Awake, Not Just Aware

We press on the difference between being aware of truth and being awake to it, because a church can know the finished work and still live like God is distant. We walk through scripture and real-life patterns like shame, fear, and striving until truth moves from information to identity. 
• why “Awake, Not Just Aware” applies to everyone 
• Christ in you as union, not distance 
• why we still live like we are separated 
• no condemnation versus the habit of carrying guilt 
• awareness as the light coming on through truth 
• awakening as living from truth, not visiting it 
• Galatians 2:20 as identity, not just a quote 
• acceptance, love, and rest as marks of an awake life 
• inheritance and open doors as a picture of grace 
• letting go of tradition when it contradicts scripture 
• how to respond when fear, shame, or striving shows up 
• making awakening a Monday-through-Saturday practice 
I challenge you to look this up, see what God shows you in it. Come on Wednesday night. Let’s talk about it Wednesday night.

Transcript

Why This Message Hits Home

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm not gonna say I'm gonna be short today. Uh 'cause I don't know. If I say that today it may go over a little bit, but uh I got something today that uh has really been hitting me a lot lately uh as I've kind of taken some different things and looked at them and studied them out. Uh there's some some things that's just kind of come to me and I want to share it with you this morning. Um this is one gonna be one of those messages where, you know, sometimes you you hear people after a message sometimes come up and they might say, you know, you was talking right to me. This is gonna be talking right to you this morning because this is a message for everybody that's in this room today. Uh I know a lot of times we talk about uh, you know, learning things so that we can go out and and help other people and speak to other people and uh be a light in the world, be the salt of the earth and all that. And there's nothing that's great that we do that. But I believe there's a time too to where it's a message just for this house specifically. Um I've said many times, and I want you to understand where I'm coming from when I say this. I've said many times that I believe that we are a forerunner church, and I really do believe that. I believe we've been given a language and a clarity that helps people see the finished work from a perspective they've never seen it from before. And I believe it takes an understanding of that to be able to go out and share that with people and be able to not just share it, but be able to truly help people understand what we're talking about. And I think we've been given that in a different kind of way. But I also know this it's possible to preach and teach something consistently, like we do. We teach finished work consistently. Just about every, don't matter what the sermon is, it it that that thread of union, that thread of finished work is always in there somewhere. So I believe it's uh possible to preach and teach on it consistently and still not be living fully awake to it personally. And that's why this sermon this morning, the title of it, Awake, not just aware. And I told you that a lot of times when I'm studying something or just researching or whatever, things will start coming to me, and I'll even go back and look at some of my previous sermons, and I can tell you uh for sure that I have taken these two words aware and awake, and I have used them interchangeably a lot of times. Um but I'm starting to see something now. I'm starting to see that these words are totally different, they do not mean the same thing. So today isn't going to be about what we're bringing to other people or what we could be bringing to other people. This is about what is what's actually in each one of us that's sitting in this room. And when I look around this room, I don't have any question whether people in this room believe the things that we're teaching. I don't have any question about that. But whether we're actually living from what we say we believe. That's something I think all of us, and that's not a put down on anybody. I think that's something we all need to look at and be real with ourselves and say, you know, I believe this, but am I seeing this, the manifestation of it, you know, show in my life? So I think that's something we all need to question at times. Because you can be surrounded by truth. Uh, you can agree with truth, we can teach and preach about truth, yet still not be awake to truth. You're gonna understand in a few minutes what I'm saying here, because I'm gonna go through and break these two words down. I think it's really important that we understand the difference in what it's saying. Uh, so that's what I want to talk about today. I want to I want to press down a little bit. I want to dig a little bit deeper into it. Not just awareness, but awakening. We always use that word, and I always say that our goal is to make people more aware of what Jesus did on the cross. To make people more aware of because of what he did, now what does that mean for me and what does that mean for you? And how does it impact our life? Not just that it was an event, but how does it actually impact my life and change my life for the better? We've spent a lot of time over the last probably year, probably more than that, uh, talking about the finished work, talking about union, talking about inclusion, talking about what uh that God is not distant from us, that He that we're one, we're in union with Him, we're present with Him. We've talked a lot about not waiting for something that we already have, that we already have access to right now. And with all that stuff being said, I believe that. I hope you believe that. Uh, you've been here long enough. I hope you're some of this is resonating with you, and it's not just, you know, something that may preach good or whatever, but it's actually hitting home with you, and you're saying, okay, what difference is this making in my life? So I don't think we're trying to get to God. And we hear people say that all the time about trying to get to heaven or trying to have a better relationship with him or trying to get closer to him. I don't think that we're trying to get to God. I don't think that's the problem. I think we've been included in him the whole time from the very beginning. And I think that we're learning to become aware of where we stand in the relationship so that we can do what? Now awaken to the truth of that relationship. It's more than just uh, we say it all the time, but I I I want to push this, it's more than just going to heaven. That's not taking heaven away, but there's more to it than that. What are we gonna do while we're here? What purpose do we have on this earth? So here's an honest question. If all of this is true, why do we sometimes live like we're separated from Him? Now don't think about somebody on the outside that you know. Don't think about somebody that you've witnessed to at some point. I want you to honestly think about yourself. Uh, because I did this when I when I started putting this down, I started looking at it and saying, okay, what areas in my own life am I living where I'm where I'm almost believing that I'm separated from him? What areas of my life is it not lining up with the Word of God? It's not lining up with what I say that I believe. It's not lining up with what I stand up and preach. And I have to be honest about that. This is not a beatdown message. This is not a correction message, this is a reality that I believe that we've got to at some point look at ourselves and be totally honest.

