Speaker 1: What a day to love the Lord.
Speaker 1: Amen, to be able to worship Him once again.
Speaker 1: All of your beautiful red tops.
Speaker 1: If you don't know, fellas, tomorrow is Valentine's Day and if you just found out, you're too late to the game.
Speaker 1: Ain't nothing left out there.
Speaker 1: So if you'll stand with me, we're going to read today.
Speaker 1: We're going to be coming from Psalm chapter 3.
Speaker 1: We're going to be reading eight short verses here.
Speaker 1: If you got it, say amen.
Speaker 1: If you need more time, say hold up, all right, half and half, give it a couple more minutes.
Speaker 1: If you don't have your bible or you don't have an app, you can look up here.
Speaker 1: We're going to have it up here for you.
Speaker 1: Verse one it says oh lord, I have so many enemies, so many are against me, so many are saying God will never rescue him.
Speaker 1: But you, o Lord, are my shield, around me, you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
Speaker 1: I cried out to the Lord and he answered me from his holy mountain.
Speaker 1: I laid down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me.
Speaker 1: Verse 6, it says I am not afraid of 10,000 enemies who surround me on every side.
Speaker 1: Arise, o Lord, rescue me, my God, slap all of my enemies in the face, shatter the teeth of the wicked.
Speaker 1: Victory comes from you, o Lord.
Speaker 1: May you bless your people.
Speaker 1: Let's pray.
Speaker 1: Father, we thank you so much for what you've already done in this service.
Speaker 1: Before we even got up this morning to come to this appointed time and this appointed building, you already had a plan for your will to be done here today.
Speaker 1: You knew who would be here.
Speaker 1: You knew who would be joining us online.
Speaker 1: Father, I speak life over those dead, dry bones.
Speaker 1: I speak restoration to the broken homes.
Speaker 1: I speak healing to the sick and life to the dead.
Speaker 1: Let everyone here today be transformed through your word and not leave how they came in.
Speaker 1: In your name, we pray Amen, you may be seated.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: The one thing I love about getting together and taking communion is that it builds unity with us, and I believe that's why Jesus, in a lot of times, would sit in crowds and sit with his disciples, because it was important to sit down together and literally hear break bread.
Speaker 1: And when you're about to take communion, the Bible talks about stopping for a second and examining yourself.
Speaker 1: Bless you, sorry, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Bless you sorry, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And so we call this before we take communion, we want to examine ourselves.
Speaker 1: We want to say God, whatever is inside of me, whatever blemishes there are, wash me clean so that I don't sin against you, so that I do you justice and I show you honor by honoring what you did for me.
Speaker 1: So it's like you have to receive the gift before, the gift of cleanliness, the gift of righteousness, the gift of salvation before you partake.
Speaker 1: And when we do this I like to call that y'all know I'm all about self-reflection, self-awareness, self-reflection.
Speaker 1: We must, as Christians, as a church body, be self-aware.
Speaker 1: None of y'all are amening because you're guilty.
Speaker 1: Listen, we have to be very, very self-aware.
Speaker 1: We have to look at ourselves daily, daily.
Speaker 1: Pick up your cross, where we have to look at ourselves daily, daily.
Speaker 1: Pick up your cross daily.
Speaker 1: Figure out what you can do in your challenge of 17 to do that one small act of faith that you normally wouldn't do Praying God, remove all of me and let there be nothing left but you.
Speaker 1: And that brings me to today's title mirrors.
Speaker 1: Now, there are two types of mirrors.
Speaker 1: The first type we use to self-examine ourselves.
Speaker 1: You look in a mirror, probably if you leave the house, you at least look to see if you don't look like Albert Einstein crazy hairs.
Speaker 1: Okay, at least that my parents when I was younger and I didn't know I did it.
Speaker 1: But you're a teenager, you have acne, you're about to step out of the house.
Speaker 1: There's got to be girls somewhere, right?
Speaker 1: So I'd stop by this big mirror they had in the hall and I'd check my face, my hairs and see everything was on point.
Speaker 1: Make sure my.
Speaker 1: Because I used to have a bad habit for some reason.
Speaker 1: I would always button it off by a button.
Speaker 1: So my shirts, they would be cockeyed and I don't know why I did it, but I always.
Speaker 1: I got the habit of checking myself before I wrecked myself.
