SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in Joshua chapter 24 today.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua chapter 24, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those prayers that I often pray, usually over a Thanksgiving meal.
SPEAKER_00: I say, God is good, God is great.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
SPEAKER_00: You get a little, you get a little taste, you smell that cooking all day long, and you just want to get to the substance.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for you every week that God puts a smell in your nostrils that when you get to service on Sunday, you've already been chewing on the substance.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua chapter 24, verse 15, it says, But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve.
SPEAKER_00: Would you prefer the gods of your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates?
SPEAKER_00: Or would it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live in?
SPEAKER_00: But as for me, in my house, somebody say, My house.
SPEAKER_00: In my house, we are going to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you so much for your presence here today.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, God, for the transformation work that the word does.
SPEAKER_00: It is alive, it is active, and your spirit is here today.
SPEAKER_00: I pray everyone, under the sound of my voice or watching online, that their lives be transformed, their minds become renewed, and their spirits rise up on wings of eagles.
SPEAKER_00: In your precious name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, sometimes it's hard for me to lead you into worship and continue on with the set list when I feel like breaking down and crying.
SPEAKER_00: By the third or fourth one in, the hair stood up on my skin.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh Lord, just let me make it to the preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all sit through the service and you say, Oh Lord, just let me make it through this preaching.
SPEAKER_00: But if you've been if you've been following along for the past year, and February 19th was the year that we got voted in, and y'all finally said yes.
SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was trying to date my wife all over again.
SPEAKER_00: Um finally got a yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I needed.
SPEAKER_00: And so God has placed it in my heart for this church.
SPEAKER_00: The vision and the mission of this church is to make mature disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We have church houses full of people filling spots, but they're no more converts than the devil.
SPEAKER_00: We have people who live the same life that they live throughout the week and come to church on a Sunday and they leave the same.
SPEAKER_00: If that is you today, let me tell you, God has something more for you.
SPEAKER_00: God has something bigger and better for you than just warming a spot in a building.
SPEAKER_00: Because every single person has a position and a promise from God that you have more to do than just sit, come, and consume.
SPEAKER_00: That we need to be on guard in our lives every single day.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I've been talking since the beginning of this year about capturing every thought and making it subject to Jesus because we allow rogue things to have places in our hearts and minds that have no business being there.
SPEAKER_00: We have to become mature Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be willing that if somebody across the aisle offends you, that you don't go talking to everybody else about what they did, you talk to them about what they did.
SPEAKER_00: Also known in the English translation of Stephen Tillman is called gossip.
SPEAKER_00: And that needs to shut up.
SPEAKER_00: It does not have a place in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's why relationships are so important with God because we have to get in tune with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts, our minds, our spirits need to bear witness with one another.
SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't, you have a fractured system in a church house.
SPEAKER_00: If an eye desires to be a foot, and if a toe desires to be a leg, you have a dysfunctional body.
SPEAKER_00: Stop wanting what everybody else has, whining about what you don't have and make it happen and do what God's called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Serve where God has placed you.
SPEAKER_00: Be who God has called you to be.
SPEAKER_00: And don't back down when things don't go your way.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you've lived long enough, coming up on 40 years in this life, I know firsthand life doesn't always go the way I want it to.
SPEAKER_00: Church doesn't always go the way I want it to.
SPEAKER_00: People don't act always the way I think they should.
SPEAKER_00: To be willing to let someone disciple us and mentor us.
SPEAKER_00: We have in the Western culture, we don't want nobody to mentor us.
SPEAKER_00: I've got it figured out.
SPEAKER_00: I saw a little video the other day.
SPEAKER_00: My wife actually found it again, and it was funny because I was listening to her giggle, and I was laughing because I had already found it.
SPEAKER_00: And it was his father sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've had a teenager, you know, I don't know about female teenagers, but I know male teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no way I was like this.
SPEAKER_00: But apparently, all male teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19 need to work in NASA and on the UN because they can solve all the world's problems because they know everything.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing you can tell them.
SPEAKER_00: You can make up something and say it to them and be like, oh yeah, I know.
unknown: Ah.
SPEAKER_00: I just made that up.
SPEAKER_00: You're lying.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable to someone.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have weak churches because no one is vulnerable to each other.
SPEAKER_00: They all pretend like they got it going on.
SPEAKER_00: That they got it figured out.
SPEAKER_00: If all of the biblical, theological people who went to college forever know the original Greek and Hebrew, if they don't have it figured out, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We don't either.
