Speaker 1: I'm telling you, like those magicians that do those quick change things, one day I'm going to get it down and it's going to be like a whoof and everything will be done.
Speaker 1: I even left this on.
Speaker 1: I feel like in those movies you ever see those movies where those guys are running out of the hospital but they got all those things attached to them.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get out of it.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel every single Sunday.
Speaker 1: So pray for me.
Speaker 1: So this morning at the end of service we're going to have a special prayer for some people in the church that are not feeling well.
Speaker 1: But good report.
Speaker 1: Brother Art said he is feeling amazing.
Speaker 1: He texted me this morning, said he's feeling much better.
Speaker 1: He is on some good stuff.
Speaker 1: Apparently, if you have your Bible or you can follow behind.
Speaker 1: We're going to be in Romans today.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter 3, verse 24 and 26.
Speaker 1: If you got it, say amen.
Speaker 1: If you don't say, hold up, all right, give you a little more time.
Speaker 1: It's good to be in the house of the Lord.
Speaker 1: If you remember, not too long ago we weren't able to.
Speaker 1: When you start to think about where you come from, you begin to appreciate where you are.
Speaker 1: Verse 24 it says this.
Speaker 1: Yet god in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.
Speaker 1: He did this through christ jesus, when he freed us from the penalty for our sins our sins.
Speaker 1: Jesus, a stranger to us, took the penalty for us so that we would not have to bear the weight of our own sin.
Speaker 1: Verse 25, it says for God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.
Speaker 1: People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.
Speaker 1: This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past.
Speaker 1: So, not only for us today, but those who are before, jesus is explaining how this comes into play, for he was looking ahead and included them in what he would do in the present time.
Speaker 1: God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and is just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Let's bow our heads, father.
Speaker 1: We thank you so much for the time of worship we have today.
Speaker 1: We thank you, lord, that you have blessed us so that we can bless and give an offering.
Speaker 1: Father, I pray that today, every person that is sitting here will wholly, with all of their heart and all of their mind hear and let the word of God penetrate their hearts and let them be transformed and leave here never to be the same.
Speaker 1: In your name we pray.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: You may be seated.
Speaker 1: If you follow our stuff on social media, I try to post at least by tuesday.
Speaker 1: I guess I should say sister ashley, that's not here today, the one that is usually running around with the camera she posts, she is our media director.
Speaker 1: If you ever have anything that needs to go out or whatever, just let us know.
Speaker 1: We'll make sure it gets out to all the social media stuff we do.
Speaker 1: But today, if you haven't seen already, we're going to be talking about truth and facts, and the title of today's message is facts and feelings.
Speaker 1: Can you tell the difference?
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are honest.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's hard to tell between facts and feelings.
Speaker 1: It takes a very deep level of maturity for one to even understand that there is a difference.
Speaker 1: One, to even understand that there is a difference.
Speaker 1: Two, to realize that you probably aren't all of the time dealing in facts, that you let your feelings run the bus, and even still, we can let feelings deceive us, even if we know facts.
Speaker 1: If we feel strongly enough about something.
Speaker 1: We will allow it to become our truth If we feel strongly enough that we saw something or that someone is doing something, or that that church I heard this through the grapevine, which is called gossip, by the way stop it.
Speaker 1: You will make it and spread it as if it is fact and truth, and you will not even be close.
Speaker 1: If I had enough people to come up on the stage right now and do a little telephone game Anybody ever played telephone before?
Speaker 1: You start off saying one thing and by the time it comes back around it's like a monkey escaped the zoo and killed grandma.
Speaker 1: Like what All I said was I like chocolate.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which?
Speaker 1: Day nine of the fast, what's up y'all?
Speaker 1: Who's dying?
Speaker 1: Yet Anybody surviving, anybody barely hanging on.
Speaker 1: My wife said what did we drop by?
Speaker 1: Oh, dropped my panda express.
Speaker 1: We went to target last night.
Speaker 1: She went like this to panda express, out of the truck like noodles.
Speaker 1: It was like a little kid, like, ah, my toy, I want it.
Speaker 1: But that's how we feel when we give up something.
