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Good morning once again. Man, this is a great, great, great day to be alive. Amen. Amen. I don't know if you were here last week when Pastor Jarrett preached, but he preached an amazing sermon on redeeming the time. And I left here thinking about that, and I hope that it puts some things on your mind to kind of re-evaluate life and where you spend your time and the things that you spend your time doing. And God has been um kind of speaking to me regarding spiritual health. And today's title of the sermon is health check. Yeah, we're gonna do a health check today. All right? And so, you know, there are some things about our life that uh we concern ourselves with, but if we're not concerned about the right things, we may find ourselves in situations that are detrimental to not just our physical health, but also our spiritual health. And there's a scripture that I have to read today to open up this message. Now, it is not an easy one to digest, okay? So just get ready. Hold on. It's gonna be all right. It is the word of God, it's not what I say, it's what the word of God says. And if you're mad at anybody, get mad with God. Amen. I love you and I want what's best for you. So we're gonna start here. It's not even up there yet. It's Hebrews chapter 5, verse 11 through 14. And in this sermon, that you you're going to see a repeat on a scripture. That's going to be our prayer for the week, okay? And so that scripture is going to appear right at the end of every point that I make. And what I want us to do is recite that scripture together. All right. But here's the one that we're going to open up with. So strap down, hold on. Don't be offended, except for enough offense to say, I need to do better. Amen? And here it is, Hebrews chapter 5, starting at verse 11 through 14. It's not up here. I added this later as the Holy Spirit gave it to me. It says, About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So we're talking about taking a step back and saying, Lord, there's some things about your word that I ought to be able to understand because I've been a Christian for so long that I ought to be able to understand. I ought to know your word well enough to receive it, but I'm not there yet. And that is the actual testimony, or that is the admittance of many Christians in the church today. I don't feel like I can pray in front of people because I don't know how, or I don't know enough. I don't feel like I can share the gospel with someone because I'm really not a Bible scholar. You don't have to be a Bible scholar to be able to share the gospel. But so many Christians today are reluctant to speak of their faith, share the gospel, andor pray with and for other people in public because we're more concerned about a performance. We're more concerned about what people are going to think. I'm not good enough to do that. But at the end of the day, the devil wants you to feel that way so that you won't share the gospel, so that you won't pray for people, you won't even pray for your family, you won't even pray for yourself because you feel inadequate. Now let's pause for a moment. Do you think Jesus died for a whole bunch of people that he was going to leave inadequate? What sense does that make? You're not inadequate, you just have fear, and you think that you got to know more than you need to know in order to just simply do what God has already told you you are capable of doing. You just need to stop depending on yourself because it ain't you anyway. It's God that does it, and when it's God who does it, remove yourself out of the way and just become an empty vessel for him to use for his own glory. The problem is we want to get the glory, we want people to high five us and say, Oh, that was sure, that sure was a good sermon. Do you know how many sermons I walked away from and nobody said nothing? I learned a long time ago. If I'm gonna depend on people, I should have never started preaching. Amen. But you just gotta know that God is the one who does the work, right? And so we need to concern ourselves with our spiritual health, and your spiritual health is directly tied to your relationship with the Lord, not with your ability, but with your relationship with God. And so if you are afraid or scared to share, maybe it's because you just haven't spent enough time in the presence of the Lord. Maybe you haven't spent enough time in the Word of God. Maybe there are some things in life that has taken your time, as Pastor Jerry preached last week, redeeming the time. Maybe there are some things that you let in that space that's causing you to miss out on that precious time you spend with the Lord, developing you. All right. So we're gonna move into 3 John. This is an epistle of John, the disciple that was very close to Jesus, the one that he loved. And he opens it up in these first four verses, and there's more to it. Uh, and we'll get into that some other time, but today I want to focus on these first four. And before we jump into it, it's like a postcard, okay? It's a small letter that he he writes to Gaius. And he says some things in this letter that kind of cause me to stop and think. Now, y'all know I love those golden Oreo cookies, right? I've talked about those cookies, man. They are showing