Speaker 1: Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: It's Mark Carter.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.
Speaker 1: I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message Today.
Speaker 1: Just to give you a heads up, we're going to talk about some next level, difficult stuff that has to do with human trafficking.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a very short piece of the worship experience.
Speaker 1: We're going to get there.
Speaker 1: I'll let you know when we're there, but when we get there, if you've got young kids that are still here in the room, or if you've got young kids in the room you're watching at home, maybe just take them out for five minutes, Take them out into the hallway, just hang out.
Speaker 1: We're going to have the TV off down there so you can go hang out in the cafe.
Speaker 1: Or maybe, if you've got, if you want to put them in another bedroom or you know, give them a cookie or a cup of coffee, whatever you want to do to just give them five minutes and then come back and I promise it'll be all good.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be super graphic or anything like that, but the subject matter is weighty and so I Let everybody know about that.
Speaker 1: I was ready to go home, I was done.
Speaker 1: I had already lost several in the wrestling tournament.
Speaker 1: I was a freshman in high school and you know it's a Saturday long day For those of you who've ever been to a wrestling tournament.
Speaker 1: There's wrestling matches going on all over the gym all day long and it's kind of winners are going up in brackets.
Speaker 1: And you know I was with a friend and we had done our couple rounds and we were done.
Speaker 1: We were done for the day.
Speaker 1: And so we're like well, we got nothing to do.
Speaker 1: Let's just, you know we're going to wait for the bus at 5 pm.
Speaker 1: Let's just go hang out.
Speaker 1: We'll get out of our singlets and get all you know washed up and ready to go.
Speaker 1: So we're on any wrestling team at all and Mr Tiffany comes over and he's looking at us up at the top of the bleachers.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, get down here.
Speaker 1: And we're like, oh crap, what do we do?
Speaker 1: And we kind of like slink down there.
Speaker 1: I guess he begins to give us a righteous good rebuke, saying do you understand the effect you're having on your teammates, that you're already packed up and ready to go.
Speaker 1: You should be on the sidelines.
Speaker 1: You should be there telling them you can do it, You're going to stick them, you got this, and you're sitting here You're telling them you've already given up.
Speaker 1: All you care about is you.
Speaker 1: Well, listen up, boys.
Speaker 1: There is more than you happening right now.
Speaker 1: It was a great lesson.
Speaker 1: It was a great lesson about teamwork.
Speaker 1: It was a great lesson from a coach.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to have a coach that wasn't afraid to tell me what good sportsmanship was like.
Speaker 1: Thank God, Thank God for that time, Thank God for Mr Tiffany, but he taught me a great lesson that hey, man, look, there's a lot of people here, there's a lot going on, and you've got your own stuff, You've got your own goals, You've got your own agenda, You've got your own timetable.
Speaker 1: But you're not the only thing happening here.
Speaker 1: And so today I want to talk to you about you and I are not the only thing happening here.
Speaker 1: It is Freedom Sunday.
Speaker 1: We've done this every year I'm pretty sure, if my math is right, for the past 14 years, and what we do is we take one Sunday coming up near Christ time and we have a Christmas or Christmas and just a little bit beyond offering that is going to go to all kinds of projects and things that really pull at our heartstrings, and so that's never an obligation.
Speaker 1: But I want to walk you through a message that's going to be good for your soul.
Speaker 1: But we're also going to mention some of that because I believe, as we get into a season of increased generosity, we want the Spirit of God to touch our hearts as well and help us remember that we're not the only thing happening around here.
Speaker 1: So you know, when someone comes to know Jesus Christ personally, something happens on the inside.
Speaker 1: They're born of the Spirit and they really become two people.
Speaker 1: Now there's the person in them that is brand new in Christ and they're becoming.
Speaker 1: They are a new creature and they're starting to act more and more like a new creature.
Speaker 1: But they still got their old sinful nature that inhabits their physical body, and it can be a tough wrestling match that's going on and I'm so encouraged.
Speaker 1: When I first read this I was so encouraged.
Speaker 1: The Apostle Paul knew what it was like.
Speaker 1: See, I'm, you know, I've been walking with Jesus for over, you know, a quarter century now, man, and you know I've been walking with Jesus for over a quarter century now, man, and I love it.
Speaker 1: But there's times I'm even shocked.
Speaker 1: I'm like holy cow, that was really sinful, Carter Whoa.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad to know that Paul experienced the same types of things.
Speaker 1: In fact, even as he's writing scripture, he says this in Romans 7, 18, 19, and 21.
Speaker 1: For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
Speaker 1: The willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not for the good I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 1: I find, then, the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
Speaker 1: I find that I'm like paul.