SPEAKER_00: So why are we looking down our noses at other people in the church house when we ain't got our own junk together?
SPEAKER_00: We have to be willing to allow ourselves to be spiritually, mentally, physically, and yes, even emotionally to be developed in the body.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus spent three years of his ministry from beginning when the dove ascended onto him, descended onto him, came down, and he went into his ministry immediately going out into the wilderness to fast and pray and to be tempted by the devil?
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all think when the spirit comes on you and God's doing things in your life, you're gonna go and you're gonna have rainbows and butterflies.
SPEAKER_00: But if I know anything, if Jesus got led by the spirit, not the devil, out into the wilderness to be tempted and tested and tried, who are we to think that once we start living right and do things right and we got things on the assignment of God now, and we are following his will that we will not be led into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I can be blunt, I don't like the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's terrible.
SPEAKER_00: It's dry out there, my skin cracks, I'm thirsty all the time, I'm whiny.
SPEAKER_00: Children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But God had to get them out there to start doing some refining work.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you right now are in the middle of the wilderness and you're whining to God because you don't want to be there.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: None of us do, you're all in the same boat, but we have to go through things because the Bible talks about our faith being tested.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe God loves making men and women of actual God that are warriors for God, not a bunch of weenies.
SPEAKER_00: Because we got a war waging right now against us and our children.
SPEAKER_00: And we have allowed culture to influence the church instead of the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: We have allowed culture to influence our children instead of the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: And then we whine about the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be healthy and mature, and as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28, 19, he said, Go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have learned over and over again, I repeat it over and over again because it bears repeating that our lives move in the direction of our strongest thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: How you think so soon you will follow.
SPEAKER_00: If you think you can't, you won't ever.
SPEAKER_00: If you think that you can, the people who are the most confident are usually the most successful.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not because they know it all, it's because they speak as if they do.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us do not have that blessed assurance in God, and we don't speak like we know it's true.
SPEAKER_00: So today I want you, I'm gonna we're gonna start a new series, and it's gonna be called Choose First.
SPEAKER_00: Choose first.
SPEAKER_00: And this is week one.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be today, we're going to establish some things in the kingdom of God, in the physical realm, that are going to begin to make the heavens and earth move on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: That there are some things in your life, there are some places in your life that you've allowed the enemy to make camp in, and you're allowing him to be your roommate in a house that he has not purchased.
SPEAKER_00: That you want to have the Spirit of God in one room and you want to have the enemy in the other, and these cannot coexist in the same place.
SPEAKER_00: It is bitter and sweet water trying to flow out of the same spigot, and it does not mix.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you say the same about lemonade and tea.
SPEAKER_00: But today's message is called take it back.
SPEAKER_00: So choose first, take it back.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I went to the enemy's camp, and I took well I took back for a good song, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Get you a little riled up, like you want to go to hell's gates with the water pistol.
SPEAKER_00: But we allow every single day the enemy to come into our camp and steal our joy, steal our healings, bring back giving us gifts of depression and anxiety, and we put them on like they belong.
SPEAKER_00: I rebuke that in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Then anything that comes against you, the Bible says the Lord will raise up a standard.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, you don't go to the Lord, you go to what you know, and so when you haven't known the Lord, you go into what you know is dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to fight spiritual battles with fleshly weapons, and it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot fight the enemy with fleshly weapons.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we whine and complain that the devil stole things from us, and we often neglect the little slice of important information, is that we've been handing it to him slowly.
SPEAKER_00: We sometimes claim he stole it.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a I have a younger brother, he's about four years younger than I am, and it didn't matter what actually happened, it was my brother's fault.
SPEAKER_00: And the same with him.
SPEAKER_00: Now I took more on the chin because I was an older brother and felt I needed to protect him, and that's the story that all y'all will know.
SPEAKER_00: But when something happened, oh, he did it.
SPEAKER_00: You know how many times it's like that a comedy movie with little kids and they both point at each other?
SPEAKER_00: That was reality.
SPEAKER_00: If you've had a sibling, older or younger, you understand.
SPEAKER_00: When you were kids, it wasn't your fault, it was everybody else's fault.
SPEAKER_00: We do this spiritually all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We say, Oh, the devil's just have to get me.
SPEAKER_00: No, you've been handing him your heart for a while.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the devil's just been stealing my joy.
SPEAKER_00: No, you've been serving it up on a platter to him.
