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Good morning. Amen. It's great to have Pastor Jared back this morning from vacation. It's uh always awesome to see you, brother. And I appreciate you entrusting your pulpit or your congregation to me to preach. I'm part of the family, so he's my pastor too. So I'm thankful that Pastor Jared is back and that uh he's refreshed. Amen. And so this morning, I'm not gonna hold you very long, at least that's not the plan. All right. So I'm gonna move swiftly through today's message, and there's a reason why. Because, you know, last time I preached, we had this prayer for the week. Well, we have another prayer for the week this week. And I want you all to truly take to heart praying the prayer for the week. Okay? And it's going to be on the screen, and we're gonna dive into this message today because there are some promises that God has given to his people, but it comes under certain conditions. All right? And so we have a God who loves us and has a lot of things in store for us, but there are some things that we don't get unless we do what God tells us to do. The will of God for your life is not automatic. Amen. It doesn't happen just because. But God is gracious unto us, and he wants us to get better, to do better, and to be better because of him. Now, revival is something that I believe every church throughout the world needs. And the message that I'm going to be preaching today is a revival type of message. It's titled When God's People Turn Back to God from 2 Chronicles, 7th chapter, verses 1 through 14. But before I dive into it, let us pray. Father in heaven, thank you for this great pleasure and privilege that I have, Lord God, to proclaim your word on today. Father, I pray that you speak to me and speak through me. God, use me for your glory. Father, I pray that the words would be simple and understandable and that your people would allow this word to take root in their hearts, Lord God, to set up camp in it. And we would all live by your word, Lord God, and hear the Holy Spirit when he speaks to us to remind us of your word and how we ought to conduct ourselves according to your word. In Jesus' name, I pray that in this house today, that if there's someone who does not know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, that the message today would not be one that caused them to feel condemned, but that they would be be convicted, Lord God, and convinced that they need to ask what must they do in order to be saved. That they might be truly free. Because whom the Son is set free is free indeed. Thank you, Lord, for this. In Jesus' name, amen. So the first point, we're gonna jump right to the first point, and it is the presence of God must be honored. When God comes to the house, when you're in the presence of God, we must honor the presence of God. Second Chronicles chapter 7, verses 1 through 3 says this When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endures forever. So the one thing that we see is that God answered Solomon's prayer by fire. Now, the fire coming down to consume the offering was showing that God accepted Solomon's prayer. But the other thing that we find is that the glory of the Lord filled the temple. So when God's glory fills the house, man cannot take center stage. When the glory of God fills the house, we must bow down. We must recognize who God is and recognize his presence. I'm going to say this. When the Spirit of the Lord shows up, it's hard to worship with your hands in your pockets. When the Spirit of the Lord is in the house, it's hard to worship and not take on a posture of humility and worship to praise and honor the Lord. Then the people responded with worship. They bowed, they showed humility and reverence, that's respect and praise unto the Lord. So, church, watch this. A church that wants revival must regain reverence for the presence of God. You know, sometimes uh some churches, I just wonder, and I'm not gonna pick on churches. I I've been in a lot of churches, I've worshipped in a lot of churches. But you know, if you want the presence of God in the house, we gotta take the posture of inviting the presence of God into the house. That's why on Sunday morning, sometimes you'll see me walking around praying over chairs and praying within the worship center here. And we have other prayer partners and prayer and decision partners that are out praying in different areas because we want the presence of God in the house. But when it fills the house, you can't just remain in the posture that you're in. They worship the Lord, they they had a humble spirit, they bowed down unto the Lord. So here's the prayer for the week. It's up here on the screen. And I want you all to repeat this or say it along with me, just like we did last week. Y'all ready? From Psalm 119, verses 33 through 34. Let's go. