SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That was powerful.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't able to be there in person, but I wish I was there.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just so excited for what God is doing in Stockton, California.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have shared this with you, but in case you weren't aware, revival is breaking out on the West Coast.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean I think that they've already had around 3,000 souls that have been saved and more are coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so what they've done, they've had two tent revivals.
SPEAKER_00: They had another one back to back because they felt God saying, hey, let's keep this going.
SPEAKER_00: And so now what they've done, they've taken a month and they're they've they've gone to the streets.
SPEAKER_00: They have a whole evangelism team.
SPEAKER_00: They're hitting the streets and then they're coming back again.
SPEAKER_00: So Pastor Catherine and Pastor Garner, not this weekend, but next weekend, we'll be flying back out to Stockton to see revival happen, to see souls come into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: The harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few.
SPEAKER_00: So I just believe that Mario Morillo, his team, Pastor Catherine, Pastor Garner, are some of those laborers that are saying, hey, now's the time.
SPEAKER_00: So we just we're just praying over them, that God's blessing and protection over them, and just believing that God is going to do a wonderful work over there.
SPEAKER_00: And we even are just grateful that as Pastor Catherine goes over there and as Pastor Garner goes over there, that they're also bringing back that revival.
SPEAKER_00: They're bringing back that spirit, that mantle, because we want to see that happen here in Noonan, Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: We want to see that happen in Cowita County.
SPEAKER_00: We want to see that happen in Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: We want revival to break out.
SPEAKER_00: We want the church to arise, to wake up, and to see the times that we live in.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm already going.
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here in our little sunroom at our house.
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful day today.
SPEAKER_00: My family's here.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Catherine and little baby Hayden are playing in the other room to allow me to do a message this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just so grateful.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is so good.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about the joy of the Lord and the power of simple gratitude, the power of being thankful on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you this for me, it's changing my life.
SPEAKER_00: It's changing my days.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm just waking up and I'm finding a lot of my prayer right now has just been thanking the Lord for his faithfulness, remembering all the answered prayers, even the unanswered prayers.
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting, sometimes we'll pray things and we don't realize that wasn't God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And then when we look back, we're grateful for the prayers that he did not answer.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so I'm I'm just I just I just love the Lord and I'm telling you, God is changing my life, not just my external life, but he's changing my internal world, if you know what I mean, if I could put it that way.
SPEAKER_00: That when we when we take the simple things that we see in the Bible and really apply them to our life, really think on them, really make an effort to meet God, God's always got an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us he's knocking at the door, but when we when we go and open that door, it's amazing the life and the breakthrough that happens.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just praying and believing that for every single one of you, listen, you you all know this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to show that I'm perfect or above anybody or better at this.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm realizing is that when I come in humility before the Lord, that's that's the power.
SPEAKER_00: It's the humility when we recognize that we can't do anything apart from Christ, that's where the breakthrough comes.
SPEAKER_00: So today I was praying, I was praying for you all, and I was asking the Lord, what what is it that you want to share today while we're online, we're not together in person, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a message?
SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, as always, the Lord is faithful, and I felt the Spirit of God talk to me and take me to a piece of piece of place in Scripture in 1 John chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: So let me go ahead and read this really quick.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 John chapter 1, and this is gonna be verses 5 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: So even if you have your Bible, go ahead and take it out.
SPEAKER_00: If your Bible's on your phone, go ahead and pull out your phone or your tablet or whatever, but let's read along.
SPEAKER_00: This is very profound.
SPEAKER_00: It says this.
SPEAKER_00: It says, and just remember, this is the Apostle John who writes this book.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Apostle John who was one of the twelve disciples, but he was also in the inner three.
SPEAKER_00: He was one, someone very close to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He even describes himself as the disciple that Jesus loved.
SPEAKER_00: And so he walked with Jesus, he talked with him, he saw the miracles, the signs, and the wonders, he saw Jesus' life and the example of his life and the commitment to his father, the commitment to prayer, the commitment to obedience, even when it meant suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And he also heard his teachings.
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't see and hear everything that Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Bible's only so much, the gospels are only so long.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see every single private conversation that Jesus had, but I want us to hear this.
SPEAKER_00: This is the apostle John writing this.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, This is the message that we heard from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He directly heard this.
SPEAKER_00: We heard this from Jesus, and now we're decl we declare to you, God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's just pause for a second.
