WEBVTT 00:00:03.806 --> 00:00:07.634 Actually, we're going to show a video, but we're already transitioned, so let's just go ahead and keep going. 00:00:07.634 --> 00:00:11.851 It's about the same verse that I'm reading it from right now. 00:00:11.851 --> 00:00:16.972 So my key verse today is this Isaiah 41, verse 10. 00:00:16.972 --> 00:00:20.125 So do not fear. 00:00:20.125 --> 00:00:21.792 Say fear, fear. 00:00:21.792 --> 00:00:26.146 Do not fear, for I am with you. 00:00:26.146 --> 00:00:30.954 Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. 00:00:30.954 --> 00:00:35.087 I will strengthen you and help you. 00:00:35.087 --> 00:00:40.258 I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:41.441 Let's pray, father. 00:00:41.441 --> 00:00:43.667 We thank you so much for your presence. 00:00:43.667 --> 00:00:45.951 That has already been here through our worship service. 00:00:45.951 --> 00:00:56.149 I pray a continuation, lord, thank you for your blood, thank you for your sacrifice, thank you for becoming the sacrificial lamb in place of what we truly deserve. 00:00:56.149 --> 00:00:58.347 But yet you took it on our behalf. 00:00:58.347 --> 00:01:02.990 Father, we are so grateful and we praise you today just for who you are. 00:01:02.990 --> 00:01:06.290 Continue on as we read the word Lord to bless this service. 00:01:06.290 --> 00:01:09.161 Move on the hardest of hearts, penetrate with the word In your name. 00:01:09.161 --> 00:01:10.165 We pray amen. 00:01:12.340 --> 00:01:18.370 I often pray this when we do a prayer before the service and the worship team. 00:01:18.370 --> 00:01:41.272 We meet in the back kitchen back there, that's through that door, and if I am praying, I pray that the hardest heart that comes in here or that is online that the word of God penetrate through the hardest of hearts, because the word of God has a way about it to penetrate like an arrow and embrace you at the same time with full love. 00:01:41.272 --> 00:01:43.162 It's so weird. 00:01:43.162 --> 00:01:46.728 It's like one of those things where your mama tells she loves you and then she gives you a spanking. 00:01:46.728 --> 00:01:48.753 My dad used to do that. 00:01:48.753 --> 00:01:49.174 All the time. 00:01:49.174 --> 00:02:01.429 He would explain to me before every whooping we were from the South, when you get spankings, we got whoopings and he would explain to me why I got in trouble. 00:02:01.429 --> 00:02:21.123 He made sure that I understood that there was something that I had done wrong, that I had sinned against my father and, being a pastor, I'm sure he sprinkled in some messages here and there and he probably has some good messages for his Sunday service to come, but God does that to us. 00:02:21.183 --> 00:02:49.764 I was talking with my wife and we were talking about fathers being involved in people's life and there's something about a leader, a manly leader, being in the home, because there's something about when you have a father or a father figure it may not be biological, but someone in your life who has that place in your heart and in your life that it shows you and displays the love of God from the father's position, when we actually the reason. 00:02:49.764 --> 00:03:00.231 The enemy is trying to dismantle and distract us from men and women defined by biology, trying to confuse us on what is what is. 00:03:00.231 --> 00:03:04.752 Because if he can get the father out of the picture, then they will never understand the love of a father. 00:03:04.752 --> 00:03:06.960 Is because if he can get the father out of the picture, then they will never understand the love of a father. 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:19.847 And so he's attacking our children so that we have generations being raised up that do not understand what a father means, because they're trying to pull away the definition of what even a man is. 00:03:19.847 --> 00:03:23.492 That was free. 00:03:23.492 --> 00:03:27.125 That wasn't even in my sermon, so today we're going to be talking about. 00:03:27.164 --> 00:03:31.907 If you have not been following us, you can always go back to the Connect Church YouTube channel. 00:03:31.907 --> 00:03:35.628 We have every single message, every single sermon series on there. 00:03:35.628 --> 00:03:42.186 We also have a Facebook page and we've been going through a series this entire summer of detox. 00:03:42.186 --> 00:03:59.186 For the last few years, we have had a lot of pollution, whether it be media, whether it be sickness, whether it be disease, whether it be distractions or dismantling of our homes. 00:03:59.186 --> 00:04:06.834 We have a lot of pollution and the pollution that us living in fear. 00:04:06.834 --> 00:04:17.180 They can maneuver us and manipulate us into doing whatever we become scared of, whatever they have, that they keep repeating over and over again. 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:24.327 If you have something that you once believed, it was usually because it was repeated over and over and over and over, whether it was true or not. 00:04:24.327 --> 00:04:25.959 If it it was repeated over and over, and over and over, whether it was true or not. 00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:32.781 If it's constantly repeated over and over and over, you eventually begin to believe it as if it is true. 00:04:32.781 --> 00:04:36.788 We have scare pollution all through. 00:04:36.788 --> 00:04:40.374 I hate we don't have any kind of network tv at our house. 00:04:40.374 --> 00:04:45.473 The services we have we pay for, and if i't like it I will cancel it in a heartbeat. 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:47.982 Psalms 23, 4,. 