Speaker 1: I had to make sure that I was good before I could go out and deliver the goods.
Speaker 1: Come on somebody.
Speaker 1: And there's a second type of mirror that this is my personal favorite, you probably have it as a favorite as well is the mirror of where you turn it around and show other people who they are.
Speaker 1: This is a classic.
Speaker 1: This is 95, 99%.
Speaker 1: Because we don't want to see ourselves, we don't want to see what we're doing wrong.
Speaker 1: All we want to do is show everybody else themselves.
Speaker 1: Now y'all go see what your face looks like while I'm preaching.
Speaker 1: Everybody gets a look.
Speaker 1: But a mirror is something that shows what is in it.
Speaker 1: If I stand here, I'm seeing exactly the reflection that I'm putting in front of it.
Speaker 1: I am seeing the substance that is in the face of that mirror.
Speaker 1: In this, we have a habit of wanting to show other people their problems.
Speaker 1: Is anybody in the house today guilty?
Speaker 1: Okay, 90% of y'all are lying.
Speaker 1: The rest of y'all, thank you for being truthful.
Speaker 1: The rest of y'all need to be.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have some altar time later Holding the mirror to other people.
Speaker 1: I love to show people how immature they are, especially in an argument.
Speaker 1: I love to show how petty you can be in situations.
Speaker 1: I can tell you you've got some rotten fruit.
Speaker 1: Check your root.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that something is off and you ain't planted right, bro.
Speaker 1: I can tell you oh man, let me give you some wisdom on your marriage.
Speaker 1: I've done it twice, brother.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I can tell you and show you real well what your mess-ups are.
Speaker 1: I can pinpoint your problem from 30 yards away, your problem from 30 yards away, and I can show you really well how to raise your kids and not get brats, because my kid wouldn't act like that.
Speaker 1: You don't see that.
Speaker 1: Your kid's doing it while you ain't looking, because we all see it.
Speaker 1: How you should speak to your spouse oh, I would never talk to my wife that way until I'm home and she ain't done what I asked.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, just kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm not a dictator, but listen to me, I could tell you how much better you should be at giving in tithes.
Speaker 1: I could tell you so much of all my good highlights.
Speaker 1: We live in a day of highlight reels where we post things online, instagram, our little stories.
Speaker 1: You have about maybe five to seven seconds or you could show a little video, but we see all the good stuff.
Speaker 1: Five to seven seconds or you could show a little video, but we see all the good stuff.
Speaker 1: We want everybody to see what we're projecting to be our good, great life.
Speaker 1: We got it all together the perfect wife, the behaving kid that sits and eats all of its vegetables.
Speaker 1: He never talks back.
Speaker 1: He never writes a check bigger than his mouth can cash.
Speaker 1: He's always on point, never acts up anywhere, doesn't get ISS in school, got kicked off the bus for a whole week.
Speaker 1: Am I hitting home with anybody?
Speaker 1: Because I just told you all my stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm good at showing you you, but it is almost impossible for me to see me.
Speaker 1: Is anyone else really good at examining others Through the prayer chain, also known as the gossip line?
Speaker 1: Y'all ain't taking it today, even though we can try to be a very gifted mirror holder for others.
Speaker 1: We have a serious issue to be able to hold it to ourselves, because I know that if I take a moment and look at me, I'll start to really see the imperfections.
Speaker 1: I'll start to really see all the mess ups that I've done.
Speaker 1: I'll start to see when my mouth popped off and I made my wife upset on her birthday.
Speaker 1: That really happened Because I was an idiot and I wasn't worried about examining myself.
Speaker 1: I was worried about what wasn't going the way I wanted it to go and I let one little thing mess up everything and it just.
Speaker 1: Anybody had a day where you get up in the morning, something's just off and it starts to snowball and you throw and sling dirt on everybody in your trail along the way.
Speaker 1: Self-examination, self-reflection.
Speaker 1: We're even better at calling out the generations after us.
Speaker 1: I didn't know until a couple years ago that I was even a millennial.
Speaker 1: I was talking so bad about them I don't know how I missed it, but I did not think I was a millennial.
Speaker 1: I was like a bunch of lazy.
Speaker 1: You know, we are echoes of our parents.
Speaker 1: Hello, whether you like it or not, you are a reflection of where you come from and sometimes that's the main reason why we don't want to look.