SPEAKER_00: I just the devil's been fighting me in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: Put on your helmet of salvation and tell him to get out.
SPEAKER_00: Because what God does, he's a gentleman.
SPEAKER_00: He will allow his children to undo.
SPEAKER_00: So if we receive what the enemy is trying to serve up to us, and then we wonder why we got a tummy ache.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of Joshua 24, 15, it says, But as for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So we are here in Joshua 24, and in this passage, Joshua is saying this.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking to the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, in 14 it actually says, So fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly, but put away forever the idols of your ancestors' worships when they live beyond the Euphrates River and Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Serve the Lord alone.
SPEAKER_00: And then it goes into verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you start from the beginning of this chapter, Joshua is calling them out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it is anywhere else in the world, but I know here in this local place, we don't want nobody calling us out for truth.
SPEAKER_00: We want to tell everybody else what they're doing wrong, but we don't want nobody to tell us what we're doing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Am I the only one?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: So this is how he sets it up.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an awesome way to minister.
SPEAKER_00: He got them excited and reminded them about what God has done in their life.
SPEAKER_00: He started telling them, he reminds them in recaps on all God brought them through and to, and the great favor God had given them in every situation when he brought them out of Egypt, in spite of their rebellious ways.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, in my head, I can hear Joshua getting a little attitude, like a little thug in him.
SPEAKER_00: You do you, boo.
SPEAKER_00: But for me and my house, we said the law.
SPEAKER_00: I can hear, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: I read the Bible in a different way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how y'all read it, but my characters in the Bible that I read it, they got some attitude, and I love it.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, For me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He made a decision in the present that whatever came in the future, he was making a stand now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sticking with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I know everything might not turn out the way that it should.
SPEAKER_00: I think in a lot of the seasons, especially right now, it may not look the way you want it to.
SPEAKER_00: Things hit you in the face, it can get scary.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it can just get stupid.
SPEAKER_00: I've had seasons in my life where I'm I get so mad I laugh.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, I don't understand what is happening.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I just throw my hands up and I say, God, I don't have a clue.
SPEAKER_00: I tried figured it out, and that didn't work too well.
SPEAKER_00: But he said, I am going to stand with the Lord now.
SPEAKER_00: I am going to serve God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm choosing now, before the season hits me, that he is my Lord and King.
SPEAKER_00: That whatever happens, I will still serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we serve the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: First, a lot of us struggle with this.
SPEAKER_00: What's the first, one of the first steps in the beginning to serving the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: First of all, you got to know and accept that Jesus Christ is the one true Son of God, and He came down and He died for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: The second part is to forgive yourself of all that you've done.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this is the hardest thing in your life because you can't see past who you are or who you were.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil keeps throwing it in your face of what happened in your life or what you did last week.
SPEAKER_00: God don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Every morning, his mercy and grace is new.
SPEAKER_00: God knows I need it.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 43, 18 and 19, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: But forget all of that.
SPEAKER_00: It is nothing compared to what I'm going to do.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 says, For I am about to do something new.
SPEAKER_00: See, I have already begun.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not see it?
SPEAKER_00: I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
SPEAKER_00: In this passage, Isaiah is saying this.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord begins to remind them of all the mighty victories.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, we're standing in a place of uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: We're standing in a dark valley.
SPEAKER_00: We're standing in a place that is uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But when we begin to look back, we can start to see better forward.
SPEAKER_00: When we begin to be reminded of what God has done, when we begin to sing his praise again, and we start praising even in the prayer, even in the pain, and we just keep pushing through the process.
SPEAKER_00: We know that God is still faithful and it will fuel our faith to the future.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord begins to remind them of the mighty victories he had delivered into their hand.
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, Now forget all that.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Do you remember how good I am to you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember how many enemies I handed over to you?
SPEAKER_00: And you never even had to lift a finger.
SPEAKER_00: Now forget all that.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're about to go to some new territory.
SPEAKER_00: Now, God has been good to you.
SPEAKER_00: But, darling, I promise you, where you're going, you ain't seen nothing yet.
SPEAKER_00: This church has seen some hard times.
SPEAKER_00: And right now we're still standing, even though by all logic we shouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Where we're going, you hadn't seen nothing yet.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: If we believe, and matter of fact, I don't know if y'all know this or not.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are new here.
SPEAKER_00: In the foundation of this church, a literal Bible, the word of God, this church is built on top of it.
