My Cup is Empty

Your life can look “fine” on the outside while you’re running on empty inside. We talk about what changes when you stop trying to muscle through anxiety, despair, and temptation with your own strength and start drawing from God’s unlimited resources. Using Ephesians 3:14-21 as the foundation, we unpack what it means to be rooted in God’s love, filled with the Holy Spirit, and confident that God can do more than we can ask or even think. 

We also get practical and a little blunt about desires. Not everything you want is something you’re called to carry, and chasing someone else’s life can quietly wreck your peace. We dig into why clenched fists keep us stuck, how generosity and surrender make room for God to move, and why God wants to be invited into everyday choices not just “big spiritual moments.” If we want God to work through us, we have to be a clean channel, ready to be used, not always trying to be the one in control. 

Then we lay out ten clear ways to glorify God with your real life: your words, your obedience, your prayers in Jesus’ name, your spiritual fruit, your sexual purity, your integrity around unbelievers, your generosity, and your faithfulness when pressure hits. We close with a simple rhythm to build an intentional walk with God that doesn’t depend on hype or perfect days. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review with one practice you’re choosing this week.

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Transcript

Birthday Surprise And Gratitude

SPEAKER_01 0:04

So I just want to confront all the secretive liars in the house that kept my birthday from me last week. Really appreciate it. I told some people, I said, I have never been blessed so big on my birthday before. It barely made it home. And uh I put it all to good use. I said, I don't I told them on a prayer meeting Tuesday, I said, I don't know how many types of diabetes they are, but I think I may have vented a new one. I got all of them. And some. But thank y'all so much.

Freedom Breaks Chains In Worship

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So, something that I'm excited about, and I don't know if if you've recognized it, but in the last few weeks, and I think it's no coincidence, uh, the way God works is that when people in the church house begin to start finding freedom and start to shake those chains off that the enemy has begun to bind them with for their entire lives, some people start worshiping different in church. You can jump a little better when you don't have the chains weighing you down of what the devil's been trying to throw in your face. I want to challenge you. If you're not in one of our classes or you haven't been through our growth track, God wants to do something in your life. God wants to do something to not keep you the way he found you, but God is about transformation and rejuvenation. He wants to revive you, he wants to bring you and raise you up beyond anything that you could ever dream or imagine. The Bible says that beyond what we can think, God knows. Beyond what we can see, he can see. Beyond what we can hear and know, he can hear and know. That's why we have to be in tune, listening to his voice. If you'll stand with me for the reading of God's word. Like he said next week is going to be our first annual homecoming service. It is the church's birthday. Some of you are like, well, that's not when the church opened. We know we were waiting for the chairs. Okay? So if you're trying to do the math and it wasn't adding up, that's why we were waiting for the new chairs.