Speaker 1: Surely it can't be because of me.
Speaker 1: Surely it wasn't generations ago.
Speaker 1: Surely we don't have anything called the Bible, where these things we hang up on every single day and are dealing with in our culture, in our businesses, in our schools, fighting over sexual immorality and identity and all these other stupid things, when it's so obvious and it's so logical.
Speaker 1: But yet they're trying to.
Speaker 1: I watched a guy the other day get thrown out of somewhere because he didn't agree with what the board was saying.
Speaker 1: The school board, a parent of a kid that goes there, a tax-paying citizen that goes there, was thrown out because he didn't agree with what was being done.
Speaker 1: You know what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He was sitting there.
Speaker 1: He was sitting there doing nothing.
Speaker 1: But it can't be because of me, it can't be because of my parents.
Speaker 1: But if you remember also, when it reflects bad, it also reflects good, because we believe the father of Abraham, the father of Isaac and the father of Jacob.
Speaker 1: This is something that is passed on through lineage.
Speaker 1: We reflect where we come from.
Speaker 1: Here's an example of being a reflection, or the way that you may be reflecting something negative into somebody's life.
Speaker 1: If I constantly tell my child that he's never going to be good at anything and he will not succeed in life, guess what?
Speaker 1: He will probably be a bum or a drug dealer.
Speaker 1: If I tell my wife, even though she disagrees with me on how beautiful I think she is, if I continually tell her how beautiful I think she is, she will have a self-confidence about her to where she feels like she is good enough for her husband.
Speaker 1: If I tell you that you will never get out of debt, that debt is just a part of life, you'll think that you can't do it.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't know.
Speaker 1: I told some of y'all I think I mentioned it, but I started delivering groceries because I'm tired of debt.
Speaker 1: So if y'all want some groceries, just holla, holla, and I started delivering groceries to get some extra money on the side.
Speaker 1: Any free time I got.
Speaker 1: I'll turn on the app and I'll go run and get them.
Speaker 1: I put on.
Speaker 1: Y'all know who Dave Ramsey is.
Speaker 1: He's the get out of debt guru type guy.
Speaker 1: I play his podcast the entire time I'm driving because I need fuel in my tank to keep going and pushing on.
Speaker 1: You can't expect to come to church on Sunday morning with an empty tank because you haven't been filling it up during the week.
Speaker 1: Out of all the hours that we have in a week, you cannot get what you need.
Speaker 1: You cannot be who you become If you only come, you reflect.
Speaker 1: One hour or hour and a half of a Sunday service.
Speaker 1: It will not get you through the week.
Speaker 1: If I tell you you'll never find love, or if you have been telling yourself that you will never find love.
Speaker 1: We're in the love month.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow's the day.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are in trouble.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all hate it.
Speaker 1: You despise it.
Speaker 1: You want to sleep the entire 24 hours and wake up on Tuesday and it's over.
Speaker 1: Thank God Now I can go get some cheap chocolate, because then they put it on sale at Walmart.
Speaker 1: Good comes from everything, my brother.
Speaker 1: When you speak death, it produces death.
Speaker 1: When you reflect, you're giving out what you get in.
Speaker 1: When you speak life, you're giving out life.
Speaker 1: What you allow to speak into you is what you will be reflecting.
Speaker 1: We keep ourselves in the valley of negativity because we're allowing negativity to navigate our minds and hearts.
Speaker 1: What you allow in is what will come out.
Speaker 1: Jesus describes how we should pray in the way that he challenges us to reflect as we are praying to our Heavenly Father.
Speaker 1: Prayer is oftentimes a reflection of our heart.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been praying or maybe you're praying out loud in church or public, or somebody says, hey, will you pray over the meal?
Speaker 1: And you feel like you're stumbling over the entire prayer and you're like man, I stink at praying.
Speaker 1: That's because you ain't been doing it in private, so you can't do it in public, because what you are and who you are behind closed doors will reflect in public.
Speaker 1: Eventually I seriously got onto myself.
Speaker 1: I'm like man.
Speaker 1: Why am I?
Speaker 1: Because I would pray in my head.
Speaker 1: You ever had things in your head that were great.
Speaker 1: Until you spoke them In my head, I was like, oh Lord Jesus, thunder and lightning, and things happen and mountains move and people are healed.