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statues, and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. That's really what we want God to do is teach us his ways. And then we want to obey and observe it with our whole heart, with everything that we are and everything that we have. Point number two is this God's people must recognize the seriousness of sin. Now we live in a world that wants to dismiss sin as just it's not that big of a deal. We live in a world that is trying to change God's law by making laws of its own to say that sin is okay. And the church needs to understand that we have to recognize the seriousness of sin and stand for God's word and God's law. We cannot compromise. So in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verses 12 through 13, it says, Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen the place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people. He pauses right there. See, because God warned Solomon that spiritual decline would bring consequences, and in the world today, it it really is mind-boggling to me. The Holy Spirit was dealing with me on this. He said, It's amazing how when people go to work and they're getting on-the-job training, or they're sent to a class for work, and they sit in that class and they retain information, they're being taught, they are expected and they are held accountable for putting what they learned into practice. There's no job that I know of that you can go on and they train you for the job. You get to go to work every day and not do the work. If you got a job like that, let me know. I don't know of one that will let you come in every day when they are teaching you policies and procedures and allow you to not abide by those policies and procedures. Hold on to your bootstraps now. The church seems to be one of the places where people can come in and be taught the word of God, go out, not put it into practice, show up time and time again, rinse and repeat. I'm stepping on toes. I knew it. It'll be all right. The Holy Spirit dealt with me on this earlier this week. And we have to realize that God wants us to take everything that Pastor Jarrett has been teaching this congregation ever since this church has been here, and whatever I have done, Brother Zach and anybody else that has stood before the church, Sister Myra, the women's uh group and women's ministry, and our children. We don't expect them to come in every Sunday, be taught, and not put into practice what they are learning from the Word of God. Amen. It is sinful to come in, learn the word, know the word, and not do what it says. Yeah. We got to recognize the seriousness of sin because there's the sin of commission, those things that we do, and there's the sin of omission, the things that we fail to do that we know are the right things to do that we're supposed to be doing. But my God, the church, people can come Sunday after Sunday and we can preach our hearts out, and they walk out, live life the same old way, come back, and it's rinse and repeat. Don't serve. Oh, I'm really about to step on some toes as the Holy Ghost helps me. Listen, Pastor Jared might have to deal with me on this. I'm sorry. We might have an HR deal that we I might have to go before HR after this one. Let me ask, let me tell you something. It sure would be nice if the people of God would just do a little bit and serve. If we had more people serving, can you imagine the impact that this church could have around here? Now I'm really fixing to go home right now, but since I'm in your house, I'm gonna go ahead and take a seat on your sofa. You know, we have ministries that are convenient for people to drop off their children. She would be nice if people would say, if you're gonna watch my child so I can enjoy church, how about I take a Sunday and I go back there and I serve too so that the people who are serving Sunday after Sunday can get some time with their family. Oh, I know y'all. Y'all ain't gonna like me after this. But the Lord wants us to do better, he wants us to be better. And if we're gonna stand here and preach Sunday after Sunday and we're not gonna talk about things that we need to talk about, then we just need to sit down. But we got to tell the truth so that God's people can do better. Amen. Amen. Thank y'all for the amen. That lets me know I'm all right with y'all. All right, here's the next one: Sin can produce dryness, destruction, and weakness. It produces all of those things. So God wants us to have a fruitful life. So God's discipline, God disciplines his people to call them back to himself. And so here's the thing that we got to understand is that God's correction is not rejection, it is mercy calling his people to return to him. He's saying, come back to me. Come back to me. And you're saying, I'm not far from God, I'm right here in church. Where's your heart? Where's your heart? When when the church is in need of your support and in need of your your your service, when God has gifted you to do certain things that you know you could help the church move forward in, come back to God. Come back to Him. Give Him that time. We give time to so many other things, but God needs us, He needs our service. We ought to understand something. When God corrects us, it may not feel good. Sometimes correction is just the word of the Lord saying, I'm calling you back to myself. Sometimes it's the word of the Lord saying, Will you serve me? How do we serve God? We serve God by serving the church and serving his people. So another one, sin dries up what God intended to make fruitful. So I got a I got an example. I already asked my daughter if I could use this. And she said, Oh, absolutely. It's because I'm telling on myself. So she's she she she loves for me to just tell about how I did something wrong. So she absolutely approved of this. So Mother's Day. All right, have wonderful church. We go out, the family's out eating, celebrating Mother's Day. Our daughter has to go to work, and uh, I'm tired. You know, get home finally, and I'm like, okay, I can finally sit down. And I promise you, no sooner than I sat down on the sofa, my wife said, Oh