SPEAKER_00: John is using two words here, darkness and light, and this is something that we see mentioned numerous times in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is that in almost all the times that darkness and light is used in the New Testament, except for a few exceptions, it's always be it's always being metaphorical in its meaning.
SPEAKER_00: It's not talking exactly about actual darkness and actual light, it's being metaphorical, it's talking about something else.
SPEAKER_00: And so some of the things that it could be talking about is simple life and death.
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about light, that key it's it's referring to life.
SPEAKER_00: And when we talk about dark, it's referring to death.
SPEAKER_00: It can mean a number of other things.
SPEAKER_00: Light can mean a simple witness.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says that we're the light of the world and let your light shine, let your good deeds shine for others to see.
SPEAKER_00: That means that we're a witness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That that we're the light in this dark world and we're testifying of Him.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives are testifying of Him.
SPEAKER_00: But light and darkness can mean other things.
SPEAKER_00: Light can mean truth, and darkness can mean lies.
SPEAKER_00: You know, light can be light can be the things that are true, darkness can be deception.
SPEAKER_00: So God is the light of the world, Jesus is the light, but but we can also say that the devil is darkness who comes as an angel of light, but he's actually darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's darkness clothed as light.
SPEAKER_00: But light and darkness can also mean good and evil behavior.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what and that's what John's talking about here in this section that we're gonna see.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about good and evil behavior, but I also believe it's twofold that light and darkness is also it's it's something of being open versus being secret.
SPEAKER_00: It's openness, it's actually let me let me look at this.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's openness and secrecy.
SPEAKER_00: So I want us to think about this as we read through this.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to think about good and evil behavior, the things that we do, not just externally, but it you know, but it could be the things that we say, it's the things that we think about, it's the things going on inside of us that God sees these things, but I want us to think about this good and evil behavior and also openness and secrecy.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read on here.
SPEAKER_00: In verse six, it says, So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God, but go on living in spiritual darkness.
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing to me.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what look at what John's John's doing here.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God, but go on living in spiritual darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, We are not practicing the truth.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is amazing, and this is where the the word of God can really be powerful in our life if we just look at the details, if we're honest with ourselves about what is this saying versus what is this not saying.
SPEAKER_00: What what you may not under what we may not realize is John is that he he he's an apostle and he's he's a father of the of the church, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's helping to father, spiritually father all these new believers, all these churches.
SPEAKER_00: And so, whenever you have new believers, whenever you have a group of people, we're all aware of this, sometimes things can get messed up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people can start doing things that they're not supposed to be doing, but John is someone who's trying to steer things in the right direction, to steer things according to the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so what's happening in his church is that a group of people have broken away in fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason that they've broken away is because they disagree on certain things relating to sin and the issue of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: There were there were certain people in the church that were trying to minimize the the impact of sin.
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to think of it like this, minimize or reduce the importance of sin.
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to say, you know what, sin's not really that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: John, I think you're being illegalistic.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, John, I think you're missing something.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's actually a group of people that broke away from this.
SPEAKER_00: So John's addressing this, and he's trying to bring balance of truth back into the church.
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes, you know, when you see a group of people leave for a reason, you might think, hey, are they right?
SPEAKER_00: Is there something that we're wrong in?
SPEAKER_00: Or is there something that we're missing?
SPEAKER_00: So John's addressing this.
SPEAKER_00: And there's other things that this group of people didn't have right.
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to say things about Jesus that weren't true, and John had to address that.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's read on here.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 7, he says, But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at this idea.
SPEAKER_00: John is painting a picture here for us, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about light and darkness, but he's talking about living in the light.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we go back to verse seven, he says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We are lying if we say we have fellowship with God, but we live in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's very interesting, is that is that, you know, I consider myself, you know, if you ask me on just any normal day, David, do you think you have fellowship with God?
SPEAKER_00: I would say yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times we we can think that we have fellowship with God because we know about God.
SPEAKER_00: We we you know we go to church and maybe we read our Bible and pray and stuff and we say, Yeah, I know about God.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's interesting, is that John is not just tying a knowledge of God to knowing God.
SPEAKER_00: He is tying the way we live to the fellowship that we have with God.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's not enough just to know about God.
SPEAKER_00: Even Jesus says this, he says, the the demons know about me.
SPEAKER_00: The demons know about God.