Speaker 1: And then I speak out loud and I was like, oh Lord Jesus, you know, thunder and lightning and things happen and mountains move and people are healed.
Speaker 1: And then I speak out loud and I'm like I'm an idiot.
Speaker 1: What is going on?
Speaker 1: It was a lot better.
Speaker 1: Up here I have tons of million-dollar ideas until I tell my wife and she's like that's kind of dumb.
Speaker 1: It's all right, girl, I got more.
Speaker 1: But you do it in private.
Speaker 1: In public, it begins to reflect.
Speaker 1: If you have no study time in the word, you won't know it when the devil comes and attacks you.
Speaker 1: The reason we sin against God is because we're not digging into the word and hiding it in our hearts and when the enemy comes in like a flood, we're caught off guard.
Speaker 1: It's time for the church people to start reading what we say, we believe, To put and activate the Holy Spirit that is available to every single person under the sound of my voice.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is receive and believe, and the power of God is yours.
Speaker 1: We have the authority in Jesus Christ and through his sacrifice we have been made righteous.
Speaker 1: We are a reflection of God's righteousness when it's filtered through Christ, and you're not reflecting because you're not injecting God in the places you need to be doing, which is behind closed doors.
Speaker 1: The Bible says to find a quiet place.
Speaker 1: Has anybody ever tried to have a quiet place and something?
Speaker 1: Notifications on your phone hello, I turn my phone off.
Speaker 1: I put it where I'm busy, where nobody can contact me except my wife and a couple of staff members from the work board members.
Speaker 1: But anybody else, or any notifications from any app, I don't care what it is.
Speaker 1: Facebook you don't have a hold on me.
Speaker 1: Instagram you don't have a hold on me.
Speaker 1: Youtube I completely took all notifications off YouTube because it was just so overwhelming.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I'll be trying to dig into the Word and ask God whatever you have for me, whatever gifts you have for me, whatever anointing you have for me, whatever path you have for me, whatever anointing you have for me, whatever path you have for me, carve it out before me, lord, and I will step.
Speaker 1: Whatever you have for me.
Speaker 1: If I didn't pay so much for that phone, I'd throw it.
Speaker 1: But we're not reflecting Christ because we have given up on the crucifixion.
Speaker 1: And I'm not given up on the crucifixion and I'm not talking about Jesus' crucifixion, I'm talking about your flesh.
Speaker 1: If you are not sacrificing your flesh, if you're not filtering what comes out of your mouth come on, it's got to be on a t-shirt or something.
Speaker 1: Church people hurt people.
Speaker 1: We want to talk about the world getting so offended.
Speaker 1: Say something crossways to somebody at church and everybody knows about it.
Speaker 1: The filter system has become the gossip chain and we no longer want to reserve our attitudes, but we want to let them know how we feel.
Speaker 1: While I'm just speaking truth no, you're just breathing poison Disguised as truth.
Speaker 1: The reflection of who your father is is showing Y'all wasn't ready for that one Prayer.
Speaker 1: Reading your word, digging into there's a reason that I give you that challenge of 17.
Speaker 1: It's very easy.
Speaker 1: I started with 15, five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading the word, five minutes of worship.
Speaker 1: It's because these are baby steps to get you mature in Christ in your house, because I cannot lead you to something and make you do it, because when we're not face-to-face I don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: We like to talk about what is it called Accountability partners.
Speaker 1: You have to be your accountability partner because you eventually will be alone by yourself.
Speaker 1: You have to be wise enough.
Speaker 1: You have to be strong enough to say whatever the devil brings my way, I will actively be seeking God's face so that, when he comes against me.
Speaker 1: My Lord will raise a standard, as he always promises and always delivers.
Speaker 1: That reflection, that reflection, what are you reflecting?
Speaker 1: What are you showing?
Speaker 1: Are you giving when God tells you to give?
Speaker 1: You showing, are you giving when God tells you to give?
Speaker 1: Can I tell you, I have passed dudes on the corner that are holding up signs, even though I felt I should give what I had in my pocket.
Speaker 1: You know why?
Speaker 1: Because I let my flesh and my earthly mind, my huge brain, that I got apparently smarter than God.
Speaker 1: And when God told me to do something, I thought up all the reasons why I shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Because, lord, I know he's going to get a drink.