Ephesians Prayer For Inner Strength

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Look with me in Ephesians chapter 3. We're going to do a little bit of reading in this beginning. Uh, if you have not, this is the last week. If you've not gone through our growth track here at Connect, the sign-up sheet is out there. We have about four people on it right now. If you want to sign up and you want to be a part of that, if you want to be able to serve in the church and be in leadership, if you want to know the very basics of what we believe, who we are, our values, those are things you need to know. If you go to a church somewhere, you need to know what they believe. We're very open and honest, and everything that we believe here matches up and aligns directly with the word of God. And if it does not, we will shut our doors because we will no longer be a church of God. You like that word, play? So Ephesians chapter 3, 14 through 21, it starts off with this. When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and I pray to the Father, the creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Some of y'all have been living a life full of despair, anxiety, and depression because you've been trying to do it from your own resources and you cannot overcome. Verse 17 says, Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. Some of y'all aren't strong because your roots are in the wrong garden. You've been pulling from the wrong sources. You need to be pulling from the source of God's love, and your roots will keep you strong. And you may have, verse 18, you may and may you have the power to understand all as all God's people should, how wide, how long, and how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully, then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. You are not called to come in a church and sit in a pew and have no power. That kind of walk with God is not for you. They can have that down the street. But here we believe that if you come to God and you receive his son as the one true son of God, that you then have the choice to choose the infilling of the Holy Spirit to receive power when the Holy Spirit of God comes on you. We believe that you are not meant to just cruise by and live a mundane Christian life that God has called you to have power and authority. The devil may have his fun now, but we in Christ have more power over him. One angel, one angel is all it takes. But we serve the God that created the angel, and his power, his spirit can dwell within you today. In verse 20, it says, Now, all glory. Turn to your neighbors and say, Glory. Glory to God who is able through his mighty power and work within who? Us. Us to be to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or than we might even think. Verse 21 says, Glory, say glory, glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Can I get an amen in the house of the Lord today? The groundwork that you begin to lay now in your life is the foundation built on Christ the solid rock through the power of the Holy Spirit that is building a house for generations to come in your life. What you're doing today is the groundwork for the generations to come. Do not grow weary and do not faint. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your presence here today in the worship. We praise you, God, for who you are. We thank you for the gifts, abundant and beyond anything that we can comprehend or even deserve. Father, I pray that every person under the sound of my voice here in this auditorium or watching online, that the word of God penetrate their hearts, that they feel something rise up inside of them, that the Spirit of God come in like a fire where they're watching online and change and transform the trajectory of their life. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. You may be seated if you can.

Wants Versus God-Shaped Desires

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Now, I don't know what your desire is, but doesn't the Bible say we like to cherry pick, so let's cherry pick this one. That God will give you the desire of your heart. The word says that. So we like to do a muddy um blending of wants and needs and say, God bless me with all of it. Y'all ain't ready for that. You ever listen? I've told y'all and I confess this plenty of times before. Amazon is my best friend and worst enemy. They shouldn't, uh they do it because you will buy, but they should not make it so easy to buy on there. I have had to restrain myself. You can ask my wife, when we first got married, I would get mad. I was working hours and hours and hours at the shop, machinist, and back in the cable shop, and I was earning, getting overtime, and I was like, you ain't gonna tell me how to spend my money. If I see it, I want it. I'm earning it, was my mentality. Keep in mind, I was freshly married, I have learned better now. But the thing is, I didn't I didn't have a list of really things that I desired, I just saw things that I wanted. We live our Christian life like this. We want what that person gets. We want what they have. Ooh, they got some shoes. Y'all see, I got some shoes. Uh I'm just kidding. I'm probably gonna mention it every time. I love shoes. We see things that other people have and we're like, ooh, I want that, but yet we don't really desire it because sometimes a desire can destroy your life if it's not properly and carefully, meticulously chosen. Because I may love the job that they have, but I don't want the hours. I may love the spouse that they have, but I don't realize the thunder of drama. Thank God for a house free of drama. I do not have a drama mama, and I'm thanking the Lord all the way to the crossing back. Life is so much easier when you don't have things that you thought you desired and you've been blessed with, and now they become a burden. So, my desire of my heart is to bring glory to God's name. I desire to have God working in me and through me. You know, somebody showed me this one time, and it may have been in the message I watched online. I'm not 100% sure. But when God gives you finances, we love to grab it and hold on to it as hard and as long as we can to make sure that it stays with us as long as we can grab a hold and keep a hold. And if something else bigger and better comes your way, if your fist is so tightly clenched, you will not have the room to grab a hold of that next blessing because you're busy holding on for dear life of something that you had it in a season and now you need to pass it on. I desire, and it should be the desire of every Christian to have the Spirit of God working and moving through them. What God has given you, the gifts God has given you, the desires, the the blessings God has given you, is not something for it to come to you and stop there. It's meant to be passed on. Like, for instance, I don't preach on this much and I'm not preaching on it, but I'm this is a very good a like when when I say the word tithe, people clinch. Don't tell me how to do my money. Well, I'm not. God's got a book, you should read it. But when it comes to money, we hold on to that tighter than anything else. We will let a spouse that once we loved and cherished move on down the road in divorce and keep our money. Y'all ain't getting that real this morning. Here's the thing if we want God to work through us, we have to be a channel for Him to do it. But the first thing that you have to do for God to work through you and to be able to pour into you is to be willing to get everything that is inside out.