Speaker 1: I hear you, man, I find that too.
Speaker 1: I just find it.
Speaker 1: I'm like crap, I found it again, there it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like Paul, I hear you, man, I find that too.
Speaker 1: I just find it.
Speaker 1: I'm like crap, I found it again, there it is.
Speaker 1: But I'm encouraged.
Speaker 1: Hey, if evil is still present in the apostle while he waits to meet Jesus, I feel better about the fact that it is still a wrestling match in me, and we got to fight it day by day, but it's still okay that it's happening.
Speaker 1: The Israelites are in a very unique moment.
Speaker 1: They're back in the land.
Speaker 1: They've been in exile for 70 years now and they're back in land.
Speaker 1: They're beginning to put life back together.
Speaker 1: They're beginning, you know, they're getting the temple back together.
Speaker 1: They're getting worship back together.
Speaker 1: They're getting their identity as a people back together.
Speaker 1: And as they're doing this, they make a mistake that you and I might make sometimes as we're in the wrestling match against sin, trying to live for Jesus's glory.
Speaker 1: They make the mistake of maybe if I just do the exteriors, that'll just kind of attract the favor of God and I don't really need to think so hard about what's going on on the inside of me.
Speaker 1: I'll just do the outside stuff, I'll look religious, I'll act religious, and that's okay if things don't quite catch up on the inside.
Speaker 1: And so they begin to complain.
Speaker 1: They start to complain to God.
Speaker 1: They're like God.
Speaker 1: You know we're doing all this stuff and here you are.
Speaker 1: You're not answering our prayers for like protection, You're not answering our prayers for direction.
Speaker 1: We don't feel like we're the favored people of God.
Speaker 1: What is going on?
Speaker 1: And so God gets their attention.
Speaker 1: He sends his prophet, Isaiah, and he's going to give them a message.
Speaker 1: And this is what he says to Isaiah as Isaiah approaches them, Shout it aloud, Do not hold back.
Speaker 1: He says to Isaiah Raise your voice like a trumpet, Declare to my people their rebellion and to their descendants of Jacob their sins.
Speaker 1: For day after day, they seek me out.
Speaker 1: They seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
Speaker 1: They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
Speaker 1: Why have we fasted, they say, and you've not seen it.
Speaker 1: Why have we humbled ourselves?
Speaker 1: And you've not noticed?
Speaker 1: Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and you exploit all your workers.
Speaker 1: Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife and striking each other with wicked fists.
Speaker 1: Is this the kind of fast I've chosen?
Speaker 1: Only a day for people to humble themselves?
Speaker 1: Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Speaker 1: That's doing something strange to us.
Speaker 1: It's wearing really uncomfortable clothing and then throwing ashes on yourself to demonstrate, kind of outly, how grieved you are and sad about your sin.
Speaker 1: You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high, which is what fasting is actually supposed to do, except to add power to prayer.
Speaker 1: Is that what you call a fast A day acceptable to the Lord?
Speaker 1: See these folks, as they were trying to get God's attention and get him to do stuff.
Speaker 1: They were exalting the outsides without worrying about the insides, Fasting what we do when we're fasting is we're saying I want to take away a little bit from the physical so that the inner, the spiritual, can be highlighted and be the most important thing that I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1: I'm prioritizing the inner life and taking away from the outer life.
Speaker 1: I'm even going without food, maybe for a meal, maybe for a day, maybe for a few days, and I'm doing that because I'm asking the Lord.
Speaker 1: I want extra help with this, or I want to demonstrate sorrow for my sin, or I've been distant from you and I want to come back into closeness with you.
Speaker 1: It's not a necessity, it wasn't even commanded by the law, but it was something that they regularly did in order to demonstrate their need for help, their need for forgiveness, their need to demonstrate that they're sad about the fact that they don't always do what God would want.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We could point a finger at them and be like, yeah man, those guys, they suck, they're bad, they're bad, bad Israelites.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm willing to bet we've done something like that.
Speaker 1: It might not have been fasting, but perhaps you've posted something on your Christian girl Instagram and it was like a beautiful verse.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that was very misrepresentative of what was going on in the inner life.
Speaker 1: There's posts of Jesus hugging the person and Jesus does hug the person, and that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: And yet the level to which you're walking in anger and bitterness and contention with other people I see on the other platform you were like screaming at this other person, but then you're just misrepresenting perhaps not all the time, but maybe from time to time.
Speaker 1: Or you do all the religious things.
Speaker 1: You come to church, Dude, you go to the extra Bible study.
Speaker 1: You got like three versions of the Bible on your dresser and you love it and you feel good about it.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, in terms of your character, it's not like that's always super important to you.
