SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we are in for a fantastic treat today.
SPEAKER_00: Words are going to fall so short to introduce the man of God that we have in the room today.
SPEAKER_00: But before we introduce the faithful, the mighty, the friend of God who's here in this room, I wanted to share something that the Lord put on my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you are here and you know of Pastor Rodney's testimony that God miraculously healed him from cancer.
SPEAKER_00: But there's more to this man and more to the story and the testimony of healing that we will hear more about today.
SPEAKER_00: But if you were here at our launch, we're six months into a brand new church.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were here, we had another man of God that was here that prayed for Pastor Rodney.
SPEAKER_00: And there were so many people praying the prayer of faith.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this man has walked so closely with the Lord and has walked so faithfully with the people of God that there were just people all over the world praying for him.
SPEAKER_00: But in this room that day, a man of God laid hands on him and prayed for him.
SPEAKER_00: And in the coming weeks, his report was clear.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that was a combination and a culmination of the prayers of the saints, the prayers of the righteous that do a lot of good that the Bible talks about.
SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded because last week we had a gentleman come up and share a testimony who was here that day, and they live out of town, their family for someone who attends here.
SPEAKER_00: And they literally said that they were here that day, and they don't attend a church that believes or teaches that healing is current and relevant for today, that that was just something that was written, something that's for days gone by.
SPEAKER_00: And they were here in this room that day, and that man came up to me and said, My wife and I knew that day that that man, we didn't, they didn't even know who you were, they didn't know anything about your story, and they said, We knew that day that God still healed and God was going to heal that man.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, and I don't know whatever happened to that man.
SPEAKER_00: He said, But we got in the car and we started talking.
SPEAKER_00: Do you really think God heals still?
SPEAKER_00: And so she gets in the word and begins a deep dive and starts searching the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know it's okay to have questions?
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to question people's theology.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, we should dig, ask, seek, knock, and you will find.
SPEAKER_00: They go back to their church where healing is just a we're gonna pray for you and just hope and cross our fingers.
SPEAKER_00: They were sitting in church, and a 90-something-year-old member was gonna have to have back surgery, which was gonna be severe.
SPEAKER_00: The wife starts elbowing.
SPEAKER_00: When your wife elbows you in church, pay attention, men.
SPEAKER_00: It's a thing.
SPEAKER_00: She's elbowing him and says, I think you need to pray for her after church today.
SPEAKER_00: Church breaks out, the church said, We just this week pray for her.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he gets up and takes his faith that he received from watching this prayer, and he marches over to this little lady and he prays for her on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Her surgery was scheduled for Tuesday in a church that does not teach that healing is relevant, that it actually happens in real time.
SPEAKER_00: He went and he prayed for this lady after church, laid his hands on her like he saw, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like he heard happen here with Pastor Rodney, and that woman showed up to do all of her pre-op and there was nothing to do surgery on.
SPEAKER_00: She was completely healed.
SPEAKER_00: So this man is now radically, radically changed.
SPEAKER_00: Like the trajectory, the path that he was on, his whole belief system loved God, served God, followed God with his whole heart.
SPEAKER_00: And because he was in the room where faith took place, faith didn't just happen in the atmosphere, it actually took root.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, that's what's in the room today.
SPEAKER_00: Faith can take root and grow deep into who you are and change the trajectory of your path.
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord shared this with me.
SPEAKER_00: King Hezekiah in 2 Kings, this is chapter 20, says, In those days, Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: You guys have been there.
SPEAKER_00: You remember that.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet Isaiah went to him and said, This is what the Lord says, put your house in order because you are going to die.
SPEAKER_00: You will not recover.
SPEAKER_00: The diagnosis was grim.
SPEAKER_00: But then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, and have done what is good in your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
SPEAKER_00: Before Isaiah had left the middle court, he hadn't even gotten out of town yet.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Go back and tell Hezekiah, this is what the Lord says, the God of your father David says, I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears.
SPEAKER_00: I will heal you.
SPEAKER_00: And on the third day from now, you will go up to the temple of the Lord, and I will add 15 years to your life.
SPEAKER_00: More for you, Rodney.
SPEAKER_00: And I will deliver you and this city from the king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: The deliverance and the healing of this man is not just about this man.
SPEAKER_00: It's about healing this man and beyond the walls.
SPEAKER_00: It's already happened.
SPEAKER_00: We're already seeing it.
SPEAKER_00: What happened in him is not just for him, it's not just about him, it's about this city.
SPEAKER_00: And it's about wherever that man places his feet.
SPEAKER_00: And we are going to be partnering with them, sending them all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you, it's important where you placed your feet to show up in the house of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It matters because guess what?
SPEAKER_00: That happened that day.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't happen the week before, it didn't happen the week after.
SPEAKER_00: But it was being in the room, being present for that faith.
SPEAKER_00: And let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: When Hezekiah prayed, he said, Lord, remember.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a book of remembrance.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're aware of this.
SPEAKER_00: There is a book of remembrance that the Bible speaks of.
SPEAKER_00: And it's in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And when we pray prayers of remembrance, God, remember me.
SPEAKER_00: Opens the book.
SPEAKER_00: There is a book with your faithful deeds, with the things you've done before the Lord that no one else has seen.
SPEAKER_00: No one else is applauding you.
SPEAKER_00: No one else is crediting you.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to go viral on social media.
SPEAKER_00: We need our lives to be written in the book of remembrance that is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: When life is crashing down, you don't need all the fanfare.
SPEAKER_00: You need all of heaven to get behind you and say, I remember.
SPEAKER_00: I saw what you did.
SPEAKER_00: So it says, and then those, this is in Malachi, interesting, chapter 3, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord paid attention and he heard them.
SPEAKER_00: And a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the promise: they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: And in that day, when I make up my treasured possession, I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
SPEAKER_00: Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.
SPEAKER_00: Let this be a reminder today as we prepare our hearts to hear.
SPEAKER_00: God is good.
SPEAKER_00: He heals and he rewards and records your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not always about what is seen and what is known, it is about the things that we do, the people that we are day in and day out.
SPEAKER_00: He records the acts of faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that when so many of us were praying for this faithful man who's a friend, the humility that they walk in is unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: And when they cried out in the midnight hour and said, God, remember me, I think there were page after page after page after page.
SPEAKER_00: And many of you were part of those pages because you've lived the fruit of their faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on that page.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'll get in posture today, if you'll ready your heart, the faithfulness and the testimony, the overcoming power of Christ Jesus is in this man by the blood of the Lamb and the word of his testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to speak to introduce Pastor Rodney?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I say amen to all that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to move this down here.
SPEAKER_01: Because I want Rodney to be as close to us as possible on this floor.
SPEAKER_01: You guys can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated until I have Pastor Rodney come up, and then you can stand and welcome him.
SPEAKER_01: But you can't stand if you're already standing, so you got to be seated so we can stand and give honor to the man of God.
SPEAKER_01: But this is a special day for me.
SPEAKER_01: And uh yes, because Pastor Rodney and Kathy are here and all of their friends and fan club that are here today, praise God.
