Pick your Bibles up, pick your Bible up and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
Say this together.
Say, Heavenly Father, we're so glad to be here today.
It's Family Communion Sunday.
We're having fellowship with our family, our natural family, our spiritual family, our church family, and with you.
And we thank you for the Holy Ghost that's here that empowers us to be alive in this last day.
We're going to accomplish what we've been designed to accomplish.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Praise God.
Alright, let's turn in our Bibles to 1 John chapter 1.
Bible Little Horse.
Well, y'all will bear with me.
I had a procedure this week, ablation of my heart.
It was totally successful, and the doctor was happy about the results.
And so we're going to prove that out, you know, trust but verify.
Trust him, not the doctor.
But I do trust the doctor, but not like I do God.
God's word always works.
You know, doctors treat, but God heals.
But I had to be intubated, so they had to, you know, that they have to run the tube down your throat.
And so, and then a complication from that later that week is I got a virus up in my, and so I had to go to the emergency room yesterday and get steroids and all that stuff.
So I'm a little bit uh not myself, but I'm gonna I'm gonna get into another gear here, okay?
Y'all just be patient.
1 John chapter 1.
I'm shifting gears.
Verse 3.
This is John, you know, the one that we based our book of Revelation.
You know, John was uh he said he was Jesus' favorite, you know, the apostle whom Jesus loved.
All right, so John says, that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us.
See, you got to read that real close because, in other words, he's he's saying they have fellowship with God.
Now he wants you to have fellowship with us.
So we have seen and heard, declare we unto you that you may also have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
So you can see then that there's a vertical and a horizontal component to that word fellowship.
And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full.
Praise God.
All right, and then in James chapter 5, just a couple of pages back to your left, verse 16, and I'm gonna read the second part of the verse.
The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
I want to read the amplified, the earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer of a righteous man or woman makes tremendous power available, dynamic in its working.
And so I wanted to start a series today on prayer, joining forces with God.
Prayer, joining forces with God.
I mean, oh, how the father longs to have fellowship with his kids.
I mean, he's a father.
He's called him a father because what does a father want?
A father wants children.
A father wants to have a relationship and a fellowship with their children.
And now you can have a certain amount of fellowship with a baby, but it's pretty much one way, except when the baby learns how to smile or when the baby learns how to say da-da or mama or whatever, that's then they kind of send it back.
But mostly it's one way, right?
I mean, you know, so there's something, you know, we all do that.
We we father our children until they get a little older, and then and then you start to have some fellowship.
You start to have some relationship, and then of course, when when they get in the stages of my children and in and and my grandchildren, now I have fellowship with my family.
I've got I've got a rich uh partnership and a communication, line of communication.
That's what really that word fellowship there means.
It's coronia.
Greek word, which means uh uh a number of things.
Uh partnership, participation, communication, distribution.
See, it's it's it's it's a big word.
I mean, we fellowship is more than just, hey, how you doing, Harry?
And you know, that kind of thing.
No, it's supernatural, it's a supernatural bonding.
And uh and it's with God uh, you know, vertically, each individual, and then it's horizontally with each believer, especially in a local church.
And then that then that corresponds to even a larger footprint going up to God.
Because now God's not just not have fellowship just with with you individually, He's got fellowship with this church.
And you imagine how powerful that is.
And when you tap into that power in prayer, that's the only way to tap into that power, is prayer.
And so that's why I'm gonna teach this.
I try to teach it on a rotational basis.
That's why I ask our new members, give me at least a year of your life, and I can teach you on enough subjects to where it'll change your life.
Not because of me, but because of the word.
If you'll get the word in you and be a doer of it, it'll change your life absolutely.
And so uh joining forces.
Really, I'm when I look at that word fellowship, it just means uh joining forces with God.
I mean, we're in covenant with God, we're in covenant with God.
Everybody say covenant.
See, that when I read the Old Testament, it gives me encouragement to believe for what we have that's better in the new covenant.