my god, Kennedy had a wreck. I'm like, Oh, Lord, have mercy. This is the second one, all right? Among some other things. All right. Now, understand something. I went out there, everything was calm and good, and I tried to help the young man, but here's where it got bad. I start thinking about all the past stuff that I was already upset about, and just compounded one thing on the other, one thing on the other. And I thought about how high the insurance already is, and I go, here we go again. And I'm thinking about these things, and I'm getting more and more fed up. And I'm really upset with the guy because I'm trying to be a nice guy and help him get his car towed, and he ran off and left me there with the car. And so I spent all day there trying to be a good Samaritan and thinking about all the other things and the fact that I'm tired and I'm sick of this. And I get home and I blow up. Yeah. Because I was thinking about all of those things that had happened in the past. We were already past that. But Satan allowed those things to be compounded, and for me to think about it more and more. And the men just had had uh Bible study uh this weekend on Saturday, we were dealing with James chapter 3, 13 through 18, dealing with the same thing, wisdom and conduct, and how we ought to operate in wisdom, because wisdom is not just what you say, it's not just your thoughts, it's your conduct also. And I came home and I apologized to my daughter because that was not the right thing for me to do. And what God had been trying to make fruitful, I taken out of that emotional bank account. I fussing over it. And God taught me a lesson. And guess what? That that was that was the we that Saturday we started in the first part of James, which is about taming the tongue. And I go out the next day and I just fell that lesson bad, y'all. Real bad. Why am I telling you this? It's because even though I'm called by God to preach the word of God, I'm not exempt from attacks of the enemy. And neither are you. But you know what we have to do? So you always have to be on guard. And if all you do is come to church on Sunday morning and leave, and come to church on Sunday morning and leave, where is your spiritual growth? Where are you being plugged in and held accountable for your actions? When do you sit with groups of people that you have to say, you know what, guys? I taught on this lesson and I messed up. I failed. So that people can help hold you accountable in that. We all need accountability. So if we're going to have revival, it's got to begin with us. So let's look again at the prayer for the week. Psalm 119, 33 to 34. Says, let's read it together. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. With our whole heart. That means anything that's not like God needs to be pushed out so that we can observe his statute, his law with our whole heart. Revival begins with God's people. God addresses his people first, if we notice this in the scripture. You see, the church must stop blaming and start examining. I love when when Paul writes when we're taking Holy Communion, but let a man examine himself. Do some soul searching. Don't look outward, look inward. And say, God, I come to church every Sunday. How am I living your word? How is your word changing me? How am I measuring up to your word? Yes, we have been made free indeed from sin, but there ought to be some maturity that comes after salvation. Amen. It's not enough to say, I'm saved and go live any kind of way. Salvation ought to change you. Salvation ought to change the way you walk, the way you talk, the people you hang out with, the places that you go, the things that you bring into your circle. Salvation changes all of that. Because when the Spirit of God is living inside of you, he refuses to leave you the same way that you came to him. The beautiful thing is that you come as you are, he just refuses to leave you that way. He's gonna change you, he's gonna make you better, he's gonna make you stronger. And that's who we are when we humbly bow before the Lord. That's who we are and who we become when revival begins with us. To be called by God's name means we represent Him. So our conduct, our attitude, our speech, our worship, and our witness really matters. That's the reason why when we come to church on Sunday morning and lead out, if we're not touched by the word of God, sometime during the week, I promise you, some of those challenges, some of those attacks that the enemy will launch on you will cause you to fall. If you don't, stay in God's word. Abide in his word, abide with his people, know his word, get connected with somebody to help you. Revival does not begin when the world acts like the church. Revival begins when the church returns to God. We're trying to look at everybody else. We're trying to see what the world is doing. But what's the church doing? Revival is not based upon what the world does, it's based upon what takes place within us. We are the church. I'm not talking about late church, I'm talking about every individual that calls themselves a part of the body of Christ. And while the Holy Spirit just gave it to me, let me just say this it's great if you attend church, but if you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ, if you haven't confessed Him as your Lord and Savior, you are not really a Part of the body of Christ, which is the church that we talk of. You can be a part of the family, right? You can be because your family comes here, but at the end of the