SPEAKER_01: But uh also it's a special day because some special friends of ours showed up this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And uh John and Christine Mauser, y'all just wave your hands right there.
SPEAKER_01: There they are, there they are.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what's so special about it to me because when we moved here in 2015 and we have history with them, we go way back, God changed their lives.
SPEAKER_01: John showed up, uh drug addict, in and out of jail, desperate, uh showed up at uh the church we were at, and um Christine showed up there, and God just healed them and delivered them and set their lives in order, and then they met each other and got married and have a beautiful family.
SPEAKER_01: John is now uh John and Christine are now the senior pastors of a church in Shreeport.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I was super shocked to see him walk in this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, who's preaching at your church?
SPEAKER_01: So, but but here's what's here's what's so special to me because they moved here with us in 2015 to Plant River Life Church.
SPEAKER_01: They packed up their family and they moved here because they knew God was speaking and that God was gonna move and that God was gonna do something here, and as we begin to hear the Lord and follow the Lord step by step, and he instructed us to lay it down, and then we ended up at uh Gateway Church after that season where we laid it down.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord spoke to them to go help another friend of ours that was pastoring a church, and so they they moved to go do that, and then he spoke to them to go back to Louisiana and to do ministry there, and they did, and now uh just actually uh the week uh was the weekend of our launch, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01: So we can offer that's why they weren't able to be here, is they were setting him in as the senior pastor of this church at Shreeport Jordan's Crossing.
SPEAKER_01: And so what a ride, man, what a story, and I I just love that you're here today because this is the fulfillment of all those years that we believed and we obeyed and we sacrificed what we sacrificed.
SPEAKER_01: This is part of the fulfillment, and I'm I'm just glad you're in the room.
SPEAKER_01: I love you guys.
SPEAKER_01: So proud, so proud of you.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Pastor Rodney Moore and Kathy Moore, as Melanie said, I don't need to really repeat any of those things.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, most of you in the room that know them know that.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I specifically felt in my spirit that we we needed an impartation from Pastor Rodney Moore.
SPEAKER_01: And it was connected to the message I preached on be baptized in the name of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Because that is a baptism in the name of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Again, we've taught, we're in a series, we're talking, God's redefining some stuff for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's not just language for water baptism, it's a model of discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: And when you're baptized in the name of the Father, to be baptized in the name means to be immersed, fully submerged, firmly fixed in and under, listen to me, God's very own character, nature, and authority.
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at the Father, that's our origin, that's where we came from, that's our genesis, that's where our identity comes from, that's where love and value and worth comes from.
SPEAKER_01: It is that baptism into the name of the Father that completely transforms us and gives us our identity in God, the reality of our existence.
SPEAKER_01: And when God and when when Rodney Moore, he'll share some of his story, when he had that encounter with the love of the Father, it completely healed and set him free and transformed his life miraculously.
SPEAKER_01: And and the glory of God in his life is that that he was he had no chance in life.
SPEAKER_01: No chance.
SPEAKER_01: But he had an encounter with the Father that changed who he was.
SPEAKER_01: He so received the love of God that it changed his life, it changed his destiny, his trajectory for generations.
SPEAKER_01: And now we get to see the fruit of that transformation.
SPEAKER_01: But I see the glory of God in Pastor Rodney in so many other ways, but uh that is certainly one of them, and that he is a son of Almighty God, and Kathy is a daughter of Almighty God, and they have such a uh a godly and fruitful life and legacy, their ministry, their family, everything they do.
SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted him to come here today and impart some of that to us and stir our faith.
SPEAKER_01: So, Pastor Rodney, let's welcome Pastor Rodney as he comes to minister the word.
SPEAKER_02: Praise the Lord, River Life Church.
SPEAKER_02: Wow, all the messages so far have been excellent.
SPEAKER_02: I I really think I could give a brief testimony and we could go.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: I thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02: How how do you not just fall in love with the Ward family?
SPEAKER_02: And I've been so privileged to spend time with them and time with Pastor Ben some years back when we were getting to know each other and and trading prayers and and stories about what God had done in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: And so I am so thankful that God has ordained this day, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's no accidents with him.
SPEAKER_02: And just like uh Melanie was talking about the gentleman that was here when uh you prayed for us, you prayed for me, and John Bozeman, Pastor John, prayed for me.
SPEAKER_02: And and that experience, encountering God, encountering the people of God, and faith uh working through your life changed his life, and now other people's lives are being changed.
SPEAKER_02: And so um I don't want you to ever think that uh when the sun comes up, that God is limited in what he can do in us or through us.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I know right now you're the best kept church secret in Texas, I know that it won't always be like that.
SPEAKER_02: Uh others are coming, and but I encourage you, invite people in to this opportunity to have some paradigm shift, to have some rewiring, to have some strongholds pulled down.
SPEAKER_02: So why?
SPEAKER_02: Because God wants to do that in this hour that we live, so we can be vessels that can represent Him, be it to our neighbors or to the nations.
SPEAKER_02: And so the destiny of each life is so valuable.
SPEAKER_02: The Ephesians 2.10 plan that God prepared beforehand is so vital, so needed in this hour that we live in.
SPEAKER_02: So what I'm saying is you're very significant.
SPEAKER_02: You're you're very much in a place where you can join and receive what God said about Israel.
SPEAKER_02: What did he say?
SPEAKER_02: He said, I didn't choose you because you were mighty in number.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I chose you to show my strength through.
SPEAKER_02: You know, one man in New York put it this way.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I started thinking about religions.
SPEAKER_02: And I started studying the big five, right?
SPEAKER_02: The major religions.
SPEAKER_02: And I looked around New York when I was reading the Bible in the Old Testament, and I saw that I wasn't meeting any Jebusites, Gergeshites, Amorites.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: They had all been killed.
SPEAKER_02: But is but there were Jews.
SPEAKER_02: He said, So I think I'll explore Judaism.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, Oh, I think the Messiah is Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to become a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: So, but isn't it amazing that God doesn't need the many, right?
SPEAKER_02: And so uh every day that He opens our eyes, and because we're believers, as one man wrote in a song, never should a sunrise seem hopeless anymore.
SPEAKER_02: Pastor Ben remembers, I remember waking up on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't hear the birds sing, I couldn't see the sunlight or the blue sky before Jesus became real to me.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't have hope.
SPEAKER_02: But let me tell you, every day that he opens my eyes, I know it's a gift.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so thankful.
SPEAKER_02: I just want to pause there.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the most wonderful person that came into my life when I was 16 years old.
SPEAKER_02: God uh instructed her father, he didn't know it, to move south from Oklahoma to Houston area.
SPEAKER_02: And Kathy, would you stand up?
SPEAKER_02: In in the Philippines, she's known as two names, Mango Mama, because she loves mango shakes.
SPEAKER_02: And then her security uh name is popcorn because there they have a kettle corn that she loves.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh if you're now now we'll have to change the code, right?
SPEAKER_02: No, these are friends, it's okay.