Speaker 1: It sometimes can mess with our emotions and we start to feel like I think it was yesterday, like for some reason I got home, she got home, we both had to work yesterday and we were both at each other's throat and we had not really had any conversation, except for a little kissy, emotive face on the text and all that I love you, I love you.
Speaker 1: And we get home and both of us are like, yeah, and we both later was like I think it's because we're cutting carbs, I think it's because we hadn't had any sweets in our life.
Speaker 1: I may be fasting, but it's robbing my joy, but it's sacrifice.
Speaker 1: I have to realize that the Bible teaches this principle of fasting as a fact that when you start making your flesh submit to your spirit, mountains begin to move, people become healed and walls start to crumble.
Speaker 1: When you start allowing your feelings to run the bus, you will be a miserable person Because you will forget what purpose God has placed in you from birth.
Speaker 1: If we feel strongly enough about something, we will automatically label it as our truth, even if it's not.
Speaker 1: We can read something online.
Speaker 1: Have you ever Googled something before?
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for symptoms of something, you're dying by the time you get done researching.
Speaker 1: Did you die?
Speaker 1: No, because you let your feelings fuel that search and it fed into what you felt and you made it your fact or you watch something.
Speaker 1: It's going to get all y'all, it don't matter what side you sit on, watch something on the news I was listening to.
Speaker 1: Y'all know a little bit.
Speaker 1: We're following the Dave Ramsey plan because the borrower is slave to the lender and I'm tired of the devil running my money.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to give when I want to give and I want to be able to do what God's called me to do when I want to do it, and I'm tired of having credit cards.
Speaker 1: We paid off that truck when we sold the house and that was one thing down and it got my fire lit.
Speaker 1: So I've been listening.
Speaker 1: I listen to podcasts all the time ministry podcast, leadership podcast.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll click every now and then to the Ramsey podcast, and it was just last night.
Speaker 1: He was talking about him and his wife were, I think, for a month or three months.
Speaker 1: They were in Australia and I think last year there was extreme wildfires.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, this does not diminish that there were wildfires and damage was done, but he said that they were there and it was not even close to what the media made it sound like.
Speaker 1: They were there, seeing it firsthand, and people who were not there were spreading that it was worse than it was.
Speaker 1: Sound familiar.
Speaker 1: You hear, sometimes, if you allow something to speak into your life on a constant basis, you will wear it as truth instead of the word of God.
Speaker 1: We allow the enemy to infiltrate the church house before we even get here by what we're watching, what we're taking in, who we're allowing to speak into our lives.
Speaker 1: If you're constantly allowing negativity to be spoken into you, guess what happens when you get squeezed by the enemy?
Speaker 1: What you've been taken in is what is going to come out every single time.
Speaker 1: And if you are consumed by feelings, feelings is what will come out.
Speaker 1: Let's move on.
Speaker 1: Here's something from a friend.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the people that you allow to speak into your life and it feeds this is what is so terrible about it, but so comforting.
Speaker 1: It's like comfort.
Speaker 1: Food is the worst food for your body, but it comforts us.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I love ice cream.
Speaker 1: If you ever do anything for my birthday, I like a chocolate cake or brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Speaker 1: Just throw that out there.
Speaker 1: You can log that away.
Speaker 1: If you take a note, somebody write that down.
Speaker 1: I like the way I like certain things, even though it comforts me and makes me temporarily feel good, makes me temporarily feel justified, makes me temporarily feel like I've won the argument and I allow my feelings to run it and facts take a back seat.
Speaker 1: Because if someone says something, or I watch something or I'm looking things up online, it feeds.
Speaker 1: I look up things that I want to see, look up things that I want to see.
Speaker 1: There's a thing on YouTube, tiktok, instagram, and they also do it on Google or any other search engine that you use.
Speaker 1: It's called an algorithm, and the algorithm feeds you what you like to eat.
Speaker 1: It will put in front of you what you love to consume.
Speaker 1: Have you ever listen?
Speaker 1: This is kind of weird and creepy.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting on social media stuff, but let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: I have had conversations, not on my phone, but with my phone in my pocket, and I go online to search something and there is an ad for it.
Speaker 1: You can follow that rabbit hole as far as you want to go, but what I'm saying is is that I talk about something and all of a sudden, the enemy knows better than Google.
Speaker 1: The enemy knows what you're trying to stay away from.