That's why you ought to read the Bible, you ought to read your Old Covenant, but only about like one-third of the time you read the new covenant.
You don't just, you know, I've I've seen people start off reading their Bible in Genesis, and by the time you get to the good news, you're washed out.
Because God is a judge, God is mad, God is, you know, God does everything bad in the Old Testament.
And you have to learn better than that.
You have to learn that that's not really the way it is.
I mean, that's he he couldn't stop the bad from happening because they weren't in fellowship with him.
You see.
So I just have people start with the Gospel of John.
I said, read the Gospel of John ten times before you ever read anything else.
That'll get you acquainted with the the miracles of Jesus and what he what he did.
And then you go back and read the Gospels and get that into you first.
Get Jesus, the healing Jesus, the delivering Jesus, into you first.
And then you can start to branch out.
Um, this is for somebody.
Maybe you're struggling with your Bible reading.
I I struggled when I got in the book of Leviticus.
I really did struggle.
And I still, you know, I don't I don't confess I struggle, but I mean I do have to pay more attention when it starts to blur, you know.
And uh so praise God.
All right.
Jesus is in every book of the Bible, so that's what encourages me about the Word of God.
So uh this fellowship is vertical and horizontal, and Jesus restored the broken fellowship that happened with Adam.
See, all the people in the Old Testament had a broken fellowship with God.
They had, I like what Brother Osteen used to say, they were saved on credit.
The blood of bulls and goats were a temporary uh it solved the problem of their approach to God.
They could have no approach to God except over bleeding sacrifice.
And the sacrifice of an animal, whether it was a you know, a calf, a goat, a sheep, or whatever it was, a bird or whatever, it was just an uh an inner uh interloper or a mediator between God and man.
And it God, when God looked at their sacrifice, he he smelled the odor of the uh of the smoke coming off the sacrifice.
It hid human flesh.
The blood was shed, which was life of an animal, and then God just imputed righteousness to them.
They they had covering, they had atonement.
Atonement is covering.
We don't we don't have atonement, we've got we're gonna celebrate that in communion a little while later, but yeah, all of our sins have been washed away.
We don't have atonement.
Our sins have been remitted, they've been paid for in full.
That's why we don't have to have but one sacrifice.
Jesus is it.
There's no more sacrifice for sin.
We don't have to go down here and have an endless supply of animals being sacrificed or people.
I've been to the Philippines.
Bless their heart.
Every Easter they've got these guys that volunteer to get nailed to a cross.
They just feel like they've got to get nailed to the cross.
Like they don't have any concept of what the Bible teaches.
You know, it's terrible.
I mean, torture these people, they're not doing any good, they're just glorifying the devil.
And they got all this blood everywhere.
It's not any, it's not of any use.
No, Jesus' blood is all there is, there's no other blood.
Amen.
Somebody needs to go there and preach.
Well, I did.
Okay, sorry.
Seven times.
All right.
So Jesus restored that fellowship that was broken, and through the new birth, we have access into this divine fellowship.
Everybody say divine fellowship.
Because we've been made righteous through the blood, see, one time, forever.
Forever, oh Lord, our word is settled in heaven, see?
Alright, so let's look at John chapter 15.
We're getting into this idea of prayer, joining forces with God.
And John 15, really, Jesus is saving some of his meat for the very last hours of his time before the cross.
And uh he's sharing important truths with them that he had not shared with them before.
And uh he talked about the Holy Ghost in John 14, the comforter, the paraclete.
And then in John 15, verse 1, he says, I am the true vine.
And my father is the husbandman.
When you look up husbandman, it means a vine dresser.
I mean, when you're growing grapes, you've got to you've got to clip the the branches of the of the vine so that it will bear the grapes.
And if you don't prune, then you don't get a, you know, it's it's only it same with roses, you know.
Uh Selena's a rose grower.
She knows how to grow roses.
I and and man, I mean, she's got some beautiful roses.
Well, they, you know, you rot, you you gotta cut them.
Kind of makes you sad to have to cut one, but you're not gonna get any more if you don't cut them.
