SPEAKER_00: If we want God to do what He wants to do, that means we aren't allowed to do what we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe today that before we leave this service, beyond the baptism, which praise the Lord for that, that God is setting this church up because He's wanting to set people free.
SPEAKER_00: Because who the Son says free is free.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil likes to fight and he likes to kick and scratch because once we start stepping into that freedom, his authority becomes less over our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Once we begin to replace all the lies he has told us and the people around us who have cozied up against us and they act like our biggest friend, but they are our greatest foe.
SPEAKER_00: They come and get right up next to us and they call us friends when in reality they are damaging to our very soul.
SPEAKER_00: Look at our key scripture this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you notice we've been studying in Philippians chapter 3 the last three weeks, it's good to crawl through scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start at verse 7 and read verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: If you got it, say amen.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting there.
SPEAKER_00: You got it, you got it.
SPEAKER_00: I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: For his sake, I have discarded everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Now we know that Paul is one of the main people in the word.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't even take a wife.
SPEAKER_00: He said it was better if you could abstain to be single so that you can fully devote your entire life to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This man had bodily desires that he said no to daily, so that he can fully give himself to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're gonna go with our title today.
SPEAKER_00: For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go ahead and go on, and become one with him.
SPEAKER_00: I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law, rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For God's way of making us right with him depends on faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you so much for your mercy and your grace.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, for your so obvious presence here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Lord, that every word of my mouth penetrate even the hardest of hearts.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, God, that your scripture rightly divides what needs to be separated today.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that revival begins to set be set fires in our homes so that we can bring it to the church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that we we want to get closer to you every day and realize that the closer we get to you, the more of our old life becomes garbage.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to your neighbor as you sit down and say, I got some garbage.
SPEAKER_00: And some of y'all who know can look back and say, I know.
SPEAKER_00: I know.
SPEAKER_00: I already knew that for you declared it today.
SPEAKER_00: I know about your garbage, I know about your stink.
SPEAKER_00: Woo! Y'all know if you let garbage sit long enough, it begins to stink.
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are thankful for the trash days?
SPEAKER_00: When we get our trash, I don't know if y'all do this when we got a baby in the house.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you know this or not, but if I'm gonna let you know babies poop.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't put them in the house, we put them in the dumpster.
SPEAKER_00: So after trash day and he empties out, the residue of the trash was still there until washed clean.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't you ain't tracking with me, but give me a second.
SPEAKER_00: The residue stink.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it wasn't no stink, it wasn't no bad smell, it stink.
SPEAKER_00: It's all over the garbage.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think getting the garbage out is all that is necessary, but it's actually what being being washed clean is when you end up getting the stink out.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know?
SPEAKER_00: Your house can be empty, but it can have a smell.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all track later.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a second.
SPEAKER_00: So we're on week number five of Into the Deep Series.
SPEAKER_00: We want to get deeper with God, we want to get closer with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to stay where we are if we just get fire insurance where we don't go to the bad place and we don't go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: What is the point of getting saved?
SPEAKER_00: When finally disciples the disciples believed, and Jesus was about to ascend to the Father, He said, Go and make disciples, preaching to every nation and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We must have a go mentality.
SPEAKER_00: If we have received the free gift of salvation from Christ's sacrifice, you need to tell somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all got some empty seats next to you because you ain't telling nobody.
SPEAKER_00: We get stuck in our four and no more mentality where we don't want nobody coming in here and crowd me.
SPEAKER_00: I want space at the elbows.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_00: It's all right.
SPEAKER_00: You can't carry the weight of your past and travel well into your future.
SPEAKER_00: You can't carry the baggage of yesterday, and you got now a new destination, and you're still trying to roll with the same dead weight that held you down for all those years because you had you got under the blood, but you hadn't been washed and cleansed in the blood.
SPEAKER_00: You got under the umbrella of getting saved, but are you saved if you're still holding on to your old flesh?
SPEAKER_00: Woo! I'm either going to preach them in or I'm gonna preach them out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure which one, but we're gonna talk about it today.
SPEAKER_00: Going deeper requires us to throw off everything, everything that God does not desire for us to have.
SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't align with here's why a lot of us in the church house are living lives that have no purpose, no drive, no resolution, no revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It's because we still carry what we used to carry around.