Speaker 1: I know I'm talking about feeding him.
Speaker 1: My son is growling right now.
Speaker 1: I'm fasting, but I'm not doing it on purpose.
Speaker 1: I promise but let this be a real serious conversation that you need to control what you consume and not let the enemy bring it to your doorstep, because when you consume something, pretty soon you will contribute it, because what goes into you will soon come out.
Speaker 1: And if it feeds what you hear the way that you want to see it, it would be great and amazing if the world was just awesome and everyone loved Jesus and oh, we're gonna have a savior, come and be our president and everything's gonna be great.
Speaker 1: It ain't going to save you.
Speaker 1: You have to work for you, you have to be responsible for you, you have to be willing to say no or yes.
Speaker 1: This is right for my house and this isn't.
Speaker 1: And what do we go to for that?
Speaker 1: We consume the Bible so that we know what truth actually is, because no matter what side you sit on, no matter what news outlet you watch, you are being fed something that feeds into their agenda Every single time.
Speaker 1: The way we want to see it or how we want to feel it.
Speaker 1: It will be fed to us, we will label this as truth and some of you are saying amen.
Speaker 1: Some of you are saying that's right.
Speaker 1: And you don't even know you do it.
Speaker 1: You don't even know you're consuming the things you consume.
Speaker 1: Involuntary consumption is a thing.
Speaker 1: You ever scroll Facebook or Instagram Guilty.
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you what I looked at, but I know that I scrolled down it Enough for me to be like, okay, that's enough.
Speaker 1: And you can't even say that you do it too.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and the sermon today isn't going to make me friends and I apologize ahead of time.
Speaker 1: But if some point I don't offend you or I don't challenge you or I don't get you to move your keister into the proper direction, I'm not doing my job.
Speaker 1: We can make up and be friends after, okay, but right now it's business time.
Speaker 1: Before you get upset, stay with me because, listen, I think today it will do some good.
Speaker 1: No matter who you are, no matter what you watch, no matter what news outlet, no matter what you look up online, today is going to do you some good, because I want you to be on guard of what you are allowing to come into your and speak into your life, no matter who you voted for.
Speaker 1: We can have in the same church, democrats or Republicans Shut up about your opinion.
Speaker 1: You're not going to convince them any different.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter Whatever news outlet you watch, listen closely.
Speaker 1: It's good you're sitting down because you have the capacity to be wrong.
Speaker 1: There is statistically impossible for everything that you search online and everything that you watch and everything that you listen to and the people you allow into your life to where you have only 100% good, honest truth coming into your life.
Speaker 1: So you need to be on guard.
Speaker 1: You need to understand your ground and say I will only stand up for truth.
Speaker 1: Now stating these facts.
Speaker 1: It might have got you in your feelings, but we had to get that out of the way.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: Jesus tells us that you are blessed when you hunger and when you thirst for his righteousness.
Speaker 1: We live in a day where we are hungry and thirsty for what feeds to make us feel good.
Speaker 1: We like things to make us feel like we are justified instead of correcting us.
Speaker 1: In other words, when you have a deep desire to be right with God not man, but God.
Speaker 1: He promises that when you have this sort of hunger and thirst, you will be filled.
Speaker 1: This sort of hunger and thirst.
Speaker 1: You will be filled Now.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing we're fasting right now you have to control your hunger and thirst right now.
Speaker 1: This is something that you have to on purpose, with intention.
Speaker 1: Pay attention when we're not doing the 21 day, fast every Monday, and you can join in with me if you like.
Speaker 1: I've challenged the leaders to do the same, but every Monday I fast to start my week off so that God can speak into my life for that week.
Speaker 1: Every Monday, because I want God to know that my hunger and thirst is not a flesh, that it's not what the world has to offer, that I only hunger and thirst for his righteousness.
Speaker 1: Are you not seeing mountains moved in your life?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to fight things with the flesh, asking for spiritual growth?
Speaker 1: You can't do that.
Speaker 1: You can't fight in the flesh and expect spiritual proclamation from God.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work.
Speaker 1: He promised that if you hunger and thirst, you will be filled.
Speaker 1: In order to embrace today's passage, it first is critical that we understand this important concept of truth.