So uh I'm the vine, true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.
Now watch this.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.
So Jesus leads with a negative.
Every vine, every every branch in me, in me.
So they're not lost people, they're in Christ.
Every branch that's in me that beareth not fruit.
We'll get more into that in a minute.
We're expected to bear fruit.
We'll talk about what that fruit is.
But if you don't bear the fruit, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he, the vine dresser, God taketh away.
Oh, you mean you go to hell?
No, I'm not saying that.
But I he starts with a negative.
He's talking to his disciples, and he's he's not slobbering on them.
He's giving them meat.
He's giving them, see, the the milk of the word is all the positive things, the blessings.
But the meat of the word is the responsibilities that we all have.
And we need to teach the responsibilities.
I mean, you have to teach your child.
You have to child train, child train.
You know, you teach a child the right way to act.
You teach the child to obey.
You teach, they have to be taught.
And when they're two and three, that's when they need to be taught the most.
I mean, they're gonna do their own thing unless you do something about it.
You got to show them who is in charge.
I don't know who that's for, but it's probably for a whole lot of people.
All right, so I've senior kids and they need help.
All right.
I'm just kids, I'm just joking around now.
Y'all don't leave this, don't leave the service, children.
All right.
Obey your father.
All right, so he said, Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.
Now, so when you look up the word take away, it means one meaning of it is to take by force from one that which was his or committed to him.
So as a branch, you had something given to you, something committed to you, and you don't do anything with that thing, that gift.
You don't bear fruit with that gift.
Then he will just take that gift away from you.
Why did he move?
See, he's talking to the disciples.
He's talking, he's leaving, and they're gonna have to impart this to the church.
He can't just give them the blessings, he's got to give them the other side, he's gotta give them the responsibility side.
I'm talking about joining forces with God now.
I'm talking about how to tap into this power, this great power that is so powerful that can't, nothing on the earth can withstand it.
Nothing in the universe can withstand the power of God that's released through prayer when it's tapped into joining forces with God and joining forces with each other.
So um, so he's gonna take that away.
You know, Brother Osteen, you know, I love Brother Osteen, and he would just he would teach uh transparently his own shortcomings and things that he'd learned through the years.
I see, if you've got some guy that gets up here and just talks about all the victories and never shares some of the things that he's you know had to go through and maybe even failed on or whatever, well, you don't really have a complete picture of the Christian life.
And uh, but Brother Osteen, when he got baptized in the Holy Ghost, God put healing in his hands.
He had fire in his hands.
And I remember Brother Hagin saying the same thing.
God put healing in his hand, deliverance in his hands, and everything.
God put healing in Gladys's hands.
I was there the night it happened.
And so this fire was burning, and so he said, I could hardly pass by a hospital.
My hands would get on fire.
Man, what do you do with that?
Well, you go in the hospital and ask God to show you who needs what you got.
You know, well, everybody needs it, but will everybody receive?
You know, he's God's strategic.
He's not going to expect you to go to every every room in the hospital and lay your hands on everybody in there.
But he would stop and, you know, and and he would lay hands on the persons that God told him to.
So as in the process of time, the ministry grew, the church grew, his responsibilities grew, it's a worldwide ministry.
I mean, Brother Osteen was a worldwide minister.
Everybody on the face of this earth knew about Brother Osteen.
I don't know if you did, I didn't, because I wasn't in that, I wasn't in that circle, but uh I found out at an international uh convention of full gospel businessmen.
We were in a little bus going over to the meeting in the uh in the convention center in Anaheim, California.
We stayed in the hotel and they had a bus that took us to the to the convention center for this big old convention.
And uh we got on the bus, there's about 30 people on there, and they said, Well, where's everybody from?
And they they talked about one was from the Bahamas and one was from Italy and one was from this place and that place.
They got to me, I said, We're from Houston.
Oh, John Osteen.
I mean, I went, what?
I had no idea.
I'd been going there about, I don't know, less than a year.
I didn't realize that he was worldwide.