Christ In You, Not Distant

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Look with me at this one verse. This is a really good verse to start with, good foundational verse of what we're talking about in Colossians 1, verse 27. And I think you're gonna see kind of where we're where we're headed to with this. It says, To them, God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. Here's the key to it. Now he told them what he's gonna do. Think about that, to make known what are the riches of the glory, of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Now think about that just a minute.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Christ in you, the hope of glory. It didn't say Christ near you, and we're always trying to get a little bit closer to God. It ain't talking about being near to God, it's not talking about waiting on him someday to come near to me. It says Christ in you. There's a union right there, there's a togetherness in this verse that it talks about. So if that's true, why do we still live like he's somewhere else? If the word is telling me that it's Christ in me, that is Christ in you, why do we sometimes live our life like he is somewhere else and he's not on the inside of me? You don't have to answer that. I'm just just some things to think about. What does that look like to be honest with ourselves and really just look at our life and be honest about some things? There's times that we strive for approval. There's times that we wrestle with fear, uh, we carry shame and doubt. There's times that we feel like we're not enough. It don't matter how much somebody quotes the word to you. It don't matter how many times you read the Bible, you quote the word. There's times in our life where we just feel like we're not enough. We haven't done well enough. We've made too many mistakes. We've gone so far that I just don't know if I can get back. There's people in this room, and there's people in churches all over Bacon County right now who feel this way even though they're sitting in church this morning. That's honesty. What I mean by that's honesty, because I think there's a time we've got to just quit putting our little Sunday mask on and going to church and just acting like everything is okay. And be honest with ourselves about sometimes that we feel separated, sometimes we feel guilt and sometimes we feel shame and doubt. And I think we need to be honest with ourselves about that. Look what it says in Romans 8 and 1. There is therefore now no condemnation. This verse, we've talked about it so many times. There's now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Now it says there's no condemnation.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