00:04:47.982 --> 00:04:50.567 It says this Life seems this way a lot of times. 00:04:50.567 --> 00:05:05.994 It says even when I walk not if, even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid or fear, for you are close beside me, your rod and your staff. 00:05:05.994 --> 00:05:08.141 They protect and they comfort me. 00:05:08.141 --> 00:05:16.387 We love to quote this scripture and we love to repeat it over and over and over, as if it says we won't be in the valley. 00:05:16.387 --> 00:05:20.077 But that's not the assurance that it brings. 00:05:20.077 --> 00:05:29.035 It promises that you will be in the darkest valleys, but you have the blessed assurance that God is going to be beside you throughout this journey. 00:05:29.035 --> 00:05:30.944 There will be darkest valleys. 00:05:30.944 --> 00:05:32.370 It even says darkest. 00:05:32.370 --> 00:05:36.211 This is more than a PG version. 00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:40.471 Other translations say the valley of the shadow of death. 00:05:40.471 --> 00:05:49.245 I don't know what they were trying to convey here, but that does not encourage me, because I don't want to go through those valleys. 00:05:49.245 --> 00:05:50.649 I don't want to go through those dark times. 00:05:50.649 --> 00:05:55.019 I don't want to go through those valleys of loneliness and anxiety and depression. 00:05:55.019 --> 00:05:56.141 I don't want to go through those. 00:05:56.141 --> 00:06:00.721 But oftentimes in life, how many of you know that we cannot control what happens to us? 00:06:00.721 --> 00:06:04.291 We can only control of how we respond to it. 00:06:04.291 --> 00:06:13.173 I'm not 100% sure what the valley of death is, but it scares the dickens out of me and I'm not 100% sure what the dickens are. 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:29.446 And even though the context of the scripture pretty much guarantees extreme dark valleys, depression, anxiety and, most of all, fear, he promises that he will be right beside us in the midst of every dark place. 00:06:29.446 --> 00:06:35.225 God, throughout the scripture, is called the marvelous light to come into his marvelous light. 00:06:35.225 --> 00:06:37.516 There is no darkness that his light cannot light up. 00:06:37.516 --> 00:06:42.346 There is no valley, that his hand, that it is too steep for his hand to reach down and pull you out of. 00:06:42.346 --> 00:07:03.723 And a lot of times in my personal experience, I want God to pull me out of the valley, but instead, like the scripture says, he ends up walking it with me, that he doesn't pull me out, but he comes down on my level and comes with me through the dark times. 00:07:03.723 --> 00:07:07.571 He promises he'll be there. 00:07:07.571 --> 00:07:13.983 And then he says the same rod that comforts will also correct. 00:07:13.983 --> 00:07:14.764 Now what does that say? 00:07:14.764 --> 00:07:27.442 If you go through Scripture and study this very intently or you've ever read the Word of God, you understand that it loves to correct wrong, it stands up for righteousness, it stands for truth, it stands for justice. 00:07:27.442 --> 00:07:31.591 It is something that will correct you and comfort you at the same time. 00:07:31.591 --> 00:07:39.884 We see it in this verse right here, one verse, and it promises we will be in the dark, but yet, even in those dark valleys, he will be beside us. 00:07:41.466 --> 00:07:42.548 A man named John Wesley. 00:07:42.548 --> 00:07:49.182 He said this this I have never known more than 15 minutes of anxiety or fear. 00:07:49.182 --> 00:08:04.809 When I feel fearful emotions overtaking me, I just close my eyes and I thank God that he is still on the throne, reigning over everything. 00:08:04.809 --> 00:08:09.216 Nothing is out of his reach, nothing is out of his control. 00:08:09.216 --> 00:08:14.790 It may seem sometimes that the enemy is winning, but I've read the end of the book. 00:08:14.790 --> 00:08:17.565 There is no competition, it's already been won. 00:08:17.565 --> 00:08:30.336 So we have no reason to fear, we have no reason to fret, we have no reason to worry because our God, who sat on the throne in the Old Testament, is the same God who felt in that time and place. 00:08:30.336 --> 00:08:35.769 We needed a Savior in that moment so that today we can be saved, filled and redeemed. 00:08:35.769 --> 00:08:40.630 And then he went away and sent a comforter, so that then we could be filled and have power. 00:08:40.630 --> 00:08:56.690 Have power, and I thank God that he is still on the throne, reigning over everything, and I take comfort in his control over the affairs of my life. 00:08:56.730 --> 00:09:06.433 You see when your perspective changes and you don't focus on the problem but you focus on the master, when you focus on the Lord, when you have God always. 00:09:06.433 --> 00:09:25.881 The Bible says to think on things above, because if we get distracted from what we see around us, that is right in our faces, we will always be depressed, we will always be anxious, we will always feel defeated because we're not focusing on things above, we're not remembering who God really is, not focusing on things above. 00:09:25.881 --> 00:09:26.725 We're not remembering who God really is. 00:09:26.725 --> 00:09:34.107 And no matter what the circumstance around me, no matter what I face, no matter what obstacle, no matter what opposition, for God it is an opportunity for divine destiny in my life. 00:09:34.107 --> 00:09:38.442 And all I have to do is say his name and the atmosphere changes. 00:09:38.442 --> 00:09:43.190 And God is not a microwave. 