SPEAKER_00: They know there's one truth, they they know the reality.
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's it's not enough just to know about him.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture today where, you know, we know a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not only do we have, you know, the internet and we're able to get information very quickly, now we have AI that can culminate and consolidate a bunch of information, give us answers at the snap of a finger.
SPEAKER_00: But but we live in it, we live in a day where people know stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But John is saying it's not enough to have knowledge of this.
SPEAKER_00: That that this that fellowship with God goes more than just what we know.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than just what we say.
SPEAKER_00: It comes into our behavior, the way we live our life.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's connecting this, the way we live our life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's talking about, living in darkness, living in light, that our behavior is actually going to determine whether we have fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about that for a second.
SPEAKER_00: It's this idea of fellowship with Jesus is is not just in what we know.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just in what we have the ability to say.
SPEAKER_00: I could sit here all day, you know, even online, giving a message and just talking, share a bunch of information, but that but John would say that's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's how do you how are you living your life?
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you have fellowship with God by the way you live?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and now there's gonna be some things I'm gonna clear up because this this passage can actually create confusion for people if we don't understand what exactly is John talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So let's keep reading on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read this verse again.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 8 says, if oh, sorry, I'm not gonna read this again, I'm gonna read it for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And let me read that again.
SPEAKER_00: It says, if we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and and not living in the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 9, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: This is so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: I love this verse.
SPEAKER_00: It says, But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: But if we confess our sins to him, him being God, him being Jesus, when we pray, if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 10 it says, if we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So I love this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And and I I use this passage a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Even when I pray, I I thank the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things I'm grateful for.
SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for this verse that says, if we confess our sins, that he is faithful and just to cleanse us, he's faithful to forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: This is very powerful because there's sometimes that that that when I'm that when I sin and I come to the Lord in prayer, sometimes it challenges my human thinking to think, how could God forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, there's some sins that I've committed over and over and over, and I feel like it's never things are never gonna change, but yet I come back to the Lord and I and I stand upon this verse, this truth.
SPEAKER_00: Even sometimes I don't feel forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: I'm confident that I'm forgiven because my feelings don't dictate truth.
SPEAKER_00: God's word dictates truth.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was looking at this this week, there was something that really popped out at me that John is is not just talking about sin here.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's talking about fellowship, and he's talking about fellowship with God, but he also is talking about fellowship with others.
SPEAKER_00: And let me go back, let me just read this again.
SPEAKER_00: This is so cool.
SPEAKER_00: He says, So we are lying in verse six, so we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God, but we go on living in spiritual darkness.
SPEAKER_00: But then in verse seven, he does something interesting.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this twofold thing that's happening.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about fellowship with God, but then he's talking about fellowship with each other.
SPEAKER_00: And when he's talking about fellowship with each other, he's talking about other believers.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that all this is in the context in the realm of the church.
SPEAKER_00: People that are saved, people that are believers in Jesus, people that are desiring to please God, they've made their decision, there's one true God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: We go to the Father through Jesus, he's the only way.
SPEAKER_00: That's who he's talking about with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what's interesting, and this is what I want to this is what I want to propose to you to think about this week, to ponder on.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of the Christian life, and I just want you to hear this, the goal of the Christian life is not just to have fellowship, and fellowship means that we have we have we have there's a there's a relational intimacy there, there's a closeness, there's an association with, there's an agreement upon, there's a partnership, there's a there's a mutual sharing that that I'm interested in you, you're interested in me, I care about you, you care about me.
SPEAKER_00: We're in this together, we're open to one another, we're close, we're sharing our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we all want fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: We were made for fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: If if you're isolated, I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe all you do is you watch church online.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to get connected to an actual living, breathing, in-person body of Christ because we were made for fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: We we can be unhealthy, we can be unhealthy, spiritually, unhealthy, mentally, unhealthy, emotionally, if we are not connected to an actual body doing life with people.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we were made for fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: But let me propose this to you is sometimes what we can do is we can make fellowship with others our primary goal.
SPEAKER_00: Our primary focus in life, and and maybe even the reason that we go to church and the reason that we do what we do is that we simply want to have fellowship with other people.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I want to propose this to you that the goal, and this is what I believe one of the things that John is showing here, the primary goal of a believer's life is to first and primarily focus on having fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Now just think on that for a second and ask yourself this is my is my primary focus and goal in life to have fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And John already points out that it's not just what we know, it's not just our ability to read the Bible and understand verses and have cool revelations, it's how we live.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus also says this, believe it or not, in the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_00: He says, he says this, which is very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: He says, remain in me.