That's straight from Scripture. But I want to ask you this how often do we still carry condemnation? How often do we still carry guilt and shame and fear? If the door is truly opened up to everything that Jesus hung on a cross and gave us, if that door is truly opened up, why do we spend so much time waiting on the outside of it trying to get in? Why do we teach people? Now we don't use those words specifically, but we tell people all the time that if you get your life cleaned up, if you do this or if you do that, then God's going to be happy with you and there's going to be a union. He's going to come together with you. No, he hung on the cross and he said it's finished. And then he rose from the grave. And he gave us a new identity. And now he's saying in these verses that it's Christ in you the hope of glory. We're looking at separation so much that sometimes we just forget that he's in us. We're one with him. So here's something that I'm starting to see the more I read this and study it out. There's a difference between being aware and being awake. And again, I'm honest enough to tell you, I have interchanged that word so many times during my sermons. And now it's starting to hit me, and I'm going back and I'm looking at it and saying, you know, there is a huge difference in that. And we got to understand that difference. A lot of us have become very aware. If you've sat in this church for any amount of time, then you are very, very aware of the finished work of Christ. If you've been paying attention any at all. Because we talk about it so much. So you are very aware of that. And don't get me wrong, awareness is powerful. We want to be aware. But what does that really mean? Have you ever just stopped and asked that question? What is he talking about when he's saying that we need to be more aware of the things of Christ or we need to have a greater awareness? What does that really mean? What does it really look like in real life? I believe it's when you begin to see things that you didn't see before. Okay? It's when we start to realize that God's not distanced from us like I sometimes thought that he was. It's believing that I've been living under pressure and under situations that I was never meant to carry in this life. But yet I wake up every day and I struggle with things and I deal with things. And I'm aware of that. Maybe I've believed that some things about myself throughout my life that really is just not the truth. But I've believed them. Awareness is that moment when the light comes on, and I use that terminology a lot. It's kind of like a light bulb, and that light comes on. That is what I look at when I talk about awareness. And that matters. It's a really, really powerful place to be when you are not just sitting here, not listening, but you are truly sitting here and becoming aware of things. Not just here, but when you're studying on your own or you're listening to another sermon, or you're here listening to me, when you are becoming aware, a light bulb is coming on. And it don't have to be me, it can be just us talking among each other. Wednesday night, we had a great conversation Wednesday night. We got deep Wednesday night, didn't we, Janet? And it was. It was great to even hear Janet before she walked out of here. She said, Is this what you mean by, you know, going deeper or what, you know? That's what we're talking about. It's not saying, well, what, you didn't know that? No, it's not comparing knowledge of what we know and what this one knows and don't know. It's just saying, let's dig a little bit deeper into these things. And I'm telling you, a lot of come on in there, and it'll make you start asking questions that you've never even thought about asking before. Questions are good. It's great to ask questions. Some people say I don't like to ask questions because it shows they don't have the answer. I don't care about that. Before I can find the answer, I've got to start asking questions. Because when I ask questions, something that could pop in my head during the middle of the day won't have nothing to do with church. I'll be doing something, and something will pop in my head and I'll write it down or I'll put it in my phone or something. Just because it popped in my head. And later on I'll go back and I'll start studying on it, and sometimes a sermon will come out of it. Just a simple question. It's okay to ask. It's okay not to know everything. That's the whole point of going a little bit deeper.

Awareness Versus Awakening Defined

SPEAKER_00 16:39

So, you know, being in a place of awareness, it's a great place. I believe awareness is where you see truth at. You move beyond just the traditional norm and you begin to see a deeper truth. That's when you're becoming more aware. But awakening is where you live from it. Say that again. Awakening is where you live from it. Awakening is a little bit different than just awareness. Let me say it like this before we move on. Because I don't want nobody to misunderstand what I'm trying to say today. I'm not downplaying awareness. I am not trying to make light of awareness. I know I've used that word so many times, and it'd be easy for somebody to say, oh, he's used it and used it and used it, and now he's saying it don't even matter. No, no. Awareness is a powerful. But what I'm trying to say is there's more to it.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

We want to go a little bit further. You know, you can have you can you can't live in a truth that you don't have.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

You can't do it. I've heard sermons before that sounded really good. And somebody would say something when I'm listening, and I thought, man, that that thing just hit me. It hit me hard. But I didn't have that truth yet in me. It sounded good, and I now had an awareness of it, but it wasn't a truth to me yet. So therefore, my life was not experiencing that thing. That's the difference in what we're talking about. Awareness is just a knowledge and understanding. The light comes on, it stirs me on the inside. But if I don't take it a step further, that's all it's gonna be is good information. We're gonna be a really informed church with a lot of information. But what kind of example are we setting? Are we seeing this stuff play out in our life and manifest? So this isn't me saying awareness doesn't matter. I want you to understand that. This is not a rebuke, this is not a correction saying, oh, you need to go further. This is me saying it matters so much that I don't want you to stop there. That's how important awareness is. But you can't just stop with the knowledge. You can't just stop because you had a great question. You gotta go further, you gotta look it up. You gotta dig in there and say, God, show me how this matters. This is me inviting you to go deeper. We say that all the time, and some people would take that in a negative way. I don't mean it negative at all. I don't, I don't even, when I'm saying go deeper, I mean let's let's just let's go a little bit further into the word. Let's see what the really, I always put it like this. This is the way I've always looked at it. I don't care what this pastor says or what that pastor says. I want to know what was the intent that God had. When this was written down, when it was spoken in the word, what did God actually mean by it? What was his intent behind it? Because I realized a long time ago that pastors can misinterpret a lot of verses. I've done it. I still do it. That's where the learning comes in, and then we learn that we're misinterpreting something and we make a correction to it. So I'm not downplaying awareness. I'm just saying awareness is where the whole journey begins at. I don't want to listen, how dumb would it be to work for months and months to run a race against somebody or to run a marathon, and then all of a sudden you're standing at the starting line and you hear that gun go off and you go and stop.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