day, the church is the church. That's why we talk about salvation. That's why we preach the gospel, because it matters. Because we don't want you to get to the last day, and Jesus says, Yeah, you did some good stuff. Yeah, you served, you helped them at church, you did this, you did that. But guess what? You never really surrendered your life to me. You know, me and Pastor Jared kind of had a conversation about um, you know, family and so forth. And and you know, Olivia and Nathan call me and my wife, Uncle and Titi, or Uncle and Titira. But you know, understand something. We ain't really in the family. You understand? We're welcomed like family, but we're not really in the family. And that's what people who are not saved that attend church, we welcome you, but you ain't really in the family. Until you become a part of the body of Christ through salvation and accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life. We're gonna love on you, we're gonna hug on you, and all of those things. We want you to belong to the body of Christ. That means be saved so that you truly are free. And free indeed. Now, I'm somewhere else in the sermon, but as the Holy Spirit gives me the utterance to say it, I'm gonna say it. So I'll say this: God gives four conditions for return. Those four conditions are one, we must humble ourselves. Anybody who wants to be in the presence of God, anybody who wants to be changed by God must humble themselves. And humility admits our need for God. When you're humble, it's not about you. You recognize that you need God in your life, you recognize that you need Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Humility simply says, Lord, I need you. God gives grace to the humble, He gives grace. So so many people are trying to figure out being good enough. Let me tell you something. None of us were ever good enough. Righteousness has been imputed unto us. That means that it's been credited to us, not because we're so good, but because of what Jesus did, and that's the beautiful thing about being God's people, about returning unto God. He gives us grace. Grace is the result of being humble. But here's the other thing that God says we ought to do under these conditions not just humble ourselves, he says we must pray. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray. We've been teaching about prayer. Prayer is developing your relationship with the Father, it's talking to God and hearing God speak back to you. Prayer is a language of dependence because when I pray to God, I'm saying to God, God, I need you. I can't do this by myself. I'm surrendering whatever it is to you. Father, teach me how to pray. Teach me how to develop a relationship with you. You ever developed a relationship with somebody you never talked to? Did you ever get to know anybody that you never talked to? You ever get to know the things that they like, the things that they dislike, the things that they want you to do, if you don't talk to them, you will never know. And that's what God wants us to do. He says, I want you to know me. That's what God is saying to us by talking to me. Pray. The only the other thing that he said is the condition is we must seek God's face. Not his hand, but seek his face. God's face represents who he is. God, I want to know you. I want to know what you look like. God, when I approach you, I want to recognize that it is you. Beyond the smoke screens that Satan puts up in front of me. God, I want to be able to know who you are. And when I don't know where you are, let me seek you out, Father, and give me direction, give me understanding. And God will do it. Seeking God's face is deeper than just seeking after his hand. When we seek his hand, it's God, will you do for me? But seeking his face is God, show me who you are. God, teach me your ways. Help me to have a desire for your word that I might meditate on your law. God, when I read your word, I get tired and I'm sleepy. But God, I'm seeking you, so will you give me the energy that I need? Will you give me the focus that I need so that when I read your word, I will understand what your word says. And God, when I read it, if there's something I don't understand, Father, reveal it to me. Sometimes we start reading and we get discouraged and we close the book. There are so many things in our lives that are difficult for us to accomplish. We keep after it, though. God says, I want you to do the same thing in my word. Press forward. Keep pushing. And here's the last thing we must turn from our wicked ways. Turn. Repent. Not just saying, God, I'm sorry, but it's godly sorrow for what we have done. Truly bow down to the Lord and say, God, I need your help to turn away. That's that practical sanctification where we have to separate ourselves from some things. Sometimes the only way that we're going to turn away is that we get away. Sometimes we're still tampering and mixing and mingling in the areas where we've been falling. You got friends that are bad influences. Don't expect to go around them and not be influenced to do the same thing that you weren't strong enough to not do when you were around them before. There are people who seek deliverance, but they go hang out with the same crowd of people. If you weren't strong enough before, just because you got saved, that doesn't mean you're all of a sudden going to be strong enough because that urge might still be there. That desire might still be there. Remember, there's some things that I needed to stop. It was hard