Speaker 1: Brother Vernon, he told me this one time and I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: There are people that study and they are paid to watch for fake currency.
Speaker 1: Now, what they don't do is see.
Speaker 1: I thought that they would and I don't know why you would I thought in my mind that they would study the fake currency to know.
Speaker 1: When they saw the fake currency but actually it was reversed they would study the actual, true currency that was authentic and so that when anything came across their table they knew it was fake.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes in our spiritual walk we're doing the opposite as well.
Speaker 1: We're watching the world, we're trying to spot all the fakes, and all you need to know is Jesus Christ and what the word of God says, and everything else that is fake and false and untrue cannot stand against it, this concept of truth.
Speaker 1: So what is truth?
Speaker 1: A truth is something that is a reality, whether anyone knows it or not.
Speaker 1: You don't have to agree with me for me to be right about truth.
Speaker 1: So arguing is not a spiritual gift.
Speaker 1: Anybody know that.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 1: Look it up, it's not.
Speaker 1: We wish sometimes it was and we would pray for that gift, but it's not.
Speaker 1: There have always been truths throughout history that were discovered.
Speaker 1: Now listen to this Gravity and other laws of physics were discovered, but always existed.
Speaker 1: Only within the last hundreds of years they were discovered and labeled as something, but they always have been true and always have been in effect.
Speaker 1: Right, think about that for a second.
Speaker 1: We serve a God who has always been true, who has always been in effect, and people are just now discovering who he is, in spite of the fact that they have always existed.
Speaker 1: Truth exists outside of your knowledge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just because you don't know about it or just because you don't understand it does not make it untrue.
Speaker 1: A truth has always been true and will always be true.
Speaker 1: However, in the second half of the 20th century, people started to disrupt this understanding and this idea of truth based on how they feel about it.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been there, or you know somebody who's been there or somebody who is there, that you can't show truth to them and they won't even be able to spot it?
Speaker 1: Truth becomes relative as people begin to believe more often that their beliefs have an effect on truth.
Speaker 1: We see this daily.
Speaker 1: Social media platforms Bless you News.
Speaker 1: No matter which one you watch, everyone has their own version of the truth.
Speaker 1: In the last few years, people have started to think that their feelings are their truth.
Speaker 1: Have you ever talked to somebody about Jesus?
Speaker 1: I've seen celebrities say this like well, I love God and I know my truth.
Speaker 1: Their truth is based on their feelings, because they don't want to be corrected.
Speaker 1: They don't want to be told that they're wrong.
Speaker 1: And so, as long as I feel good, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: The scripture that says spare the rod, spoil the child, was not worried about your feelings.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to hurt, or you won't remember the lesson it's supposed to hurt, or you won't remember the lesson it's supposed to hurt, or you won't remember the growth process.
Speaker 1: You'll begin to take things for granted.
Speaker 1: People have started thinking that their feelings and their truths are the same, but it's the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: Truth can affect your feelings.
Speaker 1: Feelings cannot affect the truth.
Speaker 1: Facts and truth do not change based on feelings.
Speaker 1: But just because facts don't change according to feelings, your feelings still matter.
Speaker 1: They still exist.
Speaker 1: Beliefs still exist, but that does not mean that they are truth.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of beliefs that created other religions in this world that are not true.
Speaker 1: They can make people feel better about themselves.
Speaker 1: They can make them feel like they're giving back to the world, which are good things.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of good things coming out of some of these religions.
Speaker 1: Buddhism is one of those.
Speaker 1: People will sacrifice, they will give and they will give and they'll be in monasteries or whatever and give their life, not having children.
Speaker 1: They will seriously sacrifice completely to the cause, but they don't have Jesus and they're still going to go to hell.
Speaker 1: Y'all heard that word in church in a while.
Speaker 1: Hell is still real.
Speaker 1: We have a job to do to exposing the truth to the people who don't know what truth is because they're basing it on their feelings.
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example.
Speaker 1: I believe I can fly.
Speaker 1: I believe I can touch the sky.
Speaker 1: Think about it every night and day.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what you believe.
Speaker 1: If you jump out of an airplane, you cannot fly.
Speaker 1: Gravity is taking effect, your belief, your feelings.
Speaker 1: You will feel like you're flying, but you're just falling bro.
