you walked into the house of God, the house of the Lord, where the presence of God existed, and his presence is here, and you're walking into man it was chaos this week, but I'm walking into the house of God, I'm walking into worship, and I am walking into established strength that is only found in the house of the living God. Now go back to that scripture Ezekiel you came in one way, and you went out another. You walked into established strength, and you walked out with God, doing something transformative in your life, you walked in week, you walked in with burdens, but your faith was lifted, and you walked out with what strength established. This is what happens in worship. This is what happens when the people gather in his name to worship him to experience his presence. Listen, you've had enough of you, you need more of Jesus. Matter of fact, I used to pray this prayer. I used to pray this prayer all the time I used to say, God less of me, and more of you can I tell you something, the prayer actually should be, Lord let me die to myself and let you live. I pick up my cross, and I carry it every day. That when Jesus lives inside of me, and I walk into this environment my, my faith is built and I walk in one way, and I walk out changed.

Full Sermon Transcript

The book of 1st Timothy is a book written by the Apostle Paul. I believe probably the greatest apostle that ever lived and What you have going on with the book of 1st Timothy is you have this church in the city called Ephesus now? Ephesus was a city that was really a port city It was a happening city a lot of commerce happened through it But it was it was it was quite a large city a lot of trade when in and out of it And and in the book of Acts it records that the Apostle Paul came across some believers That they they said that they believed in God and they followed Christ, but they didn't have the Holy Spirit They didn't even know what the Holy Spirit was and so Paul the Apostle Paul began to explain to them who the Holy Spirit was And how they needed him and and so he laid hands on them prayed for them They were baptized in the Holy Spirit that began speaking in tongues and they were led by the Holy Spirit of God And in that moment, it's when the church at Ephesus the book of Ephesians Began to take root the book of Ephesians comes from the church of the book of Ephesus Paul was writing a letter to the church of the book of Ephesus But let me tell you something once we see that church come alive in in Acts I believe it's Acts chapter 19 you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's somewhere in that that world I'm not great with numbers But you believe you begin to see something amazing things that happened in that city a church that was unchurched up until that time and Paul's stuff shows up on the scene and begins to plant this church and the church scholars say began to grow so quickly that literally a 150 to 200 Thousand people began to make up this church in the city of Ephesus Somebody say mega church like that's a mega church a 150 to 200 thousand people and here Paul is he's one of the greatest Apostles and he's begins to have these churches He's planning these churches and he comes along and he and he finds this guy this brother in the face In the nut in the face in the faith named Timothy And they often talk about Timothy and Paul is having this unbelievable Relationship that they had this like father-son type relationship It's an older guy with a younger guy and and and and man the Apostle Paul said man There's no one like Timothy to me and he begins to place and insert Timothy as the lead pastor the pastor of the church at Ephesus and he's a young guy and Can you imagine trying to lead a group of people 150 200 thousand people strong as a young guy? And so you see Paul as he's planting these churches. He's called an Apostle right Apostle Apostolic is the Greek word which means he's to build he's gonna go build something. He's gonna start the church He starts the church from nothing and it becomes something and then he empowers Timothy to take over the church and and what you see in first Timothy and then of course in second Timothy is the Apostle Paul writing a letter to Timothy and to the church on What it's like to be in the church and what the church is supposed to be like and when you see the epistles all throughout The New Testament it's the the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus the church at Philippi The first the church at Colossae all over the known world Paul was trying to raise up this church And so I want to share with you the first scripture that we're gonna talk about that You don't have to pray about today and it's you don't have to pray about the church You don't have to pray about The church and I'm gonna show you why here's the Apostle Paul to Timothy if If It's frozen No pun intended First Timothy 3 The Apostle Paul says these things I write to you Though I hope to come to you shortly. In other words, he was traveling about and Timothy was there with the church there in where Ephesus but if I am delayed he says

This guy is really not working today, is that the right one I write so that You may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the You're gonna be really active today Okay, so that you know may how you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the Which is the of the living God Paul says the church the house of God is the pillar and the ground of the truth

Other translations say the church is the pillar and it's the foundation of The truth so if we're living in a world that is lacking truth, where do we need to go? We need to go to the Church we need to be in the house of God And so I want to I want to I want to do this again I'm gonna actually to ask you to rise to your feet for just a second because one chapter later in first chapter in first Timothy chapter 4 Timothy actually talks about the public reading of Scripture and so we're gonna read this together And and so I'm gonna I think it's gonna go up on the big screen if you can't see it. It's very big I'm gonna do it here as well, but we're gonna read it together But we're also gonna do it with gusto All right So when you read aloud in school and you did that monotone thing, that's not what we're gonna do here Okay, we're gonna read it with some attitude. We're gonna read it with some gusto Ready? These things I write to you though. I hope to come to you shortly. Okay More gusto. Come on make church online hear it and feel it. All right. Can I get an amen? These things I write to you though. I hope to come to you shortly, but if I am delayed I Write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God Which is the church of the living God the pillar and the ground of the truth You can be seated the church The church of the living God listen to me. You don't have to pray about the church Jesus called the church the bride of Christ. He is the groom and We are the bride Can I tell you something about my bride if you mess with my bride you are going to mess? with me her groom I Got you Don't mess with the bride of Christ The bride of Christ is something so special So incredibly intimate to God himself to Jesus himself. The church is called the bride of Christ It's also called the body of Christ, right? Jesus is the head. What are we to do with our bodies? We need to take care of our bodies Some of you maybe need to take care of it a little more Than you do, but we're gonna take care of our bodies We're the body of Christ in Matthew and Jesus said this right? He said I came to build my church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it He didn't come and say man. I'm gonna build my business. I'm gonna build my school. I'm gonna build my hospital I'm gonna build no he came to build his church You don't have to pray about the church, but here's the thing, you know I know that that some of you are thinking of all the church man It's it's it's it's a bunch of hypocrites and and man they hurt me and and they it's not great Can I tell you something man? Just take a deep breath?

