Speaker 1: But all that I can do is compare it to how my mother treats me and I know that I'm her favorite.
Speaker 1: I always I look back on my life.
Speaker 1: Even in the depths of my sin and I could see I was talking with somebody the other day about this I could still see, even in my sin, that God had favor on my life.
Speaker 1: Probably all of us can look back and see something that God kept us from and I call that favor.
Speaker 1: But I'm excited for today.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for next Sunday.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for some brisket.
Speaker 1: Can I get an amen somebody?
Speaker 1: So next Sunday we're not going to have kids service in the back because Pastor D and her family, they're going to be at the lake preparing for us to get over there.
Speaker 1: They're going to set everything up, get the brisket and everything set out.
Speaker 1: So if you have kids, normally we have stuff, but this coming Sunday we will not.
Speaker 1: But bring them anyways.
Speaker 1: They need to be in the church with us worshiping and praising and hearing the word.
Speaker 1: They can do it just like the rest of us.
Speaker 1: They don't have to have a kids class.
Speaker 1: The Spirit of God can move on them stronger than some of you, because they're more willing and able.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in before I get too deep.
Speaker 1: So if you have your Bibles, today we are going to be mainly coming out of Colossians, chapter 3.
Speaker 1: At your Bibles today we are going to be mainly coming out of Colossians, chapter three.
Speaker 1: So last week we talked a little bit about also too.
Speaker 1: If you are new here and you want to know what our church is about, we have something here called a growth track and it's a one Saturday, a couple of hours, and Sister Jessie and I my wife over here, the first lady of the church we open up our home, we let y'all eat our food and we just have some time in fellowship.
Speaker 1: It's a way for you to get to know your pastors.
Speaker 1: It's a way for your pastors to get to know you.
Speaker 1: And if you don't like us, that's okay.
Speaker 1: We can shake hands and part ways.
Speaker 1: You don't have to keep coming.
Speaker 1: It's fine.
Speaker 1: No hard feelings at all, because I get it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why she stayed around as long as she has.
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that when y'all voted in February, y'all were like this is for Jesse, right?
Speaker 1: I know I'm just a plus one, but we have a growth track and also on Wednesday nights at 7 pm if you don't have to work, the ladies have a class they're doing.
Speaker 1: But for men and women, back in the back in Sister Vicki's classroom we have what's called Deeper, and so this is going into deeper waters, of what we believe, where the history of our church comes from and why we believe the way we believe in deeper waters, not just a couple of hours, it is an ongoing class of a book about that thick and it is some good stuff.
Speaker 1: Brother Howard in the sound booth he is the one preaching and teaching it and he is excited.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever talked to him for a little bit, you know that he knows his stuff and he gets excited about it.
Speaker 1: So it's good, it's good.
Speaker 1: So that's one of our two, of our connect groups.
Speaker 1: I hope this this last week you've had exactly seven days.
Speaker 1: I hope that some of you have been walking in the freedom that you said you wanted last week.
Speaker 1: If you remember, I scream like a crazy person.
Speaker 1: I am free because sometimes we got to get a little crazy to let the devil know that we're just crazy enough to pray him out of everybody in our family tree.
Speaker 1: But look in Colossians, chapter three, one through four, it says since then we have been raised.
Speaker 1: Say I have been raised.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means you first had to be lied down Everything, okay?
Speaker 1: Oh well, that'd be something for YouTube.
Speaker 1: Fall right off of there, my luck I'd end up with it.
Speaker 1: Have been raised with Christ.
Speaker 1: Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Speaker 1: Verse 2 says set your minds on things above.
Speaker 1: First he says set your hearts on things above.
Speaker 1: Then he says set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Speaker 1: Verse 3 says now this is something I want you to declare over yourself.
Speaker 1: After you come to the salvation of Jesus Christ, you need to declare that flesh dead.
Speaker 1: It says in verse 3, the very first words, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ.
Speaker 1: So you have been tucked away in the very heart of Christ and Christ with or hidden in Christ, within God.
Speaker 1: When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in his glory.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, father.
Speaker 1: We thank you so much for your presence that is here today.
Speaker 1: I pray a continuation.
Speaker 1: Lord, speak through your servant.
Speaker 1: Let every person that is is here by the time they leave today be willing to empty themselves out of what was and be ready, willing and able to fill themselves back with only you and your spirit.
Speaker 1: I pray, god, that an infilling of the Holy Ghost happens in this place today.
