SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, I gotta get one on them every now and again.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the Bible today.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: We are starting a brand new series entitled Revolution, The Power That Changes Everything.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we started a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: We are actually in uh week three of this series.
SPEAKER_00: And what we've seen so far is that the gospel, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ allows us to drop the mask.
SPEAKER_00: We've also seen that allows us to no longer have to strive to be righteous, but to stand in the righteousness that we already have.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've missed any of the messages, you can check it out on YouTube or the podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're up late at night and you can't fall asleep, this would really help you fall asleep to put the podcast in your ear.
SPEAKER_00: So, and today what we're gonna see is we are gonna see something else the gospel brings us, and that is spiritual sight.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual sight.
SPEAKER_00: Now we all know the importance of physical sight.
SPEAKER_00: Like physical sight's important.
SPEAKER_00: If you lose your physical sight, you you know that's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was reminded of this a couple years ago, and I was actually reminded of it when I was standing right up here on stage and I was preaching.
SPEAKER_00: I I had noticed that the confidence monitor in the back of the room, it seemed like over a period of time the font had just gotten smaller and smaller and smaller.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, like, why are we making the font smaller on the confidence monitor?
SPEAKER_00: So I so I asked Pastor Cody, you know, at that time he's leading our media.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, hey man, I said, can you can you help me like understand?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what why are we making the the font smaller on the TV in the back?
SPEAKER_00: He said, We're not making the font smaller.
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, no, no, like Pastor Cody, like the font is getting smaller, man.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I got I I can't see it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, the font's not getting smaller.
SPEAKER_00: Now at this point, I'm like, there is no possible way that I'm losing my eyesight, that I'm gonna need some type of corrective lenses.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be a technology issue, right?
SPEAKER_00: Technology issue, sure, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, Pastor Cody, you don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So we actually we had a contractor at that time, and he was working on some things in the building.
SPEAKER_00: So I brought him up here and we turned on this TV, and I was like, hey man, can you help me with something?
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm trying to prove to Pastor Cody that I was right and he was wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, can you read the words right there on the screen?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, there's no way he can read them.
SPEAKER_00: He's like 30 years older than me.
SPEAKER_00: Like he read every single line.
SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me and he said, When's the last time you went to the eye doctor?
SPEAKER_00: I looked at him and I said, I'm not asking for medical advice here.
SPEAKER_00: Who hired this bozo?
SPEAKER_00: Just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I needed corrective lenses, aka glasses.
SPEAKER_00: And the moment I put in some contacts in my eyes, guys, it was like a whole new world.
SPEAKER_00: I could actually read signs again.
SPEAKER_00: I thought those were just like green things on the side of the road.
SPEAKER_00: They had words on them.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't realize that I couldn't see until I could.
SPEAKER_00: And we go to a place in Ephesians where Paul wants to help people to have spiritual sight.
SPEAKER_00: Because there were some things that they were missing and they didn't realize they were missing because they didn't have spiritual sight to see.
SPEAKER_00: And it's possible that we could be here today and we can struggle with spiritual sight.
SPEAKER_00: And it's possible, like me, that we don't realize how bad it actually is until we put on the right lenses.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul has a prayer that these people would have spiritual sight that the gospel brings them to not just know things in their head, but to experience things in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is why today's message is entitled this From the Head to the Heart.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're gonna see today is we're going to see what spiritual sight allows us to see.
SPEAKER_00: And could it be in the room that you're in a church building on Sunday morning, and maybe you know some things about God, maybe you heard some things, maybe you've been in church for a while, but you don't actually have spiritual sight to see what God wants you to see.
SPEAKER_00: And you know it in your head, but it hasn't gone down 18 inches into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And today we're gonna see how that changes everything and how it's actually possible to have spiritual sight.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna pick it up in Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready for it, would you say amen?
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1, verse number 16.
SPEAKER_00: This is what scripture says.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture says, I never stop giving thanks for you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes this as I remember you in my prayers.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: So He first wants these people to have wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's wisdom?
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is a combination of knowledge, insight, and applying that God-given truth to your life.
SPEAKER_00: He says he wants them to have wisdom, he wants them to have a revelation of the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's a revelation?
SPEAKER_00: A revelation is knowing something that you didn't previously know.
SPEAKER_00: He says he wants them to have a revelation of the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the word knowledge here, this doesn't just mean knowing facts.