SPEAKER_02: And and so she's also here, she's known as Lady Jesus sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I gave her that one.
SPEAKER_02: But just yesterday, um a man, a friend, he uh was texting me and he said, you know, Kathy demonstrates the love of God so well and radiates the glory of God so much, it must be very convicting to live with her.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, that kind of tells you what he thinks about me, right?
SPEAKER_02: You know, and I said, Yes, I said, God looked down and said, Oh, that guy, he's really a special needs case.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna send the best.
SPEAKER_02: So he did all the way from Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_02: Now don't fear all you Texans, which I'm one.
SPEAKER_02: Uh she was born in Lubbock, Texas, because I, as a foolish young man, had said I would never marry anybody from north of the Red River, not to offend anybody from Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_02: I was lost, and um but he sent her to spring high school, blinded her, obviously, somewhat, because she thought I was cute.
SPEAKER_02: And that has lasted to this day, just kind of a filter to look through, you know.
SPEAKER_02: And so um I couldn't believe it, you know.
SPEAKER_02: And the great news was she didn't really know who I was and who people thought I was in that school.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, they would have said, you know, we think he might be a little crazy.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you sure you want to go out with him?
SPEAKER_02: But 47 years, April 28th, we'll be married.
SPEAKER_02: We've known each other 50 years.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And she has been, I still not convinced she's not an angel in disguise as a human because she has uh shown me what love is, and I'm so thankful.
SPEAKER_02: And then I want my uh oldest daughter and son-in-law Aaron and our grandchildren, minus one, to stand up right now, please.
SPEAKER_02: And and you have to, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: She was shaking her head no.
SPEAKER_02: So Michelle and Aaron and Ava London, Levi, Naomi, and Eden.
SPEAKER_02: Ava is in Colorado at university, and um we miss her so much, but she'll be home soon.
SPEAKER_02: But um, when we came to Jesus in 1980, uh the Lord had a very specific prayer for me to pray.
SPEAKER_02: I'll need some more Kleenex, please.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna try I said I'm gonna try not to cry for 30 minutes up here.
SPEAKER_02: But um I said, Lord, I want true riches.
SPEAKER_02: Things that can't be bought with money.
SPEAKER_02: And boy, has he answered that prayer.
SPEAKER_02: I'll share some of my testimony from my childhood, but um I I didn't understand what what love was.
SPEAKER_02: And uh I'm surrounded by love.
SPEAKER_02: And we'll talk a little bit a little bit about the cancer later, but one of my best days on earth was my worst day physically.
SPEAKER_02: And it was uh one of my worst days, and it was at Ava's graduation from high school, and uh I was I was pretty weak and and so on, and I was having a hard time getting in and out of vehicles, and and I noticed that my giant son-in-law, which he I think he's had a growth spurt in his 40s, he's taller, or maybe I'm shorter, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: And then my two grandsons, I think Aaron was behind me, and my grandsons were on each side of me just in case I kept falling, and I was so so proud.
SPEAKER_02: And the compassion that the Travis family has shown to Kathy and I, and the love has been beyond measure and been uh such a great part of our story.
SPEAKER_02: So I love you all Edens and children, so yeah, neighbors in Colorado.
SPEAKER_02: But I I want to um tell you how grateful I am for you, River Life and Pastors Ben and Melanie.
SPEAKER_02: Um there's really not words to express the support, the love, the prayers, the encouragement, the edification, and um you've helped position us for what we prayed for to finish well.
SPEAKER_02: And um and we we see that.
SPEAKER_02: Um and I I I want you to know that um your your love it's not gone unnoticed in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I asked Kathy for more Kleenex, but she didn't do it, so thank you, Pastor.
SPEAKER_02: You're so so attentive to the flocks' needs.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: He's gone, he's going to give you a whole bunch.
SPEAKER_02: They're already gone.
SPEAKER_02: I know.
SPEAKER_02: These people, you heard what all they were saying, right?
SPEAKER_02: Is this a roll of paper towels?
SPEAKER_02: Wow, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02: See, he's anticipating more tears.
SPEAKER_02: But um we we live in an incredible time.
SPEAKER_02: It's uh you you might believe as as I do that many times things that are happening in the natural are a reflection of things that are happening in the spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And and it's like a fire hydron is opened.
SPEAKER_02: And prophetically, geopolitically, uh spiritually, what God is doing in the church, in the nations, it's just so much.
SPEAKER_02: And I believe we're approaching uh such a time of opportunity that the church needs to really have our senses heightened, our attention focused on the Lord, and being available to Him, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because we all have a role, we all have a part to play, and it's important, right?
SPEAKER_02: So uh in this day and age, one of the things that we see in this nation and in many parts of the world is that the Holy Spirit is touching young people, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's not the first time that we've seen this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm old enough to remember and heard about the Jesus movement in the late 60s, the uh early 70s, and and uh young people and hippies, as many were called, out on the West Coast were coming to Jesus and being baptized in the ocean and just an amazing movement of God.
SPEAKER_02: And what happened was was those uh young people that that dressed differently, that looked differently, uh presented the church with a real decision to make.
SPEAKER_02: And a pastor down in Houston of a large church, John Bazagno, talking to other pastors, said if you miss this opportunity to embrace these young people, you're gonna be sorry because this is a move of God.
SPEAKER_02: And so how many know that the former move of God always resists the new move of God?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that history has proved that that out.
SPEAKER_02: But somebody's gotta go there, right?
SPEAKER_02: Somebody's gotta follow Jesus, somebody's got to step out.
SPEAKER_02: We we did that.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't because we were trying to protract or design.
SPEAKER_02: I wonder how we could do church different.
SPEAKER_02: I wonder, I wonder, no, it's it's that we didn't fit, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because of what God had done, was doing, and wanted to do.
SPEAKER_02: So somebody's got a pioneer in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's River Life Church in Salina.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe you're to bring the presence of God in this region and stir up, stir up things.
SPEAKER_02: You know what happens when God's exalted.
SPEAKER_02: You know what idols show up.
SPEAKER_02: They could be right in the church house, they could be in the government, they can be in the schools, but I'm telling you, if you get on your face, I used to call it sucking carpet.
SPEAKER_02: That's probably not a very appropriate term, but I was so petrified to be a pastor, I said, Oh God, what have I done?
SPEAKER_02: I never wanted to be a pastor, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't leave me alone.
SPEAKER_02: It took seven years for me to say yes.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's your intercession.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's you being attentive to the Holy Spirit and agreeing with God for His plan and His will for your family, for others.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're going to be available and God can wake you up in the middle of the night to pray for a nation.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you, we're all needed.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: We're all needed.
SPEAKER_02: No big I's and little U's.
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's not how God judges things.
SPEAKER_02: You know, uh the the pride of of us Texans, you know, the big state, the bigger, better, best, all of that, you know.
SPEAKER_02: And we do have some good barbecue here.
SPEAKER_02: I used to could taste it, not so much now.
SPEAKER_02: But God can heal that too.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Now I've really distracted myself.
SPEAKER_02: I shouldn't have said that.
SPEAKER_02: Just joking.