SPEAKER_00: If you got the dead weight on you, you ain't gonna be able to go into the promised land until our will aligns with God's will.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not so bold to say that he needs to align to mine.
SPEAKER_00: But if we live our life under the label of salvation, but we have no definition, come on.
SPEAKER_00: You remember back in school or where you go to a new place, speed dating or whatever y'all used to do?
SPEAKER_00: Get the little name tag and it says, Hello, my name is.
SPEAKER_00: We are good at wearing name tags at church, and we think that that actually defines us, but it only labels us.
SPEAKER_00: Most people don't realize how much junk we carry around until we try to go deeper.
SPEAKER_00: What happens if you go in deep waters with a lot of weight?
SPEAKER_00: You will drown and you will not survive.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to paint salvation as some little, oh, let's just get together, hold hands, and sing kumbaya.
SPEAKER_00: We're about war in this church.
SPEAKER_00: There's things that are happening outside of these walls, and most of us are so comfortable with it, it doesn't bother us.
SPEAKER_00: We call that compromise.
SPEAKER_00: When you try to get in deeper waters with Christ, the things that used to weigh you down will drown you, and you will not make it in this salvation walk.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have rebellion in the churches today of people, pastors that should, if anybody should know better, there's still men, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: There's still women, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: But if they they should know more than all of us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
SPEAKER_00: You start proclaiming the word, there's a heavier price on your head.
SPEAKER_00: You start proclaiming the word, there is a heavier burden that it carries because you are now declaring truth.
SPEAKER_00: When you begin to declare truth, and I hope that all of you do, now you are responsible for who you say it to and who you don't.
SPEAKER_00: We like to always we always like to pinpoint the people.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, man.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to this guy, but we forget about the people we pass up.
SPEAKER_00: Is that blood on our hands today?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: You can't dive into spiritual depth while you are dragging the trash of pride when the devil fell from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: What was the main the the whole root of his problem was pride?
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: He sold it to the first two people that was ever on this planet.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Today, he's still selling it to us.
SPEAKER_00: If he can get us where we have a a seed of pride, it can take root and bear, it will drown out.
SPEAKER_00: You ever had a garden before?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't get the weeds out, it will kill the healthiest garden.
SPEAKER_00: If we are dragging trash of sin, if we are dragging trash, you ready for this one?
SPEAKER_00: Of bitterness, also masquerades around as unforgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It don't matter how long ago it was, you can still have the chains on you.
SPEAKER_00: It can affect the way you see everything, and usually it will distort everything you see, and it will manipulate everything you feel until who you become is no longer recognizable from the man or woman of God you used to be.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness must happen in the church again.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody does you wrong and you write them off, you are wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you gotta cozy up to bitter to uh uh poison.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is when you forgive in here, it releases something in you that would normally bind you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you gotta be best friends with them.
SPEAKER_00: I got a phone call the other day.
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to make me come work for them.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't even him, it was the assistant.
SPEAKER_00: Like, come on.
SPEAKER_00: I know, I know he, I know y'all had some bad blood between you.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I heard what he said about me to other people.
SPEAKER_00: There ain't no way in God's green earth, am I gonna go back?
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Oh, forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lady, I forgave, but I don't have to trust him.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness doesn't have to be wrapped up in trust, but we do have to have love and compassion for those who have done us wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Or if if their name is mentioned or a conversation about them is brought up and you cringe inside, or you get angry, or it afflicts you in some way, or it keeps you up awake at night, you have not forgiven them.
SPEAKER_00: If you can't stop talking about all the stuff they've done to you, you have not forgiven them.
SPEAKER_00: And this becomes baggage to where the person we actually want to be is held where we don't want to be, and we end up having to learn the hard lessons, like God's children through the wilderness that was maybe a week's journey away from where they needed to go.
SPEAKER_00: Because they would not learn to let what once entrapped them to no longer have a stronghold inside of them.
SPEAKER_00: You can't go into the promised land if you won't stop being petty.
SPEAKER_00: You can't walk into where God's trying to lead you to if you won't let the chains fall off.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, oh Lord, just just just take away, just take away them.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you start trying to do a work in me.
SPEAKER_00: I want them to change.
SPEAKER_00: Well, nine times out of ten, if they listen, if your adversaries, the Bible even talks about you put at me, you put me in a table with my enemies.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've been around a table before, but when everybody sits down, you're all out of eye.