You're right The church can be messy. I call it. Brutal. The church can be brutal and beautiful and here's why it's because God has called in perfect people to build and to lead his church and So even with our flaws even with our failures Man, it can be brutal at times, but it is also so beautiful because he's building it We're called to lead it and to build it the Apostle Paul was called to build it to call it to go out into all The known world and to plant these churches and to appoint other lead pastors like Timothy to oversee his church Listen to me the Apostle Paul the greatest that ever lived was not a perfect human being But he served a perfect God He served Jesus he was and is perfect And so we gotta we gotta talk about the church the body of Christ the house of the living God the pillar and the ground of the truth. We need to have a church We need to have an honor and a reverence for the church today I'm gonna talk through a few things about six points today about the church and it's actually gonna come from believe it or not before Before the the the book of Acts when the Holy Spirit came on the Apostles The word church wasn't mess it wasn't mentioned a whole lot in Scripture a matter of fact one of the only times it's mentioned in the Gospels is when Jesus said I will build my my church Before that you you barely see it in Scripture, but but there's a guy in the Old Testament His name was David. It's King David right that the giant killer who had this unbelievable revelation of God's church about God's people and God's place and and and David David David was called by God This is what God said about David. He said that David was a man after his own heart. I Can't think of a better thing that I would want God to say about me and about you that we were a people After God's own heart. Can I get it? Can I get an amen? That we would be people after God's own heart And so we see this this this David this this King David giant killer, man He killed his thousands and and and here's what David have to had to say in Psalms About the church and can I tell you something about the house of God? David in the Psalms, it's it's like he was writing a journal. Can you imagine? Writing in your journal and then having it published for the world to see it

Can you imagine everyone being able to see your your thoughts on on what you think about God and and The things you've going through in life and your and your trials and all these things and yet David writes this and then it's published for all of us to see and so we find this in Psalm 23 6 this is a revelation of Oh, I forgot to talk about the one conference

If you're not signed up for the one conference we are the bride of Christ if If the bride of if the bride and groom matter to God listen to me Jesus said this that you would gentlemen you would love your bride like he loves the church

Think about that for a second Gentlemen, you would love your bride Like Jesus loves the church Do you love your bride like Jesus loves the church? I bet cash money that a lot of you guys don't and so you need our help You need the Lord's help To do that ladies. Do you honor your husband as as as you honor the Lord? We need help So so whether you think your marriage is good bad ugly surviving thriving, whatever it is, man We gotta we gotta bring marriages back to where God wants it And so I want to invite you man get into this this conference. It's gonna be phenomenal. That's my plug My it's my 15 minute plug. You won't want to miss it. But here's what David says in Psalm 23 This is at the end of the beautiful passage scripture that I shared at Christmas, right when he talked about man He's gonna lead us to green pastures and and towards quiet waters He's gonna be the shepherd of our souls and he's gonna take us through the valleys the shadow of death and we're gonna fear No evil and and he's gonna he's gonna prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies And then he says at the end of it and surely God Your goodness and your love is gonna follow me all the days of my life and I love this declaration That David had and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever

It wasn't a question about how David felt about the church about the house of the living God He said he was a king he was he was a soldier he did all these amazing things and yet his number one thing is He said man, I will be in the house of God I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever now think about that word dwell for just a second dwell is not like you're Just coming in and coming out. You're not just passing by you're not just coming in Infrequently, you're not just showing up every once in a while. No, I dwell means to stay a while Like like you love being here You love being around God's people in the presence of God is the house of the living God You love being a part of it I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and what I want to tell you the first point of this This this message today if the screen decides to work Wow

Can I get someone to run it Do we have a person? Okay. Thank you. Stay on it. All right is it's purposeful David made a decision The church is gonna be the most important thing to me. I I will dwell He didn't say I'll think about it. He didn't say it man. I'm gonna pray about it He didn't say when it's convenient. He didn't say when I feel like it. He didn't say when the roads are good He said I will dwell in the house of the living God forever This is a revelation that came to David talking about the purpose of the church it's purposeful It's commitment David is expressing commitment to God and to God's house. It's intentional And he's gonna he's saying man. I'm gonna dwell there. I'm gonna stay a while I'm not just gonna drop in and drop out and so my life as a believer Man, God said David is a man after God's own heart. And so if I want to be that my life is a believer man It is intertwined with the house of the Lord and In man, not just my life but made my kids lives man They know what it's like to grow up in the house of the Lord. They love being here Matter of fact, that's one of the favorite my favorite things about my kids at this moment is that they love being in the house of God They've they've begged Kelsey and I to be here at 21 days of prayer every single night that we've had it Matter of fact, the only time we missed is when we canceled it Because we canceled it and they couldn't be here our kids love being here Even this morning our oldest our seven-year-old man. She she I didn't even hear it I didn't see it But she must have begged my wife to bring her here to help make you coffee My seven-year-old came to the house of God to make you coffee