00:09:43.190 --> 00:09:51.046 He's on oven time y'all. 00:09:51.046 --> 00:09:51.687 He's a crock pot. 00:09:51.687 --> 00:09:52.128 I like that. 00:09:52.128 --> 00:09:53.289 He's a crock pot. 00:09:53.289 --> 00:10:00.613 You put on and you just walk away and you say you got this, god. 00:10:00.613 --> 00:10:05.440 And you come back, you go about your day and you come back to the situation and you're like oh, my goodness, it's done. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:09.270 You mean, I didn't have to sit here and try to piddle with it the whole time to make it work. 00:10:09.270 --> 00:10:12.322 Isn't that what we do with God? 00:10:12.322 --> 00:10:16.831 We want to give God a grocery list of ingredients. 00:10:16.831 --> 00:10:17.559 We would like to be. 00:10:17.559 --> 00:10:18.120 Oh, come on. 00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:22.587 We go to the store thinking we're going to shop for it today. 00:10:22.587 --> 00:10:26.554 We get back home and we're like well, if it's me, I don't know what to do. 00:10:26.554 --> 00:10:29.027 Like I see my wife just throw it in there. 00:10:29.027 --> 00:10:30.124 I guess that's what happens. 00:10:30.124 --> 00:10:36.831 And it doesn't work that way With anything that is for good ingestion, you first have to prepare it. 00:10:40.061 --> 00:10:45.592 The Word of God is prepared and set up in such a way that all you have to do is read it. 00:10:45.592 --> 00:10:51.986 You don't have to try to go through and rewrite it, it has already been written. 00:10:51.986 --> 00:10:55.087 All you have to do is be faithful in reading it. 00:10:55.087 --> 00:10:56.606 That's why I've issued a challenge. 00:10:56.606 --> 00:10:58.567 I say it almost every Sunday. 00:10:58.567 --> 00:10:59.168 Why? 00:10:59.168 --> 00:11:04.645 Because about the time I get tired of saying it is about the time you start saying, oh, this might work. 00:11:04.645 --> 00:11:06.221 So I'm going to say it again. 00:11:06.221 --> 00:11:08.267 We have a challenge of 17. 00:11:09.028 --> 00:11:29.490 One small act of faith every single day, even if it's just stepping out of the bed when you don't want to, even if it's looking at the spouse that you don't love anymore, and you say, god, you are going to fix this, you are going to restore this, even if it's stepping out on that leg that has been giving you issues or back pain, and you say, every step I'm going to step, my Father steps with me. 00:11:29.490 --> 00:11:32.750 Even in the darkest valleys, he is going to walk beside me. 00:11:32.750 --> 00:11:35.589 Even in my sickness, he is going to heal me. 00:11:35.589 --> 00:11:40.852 And when you begin to walk it out, his Word comes alive in your situation. 00:11:40.852 --> 00:11:44.350 Because His Word is alive and active wherever you are. 00:11:44.350 --> 00:11:59.493 If you have been filling yourself with the word, the word is there and the problem is we go to spiritual battles because the Bible tells us that over the atmosphere there are evil and spirits that are around. 00:11:59.493 --> 00:12:04.061 That's not to spook you, this isn't a horror movie, it's not Halloween yet, but I'm telling you. 00:12:04.061 --> 00:12:21.708 The word of God says it, and if you look at some people you can know you got a spirit on you, you about to find Jesus, and when you start to speak these things, when you start to see with your spiritual eyes, all of a sudden what you see physically doesn't matter anymore. 00:12:21.708 --> 00:12:27.706 And it's not always that pouring the word into you changes your situation, but it will definitely change you. 00:12:29.140 --> 00:12:33.284 Every letter that Paul wrote a majority, not every majority of letters that Paul wrote. 00:12:33.284 --> 00:12:45.065 He was in prison and he wrote some of the most encouraging letters to other Christians who were out free, Because your situation should not define how you feel about God. 00:12:45.065 --> 00:12:47.400 Your situation does not dwarf God. 00:12:47.400 --> 00:12:59.134 He is the Almighty, he is the King of Kings and no matter what you face or come against, you do not have to fear because the Lord of hosts is still on the throne. 00:12:59.134 --> 00:13:03.445 You do not have to fear or be dismayed. 00:13:03.947 --> 00:13:05.711 Now, there are two different types of fear. 00:13:05.711 --> 00:13:06.393 There's only two. 00:13:06.393 --> 00:13:10.551 There's good and healthy fear and there's bad and unhealthy. 00:13:10.551 --> 00:13:11.825 A good, healthy fear. 00:13:11.825 --> 00:13:13.506 I touched that stove one time. 00:13:13.506 --> 00:13:18.886 I don't touch it again because I ate stupid twice, so I have a healthy fear of it. 00:13:18.886 --> 00:13:22.090 I have a healthy fear for my father. 00:13:22.090 --> 00:13:23.945 Him and I are. 00:13:23.945 --> 00:13:25.163 So this is how it is. 00:13:25.163 --> 00:13:28.465 Your father or your parent, and then you're a child. 00:13:28.465 --> 00:13:32.763 Okay, you don't get like this until you start having kids and really understand what the world's like. 00:13:32.763 --> 00:13:45.104 And even when you're like this, he's still a little bit like this, because I still have reverence and respect for him, even though he talks to me like a friend, the same with God. 00:13:45.104 --> 00:13:53.160 We have that opportunity of relationship and we begin to mature in Christ and we begin to really know God and we're like God. 00:13:53.160 --> 00:13:53.721 I need your help. 00:13:53.721 --> 00:13:55.225 I need your help and he's like it's okay. 00:13:55.225 --> 00:13:58.033 It's okay, you're a grown-up now. 00:13:58.033 --> 00:14:00.461 It'll be okay. 00:14:00.461 --> 00:14:02.145 You've lasted this long. 00:14:02.145 --> 00:14:03.548 You didn't die yet You're fine. 00:14:03.548 --> 00:14:05.712 Did you die? 00:14:05.712 --> 00:14:12.844 And the bad, unhealthy fear? 00:14:12.844 --> 00:14:24.969 And this is what a whole lot of us suffer from, because if you allow this unhealthy fear to take root in seed and plants in your heart, that fruit begins to grow and it will dwarf and choke out the fruits of the spirit. 