SPEAKER_02: But this is a great opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: You know what one man said.
SPEAKER_02: He said the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: Right now it's very obvious to Kathy and I that we have a window of opportunity in our life and ministry.
SPEAKER_02: God has opened it.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know how long it's going to be open.
SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
SPEAKER_02: You don't know how long your window of opportunity is going to be open either.
SPEAKER_02: And so let's seize the day.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: What's that?
SPEAKER_02: The carpe diem that uh all of the graduating classes put on their cups and all that.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Sei the day, right?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so this opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: That can be individual as well.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've been thinking about doing this for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I've been thinking about really pressing in to that person I need to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: I've been thinking about, and you know what?
SPEAKER_02: Days, months can go by, years can go by, and we procrastinate, and the enemy's just fine with that, right?
SPEAKER_02: And and it doesn't get done.
SPEAKER_02: But I I tell you, there's a there's an enabling power, that's one definition for grace, that we can move forward in what God has has for us.
SPEAKER_02: You know, and I I left the cup I wanted to bring in here in the car, and and I'm upset at myself about that.
SPEAKER_02: But Pastor Ben said, hey, let's have coffee and let's meet at Black Rock Coffee.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, okay, I've never been there.
SPEAKER_02: That sounds great.
SPEAKER_02: And I did, and I walked in that that nice coffee shop, and it's Black Rock Coffee, and their tagline is fuel your story.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, caffeine.
SPEAKER_02: That's what they're selling.
SPEAKER_02: They're like, man, you're gonna get up and come in this coffee shop and you've got a work day in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna jack you up.
SPEAKER_02: We can double pump, triple, all those things the young people order, right?
SPEAKER_02: We can sugar you up, you know, but we're gonna fuel your story.
SPEAKER_02: And what is like, you know, well, I think it was in it was in lights, but I went, whoa, that's what I want our ministry to do, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Fuel the story of people, your story in and through them.
SPEAKER_02: So I don't have the cup, it's out in the car, and I don't think we have time to go and get it.
SPEAKER_02: But but it says on there, fuel your story.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I pray happens this morning is that the word of God, the presence of God, the Spirit of God, the testimony of the faithfulness of God will help fuel your story because it's important, it's significant.
SPEAKER_02: And you're sitting there thinking, if he only knew what I've been going through, I don't need to know.
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to know, but yes, there's warfare against your life.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you have a lover of your soul, but you also have an enemy of your soul.
SPEAKER_02: And he wants to hinder, right?
SPEAKER_02: He wants to hinder your story.
SPEAKER_02: The story that God prepared before uh we were even born, Ephesians 2 and verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: You're his poema, his poems.
SPEAKER_02: And so, but you know what?
SPEAKER_02: Romans 8.28, God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, who are called according to his purposes, right?
SPEAKER_02: And so it's okay.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, it's really a good sign if the enemy's trying to trying to hinder you, right?
SPEAKER_02: You got his got his attention.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't just pass you by and say, oh, they're not gonna do anything anyway.
SPEAKER_02: They're just gonna procrastinate for another 10 or 20 years.
SPEAKER_02: We've got them neutralized, right?
SPEAKER_02: But then when he looks at a Kathy or a Kaylee or Ben or a guy or an Aaron, he goes, Wow, maybe I need to spend some time here trying to discourage, trying to bring strongholds, patterns of wrong thinking.
SPEAKER_02: I've got to come in and try to orchestrate circumstances where there'll be unforgiveness that'll hinder their prayer life.
SPEAKER_02: So today, today, we need to be reminded that Satan was defeated by the blood at the cross, and he's under our feet.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: He is under our feet.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you, and I'm I had some notes here, and we're gonna we're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if we put anything.
SPEAKER_02: No, okay.
SPEAKER_02: But um, but I I just want to do this out of order, just a little bit of what I had had thought.
SPEAKER_02: But it does relate to identity, okay, and it's so important.
SPEAKER_02: Uh one of one of the little trivia or secrets about the Moore family is being in pretty intense ministry for many years.
SPEAKER_02: We uh would reach these points where I don't know what you call it or if you've experienced, but we just wanted to chill.
SPEAKER_02: I think we used the term gel.
SPEAKER_02: We wanted to gel out.
SPEAKER_02: There were two sources of uh media uh that helped us with that.
SPEAKER_02: One was the Andy Griffith show.
SPEAKER_02: You know, in black and white, of course, not the color ones, but but we could put those on and just roll that, and and our brain was just kind of in this catatonic state, and it was it was fine, it was wholesome.
SPEAKER_02: And then the other one is we discovered the Muppets.
SPEAKER_02: I know that's you're thinking, I thought he was a spiritual man, and uh that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: But but one was uh Muppet Treasure Island, which was a Muppet remake of the old black and white classic Treasure Island, and I could talk for days about Muppet Treasure Island, but the other one that relates to our topic concerning identity today is Muppets from Outer Space.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've seen that, but uh is it Gonzo?
SPEAKER_02: Uh Gonzo, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So so whenever it's like Gonzo, he said, I'm a whatever.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't know his identity, didn't know where he was from, and the whole gist of the movie is that his people are coming back to planet Earth, and he's so excited, he starts getting messages, the serial starts giving him messages and things, and he's so excited to see other people that look like him and and are, and so so identity is so important.
SPEAKER_02: And in Acts 17 28, uh the apostle Paul uh actually quotes the uh Athidians and uh this um poet, this philosopher I can't say it very well.
SPEAKER_02: I'll say it how I do with a little text-mex.
SPEAKER_02: It's epitomendez.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: It's E-P-I-M-E-N-D-I-E-S, but uh I don't know how to say that properly, so I'm just gonna text-mex it, uh Brother Mendez.
SPEAKER_02: And and he was quoted as saying, uh he was quoting him actually, and it says, in him we live, in him we move, in him we have our being.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, because he's on Mars Hill, he's in front of the Aropagus, this uh uh collection of learned men that spent most of their time contemplating deep subjects.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul had been in town ministering, right?
SPEAKER_02: And the gospel goes forth, and people are responding, and some of those men encounter him in the city, and they say, Hey, would you come back?
SPEAKER_02: We want to bring you back.
SPEAKER_02: Not that he was in trouble or being persecuted, they wanted to hear this new doctrine that he he was espousing.
SPEAKER_02: So, Paul, by the Holy Spirit, which we can do the same thing, he says, You know, I've become all things to all people that I might win some.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know if you'll become available to be used by God, he will give you the right words, the right conversation to do what?
SPEAKER_02: Meet people where they are.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he did with us, right?
SPEAKER_02: He met us right where we were.
SPEAKER_02: And he calls us and he invites us to himself.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul says, I become all things to all people that I might win some.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't mean he uh engages in their sin, but he uses there's a commonality.
SPEAKER_02: I've been amazed at times that, and I am genuinely interested in what people do or the industry that they're in, but I've asked questions I've been told that I shouldn't have known to ask because I never studied it.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know.
SPEAKER_02: What was that?
