SPEAKER_01: If you're a parent and you're like me, you wake up in the morning and you and you say to yourself and you have these prayers and thoughts of how can I embarrass my teenager today?
SPEAKER_01: That was it right there.
SPEAKER_01: So I I wanna know I want y'all to know that uh at the Valentine's thing.
SPEAKER_01: Uh everybody was on the everybody was on the same playing field and then only one champion left is all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: When they came in, everybody was equal, but only one champion left.
SPEAKER_01: You probably saw the videos.
SPEAKER_01: They asked if they could play it today, and thank God it didn't work out.
SPEAKER_01: So, what this is, I did not hula-hoo, this thing.
SPEAKER_01: No, did not do that at all.
SPEAKER_01: But uh, I did get a bunch of chocolate that I gave to Tristan.
SPEAKER_01: So just wanted to, uh Aaron walked in this morning, and I the first thing on my mind, and I'm not, I don't have a haughty spirit or a proud spirit, but the only thing that came out was what's up, second place?
SPEAKER_01: I I laid it at bed last night thinking what I was gonna say to him when I saw him.
SPEAKER_01: Just kidding, it just came out, you know, a champion's talk.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so let's move on.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all ready for some scripture?
SPEAKER_01: Now, today I made it easy for the media people.
SPEAKER_01: We have like three, maybe four slides, but I have the scriptures, and you're going to mark in your Bibles and you're going to follow along.
SPEAKER_01: We got some reading to do today.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be talking about two things.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be talking about why those things are important, what they were used for, and those two things are the old covenant and the new covenant.
SPEAKER_01: You can't go to a church if they never preach on these things of what have the importance of the old covenant, and now we get to live in the new covenant, you may not be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Your pastor may not be saved.
SPEAKER_01: So you're in the right church today.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 2, 8 through 9.
SPEAKER_01: It says this God saved you by his grace when you believed.
SPEAKER_01: How did it happen?
SPEAKER_01: You believed.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't even mention one time if you got on the board or staff at a church, you are good to go.
SPEAKER_01: You made it.
SPEAKER_01: It said when you believed.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it frames it up in this way.
SPEAKER_01: Because it says, after you can't take credit for this.
SPEAKER_01: Did we just see some pride a minute ago where I was taking some credit for some things I did?
SPEAKER_01: You can't take credit for salvation.
SPEAKER_01: You can't work and earn your way another minute into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: You can't take credit for this.
SPEAKER_01: It is a gift from God.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation is not a reward for the good things that we have done.
SPEAKER_01: So none of us can boast about it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you so much for your presence here today.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, God, that your words come out of my mouth and that they fall on the ears of people ready to receive.
SPEAKER_01: Soften our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Let your word penetrate the heart hearts today, whether online or here today in service with us.
SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You may be seated if you can.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna set this up a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't noticed, since the very beginning of the year, we have been dancing around and nibbling on a certain sphere of relationship with God and different aspects of that.
SPEAKER_01: And how to guard yourself against bad relationships.
SPEAKER_01: So we've been focusing on relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember the word God gave me, I told y'all the first Sunday I came back, the word God gave me for connect church in 2023 is focus.
SPEAKER_01: Focus.
SPEAKER_01: We get so distracted.
SPEAKER_01: You ever try to do a task?
SPEAKER_01: And you're maybe if you have an office at home or you're at the office at work, you try to do a task and all of a sudden you're scrolling Instagram.
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, wait, hold on, I was doing something.
SPEAKER_01: I have no clue what I was doing.
SPEAKER_01: I can tell my age, you ever walk into a room and don't have the answer to that question?
SPEAKER_01: I walk into a room, and I've done now I've done it so many times I'm like, well, I guess I'll go back where I started and try again.
SPEAKER_01: Because I have no clue what I went in there for.
SPEAKER_01: No clue.
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I go back to the spot where I began, I begin to remember the things I set out to do in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us have been wandering around spiritually wondering what am I supposed to do?
SPEAKER_01: What was I even here for?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've gotten to a point in your life where you're in an empty room and you have no clue.
SPEAKER_01: You have no clue what you went in there for.
SPEAKER_01: God has a word for you today, and He's going to give you a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot understand or be a person to receive and ready to receive your purpose if you do not have a plan.
unknown: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: The challenge of 17 is a part, and it is vital to the plan to figure out your divine purpose from God.
SPEAKER_01: You have to be willing to sacrifice time, yes, even your money, even your family.
SPEAKER_01: What did Jesus say?
SPEAKER_01: Hate your father, hate your mother, hate your spouse, hate your kid.
SPEAKER_00: He was letting them know how serious God wants your attention.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I have conversations with my wife.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's a marriage thing or what, but she likes to try to have them when she's in the other room.
SPEAKER_01: Or if I she'll be in the bedroom and I will be in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_01: Now these are right there next to each other.