00:14:24.969 --> 00:14:32.004 It will kill and extinguish your faith. 00:14:32.024 --> 00:14:33.530 Things that you know excuse me, things that you know in your mind are true. 00:14:33.530 --> 00:14:35.600 You've read them, you've seen them with your own eyes, but you begin to doubt. 00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:37.946 It reminds me of the woman with the issue of blood. 00:14:37.946 --> 00:14:41.763 She had tried everything and she knew if I could just get to Jesus. 00:14:41.763 --> 00:14:46.461 Well, for 12 years she suffered with that and 12 years ago a little girl was born, and her daddy. 00:14:46.461 --> 00:14:49.049 On that same day they both found Jesus. 00:14:49.049 --> 00:14:55.431 And what he said was so it reigns true in my heart. 00:14:55.700 --> 00:14:58.268 Have you ever believed that God can do things for other people? 00:14:58.268 --> 00:15:01.681 You see him work, you see the work of his mighty hand, you know. 00:15:01.681 --> 00:15:04.288 You know he can do things for other people, you pray. 00:15:04.288 --> 00:15:08.134 When you pray for them, you lay hands on them, like the Bible says to do, and you have faith. 00:15:08.134 --> 00:15:10.849 But when you ask God for something for you, you kind of doubt it. 00:15:10.849 --> 00:15:17.365 And this man said God, jesus, I believe, but help my unbelief. 00:15:17.365 --> 00:15:27.263 Sometimes it's not an if or it's a both and and sometimes that fear that we have and doubts that we have actually produce. 00:15:27.263 --> 00:15:32.416 It pushes us to a place that is uncomfortable. 00:15:32.416 --> 00:15:43.533 It takes us to a place to where you may seclude yourself, but sometimes God has to allow us to find a place of seclusion so that we will find him truly. 00:15:43.533 --> 00:15:53.774 He has to take us out of those bad relationships, those bad variables in our life, and get us alone to where he can really speak and we can clearly hear. 00:15:56.865 --> 00:16:00.677 I had a grandmother it was my mom's adopted mom on her side. 00:16:00.677 --> 00:16:03.913 It's funny now, but it wasn't then. 00:16:03.913 --> 00:16:06.706 She's passed on to be with Dolores, so she's probably looking down right now. 00:16:06.706 --> 00:16:08.568 She sees my notes. 00:16:08.568 --> 00:16:10.051 I got them open right there. 00:16:10.051 --> 00:16:21.211 But she, my grandfather, passed when I was a young kid, her husband and so a lot of times when someone passes and they're older, you know they begin to decline real quick. 00:16:21.424 --> 00:16:31.856 So she I don't know why she was never like this, as far as I know, being a child but she all of a sudden started living in an atmosphere of fear all the time. 00:16:31.856 --> 00:16:38.975 And we were living in Missouri, she was in Arkansas, we were kind of we could go and visit her and stuff, and she was living on her own, she was doing good. 00:16:38.975 --> 00:16:47.993 And then something along the way I don't know what the circumstance was, but something along the way gripped her heart in such a way that she thought that someone was constantly gonna break in her house. 00:16:47.993 --> 00:16:54.238 And so, when she allowed this fear to take root and the seeds to be planted, all of a sudden it started to manifest in physical ways. 00:16:54.238 --> 00:17:01.230 And so what does a good daughter do, a good son-in-law do? 00:17:01.230 --> 00:17:05.434 We're about to move to Texas, taking to church down there, I guess, come on. 00:17:05.434 --> 00:17:15.453 So then she comes with us, and we were at this time we were in Missouri, about to move to Texas, and she had just moved in with us. 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:19.539 And there's these things. 00:17:19.539 --> 00:17:27.076 They're poles and they have rubber on the end and it has a tooth thing like that, and you could prop it up against a doorknob and ain't nobody getting in? 00:17:27.076 --> 00:17:32.553 Well, she had some of those and my dad. 00:17:32.553 --> 00:17:34.718 We're all home. 00:17:34.718 --> 00:17:50.632 My dad walks out to check the mail and comes back to the door and he goes, hello, knocking on the door of his own house. 00:17:50.632 --> 00:17:59.430 But she had such a state of fear that as soon as he walked out she felt alone and she would put that up there where nobody was gonna get her. 00:17:59.430 --> 00:18:00.513 He wasn't leaving. 00:18:00.513 --> 00:18:15.353 And you know something that just came to my mind If she was in trouble and something really happened, the person she was keeping out was the one who could have helped her the entire time. 00:18:17.346 --> 00:18:18.892 Sometimes we do that with the Spirit of God. 00:18:18.892 --> 00:18:24.729 We allow Him to pass, we allow Him to go and come and do what he wants to do, because he's the owner of the house. 00:18:24.729 --> 00:18:43.115 Right, we're just there renting and he walks outside and all of a sudden fear grips a hold of us and we put that stopper on the door and ain't nobody getting in there, even God himself, because we want to shut down and don't want to be receptive to what God and the help that we need the entire time is outside the door, knocking to come in. 00:18:43.115 --> 00:18:50.271 I stand at the door and I knock. 