Speaker 1: In fact, you would say it's important to you but you forget about it entirely.
Speaker 1: You forget to fight for it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you even serve God you do volunteering and yet the truth is, my friend, you're so judgmental about how other people don't serve like you, and don't care about the kingdom like you and don't care about people like you.
Speaker 1: It's kind of canceling the other stuff out, man, Because, okay, you're doing the outward stuff, but God's like, do you think that matters if your insides are not changing?
Speaker 1: Do you think I just want performances or do I want you to actually become something else and do something else?
Speaker 1: And guys, you got to hear this because we can slip into legalism with this kind of a message.
Speaker 1: The Israelites know, and we know, they were right with God.
Speaker 1: Because of nothing they did they did not earn God's favor.
Speaker 1: They're not still trying to earn God's favor.
Speaker 1: They're very aware their national identity was we are people that God saved just because he loved us.
Speaker 1: But now, in response to his love, we want to go ahead and obey him as best we can with his help.
Speaker 1: He says in verse six is not this the kind of fasting I've chosen?
Speaker 1: To loose the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Speaker 1: This yoke means oppression.
Speaker 1: There's people that are yoked to difficulty and hardship and manipulation and discouragement and down on their luck, and we could imagine in this time, in this area, there's poor folks, Okay, so there's just folks that they just don't have much.
Speaker 1: And God says do you not see this?
Speaker 1: There's, maybe, there's stewards, there's slaves of people, there's servants Not slaves like the ones that you might think in American history, but just a different category of slaves that they had, but even so, they're being mistreated.
Speaker 1: And God says do you think I like this?
Speaker 1: There's even foreigners, there's non-Israelites, and they're being treated like second-class citizens instead of being thought about, being cared for, making sure that they're heard.
Speaker 1: My friends, there's all kinds of stuff happening in their area, in their life, that they can see.
Speaker 1: There's stuff happening in that, where they work, that God is like do you think I'm okay with this?
Speaker 1: Verse 7, is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter?
Speaker 1: When you see the naked, to clothe them and not turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Speaker 1: What is he saying?
Speaker 1: He's saying religiosity without social concern and compassion.
Speaker 1: Dude, it's like the eggshell without the yolk it's not the meat of it.
Speaker 1: It's not what I'm after.
Speaker 1: I'm not after religious exteriors.
Speaker 1: And so he talks about here's what would happen for you folks that are praying to me and kind of complaining that I'm not doing what you want on your behalf.
Speaker 1: Here's what would happen if you actually got your insides to match your outsides Verse eight then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear.
Speaker 1: Then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Speaker 1: He's giving images back of the pillar of fire and cloud that their ancestors followed around in the wilderness and he's saying I know you feel like no one thinks you're okay or no one thinks you're good or no one thinks you're right.
Speaker 1: If you would just get this right, I would make people understand that you're on my side.
Speaker 1: I would defend you.
Speaker 1: I would stand up.
Speaker 1: You would come like the dawn in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: People would recognize oh yeah, God is with them, God's on their side.
Speaker 1: You will call and the Lord will answer.
Speaker 1: You will cry for help and I will say.
Speaker 1: He will say I'm here If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing of the finger and malicious talk.
Speaker 1: How many heard some malicious talk this past week and some pointing of the finger, you do away with the yoke of oppression, the pointing of the finger, the malicious talk.
Speaker 1: If you will spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then the light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like noonday, meaning you'll know what to do.
Speaker 1: Are you wondering, are you confused, wandering around, what do I do?
Speaker 1: God says if you do this, dude, I will make it clear, I'll light the dang thing up.
Speaker 1: The Lord will guide you always.
Speaker 1: He will satisfy your needs.
Speaker 1: In a sun-scorched land, you might even still be in the sun-scorched land, but your needs will be met.
Speaker 1: You'll be doing just fine and strengthen your frame.
Speaker 1: You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Speaker 1: God says I'll protect you, I'll heal you, I will help you in the things you're asking for.
Speaker 1: But since neglecting the oppressed, those down and out, since this anger's got it blocks his blessing, we've got to, guys.
Speaker 1: We've got to overcome our selfish impulses and combine our spiritual devotion with practical devotion, with compassion.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because there's more than you happening around here.
Speaker 1: There's more than me, there's more than just us.
Speaker 1: Here's three examples of fake religion that repel God's favor.
Speaker 1: How many want to not repel God's favor?
Speaker 1: Raise your hand, I want to not repel that.
Speaker 1: How about some more of that?
Speaker 1: How about just extra?
Speaker 1: Number one using people for your own advantage repels God's favor, he says in verse three.