I mean, I just said Houston, John Osteen, just like that.
And uh, but anyway, so I'm getting back to the story where he had the healing in his hand.
So responsibility grew.
He's got books and tapes, and he's he's preaching like a house of fire.
Nobody would fill in for him, but just ever great once in a while.
He's preaching Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, you know, about 50 weeks of the year, then traveling.
I mean, he he is a man that's on fire, you know.
And so he he got to where he wasn't, you know, the hands would burn and he and he just didn't turn in, you know.
He didn't, I've got a meeting.
I I I can't do this right now.
And so after a few months, he realized that there was no burning in his hand.
And the Holy Ghost, you know, he he he finally noticed.
He'd been so busy, so busy working for God that he didn't have any time to do what God really wanted him to do.
He wasn't functioning in that gift, that that branch, he had taken it away.
Are y'all getting this now?
Hallelujah.
So he went to the Lord.
He said, Lord, I don't know what happened.
Uh I don't have the burning in my hands.
He said, Well, you weren't using it.
What do you mean?
Well, you went by hospital after hospital.
I'd burned, your hands were burning, you wouldn't respond, so I took it off.
Oh, and he began to weep.
He began to cry, it broke him.
See, children have to be brought to a place of brokenness over their uh disobedience.
And that's the same way God leads with us.
He doesn't send a car wreck, he doesn't send cancer, he doesn't, he sends his word, he will chasten you, he will child train you with your with his word.
And even in that area, I mean, he still does that.
He does it with me, does it with anybody.
You have to be prepared to be corrected.
If you can't be corrected, you're in a mess.
He can correct anybody, no matter how big your name is or how little.
And I appreciate Brother Osteen telling that story.
I mean, man, that's that's a humbling thing to say.
And he said, Oh, God, just please.
I I'll do I I won't do that again.
If you'll just put that back in my hands, I'll I'll I won't do that.
I'll use it, you know.
And he broke, he was broken.
Well, it didn't happen right away.
Why?
Because trust had been broken.
You know, God's not going to just turn the spigot on and off, on and off, just at your whim, just because you have a few tears, just because you say a few words, you're gonna have to prove something to him.
Really, it gets back to letting some things go so that you can really major on what God wants you to do.
I mean, a lot of things, he said, you know, the thing, another time he was he told this story, because he was having trouble with his blood pressure, and he was just having all kinds of trouble with his heart.
And he went to the Lord, you know, and fasted a couple of days and went before the Lord.
And this was after this thing about the hands.
He told this story too in wide open Sunday morning church.
See, that's what I appreciate about that generation.
They imparted to us.
I stand on their shoulders of the people that taught me.
That's why I teach you.
The things that I've heard and seen and handled of the word of God, I impart, I give to you.
I've hit my other gear now.
All right.
Everybody shift gears now.
We're gonna shift gears.
He said, uh, I went to the Lord and about this heart thing, and about three days.
You know, he didn't just answer him right away.
Because somewhere, I know Brother Osteen kind of knew what it was, but you know, he had to hear ache.
So God told him what it was.
He said, you know, the thing that's breaking you down is not and weighing you down, crushing you.
That's what he said.
The thing that is crushing the life out of you, there I finally got the right quote.
The thing that's crushing the life out of you are the things that you've added to my call.
Woo! Now, see, this whole part of the new year, Jesus said, I make all things new.
Make means lighten the load.
If you want the new things, you have to get rid of the irrelevant things or the things that God is finished with in your life, you need to overthrow those out in the sea.
It comes from that Acts 27 where that big ship, they had to lighten the load in that ship so it didn't sink.
I mean, if you keep if you keep adding, adding, adding, and you don't lighten the load, you're gonna sink.
Where do you get that?
In prayer, joining forces.
With God.
Man, I've preached the whole message just in one verse here.
I better shift again.
Come on, let's shift it back.
I'm gonna get down the road now.
I've been grandma all.
I'll get in second gear at least.
So uh, but then he says, every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it.
See, the other one was take away.