SPEAKER_00: And there's there's there's instruction there.
SPEAKER_00: Think of it like a command, and there's instruction that we have the ability to remain in him, but he encourages us, remain in me.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that what John is talking about here is not necessarily talking about salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where it's easy to get tripped up.
SPEAKER_00: I I believe that he's talking about fellowship and relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: After we get saved, we're brought into the kingdom of God, we're brought into the family of God, but there's a call and ability to remain in fellowship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And what we can do is that we can we can get saved, and we can have experiences with God, and we can even have seasons where we're in fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Have you and I'm sure all of us experienced this.
SPEAKER_00: I bet at one time you maybe maybe you had a friend or you had someone you were in fellowship with, and then later maybe something happened and you're no longer in fellowship with them.
SPEAKER_00: I've had that happen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm sure that we all have.
SPEAKER_00: And this same thing can happen with God.
SPEAKER_00: We can have seasons in our life where we're close to God.
SPEAKER_00: We're walking in the light and we have fellowship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we feel his presence, maybe we're hearing his voice, and then all of a sudden, maybe there's some things that change.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you that God doesn't change.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't abandon us, he tells us he'll never leave us nor forsake us.
SPEAKER_00: But what we can do is that we can abandon that fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we wanted to, but all of a sudden we start living in the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: We start behaving a certain way, we start entertaining sin and not allowing God to deal with and point out the sin in our life.
SPEAKER_00: And what we do is we drift into darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And we no longer have that fellowship that we once had before.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want to encourage you with today, church, is that we have fellowship with God by how we live.
SPEAKER_00: And now, John is also not saying he's not expecting all of us to live perfect.
SPEAKER_00: That's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: On this side of eternity, we're never going to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying living in the light means you have to have to all of a sudden like get all your sin figured out and get your life together and have no sin, nothing wrong with you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what John's saying at all.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is what's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say that we do have sin.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't, if we say we don't have sin, we're just simply calling God a liar, that we are sinful.
SPEAKER_00: And the terms that he's using in this passage, this is very important.
SPEAKER_00: These are present tense terms.
SPEAKER_00: These are terms he's he's saying this is ongoing.
SPEAKER_00: After you're saved, he's saying you still have sin.
SPEAKER_00: And after you're saved, you're there's still a call to confess.
SPEAKER_00: This word confess here is a present tense word.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, believers, I you need to be confessing your sins to him.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says that he is faithful and just to cleanse you.
SPEAKER_00: This word cleanse is a present tense, an ongoing cleansing.
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm saying, church, is that that we need to be coming to the Lord, I would say on a daily, even multiple times a day, that when we have sin in our life, when we see there's something wrong here, not just externally in our actions and our words, but internally in our thoughts, what are we thinking on?
SPEAKER_00: What do we, what do we, what are we meditating on?
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing, what are we doing and filling our lives with?
SPEAKER_00: When we recognize there's sin there, confess it to him.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how we stay walking in the light, that we acknowledge that sin is sin, that sin is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how we keep fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what's beautiful that I believe John shows us.
SPEAKER_00: He shows us that if we make fellowship with God our priority, what naturally happens as a byproduct of this is that we have true fellowship with each other.
SPEAKER_00: That think of it, this is what's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: If I keep my eye on the prize, if I keep my focus on, Lord, I want to live in accordance in your ways.
SPEAKER_00: And when I get off, I'm going to confess it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to try to hide it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to try to live in the dark.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you have a dark, if you walk into a dark room, you can't see everything.
SPEAKER_00: But if you turn on the light, all of a sudden you can see it.
SPEAKER_00: Think of it like this.
SPEAKER_00: God sees all of our junk, he sees all of our sins, but it's when we come to him and confess them.
SPEAKER_00: It's when we're acknowledging this.
SPEAKER_00: I have stuff in my life, Lord, that doesn't please you.
SPEAKER_00: Whether we consider it big or small, Lord, I have areas in my life that doesn't please you, and I'm confessing them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm acknowledging them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not making an excuse for them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to justify them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes some Christians, unfortunately, what they do is in order to establish fellowship, what they do is they minimize sin.