00:18:50.271 --> 00:18:54.258 Write this scripture down 2 Timothy, chapter 1, in verse 7,. 00:18:54.298 --> 00:19:09.865 It says this very plainly For the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 00:19:09.865 --> 00:19:11.893 Some versions say self-control. 00:19:11.893 --> 00:19:13.809 Have you noticed? 00:19:13.809 --> 00:19:19.330 You can see the absence of the Spirit of God, because there's no self-control in people anymore. 00:19:19.330 --> 00:19:22.238 That is not the Spirit of God. 00:19:22.238 --> 00:19:25.471 If you lack self-control, you need to check your spirit. 00:19:25.471 --> 00:19:27.196 It's not aligning with the Word. 00:19:27.545 --> 00:19:30.573 After Christ went up look, god sent the Spirit down. 00:19:30.573 --> 00:19:32.787 After Christ went up, he said don't touch me yet. 00:19:32.787 --> 00:19:38.832 I've got to go, but when I go there's going to be somebody who's going to come in my place and you are going to be endued with power. 00:19:38.832 --> 00:19:40.672 And they didn't even know what they were waiting on. 00:19:40.672 --> 00:19:45.998 I cannot find a scripture that says Jesus told them exactly what was going to happen when it came. 00:19:45.998 --> 00:19:48.093 All he said was it's going to come. 00:19:48.093 --> 00:20:01.895 You know, sometimes we put our preemptive what we want God to do on top of our prayer and we pray through that filter and then God's like I wanted to do more, but you wouldn't shut up, you wouldn't stop praying for a specific thing that you didn't clearly understand. 00:20:01.895 --> 00:20:03.646 I've been there. 00:20:06.054 --> 00:20:13.387 After Christ went up, the Spirit was sent so that the people proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ would not be afraid. 00:20:13.387 --> 00:20:22.896 The Spirit of God was sent so that we would not be afraid, but to live in the truth boldly and without reserve. 00:20:22.896 --> 00:20:52.195 That when we that know the truth, do not back down from bullies, do not conform to the culture, but stand firmly on Christ, the solid rock, and boldly proclaim the truth, the one and only truth of God, that is His Word, not man-made or twisted by feelings or culture, but the unadulterated, the unaltered and undistorted truth of God's Word. 00:20:52.195 --> 00:20:58.366 Against this, nothing can stand, against his word the church. 00:20:58.366 --> 00:21:06.130 People need to come out and stop being afraid of proclaiming the truth and letting culture manipulate the church. 00:21:06.130 --> 00:21:08.374 It needs to be the other way around. 00:21:08.374 --> 00:21:17.558 We have got to stand up for what is right and to not back down to bullies or conform to the culture of what they say is right. 00:21:17.625 --> 00:21:19.150 I don't care if they call me homophobic. 00:21:19.150 --> 00:21:25.292 Homosexuality is a sin, but we all are sinners. 00:21:25.292 --> 00:21:29.330 I'm not grouping them in any kind of special group. 00:21:29.330 --> 00:21:36.365 It's adultery, it's sin and God does not like sin group. 00:21:36.365 --> 00:21:37.470 It's adultery, it's sin and God does not like sin. 00:21:37.470 --> 00:21:42.826 And the only way for them to be made clean and pure in the sight of God is through salvation of Jesus Christ, because Jesus came for the homosexuals too. 00:21:42.826 --> 00:21:51.641 May we never bend what truth is to the culture. 00:21:51.641 --> 00:22:02.491 May we only bend our wills and spirits to the will and the spirit of God, because we've all fallen short. 00:22:04.887 --> 00:22:09.131 None of us deserve to be proud like we have done something or earned our way into heaven. 00:22:09.131 --> 00:22:17.115 That's why you can't get to heaven by works, because if we could, we would start to boast about it. 00:22:17.115 --> 00:22:19.289 That's what the bible says. 00:22:19.289 --> 00:22:29.695 Because let's no one boast if I do something like me and brother howard and aaron back there put this cross up, just pointing it out. 00:22:29.695 --> 00:22:33.313 I know it ain't lit up. 00:22:33.313 --> 00:22:34.215 We had an electrical issue. 00:22:34.215 --> 00:22:34.696 Leave us alone. 00:22:34.696 --> 00:22:35.307 It's mounted. 00:22:35.307 --> 00:22:36.010 Okay. 00:22:36.010 --> 00:23:04.152 Next week or next month, whatever Next year, put it on your list Now, jesus Christ, and this is the one truth no matter what anybody does, no matter how they act, no matter how their attitude is, no matter how deep the hurt is, no matter how bad your marriage is, no matter how deep your sin has gone. 00:23:04.152 --> 00:23:11.692 For those of you who don't know me and you don't know my story, I used to be a meth head dealer and I was homeless, living in my car, and look where God has placed me now. 00:23:11.692 --> 00:23:17.209 Nothing that I can boast about, nothing that I can boast about. 00:23:17.229 --> 00:23:21.726 We in the church house like to get real proud and loud about what we've done in the church. 00:23:21.726 --> 00:23:23.692 Today, you ain't done squat. 00:23:23.692 --> 00:23:30.388 God has done it all and he finished it all and Jesus came so that all can be saved. 00:23:30.388 --> 00:23:39.069 That is what we need to have on the tip of our lips at all times is that look, you think you're bad, you think you can't go to church. 00:23:39.069 --> 00:23:45.872 Me too, I don't deserve to be in there either, but it's just a building, because we are the church. 