SPEAKER_01: And she will start talking to me while I'm brushing my teeth, or I have a speaker on.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Baby, I love you, but I don't know what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01: At the men's breakfast the other day, I asked, I think it was at the men's breakfast, I asked a couple of them, I said, Listen, I worked in a machine shop for years, and you know, that noise of machines going and all that really loud and tearing away of metal, it will the high-pitched squealing noise and all that will mess with your ears.
SPEAKER_01: But I've gotten to a place in my life where if there's other noises going on, I can't have a true conversation and hear everything if you have a certain tone of your voice.
SPEAKER_01: And the and the Lord just spoke.
SPEAKER_01: Thank God I'm not the only one.
SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes when there's even the slightest or smallest distraction that isn't even messing with me, but it's on.
SPEAKER_01: If we're watching a show in the living room and she's trying to talk to me, I will pause the show and I will turn and look at her face to face.
SPEAKER_01: Because I need to read her lips to make sure I understand what she's saying.
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to follow the rules.
SPEAKER_01: I want to know what she's telling me to do.
SPEAKER_01: I want to know, I want I'm curious about what she actually has to say.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us in our spiritual lives won't turn off the distractions long enough to hear God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: And then things come up on us, and all of a sudden we're faced with issues, struggles, and seasons, and we're like, where did this come from?
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, I've been telling you for a year.
SPEAKER_01: But we've been so distracted, and our relationship with God has become so dismantled that we can't focus on God anymore.
SPEAKER_01: So God has placed it in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: I probably will preach on it the entire year or until I see you getting it.
SPEAKER_01: That we need to get our focus back, that a relationship with God is more important than anything else in your life.
SPEAKER_01: The salvation of you and your family and people you know and love.
SPEAKER_01: It is not a game.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation if you don't know God, if you don't accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will die and go to hell.
SPEAKER_01: But you should have on your lips the revelation from God of the good news of Jesus Christ that there is a way out from sinful nature, that there's a way out of lifestyles that people have allowed to surround them and manipulate them and influence them into doing things they know they shouldn't do.
SPEAKER_01: We love as Christians to just bash homosexuality, but it's sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_01: We will watch things that are sexually immoral on our TVs and never change the channel, and we wonder why the world is so messed up because the church won't change the channel, we won't turn off the TV.
SPEAKER_01: We want to tell everybody else how to be good Christians and live a good little life with a bow tied on top, and we ain't doing nothing for the kingdom except running our mouths, and God don't need your mouth, He needs your life to be an example of what He has done in you, and if there's no change, then you need to check your heart.
SPEAKER_01: We must regain focus to get our eyes back completely on God.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: Politicians say things to get positions, stop relying on them more than you do God.
SPEAKER_01: If you read the New Testament, it said nobody wanted.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't say the government came in and wrote them all fake money checks.
SPEAKER_01: It said that the people of God took care of the widows and the orphans and people in need.
SPEAKER_01: We hold our checkbook so tight and then say, Well, they should have just worked for it.
SPEAKER_01: Get mad at me all you want.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just quoting scripture.
SPEAKER_01: How can we say, God, bless me when we are not first willing to bless others?
SPEAKER_01: God, pour out your blessings on me, but only me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to see nobody else having a good time.
SPEAKER_01: This is my time.
SPEAKER_01: It's my money and I want it now.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody heard?
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, they came into my head.
SPEAKER_01: We got to get to focus back in our on God, in our relationships.
SPEAKER_01: We have to recenter our relationships back around God.
SPEAKER_01: We have to recenter our money back around God.
SPEAKER_01: I have told this is my policy as long as I am pastor here at the church.
SPEAKER_01: It is my policy that if you think we're after your money, give your tithes to somewhere else, another church body.
SPEAKER_01: Because all I'm telling you is what God said to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's I don't want you to ever give here because you think we're trying to get your money.
SPEAKER_01: You show God that you're going to be faithful and He'll show you how faithful He is to His Word.
SPEAKER_01: And then you and I'll have a conversation and you'll be apologizing because I was right the whole time.
SPEAKER_01: We have to recenter our lives, our relationships, our very words, our every desire, and even, yes, our thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: If you think I'm being harsh or making this up, this is what I love about Jesus, man.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't care.
SPEAKER_01: He was a renegade.
SPEAKER_01: That boy didn't mind nobody's business.
SPEAKER_01: He was just like, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I know you're talking about me.
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
SPEAKER_01: Call them out on their thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: He knew the power of thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: This is why he said, Men, if you even lust, and this applies to women too, if you even lust upon someone, you've already committed the adultery in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: If you hate your brother, you have committed murder.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, wait a minute, I didn't do the actual act, but your mind, if you entertain it long enough, eventually you will.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the danger of having thoughts not captive to God.
SPEAKER_01: In everything, submit yourself to God.
