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Recovering from Regret | Land of Blue

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💙 Welcome back to the Land of Blue — where healing doesn’t stop at forgiveness.

Last week, we talked about moving forward from guilt.

But what happens after forgiveness?

What do you do when regret no longer condemns you… but you still feel unchanged?

In Psalm 51:10, David prays one of the most honest prayers in the Bible:
👉 “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

This sermon explores the next step of healing — asking God to do what we cannot do ourselves.

đź“– In this message, we talk about:
Why forgiveness isn’t the end of the story
How God creates new hearts, not patched-up ones
Why self-improvement can’t heal sin
What it means to worship while you’re still becoming
How a clean heart leads to fearless faith

✨ Big Idea:
God doesn’t just forgive your past — He recreates your future.
If you’ve ever thought:
“I know God forgives me, but I still feel stuck”
“I don’t trust myself to change”
“I don’t feel worthy to worship yet”
This message is for you. 🫶

đź“© Share this with someone who needs hope beyond regret

➡️ Watch more sermons here:
https://www.youtube.com/@FierceChurch

SPEAKER_00:

It's probably been 10 years since this happened, maybe 15 years. In the old times, before you had like Spotify and things in your phone where you could just listen to anything you wanted to at any time, you sometimes would get stuck with just the radio. And sometimes you're trying to hear a song and it's getting staticky. It's like, oh, this is my song. Because it used to be that when a song came on that you really liked, you didn't really have a choice unless you wanted to go buy that song somewhere. You you could only listen to it here. So I'm in the car and I'm listening to one of my songs, but it's static, and there's there's different voices trying to break in and jack up my song. And so it's unclear. This is probably still good, right? I think so. I'm 100% sure that that's 10% safe, at least. Um so you're trying to you're trying to tune in your song, and sometimes it's a little bit like that when people come into church. Some of us are receiving multiple messages, and so when we hear the message from God's word, there's like it's like ecstatic. We're hearing it, but there's also a bunch of other things going on in our head, ways we've been influenced. And for some, it has to do with God Himself. God is mad at me, God is annoyed with me, God is done with me. I'm kind of on the darkest timeline of God's will because I've jacked up so much that now I'm like getting the very worst version of his will. And you just got to know, precious, that's just not true. That's just not true. Like Jesus is all in on you, he's excited about you, he's super, his arms are wide open, he's smiling, he's filled with loving kindness and compassion and mercy. So, whatever you're feeling like, if you're feeling out of sorts with God, I hear that we can feel like that, but just know, push through that junk because where you want to get to is where you can just hear about his burning white hot love for you and how essentially he wants to solve all your problems, if not immediately, ultimately. So that's what I want you to hear as we start. We're gonna talk today. I want to talk to you about walking in and then recovering from defeat. Defeat. You know what defeat is, right? Defeat is when you have failed and you kind of keep failing. And you're feeling like I try a little bit, I try to get a little bit better, I make promises to myself that this time it's gonna go better, but then it doesn't. And so we're in a version of maybe depression, maybe despair, but it's defeat, and we're starting to slowly tell ourselves the story. This isn't ever gonna get any better. Because if it was gonna get better, it would have gotten better by now. And then we begin to even opt out of certain things because we just don't believe it's gonna go that way for us. We all know what it's like to say, I'm just gonna try harder. We all know what it's like to feel like I feel like I'm behind everybody. Everyone else seems to be zooming forward, but not me. Why is that? And here's the deal, man. Most of us probably don't wake up just feeling like I'm gonna rebel against God today. Like you're not, you're not thinking that. But as you go, if you're if you're sensitized to sin, you can trip over a lot and just get slowly discouraged and say, I just can't seem to move forward. Like I've been dealing with this thing for five years. I've been dealing with this thing for even longer. And it doesn't matter how many, for some, for some things, it doesn't matter how many rules you put in place, it doesn't matter how many triggers you try to remove, there's still a sense of being on this wheel that just goes around and around. It doesn't matter how much we promise ourselves we're gonna be different, we're in a place of defeat. And so I want to talk to you today about how to get out of it because someone say we go and get out of it. We gonna get out of it. Psalm 51, which we started last weekend. We're in the valley of regret. That's where we are in the land of blue, the valley of regret. This is such a deep valley that it takes two weeks to get out of it. So we're trying to get over regret last week, and now we're gonna try to get out of the repeat regret of feeling like we are defeated. Psalm 51 doesn't start, though, with some kind of special strategy, it starts with prayer