SPEAKER_02: That's the Holy Spirit giving us words of wisdom, words of knowledge, revelation to encounter someone where they are, that we might do what?
SPEAKER_02: Gain entrance into their heart with the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul, Paul is is before these men, and he's saying, you know, your very uh have our being, your very existence is in is in him.
SPEAKER_02: And I encourage you do a study on the in him scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: They are multitudinous.
SPEAKER_02: That might not even be a word, I just said, but but but there's so many.
SPEAKER_02: And and so the Lord wants us rooted in him.
SPEAKER_02: Um although I'm not a Muppet, I share some of Gonzo's dilemma because um, and and by the way, this is from a series we would title Essentials for Christianity: Identity, Becoming Who You Are.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Um let me fast forward just a little bit because I've taken time, but um one of the goals, one of the results of God uh emphasizing identity so much is that he understood the severity of the fall.
SPEAKER_02: You know, in the garden, in the garden, uh, no sin, no residual of sin.
SPEAKER_02: He says he placed them in the garden to tend the garden, and then in the cool of the evening, he'd come and walk with them and talk with them.
SPEAKER_02: They experienced God, they had a connection to their Heavenly Father, the Creator, right?
SPEAKER_02: And so, when in the severity of the fall, one of the incredible things that happened is humankind became in their soul, mind, will, and emotions became open to something other than the design of God.
SPEAKER_02: And and sin moved in and fragmented the soul.
SPEAKER_02: Sin moved in and brought patterns of wrong thinking, thinking in the mind.
SPEAKER_02: Sin moved in, and the emotions that God gave were now not under his divine control.
SPEAKER_02: And so humanity happens.
SPEAKER_02: And so the enemy says, I have an opportunity to shape, mold this person into something that I want them to be, something that is a uh outside of what God designed, because he hates the enemy does, image bearers of God.
SPEAKER_02: He said in Isaiah 14, you remember the I wills of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: One of those is I will usurp the authority of the Most High, I'll rise above the throne, and you know the story.
SPEAKER_02: But again, he's defeated by the blood at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul, back to the the Auropagus, what really threw them out was when he talked about God had raised Jesus from the dead.
SPEAKER_02: The resurrection messed them up.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it something?
SPEAKER_02: And and and by the way, what happened in that story is some began to heckle and mock him when he talked about the resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: Others were just kind of indifferent, and some believed and followed.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_02: These these men of higher learning, the power of the gospel penetrated through it, it shrugged away all of the peer pressure, and they said, That's what I want.
SPEAKER_02: When you study the New Testament and how miracles happen when Jesus performed miracles, and he would even say in John 5, it was the Father through him doing that.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's we find the others, they were indifferent.
SPEAKER_02: We find those that believed and followed, and we find the religious people that witnessed it that plotted to kill him.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing's changed.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing's that same spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: So you're in a good place.
SPEAKER_02: You're in a good place because as Jesus manifests his love, his presence.
SPEAKER_02: His salvation, his healing, his deliverance, as he does, you've got leadership that's embracing, that's desiring that, that's not going to plot to kill Jesus or throw him out in the street, right?
SPEAKER_02: Not so everywhere else.
SPEAKER_02: John Wimber was the founder of the vineyard churches and vineyard music.
SPEAKER_02: And when John had come out of California, rock and roll, a producer of music and all, and uh he had gotten saved.
SPEAKER_02: He got radically saved.
SPEAKER_02: And uh after church one day, he's out in the front, and one of the elders or the deacons were out there, and he said, Hey, when do we get to do the stuff?
SPEAKER_02: And the guy goes, What stuff?
SPEAKER_02: And he said, Well, it's right here.
SPEAKER_02: I was reading in Acts, and uh he goes, Oh, we don't do that anymore, we just read about it sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: And that didn't settle with John Wimber, thank God, because God used vineyard worship as a gift to the church.
SPEAKER_02: But he also said this, which I loved.
SPEAKER_02: He said, the system of religion, void of the Holy Spirit, void of faith, uh, does not produce life.
SPEAKER_02: One man came to me, a Christian doctor, and he handed me this 35-page paper.
SPEAKER_02: I was in his waiting room, and he said, uh, I've lived my whole life trying to be righteous.
SPEAKER_02: He said, You've tapped into something else that I don't have.
SPEAKER_02: And he and he left.
SPEAKER_02: And I just kind of went, Wow.
SPEAKER_02: He recognized this system of religion.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul is is addressing these learned men, and yet the power of the gospel was able to do what?
SPEAKER_02: To enlighten.
SPEAKER_02: 2 Corinthians 4, 3 and 4 says, the God of this world has blinded the mind of those who don't believe.
SPEAKER_02: So why?
SPEAKER_02: So the glorious light of the gospel can be hidden.
SPEAKER_02: Look, we we have a uh a fundamental need.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said it in John 3 when a religious, learned man of the Pharisees came to him, Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_02: He came at night.
SPEAKER_02: He knew there was something different about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus told him, You must be born again.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the most terrifying scripture in the Bible is found in Matthew 7.
SPEAKER_02: Many will call unto me, Lord, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Haven't we done all of these Christian things?
SPEAKER_02: Cast out demons, we've done this.
SPEAKER_02: And he says, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you.
SPEAKER_02: It's terrifying.
SPEAKER_02: Billy Graham said, Y'all have heard of Billy Graham?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: He's with Jesus now.
SPEAKER_02: But uh, he said, not Rodney Moore, he said, it could be that 75% of the evangelical church is lost.
SPEAKER_02: One of the greatest mission fields, Billy Graham said, was in the church.
SPEAKER_02: How many know that Satan's a counterfeiter?
SPEAKER_02: How many know there's no counterfeit$3 bills?
SPEAKER_02: Because there's no real$3 bills.
SPEAKER_02: How many know if you sit in a garage every Sunday for two hours, you don't turn into a car?
SPEAKER_02: You sit in a church for two hours every Sunday, but you're not born again.
SPEAKER_02: What a tragedy.
SPEAKER_02: So that's where it all starts, right?
SPEAKER_02: So Paul had a had a secret ambition as he stood before those men of learning.
SPEAKER_02: And the gospel did it.
SPEAKER_02: Some followed.
SPEAKER_02: Some grappled with what Paul had said.
SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe more came to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: But for us today, in him we live, we move, we have our very being.
SPEAKER_02: Our identity is so important.
SPEAKER_02: We're children of God as we're born again.
SPEAKER_02: We're new creations, right?
SPEAKER_02: And how powerful is that?
SPEAKER_02: So just as the enemy has a desire and a plan to shape and mold us, be assured God has a desire and a plan.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why he said, go and make disciples, right?
SPEAKER_02: You know, Christians weren't called Christians, little Christ ones, till Antioch, right?
SPEAKER_02: And the characteristics, the nature, the demonstration, the presentation of Christ through a life, it's Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: Our spiritual mentor was a man named Mickey Bonner.
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, did God send him to our life?
SPEAKER_02: And he would say, son, he was a big talk, voice.
SPEAKER_02: He had studied opera for a while.
