God Is Faithful

God doesn’t become less faithful when we become less faithful, and Romans 3 refuses to let us pretend otherwise. We start the year by commissioning Bill and Lori Fair as associate pastors and praying protection over their home and ministry, then we open Scripture and let it examine us. If you’ve ever felt disqualified, stuck in shame, or tempted to build your life on willpower, this message pulls you back to solid ground: God is true, even if everyone else is a liar.

We work through Romans 3:1–20 and Paul’s straight talk about human sin, accountability, and the limits of religion. Church attendance, clean habits, spiritual language, and the right background can look convincing on the outside, but none of it can make us right with God. The law functions like a mirror, showing what’s really there, but it cannot wash us clean. That’s why conviction matters, why repentance matters, and why grace is not a free pass but a rescue that changes what we love and how we live.

We also talk practically about sanctification, prayer and fasting, and what it means to be the church outside the building. We challenge “fluff faith” and call for bold discipleship, truth spoken in love, and a willingness to follow Jesus even when it costs something. If you’re hungry for Bible teaching, gospel clarity, and a faith that holds up under pressure, press play and lean in.

Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who needs courage, and leave a review so more people can find the message. What’s one area where you need to stop performing and start surrendering?

Ending

Transcript

Worship And Opening Moment

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Whose blood is so precious. Bow down before him. Bow down before him. For he is Christ is raised. Christ is written. For he is Christ's presentation.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

How many of you are thankful that Christ not only died but resurrected from the grave?

A New Year And A New Role

SPEAKER_03 1:37

As you remain standing, we have we have a little bit of something going on this morning, and I figured it was fitting to start off the new year this way if the Farron Brooks will come to the front. So if you don't know, this last year I talked with them. You ever been in that position where you know something, but you're not released to say something? The first time me and my wife met Bill and Lori, well, first of all, when I said something from the pulpit, they had to go to lunch with me the next week because they wanted to know that I was not, they were not that person. And my wife, she's probably gonna, I don't know where she is. Oh, she's in here. Man, I was hoping she was somewhere else. She was like, I can't really figure Bill out. And I said, I've got his number. I know exactly who he is. I knew after the first conversation exactly. He speaks in the fluent language of sarcasm. And so he could tell you a joke and stare you in the face and wait for you to smile, and he doesn't. But when they came here, and after breaking bread with them and after getting to know them over the last year and a half, has it been two yet? It's almost three. Time flies when you're having fun. I don't even know how long I've been here. But I knew God had something planned for them, I just didn't know what. I didn't know if it was if we're honest, if we're doing the job of the church, we are to raise people up and send them out to spread the gospel. But you want to be, as a pastor, a little selfish, especially when good quality people come through through your doors and they do everything you ask and above and beyond, and you're like, please don't go anywhere. That's who they are. You don't have to ask, and they're already on it. You don't have to beg them to be workers in the field and they're already out. And so last year we we sent them forward as a church to start this coming year in CAMS, which is calling in ministry, so that they can see themselves clearly in ministry and they go through these classes, and then they have to do a second thing, which is MIP, it's minister training and internship program. And they agreed to all of it, so we got them for this year, and so I knew that there was something growing inside of them, even through the pain and the hurt when they first came here, that I could see past where they had been, and I knew where they were going. And I not only saw a potential in a couple, but I saw the presence of the Lord that when they spoke, when they loved, when they reached out, they weren't doing it for reward, they weren't doing it for a position, they weren't doing it for anything in eternity except just being the hands and feet of Jesus. And so a couple weeks ago, I asked them to come over, and on purpose, I didn't tell them why. And I asked them, I already pretty much knew the answer because I I saw the hand of God and what he was doing and what they are doing here, and I said, Would you be the associate pastor? And he said, Well, the associate pastor or the assistant pastor, and so we had to use Chat GPT and find out what the difference exactly was. And I chose associate because it has more weight.