Speaker 1: You'll feel like you can flap your wings and, oh, I'm doing something.
Speaker 1: That ground is quickly approaching and you're ending.
Speaker 1: It's coming.
Speaker 1: Feelings can't affect the facts.
Speaker 1: You're falling.
Speaker 1: Certain humans now this is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Certain humans can hold their breath as long as 24 minutes and three seconds.
Speaker 1: That's a long time.
Speaker 1: That's almost 30 minutes.
Speaker 1: I could go from here to the church and back twice and they could still be holding their breath.
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: That would scare me, though.
Speaker 1: Like how do you find out when you can, like you nearly drowned, if you go down and try to test it?
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that, no thanks.
Speaker 1: No matter what their feelings are, even though these people can hold their breath for so long, they still need breath to live.
Speaker 1: That's an amazing feat and awesome talent.
Speaker 1: If you want to free dive and things like that, I will not be caught out there with sharks I'm not stupid but if they want to do it, god bless them.
Speaker 1: It doesn't change the facts that if you don't come up for air at some time, you will die because you need breath.
Speaker 1: We cannot, as humans, defy the truth that we must breathe to stay alive, truth that we must breathe to stay alive.
Speaker 1: If you take this understanding of truth and apply it to your understanding of the promises of God in the Bible, you will realize that the scriptures you read are making truth statements.
Speaker 1: You are justified, you are redeemed, you have peace, you stand in grace, you have hope.
Speaker 1: These truth statements that don't come with question marks at the end are based on what?
Speaker 1: Your faith?
Speaker 1: Your faith, if you have faith, these promises are yours.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 1: These promises are yours, they are yours, period.
Speaker 1: So your faith can literally change fiction into fact.
Speaker 1: And there are many more truths in the Bible about your identity.
Speaker 1: You are loved.
Speaker 1: You are beautifully and wonderfully made.
Speaker 1: You are an image bearer of God.
Speaker 1: These statements do not take your feelings into account.
Speaker 1: They do not change.
Speaker 1: If you aren't feeling them or you're not feeling them, that day you have your doubts about yourself and how God created you, and you don't have a purpose.
Speaker 1: God has stated facts about you.
Speaker 1: Write them on your heart, repeat them, text them and wear them proudly because God has deemed them just for you, and wear them proudly because God has deemed them just for you.
Speaker 1: And they are true all the time.
Speaker 1: Whether you're having a good day or bad day, whether you've sinned or someone has sinned against you, for your enemy, these still are true.
Speaker 1: You don't like that one, we're going to move on.
Speaker 1: They are true even if you ask for forgiveness or if they don't.
Speaker 1: They are still made in the image of God.
Speaker 1: They are still loved by our Heavenly Father.
Speaker 1: And if you stand in these truths, you have a new identity in Christ Jesus, an identity built on truth and fact.
Speaker 1: That does not change when you don't feel it.
Speaker 1: Even when I don't see it, you're working.
Speaker 1: Even when I don't feel it, I know that you are working because we know who he is.
Speaker 1: We don't focus on what he does.
Speaker 1: What he does is just an extra bonus.
Speaker 1: Praising him for who he is will not only light you up but the people surrounding you.
Speaker 1: Now, this is not an easy thing to remember.
Speaker 1: I'm going to open up with y'all a little bit today about myself.
Speaker 1: I usually do.
Speaker 1: It's just who I am.
Speaker 1: I have what is called and what psychologists call imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: You've heard of it.
Speaker 1: Let me explain it to you and the psychology world imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: It means this pretty much that you don't feel like you deserve what you've earned, like you deserve what you've earned.
Speaker 1: It can feel like that you are playing a role, that I'm a thief living in someone else's blessing.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I feel this way because I know who I was, I know my mess ups, I know my hang ups, and so I get this overwhelming feeling that it's so hard for me to even introduce myself as pastor.
Speaker 1: Can you relate that sometimes the devil throws in our face who we were and we forget who God has made us Like.
Speaker 1: Somehow I've cheated the system, because most of the times I only see what I have done wrong and not what God has done in and through me.
Speaker 1: I feel like an imposter.
Speaker 1: So what can we do?
Speaker 1: We do the challenge of 15 every single day Five minutes in prayer, five minutes of reading your word and five minutes of worship.