SPEAKER_02: He said, Son.
SPEAKER_02: Religion is man's activity toward God based on the concepts of man.
SPEAKER_02: Christianity is Christ's life through us to accomplish his will by his power for his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Daylight and dark difference, right?
SPEAKER_02: So as long as Satan can keep people in a system of religion that's not producing life, he's content.
SPEAKER_02: But that's not our plight.
SPEAKER_02: That's not our destiny.
SPEAKER_02: So God wants to have our identity shaped and molded and expressed by a very effective plan that includes reconciliation, salvation.
SPEAKER_02: We must be born again.
SPEAKER_02: In 1980, I had been going to Kathy's parents' Independent Baptist Church, and I just loved the preacher.
SPEAKER_02: They had one deacon at that little church, and that's why I was there, and that's a lie.
SPEAKER_02: I was there because of this blonde-headed lady that's on the front row.
SPEAKER_02: And yet they were preaching a salvation message.
SPEAKER_02: And one day in my apartment, we had been married about a year, the presence of God came into our apartment.
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't in a cathedral, uh, wasn't watching TBN or any other thing.
SPEAKER_02: And all I knew is this God was holy and I wasn't.
SPEAKER_02: And I fell to my knees because I had used excuses.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, if I hadn't had the childhood I had.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, if I was born into a godly family, but that day I had no excuse.
SPEAKER_02: Satan wants you to have excuses, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_02: And that day I was in the presence of a holy God, and he let me stay there a moment, dangling with no solution.
SPEAKER_02: No bargaining with God.
SPEAKER_02: No, I'll do better, I'll be better, I'll do this good deed.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
SPEAKER_02: I was a desperate man.
SPEAKER_02: And the darkness of my sin.
SPEAKER_02: And it didn't have to be some overt, heinous sin.
SPEAKER_02: It was just the reality of without Christ, we're an enemy of the cross.
SPEAKER_02: We're at enmity, that scripture says.
SPEAKER_02: And so the revelation of that came for the first time.
SPEAKER_02: And then you know what he did?
SPEAKER_02: He showed me the cross.
SPEAKER_02: And he was looking into my eyes.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Oh God.
SPEAKER_02: God, thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Because I had no answer, I had no solution.
SPEAKER_02: I was going to spend eternity separated from Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And that day I was born again.
SPEAKER_02: And the direction of my life changed forever.
SPEAKER_02: The sensitivity to sin, the sensitivity became amazing.
SPEAKER_02: The word of God began to jump off of the page.
SPEAKER_02: A month later, Kathy had figured out, I didn't marry this guy.
SPEAKER_02: So she got saved too.
SPEAKER_02: And we were baptized on the same Sunday together.
SPEAKER_02: And I told her one time, I said, I feel like we've been waiting through religion for about 17 years.
SPEAKER_02: But now we're 30 years past that.
SPEAKER_02: So it was worth it.
SPEAKER_02: So this identity that God wants to bring into our life, it requires reconciliation.
SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 59, 2 says, your sin separated you from God, right?
SPEAKER_02: The severity of the fall.
SPEAKER_02: And so He wants us reconciled not just because we have such a glaring need for salvation, not just from the penalty of sin, but that we could be in relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to pause here just a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us we serve God or we serve our family like we're trying to repay a debt.
SPEAKER_02: Kathy says for years, I make the best sandwiches, Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Daniel.
SPEAKER_02: I've wondered, Enoch, if it was that just because she didn't have to make it.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I now I know she's Lady Jesus and all that, but could be, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: Because they are a pretty good sandwich.
SPEAKER_02: Um but I have joy in serving my my wife.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a duty or obligation, or you know, she's forgiven me so much, she's been so wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: I just I just need to do this.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's a joy.
SPEAKER_02: Why is it a joy?
SPEAKER_02: Because I love her, and that's not much of your business, really, but but but that's what God wants with us: a foundation of love, right?
SPEAKER_02: Not just duty, not fear, you know, any works-based fear type salvation is not of God.
SPEAKER_02: He paid it all.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: So we could be in relationships, so we could experience him in such a relationship of love.
SPEAKER_02: So I I think that that his desire to have us understand greater the unconditional love, and let our motivation be that love, that's what transforms.
SPEAKER_02: The word certainly plays a part in that, yes, because it's his voice, it's his heart, it's truth that will set you free.
SPEAKER_02: But we need, we need transformation.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm he's not done with me.
SPEAKER_02: If he's done with you and you've achieved that highest level, would you fly around the room for us and just show us what that looks like?
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to see it.
SPEAKER_02: Jack Taylor, an amazing man of God that the Holy Spirit encountered, uh, wrote the Hallelujah factor back when it wasn't cool for Baptists to have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, he said one time at a conference, he said, uh, well, he said, the the good news, he said, is this that you know you've probably got three or four hundred strongholds, but the Lord in his mercy is only working on three or four at a time right now.
SPEAKER_02: So I want more.
SPEAKER_02: I want more of him.
SPEAKER_02: I want to go deeper, I want to go further till I take my last breath.
SPEAKER_02: I want him to be working this work in me of transformation.
SPEAKER_02: And then, secondly, there's sanctification, the process or act of being set apart for a holy purpose and transformed into the likeness of Christ by God's grace.
SPEAKER_02: So, sanctification, we get into a realm of positional theology.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm seated in the heavenlies, my citizenship has been transferred, man, I'm already in the sweet by and by, but uh what am I doing still here in the nasty now and now, right?
SPEAKER_02: So I'm still experiencing, it's so you have a positional theology of who we are in Christ and how he views us.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God has been imparted, imputed upon our account.
SPEAKER_02: But in 1 John it says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
SPEAKER_02: But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, right?
SPEAKER_02: So positional theology and then the very practical in the now and now.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh the sanctification process, yes, it's happened and it is happening as well.
SPEAKER_02: And remember, we're talking about identity.
SPEAKER_02: And then there needs to be a consecration, an act of setting apart a person for divine use, dedication to God.
SPEAKER_02: Paul would say we need to be a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: We it brings the question with consecration.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Joshua 24, 15, as he put it before the Israelites, how long will you halt between two opinions?
SPEAKER_02: Because let me tell you, you can wake up and 20 years have passed.
SPEAKER_02: See, the enemy wants to come in, that vision, that calling, that destiny.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to put nettles and thorns and vines.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to bring things into your experience in life that will choke that out.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: That's what religion loves in the negative sense.
SPEAKER_02: But God says, I want to free you.
SPEAKER_02: I want to free you.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to know that I can do more in five minutes than you can do in 50 years.
SPEAKER_02: I can redeem the time in the prayer of Moses in Psalm 90, one of my favorite Psalms.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, he cries out.
SPEAKER_02: He says, God, we've experienced the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: We've experienced, Lord, redeem the time that we have, redeem our days, and establish for us, Lord, the work of our hands.
SPEAKER_02: And let your glory be shown to our children.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just about me, it's about generations.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: So the reconciliation, the sanctification, the consecration so necessary.
SPEAKER_02: And this is not a time to ride the fence, right?