SPEAKER_00: You are forced to be on the same level.
SPEAKER_00: This ain't even my notes.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all getting free stuff today.
SPEAKER_00: You have to let it go.
SPEAKER_00: If not, listen, we like to think that if you're not holding on to it, it still don't have you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: You can let go of it, but it can still be attached directly to you.
SPEAKER_00: We have to pay attention, we have to be willing to not, because this is what happens bitterness, sin, pride, shame, comfort, religious.
SPEAKER_00: We just pray, Lord, break down these walls of religion.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want the religion spirit in this church, I want the spirit of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only spirit I want.
SPEAKER_00: We have got to be intentional and examine.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're in East Texas.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever go out in the woods before?
SPEAKER_00: When you come back in, you got an examine.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, there will be something leached onto you that you never knew existed because you were not willing to take the time to examine yourself.
SPEAKER_00: When things attach to you and you don't fully examine and you're not willing to do the work to look, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna bring a mirror and put it on this back wall so y'all can see your faces.
SPEAKER_00: When you're not willing to do the work to get rid of the thing that has latched onto you, you know what happens?
SPEAKER_00: It brings disease to the body.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go even bigger.
SPEAKER_00: If you are sitting here today or you're watching online, and you have not forgiven, you have not rid yourself of pride, you have not rid yourself of the things that are the opposite of the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We say we want the benefits of the spirit, but we don't want to do the work to tend to the garden.
SPEAKER_00: You having a disease in your body because things that are latched onto you that are hidden, ticks don't come out in the open.
SPEAKER_00: They go to the dark places.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not just gonna preach about ticks today.
SPEAKER_00: They go to the dark places, and you know what happens?
SPEAKER_00: The embarrassing part when they're in places that you can't see.
SPEAKER_00: We ain't gonna get too graphic.
SPEAKER_00: But you understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: That's why you need help.
SPEAKER_00: You might be a little wolf out there riding on your stallion having a good time, but when you get back to the house, you're gonna have a tick.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have somebody to help you examine it, you will have a disease and not know where it's coming from, and that disease will become a disease, you will be the tick to the larger body because you will suck everybody else dry because you're not happy.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're taking notes because that was not in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Paul realized that everything he once thought was gain, status, reputation, accomplishments was trash compared to knowing Christ, the Greek word garbage, scubola.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it means filth.
SPEAKER_00: It also refers to dung.
SPEAKER_00: That's how strongly he viewed anything that stood in the way of intimacy between him and Christ.
SPEAKER_00: How many times do we go through this process of saying, oh, it ain't that bad?
SPEAKER_00: And we will let sinful nature not come in and live, but they can ring the doorbell and come in and take a have a meal every now and then.
SPEAKER_00: I thought about doing this to my wife before we were married, is I would just spend time with her and just start moving a little bit of stuff in until she wakes up 10 years later and we're married and she had no clue.
SPEAKER_00: That's almost the only way I thought I was gonna get her.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, I got some determination, all right?
SPEAKER_00: I would have gone 10 years and moved every little thing in, even if it was a little piece of clothing, a little sock here, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I would go through the trouble to make sure this woman had my hand in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't like the trouble of having to slowly dissect what is going wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna have you ask my 17-year-old son to come do your plumbing in your house.
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't have the proper understanding, tools, or knowledge to actually be successful in doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, can he work?
SPEAKER_00: He's a hard worker, he's a great hand, he'll do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't have the tools or the knowledge to do it.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us we have such little knowledge and tools of the word of God we can't even assess when we're spiritually sick.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get back to my notes.
SPEAKER_00: I just keep going, man, I got a different sermon happening, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: But that's how strongly he viewed anything that stood in the way of intimacy with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're going to go into deeper places with God, we've got to start taking out the trash.
SPEAKER_00: We have to.
SPEAKER_00: So let's finally get to a point 30 minutes later.
SPEAKER_00: Point number one.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: God can't fill what is already full.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if y'all are feeling or not, but I'm feeling this.
SPEAKER_00: God can't fill you up if you are already full of so much junk he can't fit.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 3:8.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Paul emptied himself so that he could be filled with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What are you holding on to that is not allowing for God to fill?