for a new heart. Prayer for a new heart. And you guys know this. If you were here last week, if you weren't, that's okay. Um, you should still go online because this really is best when paired with last week's message because it's kind of a two-parter. But you remember that David is a great guy to tell us about this because he did a lot of his early life following God, like he was crushing it, man. Like he was overcoming his trials, he's forgiving his enemies. And yet he gets into this patch where he's just bro, ain't paying attention. And he commits adultery with another man's wife. He ultimately impregnates her, he tries to cover it up, he ultimately ends up murdering that very guy who served him faithfully. And he gets off on this place of he really is being defeated. And then the prophet Nathan comes and tells him that he's he's getting this thing wrong and he he begins to repent. He leaves us a trail, this penitential psalm we did the first part last weekend. It's it's this pattern of this is what you do when you're far away from God, when you've messed up, this is how you close the distance back to you and the Lord being tied. And it was so dope last weekend because we we learned about um the first thing you need to do is you need to come directly to God, which means you don't go around, you don't try to like wait and work yourself into his presence. You don't have to check in with somebody else first, you just go directly to God. You say, God, here's my deal. I sin in this way. We say you lament and you confess your sin. And you look at it, baby. Like you look at here's what it really was. You're not trying to like like minimize it. You're looking at the game tape and say, that's where I dropped the ball. Like that's exactly what it was. God, that's what it is. And then you ask for forgiveness. So, God, I need you to forgive me and wipe away and get rid of my sin. And then God be praised, like he did for David. He does for us, he does it. The secret that we need to do is look past our sin. Don't get so focused on it, then we just stay kind of depressed. We have a right and godly sorrow. Okay, that's good. But then I look past it, and who do I see? I see Jesus Christ. He's the why I can be forgiven. He's why it's legitimate, he's why it's just for God to forgive me because someone else has already been punished for my sin. That's what we learned last weekend. I think it was pretty doggone dope. Um, you might notice though, what David is doing throughout this psalm is he's bringing us lower and lower. He kind of starts with the exteriors. Thank you. Somebody's concerned about me. Thank God. Um, he starts with the exteriors and he works down and he gets to the place where he's like, I am guilty of blood guilt. Like I have jacked up other people's lives. He gets to the core of it and he finds out he's filled with iniquity, which means inside him there's sin. It's not just that sin come comes out of him, it's that inside there's there's a sin machine, there's a sin disease, a sin-beating heart that is causing sin to come out. He finds this out, and he finds out what we're all gonna review today. The soil is poisoned. The soil is poisoned. I don't know if you've ever heard about this town. It's called Love Canal. I'm gonna scoot right past the name there and just say it was a it was a um, I don't know why you would name the town that. I mean, I would think anybody, if you're in the meeting, like, what could we name this town? And someone said Love Canal, you'd be like, okay, what's the real name though? What are we gonna name this town? Okay, I know this is a tangent and I shouldn't be talking about it, but I just want to I thought it's weird to not mention it. So it's weird. We're just gonna move on, don't think about it again, okay? That's what it was called. In the 40s through the 50s, a bunch of toxic waste was poured into this place, and then they built a town over it. This is like a thing of movies where you and like you might think it started to poison the people. And by the 70s, people were getting sick and they smelled weird odors, and it just became a national crisis. But nothing could grow there because the soil wasn't healed. Nobody could stay healthy there because the soil wasn't healed. And that's a good picture of what's wrong with human beings. See, it doesn't really matter how many leaves you turn over, it doesn't matter how much you're sincere of like, I never want to do this again. Unless we deal with the soil, unless we deal with the poison soil. Maybe it don't, you can rip weeds out all day long, but until you deal with the soil, it's gonna keep producing those weeds. They're just gonna come back tomorrow. There's this big theological word, many of you know it, sanctification. And what it means is it's God's process. When someone has been united with God through Jesus Christ, their sins have been forgiven once for all, but they're still on planet Earth. And so even though they're forgiven, they're gonna keep walking, they're gonna keep messing up from time to time. God brings in this process of sanctification. That's where this person of the Holy Spirit helps us become more and more like Christ. He's changing our personality in a way to think about it is every one of us has a plot of land that is our heart. When we first come to Christ, some of it just gets instantly unpoisoned. Like it's easy to see the fruit of the Spirit in us, like, yeah, they just act like Jesus now. They're just totally different in those areas. But there might be two or