SPEAKER_02: Not a time to have one foot in the world and one foot in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a time to procrastinate, as we've said.
SPEAKER_02: It's a time to move forward.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a time to be double-minded.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know that when I was a kid in high school, a wrong choice or decision might bring consequences, but it most of the time didn't bring death.
SPEAKER_02: If you had a fight, people normally didn't have a gun, might have a club or something, but we can deal with a club, you know, sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: But today, the stakes are high.
SPEAKER_02: Fentanyl, right?
SPEAKER_02: How many?
SPEAKER_02: A hundred thousand died in America last last year?
SPEAKER_02: Our enemies sending fentanyl by the boatload.
SPEAKER_02: Some of those boats aren't around anymore, though.
SPEAKER_02: If you follow the news anyway.
SPEAKER_02: But now's not a time to halt between two opinions.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a time to be, as we say, wishy-washy, right?
SPEAKER_02: Satan wants to play for keeps.
SPEAKER_02: So, real quickly, to become who you are, we have to be in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: We have to embrace truth.
SPEAKER_02: Hebrews 4.12.
SPEAKER_02: We have to believe, Pistueo, that saving faith.
SPEAKER_02: We have to also be with people who are on fire for Jesus, who are wanting their lives to line up with his will.
SPEAKER_02: This church is a good place to be with people that love Jesus, that are serious about God.
SPEAKER_02: And we need to, as Ephesians 5.18 says, in the Greek, be being filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen?
SPEAKER_02: If RiverLife Church is like in the car world, like the most expensive Mercedes-benz, I mean it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: The engineering is incredible.
SPEAKER_02: But if there's no fuel in the gas tank, then all the River Life Church members, if the church is going to go anywhere, if the church is going to move forward, guess what we have to do?
SPEAKER_02: We've got to push it.
SPEAKER_02: Pastor Ben, push it.
SPEAKER_02: Leadership, let's move it.
SPEAKER_02: But if the fuel of the Holy Spirit is there, then that's a different story.
SPEAKER_02: So I want to share with you, just in closing, that Pastor Ben asked me to share some of my story.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll do that as brief as I can.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, the enemy wants to steal our identity, the whole identity theft, right?
SPEAKER_02: Wants to fragment our soul, wants to hinder the work of God, the plan of God in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: And so the story goes, I found out when I was 23 that I was a product of adultery there in Houston, Texas, and who I thought was my dad was not my dad.
SPEAKER_02: And then there was a friend of my mom's.
SPEAKER_02: And this doctor will do an abortion.
SPEAKER_02: That was way back in 1959.
SPEAKER_02: And my mom was not a Christian, and she said, Great.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's go that route.
SPEAKER_02: And two minutes the story goes before the procedure.
SPEAKER_02: She's on the table and she goes, Wait, stop.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have this kid.
SPEAKER_02: No matter the problems, no matter the shame, I'm gonna have this kid.
SPEAKER_02: So when I heard that story, I thought, boy, I'm the winner in that deal.
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that could have gone the other way, you know.
SPEAKER_02: And uh we needed to know um my family tree because Kathy had had a test uh concerning the birth of our second daughter, Meredith, who's not here today.
SPEAKER_02: And uh she's working at Baylor on 380.
SPEAKER_02: And um said, well, I don't know my family tree.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we because what had happened is uh my sister, who's 14 years older than me, uh we would get together at different family times, and God had been, and we talk about the past, and and God had been bringing things to my memory that had been blocked out.
SPEAKER_02: And so one day it was her and I in her kitchen, and I just asked her, I said, I've been remembering some things I I don't know, and she just broke down crying, and she said, Oh, we wanted to hide it from you, because my dad had come to a decision finally where he was gonna stay in the home and he was going to be there.
SPEAKER_02: And uh she was just crying and she told me, told me the story, and uh which helped help me.
SPEAKER_02: It it made sense why he rejected me so much, um, why she abused me so much.
SPEAKER_02: And um so when I came to Christ, I I I knew about Jesus, I was learning more about Jesus, I was wanting to learn about the Holy Spirit, but I didn't get Father.
SPEAKER_02: People praying in the name of the Father, right?
SPEAKER_02: I didn't understand Father, and um so that identity that Pastor Ben was talking about was so rooted in the Father that that wasn't there, and uh that has all types of consequences, ramifications, and bless my mother's heart.
SPEAKER_02: She uh grew up in a childhood of abuse, and my dad worked three to eleven, so I was there all that time with her, and there I don't think a day went by that.
SPEAKER_02: She told me nobody wanted me.
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't understand because I didn't understand the whole story.
SPEAKER_02: You would have been an orphan in some home, someplace.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, you're the cause for all our trouble because they fought like cats and dogs.
SPEAKER_02: And coupled with that was, you know, very demonstrative physical abuse.
SPEAKER_02: I have some scars on my body.
SPEAKER_02: I uh but the deeper scars were emotionally, and I didn't understand that, of course, then.
SPEAKER_02: But all the shame that comes in when the ones that are supposed to nurture you and build you up and yes, discipline you and so on, uh are not doing that in the in God's design.
SPEAKER_02: There's lots of consequences to that.
SPEAKER_02: And so I made straight A's in school and elementary and junior high, but I developed such a profound stutter that I never made anything but a zero on an oral report in the group.
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't read my segment out loud without stuttering.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, kids are brutal, boy, they make fun of you, right?
SPEAKER_02: And I d yeah, my Rodney, you know, boy, doesn't God have a sense of humor?
unknown: You know?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how about that one?
SPEAKER_02: Even but even Moses said, send Aaron, I'm slow to speak.
SPEAKER_02: I think Moses might have had a little bit of a stutter.
SPEAKER_02: But the infrastructure of my soul was destroyed.
SPEAKER_02: No self-esteem, no confidence.
SPEAKER_02: But somehow I said, I want to play sports.
SPEAKER_02: And that was my refuge.
SPEAKER_02: That and my grandmother who knew God.
SPEAKER_02: I have her study Bible, it's a treasure.
SPEAKER_02: She was born in 1896, and we had no blood relation, but she was a refuge, and she'd read me the Bible and tell me stories, and she'd pray for me.
SPEAKER_02: She loved me, and I saw something so different than what was in our home.
SPEAKER_02: Um I didn't think anything about it that much until God began to heal me.
SPEAKER_02: But uh my grandfather that I never met, he died when I was three months old.
SPEAKER_02: He was a Houston police officer, and so my dad had his 45 caliber semi-automatic, and I had that pointed to my head several times.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, my mother would say, you know, I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to kill myself in a fit of rage.
SPEAKER_02: And she might have been schizophrenic or something, but certainly demonic, and uh would pull her hair out, just disrobe, never grow up to be a man.
SPEAKER_02: This is all that men want.
SPEAKER_02: And uh you're you're in the moment, you're not thinking, you don't have a comparison.
SPEAKER_02: This is your reference, and you just take it all in.
SPEAKER_02: I guess mom's right, it's my fault.