Speaker 1: I know he's going to go buy some drugs.
Speaker 1: I can see him twitching right now.
Speaker 1: How many times has God told us to reflect him and show his love?
Speaker 1: And we're too busy wallowing in our flesh.
Speaker 1: Can we call it what it is?
Speaker 1: If you're disobeying God or you're not living out the fruits of the Spirit, you are living out the fruits of your flesh is, if you're disobeying God or you're not living out the fruits of the Spirit, you are living out the fruits of your flesh.
Speaker 1: Now, this does not say that we all don't have something to work on, because we all do, but we have to start looking at ourselves and stop pointing fingers at other people.
Speaker 1: We cannot tell the world to get their stuff together and stop sinning when we will not be led by the Spirit in our personal lives.
Speaker 1: Jesus tells his disciples and I want to call this a mirror principle in Matthew, chapter 6.
Speaker 1: So if you're taking notes, write this down.
Speaker 1: You can look it up later, but I don't have it up on the thing, but I'm going to read it right quick.
Speaker 1: And this is just how Jesus is telling the disciples to pray.
Speaker 1: It's very important.
Speaker 1: It is a chapter 6, verse 9 through 15.
Speaker 1: It says this, then, is how you should pray Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Speaker 1: Your kingdom come.
Speaker 1: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, on earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1: He's talking about a reflection what is in heaven.
Speaker 1: We have the power and the ability to obtain on earth.
Speaker 1: We have the power, through the Holy Spirit, to call things into existence.
Speaker 1: There's no pain, there's no suffering, there's no hurt, there's no tears.
Speaker 1: In heaven there is no sickness.
Speaker 1: We have the ability in Christ Jesus, who died for us, who then ascended to the Father.
Speaker 1: We have the ability to call down miracles, as it is in heaven, lord, here on earth, let it be done.
Speaker 1: We have that power and we have the authority to be that.
Speaker 1: Reflection In 11, it says this give us today our daily bread.
Speaker 1: My wife loves that verse.
Speaker 1: She said during the fast, when we were kicking out bread she was like not.
Speaker 1: In the Bible it says I need bread, I love my wife.
Speaker 1: Verse 12, it says this and forgive our debts.
Speaker 1: Now, listen to this.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 1: He's telling him yes, ask God to forgive you of what you owe, because we can never repay what he has sacrificed for us.
Speaker 1: It is a free gift that we cannot earn.
Speaker 1: You cannot work hard enough in the church, you cannot get on the staff of a church, you cannot speak in tongues long until the day that you die.
Speaker 1: And God is saying listen, all you have to do is ask, and it's yours.
Speaker 1: But it says this Listen to this.
Speaker 1: He wrapped it up with this Forgive us our debts as we forgive others who have debts against us.
Speaker 1: We have to be a reflection of forgiveness if we want to be forgiven.
Speaker 1: We are so guilty of asking God to give us things and we don't want to reflect it to others.
Speaker 1: God is trying to give you something so good and so sweet and you won't pass it along.
Speaker 1: And I feel that that puts God on reserve mode until you learn Verse 13,.
Speaker 1: It says this, the mirror principle do it and it'll be done to you, verse 13, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Speaker 1: Verse 14, for if you forgive, come on now.
Speaker 1: If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
Speaker 1: You have to be a reflection of forgiveness or you will not be forgiven.
Speaker 1: This is how serious God is about reflecting who he is to other people.
Speaker 1: This is not a joke.
Speaker 1: Verse 15, it says but if you do not forgive others of their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.
Speaker 1: The reflection principle here, the mirror principle here, that he's trying to lay out, is that if you do not forgive in your heart, you may never have that conversation of forgiveness and redemption.
Speaker 1: But there's something that breaks when you start to have it in here.
Speaker 1: When you allow God to take that emptiness from you, when you allow God to take that bitterness and that contrite heart away from you, something in here begins to break and the devil knows that.
Speaker 1: That's why he wants to get you mad at him, where you always are bitter towards them.
Speaker 1: And when you reflect something, we're all reflections.
Speaker 1: Whether you like it or not, we are reflections.
Speaker 1: If you have bitterness in your heart, you will reflect it and give it out to others.
Speaker 1: If you have anger in your heart, you will reflect it and give it out to others.