Commissioning And Prayer Of Protection

SPEAKER_03 5:28

So today before you stands your new associate pastor and his wife, Bill the Lord Fair. Try to get between you and your kids, try to get between you and the people at the church because you're now saying, I'm not just gonna be a member, I'm going to be a leader, I'm going to lead other people to the cross. So he wants that definition to be distorted so people can't see really what the cross looks like anymore. And so I want you where you are to stretch your hands forward, and we're gonna pray a prayer of protection over them. Father, right now in the name of Jesus. I pray that you cover them. Lord, you see everything in their future coming. Lord, I pray in protection over their marriage, I pray in protection over their children, I pray in protection over their ministry, I pray of protection over their mind, over their heart, that God, you raise up the standard. When the enemy tries to come in like a flood, let them remember who they are in you. Doesn't matter what the enemy tries to say, what the enemy tries to whisper in their ear. They are established at Connect Church as the associate pastors. And Father, let them wear that proudly, let them wear it boldly, let them step out in faith, and arise to the occasion that is set before them. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen.

A Calling Reconfirmed Through Pain

SPEAKER_00 7:48

I swear. I gotta tell you, when Stephen asked us, some of you guys know our story. And when we left where we came from, we were informed that we weren't worthy of this position. So when Stephen asked, it just reconfirmed everything that we prayed. It reconfirmed the calling that we felt on our hearts. And I just can't explain to you how fulfilling my heart is, how full my heart is. Not just because of the title, not because of anything, but because we get to serve God. And we get to serve in a church that speaks truth, that speaks the word, and is not scared by what anyone thinks. And that is what I want. I think that is what Lori wants. Thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Lori's being a chicken. So continue to pray for them.

Romans 3 And God Is Faithful

SPEAKER_03 9:12

So if you'll stand, if you know, I know through this holiday season we've been skipping around, and thank you, Brother Jim, for doing a great job last week and bringing the word. Heard great reports, but we're gonna be in Romans chapter 3, we're gonna pick up back in our Romans series, and the key text is gonna be coming from Romans chapter 3, verse 3, and it says this true, some of them were unfaithful, but just because they somebody say they were unfaithful, does that mean that God will be unfaithful? Of course not, even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your mercy and for your grace, Lord. Thank you, God, for your presence that is so obvious here this morning. I pray for not a stop and start, but a continuation of your presence through the message. Let your word come alive to us today. Let those who are struggling, let those who are destitute, let those who are feel like they're undeserving today, Lord. I pray that you open their eyes to what your word says that we are. And we are, if we have accepted you, a child of the one true King, no longer of ourselves, but we are grafted into true life. We have been born again and we have been resurrected as Jesus was resurrected. In your name we pray. Amen. So if you will, Mark, now if you haven't yet, it's important to know that if you remember, Brother Jim came up a minute ago and he said, if you're new here or if you haven't done it yet, to text new to connect to 94,000-9400. Because when you give that information to us, we log it away. And so earlier, so following this following week, during the week, you will receive the notes and the points and the scriptures from the upcoming message on the next Sunday morning. Okay, so if you if you don't maybe take notes, but you would like to what was that point? What was we we give that to you for free so you can take it home and chew on it and then you can prepare your mind and your heart and and heaven forbid you study ahead. So we're coming out of Romans chapter three. Today's title