In other words, he's that's more that's more corrective.
Purge is prune.
That's positive.
See, because you are bearing fruit, he wants you to bear more fruit, so he prunes you.
And anytime you're pruned, it's live tissue.
That's not a dead branch.
That's a branch that's living.
It has produced fruit, and you're gonna go down below the fruit and trim it.
And when you look at it, it's green in there.
See?
It's live.
Well, if you prune me, it hurts.
For me to end something that, you know, and over the over and over and over, God has had to prune me, prune me, prune me over years and years and years and years.
And when you are pruned, you have to guard your heart because it hurts.
You feel almost like you're being punished.
You're not being punished, you're being congratulated.
See, you need the God's perspective on this.
You you you'd let the devil talk you out of the greatest blessings that God has for you.
When you blame and give credit to the devil for pruning you.
No, God prunes you.
So you can bear more fruit.
He's saying, You boy, you're bearing fruit, I want you to do some more.
He's not finished with you, he's just getting started with you.
Oh, come on, lift your hand right now.
Hallelujah.
Everybody said, God's not finished with me.
He's just getting started.
Hallelujah.
So every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he pruneth it that it may bring forth more fruit.
And then we go to verse 4 abide in me, and I in you.
And as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me.
See?
You abide in him.
Well, you know, there's two ways to look at that.
In other words, the minute that we got saved, and we're gonna have baptism in a little while, so that's an official uh declaration that you're saved to everybody that sees you.
You identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
He did a new thing in you, you're a new creature, and you're saying that publicly.
Uh so that moment the Holy Ghost baptized you into the body of Christ, you became, you became one with him.
That's legal.
But then are you living the life vitally or in according to life, functionally, are you abiding in Christ?
And how do you abide in Christ to the to the degree that his word has uh rule over your life then?
If Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the word.
If the word is not Lord, if it's not dictating your life, then really not abiding in him.
You might be legally you're saved, but you're not living like you're saved.
Well, I'm not backslidden.
Well, I know there's all kinds of levels of backsliding.
You can be barely backslidden or you can be fully backslidden, but none of it's good.
Everybody says he's not talking about me, he's not talking about me.
All right.
That's right.
Okay.
So you so look at this a little bit.
So as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me.
He said, I am the vine, you are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth just a little bit of a couple of grapes, a couple of green peas, one ear of corn, much fruit.
For without me or separated from me, or severed from me, you can do nothing.
And so I want you to get this uh this abiding in Him cries for a continued heartfelt connection that we talked about James 5.16 and amplified.
A continued, a fervent, continued, heartfelt uh connection with God in prayer.
I mean, it's not just inner, only when you have emergencies.
Can you imagine?
You know, you've raised kids to adulthood, you never hear from them, you never see them.
There may be some people like that here.
And I heart goes out to you.
There's a it's an epidemic of that.
I mean, they just they don't care about their parents except when they need money, when they need to be bailed out of jail, when they need more, you know, they need a place to crash.
Yeah.
Well, what you know, after a while, can you learn to say no?
Can you give yourself permission to say no to that?
I empower you to say no to that.
You're just enabling them.
Stop it.
Well, I don't know what'll happen to them.
Well, whatever happens is on them.
You know, the devil will tell you you did everything wrong, raising them around.
Really, it's there they made all the decisions in their life.
So just get off of that.
Start praying, God, my child is saved in Jesus.
Just start standing in the gap spiritually instead of trying to meet their needs physically.
I don't know who that's for, but it's for somebody.
More than one.
All right.
Everybody say continued, heartfelt connection.
So in verse 5, it says that we can't do anything unless uh we're connected to Him.
On the flip side of that, what's the implication?
It doesn't say it in words, but you need to realize that Jesus can't bear any fruit without the branch.
He can't bear any fruit without you.
I can see some tilt signs rolling up on your eyeballs.
And we pray like God's got to do everything.
Oh God, do this, oh God, do that, oh God.
No, it's you.
He put you on the earth to do some things.
He put you on the earth, he empowered you.