three or four that hang on, you notice it first. And those are plots of land in the town of you that are still poisoned. And that's what sanctification is. It's Jesus comes up to that plot of land and says, Okay, I don't really want to work on this one now. And so he goes to work on that little patch of land. We're gonna unpoison this thing. I'm gonna give you a different heart, and then you're gonna want the things that I want. Instead of always feeling like you're working against something to do what I want. So that's why we're gonna see that David doesn't say, Hey God, would you help me now that I've sinned, now that I've been forgiven from my sin with Bathsheba and the murder and all that stuff? He doesn't say, Would you just help me pull weeds better? He doesn't say that. He's God, would you help me by giving me a clean heart? Creating me a clean heart. And here's the big idea. And some of us, now you gotta hear me, man, because I I know and you know this. Discipline is pretty doggone important to progress. Like you gotta be a disciplined person eventually. Eventually, you gotta decide I'm gonna grow up and be a disciplined person about the things that are really important so that they really move forward. Discipline is super important, yo. But here's the thing: you can't out-discipline yourself to the point where the soil becomes unpoisoned. Like, discipline won't heal the soil. It's really great for you, but it won't heal the soil. And we gotta know because we all begin to suspect after a while, there's more going on here. Like there's something under the surface that is that is fighting me, that is keeping me from doing all the good that I want to do and causing me to do some of the bad that I don't really want to do, but then for some reason I do for a minute. Here's something to know about me. There are certain areas of my life I'm probably gonna have to resist temptation my whole life. I think so. I think there's areas like lust. It gets better. I go through seasons of like, praise God, I'm just walking in liberality and freedom, and my thought life is not attacked in any way by the enemy. It's awesome. It's usually when a lot of people are praying for me. So you can just always pray for your pastor about that. That'd be great. I found that one of the things I have to do is I have to have a lot of guardrails. That means we work very hard in my house. There's filters on the things that we watch on TV, there's filters on my phone. There's a little bucket that can lock at night that we just put my phone in in case I'm in a season of like, I just feel like the enemy's gonna come to me in the middle of the night and try to tempt me to go look at something online. And so we put that in. And those guardrails are really helpful because they keep me out of seasons of temptation. But one day the Lord began to speak to me and he said, you know, those are good. Those guardrails help you. But just having the guardrails doesn't clean the poison out of the soil. Your heart is still jacked up, sea dog. He doesn't never call me that. That's just what I call myself sometimes. Your heart is still jacked up. And so while you're still doing that, don't stop doing that, but pray about your heart. Create in me a clean heart, God. Renew a steadfast spirit in me. Come on, somebody. Here's verse 10. We're gonna jump right in the middle of the psalm. Create in me a clean heart, oh God. Now imagine David, right? He's he's feeling so burdened, he's so wounded, he's writing this down. He's like, God has forgiven me, but I know there's more, I know there's something more. I have to go beyond just receiving his forgiveness. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit of me. Don't cast me away from your presence and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of my of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then, I want you to know this is patterned because we're going to talk about it in a second, but just see it right here in the text. Then, then, as I've got a new heart, as I'm forgiven, then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, oh God, the God of my salvation. Then, somebody say then, then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. Oh Lord, oh Lord, it's not just God, I'm gonna open my lips. Oh Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise. For you, for you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise, I would give it. You're not pleased with burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise. That word contrite, it means honest, it means soft, it means not defensive anymore, a heart that is no longer fighting, God, even about the verdict. It is a soft and broken heart over its own sin. And David is even touching something that's New Testamental. Do you see that? He's got a little bit of revelation. God, you don't delight in sacrifice, otherwise, I would give it. You're not pleased with burnt offerings. Now, truth be told, in the Old Testament, God is still demanding that people bring him offerings. But David is understanding, he's putting two and two together that Jesus is gonna going to elaborate later on in the book of John. See, God is really looking for people that will worship him in spirit and truth. And David is noticing these are important. We're supposed to do what God commands us to do, but if it's disconnected from a heart that is genuinely renewed by God, then it's not really, really worship. So, what do we do? Here's what we're gonna find out. Forgiven people don't stop at relief, the relief of just being forgiven. They step into renewal by pleading for a new heart. That's number one. They step into renewal by pleading for a new heart. They plead for it. Create in me a clean heart, oh God. This create word, it's it's God language. It's the kind of creation that only God could do. Meaning, it's not that God just like, oh, let's just work on it a little bit, let's add a little bit of oil. No, create a whole new thing in me, God. Create a new heart in me that loves and obeys your commands. Ezekiel eventually prophesied this new reality that if you're a Christian today, this is your inheritance. This was something they could see from afar, but now we have it. It's ours. We should bless God for it that we have it. Listen to this, Ezekiel 36, 26. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. God knows if anybody gonna fix it, it's actually gonna be God. God's the one who's gotta fix it. He's not gonna let us get the glory. And see, I think sometimes that's why we don't necessarily get victory every place we want it, just automatically. Because there's a certain amount of just arrogance and pride that we would all have. Like, dude, if you just conquered all your sin today today, you'd be like, well, dang young pretty dog going good at this. Jeez, y'all kind of suck compared to me. He knows that would be bad for your soul, so he doesn't do it. He leaves some things where you're gonna have to lean on your beloved, you're gonna have to lean on him and say, God, I've I'm just not gonna get rid of this. If you don't change my heart and change the way I think and make me a new creature on the inside, I'm never gonna get past this. And so when he creates in us a new heart, God's it's it's a renewed heart, it's soft to the Lord. It's not perfect, but it's it's sensitive to him. It's a heart that says, okay, it used to be that like I wanted to sin and then I have to force myself over to obedience, and now I find that the Lord just reversed it. Okay, now I like my normal, I want obedience, and I still like sin, but I I love obedience. Meaning, I used to not want to do what God wants me to do. Now I want to do what God wants me to do, even in these areas of poisoned soil. I can look at it now and say, no, dog, that's poison. I don't want that. I need to get away from that. Even as I mess up, I still know I want to get away from that. He's changing my desires. I want God more than I want sin. But it takes time. Do you know a lot of stuff in the Christian life takes time? It doesn't, and and you might think, I don't know why that is, because Jesus, like he would just do things and it was done. Like it's hey, Lazarus, get up. Like he didn't have to pray for seven days, like he just said it, and Lazarus, hey, here's let's feed 5,000. Like he doesn't have to, it doesn't seem like Jesus has to persevere in those prayers. So you might think, well, are his disciples just supposed to expect anytime they pray, it's just going to happen? You'd think that unless you read Luke 18, where it says, Jesus taught his disciples that they needed to pray at all times. And he gave them this example of this persistent widow, this gal that just keeps coming to this unrighteous judge saying, I need you to, I need you to work on my behalf. I need you to weigh in, I need you to fix this problem for me. And he said, This judge doesn't give a rip about God or her, but he eventually, because she bugs him enough, he'll do it. He says, You, my disciples, my followers, you need to realize there's things that unless you keep knocking, unless you keep pursuing, unless you keep saying, God, give me justice, give me faith, give me deliverance from this, give me a new heart here on this spoiled plot of land. Unless you keep that up for a while, you're not gonna taste it the way that he would want you to. So I just want to submit to some of us. Is it possible that dear heart, God isn't frustrated with you? He's not frustrated with you, but he might be waiting for you to ask for what only he can give. Like you're keep you keep working harder. You're like, I will get these weeds out of here. He's like, I appreciate that, but no, you won't. Because you can't change hearts, including yours. You can try harder, but see, if you try harder, really on some level, you're still just reinforcing the mindset of a legalist. You're just thinking that you're right because if I get right enough, then I'll finally be okay. Now, you're already okay if you've trusted Jesus. He already made you okay. And now he's in the business. Somebody say business. He's in the business of cleaning up this plot of land. So here's some suggestions if we're going to pursue God for a renewed heart in every different area that we need it. One might be to get specific. That means don't be vague with your prayers. Oh, God, would you help me? Would you help me with this sin? Would you just help me? He's like, I'm helping to not destroy you and like jack up your life already. I'm already helping you. I'm helping you a lot, but what do you want me to do? God, would you create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me with regard to my likelihood that I'm just gonna flip my lid out of nowhere? With regard to my desire, sometimes I just like I see a way that I could play two people against each other and I just know that I could, and I just do it. But God, would you create in me a clean heart that here's what it is doesn't want to do that kind of a thing. So if you ever wrestle with lust, you say, God, would you make