SPEAKER_00: Like some of you in this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: You won't sit in a spot if your seat's already full.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, you do have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to play that game because I know where you sit.
SPEAKER_00: I know where you sit.
SPEAKER_00: Look over at 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: When something is full, you can't feel it.
SPEAKER_00: And if you try, it'll be very awkward.
SPEAKER_00: Talking about seats again, if y'all didn't catch that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, alright.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go to 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go old school.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Kings chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all probably already know this, but there's something very important about being full and being empty.
SPEAKER_00: Let's start at verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Kings chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But now a creditor has come threatening to take my two sons as slaves.
SPEAKER_00: What can I do to help?
SPEAKER_00: Elisha asked.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me, what do you have in the house?
SPEAKER_00: This is very specific.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us we don't have gifts, we don't have personality, we don't have this, we don't have that, we don't have the money, we don't have the job, we don't have the spouse, we don't have the kids, we don't have the proper church, we don't have the right pastor, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: They don't sing the right songs.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_00: We love to say what we don't have, but if you want the miracle to happen, start looking for what you do have.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go further.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing at all.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen to her.
SPEAKER_00: This is like my son, my teenager.
SPEAKER_00: When he comes in from school, I said, Hey, how was your day?
SPEAKER_00: What did you do today?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You're telling me you spent eight hours in the same place and you didn't talk to nobody, that's a lie.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't touch nothing, that's a lie.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't write anything, you didn't learn anything.
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing here?
SPEAKER_00: You did do something.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what she said: nothing at all, except a flask of oil, she replied.
SPEAKER_00: And Elisha said, Borrow as many empty jars, say empty, empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Then, so listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't only a miracle from the the reserve to be filled that she had.
SPEAKER_00: God used the people around her to help perform the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Are you hearing me?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that landed for you.
SPEAKER_00: One guy got it.
SPEAKER_00: You need people around you that will help fulfill the miracles that need to happen in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do it by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does she do?
SPEAKER_00: It says, borrow as many empty jars from friends and neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you.
SPEAKER_00: So now he's saying, after the action, get alone and wait for the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see a pattern here?
SPEAKER_00: The same instruction was given to the disciples and those that followed Jesus after he ascended.
SPEAKER_00: Go and wait, go get by yourself and wait for what's about to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are so busy in your life, you have no room for waiting.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just giving you what's given to me.
SPEAKER_00: Shut the door behind you, pour olive oil from your flask.
SPEAKER_00: So from hers, pour blessings and miracles from hers.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all ain't hearing me.
SPEAKER_00: From yours, from what you have, the infilling that you have, let it be poured out into other empty vessels.
SPEAKER_00: Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it filled.
SPEAKER_00: When it is filled, so she did as she was told.
SPEAKER_00: Let's put a period there as there is in the word.
SPEAKER_00: She did what she was told.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all will come and sit in a sermon, and you won't change nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You'll shout, Amen, you'll clap, you'll even take a few notes, you'll go back and maybe watch it the next week on YouTube, which go watch it if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll watch it, you'll enjoy it, you'll find podcasts and preachers preaching, and you're like, Man, that was good.
SPEAKER_00: But then nothing in your life changes, and you wonder why everything is constantly the same.
SPEAKER_00: It's because you ain't listening, you ain't applying.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference in hearing and listening.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times, my wife in the other room, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody, y'all, if you're married and you get it, you get it already.
SPEAKER_00: My wife in the other room will talk to me, or I'll walk through the kitchen and I'll hear her begin a conversation that I didn't know I was a part of.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'll be in my office.
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna kill me after this.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all pray, pray for me.
SPEAKER_00: Just stretch your hand forward right now in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And and I uh I hear her.
SPEAKER_00: I know something was said, but I have no knowledge because I didn't actually listen to what was what was being said.
SPEAKER_00: I had no understanding because I wasn't listening, I wasn't willing to apply.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all just come on, it's all right.
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's just read it one more time, just just in case you didn't listen the first time.
SPEAKER_00: She did as she was told.
SPEAKER_00: Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she was filled one after another.
SPEAKER_00: Soon every container was full to the brim.
SPEAKER_00: Bring me another jar, she said to one of her sons.
SPEAKER_00: There aren't any more, he told her, and then the olive oil stopped flowing.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear the process of the miracle?