Speaker 1: But if you have Jesus, if you have Jesus, you can reflect it and give it out to others.
Speaker 1: There is nothing that can stop you when you give everything that you are over to God.
Speaker 1: There is nothing.
Speaker 1: There is no devil in hell.
Speaker 1: We can storm the gates of hell and take it on.
Speaker 1: We have the power and the authority in Jesus Christ To go to his camp and take back what he's trying to steal.
Speaker 1: We are a reflection of that power.
Speaker 1: You are a reflection of that anointing.
Speaker 1: You don't have to beg God for it.
Speaker 1: You just got to be willing.
Speaker 1: Be open, be available, be willing to say God, whatever you ask of me, I will do it, amen.
Speaker 1: Whatever you ask.
Speaker 1: That's a dangerous prayer.
Speaker 1: Next month we're going to be talking and speaking on living dangerously.
Speaker 1: It's time for the church to stop being so reserved in who we are and who we know God is.
Speaker 1: But it starts with self-examination.
Speaker 1: Week one we're going to be talking about search me, oh God.
Speaker 1: Going to be talking about Search me, oh God.
Speaker 1: That is one of the most dangerous prayers because what that does is everything that you are, everything that you have.
Speaker 1: You have to let him see it.
Speaker 1: There it is again.
Speaker 1: But if you do not forgive others of their sins, you will not be forgiven.
Speaker 1: It's a reflection, it's the mirror principle.
Speaker 1: You do and it will be done.
Speaker 1: If you don't do, you don't get it either.
Speaker 1: Not everybody gets the trophy.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Some of you are like well, man, not everybody gets a participation trophy because you ain't participating.
Speaker 1: Oh, come on worship service where you at.
Speaker 1: We want God to move in our services, but we're not primed up before we get here.
Speaker 1: You know, if you read in the Bible, you look, and when God does something, he does it through his people.
Speaker 1: Something, he does it through his people.
Speaker 1: The problem is we have full pews of full vessels that are not emptied out for God to start pouring into.
Speaker 1: If you're filled up with something else, if you're reflecting something else, if something else is filling up your mirror, you will not have the room to reflect God.
Speaker 1: It's a mirror principle.
Speaker 1: When you step, he steps.
Speaker 1: We see this again in James 4, verse 8, and he says this draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Speaker 1: Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Speaker 1: I love James.
Speaker 1: He don't pull no punches.
Speaker 1: He's saying if you want to see God, you got to put in the work.
Speaker 1: If you want to see God, you got to get everything out of your life, everything out of the way, including you.
Speaker 1: If Peter, the moron that he was, he was loud mouthed but he was bold.
Speaker 1: He was obscene and apparently violent because he cut off someone's ear, but he thought he was doing a righteous thing because it was to protect Jesus, but he didn't understand the mission that Jesus had to go, so then later he could come.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm not going to say sometimes every single time you put your personality traits in the hand of God, he can use you.
Speaker 1: Peter was one of the first ones to preach after the day of Pentecost.
Speaker 1: God used him in spite of himself, because he was willing to put who he was aside and he said God empty me and spirit fill me.
Speaker 1: We have to be willing as a church to say God empty me, spirit fill me, because if not we'll be walking around with salvation but no power.
Speaker 1: Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Speaker 1: Everything is pulling.
Speaker 1: Listen, I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1: Last Sunday Brother Jim did, or who was it?
Speaker 1: Sunday before Brother Jim came up here and he said something and it was almost straight out of my notes.
Speaker 1: My book is closed up here.
Speaker 1: Today he did the same thing.
Speaker 1: Lord cares about y'all, but he knows also you don't listen very well, so you've got to get it twice.
Speaker 1: You fell for that Like aw.
Speaker 1: Everything is pulling for our attention.
Speaker 1: We live in a day of mass distractions.
Speaker 1: Everything is pulling for your attention.
Speaker 1: We struggle so hard reflecting God because we have so many distractions pulling at us.
Speaker 1: But we need to and we have to be still and know that he is God when we calm our minds and give true focus to God, ridding ourselves of all distractions, finding a quiet place to pray and read.
Speaker 1: The challenge of 15, listen, 15 is not hard and two of them you can do at the exact same time.
Speaker 1: It's a small step to get you to want to go deeper.