up good. And and and I got blessed with some golden Oreo cookies, and and and and I gotta tell you, they they lasted about two days. For real. And and uh I got convicted. The Holy Spirit said, now see, I don't need you ready, man. She's always on me about my cookies, y'all. But listen, I I got convicted because the Holy Spirit said, All right, now you you know last time you went to the doctor, your A1C was kind of elevated there. And uh, you know, if you drink water, that kind of dilutes it, right? Not quite because the sugar's still in there, right? But but I thought about that and I said, you know what, Lord, uh, you're right, you're right, you're right. So uh I do need to kind of pull back on this, maybe still eat the golden Oreos, but just you know, usually I do three at a time, you know, one for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Ghost, you know. And and and I fool myself because I get three of them, and by the time I walk to the sofa, they're gone. You know how that is, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. So I gotta go back and get three more. And what happens is when I get three, you know, one falls over and I touch it, and since I touched it, I gotta get the fourth one. And before I know it, a whole row is gone, and Rashonda's fussing at me. But the cook is in the house. Somebody spent money on that. You don't waste it, right? So I gotta eat them. So I eat them. But the Holy Spirit said, I want you to understand something. How can you carry out what I've assigned you to do if you're not physically able to do it? Even if you're physically able, what if you are doing things to your own body that will allow you to still do it, but you couldn't do it at the optimum level that I would want you to do it at? What if God has some things for all of us to do? And the very things that we're doing to ourselves are hindering the progress of what we could be doing in such a larger, greater scale for the glory of God. What if, what if I'd not said yes to the Lord and moved back to Louisiana because I knew God had something for me to do. And even though I worked my way out and moved up to Minnesota with my family, God brought me right back to do the thing that He wanted me to do. But guess what? If I had stayed, who knows what God would have done if I would not have done some things to interfere with what God was wanting to do in my life. You know, I can preach from a hospital bed. I just won't reach the people that God has for me to reach. You with me? There is so much that God wants from us, each and every one of us. But he doesn't want us to be so much concerned about just life in general over our spiritual health. So from 3 John, starting at verse 1, it says, the elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers. Pause for a moment. When he says, I want you to prosper and be in good health as your soul prospers. That's the comparison of your prosperity to your soul's well-being. And in this verse, prosper means to do well. It doesn't mean to be wealthy, it doesn't mean to be rich, it means that he wants him to do well in life just as his soul is doing well. So if you're doing much better in life than your own soul, then you've got it flipped. You got it backwards. There is a priority that God wants our spiritual life to be as good as or better than how well we're doing in our physical life. And if you're in here today and you seem to be doing well in your career, but you have not given your life to Christ, you've got it all backwards. I told you it's a tough pill to swallow. It's like one of those big horse pills that gets stuck in your throat. But it's the truth of God's word. He cares for us so much that he wants what's best for each and every one of us. So watch this, verse 3 says, For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you. Just as you walk in the truth, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. He wants us walking in truth. Now it's wonderful that he wants his his him to prosper and have good health, but it's as his soul prospers, but what he really rejoices over is the fact that they are walking in the truth. Now, if I'm going to prosper spiritually, then I have to have God's truth in my life. Amen. Because that's the only way that I can prosper is from the truth of God's word. So here is the prayer that I want y'all to recite with me, and you're gonna see it multiple times. It's from Psalm 86 and 11. And it is this teach me your way, O Lord. I will walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. Now I want you to recite that with me. Let's go. Teach me your way, oh Lord. I will walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. That's what we ought to be wanting God to do in our lives. Teach us his way. God, I don't feel comfortable with praying. God, teach me. God, I don't feel comfortable sharing the gospel. God, teach me that I will walk in that truth. And to walk in it means to be actively moving about. It means to be doing it. Walking is an action word. And you when you walk, you don't stay in the same place. You move. And so wherever you go, you want to be walking in truth. Then we want our hearts to be united. That we'd have this great fear of the Lord's name. That's not fear as in you're scared, it's as in respect for the Lord's name. So let that be our prayer. So my first point is this God cares about the whole person. It's not just for you to do well in your finances, it's not just for you to do well within your family, it's not just for you to do well in your influence amongst your friends and amongst your coworkers and throughout the community, but he cares about every single part of you. Jesus did not die for these bodies that are going to return to the dust. He died for what lives inside of these bodies that really matters. And regardless to where you are in your walk with the Lord, whether you have surrendered your life to Jesus or not, you will live in eternity. Somewhere. The question is, where. So God really cares about the whole person. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23 says this. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your whole self. Not in part, but everything. Everything in its place. You know, the body of Christ is a whole body. We're not all the same parts of the body. If we were all the same thing, then we would have no real body. Can you imagine your hands being on your feet? Can you imagine things reverse? Can you imagine having your lips on the back of your neck? Your neck. Everything fits in its place. And God cares about all of it. He knows that in this world today, we need jobs, we need to make money in order to pay bills. But what profit is it a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Because you can't back that you-haul up to the hearse, it won't go with you. It's your soul that matters to him. Everything about you matters to the Lord. So once again, let's repeat this prayer along with me. Teach me your way, oh Lord. I will walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. Point number two the body belongs to God. Everything about you belongs to God. Whether you have given your life to Him or not, you are still God's creation. However, that soul that lives inside of you, if you have not given it to the Lord, you are not straddling the fence. You can't be partway with God, partway someplace else. You're either with him or you're not. And that's good news for those that have received Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, but it is terrible news for those who have not. And I'm not here today to preach fire and brimstone. I'm here to say what the Holy Spirit has given me to say. And if it means I gotta step on some toes, I just gotta step on some toes. Oh, it's quiet. But I ain't scared. First Corinthians verse 6. Chapter 6, verses 19 through 20. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? Whom you have from God? Pause for a moment. Listen to that. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that's within you, whom you have from God. God is giving you this precious gift for those of us who have received Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, because this is not a blanket statement for everybody. Let's make sure we understand that. The Holy Spirit comes in and lives inside of those who have received Jesus Christ as a personal Lord and Savior. He says this for those of us, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. You're not your own. Scripture tells us, for greater love has no man than this, then a man would lay down his life for his friend. What more can you give a person other than your life? When you give your life, you have given everything there is to give. Paul says this in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Let me pause there for a moment. He's saying that's the least you could do. That's a reasonable thing to do. That's the least that we could do. Byron, don't binge out on Oreo cookies. This body that the Lord has given you houses the Holy Spirit. And for as long as God will allow us to be healthy and do what He calls us to do, we need to be responsible to take care of that, but also not just feed the body healthy stuff, but feed our spirits healthy stuff. Amen. Get off those phones, get off of YouTube, get off of Facebook sometimes. Some of that stuff is not building the spirit. Amen. Amen. I know this is not one of those, amen, Pastor Byron, you're doing a good job. That's all right. I got God backing me. Then, verse 2 says, Says this, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The world has a lot of things that have some pretty strong influences in the lives of people. In fact, we got people who call themselves influencers. And what they're influencing is not of the things of the kingdom of God. What they're influencing are things that take you down a path that once you get down there, you will find nothing but emptiness. Because when you've hit that end of the road to where nothing is better than what you've done in the past, and you're trying to figure out how to make it better and better and better, you're just lost. And there are so many great artists, recording artists, singers, songwriters who were just looking for the next hit and weren't able to make it happen. And their life went to shambles. They turned to drugs, alcohol, depression, because they were trying to outdo the last thing that they did. And they found nothing but emptiness in it because they could not make it any better. And sometimes in life, if we're chasing the wrong things, we're just trying to do better