SPEAKER_00: When there was no longer something to be poured into, the flow ceased.
SPEAKER_00: In your life, you're asking to be closer to God, you're trying to get closer to God, you're trying to come to church.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of you are regular attendees.
SPEAKER_00: You're in a good starting place, but this is the beginning of where your journey should begin.
SPEAKER_00: This is not even the middle, this is the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Being a person that regularly goes to church and listens to the Lord is the first start.
SPEAKER_00: But there is something deeper for every believer.
SPEAKER_00: There is.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop where you are because the moment, the moment you stop being available and empty before the Lord is the moment that the miracle will cease, that the pouring will stop.
SPEAKER_00: Worldly meditation calls us to be still-minded.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly meditation calls us to first empty ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: To empty ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't, and we just add to the mess, listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: If you take your life before Christ, BC, if you take your life and you just add church, maybe let's just let's just get crazy with some numbers.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I love Jesus so much, I'm gonna give him half my paycheck every week.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, y'all really got quiet on that one.
SPEAKER_00: Calm down, we ain't asking for it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't ever ask for money.
SPEAKER_00: But that's your dedication.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna show God I love him, I'm gonna give him half of my paycheck.
SPEAKER_00: And you still come to a church every Sunday, you are faithful.
SPEAKER_00: You come to Bible study on Wednesday nights, you come to prayer meeting on Tuesday mornings or Tuesday evenings, both at 10 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: and 7 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: Shameless plug.
SPEAKER_00: You even want God, you even say you want to be a part of the church so much that you show up to our worship practices on Thursday night.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta be in church.
SPEAKER_00: But if all you do is add church and things and Jesus to your contaminants, everything is contaminated.
SPEAKER_00: Don't matter how much you give, don't matter how much you show up, don't matter how much you serve, if inside of you is not emptied out and filled with Christ, then you are malnourished.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter what you're full of.
SPEAKER_00: There is only so much cake that I can eat.
SPEAKER_00: Who likes cake?
SPEAKER_00: Who likes cheesecake?
SPEAKER_00: Come on, we're talking about Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Cheesecake.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you want to know my favorite dessert?
SPEAKER_00: My birthday's coming up.
SPEAKER_00: Um my favorite dessert of all kind of all time is a chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.
SPEAKER_00: Woo! Holy Spirit activate.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about Jesus up in that place.
SPEAKER_00: I love to scoop and dip and boom, in there, son.
SPEAKER_00: Woo! Service over.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord just spoke.
SPEAKER_00: But I love it so much.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter how much I love it, no matter how much I consume it, there will come a point in time where I will become sick because of what, even though I'm consuming something that's good on the tongue, there's no nutrition.
SPEAKER_00: Just because you do things in the church doesn't mean you're a healthy Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Just because you're on the worship team, just because you're a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen hundreds of pastors fall recently.
SPEAKER_00: Just because you are a pastor of a church does not make you a healthy Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You must only, as uh Paul pointed out, only be worried about Christ and everything else compared to it, must be garbage.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's the principle?
SPEAKER_00: The miracle flows where there are empty vessels.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to pour more into your life, but some of us are full of things that no longer should be there.
SPEAKER_00: Unforgiveness, you've you've probably heard this.
SPEAKER_00: Unforgiveness is like drinking poison, expecting the person that hurt you to die.
SPEAKER_00: It does nothing for the situation.
SPEAKER_00: And nine times out of ten, if you ever talk to them 10, 20 years later, after you've been stewing on it the whole time, you've built your life and personality that nobody likes now because of what happened to you back then.
SPEAKER_00: And you can meet them and talk to them, and they say, What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: I have seen it.
SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about irritated because you feel right and just, and the pain is real.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not let's not downplay that.
SPEAKER_00: It's real, it really happened to you, but the problem is you didn't let it go and it festered and it made an ugly monster.
SPEAKER_00: And unforgiveness will feed that ugly monster and it will consume any spiritual wealth being you wanted to have.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this.
SPEAKER_00: All right, you ready?
SPEAKER_00: All right, so here's some things that maybe you can see if you have this that might be trash in your life.
SPEAKER_00: We just touched on it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Offenses or painful things that someone has done to you.
SPEAKER_00: It could have been last year, it could have been 20 years ago, but this can become dead weight to your very soul.