Speaker 1: These three things will start your day with, the first of all, with an attitude of gratitude, and it will rewrite on your heart who God says you are.
Speaker 1: If you've seen tattoos anybody ever seen a tattoo before?
Speaker 1: You ever seen it?
Speaker 1: 20 years later, it's faded, looks kind of greenish.
Speaker 1: Every single day, god wants to re-tattoo you up.
Speaker 1: He wants to re-mark you every day that you are his.
Speaker 1: He wants to remind you and he wants you to wear it where other people can see it, so that you know and others know that I am a child of God, that I am who he says that I am.
Speaker 1: Because if we start believing and intaking things that everyone else says that we are, or we start doing the comparison comparison kills calling you will not even step into your purpose because you want what everyone else has promised You'll try to walk in their anointing.
Speaker 1: And it's not for them, it's for you.
Speaker 1: What they have is not for you, what you have is not for them, and you don't need to tell God the timetable of when you want it to happen.
Speaker 1: You just be faithful.
Speaker 1: That was free, all right.
Speaker 1: So we have to ask God more and more every day.
Speaker 1: Lord, remind me of who you say I am, remind me of what you've done, remind me of who you are, Because when we start to understand who he is and then we start to read what the Bible says that we are to him, all of a sudden his identity is now ours.
Speaker 1: There's an alignment process that begins to shape our entire lives, including the hurts that we have experienced, one of the biggest things that I would beat myself up over after living a new life with a new wife, new house, new city, new church.
Speaker 1: Everything in my life was new, but I still could remember me.
Speaker 1: But I still could remember me.
Speaker 1: I would start to remember all the people that I hurt or influenced in the ways that I was doing.
Speaker 1: There were people that I talked into doing meth with me, that did not do it before.
Speaker 1: There's people that were not alcoholics and had to go to centers later.
Speaker 1: But I would make them drink with me every single night because I was Things that I was so ashamed of.
Speaker 1: I could get past the drug use because I don't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: But you can't just overnight take away what you still remember.
Speaker 1: But when we accept the truth, when I start really accepting who God says, that I am no longer, can the enemy throw in my face who I was, because I am no longer living there, I am no longer owned by that anymore.
Speaker 1: I have given myself completely to God, and God doesn't own trash, he doesn't produce junk and when he heals he may leave the scars.
Speaker 1: So you can remember not to go back.
Speaker 1: When we accept these truths and start living in facts not manipulated by feelings and that's what feelings do?
Speaker 1: They manipulate the facts, they twist the truth so that you can't really even see yourself right anymore.
Speaker 1: I think of it as looking in a mirror, and you have a good mirror and you can see clear, but it's like the enemy starts throwing stones at it, cracking it and distorting it, and so now, every time you look in it, you see something that's ugly, you see a monster.
Speaker 1: You don't see who you thought you should be, or you think maybe you should be further than you are now.
Speaker 1: And God's saying shut up and let me work.
Speaker 1: It's your job to be faithful, it's God's job and the Holy Spirit's job to do the work.
Speaker 1: You just be faithful and say God it's yours.
Speaker 1: You cannot earn it.
Speaker 1: You cannot work hard enough to find salvation.
Speaker 1: You cannot work hard enough to get the grace and the mercy that he gives freely every single day.
Speaker 1: And the reason I preach about his loving grace and mercy.
Speaker 1: I pray it every single time.
Speaker 1: It's the beginning of every single prayer.
Speaker 1: I pray when I'm praying over my food, when we're praying back there before worship, when I pray up here before we practice.
Speaker 1: I say thank you for your mercy and your grace, because I know the depths of my sin and I do not deserve what he gives freely.
Speaker 1: But yet every single day they're new for just me.
Speaker 1: And if he can save me, he can save and deliver you or any family member that's running from God.
Speaker 1: He can save my brother right now, where he is in the depth of his sin, because I know that if he can do it for me, he can do it for you, he can do it for them, and we have a job to do.
Speaker 1: We cannot be world changers if we don't first get our house in order.
Speaker 1: We cannot affect our communities if we're fighting in the church, If we're talking about each other behind each other's back or attitudes.
Speaker 1: People will not come in if we're already pushing them out.