God Confidence Over Self Confidence

SPEAKER_03 12:00

is God is Faithful. Can I get an Amen in the house? God is faithful even when the storm around us can be raging, even when the boat may be tossing and turning and seemingly going to flip. It takes one small act of faith on our part when Jesus bids us to come, that we can walk on top of the waves, not underneath them. So God is faithful even when we are not. Especially when we are not. So we're going to be going, our entire text today is going to be from verse 1 to verse 20. So we're going to be talking about how God remains faithful, how God remains true. As we go to this new chapter in Romans and we start a new chapter in this new year, how many of you have already got your gym memberships? How many of you did it when December started so you wouldn't be a part of the dummies doing it on January 1? Ah, come on, somebody all smarter than the average bear. No, I did it two months ago. I didn't do it in January. Trying to beat the system, but we want to talk in this new year. We want to build your confidence, not in you. There should have been an Amen there. But in God. Don't depend on what you know. Some of y'all, amen. Hey, come on, somebody. Don't depend on your wisdom, don't depend on your knowledge, don't depend on your relationships, don't even depend on your marriage, don't depend on your church, don't depend on your pastor. You should be a God-dependent believer. And when you are dependent on God, the more you depend on God, the more God confidence you begin to have in your life. What does that mean? That means that I don't have to have the answers to walk faithfully. That means that I don't have to know what's on the other side of my trauma failures and issues. Except I know one thing. What the enemy meant for evil. God will take of everything that the enemy used and try to set out to destroy me, and he will turn it for my good. Not only for my good, but for everyone's good around me and for his glory. We need to have a God confidence. Romans 3, 1 through 12, it continues Paul's courtroom argument. We're going to break that down. He's showing us that both Jews and Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles. So the Jewish faith, the Jewish people, that bloodline and Gentiles is everybody else. Unless you are Jewish in the house today watching online, that'd be you. You are a Gentile. You are not a Jew. But we all stand guilty before God. Every single person in this room, on your own confidence, on your own accord, on your own strength, on your own blood, you are guilty. You are guilty. We are guilty. But even as Paul exposes human failure, listen to this, he exalts God's faithfulness. The word of God is not to bring you down, but it is to build you up because your confidence switches from what you can do for yourself and it changes from how you can get yourself into heaven, how you can act right, how you can do right, how you can save yourself, and says, listen, you can't. So it doesn't shift responsibility. Pick up your cross and follow him. If you do not, you will not enter the kingdom. But there is a difference between believing in ourselves and knowing that ourselves has a responsibility to believe in God. Excuse me for my cough this morning. He exposes and he our failure as humans and God's faithfulness in his glory. This passage is not just about guilt, but it is paired with grace. Yes, we should feel shame, we should feel conviction. What is the first thing they did when they when they sinned against God in the garden? Shame fell on them and they covered themselves, for then they knew they were naked. And then God said, Who told you you were naked? I didn't tell you that. There was shame introduced. And so I'm not telling you to go run and hide from God today. I'm telling you to lean into conviction and realize that there is nothing you can do to save yourself. This is not about just guilt, it's not about just conviction. These are necessary. If you never feel convicted, if you never feel shame, you will never feel the need for the cross. But it is about grace. It reminds us that no matter how faithless people become, God is faithful to his covenant. He is this is one reason why if we start saying instead of marriage, if we start saying covenant again, I think it'll bear more weight. Because people, there's a show on right now, and if you watch it, I hope you feel convicted. I'm just kidding. I don't know anything about the show, but I know one of the commercials, and I said this in my head when I first saw it. It's it's two names. Uh two young white couples, and they they it's their name and his heard his name, and it says their first marriage. And I'm like, first marriage? Is this a game to y'all? That's what I thought in my head. I'm like, so you just your first, so I'm gonna get my second, my third, and my fourth, or my fifth. If you've been there, say amen. I'm just kidding, don't say that. Come on, y'all. You know I'm on my second, and that's my last. There you go. Now we're talking. But on one of their commercials, it made a joke of what they named it, and it said, yeah, their first marriage, which means there's probably gonna be a second, but right now we're talking about this one. And I'm like, what a joke, a covenant between a man and a woman has become. Who has allowed it to be such a joke? Look amongst your fellow believers. We have allowed the word of God. If Christian people stuck the truth, there wouldn't be a version out there available for my truth. The church has stopped pushing back the gates of hell and stopped pushing back darkness, and we're just comfortable in our loop-headed seats. We don't push back. We don't, oh, I don't want to offend anybody. I don't know if you've read this word, but it will offend you before it gets you to change. If you ain't offended, you ain't gonna change. If you don't feel the conviction, you won't want to change. Well, I heard of some. I'm not trying to bash other churches, I'm not gonna say their name. I don't remember who it was, but there were some churches that was having an event that was trying to draw in people that didn't go to church, and they were playing everything but Christian music. I said, Are you kidding me? What are you drawing them to? More world. The church has become chameleons in the community and we don't stand out, we're not called out or set apart anymore, and we don't care to blend in and look like them. My Bible tells me that it's not their music that will draw them in. Why do we try to serve up something they already have? It is the spirit that draws them unto himself. And so, if we don't have the spirit, if we're not going from the foundation of God and we're trying to build a foundation of man, the kingdom will crumble. It's built on sand, not the solid rock Christ Jesus. But God is faithful to his covenant, he is faithful to his word. This is why I I hope that when you pray, you go through scripture and recite it as you pray. Because, first of all, they show when you're studying you you studied and you showed yourself approved, okay? You've been trying to retain what you've been studying, but I'm quoting back to God and reminding him of his promises. If you if you're scared to do that, read any of the Old Testament. They are constantly reminding God of who he is, and God inhabits the praises of his people. They say, God, you said this. God, you have done this. I know you will do this again. You're remembering whole he all he has done. You're believing and establishing in your life what he says, and you're believing for what he's going to do. This is the combination to see miracles in your life, prayer and fasting. I can tell who's been fasting, we're on day four. Some of y'all looking skinny already. By the way, if you don't know, if you go to the church website, connectchurch.life, and you do a forward slash 21 days, when you type that in, below, you can see all the different types of fast, and then you can see what day we're praying on, what we're praying or what script the scriptures are for that day. And please join us. Even if you can't fast food because of medicine, I highly recommend fasting social media because there ain't nothing but junk on there. You can't fast church, okay? You can't fast your spouse, all right. You can't fast your kids. So let's get on with these points. Point