Speaker 1: For those who don't understand it, for those who don't know it, reveal it to them right now.
Speaker 1: In the name of Jesus, let this be a service where revival breaks out and the Spirit of God begins to be alive and renewed again in this place.
Speaker 1: Let every person here today leave better than they came in.
Speaker 1: Transform our minds, renew our minds, speak to our hearts.
Speaker 1: God, penetrate the hardest hearts with your word today, in your name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1: You may be seated if you can, but you do not have to.
Speaker 1: So next Sunday, like Brother Vernon said, immediately following service, we're going to have service here.
Speaker 1: There's a few things on next Sunday's agenda.
Speaker 1: One if you have went through our growth track and you want to become a member here I've reached out to most of you already, but it's very possible that I missed somebody you need to let me know, because we're going to have a membership service.
Speaker 1: This is a very fun thing for a pastor to have new members come in.
Speaker 1: That means they're putting stakes in the ground.
Speaker 1: They want to stay for a while.
Speaker 1: So that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I guess me and Sister Jessie have not become members yet.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's just a.
Speaker 1: Is that a natural thing?
Speaker 1: I don't know how that works.
Speaker 1: I guess y'all's vote made us the members here, right.
Speaker 1: So we're going to have there's sign-up sheets out there.
Speaker 1: If you want to be baptized, we give you a free t-shirt, we give you a dunk, you get a free bath.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't done it in a while, bring some soap, we'll get you clean on the outside and on the inside.
Speaker 1: Brother Art has made claim.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who Brother Art is, he's the really tall guy with glasses.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's in here.
Speaker 1: He said that if you ride on his tube, whether you agreed to it and signed up for it or not, you will be baptized.
Speaker 1: So I told him challenge accepted.
Speaker 1: So the late day, the baptism day, we're having a lot of fun stuff.
Speaker 1: Isn't it good to get together as a church outside of the church and just get to hang out with each other?
Speaker 1: That is what strengthens the fabric of the church.
Speaker 1: Most of the scriptures that you're reading, these stories don't happen inside of churches.
Speaker 1: They're in people's homes.
Speaker 1: They're right smack dab in the middle of people's lives.
Speaker 1: God wants to get the people of God to stop being so focused on the house and start dwelling with each other in each other's house.
Speaker 1: That's what strengthens the fabric of the church, when we get to actually know each other.
Speaker 1: And it's not house.
Speaker 1: That's what strengthens the fabric of the church.
Speaker 1: When we get to actually know each other and it's not just oh, happy Sunday.
Speaker 1: God bless you, because you know what that is.
Speaker 1: That is a surface, one size fits all, no real life involved.
Speaker 1: When we get involved in each other's lives, we start knowing each other's business, and if I hear that you're talking about people's business, I'm going to come straight to you and we're going to handle it.
Speaker 1: That's it, because there will not be gossip in God's house here.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 1: Someone comes to you, be the person that someone can actually come to and talk to about their problems, and it stays locked up between you two.
Speaker 1: That was free.
Speaker 1: That won't cost you a thing.
Speaker 1: So come with your hearts prepared to get baptized, whether you want to or not.
Speaker 1: So last week we talked on freedom.
Speaker 1: So you have the right and the authority through the sacrifice of the blood of Jesus Christ for salvation.
Speaker 1: When you say, jesus, I accept you, I believe that you are the one true son of God and you have faith in Christ Jesus and in him alone.
Speaker 1: You are now in the family, so you are grafted into the family of God.
Speaker 1: Now this is done through salvation.
Speaker 1: You accept Jesus.
Speaker 1: That is a must.
Speaker 1: You cannot get into heaven by how good you are down here.
Speaker 1: It does not work that way.
Speaker 1: You can be the oh God bless you.
Speaker 1: God bless you.
Speaker 1: I'll pray for you all you want, until you're blue in the face, till your dying day, and it will not get you one more minute into heaven, because there is only one bridge into that gate and that is Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So this is something that we don't talk about a lot.
Speaker 1: Now this is some of you old schoolers.
Speaker 1: I got any old school Pentecostals in the house.
Speaker 1: When I say this word, you're going to be like oh yes, brother, I know what you're talking about when I say sanctification.
Speaker 1: When I say holiness, you know what you're talking about when I say sanctification.
Speaker 1: When I say holiness, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: But today we're going to call it bearing your cross, because God bore his cross for you.
Speaker 1: So at some point you got to pick up and start carrying yours, because we want the salvation of Jesus to be amazing, and it is.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful, but there is more for you today.