SPEAKER_01: And if you submit everything that you are, all that you are, all your thoughts, all your lives, all relationships, even the ones you don't like, submit them to God.
SPEAKER_01: And watch God begin to pour out his blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because why would God not bless what is his?
SPEAKER_01: Fully centered back around Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is essential.
SPEAKER_01: This is not just a relationship talk.
SPEAKER_01: This is for your spiritual well-being and your spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_01: So I am sorry to say if you wanted a church that tickled your ears or talks about how God is only going to bless you and you don't have to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, bless God, hallelujah, and everything is rainbows and butterflies.
SPEAKER_01: Wrong church, wrong pastor.
SPEAKER_01: We have to put in the effort to pursue God.
SPEAKER_01: Pursue God and have look listen to this heavenly wealth.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, God pours out monetary things for us to be blessed with.
SPEAKER_01: But if you look for that as your blessing, that is all that you Jesus said, that was all you will receive.
SPEAKER_01: I want what heaven has to offer.
SPEAKER_01: Because heavenly riches, no moth can touch.
SPEAKER_01: Earthly things will pass away.
SPEAKER_01: All the things we own will decay and they will rust and they will go into the dirt.
SPEAKER_01: But you have something that is heaven-weighted and it has real substance, it will never pass and never fade.
SPEAKER_01: So spiritual growth and maturity.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't noticed, I have been saying this since we have been lead pastors here, which actually next weekend is one year.
SPEAKER_01: Has it felt like a year to y'all?
SPEAKER_01: We were talking, I'm like, oh, I guess I guess February is a year.
SPEAKER_01: The vision and the mission that I've been preaching and screaming for a full year, a little over a year actually, is to equip and raise up disciples to do that we must learn and apply spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: This is a this is a curse word in the church sometimes, disciplines.
SPEAKER_01: We have to go through the process of retraining our minds, our behaviors, and our thought patterns to stay on the straight and narrow, to not conform to this world.
SPEAKER_01: We wonder why our churches end up empty.
SPEAKER_01: It's because we look and act just like them.
SPEAKER_01: They have nothing drawn, they don't have the Spirit of God drawing them in because we don't have the Spirit of God on us.
SPEAKER_01: We must become transformed and renewed in our minds and our hearts and our spirits.
SPEAKER_01: So how do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: We do it by relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: Last week we talked about the dating phase to understand that bad company corrupts good character.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically are going to have to cut ties to people and relationships that have no business being connected to you.
SPEAKER_01: And me as a person who is a social butterfly, I hate this.
SPEAKER_01: Because I just want to love everybody and everybody gets along.
SPEAKER_01: I show, my wife tells me how much grace and mercy I show to people.
SPEAKER_01: People, when I when I was younger, not so much now, but when I was real young, I had people moving into my houses.
SPEAKER_01: I told them no pets, they had like cats and stuff, and they were tearing up furniture, my furniture.
SPEAKER_01: I would let people, when I lived in Orlando, do whatever they wanted to me, and I was just a doormat to come into my house.
SPEAKER_01: God retrained me in that.
SPEAKER_01: Because you can't really be like that if you're a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: But I understand that position.
SPEAKER_01: I understand the pull to want to go along to get along.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this isn't always a bad concept.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't actually, we want unity in the church, but just because you're not the same doesn't mean you can't be unified.
SPEAKER_01: Just because we have different viewpoints on things, or you have a political view over here and I have one over here, doesn't mean that we can't still be unified under God.
SPEAKER_01: Just because someone's a different denomination than us, if they believe the basics, that Jesus is the one true Son of God, that he came and died for our sins, and that God created the very basic things of Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: There's no verse in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna get on that soapbox.
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's go back to my notes.
SPEAKER_01: Amos 3 and 3.
SPEAKER_01: Two people cannot disagree in the way that they are going and end up in the same direction.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to get some people in your life that you agree with that agree with you spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: If not in agreement, cannot walk in harmony in the same direction.
SPEAKER_01: This speaks a little bit about being equally yoked.
SPEAKER_01: Don't go out there if you're single.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you're single.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you're working with.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, well, I'll be here next week, too.
SPEAKER_01: Unequally yoked will permanently damage your spiritual health.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because as much as we love to think that we are like Jesus in the capacity that we can just go to anywhere we want to go and we'll make everybody saved when we leave, it's usually the opposite.
SPEAKER_01: They will drag you down.
SPEAKER_01: It's sometimes necessary to cut relationship ties.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is this is hurtful, this is painful.
SPEAKER_01: It makes me think a little bit of when Tristan was born, and that that weird-looking head popped out, the body popped out, and the doctor was like, You want to cut the umbilical cord?
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: I took the scissors, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Never done this before.
SPEAKER_01: I did not know it was going to be like an extension cord tough.
SPEAKER_01: And it slipped right off and it nicked the edge, and I'm like, Oh, I looked up like she felt it.
SPEAKER_01: I had no clue what I was doing.