Empty Your Life To Be A Channel

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Not just on Sunday morning. This is an everyday manner. That means every routine, every conversation, all communications, thoughts, prayers, and practices must do what? Be for God. If you bear the name of Christ, you should be living your life in alignment and on assignment to be with God, to bring glory to God's name. You see, in the culture today, we have a relationship part backwards with God. We come to him for his mercy. Anybody love mercy? Anyone love his goodness? Oh Lord, you are good. Oh, we love his grace. Oh, it's grace. Man, I need a lot of grace, but we don't hand it off to others. Oh, I want his love, but you did me wrong. I can't love you. We want his acceptance, but if you don't fit the mold that I like everyone else to fit in, I ain't gonna accept you. We love his compassion. My goodness, do I need Jesus' compassion? Man, I've been praying for that recently and I've started crying more. Y'all saw me last week, I was sobbing like a little baby. Because I have compassion on others because I remember that God had once compassion on me when I needed it the most. We love God's compassion, but we don't want to pass on that compassion. We want God's understanding. Oh Lord, I didn't mean that. But we don't want to be understanding. All of these things we desire this from Him, but we often forget what He desires from us. To rid ourselves of everything but Him. Everything, every desire, every want. We had some uh minister friends, and it was funny. And I told you about last week when I was shopping and stuff, and and God said put this back, and it was almost to the dollar. Well, this husband and wife were in a lows, and they had a dryer or a washer that went out, and they had to buy one. And he was saying, we need to pray about it. She was saying, No, I want that one. And they were arguing in the middle of Lowe's of what they should do. So the pastor where we come from, Pastor Walker over at uh South Point in White House, he gets a phone call because he was their one of their pastors over at the church where he came from. And they said, Listen, he was the man was on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

He said, She's arguing with me and saying we just need to get it because we have the money and we need to pray about it. Some of y'all are like, that's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

But he wanted to make sure that every area of his life, whether he had the money or whether he didn't, was something God wanted in his life. Even down to a silly washer or dryer. How many choices do we make a day? How many things do we go through a day and we don't even include God in the conversation? I can't tell if this is getting to y'all, and I can't hear you because of the rain, or y'all really thinking. God wants to be involved in every part

Becoming A Tool God Can Use

SPEAKER_01 14:55

of our life. Look over to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 21. It's on the screen if you if you want to read along. And it says this if you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the master to use you for every good work. Most of the time it's a derogatory term, but do I got some tools in the house? Do I got any tools that are willing to be used by the master's hand? Do I have some people today that are saying, God, whatever you want me to be used for, I will do it no matter. See, here's the thing. Here's what I know about God. And the same thing applies here at this body right now. We can want growth all we want. We can want classes all we want. We can want all these things, altar services. We want, oh, 500 people, three services on the weekend, whatever your heart's desire. But we don't want to put in the work and we don't want to pray and fast about what God wants to do here. We don't want to be tools, we want to be we want to be the one using the tools. When we follow the path that it's been designed for your life, for where you are right now. Some of you are later in life right now, and you've had to really really regroove your brain to think different because you've had 50, 60, 70 years of thinking a certain way, and now God's trying to mold you a different way, and you're, I don't want to do it. It's not comfortable. There's no way I can do that. But you can teach an old dog new tricks. Can I get an amen in the house? You may be slow learning, but we all are sometimes. You may have to go through a little bit of a more intensified training, but God will buff out what he wants to buff out if you allow him to. What I'm trying to get to you today is that you have to give God the room and the space in your mind and your heart and your very soul and spirit and your countenance that you give it over to God, that everything that you are is pleasing to him. When you follow this path that is designed with intention and designed with love, it's with our best interest at heart that God has a plan for you. With the very reason God designed and assigned to be who you are. In this body right now, if we want to grow and we want to spiritually grow, we want to physically grow, we love seeing people come in here, we we do it right from start to finish. Everybody chips in, everybody does something around here, and it's amazing. We don't need something new or different to do what God's called us to do. God has equipped every single person here in this body of believers to get us to the next level where God wants us to be. Whether you're single, whether you have a spouse, he has equipped you right now for who you are. You've been training for this. Allow God to train you more if you need it. Can I get an amen? But what you have right now is exactly what God has given you, and all that you need to do the work he wants you to do.