00:23:46.795 --> 00:24:01.596 And the way you become the church is you come to Christ and immediately it says he washes away every sin, he wipes away every tear, he rewires your brain so that you can forget the bad that you've done. 00:24:01.596 --> 00:24:06.656 I can't even remember what it's like to get high, and it was only eight or nine years ago. 00:24:06.656 --> 00:24:16.078 But he loves me so much that he would take away old desires and he said behold, I do a new thing. 00:24:16.078 --> 00:24:19.631 If you come to me, I'm going to wash it all away. 00:24:19.631 --> 00:24:24.527 There is nothing that you have done that is so bad that God cannot forgive you. 00:24:24.527 --> 00:24:32.451 There is nothing that we can do to make him love you less, and there's nothing we can do to make him love us more. 00:24:32.471 --> 00:24:36.670 Well, that doesn't make any sense, I know, isn't it great? 00:24:36.670 --> 00:24:40.299 It doesn't make sense to me. 00:24:40.299 --> 00:24:41.903 I don't deserve his love. 00:24:41.903 --> 00:24:43.166 I don't deserve his truth. 00:24:43.166 --> 00:24:58.510 I don't deserve to be able to read the word of God before other people and witness to them about what God has done in me, but for some reason, years before I was born in my mother's womb, he had set me apart, apart, and he had ordained me for a time such as this. 00:24:58.510 --> 00:24:59.794 Every person here. 00:24:59.794 --> 00:25:01.336 You have been ordained. 00:25:01.336 --> 00:25:05.291 You have been set apart, and God has a divine purpose for your life. 00:25:05.291 --> 00:25:07.376 Do not let the devil rob you of that. 00:25:07.376 --> 00:25:10.451 Shame is not the Lord's game. 00:25:10.451 --> 00:25:11.494 It's the enemy's game. 00:25:11.494 --> 00:25:26.570 Salvation, redemption and chain-breaking power is our God, because we have all fallen short, and only through his grace and mercy can we ever find Jesus. 00:25:26.570 --> 00:25:47.016 We can be made right and righteous to the Father only through his Son I'm going to have a voice after this, y'all get me started up and only by his Son, jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. 00:25:47.444 --> 00:25:50.234 Outside of this, there is no other truth. 00:25:50.234 --> 00:25:53.589 That's why people are so confused. 00:25:53.589 --> 00:25:54.553 Who are out there? 00:25:54.553 --> 00:26:04.385 They think they have their truth and if you have your truth, you're lying, because our truth does not measure up to the truth. 00:26:04.385 --> 00:26:12.689 Truth is not a feeling, it's a fact, and you can't measure up and say well, I believe this way, I don't care what you believe. 00:26:12.689 --> 00:26:15.557 You shouldn't care what I believe. 00:26:15.557 --> 00:26:26.951 You should not care what I believe or what I say if it does not line up with the word of God, kick me out today, because the word of God is the only standing truth through the test of time. 00:26:26.951 --> 00:26:31.334 It will stand until eternity because Jesus Christ is the word. 00:26:36.346 --> 00:26:40.916 When the Bible refers this healthy fear when it refers you ever heard of fear the Lord? 00:26:40.916 --> 00:26:42.769 This is the healthy kind. 00:26:42.769 --> 00:26:49.298 So it means having a deep respect or reverence, or being in awe of God's power and his authority. 00:26:49.298 --> 00:26:52.224 You see, we don't have healthy fear in our lives anymore. 00:26:52.224 --> 00:27:01.915 We're powered and fueled by unhealthy fear because we're so distracted by all the things going on over here and we forget that God's authority subsides and overrides what they're doing over here. 00:27:01.915 --> 00:27:06.285 It overrides anything in life, his authority. 00:27:06.285 --> 00:27:12.337 Rather than causing someone to be afraid of God, a proper fear of the Lord actually leads you to love Him. 00:27:12.337 --> 00:27:17.707 So why is living in fear bad? 00:27:17.707 --> 00:27:19.128 Because fear belongs to the Lord. 00:27:19.128 --> 00:27:21.553 Let me explain. 00:27:21.553 --> 00:27:23.896 This is how healthy fear works. 00:27:23.896 --> 00:27:25.480 So the word fear? 00:27:25.480 --> 00:27:28.510 In the Bible there's a Hebrew word, yare. 00:27:28.510 --> 00:27:30.615 It says to fear, to respect and to reverence. 00:27:30.615 --> 00:27:32.286 That's the verb. 00:27:32.286 --> 00:27:43.951 The noun is yireira, which sounds an awful lot like gyra Spelled a little different, but it just was cool to me Usually refers to the fear of the Lord and it is viewed in a positive quality. 00:27:43.991 --> 00:27:50.769 The fear acknowledges God's good intentions, how good he is, how merciful he is, his goodness, his mercy, his grace. 00:27:50.769 --> 00:27:54.776 This fear is produced by God's word. 00:27:54.776 --> 00:28:05.146 If you have someone who does not know God, point them to the word and they will begin to form a fear and a reverence of God and it makes a person. 00:28:05.146 --> 00:28:09.115 This is cool the rod and the staff. 00:28:09.115 --> 00:28:11.920 They protect and they comfort. 00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:18.529 They fend off things that are coming to devour you and yet they will comfort you also when they correct you. 00:28:18.529 --> 00:28:19.811 So listen to this. 00:28:19.811 --> 00:28:23.287 It makes the word of god the one truth. 00:28:23.507 --> 00:28:29.249 This is why, people, there is no other religion in the world that people try to snuff out and get rid of more than christianity. 00:28:29.249 --> 00:28:31.835 They do not attack anybody else. 00:28:31.835 --> 00:28:37.237 To everyone else we have to be receptive and singing around k kumbaya campfire, cross your legs with little fingers. 00:28:37.237 --> 00:28:41.471 There is no other religion that people try to say well, you can't do that here. 00:28:41.471 --> 00:28:44.997 I beg to differ, I will Jail me up. 00:28:44.997 --> 00:28:50.035 That's fine, because the word of God, this is what it does to the hardest of hearts. 