Speaker 1: You exploit all your workers.
Speaker 1: Dr June Hunt describes manipulation like this.
Speaker 1: She's a psychologist.
Speaker 1: She says manipulation is the art of controlling people or circumstances by indirect, unfair or deceptive means, especially to one's own advantage.
Speaker 1: Those who are manipulated allow others to have excessive control over them, the control that God alone should have.
Speaker 1: This is in some of our blood more than others, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: But we have to identify it as the hell disease.
Speaker 1: We got to try to strain it out.
Speaker 1: When we're manipulative, when we're oppressing people with manipulation, often that's emotional manipulation in contrast to just logical reasoning appealing to people's sense of what's right.
Speaker 1: I'll give you some great two examples.
Speaker 1: You've got Delilah.
Speaker 1: Remember Delilah?
Speaker 1: She's the girlfriend of Samson, the whack job who is super strong, and he keeps hanging with this girl that he's even like half aware that she wants to like get him captured by the Philistines, and so he keeps lying to her, keeps telling her no, that's not really the way my strength goes away, Delilah, and she keeps.
Speaker 1: She starts getting whiny and whiny and whiny.
Speaker 1: And she's doing this for her own good man.
Speaker 1: She just wants to be in good with her people.
Speaker 1: And so what does she say Finally?
Speaker 1: She says oh, Samson, if you really loved me, you would confide in me.
Speaker 1: What is she doing?
Speaker 1: She's manipulating him.
Speaker 1: She's just laying it on heavy man.
Speaker 1: Contrast that to Queen Esther.
Speaker 1: Now Queen Esther's got a lot to lose.
Speaker 1: Okay, she goes into the king and she knows I could die just going into the king.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to tell him this wicked Haman has got this whole plot to kill all the Jews.
Speaker 1: And she says hey, king, can I just tell you, yeah, many of my people, we've been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation by this wicked Haman.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you, if he'd sold us only as slaves, I would have kept quiet.
Speaker 1: But because my people are in such distress, I've got to disturb the king.
Speaker 1: And she just explains it real sweet, real simple.
Speaker 1: She's not trying to emotionally control him.
Speaker 1: And, my friends, sometimes we try to emotionally control people.
Speaker 1: That's when we withhold love or withhold affection.
Speaker 1: Or we say if you do this, then I'll finally help you do that If you'll behave this way, if you'll give me this thing, then okay, finally I'll agree.
Speaker 1: And what that is we've got to understand.
Speaker 1: So we don't even know this.
Speaker 1: That's manipulation.
Speaker 1: That's wrong.
Speaker 1: That's not real love.
Speaker 1: Love doesn't play with you like that.
Speaker 1: And God says sometimes we do this not only within families, sometimes we do it to other people, we do it online, we do it at work and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: God says take a look inside, because that thing has got to go.
Speaker 1: If you want to not repel my favor and for some of us, I just want to encourage you.
Speaker 1: Maybe this was in your bloodstream, meaning this was demonstrated to you, and I feel for that man.
Speaker 1: We've all come from somewhere where some stuff was demonstrated to us that maybe wasn't so good, it's okay, but what you got to do is you got to start calling it what it is.
Speaker 1: It's something Jesus wants to remove.
Speaker 1: He wants to lovingly take his scalpel and pull that part of the hell virus out and instead put in non-domineering, non-manipulative, non-trying to trick somebody into doing something and just appeal to their conscience and let God handle it.
Speaker 1: Are we hearing this Now?
Speaker 1: There's a darker version, that is emotional manipulation, but there's forceful, violent, even deceptive manipulation, and that's what we're going to talk about in just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: So if you've got some young ones, now would be the time to take them out of the room or take them out into the hallway down by the cafe.
Speaker 1: For the past majority of years, we've partnered with an organization called International Justice Mission, and guys I'm so like, ah, I'm so proud of us, hopefully in a good way.
Speaker 1: These guys go all over the world and what's great about this organization is they don't just, like you know, appeal to the law for it.
Speaker 1: They actually get involved with police and they go and they break in and they rescue kids and then they pull them out and they bring them through recovery programs Christ-centered and they help people get their lives back together.
Speaker 1: And, dude, they are relentless.
Speaker 1: They're all over the place.
Speaker 1: That's what they do, and we've been blessed enough to be able to partner with them, and I want to show you one story of one of the gals that was rescued there.
Speaker 1: Let's watch it.
Speaker 3: Imagine yourself at 12 years old.
Speaker 3: Do you remember your school uniform?
Speaker 3: Do you remember what you dream about?
Speaker 3: As a child, All I wanted was to study, to write, to learn.