SPEAKER_00: This word knowledge is so much more than knowing facts.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the church at Ephesus here, they knew a lot about God.
SPEAKER_00: They had been through the foundations group at FCC, led by Miss Doris Williams, who's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: They they they could they could pass a Bible test.
SPEAKER_00: They knew things about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They knew on Easter Sunday Jesus resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: But he wants them to have this knowledge, he wants it to move from their head to their hearts, from it to go from just facts in their brain to experience in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking this week, look, man, how can I uh how can I communicate this, like this this uh knowledge, like this full, deep experiential knowledge?
SPEAKER_00: And this is the best I could come up with, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Um has anybody ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse before?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, if you've been to a Brazilian steakhouse, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I okay, so all of you, you have you have experienced a small taste of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, yes, right.
SPEAKER_00: So, so for years, literally years, people told me, they say, Nate, you need to go to Brazilian Steakhouse.
SPEAKER_00: So they would tell me what how you get as many meats as you want, like unlimited meats.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you have me at unlimited meats, like I want to go, right?
SPEAKER_00: Servers, I'm sorry, vegan folk in the room.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Um servers walk around, they'll just like you know, cut meat and all that.
SPEAKER_00: And and and so for years, like I knew about Brazilian steakhouses.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I even did some research.
SPEAKER_00: I want experience this, like I want to know about this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, one day my dad came to me, and my dad said, Hey, I want to take you to a Brazilian steakhouse, and I want to do it on my dime.
unknown: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Say less, dad.
SPEAKER_00: When are we going?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, my dad loves me.
SPEAKER_00: In case you were wondering, you know now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just tell y'all, we went to the Brazilian steakhouse and I ate so much I was still full the next morning.
SPEAKER_00: Had a little bit of shame, but I was still full that next morning, man.
SPEAKER_00: It was a life-changing experience.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before I went, I knew about a Brazilian steakhouse.
SPEAKER_00: But once I experienced it, I really knew about a Brazilian steakhouse.
SPEAKER_00: And here's my concern for a lot of us is that many of us know truths about God in our head that have never reached our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: You know God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: But you still live an anxious life craving approval from other people.
SPEAKER_00: You know biblically that you are an adopted child of God.
SPEAKER_00: You are adopted, but your heart still has an orphan spirit trying to find worth and security and meaning from all these other places.
SPEAKER_00: You know that in the gospel you are forgiven by God, but you still functionally live your life carrying weight of shame and guilt and condemnation, and you just can't shake it.
SPEAKER_00: And what spiritual sight does is spiritual sight moves truth from head knowledge to heart reality.
SPEAKER_00: From head knowledge to heart reality, from just knowing the facts about God and knowing the facts about scripture to letting them come down to your heart and actually transforming your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, science and scripture actually agree on this.
SPEAKER_00: There's a part of your brain that understands facts, and there's another part of your brain that forms what you actually feel and what you actually believe.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome for the science lesson this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture tells us in James that the demons believe in God and they shudder.
SPEAKER_00: So demons believe, like they have the intellectual knowledge there is a God.
SPEAKER_00: But the psalmist says, taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_00: One is knowledge, the other is experience.
SPEAKER_00: It's a full knowledge, it's an understanding at the heart level.
SPEAKER_00: And it's possible to believe something intellectually while your heart still lives as if it isn't true.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this.
SPEAKER_00: This is why you can get on an airplane and you can know that airplane, get on an airplane is one of the safest things you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's super safe.
SPEAKER_00: But the moment you hit a little bit of turbulence on that airplane, uh-oh, it's like, oh, you're like, Lord, please help.
SPEAKER_00: You're like you're like re you're like confessing all of your sins in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: You're scared of death, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know in your head it's safe.
SPEAKER_00: The front part of your brain knows like it's gonna be okay, but the back of your brain where your actual beliefs happen, where the feelings happen, is freaking out.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul is praying.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is praying they don't just know stuff about God, but that they experience the things that they know.
SPEAKER_00: Paul isn't praying they learn more about God, he's praying they finally see what's been true all along.
SPEAKER_00: This is when information sinks down into your heart and turns into transformation and turns into passion.
SPEAKER_00: Now, real quick, there's four practices, four practices that can help you have things go from your head to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one: meditate on truth.
SPEAKER_00: Meditate on truth, rehearse God's promises daily.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm one, psalm one says the blessed person meditates day and night on God's word.