God’s Faithfulness Despite Human Failure

SPEAKER_03 22:05

number one: God's faithfulness is not canceled by human failure. You can't mess up enough to make him be less faithful to you. You can't sin enough to make him be less faithful. Because him being faithful is who he is. It's his character, it's his nature. He is no less faithful than he was in the very beginning. Look at Romans chapter 3, verses 1 through 4. Then what's the advantage of being a Jew? Remember, we're booking, or we're ending chapter 2 and going into, so if you want to read back a little bit on the end of chapter 2 to understand what he's talking about, if you haven't been here. Is there any advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the ceremony of circumcision? Yes, there are great benefits. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God. True. Some of them were unfaithful, but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful? Of course not. Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. This tells us a few things. God doesn't flinch when we fall short. He doesn't lower his standard or cancel his promise to get down where you are. What does that mean? He has called the church to be a holy people, blameless and spotless for when he comes back. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? The bar of heaven is not going to be lowered, so you can kind of sin while you're here on earth and still get in. That's not shouting, preaching. I get it. That shouldn't make us back up. That should, like I said a minute ago, my conviction, want uh make us want to lean in and say, Lord, search my heart. What is it that I'm holding on to that I have not let go of? What is it that has been blocking me from my breakthrough? Sometimes, or most of the time, the blockage from the breakthrough is staring you in the mirror. Because we won't walk away from people, we won't forgive ourselves. One of the biggest things that I had to go through was forgiving myself of the disgusting person I was because nobody else saw me in my quiet, in my alone time, in the stuff where I was running around in the streets. Nobody that knew me knew what I did on the streets out there. Nobody knew the disgusting things that I saw and the perversion of God, of what God put together, of homosexuality in the streets. It runs rampant. People selling kids for electricity, for their rent. There's things that happen that us that have regular lives have no clue that goes on. And all God is looking for, church people, is willing vessels to go and flow out onto someone else what was poured into you when you were a sinner and lost and undone. God is looking for people who will get their hands dirty and not look down their nose at people that don't do it right. We shouldn't get mad for people who don't know God or are new to God and come in here and use the F-word and say GD. I just shock some halos off of some church people. Because is it not a process of purification, sanctification, that we have to realize that they're starting at zero. Well, we may be on 20,000. It takes a long time for bad words to stop slipping through those things. Come on, huh? Telling you. This goes to my next point. Point number two.