SPEAKER_00: You may have seen some things God has done, but you ain't seen nothing yet.
SPEAKER_00: So even when God has brought you out of what He has brought you through, they have been great victories, but you have seen nothing yet.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because your story.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are so young and you think you feel old.
SPEAKER_00: I feel old until some of y'all say, Oh, you're just a child.
SPEAKER_00: Then I don't feel so old anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And then my son's like, Oh, Dad, you're old.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all need to pick one.
SPEAKER_00: But the story of where you are right now is not the end of you.
SPEAKER_00: The story will not be your ending.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever season you're in right now, the situation that you are walking through right now, God has more for you and He is not done.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you are still alive, which means you still have a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not dead, He is not done.
SPEAKER_00: Stop acting like you're on your deathbed or you've already passed through.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I just can't do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: This and that, and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up and get busy.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't dead, get off your little soapbox and get back to what God's called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let naysayers, backbiters, and gossip queens dictate what you do in God's house.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you choose for you and your house that we're gonna serve the Lord, don't let no situation and no season and no person dictate what God's called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you do, you're living in disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: Not them.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like that.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, they're the problem over here, bro.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's them.
SPEAKER_00: No, you disobedience to an Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: God help us all.
SPEAKER_00: Your story is not done.
SPEAKER_00: God's hand is still on your life, right where you are in a season of uncertainty and darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He still is the light.
SPEAKER_00: So we have to make up our minds now.
SPEAKER_00: Feel it down into the deepness of our soul, down into our very bones, that I am going to serve God no matter what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna raise up man and put someone on a pedestal.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you ever put your pastor on a pedestal?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you ever look to me over the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is perfect, but don't ever look to her either.
SPEAKER_00: Because none of us are anything compared to an Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't dictate your salvation, God does.
SPEAKER_00: I don't dictate your path and purpose, God does.
SPEAKER_00: He may speak to me, but he's gonna give the burden to you.
SPEAKER_00: Remain faithful, good or bad.
SPEAKER_00: I will remain faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
SPEAKER_00: I will remain faithful.
SPEAKER_00: That was sloppy.
SPEAKER_00: Do it all at once.
SPEAKER_00: I will remain faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Now you just said that out loud, so watch out when the devil gets you outside.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us think the devil's tempting us to test our faithfulness, but sometimes God likes to make us grow up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a real life story of when we took over this church before we were actually voted in.
SPEAKER_00: Within months, two people, key people in this church died.
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, the baptistry that's in the back was over there.
SPEAKER_00: I went over there and cried and didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: But I had made up my mind that whatever steps God ordered me to do, I was gonna walk them faithfully no matter what it looked like.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what the loss was in my life.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what things that I had to walk away from in my life, God said, if you will be faithful to me, I will show you what steps to take.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you from experience of drug addiction and everything that you can think of that is the opposite of what God is.
SPEAKER_00: If you stay faithful to Him and chase after Him, there is no devil in hell that can get you out of God's will.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to decide before all of it happens.
SPEAKER_00: You have to make the choice in your life, in your mind, in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: People sitting right here are addicted to pornography, and it has wrecked your life, maybe even your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And you've allowed the devil to be in your camp and you don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I issue the challenge of 15.
SPEAKER_00: Five minutes in prayer, five minutes of reading your word, and five minutes of praising.
SPEAKER_00: When you wake up and your feet hit the floor, or before they even do, just open your eyes, sing his praise, tell him how good he is, and in that moment, you are deciding over your life before you go on with your day that whatever happens, whatever temptations, you are deciding that you are a man or a woman of God, and you have chosen to stick up for the Lord and what is right.
SPEAKER_00: You have to choose first.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't, when you try to choose later, you will not be strong enough.
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we get the mindset and we constantly react.
SPEAKER_00: We play defense real well.
SPEAKER_00: I can crawl down with the best of them.
SPEAKER_00: I get in a situation, whoop and get me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll back up quick.
SPEAKER_00: If I feel the conversation is getting uncomfortable or what it shouldn't be, I'll just turn around and walk off.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if I offend you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Something something comes up, tries to grab my coat, you can have the coat.
SPEAKER_00: I'll run off naked.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't getting me all my shame.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't getting me, devil.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I have made up my mind that any temptation, anything that tries to come between the ministry and the relationship I have with my wife, I will kick it to the curb fast.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have allowed things slowly to get into your life that have no business being there.