She loves the house of God she loves the house Living God the pillar and the foundation of truth and She's learning this she's learning this I will dwell it's purposeful. Here's the second one Psalm 26a Sam there you go Lord. I love the house Man, do you love the house of the Lord do you love the church of the living God? I love the house where you live the place Where your glory dwells? Man, this is this is of course. The second point is the place there is a place of the living God Listen all throughout skip scripture you can read about it. God always had a people and God has always had a place Listen to me. God has always had a people and God has always had a place. It's never changed God has always and so what maybe maybe you're asking this question Man, what's the difference between this church and that church like like you might have passed a few churches on the way here And honestly most of it's just methodology Some of it can be difference in doctrine. It can be difference in beliefs actual biblical beliefs, but a lot of it's just preference It's like we look like this. We feel like this it sometimes it comes across because of the personality of the pastor Aren't you lucky? Thank You you're a blessing. I'll give you that ten dollars later But maybe you're visiting maybe you just moved into the area maybe just move to Kalamazoo for days Maybe you're watching online today, and you're trying to figure out man. What what should I be in? Where should I go to church? What church should I be a part of and can I tell you something? It doesn't really matter what church I'm gonna give you some a list of things that are important that you need to decide on in choosing a church But listen you don't have to pray about being a part of the church It's the bride of Christ if Jesus came to build the local church and the gates of hell did not prevail against it You better believe that anyone who follows Jesus better be in and a part of a local church Amen So let me give you some things some ideas of a place Of what to look for in a church a place to plant and to commit your life to here's a here's a few things Sam wake up What should you look for in a church number one it needs to be a place where Jesus is worshiped Let me say that again. It needs to be a place where Jesus is worshiped Let me say that again. It needs to be a place where Jesus is worshiped Not just God not just a higher power not just the man upstairs. It's Jesus It's always been about Jesus. It's Jesus yesterday today and forever is Jesus for breakfast is Jesus for lunch It's Jesus for dinner is Jesus always it's gotta be a place Where Jesus is worshiped? Why because at the name of Jesus every name and tongue in heaven? Tongue in heaven and tongue on earth will bow at the name of Jesus. I know what I'm saying. Well, that's the wrong That's the wrong verse I'm getting lost every knee will bow in heaven on earth at the name of Jesus and every tongue will confess that he is Lord something I'm getting lost in all the scriptures Here's another one Only by the name of Jesus can we be saved Not by the name of a higher power We're there are not just multiple ways to heaven Jesus says that he is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father No one gets to heaven but by the name of Jesus So if you're choosing a church, it better be a place where the name of Jesus is worshiped Am I clear Breakfast lunch dinner overnight while you're sleeping Number two where the Bible is taught as truth The Bible is taught as truth not what we feel not what we think not what culture says It's what the Bible says Where the Bible is taught as truth number three is where the Holy Spirit is moving in the church and in people's lives That life change is happening That people's lives are literally being changed by the very presence of God The Word of God is taught and faith is rising within us and we're changing our lives Not just we're not we're not trying to get the Bible to change for our feelings We're not trying to get the church to change for what we think is right No, we are being changed by the Spirit of the living God It's where the Holy Spirit is moving in the church and the people's lives Here's another one is where leadership demonstrates a godly lifestyle now for some of you you might think well, I don't know you that well, dude and Honestly, you you you might not get that far into my life a lot of you, but I can promise you We have so many people around me at all times Okay, can I tell you one of the the greatest gifts I have for for staying in as a person? Who is living a godly lifestyle? Can I tell you who helps me do that the most? Her name is Kelsey

You do You hold me accountable You tell me when I'm off Right you hold you you tell me when I'm moon my wife when my life is off and and do I listen to you? I Listen to you not always You're not always right But when you are When it's godly when it's biblical You hold me accountable. I am a better man. I'm a better leader because of you You're my bride You ever mess with my bride you're gonna mess with me I'm just telling you man Man, the leadership has to demonstrate a godly lifestyle Listen, listen, we have all sorts of checks and balances at New Life Church to make sure that our leadership is living a godly life But I can tell you everyone who who plays a part man We are pursuing God and we're being changed by him and I am no different than you I'm being changed by the living God. I am being confronted with the Word of God Leadership man, it has to demonstrate a godly lifestyle. Here's the fifth one

Yeah, you nailed it it's where you are challenged to grow and not just stay comfortable Man there's too many churches around that are just what the Bible says just just tickling your ears for what you want to hear Man you go to a church that just affirms what you think you should what should be right? Matter of fact, there there's a right a whole culture a whole world out there that is trying to tell you as believers What is right and what is wrong? But can I tell you only God has the right to tell you what is right and what is wrong?

Period and so if you disagree with Me that's fine But if you see it in Scripture You're not disagreeing with me You're disagreeing with God and he is going to confront you. He is going to make things uncomfortable for you at times Why because this is a place filled with imperfect people. He is the only perfect one. He's the one that sets the standard He's the one who who who laid the foundations of the earth. He created the heavens and the earth I love that we're reading through the book of Job if you're part of the Bible recap right now And he's literally telling Job and he's saying to his friends. He's like man. You're talking like you know everything You're talking like you know how I set the boundaries of the world in place You're talking as if you knew how I created the heavens and the earth the waters the mountains all of these things you and how you Operate life you're you're you're saying man. I know more than you. It's not the truth Only God knows the truth and we've got to pursue God in his word and so it's gonna confront us How many of y'all say I want to be confronted in 2024

Well buckle up people You better you better begin to love being confronted By the word of God. Here's why if I were if I were a good dad Would I not correct my kids? Do I correct them because I hate them or do I correct them because I love them Do I correct them because I know that there's better for them? Man, it's because he loves us that he corrects us You got to be a part of a church where you are challenged to grow and not just stay comfortable Here's the sixth one where you are encouraged to get involved in the life of the church, man You got to get involved in the life of the church and here's this. Oh wait. Let me let me let me say this for a second Some of you might say even church online if you're listening you might say well Dan pastor Dan you just don't know how busy I am

Kelsey's telling me to stop it because I get sarcastic

We're all busy We're all busy do you think you own Busy Like seriously We're all busy Do you think do you think David who was the king who was reigning over all the people and he was leading Armies and he was leading he was just he was he's leaving the justice of the kingdom. Do you think he was busy? He was busy Do you think the Apostle Paul who planted most of the churches that we talk about in Scripture? Do you think that he was roaming around the world trying to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you not think that he was busy?