You've baptized in the Holy Ghost.
You've got the power to change this world, change this life.
We're in fact, we're got a mandate to do that.
So, um, so we can't bear fruit without Jesus.
Jesus can't bear fruit without us.
So there's a joining of forces, which I mean it's not op, you know, it's not, you know, optional.
All right, verse 7.
If, everybody shout if.
See, there's so many ifs in the Bible.
See, if is there.
When it's if, it's up to you then.
Not God.
God, there's no ifs with God.
The if is always on your side.
If says there's a choice, so it's your choice.
He's not gonna make you.
It's your choice.
Everybody say it's my choice.
So it was your choice to come to church this morning.
Now, God might have might have told you.
I I meet people the first time guests.
How did you come to this church?
Well, I just searched online and I just felt like I wanted to come check you.
I was driving by, you know, all kind of answers.
If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.
So shall you be my disciples.
So now let's look at that now.
See, so if you're it it in order, the the fruit that you're to bear is asking whatever you will and it being done.
That's the fruit.
The word ask, I just preached on this not long ago.
Uh make a demand on the covenant.
You're not demanding of God, you're demanding on the basis of the covenant, the new covenant, sealed by the blood of Jesus, your rights and privileges for yourself, and also on behalf of somebody else that might not know what you know.
When you lay hands on someone that's sick, they might not know that healing is available and you bring them healing.
Well, then you're making a demand on their behalf.
You don't demand God, you demand the devil to take his hands off.
You demand healing, you demand their body to line up with the word of God.
So that's fruit.
Much fruit.
And the proof of whether you're a disciple is that you bear much fruit.
If you don't bear fruit, you're not really a disciple.
I mean, I get there's a whole denomination, disciples of Christ.
I don't I don't think any of them are disciples.
They don't even believe in healing.
I don't know how you'd be a disciple.
You don't know anything about healing, you don't know anything much about your about your covenant.
I'm making, I shouldn't be making fun, but I mean, these denominations, it's Ichaba, I'm not pick picking on them.
There's a lot of denominations where God has already stamped Ichabod on the front door.
If you could just see in the spirit.
What does Ichabod mean?
The glory departed.
The glory's here this morning in this word.
This word's going out.
I can tell you're receiving it though.
Come on, lift your hands right now.
Thank God for the word of God.
I mean, there's no other way to be a disciple, then you must be determined to bear much fruit.
So that means you've got to put yourself in a position through this divine, fervent, continued connection with God.
So three aspects of joining forces of God today.
In fact, it'd be worth looking back on that word.
Where did I get it?
2 Corinthians 13.
I love Paul.
He he wrote a pretty blistering letter, two of them, to Corinthians, because they were so carnal, they needed help.
They were body rule, and he had to correct them.
But at the end of his second letter, to kind of put the fire out a little bit, I mean, you know, the fire of correction, he said this in verse 14 the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.
Amen.
So that was his prayer for them.
Three, see, the the triune God, God the Father, love, God the Son, the grace, God the Holy Ghost, the communion, koinania, unbroken, continued, heartfelt connection.
And where is the Holy Ghost?
Right in here.
He's right in here to help you.
He's right in here to put you in position to help others.
Alright, so three concepts, uh aspects of joining forces with God, which is Cornania.
You have uh joining forces with the Father.
Earnest, heartfelt, continued.
See, I like to pray with the word in the Spirit.
I like to pray with the Bible open in my lap.
I'll read a while and pray a while.
This is but this is God talking to me right here.
I don't need to hear a voice, I've got the word.
If he wants to talk to me, he can talk to me anytime he wants, but it's rare nowadays.
When I was a baby Christian, he talked to me all the time.
And I one day it just kind of evaporated.
I kind of thought I was backslid until I understood, no, you're gonna lean on this right here now.
I'm I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be talking to you out loud.
You know, first of all, you're kind of a fruitcake, you go around telling God people that God told you this morning.
I knew a lady one time, well, God told me this morning, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I thought, what?
On the telephone.