me the kind of man or the kind of woman that just wouldn't do that? That their heart doesn't go that direction. And when it does, it resists. Would you create that in me though, God? Because I can't do it. Make me the kind of person who instead of being impatient, God would you just get me through this trial? Like, why do I always have to have all these trials? Why do things always gotta be going wrong, God? Instead of constantly, God, what's what? Why, why, why, why? Hey man, that's human and I get it. But also, God, would you create in me a clean heart that just says, you know, dude, it's gonna happen when it's gonna happen. But I want to be the kind of man or the kind of woman that just is more at rest, saying, God's gonna do what God's gonna do, and I'm just going to relax. And we can try, try, try, try, try, or we can say, Jesus, how about this plot of land right here? I'm so sick of this one. Let's start prayer toward that thing. And Jesus, start to empower me to just think the right thoughts, reflect on the right scriptures so that this little piece of land gets healthy so things can grow. Let's move on to number two, because once once we're pursuing a new heart, what do we do with it? Here's number two. We worship with a new heart. We're worshiping with a new heart. That's what we're doing. Then, verse 14, my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. Then, then I'll do it when I have a renewed heart. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings, okay? So just follow me. Um, I really do believe that until we've got a renewed heart, our worship is just mostly going through the motions. Like we're we're we're going through the motions, but that doesn't mean it's a heart connected really to worship. I was a kid, a really popular game on the Nintendo Entertainment System was Tech Mobile and then Super Tech Mobile on the Super Ness. And it was a good game. I mean, people loved it, man. And you know, it was fun. And you could you could throw the ball, you could make touchdowns, but it's not the same as actually going out in the yard and playing football. So my older brother Jeremy, he'd like wrangle all of us up, hey guys, let's go out in the yard and let's let's play football. And it was, yeah, baby, it was tough. It was like if you don't have enough heart, you're not gonna do what you need to do to win the game. So if you got enough heart, you're gonna dive for that ball and your face is gonna go across the grass. But you're gonna be like, that's what the game is, that's what it is, that's what the heart you need. And in a similar way, dear heart, until you've got a renewed heart that appreciates what God has done for you, that feels defended and secure by God, until you've got that going on, your worship is not the same. See, we can come into worship, whether that's in a worship experience, whether that's giving, whether that's serving somebody somewhere, whatever that is, we can do all that kind of exteriorly. Like, well, God wants me to do this, so I'm just gonna do it. Some of us we do that in here. We're like, well, I guess I don't know, they all do this. I guess God likes this for some reason. Like, that can be the version that is happening, or there can be a God, I recognize you have forgiven me. And my mind is blown right now that you even allow me into your presence. I'm so thankful. I'm grateful. You ever have that moment? My kids have this sometimes. I remember it, I'll tell myself inside of my kids. Um I dude, as a kid, I was in the principal's office a lot. Okay, I just was, and I deserved to be like I wasn't a good kid some of the time. And every time I was called down to the office, I was like, oh no. Like it was just like, Mark Carter, please come to the office. And I'm like, oh nuts. What did I do? Most of the time I did know what I already did. Um, but I'm I'm walking down the line. Here we go, man. What's gonna happen now? And you know, you sit down and you're just dreading what is about to be said and what the punishment is about to be. If you know what that's like, you know that it's a super relief when they say, Don't worry, you're not in trouble. You're like, oh, thank God, I'm not in trouble. I hear sometimes fierce volunteers and leaders say that same thing about me. Like, oh, geez, Carter wants to talk to me. What now? Well, you know what it's like when it's a relief. Oh, thank God, this is nothing. Now imagine instead of it not even just being nothing, they're like, by the way, here's a hundred dollars, and um, I'm just gonna be solving a lot of your problems from now on, just so you know. That's what happens with Jesus. He's like, hey, come see me, and we're like, oh no, no, no. And he's like, boom, I died for your sin. I love you, I'm gonna remake you. And by the way, I'm gonna be solving your problems from here on out. Just, you know, I got your back. Like, that's what the response should be like, oh, hallelujah! Like, that's that's why your worship is different. Once you've been to the cross and you're having a renewed heart in the cross. See, our worship, when we encounter God's grace, it's like our worship can breathe again. It's like now, oh yeah, this is this is authentic now. I'm not just playing a video game about it, I'm doing the real thing. When we're worshiping from a place of humility that recognizes I really, it's really true. I don't deserve to worship God. See, being poor in spirit, what that means is you recognize you have nothing to bring God other than your need for God. Like that's all that