Whose voice are you Listening to? | Zac Hudson | Definition Church

The Collective 9/15/2025 | Summer Special

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

We have a phrase in our student leadership team. It's called bring us Nineveh. If you don't know, it comes from the story of Jonah, where Jonah runs away because God declares that he wants to send them to Nineveh. And Nineveh was like a crooked people who they had just done a lot of horrible things. So our phrase in the student leadership team is like, man, bring us Nineveh, God. Bring us the people that are forgotten, abandoned, all those things, and we believe in the transforming power of God. So, yeah, thank you guys for being here. If we've never met before, my name is Pastor Zach. I'm the college pastor here at Definition Church. It's just been an honor being with you guys. We had an amazing seven days of prayer, but I'm so excited to be back here at the collective. We are in a series called Identity Crisis. And this is week two of our series, Identity Crisis, and we've got a lot to cover, and so I'm gonna hop in. Y'all better like the sound of my voice because you can hear me for a little bit, okay? So thank you. Whoever said that. Um just like a quick summary. Is that echo? Y'all hearing like an echo or something? Okay. Just like a quick summary of the last time we met, we talked about an eternal identity. And this eternal identity is being made in the image of God. And so I hinted at that the next time we met, we'd be touching on a second eternal identity. But the last time I talked about how when we are made, because we are made in the image of God, there's three things that we have the opportunity, or three things that we must remember. That we are a reflection of God, so we reflect our Heavenly Father, that we have a responsibility in His creation and to share the gospel and things like that because we are made in His image, and then finally that we get the joy of having a relationship with the creator of the universe. And this is what I talked about was the foundation of which we build everything upon, and how society had told us for a long time to build our foundation on other things, but when we build our foundation on the fact that we are made in the image of God, it transforms everything about us. And so this week we're going to be talking about our second eternal identity as Christians. And this is the idea that we are born into a sinful world. Because you see, as amazing as being made in the image of God is, we have to recognize that as Christians, we are being saved from something. We didn't just become Christians, we made a public declaration of our faith in Jesus and are being saved from something. And the point of that is that we live in a sinful world. And the result of that is that we ourselves are sinners. There's this pastor I love. His name is Paul Washer. He's an old school pastor, and he has this quote that says, in order to understand the beauty and deepness of God's grace, we have to understand the pitch dark blackness of man. And until we understand what we are truly saved from, we will always struggle to understand where we are saved into. It's the recognition of the brokenness that I came from where I can finally understand the beauty of who God is. And so that's what I want to talk about today. That we are sinful people. And that through Jesus we now have hope. Where we can look at what we came from, the darkness that we came from, and we can say, yes, that is who I was, but now I recognize how wicked my sin was, for because of Jesus I am made new. You see, the cross was brutal and agonizing and torturous. But we oftentimes forget that it wasn't just the physical torture of the cross that killed Jesus, it was also the spiritual weight of carrying all the sins and guilt past, present, and future that played a factor in Jesus' death on the cross. And so that's my goal today, to help us understand what sin is, what it means for people formed and created as sin, and how that impacts our relationship with God. And so to do that, we're going to go back to the Garden of Eden that we were in the last time we met. We're going to be in Genesis 3 with the fall of man. So if you want to turn there in your Bibles, and I ask this every week, if you have a Bible, hold it up in the air, hold up. Let me see them, let me see them, let me see them. That's what I'd like to sing. We believe here that we can't limit God to a phone screen, that a physical Bible, it just like, I don't know, there's something different about it. And so I challenge you, bring your Bibles. If you need one, talk to me. I can get you a Bible. I'll work at a church. I got a lot of them. And so if you need a Bible, just holler at me, we'll get you one. But Genesis 3, we're going to start in verse 1. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were open, and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, The woman you took here with me, she gave you some of the fruit from the tree, and I ate it. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between you and your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. Father God, thank you for the living and active breathing word of God. I pray that you speak today through it and that life changing transformation can happen for someone in this room because of your living and active word. Amen. So I could spend four weeks simply on this chapter of scripture. There's just so much to unpack, but I don't have time to do that. And so I'm going to challenge you in your own personal time to go back and read this scripture and kind of read some resources and study it for yourself. There's so much foreshadowing and content here of what the scriptures are going to point forward to, but I'm just going to give us a bird's eye view of sin entering the world, the curse against humanity, and ultimately its point towards the cross. And this will help us establish an understanding of sin, what it truly is, and how