Speaker 1: Woo, catch my breath on that one, because where God brought you from and where he brought me from should be enough.
Speaker 1: Should be enough for you to lay down your pride and selfishness and reach out to them and just let them see that God loves me.
Speaker 1: Bro, I know he can love you.
Speaker 1: Ask my wife.
Speaker 1: I'm not that great.
Speaker 1: I don't know why she's still here, but she is, thank God.
Speaker 1: Come on somebody.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all may know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: God gives blessings that I don't.
Speaker 1: When I walk into my house, yo.
Speaker 1: I don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: When I step into that pay for a truck out there.
Speaker 1: I don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: When my wife comes home or I come home from work and I kiss her hello and I'm saying, man, I lay my hand on her almost every single night and she doesn't know this.
Speaker 1: I'm confessing again.
Speaker 1: You know I'll do this and sometimes I get in trouble, but not today.
Speaker 1: I'm learning.
Speaker 1: When I hug her, I pray to God and thank him for the woman that she is, because if I know that he can do that for me and I don't deserve that, he can do much more and abundant for every person that I meet every single day, because his grace and his mercy have been shown through my marriage time and time again, when she probably should have left and she stayed, when she probably should have yelled, but she hugged me.
Speaker 1: Start doing the opposite of what your feelings are telling you to do and watch progress happen in your life, because facts will outweigh feelings and outlast feelings every single day.
Speaker 1: I've confessed to y'all like a minute ago, like we'd be upset about something and my feeling I'd shoot my mouth off.
Speaker 1: Y'all, I'm a preacher because I can talk.
Speaker 1: I'd shoot my mouth off and I'd be like I'd walk away and I'd go in my office and I'd be like man, I'm an idiot All right time to go back in there and say I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: So I'll go in there and by the time I get to her, I actually mean it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes your journey's starting off at the beginning of your journey.
Speaker 1: You're not meaning what you're going to do, but what God tells you to do.
Speaker 1: You better, do it.
Speaker 1: By the time you get there, he will provide.
Speaker 1: Can Abraham and Isaac get an amen?
Speaker 1: Sorry, baby.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you all some homework.
Speaker 1: I've never done this before.
Speaker 1: I do tell you all to take notes, but give you homework.
Speaker 1: Write down how you feel about yourself and, number two, write down what God says about you.
Speaker 1: It'll change the way you look at yourself, and this is not a pride thing, this is an understanding.
Speaker 1: When you begin to understand God's love for you, when you start, you cannot give out things that you do not receive yourself.
Speaker 1: When you start receiving the love and the identity that God has for you, all of a sudden you can start giving that out.
Speaker 1: Let's take it a step further.
Speaker 1: I know I like to push the envelope.
Speaker 1: Write down how you feel about someone that you do not like.
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, do it Now.
Speaker 1: Write down facts of what God says about your enemy.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he'll sit you down at the table so you'll shut up and start to really love him.
Speaker 1: That was not fun.
Speaker 1: Ephesians 6, 12 says this, for we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
Speaker 1: You will not start seeing true, real victory until you can properly see the truth about your enemy.
Speaker 1: I'll say it again you will not start seeing real victory and still you start understanding who the enemy is.
Speaker 1: Your true enemy it's not the person that's giving you issues.
Speaker 1: The fact remains when you allow your feelings and emotions to control you, you give the enemy a foothold to manipulate you.
Speaker 1: Romans 5, 1 and 2, it says this.
Speaker 1: Therefore, now listen, this is for anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, no matter their level of capacity, of where they are right now.
Speaker 1: I want to start this off with this in mind, because you may have some people you don't like and they claim Jesus.
Speaker 1: They may not be where you are yet you have to have some compassion Now.
Speaker 1: You don't have to put up with the junk, you don't have to roll over and take it, but you have to have some compassion and this will change the way you interact with people on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Verse 1, it says Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, by what?
Speaker 1: By faith we have peace.
Speaker 1: You can lay down your head on the pillow in a different way when you start to understand that you have God's peace because your faith has brought you to a level of righteousness.
Speaker 1: I had trouble.
Speaker 1: In my dreams, the enemy would attack me.
Speaker 1: In my dreams, dreams of past things that I did not want to remember, and it was hard for me to lay my head down in peace because I can only remember the problem.