we bring to the table. We're secure because he says, verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. You will not despise. That means my security is based, my security as I as I worship God is based on what he's done for me, not my ability to get it right. My my my entering into his presence, being secure, being fully loved and fully received, has nothing to do with whether I just jacked something up or whether I got it wrong for the first time or the 500th time. Like God always knew that was gonna happen, yo. I know that we're surprised sometimes like, oh my gosh, how how did I do that again? And we think maybe God's surprised about this. And he's like, I mean, I know everything, so I'm not surprised. Like, I knew that was always gonna happen, and I still chose to die for you, and I still chose to receive you by grace through faith. So here's a couple ideas with regard to this worship thing. One is, and I mean this sweetly, it may be for some of us, you're a little bit cynical about worship. It may be that you come into a place like this or some other place, and you see somebody like, yes, you know, like or they're singing at the top of their lungs or whatever, and you're like, for real. Are they serious though? Like, this seems like a show. I don't know, man. I don't know that anyone really feels that way. Can I encourage you? Um, a renewed heart just doesn't bother with that kind of junk. Okay? Because why? Because they're not your servant, they're not worshiping you. What do you care? Like, whatever degree they're authentic, the Lord on them will deal with that because he's the one they're worshiping. But it does make sense that if someone was really forgiven, they'd be pretty doggone excited about it. Here's another challenge for some, guys, for some of you, and I think this is some people online. It is sometimes people that are here for a while and then they disappear, and they disappear because of shame. They got into something and they're like, I can't go now. I can't, I can't present myself there and worship God because all those people got their act together and now I don't. I know it's laughable, isn't it? No, church is a hospital, dude. It ain't for the people that are all healthy, it's for all the people that are jacked up. That's what it is. But they pull back and they're like, I can't go. Maybe I'll even watch online, or maybe I'll just forget the whole thing for a while. No, precious, when you jack something up, run toward the cross and run toward the people of God. Dude, there ain't no way you've done anything significantly worse than the rest of us have all done, and we're all falling on Jesus, and it's just fine and dandy. And maybe even we need to worship. Sometimes we come in and we're like, God, I just need an answer from God today. God, would you just I need you to move, I need some kind of confirmation. And that'll make sense. I mean, I pray those prayers. But see, when we come in and we worship from a heart that is renewed, we begin to realize I don't really need all the answers. I just need the God of my answers. I just need to have my focus on him. I'd love for him to answer some of my questions, but if he doesn't, real renewed heart worship doesn't need the answers because it has him come on somebody. Should we do one more? I think you guys can handle it. Let's go. Number three, modeling a new heart. Modeling a new heart. Then I will teach transgressors your way. Then I will teach transgressors your way. Not necessarily in the sense of a of a teaching ministry, like you have to instruct somebody. But see, when we've really encountered grace and we really are experiencing a renewed heart, we just can't help but care about other people. Like we just can't help but think about, well, what about all those folks? I want them to have what I've got. And we begin to understand hopefully, as we're having a renewed heart, dude, it's not really the impressive people that God uses a ton or the people that think they're impressive. God uses restored people, not impressive people. I don't know if you've noticed this. I really believe people tend to listen more closely to healed sinners than to super competent speakers. Right? Like, so everybody knows like it's hard to trust somebody who says one thing and they're just doing another. You're like, yeah, I don't know, dude. I don't think this is really you haven't taken this medicine because you're totally not what you're saying. But then if there's someone who's just like they're just so right all the time, you can also be a little suspicious of that. Like you're telling me you just always have your act together, like you're just you're just perfect, man. I think from my perspective, we tend to trust the people who they've jacked up and now they're changing. They've jacked up and now they're changing. And that's really, my friends, if we're gonna have a renewed heart that worship worships by teaching others and modeling others, we've got to have a heart that says, I don't need to wait to be able to preach to somebody. I don't need to wait till I'm I'm better or holier. All I really need to do is just testify to what God has done for me. Isn't that what David did? Then I will, I will. I'll teach transgressors your ways. Sometimes we think I've got to like censor myself in a conversation. I've got to be at the at the holiday dinner. And if I say praise God like my spirit wants to, like the spirit of God in me wants to, people will think it's weird or whatever. I mean, yeah, don't do that, you