it separates us from God. But first, there's this famous story about these two fish. So there's these two fish, and they're swimming along in the ocean. They're two young fish, and up ahead they see this older fish, and he's swimming towards them. And they're like, oh brother, here comes an old dude. You know, he's just gonna say something to us. Um scared. Sorry. Anyways, uh, so these two fish are swimming, and this old fish he passes by them and he says, What's up, fellas? How's the water today? And the fish is like, great. And they just keep swimming along, and then eventually the young fish turns to the other young fish and he says, What's water? What's water? This is exactly a perfect illustration of our relationship with sin as human beings. Romans 3.23 says this, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So whether you are black, white, raised in a poor family, raised in a rich family, are attending college, or working a blue-collar job, if you were born, which is all of us, you are born into sin. We have become so calloused and ignorant of how sinful we are, in the same way a fish does not understand how wet it is. Scripture says our society, our humanity drinks down iniquity or sin like it's water. We at times depend on sin. We change ourselves for sin. We try to seek after sin. We nourish ourselves with sin. Sin becomes water to us, a daily dependence. In the same way we eat or drink food unconsciously, when we're living outside of Christ, we sin unconsciously without even knowing it. And people will say all the time that the common crime of humanity is the denial of self. But in reality, the common crime for all humans is the misunderstanding of how much sin we have committed against the Holy God. But through the wickedness of sin, God gave us hope. So don't look scared or afraid. There's hope for us broken sinners. And so, how do we, like we talked about last time we met in light of our eternal identity of being made in the image of God, live in a world that is eternally sinful? How do we live in those conflicting worlds and how does the Lord move in the midst of that? Well, lucky for us, the story in Genesis summarizes all this beautifully. And so we're going to walk through that today. But first, I need to give us a broad understanding of sin in the context of the entirety of Scripture. And so that's what I want to do real quick. Throughout the entire biblical narrative, Old Testament all the way to Jesus, this is sin. God has a design, a perfect design. A design created for our benefit and our relationship with God. But due to our own selfish desires, we decided to deny that design in order to live our own lifestyle. We turn away, we worship other gods, we worship other things, we leave God's perfect design in order for our own design. And that decision does not only affect us, it affects creation, it affects the people around us, and ultimately affects our souls. And no one was above this in scripture. Whether it was the kings of the Bible, God's chosen people, Israel, it didn't matter. All people were infected with sin. And all throughout Scripture, God provides way after way after way for people to come back into his presence. Well, ultimately they would choose sin time and time again. And so Jesus, or God finally sends Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice to take all the sins of all of humanity once and for all for all who believe in him. That sin in Scripture. So with all that, here's a concrete definition of sin based on scripture. Sin is a transgression or an act against God, his creation, or his perfect law. And here's a more practical example that's a little easier to understand. Sin is a disordered desire or is a distorted desire. Sin is a disordered desire or it is a distorted desire. Now, what does this mean? A disordered desire is when we place something that God has given us as a gift out of order. So perfect example of this. I'm the type of person I love food. I love to try new foods, I love to go to new restaurants. Greensboro has an amazing local food scene that you should go check out sometime. I love those things. But if in my life, when I'm going through hard things, my immediate reaction is to turn towards food as my salvation, my nourishment, my health, my healing. That's an example of a disordered desire. And there's also a distorted desire. And this is something that the enemy uses to slightly shift or change. So a great example of this is sex. Sex was something that God gave us. It's a beautiful thing that He created. But He gave us these boundaries and said, you have to do it within these boundaries for ultimate fulfillment and all those things. And so, what does the enemy do? He says, You care about this person, you love this person, why not just have sex with them? And so we get a distorted desire of God's perfect creation. And so any act that we commit that fits into those definitions can be classified as sin. Lying, sinful. Pride, sinful, stealing, sinful. Lust, sinful. Sex outside of marriage, sinful, cheating, sinful. The list just goes on and on and on. And our call as kingdom dwellers is to have our desires not disordered or distorted, but ordered and pure. That is kingdom living. God's not the no fun dad. He doesn't want us to enjoy our life. God literally invented fun. He loves us so much, he wants us to experience the fullness of it. So when we take good things that God has given us and we place them out of order or we distort them, instead of getting the full fulfillment of those things, we get a false fulfilling shell of those things. It may fulfill us for a little bit, but it can't provide for us for our entire life because it's a shell of what it is supposed to be. And people will look at that list and say, I mean, I get that, I get it sinful, but at the end of the day, who am I really hurting? Sex is fun, drinking is fun, people deserve to be gossiped about sometimes. There aren't really consequences for what I'm doing with my life. I