Religion Cannot Rescue From Judgment

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Religion does not rescue us from judgment. You can come to church, you can have a clean mouth, you can have all the nice clothes, you can have the best car, the best wife, the best husband, whatever your kids act right. You can come here for 20 years. You can give tithes and offering, you can give generously, you can buy us a new church van. You may do all the things that on the outside look right, but when you stand before God, religion acting right, looking like you have it all together, will not save you. It is what your heart is. He looks at the heart. Because judgment will come for us all. Every word, every thought, we will have to answer for it one day, and nobody will be beside you holding your hand. Romans chapter 3, 5 through 8. It says, But some might say, our sinfulness serves a good purpose. Y'all ever heard those people that could twist up scripture and make it sound like, well, if I wasn't so bad, God's mercy and grace wouldn't count for nothing. We're about to read these people right here. That may be you, we're gonna pray for you. For it helps people see how righteous God is. Isn't it unfair then for Him to punish us? Sounds like they got some things they're trying to hide. This is a merely a human point of view. Verse 6 says, of course not. If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world? Verse 7, but someone might still argue, how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him more glory? Praise be. And some people even slander us by claiming that we say, the more we sin, the better it is. Those who say such things deserve to be condemned. Paul reminds us that, yes, the Jews, they had the law, they had the prophets, they had their ceremonies, but those gifts did not exempt them from judgment. Paul shuts this down. Even if your failure makes God's righteousness shine, you're still held accountable. Religious background does not save us. I don't know if some of y'all knew this or not, but being church of God does not save us. Being with the denomination does not save us. Having a certain pastor that you like, it can make you laugh a little bit, does not save you because every person, every person is going to be held accountable. Righteousness is not inherited, it is imparted by faith. What does that mean? My father, looking at his life, I would account him as being righteous because I know who he is behind closed doors. He is slow to anger, he is a man who gives generously, he is a servant of God, he is a preacher of the truth, he is he does not back down from what the gospel says, what the word says, it is what it is, and he didn't ask us when God wrote it. So I account my father as being a righteous man. But even though his righteousness, to pro, in my personal opinion, to God, to my family, to my kids, him being righteous in our eyes, I don't inherit that righteousness. Everything he has done in his life to serve the Lord has nothing to do with what I do in my life to serve the Lord. Every person is held accountable of whether you serve the Lord or whether you don't. Point number three, everyone is guilty before God. I know this is so encouraging. Look at verse 9 through 12. Well then, should we conclude that we Jews are better than others? No, not at all. For we have already shown that all people, whether Jews or Gentiles, are under the power of sin. As the scriptures say, no one is righteous, not even one. No one is truly wise, no one is seeking God, all have turned away, all have become useless, no one is good, not a single one. Now, Paul here quotes the Old Testament to show that this is not a new concept. Sinful nature is not a new concept. Being unrighteous next to God, our righteousness is like filthy rags next to his righteousness. This is not a new thing. None of us are good. I know we like to say it's a it's a common culture thing. I get it. Yeah, man, he's a good guy. In reality, if he does not have Christ, his good nature or good behavior will not get him into heaven. So therefore, it's rendered useless. Yeah, I didn't like that one. That's okay. From the very beginning, humanity was broken. We're not mostly good people who make a little mistakes along the way. We are sinners in need of a savior. Point number four: the law reveals sin. It cannot remove it. The law reveals sin, but it cannot remove it. Let me give you a great example. This word right here, this scripture, this book that is compiled of 66 books. All great material from cover to cover. I could read, I can study. How many of you right now? You probably started January 1. You're doing the uh maybe with the app or something, you're going through the Bible in one year. I know a few of you, I thought some of you were doing it. I thought. Y'all need to get on it. Bunch of heathens. I know because you're still on day 27 from last year and you didn't want to start over. So now you're you're a little bit before the starting line, and you're like, well, I'll just jump ahead and I'll start on, I'll start on the second month. That's okay. You're only being a little judged. But knowing this word and this scripture without application, without submission to Jesus and giving my complete life over to him, giving him my heart, giving him my thoughts, giving him my feelings, without giving him everything. But I know scripture, it is pointless because the word, the law, reveals what sin is. It shows