Purpose And Divine Destiny Perspective

SPEAKER_01 18:21

And when we follow this step by step, and God, whatever you want me to do, when we start emptying ourselves out, it leads us to a place that we call purpose. If someone knows their purpose or they feel they have purpose, you can't stop them. You can't get in their way, you can't knock them down, you can't talk them out of it. They know what they've been called to do, they know that what they have is all they need, and God will take care of the rest. Purpose is something that will change your life, it will change your household, it'll change your job situation, it won't change everybody around you, but they'll start to not like you because you got something they don't. Now, this is a beautiful place filled with wonders and the mysteries of God. A specific place that He, God, designed with you to dwell. I think oftentimes of the Garden of Eden, how God designed it perfectly where they would not need or want anything. And I thought about this, it may have been yesterday. I was praying about this message, and I felt like God kind of planted it in my heart that you know, if you read the word of God after Adam and Eve, and the training and the things he's trying to say, he's trying to prepare us for the place where it started. To where we will have clear minds, and God can be the center of our world. If you don't allow God to be the center of your world now, you're not gonna like heaven. Because we're gonna be crying, holy, holy, holy. I don't know what I'm gonna say. I probably will not be able to talk for a millennial, at least, being in wonder of all the things that he has done and crying with all the things he did for me here. But God has placed you in a place for you to thrive in strategically by his design. Every person in this room, God has designed on purpose. You may not like the way things are, you may not like the people you are around. Can I get an amen? Somebody got some people you don't like. Don't lie. Some of y'all looking at it right now. Please stop. Not trying to not try to start that today. And God has something for you that is called a divine destiny. You see, when I was on my track and doing all my thing, when I was living in sin out in the world, on drugs and alcohol, living in my car for a time, arrested twice, there were things that I could not see in that moment of what God was doing to me. Because the Bible says, He says this, and I believe it. The Bible says it is true that everything, everything, both good and bad, work together for those that love him. Because I believe that all the bad things you went through is one day gonna help somebody else who needs Jesus. See your burden and your bandages will one day be a bridge to the lost. Do not belittle what God has done in your life and do not forget.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Now, I know you're probably curious. What is my purpose? I don't have an answer for you. You know why? Because I'm not God.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

I can give you great things that you could probably do and thrive at, but when God speaks to you and moves you into a place, I never thought I would be a pastor somewhere. Never crossed my mind. When we met and married, I was only leading worship at a church. And I had been on drugs. Nowhere in my mind could God use me to speak to other people and tell them what the Bible says about the way they should live. But yet it gave me a space and a place where God matured me in some ways faster than I ever dreamed possible. And he gave me a way to use what he had done in my life as a way to glorify his name. That, if I can tell you anything, is your purpose. That every single per person who expresses that they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior has a purpose and God has a plan. You are to bring glory to his name in everything that you do. Everything that you do, every conversation, whether good or bad, to somehow bring glory to his name. This is why I've issued the challenge of 15. You cannot hear what God wants you to do and find your purpose in him, which every person has the right to as children of God. You have a place, you have a purpose, but you cannot hear from him, you will not know him, you will not know his voice if you are not in the word listening to what he has to say.

unknown 23:05

Come on now.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

You can't.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

So if our sole purpose is to bring glory to his name and bring honor to his name, how can