Speaker 3: Going to school was my dream.
Speaker 3: We didn't have much.
Speaker 3: I used to scoff and shrivel to swap for pens and paper.
Speaker 3: I wanted to achieve everything so I could give my parents everything.
Speaker 3: When I was 12, a family friend gave my dream happen.
Speaker 3: He paid for me to go to a private school in Manila and drove us hours to get there.
Speaker 3: To me, Manila felt like America.
Speaker 3: At last I had a school uniform.
Speaker 3: I was so happy and grateful.
Speaker 3: But I didn't know there would be a prize for the kindness he abused me for men around the world to watch online.
Speaker 3: I had to perform in front of a webcam.
Speaker 3: If I didn't, he would hurt me, and in lock rooms around me, other younger children were made to do the same.
Speaker 3: I wanted to die.
Speaker 3: After five years, one Friday afternoon, I returned from school with the same fear as always, but instead, this time, the police and I were there.
Speaker 3: At first I was scared and confused, but slowly I began to realize that I was safe.
Speaker 3: It was finally over.
Speaker 3: Healing was difficult.
Speaker 3: It still hurts, but this I know.
Speaker 3: He stole my dignity, but he could never steal my home.
Speaker 1: If that young girl who was so desperate to learn would see me now, she would be proud man, how's that not get on your insides?
Speaker 1: That is not the only kind of oppression, though.
Speaker 1: That is forced and coercive and violent.
Speaker 1: Let's watch one more.
Speaker 1: This is not sexual.
Speaker 1: In the same way, let's watch one more guy's story.
Speaker 2: My name is Jun Han and I am a scammer.
Speaker 2: Most people ignore me, but I keep going.
Speaker 2: I have to.
Speaker 2: It's a numbers game.
Speaker 2: Eventually something works.
Speaker 2: I can't show mercy, for none is shown to me.
Speaker 2: I know what it means to be scammed, to feel cheated and then to live in fear.
Speaker 2: I was applying for a customer service job.
Speaker 2: I was told I was a top candidate, so I traveled to a new country, but when I stepped through those doors I realized I had been tricked.
Speaker 2: Now I am forced to take from you.
Speaker 2: There are thousands of us 30 to a room.
Speaker 2: We live here.
Speaker 2: If we fail, if we complain, if we get caught contacting the outside for help, we get beaten.
Speaker 2: They check our phones.
Speaker 2: I can't tell my family what has really happened to me.
Speaker 2: This is my life.
Speaker 2: My name is Jun Hao and I was a scammer.
Speaker 1: Today I am free.
Speaker 1: I am not the only thing happening anywhere my story, my things that I'm going to do over the next few months.
Speaker 1: That's not the only thing happening.
Speaker 1: There's young men and women who are in his position.
Speaker 1: They can't get out, they're stuck, unless someone comes to get them.
Speaker 1: That's where they're going to stay.
Speaker 1: You think God cares about that.
Speaker 1: Some people are wondering and God is wondering do my people care about that?
Speaker 1: Here's number two.
Speaker 1: Treating others with a mean spirit repels God's favor.
Speaker 1: He says you're full of quarreling and strife and striking each other with wicked fists, with pointing the finger and malicious talk.
Speaker 1: There's such thing as verbal abuse and that's just beating people down with what we say about them.
Speaker 1: We may say it in anger, we may say cutting things about them, we may even in jokey ways.
Speaker 1: We're saying things that maybe are a little bit humorous to us, but it wounds their soul and makes life harder to deal with.
Speaker 1: There is that, but there's also a desiring of negative and painful outcomes in the life of another.
Speaker 1: That's when you categorize a group of people as that's the idiots, that's the people that don't get it.
Speaker 1: Those are the ones that I mean.
Speaker 1: I hope they really get what's coming to them this time around.
Speaker 1: Anybody know about that?
Speaker 1: That is the very kind of thing that God says.
Speaker 1: We choose to think in those ways.
Speaker 1: That repels God's favor.
Speaker 1: In Luke, chapter 9, jesus and some of his disciples are walking near Samaria and the disciples want the opportunity to pass through it.
Speaker 1: So they ask, hey, can we?
Speaker 1: Our teacher wants to pass through this land.
Speaker 1: And they're like no, you can't come through here.
Speaker 1: Now there's racial tensions between the Jews and the Samaritans, and so they're honked off man and like Jesus.
Speaker 1: I can't believe this.
Speaker 1: It's just like them.
Speaker 1: You know their group, you know how they are.
Speaker 1: Should we call down fire from heaven't know what spirit you're of.
Speaker 1: You're filled with devils right now.
Speaker 1: That's not what I came to do.