You started, but that's as far as you got.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

We want to, this is just a starting point right here. We want to go further than that, we want to go deeper. So awakening is when when truth moves from your head, which is knowledge, gaining information, is all right here. But when it begins to move from right here and moves down into my heart and begins to influence my identity, that's when it becomes awakening. I'm awakening to something, I'm awakening to a truth. So when it moves from the head and settles in your identity, it's no longer something you just visit every once in a while. It actually becomes the place that you live from. Look at this. Verse right here in Galatians with me. Galatians 2, verse 20. It says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's a powerful verse. It's even more powerful when you awaken to it. You start to see something a little bit more in this verse. Not just this one, but all scripture. When I started seeing the difference in these two words, is I was like, it's one thing to be aware of what the word says. That's why we talk about context all the time. It's one thing to be aware that I've been misinterpreting this verse. But it's another thing now to awaken to the truth of what it really means, what God really intended. Because what happens then is I begin living this thing out. It's not just information in my head. It's not just spiritual knowledge that I have. It's not just me being smart. Now I'm beginning to live something out in my life. That changes everything. So Paul said, here it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That's not what he's saying right here is not awareness. Now think about this. That's awakening. That's identity. He is awakening to a truth right here. That it is no longer I who live, it is Christ that lives in me. Now, when you truly capture that moment and you awaken to that truth, think about how that impacts your life. Think about how every situation and every circumstance and every day of my life changes simply because it is not I who live anymore. It is not me going through these situations by myself anymore. It is not me trying to figure out how do I deal with this anymore. It is Christ that lives in me. That's a whole different path. I was going through trouble in my life, I was going through circumstances in my life. And when I go through those circumstances, what do I do a lot of times? I will take Galatians 2.20 and I'll begin to quote it. Why? Because I have an awareness of what Galatians 2.20 says. The battle is not yours. I don't have to fight anymore. And I used to love to fight.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

You go into no situation alone.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

When you think about people who are living with depression, man, this verse right here could transform their life. Why? Because depressed people always feel like they're alone. They always feel like they're fighting every battle by themselves. They always feel down because nobody's there for them. Nobody understands me. Nobody's ever been where I'm at. That's not the truth, but that's what they feel. And it does matter why? Because, as we said, feelings are strong. Feelings can take over your life if you allow them to. But all of a sudden, when you begin to say, let me share Galatians 2.20 with you. And it's one thing, they got to take that first step of being aware of this verse. That's why I said we're not downplaying awareness. That is the first step in the journey to awakening. I gotta be aware of it. And the more I'm aware of it, all of a sudden I step over. Now it becomes who I am. I'm not just quoting verses anymore just to be quoting them. See, I know a lot of people that quote verses just because they know them and they like to look smart. But you look at their, I mean, I'm not being funny here, but you look at their life.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

And their life is a wreck.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

But boy, they can quote scripture. And I used, I'm just gonna be honest right here now. I used to look at people like that, including myself, and say, how can they know scripture that well, but their life be so chaotic?

SPEAKER_01 27:30

And it never made sense to me. They had an awareness, but no awakening. Makes a difference.

From Verses To Identity

SPEAKER_00 27:43

An awake person doesn't get up every day trying to be loved. An awake person lives from the place of love. You don't have to convince them that God loves them. They know that. They live from that love.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

An awake person doesn't fight for acceptance, they know they're already accepted.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Listen, before I understood this, I can remember years back, I've told a story, I won't go into it, but there's certain things that happened in my life that created uh mindsets in me, and it created certain things in me, and acceptance was a big thing for me. I needed that acceptance. I needed to know that people had my back and people were there for me. That was huge. Now, how many times do I stand in this pulpit and say, I don't care what you think? Don't mean that negative. I mean that from a standpoint of my mind had transitioned from needing all of this to realize I'm already accepted. I don't need somebody else to build me up and lift me up. I realize now God's already accepted me. And if you don't like me or you don't accept me, so what? I want you to, but if you don't, it's not gonna, it's not gonna faze me. That's the place that a person who is awake lives in. It can almost come off in a negative sense sometimes, like, oh, he don't care. It's not that I don't care, it's that it don't it don't change my life. Because I already know I'm accepted. An awake person doesn't wake up every day trying to figure out ways to get closer to God, they live as one with Him. Now again, I'm saying some of this because I want you to see how some of these statements, although they're positive statements, can come off as a little bit negative. If I looked at people that didn't go to this church who didn't hear me talk all the time and didn't understand how I say things, and if I just walked out and said, quit spending every day trying to get closer to God, how would they react to that?