SPEAKER_01: And the doctor, he laughed at me and he said, That's all right, go eat again.
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I was like, I'm gonna get this one.
SPEAKER_01: So I clamped it down.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the most painful and awkward part is cutting the umbilical cord to relationships that should not be feeding you.
unknown: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: But if you allow the spirit of God, not you, but you get some real power behind you that understands how to work those scissors, that understands how tough those cords can be to cut, it'll only take one time and they will be severed, and you just run.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look back, run.
SPEAKER_01: And here's here's the alluring thing about the life that we used to live in and the friends that we used to have is that we can get very um, we can remember the good times and we forget a lot of the bad.
SPEAKER_01: Lot's wife was headed to a place of safety and no condemnation, nothing.
SPEAKER_01: The angels were leading them out, they were home free, and she was so tied to what was she looked back.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you wonder why you've been hitting a spiritual brick wall over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: It's because you keep looking back and you can't run forward if you're looking backwards.
SPEAKER_01: You hit walls face to face.
SPEAKER_01: Toxic people need to be excluded from your sphere of influence.
SPEAKER_01: You can love them from a distance, you can pray for them, you can say, Hallelujah, that's right, good job, from way over there.
SPEAKER_01: Because your spiritual well-being and your spiritual health is more important than their feelings.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, if you're like me, I don't mind hard conversations, but if it's somebody I really enjoy and like, it's hard for me to tell them the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And if I love them, I should be able to more, but for some reason it's the opposite.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to hurt their feelings, I don't want to say what I really need to say because I actually care for them.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you have to just do it, grit your teeth, and run so that they can't argue their case.
SPEAKER_01: Because if it's somebody you enjoy being around, a relationship you actually enjoy or you feel that you need and you don't want to be alone, you'll stay with them and just endure the spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional damage.
SPEAKER_01: So in this week, too, we're gonna be talking about the covenant phase.
SPEAKER_01: Have you been looking at my notes?
SPEAKER_01: When you read, you read stuff that has all the time, it's exactly what my message is about.
SPEAKER_01: You're up there reading and feeling the Lord, and I'm just like, get it, God.
SPEAKER_01: God is so good.
SPEAKER_01: Man.
SPEAKER_01: So what does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: A covenant.
SPEAKER_01: So if you've noticed, and Jesus did this a lot when he taught, he called them parables.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls them parables.
SPEAKER_01: He would say something in a way that the people would understand physically to explain something spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't noticed, last week we were talking about dating.
SPEAKER_01: I'm explaining something that most of us have gone through at one point in time to explain spiritual things.
SPEAKER_01: So this week, what do you do after your date for a while?
SPEAKER_01: You pop the question and you get married.
SPEAKER_01: So you be you come under what used to be your relationship, and then you go to what is now a covenant with them.
SPEAKER_01: So the covenant definition is an agreement.
SPEAKER_01: You're agreeing when you go into covenant with your spouse, I'm going to stay faithful to you and serve you.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to stay faithful to me and serve me.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen.
SPEAKER_01: One of the largest spiritual issues in the church today is that no one wants to be tied down.
SPEAKER_01: You ever heard that before in relationships?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't want to be tied down.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you want to be a slut?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all would expect that on a Sunday morning, would you?
SPEAKER_01: And a loose spirit is a real thing.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is a God of covenant.
SPEAKER_01: So if you are going into covenant with someone, it is pleasing to God that he sees the way he meant for things to happen, to happen, and to be honored and uplift and live in that covenant under the blessing of God.
SPEAKER_01: Not playing house, let me shock you again, not shacking up, but you have a covenant between a man and a woman.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't got to go no further.
SPEAKER_01: That you have a covenant blessed by God under the way He designed it.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we have such chaos in our society today, because we try to take things that are blessed under God's covenant and they become manipulated and twisted up to mean something else.
SPEAKER_01: Or to fit in the mold that make you feel comfortable with how you want to live your life.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not how you want to live your life, it's what the Bible says you should do to live your life.
SPEAKER_01: If we as believers believe that the Bible is true from cover to cover, we have to stand and remain on that truth and not let culture influence the church on what is right and what is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: We can be welcoming to people that have issues, sexual immorality issues, but we cannot be affirming.
SPEAKER_01: Because we all need Jesus, we all need to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: If you're out there whoring around and doing your thing, I'm not gonna tell you you're gonna be blessed by God.
SPEAKER_01: You need to get your stuff together.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a liar, if you're a cheat, if you're a manipulator, you need salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If you are living in a life of sin, not having hangups, because we all have hangups.
SPEAKER_01: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever had a drop of pride in your life, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: You gotta hang up.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever looked on somebody and lusted, you gotta hang up.
SPEAKER_01: But we live in churches today in the American culture that will not submit to deliverance, and we live under bondage of demons and sexual immorality and everything else, and we just want to wash over it like it's fine.