just want to enjoy my life. I only live one time, I just want to enjoy it. And there's two problems with this statement. Because first, from God's perspective, it doesn't matter if you are a compulsive liar, a constant cheater, or a blood-seeking murderer, sin is sin. And all sin is equally offensive to a holy God, no matter what it is. If you think you're gonna squeak into heaven with a B minus on the holy report card, I'm telling you right now, you're gonna be mistaken. That's not gonna get you in. Because sin is equal in God's eyes. So what does this mean? It means you don't have the right to point the finger at someone else and say, at least I'm not living like that person. Because here's the truth. Many of you in this room will walk across campus and point the finger at Fraternity and Sorority Road and say, I may be sinning, but I'm not living like that. I may be lying a little bit, I may be doing stuff with my partner, but at least I'm not living that party lifestyle that fraternity and sorority people are living. We like to point the finger at other people. And we call this false innocence pride, which is sinful. It is sinful. But here's the thing: if you're in this room and you're a part of a fraternity or sorority, don't think just because something is a part of a lineage or culture that God passes his eyes over those sins. I don't care how old-day or traditional your fraternity or sorority is. I don't care what is just a part of fraternity and sorority culture, you know what's older than your culture? Sin. And you know what's older than your culture as well? God. And so I don't care what's a part of your culture. Sin is sin. We just have to understand that we are all on equal footing from God's perspective. He doesn't care how much money you give away, how many people you help, how many animals you save, moral goodness will never heal you or save you, and it certainly will not get you into heaven. Our works, good or bad, according to Scripture, are filthy rags before a holy God. And the second problem with the statement of I'm not hurting anybody in my sin, is that due to the American culture we live in, we have such an inward perspective of sin, we can't think about the big perspective of God. Living in sin creates an inward perspective. So, sure, when you got off work last night and you decided to indulge in pornography, you may not have been hurting yourself. But did you stop to think for a second that that woman or man you are fulfilling your sexual desire with is someone's son or daughter? Someone God handcrafted. Were you aware that the pornography industry is worth more than the MBA, the NFL, and the MLB combined? And it's responsible for majority of marriage problems across the world. Are you aware that 96% of men will struggle with a porn addiction at some point in their lives? 96% of men. And that that rate of women in our generation has quadrupled of who's going to struggle with that. And that the porn industry is the number one upholder of child sex trafficking in the world. How men and women have lowered their sexual understandings due to regular engagement with pornography, and by results, are having less enjoyable and more harmful sex with their partner that God actually gave them. That when we indulge with pornography, we start basing relationships no longer on the face, but entirely on the body. And that our mind begins to become warped towards my own sexual desires being fulfilled. My own selfish desires being fulfilled. Rather than a complete partnership that God created as a beautiful thing. We lack perspective. And for the porn addict in the room, I want you to hear my words carefully. This is not shame, nor is this condemnation. I've been there. I was exposed to pornography when I was six years old. Six years old. And I battled it until I was a freshman in college, until I was 19. So I get that. I'm not saying that to shame you. I say that to you to show you that the enemy has blinded us towards the effects of our sin. We are fighting a battle that we don't even realize. And that's what Satan does. He completely blinds us from the effects. But God gives us hope. God has given us a way out, a hope, a healer, and a life changer. But to understand the beauty of what Jesus did, we have to understand how wrong our sin is against God. And so with all of that, I just feel a heaviness in the room. Everyone just take a breath with me, okay? Three, two, one, breathe in. Breathe out. With all of that understanding of sin, I'm sure you're like, wow, this is a great religion. Can't wait to get a part of this, Zach. Sounds like a lot of fun. Woo-hoo! With all that understanding, I want us to dive into this text. So at the end of chapter two, we see that God's creation is perfect and that he has decided to rest in the midst of his creation. But you see, there's one problem. Something has gotten into the garden. A serpent. But this serpent is different from the other serpents in the garden because something has inhabited. We're taking control of the serpent. Satan. We learn in scripture, we learn in scripture, Satan, whose real name is Lucifer, at the beginning of time was responsible for a cosmic battle in heaven. He was responsible originally for all the worship and glory in heaven. It says in the book of Isaiah that Lucifer was literally made out of instruments, which, according to God, was a beautiful creation. But somehow in heaven he got a reflection of his own glory. And he decided to start misleading and causing disunity in heaven. And so he's going up to angels and he's saying, I'm going to be greater than God. And he starts deceiving all these people, leading them away from God, which causes a heavenly battle between good and evil. And then eventually Lucifer lost and was cast from heaven and fell like lightning onto the earth. So from this, we know that Lucifer is the king of deception. His mere existence is to deceive and pull people away from God. He's in the garden and he starts whispering into the ear of Eve. Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? Now, traditionally, when this text is preached, you'll hear pastors emphasize the word any here. Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? But if you look at the original Hebrew, if you know what the Bible is written in another language first, called Hebrew, in the original language, the word any is not emphasized here. Instead, it's the word say. Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? And the reason Satan does this is to cause mistrust between Eve and God on the basis of what is best for her. He is trying to tempt Eve to doubt that the surroundings around her are actually good, like God said. He's trying to convince her that God isn't the only voice that she should listen to. Because truth be told, Satan isn't worried about the tree. He could care less about if Eve eats from the tree. He doesn't care about that. He's worried about the relationship between Eve and God. He doesn't want the tree. He wants Eve's ears. He wants to be, want her to listen to him. And this is so true for us as well, because of our broken nature. We begin, like Eve, to look at sin and begin doubting the words of God to fulfill our own desires. Did God really say I can't have sex outside of marriage? Did he really say that? Did God really say that overindulging in drinking is a sin? Did God really say that lying is harmful? Did he really say that? We begin to doubt the relationships and circumstances that God has placed us into, which makes us the author of our own stories. We want to be like God. We want to decide our own reality, our truth, our life. We want to be the providers. And this is exactly the narrative that Satan tells to Eve. Look at verse 5. For God knows that when you meet from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, at first glance, this is a little weird because Satan technically isn't lying here. God did say this in Genesis 2. But again, for Satan, it's from a different motivation. He's trying to deceive Eve and get her to not trust God. And so let's see what happens. Adam and Eve, they eat of the fruit, their eyes are opened. We know the story. They're eventually cast out of the garden. They see that they're naked, they hide themselves, they feel shame, and they clothe themselves with fig trees. But then we have this interesting narrative switch that I love. We see that God is walking in the garden in the cool of the day. It just seems like such a random thing to throw into the story in the midst of the fall of humanity. We see that God is walking in the cool of the garden. And God calls out. He says, Where are you? Adam and Eve, where are you? Now this isn't the type of where are you that he doesn't know where they are. He's saying this because this was the place that they would be in community together with God and walk together. So God is saying, Where are you? Not through shame, but through seeking to spend time with his creation. The Garden of Eden was literally the thin place where heaven dwelt on earth. So God spent time with his creation. So he's saying, Where are you? This is where we're supposed to be. This was the punishment. Adam and Eve already knew good and evil in their minds. But they had never experienced evil until they ate of the fruit. Because they had only ever dwelt in the presence of good. The literal author of good who was God. And so they're used to walking in the garden with God, walking in perfect community with Him. And this is our punishment because of sin. Because of their eyes being opened, suddenly they only knew evil, they not only knew evil, but they had experienced evil as well against God. And the punishment was that they put a wall between their relationship with God. They no longer could walk in unison in the cool of the garden because they had chosen evil over God. Sin causes a divide between us and God. It causes a divide between us and God. It causes tears. Where even when God is right in front of us, walking by as we go to class, as we're sitting in our dorm, or whatever we're doing, we can't even recognize that God is there. We have lost our natural community and connection with God. Now, does that mean that God's not there? Of course not. We know from Scripture we can't escape God. No matter how much we sin or how much we run, God is always right there with open arms, saying, Here I am. But we can't even recognize it because of our sin. And so many of us, we grew up in church. We had all the answers, we had the verses memorized, but we decided at some point in our life to steer away, to start living a sinful lifestyle. And God is looking at us and He's saying, Where are you? Where are you? We used to walk in this place together. We used to be in unison with each other, walking step in step. You used to be in love with me. Where are you? He's looking for us. He's walking with us, and our eyes just ignore him. We pass by and he's just saying, Where are you? My son, my daughter, where are you? Where are you? And our answer so many times is just like Adam, what he says in the next verse. I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. What this means is we can't face the decisions we've made, so we hide from the one man who can give us healing from them. We expect God to respond with anger or with shame towards us, so we hide, thinking if I just miss his gaze, if he just passes by, then I won't feel so bad about the decisions that I have made. And meanwhile, the enemy is standing behind the scenes, celebrating, because he knows that shame is only healed by the presence of a holy God. He's lying, telling you to stay silent, to keep hiding, that God will never understand or forgive you. It's the ultimate lie. And so many of us are hiding from the one man who can bring us freedom. And look at what God does. Look at how God responds here. Adam says he realizes he's naked. And God says, Who told you that you were naked? And this is such an interesting answer