SPEAKER_00: So this is what happens God's word, God's promises actually become a part of you.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually like thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00: All right, hey guys, football season's over, so we don't just have to think about football anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe I'm just talking to myself here.
SPEAKER_00: We can meditate on God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the deal, guys like we should try to actually memorize promises of scripture, memorize who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to somebody in my growth group this week, and and we were talking about identity in Christ and what that means.
SPEAKER_00: And I sent them a screenshot of something I rehearsed for years of my life every day.
SPEAKER_00: Is I would walk through in the morning and meditate on who I am in Christ every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm spiritual, but because I needed to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Like it needed to become a part of me because I knew this stuff in my head.
SPEAKER_00: I could pass a Bible test, I went to Bible college.
SPEAKER_00: But was it here?
SPEAKER_00: Mm-mm.
SPEAKER_00: And what we have to do, we have to meditate on truth.
SPEAKER_00: Here's an idea for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're anything like me, a place you see a lot is the refrigerator every single day.
SPEAKER_00: You can put some of God's promises on your refrigerator door and say, I'm not opening up that door until I read two of God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: If you like me, you'll probably have a hundred of them said every day.
SPEAKER_00: Meditate on God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, remember stories of God's faithfulness to you.
SPEAKER_00: Write down answered prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Scientifically, the emotional part of your brain learns through patterns.
SPEAKER_00: The emotional part of your brain learns through patterns.
SPEAKER_00: So every time you see an answered prayer, every time God proves faithful, every time the spirit speaks to you, every time you see God working, write those things down.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna write it down here, and you're gonna write it down here, and you're gonna write down here, you're gonna write it down here.
SPEAKER_00: And your emotional brain, you are rewiring your brain to know that God is faithful and God is at work and God is doing great and mighty things, and God has done all these.
SPEAKER_00: So now when I go to a situation in my life that seems overwhelming and the circumstances is crazy, our brain is gonna say, Yes, things are bad.
SPEAKER_00: Our prefrontal cortex, like, yes, this is bad, but our emotional part of our brain, that where our beliefs actually come from, has been rewired, and we say, Yes, but God did this at that point, and God did this at that point, and God answered that prayer, and God was faithful then.
SPEAKER_00: This is why in the Old Testament, God told the children of Israel that they need to remember the works of the past, set up stones of remembrance.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they were forgetful people.
SPEAKER_00: You know how to forgetful people?
unknown: We are.
SPEAKER_00: That's right, we are.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a forgetful person, and we need to remember what God has done in the past, remember stories of his faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, how does it go from the head of the heart?
SPEAKER_00: By singing truth.
SPEAKER_00: Worship music connects belief and emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Worship music is like a bridge that connects truth and what you know to feeling that truth in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we have a time of our service, we open our service, about half our service in worship music.
SPEAKER_00: That's not because, well, we got some really good musicians here, which we do, and we're just gonna hear them sing.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's for participants, it's for participation, it's for it's for us to do this together and us to worship the Lord together.
SPEAKER_00: What singing does is singing engages memory, emotion, cognition, and it allows truth to connect to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, literally, I'm not exaggerating, for some of us, if you would learn to engage in worship music, that one activity would allow truth to go from your head to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: If on your way to work or school every day, instead of listening to the podcast, if you said nope, I'm gonna have a praise party in my car and I'm gonna blare that music like I'm 17 years old and I just don't care, and I'm gonna roll the windows down and I'm just gonna sing loud.
SPEAKER_00: You know what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna start feeling some of this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, uh, some of you guys, you don't know how to feel.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to feel.
SPEAKER_00: Like feelings aren't your enemies, especially when you're feeling how loved you are by God, especially when you're feeling the power of God in your life, especially when you're feeling that God is with you when everybody's abandoned you.
SPEAKER_00: And what worship music does is it connects belief to emotion.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just say one more thing just for fun on this one.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us during the worship time in the service, we're so scared to sing or to engage because we're worried about what other people think about us.
SPEAKER_00: I just tell you, we know Deborah don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_00: We need some more Deborah's in the room, right?
SPEAKER_00: Deborah's gonna preach a sermon about that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what some of y'all need to know.
SPEAKER_00: Other people aren't worried about you because half the other people in the room are worried about what you think about them.
SPEAKER_00: So if you will say, Wow, this truth is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Like we just sang the song about the promises.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I ain't worried about what no, I ain't worried about what P thinks, even though P's a really cool guy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh his promises have God's promises have changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna worship and sing that.