SPEAKER_01: God has not called us to live in a moment of fine and acceptance and affirming.
SPEAKER_01: These kinds of things will not make it and enter into the heaven that God writes about in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
SPEAKER_01: So God is a God of covenant.
SPEAKER_01: We see this.
SPEAKER_01: Come to the surface.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody wanting to be tied down.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, we understand this relationally.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: We have a phrase, y'all may know this.
SPEAKER_01: Pastors definitely know this.
SPEAKER_01: We call them church hoppers.
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to be tied down, they just want to come and I just want to give what God gave me and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_01: No, you want to come and partake and not give anything.
SPEAKER_01: Consumers instead of contributors.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna move right along.
SPEAKER_01: We see this come to the surface in marriages constantly.
SPEAKER_01: Either they think they are ready to get married or they have a whoops.
SPEAKER_01: She got pregos and think that getting married is the right thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is all noble and good, except it's the right move with the wrong motive.
SPEAKER_01: So they enter into a covenant with someone, and because their head was in the right place, but not their heart, the covenant becomes very difficult to keep.
SPEAKER_01: The covenant becomes difficult, although not impossible, but extremely difficult.
SPEAKER_01: This is why guilty salvation never lasts.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's a head choice instead of a heart choice.
SPEAKER_01: And so someone will say, I want to be saved, I want salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And this is all well and good.
SPEAKER_01: This is usually the first steps where you acknowledge that you need a savior.
SPEAKER_01: But this is a head situation and not a heart contemplation.
SPEAKER_01: We say it with our heads, we don't mean it with our souls and with our spirits.
SPEAKER_01: So if we feel guilty about being a sinner, which we all should, are there any perfect and no sinners in the house today?
SPEAKER_01: I didn't think so.
SPEAKER_01: Let's move on before somebody tries to lie.
SPEAKER_01: So, but if your heart is not in and only your head, your spirit will not be sustained.
SPEAKER_01: This is why.
SPEAKER_01: And you think about this head knowledge of the Bible is great if you're trying to quote, but heart knowledge of the Bible will sustain you to live it out.
SPEAKER_01: Let me prove it to you with a very simple example.
SPEAKER_01: The devil knows the Bible, but he will not be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Head knowledge is good, but heart knowledge is the goal.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because when it gets down into your heart, it becomes a covenant situation where it actually matters to you what God thinks.
SPEAKER_01: It matters to you what you do, the decisions you make.
SPEAKER_01: I told y'all that I tell y'all this all the time because I want to remain thankful in God's blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Every time, when I get to go to the gym in the mornings, we live kind of across the neighbor in a neighborhood, across our gym.
SPEAKER_01: When I pull out and I'm waiting at the stop sign, I have to cut across, you know, those little things in the middle of 281 where you got to do the U-turn thing and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: So I got, I can't just go straight across.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta go out, then try to get in the turn or try to get in the U and then go to the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01: I thank God when I could just go and not even have to stop.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do stop.
SPEAKER_01: I forgot there's a police officer on the front row.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, maybe there's a rolling in front of that word.
SPEAKER_01: But check your English.
SPEAKER_01: Stop is still there.
SPEAKER_01: And then I get to go right across and make the U-turn and no traffic.
SPEAKER_01: I thank God for the stupid small stuff of my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say something.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope you take it the wrong way.
SPEAKER_01: Every night, I lay my hand on my wife, and I thank God that she even is still there next to me.
SPEAKER_01: Because in my life right now, spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, I am not wondering why I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not wondering why I walked into the room.
SPEAKER_01: There were years where I attached myself to a person and that person left me, and so I became emotionally, mentally, even spiritually damaged because I thought my value was tied to that person.
SPEAKER_01: But when I began to read scripture, it doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_01: It actually says that God longs to have a covenant with me.
SPEAKER_01: And when I begin to understand that God wants to have something to do with me, it changed everything in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Saying a prayer and raising your hand is not salvation.
unknown: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation is a life, a heart, and a mind change.
SPEAKER_01: It is complete surrender to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So that you can truly understand what salvation is.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to read and explain God's covenants.
SPEAKER_01: The two covenants I mentioned earlier, the old and the new.
SPEAKER_01: This broke up into two different parts, the old and the new.
SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit of theology, it's what we believe here, but I wanted you to understand this because even though some of you may be seasoned into faith, you need to be reminded that you cannot work your way into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Don't matter what you're a part of, don't matter what you do, the only way to be saved is salvation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He is the bridge from us to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: There is no other way.
SPEAKER_01: Now, salvation produces and should produce good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: But good deeds do not birth salvation.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the old covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the old covenant, it is a working arrangement, it is works-based.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain.