He was busy We're all busy Chris loves it Do any of you about do any of you else feel like do you do any of you else love it? I Told you that you'd be challenged and confronted if you tell us that you're too busy for the house of the living God

I'm smiling because I do love you, but stop saying that We're all busy. I got to move on I Encouraging you to get involved because you're not that busy

Number seven is where there is a clear sense of vision Can I tell you where the clear sense of vision comes from for New Life Church? It comes from the Word of God We exist to know God to find freedom to discover purpose and to make a difference We are we are we are to be saved by God We exist to rob hell and to populate heaven if people don't know Jesus they're going to hell But if they've given their life to him They're going to heaven and we are the only entity on planet earth that has been given the mission and the message To declare to the world that Jesus is the Savior of mankind Am I clear? about our vision Our sense of vision that that you're gonna get into life groups We're gonna get into life groups and we're gonna we're gonna get into relationships with people where we can allow God to sharpen us One to another and allow God to change us. We're gonna pray for each other, man. We're gonna encourage each other We're gonna allow God to change us in Jesus name Then we're gonna discover the gifts and the grace that God's given us to be able to serve His house to serve his people to serve his mission Listen, we the Apostle Paul also wrote over and over and over again throughout scripture man. He says that you are the ministers every single one of us Listen whether you came here today for the first time and you're a believer in Jesus Christ Listen, you are a pastor of the living God You are a minister of the gospel You're to make a difference in this earth. So where is our clear vision? It comes from Scripture Here's the third point that I want to share with you Psalm 27 for one thing. I asked from the Lord This is David. He said this only do I seek? That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life this one thing that I seek David again, he was the the man God said he's a man after my own heart is The church being in the church being a part of the church of the living God Which is the pillar and the foundation of truth man? This is that the priority of your life?

Because this is what scripture says that man We're gonna gaze on the beauty of the Lord and we're gonna seek him in his temple He's talking about the place where God dwells we're gonna seek him in his temple And so we're gonna we gotta make it a priority David made it a priority. This is the only thing this this only do I seek? It's a priority and But here's what happens. I know this I've been there done that I've gotten the t-shirt man We've got God on our list and we've got church on our list and can I tell you something? They shouldn't be separate You can't separate the two You can't separate God and the church the bride and the groom you can't separate the true true You can't separate the two You can't separate the two the truth is let me tell you this let me tell you this about the church and a Christian a Christian without a church is an oxymoron The Bride and the groom they are intertwined together. This is why David is saying to us man This only do I seek man? I don't just seek man after my own business after my own family after my own well-being I'm not just thinking all my my selfish desires know this one thing I seek And yeah he's gonna do all these other things in his life and he's gonna be the king and he's gonna be a Warrior and he's gonna do all these great things for his life but man his dedication to the priority of Seeking God and being in the house of the Lord all the days of his life to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him as his temple man. This is what it needs to be like for our lives And so I'm asking you is it like David is the house of the Lord the church a priority in your life and in your family's life Is there a sense of fear of the Lord and and in honor for the church of the living God that because because Right. We're we're all busy. We're here. You're not alone in that we got things going on I mean we're we're we're working and we're doing things and we got kids schedules and man I I got to say yes to some things and I gotta say no to some things But I tell you what I'm never gonna say no to I'm never gonna say no to God and I'm not gonna say no to his Church to which he is called me to be a part of and to build

Here's the next one Psalm 27 5 man, we've got we've got what we've got It's purposeful The church is a place The church is a priority and here's the next one for in the day of trouble and there's there's gonna be trouble Aren't you glad you came to church today? There's gonna be trouble in your life There's gonna be things that happen in your life For in the day of trouble he God will keep me safe in his dwelling He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock Man, he's gonna he's gonna keep me safe in his in his dwelling this is Protection God has protection here in the local church in the in the house of the living God Where if you're out on your own if you're if you're out and you know and about and you're you've separated from the church man You can get attacked like crazy without having a bunch of believers around you praying for you and protecting you You don't have the covering the hedge of protection that God has over the church that he came to build God will keep you safe in his dwelling place Here's the fifth one Psalm 65 for blessed Say I'm blessed Act like you mean it say it again Do you believe it? Blessed are those who choose and And you choose and bring near to live in your courts Man, we are filled with the good things of your house of your holy temple Man, we're we're so grateful for the relationships that we have We're grateful that that the Word of God is spoken and and our faith rises We're grateful for the provision of the Holy Spirit of God that comes inside of us and allows us to change and and and Speaks words of truth to us and allows us to see it clearly amidst all the crazy non-truths of the world It's the provision of God that we get to enjoy all the good things of being a part of God's house It's the protection. It's it's that girl who who got diagnosed at eight year in eighth grade of cancer And she had this community of people because of the house of God because of the heart of God Rallying around her rallying around her family to care for her in her time of need Man, it's the it's the provision of God Man blessed are those Who God shows and brought near to live in his courts, man. We're filled with the good things of God's house. Are you are you grateful for the good things that God has provided you through his house? That he's provided you good teaching through the Word of God that he's provided you the opportunity to be changed by the Holy Spirit of God Here's the next one in the last one. The righteous will flourish like a palm tree They'll grow like a cedar of Lebanon Planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God Here's the last one and that is to be planted

To be planted It's purposeful it's a place it's priority Right it's protection there's provision We got to be planted Why is this so important? Right you see it written on our wall right out there. It's that we were to be planted in the house of God

Have you ever seen a Tree or a shrub Flower Have you ever see have you ever seen it grow and flourish Without being planted

You've never seen that because it's not how God designed it And there's this mystery that happens this this mystery of the seed of our lives Being planted in the healthy soil of the church of the living God

That when we're planted in the healthy soil of the environment of worship to Jesus and the preaching of God's Word and the community of believers who are sharpening each other and Encouraging each other and man looking after each other and man We're we're providing for one another in needs and we're we're praying for one another and we're trying to reach the world with the gospel Message of Jesus Christ that you don't have to pay for your sins because Jesus has done it for you man, when you are planted when the seed of your life is Planted in the house of the living God

The seed of your life It begins to flourish It begins to grow There's there's fruitfulness There's the fruit of the spirit. You can see it happening Listen when when when the seed is planted and it begins to grow man. It begins to sprout out and there's strength there There's beauty there It's being planted in the house of God Flourishing in the house of God. Can I tell you something?