SPEAKER_00: They say, come as you are and stay as you are, because if you know what, I think I can have fellowship with you if you don't ever feel bad or convicted for sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the goal here.
SPEAKER_00: We have fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: We acknowledge that, hey, none of us are perfect.
SPEAKER_00: We're all in a process, but we also acknowledge and agree sin is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: We agree that we need to be confessing, we need to be living a life of ongoing repentance, and in doing so, we make room for the power of God to operate in our life.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm finding, church.
SPEAKER_00: Can I let my life be a personal testimony and encouragement to you?
SPEAKER_00: I have been going personally deeper with the Lord, and it's not not me getting these crazy revelations, it's not me, you know, just crying more tears.
SPEAKER_00: This is one profound thing that's been happening.
SPEAKER_00: I've been in very be I've been getting very honest and real with the Lord in my daily prayers where I am confessing my sins and I'm allowing the word of God to penetrate my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Any any area of my life that contradicts or or is the opposite of what I see in the Word of God, I bring this to light.
SPEAKER_00: I say, Lord, I acknowledge this.
SPEAKER_00: This is sinful, and I'm confessing this to you, and I'm confessing anything and everything.
SPEAKER_00: And even as I do this, the Spirit of God is pointing out things in my life that I didn't even realize.
SPEAKER_00: I do, I didn't even fully want to acknowledge that we're sinful.
SPEAKER_00: I'm putting it all out there, and I'm seeing the power of God move in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing God change my desires, as he says in Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing him change even my ability to do what pleases him.
SPEAKER_00: And and in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives us this in Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He ends the Lord's Prayer with this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He says, we we make a request to God.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, help us, help us, don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to catch this that even our ability to stop sinning, we it's like we make effort, we we place a desire.
SPEAKER_00: I want to stop doing this.
SPEAKER_00: I make a hard decision to stop doing something that maybe I wanted to do before, maybe something that gave me personal comfort or personal joy or satisfaction, but it's sinful, is that I confess it and I make an effort not to do it.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing is that my ability to get these things out of my life is not just on my own self discipline.
SPEAKER_00: That's a fruit of God's spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But my trust and dependency and hope is upon him.
SPEAKER_00: So this is what I've been doing.
SPEAKER_00: I've been confessing my sins.
SPEAKER_00: But even as I go out throughout my day, when there's a temptation, a desire to do something that I've already confessed, I've established this is sinful.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying, Lord, help me.
SPEAKER_00: Lord help me, Lord, help me not to yield to this temptation, but rescue me from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot do anything without you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I need your help.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that I'm putting everything on God.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean I make excuses that if I sin, well, it's just God's fault.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't help me.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm taking ownership that when I do sin, Lord, I messed up again.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've come and I'm confessing for the thousandth time, but I'm still coming.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying, Lord, I sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what his word says.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: That he is faithful and just to forgive us and that his blood cleanses us.
SPEAKER_00: That when we can sin, we're being cleansed of that unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And that sets us free, church.
SPEAKER_00: And that sets us free to be to truly be in fellowship with one another.
SPEAKER_00: So this summer season, I want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: We're not having life groups.
SPEAKER_00: We we let our life groups take a pause over the summer just to spend time relaxing, to be with friends, to go on vacation, to be with family.
SPEAKER_00: We're church.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture is that we want to work hard, but we also want to play hard.
SPEAKER_00: That we want to have those times of fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to encourage you that you don't need an official church get together to do something fun, to have a reason to come together.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to take initiative, reach out to other brothers and sisters in Christ and have people over to uh for dinner at your house.
SPEAKER_00: Have people over, go do fun things this summer.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the blessings of God around you.
SPEAKER_00: And with that said, can I also say this?
SPEAKER_00: We are having a 4th of July get together at our church.
SPEAKER_00: Saturday, the 4th of July.
SPEAKER_00: It's the 250th celebration of this nation.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a family get together.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be fun, there's gonna be a lot of stuff for the kids to do.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's gonna be fireworks.
SPEAKER_00: We're working on that, you know, and so it's gonna be a fun, safe.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna we're gonna get some guys that know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have some fireworks, we're gonna have hot dogs, we're gonna have food.
SPEAKER_00: There's a registration online on the app, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want you, if you don't have plans for the 4th of July, we would love for you to be there.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, even if there's someone that you know that doesn't have plans, invite them.