SPEAKER_01: He had this with Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So when Moses brought them out of Egypt, he wanted to set them apart.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I've been studying, doing chronological through through the uh first of the Old Testament, and I travel a lot when I'm working, and so I just had the Bible read to me.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't even keep up mentally and focus on the road with all the stuff Moses was telling them they had to do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, thank God for the new covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Like I it was so exhausting to me.
SPEAKER_01: Like, and then they were describing how pieces of the ephod and all this other stuff, and the robe that the Levites had to wear, and the most high priests, and the temple of meetings, and all these things that there was, it had to be a certain length this way, a certain length that way, had to be sewn together, so it was one continuous curtain.
SPEAKER_01: Then there was an inner chamber, and there's all this stuff that they had to do just to be in the presence of God, and the people themselves could not even enter in.
SPEAKER_01: God established a sacrificial system that would allow them to be cleansed.
SPEAKER_01: This is key, temporarily from their sins.
SPEAKER_01: But these sacrifices had to be repeated over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Old covenant, old covenant.
SPEAKER_01: He ordained priests to present the people before him, as the people could never come directly into the presence.
SPEAKER_01: His people, even though God poured out his blessings straight out of Egypt, he took care of them.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted for nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Their clothes and sandals lasted.
SPEAKER_01: There was he delivered them not only from the land of Egypt, but from the Egyptians when they walked through dry land.
SPEAKER_01: Miracle after miracle, leading them with fire, covering them with smoke.
SPEAKER_01: All these miracles in their life, and they still would not adhere.
SPEAKER_01: They were not grateful enough that they would not follow the law.
SPEAKER_01: They were a the Bible calls them a rebellious people.
SPEAKER_01: Hello, America.
SPEAKER_01: And we're not even under the old covenant to keep all of those things that they had to do and the old sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this leads to the prophet Jeremiah, and he prophesied, he's coming through prophesying judgment.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to stop what you are doing.
SPEAKER_01: Turn.
SPEAKER_01: God's people would not turn from their wickedness.
SPEAKER_01: God would send plagues on them.
SPEAKER_01: At one point, I believe it's in Exodus chapter 32 or 23, one of those.
SPEAKER_01: It's a number.
SPEAKER_01: And uh he called, Who is under the Lord's name?
SPEAKER_01: Who will obey the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: And the Levites came.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: I have never read this ever before until I was studying this a few months ago when I was reading through chronologically.
SPEAKER_01: That Moses gave them swords and said, Go out, and everyone who will not submit to God, kill them.
SPEAKER_01: And because they were willing to kill their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, their sisters, their children that did not submit to God, I believe the number was over 2,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: They ended up dying.
SPEAKER_01: And then Moses said, Because you have done this and you even slayed those you loved, you are in eternal blessed lineage.
SPEAKER_01: And we won't change the channel.
SPEAKER_01: What are you willing to sacrifice for God?
SPEAKER_01: The sad thing is we say we love God with our mouths, but we deny Him with our actions.
SPEAKER_01: There's a very scary verse of scripture in the New Testament where it says that people will call me Lord, but they I will not know them.
SPEAKER_01: But I cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I cast out demons and prophesied in your name.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Even the works that you did in my name doesn't do anything because you did not submit to the authority of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Set apart to uphold the laws and the covenant between God and his people so they they would not stop being a rebellious people.
SPEAKER_01: And if you aren't making the connection, we today are so e in the church house are so easily seduced by idols.
SPEAKER_01: And we won't call them for what they are.
SPEAKER_01: We won't call the idols that we constantly worship.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm probably gonna get a lot of comments on this, and I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us worship particular people in authority over the country, or that were in authority over the country, as if they are God themselves.
SPEAKER_01: And we do not understand that they are only for them, they are not for God, or they would bear his name righteously.
SPEAKER_01: And we constantly do this.
SPEAKER_01: We put people, relationships, things on pedestals that have no business being there, and we call it righteous because we like the way it makes us feel.
SPEAKER_01: Or it makes us feel justified and right.
SPEAKER_01: That's a big one.
SPEAKER_01: Call that pride.
SPEAKER_01: We have to put down our idols.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Hebrews chapter 8, 7 through 12.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is the second covenant.
SPEAKER_01: This is a new covenant.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not that God got it wrong with the first one, it's that we could not measure up.
SPEAKER_01: We kept messing up.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 8, 7 through 12, it says, If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.
SPEAKER_01: But when God found fault with the people, with the people, he said, The day is coming, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you don't understand this, in Hebrews, right here, he's actually quoting the prophecy of Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: He's just quoting it.
SPEAKER_01: That's all it is.
SPEAKER_01: The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: So even back in the day of Jeremiah, it was a prophecy that y'all ain't getting it.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to try something different.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9 says, The covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: They did not remain faithful to my covenant, so I turned my back on them, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: This takes it away from a scroll works-based religion, and it brings it over to a faith-based belief in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: A worth, a work-based sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: You have to remember the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees and Jesus, they would put the scriptures on their forehead.