than what we did before. And when it doesn't happen, we're disappointed and we keep trying over and over and over again. But in God's grace, you can fail over and over and over again. And he keeps grabbing you and picking you back up. So that's all right, baby. You still belong to me. I know you didn't get it right. Y'all got it proof. Have mercy today, Lord. I know you're not perfect, but you still belong to me. I still died, my son still died for you. I still love you, and you don't have to try to do better and better and better because you got the best already. You just don't realize that you already got the best, and we're still trying to figure out how to make it better. When you got the best right there, and we turn to things to escape, we turn to these coping mechanisms. I don't know where I'm in my sermon right now, but I'm just going with the Holy Spirit. We turn to these coping mechanisms, and all those do is bring more and more destruction. Alcohol doesn't fix it, drugs doesn't fix it. Running away doesn't fix it. Staying out all night doesn't fix it. Hanging with friends that will make you laugh doesn't fix it. Because when they're not there to make you laugh anymore, you still gotta face the situation. But we've got the best at our disposal. Are we crying out to him? Are we reaching unto him? Where are we today? Health check, people. Health check. Yeah, I want my finances right, I want that good, I want my physical life right, I want that good. But if all of that passes away, what do I have left? Because when this life ends, the only thing I've got left is my spirit. And if that has not been placed in check, I lose everything. We lose everything. But you need to know. A healthy soul begins with God's word, which is the truth. A healthy soul begins with God's word, which is the truth. So I'm gonna ask you to back up, Sean, on the slide, and we're gonna recite this prayer again. Y'all ready? Let's go. Teach me your way, oh Lord. I will walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. So, yes, a healthy soul begins with God's word, which is the truth. Psalm 1, verses 1 through 6 says this blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. This is not man as in the male figure. This is not gender-specific. This is humankind. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law he meditates day and night. Let me pause there for a moment because I have a favorite scripture. And some people who think that they are just so biblical scholarly always want to challenge me on what's my favorite scripture. I'm like, how you gonna challenge me on my favorite scripture? Just because it ain't yours and what you like, how you gonna challenge me on mine? Right? It may not be as deep as you want it to be, but it's mine. And when I explain to you why it's mine, it might make sense to you why it is mine. Amen. Because I know y'all got y'all's, I got mine, so let me have mine, amen. Okay, so mine is this Psalm 37:4. It says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. People want to challenge me on my and preachers want to challenge me on my favorite scripture. Now I'm a nice guy, I'm just not that nice. So listen, here's what happens, and I'm gonna tell you how it happened. I was trying to make a lot of different things work. I had two businesses and a full-time job, and seems like I was just ripping and running all the time, tired, worn out, but pushing myself. Lord says, okay, I know you want to do it all for the right reason. I know you want a good life for your family, and I know that you don't want your wife to have to worry about anything. I get it. But you're reaching for things that are not the things that I have for you. And God brought me to that scripture one morning, like 2:30, 3 o'clock in the morning. He just woke me up and he said, I got something to tell you. And I'm I'm like, okay, can I just go to my computer? Like, nope, open your Bible. My Bible was in the car. It was kind of cold outside. Like, Lord, really? I mean, I got like my Bible program. I was like, nope, go get your Bible. So I got up and my PJs, ran out to the car, grabbed my Bible, and opened it up to Psalm 37.4. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he would give you the desires of your heart. Now, let me tell you why it's my favorite scripture. It's my favorite scripture because it's the one that led me to all the other scriptures. Because as I begin to delight myself in the Lord, I begin to seek him. I begin to read his word even more. I begin to dive deeper. I begin to set aside time. And guess what he did? He kind of flipped the script on me because the desires of my heart changed when I started reading the word of God. My desire became the things that God wanted for me. And so he began to give me the desires of my heart, which was more of him, more of his direction, more of his leadership. And I thought, wow, such a simple passage of scripture that changed my life completely. So on his law, this man meditates day and night, and there's some benefits to delighting in his law and meditating day and night. Verse 3 says this, He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. There'll be sustenance for your life. There will be provision for your life that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither. There