from God because our flesh expects God to be like, You did what? You made what decision? You chose what over me? We expect him to be like an angry father getting ready to bear down the fist against us. But what does he say? Who told you that you were naked? In other words, whose voice have you been listening to? Whose voice have you been listening to? This is a beautiful picture of God. God had already declared earlier that their nakedness was nothing to be ashamed of. So who are they listening to to suddenly feel that it is? God had declared that they needed to feel no shame in his presence. And so he says this because he's wondering who have you been listening to that's trying to give you other answers that I haven't said? I never said that nakedness was shameful. And this is exactly what God is saying to you. Exactly what he's saying to you, to all of us. Who told you that you were ugly? I said you were beautiful. Who told you that you were fat? I said you were perfectly made. Who told you you were lonely? I said that you belong. Who told you that you have an eating disorder? Who told you that you were supposed to be sexually confused? Who told you that you were unsavable? That you're lost? Who told you I was upset with you? Who told you that abusive relationships are okay? Who told you that because of what your father did, you'll never be a good dad? Who told you that? Who told you that? Who are you listening to? Who told you that your sexual assault was your fault? Who told you that? You never said that. God didn't say that. Who told you that you were suicidal? Who told you that you're supposed to wrestle with that? Who told you that if you get attention from other men, that you'll finally feel like you belong? That if you just show a little bit more and give a little bit more to somebody, that you'll finally feel like you belong. Who told you that? Who told you that your bothered walking out of your life was your fault? Who told you that? God never said that. Who told you that your parents' divorce was your fault? Who told you that you weren't enough? God never said those things about you. Whose voice have you been listening to in your life? Who is telling you these crooked and vile things against God's beautiful and perfect creation? Who are you listening to? And God is saying this through tears because for so long he's been telling us exactly who we are, made in his image, beautiful, worthy, redeemed, forgiven, found, belonging. That's the voice of God. That's the voice of God. But so many of us, we've grown so accustomed to Satan's voice that we don't even know how to listen to God anymore. Our lifestyle is being led by the voice of a serpent. Every decision we make is being led by the voice of someone who does not care if you wake up tomorrow dead. I'm sorry, I'm so passionate. I just I see our generation just divided and confused. And it's all going back to the garden that we don't know what voice to listen to. We don't know. And God's never saying those things about us. So what voice are you listening to in your life? Which leads us to the end of the story. The curse. You see, due to their new knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve have to divide themselves from God. So God takes them out of the garden and curses them. But first, he looks at the serpent. This is so important. Look at what he says to the serpent. Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. God turns to the serpent, and this is what he says. You may think you won the battle, but you have lost the war. You may think you have the upper hand. You may think that favor is falling upon you because you have deceived Eve. But have you forgotten who I am? I am God Almighty, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. You don't have the final word because I am the word. You may have misled my beautiful creation in this moment, but I will sin in due time a layout. And through this layout, you will be defeated, destroyed, and be no more. Death will not have the final save. If you can sick, Satan, you're gonna crawl on your belly and eat dust the rest of the days of your life. This is a symbol in Scripture for complete and utter defeat. Dust in this instance is a symbol of weakness. God looks death directly in the eyes, same in the face, and he says, You will be made weak before my almighty power. Have you not forgotten? I'm the God who created you. Then God prophesies beautifully. He says, Someone is coming who will crush the head of Satan. All of Satan's curses, unlike Adam and Eve's, are eternal. They can't be redeemed. A crushed head is eternal. You can't recover from that. And so God is saying, there is a man coming who will stand on the head of death and declare victory. And we know his name is Jesus. And that when the head is crushed, it will never recover. That a time is coming that the entire Old Testament will prophesy over. I will sing people to speak witness over. I will perform miracles to point forward to it. All of Scripture will point to this, where a man will come down to earth, born of a virgin mother. He would perform miracles, reach the unreached, uproot the political system, but he would ultimately die a criminal's death on the cross. In the process, taking all of the sins, past, present, and future of all of humanity, have the wrath of God poured out upon him. He would die and be buried. But three days later, the stone would roll away, and Jesus would step out of the grave in complete victory of his life. And instead of the grave, he would step directly onto the serpent's head, providing a new way, a new hope, a new future for all. Believe that he is Lord. Here's the thing, collective family. As I've talked about today, sin is brutal, it's destructive, it harms those around us. It's like a disease that infects all around us. It causes us to do things we never wanted to do with people we never wanted to do them with. And I taught you the theology of sin because I want you to understand just