You don't have to pray about the church

It's the bride of Christ Man get planted

Full Sermon Transcript

I think sometimes when Christians or when people read the Word of God, they look at it and you might even be confronted with someone who says, Hey, why aren't you doing this? And then you say, well, I need to pray about it. Well, how many of y'all know that the things that God commands you and I to do, that He tells you very clearly to do in His Word, you don't actually have to pray about it, you just have to do it. It's what I call Nike theology. Just do it. Right? It's just do it. You don't have to pray about what to do. And so this series, I'm going to unpack some of those things in Scriptures that you don't have to pray about. You just need to do it. And here's where that comes from. It comes from this great verse in, when my computer, there it is, James 1, 22. It says, don't just listen to God's Word, which, by the way, you need to listen. Listen to God's Word. It says, when the Word of God is preached, faith rises. How many of y'all need your faith to rise this season? And so you need to have a commitment to hearing the Word of God preached. But don't just listen to God's Word. You got to do what it says. Otherwise, hey, listen to me. This is God, not me. When you don't do what He tells you to do, you're fooling yourselves. You got to do what it says. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to pray about it. You don't have to pray about it. Whether or not you should. You just got to do it. You got to just do it. And so I want to take a look at this, this time around. And then it goes on and says in verse 25, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. How many of you, when you started 2024, you're like, man, I want to be blessed by God. How many of y'all pray that prayer? God, I just want you to bless me.

You don't pray that? You don't pray that? I know you do. Man, you thank God, man, I could just use a little blessing. Have you ever prayed, God, man, I could just use a little obedience?

Yeah, now you're raising your hand.

Right, too often, right, we want God's blessing and he's telling us that his blessing is on the other side of doing what he says. And so we're going to unpack this in just a moment. I want to share, if you're taking notes, by the way, we like to put it this way, if you're new to New Life Church, we have a phrase that note takers are, let's do it like we believe it, note takers are world changers. And look at these young people. They got their notebooks out, they're ready to learn. You can take your phone out. You can take notes in all sorts of ways. It's fine, it's okay, you can get it next service then, all right. But if you're taking notes, you're going to jot down this particular quote, and it's this, we won't experience the promises of God without obeying the principles of God.

Like some of y'all, you need to like take a picture of that and put it on your phone as your backdrop or wherever it is that you look at it, because too often we come in here and we come into church and we hear the word of God, or maybe we're in the, the, the Bible and you're the Bible recap on YouVersion. And by the way, there's so many people doing that. If you're not doing it, you should get involved in it. Ask a staff member, we'll get you in it. But it's amazing. But this is so true. We won't experience the promises of God without obeying the principles of God. And so we've got to do what the word of God says. We got to do what it says. How many of y'all ready for 2024 to just do it? Because can I? I want to, I want you to like me, but I also want to be very honest with you. A lot of us use the phrase, I'll pray about it as an excuse not to actually do it.

I'm still smiling. So I hope you can hear what I'm saying.

And in this particular message, we're going to go into several different areas of scripture and several different areas of our lives where this is. So important for us. And I want to dive into what I believe is the most important one when it comes to scripture and how we live and who we do life with. I'm going to say that this is the most important area for us to do because how many of y'all have ever heard that friendships matter? You've heard the phrase that if you show me your friends, I will show you your. Man, y'all do listen. Show me your friends and I'll show you. Your future, your friends. You are a sum total of the people who you allow into your life. And so we're going to dive in to friendships today. What does God have to say about friendships? And we're going to do it God's way. We don't have to pray about it. We're just going to do it. And so the first thing that I'm going to ask, the first question I'm going to ask, and I'm going to ask three questions. This is a questions test on whether or not you are doing these things. And the first one is, am I disconnecting from unhealthy relationships? Relationships. Like, you know that when you're around certain people, they just tear you down. They drag you down. They're filled with negativity. Maybe you're in a friendship and it's been abusive. Man, they just hurl insult after insult after insult all the time. And you just need to get out of it. You need to disconnect from that unhealthy relationship. We're going to talk about this in the next series called The Fight, which is about relationships. And the family, the next series. So I'm not talking a lot about marriage today in particular, but maybe some of you are dating some people and it is a toxic relationship. And can I tell you, you need to disconnect today from that relationship.

As a matter of fact, I think if you wouldn't mind, actually I'm going to share this verse first and then we're going to pray. Proverbs 13, 20 says, Walk with the wise and you will become wise. For a companion. A fool suffers harm. And so if you're in these unhealthy relationships and your life is toxic and it's being harmed by one another, you know that this is a relationship you need to break free from. You got to do it. And here's what he says in 1226. The righteous, check this out. The righteous choose their friends carefully. They don't just let it happen. When I was in student ministry, I remembered this happened all too often. Right? I would preach the word of God and I would share my own testimony. I'd say, hey, I've lived a very crazy life. And I promise you, you don't want to live that crazy life. So do what God says and you will be good. But if you, and how many said, well, I just got to figure that out for myself. And then they'd go off to college. And then they would make friends, what I call by osmosis. They're just the people in their dorms or they're just the people in their classes. Or just the people on their teams. And they end up living a life contrary to what God would tell them to live. And the life that God would want them to live. And they take off with these friendships. And they get taken down and taken out. Because they didn't choose their friends carefully. Students, young people. Do you have parents? And maybe I'll speak to the parents too in this as well. Do you have parents that are particular about who you hang out with? Any students that do that? That have parents like that? Okay, I'm speaking to parents now. Parents, you need to choose carefully who you allow your kids to hang out with.

We have a rule in the Smith house. We haven't had to do it a lot yet. Because our kids are so young. But we have a rule that we will invite people into our environment. But they ain't going into anybody else's.

Like if I don't know them. If I don't know the parents. They're not spending the night there. If I don't know that they carry the same values that we do. I'm not exposing our kids to that. Why? Because the word of God has told me as a believer. That the righteous choose their friends carefully. And in 2024. I wonder if you could take inventory of your life. And just begin to make a mental note. Or even write it down on your sheet of paper that you're taking notes on. The list of unhealthy friendships that are taking you down. And taking you out. That are toxic. That you need to disconnect from. Do you want more in 2024? You can't just pray about it. You got to do it.