Speaker 1: If you've been living on just a salvation-dub gas tank, you soon will run out and go back to where you started.
Speaker 1: Now, why is that?
Speaker 1: Because there's no purification happening.
Speaker 1: There is a washing, there is a cleansing.
Speaker 1: That happens.
Speaker 1: But if you've ever taken a shower, guess what?
Speaker 1: The next day you have to take another one.
Speaker 1: Now what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means there's an ongoing cleansing that must happen in your heart and in your mind.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because the world and the enemy is out to get you.
Speaker 1: Because if he can get you distracted, he can dismantle your faith, he can dismantle your testimony, and when he can do that, that's where the power comes from.
Speaker 1: If he can get you distracted.
Speaker 1: And going back to the vomit, like the Bible says, the dog does like it's a dog.
Speaker 1: Returning to the vomit she got nasty on that one, sorry, I said that.
Speaker 1: I think I said that word last Sunday too, and it made some of y'all gross.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Look it up, but now we must.
Speaker 1: It's there, I've seen it.
Speaker 1: Now we have to do something that is called bearing our cross, sanctification, living a holy life.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because, yes, jesus makes us blameless and righteous in the sight of God, but it is a process that we have to work for all the time to retain, to retain being clean.
Speaker 1: Now, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: I don't know what that looks like for you, but for me that looks like I need to change what I watch and what I listen to so that I stay a pure source, a clean vessel that God can use, and I'm staying empty of all unrighteousness.
Speaker 1: Jesus did the work on the cross.
Speaker 1: Now it's your job for the rest of your life to do something.
Speaker 1: I know it's not a shouting term, but it is Now.
Speaker 1: Today's message title is called Life After Death because, as we read just a minute ago, when you find Jesus, it's one of the most beautiful things, but you have to daily die to your flesh.
Speaker 1: You have to daily keep the devil at bay because he is coming after you.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because he understands that you are one of God's prized possessions.
Speaker 1: No other creation on this earth has ever been able to do what we can do, and that is to mess up and apologize and ask for forgiveness and be made whole again.
Speaker 1: Nothing else can do that in this world.
Speaker 1: So life after death?
Speaker 1: Now what does this mean?
Speaker 1: That means that now lay down who you were and you have to begin to start picking up who God wants you to be.
Speaker 1: See, the Bible says in the scripture that once we come to Christ we are born a new creation.
Speaker 1: Now what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means you are a babe in Christ.
Speaker 1: That means you have some things to learn.
Speaker 1: That means you have some places to mature.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're 99 years old and you come to Jesus immediately.
Speaker 1: You are a babe in Christ and you have to first start drinking on the milk and then you can get into the meat of the word.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people come to Christ and we think that immediately they're automatically going to be eating the meat and we try to grind it up and shove it down their face and we forget that we once too were babes in Christ, that when someone starts giving their life back to God, you got to let God start feeding them and get out of the way because you are malnutrition to them.
Speaker 1: Galatians 5, 24 says this.
Speaker 1: This is the New Living Translation.
Speaker 1: I like the way that it worded it, verse 24,.
Speaker 1: It says those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires even the very desires you have of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.
Speaker 1: Jesus did the work, but we have to be in agreement with the work that he did.
Speaker 1: That means we must daily die to our flesh.
Speaker 1: So let's break this down a little bit.
Speaker 1: Once Christ is received, you are saved.
Speaker 1: Can everybody in this place agree with that?
Speaker 1: You come to the knowing salvation of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: You are saved.
Speaker 1: We just read a minute ago in Colossians, in the beginning, where we're actually hidden away in Christ.
Speaker 1: So when God looks at Christ, we are actually hidden.
Speaker 1: So when Jesus presents himself to the Father, we are with Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So we are made righteous because we are hidden in Christ.
Speaker 1: So all that God can see when you give your life to Jesus is Christ.
Speaker 1: We must daily die to our flesh.
Speaker 1: Once you are saved, you have given your heart to jesus.
Speaker 1: Faith in jesus puts us in right standing with god.
Speaker 1: We call this righteousness.
Speaker 1: There is no amount of works that can achieve this thing.
Speaker 1: Right here, titus 3, verse 3, and 8 through 8.
Speaker 1: We're going to read a little bit of scripture today, but it's very important that you understand this, because we have a bunch of members or churchgoers who are still baby Christians after being in the way for 20 years, because salvation is not the end, it is only the beginning.