will be provision in the word of God, walking in his truth. And whatever he does shall prosper. When does it prosper? When he's delighting in the law of the Lord. If you want to do well, now you may, you may, you may measure your wellness based upon the world's measurement of it. Go to school, get an education, get a good paying job, get married, live out, buy a house, and live happily ever after. Really? You do know that there are people with beautiful homes that have big bank accounts that blow their brains out because they can't cope with life. If those things made you prosperous and successful, you do know that from one day to the next it could be taken away. But what God gives you, when God makes you prosper in his spirit, in his spiritual growth, in his word, in his truth, it doesn't matter what comes, it doesn't matter what goes, you belong to God and you have provision. So life is not tied up in the things of the world because you have God's truth. So once again, let's recite the prayer for the week. Teach me your way, O Lord. I will walk in truth, unite my heart to fear your name. Point number four, and the last one. Peace and rest bring health to the soul. The one thing that the enemy wants to rob from us is our peace. You see, before you got saved, he tried to have your soul so he could have you in hell. But once you gave your life to Christ, he knew that he couldn't get your soul anymore. So since he can't have you in hell, he's gonna try to make your life a living hell. And calls you as a Christian to walk in a life that's defeated, where family's not all together. Believe me, I've been through it. But you gotta stand and fight for it. Things are not always going to just happen in life because the enemy wants to oppose each and every one of us. And let me tell you something. I heard a preacher say this one time, and I agree with him. He said, Man, people who are struggling with addictions and different things in their life that ought not be there because they're having a hard time, he says, Man, I feel I feel some kind of way about that. He said, I'm not going to talk bad about it, because he said, if I didn't have Jesus, I'd have to take something for my stuff that I'm going through too. And I think that if every one of us removed Jesus from our life, we would have to say that something's got to happen that's gonna bring us to a point where we think we're back to equilibrium, even though we're not. And so when people are struggling, you got to understand that if you didn't have Jesus, you'd be struggling too. And some of us got Jesus and we're still struggling. Amen. Amen. Life gets difficult at times. That's why we need one another upholding each other, praying for one another, walking alongside with one another, taking time out of our busy schedules to help somebody else. You know, if if I need the doctor, I'm not showing up at the doctor with a broke leg and want to listen to him tell me I need to drink more milk for calcium. And then walk out. I'm like, hey, doc, where are you going? My leg's broke. Can we get it set? Can I get a cast or something? Sometimes, as Christians, those are the kind of things that we do. People need specific health or help, but instead of dealing with the actual issue, we dance around the issue. Sometimes church can be like that. But today we're not dancing around issues because the Holy Spirit says he wants us to walk in a newness of life that is powerful because the Holy Spirit gives us power, he gives us power to overcome. And if we understood who we are in Christ, we already have overcoming power living inside of us. Jesus told us that we were going to be able to do even greater works. Help me, Holy Ghost. It's ruining our lives, it's ruining Hallelujah, Jesus. It's ruining our relationships. I have to ask God sometime, God, why do I do this? And God says, This is my heart for my people. This is me crying out for my people. I'm tired of my people living in defeat. I want them to be delivered and set free. I want them to know my son didn't die for them to live like this. And I don't know who you are, but this is the emotion of God right now crying out to you, saying that you don't have to live like this anymore. You don't have to be this way anymore. You don't have to. You don't have to. Help your wife be happy, help your husband be happy, help your children walk in good newness of life. Bring your family together. Help them be strong. I've had to fight through some things, I had to fuss through some things, but I had to stand my ground on the word of God and see God bring my family back together. God is tired of his people. Walking in defeat. And you know who you are. You know who you are. God says, My heart's crying out to you. It's not just crying out to you, it's crying out to the people that you're tied to. Because when you're going through, they're going through too. When you're suffering, they're suffering too. I'm sorry. I just have to do it the way God says tells me to do it. Matthew 11, verse 28 and 29. It says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And you will find rest for your soul. Rest for your soul. I just want you to come to him. Lay it down at the feet of Jesus. Lay it at the altar. Psalm 23 and 3 says this, He restores my