Speaker 1: I came to seek and to save the lost.
Speaker 1: You're trying to hurt people.
Speaker 1: That is not the way of God.
Speaker 1: That's a mean spirit.
Speaker 1: It's not what I bless.
Speaker 1: When we try to push people down and cause them in any way in their heart and their life to finally get what a moron we think they are, that's a mean spirit and God condemns it.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter how angry you are, it doesn't matter how good of a point you have, because James says it like this Dear friends, be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry.
Speaker 1: Check it out your anger can never make things right in God's sight.
Speaker 1: Now there's such a thing as righteous anger, but when we're just full of fleshly anger, it's like I'll tell you what I'm going to work up and I'm going to tell them.
Speaker 1: How many know God does not anoint that?
Speaker 1: How many have ever seen that?
Speaker 1: Go well, no one.
Speaker 1: That's because God says I don't use that to bring about my good purposes.
Speaker 1: I use God's attitude, god's heart, god's ways.
Speaker 1: So if you're waiting for someone to get the smackdown, baby, you're going to be waiting a long time, because that's not what Jesus is after.
Speaker 1: But, more to the point for today, he doesn't want his people after it either, and so we got to do some self-inventory and say that's part of the old hell virus that Jesus needs to surgically remove, and I believe he does and can and will.
Speaker 1: Here's number three Indifference to making a difference repels God's favor.
Speaker 1: Indifference to making a difference If you'll loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke and set the oppressed free, share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked, to clothe them and not turn away from your own flesh and blood.
Speaker 1: When you see it.
Speaker 1: When you see it now, you're going to see lots of stuff on planet earth.
Speaker 1: You know this and you're not assigned to everything from the Lord.
Speaker 1: But when you keep seeing it and he keeps putting it in front of you, my friends, we got to say, okay, sir, I see that Like I'm not just ignoring that, that's somebody else's problem.
Speaker 1: I hope someone comes along and fixes that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this has ever happened to anybody else or it's only me on planet earth, but you know, when you're in a restaurant and you're having like a pretty decent time and the waiter or the waitress they bring you your food and then they just disappear.
Speaker 1: They disappear for a long time.
Speaker 1: And then you're looking around and it's one thing when, like, you can see them at other tables and they're working hard.
Speaker 1: You know everything's busy and they're getting it done.
Speaker 1: But there's been times when we've been sitting down to eat and it's like, dude, did they go home?
Speaker 1: Like they're just not around.
Speaker 1: Are they in the back doing homework or something?
Speaker 1: What are they doing?
Speaker 1: Have they got errands to run that they just I'll step out for a minute and go do this stuff.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, of course I mean what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: You got to be patient, but there's part of it that's like I came here and I'm paying money because we had a deal that you were going to do the thing.
Speaker 1: You're going to come, bring me the stuff and I'm just getting.
Speaker 1: It's weird to me that I'm waiting this long for you to do it and I wonder, based on today's text, if the Lord is ever like I paid a lot of blood for you.
Speaker 1: And I know that you see all these things and I'm just wondering did you step out?
Speaker 1: Like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Are you working on just stuff?
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be here taking care of the things that I've assigned you and that you can clearly see.
Speaker 1: Guys, don't hear like a mean spirit about it from Jesus, but I think it's reasonable for him to say guys, what is going on right now?
Speaker 1: You know about all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I know you've got stuff.
Speaker 1: Deprioritize some of it so that you can wait on me and my people.
Speaker 1: I know for some of us we're like well, you know, I ain't got time or I've got a lot going on right now, and maybe you even see people that you might want to invest in, and yet you're like, well, nobody invested in me, so they'll figure it out, and there's just little opportunities all over the place.
Speaker 1: Like you could take a five extra minutes with that person at work.
Speaker 1: I know you don't have time to talk right now, but you could just stop a little bit and talk.
Speaker 1: I know that it's an extra 10 minutes for you to say, okay, I'm going to give to that thing.
Speaker 1: I want to see that thing flourish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know it's a little bit extra time, but, my friend, this is what we're here for.
Speaker 1: This is what we're here for.
Speaker 1: We're not the only thing going on anywhere.
Speaker 1: There's other people with things that God wants he's assigned us to take care of.
Speaker 1: So we partnered with this other organization, love Does.
Speaker 1: Last time we did it was in 2018, and we gave to the schools they were building in Africa.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: They're doing some other things that I want to just show you.
Speaker 1: One of the things we're going to try to participate in this year it is a home for single moms, and let's take a look.
Speaker 5: I just had my kid three months ago.
Speaker 5: He would cry and I would cry too, but I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 5: Having a place where me and my baby could be at and not having to go from place to place every night.