Speaker 1: And it was hard for me to lay my head down in peace because I can only remember the problem.
Speaker 1: And I started reading this and started writing this on my heart that God has made me right these actions that I did.
Speaker 1: No longer is who I am and I do not have to bask in it.
Speaker 1: Verse 2, because of our what Our faith, christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we can confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.
Speaker 1: Something I've noticed about the word of God and how God works is this If we seek after glory for ourselves, we seek after glory for ourselves, taking it from God.
Speaker 1: He will rip it from us and rob us of it, but if we seek to give God the glory.
Speaker 1: He always lifts us up with him and gives us a part of his glory.
Speaker 1: I just thought that was so cool.
Speaker 1: So you may say that you're undeserving Guess what You're right.
Speaker 1: And, with a smile on your face, you may look at your enemy and say they're undeserving Guess what You're right, but we're on the same boat.
Speaker 1: So grab a paddle and stop complaining.
Speaker 1: But you can also declare over yourself that you have been made right when the enemy tries to remind you of what you have done.
Speaker 1: Start to declare that you have been made right through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and your faith.
Speaker 1: Because of what?
Speaker 1: Your faith?
Speaker 1: No matter how you feel Faith can turn fiction into fact.
Speaker 1: This is why we pray together.
Speaker 1: This is why we lay hands on the sick, because we believe that binding together in faith can manipulate fiction and turn it to fact.
Speaker 1: You can have peace in the facts.
Speaker 1: Start to remember who God says that you are.
Speaker 1: Step into the calling.
Speaker 1: Everyone in here has a circle of influence, large or small.
Speaker 1: Serve where you are.
Speaker 1: Stop looking for the next best thing, because then you're telling God that what he has given you is not enough.
Speaker 1: And if you say that, then you're saying that when he provides all of our needs.
Speaker 1: You're calling him a liar.
Speaker 1: Have peace in the facts.
Speaker 1: You are redeemed, you are cherished.
Speaker 1: You are redeemed, you are cherished, you are loved and you have a purpose.
Speaker 1: That's why we want you every person that goes to this church, we want you to go through the growth track.
Speaker 1: So the second week we talk about spiritual gifts, so you can figure out what your purpose is, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, and so that you can start serving in the church.
Speaker 1: We don't need consumers, we need contributors.
Speaker 1: You have a purpose and there are no feelings in the world that can change these facts.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been down on yourself or you ever overcompensate to make up for how you feel about yourself?
Speaker 1: Probably all of us do that at some point In some way.
Speaker 1: If we feel incompetent in an area, if we feel a little dumber than other people, we'll try to talk a lot.
Speaker 1: Hello, spit out a bunch of knowledge that translates to a bunch of nonsense.
Speaker 1: Or if you feel like you can't really play an instrument that well, sometimes I go nuts on the strumming.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to fit it all in there, but God has a purpose for every single person in here, front to the back.
Speaker 1: If you're watching online, you have a purpose.
Speaker 1: God does not make accidents and at the end of the day, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: No matter what comes your way, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: I'm a very I get kind of sometimes, but I'm a pretty laid-back person as far as when things happen as things that get me.
Speaker 1: But as far as like situations or dealing with people, I'm like, yeah, it'll be all right.
Speaker 1: I've been that way my whole life Because I understood at a very young age that me getting upset with people cannot change how they are.
Speaker 1: I can come up with a lot of good comebacks that will probably strip you down.
Speaker 1: I'm very quick, my wit's like this, but it serves no purpose except for gratifying me.
Speaker 1: It serves nothing but myself.
Speaker 1: So I've had to do and learn.
Speaker 1: One of the hardest skills in my life for a person that talks a lot, is to shut up.
Speaker 1: What is hindering you from walking into your purpose?
Speaker 1: Chances are, if you're like me, it's a personality trait.
Speaker 1: We all got personality flaws.
Speaker 1: Are you going to wear it as a badge of honor or are you going to allow God to show you who you are?
Speaker 1: I believe here today, god is going to raise up ministers to preach the word of God in places that we'll never see.
Speaker 1: Right now we're in the thick of it, tolling the ground for the seed to be planted so that one day the harvest can be reaped.
Speaker 1: We have a job to do.