how powerful the man who stepped on the serpent's head truly is. This is not some hippie guy who just wants us to love each other. This is the man who pulled out a sword and slayed death at its root and declared you will not have victory over God's beautiful creation. This is the man who can look the devil in the eyes and not bleak. This is the man who chained up death, threw away the king. This is the serpent stalker, and his name is Jesus. And we do all of that, so we would not have to identify as sinners anymore. At the beginning, I said sin is an eternal identity, and that we're born into it, and that is true. However, when we place our faith into Jesus, our eternal identity as sinners is stamped over with a new identity. A saint, a child of God. Now, despite the garden, despite all of our sin against God, when God looks at us, he sees Jesus, which now allows us to walk with God in the cool of the garden again. We get to dwell in unity with our perfect Heavenly Father because of what Jesus has done. And eventually we get to spend eternity with him. He has so many voices in your life. Friends, family, social media, news, podcasts, so many voices. So many people who are telling you that everything you're doing is right, all your sins, all your struggles, that it's okay to live that way. But I have to ask you, what person in your life died on the cross for you? What person in your life stomped on the serpent's head? What voice are you going to listen to? And some of you in this room, you are saints. You are saved. You have given your life to Christ, but maybe sin is just ruling you completely right now, and you just need help getting the headphones of the enemy off. You gotta grab a sermon illustration. Oh, it's right here. This is how so many of us treat God like a fire extinguisher. Where we go over here and we sin, okay, now I can put out the fire with God. Or we go over here and we sin, we lie, we sleep around, say, okay, now we can put out this fire with God. We treat God like a fire extinguisher instead of a holy God. Because we don't understand how to discern the Lord's voice. And it's easy, I'm gonna tell you how to discern God's voice. So many of us spend hours in prayer begging God to talk. And our Bible is sitting right in front of us, wide open. This is the voice of our Creator. This right here. Get off your knees, begging God to speak something. Open your Bible and see what he says about you. See what he has declared about you. Don't use the Bible as a landing pad because that makes God a fire extinguisher. Instead, base everything you are doing off the living word of God. If someone is speaking in your ear, line it up with this. If it doesn't align with this, it's not from God. It's not what God has ever said about you. And here's the thing: this goes for people who you let influence in your life, including the pastors and people you listen to. If what they say does not align with this, including me, if anything I ever says does not align with this right here, you go with this. I'm not God. Pastor Allen's not God. But we know that this is the word of God and that He has declared who you are going to be. And secondly, the way to discern God's voice is to live in biblical community. You will become a summary of all the people you hang around. So if your number one influence in your life is people who don't believe in God, you are going to begin to look like them. But if you are regularly and heavily engaged with biblical community, God will use your friends to speak to you directly. It's why we believe that community transforms lives here in the collective. You can come in here all day and listen to me. You come in here all day and worship. But real vulnerability and real life change happens when we go out those doors, sit in a small group circle, and allow people to pour into our lives. That's where transformation happens. And finally, the way to hear God's voice is to give the enemy less power in their life. Number one way to do that is through confession. Every chance you get, confess. There is so much power in confession that we in the American Church have forgotten about. And so there's a reason that I provide a place for confession every week. It's not because I want to know what's going on with you. It's because I know that power exists in confession and we are willing to look across from someone and say, I'm not okay. I'm struggling. I need prayer. The enemy loses power in confession time and time and time again. So when You're a part of the group, that you need to adopt yourself into sainthood and declare that you're not going to let the voice of the enemy define you anymore, that you're going to stamp over your previous identity as broken and as not redeemed. If you need to declare that Christ is Lord, we want to give you that opportunity. But I also want to provide an opportunity for people who just feel like the enemy's voice is just braiding you and tearing you apart. My heart breaks for you. But I believe the next step of faith is through confession. Don't let the enemy silence you. I'm telling you, there's been so much power and transformation in my life. The reason I broke my pornography addiction was because I looked across from somebody and I said, I've been addicted to porn for 10 years. I need help. That's where I found freedom. And so I just want to provide that opportunity. Please come forward. I just want to provide you guys that opportunity. And so, if you've never been here before, we do a different year in the collective. I love you because there's so much power in it. We don't ask anybody to close their eyes. Because I believe in taking the step of boldness before the God. And that first step is going to be able to do it in the group of people who are willing to look at you and say, okay, too. But we trust in God. And so I think how you do it. God loves you. He created you. You are here for the reason. You are founded. You belong to the Lord. Free. Stand up. Come on. Stand up.