soul, He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. There is restoration in your relationship with God the Father. He cares for you. You are His own. So once again, let's recite the prayer for the week. Teach me your way, oh Lord. I will walk in your truth. You light my heart to fear your name. And these last two points. I'm gonna say these and then I'm gonna ask the worship team to come. You need to know that your life matters. So live right and live well. Your physical life on this earth matters because this is how you get to be the hands and the feet of Jesus. I can't tell you what God has me to say to you today, laid up in a hospital. I can't tell you this if I hadn't spent some time in the presence of the Lord with my soul being right with the Lord. God wants each and every one of us to go beyond a Sunday morning. Because I know that Sunday mornings we can come in here and we can hear the word of God and say, Amen, amen, amen, and walk right out that door. Almost like we never heard a thing. You know why? Because Satan opposes each and every one of us. You think you can walk out of here and he opposes you and doesn't oppose me? He's gonna oppose me sometimes even more because he doesn't want me to do what he's called me to do. Do you think when I was looking at this and I got up early this morning, we had to, I had to send another PowerPoint or pro presenter because the Holy Spirit was still speaking and said, Nope, I want you to say this. I said, Oh, that's hard. He said, say it. Because we need it. We need it. So you don't have to be a Bible scholar nor a prayer warrior to have spiritual influence. God has given you that. And the enemy wants you to walk in defeat. He doesn't want your spiritual health to be what it should be, because he knows that if you latched on to the power that is within you by way of the Holy Spirit, you would be unstoppable. He knows that, and he does not want you to know that your life matters to the people around you, and bad habits don't just hurt you, they hurt the people who are tied to you, your family, your friends, the church, and all who are lovingly connected to you. Here's my last point as we say the prayer once again. You ought to have this memorized by now. Come on, let's say it. Teach me your way, oh Lord. I will walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. Last point is this we are God's creation. So honor God. Isn't it beautiful to know that you were wonderfully created by the Master? The Master creator, who created you for his purpose and his good works. Romans 14, 7 and 8 says this. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Whether you live or whether you die, you are the Lord's. But God also. Gives us the ability to choose. If God wanted to make us spiritual robots to obey Him, make us accept Jesus, He could do it. He's not going to. Because you know, if you love Him, love is not something you can make somebody do. Acceptance is not something that you can make somebody do. When somebody says they love you, you want them to love you because they love you. When somebody says they accept you, you want them to accept you because they accept you. So we have a choice. And some of us have already made the choice to follow Jesus. Some may not have. And the truth is, tomorrow is not promised. It's really not. The next minute is not promised. And this is not something to guilt trip anybody or make anybody feel bad, but it's the truth. So I'm not going to labor long here. I'm going to give the opportunity for those who don't know Jesus Christ, you have not confessed Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. I want to give you that opportunity to confess and be led to Jesus. Nobody else can do that for you. As much as I would want you to be saved, it's not my decision for you. As much as my mother and my grandmother prayed for me, their prayers helped get me guided and led to Christ, but their prayers were not the decision that I needed to make. I had to make that decision. And so today, I want to offer this opportunity to you who may not know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. You need to know that Jesus died for the sins of this world. It begins with the gospel that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him, it doesn't matter what you did last night, it doesn't matter what you did before you came to church this morning. He died for all of that. Past, present, and future sin. Future sin because he knew that we were not going to be perfect people. We were going to mess up. And if you think that being saved is about being perfect, it is not. Not as long as you're in this body. We're going to have some struggles. But we are being perfected. We're not perfect, but his word is perfecting us. We're getting better and better every day as we allow the word of God to change us. And you're not going to get it all right the first go round. Guess what? Look around you. None of us have it all right. But we're living under the grace and the mercy of God. And if it took, if it took perfect people to be saved, no one on planet earth would ever be saved. He accepts us as we are. He just refuses to leave us that way. So whoever you are in this house today, if you need to confess Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, would