00:28:50.035 --> 00:29:02.215 It makes a person receptive to true wisdom and knowledge and correction found in Jesus Christ we are only to fear and respect the living God. 00:29:02.215 --> 00:29:05.795 There is to be no other gods before him. 00:29:05.795 --> 00:29:23.832 So fear only belongs to God and that's why you don't need to be fearful of other things, because when you fear only him, everything else doesn't matter, because you serve a one true God who is always in control and can always, at the mention of his name, he will show up. 00:29:23.832 --> 00:29:36.067 It says if you just call on his name, I've heard stories of demonic presence being in a room and the person could not even speak the name, but they would just think the name. 00:29:36.067 --> 00:29:37.530 It shows you the power of the thought. 00:29:37.530 --> 00:29:40.726 If you just speak the name of Jesus, the demon has to flee. 00:29:40.726 --> 00:29:45.796 If you just speak, if you just think, god shows up on the scene. 00:29:45.796 --> 00:29:47.138 Whatever your situation. 00:29:48.525 --> 00:29:53.954 Nothing is to be in the place or reverenced like our God, nothing. 00:29:53.954 --> 00:30:00.353 And before we go any further, we like to say hallelujah and praise God in this church. 00:30:00.353 --> 00:30:06.872 If you are a quiet church, you're a dead church, just saying Ain't nothing going on. 00:30:06.872 --> 00:30:20.430 But when I say nothing belongs in the place of God, I want you to stop and pause for a second, because we allow things in our life constantly to be in the place of God that we look to, that we cling to, that we rely on. 00:30:20.430 --> 00:30:23.676 That is not God, and sometimes they're not even of God. 00:30:23.676 --> 00:30:27.380 They may be a blessing of God, but sometimes a blessing can become a burden. 00:30:27.380 --> 00:30:31.570 The children of Israel, out of bondage, took the gold. 00:30:31.570 --> 00:30:33.153 They were blessed. 00:30:33.153 --> 00:30:35.719 God said ask your neighbors and I will bless you. 00:30:35.719 --> 00:30:43.679 They had generational wealth and they turned that blessing into an idol, making the golden calf. 00:30:43.679 --> 00:30:51.848 Be careful that the blessings God gives you is not something you chase after and takes the place of a God you should be chasing after. 00:30:51.848 --> 00:30:54.796 Let's move on. 00:30:54.796 --> 00:30:55.518 You can chew on that one. 00:30:55.518 --> 00:31:03.258 So something interesting In the Bible it's not like he's singing like a little bird. 00:31:04.365 --> 00:31:10.555 In the Bible, 365 times there is fear not. 00:31:10.555 --> 00:31:14.220 That's one for every day of the year. 00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:17.871 I thought that was so cool. 00:31:17.871 --> 00:31:23.394 So for every day of the year you are not to live in fear, fear not. 00:31:23.394 --> 00:31:29.701 This is why it makes no difference who sits in the White House, because our future belongs to God. 00:31:29.701 --> 00:31:34.242 Nobody's going to come in that White House, no matter who you voted for or what side you're leaning to. 00:31:34.242 --> 00:31:36.122 They are not going to solve the problem. 00:31:36.122 --> 00:31:46.161 What will solve the problem is when a church begins to get on their knees before God and cries out and puts the Lord of hosts in his proper place, in charge of who we are. 00:31:47.936 --> 00:31:52.089 When people begin to pray, things begin to happen. 00:31:52.089 --> 00:31:58.790 When people begin to pray people that I've been praying this over this place, right here. 00:31:58.790 --> 00:32:01.579 First of all, on Tuesday mornings we got prayer meeting at 10 o'clock. 00:32:01.579 --> 00:32:03.003 If you work, that's great. 00:32:03.003 --> 00:32:04.375 We got one for seven for you too. 00:32:04.375 --> 00:32:06.144 That was a little spot for the church. 00:32:06.144 --> 00:32:06.807 Come and pray. 00:32:06.807 --> 00:32:09.438 We believe that things move, mountains move. 00:32:09.438 --> 00:32:11.605 They are thrown into the sea when we pray. 00:32:11.605 --> 00:32:17.742 I walk out here every single Tuesday morning and I pray that the Spirit of God draw the people driving by. 00:32:17.742 --> 00:32:29.119 I look and I point when my people out there probably think I'm nuts, but I point at every acre touching this property and I say in the name of Jesus, you're going to be ours for what God is going to do with this church. 00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:35.666 Now, why am I praying that? 00:32:35.666 --> 00:32:35.866 Now? 00:32:35.866 --> 00:32:39.855 Because I want the wisdom and the vision of God. 00:32:39.855 --> 00:32:50.442 If I'm always trying to pray for today, I'll forget about tomorrow or something will hit me tomorrow, and I haven't checked it off the list. 00:32:50.442 --> 00:32:58.921 One small act of faith every day invite one person to church and then the other 15 is five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading your word and five minutes of praising him. 00:32:58.921 --> 00:33:04.862 If you start your day off like that, you have already geared yourself up in preparation for what is to come. 00:33:10.175 --> 00:33:16.864 No matter what life brings, no matter what the media says, no matter what sickness comes over your house or loss that comes your way. 00:33:16.864 --> 00:33:18.740 We all have these issues. 