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Why?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Because they don't have an awareness of what I mean by that. I don't mean don't have a relationship with him. I don't mean don't spend time with him, don't pray, don't read the Bible, don't communicate with him. I just basically want them to know that they're already one with him. So rather than trying to do things to get to him, realize I'm one with him and live out of that rather than trying to get to it. An aware person says, This is true, they'll read the scripture and they'll they'll somebody will quote a scripture to them and they'll look at it or listen to it and they'll say, That's true. They're very aware. That's true. But an awake person, somebody who has a has had an awakening, they look at it a little bit different. That person says, That's who I am.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

It moves from knowledge to identity. It's one thing to have a knowledge of it, it's another thing to identify as it. Big difference.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

And that shift in our mindset, it changes everything about us. Let me say it like this awareness is realizing the door has been opened. Awakening is walking through the door and actually discovering that you've been home the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Well, I started out with that statement about if the door is open, why are so many of us sitting on the outside?

SPEAKER_00 32:22

There was a quote I seen years ago. Somebody posted it on Facebook. I've seen it several times. And it's a hallway, it's got doors out there, and it says, and you know, it's a very positive quote. Unless you're an awake person, you see it differently. Okay. But it says, if God hasn't opened a door, just rejoice in the hallway. And it's got people in the hallway rejoicing. Why? Because the door hasn't been opened yet. My door's been opened. My door was opened 2,000 years ago. Now, yes, there's things that we haven't experienced yet. Understand what I'm saying. That don't mean that that God's not gonna, that new doors are not gonna open up to me. The more we get to a place of awakening and understanding of these things, I believe the more we step into experiencing these things. And I've said it so many times. I think there's some things that's closed off to us, not because God has shut the door, but because we're not mature enough yet to see it. It ain't got nothing to do with God shutting the door on us. But we're not ready to step into that. But when we listen, there's no time frame on it. We can get to that place and begin to open things up and begin to get to a place of awakening anytime we want to. Anytime we choose to. There's no time frame. You don't have to be in church for 30 years and be a Sunday school teacher and then do this, and then be an associate pastor, and then I mean, you don't have to walk the levels to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

You can awaken to the truth anytime you choose to. And I think this is sometimes where we get as Christians we get stuck sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Not because we don't believe, it ain't got nothing to do with belief, but because we're still living and relating to truth as something that's outside of us.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

I said I wasn't gonna get on this, but I I don't know no other way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

If all the things that I read about in the Bible that that I'm entitled to, and yes, I'm using the word entitled because I'm a child of God. And because I am a son of God, I am entitled to certain things that my daddy has left me. And we talk about an inheritance. We've been given an inheritance. You don't get an inheritance when you die, you get an inheritance when the person that left it dies. We got people who are waiting on their inheritance, and they are saying, I can't wait to go to Gloryland so I can get my inheritance. Really? The one that left it has already gone. He hung on a cross and he said it's finished. So everything that was left to us as sons and daughters, we received back then. Now you may not be walking in it. If I had some rich uncle who left me a ton of money, and the lawyer calls me and says, Hey, your uncle so-and-so tailored just died and he left you a pile of money. I didn't even know I had an uncle Joe, you know, so-and-so. Well, you did. He left you a pile of money. I need you to come up here and sign everything and make it legal, and I'll send it over to your bank account. And I never go.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

It didn't change the fact that he left me an inheritance, but I never experience it because I never choose to step into it.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

That's what we do in church so often. We're waiting on God to give us something that He's already gave us 2,000 years ago. We agree with truth, we think a lot about truth, we talk about it every Sunday. But this was it was never meant to be about just information. Just to see how much I know, how many scripture I know. It was never meant to be about information. It has always been meant to be about transformation. Transforming my life, transforming my thinking. We don't need a new version of truth. That's what gets me. So many times when I hear people say, well, what you're what y'all are preaching is a new age or it's this, or no, it's not. We don't have a new version of truth. We just have the truth. We may see it in a new way, like we've never seen it before, but that don't make it a new version. It just means that I have awakened and I'm now seeing things that I've never seen before. I'm telling you, I can read scripture now that I've preached many messages on over the years. And I can read them right now through the lens of a finished work theology, and I see everything in that verse totally different than what I ever did before. Not a new verse. But something in me has shifted, and now I see new stuff popping out of it that I've never seen before. The verse didn't change.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

My mindset did. I shifted. So some of us.