unknown 45:59

Stand up. Stand up. Come on. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Unfold. Unfortunately today.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

Freedom exists in this place. Sin is not going to have power over a generation. We are declaring a generation that is rooted in God. Guys, our altars are going to be open all throughout worship. If you need to, if the Holy Spirit's just stirring in you, for everybody else, let's stand up and let's open our hearts to Jesus and worship. Amen and amen.

SPEAKER_04 49:49

Come on, he's all about. Will you need to here again? Come on, somebody can get some.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

God thank you for someone tonight. Because of the Lord of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 52:33

So God, we just praise you. We honor you worship you in everything. And Father God, we just pray that it doesn't stop here, but that it continues through every moment of our lives. That we are continually transformed by your Holy Spirit. In your holy almighty name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Don't worry about anything else on the clock on the screen. Man, tough crowd to me.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

Okay. Two weeks, so not three weeks from today, because we got one more service next week, regular service. You know, we had a graphic about that. We are gonna help find community for you guys, transform the community. Like I said, we believe that life transforms in community. And so small group launch is coming up in two weeks. It's gonna be amazing. So by our friends, and yeah, it's gonna be fun. Next, something I'm super, super, super, super excited about. There's something coming to Greensboro that is a national movement right now, and I want us to check out this video real quick. Cue that up.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

No stage, no hype, just a yes. But what if the rhythm was never reported? What if it was just the spark that awakened a generation to carry people? From isolated to integrity, from hidden to burning, from lost to found. In one year we've seen the lonely placed in families, the timid become bold, the silent finding voice. Not because they had it all together, but because they survived us. This movement isn't about members. It's not about events, it's about making heavens full. It's about finding the one and connection with the found. This isn't just a record. This is a justice movement for a generation. A family formed around his presence all enough to believe his daughter, to be filled again, together. Because one spark from the city can light a thousand frames. And more that might be the next one. So unready, unsurrender, unexpected. We believe what he's done in one year is just a good. One year, one, one way.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Sweet. Guys, I don't know if you follow Run with Christ, but they are just, they're incredible. Um, and they are officially launching a section here in Greensboro, which I am just so, so, so excited about thinking, dude, I don't run. Running literally sounds like something in hell. Um, but RWC is all about the movie, like I say, it's all about making heaven full. It's all about community and connecting people. You can run, you can walk, but all of it is supposed to serve as a front porch into the church. And so follow them on Instagram at running with Christ, um, and you guys can stay connected there. But they are just like blowing up right now. They run a little fun fact, the founder of Will Ranger actually played soccer at UNCG, which is crazy. Like, so he started, he didn't start this in Greensboro, but he started in Greensboro, and then moved to Ohio, started RWC, and it's just blowing up. I think the one in Ohio State runs like a thousand college students a weekend. Like I was saying, we have over, I think, over 200 across the nation, and they're coming to Greensboro, which I'm super excited about, and the collective is going to serve as the directors for RWCGSO. And so it's gonna be super fun. We have an interest meeting Tuesday, September 23rd at 7 p.m. So if you are interested in just attending, learning more about RWC or being on the leadership team for RWCGSO, come to that interest meeting Tuesday, September 3rd at 7 p.m. The founder is gonna be uh on a phone call with us, kind of talking about RWC. It's gonna be awesome. RWC is amazing. I fully support them with everything I have, so you guys should definitely check it out. Next slide. There's the RWCGSO Instagram. If you want to scan that QR code and follow them, uh that'll keep you updated on whatever.