know, during your, you know, during your oral exam on your dissertation, I guess. But but if you're at the dinner table or you're at work and you're like, praise God, the spirit of God knows what the people around you need to hear, and you should exalt your father in heaven in front of other people. And so just go ahead and model, yeah, baby, in heaven, we're gonna be praising quite a bit. So we might as well start right now. It means we're being a witness without having to have a perfect record. We're just a witness because we're forgiven. It's right for a forgiven person to testify about their God and say, and and not get in people's faces and not being weird about, but just saying, I'm telling you, God is rocking my world right now. And we brag not about the results, but about the process of like, you know, I still I jacked that up last week, and God is still working with me. He hasn't left me behind. We're still working on this thing. God just never gives up, baby. It's not because I'm qualified, it's because he's faithful. And if we're really changing, dude, people can tell. I would challenge there. There's some, I think this is especially important when you first come to Christ. You got to know this. If you when you first come to Christ, there's a whole lot of people around you, probably, that are like, I don't know, dude. We'll see. This person starts to claim all this stuff. I've been through their emo phase, I've been through, you know, their sports phase, I've been through all their phases. We'll see if this Jesus things thing takes. And so one of the most important things for us to do in that moment is, dude, you don't have to like hype people up. You don't have to get them all razzed like you. What you really need to do is faithfulness over time, giving God the glory. Faithfulness over time. Just like, do prove them wrong with your life of just continually falling down and getting back up, falling down and getting back up, falling down and getting back up, going online and not whining and complaining, but giving thankfulness. I'm gonna say that one again because somebody missed it. Going online and not whining and complaining, but thankfulness to your God. Hey, how many think like whining and complaining really works on social media? Has anyone seen like dramatic fruit from that? Yeah, God doesn't anoint that, um, he but he does anoint faithfulness, consistency, sweetness, chill. I'd love to invite the worship team back up as we land this plane. Some would say, Carter, I've already asked God to do that. And I don't think he'll feel like he's doing anything. Hey, I've got good news for you. Jesus never promised you instant perfection, he promised his faithful presence. That's what he promises. He doesn't promise he's just gonna fix this overnight. But the Jesus who forgives us is the Jesus who will stay with us. Jesus is pretty awesome, dude. Okay, like he's not shocked by your sin, he's not uh impatient with your progress, he's not like waiting for you to pick up the pace. Jesus is amazing, he's got incredible integrity, meaning once he starts working on a plot of land to purify the soil, he doesn't just be like, ah, never mind. I'm walking away. He's like, I'm Jesus, I finish what I start. If we have started working this land, we are going to finish this land, and he's gonna do it with grace and mercy, and the Holy Spirit is gonna come upon you, and he's gonna be hardening stuff and softening stuff and pulling out what needs pulled out and putting in what needs put in. And you don't need to just keep forever for the rest of your life trying harder. Need to pray, like all of us, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Jesus is not a quick fix because he's into genuine transformation. That's what he's after. And he is not done with you yet. Let's bow our heads. Oh God, thank you that you are the long-suffering, persevering, not bothered or impatient God. Thank you that you're not anxious, you're not wrought up, you're not worried about what's gonna happen next for us. Thank you that you are committed to walk us to the very end. You will fulfill the work you have begun right up until the very day we enter your presence. God, I pray for fresh faith in each of us that as we run into a sinful nature that seems to want to still rule, we would remember the promise that you're not going to give up on us, that you're gonna pull it off, and you're you alone are going to get the glory. God, I pray for each and every plot of land right now that people are facing and dealing with, and they're recognizing it is poisonous. God, we thank you so much for a heart that now recognizes that it's poisonous. We want you to minimize the damage that comes from this poison land, but we want to empty ourselves of the idea that it will be us that cleans this land. Jesus, we can't, all we can do is surrender the land to you. And that's what we do. Jesus, come into this place. Give us not only success, give us not only freedom, give us not only healing, give us joy right now for what you're ultimately gonna do, even if it's not done yet. Jesus is super wonderful and awesome. Thank you that you go to work on our soul. Mighty Carpenter. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon. If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it. Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel. Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out. Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com. And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.