Speaker 1: So let's read this Titus 3, 3 through eight.
Speaker 1: At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.
Speaker 1: Here we are talking about the same thing again.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard this before?
Speaker 1: If someone in your life says you're doing something wrong or there's an issue that they can see about you that you cannot see, if you hear it twice, maybe three times, you need to start looking and examining, because chances are you can't see it.
Speaker 1: It is a blind spot in your personality, in your heart, in the way you do things, but it's obviously some sort of issue because you have multiple people that are saying it.
Speaker 1: So here we have in Titus again.
Speaker 1: Again it is saying all kinds of passions and pleasures.
Speaker 1: Watch out for these.
Speaker 1: We want to be chewing on the things of the world and come to church.
Speaker 1: What comes out of your mouth is not pure.
Speaker 1: We live in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another, but when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us.
Speaker 1: When Jesus showed up on the scene, he sent a way that we can be saved Now.
Speaker 1: Verse 5 says he saved us, but because of righteous things we had done, not because of righteous things that we had done.
Speaker 1: So it says that we cannot earn this, we cannot do this, but because of his mercy.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of people in the church house today who walk around with their noses up to new people in the church or people that are sinners, acting like at some point we have went on the cross and we're providing mercy for ourselves, but that is inaccurate.
Speaker 1: Only through God's mercy and his grace and only through the sacrifice of Jesus are any of us here today.
Speaker 1: Nobody in this body of believers has the right to look to someone else who is struggling and saying well, you just need to get your junk together, because what I have learned, the Spirit of God, is very good.
Speaker 1: And when I have some sort of judgmental unction in my spirit, oh well, they ain't trying, they ain't trying.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden the Spirit brings up a mirror to my face, to where I can't see them anymore, and I said look, lord, you're right, I'm going to go back to where I'm going to get back in my lane.
Speaker 1: Thank you, lord, because we cannot earn this Verse five.
Speaker 1: He saved us not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy.
Speaker 1: He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal.
Speaker 1: By what?
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit?
Speaker 1: There is something beyond salvation, and I will not tell you today that I even fully understand, except I know, I know that.
Speaker 1: I know that I know that I have seen the Spirit of God move on, a service and a language come out of people that they do not know, from a place that they have never known.
Speaker 1: And you have to understand this the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: When he steps on the scene, things don't make sense anymore, because if they made sense to us, we would try to control it.
Speaker 1: That's why he keeps us behind a veil of not understanding, because we want to control.
Speaker 1: And that is how you become filled with the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: And speaking in tongues is you give up?
Speaker 1: That is how you become filled with the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: And speaking in tongues is you give up?
Speaker 1: The one thing the Bible says is the hardest thing to tame out beside passed up your mind passed up your spirit, the tongue.
Speaker 1: You get angry.
Speaker 1: Your tongue will betray you quickly.
Speaker 1: When you get bad, your tongue will betray you quickly.
Speaker 1: When you get hurt, even though the hurt is real, your tongue and your mouth will betray you.
Speaker 1: When somebody else is hurt, listen to this.
Speaker 1: Somebody else is hurt, it'll get all over you and your mouth will betray you too.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because misery loves company.
Speaker 1: The mouth is deceiving.
Speaker 1: It is our biggest obstacle.
Speaker 1: But the rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, sometimes in the church house, we have rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in the church house we have and I say this because I've been there we have people who forget where God has brought them from and we become satisfied with worldly things.
Speaker 1: And then we wonder why we come to service and it's just another few songs and another preaching, and maybe a few people come up in the altar and we don't have.
Speaker 1: Well, I miss the old days.
Speaker 1: Well, you miss the old days of you tearing it before God, because, in spite of the one or two or seven or 10 that don't, all it takes is one for the spirit to break.
Speaker 1: One person who is faithful, one person who is praying and being steadfast in the word and knowing right from wrong and saying God, whatever you want to do today, I don't care, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: I don't care what I look like.
Speaker 1: I know I'm going to sound stupid.
Speaker 1: I don't care what I sound like.
Speaker 1: I may shake, I may tremble, I may buckle under the power of God, but, lord, whatever happens to me, it's going to be 100% you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to step out of the way and whatever everybody thinks, I don't care, they're going to think it.
Speaker 1: And that is when revival breaks out, when we stop caring what people are going to think.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get back to the scripture.
Speaker 1: Oh, the reason I even got on that tantrum is because sorry, I got sidetracked.
Speaker 1: I found the rabbit.