SPEAKER_00: You ready for this one?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: You said I heard one person say that.
SPEAKER_00: That means we're all in agreement.
SPEAKER_00: Self-glory disguised as ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: People pleasing instead of God fearing.
SPEAKER_00: I heard somebody the other day talking, it was a podcast, and this guy was talking about some people that wanted to be ministers in his church.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, if I can talk you out of it, it ain't it ain't for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you like to please people and make everybody happy, you'll be ripped into shreds.
SPEAKER_00: Can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: You we cannot do that.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean we have to be mean, but we can be assertive in love.
SPEAKER_00: All of these things are contaminants that must be purged.
SPEAKER_00: If you want God to fill your life with purpose, peace, and power, you've got to empty the trash that's occupying his rightful place.
SPEAKER_00: Point number two, man, we're moving.
SPEAKER_00: Slow on trying to hurry as fast as I can.
SPEAKER_00: You hear me?
SPEAKER_00: Point number two, not all trash is sin.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Not all things you need to get rid of is sinful.
SPEAKER_00: Just because something is good doesn't mean it's good for it.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all have been here a while.
SPEAKER_00: Just because it's good doesn't mean it's good for it.
SPEAKER_00: So examine, not only examine it to say, is it sinful?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know?
SPEAKER_00: We can argue our way into allowing things in our life because we say, Oh, that's not sin.
SPEAKER_00: When it may be contaminating you in a way that is causing you down the road to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 3 9, I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law, rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's trash wasn't just sin, it was self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like in that one.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: He realized that the life he had built, if you read up on Paul, study who Paul was.
SPEAKER_00: He was somebody who knew scripture.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Pharisee, he had worked his way up, well studied, well read, and then Jesus blew it all up.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying, everything I built in my life is nothing compared to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So he built up, as Jesus pointed out several times, self-righteousness that the Pharisees carried around like they had done something.
SPEAKER_00: They would pray out loud, all these pretty prayers.
SPEAKER_00: God ain't worried about your pretty prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Not one time in scripture does it say, pray super pretty and say all the right words, and that's when I'll do the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: He just says, Lay hands, pray, believe, your faith has made you whole.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to believe, and a lot of times it ain't pretty.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's trash just wasn't sin, it was self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Things that look spiritual on the outside, what but they were empty on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go over to Luke.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 18, 10 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Two men went to the temple to pray.
SPEAKER_00: One was a Pharisee, and the other one was a despised tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about y'all today, but I'm not too fond of tax people either.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees stood by himself, stood by himself, the Pharisee did, and prayed this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Here's all pretty.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I thank God.
SPEAKER_00: He probably said, I thank God on the end of it.
SPEAKER_00: Super spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: That I am not like the other people.
SPEAKER_00: Cheaters, sinners, adulterers.
SPEAKER_00: I certainly, I'm certainly not like that tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: Can I remind you for a second that he was not whispering his prayers?
SPEAKER_00: I fast twice a week, oh holy, holy, holy.
SPEAKER_00: And I give you a tenth of my income.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_00: But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even to lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, Oh God, be merciful to me.
SPEAKER_00: For I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.
SPEAKER_00: For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
SPEAKER_00: We need a church full of this kind of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: To where we don't worry about saying pretty prayers and worried about people hearing us doing it right or watching us doing it right, or going to the serve day and doing all the right things and doing whatever we can to be in the church, but yet there's no change inside.
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
SPEAKER_00: God is concerned about our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes what keeps us shallow isn't rebellion, it's religion.
SPEAKER_00: We think we're deep because we're active, but we have drifted from intimacy with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Just because something is good doesn't mean it's good for and it doesn't mean it's good for this season.
SPEAKER_00: Some trash can be this expectations that God didn't give you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to that one for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Responsible this is a big one for me.
SPEAKER_00: Responsibilities he didn't assign you.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe roles that you have outgrown and you won't let go of.
SPEAKER_00: Woo! Some of us like to stay where we know, which keeps us from growing and being where God actually wants us to be.
SPEAKER_00: Point number three, you must forget to press forward.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 3, 4, 13, and 14.
SPEAKER_00: No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not received it.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: Let me go to my Bible because I'm pretty sure I went backwards.
SPEAKER_00: Yep, we're starting at 12.