SPEAKER_01: They had to constantly speak them over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, This is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01: It's not, you're putting it on your forehead, but it ain't sinking in.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I will put it in their minds, I will write them on their hearts, I will be their God, and they will be my people.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, You should know the Lord, for everyone from the least to the greatest, will know me already.
SPEAKER_01: So it's taken away that placement of the high priest where you had to confess and he had to go in and make the sacrifice for you.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah is prophesying that there is coming a day where there will have to be no more high priest in your place to go in and sacrifice over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.
SPEAKER_01: He won't have to go back over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: But once you say, God, forgive me, Jesus, save me, he said, I will no longer remember who you were, so you should stop remembering who you are.
SPEAKER_01: He is taking what used to be external, a distant relationship, and he is making it into an internal dwelling of his presence.
SPEAKER_01: That the temple that was built that God ordained, that he set up, then he designed us to be able to be the temple, that God can come in and dwell inside of us, and that the very Spirit of God can come and the Holy Ghost can fill us with fire and power.
SPEAKER_01: This is a foreshadowing of the veil being torn when Jesus was sacrificed, the new covenant created from the death of Jesus, the solely needed sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Historically, the only one and done.
SPEAKER_01: That's all was needed was his sacrifice and his blood.
SPEAKER_01: And then he has given us the ability to anyone to be forgiven and to be made righteous in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_01: If that don't make you praise different, nothing will.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all acted like you got the worst life in the world, but you forgot you've been set free and redeemed, and you ain't worshiped like it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we have to keep fresh on our mind, not what our sinful nature is and keep that in here, but understand that God set us free for who that was and begin to worship in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: When we let go of the flesh and we begin to worship in the spirit, we begin to understand his truth.
SPEAKER_01: Head knowledge, heart knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you do your five, five, and five.
SPEAKER_01: You pray, you read, you study, you praise, and you're doing it with your head and you wonder why you're still defeated.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't give you that challenge for you just to remember.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't make it broken up in five, five, and five and one and one so that you can remember it easy.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I did, but I want you to understand that it is something that needs to be in your heart, not just on your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can get your heart to set roots in his word, your thoughts will follow to be righteous in the sight of God, and that in that moment of forgiveness, he will never remember it.
SPEAKER_01: That blows my mind.
SPEAKER_01: I'm good at remembering what I did.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, I don't even have to be thinking about it, and it will just all of a sudden pop in my head.
SPEAKER_01: We have to remember that the authority gives.
SPEAKER_01: Given to us in Jesus, that we can rebuke when a spirit tries to latch itself onto our mind.
SPEAKER_01: Say, well, why am I remembering all this stuff?
SPEAKER_01: Why do I keep getting in this foul mood?
SPEAKER_01: Why do I keep feeling damaged?
SPEAKER_01: Why do I keep going through the same cycle over and over and over again?
SPEAKER_01: Because you are allowing spirits to camp in your life and you're writing it off as something else.
SPEAKER_01: There is spiritual warfare happening now for your very soul, for your household, for your children, for your parents.
SPEAKER_01: And we want to try to wrestle with flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're having a head relationship and a head knowledge of the word instead of writing it on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: So that we don't sin against God, that we remain steadfast and faithful to the covenant with God.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 3.
SPEAKER_01: You got your Bibles, mark it.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 3, chapter 10 through 20.
SPEAKER_01: I told you we're gonna dive into some scripture.
SPEAKER_01: As the scriptures say, now why, why did Jesus come?
SPEAKER_01: Why do you need salvation?
SPEAKER_01: Why can you not earn it?
SPEAKER_01: Why can you not do so many good things?
SPEAKER_01: You get to a certain limit, and it's like playing skee ball at Chuck E.
SPEAKER_01: Cheese, and it spits out a certain amount of tickets, and oh, here it is, I'm getting into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Why is it not like that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope you get offended.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 3 10 says this as the scriptures say, no one is righteous, no, not one.
SPEAKER_01: No one is truly wise.
SPEAKER_01: The things of God dumbfound the wise and make us look stupid.
SPEAKER_01: When I pray for wisdom, some of you have talked to me like, oh, you're so wise.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I'm dumb.
SPEAKER_01: But I pray for God's wisdom in everything.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for God's favor in everything.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want mankind's wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want mankind's favor.
SPEAKER_01: I want every gift that God will give to me from Him.
SPEAKER_01: All have turned away, all have become useless.
SPEAKER_01: No one does good, not a single one.
SPEAKER_01: Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
SPEAKER_01: Their tongues are filled with lies, snake venom drips from their lips.
SPEAKER_01: Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.
SPEAKER_01: They rush to commit murder.
SPEAKER_01: Also, Jesus called this hate.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16 says, Destruction and misery will always follow them.
SPEAKER_01: They don't know where to find peace.
SPEAKER_01: They have no fear of God at all.