Because when you don't. You don't want the wicked. Lead us. Us astray. It's going to happen. You can't trust everybody. You got to be diligent. With where you send your kids. You got to be diligent. With who your friends are. Listen. You got to love everybody. We're going to talk about this in just a minute. But the Bible tells us that we're to love everybody. But can I tell you what? I'm not going to let every single person. Who comes into this church be my best friend.

I'm going to love you. And we're going to care for you. And we're going to love you. And we're going to help you. And we're going to point you in God's direction. But man I'm not going to be best friends with all of you. And the same is true. When you go out in your workplaces. You're not going to be best friends with all of these people. Why? Because you got to choose your friends carefully. The first Peter. The apostle Peter says this. But just as he called you as holy. So be holy in all you do. God is holy. Jesus is holy. And so many times we think of it as. As being perfect. Jesus is perfect. And that's where the phrase like holier than thou is. Like you're acting holier than thou. And that's why we also have a phrase at New Life Church. That no perfect people are allowed here. Because if. Can I get an amen? Because the only perfect person that has ever lived on planet earth. Is Jesus and you're not him.

Just to let you know. Ain't I a little secret there? But just as he who has called. You as holy. So be holy in all you do. What does that mean? It means that you're set apart. You're set apart for a purpose. Guess what? Jesus came to earth. To die a sacrificial death. To give us life and freedom. And an eternity in heaven in paradise. He was set apart. He was called to be different. Listen in 2024. You got to stop being a chameleon Christian. You've got to be. Different. If you keep looking like the world. If you keep looking. Listen. I'm going to keep using him today. Because a lot of you probably have similar issues. And I had a similar issue. If you keep bellying up to the bar. Week after week. Or day after day. Whatever it is. And you keep living that life. You're never going to experience freedom. And guess what? You look just like the drunk guy next to you. You don't look different.

You've got to be holy. You've got to do what God says. You've got to be holy. As God himself is holy. Be holy. Not in some of the things you do. In all of the things you do. Hey, this is an old school phrase. I don't know if you've heard about it before. Hopefully I can do it on the cameras. There's no people there. Oh, there is a person there. But how many of y'all have heard the phrase. Get off the fence. Like some of you are walking the fence line. Of being in the world. Doing secular things. Versus being a Christian. Doing biblical things. Following the Lord. And you're tiptoeing on the fence. And you've got one foot on this side in the world. And you've got one foot on this side. In godly things. And you're tiptoeing that line. Hoping not to fall off. But guess what? You're going to fall. Get off the fence. Get off the fence.

Get off the fence. It's not safe. On the fence.

So be holy. Just as he is holy. Here's the second one. The first one was. Am I disconnecting from unhealthy relationships? By the way, let's take a moment. I was going to pray for just a moment. Because I feel like there's someone in the room. That has someone that's tearing you down. Has been doing it for years. It's so toxic. And listen. You're literally afraid to break it off. It's that toxic. It's that abusive. It's all on you to extend your hands for just a moment. And I want you to just lift your hands to heaven. I don't know who it is that needs to hear it today. It might even be someone online. But we pray in the name of Jesus right now. That you would break the stronghold. Of unhealthy toxic relationship. That you would begin to have the boldness. And the freedom that Christ gives. To each and every one of you. That you would be fearless. That God would give you everything you need. To support you getting out of that relationship. That you would close that door. And realize that there are so many open doors. That God already has for you. On the other side of it. So I pray peace and boldness. And fearlessness. As you make this decision. To disconnect from this unhealthy relationship. In Jesus name. And all of God's people said. Amen and amen.

Number two is. Am I initiating meaningful relationships? So all too often. When we're to do God's word. When we're going to do what God says. It's saying yes to God. And it's saying no to something else. Like every single time. You say yes to God. It's going to cost you something else. When you say yes to a meaningful relationship. You have to say no. To an unhealthy one. When you say yes to God. In doing something. You're going to have to say no. To something else. I want to give you an example. We just learned this from a pastor. I wouldn't call him a friend of ours. Because we don't really know him. We just heard him speak one time. So he's not really a friend. But we're all friends. Anyways. He's older in the faith. He's been leading a church for a long time. How many of y'all have maybe heard or seen. That pastor's kids can be crazy?

PKs is what they call them. Well we have PKs. Be nice to our PKs. Alright. And they have all sorts of crazy in them. Okay. But you have the freedom to discipline them. Don't hit them or beat them. But they're being raised in the church. To do godly things. So you know. But we don't want to put them up on a pedestal. And have so much pressure. We want. Can I tell you something? We want our kids to fall in love with Jesus. We don't want them to fall in love with having to act right. And be right. We want them to fall in love with Jesus and his church. And want to fall in love with saying yes to him. Saying yes to him. And saying no to other things. And so I want to give you a tip. This is actually free of charge. And it's actually coming in advance of our series called The Fight. But I'm going to give it to you now anyways. This particular pastor. Has all. Listen. All of his kids are grown adults. And they all are Christ followers. Love the Lord with everything. Their families love the Lord. And all of them serve. In full time ministry. In that church. Can any of y'all imagine. Working for your dad. And yet. They love the Lord. And they love. The church. So much that they want to be a part of it. And they're serving under their dad. Who is not just their dad. He's also their pastor.

And I don't. I don't know about you. But I look to that guy. And I think if I want more in 2024. More for my kids. More for my life. And all the areas of my life. I want to get around people who are living lives. That I want my life to look like. And so I look at this guy. And he's living the kind of life that I dream of. For my kids. And for our church. And for our family. And man. So he began to share with us some specifics. And he told us. I'll never forget this. He said that we have a 70% rule with our kids. Meaning we'll be at 70% of your games. Performances. Or activities. 70%. To which some of you are like. Oh my gosh. You're going to miss 30% of your kids things. And I'll never forget what he said. He said the reason for it. Is because our kids need to learn. That we are kingdom focused. Not kid focused. Our kids need to learn. That we are God first. Kingdom focused. Not kid focused. I'm going to use this. I'm going to use this phrase so many times in the next series. I'm already preaching it. Because I'm already fired up about it. Are you living in a household where there is a kid CEO?