Speaker 5: You know thinking like, oh, where am I going to go today?
Speaker 6: Or where am I going to go tomorrow?
Speaker 6: In our own backyard, we started to see that there was a lot of single moms that hadn't really been supported, and so we came together and thought why don't we put together some programs that can outreach to them?
Speaker 7: It's a place where single young moms can bring their babies and they can find a place of love and acceptance.
Speaker 7: They can get the nurturing they need.
Speaker 6: So we're so excited to launch the Love Does Home, which is an opportunity for a couple single moms with their babies to be in a warm and safe and supportive environment.
Speaker 6: A residence will be here for 18 to 24 months with the idea that they're furthering their education, but then, from that point that we launched them, like I was just going to do a 9 to 5, but a 9 to 5 isn't going to get me nowhere.
Speaker 5: You know, it's California.
Speaker 5: Rent's expensive, everything's expensive.
Speaker 5: Decided to go back to school, finish high school and then try to go to college.
Speaker 5: You need education, especially because I have a kid now, Like I have to do it for him when I heard about the Love Does Home.
Speaker 8: It just warmed my heart thinking that we could give an opportunity to moms here locally.
Speaker 8: My hope is that these girls would know that this is just the beginning for them, that we'll pour into them everything that they could need for right now, but that their future is bright, that they will move on from here and become all that they hope and dream for.
Speaker 9: This has been something that's so, so necessary.
Speaker 9: In the 14 years that I've been hanging out with moms, it's probably been the biggest resource that's missing from their lives is a stable, safe environment where they can get the life skills necessary, continue their education.
Speaker 9: We want to empower them to do like, but also to know that we're going to run alongside them and we're going to run alongside them and we're going to hold their hand when they need it, and we're just going to cheer them on.
Speaker 6: It's also part of a bigger program and we want to do a bigger outreach to single moms in general, and so we have this awesome Love Does boutique and it's by appointment only and you can shop for free from bikinis to books, to bottles, to beautiful clothes.
Speaker 6: We also have a life skills class that's going to happen weekly and it will be on a whole array of topics.
Speaker 6: We have diaper and food deliveries for free.
Speaker 6: It's really expensive to live, and so if we can take some of those expensive items that are more difficult to provide for every week, that allow you to not be able to save, let's do that.
Speaker 6: It's a really beautiful thing when you help women, and we've seen it all over the world that when you give a woman an opportunity to overcome an obstacle, that whenever she does that, there is a strength there, there is a hope, and she can't wait to then pass that on to her children, to her family and to her community, and we know that will happen in our own backyard.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to bet that there's folks either here or watching online that you look at that and you're like geez, that would have made all the difference.
Speaker 1: That would have made my life go an entirely different direction.
Speaker 1: I know we got awesome, incredible single moms here among us.
Speaker 1: I know that everybody knows a single mom that could use some help.
Speaker 1: There's other organizations that do this kind of thing, but this is a very Christ-centered version, and so we want this Christmas holiday season to partner with that.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit, let me walk through everything that we're going to be trying to be doing this season and we'll see if any of them grab your heart.
Speaker 1: Our goal by the end of January is to raise $30,000.
Speaker 1: Now, that's less than I've seen you guys raise before Every year.
Speaker 1: I'm not pressuring you, but you tend to like blow it up.
Speaker 1: You tend to go way beyond this, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's how you rolled this time.
Speaker 1: We're going to give to the IJM sexual violence and slavery.
Speaker 1: We're going to give a portion of that.
Speaker 1: We're going to give a portion to the single mom's home and boutique.
Speaker 1: There's a university that is starting up in war-torn Uganda.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear a video about it in a second, but we're going to give a little bit to them.
Speaker 1: There's a church plant that you guys actually helped plant in 2018.
Speaker 1: That church now has the opportunity to get a building, and so many of us have come from places where there were church plants and you know the hardship of that, so we're going to help them as much as we can.
Speaker 1: Transforming teens you guys know some of you that our teens go on incredible retreats and their leaders take great care of them, but not everybody can make it right off the bat, and so we want to help them, as always.
Speaker 1: Here's something we're talking about the 15-year vision this coming January.
Speaker 1: I know that some of you know about that.
Speaker 1: You're praying for that, you're fasting for that.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think is going to be a super important pillar of that is interns.
Speaker 1: I'd like to, this coming summer, just be able to support you.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of young men and women that are very talented and we can't pay them full time, but if we even just give them something, we can help develop their ministry skills and strengthen the church for later.
Speaker 1: There's also just other ways we want to see God strengthen the church.