SPEAKER_00: Even if they don't come to our church, invite them so we can have fun and have fellowship together, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's July 4th this year.
SPEAKER_00: We can't wait to see you.
SPEAKER_00: And then also, I'm really excited, is that on yesterday it was Brother Gary Wallace's birthday.
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know how old he is.
SPEAKER_00: I think he might be around 45 or something.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding, I don't know how old he is.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to go ahead and wish you happy birthday, Gary Wallace.
SPEAKER_00: You are just a wonderful man of God and such a blessing to our church.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a little tempted to do a rap for you, you know, Gary, Gary, quite contrary.
SPEAKER_00: It's your birthday.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're married.
SPEAKER_00: Boom, boom, da boom, boom.
SPEAKER_00: Happy birthday, Gary.
SPEAKER_00: Happy, happy, happy boom, boom, da boom, boom.
SPEAKER_00: Happy birthday, get rid of wallace.
SPEAKER_00: And uh let me think, what else?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else we're having we're having service again in person?
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's just a beautiful time.
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful season.
SPEAKER_00: We're not having Wednesday night services.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just explain that really quick because I know, you know, for some of us, you know, we I I love coming together on Wednesday nights.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is our heart, and this is some of the reasoning that we do this.
SPEAKER_00: First thing is that we pray and we ask God to lead us, you know, and so we make these decisions these decisions prayerfully.
SPEAKER_00: So we have prayed about this.
SPEAKER_00: We feel the leading and the peace of God on how on how we're doing certain things.
SPEAKER_00: So we always do that, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we don't understand it, sometimes we don't fully personally understand or like it, but we try to obey the Lord in every way possible.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, on a practical level, is that we have we have a number of people in our church that serve all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We we have we have people that are just serving in multiple areas, they give a lot of their time, a lot of their effort, and we want to be able to give them a break.
SPEAKER_00: Even when you have a life group, having a life group is such a blessing, it's such a joy, but it's also a lot of work.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to give our faithful life group leaders just a chance just to breathe.
SPEAKER_00: If they want to go on vacation, they can do that.
SPEAKER_00: They don't, you know, so we want we want to give them a break.
SPEAKER_00: But we do want to encourage you, church, that to take initiative, to reach out to people that maybe don't have something to do, take them out to lunch, take have them over to your house for dinner, go out and do something fun, take initiative and have that fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just go ahead and pray over you.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage you, excuse me, I want to encourage you, is add this if you've not been doing this, add this to your prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's life-giving to me, is confess your sins, anything and everything, even motivations, even things that it maybe it feels gut-wrenching to admit to the Lord, admit it.
SPEAKER_00: Just say, Lord, I have been doing this and I've been sinful and I need your help.
SPEAKER_00: This has been my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: There's areas that you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I just feel wretched and miserable.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, Lord, I'm acknowledging that this is wrong in my life, but I'm also acknowledging my need and my dependency on you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Help me every day.
SPEAKER_00: Help me, and I'm thankful for your blood that cleanses me.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father, I thank you for your faithfulness, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you for your son Jesus who died on a cross, who was the perfect Lamb of God, who was sacrificed and shed his blood, and I thank you for the power of that living blood that cleanses us, Lord, and it washes us white as snow, Father.
SPEAKER_00: And I just pray, Lord, your peace and joy over this body, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I just pray, Lord, for areas of our life, Lord, where we've tried to hide these things in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We've tried to keep things in the dark, even from you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I ask, God, that you would show us, Lord, and reveal these things, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I just pray, God, that we would be a people that confess our sins, Lord, to you daily, Lord, even multiple times a day, Lord, that when we sin, that we are open with you and that we continue to walk in the light, Lord, and we continue to trust you, Lord, and we continue to believe in the power of the life-giving blood of Jesus, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I just break off shame and condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: Understand when God washes you white as snow, when his blood cleanses you, you are made into a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: So we just break off shame and condemnation, Lord, but we also put on, Lord, a life of repentance, ongoing repentance, ongoing confession, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And we trust, Lord, that as we do this, Lord, that you're establishing true fellowship, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You're establishing a people that we understand we're not perfect and we're not trying to minimize sin, but we also understand the power of the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen, amen.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: We've miss seeing you in person, but we are so excited to see you next week.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have a wonderful week in the name of Jesus.