Speaker 1: Y'all Down the rabbit hole, never mind, y'all get it when you get home Is that we have seasoned Christians who don't daily renew themselves in the spirit, and so here's what we do.
Speaker 1: Human nature, every person in here, is guilty.
Speaker 1: We sit in a place of guilt and blame others.
Speaker 1: So y'all ain't gonna preach me down, y'all ain't gonna shout me down today because we like to say that it's other people's fault instead of mine.
Speaker 1: Well, if they would just get their stuff together, god would really move.
Speaker 1: If you stop being so judgmental and gossiping, god would probably move more.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the scripture I'm done.
Speaker 1: In verse 6, it says this Whom he poured out on us generously through Christ Jesus, our Savior.
Speaker 1: Verse 7.
Speaker 1: So that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life.
Speaker 1: We used to talk about that all the time.
Speaker 1: When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.
Speaker 1: Now we don't even talk about heaven, no more.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, we don't even want to mention hell.
Speaker 1: People might think I'm weird.
Speaker 1: Well, they'll think you're the one who should have reached out and saved them if they're burning there after they die.
Speaker 1: I would rather be embarrassed and a little awkward and speak truth and life to someone in the moment, because here's what I know If I'm speaking the word and the truth to them, they will get mad.
Speaker 1: It upsets sinners.
Speaker 1: Why do I know that?
Speaker 1: Because when I was in the depths of my sin, it made me mad.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be around nobody.
Speaker 1: You told me you and your ex-husband would be fighting and you knew your mom was praying for you, because they didn't fight no other time, except for when mama was praying, she would call up hey, I know what you're doing, stop it.
Speaker 1: Stop praying for me.
Speaker 1: Everything's breaking loose over here, quit it.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that prayer was bad.
Speaker 1: It was that what was happening through prayer wasn't comfortable for the person who was getting prayed for.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes what needs to be had, what needs to be said, what needs to be done, is an uncomfortable situation.
Speaker 1: But sometimes doing things that will hurt someone, hurt their feelings and they need to go to their safe place, that will hurt someone, hurt their feelings and they need to go to their safe place, is the best thing that they could hear because it's actual truth.
Speaker 1: And something that I have found out through the years of my life is, if someone hears actual truth, it sets different in their spirit.
Speaker 1: It doesn't blend in with the rest of the false lies, but it actually stands out from them.
Speaker 1: So, verse seven so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life.
Speaker 1: Now, this is a trustworthy saying.
Speaker 1: He's saying now, listen, y'all going to need to remember this and repeat this back because it's going to help you during your life.
Speaker 1: And I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.
Speaker 1: These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Speaker 1: So what does this mean?
Speaker 1: So, to simply put this, it describes two things Salvation and being made righteous with God is something that you cannot earn Now.
Speaker 1: Why is that important for you, if you are a believer here today, to understand?
Speaker 1: Because you cannot get upset and mad and get hateful and get argumentative with sinners who are just being sinners.
Speaker 1: They don't know the truth you know.
Speaker 1: They don't know the God you serve.
Speaker 1: How do they know this?
Speaker 1: By the love and the truth coming out of your mouth.
Speaker 1: That is how they know.
Speaker 1: How else do they know, jesus said, by the way, that you love each other in God's house as a brother and sisterhood in Christ.
Speaker 1: By this they will know that you are my people.
Speaker 1: Salvation you cannot earn it or you cannot get more of it.
Speaker 1: You cannot earn God's love any more than what he loves you now.
Speaker 1: You cannot.
Speaker 1: And the second thing is after salvation, there must be and has to be a transformation.
Speaker 1: There has to be.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because when you come under the protection and the authority in Christ Jesus, things in your life change.
Speaker 1: You now have a new title on you of heir to the glory of God.
Speaker 1: So what does this transformation look like?
Speaker 1: Galatians, chapter 5, 22 and 23.
Speaker 1: This is what the transformation looks like.
Speaker 1: This is called the fruit of the Spirit, multiple fruit coming out of one vine, and that is God.
Speaker 1: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that one.
Speaker 1: You mean we have to tell ourselves no, right, is that not the culture we live in today?
Speaker 1: Get it now, pay for it later.
Speaker 1: You never have to tell yourself no anymore, never.
Speaker 1: Against this, there is no law.
Speaker 1: Now, once you become grafted into the one true vine, the fruit begins to say it with me grow, I have to grow, I have to grow.
Speaker 1: Now, what happens when you grow?