00:33:18.740 --> 00:33:30.846 We all have these problems, but when you allow them to strike you with fear, you ever had that moment in your life where, just down to the very depths of your soul, there was fear. 00:33:30.846 --> 00:33:33.340 We've all experienced it. 00:33:33.340 --> 00:33:36.483 We've all at some point had to walk through that darkest valley. 00:33:36.483 --> 00:33:42.506 But we do not have to fear because fear belongs to God. 00:33:42.506 --> 00:33:52.645 Everything we face or encounter can be restored, healed, mended, brought back to life at the very mention of his name. 00:33:52.645 --> 00:33:59.827 We don't have to fear anything but the Lord because all authority belongs to our God. 00:34:03.915 --> 00:34:15.646 And the reason the Bible says fear not for one day I thought that was so cool every day of the year is because unhealthy fear that is not being in reverence to God. 00:34:15.646 --> 00:34:22.164 It's damaging, but fear is a liar. 00:34:22.164 --> 00:34:29.923 Fear will distort your view of yourself, your self-worth. 00:34:29.923 --> 00:34:39.172 Fear will make you see through a filter that no matter what God chooses to do, it's just going to be bad. 00:34:39.172 --> 00:34:41.701 No matter what situation, I pray all I want, god's not going to do anything. 00:34:41.701 --> 00:34:50.606 He's not going to show up and there's been times where, in the middle of the situation, it feels like God is not showing up. 00:34:50.606 --> 00:34:52.628 Can we be real? 00:34:52.628 --> 00:34:57.903 Have you ever prayed for something so intently and God didn't give you the answer you wanted? 00:34:57.903 --> 00:35:00.809 Jesus did. 00:35:00.809 --> 00:35:07.427 He was praying so intently that it said his sweat was like drops of blood. 00:35:07.427 --> 00:35:13.565 Some scholars say that he was praying so hard that capillaries burst on his head. 00:35:19.735 --> 00:35:23.277 There's no lack of fear or pain in the church house just because we come to church. 00:35:23.277 --> 00:35:27.768 We all have struggles, we all have issues, we all have pain, we all have hurt. 00:35:27.768 --> 00:35:37.483 But when you allow that unhealthy fear to take root and the seed be implanted in your life, it will rob you of what God's really trying to do through you. 00:35:37.483 --> 00:35:42.864 We see this in the children of Israel again. 00:35:42.864 --> 00:35:45.262 They're good examples for a lot of stuff not to do. 00:35:45.262 --> 00:35:55.704 They had to stay in the wilderness 40 years because they would not truly rely on God and believe the way they were supposed to believe. 00:35:55.704 --> 00:36:01.619 They were so stubborn in their ways they were provided for. 00:36:01.619 --> 00:36:06.099 The Bible says their clothes and sandals did not even wear. 00:36:06.099 --> 00:36:19.929 They crossed through a sea and still they were led by fire, and then they were led by a cloud. 00:36:19.929 --> 00:36:34.713 Sometimes we overlook the miracles God does in our life because it doesn't look and not paint it up the way that we want it to be, and so we allow fear to grip us even in the middle of our blessing. 00:36:36.755 --> 00:36:57.487 If you ever talk to Brother Vernon the bearded man, his mantra, his scripture that he says all the time because he believes it with all of his heart, is that all things, all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord. 00:36:57.487 --> 00:37:04.302 It doesn't matter what has went wrong or if it's been a whole lot of right. 00:37:04.302 --> 00:37:07.862 God is working it together for your good. 00:37:07.862 --> 00:37:17.759 If you love him and you're following him and you give everything to him and he has the proper placement in your life as Lord of your life, fear belongs to him. 00:37:17.759 --> 00:37:21.152 You do not have to fear the darkest valleys that we are promised. 00:37:21.152 --> 00:37:23.420 The Bible even promises you will have trouble. 00:37:23.420 --> 00:37:25.987 All right, this is not another encouraging verse. 00:37:25.987 --> 00:37:29.585 All right, this is not another encouraging verse, we will have trouble. 00:37:29.585 --> 00:37:37.458 It rains on the just and the unjust. 00:37:37.458 --> 00:37:37.858 No good. 00:37:37.858 --> 00:37:48.045 If you ever think in your situation that no good comes from this, rest in the promise that all things, if I love the Lord and I give it to him, it doesn't matter how it comes out. 00:37:48.045 --> 00:37:51.668 God is going to bless it, he is going to work it for my good. 00:37:51.668 --> 00:37:53.971 That is not you making a promise. 00:37:53.971 --> 00:37:55.692 That is you standing on his. 00:37:59.637 --> 00:38:04.465 There's a big difference, and unhealthy fear only manipulates. 00:38:04.465 --> 00:38:13.675 And here's the thing about fear it acts a lot bigger than it actually is. 00:38:13.675 --> 00:38:26.277 It puffs up, it acts like it's all big and bad, walks up to the door hey, we're going out, and a lot of us say, okay, all right, okay, what have you said? 00:38:26.277 --> 00:38:26.757 You just don't hurt me. 00:38:26.757 --> 00:38:40.233 I pray that the boldness of God rises up in you, that when fear comes knocking at your door, you don't just put a stopper on it, you open it and punch it square in the face. 00:38:40.233 --> 00:38:44.094 Or my favorite saying is throat, punch that bad boy. 00:38:44.094 --> 00:38:47.788 He'll be gasping for air. 00:38:47.788 --> 00:38:59.103 That's right, because God has given us the authority, through Christ Jesus, to be made right and the power of his Holy Spirit to speak. 00:38:59.103 --> 00:39:01.208 And it must happen. 00:39:01.208 --> 00:39:06.940 That's not me promising you that, that's just him. 00:39:06.940 --> 00:39:08.362 That's how good he is. 00:39:09.644 --> 00:39:22.510