Tradition, Doors, And Inheritance

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Some of us are missing it simply because we don't want to let go of tradition. And we talked about that Wednesday night. Oh, tradition ain't bad. I don't even want to, I won't even say it's bad at all.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Unless it begins to contradict scripture. If my tradition contradicts what scripture says, I gotta let it go.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

We've all come up in tradition.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

With certain traditions, whatever denomination you come up in, whatever church you come up in, we're we've all come from different backgrounds. Some of us may not have come up in church.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

That's a different background. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

But we gotta realize that we have the ability to step into this. Some of us, I think, are waiting for a certain moment, waiting for a feeling to come, waiting for something supernatural to happen.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Man, we used to have some great experiences.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

I'm just thinking back to first community and some of the worship services we had, and even in here. There's some great times that we've had, there's some great experiences, services that we've had. But I can't just wait on an experience to get it. And I'm telling you, I used to do that. Man, we used to chase revivals around like it was like it was gonna be the last one. We'd drive anywhere for a revival. Something's going on, we'd hear about it, we'd hop in the car and go. Why? Because we we're going for the next big thing. God's gonna show me something through this, and we're driving all over.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

We're chasing an experience, hoping that it's gonna change my life, and there's times it will. But I was chasing a God who was with me the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

And that's not I'm not downplaying those experiences that we had, they were great. I got a lot of great prophetic words. I mean, there was a lot of things positive that come out of that. But also think about all the time, gas, money that was wasted simply because of ignorance. And I didn't realize the same thing that this guy was giving out, the same Holy Spirit was in me. And that don't mean don't go listen to somebody else or don't go to a revival. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying our mindset has to shift a little bit. And when we're awake to the truth of who He is to us and who we are to Him, I start to see these things a little bit different. See, I hope my sermons that I preach, I hope they never sound like that I'm trying to get you to achieve something new. I don't I don't want them to sound like that. I hope they don't. My goal is to cause an awareness that allows you to finally rest. See, just like I said, we was going and going and going and going. Because we felt like we had to. That word was only gonna come through this prophet, and I had to get there. It didn't matter how long I had to drive or how much money I had to spend, I had to get there. So my goal now is to cause you to have an awareness that allows you to just rest. That's what the word tells us, just rest and to cause an awakening that allows you to live your life like it's actually real. Like that truth is real in your life. It's not just a good verse, it's actually real to me.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

So, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 43:19

It looks like like someone catching the moment, taking hold of the moment as it comes. What I mean by that, when fear starts take taking over, and that happens, we get fearful sometimes, but when fear starts taking over, that I can come to the word and realize that the Lord, you know, the word of God says, Cast my cares on you, for you care for me, that you did not give us a spirit of fear, and I don't even let that phase me. It may be real, as we talked about a couple weeks ago, but it don't change my life. It doesn't phase me from who I am. That's not where I live at anymore. I don't live in a place of fear. If shame or guilt tries to rise up, immediately recognize that's not my identity. This is what that's what it looks like. When striving kicks in. And I feel like I've got to do this or do that and try to get closer to God or have a more intimate relationship with Him. When that starts to kick in, you've got to be able to pause and realize I'm already accepted. I don't have to earn this thing. Whatever it is I'm trying to get to, I don't have to earn that. I'm already accepted. He already loves me. He already died for me. He already paid the price. He already rose from the grave. And he already gave me a new identity. So I don't have to do all this work to try to gain that.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

That's awakening. That's awareness turning into alignment. I'm aware and then I become awake. And listen, this isn't about trying harder to be spiritual.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

I've been there. If you've been in church for any number of years, you've probably been there too, where we try to try our best to get all spiritual. This is not about trying to be more spiritual. It's about becoming honest enough to see where life doesn't match what's already true about me. And just being honest with myself. And then simply returning to truth. We make this harder than what it really is. Be honest. Look at my life. If I see areas of my life that are not lining up with what the word says, what the word says that Jesus has already provided for me through the death, burial, and resurrection, if my life is not lining up with that, it's okay to be honest and say, God, you gotta help me here.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Your word says this. But my life don't look like that. I need you to help me understand this, what's going on here.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