Speaker 1: There is pain.
Speaker 1: You ever get a small child and they're going through the phases of the body dust to get to adulthood and all of a sudden you're like, oh, my knee hurts.
Speaker 1: Sometimes my knee hurts too, and I'm thinking it's because I'm growing, I'm getting a little taller.
Speaker 1: But it will happen, in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: But so to become fruitful, you must grow.
Speaker 1: I apologize, it's just something I've been praying for.
Speaker 1: Now we also call this spiritual maturity.
Speaker 1: Uh-oh, I said the m word maturity.
Speaker 1: No, not that I don't have to do anything and change because we have the churches full of okay, now this, just right now.
Speaker 1: Everybody say spirit of god, soften my heart.
Speaker 1: So I take this right.
Speaker 1: Thank you for three of you that said it.
Speaker 1: We have churches full of whining, pacified baby christians that if they don't get their way, they cry and they start making teams with each other.
Speaker 1: We also know this and y'all know this, very real and tangible.
Speaker 1: It's called also a church split.
Speaker 1: It's when someone doesn't like this and oh, I want the carpet to be this color, I want the church to be this color.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't like the way she sings, I don't like the way he preaches.
Speaker 1: Oh, she's ugly.
Speaker 1: You know there's weird stuff that don't make any sense.
Speaker 1: They don't amount to anything about furthering the kingdom of God, but yet we put it up like it's the most important thing and we don't put it to death, because misery loves company.
Speaker 1: When you start whining, when you start complaining, when you feel that inside of you listen, we all have bad days and we all have situations that we would not prefer.
Speaker 1: But when you start doing that and letting it come out of your mouth, you're literally speaking it into existence around you.
Speaker 1: So what you are doing is allowing the negativity inside of you to start flowing out of you, and then it changes the atmosphere into a negative atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Now what happens?
Speaker 1: The spirit of God's trying to do something.
Speaker 1: On a Sunday morning you say Lord, I'm ready, I'm prepared, let's have a service.
Speaker 1: God, have your way.
Speaker 1: And you've been spending the whole week having your own way and expecting God to do something different on Sundays.
Speaker 1: Is that too hard?
Speaker 1: You want me to bring it back and land it a little softer.
Speaker 1: You can't act the way you want to act from Monday to Saturday and come in Sunday and say God just do whatever you want, when he's been trying all week.
Speaker 1: All week long, you let the enemy beat you up and get you so negative and get your spirit so twisted up.
Speaker 1: And then you come in on Sundays and you want God to do something.
Speaker 1: God's been trying to do something throughout the week and you keep acting in flesh.
Speaker 1: Now what's the good news about that?
Speaker 1: That every single one of us in here has that struggle, including your pastor, I wish I'm glad it's not into existence.
Speaker 1: But I wish sometimes that phones could have the technology where I could reach through and slap the other person on the other side, say, stop acting stupid.
Speaker 1: The spirit of slap just comes on me and this is why I don't live in the future, where that may be possible, because people have red faces all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see you've been talking to Stephen, but we have to be cautious of this because, misery-loving company, that tribe mentality where we only talk to certain people, we only let these one little people into our group and we're not open to the family of God.
Speaker 1: This causes a tribe mentality and this is damaging to the body of Christ.
Speaker 1: Open to the family of God?
Speaker 1: This causes a tribe mentality and this is damaging to the body of Christ and to the fellowship of believers.
Speaker 1: So, after we accept Christ, ask yourself what can I do to be different, god?
Speaker 1: What is it left inside of me?
Speaker 1: How do I talk?
Speaker 1: How do I think?
Speaker 1: How do I perceive things?
Speaker 1: Sometimes the way you perceive things is half the battle, because someone may say something, especially through a text or through an email, and you read it and you're like are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Do you know who I am, and they just simply wrote an email of what they needed to say and that was it.
Speaker 1: No pleasantries, no, nothing.
Speaker 1: And when you perceive something in the wrong way, constantly, you automatically begin to perceive it wrong always.
Speaker 1: It becomes your go-to to where, no matter what someone says, no matter how they text it, no matter how they say it on the phone even, or face-to-face oh, they must not like me.
Speaker 1: That is a trick of the enemy to dismantle and divide the body of believers Because you don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: That hit them right before you walked into that door.
Speaker 1: And this is why we have connect groups, because it pulls back the veil between people who are struggling and having issues and going through drama.
Speaker 1: Anybody have drama ever in their life.