SPEAKER_00: You've allowed some things, some seeds planted in your marriage that should not have been there, and now you're seeing the fruit of that and you're wondering where you went wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Things like this do not happen overnight.
SPEAKER_00: You straying from God and not being the man or woman of God that you really desire to be.
SPEAKER_00: Desiring of your heart is great, but if you have no action behind the desire, it's pointless.
SPEAKER_00: Just like if you have no action behind your faith, it is pointless.
SPEAKER_00: Faith without works is dead.
SPEAKER_00: And choose first.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in this first week, we're talking about taking back.
SPEAKER_00: I sang that little song earlier because I want that to be in your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That the things in your life that the enemy has come when you didn't see him like a thief in the night has been taking things from you slowly and steadily, and you didn't even know, you could take a wrong turn hard, or you could take a little bit at a time and still end up way off course.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil, he don't like you to take hard turns because that's noticeable.
SPEAKER_00: You can see that one coming.
SPEAKER_00: But if you can just bump your wheels a little bit and get your wheels just slightly enough to where you don't even know they're turning, you'll end up in a state you never meant to be in.
SPEAKER_00: A state of mind, a state of heart, a state of your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And what this does is it sets us up spiritually in advanced positions.
SPEAKER_00: When we begin to decide first and we choose first, that we decide before anything happens that we are going to stand with God, we are setting ourselves up spiritually in an advanced position.
SPEAKER_00: That we don't just react to the things that happen to us, but we have already made up our minds and preparation to give um everything over to God.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give a very relatable example to some of you.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone watch the Super Bowl?
SPEAKER_00: Probably some of y'all did.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what happened.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I don't watch football, bro.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's weird.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in East Texas.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta watch football.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta watch the game.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not me.
SPEAKER_00: I've never had a game on at my house.
SPEAKER_00: My parents never had a game on in their house.
SPEAKER_00: You talk about maybe the key celebrities that are big time, they're like all-stars.
SPEAKER_00: I know Deion Sanders is.
SPEAKER_00: I know we don't play anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all shut up.
SPEAKER_00: I know we don't play, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now you want to talk Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen.
SPEAKER_00: Back in my day, when I was a kid, I had I had the uh Chicago Bulls all around my room.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't watch any games, but I love their stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I bought their merchandise.
SPEAKER_00: But imagine if on the Super Bowl day, neither team has practiced or touched a field until the day of the Super Bowl.
SPEAKER_00: We do this in our spirits constantly.
SPEAKER_00: We wait until there is something in front of us, we wait until there's some sort of situation, some sort of low-down season to where then we want to start praying and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going into battles you hadn't been prepared for.
SPEAKER_00: There is a reason David was anointed and God sent him back to the field.
SPEAKER_00: Because the weapon that he had been given, that he was raised with, who he was, he needed to learn to protect the flock.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all have gifts, you stash them away, and you're like, God, why aren't you blessing me?
SPEAKER_00: Because you haven't been doing what you're supposed to do right where he put you.
SPEAKER_00: They prepared, they sweated, they probably literally almost killed each other, had some injuries along the way, so that they could prepare for every game that built up to one of the biggest games of some of their careers.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you right now are in the middle of battles and you're panicking, wondering why you feel like you're losing.
SPEAKER_00: It's because you did not choose first that before anything ever happened, you were going to serve the Lord in every capacity.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that may sound a little doom and gloom because some of you are in the middle of it and you're like, Well, I can't start over.
SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to do?
SPEAKER_00: Neither could they.
SPEAKER_00: But he said, Choose this day.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta start somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to say, okay, here I am.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I got, this is what's in front of me, this is who I have around me.
SPEAKER_00: Do I need them or do I not?
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to set up some boundaries?
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to cut some ties?
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all have dead weight that have been slowing you down spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, and you ain't cut the ties yet.
SPEAKER_00: Get out your spiritual scissors and get to cut and quit being dumb.
SPEAKER_00: You're killing yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 16.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: You may while you're looking that up, I'm gonna tell you a little story.
SPEAKER_00: I may seem a little mean and compassionate about this, but it's because I had to go through it myself to understand.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been around me for any amount of time, you know that I love being around people.
SPEAKER_00: I love, like, I get filled when I'm around other people.
SPEAKER_00: Like it fills up my cup.
SPEAKER_00: So for me to cut ties with people that were a part of my people was so hard for me.