The Law Shows Sin Like A Mirror

SPEAKER_03 33:30

us it is a a mirror held up to us spiritually about who we really are. It is a a true measuring cup, it is a precisely dialed-in scale. Some of y'all are scared to get on those this year so far, especially after that Christmas. Y'all come on. But it is just, it is right, and it is truth, but it does not save you until you submit to it. It does not free you until you fully submit to Christ. It is just words on a page, it is just good stories with some crazy stuff that happens between the covers. Without application, it will reveal your sin, it will show you who you are, but until you make the step and you say, Lord, search me, O God, make within me a clean heart, not make me read better, not help me be a better giver, not help me to be a better spouse. This will do all those things, but until you submit who you are over and make him the Lord of Lords over your life, it is pointless. Is this driving home to you today? Reading and learning is great, but it is not the key into heaven, it is not the key of salvation. You must accept Christ. If not, these will not mean anything to you. Do you understand? You experience something, you you receive Christ, and then you read, and the spirit within you brings to life the same spirit that breathed and put these on the pages. Do you understand how it connects? So it comes alive to you in a way that you've never known. If you're having issues reading the word and it coming alive to you, maybe there's parts of you that still don't belong to God, and it's hard to, in truth, read the truth. It's hard to, with clarity, to read what is actually clear. Romans 19 and 20, it says, obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given. For its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we truly are. Now, this is the kind of the there's kind of two parts in this chapter, and we're gonna go through this. The first part is God is faithful, and the second part, I know it's it was kind of a uh, well, this wasn't a very encouraging word on the first Sunday, and I'm a sinner and I'm I need to get my stuff together. Yeah, you're right. If you came to get your ears tickled, you came to the wrong place. We will not change the world out there until we change our world in here. If we're not willing to accept that we are sinners, why would I examine myself if I think nothing is wrong? Why would I ask God to search my heart if I already think my heart is pure and perfect? Why would I? Why would you go to the doctor? My goodness, we just spent two weeks, week and a half, sick. They got sick first, the baby and the wife, and then it hit me Saturday. And then the truck that hit me backed up and parked and went to the doctor finally on Sunday. We were supposed to be out of town, we were supposed to be seeing family, and it was like, oh, what is going on?

SPEAKER_02 37:29

I didn't look at my phone, I didn't move. Jesse did the same thing. She laid on the couch and she turned over and she slept for days.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

And then she's, you know, the great wife she is. I'm sorry I'm not doing stuff. I'm like, what are you talking about? Go lay back down. Stop. We will survive. I know how to eat peanut butter. I don't mean to brag or nothing, but I am self-sufficient. And I even know where the silverware is to get it. But the law is like a mirror to us, and it reveals our true condition. You know, there's there's ways we see ourselves, there's ways we see our children, there's ways we see our grandchildren, and it's very difficult to see past our love to actually see who they are. It is. It's okay, you don't have to admit it. I know it. You know it. You may not want to admit it, but it's true. It's very difficult, and it's even harder. Matter of fact, it's physically impossible right now where you sit to see yourself. That's why you need a mirror. So that you can clearly see yourself, all the flaws, and all the good, and God loves every bit of it. That's why he sent his son yet while we were sinners. Before the sin you're gonna commit tomorrow, Christ came and died so that you can ask for forgiveness. Now it's not a free pass so that you can do what you want and be like, no, God's got me. You can't murder somebody tomorrow and ask forgiveness yesterday. Doesn't work like that. He is after a repentative heart. So the law is like a mirror, the word is like a mirror, it reveals our condition and actually who we are and where we need to be repaired. Every person in here, there's some part of us that we still need to be repaired. This is a part of ongoing sanctification where we are every single day asking the Lord, examine me, oh God, create in me a clean heart. This is why we must kill our flesh daily, to die daily, pick up our cross daily, because it takes a daily, on-purpose action resolve in us to say, I am going to serve the Lord today, even on days you don't feel like it. I don't know if you've ever had a day where you didn't really feel like serving the Lord. It takes only a couple people out on 31 to cut me off. And I have to just laugh or I will rage. And so I just giggle under my breath and I said, Lord, you make stupid people too. He did. He made dumb people too, and he loves them. He does. We just gotta pray harder for him. The word of God shows us the dirt, but it cannot wash it off. It stops every mouth, but it silences self-righteousness, it levels the playing field, Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, church raised or not, we are all guilty before a holy God. And if you feel the weight of that truth today, good. Because I want to fold underneath the weight of the truth of God. I want to surrender my life to the Lord. I want this new year, I want things that I still struggle with in 2025. I want freedom in this new year. I want people that didn't know