Speaker 1: It was heavy on this side, y'all See, and they're hurting together.
Speaker 1: Mis company, I'm just.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to use all 20 people as an example, but now, god, what can I surrender?
Speaker 1: What is inside of me that I am holding on to?
Speaker 1: What is in my mind?
Speaker 1: What is the way that I'm perceiving things that I have not let go of?
Speaker 1: How am I viewing other people in the church that I'm not letting go of?
Speaker 1: This is not pleasing to God when you will not ask God.
Speaker 1: God, what can I change, do we not, as believers, if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Speaker 1: The goal is to bring glory to God's name, to lift Christ up, to be a servant to the body of believers, to serve to God, to say God, whatever you need, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: Whatever's inside of me, help me clean out the empty vessel.
Speaker 1: Starting in verse 15, we're going to go back chapter 3 in Colossians, and Timothy and Paul are the authors here.
Speaker 1: It's attributed to them and I skipped a little bit down.
Speaker 1: We'll start at verse 5 through 17.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of reading, but it's so important.
Speaker 1: Again, in verse 5, they say this put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Speaker 1: If you chase the almighty dollar and that's all you talk about, it has become an idol in your life.
Speaker 1: Verse six says because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I don't want the wrath of God coming on my life.
Speaker 1: I'm messing this thing up good enough on my own.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I don't want the wrath of God coming on my life.
Speaker 1: I'm messing this thing up.
Speaker 1: Good enough on my own.
Speaker 1: I don't need God to come down and say all right, you ain't taking care of what I gave you, let's flip your house a little bit.
Speaker 1: Verse six says because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
Speaker 1: Verse seven you used to walk in these ways.
Speaker 1: Now it's doing what a lot of all of us here today have.
Speaker 1: We have a past.
Speaker 1: It Now it's doing what a lot of all of us here today have.
Speaker 1: We have a past.
Speaker 1: It's setting this up, focusing on the path.
Speaker 1: But you used to walk in these ways.
Speaker 1: You used to give in to sexual immorality, you used to give in to lust, you used to give in to greed.
Speaker 1: But it says this in the life you once lived.
Speaker 1: But now I like that.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 1: See, when I'm telling my story, I give all the bad stuff, everything I gave to God, all the meth, all the alcohol, all the, everything I did, the club and the bars, the, whatever it was.
Speaker 1: And then I say but now, but those two little words, but now can change your life.
Speaker 1: I used to be this.
Speaker 1: I used to talk like this.
Speaker 1: I used to act like this.
Speaker 1: I used to think nobody loved me, that nobody cared.
Speaker 1: But now I want some big, but nows in my house, right now I want some big, but nows in my life.
Speaker 1: I want some big but nows in my spirit, in my mind, that when I feel that the sin is trying to pull me back, that old Stephen's trying to surface no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: But now God's got me.
Speaker 1: But now my body, my mind, my very soul, my very being, who I am, the way I dress, the way that I talk, the way I carry myself, but now belongs to God.
Speaker 1: But now can change your life.
Speaker 1: But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these.
Speaker 1: Now listen to this.
Speaker 1: This is a comparison.
Speaker 1: Y'all ain't going to like this, but that's okay, it ain't me.
Speaker 1: It's the word of God.
Speaker 1: You can not like it all you want.
Speaker 1: I'm still going to preach it.
Speaker 1: He said all these things earlier that we look at and we see people in this sin and we're like, oh, that's, you're going to hell.
Speaker 1: You know we have these, you know the little finger waving thing and we got this all down.
Speaker 1: We're like, ah, ah, ah.
Speaker 1: So let's read those again.
Speaker 1: Where was it at?
Speaker 1: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed.
Speaker 1: So now let's go to.
Speaker 1: Let's do verse eight.
Speaker 1: So now let's do verse 8.
Speaker 1: But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these.
Speaker 1: Do you notice here that he upped it a level, just like Jesus used to do?
Speaker 1: But I say that if you even look at a woman with lust, you've already committed adultery in your heart.
Speaker 1: That's not very fair.
Speaker 1: Anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator.
Speaker 1: Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, centurion, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.
Speaker 1: Therefore, that means God sent Jesus for every person, whatever background, whatever color, whatever denomination.
Speaker 1: If you believe or don't believe, jesus still came for the salvation of you.
Speaker 1: Verse 12,.
Speaker 1: Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself in compassion, in kindness, in humility, in gentleness and in patience.