SPEAKER_00: But it kept dragging me back to the spiritual desert land, the spiritual wasteland, and I would not find freedom until I cut those ties.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, people of God.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to start cutting ties, or you cannot.
SPEAKER_00: Pruning process is what helps the plant grow.
SPEAKER_00: It hurts.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter 16, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.
SPEAKER_00: So, how can we, as people of God, choose first that we will stay true to our faith, not being wavered by culture, the media, our toxic relationships?
SPEAKER_00: We have to pre-decide, we have to choose first this for yourself to say, stay successful and true to the decisions.
SPEAKER_00: How do you do this?
SPEAKER_00: You say, Okay, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to choose first for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord, and you feel it.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, okay, I'm getting pumped.
SPEAKER_00: Well, spiritual high, you come down pretty quick when you get back to real work and real life, and your marriage you're not happy, and your job that you hate.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you do this?
SPEAKER_00: How do you sustain when you say, I am going to?
SPEAKER_00: You develop clear values, and you stick with true boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: See, oftentimes, if you're like me, I don't mind confrontation, but I don't like confrontation with people that I enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: But it happens.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you get around anybody, everybody's got a different personality.
SPEAKER_00: Me and my wife, I love her to death.
SPEAKER_00: I love her more than any of y'all, in case you were wondering, but me and her get into it sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, and yes, 99% of it's probably my fault.
SPEAKER_00: And if any of you other men are smart, you'll say the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: That one was for free.
SPEAKER_00: But in our relationship, there has to be clear boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, if you've ever had, oh, by the way, somebody asked earlier this morning, yes, she is pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: In case somebody didn't hear, I don't, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: That being said, when you have a pregnant wife, one of the clear boundaries is not bring up weight.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm mom and I'm dying, you better shut up, keep that to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to die, you better, yeah, go ahead and say something.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never find your body.
SPEAKER_00: I can't prove it, but I'm almost 100% sure she's already got my burial ground placed somewhere, then nobody will find it.
SPEAKER_00: She likes to plan ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Just in case.
SPEAKER_00: But in our house together, we have clear values and clear boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, if I'm out there talking to you or I'm talking to somebody else and they're cursing up a storm, I don't ever tell anybody, hey, shut up, I'm a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: No one cares.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I if they ask what I do for a living, and I say, Well, I'm talking for a video, I'm also a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00: They, I mean, I had an agent the other day, she's like, Oh, I go to church.
SPEAKER_00: I go to church, I promise.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, tell your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what happens.
SPEAKER_00: This is a perfect example of unclear values and boundaries is that you say one thing, you want to, you go to church, you're like, oh man, I'm gonna change, I'm gonna do it right.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Law.
SPEAKER_00: I hear you.
SPEAKER_00: And then you go outside and you go back with your old friends, or you go back to old situations, and you get to a place to where you become two different people because you have not established in your house and in your heart where it should be the temple of the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: We got dirty temples and asking him to move in, and he's saying no.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not your maid.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have clear boundaries as Christian people.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it makes me so mad.
SPEAKER_00: You can say whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty blunt.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all probably already know this.
SPEAKER_00: If we ever had conversations, I say what's on my mind.
SPEAKER_00: If it's if God tells me not to, I'm good about shutting up.
SPEAKER_00: Had to learn that one the hard way, but I only make a mistake once.
SPEAKER_00: And so these celebrities, they're like, Oh, yes, you have a spirit, you have a soul.
SPEAKER_00: God, God gave me this role.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I've seen you in your movies, bro.
SPEAKER_00: That's called double standard.
SPEAKER_00: Some would also call that hypocritical, and that's why we are so confused in the church house, because we let celebrities dictate our Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: We let public figures say what we can say, what we can do, and then we we wonder why God doesn't pour out what he says he'll pour out in his word.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't have clear values, we don't have clear standards, we don't have clear boundaries in the church.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God loves boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: Ask Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: He loves clear values.
SPEAKER_00: Ask Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: Ask anybody who's been saved by grace and came to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You have to start setting up clear boundaries and clear values in your spirit and choose first.
SPEAKER_00: Choose first that whatever happens, I'm gonna stick to my values and I'm going to stick to the boundaries that I set up.
SPEAKER_00: When you decide and you align your values and your boundaries, everything else will fall into place.
SPEAKER_00: It takes the stressful decision making out of most circumstances because you already have a blueprint of what you're going to allow and what you're not going to allow.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you go into a new relationship or you're trying to break off of an old one, you can say, These are my boundaries, stick to them or hit the road.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you set it in stone, what you value, and this as Christians should not be something you just make up.