Ten Practical Ways To Glorify God

SPEAKER_01 23:19

we do that? If you're taking notes today, I'm gonna list out ten things with some scriptures. You can look up the scriptures if you want. I'm not gonna go through and slow down for them, but I do have the five things listed. If you want to take pictures with your phone, or sorry, ten things, they'll be in groups of five. That you can fully use your life to glorify God. And this is this works both in private and in public. And it should be. You should not be a closet Christian, you should not be a closet glorifier of his name. Number one is praise him with your lips. The most noble use of our tongues is to literally praise him with everything we have. Number two, obey his word. Malachi chapter two, it says this to the corrupt priest of Malachi's day, the Lord said, If you don't listen and if you don't take it to heart to honor my name, I will send a curse among you. God still judges his people. We have mercy and grace through Jesus Christ, but he still sends judgment on evil. I will send a curse among you. How had they dishonored God's name? They had disobeyed God's law by presenting defiled food on the altar. Now, what does that say? That says to me that some of the things we bring to God as a sacrifice isn't actually a sacrifice, and we're just doing it to appease him and get by. You know when revival starts happening? When people start actually sacrificing. When they actually want to get rid of everything that is inside of them and they want God to begin to fill them 100%. Number three is pray in Jesus' name. John 14, 13 says this whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. To pray in Jesus' name is to align with the word of God. To pray in his name, it aligns our prayers and it aligns our purpose with God's desires. Number four says this produce spiritual fruit. Some of y'all got some dried up old stanky fruit, and you don't want none of the new stuff. Do you know that fruit eventually falls off and dies and it must grow again? That means you have to be in a constant state of growing. If not, you'll be trying to eat some nasty rotten fruit and then wonder why you breaststink. My father is glorified, John 15, 8, by this, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. You cannot prove any other way in your life. You can have the longest words you want, but they can be empty if you have no fruit to bear. We must be bearing his fruit. The fruit is obedience to Christ, and it brings glory to God because it shows the non-believer, if anything else, it shows the non-believer that God is actually working. Because some of us, and you know who you are, if God wasn't working in you, you would be crazy. So when people who actually know you and have known you begin to see the righteous fruit of God in your life, what kind of testimony is that? When you love when you shouldn't love, you forgive when you shouldn't forgive, and you bring glory to God's name and you don't live like the world does. There's to be a separation and a calling out of God's people. We have to be different than what they are, or they will not want to come to where we are. We have to produce the fruit. 1 Corinthians 6, 18 through 20. You can read it all, but I'm only gonna pull from it. We have to, number five, remain sexually pure. There are pastors and ministers, time and time and time again. You hear story after story after story, and these are just people in the spotlight that everyone knows their business, that people will not be sexually pure before an Almighty God, and it will destroy every witness you've ever had. It takes one time to mess up an eternity, remain sexually pure, flee from sexual immorality. When Joseph, when he had the many colors, and Potiphar's wife tried to come at him. Hey Boo-Boo, what you doing? He said, Nope. And he took off running. Some of y'all trying to wrestle to the ground, and then you just end up naked. When you wrestle with sin, you will lose. You have to flee, run out the door, shut it behind you, and scream. Stranger danger, stranger danger. Oh man. Because God wants to be glorified even in the very basic thing of your body. Your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and that temple is not to be defiled by sexual immorality. Number six, seek the good of others. First Corinthians 10, 1031. So whether you eat or you drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. We are called to do good to others as we are doing it to God Himself. That is our mandate. This brings glory to God. Number seven, give generously. 2 Corinthians 9 13. The result of the Corinthians giving to the poor believers in Jerusalem would be that they would glorify God and be obedient and a confession through their finances of the gospel and all the good that God has done to them and done for them and now is doing through them. 1 Peter 2 12, number 8 is live honorably among unbelievers. This goes and pairs right along with having the fruit of the Spirit. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles. So that when the slander, when they slander you as an evildoer, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits. Actions does not get you into heaven. It does not save you, but it'll let people know you're going there. Matthew 5, 16 says, Jesus said, Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. You will be a light. There's two choices the way you treat people in public, church people, people of God, everyone is watching you. They probably know where you go to church. Or they know at least that you say you go to church. Matthew 5, 16 says this to be a light. If you don't choose to be the light in their world, you will drive them deeper into darkness. Let me say it again. If you do not choose to be a light and shine the gospel in their hearts and in their lives and be the light of Jesus to them, you will drive them further into the darkness. Number nine, be faithful when you are persecuted. First Peter 4:16. But if anyone suffers as Christians, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in having that name. If we want to glorify God, then we have to not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to live in such a way that we don't back down when other people try to bully us with their truth. That we know what the truth, the truth will always come out, it will always prevail. It may be seeds that you're planting today that is for 20 years down the road when God reveals himself to them. But do not be ashamed to plant those seeds in truth through love. If your roots are in love, you will grow the proper fruit. We have a blessed hope that they know nothing about. John 21, 19 says, Jesus predicted Peter would die as a martyr. And Jesus said it would bring glory to God in his death. Philippians 1 20 and 21. Paul hoped Christ would be glorified in his death. Because that we know to live in Christ, to die is gained. We know this. Now, if you look back at these ten things, none of them had selfish ambition or desires in them at all. Is that when you do something and you're trying to bring glory to his name, your name is not in it. That's why Jesus preached against the Pharisees all the time because they were always trying to bring glory to their own name. We have churches full of people who are following a man or a woman that bring glory only to their name. We have Christians who say they serve God, but yet they are full of selfish ambition and only wanting to serve themselves.