Speaker 1: You know what I found in the word.
Speaker 1: First of all, I love how alive it is.
Speaker 1: You ever read a passage you read 10 years ago and you're like, how did I not see this before?
Speaker 1: You read something?
Speaker 1: And you're like, wow, this is for me today and I know I know this scripture.
Speaker 1: I didn't go through this five years ago and I know I read the Bible at least once through by then and God is just pouring it out.
Speaker 1: He cares for you that much that he put life in his words so that you can bear them.
Speaker 1: Finding a quiet place and praying.
Speaker 1: Listen to me, church, if you want to see miracles happen in salvation people coming to know Jesus.
Speaker 1: I want to wear this baptistry out over here because people are coming to the knowing salvation of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I want people to come and know Jesus every month.
Speaker 1: We can't afford the water bill.
Speaker 1: They're coming so much.
Speaker 1: That happens when you start doing your work.
Speaker 1: Didn't expect that one, did you?
Speaker 1: That happens when we start stepping up and doing what God has called us to do.
Speaker 1: If you only pray, you don't have to lift a hammer, you don't have to mow a yard, you don't have to preach a sermon, you don't have to pick up an instrument.
Speaker 1: All God wants for you to do is give him everything and you, as a collective body, we will change this city.
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, yesterday morning, we had and it was cold, oh my goodness, I couldn't feel my hands.
Speaker 1: It was cold, it was wet, it was rainy and we went over to First Assembly on 4th Street and there I don't know, maybe 100 people there, maybe a little more, but we had 30 groups of people.
Speaker 1: There were numbers all along the sanctuary 30 groups of people and every single.
Speaker 1: All along the sanctuary 30 groups of people and every single one.
Speaker 1: What happens is they map out 30 entrances into Longview and they hand out packets for each one and they give us stakes for the ground.
Speaker 1: It is time the church of God start laying stakes where it's God's ground, the enemy.
Speaker 1: For too long we have allowed him to advance to where now he's in the church and we stay so occupied defending him off daily on petty things.
Speaker 1: He gets us distracted and we start moving further away from God and we don't even realize.
Speaker 1: You have to find a quiet place.
Speaker 1: We went with our group over there.
Speaker 1: There's two things that we're praying in this group we are speaking and binding the devils of witchcraft.
Speaker 1: You don't think it exists In Longview, texas.
Speaker 1: We had to move locations at the last minute.
Speaker 1: They thought they were going to be slick.
Speaker 1: They gave us a talk about being followed and sexual impurity and immorality is running rampant.
Speaker 1: Don't believe me.
Speaker 1: Look at any commercial today.
Speaker 1: They're trying to implement us to where it's nothing.
Speaker 1: Sin is still something.
Speaker 1: You can get mad at me.
Speaker 1: Listen, you are welcome here.
Speaker 1: If you are a homosexual, god can get a hold of you like he got a hold of me.
Speaker 1: God can change your life like he changed mine, but sin is still sin.
Speaker 1: It is still sin.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how you paint it up, it doesn't matter what you try to make it look like.
Speaker 1: It is still sin.
Speaker 1: And a turd painted is still a turd.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's the only thing that came to my mind.
Speaker 1: And sin is disgusting.
Speaker 1: It's gross.
Speaker 1: It's a perversion of what God wants Y'all.
Speaker 1: The devil is not doing anything new, he's just perverting old truths.
Speaker 1: It's okay to speak out against sin.
Speaker 1: In the love of God, we do not have to tolerate things invading our living rooms, coming through the screen or coming through our phones.
Speaker 1: You have to find a quiet place, because in that quiet place, when the change begins to happen, all of a sudden your reflection shifts.
Speaker 1: Who you are changes.
Speaker 1: Allow God to pour into us.
Speaker 1: Allow God to speak in us and through us.
Speaker 1: Let your will be done here, as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1: Then we will see miracles happen, lives being transformed, marriages being restored before our very eyes, the lost coming to know Jesus, addictions no longer have a hold and the captive being set free.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been set free, I want you to stand to your feet and give God some praise for what he has done in your life, if you just do it for 10 seconds and you praise God like the king of king that he is.
Speaker 1: We serve a mighty God.
Speaker 1: We serve a gracious God, a good God that loves us so much that he gave his son in spite of ourselves.