You know, telegraph, telephone, telewoman.
I mean, you know, it's just throwing rocks at me, Lord.
I'll take that back.
Jesus on the main line.
No, the God's word is God talking to you.
And the spirit, see, when you when you get in the Holy Ghost, you start praying in the Holy Ghost, you speak to yourself.
How many of you preach to yourself?
I used to preach to myself all the time.
And then I heard some goo-goo bird at full gospel tell me that that was flaky, and I thought, well, you don't know what you're talking about.
I get so edified preaching to myself.
That's how I learned to preach, is preaching myself in my backyard.
I'd I'd tell the devil, come on, I had an old stump in the backyard, an old pine tree that they let fall out after it was rotten and left a jagged stump.
They didn't even cut it off with a chainsaw.
And I was going to, and I thought, no, that's a good place for the devil to sit and listen to me preach.
Come over here, devil, sit down.
I got a few things to tell you.
I'd walk up and down my backyard just preaching and speaking to myself and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in my heart, prophesying, you know, before anybody told me it was wrong.
One morning I was out there, and this big old, and it had to be a pigeon because it was too big to be a dove, but to me it was a dove.
It was solid white, pink bill, pink feet, and he came flying, fluttering over my backyard, just right above my head.
And I think, and I just I felt the Holy Ghost come all over me.
I thought, God, he showed up.
And he's fluttering right over my head, and and I kind of reached up to see if I could grab him and bring him down, you know.
And he he he flew away and he lit down on my fence, on my fence, top of my fence.
And I just I began to weep.
I just felt like that was God.
I'd never seen a bird, much less a big old pigeon.
Where did a pigeon come from?
We don't have any pigeons out in Northwest Harris County, they're all downtown.
But what I'm talking about is a heartfelt continued connection.
And uh, you know, prayer, it's not how you get faith.
You don't pray for faith, but prayer is the mother of faith.
Because out of prayer, faith is born.
Because that's where you actually get connected.
Koinonia, partnership, communication, relationship.
That's where you get God's heart, that's where you get God's perspective, that's where you get God's orders.
He might tell you to do something out of his word.
More and just quit listening for voices and look to the word.
If he speaks, fine, but look to the word, look to the Holy Ghost on the inside.
So three aspects.
Number one, koinonia with the Father.
Number two, koinonia with each other.
And let's look at 1 John again.
I want to see if we didn't read that verse 7.
First John 1, 7.
Very interesting.
And some people try to try to exist without the local church.
They try to exist on their own.
I come across them on Facebook all the time.
They're, you know, followers of Facebook, and some of the things they write, I can tell they don't go to church.
They've made an uh, you know, and there's some people that are homebound and can't come to church.
I respect that, I understand that, so it's better than not doing it, but but at the second time there's some people, there lots of people since COVID really have given their selves permission to just call themselves Christians and disciples, and they don't even go to church.
And so let's look at this, 1 John 1 7.
But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, what light is that?
Well, the light of the word for one thing.
And the light of the Holy Ghost is another.
So if you're gonna walk in light of the word and light of the Holy Ghost, you're gonna come to church.
If, see, there again, that word if is your choice.
If you walk in the light as he's in the light, we have fellowship, we have coronia one with another.
That's horizontal.
And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin.
Which tells me then if you don't walk in the light of the word and you don't walk in the light of the spirit, and you do decide to sit home, that you can drift off and not be cleansed.
Because you're not, you're not compared, you're not, you're not rubbing up against anybody that loves you enough to tell you the truth.
When you come to church, sometimes people can put their arm around you and love on you, but sometimes people can give you a little, you know, pat on the back, and a little exhortation is not a mean thing.
My example of that was years ago, and Grody asked me to sing on a Sunday night.
I sang a song and I just couldn't even remember the words.
That's what happened to me every time.
I'd freeze up.
I'd have a track, I'd be singing to the track, you know, and I'd sing the first, you know, little few words, and then I couldn't remember the second one until finally at the last second, right when I'm supposed to cut in.