Speaker 1: Bear with each other and forgive one another.
Speaker 1: If any of you are in grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you, and over all these virtues, put on love which binds them together in perfect unity.
Speaker 1: What is the Bible?
Speaker 1: One of the names the Bible gives God, it is love.
Speaker 1: That means in all of these things, wrap it, engulf it in God, saturate it in God.
Speaker 1: Verse 15,.
Speaker 1: It says let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body, you were called to peace and be thankful.
Speaker 1: Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all the wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Speaker 1: And whatever you do, whether in word or whether in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1: Give thanks to God for the Father through Him, when we give our lives to Christ.
Speaker 1: When we give our lives to Christ, there has to be a transformation, there has to be a actual death.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes we give our hearts to God and we accept Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and we don't want to face the funeral of our flesh.
Speaker 1: God has not called us to be a people that is still bound and chained.
Speaker 1: That includes addictions, that includes your past, that includes what people think about you depression, anxiety, sickness.
Speaker 1: God has not called his people to live bound by things here on earth, because we have the authority in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to speak things into existence.
Speaker 1: That's just the way he lined it up.
Speaker 1: Boys, we have to kill our flesh daily, every desire that we have, every conversation that we have.
Speaker 1: God, does this bring glory to your name?
Speaker 1: I know some of y'all are probably thinking man, that's a lot of thinking.
Speaker 1: And God does this make you happy.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to buy this refrigerator?
Speaker 1: Do you want me to get these clothes?
Speaker 1: Yes, he wants to be in every area of your life, no matter how great or how small the detail.
Speaker 1: God does that.
Speaker 1: You know what we call that.
Speaker 1: We call that relationship.
Speaker 1: I asked my wife the other day I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 1: I said hey, can I get these?
Speaker 1: You know Amazon, it's like Christmas.
Speaker 1: It just shows up at your door.
Speaker 1: Oops, now they have the buy now button and that's dangerous.
Speaker 1: And I said baby, can I get this?
Speaker 1: She's like yeah, you don't have to ask me.
Speaker 1: I said, but I do, because I want you involved in every decision that I make.
Speaker 1: I want you involved in every decision that I make.
Speaker 1: I want you to be a part of every conversation I have that involves me and my well-being.
Speaker 1: I want God to be so involved in my life that I cannot contain the love that he is pouring into me that I begin to pour it out on everybody else.
Speaker 1: Is that not the point?
Speaker 1: There has to be a transformation Now.
Speaker 1: Why does it say put to death?
Speaker 1: It's strong words, because the flesh will devour you, it will consume you and spit you out.
Speaker 1: On the other side, bitter, angry, confused, feeling alone, feeling depressed, full of anxiety, and you have no clue where it's coming from, because God's Spirit is trying to move you in one direction and your flesh is trying to pull you in another.
Speaker 1: You have the authority in Jesus Christ to say no, like last week.
Speaker 1: I am free.
Speaker 1: I do not have to live in that anymore.
Speaker 1: I told somebody one time.
Speaker 1: They asked me how do they move on from a situation or from depression or anxiety or whatever I say, this is how I look at it.
Speaker 1: When you were a teenager and we've all been there you used to be a different size.
Speaker 1: Yep, all y'all shaking your head.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, used to be a different size.
Speaker 1: Yep, all y'all shaking your head, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: And if you had a jacket when you were 10, 12 years old and you tried to wear it.
Speaker 1: Now that's what the enemy tries to do.
Speaker 1: He tries to get you confused, that you're in that stage of your life that you've only grown this much, and he tries to make you put on that jacket of sin again and you can look him in the face and say I've outgrown that, that don't belong to me anymore.
Speaker 1: I've moved past that.
Speaker 1: I don't have to wear that anymore because now I get to put on, and now I get to put on the clothing of righteousness in Christ Jesus, because I am hidden in him.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means now I got protection everywhere on my back, on my side, on my front, my up, my down Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Devil, try to get me, because now I have the protection of Jesus Christ, because I have laid my flesh to death, because fleshly desires giving into them, even entertaining them.
Speaker 1: That's why Jesus warned against it.
Speaker 1: Lusting in your mind.
Speaker 1: That goes with anything that was mentioned here.
Speaker 1: If you entertain it in your mind, eventually it will come out in your actions because it's taking root in the garden of your heart.
Speaker 1: And if you want the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
Speaker 1: You have to get everything else out or it will choke out the fruit in your garden.
Speaker 1: The flesh robs the Spirit.