SPEAKER_00: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to say that I've already achieved these things or that I've already reached perfection, but I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take Christ Jesus hand-me-downs any day.
SPEAKER_00: No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.
SPEAKER_00: I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize of which God through Christ Jesus is calling.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to 15.
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
SPEAKER_00: We're already there.
SPEAKER_00: Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things.
SPEAKER_00: If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I believe God's gonna dumb it down where you can understand.
SPEAKER_00: But we must hold on to the progress we've already made.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to the progress, don't get discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to the progress and reach for the next place God wants you to go.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, forget the past.
SPEAKER_00: That means stop replaying old wounds.
SPEAKER_00: Stop holding on.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: We like to talk about pain.
SPEAKER_00: Stop holding on to former glories.
SPEAKER_00: Stop comparing when you are now to where you used to be.
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
SPEAKER_00: Just look forward so you can focus on what you where you need to go.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go over to Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: He brews.
SPEAKER_00: You ever make in a coffee shop?
SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect name.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, just take it off gently.
SPEAKER_00: There is a forceful word here of stripping it off.
SPEAKER_00: Do not let it reside.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes if you've been putting the band-aid on it long enough, it's time to rip off the band-aid, strip it off, and let that thing breathe.
SPEAKER_00: Especially the sin that so easily trips us up and let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
SPEAKER_00: So that means we got to be going forward to run the race properly.
SPEAKER_00: But some of us aren't stuck necessarily in sin.
SPEAKER_00: We're stuck because of weights.
SPEAKER_00: Weights aren't always evil, but they are always heavy.
SPEAKER_00: Weights aren't always sinful, but they always slow you down.
SPEAKER_00: And to go deeper, you have to run lighter.
SPEAKER_00: Look over to Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna wrap this bad boy up.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter 19.
SPEAKER_00: One scripture, Genesis chapter 19, it says, But Lot's wife, verse 26, looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't move forward because she kept looking backwards.
SPEAKER_00: You can't run with God while reminiscing over what He's already told you to leave behind.
SPEAKER_00: Looking back costs everything.
SPEAKER_00: We see a very short little verse here of an action that happened because somebody longed for it.
SPEAKER_00: She wa she wouldn't have looked back, she wouldn't have been longing for it.
SPEAKER_00: So go to Philippians chapter three again, verse 15 to 16.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray for right now, Father.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you touch my sister right now, the spasm, the issue that's happening right now.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that it be released in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I pray God that as she walks, it begins to loosen and the pain disappears right now in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to 15 and 16 again, Philippians 15 and 16.
SPEAKER_00: Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things.
SPEAKER_00: If you disagree at some point, I believe God will make it plain to you.
SPEAKER_00: But we must hold on to the progress that we have already made.
SPEAKER_00: Maturity isn't about how much you know, it's about how much you're willing to let go of.
SPEAKER_00: Deeper believers don't carry unnecessary baggage.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of us gotta learn the hard way.
SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, you got a thick skull, you gotta, you gotta get some water up your nose and in your eyes before you realize, hey, maybe I need to let some things go.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay, God's patient.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be patient with you, we'll love you anyways.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you gotta go back two or three times and like, why do I keep drowning?
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta go back to the shore.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00: So to go deeper, get rid of the unnecessary baggage, ask yourself, what am I holding on to that God's been asking me to release?
SPEAKER_00: What's cluttering my heart?
SPEAKER_00: What's cluttering my mind?
SPEAKER_00: What's cluttering my time?
SPEAKER_00: What habits, what hurts, what hang-ups have overstayed their welcome?
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are living with things in our houses that we had the authority to cast out years ago, but we don't.
SPEAKER_00: Because misery loves company, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If we cast it out, it might get lonely in there.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we would prefer to sit with our misery and pain because if not, we would feel by ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: As we close, if you're serious about going deeper with Jesus, then it's time to take out the trash.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of the bitterness, it's trash.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of the ego, it's trash, get rid of the pride, get rid of the fear of man, get rid of the secret sin that has plagued your life.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of pride, get rid of shame.
SPEAKER_00: Don't carry your future, don't carry into your future what Christ already died to set you free from.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: I messed it up.
SPEAKER_00: Let's back up.
SPEAKER_00: Don't carry into your future what Christ has already died to set you free from.