SPEAKER_02: I'm you aren't I don't have any value or worth.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the cause of problems of the people that I love.
SPEAKER_02: I love them so much, and I can't please them.
SPEAKER_02: I can't be good enough.
SPEAKER_02: And uh one night or one day in the afternoon, she she locked me out.
SPEAKER_02: I guess I was about six.
SPEAKER_02: I said, leave.
SPEAKER_02: I can remember she spit, it was horrible, and uh, you know, that's pretty traumatic for a six-year-old.
SPEAKER_02: Like just, you know, get out of here.
SPEAKER_02: She's going, well, of course, that's that's the end game, right?
SPEAKER_02: And um then my dad, obviously the affair didn't stop when I was born.
SPEAKER_02: She'd we'd go to this parking lot, and um, she'd say, wait in the car and I'll be back.
SPEAKER_02: She'd have her treatment, and she'd say, Now, if you tell your dad we were here, he'll kill us both.
SPEAKER_02: And then on Saturday, when he was off work, he'd take me, let's go to the hardware store.
SPEAKER_02: Sure, I want to go with you, Dad.
SPEAKER_02: And he'd pull up in that same parking lot and say, Uh, were you and your mom here?
SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to lie to my dad, but the threat was he'll kill mom and he'll kill me.
SPEAKER_02: And I knew the gun, I'd already seen the gun.
SPEAKER_02: And so I'd lied to him, and I think he knew that I was lying.
SPEAKER_02: And so all of that, and there's so much more I could share, but uh takes God's design for our identity and just throws it a million miles away.
SPEAKER_02: And when I was 13, my mother and I were there alone in the home, and uh she kept, she started in through one of her demonic fits and was slapping and hitting, and she would take uh dinner, a plate of food, and throw it at you, throw it at me, and then we used to have those metal TV trays, they were metal back then, and she'd fold that up and beat me with that as I was trying to escape, and uh screaming and cursing, you know.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what the curse word for for an illegitimate child was, but that's what she would call me all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And so when I was 13, I just turned 13, I think, she started in and something caused me to grab the kitchen chair, and I pulled it back, and I began to shake.
SPEAKER_02: I began to cry.
SPEAKER_02: I said, no more.
SPEAKER_02: That's all I said.
SPEAKER_02: And I I I wanted in my flesh to hit her, and I realized her eyes were this big.
SPEAKER_02: I realized if I ever hit her once, I wouldn't stop until I didn't have any more physical energy, and she'd be dead.
SPEAKER_02: And the Holy Spirit restrained me.
SPEAKER_02: Because God had an identity for me, God had a plan for me, God had a ministry set before me, God had a family for me.
SPEAKER_02: So when I look at what the devil said through my mother all those years, and I look at what the Bible says about us, I just choose to believe the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: The devil is a liar, right?
SPEAKER_02: My mother, they said I was three years old, I was on my grandmother's porch, and my mother told my grandmother, said, He's gonna be a preacher.
SPEAKER_02: Because I was out there preaching.
SPEAKER_02: So my lost demonized mom prophesied.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what the good news is?
SPEAKER_02: She died of ovarian cancer.
SPEAKER_02: That's not great news, but two years before that, she got gloriously born again, and I'll see her here in just a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: All of that guilt, all of that shame, all of that pain, all of that infidelity, gone under the blood, blotted out.
SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you, our identity is so important because if you're in a room like Kathy and I were, and Michelle, I think was there, maybe Meredith, and the doctor says that mass on the side of your head that we took off, yeah, 96% are benign, but you're so special, you're in a 1% group.
SPEAKER_02: You have the worst kind of lung cancer on the side of your head.
SPEAKER_02: Less than 1% of people encounter that.
SPEAKER_02: And it's nasty, it's aggressive, it likes to travel long distances and set up shop and build tumors.
SPEAKER_02: And your world has changed in just that moment.
SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
SPEAKER_02: That identity in Christ, in the Father.
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm healed.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the ultimate healing is mine, guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02: I don't, I didn't know how things were going to turn out here, what God wanted to do through it.
SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
SPEAKER_02: Right now I've had two sets of clear scans.
SPEAKER_02: We're headed to the ministry God began to stir up and confirm.
SPEAKER_02: May 24th, we're headed to South Africa again.
SPEAKER_02: Uh October, the Philippines.
SPEAKER_02: Romania is in the picture.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord said on the first day of the first set of scans that were clear, he said, cancer is in your rearview mirror.
SPEAKER_02: You're getting some immunotherapy every other week.
SPEAKER_02: You're dealing with some things, your body's still healing from the chemo and the radiation, but it's in your rear view mirror.
SPEAKER_02: Look through the windshield, Rodney.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the vision.
SPEAKER_02: That night we get communications from the Philippines from a prominent Christian there that says, basically, would you help us with a church in Dubai?
SPEAKER_02: There's more Filipinos in Dubai.
SPEAKER_02: It's the second most spoken language, Tagalog.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord said, I didn't just call you to the physical geographic region of the Philippines and a nation, but to Filipino people, wherever they are.
SPEAKER_02: A million work around the world.
SPEAKER_02: No telling where God's gonna send us, Pastor Bin.
SPEAKER_02: So I just want to I want to pray for you, and then I just want you to experience his love at a deeper level.
SPEAKER_02: Because I have identity rooted in the Lord on my worst day.
SPEAKER_02: I had a very frank discussion with God.
SPEAKER_02: I said, God, if I'm supposed to be something that I'm not, if I'm supposed to do something that I'm not, if my past mistakes and sins are hindering me, I just got to tell you, do with me what you will, because I don't have anything else.
SPEAKER_02: I don't have anything, God.
SPEAKER_02: If it's something other than Jesus and the supreme sacrifice he made, and my faith in him, in the blood of Jesus, in the resurrection, I said, I don't have anything, God.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what he did?
SPEAKER_02: I didn't hear a voice, but I had this overwhelming sense and deeper revelation of his love, and I just began to weep.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know you loved me this much.
SPEAKER_02: He said, Tell others how much I love them.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Father, oh, what a miracle.
SPEAKER_02: What a great God you are.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, great King, thank you that, Lord, when there was no way that you made a way for us.
SPEAKER_02: God, that before the foundation of the world the Lamb of God was slain.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Lord, that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was willing to do your will.
SPEAKER_02: If there's any way, Lord, let this cut pass.
SPEAKER_02: But God, he delighted to do your will.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, may we be so intimately entwined with you, infused with the Holy Spirit, immersed with the Holy Spirit, that God, whatever comes our way, whatever opportunities, whatever adversity, whatever trials, God, we will sense it is a call to worship, which includes a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: Blessed be your name.
SPEAKER_02: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Forever we extol you, O God.
SPEAKER_02: There is none like you.
SPEAKER_02: And Lord, I would ask you to meet our greatest needs.
SPEAKER_02: Every person in this room, Lord, you see right to the heart of the matter.
SPEAKER_02: You see our greatest needs and are so well able to meet those in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, we love you.
SPEAKER_02: We praise you.
SPEAKER_02: We thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's all stand together.