SPEAKER_00: This should be biblically based.
SPEAKER_00: Can we all agree on that?
SPEAKER_00: They should be biblical values.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who's going to the growth track this coming Saturday, what about growth track?
SPEAKER_00: People that see.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have never questioned in your own mind and heart what you actually believe.
SPEAKER_00: And so if someone says something that is a false religion or that is wrong theology that goes against the word of God, you have no clue because you don't even understand what you believe.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we at this church believe with all of our hearts that we must make disciples of Jesus Christ, not of a pastor, not of a worship team, not of a man, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Two simple things.
SPEAKER_00: These two simple things, having boundaries and clear values, will change your life once you make them the filters you begin to see things through.
SPEAKER_00: One life is too great and too amazing and too wonderful to just let things happen the way they happen.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that in God, through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, we have the power to make things happen in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we all know that things happen in our life, but we have the choice to decide first before anything does happen.
SPEAKER_00: How am I going to receive it?
SPEAKER_00: Because we can't control and dictate what happens to us, but we can control how we react and respond to it.
SPEAKER_00: Because the quality of your decisions determine the quality of your life.
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have clear values and you haven't decided what those are, I want to challenge you.
SPEAKER_00: Sit down with your spouse if you're married, if you're by yourself, get with somebody you trust to know and say, What do what do I need to believe?
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to have core values in?
SPEAKER_00: This is why we stray because we don't stick to our values and boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we go outside of the confines of marriage because we don't stick to our values and boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: This is why people steal.
SPEAKER_00: This is why people lie.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have core values set up in their heart, and they don't have boundaries set.
SPEAKER_00: Because if this is what I know the devil was not born yesterday, he is good at what he does, he's even better at creeping in your window and seeing exactly what's gonna mess you up.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what your temptations are.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible even talks about that there have been assignments put on you.
SPEAKER_00: That he wants you to stumble and fall, so then it will ruin your witness so somebody else can say and use you as how they live their life.
SPEAKER_00: And people do it all the time.
SPEAKER_00: When a pastor at a church falls or messes up, you have thousands of people that say, Well, I just I'm quitting church, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: You can see where their faith lies.
SPEAKER_00: It was in man with every head bow.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're here today and you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, there's no magical prayer that I can make you repeat that will welcome you into the arms of God.
SPEAKER_00: There has to be a decision that you make in your heart, and I'll tell you the formula.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus would do healings in the Bible, he would say, Repent and go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: There has to be a repentance in your heart for you to say that Jesus is your Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And if you want somebody to pray with you today, step out of faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you're by yourself, if you don't want to come by yourself, take your neighbor by the hand and say, I just want to go and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is welcome at these altars at any time.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray if there'll be somebody here today that does not know you, that before they leave today, they will submit their hearts completely to you.
SPEAKER_00: That they repent and they turn from their ways.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I want to hold up to the mirror to myself.
SPEAKER_00: If there's any sin in my heart, if there's anything in my life that is unpleasing to you, show me, Lord, reveal it to me.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anybody here today that has been running from God, or you haven't decided, or maybe you set up some values and some boundaries, but you've allowed the enemy to just push you around wherever he wants, and your values and boundaries are all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: You don't stick to nothing.
SPEAKER_00: I believe today that there's gonna be people leaving here that are going to decide in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: Hearts that I am a child of God today.
SPEAKER_00: I am choosing to serve Him.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what the season looks like, whether I'm in the middle of it or whether it's coming up, that I am choosing to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 16, verse 19, it says this and I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody look up at me.
SPEAKER_00: Right here.
SPEAKER_00: This verse I just read.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 16, 9.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what I envision in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have people just in Longview.
SPEAKER_00: We got New Diana, we got Kilgore, we got people all over the city that come here to this church.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that the territory, the places God has placed you, and the grounds around you for so long have been tainted and claimed by the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that revival is going to break out in this place in Longview, Texas, when we begin to put our stakes in the ground and say, Whatever comes our way, I'm claiming this ground for God again.
SPEAKER_00: That the enemy may try to advance, but today, for me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the enemy tries to come against me, the Lord will raise up a standard, and there will be weapons formed.
SPEAKER_00: But God said that He will deliver, that all I have to do is believe and what is bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and what is loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that God desires for revival to be loosed here in Longview, Texas.