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm gonna walk out of this room this week, knowing the promises of God when truth is going from my head to my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Number four is to be committed to Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, this actually rewires the brain.
SPEAKER_00: Connecting with people, psychologists would call it attachment, rewires the brain and the actual belief systems which happen in the back part of our brain and our limbic system.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus followers are in community in a place where they're actually experiencing real love, where you're actually experiencing a community of people that care more about how you're doing than what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: When you're actually experiencing acceptance without judgment, when you're actually experiencing grace and mercy, even in your flaws and in your foibles that we all have, what happens is your brain starts to be rewired, and you start to think, wow, if these people are accepting and I can be vulnerable and they still love me, it rewires your brain to say, Oh wow, like what God is saying about who he is is actually true because I'm experiencing this from other people.
SPEAKER_00: This is why church is not just an event that we attend on Sunday morning, it's a family you belong to.
SPEAKER_00: Like where we are in community with other people.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens when we have these practices in our life is they allow truth to go from our head to our heart.
SPEAKER_00: It allows us to have spiritual sight to see.
SPEAKER_00: And the spiritual sight that we're gonna see is what Paul prays they would have in verses 18 and 19.
SPEAKER_00: He says, 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 verse 19, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the mighty working of his strength?
SPEAKER_00: See, when you have spiritual eyes to see, you are going to see and realize some things that are going to change you.
SPEAKER_00: You are going to see that you have a hope, verse 18, that can't be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 18 here it says, We have a hope of his calling.
SPEAKER_00: What is the hope of being called into the family of God?
SPEAKER_00: Now, the meaning of biblical hope is a lot different than how we use the word hope today.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is what biblical hope is.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical hope is a confident expectation.
SPEAKER_00: It's not wishful thinking.
SPEAKER_00: It's not wishful thinking, it's a confident expectation, right?
SPEAKER_00: We use the word hope like this.
SPEAKER_00: On my way home, I hope there's not any traffic today.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's like a wish.
SPEAKER_00: Or we think, man, I hope this person won't be in one of those moods again.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was a little too sensitive.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to like all of them your business there, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's like it's like wishful thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical hope is confident expectation.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this you have confidence you're going to get paid on that day.
unknown: Confident.
SPEAKER_00: Expectation.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this: you order something on Amazon, it says it's gonna be there by Saturday.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I know it's gonna be there by Saturday.
SPEAKER_00: It's a confident expectation.
SPEAKER_00: And when we have spiritual eyes to see, we will know that we can have a confident expectation no matter our circumstances in life.
SPEAKER_00: Confidence that God's promises are true.
SPEAKER_00: Confidence that God is working all things for our good and his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Confidence that we are God's chat children, no matter how we feel, we will understand that we have a hope that cannot be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: And you will be in circumstances where life is crazy and you're like, I don't even know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: But if you have spiritual sight, you will see you have a hope that can't be shaken because you have a savior that is risen from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Paul says, hey, hey, hey, I want y'all to have a knowledge, a revelation of knowing that you have this hope that can't be shaken, so the circumstances of life don't overwhelm you.
SPEAKER_00: Sight brings us something else.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, it gives us a worth that cannot be lost.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: This text at the end of verse 18, it says, What is the wealth of his?
SPEAKER_00: This is God's glorious inheritance in the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Now, saints are anybody that's believed in Jesus Christ, that's put their faith and trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: All of God's children that have trusted him to be Lord, his their Lord and Savior, they are saints biblically.
SPEAKER_00: And this text says that God's inheritance is in the saints.
SPEAKER_00: So think about this.
SPEAKER_00: An inheritance is incredibly valuable.
SPEAKER_00: An inheritance has a lot of worth.
SPEAKER_00: And when God looks at everything that He's created, He doesn't say, My inheritance is that beautiful sunset over there, because it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
SPEAKER_00: My inheritance is my children.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much worth you have.
SPEAKER_00: And you realize you have a worth that cannot be lost.
SPEAKER_00: There's a guy named William Randolph Hearst.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you guys have heard of this guy.
SPEAKER_00: He was one of the richest guys in the world, and he had like this crazy art collection.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you guys are art people, but this dude had tons of stuff, and he found he found out about this very valuable piece of art, and he had to add this valuable piece of art to his collection.
SPEAKER_00: So he sent his agent out and they searched the world.
SPEAKER_00: And William Randolph Hearst was he was one of the richest guys.