Speaker 1: We serve an awesome God who is worthy of our praise daily, not just on a Sunday.
Speaker 1: But we have this thing as you remain standing, we're going to finish here pretty quick.
Speaker 1: We're going to finish here pretty quick, and what we do is we start allowing the devil to dictate what we're supposed to be reflecting.
Speaker 1: We allow him in our marriages, we allow him to shatter the mirror that God has been building in our lives.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was going to break that easy.
Speaker 1: That was pretty easy.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, we're looking back at a mirror that is so broken and so distorted and so manipulated by the enemy, and we can't even see ourselves clearly anymore through the mirror that God has placed in our lives.
Speaker 1: When we start self-examining, we don't like what we see, and so we run from the correction of the Spirit, and so we run from people who know God, because we don't want anybody to tell us how to be.
Speaker 1: We don't want anybody to see us to be.
Speaker 1: We don't want anybody to see us to be vulnerable, to open up ourselves, to be able to be loved in spite of us.
Speaker 1: But that's what God did.
Speaker 1: That's what God does Every single day.
Speaker 1: His mercy and His grace is new for you.
Speaker 1: For me, we have a culture that tries to tell us how to act, how to live, what to believe, how you should vote, how you should raise your kids, how your marriage should be, what love is, what size of pants you should wear, how your hairstyle should be, anything you could think of.
Speaker 1: The culture is trying to ingrain us, and we allow them to become our reflection and build a mirror.
Speaker 1: We are conditioned to be confused about sexual immorality.
Speaker 1: These are demonic things.
Speaker 1: This is not a game.
Speaker 1: This is why you, now more than ever, need to get serious in your quiet time with you and God, because we serve a chain-breaking God.
Speaker 1: But if His people are not calling on Him, if His people are not being, if we aren't the willing vessels here, he will move somewhere else and pour it out.
Speaker 1: Because I believe in the city of Longview and in this state and in this world, we are going to be the place that God starts His mighty move Revival being poured out, lives being changed, mental illness being wiped away and minds being cleared Depression.
Speaker 1: I bind you in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We allow these reflections, the culture, to give our self definition and self worth a new name.
Speaker 1: So much and so thick between us and God that we can't even know who we are anymore.
Speaker 1: We can't even feel God's presence because we've surrounded ourselves with these walls and definitions that they want us to live by and eventually your mirror becomes broken so you can't see yourself clearly anymore.
Speaker 1: I believe today God is going to restore that vision in you, in your families, in this church, to give you clarity, to rewrite your self-definition.
Speaker 1: God is going to make some people new here today.
Speaker 1: When you leave here you will not be the same and you can start reflecting what God's called you to do in the first place.
Speaker 1: Don't come to this side because there's glass.
Speaker 1: I really didn't think it was going to break like that.
Speaker 1: I'm just that strong.
Speaker 1: That's what we'll stick with.
Speaker 1: But if you need, if you need to rewrite your definition in Christ today, if you can't see yourself clearly anymore, you don't even know who you are.
Speaker 1: You have lost who you are.
Speaker 1: You look in the mirror and you're not satisfied.
Speaker 1: You have no clue what you're looking at anymore.
Speaker 1: It is so disfigured and dysfunctional.
Speaker 1: Disengaged when I wasn't living right and I had this distorted view of myself and I thought I could only be who I wanted to be on drugs and alcohol and validated by women and whatever else and all the friends that were friends until the money was gone all these things I allowed to define me Once I lived in brokenness, once I started telling God whatever you want to do in my life.
Speaker 1: I am completely yours.
Speaker 1: He began to put back the pieces.
Speaker 1: And when he puts back the pieces, there's no more distortion, there is a spirit of brokenness.
Speaker 1: Without being broke.
Speaker 1: There is healing.
Speaker 1: There is healing in your mind, in your marriage, in your jobs, in our schools.
Speaker 1: I bind the devil when he's trying to come and get our children.
Speaker 1: I rebuke that in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's not the devil's house, it's God's.
Speaker 1: We believe that in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: If you have brokenness and you need to figure out a new self-definition, from God and not the culture, be brave and come down.
Speaker 1: If you want to start seeing yourself clearly again, you say well, we didn't have heads bowed, you're right, it's time to be brave.
Speaker 1: If you want God to move, your step of faith will begin to start making things happen.