Your kids are calling the shots. Your kids are running your schedule. Your kids are taking you away from the Lord. Your kids are taking you away from the church. And we wonder why they've left the church. Why they've left God. 70% and all of his kids are serving the Lord. In love with the Lord. Love the church. And even love their dad. Who wasn't at 100% of their games and activities. It's powerful stuff guys. Am I initiating meaningful relationships? In other words. Get around people whose lives look different than yours. Lives that you want to live. Like areas in which you're not good at. Get around those people. Find them. Go search them out. Initiate it. Right? We have to choose the right friendships. The wise. The blessed. The blessed. Man. What is that word? That it said in the last scripture. I can't remember. The righteous. The righteous choose. Who their friends are going to be. Get around people who are living lives that are different. And maybe even I say better than your lives. And learn why they're doing it. Especially in the local church. Because in the local church. We're doing what? We're saying yes to what God has told us to do. And if you're trying to find the way out there. You will not find it. You'll keep running and running and searching and searching. And you won't find it. And so I got to initiate meaningful relationships.

He's tired. He's taking a couple weeks off.

I must have gone backwards.

Proverbs 18 says, He who has friends shows himself friendly. And he who has friends shows himself kind. You know, early on in the church. You might sense this for me. Because I'm like passionate about everything. I am an intense human being. And early on in the church. I would walk through the lobby before service. And I would have my head down. And I'd be in game mode. And I'd be like, I guess looking mad at everybody. And I would just be walking by people. Not even saying hi. And this guy took me to coffee. And he said, hey. Hey, Dan. Why do you walk around and act like you hate everybody? Because I would literally have a scowl on my face everywhere I walked. And by the way, if I still do that, I apologize. I'm trying to get better at it. But what happens is before service, I'm in like pre-game mode. I'm in like got my headphones on. It's like J.J. McCarthy right sitting in front of like meditating. Getting focused on the game. And I got the message. I'm trying to tune everything out. But guess what? If I want friends. I got to show myself friendly.

So if I want you to like me, I can't just scowl at you and yell at you. And I got to smile. Some of y'all, the best thing you can do in 2024 is turn that frown upside down. You got to stop acting like you hate people. Because if you do, this is probably the wrong church for you. Or you can stay long enough to allow God to change you. And allow him to do something powerful. And allow him to do something powerful in your life. Where you actually begin to not hate people. You actually learn to love people. But if you want to have meaningful friendships. You got to show yourself friendly. What does that mean? Some of you have been asking. You've been asking for a friend. You've been begging God for a friend. And God has all sorts of open doors of friends sitting all around you. In this service and in the next service. We've got life groups. We've got all these ways to connect with people. Who have meaningful relationships. People always say this about our life groups. They're new to our church. They say, man, when they get into a life group. They're like, man, these people. It feels like they've known each other for forever. Guess what? They just met this semester.

They just met. They're like, oh my gosh. Has this person been at this church for the last seven years? No. They've been here for three months. They just got involved in a life group.

They showed themselves friendly. And they. They initiated meaningful, godly relationships. And so I want to encourage you this semester to say yes to God. When it comes to life groups. And when it comes to getting involved in meaningful, godly relationships. People who are pursuing God. They're saying yes to God. Yeah. They're saying no to a few other things. They're saying no to a few other things. But listen. They're 70%ers. Man, they're still involved in life. They're still living life. But they're not going to get distracted. They're going to stay. They're going to stay pursuing God. And being in God's word. And so I want to invite you. Here's life groups. It's such a cool graphic. You want to register now. We've got more. This is. We got more groups coming. Take out your phones. Man. I don't. Take out your phones. This is legal in church, by the way. Take out your phones. You can do it. It's. It's all the rage. All the kids are doing it. If you don't know how to do this. Find a. Find a teenager or 20 something who's probably sitting next to you. And they'll show you how to do this. You literally aim your camera. At this thing. It pulls up a link. You click it. And it takes you to all the life groups. And so. Get in a life group. Show yourself friendly. Show yourself friendly.

You don't have to pray about it. Here's another one. I think I have another one up there. This year we're doing our first ever. I don't know if you can see the graphic. We're going to promote this. We have friends coming to visit us from Texas. We're going to promote this. We're going to promote this. To share with you. And Kelsey and I. The one marriage conference. For the first time ever. We're doing a night time. Like date night vibe. And Saturday morning. Until about what? One o'clock or two o'clock. Something like that. And man. All the food is provided. And all the materials. And all that stuff is provided. So register for the one marriage conference. Man. No matter what. Listen. No matter what. You think. Okay. How do I put this? Do you guys ever want to get married? You're not married. Right? No. Do you ever want to get married? The Bible says that marriage should be honored by all. Not just a few. And so young people. I want to even encourage. If you're single. Or single again. And you want to be married again. Or in the future. Man. Register for it. There's not a greater time. To learn how to become. A person who is going to be married one time. Than right now. Because guess what? You're going to be around people. That have made all. The mistakes. And are trying to figure it out. They're trying to fix it. Because they didn't have stuff like this. Before they got married. But we have it now. It's not too late. So if your marriage is on the rocks. Or your marriage is stagnant. Or your marriage is awesome. Or you're not even married yet. You should come to the one marriage conference. I pretty much covered all of you. Right? Who should come to the marriage conference? Maybe not the kids.

It is actually a kid free event. I believe. Right? I don't remember. No we have child care. On Saturday we have child care. I don't want to make mistakes. That's why you're there. So what are we not going to pray about? We're not going to pray about. Initiating meaningful relationships. So we're going to get into a. Life group. And we're going to do the things. We're going to show ourselves friendly. To the people of God. We're going to get around people. Who are chasing after God. And God's best for our lives. And it's going to change our lives. This guy doesn't like me today. Here's the third one. Am I nurturing important relationships? Oh gosh. I could probably talk about this one. For days and days and days. And days and days. How many times do you have a friend. And you're like man. They just don't call anymore. They don't text anymore. I don't see them anymore.