And I've done that many times.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

And it didn't take me long to figure out that it wasn't God that was the problem. It was me. It was my thinking.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

And this has to be done in every situation, in every circumstance, every mistake, every negative thought that you have. Because awakening isn't just a one-time event. You don't just awaken one day and that's all. That's it. You've never got to do anything else. And that's what a lot of people think that we're saying. And that's not. You got to awaken every time a situation arises. You got to be awake every time a situation comes up that you got to deal with, every time that negative thought comes in your mind.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

It's a way of living. It's not an event.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Sometimes we turn it into a Sunday morning 10:30 event or 11, whatever time that church starts.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

It's more than that. What if I was awake on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, like I am on Sunday? There's a lot of people that's awake and aware on Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Why? Because we're supposed to be. We're in church. But what if I took that into the week? And every time something happened, every time something came up, every time I had a bad negative thought, I was awake.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

And I began to compare it to scripture. It's really as simple as that.

Living Awake Beyond Sunday

SPEAKER_01 48:42

So here's what I want to leave you with today.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Not with something to do, but with something to notice about yourself. And I've already said it, but I want to say it again. Where in your life are you aware of truth?

SPEAKER_01 49:06

You know what Scripture says, but you're not yet living awake to it.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

That would be a good project just to sit down one day when you ain't got nothing to do and just begin to write some things out. And say, I know I've I know what Scripture says about this. This is the area of my life that I'm struggling in.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

I'm perfected spiritually, but I'm not perfected in the flesh.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

And maybe you don't realize it about yourself, but I'll help you out from the pulpit today. You got some issues. I got some issues. We all make mistakes. We got some areas of our life that don't line up with the word of God. But if I'm honest about it, and I sit down and I look at it and say, you know, I'm going to be honest here. This is just not lining up. And then I begin to go back to the word and I become aware of those scriptures. And I don't just quote them. We need to do that too. That's confession. That's saying the same thing that he said. But see, that's what I'm saying. It's taking another step. Not just confessing, not just being aware of them, but saying I'm actually in every situation, every circumstance, every thought, every problem that arises, I'm going to be have a live in a place of awakening. This word is going to supersede every problem. My identity, what I believe about myself is going to supersede anything else that could come against me. Greater is he that lives in you than he that is in the world. See, those verses don't just sound good. Greater is he that is in me. There's not a problem that he can't take care of. There's not an issue that I can't get through in my life if I allow my awakenness to be open and realize who I am. Realize my identity. But when I realize, when I wake up and I realize who I truly am in Christ, that changes. So where do you know something is true, but your experience doesn't match it? See, when you figure it out, don't beat yourself up about it. And that's what most people would do. They would start reading that stuff and they'd start beating themselves up and feeling like they're less than. Like they failed in some way. Don't beat yourself up because sometimes the most powerful thing that can happen is not trying harder, but finally slowing down enough to just realize that we have some areas that we can improve in.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

You're not outside of him. You're not distanced from him. You're not behind everybody else in the church.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

We start comparing knowledge and says, well, this person's always quoting scripture. I don't know those scriptures. And we start comparing how far along they are. Surely they got to be a lot closer to God than I am. He died for you too. Maybe you just hadn't studied scripture as much as that person has. That's why they know it and you don't. That's all it is. But it don't change what happened on the cross. It don't change that he still lives on the inside of you just like he does that other person. And so many people get out of church simply because I may say something up here that they don't understand, and they feel like, well, he's just talking above me, and they leave church.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

And I know that because I've had some people say that. And I'm like, just come back and just listen. Everybody in this room is not on the same level.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

We all do things differently. We're all a little further along in some areas than other people are.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

That's okay. But sometimes we just need to slow down and just realize some things.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

And what do we need to realize again? He's finished the work on the cross. If we can realize what he's done for us, you are already home. You're already there, he's already accomplished it. But can we awaken to that fact and stop running and chasing and working and striving? And here's the sad thing about that. Because I've number one, I've done it myself. So I can tell you from experience. And then I can tell you from watching other people do it as well. We run and strive and work trying to get to a place and we never get there. And after all that work, we wind up disappointed in the end.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Well, what if we just woke up and said, you know, I'm already there.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