Be The Church Outside The Building

SPEAKER_03 41:40

God in 2025 and were running from Him. I want them to find Jesus this year. I want the homes of the people who are separated right now and think there's no hope in sight. I want God to mend that relationship this year. I want the estranged children who haven't talked to their parents who don't want anything to do with the parents. I want that relationship to be mended this year. I want the lost prodigals and the children, I want them to come back home. I want the people who have bad-mouthed and talked about this church, I want their mouths to be shut up, and I want God to prove that He is the God of His church. And most of all, the cry of the pastor's heart. I want the people who have been playing church last year to finally get their junk together and start really acting like the body of believers that we are called to be through Christ Jesus. I want a church to be the church again, not a building. I want the people to be the church again. I want all of us in here who claim Jesus to really portray Jesus outside of these walls. Before people ever come in this building and experience church, they will experience this church out there. You're either bringing glory to God or you're falling right into the definition they say church already is. If you ever get on a stage, if you ever open a door, it does not matter. But if you can pray and you can fast and you can believe, that is what pushes back the darkness, not greeting somebody at a door. Programs don't save people. The blood of Jesus does. So we need to decide what kind of church we want to be. We're going to be a bunch of cool whip Christians. I used this analogy a few weeks ago, y'all remember? Cool whip. You could have a gallon of it. And it could be as light as a feather. Cool whip Christians look like there's substance, but there's actually no nutrition. Woo! Come on now. Cool whip Christians, they look like they got a lot going on, but when you really get down to it, there ain't a whole lot there but fluff. I'm looking for some heavyweight prayer machines coming out of this body of believers that we go storm the gates of hell with a water pistol, we go anoint people's houses, we go to the apartments, we start anointing doors, and we start believing for revival in Longview, Texas, in Glaywater, Texas, and all the surrounding areas. We want to push back the darkness. Push back the evil. Quiet Christians ain't gonna get it done. You've got to decide who you're gonna be. Are you going to do what you've always done and get the same result? Or are you gonna start stepping up and be like, hold on a minute. What kind of power is available to me? What kind of power do I need to go out and start casting out devils? Y'all don't believe they're there? Just look on the TV. Pick a politician. Woo! Come on. Hallelujah. They're all there for themselves while they play pawn with us and make us run around like crazy. Lord Jesus, taxes should be illegal. Come on, somebody. Hallelujah. I feel the Lord. Sorry, it's tax season and it makes me crazy. But we've got to decide not only as a body of believers, as church people, what are you doing when you're not here? It's great that you come here. I love it. But who are you out there? Does anybody out there, without asking you or you telling them, know that you belong to a church and that you believe what you believe? If we're passionate about the lost, everyone will know. If we have a passion, like Jesus had passion for the word, he didn't go sit with a bunch of rich people and and try to pad his way before he died. The legacy was the lives he touched before he passed. What legacy did you leave behind in 2025? Did you do the same thing you always did? Just try to survive and make it through the year? Or are you going to make the decision that you're going to actually change someone's life in this new year? Are you going to actually portray who Jesus was to somebody? Because if you bear the name Christ and you say you are a follower of His, this is the mandate from Jesus Himself. Go and make disciples. We should be praying and teaching those how to pray. We should be casting out the devils. When the church people start getting serious, the enemy starts showing his head. We're going to find out real quick. Who believes? There is nothing on this earth, if you are a child of the king, that you should fear. Even death itself. Because let me tell you something. Let me tell you something very serious. There's going to be a time where the things I'm saying from this pulpit, they're going to come and get me. There's going to be a time where where we're streaming. They're not going to allow it anymore because we're speaking truth. They already try to suppress it. I serve a God that knows all about the digital stuff too. He can get it past their little suppression thing. Who cares? He's going to make it get to who he wants to get it to, anyways. I don't care what they try to do. But I'm going to have a whole series during Pride Month against homosexuality. And all this LGBTQ stuff. We're going to speak out as Christians, not hateful. But we are going to stand on what the word says. Because if we will not speak what the word says, what are we doing here? If we're not going to actually decide that for me to my house, we're going to serve the Lord, then why are you here? We need to be believers who speak out in truth in love. If truth is packaged in love, there's going to be people that receive it and people that don't. You know what? I was watching a podcast yesterday, and I was watching this kid. He's 23 years old. He's doing this like investigative journalist. He's going uh to one of the uh states that's doing all the fraud and stuff, uh, with the I think Somalians or whatever they are. And uh and he's he's going to the daycares and there's an address, but there's nobody there. The the stuff's darked out. Like there's all this weird conspiracy stuff. And everything this kid says, it was just like he was on point, 23 years old. And so the guy that was interviewing him, he was like, Well, you know what? He said he went away for two years to a mission, and my ears perked up. I'm like, okay, what's going on? He's a part of the Latter-day Saints church. And I was like, you know what? These people, he he talked about for a minute, he said, How did you get this boldness? He said, Well, on our mission, now listen to this. LDS is wrong, all right? But take this from them. They do this right, and I applaud them for it. They will talk to thousands of people just for the two that say yes. What are we doing? We're scared to talk to one or two. I don't know if you know this or not, but this is a numbers game. There's gonna be people that's gonna tell you no. I don't know if you ever dated before. Maybe some of y'all never been told no. That's how you ended up with who you ended up with. Bill back there smiling real big. But it's a numbers game. In my whole life, when you go to the bar, it was a numbers game. I'll take all the no's to get that one. You know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. You were the one laughing the hardest, so I had to punch you out. So now, if I'm full of passion at a bar to get that one yes, how much more? Follow me here, how much more, now that I worship and serve Jesus, how much more should I be full of passion and just looking for the one person that will talk to me a little bit about Jesus? Why do we take away all the good from when we lived in the world? We learned some skills in the world of not taking no for an answer, and then we come to the church and we're like, I don't want to offend anybody. When we were out there, we didn't care. I could offend you or not. I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say. If somebody's still like that, come on, somebody. So if we are like that in the world, why can't we use things we learned and say, you know what? I don't care who's gonna say no, I'm waiting for that yes. Because if we set this church up and build this church and it stays the way that it that it is, the size it is now, but we have five people in the entirety of this church that came to Jesus, all the years, blood, sweat, and tears were worth it. But to do that for the cross, you gotta set your pride aside. You gotta stop caring what people think. Listen, I'm I'm being serious, and this is this is tough, but just understand it's gonna get there. Now they're gonna come soon, I believe, very, very soon, the way it's looking. If you just do a little study over in the UK right now in uh Sydney, Australia, the things they're doing that they they automatically jump on board with evil and they call you names and Islamophobic and all this other homophobic and all they want to label you with all these things to make you seem like the bad guy, but you're just speaking truth. Get ready for the names. Get ready.