SPEAKER_01: If we had a true, healthy fear in the church today, we would act different.
SPEAKER_01: We would pray different.
SPEAKER_01: We would praise different.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us sing on Sunday and think we're good for the rest of the week.
SPEAKER_01: And you think that singing is praise.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19 says, obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given.
SPEAKER_01: For its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20 says, For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands.
SPEAKER_01: The law simply shows us how sinful we are.
SPEAKER_01: It does not matter how good of a person you think that you are.
SPEAKER_01: We all need salvation.
SPEAKER_01: We all need Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We all need to be cleansed.
SPEAKER_01: Being good will not get you into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Doing good works will not earn you.
SPEAKER_01: I said this earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Another minute in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 64 and 6.
SPEAKER_01: It says this we are all infected and impure with sin.
SPEAKER_01: When we display our righteous deeds, listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: This is us trying to be good and be righteous before God, excluding the salvation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just us trying to be good.
SPEAKER_01: When we display our righteousness, they are nothing but filthy rags.
SPEAKER_01: Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
SPEAKER_01: The old covenant was works.
SPEAKER_01: It was a head salvation.
SPEAKER_01: They were doing what God told them to do, but you could see how it was ineffective because it would do their head knowledge, they would sacrifice, and they still would sin.
SPEAKER_01: And they still would sin and they were still rebellious and they would still do whatever they wanted.
SPEAKER_01: But the new covenant, when Jesus came on the scene and the veil was torn, it gave everybody opportunity to be a high priest.
SPEAKER_01: That you now have the ability in your privacy to pray, and God shows up in the midst.
SPEAKER_01: He gave us the right to build a building and to come in it and just lay hands, a simple touch.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm gonna say it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I think we have so many deaths during COVID because people stop touching and praying.
SPEAKER_01: You see how they try to manipulate into us doing the opposite of what the Bible tells us to do?
SPEAKER_01: Don't forsake the gathering.
SPEAKER_01: And we got people still today that use that as an excuse not to come back to church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_01: And the next few services, Sister Jesse and I are going to bring up on the altar, and we're gonna have stakes, and we're going to surround this city and the cities you live in.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you from Kilgore, some of you from New Diana.
SPEAKER_01: We are going to begin to stake and take back what the enemy is trying to take from us.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to constantly be backing up in a corner thinking the devil's gonna get us or demons are gonna come out.
SPEAKER_01: They are going to, they're going to try to, but we know this from the scriptures that greater is he in us than he, any principality in this world.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what it tries to claim or how big it tries to look, it's just a shadow.
SPEAKER_01: And when the light shines, the shadow has to disappear.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know this that when people believe and people pray and they agree in one thing, it changes everything.
SPEAKER_01: Everything.
SPEAKER_01: We don't really truly pray for revival in our church because we know it'll take time away in a week.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else busy?
SPEAKER_01: I'm busy.
SPEAKER_01: Lord send revival on Sundays.
SPEAKER_01: I want God to do what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham, if you ever had a child, and I can't read the story of Abraham without crying, when he took Isaac up the side of the mountain, and he knew what God told him to do.
SPEAKER_01: And see, the thing that God told Abraham to sacrifice was a part of the covenant and the promise that he made to him.
SPEAKER_01: So if you go from a making sense and logical standpoint, that didn't add up.
SPEAKER_01: God's not asking for what you think is logical and makes sense when he tells you to step out in faith.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the very thing that he has blessed you with, you gotta be willing to give it to him.
SPEAKER_01: All of it.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter if it's a gift, if it's a spouse, if it's a child, if it's a mom, if it's a dad, if it's a talent, if it's your money.
SPEAKER_01: If God says to do something and you hold it back, you're living in disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think in the Christian sphere of churches, we don't think we live in disobedience because we don't pray for his will, so we're not not doing what he tells us to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's like we think we found a loophole.
SPEAKER_01: Like, well, if I don't ask God, he doesn't tell me.
SPEAKER_01: I can do whatever I want.
SPEAKER_01: But if we ask God and we seek God, we have to be, we have to put our big boy pants on and accept no as being an answer.
SPEAKER_01: We have to put our adult pants on and allow God to say, listen, this person doesn't need to be in your life anymore.
SPEAKER_01: We have to be willing in every area.
SPEAKER_01: I cannot imagine walking up the side of a mount with my son.
SPEAKER_01: I have no promise that God is going to rescue his life.
SPEAKER_01: I only have the covenant that he set over me.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us live such safe Christianity lives, the devil doesn't even know you exist.
SPEAKER_01: God wants warriors for the cross, not weenies.
SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to step into a true covenant with God that God, whatever you say, whatever your steps lead me to do, I will follow them.
SPEAKER_01: It's really easy to say, amen, and shake our head and we can clap, we can raise our hands, hallelujah, in a church house.
SPEAKER_01: But when you're out there living your life and God tells you to do something, it's different.