I just got to, I gotta realize this. I gotta change my perspective, change my mindset.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Maybe awakening is simply learning to live like it's already true. Because it is. Think about how your life could change.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

If you simply walked into every situation with that mindset, there's not a problem that you can encounter that you don't already have an answer to. You know, the Bible tells us that we know all things. That's not talking about in my in my brain, that's not talking about my intelligence. I don't know all things from that standpoint. But I know all things because the Holy Spirit searched the mind of God. Yes, even the deep things of God. And then Jesus died on the cross, went to the Father, the Holy Spirit came back. He's not just roaming around out there trying to find a landing spot. He's living on the inside of us. So if he searched the mind of God, he knows all things, yes, even the deep things of God, and now he lives on the inside of me. What problem could I face that I don't already have an answer to? I know all things. But most of the time I get myself in trouble because I try to approach that situation or that problem with my own intelligence instead of having a communication with the Holy Spirit who knows all things. And when I communicate with the Holy Spirit and say, this is what's going on, let's walk through this, let's let's look at this.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

He's going to provide an answer. But it's when I try to do things on my own. And what causes me to do that is not being awake. I may be aware, but not awake.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

I'm aware of the scriptures, I'm aware sometimes of what the word says, but I'm not experiencing it in my life yet. I don't want a church full of just smart people. I want a church full of smart people who's walking this thing out and actually seeing their life transform simply because now they're walking in their identity. They have awakened to the truth of the word of God. And when that happens, I'm telling you, it changes everything about us. I've told you many times it's changed my prayer life. It's changed my goals.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

It's changed my expectations. I'm not ready to go to heaven.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

I'm telling you, I know people right now, they just they they are waiting. They are begging God to come take them. Take me out of this world. I'm ready to go home. And God's saying, you are home. Wake up.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

That would have been offensive to a lot of people. But it's the truth. Sometimes we just need to wake up. We're living life asleep. With no understanding of what the word says to us and says about us.

Study It Out And Go Deeper

SPEAKER_00 59:24

I'm child, I want to challenge you to go study this out. See what it says, see what you figure out about it. Act like you don't believe nothing I said today. And you need to, you need some confirmation. Go study this out and confirm what these two words mean. And see if you come up with a difference. Because I've used them so much in the same sentences, and just you know, I've used them interchangeably. But they're not. And when you realize they're not, that's when you begin to take a step in a new direction. Because you see there's something different. It's great to have knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

It's great to know something. But what's the next step? I'm gonna challenge you to look these up.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Um come on Wednesday night. Let's talk about it Wednesday night. Again, we had a great, great discussion this Wednesday. We talked about a lot of different topics. So if you haven't had a chance to come or just hadn't hadn't uh come joined us on Wednesday night, come. We talk about a lot of stuff. There's not a question that you can't ask. There's not a there's not there's no dumb questions on Wednesday night. Sometimes there may be no answers because we it's just something we got to go and we gotta look and we gotta study. Because people ask some great questions. But join us. I mean, you gotta get if you want to go a little bit deeper, you've got to push yourself to do that. It's not just gonna happen. I can't take you deeper on Sunday morning. That's something you gotta do when you you gotta be willing to do on your own and say, I I want more than this. I want to go further than what I've been before. I challenge you to look this up, see what God shows you in it. See what the Holy Spirit brings out to you. Let's pray.

Prayer And Final Blessing

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for everything that you're doing for each one of us, every single person that's uh within the sound of my voice right now, Father. We thank you for their life, for what you're doing with their life, Father. We ask you to continue to bless them in every area, their homes, their finances, their ministry, Father, as they speak to people. Let this word of God just come out. Let the truth come forth. Let them be able to speak to people on a level like they never have before. So we thank you for each one, Father. We thank you for provision in this house. We thank you for provision in the house of every single person in this room. We thank you for what you're doing in this ministry, Father, for the where we're moving to and what you're doing with us in the future. Some of it we don't even see yet, some of it we don't understand yet. And but you've gave us a vision. And I know you're gonna provide the provision for it as well. So we thank you, Father, because it's gonna be impactful. We thank you that we are a forerunner in this region, in this city, and Father, that there are bigger things to come, greater things to come than what we've experienced and what we've seen so far. So we thank you, and we'll be careful to give you the praise, the honor, and the glory in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.