Intentional Daily Habits And Closing

SPEAKER_01 34:02

If we want to be pleasing to God and we want to glorify Him with our lives, we must daily strive to empty our cups. I don't know about you, but sometimes life feels like a shopping spree at Walmart with an empty cart, and I walk by everything and just take my arm and shovel it all in and see how much I can fit in for the day. And then I go to sleep, I empty my cart, and I do it all over again tomorrow. Anyone ever have days like that? You're go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and everything fills up everything you gotta do. You got a schedule, you got an agenda. Everything is so full. And then at the very end of your day, you're like, ah, I forgot to pray today. I forgot to read today. And then your bed hits. You said, I will in just a minute. When I get the kids to bed, or when I do this, when I do that, after I shower, I stink, whatever. We go to bed, we lay down, and then nothing happens, and we end up starving ourselves spiritually every day with good intentions. People die and go to hell with good intentions all the time. We have to start being intentional and putting God first. That's why I've I say it almost every Sunday. Five minutes in prayer, five minutes in reading your word, and five minutes of praising. When you begin to build that relationship with God, listen, when when my wife and I started dating, and most of you can't attest to this, we didn't spend all day, every day together because we weren't married. We started off small and we built the relationship. Don't be scared to start building a relationship with God because you think you can't do it right. Chances are you probably won't, and He'll love you just the same. He'll welcome you in just the same. God knows I don't do it right all the time, but yet every day the Bible says his mercy and his grace is new every single day because we need it. I want you to intentionally begin to start living your life as a Christian. You know, a lot of times in our spiritual walks, we shoot from the hip a lot. A lot. There's no intention to just woo, you know, whatever happens, Lord, I just take me away. And there's no intention. We haven't prepared for the day. See, we do things so many times. Intentional, except for our walk. It always goes to the back burner. Oh, we can do that next week. I I'll read twice tomorrow. Am I the only person guilty of this? I have gone entire days with the Z and realize I haven't read in two days. What have I been doing? I know I've been busy, but that is no excuse for putting God second place in my life. There's no wife, there's no husband, there's no child, there is no job that deserves to take first place above God. I love my wife to death, but she is second to God. I love my church to death, but you are fourth to my wife and child. Some of you are like, wait, four. When the church begins to get the focus back of what's actually important, in your house, miracles, signs, and wonders show up in God's house. Because you have made it a point to be intentional with your prayer and with your fasting. The place you draw power from is not that Netflix channel. Come on, somebody.