SPEAKER_00: He said, spare no expense, just bring the piece of artwork back to me.
SPEAKER_00: But in the process of the search, they discovered something that was crazy.
SPEAKER_00: William Randolph Hearst actually already owned the piece of heart, art, and it was in one of his warehouses where he kept all of his stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He was looking for something that he already had.
SPEAKER_00: And some of us here today, we are looking for personal worth and self-worth in all these different ways.
SPEAKER_00: But what we need to realize is that we already have worth in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Like we try to find worth by how successful we are.
SPEAKER_00: We try to find personal worth and how good of a parent we are and what we look like and how many likes we can get on that post.
SPEAKER_00: Just why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we want to feel like we matter.
SPEAKER_00: We want to feel like we have value.
SPEAKER_00: Friend, can I just say that you have value because of who God says that you are?
SPEAKER_00: You have a worth that cannot be lost.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what's happened to you.
SPEAKER_00: You can lose your job, you can lose your finances, you can lose relationships, but you have a worth that cannot be lost in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is who you are.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, listen, listen, listen, listen.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you know a lot about God.
SPEAKER_00: If you are living in your heart as an orphan child, if you're living in your heart as somebody that's trying to find worth in everything else, he says, My prayer, church at Ephesus, is that you would see that you are the inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: God's inheritance is in you.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much worth that you have.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, do you feel that?
SPEAKER_00: You have a worth that can't be lost.
SPEAKER_00: And number three, you have a power that cannot be measured.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, when you have spiritual sight, when you have spiritual sight, you're gonna understand.
SPEAKER_00: You have a hope that can't be shaken, a worth that can't be lost, and a power that can't be measured.
SPEAKER_00: In this verse, verse 19, it says, What is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe?
SPEAKER_00: The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is working towards you and within you, and his power is working through you, and that power is immeasurable if you are a believer in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the question: How do we experience this power?
SPEAKER_00: Like if it's working towards us, how do we experience this?
SPEAKER_00: This is what we do.
SPEAKER_00: This is hard.
SPEAKER_00: We live our lives in surrender to Him, and we live our lives outside of our comfort zone in a place that's uncomfortable, because in a place that's uncomfortable is the place where we're forced to rely on Him and rely on His power.
SPEAKER_00: So some of us, some of us, we never experience God's power in our life because we have a little circle called our comfort zone.
SPEAKER_00: It's super comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: We love it.
SPEAKER_00: And in our comfort zone, we never have to do anything that takes faith or takes risk spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is safe, everything is controlled.
SPEAKER_00: And when we go outside of our comfort zone and say, Lord, I'm at this place where I literally can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the answers, I can't lead people.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to do this.
SPEAKER_00: But when we're at this place, that's when the power of God can rest on you.
SPEAKER_00: When you come to the end of yourself and you say, God, I can't, that's when he steps in and he says, I can.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, here's what that means that means grabbing an Easter 5 list and inviting your Easter 5 people to come to Easter services.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are like, that scares me to death, Pastor Nate.
SPEAKER_00: I hate rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, listen, listen.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of the comfort zone.
SPEAKER_00: Rest in God's power.
SPEAKER_00: He can use you.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, that means serving on a serve team, jumping on a serve team and saying, Man, I'm gonna serve.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, we serve on a serve team, and it means taking a scary step for some of us and becoming a ministry coordinator on a serve team.
SPEAKER_00: It's like ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can do that.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, God's power can rest on you.
SPEAKER_00: You can do this.
SPEAKER_00: And God's power is experienced when we are in a place where we realize that we can't do it on our own.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, this morning, here's what we need to realize.
SPEAKER_00: We need to realize with our spiritual eyes that we have a hope this morning that can't be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: If you are if you are not living your life with a confident expectation, you need a revelation of knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: You need an understanding to see that you have a hope that can't be shaken, you have a worth that can't be lost, and you have a power that cannot be measured.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we need to do.
SPEAKER_00: We need to see this.
SPEAKER_00: We need our eyes to be opened.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna end our service today a little bit different, singing a song entitled Open the Eyes of My Heart.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want this to be.
SPEAKER_00: I want this to be a prayer to God.
SPEAKER_00: God, open the eyes of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to see that I have a hope that can't be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to see I have a worth that can't be lost.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to see I have a power that can't be measured.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna sing this song.
SPEAKER_00: And would this be our prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, open the eyes of our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand together and let's sing a verse.