What have you done to nurture that relationship? Did you come to the church? Did you call? Did you call? Did you call? Did you call? Did you call? Did you call? Did you call? them? Did you text them? Did you ask them to have coffee? Did you nurture it? Because relationships are not just one-sided, they're two-sided. And too often in friendships, we start looking at each other and looking at our friends and like, man, I really miss that person. They just ghosted me. And man, I get it. Things get busy. I'll never forget this. When my friend, my first, I should say my, I shouldn't say my first friend. I had many friends before this. But one of my best friends in college, I'll never forget when he got married, he got married years before I did. And when he got married, our relationship changed. Like we used to hang out on Saturdays. We played football together. So we would hang out on Saturdays. We'd watch football like all day together. I'd pick up a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. Amen. And we'd watch football all day long. Guess what didn't happen when he got married? Our relationship changed. But guess what? We're still friends today. And even he has kids and they're doing all sorts of activities. And I'm leading a church and he lives in Houston, Texas. But man, last year I gave him a text. I said, I want to see you. I want to invest. I want to get back to nurturing relationships. How many relationships have you lost because you just let them go? You didn't actually take steps to keep the relationship, to nurture the relationship. And that relationship actually means a lot. So take time to make that phone call, shoot that text, get back in coffee, whatever it is. We've got to nurture important relationships. And this is something you need to hear. My wife is coming up to make my message sound more spiritual. You need to write this down and you need to take this to the bank every single day. Don't just make withdrawals from this relationship. Make deposits. Man, I was convicted by this today. I have some incredible relationships with other pastors and with other leaders. We have overseers who are pastors of other churches. And really, they oversee me. They hold me accountable. They pour into me. Excuse me. They help me when I'm sick. They pray for me. But do you know what I realized during this message? These are some of the things that I've learned. I've learned a lot. I've learned from a lot of people who said, God, you're giving me just the right things. I'm going to give them what I want. I always want to get what I want. I'm going to get what I want. I'm going to get what I want. Almost every time I call them, I'm asking them for something.

I'm asking them for advice. What would you do? Can you send me this? How did you handle that situation? That graphic you did that I saw on social? It was awesome. Can I steal it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I continually just ask them over and over. I just keep asking and asking. All I'm doing is taking from them and I'm not giving anything back.

And they might not even need anything. I thought today maybe I would text them and say, hey, how can I serve you in 2024? Maybe I'll preach for you one weekend. I don't know what it is, but how can I serve you? What can I do for you? Do you know how a relationship becomes toxic?

I thought she stopped playing.

It's when one side takes over the other.

So needy. Take, take, take. No deposits. Just withdrawals, withdrawals. Emotionally. Sometimes physically.

Take, take, take. Withdrawals, withdrawals, withdrawals. No deposits.

Negative, negative, negative. No positive. Negative.

I can tell you right now that you don't have to pray about this. You need to make more deposits in your relationships. Don't just expect the other person to make deposits to you. Man, you make deposits into them.

Make deposits.

A study was done. I don't look at what the government in California does very often. But they came out of a study, the California Department of Health, and they said this. That if you isolate yourself from other people, you are three times more likely to die an early death.

Yeah, I might hit home to some of you. What do you call it? Well, hermits, yes, for sure. Introverts, yeah. Introverts. Hermits. Hermits. Maybe I'm speaking to someone. Maybe I'm speaking to someone online who hasn't come back to church and you need to come back to church. Because you don't need to just see worship. You don't need to just see and hear a message. You need a hug. And it's not gonna happen on your couch. It's gonna happen with the people of God in the house of God. If you isolate yourself from other people, you are three times more likely to die an early death. You're four times more likely to suffer emotional burnout. You're five times more likely to suffer clinical depression. And you're 10 times more likely to be hospitalized for an emotional and mental disorder. You don't have to pray about this.

So I wanna give you three lies that you and I tell ourselves about our problems. The first is, I can just hide it. I call this putting on a mask. You're acting like a good Christian when you come in here.

But your life is a mask. Your life is a mask. Your life is a mask. And you're just hiding it. You're masking your pain. You're masking your issues, your problems. Here's the second one. Man, I can just handle it by myself. Man, I'm gonna speak to mostly guys here. I'm sure girls do the same thing, but we just have this. I can handle it.

Don't need to let anybody know that I got problems.

Well, I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm not gonna lie to you. But sir, we all know you got problems because you're acting a fool and nobody likes you because you're just all mad all the time. Why? Because you're just bearing it and not dealing with it. You're just bottling up the hurt and not finding healing.

Don't lie to yourself. I can hide it. I can handle it by myself. Here's the third one. I can heal without anyone's help. There's nothing further from the truth. That God actually says in James chapter five, that if we come together and confess our sins one to another and pray for one another, what does it say? You will be healed.

This is the word of God. You don't have to pray about this. Listen, get into a life group. confess your sin, have some accountability, help people grow. If you're not in a group, can I tell you, you're not going to grow spiritually. You're not going to get healthy spiritually. I know this. Why? Because this is how God designed it. This is why we say on the wall out front that we exist to help people to know God. And most of the time that happens through the reading of his word and being in his presence, being in worship, hearing the word of God preached in the house of God, where faith rises. And then we get to know each other. We get into his family. We get into life groups. And that's where life change happens. Life change happens in the context of relationships because of James chapter five. When he says, get together, confess your sins one to another. Guess what? You want to get healing in the sins and the areas of your life that are the darkest? You got to get into a group. Guess what? You don't have to pray about it. Do you want to pray about it? You don't have to pray about it. If you want to find freedom and healing in 2024, you don't have to pray about it. Get into a group, confess it. You don't have to carry it by yourself. We'll carry it together. You confess it to the Lord and you pray for one another.

And when you do that, God has a promise on the other side of your obedience. And the promise is you will find healing.