Bold Truth Love And Costly Faith

SPEAKER_03 54:00

It's promised. It read the word, and it's not old testament people. Look in the New Testament, persecution is promised. If we speak truth, it will make people angry, it will make them upset because it's turning their lies upside down. Because truth, compared to lies, always shines and is the brightest. And so people in their lies and in their lifestyle that they enjoy, they don't want to be discovered. We're the ones that are wrong. Are you willing? Now, I'm not saying be stupid about it. Gentle as a dove, wise as a serpent. Use wisdom. But the spirit should be leading you into battle. If you go on your own accord, you're gonna get what you're gonna get. Ask the Holy Spirit, what do you what do you want me to do this year? What lives do you want to put in my path this year so that when they're in front of me, I will know beyond the shadow of a doubt. This is why we're starting the year off with prayer and fasting. We want to prepare before the battle. We don't want to have to play cleanup after because we didn't prepare properly. There is nobody in the history of sports that goes out on a professional team on the day of the game, they do a little bit of stretches and they play. There is months of preparation. Preparation. Preparation. The word of God will prepare us. His Holy Spirit will give us the fire, he will give us the words and lead us. Everybody will stand. You gotta understand the depth of what that prayer meant by understanding how sinful and disgusting he was. And what did he do? He did not pretend like he didn't do anything. He said, I know there's things that need to be searched out. Find them, extract them, and give me a clean heart. He owned his sin. The things that bound him, the very characteristics that made him even do the things he did. He said, Father, I don't want them to be who I am anymore. Because when he is the Lord of our heart, he is the king of our lives. So we need to own our sin and run to the cross. This chapter, this one, the first half, is very heavy, but it's also very holy. It clears away the false hopes that we can do this on our own. That you go into the right church, singing the right songs, having the right pastors. It means nothing if you don't have Jesus.