I'd so the whole song was like that.
It was, I mean, my knees were having fellowship one with another.
They were knocking.
And I got through, I was so nervous.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I hold a mic like that.
5,000, but no, 3,000 on Sunday night, 3,000 people.
And so I at the end of the service, uh Jim Scalise was a guy that God put in my life.
And Jim was a minister, and he, big old heavy guy, you know.
And he said, Well, brother, that was really good.
It's anointed.
Pat me on the back.
I said, Oh, well, I don't know.
He said, No, brother, I said it was anointed.
Now you received that.
Don't be throwing that down.
I just told you it was anointed.
Now, when you say you weren't, well, then you're calling me a liar.
Oh, I didn't know that.
No, come on, just receive it.
Say it.
So he made me say it.
See, well, I didn't get offended, I just learned.
See, you don't have that when you're watching on live stream, unless you hear me talking about it.
I'm gonna correct you on live stream.
Anyway, all right.
I don't care if you watch or not.
All right, so here we go.
So with each other, everybody say with each other.
So communication, partnership, relationship here at Glorious Way, we're gonna start a group this morning.
It's the new group.
So you're new at the church or you're new with with Jesus or you're or both, then this is a group for you.
This is gonna be a good place to start, get started, get connected, and uh and start that CPR, that Cornanea.
And then later on we'll be adding to the groups.
We have teams.
Groups are for fellowship, teams are for serving.
We have lots of teams.
I mean, it's a work of the ministry.
This church doesn't just come alive by itself every Sunday morning.
I mean, there's an army of people coming up here to turn the lights on, get everything ready to go, and things moved around, and it takes a lot of work to uh have a service.
And so you can be part of that.
And uh, and then of course, prayer meetings on Thursday night.
We have prayer on Sunday morning.
Uh, and of course, our services.
All of those uh develop uh coronia.
And the third one is is fellowship with your pastor.
Now, where do you get that?
Well, John said, you know, we need to be have fellowship with us.
See, he's talking about me.
He's talking about John.
So I'm I'm I'm fellowship with God, you have fellowship with me, and we all have fellowship with God.
So it's it's like this.
And I like to describe it like this when you've committed yourself to this church and you committed uh yourself to that I am your pastor and I've committed myself to you.
You know, I I don't mind telling you it's been a been quite a week for me, and I'm here.
I didn't have to be here, I'm here because I wanted to be here.
You know, I'm a little shaky, I'm a little coarse, but I'm here.
The word works anyway.
I've learned to preach through all kinds of, I mean, I've had congestive heart failure, I've had bumps, I've had, you know, I've had everything the devil could throw at me, and I don't I don't stop.
Unless I, of course, I had open heart surgery, so I had to stop for a while, not very long.
But I'm living.
God put new lease of life on me.
So when you make that commitment and I make that commitment, it's a holy commitment.
It is a it is a divine connection, partnership, relationship, and with it comes supernatural hearing.
I can preach on this and you can hear something totally different.
You come to church and you've got a need, and the Holy Ghost you need to hear a word.
You know, I can't tell you how many times that's happened.
I I see somebody at the church, oh Pastor, you spoke right at me.
I needed that word this morning.
I said, Well, what did I say?
And they tell me what I said, I don't remember saying it.
So out of my lips, the word came, and that by the time it got to you, God just turned turned it into whatever you needed.
It works in the negative.
I said it works in the negative for people that aren't committed, that people are committing themselves to be my judge and my Monday morning quarterback, and the one that wants to just kind of be critical of everything we do.
Well, it turns into the wrong thing.
Because the devil comes to church, unfortunately, doesn't stay long here because flies can't light on a hot stove.
Amen.
So, fellowship with your pastor, that means praying for me, and I know you do.
Praying for Gladys, she's getting improving and getting better.
And we're committed to just having everything the devil stole.
We're gonna get it back.
And uh, because we're joining forces with God and with each other.
Hallelujah.
Joining forces with God.
Come on, lift your hands and receive today.