you just slip your hand up? Whoever you are, you don't have to be embarrassed about it. I had to do it in front of people that I'd been traveling and playing and singing gospel music with one Wednesday night in rehearsal. That was one of the most embarrassing things that I had to admit in my life. But the reality was I wasn't saved. So the admittance of it is so that we as brothers and sisters in Christ can help you walk out this newness of life. I get the fact that people are embarrassed to admit that. They don't want everybody to know. But I've never seen a closed Christian. Never seen one who's able to be a Christian and confess that they are Christian and keep it a secret. That's not the way Christianity works. It's just not. So again, I'm not going to labor here very long. There may be some people that may be struggling with some things. Maybe health-wise, maybe spirit-wise, but there is an order. And maybe this sermon has touched you today because you recognize the fact that, yes, you want to prosper, but there's something about the soul that's not prospering in the way that God would want it to prosper. And whatever that thing is that's in the way of life, maybe that's some stronghold that needs to be broken. Maybe there's some level of deliverance that you need, that you want prayer for. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. And you know, if you want to meet with someone and talk with someone about it, when we get done, I'm going to ask that you would meet someone in the back of the room there, just in this corner to my left. But I'm going to pray this prayer over the church today. And I know this was not one of those shouting hallelujah good time sermons, but you know, sometimes the body of Christ just needs to know where we are. And we just need to face the facts, face the reality that God, there's some growth that I need in my life personally. God, there's some things that I do want to live in victory. I don't want my family suffering. I don't want my life suffering. I don't want the things going on around me that are happening that I don't know how to break away from. There's some things that just doesn't happen because you say you want it to happen. Some things you don't stop just because you say you want to stop. Some things you just need some help with. Help me, Lord. There's some things that you need somebody walking alongside because there's some strongholds, and if you think Satan is gonna let go, you got another thing coming. He's not trying to let go, and he doesn't want you to let go, he wants you to keep on holding on with everything that you got, he wants you to lose everything that matters to you so that your children the same. Why would I try Jesus? Mom and Daddy went to church. Look how our lives turn out. Why do I want to try Jesus? What has he done for the people around me? Why do I want to try Jesus? I grew up in a household that was a wreck. So why? What good is Jesus to me? That's what that's what Satan wants you and your family and everybody attached to you thinking. He wants to make your testimony and your influence weak. So that people don't want to hear you say anything about Jesus and they don't want to believe in it for themselves anyway. And Satan is saying, I got you right where I want you. I got you right where I need you to tear down everything that's associated with you that you claim is good because you have faith in Jesus. We got to fight, church. We got to fight back. So let me pray this prayer over us. Father in heaven. I pray for salvation in this house today, Lord. Father, I know what your will is for your people. I pray, Father, that your people would have the desire for you to teach them your way. That they may walk in it, Lord God. Father, we would have great respect and love for you. The things that we don't know how to let go of, Father, I'm asking you now to give us grace in it, Father. You said there's a power that works in us that we are able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we could even ask or think, according to the power that you've already given us. So, Father, I ask today, give us the power and the strength and the mind to be obedient to your word that we might break through these strongholds. That your word of deliverance, Lord God, come into our families, into our houses. Come into our lives, Father, that we might be able to live out the life that you want us to live by walking in obedience to your word. And for those, Lord, who don't know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, I ask you, Lord, that people would no longer be ashamed to admit that they need Jesus. That your Holy Spirit would continue right now convicting hearts and convincing minds that walking alone is walking into destruction. So, Father, lift our spirits today, lift our minds and lift our understanding. That our hearts could be encouraged and motivated to say that we need you. And whatever way that is, Lord, we need you, Father. So come to us. Each and every one of us, Lord. May this prayer, may this word continue to work in the hearts of us throughout this week and for as long as you need it to work in us, Lord. We would be people that will surrender in obedience to your will and to your way. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.