Speaker 1: As always, there's improvements, there's stuff to take care of, there's strengthen the church as always, there's improvements.
Speaker 1: There's stuff to take care of, there's kids' spaces that need updated, all that jazz.
Speaker 1: And I think we can do it $30,000 by the end of January to make a radical investment and see God do all these things.
Speaker 1: Guys, here's the way the enemy sometimes tries to get in our head.
Speaker 1: We get overwhelmed and we say, gosh, that's so much and there's so much need everywhere.
Speaker 1: I just feel like I'm paralyzed, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: And that's the trap right there.
Speaker 1: Just because you can't do everything doesn't mean you can't do anything, and God isn't asking us to do what we can't do.
Speaker 1: He's just asking us to do what we can do.
Speaker 1: He says do you see this?
Speaker 1: Well, this is what I want you to do.
Speaker 1: Don't take care of everything in the world, just start where you are Now.
Speaker 1: We also say every year some are like hey, man, I'll pray for this, pray for it, but don't just pray for it Like, ask God to help you.
Speaker 1: See, it's way more exciting to say instead of well, you know, I feel like we're just going to give this much.
Speaker 1: No, that's fine, but it's more fun to say I'm going to believe God to do something together with me.
Speaker 1: Do stuff with God, not just for God.
Speaker 1: So that's where we say, god, you tell me, what do you want you and I to believe for this coming Christmas season?
Speaker 1: Like, what do we want to do?
Speaker 1: That's got to be within reach, don't be.
Speaker 1: You know, that's Captain Insano.
Speaker 1: That's never going to happen unless Jesus really shows up with a dump truck full of gold.
Speaker 1: Okay, sometimes we go there.
Speaker 1: Don't go there.
Speaker 1: But just, given your circumstances, what would be a faith stretch?
Speaker 1: Just a little bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1: That's where it's fun, that's where you and Jesus are doing it together.
Speaker 1: But also, let's not any of us be willing to pray a prayer that we're not also willing to be part of the answer for that prayer, because that really is God's heart.
Speaker 1: He wants us to walk in the fullness of his favor, and that means we need, even today, we need, to lay down some of our own self-sufficiency, we need to lay down, maybe, some of our religious exteriors and we need to ask the Holy Spirit of God flood us with fresh fire and humility and compassion, to remember that I am not the only thing happening around here.
Speaker 6: We're building a university we just had today.
Speaker 6: Right behind this building, there's about 50 acres of land and it's going to be perfect for building a university.
Speaker 6: You know, we've proven the concept over the last 15 years.
Speaker 6: We have a remarkable campus that's really become the the pearl of the north and in this beautiful country called Uganda.
Speaker 7: And I'm just looking at the way that these kids in the Omuru District in northern Uganda, which is this forgotten area in Uganda, is now known in Kampala, the capital, as like the top school anywhere.
Speaker 7: It's because all of you guys just had an idea and said let's be a worldwide family of friends and make this happen.
Speaker 7: And so this is just one of 60 buildings of this caliber that are built.
Speaker 7: So when we talk about starting a university, we've already proven the concept.
Speaker 7: People come from all around to see what in the world has been created out here, and what I want is this combination of whimsy, wonder and academic excellence.
Speaker 7: We're looking to make Ugandan presidents.
Speaker 7: We want to make Ugandan members of parliament.
Speaker 7: We want to make doctors and lawyers.
Speaker 7: We have judges and members that are on their way to becoming parliament members.
Speaker 7: We have doctors, we have lawyers, we have the graduates of the school are achieving many, many things, and this is what we've done together as a group.
Speaker 7: We've just said we can be your backstop.
Speaker 7: Let's provide the resources to make it possible to start a university unheard of in Northern Uganda.
Speaker 6: And it's a buzz not only just in the North but it is in the South as well, where we met with the First Lady and we met with the Chief Justices and told them of our plans and it was met with such gratefulness because they recognized the opportunity that this affords not only students in the north but the entire country.
Speaker 6: It has been a whole collective group at the Love Does community that's come around this school over the last 15 years to make it happen.
Speaker 6: At this stage.
Speaker 6: There's a legacy in that that is in some ways, an opportunity that you have to do here that you can't do anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 7: These will be the stories you talk about for eternity.
Speaker 7: So thanks again.
Speaker 7: I want to join Jodi in saying well done and more to follow.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out FierceChurch.
Speaker 1: We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person.
Speaker 1: Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.
Speaker 1: It's because of you that this is possible.
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Speaker 1: Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.
Speaker 1: Don't give up.
Speaker 1: Hang on to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of you.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you so much and we love you.
Speaker 1: I hope someday we get to meet in person.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.