for me to stop. And the more I went back to the people that I was hanging around, because I was in an environment where those things were accepted, it was easy for me to fall prey to that again. You got to get around some people who are going to hold you accountable that won't accept the sin in your life. That's what the church is. That's what accountability groups are. That's what discipleship groups are. That's what life groups are about. That's what we are about here in the church. Connecting with other leaders, other brothers and sisters in Christ that can help you walk it out. Help us to turn. That's a large part of the church's problems. We want to ask God to heal stuff that we're not ready to surrender. Sometimes when you're surrendering, it's almost like a stick-up. You got to come out with your hands up. Say, I surrender. I'm taking my hands off of all of it, God, it's yours. Hands off. Whatever you want to do with me, whatever you want to do with it, God, I surrender. And not just some of it, we got to surrender all of it. But now there are three promises God gives as we move towards a close. God will hear. He promised to hear. And God gives attention to the cry of his humble people. People who repent to God, who are crying out to God, saying, God, I need your help. I really do want to change in my life. So, God, here I am crying out to you. And God says, I hear you. You know why? Because he hears more than your words, he hears your heart. And when you didn't, when you can't come up with the words, the Holy Spirit is the intercessor. He makes intercession for us. And you're down on your knees crying out to God. You don't know what to say, you don't know how to say it, you're just down there in agony. And God is reading your heart, and the Holy Spirit is communicating back to God on your behalf. But you got to have a repentant heart. But not only that, God will forgive. That's good news. God will forgive. And it doesn't matter what you did last night. It doesn't matter what you did before you came to church this morning. God will forgive. If you repent and you lay it at the feet of Jesus and you say, God, here I am. I'm surrendering my life to you. I'm surrendering this struggle to you. God will hear you. God will forgive. And the last thing that he said is that God will heal. God will heal. And there are some people in the house that need healing today. Some people need healing from a heart that has not repent of that unforgiveness that you're harboring in your heart. Maybe you need to repent of some things that you've done in your past, or done to some people, have done to some people that are in your home. And you need to repent. And God says, I can heal your marriage. I can heal your family. I can heal broken hearts. You don't think you can get past it, but give it to me, says the Lord, and I will heal you. Some people need spiritual healing from church hurt. That's why a lot of people church hop. It moved to another. Moved to another. But you got to let God heal your heart because you know what? There's no perfect place. And if you hang around me long enough, I promise you I'm gonna make you mad somehow, some way. I don't know how, it's just gonna happen. It just seems to happen sometimes. But we are people that have flaws. But you know what? God has given the church, and I'm gonna ask the worship team to come. God has given the church as a body that can provide healing even within itself. Just like God in his divine power and divine providence and all of his intellect, put things in our own human bodies where the body can heal itself of sickness. And as the body of Christ, God has placed agents within the body of Christ that can help heal the body of Christ. That's the kind of God that we serve. But some people are rejecting the healing. You know how you reject the healing when we ask you to bring it before the Lord in prayer, and you decide that you're just gonna keep going, no, that's okay. You're just gonna go on and try to fix it yourself, outside of the body. God is saying, I've given you what you need within the body of Christ. If you belong to the body of Christ, there's healing within the body. Because people are the hands and feet of Jesus. And when you're faced with a hard time and you don't know what to do, there's always somebody you can talk to that can help you. There's always somebody that's willing to pray for you and pray with you. Someone I asked you to repeat this prayer for the week one more time. Let's go. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statues, and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. See, God can restore what sin has damaged. You know that law fussing at my daughter, God got a hold of me and said, You need to apologize. That was a restoration process. Because my anger is sinful, but the repentance is saying, I've done wrong, I've sinned, I'm sorry. I was wrong. And today, let me be with this last point. God is able to bring restoration where sin has brought ruin. Some people think that what they've done is so bad and they messed it up so bad that it could never be made right. I want you to know that God is able to fix anything that He wants to fix. And there's nothing that you can mess up so bad that the power of our God can't fix it. So I'm not gonna labor here long. I'm gonna let them sing. I'm just gonna say, we're gonna be down here. I'm gonna ask prayer and decision partners to come. If you desire prayer, I'm just gonna ask you to come as they sing.